Confirmandi

Confirmandi.  I don't know how many times I heard that word on Sunday.  It's one of those Catholic words that's kind of cool in that anceint, Latin, holy type of way and also scary for those exact same reasons.  I'm my niece's Sponsor for her Confirmation and on Sunday I had to go to Confirmation Practice with her.  Any type of Catholic sacramental practice has a lot of "you stand here" and "you sit there" and then at what time you process (are you processing by height or alphabetical order) and what hand is placed on what shoulder of each "Confirmandi".  The sponsor next to me whispered, "Which hand did she say to use?"  I answered, "Your right hand on the right shoulder. Christianity doesn't like lefties."  She smiled uncertainly at me and said, "I never thought about that before." 

This is my second time being a sponsor for a niece's confirmation.  Both times, I have felt very honored.  When you are asked to be a Godparent, you feel special to the parents.  When you are asked to be a Confirmation sponsor, you feel special to the child.  This time is Natalie, my brother's daughter.  Natalie picked Christina for her confirmation name.  When a child is confirmed in the Catholic Church, they pick a Saint whose qualities they would like to emulate, and that Saint's name becomes their confirmation name. St. Christina of Bolsena has this type of fabulous female Martyr story... 

Christina was beautiful and rich.  Her father was the governor of her town, and by the age of 11 she was so beautiful that men already wanted to marry her (creeper alert!).  Her father, however, had other ideas for his daughter and commanded that she become a pagan priestess and locked her in a tower where he set up a bunch of gold idols.  He commanded Christina to burn incense and worship before them.  At some point an angel visits Christina and instructs her in Christianity.  So, Christina smashes all the idols in the room and her father is not happy.  He has her tortured in all kinds of fun Roman ways including iron hooks, grilling by fire, placement in a furnace, torture on the wheel, assault by snakes, assailment by arrows, drowning tied to a millstone, and other assorted methods through which, as the story goes, Christina survives by her own strength of faith in God.  

These female martyrs were probably some of the first recorded feminists.  The weren't fighting for out-right gender equality, but they were persecuted all the more harshly for being women and sticking up for what they felt was important.  And these women were tortured by people they knew- their families, their towns, their local government officials.  Tough stuff.  Glad I don't have to hear about this anymore!

But then I hear their names, new names that have been etched into my memory.  Beautiful names...  Amina, Jyoti, and Rehteah.  Some from far away, third world lands, one from just north of us, in first world Canada.  And these are just a clip of the ones that have made headlines. Victims of gang-rape and persecution for displaying femininity. It seems St. Christina will never be bored in heaven.  She will constantly have a flock of female souls to comfort and attend to.

There is a Latin phrase, "Caelitus mihi vires", it means "My strength is from heaven", and this is what I imagine St. Christina to being saying to herself as she was publically humiliated and tortured by her father.  "Caelitus mihi vires", she probably whispered to herself over and over again. "Caelitus mihi vires", were probably the last words on her lips as she saw the face of God and gave herself over to Him. 

And now, over the centuries, she sees her sisters' suffering and whispers "Caelitus mihi vires" to them as they are gang raped with a lead pipe, bullied at school, stoned to death, have acid thrown on them, are sold into the sex trade, or left in a gutter as a infant to die.

I think of St. Christina and her company of souls taken too early and too harshly and I know that I have no daughters to teach, no young girls minds to shape, and no feminine virtue to protect.  But I do have sons, lots of sons, and they can be enablers of righteousness.  So, I turn to my oldest son as we are (of course) driving in the mini-van, where my children are strapped in and forced to listen to me. I decide I must talk to him about safe sex.  Not personal safe sex, but concern for the safety of others.  I talk to him about gang-rape, date-rape, intoxicated girls, how to talk to male friends about leaving drunk girls alone. I talk about what to do if you hear of someone who was date-raped.  I talk to him about what to do if he sees pictures on phones or social media. I talk to him about what to do if he is somewhere and he thinks a girl is in trouble.  At one point he asks me, "What if she is slutty and I think she's agreeing to whatever?"  I told him, "Her sexual choices do not make her less of a person or less of a victim. If you have any question about whether she knows what's she's doing, you go get help."

