Politics

As some of you may know, I am not one who usually goes about declaring my political views to the world. I believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion, and that each of us also has a responsibility to educate ourselves about issues when we have the opportunity to vote. But this year when people in California were voting on Proposition 8, it became clear to me that when there is such an important issue being voted on, then we also have a responsibility to educate ourselves about the issue and to help educate others. When I was visiting my family in San Diego this fall, my mom was involved with helping to visit and call people in her neighborhood to explain to them what Prop 8 was all about (and many people who she spoke to weren’t even clear on what a “Yes” or a “No” vote actually meant). When I first heard about people from church contacting people to talk to them about Prop 8, I have to admit that I thought that would be a difficult thing to do – I can be rather shy about speaking to people anyways, especially about such a disputed topic. But after watching several video clips and reading some articles about Prop 8, I realized how important it was to not just stand by and let a minority make decisions for the majority. After all of the video clips showing families in Massachusetts (where they had previously passed laws allowing same-sex marriage) where the parents were not allowed to be notified by the schools before their young children were taught about homosexual relationships – students were taught not only to embrace homosexuality in others, but the students themselves were encouraged to experiment with both heterosexuality and homosexuality before deciding what worked best for them – I thought of my little boys, and how difficult it would be to have my family placed in that kind of a situation. It is hard enough today to teach our children about having strong values and living the gospel with all of the misinformation that they receive from the media and other sources, but to have their school teachers who the children admire and look to as role models teaching them opposite principles than what we are trying to teach them would make our job as parents even more difficult.

And, although there were similar propositions being voted upon in several states during that election, California’s Proposition 8 was the one that everyone seemed to be focusing on, because many states seem to eventually follow the trends of California within a few years. Plus, as you probably know, I grew up in California and have always wanted to move back to Southern California again after all of Michael’s medical training so that we could be near family and enjoy the beautiful weather there. So the vote on Prop 8 was more than just a curiosity to me – it was personal: deciding what could be taught to my children in the public schools in the state where I’d like to move back to. Anyways, when the election was going on and all of the votes were being counted, I admit that I was more interested in the turnout of California’s Prop 8 than in even the presidential election (after all, I felt that both of the presidential candidates had both positives and negatives and I had a hard time deciding which one to vote for – I am still curious to see the outcome of the presidential election with the candidate that was chosen – but I knew exactly what I wanted the outcome of the Prop 8 vote to be). Since the local news stations were only covering the Presidential election and a few minor local issues (like whether the tax-payers were going to pay extra to fix up the zoo or not), I went online and found an official website with information for California that was updated as the votes were counted. I followed that site through the next day, until it was clear what the people of California had decided: that marriage was defined as between one man and one woman. I was so relieved. I thought about writing a post on the blog about it at that time, but never got around to it after the fact. But I got an e-mail from a friend that reminded me of Prop 8 and all my feelings about that.

The e-mail was about Obama’s plans to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he becomes president, and links to a website with a form that you can fill out petitioning him not to do so. Although I am usually pretty critical of forwarded e-mails, and I also do not know if online petitions have any real effect on political issues, this is another issue that I think is incredibly important. I took a look at the website for the petition, http://www.fightfoca.com/, and it shows a short video clip of Obama clearly stating that he plans to support this act. Among other things, the Freedom of Choice Act will allow various types of abortions, including partial birth abortions. I was watching tv once a few years ago and I flipped the channel to see a partial birth abortion, and it just made me cry. First of all, I think that although I personally don’t know if I could ever have an abortion in any situation, there are a few situations where it might be considered, such as cases of rape or if the mother and baby would surely die if she were to give birth, but in most cases I think abortion is a terrible thing and should never be considered. I think that people who are irresponsible and have sex without thinking about the consequences, and then decide that abortion is a good fix for their problem will be held responsible for their actions after this life. I think that stopping the life of an innocent baby is such a terrible thing to do, and I imagine that the majority of women who make the decision to do so, especially teenagers, regret their decision later on. I also think that a child deserves to be raised by a mother and a father in a good home, and I know that there are good parents out there looking to adopt children. How could any person be so selfish as to end the life of another human being just because it would be difficult for her for 9 months of her life? I know, being sick and having changes to your body are not fun, and the social pressures may be difficult to deal with, but if you chose to have sex in the first place, you knew that pregnancy was a possible result of that action. Why not just have the baby and give it up for adoption?

