You are here: Home / Archives for Modern Age

Random Thoughts after a Day at the Mall

December 24, 2011 by

Babies are not in most cases Beautiful

Sorry Moms and Dads, you are the only ones that believe your newborn infants are the

Mona Lisa, NBC Image

human version of the Sistine Chapel. When parents proudly show me pictures of their new creation, gibbering at the perfection of their red-faced hairless wonder, here are my standard responses;

  1. Lovely, you must be so happy (he/she) has finally arrived. Congratulations (this is my first attempt at kindness).
  2. Interesting child, I am sure they will be quite bright (sarcasm is free and generally goes directly over the head of the proud parent who is still in throes of passionate first love with child).
  3. Hmmm, did they use forceps? I am sure nothing was permanently damaged, perhaps it is just the lighting (sarcasm again goes over the head of the ecstatic parent).
  4. Finally…..He/She looks just like you, I am sure they will grow into it.

Parents are Deaf, I am Not

Women were provided with maternal instincts to prevent them from eating their own young. This is a true statement. The rest of us must obey laws that prevent us from beating your children when they act out in public places. This is also a true statement.

You have been listening to that high-pitched wail for so long you are immune, the rest of us are not. Do the public a service when your child begins to get loud, otherwise act out remove them. All you need to do is step outside and beat them; just a couple of good swift swats straight across that narrow behind of theirs will stop that bad azzed behavior straight away.

Restaurants – I am paying to enjoy a meal with spouse, friends or business associates. Why do you believe a perfect accompaniment to my meal is the sound of your child? Worse, why have you brought your child in public prior to teaching them basic table manners?

Stores & Malls – keep your child on a leash or in the cart. Just because they want to wander, doesn’t mean they should. Who is in charge? Should the safety of the child be considered in this case, your fellow shoppers do not want to be accosted by them or have to take them to lost and found when you fail to manage them adequately.

Finally – my house! If I send an Adult Only invitation to a soirée please do pay attention to that part that says Adults Only. Either decline the invitation or get a babysitter, there will not be one onsite. Your bad azzed children may be the very reason for the specificity of the invitation!

When you do bring your children, keep them under control! On those occasions they are invited along with you, please remember; My house is not kid friendly. I expect that you will respect I am an empty nester who doesn’t provide ‘child’ entertainment on a regular basis.

Airports & Airplanes – requires an entire post all of its own.

I don’t want anyone to think I hate children, I don’t. I do however, dislike intensely parents who don’t educate and train their children to behave properly in company and public. I am not overly fond of parents who bring endless streams of pictures and ask strangers and casual acquaintances to fawn over them.

We all love our own children; sometimes we love other people’s children. If we are honest, though we rarely love or even like ill-mannered children, even our own. Most of us at one time or another have wanted to walk up to some parent in a store or restaurant and ask them to beat their child or at least leave so we could enjoy the remainder or our outing in peace.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to this than others, if I offend my apologies. But then if I offend I suspect it is because you know I might just be right.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Mirror Images, Meet the Parents

December 21, 2011 by
 

My “Real” Mom, 1979

 “You have my face”. These were the first words I blurted out to my biological mother the day we met. It was shocking to finally meet her and thus meet someone who looked like me.It wasn’t I looked a little like her. I stared in stunned silence at my mirror image. Were it not for the fact I colored my hair and didn’t worship the sun, we would have passed for sisters.My mother and I are the same generation being only 16 years apart in age.

Meet the Parent!

You might have guessed I am adopted (Family Ties, Part II/), and I met my biological mother. What may come as a surprise is what else I found; my mother and father married after my birth and had five more children before divorcing. She dropped that bombshell at our first meeting. I felt like my head was going to explode or my heart would stop. I wasn’t  sure what to do with the information; it certainly wasn’t what I expected to hear. The only emotion I had for weeks, even months was, how surreal.

