Tag: learning

family

What defines a Good Friend

Andi

Starting at my earliest memories, I had two best friends. I think I had other friends, because there are photos of me with other people, but I can only genuinely remember these two. I still have contact with both of these individuals through the invention of social media. One of them I have no other contact with outside of that. We never chat. The other we do interact over social media and occasionally chat over text or call.

In my teenage years I had a lot of friends. I remember being told that as an adult I’d only have a few friends, that a few good friends was better than many shallow friends. I thought it was total nonsense. I had a lot of friends and I loved all of them and thought they all loved me. I must simply be extraordinarily fortunate because I had many good friends. Most of these friends were from church or from the Summer Missions program I did with Child Evangelism Fellowship. Quite a few of these I still have minimal contact with via Social Media. Some, I’ve completely lost contact with. A handful I’ve purposely cut contact with. There were two I considered my best friends and a family I thought of like my own family. One of these best friends and I had a falling out over a relationship I thought was not good for her and which she wanted to pursue. She is no longer in this relationship, but we never rebuilt the friendship however and only interact over Facebook and the like.

The family and other friends I had within the church have all but fallen away. They were the biggest hurt I felt after leaving the church. They had been the people who loved me, who said they’d be with my through thick and thin. Some even claiming my other relations weren’t true friendships, only they were my true friendships. And I believed them. I believed they loved me and whatever I did or whatever happened, they’d still love me. But the harsh reality was they wouldn’t always be there for me. They would all disappear like a morning fog as the sun warms the earth. As soon as I left the church group, they left me behind. Even so much as to ignore me when I did come around as though they’d never known me. Some of these people I have purposely removed all contact with, a small few I still have social media contact with, but do not talk to otherwise. Only one of them has made any contact with me since I left the church. One out of the approximately 20 strong friend group we had developed.

After I had children my friend group changed again. Not to add mom friends, I didn’t have mom friends when my kids were really small. I kept the friends I had. Some had had kids by then and some hadn’t. I couldn’t fully explain to you what happened. Maybe it was the result of the kids. I had a few friends who became more and more shallow to me. It appeared to me they were putting up this fancy I’m-rich-and-super-spiritual façade and I had no energy to keep up with it. Their appearance was incredibly important to them and it just wasn’t to me. I think it started to produce a distance between us until it became a canyon. One of them, who actually had kids as well, met up with me at a splash pad. We sat next to each other on the same park bench and didn’t say a word to each other. It was awkward. We didn’t know what to say to one another anymore. The only conversation we had was instigated and revolved around the kids. We haven’t spoken since. Although I do still have social media contact with these people, its very minimal and mostly nonexistant.

By the time our family moved out of the state I’d grown up in, I only made a point to see three people before I left. One of them was the group of elderly people who always came into the cafe I worked in to have coffee after their morning walk. Another was a single friend I’d kept contact with, but admittedly hadn’t seen much of. When we made the move for some reason I guess I assumed people would still keep in touch despite the distance. The people who really cared about me at least. No one did though. I didn’t know anybody in the new state and nobody I knew in the old state bothered to keep in contact. I was overwhelmingly lonely. I watched an unhealthy amount of anime and Spongebob.

I knew I had to put myself into contact with people to make friends, so I joined a MOPS group. I was placed at a table with the exact right people. It was an instant connection with most of them. Of course I still have internet connection with them, and I see them on regular dates and get togethers. And then, someone I’d known years ago during my Summer Missions time got in touch with me and told me she wanted to just talk. We still text every month or so and catch up about what’s been happening. She and I both have kids of similar ages and know each others families. One person, I’d made contact with in a Facebook group happened to live close to me, and I decided to meet for coffee. She and I have several similarities, and the meeting was good. We’ve started to develop a friendship from there, but it’s still very young.

Through all of this, there have been a couple constants. My other best friend and I have been through some rough patches and had issues over time, but we have also been able to grow and build a strong relationship. He was the third person I made a point to see before we moved. The same time we moved, they moved in the opposite direction. That put quite a bit of physical distance between us. But we manage with regular phone chats. Of course with social media and texting keeping in contact has made long distance a little easier. Now, I would say he is my only best friend. My husband and I also have a friend he met through an old job. We lived next door to them for a while, and since moving have met and been befriended by their family. They were such a magnificent help to us during our big move. Our relationship has relaxed and become more casual. We’ve gone on a few double dates, and usually just lounge about when we hang out. We of course have contact over social media, but most of our contact is face to face or through a phone call.

I’ve seen a lot of friends come and go, and quite a few I still have at least some kind of contact with. But social media contact alone isn’t a proper gauge for a friendship. You don’t have the deep connection from that tiny thread of contact social media provides. Neither does seeing someone once every few years when you make the trek back home and come across them while you’re there visiting your family.

What does classify a good friend?

I always go back to a quote by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

There have been only three people on this earth that I have always felt completely safe with. People I’ve never felt the need to perform for or display only pieces of myself to appease them. My brother, my best friend, and my husband. I have more than one brother, but only one of them do I feel close too. He and I are the closest in age and spent the most time together growing up. We, I think, have the closet relationship out of the siblings. My best friend, the one who I went through that hard patch with, I have never felt awkward with. Even during that time, I had no fear about detailing to him why I was angry with him. And my husband. Even when we first met and I had butterflies galore and I was crushing on him, I never felt afraid of him. I was never cautious that if he knew me completely he’d break up with me. So, I never held anything back, and I still never do. He may be irritating sometimes, but he is still my biggest comfort.

