Learning to Love Childish Things

I posted the following story on my Facebook feed this morning and got an overwhelming response.  As I wrote the post, I choked back tears because of what I knew it meant to me.

See, I was pretty heavily abused as a child.  Whenever I did childish things, like spilling milk, I was slapped or beaten and ordered to clean it up.  Simple things that happen to or are done by all children turned into monstrous abusive "lessons" to prove that Mama was in complete control of my life and everything I was going to do right in my life was due to her.

In reality, it made me shifty eyed and really good at "getting away with" anything I wanted to do.  At the age of nineteen, I ran a business right under her nose without her knowing it and got away with thousands of dollars by the time I "ran away" at the age of nineteen.

Sure, she knew I was running the business, but I carefully crafted all contracts so that, what she thought I was making, I was actually pulling in double.  The customer saw the real contract, Mama approved the fake.  She taught me well.

And yet, I didn't realize I had been taught the wrong way to approach children.

For the first half of our 11 year marriage, I would treat my children the same way she treated us, without the severe beatings.  Essentially, if I wanted them to do something, that's exactly what I expected them to do.  There were no arguments or equivocations.  There was only doing.  And if you deviated from the clear path I laid out, you got slapped, yelled at, treated like shit, and got to watch my back as I stomped away, leaving destroyed lives in my wake.

Then, this afternoon happened.  I had left that all behind years ago.  But, it has been a constant struggle.  A continual battle.  I still wanted my kids to do exactly what I asked them to, but was learning to think through the mind of a child.  And I began seeing things.  When I began to treat them as I thought they were thinking and approaching life, weird things started happening.  Things like random kisses.  Random "I love you"'s.  Random bright smiles.

This afternoon, I put all five kids I had with me down for a nap.  They had stayed up pretty late the last two nights and desperately needed the sleep.  So, I tucked them all in and then went back a few minutes later for a bed check.  I walked into Laura's room and saw her head scrunched down, slightly tilted away from me.  She was hardly breathing, obviously hiding something.

I reached down and peeled the blanket back to reveal two open candy bars, one half eaten.  I took them from her, wrapped them up in their wrappers, put them on top of the dresser, and told her that she didn't have to sneak them - just ask - and that eating chocolate after brushing her teeth was a bad idea.  I also told her that she need not be afraid to just ask, reiterating my first point.

What happened next was amazing.  Rather than me slapping her and walking away to the sound of her crying, I heard these six wonderful words:

"Daddy, can I have a hug?"

Trying not to cry, I walked back over to her, wrapped her in my arms, kissed her on the cheek, and left.  She fell asleep immediately.

I love my new life.

Putting Kids to Bed

I sit here in the middle of our second floor, 35 foot hallway, piano music playing on the iPad, my cell phone rattling to the tune of twenty texts an hour, and the laptop on my knees. 

I'm right outside the door of my two youngest girls.  The door is open.  I can hear Analisse (2) sucking on her pacifier - a sucking that rivals Maggie Simpson (though Maggie has had 20 years of practice so it's not really a fair fight).  Felicity (5) is also fighting the thumb sucking.  Her dentist has told her not to suck it.  We've tried putting socks on her hands and she got used to that.  Then, she began taking them off and ended up not sucking her thumb most of the time.  One can really tell when she does enjoy that little finger, though. 

Laura (9) is "sleeping", missing her older sister, Renaya (10), who left to sleep at a friend's house.  But Laura is living on the excitement of driving alone with me to Kansas City, Kansas, to her best friend's house for the weekend.  This best friend just happened to move away at the peak of their ultra-loyal friendship.  The two are peas in a pod.  Both deeply loyal, will grow up to be smashingly beautiful, and quietly passionate about life.

Frederic (7) is pretending to sleep, electing rather to play with toys in the dark while his brother, Jack (3), sleeps soundly beside him in his bed.

I used to read to them.  But this hallway is so long.  I should get back to that.  But here, the music and sometimes the washer and dryer do the same trick.

I enjoy bedtime.  It relaxes me.

Same Sex Marriage in Minnesota

Same sex marriage is illegal in Minnesota.  Precedent was set in 1971 with Baker vs. Nelson.  While no law against same sex marriage had ever been written into the state statutes, the inability to procure a certificate of marriage license for same sex couples due to the restriction to different sexed couples was enough to cause the case to be decided against the plaintiffs.  The case was appealed to the Supreme Court and died there.

Until 1997, this precedent stood as reason enough for same sex marriage to be outlawed by court decision.  Then, in that fateful year, a law was passed that put the standard against same sex marriage into the Minnesota statutes.

Deeming that this was not enough, the Republican-controlled legislature of 2011 decided that they needed the banning of same sex marriage to be written into the Minnesota State Constitution.  This would, in their view, make it more difficult for a paltry 1997 law to be overturned by "activist" judges (a term which is meaningless as a negative, being that all sides of any debate are perfectly willing to find those same "activist" judges that will agree with their side).  All changes to the Constitution requires a majority vote by the citizenry of this great state.  Thus, we find ourselves going to the polls to decide the fate of thousands of same sex couples that desire the same rights as everyone else.

The reasons for and against this law have been hashed and re-hashed ad nauseam with the pro-crowd (the ones that want same sex marriage banned) landing on either religion as the reason for the ban or thinly veiled religious ideas. 

But I don't want to argue reasons.  I want to tell you a story.

In 2000, a friend called me and asked me if I would like to come to a retreat in Duluth, MN.  I agreed and went.  While there, I met a woman.  A beautiful woman.  She smelled of a perfume that I had never smelled before and I wanted more of it.  She wore a pullover Columbia coat which she had to pull over her head hundreds of times during the weekend, revealing a perfect chest and every once in a while, the perfect stomach. 

Everything about this woman was perfect.  I loved her voice, her hands, her feet, her knobby knees, the form of her lips, her long nose where the middle of the nose extends down further than the outer nostril layers.  Conversation flowed.  While it rained for most of the weekend, we sat together under canopy after canopy, talking. 

I fell in love.  Two months later, I proposed.  A year after we met, we were married.  12 years later, we are still very much in love.  I love my wife like the air I breathe.  She is perfect in every way imaginable and I am indebted to my friend for inviting me to this retreat so many years ago.

But I remember going to the licensing office and paying for a marriage license.  The lady behind the counter was nice enough.  We hugged and kissed through the whole process while the entire state office rolled their eyes.  They were sick of love while we were lovesick.  But we were never questioned for our intentions.

We had sex before marriage and were reviled by many.  But, in the society we lived in, we learned that there were many who looked on us and celebrated our love for each other no matter how physical we became or artificial lines in the sand we failed to cross before enjoying the pleasures of one another.  We felt at home in society.

We loved each other and the world loved us for it.

I wish the same for all my friends and all people.