Maria Keffler's Blog

Sex for Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner: A Day in the Life of a Kid in the U.S.

The following is a summary of a typical day for one of America’s public school kids. Although this specific sequence of events is fictionalized, each event represents an every-day experience, pulled from parent reports, media, and the entertainment industry.

WARNING: Disturbing Language & Images

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6:30 a.m.: The alarm goes off and Kid turns on the radio. Tap In by Saweetie plays as Kid gets dressed.

Don't ever stop if you want to be on top, bitch   

Lil' waist, fat ass, bitch, tap in

Tap, tap, tap in

Diamonds dancin' on your neck, nigga, tap in

Tap, tap, tap, in

Fuck a nigga, get rich, bitch, tap in

Tap, tap, tap in

7:10 a.m.: Kid finds a seat on the bus behind two boys huddled over a smartphone. When one leans over to put his backpack on the floor Kid catches a glimpse of the porn video that’s playing.

“What are you looking at?” one of the boys asks Kid. “I’ll bet you’re a virgin aren’t you? You still a virgin?”

The other boy laughs. “Wanna watch? Come on.” 

Kid looks out the window, embarrassed heat spreading from head to toe. 

The bus driver turns on the local pop radio station. It’s playing Lemonade by Internet Money.

Xanny bars, suicide door, brand new bag

College girls give a nigga head in my Rafs

Rockstar life, so much money it'll make you laugh, hey

These bitches, they hate, and you can't miss what you never had, hey, hey

8:00 a.m.: Kid’s homeroom teacher hands out a worksheet titled Diagram of Sex & Gender and tells the students to locate themselves somewhere on each of the four lines. The class spends twenty minutes discussing different kinds of sexualities and gender identities before they go to the gym.

8:45 a.m.: The class is doing a unit on modern dance during physical education class. Students learn various hip-hop styles while the #1 song WAP (Wet Ass Pussy) by Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion plays. Two of the girls in the back are twerking. The teacher snickers but ignores them.

Whores in this house

There's some whores in this house

There's some whores in this house

There's some whores in this house (Hol' up)

I said certified freak, seven days a week

Wet-ass pussy, make that pullout game weak, woo (Ah)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, you fuckin' with some wet-ass pussy

Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet-ass pussy

Give me everything you got for this wet-ass pussy

9:35 a.m.: During English class the teacher hands out a survey about what sorts of topics the students are interested in for their next novel. Choices on the survey include Race, Poverty, Social Justice, Gender Identity, Sexuality, Class, Immigration, Family, & Religion. She then hands out a reading list and instructs the students to mark their top three choices in order. Next she takes a copy of What If It’s Us? from her desk drawer and tells the students to close their eyes and listen as she reads. The book is about two boys discovering their sexual attraction for each other.

“And then, slowly, his fingers trail closer to my boxers, slipping under their waistband. ‘This still okay?’ Holy shit. I laugh breathlessly. ‘Yup.’  

“So this is actually happening. It's happening. It's happening, and my whole body knows it. His hand slides down another inch. I don't think I'll ever not be hard again. And how does this work? No, seriously, how does this specifically work? Who puts what parts where and in what order and when does the condom go on, and what about lube? I know fucking nothing about lube.”

10:00 a.m.: Kid’s friend, who used to be called Eric, now wants to be called Erica. They sit across from each other in history, and were partners for a project over the last couple of weeks. Erica isn’t “out” to his—her—parents, so the students were told not to tell their own parents about Erica’s change. It was tough over the last couple of weeks, when Kid’s mom asked how the project with Eric was going. Kid didn’t like lying to Mom, but didn’t have a choice. It was necessary to remember to say “Eric” and “he” at home, but to say “Erica” and “she” at school.

History class is interrupted when the school counselor enters. She gives a twenty-minute presentation on gender harassment. One student—whose family is known to be religious—asks to be excused to the restroom. The counselor does not permit him to leave until after the presentation.

Lunch Period: One of Kid’s friends pulls up the Cardi B song from gym class on her phone and shows the video to the students table:

12:45 p.m.: Students have library time. When they enter the main doors a new display has been set up in the front of the foyer. The topic of the display is gender identity. 

(Images from Thomas Jefferson Public Library in Falls Church, Virginia)

1:25 p.m.: On the way from the library to science class, Kid notes the posters hanging on the hallway walls: Pride Week; Transgender Day of Awareness; Coming Out Day; school play auditions (for a play about Harvey Milk), GSA (Gender & Sexuality Allies) Club meetings; tryouts for sports teams (“Try out for the team that corresponds with your gender identity”); and an Identity art contest hosted by the local Equality chapter. It’s very clear which group of students are important at school.

1:35 p.m.: During health class two members from the school GSA (Gender-Sexuality Allies) club give a presentation on gender and sexuality. They ask individual students to give examples of different types of sexuality and gender, and to explain why those are valid. Kid feels uncomfortable with the subject, but does as asked, because the other students are complying, and because the students from the GSA are two years older and have the health teacher’s permission to do this.

3:00p.m.: On the bus ride home Kid receives a text from a classmate:

“Send me nudes. Top and bottom. Or I’ll tell everyone we had sex.”

U 2 Luv by Ne-Yo and Jeremih plays on the radio:

Give you all of my attention, mmm

It's straight shots, no champagne sippin' tonight (It's that kind of night)

Add Netflix to this massage, better yet turn that shit off (Yeah)

'Cause I love to hear you cussin' at me

Like, "Ooh, shit, baby, too deep"

You never felt this feeling when I touch you, ooh

I never loved nobody like I love you, ayy

Evening: After homework Kid watches some TV. Seven of the top shows teens watch right now include:

13 Reasons Why (attractive teens having sex, rape, homosexuality, suicide)

Never Have I Ever (plot revolves around losing virginity)

Sex Education (attractive teens having sex, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.)