Another trait many people associate with friendship is loyalty. Will that person be with you through thick and thin? This is certainly a good thing to consider. I’ve found more often than not, the answer is no. The term “fair weather friends” didn’t just make itself up. People are willing to ditch their friends for any myriad of reasons. Their new boyfriend didn’t like them, or they didn’t like the new boyfriend. You have a child and they didn’t and don’t feel relatable to you anymore. You separate from your spouse and they don’t approve. You don’t end up separating from your spouse and they don’t approve. You discover you have differing political views and they can’t stand you anymore. You start going to a different gym. On, and on, and on.

I’ve also learned people tend to all have very short term memory. They probably will not remember to give you a call or send a text. Once you no longer have consistent contact with someone, they won’t bother to keep in touch. It seems to just be the norm. When you leave a job, most of your coworkers, even ones you were friends with, will probably fade away because you won’t be put in contact with them everyday at work. When you graduate school, it’s not likely you will keep those fellow classmate friendships you had. You aren’t running into them and looking them in the face regularly, so you drift apart and forget each other. It is just what seems to happen. The old adage, “out of sight out of mind” is apparently true for human relationships. This is probably why when I was younger I heard several times, long distance relationships don’t work. Apparently, most humans can’t hold onto relationships from far away.

Some may say a good friend has similar interests, is trustworthy, is honest. And I’d agree, but I’d also say that all of those kind of roll back into the person you feel safe with. That person who you have no fear of leaving because you told them a dark secret. A person that understands your humor is someone you are comfortable with. A person who can hear your story, love you, maybe give you some hard honest advice, hug you, and help you move forward. That person, is your comfort and safe zone.

But I will say, a good friend is a dependable friend. The one you can count on to be there for that hard moment, and the good moment. Sometimes, stuff happens, especially if you and your friend have kids and dates have to be cancelled. But when a friend cancels every date one after the other, or simply doesn’t show up, it wears you down. You can’t rely on them to make it to a scheduled date, or at least text you before and let you know plans have changed. How will you depend on them when you really need them? When you call scared and alone, are they available to you? When you need advice, are they willing to chat? Everyone has schedules and everyone is busy, but are they always too busy for your friendship? If you need help, do they tell you I’ll call you back when I’m not swamped and we can talk or do they just ignore you and never call back. Can you depend on them at all? That is a marker of a good friend. Can you depend on them.

Going through life, particularly if you are an emotional or empathetic person, you will develop bonds with people. And even if you know in your head how humans work, losing one of those bonds hurts. It can wound you deeply. I know that I for a time didn’t want to meet any new people. I was afraid of making friends because why should I if they’re all just going to abandon me? I, apparently, put way more meaning into a relationship than the other person does and time after time, I’ve been burned. It makes me overly wary of new people. I’ve lost a friend over a boyfriend. I lost a friend over religion. I lost many friends over church. I lost a friend over a false rumor. I’ve been wounded and not sure if having friendships was even worth it. I don’t trust new friends.

But humans need other humans. It’s just how we are made. If I lock myself in and refuse to have contact with people, my anxiety amplifies, it grows, it starts to over take me. I need to be outside. I need nature. And I need friends. We all need friends. Study after study has shown that social interactions help not only our mental health, but physical health as well. A study done in Alameda County, California of more than 7,000 men and women, begun in 1965, Lisa F. Berkman and S. Leonard Syme found that people who were disconnected from others were roughly three times more likely to die during the nine-year study than people with strong social ties. We need to be around other human beings.

So I’m learning that out of all the connections I’ve made throughout my life, most of them will probably melt away. I probably won’t have the same relationships in 10 years as I do right now. But out of those many, I’ve made a few deep connections. I’ve had to go through a lot of friendships to find the ones that really stick. So the adults in my teen years were right. I do only have a few good friends, and that is better. Because they are my comfort, they are loyal and they are dependable.

And that really is what a good friend is isn’t it? The person you can find comfort in that won’t be scared away by who you are. The person you can depend on to be there for you, and that is only shown by experience. The person who is loyal, that will make the effort to keep in touch and keep building the friendship, even if you don’t see each other every day, and that is only shown with time. And you will probably only have a small handful of these good friends, and that’s not only ok, that is better.

family

The Whole Brained Child

Andi

Several people had suggested this book to me, but its apparently a pretty popular book as it had a good sized waiting list.

I wanted to read it as I was struggling to find a firm standard to raise my kids that was wholesome and uplifting to them but wasn’t uncontrolled and insane. Growing up the way I did, if a kid made noise or lost control in any way they were not only a bad kid, you were a bad parent. If you didn’t spank your kids, they were bad kids and you were a bad parent.

I didn’t like the way that kind of parenting made me feel, not to mention how it made my kids feel. I was angry all the time, and the strong armed aggressive parenting I’d been taught fueled the anger. I was making my kids into loud angry children and I did not want that for them. I began finding books on childhood development and growth. I wanted to know how best to mold them into good humans. So enters this book. It’s written by neuroscientists, and explains well how the human mind, and specifically the child human man mind is functioning in various scenarios. I think I gleaned as much from this book for myself as for my kids. There is never a point that I felt guilty or ashamed of myself either. You know how sometimes another parent in an attempt to relay what they’ve learned and what methods they use make you feel like such a terrible parent? Like they are so much better and know more and you have nothing figured out? I never felt that reading this book. The authors portray a very gracious tone throughout.

You might even measure yourself against some sort of perfect parent who never struggles to survive, who seemingly spends every waking second helping her children thrive. You know, the PTA president who cooks organic, well balanced meals while reading to her kids in Latin about the importance of helping others, then escorts them to the art museum in the hybrid that plays classical music and mists lavender aroma therapy through the air conditioner vents. None of us can match up to this imaginary super parent.