And why would anyone ever have a partial birth abortion? As I understand it, these abortions are done late enough that the baby could possibly be born and survive, but instead they are partially born and then killed. How could any woman, medical professional, or politician ever think that such a thing should be allowable?

The other part of the Freedom of Choice Act that really bothered me was the fact that doctors would be forced to perform abortions against their will. When Michael went through medical school, he told me that as a doctor they are obligated to refer a patient to a different doctor who will help them with an abortion if they are morally opposed to performing one. Why change this? If the patient will be referred to another doctor who will give them information about their options and give them the care they need, why force all doctors to perform abortions? I’m just glad that Michael is going into dermatology, so if this act does get passed it shouldn’t affect him professionally.

Anyways, I don't know if signing the petition on this website will have any effect on Obama's decision to go forward with signing the Freedom of Choice Act, but at least we can try to get the message out to people about his plans to do so, and hopefully the more people who learn about this, the more people there will be who will let their opinions be known that we as the majority of the American population do not support such actions.

http://www.fightfoca.com/

A Little Overwhelmed

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the sheer quantity of things that we are “supposed to do.” Of course, living and teaching our families about the gospel is the most important thing, and should come first. Aside from attending church each Sunday and other church meetings and responsibilities, we need to do things like personal scripture study, family scripture study, personal and family prayers, and other gospel activities in our everyday life. I am not questioning the importance of these things.

And then everyone knows that you should spend time doing things to let your family know you love and appreciate them. We have always set aside Monday evening as family night at our house, and recently we started setting aside one night each week for one of us to have an individual night out with one of our children. We should also be having regular date nights as a couple. And taking time to really listen to the children and have good conversations is really important too.

And then there are all the less-fun, but necessary everyday things that cannot be left for later – preparing and feeding the kids three meals a day, changing diapers and dealing with potty training, and getting the children to take naps and go to bed at night.

And we need to educate our children too. We need to read them good books, eventually teach them to write and read, and do fun art projects so that they will have a chance to be creative. And, our children will eventually need to go to school, too. School, and all the activities that go with it, take up a big chunk of time.

And we need to teach our children now so that they can become good adults someday – they need a good example in these things, so not only do we need to spend time teaching them and letting them help with things like cleaning up around the house, having good manners, physical fitness, being organized, healthy eating habits, being polite to others, money management and having good personal hygiene, but we need to do all of these things too so that our children will have positive examples to learn from. (Oh yeah, I guess bathing the kids and having them brush their teeth aught to be on the above list of “less-fun, but necessary everyday things.”) And we need to do things to keep our own minds sharp, like continually learning about new subjects and reading novels.

Plus we should have a nice place to live. I don’t mean an expensive, spotless, fancy place to live, but a good, clean home where the children can feel safe. It takes a lot of time just picking up after four kids, let alone doing any ‘deep cleaning.’ But I have tried just putting off all of the housework – leaving it for later so I can get other things done, and this just makes me feel like everything around me is dirty and disorderly. So lately I have been really good about getting everything cleaned and picked up soon after a mess is made so there won’t be a big job to do later. This makes it feel better at home, but takes up time here and there all day long. Plus we should take the time to have good music, good books, family photos, and pictures of the temple and other beautiful things displayed in our home.

And then there are things that have to be taken care of – paying rent and utilities, replacing little household things that get broken, getting clothes for the kids that are the right size and are warm/cool enough for the current season (and, if you are on a low income, it is also necessary to take the time to find the best deals possible for purchases that need to be made), checking the mail and responding to important messages, dealing with insurance, car maintenance, and other little things.

And family history. I was a genealogy major in college and love researching about my ancestors. But even though we have been blessed to live in an age when many records are made available to us at home through the internet, this research takes time. And once you get through the internet records and get to a point when you need to do some deeper research, this takes even more time (and sometimes money). And even if you are not working on researching your ancestors and extended family, you should at the very least be documenting your own life and the lives of your immediate family members. Keeping a regular journal (how I justify spending time writing our blog posts), saving and organizing family photographs, keeping a family scrapbook, and eventually finding time for bigger things like writing my life history, interviewing older family members, or collecting family stories.