More parents need to have these discussions.  Daughter's get lots of talks about personal safety, but our sons don't - they get handed a condom and a pat on the back.  Most of our sons will not be rapists, but they could easily be the kid who doesn't do anything to stop it, or laughs along at the pictures, or avoids eye contact with her in the hall-way because the whole school knows what happened. Your son could easily fall into a large group of people who force St. Christina to whisper, "Caelitus mihi vires" into the heart of a broken young women.

So, tomorrow night I will be Natalie's sponsor... beautiful, smart, Natalie.  The kid who tells me that Math is her worst subject, and I commiserate until I find out that "honors math" is her worst subject.  Her parents are liberal.  My brother started a scrap-book when she was a baby full of news articles about what a dummy GW Bush is and every bad Republican policy and funny comics to go along with it all.  My sister-in-law owns a book titled something like, "So, You Married a Socialist." They are also obviously Catholic, so my dear niece is being raised with mixture of liberalism and Catholicism.  And let me tell you, from personal experience, that is not an easy place to be. 

Being a liberal and a practicing Catholic, I never seem to fit in anywhere.  In the midst of my two favorite groupings I am forever uncomfortable. But, I am generally an awkward person, so I wear uncomfortable like an old pair of sneakers. Natalie is anything but awkward, she will be strong women in whatever she believes and feels for.  And her heart is good, so no matter what she does, it will be with a good heart.  Her martyr saint, Christina, will be watching her and anytime Natalie comes across fork in the road or a large speed-bump, I hope she pulls her strength from heaven and carries on.

Tomorrow night I will walk with Natalie up the aisle with my right hand on her right shoulder and present her to the bishop, who will call her "Christina".  A good name, a strong name, and name dripping with femine ferocity and Godly strength. To Natalie and all young women and men of burgeoning principle - look out for each other, don't let fear or ridicule compromise your principles and goodness, and in your deepest moments of despair and confusion remember to say, "Caelitus mihi vires".  It's one of those Catholic phrases that's cool and scary for all the same reasons.

My Letter to Boo Radley

So, if you ready my last blog "The Final Order", you know what happened on Monday.  Well, later in the day I received a few angry emails from Boo Radley. They said things like, "Stop being a victim" and "stop being miserable and trying to bring other people down with your misery."  Yikes! Wrong things to say to me buddy.

It all started when James left his last two counseling sessions early.  The first of the two was an alone session with Boo, the counselor, and him.  He felt ganged up on by the two of them, and pressured to say that he would be open to a relationship.  He also was disgusted with Boo's conversation and answers, so he left early and called me.  The next one was just him and the counselor and James was fuming mad at the dude going into it.  He left that one even earlier, walked a few blocks away, and called me to get him. So, the counselor wrote and email to Boo and I explaining that James was angry, left early, and didn't like his wording in the evaluation he wrote to the court.

I responded back to Mr. O (the counselor), and Boo, letting them all know what James was angry about and that he would be submitting a new letter to the court again requesting no visitation.  Boo didn't respond to my email until after court on Monday, and he was full of anger.  His email, like my own, was a "reply to all", but really he was speaking to Mr. O and taking side jabs at me.  He said things like "I know where James's real anger is coming from" and "I hope you help my son realize the real reason he is angry."  That kind of stuff.  He also took issue with the fact that I had called his wife and him, the Scheindlin-Radley team.  Then came more emails to me directly telling me the victim and miserable stuff.  I told him, in response to those emails (as camly as I could) that speaking to James's mother that way would not go over well for anyone and that it didn't seem like he had learned anything from James in counseling.  I also told him that I am only miserable around strangers trying to make my kid's life hard.

I had to eat a lot of anger reading these things and I felt like I had fallen down a vortex to 1996 and was listening to a teenage douche-bag with too much facial hair having a temper-tantrum because his mom wouldn't let him go out that night with his friends in that stupid orange van.  Listen, I can be as crunchy and fun as the best of them, but I now have to fight a natural reflex to pore sugar in the gas tank of any old VW Van I see.

But, I have this blog, and here is the email I wish I could write back...

Dear Boo,

I understand your comprehension skills are under-developed.  This may be from having an over-bearing mother who has a hard time keeping her mouth shut about everything, thus leaving you in a confused state where you just don't want to listen to anything for the rest of your life.  Weirdly, the old adage is true and you married someone exactly like your mother who is willing to translate for you for the rest of her life (or until a divorce) as well as loyally pep-talk you even when you are a bad boy. 