Stranger Things (attractive teens having sex, homosexuality is touched on briefly)

Euphoria (addiction, attractive teens having sex, teens having sex with older men)

The Umbrella Academy (addiction, attractive young adults having sex, homosexuality)

Dark (attractive teens having sex)

10:30 p.m.: Kid goes to bed with the earworm WAP spooling ear to ear, worrying about not sending that demanded sext, and tabulating how many friends have and have not had sex yet.

Kid is in fifth grade.

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Open-Ended Questions to Ask Your Kids for Discussion:

Find out what’s happening in your child’s life by asking some open-ended (can’t be answered with “Yes/No”) questions. Good rules of thumb for these discussions are to ask more questions than you make statements, and to listen more than you speak. Another helpful trick is to ask questions about what your child’s friends/peers are doing, rather than about what your child is doing. Probing questions are less threatening when they’re about others, and they also make a space for your child to “tattle” about something uncomfortable or scary that s/he may not have known how to bring up before.

1. What are your favorite songs? What do the lyrics say? Can we listen to one together? Are there songs your friends like that you don’t? What don’t you like?

2. What are you learning about relationships at school? What have you learned about families? What makes a family?

3. Do you ever see or hear about other kids using their phones in ways they shouldn’t? What do you think are some of the benefits/drawbacks of having a smartphone?

4. Have you ever received an email or text that made you uncomfortable? What did you (or what would you) do about it?

5. Have you been told anything at school that seems to contradict what your parents have told you? How do you handle it when you get opposite information from two sources that you trust, like if two of your good friends told you things that didn’t align with each other?

6. What do you think is a good age/circumstance to become sexually active? What are the benefits/drawbacks of becoming sexually active? What do you think we (your parents) think about sexual activity?

7. What do you think the main message of (book/videogame/movie) is? What is the worldview of the person who created it? How can you figure that out, just by paying attention to the dialogue and plot?

8. Is there anything going on that I can help you with? Is there anything that’s scary or uncomfortable or confusing?

And no matter where the discussion goes, always end with, “I love you, and I’m always here for you.”

Requiem For Etiquette

etiquette | ˈedəkət, ˈedəˌket |

noun

the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

The question, “Why does etiquette even matter?” often comes up via the teenagers in our house, especially since we have one who finds many social rules baffling. Until recently I’ve cited Amy Vanderbilt’s explanation, that etiquette rules were designed to help everyone feel comfortable and cared for in any given social situation.

But over the last few years, as standards of behavior in-person and online have devolved into screaming matches, ad hominem attacks, and all-around general boorishness, even among those from whom we once expected the highest of protocol standards, like politicians, journalists, and celebrities (yes, even movie stars used to practice dignity and decorum), another, more inherently compelling rationale has emerged:

We teach our children etiquette so they can do the right thing before they possess the experience, maturity, and wisdom to know what the right thing is and why it’s a better choice.

The thing our egos most want to do is rarely the thing that’s most beneficial for us. Who really wants to sit down and write thank-you notes on December 26? Does anyone intrinsically want to give up their comfortable seat on the metro to the elderly person, and spend the rest of the trip gripping a pole to keep from being thrown into someone else’s lap? When called an idiot by someone who seems to embody that description himself, what saint really wants to say, “Good day, I wish you well,” before exiting the conversation?

But when we’ve learned proper behavior we write the notes, we sacrifice for someone weaker, and we treat others with respect, even if we don’t think they really deserve it. Good manners make society a better place to live.

Not only that, our own lives are better for practicing good manners.

I once got a job instead of the three other finalists because I answered a loaded interview question with a polite answer rather than a self-aggrandizing one. I kept from making a jerk of myself and losing a friend by not saying what I thought about a situation before I learned all the details about it. (I would’ve been 100% wrong in my uninformed opinion.) I’ve won people over to my side of an argument not because I argued with and convinced them, but because they were spectators to a discussion where the other party behaved like a foul-mouthed child and I kept my words respectful.

But even more valuable than the extrinsic rewards are the character traits we cultivate when we practice good manners. I learn to be grateful when I write thank-you notes. I learn to be noble when I sacrifice for someone else’s benefit. I learn self-control when I bite my intractable tongue.

Aren’t those some of the very things we lack in our culture today? Gratitude, nobility, self-control?

Do we even value them anymore?

Our me-centered society seems to be grinding down to its logical conclusion: “Everything is about me, myself, and I, and the rest of the world can go to hell.”

Well, it certainly seems we are.

White People: Ending Racism in America Is Our Responsibility

Because I’m from the midwest, it is ingrained deep in my rural-girl soul that a greeting is expected whenever one encounters another human being while out and about in the world. I now live in a very populous suburban county on the east coast, filled with people who mostly don’t share that impetus. When I say “Hello” to a stranger here and s/he actually responds to me (about once out of every twenty times), I’m fairly certain I’ve come across another foreigner.

A few years ago I was out for a morning run, and I passed an apartment complex where two Hispanic ladies in uniform were picking up trash on the front lawn. As I passed I said, “Good morning.” They returned my greeting, but before I’d gotten more than a few steps further I heard one say to the other, in Spanish, “That’s the first time a white girl ever said ‘hello’ to me.”

It felt like someone chucked a rock at the back of my head.

Was she serious? No other white woman had ever greeted her?

I wish I’d stopped. I wish I’d gone back. But I was on a timed run, and my Spanish skills are paltry, and I guess the truth is I’m just a coward. I kept going.

