The ethics of parenting

I have an acquaintance that I have not known long who mentioned in passing that she was "fascinated by Libertarians".  Based on her recent Facebook posts, I believe she may have moved herself right on into Full-Fledged Libertarianism since we had that conversation.  Along with some of the kooky (I think, at least), things she believes about government leadership, many of the articles and blogs she has posted on Facebook of late deal with how to raise your kids without grafting your own beliefs onto them.  In other words, parents should keep their own personal opinions on subjects to themselves, should let their kids figure stuff out, and develop their own ideas and opinions about things.

Well, I say the same thing to myself about this that I say when I read the kooky government posts:  good luck with all THAT!  Wouldn't it be worrisome that the morals and ethical beliefs they develop might come from school, friends, parents of freinds, pop culture, TV, or things they read online?  By God, it would be to me.  And don't we have the right, as parents, to explain the way we feel about certain things to our kids?  Isn't that just plain ole PARENTING in the truest sense of the word?

Let me get a little more specific.  I knew when I started to finally have kids that I would never be able to take them to the circus or rodeo.  The animals are held in captivity, in unnatural surroundings, and no matter how well the organization claims to treat them, I feel that forcing wild animals to perform for a human audience's entertainment is just wrong.

I have followed the good work of several animal organizations who allow former performing animals to "retire" to a life they were more naturally meant to lead.  The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee does not allow any contact between the public and the elephants living there, but they do have "Ele-cams" set up in various locations throughout the grounds, so that you can watch them playing with their toys or splashing in the pond.  The International Exoctic Animal Sanctuary in Boyd, TX takes in big cats, bears, and a few other types of animals.  Some of these were forced to perform for traveling circuses and flea markets.  Some just had to endure life as a side show, like the 11 bears IEAS recently won custody of from a closed down Bear Park in North Carolina, where they lived in concrete pits.  IEAS has behavioral specialists that work with their animals towards enrichment and rehabilitation.  They do allow planned tours of their grounds, but only small groups at a time, and no child younger than seven can visit.

The only reaction I had had to deal with so far was from other parents who were shocked that we do not let our kids experience these things.  They acted as if we were denying our kids some of the joys of childhood or something.  I have had so many negative reactions that recently when a coworker offered me six free tickets to the rodeos that are held every weekend in the Stockyards, I took them, even though they will not be used by us.  It was at this point I began to question whether or not it was right to keep my kids from these things based on my feelings and beliefs.

I knew I would have to face some challenging questions from Gabriel soon if he heard that one of his frends went to the circus or Stock Show.  Sure enough, the Shrine Circus recently rolled through Fort Worth and had billboards up and signs on bus stop benches.  He got really excited and asked if we could go, and I took my deep breath and tried my best to explain why we could not.  I told him about the Elephant Sanctuary, and that we need to start checking the Ele-cams.  I told him we would try to go to an animal-free circus, like Cirque De Soleil, some time in the near future.  He seemed to understand but be a little disappointed.  He always pointed out the signs when we passed them, and said a little wistfully, "The circus is still going on."  "Yes," I would answer, "and I hope you understand why we cannot go."

Then last week my friend Cathy posted on Facebook that she strongly suggested anyone who had ever been to SeaWorld watch the documentary that was airing on CNN that night, "Blackfish".  It uncovered the many accidents and near-death incidents there had been between orcas and the trainers at Sea World since the company started back in the 70's.  It also had interviews from former trainers about the fact that SeaWorld did not report these incidents to the public, or to newly-hired trainers.  There were marine biologists discussing how wrong it was to contain these huge animals in concrete pools, train them to perform, and expect them to stay aggression-free.  And how wrong it is to take the babies away from their moms at 4 months, when calves normally stay with their moms for two years in the wild.

I have been to SeaWorld three times, and had always thought about all of the good that SeaWorld has done for conservation while I was there.  This was not mentioned at all in the movie, which I initially thought was unfair.  No current employee of SeaWorld agreed to be interviewed for the film.  But the footage in the film speaks for itself.  I was shocked, horrified and saddened by what I saw and learned.  I came away realizing how similar the plight of the orcas is to the sad life of circus elephants, and was a little ashamed and dumbfounded that I had never made the connection before.  Orcas are beautiful creatures, and belong in open water.  Period.  Any attempt to contain them and make them perform is cruel and ultimately leads to tragedy.

So now we can mark "A trip to SeaWorld" off of our list of things we might do in the future.  And can you believe that the very day that "Blackfish" aired, Gabriel asked me when we were going back to SeaWorld?  (What a sense of humor you have, sometimes, God!)  I put off the real answer by telling him we could not afford a trip anytime soon.