For months our relationship was comparable to the beginning of a new romance. Wanting to know about the other one, who they are and what they like. It was strange and oft times rocky, as romances are want to be. Neither of us was mature enough to understand our motives or emotions so our relationship floundered horribly. Both of us ended up wounded and disappointed in the other; unable to find the balance needed to sustain a healthy relationship we wounded each other and eventually drifted apart.

Our failures, looking back were mutual though unspoken. For my mother her need to re-parent me was dominant. I was in my early twenties, grown and angry parenting was the last thing I wanted from anyone. I had parents, they had failed me miserably, why would I want another parent, especially someone I didn’t know and who had fundamentally failed me once already. I was if nothing else terribly judgmental.

My mother carried a great deal of guilt for giving me up and she wanted forgiveness. Intellectually I understood the circumstances. I spoke the words more than once; even tried to make her understand I did not blame her. Nevertheless, looking back there was a thread of anger through our relationship  partly driven by her guilt and partly driven by my terrible hurt, they married and had more children!

Nature – v – Nurture

When I consider this question in light of my tangled roots I think we are an amalgamation

wikipedia image

of many things combined to create the whole person. My mother was told by a Channeler when she found me she would meet the daughter most like her. Boy was he wrong! I was most like her only in appearance, in all other aspects I was very dissimilar. I suspect this was a horrible disappointment. In one of our more acrimonious discussions I told her she had given up the right to parent me, I had parents and their values, mores and ethics had formed me Thank God. Yes, I said that, it was cruel and looking back it was also unnecessary.

Truthfully? I always saw bits of my mother in me, more than the mirror image. There were times when my mother would say or do something and I would think, that is where that comes from that is why I do that. Those times would stun me into silence.

There were days I wanted desperately to be like my mother so she would love me, so she would like me so she would embrace me and even nurture me. I found in the end I was to stubbornly formed already by what had gone before and could not shift my core to become who she needed. In seeking her I sought the mother I had not had, I know this now. In unconsciously rejecting her conditions I began to embrace who I would become but lost the opportunity to know her and for her to know me.

I haven’t seen or spoken to my biological mother in over ten years. I wouldn’t even know where to begin healing the rift.

My friend and fellow blogger recently wrote Nurture Strength which provides great insight into the Nature -v – Nurture argument. I hope you will read it.

More to come on the oddities of Nature –v- Nurture, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters oh my !

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

In-Laws, Outlaws and the Inbetween

December 20, 2011 by

For Better or Worse, that isn’t a question but rather part of the vows most of us blithely repeat during our wedding ceremonies. As the minister pronounces us married and we kiss our newly minted spouse, dreams of our future waltz across the polished dance floor. We turn from the minister to our newly minted family; all dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting best never realizing monsters lurk beneath the smiling faces sitting in the pews.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these lovely people don’t intend to ruin your life. Truthfully, some are well-meaning monsters who simply have no brought-upsie that is they were not beaten within an inch of their lives when they were children. Others, well they are simply Azzhats and your happiness annoys them. Then there are those who believe they are helping you and don’t comprehend how their help could possibly be seen as interference. These lovelies are not just on your spouse’s side of the family, oh no indeed they are all running rampant throughout and you both need to know how to spot them and take them down.

The Out-Laws

The Oblivious Out-Law – these poor dears are unaware of their jaunts into the land of offensive.  Saying and doing things that would cause most of us hesitation. The Out-Law of Rude generally fails to maintain connections between their brains and their mouths, it isn’t their fault though (I try to give the benefit of the doubt). Example from my own family annuals:

“I read recently that the only reason a younger man would date or marry an older woman is to use her for her money. No younger man would ever find an older woman sexually attractive.” Said by my sister during a family get together; uhmm, Sister Dear, husband and I have a nineteen year age gap and have been married a decade. Shocked silence all around as my sister smiles while attempting to remove foot from mouth, “oh will it doesn’t apply to you; ya’ll are obviously different right?’