I have failed to combat racism -- my own and others’ -- too many times:

When I cashiered at Target in high school, an older lady came through my line with several outfits. She handed me one and said, “I don’t want this one. I was going to get it, but then I saw a darkie try the same outfit on.” She clucked her tongue at me conspiratorially. I was horrified at this racist old woman’s gall. But I put the outfit in the re-shelf bin, added up her purchases, and said nothing. I failed. I failed every black person in America.

At my college graduation dinner many of my relatives sat with me at one of the long tables in my residence hall. A Chinese family sat at the table to the left of us. One of my uncles behaved abominably all through the meal. He pulled on the corners of his eyes and said, “Ching, Chang, Chong!” and made loud, racist jokes about Asians. The Chinese family heard him. I was mortified. But I said nothing. No one in our family did anything. We just looked at each other with helpless embarrassment. But our discomfort deserves no comment compared to what my family inflicted on that poor family at the next table, who behaved with infinitely more respectfulness, dignity, and honor than we did. I failed. I failed every Asian person in America.

When my dear friend Miwa visited me from Japan, where we’d worked together as high school teachers, she came to church with my family on Sunday morning. The man handing out the bulletins gave me one. When Miwa reached for one, the man looked at me and said, loud enough for everyone in the narthex to hear, “Can she even read it?” Then he broke out laughing. I said nothing. I just took a bulletin and handed it to Miwa. I failed Miwa, and I failed every foreign national who has ever visited our country.

We don’t need more programs or studies on “equity”, “inclusion”, or “diversity”. We don’t need enlightenment or wokeness. We don’t need to investigate the historical underpinnings of race relations in America. We don’t need to put special frames on our Facebook profile pictures or post woke memes about combating racism.

We white people just need to start doing what’s right.

And we already know what that is. I knew what I should’ve done in each of the situations above. I was just too weak and cowardly to do it.

I should’ve said to that woman at Target, “I’m horrified to hear you say that. My black friends would be deeply wounded by your attitude. I hope you’ll reconsider how you view other people.” I might’ve lost my job over it. So what?

I should’ve told my uncle, “That’s enough. You’re being rude and you’re embarrassing me as well as ruining that family’s celebration. If you can’t be respectful, please go.” I might’ve irreconcilably damaged my relationship with an uncle I do love. But if that’s the cost of speaking the truth and standing up for what’s right, I ought to be willing to pay it.

I should’ve said to the usher at church, “Yes, she can read it. She’s fluent in three languages, actually. What would make you think otherwise?” I might’ve embarrassed him. I might’ve held up the line. I might’ve tarnished my reputation as a “nice girl” at church. But so what? That usher should’ve been embarrassed. He should’ve been made to think about why he said what he did. And if the highest praise I want from others is that I’m “nice” I may need to reevaluate what’s really important to me.

To every person who’s ever experienced racism in America, I want to personally apologize for how I’ve failed you. I may never have behaved with racism (although I probably have and didn’t even recognize it because no one else called me out), but I have most definitely failed to call out others for their racism when I witnessed it. And for that I am culpable for racism in America.

I vow to do better because it is my responsibility. My privilege as a part of the cultural majority gives me the power and the obligation to point a finger at racism and call it that wherever I see it, because that is the only right thing to do.

And God help me, I’m going to start.

Silence From Heaven

Image by Pete Linforth
Some years ago an important decision faced me. Three options, like three identical doors, stood in my path. Each offered a benefit; each came with a drawback. And whichever I chose had long-range, life-altering consequences.I’d walked with God long enough to know that I could trust him to direct me in the path that was best, so I offered up my choices to him and thanked him in advance for whatever decision he made for me. Circumstances were such that one path lie open for the taking, no barrier in front of it. The other two required a request, either or both of which would likely be denied, as many people sought to take those two paths, and only a few empty positions waited. So I put in my appeals for the two paths that had wickets before them, and I waited to see which door God would open to me.Both requests were granted, and all three doors swung wide open in front of me.I was angry.“All my life you’ve asked me to trust and obey you,” I complained to God. “I genuinely, sincerely, with no reservations gave my path up to you to direct, and look what you’ve done in return! Nothing!”Heaven did not reply.I got no guidance or counsel, and I had to choose for myself which path to take.Two years later disaster struck on that road. I could not have foreseen it; I could not have prepared for it; it was the most painful and horrific thing I’d experienced in my life thus far.“I’ve made a terrible decision,” I mourned. “What have I done?”I accused God. “Why did you let me go that way? I trusted you! I asked you! I sought your will and you ignored me!”I retraced my steps and went back to investigate the other paths. Maybe it wasn’t too late to alter my way. Maybe something could be salvaged of the situation, and this treasure I held so dear, which was threatened even to death, could be brought back to safety and sanity in some different environment.But my interviews regarding the paths-not-taken revealed that the same disaster had struck others who took those paths as well. The three situations were equally dark and overshadowed by an evil I couldn’t have imagined.This thing would’ve happened no matter which path I’d taken.An evil had stationed itself in my way, waiting to devour, and I couldn’t have avoided it.The problem of pain is a real one that philosophers and theologians have pondered for millenia. Why does a good God allow bad things, even in the lives of people who are as blameless as Job? The answer Job received was, “Are you God?” to which Job wisely answered, “No.”Unlike Job, I am not blameless and I have not followed God perfectly. But like Job, the thing that assaulted me came straight from the hand of Satan.And though I know little about the higher things of God, this I do know: What Satan means for destruction God will turn into deliverance, if we get out of the way and let him have his.There is a purpose of God in what he allowed to come to me, either for my individual sanctification, or for his kingdom purposes, or both. His silence when I asked for direction, and his sovereignty in opening all three doors at once, did not come out of indifference or cruelty, but out of his deep, unfailing kindness. Because with the clarity of hindsight I can hear exactly what he said in answer to my prayers for guidance:I am guiding you. What is coming is not your fault, and not because of your choice or your error.And I will carry you through it, because I know you trust me.Then Job replied to the LORD:“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know… My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42: 1-5)
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Get Woke, Fool

