issues Archives - Page 3 of 3

Packing for 4 for any length of time can be quite an event. While I am quite practiced at it and each child has a bag and they even help me gather the necessary items, I have found the best approach to be to pack on a grid: types of clothes in a line for each kid.

And while I check and double check, invariably someone arrives without a swimsuit, underwear or seasonally appropriate shirts. I’ve accepted it as my lot in life .

So when I dug through 3 baskets full of clean clothes and couldn’t find a single pair of shorts for Baby M, frustration arose. Digging, digging. Aha! Yes. When he ends up without pants, it will be a surprise, not because nothing is clean.

Then I realized they weren’t his shorts. They belong to the (nearly) 3-year-old daughter.

On the right: Girls size 3t. On the left: Boys size 6-9 months.

I’ve realized that these shorts were, well, short. Most of them are. Frustratingly so. Both of my girls have more than a pair of shorts that don’t pass the fingertip rule.

My problem is a little bit the lack of modest options for my 3 – THREE – year old. But the other problem is the double standard. The clothes makers are cutting the same pattern for my 3-year-old girl as my 6-9 month old son. (In actuality, he’s a year old, but apparently quite the scrawny guy.)

The shorts I folded for my oldest boy when he was 3 were distinctly bigger than his infant sister’s. Why is this not the case for the girls in comparison to the infant brother?

Part of the solution is me – and you – the consumer. We buy it and therefore it continues. It’s a known economic fact that companies rarely continue product lines that sit on the shelf year after year. So solution #1 is to stop buying short shorts.

This incident is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my internal struggle to talk about bodies and sexuality and standards, especially with my girls. (Note: I’m quite careful that the boys hear the same message, but they generally have to think very little about what they wear.) How do we explain differences, some that are anatomical and some that are socially-driven? Why do we expect certain things from boys and girls? Quite clearly, we’re different, only one of the genders can carry a baby on the inside. But how does that translate into how we look at our bodies and then dress them?

This morning H Boy asked if he could go to swimming lessons in just his trunks, without his sun shirt, and I agreed. So, of course, Miss M asked if she could go bottoms-only. I told her no and, as expected, she wanted to know why. It didn’t make sense in her head: boys boobies and girls boobies at this point look pretty much the same. Why is one person’s expected to be covered? (My response was that I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was related to girls being able to feed babies with their boobies. Which is not helpful because I think it’s completely appropriate to feed babies in plain view. I’m discrete when I nurse, but your discomfort with my breast is not a reflection of me or my hungry child, it’s an indication of your view of breasts.)

Teaching modesty is a struggle for me right now. I don’t believe short shorts are advantageous to anyone in our society and while I want my girls (and boys) to be free to express themselves through their fashion, I’m not sure short shorts express anything noble except to say “ASS”. Honestly. What else do short shorts say? Am I missing something? I don’t believe the girls choose the short shorts because they advertise their sexuality, but I do believe they wear them because they’re available. It’s what they know.

Oh, dear reader, we’re in for a journey on this one. Stay tuned.

(This post began last night, 2/1, after a FB update defending PP… now, nearly 24 hours later, SGK has reversed a decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, thus enraging nearly anybody with a moderate opinion on abortion. A guest post is in the works on “Why I Won’t Buy Pink” – and now that I publicized it, it’ll materialize, right? – but these thoughts are less on Komen and more about the PP controversy).

A friend posted a FB status in support of Planned Parenthood, emphasizing the numerous woman’s health issues that it serves; PP gets its legacy as an abortion factory, but according to it’s own information, 3% of services gear toward the Big Divider.

(I found this on a Moveon.org link, but it states the source came from PP directly. Take that for whatever you’re going to believe anyway). So, because PP includes as 3% something a large group of people don’t like, funding has been cut (and then reinstated?) that will hurt the other 97%. (I have since been directed to this post which rearranges the numbers a little to a different direction).

So, I decided to get nosey. I was on the PP site looking at the abortion information, and the service is not available at every PP clinic (though referrals are available at nearly all). I did a little zipcode search to see how close this was happening to my home. It turns out that not a single PP clinic in a 60 mile radius of my home – including metro Dayton, Cinci and Columbus – offers the procedure, only a referral for who could do it if someone was seeking it out. Does a referral mean an abortion will or won’t happen? Neither. It simply means that the PP clinics around me offer similar services as a doctor’s office but at a fraction of the price for people who cannot afford them or are without insurance.

I can be numbered in the people who have used similar services; though I went to a “family planning” and not “Planned Parenthood” – which simply means I was using more of your tax dollars as it’s source of funding – but it was a needed solution when one grows up on a fastically horrible insurance plan that does not cover contraceptives (and let it be known that numerous young women find themselves seeking solutions to woman’s problems that don’t involve sexual activity. It’s an overstated assumption that, to be honest, furthers the divide in many ways that are too many to name for this already lengthy parenthesis). All this to say, I can’t believe PP came into being to become a source for abortions, but rather to fill a gap in terms of need in women’s healthcare. Abortion came with it and PP decided to make it an offering.

People don’t like abortion. I get it. I’m not a fan either (though I have come to wrestle with the idea of the government forcing me to give birth). But being pro-life or pro-choice (because very few people are “pro-abortion”) does little to solve problems. I will shout it until I’m blue in the face: we’re talking about an effect, not a cause, of evil and fallenness in the world.

I met my friend A today. She’s avidly against abortion. You know what she’s doing about it? She and her husband have prayerfully decided to take in one of these babies and raise it as their own. Her dream is to grow an agency that will make such a generous giving of a couple’s home and family more affordable with a smoother navigation through the system. She’s not all talk. She’s walk. In another month, that voice she’s been advocating for will call out to her in the middle of the night for a feeding. She won’t have time to write snarky FB status updates because she’s got Pampers to change.

I’m tired of all the shouting about issues (ha! funny coming from this captain of the flag wavers!). I’m tired of the putting others on the defensive. If pro-lifers care about the baby, then raise it. If pro-choicers care about the woman, than bring her in, join her into your family so that you can stop the cycle. Or what about those babies who were born to mothers who chose life, only to find that they weren’t physically, emotionally or financially able to care for the little one? Jump into the foster system and care for those beating hearts. If you feel PP doesn’t do enough to promote adoption as an option as opposed to abortion, then begin a movement of planting adoption consultants in a PP. How about instead of making enemies we join forces? We may not agree to one another’s entire agenda, but we ask our representatives to “cross party lines” all the time. Maybe the pot needs to give the kettle a call.

All of this sound like too much? Then it’s high time to discover that we’re not just ankle-deep in thought; we’re wading – swimming – in questions and concerns, not about politics but about people. And for those of us who want to “love God and love people” we’ve got a grand space of opportunity in front of us.

Category: issues (Page 3 of 3)

Who wears short shorts?

caring for the 97%

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