The Judgment Out-Law – this is one that believes no matter what one of you will never be good enough for the other. Usually one of the mothers, Heaven help you if it is both. This Out-Law will never release their hold and will spend a significant amount of energy pointing out the faults of the partner. If the Judgment Out-Law is also the family Matriarch you are in trouble before you get started, nipping the problem early is the only way to win this war or you will find the entire family against you before you have a chance to settle in. The only way to win this is your partner must be willing to stand up to his/her meddlesome parent, reminding them you are now the spouse and first.

The Helpful Out-Law – this one is always there willing to assist with anything and everything, for a price. Clean your house, mow your lawn, do your shopping, watch your dog anything you might need this Out Law is the one to call, actually they might be calling you. Problem is with this one they are also usually there watching your TV, eating your food and otherwise disrupting your privacy. They have no sense of boundaries, hell for the most part they have no sense. The Helpful Out-Law will sleep on your couch if you let them, borrow money and your car (to do your shopping) and when things go South they will tell the entire family all your secrets including those you don’t have. The only way to prevent this outlaw from taking over your life is not to let them in. Decline their assistance unless you have no choice, say you are in full traction for example. Only invite them over during family get-togethers’ when there is a buffer between you and them.

Those are just three of the Out-Laws you will without doubt find in your new family tree. The funny thing is, some of them will be hanging from the branches of your tree and you simply didn’t know they were there until the fateful day you married. Marriage changes everything!

More on In-Laws and Out-Laws from my own hysterical family later. Stay tuned.

Next Chapter: Compromise Isn’t Everything or What’s Love Have to Do with It?

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Family Ties Part II

December 19, 2011 by

Adoption – Families Created

I am adopted. Growing up my parents tried hard to create the ideal family. The

Captured Family 1964

undercurrent of loathing that permeated our home couldn’t be missed except by the most oblivious observer. Observers like those that placed two infants into this highly dysfunctional home.

My father, my Daddy, my Hero, my true heart. He passed November 2009 I miss him every day. He was not without faults and we did not always have a close relationship, in fact it wasn’t until I was an adult I appreciated who he was as a person, by then he had mellowed significantly from the man who raised me.

My mother, my nemesis yet still the woman who significantly influenced me, is still alive and kicking at 91 years. I will never understand her though I have insight into some of what made her tick.

I have one younger brother also adopted, through our lifetime we have had our battles and even  periods where we barely communicated yet he remains my adored baby brother.

My parents divorced nearly 40 years ago, despite they both wanted it, I heard it was extremely acrimonious . They had stayed together far too long “for the sake of the children”. At the time my brother was still living at home, I was a runaway, they had no idea if they would ever see me again.

Imagination

Growing up I dreamed my ‘real’ parents would rescue me. Some days they were gypsies and would whisk me off in their wagons for adventures. Other days my father would arrive

Image ApartmentTherapy

in his limousine and explain it was all a terrible mistake that he had been searching for me ever since the Wicked Witch had stolen me from the hospital. I had a vivid imagination as a child.

My mother had a rich imagination as well, hers was crueler and entailed taunts, ‘You are just like your mother’. This was a favorite and I often wondered what she knew that she wasn’t telling me. Some days I would probe for answers, I wanted to know where I came from. It became a game with me begging for answers and her taunting she knew more than she did, more than she was telling.

Different Realities

My brother and I have very different versions of our childhood. There are days I wonder if we grew up with the same parents in the same household. I grew up hurt, angry and always the outsider. He grew up knowing he was adored, by all of us and always the insider. The only person that he was ever really angry at was me, I often wondered if he was angry that I left or angry that I returned; I don’t think he really knows the answer.

Forgive and forget, he believes it is my duty that she is my mother. He even says she told him she was sorry she hurt me. My only response to this is one of stunned silence, really? In all the years of our stand-off, all the years where I have stood silently waiting for her to acknowledge the harm she did in her wrath and jealous rages not once has she said “I am sorry” so why now should I allow that it is fine because she told her beloved son what I waited thirty-five years to hear.