Image by 微博/微信：愚木混株 Instagram：cdd20 from Pixabay
GET WOKE, FOOL
Despairingover the black-hoofed and -hearted incubiwho plow the world over and under,I asked my heart, “Why do you fight?Why pave a way for peaceor arm the true for war?Why dredge to clear a rivulet?Why drudge to cultivate some small, good crop from a tiny acre?"The priding-horde and its armies rape utterly,their fingers grasping, groping, grabbing, garrotingthe smallest of soulsthe faintest of lightsthe sweetest of breaths.They gulp life-blood,wipe their mouths on the backs of their unwashed hands,and bellow, “I’ve done no wrong.”
And the people love it this way.
These gods' disciples hand over minds and willsand the will to mindin exchange for entrance to the abattoir--because look how everyone marches:happily they lemmingquietly-- mind your own business;bottles fixed at their lips,filled with hell’s animus-- tastes sweet, try it, little one.So the killing house houses our children too.
Get woke,Fool.
ButI encountered a written accountfrom 900B.C.And I heard the deep and omnipresent Truthwhisperthat all of human timehinges on the volte-facethat linksB.C.& A.D.
Each trumpeted, brutal tweet,and deceitful, snowballing, published lie,all of the holocausts plotted on the politic calendars of the gods,heaven and earth catalogue in one Holy, indelible chronology:each time-stamp resonates according to His clock,recalling in black and white numeric finalitythe death and rebirth of Him--the Son,the Lion,the Author,the Alpha and Omega,the KING of all the kings,the LORD of all the lords--to whomeveryknee will bow.
Their moment will comebecause His moment cameand He comes again.He will judgeand He will answerand their cheeks and noses and lips are crushed against the Factannounced 'Anno Domini'with every lie they lodgeupon the time-fixedworld.
My heart will not despair, for He will performabundantlyincalculablyinvariably every crusade and trifleHe said He would.And He will siftthe yet-alive and the forever-dead.He will restorethe brokenheartedand bind up every scarring wound,settle every cheated score,remove the scourge of earth,and heal His own.
Until he comestime ticks.Every second,the thunderous clapof a lightning boltetches into eternity:THIS LONG SINCE CHRIST.
Not one knows how manyor how fewbreaths morewill tick tick tick awayuntil timestops.
Get woke, Fool.

Adolescence: You're Supposed to Be Ugly & Awkward

Puberty was not kind to me.I got my height (5’7”) early. I was taller than most (all?) of the boys in my class until we hit high school. And I was skinny. I mean beanpole. Not a curve or whisper of fat on me anywhere. That may sound dreamy to people who struggle with their weight, but that kind of skinny brings its own problems. They didn’t make pants for 5’7” girls without hips. To get jeans that covered my ankles meant I had two floppy, swaying saddlebags of denim, filled with nothingness where my behind and hips were not.Boobs? Ha. I resonated with Jess Bhamra in Bend It Like Beckham when her aunt referred to hers as mosquito bites. I was told by an older female family member that my shoulder blades stuck out in back farther than my girls did in front.It was true.But I did wonder, as I grew older and entered my middle age, if my memory of that time was harsher than reality warranted. Maybe I wasn’t actually as ugly and awkward as I recalled?Heh. Heh. Heh.A few years ago I reconnected with the mother of my best friend from junior high. Tragically, Penny died an untimely death, and I reached out to her mom after. Sherry sent me some pictures of Penny and me in junior high.When I opened the envelope of photos I dropped them on the counter in horror.Oh yes, it was just as bad as I’d remembered.I had braces. I had acne. I had glasses too, but I took them off for photos in an attempt to improve the one thing that could be easily improved. My hair went bat-poo crazy during puberty too, and my curls became a no-kidding afro. Not exaggerating one little bit. I tried to grow it long, but it just got bigger and wider and more unruly.At the particular school dance in the photo Sherry sent I wore a pink and white floral-print disaster of a prairie-fantasy frock. Its high lace collar further emphasized my scrawniness, as did the belted waistline and puffy Nellie Olson sleeves.I was…...not lovely.I won’t even address the depth of my interpersonal backwardness.Just for a reference point, when a popular high school junior who was the star of the varsity basketball team called to ask me out during my freshman year-- he’d seen me in the school play where someone else costumed me, did my hair, and loaded on my stage makeup, and where every word I said came off a script-- I begged my parents to tell me I wasn’t allowed to date yet. Why? I was frozen-stiff terrified that I’d make an enormous fool of myself (and I probably would have) if left alone with him and expected to maintain conversation.You could not pay me enough to pass through adolescence again.But those few years were a big part of what turned me into the person I am now. I learned empathy for those who feel less-than. I found out that there are more valuable parts to me than my physical attractiveness. I developed resilience in the face of others’ unkindness and often downright meanness. And for all that, I am grateful to have suffered through them.Today, kids in the U.S. live in one of the most beauty-focused cultures that has ever existed. They’re bombarded with photoshopped and curated images of people who don’t actually exist, and they’re told that this is what they’re supposed to look like, and that if they don't there's something wrong with them.We’ve also entered a phase in our national life where being disliked or insulted is considered “actual violence” and if someone turns you down when you ask them to dance they’re branded a bigot or bully. Today’s youth have been coddled into a lack of psychological fortitude at the same time they’re being told that anyone who doesn’t fall in line with their demands (whether it be for Likes or for an A+ on a paper or for the chance to date their crush) is violating their human rights and denying their very personhood.Is it any surprise that the natural identity crises of adolescence have plunged into self-destructive death-spirals?Kids don’t know what’s normal anymore because the people telling them how to get through adolescence are liars:“If you don’t like the way you feel, you have to take something to feel better.”“If you don’t like the way you look, you need to have surgery or you’ll kill yourself.”“If you don’t feel comfortable inside your own skin, it’s because your body is wrong. Anyone who tells you differently is a hater, whatever-phobe, bigot, religious hypocrite.”Here’s the bald-faced truth: adolescence sucks while you’re in it. You’re ugly. You’re awkward. Your body doesn’t fit you anymore because it’s changing faster now than it has since the very first year of your life. Hormones are ravaging you inside and out. You look in the mirror and you don’t even recognize that person. You hear yourself saying things and feel yourself doing things that you don’t even want to say or do, but you can’t seem to help it. You’re out of control.And you know what else? You’re brain-underdeveloped. You really are. The gray matter hasn’t finished unfurling itself yet, and you don’t make good decisions all the time. Maybe a lot of the time.We’re supposed to help you with that-- us, your parents, your teachers, your doctors, your therapists, your aunts and uncles and grandparents. We’ve all been through it, so we should know. We should guide you, encourage you, and redirect you.But we’ve been led astray, deceived, and lied to.Just like you.We haven't done our jobs.Sweet kid who’s going through years twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen-- hold on. Hang on white-knuckled if you have to. Ride these rapids and cling to your raft for all it’s worth. It’ll stop, I promise. You’re going to land in smoother waters sooner than you think.Don’t believe it when people tell you you’re not right, or agree with you when you suggest there’s something wrong with you. That’s a load of lies. You’re in transition and that’s not a good look on anybody. Even the few people who go from being adorable kids to beautiful adults without seeming to pass through the gangly, pimply, awkward stage don’t feel beautiful. I promise. I’ve talked to many of them.Everybody’s faking their way through.I swore I’d never show anybody that photo of me at the dance in that dress when I was twelve. But here I go, about to show you. I want you to see it, because I want you to know that you’re not alone. That there’s truly nothing wrong with you. I want you to see this picture.

