Kelsey Timmerman's Blog, page 47

Moving the Mountain of Poverty

I volunteer with the Circles Campaign and the organization was recently featured on the CBS Evening News. Basically the program creates an intentional friendship between people living in poverty with people who aren't.

I'd love if you watched the CBS report below and considered being a part of a Circle.

Two thousand words: Our Little Pumpkin

(Photo by Kira Childers)

If my book were self-published

If my book were self-published, I wouldn't have been reviewed in TIME.

If my book were self-published, it wouldn't have found its way onto the shelf of an airport bookstore and into the hands of the sociology professor at Wingate University who was the first to champion it as a common reader text.

If my book were self-published, I'd still have a "real" job.

If my book were self-published, universities wouldn't purchase a thousand copies at a time for their entire freshman class to read.

If my book were self-published, my wife would've had to find a new job instead of deciding to stay at home.

I have nothing against self-publishing. In fact, I foresee a future in which I'll traditionally publish and self-publish (eBooks). I think all authors moving forward need to diversify. I also think that self-publishing is the right path for some people. That said, the thing that has led to what success I've had as an author and allowed me to support my family is the authority that comes along with having a traditionally published book.

If my book were self-published, I wouldn't be typing this from my home on a Wednesday afternoon. I would be in an office working on someone else's dream.

"I can't help everyone, but I can help some."

As much as I love meeting students at universities when I visit to speak, meeting the faculty is pretty cool too.

After a recent talk at West Texas A&M I had a chance to talk travel with a few faculty. One of the professors was a horse trainer who told a hilarious story about being invited to Saudi Arabia to judge racing camels. Another was Dr. James Hallmark, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs. James (we're Facebook friends, so I'll drop the formalities) told a rip-roaring tale about traveling in Turkey and how he thought he had been abducted by al Qaeda.

Following my visit, James wrote an editorial for the Amarillo Globe News about my visit. In Consider Where Our Clothes Are Made James writes this:

We have been blessed with much and much is expected of us. Is it too much to ask for us to consider how our clothes are made or to feed a hungry child?

Jesus' statement "the poor you will have with you always" is an indictment of our selfishness more than a statement about the poor. We will always have the poor because those of us with means abdicate our responsibility to feed, clothe, shelter and educate the poor. We will always have the poor because governments like those in Somalia will prevent us from feeding the hungry in their own country.

I can't help everyone, but I can help some.

My visit inspired James to write this and now his words have inspired me.

James message is one that I hope all the students I talked with walked away with. And it's one to which we sing our baby boy Griffin to sleep every night.

Go Occupy Yourself!

[image error]It's official. Muncie has been occupied.

This past Wednesday 104 protestors marched from Ball State to downtown Muncie where they chanted the same things as the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

"This is what democracy looks like!"

"We are the 99-percent!"

I understand the outrage. I'm surprised that it's taken so long for people to stand up. I'm like the farthest thing from a Tea Party activist, but I understood when they took to the streets a few years ago, too. I can't believe it's taken this long to get people fired up.

FALSE PROMISES

Our lives have been built on false promises. Graduate high school. Get a loan for your college education, which will yield a decent job that will allow you to pay those loans off. Work hard and invest what money you're able to save in the stock market. Retire. Watch your kids do the same.

I look at my retired neighbors and think: that'll never be me.

People got all in a tizzy when Rick Perry called social security a Ponzi scheme. Do I pay into social security? Yep. Am I promised that social security will pay me back someday? Yep. Will it? Probably not.

So, I get it. I do. The occupy movement has produced productive dialog about the increasing inequality seen in these four charts. But will it produce anything else?

THE EASY PART

While Occupy Muncie was spending their first night out in the cold in Muncie, I was at a meeting with the Leadershipboard.org trying to figure out ways to end the list of boys waiting for mentors with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware County.

Over the past few years I've become much more engaged in my community and I've learned that there's a gap between anger and action, between pointing out what's wrong and being a part of the solution. Holding a sign and shouting is the easy part. Complaining is the easy part. I'm not saying it's not necessary. I'm just saying that listening and enacting real change is the tough part.

Lobbyists, campaign reform, corporate tax loopholes, and a gridlocked government: these are all things to be upset about and to rail against. These things have created protesters that are occupying communities across the country. But there's a difference between protesting and action.