Consequences, there always are some for any act. I know her history and I am sorry for the hurt she suffered at the hands of her own parents and even at the hands of my father. She brought her broken heart and psychosis to a marriage and then to child rearing, it was an unfortunate combination she and I.

Family Ties II

Families can be created through the great gift of adoption. My experience as an adopted child is not the norm. My mother and I were a toxic combination that no one could have

Image Selfknowledgecorner

predicted though looking more closely at my parents’ marriage might have prevented their being candidates for adoption at all. Hindsight is 20/20 and I don’t know the state of their marriage at the time of my or my brothers’ adoption, only after the fact and only the history from speaking to those who knew them then.

I am not sorry I was adopted, not even sorry that I was adopted by this couple. Might my life have been different under different circumstances with different parents? Certainly, but I would be who I am and I would have the family I have, good – bad – indifferent they are nonetheless my family.

Family Ties, Part III – Nature versus Nurture

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Marriage, Where’s the Manual

December 18, 2011 by
 

Pass the Instruction Manual

Oh wait there isn’t one? Why is marriage so hard is a frequently asked question the answer isn’t easy but then again, maybe it is. Marriage is hard because there are no guarantees.

When we marry, we are binding ourselves to one another, body and soul and all the other important bits. It  may seem body and soul should be the most important, but reality bites. It is rarely lack of love that causes marriages to crumble; money, career and family pressures are often the reasons why marriages dissolve. Love alone simply does not conquer all. Couples today, whether young or older, face so many outside stressors and that, along with the combining of two or more lives, is what makes marriage hard.

Why is marriage hard? Because it is impossible to be prepared for the reality of marriage.

When you marry, it should be because you can see yourself in the future with the other person just as they are, but older. You appreciate who they are and enjoy their company.

My Parents

You value them as a friend, a lover and desire them, as they are with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies. In short, you like them just as they are. When you marry, you shouldn’t marry with a list in your head of how you are going to change them, tweak them so they will be perfect. You should think their imperfections make them perfect for you.

When we marry it is the partnership of two adults. Today people are waiting to marry until later in life, thus they have the opportunity to form their personalities and their personal living styles to a much greater degree than in the past. Unless the couple has lived together for some time prior to marriage, many of the day-to-day quirks will come as a surprise to their new partner once the honeymoon is over.

The Honeymoon is Over Now What?

What do I mean by living styles? These are the day-to-day quirks we develop. The habits that become ingrained as we mature such as how we maintain our homes or whether we watch television in bed, sleep with a light on or off. From the mundane to the truly trivial things that never bothered you, maybe you even found endearing during your courting days now annoy the hell out of you; they all become fodder for the list of annoyances you might build in your head. The question begins to arise, “what have I done?”

Do you speak out early and find compromises? Do you dampen down your annoyance until

Wikipedia Image

it rushes out during an argument about something else entirely? Surprising how the little things in life can add up during a marriage so over time they become a herd of elephants in the living room each with a name from your list.

Did I do it Right or Just Ignore the Obvious?

Finally there is the Big Kahuna, Money. One of the more difficult discussions to have is the finance talk. Without frank discussion eventually this one will rear its head and it can

Money Wars

be ugly if there hasn’t been honest disclosure prior to the marriage. How individuals handle money can be a source of great contention, which is especially true for those couples who marry later in life. Agreement on how to handle money within a marriage is something to do prior to the “I Do’s” not after the fact. Agreement on what is “yours, mine and ours” will create early trust and establish the boundaries of financial responsibility.

Why is marriage hard? You tell me.