Oh, mercy. That was what an awkward twelve-year-old's photo looked like before digital cameras and Photoshop and Snapchat filters.Now I want you to look at the one below, my business headshot. I paid $250 for a talented photographer to take it in her studio, with professional cameras and lights, and clothes and jewelry I borrowed from her set. She spruced up the final product with Photoshop as well.

I will never again look as awful as I did during junior high (fingers crossed, anyway), and the real me will never look as good as I do in the photo I had created.That’s just reality.Please stop hating yourself. What you’re going through is so normal, and it’s exactly what every one of us has gone through.You’re going to be fine.No. You're already fine.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Menopause

Four years ago Hubs and I had a contraceptive fail on us at a critical point on the monthly calendar. Given that abstinence is the only fool-proof method of birth control, we always knew this could potentially happen.I only freaked out for a brief moment before rationalizing, “I’m forty-six. I’m perimenopausal. We haven’t even had a whisper of Possible-Bun-In-the-Oven for eight years.” I looked up the statistics. At my age the odds of a woman falling pregnant without medical intervention were 1 in 10,000.So I put it out of my mind.Till two weeks later, as I knelt to embrace the porcelain deity and my insides disgorged themselves into it. After an episode of violent hurling I flushed the toilet, sat back on the tile floor, wiped my mouth, and said, “Geez, I haven’t felt this awful since last time I was...”Oh God.I made Hubs sit in the bathroom with me when I took the pregnancy test, because I wasn’t sure I could be trusted not to slash my wrists in the bathtub if it came back positive.The second blue line appeared like someone flipped on a light switch.I turned to the window and erupted into sobs.Hubs grabbed the information insert that came with the pregnancy test and read every single word, front and back:“Have you recently had a miscarriage?”Sniffle. “No!”“Have you taken any medications that contain Human Chorionic Growth Hormone?”Choke and wail. “No!”“Do you have any form of kidney disease?”Sob, sniffle, choke, wail. “NO!!!”He read to the very end of the second page, re-read both sides, then laid the leaflet on the counter and looked at me. “Yeah. There’s no way out of this.”Our children were eight, ten, and twelve years old. And for the last couple of years I’d been saying, “When the little one hits nine I start getting my life back.”I said that because childcare guidelines recommend that until a kid turns nine years old he or she should not be left alone at home for even short periods of time.So in just a few more months I’d be able to go to the grocery by myself again. I could do drop-offs and pick-ups for the other kids’ activities without dragging the little one along. I could make commitments to be places and not worry if Hubs would be home from work by the time I needed to leave.But now we were about to start over with a newborn: nighttime feedings, diapers, potty training, babysitters, preschool…“I feel like I just got out of jail and now I’m going back,” I admitted to Hubs.Don’t get me wrong, I love my children and I loved raising them from babyhood. I had grace and joy in that journey. But that journey ended as they moved into a season of growing independence. I loved the new season we were in, and didn’t want to go backwards.Yet here we were.I spent two weeks crying, and getting very real with God about how angry I was. I had dreams for my life, and a couple of them were beginning to bear fruit. If I had another baby I would have to shelve those hopes for another decade. “Why?” I asked.I knew couples who desperately wanted a family and could never get pregnant. “Why, God? I don’t want another baby. Why don’t you bless one of these families who have been praying to you and begging you for a child? Why me?” The thought of telling those brokenhearted couples that I’d gotten their desperate dream fulfilled in my womb by accident made me even more miserable.Embarrassment overcame me. Hubs and I probably looked like a couple of irresponsible teenagers who didn’t know how to keep from getting knocked up.“I’ll be sixty-five when this one goes to college,” I complained.After all the tears drained out of me, I moved on to stoicism. The first thing Hubs said after he accepted the reality of this was, “This has to be from God. The odds of you getting pregnant this way are so slim. If this is God’s will, then it’s good.”I wanted to slap him back and forth on both cheeks repeatedly, even though I knew he was right.“I’m going to accept this,” I resolved. “I’m going to accept as God’s good will that I am pregnant.”I needed another couple of weeks to get on top of that decision. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” took on new meaning for me as I fought to bring my feelings into alignment with my faith.Then one day I realized I’d discovered joy again:“I get to hold another newborn of my own.”“God is trusting us with another precious soul.”“I’m going to bear life through my body one more time.”I started speaking to the baby I carried. I apologized for my fear and lack of welcome. I promised I’d cherish him or her and give all the love and the very best parenting I could. I affirmed to that baby that God had given us a gift.Then, just shy of twelve weeks, I lost the pregnancy.Seeing my baby on the ultrasound monitor, curled up and still and too small for gestational age, evoked two opposite and visceral reactions in me:My heart broke. This was my older children’s sibling. He or she was every bit as much my husband’s and my child as the three we already had in our home. My baby had died.And relief swept through me, freed from having to go through childbirth and infancy and toddlerhood all over again.Holding those two contradictory emotions in tension is still a struggle sometimes.But I was going to get my life back.Except I’d learned something critical and powerful about my life through this shocker of a pregnancy.When I gave my life to Christ, I gave him all of it. But I’d forgotten that fact over the years, as evidenced by my repeated assertion that when my youngest turned nine “I’d start getting my life back.” God took exception to that claim of autonomy, which struck home with me in the most thundering way early in the pregnancy, when the obstetrician’s office told me when I should expect my baby.This child’s due date was on my youngest child’s ninth birthday.God could not have been clearer if he’d spoken the words out loud: “That life you think is yours? It’s not. It hasn’t been yours since the day you gave it to me.”Other gifts have already come out of this pregnancy and miscarriage, gifts that God has used to minister to me and to others. He’s not an angry, punitive God, who would give his daughter pain just to teach her a lesson. His ways are mysterious and mighty, but they’re always good. Every time. Even when they bring into my life the last thing I think I could ever want.But if God brought it, then it’s exactly the thing that’s needed and good and right. Because the end of all being is the glory of God.And that is the real end of every story.

