House of the Burning Prairie

As all of you know, I am a mom of two beautiful and frustrating children. Sometimes they drive me nuts (and it’s a short drive), sometimes they make me laugh, and all of the time they make me ache with how much I love them. I’m not perfect, I’ve never claimed to be, in fact I am a deeply flawed individual who’s just trying to do my best by this family. Not every parenting decision will be perfect or even all that good, no one can hit it out of the park every day. I’ve tried to learn from the mistakes my own parents made (so I can make all new mistakes!) and just hope that the kids don’t have to get therapy.

One thing I have learned is that if a child is being violent, destructive, or dangerously reckless, you stop them. Immediately. When a child hits or bites or physically lashes out in other ways, you intervene. You don’t wait to see if the other child is going to get upset or fight back; you don’t wait to see if the situation will work itself out. Children love to make messes and that’s OK, as long as there is no actual damage done. When making a mess devolves into damaging and destroying their own or others’ belongings, you stop it. You don’t wait to see just how bad the damage will get. Once a child sinks into destructo-mode, you don’t wait to see if he or she will calm down and clean up his or her own mess. When you see a child, any child, preparing to do something reckless, stupid, dangerous, something that permanently damage them physically, you stop them. You stop kids from running into the street, you stop them from throwing themselves off the top of the jungle gym, you lock up your cleaning products so they don’t get into them. Much of parenting is stopping children from doing the things that they don’t know are dangerous.

The Republican party is a big, violent, destructive, and reckless child, and it’s way past time to stop them. The entirety of the GOP needs a time-out. In 2000, the current administration claimed to be all about restoring dignity to the White House. Instead we have had eight years of the worst behaviors childhood has to offer: selfishness, greed, fear, bullying, lack of empathy, the inability to understand consequences, detachment from reality, meanness, hatred, pettiness, poor impulse control. The GOP runs with scissors and does NOT play well with others.

In 2004, in the midst of a war of choice, I heard many people say that George Bush the lesser should be re-elected so he could clean up his own mess. But the thing about it was, Bush wasn’t (and isn’t) just throwing his toys on the floor and spilling his grape juice on the couch. Bush was (and is) hurting other people and tearing up other people’s stuff. And his complete lack of judgment, utter recklessness, and ignorance of consequences has led his party, and the rest of the country, into many kinds of trouble.

The grown-ups in this country should’ve put this over-grown toddler into time-out four years ago, but we made some poor parenting decisions.

There is a ridiculous school of parenting-thought that advocates down-playing negative behaviors and praising positive behaviors. This is about using positive reinforcement only. Maybe it works on perfect children, but it sure doesn’t work on mine. You can’t just go around hoping to catch your kid doing something good so you can over-praise him. Oh! Little Johnny finished his lunch! “Thank you so much for finishing your lunch, Little Johnny, what a good boy, what a perfect boy!” Oops Little Johnny just ripped the arm off his sister’s doll, better to just ignore it, wouldn’t want to emphasis those bad behaviors.

I think that every half-way decent parent knows that you praise your children for the good stuff and deal out the consequences for the bad stuff. There’s a scene out of Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation that illustrates this beautifully. One of Mr. Hobbs’ daughter gets mad at him for stopping his grandchildren from doing something destructive. She haughtily tells him, “We don’t believe in saying “no” to the children. According to all modern psychologists, saying “no” leads to neuroses.” Mr Hobbs responds with, “It can also lead to bankruptcy, too, if he breaks enough stuff!”

Nobody has ever said “NO!” to Bush and he’s finally broken enough stuff in this country to lead to bankruptcy, not to mention what he’s done to the rest of the world. And his leadership has induced his party to jettison any pretense of real conservatism in exchange for greed-mongering, fear-mongering, war-mongering.

When my son hits his sister, he loses privileges and has to go to his room and stay there until he can act like a civilized human being. It is time to take away the GOP’s privileges and send them packing to their rooms until they can act like civilized human beings. You know, human beings that actually care about others. No longer can we adults, we parents of this country we are raising up, refuse our duty of discipline. It is high time that the GOP learn that there are consequences for their actions. And they are lucky we parents have become more enlightened.

Fifty years ago, they could’ve expected a peach switch out behind the woodshed; today they can expect an extended time-out (maybe eight years to pay for the last eight) and to not get to play with their video games. Let’s get busy here, parents, elect the grown-ups to the White House, the Governor’s Mansions, the state and federal legislative branches and give the GOP a little time, space, and perspective to do their own growing-up.

I was planning a scathing post on the epic fail that is the choice of Sarah Palin as Republican VP nominee, but after seeing that woefully unprepared, out-of-her-depth interview with Katie Couric I just can’t do it. Not right now anyway, seems unnecessarily cruel. She’s apparently going to have some more interviews before the VP debate; depending on how people perceive her performances afterwards, I may have to resurrect my original objections.