The Family Blend In-Laws & Out-Laws, Part Two of Why Marriage is Hard

Filed Under: Love & Marriage Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Family Ties

December 17, 2011 by

Family ties what are they and how do they affect our lives for good or ill. There are any

The Nelsons_MuseumTV

number of books we can read, television shows we can watch, even movies we can see depicting both the ideal and the dysfunctional. In the 50’s there were the Cleavers of Leave it to Beaver, the Nelsons of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and the Andersons of Father Knows Best. Although in the 60’s and even in the 70’s there continued to be idealized versions of families portrayed on television and even in movies these classics taught a generation what families were supposed to be.

The Juggling Act – Our New Reality

Jump to reality and it doesn’t seem these portrayals are achievable in today’s highly volatile society; truthfully, perhaps not even desirable. In an age where we regularly relocate families across country and even across the globe we lose touch easily with our

Juggling_Wookey.Co.UK

extended families for weeks, months, even years at a time. With the advent of women in the workplace, two income families just to pay the bills, reproductive choices and women waiting longer for both marriage and children there are changes to how we view family and our ties to them. Add the other side of the coin, the number of single parent households most of them led by women, and finally the number of grandparents raising children today. What we have today is anything but the stylized ideal of the past.

What does this mean in relation to family and how we define them today?  

My family is an amalgamation of biological members, adopted members, married in members, and step-members. I have different relationships with each and with some, I have made a conscious decision to limit my relationship. Others have made similar decisions to limit their relations and contact with me. So again, I have to ask how meaningful are family ties versus other relationships.

My answer is that they are what we choose them to be.

Throughout the years, we form relationships, friendships and lovers come and go. Some stay longer than others and become part of our extended families through marriage or otherwise. In the world today, we no longer stay in one place our entire life, we move for

Blending Together (Google Image)

work, to marry, to attend school. We are besieged with the countless objects we must juggle day-to-day simply to so our lives run smoothly. Unlike past times, we frequently do not have extended family to support and assist us in emergencies; instead relying upon friends or even paid for services.

Family ties, what are they really? Do we create families as we progress through our lives, piecing them together with friends and relations? I have other relationships that I would more easily call family than those related to me by blood, marriage or family history. I don’t believe that we owe love, allegiance, or even respect to those who don’t treat us well simply because they are family. Ultimately, we create our family made of people who we care for and who care for us. Those ties of love, care, sacrifice, and yes-shared laughter are what keep us bound together, these are the true family ties.

More to come.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Womanhood in the 21st Century

December 16, 2011 by

Women around the World (Image)

The Art of being a Woman

I wonder what makes us women. Is it what we show on the outside? Breasts, hips, nipped in waists or something else entirely. Is it our wombs, our ability to bear children? Then are

Jane Mansfield (google image)

those of us who have never borne a child whether by choice or otherwise; are we somehow something less? At just one day short of 16 I lost my ability to bear children, no it wasn’t an accident or a choice, but that is a story for a different day. For years, I believed I was less than other women, somehow not worthy. Certainly, my own siblings have told me “I wouldn’t understand certain things because I am not a mother”.

Is it Motherhood?

But wait, I am a mother I helped raise two sons, didn’t I? Another woman can claim them; nevertheless, my compassion opened my home and heart. They are in part mine, children of my heart. It doesn’t count, I am told. I think that it might, in the scheme of things it counts toward being uniquely me, that empathy. I think that the opening of my heart and home to them and that they still hold my heart captive, I think it might count toward my distinctive womanhood.

Plank Walking or Sitting the Fence

Women on the Brink (postershop)

Being a woman, still pondering the definitions. I am strong and resilient in both body and soul. Is this a feature of my gender, I wonder? I was able to survive both physical and emotional hardships where others of either gender might not have. Could my ability to survive and even thrive against extreme odds be my gender or is it just my personal resilience? I have concluded that it is simply me. When I consider the attributes that make me who I am none of them seem to be gender specific; Humor, intelligence, compassion, strength of character, morals, ethics and competitiveness. These don’t seem to be gender specific just my personal nature.