In Defense of Lynn Meagher

Read the Full Statement.
I was in the middle of reading the Facebook post below from KaeleyAnne Harms when it disappeared right in front of me. Facebook deleted the original post from Lynn Meagher too. Facebook is defending slanderers and a wife- and child-abuser while silencing the abused and slandered.I know Lynn Meagher, and I know some of what she's been through. This is the first time I've learned the whole story.Please share this widely, on any social media channel to which you have access.
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There are not words strong enough to capture the fury I am experiencing in this moment on behalf of my dear friend Lynn Meagher.She flew all the way to South Dakota to testify in defense of a bill that would prevent kids from being butchered by monsters who line their pockets off the agony of gender confused children.Two of Lynn’s own children identify as trans, largely as a result of growing up in a house with a father (Lynn’s ex-husband Tim) who fostered a raging cross-dressing porn addiction that wreaked havoc in their home. He was fired from one job when a co-worker caught him masturbating in his office. He was fired from another job for a similar reason. He tried to hire a trans prostitute but decided not to pay the $100. He clipped out newspaper ads soliciting relationships with “hot red headed trans identified people.” He wore women’s lingerie and strappy high heeled shoes and left journals of his fantasies and cartoon trans porn around the house.You tell me if you think this had any bearing on the way his kids turned out.Lynn finally left him when she found him searching for “tweens wearing stockings” on a porn site. She brought his computer to the police station and asked them to search it. They refused to do so without his permission.Tim had violent altercations with Lynn’s son Chris, including one where he broke a chair over Chris’ head. Chris was ultimately arrested, having caused physical damage himself.Lynn has suffered largely in silence for over 20 years. In her defense of kids and her opposition to transmania, she has been discerning and discreet, never vindictive, and always hopeful of restoration for her kids.Her kids, unfortunately, have been possessed of the same addictions and demons as their father, who enables and “supports” them. They’ve made a common enemy of Lynn, who insists on living in the light and telling the truth.Last week, I encountered Lynn’s son Chris at a women’s event in Seattle. I had gone to a very small Christian high school with him. I sat next to him in art class. I was kind to him when he was bullied. Someone once lit his hair on fire with a blowtorch in chemistry class. I was so upset for him.But Chris’ wounds have made his heart hard. He now goes by “Christine,” and shouts down women who won’t bow to his preferred pronouns. He was carrying an airhorn to drown out women’s voices in Seattle. I sat behind him and said, “Chris Meagher.” He turned. He still knew his name. I reminded him that his mother loves him. And she does.But he and his sister are bitter and angry and vacant. The truth no longer resides in them, and this past week, they took to social media to slander Lynn, accusing her of all manner of hideous things, including wrongs that had actually been done by their father. It was an international Twitter smear fest so intense and so effective, that even freaking Pink News ran an article maligning her.Lynn was declared too controversial to testify in South Dakota today. So she sat broken and bruised and voiceless on a plane until the truth came flooding out of her in a powerful FB post about all the secrets she would no longer cover and all the abuse she would no longer keep silent.Lynn told the truth that could save those who need most to surrender to it. She smashed down the strongholds that have kept her children bound and oppressed for years.But the post wasn’t even up for 24 hours before FB censored it as a violation of community standards, rendering her once again voiceless. Imagine that- it’s a violation of community standards to tell the truth about abusive men. This, friends, is why feminism exists and why I will continue to identify as a Christian feminist.I write this post in bed on my IPhone from a sock account because my own voice has once again been silenced on my primary page for having the audacity to tell the truth. And I do so knowing full well that it’s only a matter of time before this account gets shut down, too.Well I’m here to say that I don’t give a damn how many accounts we have to make or how many articles we have to write or how many heartbreaking stories we have to share. Trust me, hell hath no fury...We are done shielding abusers or covering for predators or playing nice with fetishists. There is nothing “nice” about gaslighting women or reducing our existence to a feeling or a costume. There is nothing nice about turning a blind eye to porn addictions. There is nothing nice about making people feel comfortable in their delusions and self-hatred.There is nothing nice about punishing women who have finally, after 25 effing years, found the courage to tell their stories of trauma.I have nothing sanctified you say to or about people who play make believe with nonsense. Kids are getting permanently sterilized before they’re even old enough to consent to piercing their ears. Rapists are getting housed in women’s prisons where female inmates have to shower with them. Do you think that’s very nice?For the love of God, do something and say something while you still can. A woman in the UK is currently being tried for the hate crime of referring to a man as a man.The problem is not the presence of darkness; it’s the absence of the light. Rise and freaking shine already._____
P.S. Feel free to copy and paste this post and share it liberally.