So, I understand that having your hand slapped by the court is tough for you.  I also realize that listening to a woman (me) tell you that you have been a bad boy is not something you usually deal with.   And having a child, who you deserted, start to dislike you and then when you reappear, not immediately fall in love with your jovial cave-man disposition, is frightening.  I'm sorry that he gets his serious, hard side from me along with his ability to use logic.  You can blame me for all of his excellent personality qualities.

What you can't blame me for is your own actions.  You didn't want to have a baby that young and either did I.  But you were/are dealing with serious personality deficiencies that made you turn your back on a sweet new-born baby boy and continue to party on in that god-forsaken orange van with your team of idiots ("Woo-Hoo! Boo is so fun! Who cares if he's a deadbeat with a baby living less than a mile away.  Let's get another 6 pack!).  That baby did nothing to you and did not deserve to be ignored or forgotten in a drunken stupor.  You want to be angry at me for keeping the child, fine.  But that's where the anger should have stopped, and the care of a child should have started.

And then it was off to college 3 or 4 hours away.  It's always good to put some distance and time between yourself and your problems.  It gives you clarity, or at least the ability to get drunk more.  Then college ended, that problem was 5 or 6 years old, and his mother filed for government benefits.  Jesus Christ! (oops, I hope Joe and Sue Radley didn't hear you say that, having a dead-beat son does not hurt their Christian sensibilities, but cursing surely does). You had to drag yourself to domestic relations and look at the face of a woman you had tried to forget about as you threw up in a frat house toilette. Ah, good times, good times.  So, you fought child support saying that James had a man taking care of him (my David) so why should you have to pay anything?  You know what? You were right.  I just needed a little help and the state wasn't going to help unless you did, sorry to bring you into all of this.

Well, since I settled with you because I didn't want to fight, and you had to pay less than $100 a month for child support (something that I never had increased for 10 years even though your income went up substantially), you decided you might as well get your money's worth and see the kid every once in a while, on sporadic occasions, and usually just dump him with your parents.  But that kid already had bonded with a father, and you were a weird annoyance to his day every so often.  So, when James turned 11 he had had enough of you showing up once in a while and whatever weird activities you tried to get him to do - trying to goad him into jumping off a 9 ft. wall? Not the best activity for a naturally cautious child.  He told me he didn't want to see you or your parents anymore. 

I took the blame for James's decisions to shield him from whatever anger would come our way.  Most of it came from your parents, but that's to be expected.  So, you went away for a while and we lived peacefully for years until you got married to Judy Scheindlin and filed those court papers last July.

Well, the kid doesn't like you, doesn't need you, and doesn't want to spend time with you.  I know it's hard to imagine after years of people telling you how fun and awesome you are, that someone would not think that you are valuable.  But you let that kid bond to another man who turned out to be an excellent father.  So then James is left with two men... one who has been in and out of his life and is weirdly immature and another man - kind, responsible, smart, naturally good hearted, and sometimes a serious discipliner ... everything a kid thinks a father should be.  And this man has been in his life daily - teaching him to tie his shoes, coaching his baseball and football teams, tying his ties, giving him his baths when he was little, coming to school events, working and supporting his family.  Who the hell do you think he's going to value in his life?

I'm going to be honest here.  Your personality is so weird, immature, and selfish that this kid does not even want to have lunch with you now and then.  He's seen for himself now.  He's done the counseling with you and it has just frustrated him more about you... because it's right there, in front of him.  You're badness is smacking him right in the face.

I don't have to say anything Boo.  Your life has said more than I could ever say.  You may continue to live blissfully ignorant of this, continuously shielded by embarrassing women who ignore your bad traits and pump your ego.  That is a sad thing indeed.  Or one day, when the people you surround yourself with start to fall away, and you are left looking at yourself in the mirror, you will see what James sees.  And that will be a hard day for you.