But I do want to address something that her supporters tout, that I have not heard her come out and say in so many words. Her saintly shouldering of the “burden” of a special-needs child. I actually heard a girl in line at the store say just how much she admires Palin for that. Look, having a child with special-needs doesn’t make you extraordinary, or a saint, or a martyr; it makes you a mom, just like every other mom in the world. No better, no worse. I’m sure Sarah Palin herself does not look on her child as a burden, so why this public saint-making?

Oh yes, she found out, through amniocentesis, that she was carrying a child with Downs Syndrome and made the choice to continue her pregnancy. So what.

Why is it so amazing to people on the right that she would have her baby. Would these same people choose to terminate if they found out they were having a special-needs child? Is that now an acceptable reason to compromise one’s personal convictions? Are these people against terminating pregnancies except if the baby isn’t “perfect” and then it’s fine and dandy? So I guess that’s what makes Palin so saintly for having her “imperfect” baby. Well then, it seems that lots of moms (and dads, too) should be up for sainthood, including lots of Democrats. Which, no doubt, comes as quite a surprise to Phyllis Schlafly.

On September 2, Phyllis Schlafly went on a radio show and spewed forth this hateful bile: “If Sarah Palin were a Democrat, she would have aborted the baby. That’s the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. And Sarah Palin demonstrated that she is pro-life in contra to all of the Democrats.”

She continued on with some statistics and the assertion that Democrats are full-on all about the abortions. Must be why none of us ever have any kids. Oh wait, we do. What do you know about that?

Before I move on let me set the record straight, (addendum) Shlafly-style. Contra to all of the Republicans, we (Democrats) believe that no one should be discriminated against because of race, religion, ethnic background, gender, age, ability, or sexual orientation (I think of it more as “sexual hard-wiring”); we believe that all people should have a living wage and affordable healthcare and enough to eat; we believe that quality education is the first step to a better life; we believe that concern for children does not stop at birth; we believe that families have value, all families of all configurations, not just some faux-50′s “ideal” family; we believe that hatred is not a family value; we believe the earth is not ours to destroy; we believe that waging preemptive war is a bad thing; we believe that religious beliefs are best taught in the church and in the home and should not be promoted in schools; we have respect for people of faith, different faiths, or no faith at all and are not so presumptuous to imagine that we can force others to our personal beliefs; and for the record, Phyllis, being pro-choice means that we respect each other enough to trust that each woman is capable of making her own medical choices, that we have absolutely no right to dictate what happens inside of someone else’s body.

So there, I’ve just schlaflied all Republicans. I have presented my personal beliefs as the beliefs of all Democrats, painting those high-minded ideals as the polar opposite of what all Republicans believe, regardless. I have vilified all Republicans, assuming that they all are greedy, selfish, bigoted, ignorant, fearful, hate-filled warmongers. (addendum)It isn’t right when I do it, and it is certainly wasn’t right when Schlafly did it. I know a lot of folks who vote republican because they mistakenly believe the lies put forth by people like Schlafly and others. (addendum)But I do not think they are evil, just deceived.

(addendum) But obviously many prominent right-wingers think all Democrats are evil, Schlafly, Dobson, Pat Robertson, too many to mention. And they have no problem spreading lies and hatred. (all addendums are dedicated to Bob.)

With such public figures proclaiming Democrats’ beliefs to be “evil”, is it any wonder that a delusional man walked into the UU church in Knoxville and opened fire? Is it any wonder that doctors have been murdered for providing legal, requested healthcare for women? Is it wonder that women still are at a wage disadvantage compare to men? Is it any wonder that people think single-payer healthcare is bad? Is it any wonder that gay people are still denied the right to marry the people they love in most states? Is it any wonder that synagogues and mosques are still targets of hatred? Is it any wonder that good stewardship of the earth has been rejected as weak? Is it any wonder that science and critical thinking have been thrown over in favor of superstition and denial? Is it any wonder children, and their care and their health and their education, are not our society’s first priority?

But children are generally a parent’s first priority. And even though I’m sure that Palin and I have very different parenting philosophies, I have no doubt she makes her children a priority and loves them to pieces. But she’s no saint for carrying a pregnancy to term.

And here’s why: If either of my children had had Downs, I too would’ve carried them to term, because I would have not found out until after they were born. I got kind of a late start on having babies and was offered amniocentesis for my daughter. The doctor told me there was a slight risk of miscarriage, and after having two miscarriages I really didn’t want to even slightly risk another. But my decision to forgo the amnio was cemented when the doctor asked both of us, “Would it make a difference?” He was asking us if we would terminate such a pregnancy. We both said, quite forcefully, “No!” And he told us not to take the chance.

That decision didn’t make me a saint. That decision made me a mom, just like every other woman who has a baby. And even if I had decided to go ahead with amnio and had gotten a diagnosis of Downs, I still would’ve had both my babies and not changed a thing! Hey, look at that, a Democrat who wouldn’t have terminated her pregnancies!

But I’m still not a saint, and neither is Sarah Palin.