Haven’t we all done that though? That’s why we feel so much guilt and shame. We look at someone else who seems to have it all together and we don’t measure up. But reality says, none of us measure up. Not even that PTA president we think has it all together. When we all bring ourselves to the same level of understanding, we realize, we are more alike than we are different. It’s important not to look down on another person and its important not to hold another person up on a pedestal either. We all make mistakes.

When we learn what our brains are doing and what needs to be done to change that, we have stronger tools when a challenging situation arrives. We can now view and study the mind like never possible in the past. We can see what neurons fire in specific scenarios. This is incredibly helpful to parents as we can know better what to do to grow and strengthen our child’s mind.

One recurring theme I’ve come across that appeared in this book as well, is that children are capable of far more than we think they are, and in our unknowing, we don’t encoursge them to do more. This instance was about emotions. Being able to understand and express complex emotions, and being able to handle big overwhelming emotions. Some adults have trouble doing that. But if we are able to cultivate that growth, kids are able to manage emotion in a healthy manner. This is not only something kids are capable of, it’s something that needs to be developed so they have a mandatory tool to take with them into adulthood.

One big parental temptation is to make decisions for our kids, so that they consistently do the right thing.but as often as possible we need to give them the practice at making decisions for themselves.

A big thing I see quite a bit are parents that jump in to help their kid with a difficult or scary task. I’ve even been reprimanded by other parents for not doing this. We need to allow our kids to make decisions for themselves and experience mistakes. We need to step back and let them figure out how to solve a problem. If they made a bad choice, we need to let them handle the consequence of it (so long as that consequence isn’t dangerous). The way a child learns how to manage risk is by managing risk. Stay close by but don’t interfere unless they are at serious risk of harm. Let them climb to the top of the jungle gym. Let them balance on the fallen tree trunk. Let them decide what shoes to wear. Children need to be able to make their own choices and learn critical thinking.

Recent studies have found that the best predictor for good sibling relationships later in life is how much fun the kids have together when they’re young. The rate of conflict can even be high, as long as there’s plenty of fun to balance it out. The real danger comes when siblings just ignore each other.

One last big point that jumped out at me was with sibling conflict. I have more than one child and I’ve often worried about this. My older siblings hate each other, and I don’t want that for my kids. But how do I prevent it? According to these doctors, the key is fun. It doesn’t matter if they bicker and fight a lot, so long as they have fun together. This means that the trips we take as a family, the playtimes we have are incredibly important. Playing and having fun is vital to their development and will affect them long term. That’s something I think we all need to remember. If you feel bad that you can’t give your kids the biggest, most expensive, fanciest house and clothes, remember it’s not that important. What is important is that you took your kids to the playground and played with them. What’s important is that you helped your kids make some messy and probably odd looking muffins. Playing with your kids and giving them the space to play together is what stays with them all their lives. The science has even confirmed it.

This is a must read for any parent. It is insightful and enlightening. It explains everything simply and clearly. The Whole Brained Child is an excellent book. I highly highly recommend.

family

Damnation

Andi

This one is a doozy, so before I get started on it, I want everyone to take a deep breath and stay calm. I say that because people are very touchy about their faith, and tend to become reactionary when you talk about it. I’m not out to anger anyone.

However, I am out to talk about hell. The place of damnation in most Judaic and Christian religions. This is a piece of faith I kind of ignored because I just didn’t want to think about it. It made me uncomfortable. But recently pieces on hell kept coming across my various news feeds and it seemed time to just delve into it.

Growing up, I was taught that hell is a place of eternal damnation, continual torment, fire, anguish, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. We are all sinners, and sin must be punished, so we are all destined for this awful place. That Jesus was the only way to escape this torment. If you were to ask for his forgiveness and recieve his mercy, he would wash all your sins away, and spare you eternal punishment. Most Christians believe some variation of this narrative, so to challenge that a part of it was incorrect would be to challenge the entire foundation of their faith. So I understand anyone who may be uneasy or wary of the idea. I certainly was.

There were two things that made me uncomfortable with this idea of eternal torment for non believers.

The first was the question about people who never heard of God during their time on earth. This could be as result of being remote and secluded from civilization, or infant death, or mental disabilities. What if a child died before they were able to understand salvation? Now, for the people I was around, most of them made caveats for the mentally disabled and babies, but used the remote civilizations as a rallying cry for further missions. We have to take the gospel to them or they will go to hell. They received no caveats. This just did not sit well with me. I could not fathom a loving God never giving them a chance of redemption.

Second was how hell has been used to manipulate and control people by terrifying them. You must do as we tell you, or you aren’t truly saved and probably going to hell. People didn’t come to God or to church because God is loving and supportive, a very present help in trouble. They came to God and Church out of absolute fear of burning consciously forever in a lake of fire.

One piece I read put forth that hell was not taught by Jesus, or the ancient Jews, it was an idea that crept into Judaism from the Greeks during the span between the Old and New testaments. This idea piqued my interest.

So I looked it up. Every time hell is mentioned in the Old Testament and what was the Hebrew word that was used. Turns out, the English words vary depending on the translation you are using, but the Hebrews words do not vary. So the same Hebrew word would sometimes be translated to English as “Hell”, other times as “death” or “the pit”.

The most common word is Sheol. This word is used in the Old Testament frequently. According to ancient Judaism, Sheol is the place of the dead. Not a place of punishment or of reward, just a place you went after you died. This is why it is sometimes translated as “the grave” or just as “death”. When I was young I was told Sheol was synonymous with Hell and the words could be used interchangeably. I remember this being associated with the Proverbs passage about the seductive woman who tempts a young man and it being said her footsteps have taken hold in Sheol. This was always taught metaphorically, usually to shame young kids into abstinence. This woman was promiscuous and led to hell, the same fate is in store for teens who have lots of unmarried sex.

