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New Year’s Shout Out


I decided to start 2011 out by sharing a couple of my favorite things with everyone. In an effort to become more aware of the positives in the world, I hope to make this a weekly feature of the blog. I’ll endeavor to discover organizations or stories that are uplifting and shine light on the ways we help each other to grow and come together and put them out here for others to see.

The first one that I’ve recently become aware of, thanks to a new writer friend is here. I’ve written before about wishing that the United States could shift its view of “wellness” from an economic model to a more holistic, soul-satisfying one. This project seeks to do just that. While it isn’t exactly going to revolutionize our way of living/spending/being in financial crisis after crisis anytime soon, I love that the focus is on Gross National Happiness. I get that we can’t eat, live in, or drive happiness, but I do embrace the notion that when we put all of our eggs in one (money) basket, and that basket is emptied, our feelings of self-worth plummet and fear skyrockets. Learning how to be happy independent of this thing we call financial wealth has so many other benefits that we may want to give it a go.
The second item I want to highlight is a publication and associated website called New Moon Girls. It began as a magazine targeted to pre-adolescent and early adolescent girls, free of all advertisements and focused on helping them navigate the increasingly media-saturated world as hormonal beings. The magazine is largely written by the girls themselves, featuring their stories, both fictional and non-fiction, poetry, artwork, columns where the girls solicit advice from their peers, and articles by older teens and women sharing their stories. The website is a safe, adult-moderated place for the girls to express themselves, play games, and chat with each other online (not in real-time, thus the ‘moderated’ aspect) about everything from food to siblings to politics. The girls share their ideas about environmental issues, activism, bullying, recipes for their favorite snacks, crafts they like, and write book reviews for each other. They are encouraged to speak candidly about everything and look for positive, inspirational stories to share. I love the magazine so much that I bought my girls a subscription as well as sending one to the local public school library and two of their friends. The subscription includes access to the website and all that it includes.

Please share your inspirational, positive stories in the comments section. I’d love some new things to talk about and spread around.

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A Visit from JoAnn Deak


I attended a Parent Information Series at Eve’s school last night and the speaker was
Dr. JoAnn Deak. She is a psychologist who has done some amazing studies on the brains of adolescent girls and has written extensively on her findings. I discovered one of them a few years ago on my own, but was turned on to her most recent book by the headmaster at Eve’s school, never knowing that JoAnn is actually on the advisory board at the school.

Monday, she spent the entire day with the teachers at the school, talking to them about how to recognize, validate, and work with the unique structure of the adolescent female brain. She then spent two and a half hours in the evening presenting her findings to parents and fielding questions of all types.

Some of the highlights:

The lubrication of nerve cells and brain cells is largely made up of water. When children are not drinking water or other fluids throughout the day on a regular basis, they are literally not thinking as well as they could be. It has been shown that even with 1-2 oz. of water every hour, children’s brains perform far better than if they only drink during lunch breaks.

Between the ages of 10 and 20, the emotion center (the amygdala) of a child’s brain is literally swollen. The information they receive through their senses travels first to the amygdala and then through the logic/thought processing portion of their brains.

The brains of girls are designed to choose flight over fight, theoretically because of their role in caretaking of the young of the species. It is our job to help build their self-esteem by encouraging them to take risks despite their fears in order to prove to themselves that they are capable. They no longer need to run from saber-toothed tigers to protect their young. They can choose to take on difficult tasks without risk of dying.

While testosterone is the prevalent hormone in male adolescent brains, oxytocin (the tend and befriend hormone) is most prevalent in girls. Want to spur them to action? Threaten something they care about. They are more likely to protect a pet or a loved one than stand up for themselves.

Self-esteem is affected by actions. The more girls do, the more capable they feel, and the better they feel about themselves. Girls tend to do more with their fathers and talk more with their mothers. Fathers have the single biggest affect on an adolescent girl’s self esteem when compared to anyone else in her life. Make one snarky comment about her weight and you’re setting her up for an eating disorder. ONLY ONE REMARK. Spend more time with her just hanging out or building something and she will feel capable and loved.