Some might think we're hypocritical by taking them to the zoo and not these other places.  My reasoning behind that is that there is a big difference between seeing the animals in person, in all their majesty and greatness, compared to seeing them online or on paper.  If the boys see them in person, hopefully as they get older it will instill some sense of caring what happens to those animals in the wild.  Not that it doesn't upset me when I see ANY animal in captivity, but I've learned to harden myself at the zoo.

My husband, thankfully, is completely behind the decision.  He now has some very different opinions from the ones he had when we first met.  So I am beginning to feel a little more confident about our decision to avoid certain events.  The way I have to look at it is that I am teaching my children compassion for all of the earth's creatures from an early age, and how can that be a bad thing?

Baby shower

My cousin's oldest daughter recently turned 18.  I am not using names and am not sharing pics of her, since I didn't ask her if that would be ok.  Her short story:  She graduated a year early, and had plans to go to Tarleton and major in Veterinary Medicine.  She was a bit of a tomboy and had not had many boyfriends all throughout high school.  She thought she had met the love of her life last year, and got pregnant.  The plans changed.  The boyfriend turned out to be a jerk, and his entire family was unsupportive of her.  She has since moved in with her grandmother, and is fixing up a room for she and her baby boy.  She still has plans to attend Weatherford Junior College in the evenings, while her grandmother (who has worked in a day care with the 6-12 month old babies her entire adult life), watches Aiden.  

In a moment of craziness mixed in with love for my cousin, I offered to host a baby shower for her.  I think I was also influenced by an understanding that we all make stupid mistakes when we are young, and even though those mistakes can turn out to be wonderful, I wanted her to know that our family fully supports her and celebrates this baby.  I have never even co-hosted a baby shower.  But I have attended many, including my own.  The family immediately started thanking me, saying they had been looking for a place big enough to have it.  Oops.  Should've talked that over with my husband.  They wanted to have it the weekend before Gabriel's birthday.  We decided to postpone his party a week so I could have a weekend off to rest up in between the crazy.  But I really got lucky, because Little Momma's grandmother helped out so much that I was left with three main responsibilities:  Decorating, games and the food.  She took care of some decorations, all paper products, party favors and the cake.  

Little Momma wanted a jungle theme, and I found a zebra tablecloth that I knew I wanted to use.  I also thought about palm trees and rope for vines.  I had been wanting to get some new house plants anyway, and I found the two ponytail palms below on sale.  I also bought one big palm to sit on the floor somewhere around where the guest of honor was opening gifts.  My sweet dad came and helped me get the rope vines hung all around the table and the living room, and I wrapped green crepe ribbon around the rope.  I also bought several stuffed jumgle animals at Toys R Us that I thought were adorable, and that I gave to her to decorate the nursery after the shower.  I hung our Curious George monkeys from the vines.  I got a huge giraffe balloon to tie to Little Momma's chair.  The crowning touch on the decorations were the big bowls of bananas I put everywhere in the house, including the bathroom.  Of course, I realize that I probably got jungle and African savannah confused, but I don't care, I think it looked really cool.

I came up with 2 games, a celebrity baby name game and the Bag Guessing Game, showcased in the picture above in front of the mirror.  My boss has given around 30 baby showers, and this is the one game she's led in all of them.  Each bag is labeled with a letter of the baby's first and middle name.  Then, inside is something that starts with the corresponding letter and is an item for babies.  Whoever gets the most guesses right, wins the prize.

On the food, since this is the Most People Don't RSVP era we are living in, I decided to aim for 25-30 people (they had invited around 40).  Little Momma had been sending me food Pins from Pinterest that I saved in a big folder.  I decided on going with a watermelon bowl fruit salad, Skinny southwest chicken dip, caprese pasta salad, tortilla pinwheels with cream cheese, bacon, pesto and smoked turkey, chocolate covered strawberries and apple pie bites.  I am determined that from now on I will remember to take pictures of the food, because it all looked amazing in my opinion.  I worked my tail off Friday, then had help from Little Momma and her family with getting the fruit cut up for the watermelon bowl and making the tortilla pinwheels.  My cousin and I grew up together and spent around 7-8 years drifting farther and farther apart for various reasons.  Then we found each other on Facebook, and have been a part of each other's lives again ever since.  We were laughing and reminiscing in the kitchen before the shower started and having so much fun.  It's true that your cousins are your first closest friends

It turned out that out of the 40 people they invited, Little Momma had assured me that 10-15 were close family and would be showing up.  But that was all who came.  NONE of her friends showed.  I thought that was pretty lame, even if I do live 20 minutes or so from where she and her friends live.  But we still managed to have a really fun day.  And she felt special and loved by the 15 people there, so it was a success.  And Jav and I got to eat tortilla pinwheels in our lunches the entire next week.  Yum!