So this leaves me wondering still about the uniqueness of being a woman. It cannot be

Women4truth image

physical attributes alone that make us women. It cannot be our ability to give birth as the sole defining attribute; I have parented without giving birth and am also an adopted child.

For me being a woman is a journey of self-discovery. If I stumbled along the way, it is because I have allowed others to classify me in a manner that does not fit who I am as a person or as a woman. As I get older, I gain more clarity that the labels society uses to define us are more for their comfort than for ours. I don’t buy the labels anymore though I acknowledge them. In the past, I bought them even pinned them to my coat, they hurt me more often than not.

Definitions?

Being a woman, I am uniquely myself. There are times I am considered controversial by

Just Me, Really

others; I can live with this. There are times I am considered outspoken; I can live with this as well. I am loyal to those I care for. Cautious about whom I trust. I admit to rarely giving people a second chance, something I should work on in the future. Being a woman, I think that we are simply individuals born with gender specification. Nothing special until we create for ourselves that which makes us unique.

Filed Under: Women Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Virtue of Chastity, The End

December 9, 2011 by

I come to the end of this exploration. Somehow I expect I will continue to niggle at it now and then as our societal mores ebb and flow over time. We have seen these passages across generations though perhaps never so forthright, so in our face as today. Perhaps I am just showing my age when I say I am offended by the acceptance of degrading language and the flagrant sexualization of our young women.

Since 1968 and my brutal awakening to what the loss of virginity meant I have spent the greater portion of my life defining my personal ethos. How my peers viewed and treated me, how my female role models treated with me and most important how males responded and reacted to me was critical to how I defined my value. Not values, not morals, not ethics but VALUE. Despite the times; Free Love and early definitions of Feminism did not extend to the underlying social characterization of “Good Girl” versus “Bad Girl”; you were one or the other nothing in-between, there was no gray area of moderation.

FanPop Image

FanPop Image
 Archetype Good Girl – Sandy  Archetype Bad Girl – Rizzo

I begin to understand my own version of what the truth of Chastity within the context of Virtue might be.

Women were caught up in our early success. We forgot perhaps that winning our entrance to full social membership did not change our fundamental humanity or our femaleness. What is different today is the images women have become more sexualized and the lines less firmly divided. We happily watch the antics of the beautiful and wealthy, even forgive their walks on the wild side. Those of us on more common ground are claiming the definitions are hollow while still attaching values to the central themes. Young girls laugh as men shout in song and even on the street the words of their dishonor, trying even to claim it for themselves in the mistaken belief it will take the sting out. Perhaps create honor where there is none.

Young women emulate the dress and behavior of their role models albeit on a smaller scale, as their resources allow. These fantasy lives of their heroines played out in magazines and reality television fuel imaginations and hallway conversations. Young girls imitate the dances seen on videos, meant to demean and entice, without understanding either. We applaud the antics of Toddlers in Tiaras as three year olds dance to music and imitate the dance moves of ‘Video Vixens’; have we lost our minds?

Image Rock102online

Image MSNBC
 Madonna in her version 1990  Two-year old Mia with her mother 2011

Women of great wealth and beauty, women who might be our sisters, our mentors and our champions yet have few accomplishments beyond their ability to charm agree by their silence our only value is the imagery of sexuality, including simulating masturbation and sex acts as forms of entertainment. This then is the reality of our diminished value . We have accepted the image and our young girls imitate it gleefully, all too often with parental consent. Go to any High School sporting event and watch as cheerleaders dance to music with moves themed to entice and emulate the sex act, to what end?

What do our young girls find to model? It isn’t the woman of distinction in arts or science, in math or literature. It isn’t the women who stood up for their rights, who distinguish themselves with their contributions to our history or our present day, these are not who are lifted up in media, not the women our daughters emulate in the classrooms of America, not the women spoken of in song.