Girls have two language centers in their brains and boys only have one.

If a girl is not making eye contact with you, she is not processing what you are saying.

If a boy is making eye contact with you, he is not processing what you are saying. He is probably obsessing about that mole on the side of your nose.

Information intake and information processing cannot take place simultaneously in the brain. Talk for a bit and then ask your child a question about the content (even if you have to pretend to lose your train of thought and say, “where was I?”). This switches the activity from the intake to the processing portion and they are more likely to retain and assimilate the information.

For more, check out Dr. Deak’s books. She is a lively speaker and a brilliant researcher.

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One More Word About Bullying


Bullying is in the news everywhere these days. I see friends on Facebook posting notifications about meetings at schools. Last week at Eve’s school, they held a Community Meeting to talk about the rash of recent suicides by teens who suffered at the hands of their peers. Do an Internet search of blog posts on bullying and the results will overwhelm you.

The thing is, bullying is not a new phenomenon. It has evolved with our culture and stretched its skinny fingers into cyberspace where it is easier to hide, but it isn’t new. Nor does it stop when we leave school.

Driving home from dropping Eve and Lola at school this morning, I was listening to NPR. Steve Inskeep was talking to Tina Brown of “The Daily Beast” and she was recommending her favorite stories to listeners. One that struck me was this article in the NY Times about women in Afghanistan setting themselves on fire to escape abusive marriages. Such instances are not isolated. Women all over the world resort to desperate acts with the tools they have available when they are faced with a lack of options. This is not any different from a gay teen committing suicide in order to escape ridicule by his or her peers.

When I began to see bullying in this light, I noticed it everywhere. Any time a situation exists where one person has power over another, bullying can happen. When there is a group of people who exploit that power for their own personal gain, even if it is for entertainment, and isolate their victim from others, desperation occurs. While our survival instincts are strong, it is often more tempting to end our own suffering and, when we have few avenues to achieve that, suicide becomes an attractive option.
Before we can begin to address the issue of bullying in schools, I believe that we need to identify all of the ways in which we as adults engage in similar behaviors. We need to come to terms with the fact that there are so many times when we are guilty of the same kinds of acts that abhor in our children’s lives and fundamentally change the way we view and use power in our lives.
Can you think of some other examples of adult bullying behaviors in the world?
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Dream, Part Five


Part four is here.

My final wish for women and girls everywhere is that they have choices. That they be presented with options and given the freedom to exercise their will. Certainly this doesn’t mean that young girls ought to be able to make difficult or momentous decisions beyond their developmental capabilities, but it does mean that we need to assess their abilities closely, listen to them when they talk to us about their desires and beliefs, and take those into consideration when we help them choose their path.
When we are given options, we are given trust and responsibility. Inherently, we are being told that we are valued as independent or semi-independent entities who can be relied upon to weigh variables and decide accordingly.
When Bubba and I began giving our daughters an allowance it was initially very difficult for me to let them spend it. Their weekly spending money actually only comes out to one third of their allowance, given that we put one third into a savings account and the other third into a charity account which they are free to donate at their own discretion. Lola uses her money every Thanksgiving to “buy” turkey dinners from the Union Gospel Mission for homeless people in our area and Eve generally sends her money to a local animal shelter. Their savings accounts are to be used for big-ticket items that are strictly “wants” versus “needs” and must be pre-approved by Bubba and me, but their spend money is fairly unfettered.
I don’t know whether it is because Lola is the younger child and used to hand-me-downs, or if it is just her personality, but she tends to forget about her allowance within 40 seconds of getting it. Eve, on the other hand, mentally spends hers half a million times before the cash ever hits her hot little hand. I’m not sure “burning a hole in her pocket” is accurate because I don’t think the money ever makes it that far.
Over the years I have had to learn to bite my tongue when Eve tells me about the new song she’s going to download or the cheap notebook she wants to buy. When she used to get the Scholastic Book Order form from her classroom, she would tuck it under her arm, head up to her room, and sit in the beanbag circling items and counting on her fingers for an hour. More than once she has blown her stash on books that take her less than 15 minutes to read and come sobbing to me that she wasted her money.
But therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? Along with choices come consequences and unless we have choices, we can’t learn how to make more difficult ones. Without suffering the sometimes negative outcomes of our rash decisions we would continue to make poor choices over and over again. Learning can’t happen without mistakes. Mistakes can’t happen without action. If we aren’t trusted to take action, we can’t learn or grow.
My wish for women and girls everywhere is that they be given the chance to test themselves. I want them to be nurtured and cared for and have a safe place in which to make mistakes, but that won’t mean anything unless they are given choices to make. Too often, as people in power, whether benevolent and loving or dictatorial and fearful, we trick ourselves into believing that we know best. All too often, I’ve discovered that I can be surprised when I stop and take the time to listen to others’ perspectives. There are things which I couldn’t possibly have known or circumstances I was unaware of or deeply held beliefs I wouldn’t haven taken into account that may drastically change my point of view. From time to time we all make choices we wish we wouldn’t have, but being given the freedom to choose is worth the possibility of screwing up. Just ask someone who doesn’t have that freedom.