As always,

My children's devoted mother and biggest champion

The Final Order

This morning was sunny and it was another show-down with team Sheindlin-Radley.  My kid's had off from school for Easter Monday, so I got up early (court was at 9am) got ready, drove over to my mom's and dropped off the little ones.  Then I stopped off at Starbucks and got a coffee, drove home to get James and spilled coffee all over myself in the driveway.  Classic.  I considered just leaving on the coffee outfit. Since I'm pregnant I thought everyone would over-look it, but I knew I was facing a lot of hair & makeup prep-work from Judy Sheindlin and I figured the least I could do was show up in clean clothing.

So, I went and changed and James took over his father's job and made sure I had meter change.  We parked, fed the meter and walked to the courthouse.  There was murder trial going on so there were lots of police and photographers and we felt very glamorous walking through it all.

We were about 15 min early, and my attorney never showed.   I probably should have called or emailed to make sure he remembered, but to be honest I think I didn't on purpose.  The last few times when the attorneys went in alone, I didn't like it because Boo's attorney is also his wife so I felt like they got to be everywhere while I sat outside.  This time, since I had no attorney, I was there for everything.  The "adults" went in first.  Judy really annoys me, and at the risk of sounding like the scorned, angry woman that I sometimes am, she really is a snotty-bitch.  And that would probably be fine if she was a hired cut-throat family attorney, but she's not.  She's his wife, so it all comes across wrong.  It's all "stand-by-your-man", fighting the old baby-momma who's kept her husband away from being a loving, involved father.   It stinks of female desperation to make her "man" good, or grasp at straws to believe that he's good.  All while I sit there annoyed, pregnant, and desperate for the bathroom.

James had written another letter to court, correcting a statement that his counselor had made in his "evaluation".  He also adamantly reiterated his position that he did not want visitation and would not comply with it if it was granted.  The master had lots of questions for Boo, and then would turn to me and ask how I felt about it.  At one point he asked, "How did you find the counselor?", which in the context of what he had already been discussing meant, "How did you like the counselor?" or "How did you find the counselor to be?"  Boo started to answer by explaining the logistics of an internet search.  Judy stopped him to explain what the Master meant by "find".  Boo still didn't get it and started talking about locating a counselor.  Judy has a very pretty, well preformed smile when she's embarrassed by her husband and I saw it often there, because this went on at least three times before Boo got it.

Team Sheindlin-Radley was still was adamant that they want visitation.  They said their plan was to have James on the first and third Sundays of every month.  The Master was like, "Well, what are you going to do when he sits down in the front yard and refuses to go?"  They didn't have a good answer.  The Master turned to me and asked me what I thought of it.  I told him that I thought it was a lot of weight on James's shoulders to have Boo come twice a month and try to force him to go with him.  Judy piped up that two Sundays a month should not be stressful for him, and he is just a child after all. Ahhhhhhh, Judy, you should just shut that lip-glossed mouth of yours right now.  I have 3, soon to be 4 kids, and you have none.  Don't you tell me what's stressful for my child, let alone ANY child.  If you want to tell me about your BMW maintenance schedule or how to flat-iron your hair, I'm all ears.  But don't you tell me what's up (we all know I feel about that!) with my teenager.  I was pregnant at 17, I have a new in-law mad at me on every alternating Thursday, and I am about to birth my fourth son... I eat pretty little fashionistas like you for breakfast.

So, then the Master wanted to know if we would like him to speak to James.  He said there are two options for this, one is with the attorneys present and the other is with the child alone.  I said that he should to talk to James alone because my attorney is not present and the other attorney is technically James's step-mother and that's weird (any time I can bring that up, I do, because team Sheindlin-Radley looks uncomfortable). The Master talked to James alone for a while then he brought the "adults" in and sent James back out.  He told me that he has been doing mediation for 28 years, and that James is one of the most intelligent and mature children he has ever spoken with.  After that "how did you find the counselor" situation, I think we all know where James gets his smarts from.

So, the Master wrote up a final order and I think we kind of won.  Later on, in the car, James told me that the Master told him in private that he did not want to give Boo any visitation but did not want this to have to continue in the court system.  So, he and James worked on a solution.  The solution, and final order, is that James will attend up to two counseling sessions a month.  No visitation or partial custody was awarded, and I retain full custody.  It feels kind of good.  I don't like James to be forced to do anything, but I'd rather it be counseling than visitations with Boo.

So, it ends for now... until I annoy Judy with something and she wrangles up her husband, puts on her heels, and comes for blood again.