THE APATHY BUBBLE

We have a financial crisis caused by a housing bubble, but the real bubble is an apathy bubble. We've forgotten how to be citizens. Robert Putnam in his book "Bowling Alone" documented the decline in engagement. We read fewer newspapers, attend less gatherings whether it be Kiwanis, church, or school board meetings than our grandparents did in the 50s. We vote less.

We just don't care as much.

Maybe what we're seeing with the Occupy movement is the bursting of the apathy bubble. Let's hope so.

Standing in the streets has led to dialog, but real change comes from looking within ourselves to see what we have to offer and having the patience and passion and courage to offer it year after year.

The Decision to be a stay-at-home family

Our co-workers / bosses

—

I'm upstairs in my office and Annie, my ninja warrior stay-at-home-mom wife, is downstairs juggling our two kids.

Someone once told me that being a parent is one of the hardest and best jobs you'll ever have. I believe it. I've had Harper (2), and Griffin (4-months) on my own for a few sweaty, poop-filled, patience-trying days. It was great, but exhausting.

In 1970, 70% of mothers stayed at home with their children. Today only 25% of mothers are stay-at-home moms (SAHM). Obviously what has changed is that mothers love their kids less than they did in 1970, right?

I'm kidding.

Back in the Mad Men days a man could work and earn enough to support his family (and keep them encircled in a cloud of cigarette smoke). Today we live in Mad Days in which the cost of living has gone up and income hasn't, necessitating that the average household have two incomes.

As much as I'd like to say that our decision to have Annie stay at home with the kids was one we made, it was one her employer made for us. No, she didn't get fired. But when you work for a doctor, as Annie did, and that doctor decides to provide $0, nada, not a penny toward health insurance, the decision is kind of made for you. That's right, a doctor who earns a living offering treatments that no individual without health insurance can afford, doesn't offer his employees health insurance. Kinda makes the Hippocratic Oath look more like the Hypocritic Oath, doesn't it?

With my nontraditional job, if Annie is going to work, then her job needs to have health insurance because the benefits of my job as a vagabonding, writer/speaker, freelance troublemaker dude don't go much beyond the luxury of being able to work in my pajamas all day. When our second child was born, we were paying a $307/month premium for insurance that had a $6,000 deductible. Anthem, our provider, didn't send Griffin a birthday card in the mail, but instead a note saying that they were raising our premium to $450/month – that's like a mortgage payment in Indiana! We decided to up our deductible to $11,000 to bring our premium down to a "reasonable" $330/month.

$11,000! And people are against healthcare reform!

Add in Annie's 40-mile round-trip drive to and from work and the cost of daycare, and Annie working – at least at her previous job – just didn't make sense. We crunched the numbers and we saw what Annie's working gained us at the end of each month and then we had a, "Wait, you're working and we're paying someone else to raise our kids, why?" moment.

When people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them, they nod in interest and usually ask a few questions. Beneath that nod and in those questions is the underlying vibe: "Sure you make a living doing this, buddy." And then the question comes up: "Does your wife work?" This can be translated as, "You have a sugar momma, right?" But now when I say that she doesn't work, I get the "not bad, much respect" look and a pat on the back.

In their mind I go from being a mooch to the provider.

Me provider. Me kill stuff and drag it home. Ooga booga!

Annie provided me with the time and encouragement to develop a career that could support our family. She provides me with the ability to have a nontraditional career, yet enjoy all the rewards of a traditional life. I recently wrote a post about all of the things that Annie provides me. You tell me who the provider is?

We are a boss-less family. If we could afford a vacation, we wouldn't have to ask for days off. We can't be fired. We don't accrue PTO; we accrue moments together each day (Harper, Griffin, and I played in a tent this morning. Now Griffin is napping and Annie and Harper are making Halloween cookies). We've replaced the security of a weekly paycheck with hustle and passion and a budget.

Between 2008 and 2010, the number of stay-at-home mothers fell from 5.3 million to 5 million. Some criticize the decision to stay at home and make some irrefutable reasons why a woman shouldn't. But in a time where the trend is against staying at home, we're bucking the trend.

We've decided to raise and make our own future. It's terrifyingly awesome.

My wife the ninja!

This is why no one messes with me. Annie is a stay-at-home-mom by day and a crime-fighting ninja by night.