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Dream, Part Four

Part Three is here

One of the most insidious by-products of being valued less than others is the feeling that you have nothing to offer. There is nothing so disheartening as the notion that you are either completely disposable or that your efforts are in vain and the fruits of your labor unnecessary.
In the early twentieth century, as the economy in America began turning from a subsistence model to a production model, women became increasingly disenfranchised. In the subsistence model, everything they contributed to the household, from farming to childrearing to producing clothing and food for the family was seen as vitally important to the family unit as a whole – not more or less valuable than any other member of the family. As men began to leave the household to seek paid work in factories and towns, women were left with more of the household chores but were valued less simply because it was money that made the world revolve and they were not paid for their efforts.
As my children grew from toddlerhood into true childhood they began to ask for ways to contribute. Even before then, they loved to play with toy versions of my vacuum cleaner and run the dustcloth over the coffee table and bookshelves. Today, they take pride (and, yes, sometimes complain mightily) in taking out the garbage, feeding the dog, and setting the table for dinner. Last Saturday night they shooed Bubba and I out of the kitchen, prepared a menu with beverage choices, cooked a pot of pasta and made a fruit salad and a green salad and served us dinner at a table lit with candles. The idea that they were grown up enough to produce an entire meal for us tickled them for days and Lola still presses me to tell friends and family about their endeavor.
Today seems a particularly salient day to be making the point about how important everyone’s contributions are, given that tomorrow is Election Day in the US. There are thousands of individuals who will choose not to throw their ballot into the mix simply because they don’t have any faith that it will make a difference one way or the other. The simple idea that one’s opinion doesn’t count removes most of the motive for sharing it. Why the heck should I vote if the outcome is already decided? Why should I raise my voice and articulate my thoughts if nobody is listening?
It is up to us to create a space where everyone can add their talents to the pot. Everyone must feel as though they have something to offer in order to feel empowered and valued. We need to create an ‘economy’ where we honor contributions of thought, emotion, and action that don’t necessarily result in monetary compensation. It is useless to be part of a community if your voice doesn’t count as much as everyone else’s. The feeling of pride and self-worth that comes from knowing you have added some value – even if it was to offer food for thought – goes a long way toward encouraging individuals to continue contributing. Enough practice with this and the sky is the limit.

Continue to Part Five

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‘Dream,’ Part Two


Part One is here.

“Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.” Daniel Webster
The second part of my dream is that women and girls feel connected. There is nothing so challenging, supportive, inspiring, comfortable, or exciting as a community. Ideally, each of us has several overlapping communities in which we can move as members. We have co-workers or schoolmates, family ties, groups of like-minded people who share our interests in hobbies or passions, and each of these people supports and challenges us in different ways.
So often, young girls who see themselves as ‘different’ are afraid to find community. They are embarrassed or ashamed or simply unsure of themselves and end up isolating themselves to the point where they cannot share their gifts or their difficulties. For many of these girls, this translates into their adult lives and they move through their days without any touchstone of reality except their own, which is often skewed.
In many cases, this makes these women and girls easier to control and manipulate and, whether by conscious effort or not, they are preyed upon by all kinds of people. In the wild, it is the lion pack that picks off the zebra who separates from its group. It is the same with humans.
I would like to see a world where girls are taught that their communities are rich with opportunity for them and encouraged to find their own place in them. I want to see them connect with each other instead of working to alienate those girls who are different from them. It is developmentally normal to want to conform in the teen years, but we need to learn to respect those who don’t. I want us as a society to recognize our strength in connection to each other, in learning from each other and sharing ideas without anger or ownership. I want girls and women to feel as though they are a part of something bigger than themselves and use the leverage of these groups to push themselves farther than they thought possible. Often all it takes is one interested person, one mentor, one like-minded party to spark the connection. And the impact that this simple act can have on the self-worth of a young girl or lonely woman is monumental. Validation is a powerful tool and it is through connection and community that we can nurture each other and, in turn, ourselves.

Continue to Part Three

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Finding My Peeps


No, not those foul yellow marshmallow candies shaped like chicks.

Yesterday as I was checking my email one more time before dashing out to get Lola from school I finally got a response from the agent who has had my manuscript since August. I had one of those bumpbump moments where everything except the squeezing of my heart stopped for a bit and I tried to decide whether or not to open it before leaving home. Then my true (impatient) nature returned to me along with my breath and I clicked on it. No go. The comments were kind and seemed genuine, but the agent apologized that, although she enjoyed the book, she didn’t have the “conviction” to take the project on. It has taken me about 15 hours to fully appreciate this.
I was disappointed and somewhat at a loss, but decided to sit with it for a bit before making my next move. Well, at least my next tangible move. In the meantime, I’ve had an absolute hurricane of activity going on in my brain as I examine options surreptitiously while pretending not to. Even to myself.
Fortunately, I had an early morning breakfast to look forward to. The Women’s Funding Alliance held their annual fundraising event and there were so many reasons I was supposed to be there that I went.
  • Kathy LeMay was the featured speaker and at the time that the breakfast was publicized, I had just completed a book review for Feminist Review that contained an essay written by her on philanthropy. (The book is called “Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart” – it is fantastic and inspiring and uplifting. My review is here.)
  • So many of the local organizations that I support are funded by grants from the Women’s Funding Alliance, and I am all for streamlining my efforts, so the fact that there is an umbrella organization that is passionate about supporting the same things that I do in lots of different ways is immeasurably cool.
  • My sister-in-law, who is plugged in to all things “Strong Women” invited me.
  • It offered a morning off from dragging reluctant (ha!) children from their beds, force feeding them protein, stuffing lunchboxes full of snacks and assortments of healthy foods as well as those they will actually eat, and ushering them off to school. Bubba didn’t so much ‘offer’ to do it as show up when ordered to do it.
So, I went. And I was awed. Inspired. Reminded why I wrote the book I wrote and what I want it to stand for. I watched a group of 30 or so teenage girls get up on stage and tap dance at 7:30 to Aretha just to pump up the crowd. I listened and was moved to tears by women who are committed to creating a world where girls and women can express themselves, trust their own instincts, follow their dreams, believe in themselves, and live safely and without bias.
I am reconsidering. If my goal is truly to get this message out, then maybe I need to just do it. Perhaps pitching the stories in my book as a series of articles in the local women’s magazine would work. Maybe I beat down the doors of some local, progressive publishing houses and tell them why I love this book so much. I don’t know. But I do know that I’ve been reminded who my “peeps” are and I’m grateful to that agent for knowing that what she needed in order to represent me and my book was conviction. I don’t want anyone working on my behalf that isn’t excited about this book and the way it gives voice to so many women.
*You can read a little about my project here. I will post about it more in the days to come.
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