And we should save some money for an emergency fund (not even taking into account the investing and retirement savings that we should be doing once we have a regular income). Our church recommends building a supply of food storage and emergency supplies, just in case we hit hard times at some point down the road (and every time I watch the news and see people somewhere in the world who have been hit by fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., I know what good advice this is and I think of how I need to add to our little store of food until we have enough to provide for our family in case of an emergency or even just hard times with something like a lost job in the family).

And we are viewed as stupid if we don’t regularly make back-ups of computer files – how would it be to loose all of those precious family photos, videos, journal entries, etc.? So, we need to take the time to back everything up (I went to make backups on CDs of just the most important files on our computer the other day – photos, video, family history documents, etc., not even things that could be replaced, such as music files, and I had just over 60 CDs-worth of files to backup, I still need to finish that job).

And we have fun spending time with friends (especially while we live far from family now, and our friends are our family). We should try to fellowship new people who move in and meet our neighbors. And we should keep in touch with family and old friends.

And if we would like out children to have opportunities to develop their talents, we need to start early. It seems that children who learn to play a musical instrument in their early years are more likely to continue and to play well when they are older. And art, sports, writing, crafts, outdoors activities, etc. – all of these are good things to spend time doing with your family.

And people, especially children, need frequent visits to the doctor (even when they are healthy). Plus, you should make ourselves aware of the warning signs and symptoms of health problems. And, if a child does become sick and contagious, life gets put on hold and you have even less time to get everything done.

And, of course, someone needs to provide for the family, and a good, stable job takes education, which takes time and money, and then after the education it will take time to pay off the debt from school, and then the good, stable job will continue to take time for a long, long time.

I’m sure there are a million other things that could be added to this list that I’m not thinking of right now. And I have really tried to include here just things that we should be doing, not making a list of all the extra things that people could possibly add to their daily schedule. I have to admit that I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately at the sheer quantity of things that we “should” be doing, and the fact that there is no way to fit everything into the hours of each day that we need to if we want to accomplish just these things, excluding any other fun activities, hobbies, or time to just relax. I mentioned this topic to Michael and his answer was “prioritize,” which I understand and agree with. But if we prioritize and accomplish the necessities of life (food, changing diapers, sleep), and then prioritize and accomplish the most important things (the gospel, teaching our children, and making sure they know that you love them and you love your spouse), then you are still left with a lot of things undone that are expected of you – I don’t really feel like I can just prioritize and exclude things like reading to my kids, taking family photos, doing family history, paying bills, or taking the kids to school when they are old enough.

Often in the morning I will make a list of things to do that day. Today this was my list:
To Do Today:
• Type and print food storage list [I got some new things for our food storage last night and wanted to add them to the inventory list so we can keep track of all the expiration dates and not waste food]
• Put new food storage items away
• Breakfast, feed Isaac [yes, I do need to put these things on the list so that I have something to cross off after spending my morning doing these things]
• Clean boys’ room
• Let the boys watch ‘Super Y’ [they get to watch their favorite PBS show as their reward for helping pick up the house and clean their room]
• Clean bathroom
• Print hand-outs for enrichment activity [I was asked to host an activity for the women’s group at our church, and that will be at our house tonight]
• Empty the trash cans and diaper pail
• Get myself dressed, do my hair, and put on make-up
So, I’ve crossed everything off this list so far except taking out the trash. How many really important things were included on that list?

So, I guess I will continue to prioritize the most important things (and the necessary things), and just do a little bit of each of the other things that we “should” be doing, but never feel like I am completely accomplishing any of those other tasks. I guess. All we can do is what we can do.

Birth Order

My old roommate from BYU, Megan, sent me this e-mail, and I thought it was pretty cute.

Maternity Clothes

1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

Preparing for the Birth
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

The Onesie
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes with special baby detergent, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Worries
1st baby: At the first sign of distress – a whimper, a frown – you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to re-start the baby swing.

Pacifier
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.

Diapering
1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.

Activities
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, Baby Zoo, Baby Movies, and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.

Going Out
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

At Home
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Swallowing Coins (a favorite)
1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!


GRANDCHILDREN: God's reward for allowing your children to live.