Win a Kindle Touch, join the WAIW Project survey

Nick Gerlich and Kris Drumheller of West Texas A&M University are conducting a study to see how consumers view made-in-America and made-in-sweatshop products and whether or not reading Where Am I Wearing? impacts that view.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW

The survey takes 10 minutes. If you haven't read Where Am I Wearing?, you can still take it. A drawing will be held on November 30, 2011, and one person will win an Amazon Kindle Touch.

I'm eager to see the results.

TAKE IT NOW or I will curse you with a Kindle-Touchless life and an eternity of itchy underwear tags.

You can check out Nick and Kris's other research projects at their site Media Buffs.

Steve Jobs: iDad

Steve Jobs was the creator of the iPod, iPhone, iTunes, Pixar, computers that actually run, and a technology empire, but if you asked him what his greatest role in life was, he would answer: iDad.  Here's Jobs on fatherhood:

"It's 10,000 times better than anything I've ever done."

(from the New York Times)

We went to the park tonight and had another picnic just like we did the night before. That's how we roll.  There's no better job than being a dad and there's no greater creation than a child.

Griffin and I hope your weekend is off to as good of a start as ours.  Nothing beats a picnic at a park and some quality public hand chewing.

An alibi of 6 states, 6 schools, 7 days

If I'm suspected of committing any crimes in Muncie, Indiana, over the past week, I have a string of good alibis.  I haven't been home.

I talked at Ashland University in Ohio on September 22nd and 23rd. From the student newspaper: "The man waving a pair of boxers above his head on the stage in Hugo Young Theatre Sept. 22 has possibly investigated more pairs of underwear than most of us own."

I got home Friday evening and left early, early Sunday morning for Arkansas. (Okay, so maybe there were a few hours for me to commit some crime against society, but I was tired.)

I spoke at Centenary College in Shreveport on Monday.  From their press release: "Timmerman began his talk by showing a pair of boxers to the students." I don't think that's a crime. Centenary College had one of the first Glocal offices I've ever come across.  They call it the Office of Global Engagement.  Students have to meet an intercultural requirement, which usually involves a study abroad experience, and they also have a local volunteer requirement.  They are producing glocals. How awesome is that?

Then it was off to Texas A&M Texarkana where "Where Am I Wearing?" was selected as their freshman common reader. (Texarkana College students also joined us for a few events.)  I stayed in the dorm, which is not as bad as it sounds, and actually quite nice.  I had an invite to stay up all night doing nails and talking metaphysics and boys, but I was too tired. The faculty was great, especially Ashlee Spearman who took me from place to place.  By the end of my visit and countless chats with classes Ashlee could field most of the questions students asked me.  We were also involved in a golf cart accident.  I've been in worse golf cart accidents.

On Wednesday I flew to West Texas A&M where I was met by Kendra Campbell and Amy Andersen wearing "Where Am I Wearing? / Check the Tag!" shirts! That made me feel special right off the bat.  President O'Brien invited us over for dinner and we had way more utensils than were needed.  The steak was like butter! Seriously, you could cut it with your fork. It was a fancy shindig, but that didn't stop me from smearing chocolate cake all over the crotch of my pants.  I also learned that when someone invited you to sit down in the dining room, they actually mean to stand behind your chair until the hostess takes her seat.  I was the only one sitting at the table and everyone else was standing. Awkward! The great thing was that despite the formal setting, everyone was really down-to-earth and SO passionate about connecting students to the world.

At the freshman convocation where I was the featured speaker, I had to wear regalia, but no one told me what I had to wear under my regalia. I wore my Jingle These boxers over my blue jeans.  It was such an honor to talk to 1,200 folks, most of whom had read my book and knew the story of Arifa and all of the other garment workers I met on my journey.

On Friday WTAMU professors Nick Gerlich and Kris Drumheller arranged for me to visit Palo Duro high school.  It was homecoming and everyone was wearing ginormous mums.  Palo Duro was one of the most diverse high schools I've ever seen.  I talked with the junior and seniors and then visited some individual classes.  One class had students from Thailand, Laos, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  Because of that I might be able to forgive them for not knowing what I was talking about when I made a Bon Jovi reference.

After Palo Duro. I spray painted Cadillacs, which is pretty much a must if you visit Amarillo.

It was an amazing week.  When I set out on the journey that became "Where Am I Wearing?" I had no idea I would ever get the chance to share the story of the workers I met on this level.  It's an absolute honor and a whole lot of fun!