But what if this isn’t metaphorical? What if we take this literally? If Sheol is the place of the dead and she was on her way there could that mean this woman was dying? It’s made clear, she tempts lots of young men. Hygeiene was not much back then, STIs had to exist, and antibiotics did not. Even just a virus would be easy to transmit. It’s in Proverbs 5:5 that says “Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;” And another passage about temptresses in Proverbs 7:27 says “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” Could this verse mean literally, this woman will kill you? Do you see how that changed the entire meaning of the passage? It still serves as a warning to not succumb to temptation, but instead of eternal damnation as the outcome, death is the outcome.

Next word I came across was Abaddon. This one is a little more tricky. It appears in both testaments, and means destruction, but in the New Testament it is personified as an Angel. So is Abaddon a place of destruction or is it the Angel of Death? I found lots of conflicting info on this. Some believe Abaddon is actually sent by God to hand out his punishment before his return in Revelation. In the verses I found it in the Old Testament it was coupled with Sheol. So it came as death and destructin.

But then I moved on to the New Testament. Not just needing to know what my English translations said, but what the Greek said. So again I looked up the word hell in the New Testament and which word in the orginal language was used. Most references of hell, or specifically, the lake of fire come from Revelations. Entire book series have been dedicated to explaining the end times, so I’m not going to. I am going to let you know what I can dissect from language though.

The first word I came across was Gehennna. I never heard this word growing up, I first heard it in an anime, as an adult. That is because in the KJV, the version I was raised solely reading, it is translated to hell every time. In this case, it may be more appropriate than with Sheol. Gehenna references an actual place. A valley, where people performed child sacrifices. The land was declared cursed and became synonymous with wickedness, understandably. It became the place where the evil were sent, and over time became known as the land of the wicked. Its is simple to see the connection between it and the idea of hell. Only the evil are sent there, cast out and separated from good.

Another word used in the New Testament is Hades. This word is used in the same manner Sheol is used in the Old Testament. This, actually makes a lot of sense to me. Hades is the god of the underworld, and the land of Hades is were the dead are. It’s a station the dead pass through. The idea of a neutral place all the dead go to, aligns with Sheol and even the Greeks idea of Hades’ realm. Now wouldn’t this confirm the piece I read about Greek culture seeping into Judaism? Maybe. But I could also see it as a simple borrow of their language as well. Although in English it may have been changed to hell, I dont think the ancients meant it as a place of punishment.

Then there is the word Tartarus used only once in 2 Peter 2:4. In KJV this verse says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” In the Complete Jewish Bible, this verse reads as “For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to held for judgement.” And in the Youngs Literal Translation it reads, “For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,” It is usually traslated as hell, like in the KJV though sometimes left as tartarus, as in the YLT. This I do find interesting as Tartarus is the pit Zues trapped the titans in after he defeated them. Where the realm of Hades was the land of the dead, Tartarus was a place deeper, a place only the most wicked were sent to be imprisoned. Even though, this seems to borrow from Greek mythology, it also aligns with the idea that hell is a place reserved only for the most Evil, as with Gehenna, and is a seperate place than Sheol or Hades.

So simply based on the language used in these words we can start to paint a picture. Sheol/Hades is a land where the dead are, neither in happiness or anguish, waiting to be transferred to heaven or hell. And Gehenna/Tartarus is a sereate place reserved only for evil beings.

This brings us to two questions. First being, aren’t believers taken directly from their earthy bodies to heaven when they die? The concept of a realm of the dead kind of contradicts that. And second, is hell then eternal?

For the first, let’s look at the verse so often quoted at funerals and at greiving family members. 2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” KJV It is often summarized with a rub on your shoulder as, “you know as the Bible says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.” To try and comfort you about the deceased relative. But if Sheol exists, we are not imemedietly present in heaven the moment we are absent from our earthly forms. The passage this comes from talks about the eternal bodies we will have and how burdensome our earth bound bodies are, so this connection is not hard to make. However, this passage doesn’t ever say were immediately present with the Lord.

Conversely, I think many of even common Christian’s beliefs support the reality of Sheol. In the end times there will be a resurrection and the dead will rise at the trumpet sound. Its pepperd throughout the NT this resurrection of the dead. John 6:40 reads “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” KJV (Notice that little prepositional phrase “at the last day”?) 1 Corinthians 15 is where we get the trumpet sounding from. Verse 52 says, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” KJV the resurrection is taught, and sung about endlessly. But if all the dead are already with God why are they being resurrected? I’ve heard this explained as their spirits are with God but their bodies aren’t and that’s what raises at the trumpet sound. Although I’m not sure people want their old bodies in heaven and if we are given new perfect bodies, we don’t need the ones we’re riding in now.

Now for the eternal question. Nowhere else in all of the Bible is the Lake of Fire, often described as hell, mentioned outside of Revelation. So much of this book is confusing and complicated. Chapter 20 speaks quite bit about this Lake of Fire. Starting in verse 10, “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And then in verse 14, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” ESV Before this death and Hades give up all the dead and they are judged according to the book (the Lamb’s Book of Life) and then those not found within were also cast into the Lake. This should undoubtedly settle eternal hell right? It does say the devil, the beast and the false prophet are tormented forever and ever, but does not say that about the others. This tiny phrase “their part” in Rev 21:18 leads some to believe that for even the worst of us, the Lake of Fire is temporary “But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], THEIR PART will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” AMP Even others draw from the previous chapter that the saints were resurrected before this, and so the dead rising in Revelation 20 would be the non believers who are then judged and punished for their deeds according to the books. “And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades (the realm of the dead) surrendered the dead who were in them; and they were judged and sentenced, every one according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:13 AMP So does this mean only the worst could not be reconciled and had to be sentenced to the Lake of Fire? Several other verses refer to those in torment and state they still refused to repent. Which gives the idea that they had the opportunity to do so.