Dear Anxious Teen: Abstinence Is Actually a Great Option

Hi, teen friend.Full disclosure, I’m at least thirty years older than you are. I’m Gen X. I graduated high school in the 1980’s. My kids are in middle and high school now, and you all are living in a vastly different world than my friends and I did when we were where you are. I would not be in your shoes for all the tea in China or all the coffee in all the Starbucks in all the world.I’m sure it’s not news to you that anxiety, depression, and suicide rates are skyrocketing among youth. Maybe that’s related in part to families breaking down at staggering rates? You probably have way fewer friends living with both biological parents than I did.I got exposed to pornography via a couple of unfortunate events where the gatekeepers failed to pay close enough attention. Your gatekeepers have overwhelmingly abandoned the gates altogether. You’ve been irradiated with pornography and sex messaging via music, TV, movies, social media, and at least 90% of the advertising that’s become almost as ubiquitous as the air we breathe and the food we eat.You’re stressed about a future that’s so much less certain than we thought it was three or more decades ago when our primary fears revolved around Russian nuclear bombs that never ended up materializing anyway. Your worries (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get a college degree, your family disintegrating or disintegrating even more, possible destruction of the planet we stand on) are so much more present, tangible, and realistic than most of ours were.I wish I could wrap my arms around you, tell you it’s going to be okay, then transport you back a few decades to when a kid could have a childhood where his or her biggest problem was whether Mom was going to serve that godawful tuna casserole again tonight. (My friend’s mom actually put tuna on a pizza one time. A PIZZA.)But now more and more elementary, middle, and high schools are expanding their sex education programs to include things like Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (an HIV-prevention drug you can take as long as you weight at least 77 pounds, i.e., you’re an eight-year-old), the joys (not even) of anal sex, and encouraging kids to attempt to transition to the opposite sex (behind Mom’s and Dad’s back, if you prefer). Off-the-rails school boards and administrators argue that kids are having sex anyway and they need to know all this stuff so they can keep themselves safe and happy and sexually self-actualized.But I’m sure this will come as no surprise to you either: a recent Barna Group reportfound that current sex education programs are making teens feel pressured to have sex. The report also revealed that “if teens are sexually active, they feel more pressure to have sex by their boyfriend or girlfriend (37%) than do their abstinent peers (16%).”These are Duh findings to a lot of us. “Duh” was a word we used back in the day to indicate that a statement was so obvious, even uttering it smacked of idiocy.So I want to tell you something that the other elderfolk in your life may not be telling you: Abstinence from sex is not only possible, it’s actually a great option that real people really do choose. If someone tells you otherwise, they’re either deceived or trying to deceive you.Your life and happiness will not be hampered if you don’t have sex while you’re a teenager. In fact, I am completely, 100%, unequivocally convinced that your life and happiness—now and in the future—will be greatly improved if you do not.Let’s not even address morality or health statistics. You’re a smart kid with the internet at your fingertips. Do your own research on those things if you want to. I’m just going to look at how abstinence from sex can reduce your overall stress and anxiety. When you abstain from sex you do not have to deal withSTDs, several of which have staged a dramatic comebackin recent years.unwanted pregnancy, which organizations like Planned Parenthood are unethically trying to encourage, because a lot of money is made performing abortions.the life-long awareness that the child you aborted would now be one year, three years, ten years, or twenty-five years old. You never forget.acute emotional entanglements which result from the extreme high of falling in love and wanting to be knit physically, emotionally, and spiritually to this person for the rest of your life, and the resulting bone-marrow-deep and staggering pain when that relationship ends (because most high school relationships do).HIV/AIDS, and sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for her to come in and give you the results of your HIV test after you find out one of your partners lied about his/her sexual history.the powerful distractions of infatuation and sex which take time and attention away from your schoolwork, hobbies, and other important relationships.the inherent jealousies and dramas that explode when your partner becomes someone else’s, or someone else’s partner becomes yours.pressure from a boyfriend or girlfriend because, “You’ve had sex before, so what’s the problem with doing it again? Do you not love me or something?” (“I’ve never done this before and I’m not ready” is a powerful position to hold onto.)I want to tell you one more thing about sex during the dating years, which you may have never heard before because not too many people recognize or talk about it:Having serial sexual partners teaches you how to do one thing very, very well: You learn how to get over a broken heart and how to care a little less the next time, so your heart doesn’t get broken as badly again.Every person with whom you have sex keeps a part of you when they leave. The first one takes the biggest part. The next one takes a little less. After a while you don’t have anything else to give to or take from anyone except momentary physical gratification. You gradually lose your ability to have a meaningful, trust-based, soul-to-soul relationship with another person.I want so much more for you than that. There is so much more waiting for you than that. Don’t settle for less.And if choosing abstinence makes you a social pariah (which it probably won’t) or makes you look strange, weird, or frigid—so what? Look around at our society. It’s sick, and getting sicker all the time. Being labeled an anomaly is a compliment in this culture, especially since your choices are going to lead to vastly better outcomes for yourself.All you have to lose by abstaining from sex is occasional, fleeting episodes of physical pleasure. But what you lose by having sex as a teenager is life-destroying and heartbreaking.And that’s the truth, which is something my generation has largely failed to share with you.