Image Wikipedia

Image Wikipedia

Image Wikipedia
 Stephanie Wilson – Astronaut  Gabrielle Giffords – Congresswoman  Maya Angelou – Poet & Civil Rights Activist

My conclusion is we should value Chastity not because it is demanded of us by standards that would see us less than our potential. Chastity itself is greater than the mere attachment of a hymen certainly and its loss does not devalue us as women. There is duplicity in the idea that women are not free to choose partners outside of the social contract of marriage without being labeled “less than”.

There is a reason we should value our own Chastity, to me it is the simplest reason of all, because we value ourselves. When we invite another into the inner sanctum of our lives we are bestowing something upon them sacred. Not sacred in religious terms but rather in fundamental female terms, this is our core this is who we are as our most secret and exposed selves. As women we are vessels of life, of compassion and empathy; we are that place of peace and succor. Our invitation is not to be taken lightly or diminished in the light of day.

The idea that Chastity as a Virtue can be socially defined and thus our bodies and souls become the battleground for our future psychosis is ultimately what has been central to my exploration.  Have I been successful at solving the problem? No, certainly not but perhaps in my exploration I have in some small part begun to find some recurring themes for my own life.

Filed Under: Virtues Tagged With: , , ,

The Virtue of Chastity in the Modern Age

December 9, 2011 by

The other day I explored the Virtue of Chastity as it applied to my own life; this left me with open questions. Keeping in mind, I have not personally defined Chastity as Virtue, simply accepted the original seven Virtues as existing in our lexicon and as social standards from which to begin my exploration. (Part One).

How times have changed, or have they? There was a time when Virginity was sacrosanct, Chastity not a commodity to be traded for popularity or acceptance.

Today the gray areas young people draw cause me to cringe; oral sex is acceptable because it isn’t real sex. Sexting isn’t crossing that line into pornography, unless you are caught. Popularity is traded for the number of partners acquired without trading your Virginity, the only thing you save for True Love. Public displays of sexual favors are not off limits so long as it is between friends. The rules change to accommodate a new morality that places emphasis on Chastity only as it applies to Virginity itself, yet even this is flung to the wind in favor of the need for affection and acceptance.

Girls as young as twelve are giving birth to the next generation. One of the most popular

Image TVRopes

shows on daytime television Maury, who has coined the phrase “you are not the Father” while “you the baby’s daddy” is sung viciously by the daily parade of witless women and clueless men who reproduce without restraint or regard. Another popular show is Teen Mom, which follows the misadventures of teenage mothers as they swim the turbulent water of motherhood, welfare and adult relationships with the teenage fathers of their children. We watch fascinated by these forays into other people’s lives, on the one hand publically condemning their choices while on the other making them celebrities by our puerile fascination.

Image LifeasaHuman

As I sit sipping my Latte at the local Starbucks, I watch a gaggle of young girls dressed as if they were heading over to the local stroll. I know, terribly judgmental nevertheless with short shorts, midriff tops and make-up plastered on with spatula this is the first impression. Their voices grate on the middle ear, fevered giggles over some boy or other as they call each other ‘slut’ and ‘ho’ affectionately, as if these names have no meaning or force. The persistent beat of music coming from their IPhone repeats the ugly undercurrents, the language of devaluation, ‘ho’, ‘bitch’, ‘slut’, while these future women bounce and titter.

As I watched these young girls, guessing their ages not more than fourteen, my responses were as follows:

  1. Do your mother / father know you are out in public dressed like that?
  2. Do you have the self-awareness to realize what you are agreeing to when you listen to that music and accept that language, those names?
  3. Do you know you cannot reclaim names and make them less or different from what they fundamentally are?

I wanted to snatch all of them wash their faces and take them to their homes; frankly I was afraid of what I would find.

Have we traded some fundamental self-awareness of our core being as women? Indeed, is Chastity an archaic and troublesome Virtue best left in the past now that we have discovered independence and been granted our liberties?

My personal exploration of this subject is leading me down a twisting path. I will finish Chastity as a Virtue in Part III.

Filed Under: Virtues Tagged With: , , ,
«Previous Page