None of us have been dead, and the end times have not come yet, so all of this is ultimately unknown. But from what we know of God, and what we can learn from the Bible, we can get a pretty solid idea. When we die we kind of hang out in suspension until the ressurection at the end of time, at which point we are judged. The righteous are spared punishment, the other’s sentences are handed down, and some may be punished in the lake of fire, but no one is denied repentance. So according Revelation the lake of fire is real, but I believe it is not a permanent punishment. Only Satan, the beast, and false prophet are tormented forever.

Feel free to share you knowledge and thoughts on this, but again I demand kindness and tact.

family

Mister Rogers

Andi

So many adults grew up with Mister Rogers gently singing to them and reminding them they were perfect just the way they were. I was a kid in the 90s, so I got all the reruns, but he was still prominent even then. However, he has impacted me more as an adult than he did when I was a child. With the new film coming out this month, I think talking about him is appropriate.

Fred Roger’s was a musician, an artist, and an ordained minister. His ordination was to minister to children through the medium of television. He apparently was witty and slightly snarky as well if you listen to his family and work mates. He was creative and driven, and worked hard to make his vision come to life. The documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” contains many of these first hand accounts of his gentle character and clever humor.

Mister Rogers never wore a collar or said he was a minister in his show, but his faith drove what he did. He very firmly believed that God made you just the way you are. You didn’t need to change anything. You are worthy of love, because God loves you, and as a follower of God, it was his duty to love you. He believed children were very bright and able to grasp even complex concepts. That they have very strong emotions and should be able to not only express them but know how to process them. Talk about them. Understand them. Your strong emotions aren’t flaws to be subdued, but God made parts of you. So a homosexual was perfect and worthy of love. A child with a disability was perfect and worthy of love. A person of color was perfect and worthy of love. A person of a different faith than his perfect and worthy of love. He displayed this on his show and in his life in the way he treated other people. Always with respect and always with kindness.

He is one of the only people of faith I look up to and desire to imitate. The kind of faith he had is what the world needs. It doesn’t need the anger. It doesn’t need the hate. It needs the powerful love. And a person brave enough to show it.

He is also a model of good parenting in my eyes. Kids need to know their emotions aren’t bad, but they need to know what to do with those emotions. They need to know they are special, the way they are. As parents, we need to be teaching our kids how to process their feelings in a healthy manner. Children should also be given the comfort of knowing they have love for who they are.

It is beyond fathom for me to imagine any person on earth that disliked Fred Rogers, but they existed. He got questioned about his own sexuality because he was soft and talked about his feelings. People said he was evil because he told kids they were special without having to work for it. He was blamed for entitled children. Rumors started that he wasn’t actually a kind gentle man, he was a hardened Marine who was covered in tattoos and killed lots of people. None of these were true, but I find it interesting the worst rumor they could come up with was tattoos and military service. There were enough people that hated him that there were protesters outside his funeral. People said he was going to hell, not because he was gay because he wasn’t, but because he tolerated gays. He told them he liked them, and God loved them, and apparently that is abominable. That’s the kind of man this was. He was hated for loving people.

This shows me two things: that someone is always going to dislike you and how to respond to those that do. Even someone as magnificent and unproblematic as Mister Rogers had people calling him evil. The kinds of people pointing fingers at you may be different, but there will be someone who doesn’t like you. But despite knowing some mocked him or hated him, Mister Roger’s never stopped treating each person he met with kindness. It had to get discouraging at times, and his family has said there were times he’d get upset, but no matter what he’d process the emotion, and step out to the world with a smile and a hug.

He is an example to us of what faith should look like, how to teach children, and how to face with world with grace.

Additions:

I think Tom Hanks is probably the only person, on earth, that could portray Fred Rogers.

I’m sure some people wonder why I love Mister Rogers so much, but I don’t care for Daniel Tiger. Despite the fact the characters are named after Rogers neighborhood friends and his own tiger puppet. I am aware. But the trouble is Daniel Tiger is trying to be Mister Rogers. They are attempting to recreate the magic for a new generation, but they just can’t. No one can. And Mister Rogers Neighborhood doesn’t need to be updated in my opinion. His voice is captivating and his singing is charming. My overly active kids enjoy the original show and pay attention to it as much as any of their other shows. Daniel Tiger is certainly not the worst show, it has some good parts, but it is also lacking in some as well. Perhaps I’m just being biased as well.

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Andi

We had an instance this morning that I thought perfectly exemplified our choice and consequence we do with our kids.
I got up to make some breakfast and my husband was already in the kitchen getting himself a bowl of cereal. The 3 year old hopped up and asked for some cereal. I told him, “I’m fixing to make eggs and toast. Would you like some cereal, or would you like eggs and toast?” He chose a bowl of cereal. So my husband gave him some and I made eggs for myself and the 1 year old. But when the younger and I were eating the 3 year old decided he wanted my breakfast. He tried taking Bubba’s plate. “But you chose to have cereal for breakfast” I told him.
He had the choice of cereal or eggs, and he chose to have cereal. Even after he changed his mind, he still had cereal for breakfast. He ate and he’s happily playing through his day. Nobody ever raised their voice, nobody screamed, nobody was spanked or disciplined. It was a calm interaction, and a learning experience.
Because we’re trying to teach him to make a decision, be confident in his decisions, and to handle the consequences of his decisions. (And yes, a 3 year old can begin to understand this concept) Right now, its little things, like eating the cereal he chose and not being able to swap with Bubba mid breakfast because he thought Bubba’s eggs looked good. But hopefully we are preparing him for future big decisions.