Shooting Relativism's Sacred Cow

Prior to the 2016 election I enjoyed a fairly even split of friends, about half on the conservative/traditional side and half toward the liberal and/or relativist end. Over the last few years—and especially during the last seven months—I’ve been losing more and more of the latter. After reading this the few I still have left will probably dump me.So be it. I’m not pulling punches to keep from hurting anyone’s tender and unchallenged feelings.That’s the rabid relativist’s sacred cow, and the morality (sense of right/wrong) that defines a relativist as I’ll use the term here:No one has the right to question anyone else’s ‘truth’.This morality shows up in mantras like Kindness, Tolerance, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality. All laudable concepts, mostly stripped of real meaning thanks to the woke warrior’s determination never to offend or tolerate anyone offending him.(And just so you know, I’m going with he/his/himself as gender-universal pronouns, because I’m old-grammar-school and not ashamed of it.)Sex-ed in the public school is where I fight most of my battles these days, and where relativists and I butt heads a lot. I see school boards & administrators forcibly inserting junk like masturbation, anal sex, and abortion messaging into younger and younger kids’ classrooms, and I see the wholesale rape of children’s innocence and future sexual well-being. People who disagree with me claim that “kids are having sex, and anyway we have to prepare them for what’s out in the real world.”But there’s one question I keep asking people who defend things like Drag Queen Story Hour, teaching kids that anatomy has no correlation to one’s sex, and giving schools greater authority than parents over children’s sexual upbringing, which up until this week not one has ever answered:“Is there any sexuality topic you’d consider off-limits for the classroom?”My detractors go silent on this question, I believe because deep down they know there isa line. They know some things are too evil, ugly, and reprehensible to introduce to children. But they also know they’ll be eaten by their own if they admit there’s a line, or worse suggest where such a line might lie. They’ve seen the shark-feeding-frenzies that happen to people like me who do.But I pushed a relativist in an online discussion last week and you know what she finally answered? “No. There’s nothing we shouldn’t show kids.”Really, madam?I asked if that meant she’d be okay with a teacher queuing up child porn, bestiality, and snuff videos on the Smart board.Crickets again.The hardcore relativist is not permitted by his peers to judge anything as right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or destructive, because in having judged something or someone he will immediately be cut from the team. The litmus test to join the relativists’ club is that one has no position on others’ positions.Right now I’d imagine any longsuffering relativists who’ve stuck with me this long are arguing, “No! Relativism is about Kindness, Tolerance, Diversity, Inclusion, Equality!”No, it’s not.If it were there would be ample room in the relativism worldview for people who disagree with it.Instead, relativists’ vociferous intolerance of anyone who believes in a truth that’s culturally inconvenient reveals that they are actually quite judge-y. They’ve funneled all of their intolerance away from difficult questions that might make them unpopular with their tribe, and dumped it like a truckload of steaming manure on top of anyone who’s willing to be unpopular in the service of truth. It’s how some relativists rationalize labeling anyone who disagrees with them as bigots, haters, and whatever-phobes.Truth is, relativists make judgments between mutually exclusive statements every day:
Male and female are the only genders. There is a spectrum of infinite genders. ✔ There is one true God. There could be many gods. Or no god. ✔ It is not good for children to have sex. It is good for everyone to have sex. ✔ Marriage is between one man and one woman. Marriage can be whatever anyone wants it to be. ✔ Truth exists. Everything else is a lie. There’s no such thing as truth or lies. ✔
Not every relativist would check all of the statements that are check-marked above, but neither is he likely to argue with those who do. That he holds a sense of morality contrary to the hedonism of the culture is a deep, dark secret he only comes close to revealing when he says, “I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death (but not to the death of my career or reputation) your right to your opinion.”Unless that opinion has the audacity to claim that someone else’s might be in error.Michael Ramsden, the pragmatic apologist, put it this way: “If someone tells you there is no such thing as truth, he is asking you not to believe him.”Well, I don’t believe relativists who claim that I have no right to judge anyone else’s “truth” (i.e., opinion). I not only have a right but I have a moral and intellectual obligation to do so, because someone else’s position is either true and I should (for the sake of moral and intellectual integrity) align with it, or it’s a lie and I should (for the sake of  moral and intellectual integrity) identify it as such.And when it looks and smells like cow manure, I’m going to call it that.Whether my position offends the relativists or not.