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Choice of an Odd Cup

Andi

I think it’s important for children to have the freedom of choice. I think this for a couple reasons.

On one hand, they need to develop strong decision making skills and how to be confident in those decisions. They also need to understand that sometimes, their choices come with consequences, and that they can’t have everything. When they’re young this is as simple as you can only choose one toy to buy, you can’t have all of the toys. These are learning tools for them. They now have the toy they chose to play with and are confident it was the best. And I enforce that they made a good choice, without mocking it or telling them it was a dumb toy, all while encouraging them to remember that their choices have consequences now while the consequence is something tiny. Life is full of this choice and consequence sequence. They are learning how the world works in these scenarios.

Another part is that I want them to grow up with confidence in themselves. Giving them the ability to choose who they hug and kiss, what kind of clothes they wear, when they want to discuss something, tells them that they can proudly express themselves and they have power over their own bodies. Even as their parent, I ask to kiss them. I give them the choice to be rocked/cuddled to sleep or go to bed on their own.

This doesn’t mean I turn my kids loose in the world and tell them to choose whatever they want. For one, that would be incredibly overwhelming. That would overwhelm me and I have a grown up brain. Their prefrontal cortex is still developing so I do have to help them sometimes make good choices. In the arena of say, what they wear, let’s say they need new tennis shoes. I wouldn’t take them to a shoe store and just tell them to go pick something. I would take them to the tennis shoe section, and allow them to pick from that smaller selection. This teaches both limitations and decision making. They do have to make a choice from a wide range, but they also can’t choose a dress shoe either. Or say with bedtime. They don’t get to run wild all night, we have a set bedtime, but they get to choose whether or not they want to be rocked to sleep or not. Either way they still have to go to bed, they choose how.

The world works that way for all of us, even as adults. We often have to make choices within certain limits, and no matter what, we all have to deal with the consequences of our actions. For a kid that may only be the short pain of a skinned knee after not heeding a warning from an adult, but it teaches them how to handle the world when they get older.

This becomes humorous sometimes when a kid chooses the oddest things. Like the hallowen cup my kid chose. He could’ve had a vampire, or Frankenstein’s monster, things that actually had brains. But no, he chose the pumpkin, the one cup that made no sense to have a brain lid.

So in a roundabout ancedote, when you give your kids freedom of choice, you get some interesting cups in your cabinet.

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Pumpkin Painting

Andi

One of the most common Halloween activities many families like to do together is Pumpkin Carving. They go to the pumpkin patch, pick out the biggest ones they can find, take them home and carve Jack-o-lanterns. It really is a fun event, and the pumpkin patches love it too because most of them charge by weight or size. But when your kids are too small to properly carve a pumpkin, and you don’t like squash guts anyway, what are you to do? We do Pumpkin Painting instead.

Each year, we make a trip to the pumpkin patch. I look for one that has lots of activities included in the price of admission, and specific sections for younger kids. A petting zoo is always a big bonus, and if it has a bounce place, it’s a definite win. We spend most of the day there, and towards the end, we go out to pick a pumpkin. But the pumpkin we pick, probably won’t be the one we paint. This one is for my child to proudly parade around and show everyone. I’ll buy painting pumpkins later from the grocery store where they are much cheaper. The day at the pumpkin patch is definitely a seasonal experience for us. The focal point is to have a fun day. It also signals that its fall, and time for pumpkin season.

After we get home, probably the next day, we get out our paints and our painting pumpkin. If you live further south where it stays warm through the fall, you could keep your kid in just a diaper (or underwear if potty trained) and then give them a bath afterward to wash any paint off. I’d also only do this if you have a fenced in yard nobody can peep into. If you do not, you just don’t want your child outside in their underpants, or it’s already cold and snowing before Halloween where you live, my best suggestion is an apron. Paint is still destined to end up on your kids clothing though, so be 100% sure you got washable paint. Put them in worn out clothes you’re not worried about piant getting on.

I take my kids outside to paint, so the mess is not on my flooring. We had a few younger kids join us this year including my younger child, so I got some baby sized pumpkins for them. I aso let my kids use real paintbrushes instead of those flimsy plastic ones kids paint comes with.

This activity probably won’t last long. The older kids may be more intent on their painting, but even so, a pumpkin is only so big. As they get older it may become a longer activity when they start expressing creativity more. Right now it lasts 20-30 minutes at most, much less for younger children.

I still threw my kids clothes right into the washer afterwards and gave them baths because of course they still managed to get everything messy.

As you can see, kids are messy painters. They like to mix colors and experiment. But they are learning to be creative, as well as some hand eye coordination and dexterity. They are also usually very proud of their work, and feel accomplished.

If you want to do a family activity, but on a tight budget, this is also a good alternative. Like I said, the pumpkins we paint we get from the grocery store, off brand childrens paint, and a brush. Your cost will depend on how many pumpkins you need and how large. Those mini pumpkins came 6 in a bag for $3, making this craft less than $10. If you do want a pumpkin patch experience, look for one with a front gate admission. These usually include lots of things in the price. Patchs that are free admission will probably charge for each activity and spending a dollar here, 3 dollars there, accumulates cost very quickly. You get more for your money when the patch has a admission cost, and many have some kind of deal for purchasing tickets online.

So if you are looking for an alternative to pumping carving, look no further! Pumpkin painting is where its at!

family, My Story

Recent Relationship with Faith

Andi

Before, I told you about the recent relationship I’ve had with my parents. I’ve told you about my relationship with friends. This time, I’m going to discuss my relationship with faith.

Growing up in such a strict religious environment meant I was introduced to faith and Christianity from birth. I was carried to church at less than a month old. There wasn’t a time in which we weren’t in the church or around other members, but it was also limited. I was only exposed to one specific denomination of Christian faith and absolutely no exposure to other world religions. All I needed to know about them was that they were wrong. My only glimpse into other faiths was on trips with my grandparents when they would take me to whichever church they could find because my parents insisted we go to church.

When I finally left the church I’d been raised in, their doctrines still followed me, like a looming rain cloud rumbling over my shoulder. I still had to be at a church somewhere, and it had to be a Baptist church. I had severe aversions to skirts and dresses for a time. I still owned some, but never wore them. When I did start wearing skirts again, I couldn’t wear denim. No matter what, my outfit had to be “not church approved” in some way. Even though I’d left, the guilt and shame still hung over me.

I Googled Baptist and Bible churches and made a list of the ones that looked most interesting. Then I visited them. After each visit I’d write a summary of what I thought of the service and congregation. I finally found one I liked. It was a Baptist church, but very different from the one I’d been raised in. If you do not know, there are multiple Baptist denominations, and while they have many similarities, they are not all the same. My parents kept promising they’d come visit with me one Sunday, but that would require them to miss their church, and I knew they wouldn’t do that. And they never did.

I was very faithful, attending every service and many events. This was one of those leftover traits from growing up. That went on until I had my oldest kid. I would only go if my husbad went with me, and having a baby is exhausting, so we didn’t go as much and only ever to the main worship service.

I started to wonder about other groups and religions. What differentiates the various Christian denominations? What was it that classified them all as Christian but still kept them separated? What about other world religions all together? Why did someone believe in a different entity besides God? What about those who do believe in God but aren’t Christian? I started to wonder.

This was the breakdown of my faith. Why did I believe in this one God and not a different one? What about these doctirines I disagree with? Was that really what the Bible taught? And if it is, can I still follow a faith that teaches it? I stripped away all of the previous knowledge I had about religion and set it aside. I had to start from scratch if I was going to get anywhere.

I got a notebook, a couple different translations of the Bible, and a Greek, a Hebrew and an English dictionary. It was also very helpful to have a couple friends I could call on with questions who had degrees in Biblical history. Understanding the language it was written in, and the culture and time period it takes place in are both important for studying its teachings.

There was a lot of writing. I wrote down the verse in all the translations, and the definitions of the words from the original language and in English. Like I said, a lot of writing. By breaking down everything into digestable pieces I started to rebuild what I believed. I developed a strong personal faith. It has no bearing on other people or what they believe, but it guides my actions and behaviors.

As time went on, I lost interest in attending church at all. I know there are other people out there that believe similarly to mysef, but are there enough in one location to form a church? And in any group of humans, conflict will arise. I did not enjoy the petty drama from the church I’d left, I don’t want to get in the middle of any of that ever again. And being from a church that demanded unwaivering loyalty and guilted you if you weren’t involved in everything, I’m a bit apprehensive of the commitment. And then on top of my own uncertainties, my husband has his own thoughts as well. So, to find a church that both I, and my husband, are comfortable in and want our kids around, is a fairly daunting task. At first it was my husband who wasn’t keen on church. Then it was me. I’m a little more neutral on it now, but he’s back to not wanting to go anywhere. I’m not pushing it.

I also don’t refer to myself as Christian anymore. I know it’s just a broad label, but its also how people define you. As of right now, most people associate anger and hate with American Christians, and I don’t want myself in that classification. I believe in God, but I don’t follow Amercan Christianity. I’m certain there are Christian Americans who don’t follow the path Christianity has taken, in fact I think there are many, but the leaders and public figures of the faith are presenting an image I can’t align with. And if that’s what the world sees as Christianity, I can’t label myself with them.

This isn’t the end. There are few things I’m confident in, but I still study and I’m constantly learning. I’m right now delving into the concepts and beliefs on Hell and Biblical discipline. I seem to study best with a pen and paper, and the lots of writing. It’s been easiest for me in the hashing out of what I do and do not believe.

If there is anything I urge everyone to do, it’s to study and learn for yourself. Don’t rely on someone else’s knowledge to form your beliefs. You have to do that for yourself.

My journey is far from over, but I keep going and never stop learning.

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The Montessori Toddler

Andi

I have had an interest in the Montessori method for a while, but on the whole, was still rather ignorant of all it entailed. So I found the book The Montessori Toddler by Simone Davies and started gathering information.

Many of the methods used in Montessori are things I already implement in our home to some degree. In some areas, the author takes things to a further degree than I have or to a more involved level. So in some areas I thought, this was simple, I already basically do that. But in others I thought, goodness no, there’s no way we could do that.

As with any parenting book, you can take the pieces that will work in your family dynamic and mold them to fit into your life. For instance, I can’t completley redesign the set up of our home to emulate a Montessori style room. For one thing, we don’t have the money to buy everything I’d want. But I can take the idea of learning activities displayed in a simple manner for the child to choose from and put them on top of the kid’s bookshelf. This didn’t cost me extra money, I just reorganized how our learning tools were kept.

There are 4 principles that jumped out to me and one element we couldn’t implment I’ll touch on briefly. If any of them piques your interest, I suggest grabbing a copy of the book and giving it a read through. It’s probably available at your local library and is sold on Amazon.

I’m going to get the one unsustainable element out of the way first. In a Montessori classroom they do not have any fantasy for children under the age of 6. The reason for this is because young children cannot usually distinguish between reality and fantasy. While this is true, we could not enforce such a rule in our home. There was already an enormous amount of fantasy and fiction in our home before we had children and they have been exposed to it from the beginning. In addition I have already seen a positive effect fiction has had in my child’s life. Exposure to a fictional robot triggered a strong fascination with space. Because Mars rovers look like robots, he eagerly soaked up all knowledge about them, and the planets, and astronauts, and space shuttles. He will tell you he’s going to the stars if you ask where he’s going. We’ve built rockets out of boxes, out of building blocks, and out of legos. So many crafts and activities that use dexterity, hand eye coordination, concentration and imagination were accomplished because of his love of a fictional robot. If this exposure means he really thinks lions can talk then that’s a hurdle I’m willing to jump. He will learn magic isn’t real soon enough. But there is no one size fits all approach in parenting. So if no fantasy works for you, go with it! That’s part of unique family differences.

Now moving to the amazing things I drew from this book. First is the principle of freedom within limits. Second is child involvement in everyday life. Third is the use of consequences instead of punishment and fourth is preparing the parent.

Freedom within limits is an idea that I love because the child is safe and learning boundaries, but still has some control over their lives. That doesn’t mean they can run willy nilly wherever they want or they do whatever they want whenever they want. That means they have a safe boundary inside of which they have the freedom to explore as they please.

Allow all feelings but not all behaviour

That’d be the difference between asking, “what do you want to eat for lunch?” And “would you like to eat macaroni and cheese or alphabet soup for lunch?” Or instead of giving them a full closet of all of their clothes and asking them to choose what to wear, only put out weather appropriate clothing and allow them to choose from that. They still get to choose, but from within a set boundary of choices. It allows the child to express their feelings and process all their emotions, but keeps them from harming themselves or others. So instead of preventing them from crying about being buckled into the carseat, you can acknowledge the emotion but they still have to be buckled in.

Letting the child be involved in daily life will encourage them to be involved later on. Kids love to do things and mimick what the adults around them do. My son gets angry if I put his dirty diaper in the trash and don’t let him do it. Instead of trying to distract them so you can clean the house, get them involved in the cleaning. It may take longer than it would’ve taken you, and it may not end up as precise as you would’ve done it, but it helps kids learn to help around the house and is good for their overall developement.

If we start to feel frustrated when it is taking too long, rather than get irritated we can acknowledge that this time we are going to help them, and try again tomorrow.

The author suggests toddlers can do even more than I’d already let my kids do and giving them child sized materials to use. Such as a small broom and dust pan. I have a toy vacuum that has a roatating brush inside that spins when its pushed. It goes in the closet with the big vacuum and comes out so they can vacuum when I do. One area for instance she suggested that I was not already doing was with the laundry. Constantly moving the kids, telling them to get off the bed or go play got tiring. So I tried letting them help fold their own clothes and put them away. The laundry did not look as pretty, but it wasn’t as stressful as times past. Of course supervise, but let them do as much as you are comfortable with them doing around the house. It will not only make them happy at this young age, but establish good habits as they grow older.

Using consequences instead of punishment is not a new idea, but maybe it’s new to us because it may not have been the way we were parented. I had already decided not to use threat and force to make my children comply with me out of fear, so this more gentle approach to discipline fell right in line with what I was doing. This section was more of an affirmation for me that I wasn’t crazy for parenting in this manner.

The word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina meaning “teaching, learning”. So we should consider what we are teaching our children and what our children are learning from the way we discipline them.

The discipline should be directly related to the issue. Don’t take ice cream away because they were screaming for instance. It would look more like having to put a ball away and not play with it anymore because they were asked not to throw it inside the house and they continued doing it.

Lastly is the preparation of the parent. This section really spoke to me. I often find myself irritated and strung out and snappy with my kids over menial things a then feeling guilty about it immediately after.

It is difficult to be respectful to our children when we allow them to go beyond our limits.

If we aren’t respecting ourselves and our own limits, we won’t be able to respond kindly to our chlldren. We need to mentally prepare ourselves each day, and in the long term be doing things to fill our emotial tanks. So if that looks like waking a little earlier to have some alone time in the quiet before the kids wake up, or sitting down to crochet, or picking up a good book to relax with in the evening then make those part of your daily routine. You need some time set aside for yourself as well. Whether that means your partner keeps the kids so you can get a coffee or go to Target alone, or you going out to an art exhibit with your partner or friends, set that time aside and take it. We all know the phrase you can’t poor from an empty glass because it’s true.

Another tidbit from this section was that only you are responsible for filling your tank. Other people may be able to fill it, but they are not responsible for it. They aren’t inside your head. Only you know where your limits are and when your tank is running on fumes. You have the responsibility to recognize when you are close to losing your temper and stepping away to cool down. You need to take the initiative to say, I need some time alone and going on a bike ride.

This book was helpful, clearly written, and very well put together. This is such a small tibbit of the information it offers. I couldn’t begin to recount everything that is discussed. I liked it a lot, and would suggest it to any parent.

I did draw a few quotes from the book to try and give you a glimpse of what it entails, but of course if it interests you, I suggest finding a copy.

If you would like to purchase this book to read for yourself, I have provided a link directly to it on Amazon. It is worth buying for the wealth of knowledge it contains!

https://amzn.to/3548dtA