This is not at all what I had planned to write about today, but I've got a burr under my saddle, and it's gotta come out.
When various groups and organizations find out you're a conservative Christian, they put you on all sorts of lists. They ask you to protest all sorts of things. I get a couple such requests a week, and I almost always hit "delete" and go on my merry way. This week, however, I followed a link that took me to Target's recent declaration about its restroom and dressing room policy. Now I find myself pondering my future with Target.
There are a lot of places I could easily boycott. Pep Boys and Home Depot come to mind. Target would be a very difficult place for me to avoid. I've been a fan since the mid-'80s, when I discovered I could get a box of Rice Krispies and a cute pair of shoes in the same place. But there's more to my pondering than just the inconvenience factor. The bigger question for me is whether or not this is an issue I want to take a stand for, and if so, will my "stand" accomplish anything for the Kingdom of God?
Does God care which bathrooms people use at Target? I don't ask that sarcastically or tongue-in-cheek; I'm serious. Some of you whom I love and admire and respect will adamantly say, "NO!" Boycotting is a waste of time and only stains the testimony of people who are to be known for our love, not our hate and judgment against others who are different. Others of you whom I love and admire and respect will say that God absolutely cares and that we must resist the tidal wave of political correctness and stand on the side of biblical truth.
Target could have made this a much less divisive issue if they had gone the route of creating one "unisex" bathroom/dressing room. I might have rolled my eyes at it, but beyond that, I wouldn't have given it much thought. It would be an empty little room 99.9% of the time. But allowing people to choose the restroom that reflects their personal gender identification affects everyone. I'm not willing to say, as many have, that it compromises the physical safety of women and girls. If a bad man wants to get into a women's restroom and inflict harm, he'll figure out how to do it with or without Target's assistance. What I resist is someone else making a parenting decision for me, one that comes completely on someone else's terms and which I have very little control over. Here's what I mean.
I picture the many, many trips I have made to a Target restroom with a baby strapped to me, a kindergartner clinging to my leg, and a preschooler, still in the early throes of public-restroom-using, trying to convince me that she really doesn't have to go, despite all evidence to the contrary, and screaming over the self-flushing mechanism. Meanwhile, my older boy child waits outside the door, having deemed himself "too old," at 7, to go into the women's restroom, so of course I'm wondering what mischief he's gotten into while standing unattended next to a Skittles display. Now I picture, in the midst of all this, a man--clearly a man--walking into the restroom dressed like a woman. Two things are going to happen. First, one of my little girls would ask as loudly as she could, "Mommy, why is that man dressed up like a woman?" Next, I would have to answer her. Right there, in front of the transgendered person exercising his freedom, I would be forced into a parenting conversation that I am ill-prepared to have. It's 6:00 at night, I'm exhausted, my kids are dirty, crying, and worn out, and all I needed was a gallon of milk. Yet now I get to sensitively explain that this is America, and as this man "identifies" as a female, he has every bit as much right to be in there as we do.
I don't disagree that parents need to have these conversations with their children. We'd be fools not to. But I believe that we parents should get to choose when and how we have them. They should not be thrust upon us in a restroom at the end of a long day. All other moral and theological issues aside, that is my problem with the new Target policy.
Several years ago my family was preparing for a trip to Disneyland in October. We caught wind of the fact that we might be there over Gay Pride weekend, so I went online to investigate. Turns out it was not the weekend we were going, but I found myself sucked into the online dialogue about it anyway. There are people who want to make everything a Political Statement, and some of these people seem to show up on one weekend at Disneyland, eager to express their "pride" in the most demonstrative of ways. Let's kiss and cuddle and make a statement to the world! The flashier the better!
Then I saw a statement from someone who was more concerned with thoughtfulness and consideration of others' feelings than with his own personal liberties. He was a gay man who urged the members of his community to respect the intent of Disneyland. It's a place for kids. Parents have spent years saving up and planning for this trip, and they happened to be unlucky enough to arrive on the wrong weekend. We can be proud, the man said, while still being sensitive to these parents, by realizing that they may not want to have a tricky parenting conversation in the midst of their vacation. He called for restraint, for sensitivity, for kindness instead of boldness. Whether he had kids himself or not, he got it. He understood that teaching our children is the hardest, most important job a human being can have, and it should be done with thoughtfulness and intentionality, not on the fly while sitting behind two kissing men on the "It's a Small World" ride.
That's how I feel about the Target bathroom controversy. I truly don't know if this is a Kingdom issue or whether I should boycott or not. What I do know is that parenting is really hard, and that Target just made it harder.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Victory Redefined
Yesterday, my 14-year-old daughter experienced what I think was the biggest victory of her life. Along the way, I grew up a little as a parent.
There is no shortage of parenting advice in this world. But I think the deepest wisdom is the learning that comes from the trenches, the kind that with the help of the Holy Spirit, you figure out all on your own. My wisdom from the trenches this week is this: A major part of parenting well is celebrating my kids' victories, even when they're not the kind of victories I was looking for.
I have written about this before. My husband and I assumed we would be cheering for our son on a football field or a wrestling mat or a basketball court. We expected his victories to come in the form of records broken and medals won and internal fortitude shown when his team was down. Remarkably, though, children grow up to choose their own interests and passions. And we parents have the opportunity to grow up and check our own dreams and expectations at the door, and embrace the child we have instead of the child we expected. So we've learned to see our son's victories in managing his time well, choosing a good attitude during a stressful week, responding sensitively to a young lady's feelings, and stepping outside his comfort zone to try new, hard things. I am a football coach's daughter, indoctrinated nearly at birth with the belief that sports teach and hone character like nothing else in life. But now I'm a parent of four kids, and I see that just living in the hard places of life and choosing to do the right thing teaches and hones character. Victories can be found everywhere.
Back to my daughter. What I can learn relatively easily with a son comes much harder with a daughter. I think it's because I have even greater expectations for her to be like me. But this daughter is not like me. Sometimes for fun, we sit and think real hard about ways we are alike. The one thing we've come up with so far is that we both like cherries.
If 14-year-old me was going to the biggest event of junior high, the 8th grade dinner dance, I would have spent months planning what to wear, primarily by researching what everyone else planned to wear. I would have had to have perfect hair and make-up. I would have required friends around me at every step--from choosing the clothes to doing my hair to showing up at the event. (There's no way I would have gotten out of my mother's car alone!) I would have only wanted to dance with the cutest boy there, and I might have spent the evening trying to dodge the uncool ones. If all these criteria were met, the evening would have been a victory.
Not one of these was met last night for my daughter. She got ready at home, quietly and alone, 20 minutes before the dance began. She surrendered her basketball shorts and t-shirt and wore the dress that I picked out for her online. The hair that she barely remembers to brush she allowed to be curled, which hasn't happened since 2005. She rode in my car alone with a smile on her face, telling herself that she was going to have a good time--no matter that she hates dressing up, doesn't know how to dance, and is terrifically uncomfortable in social situations. She would muster up her courage if some sweaty-palmed boy asked her to dance, and she would eek out some morsel of conversation, no matter how awkward. She held her head up high, stepped out into the rainy night, and had the time of her life.
She accomplished everything she hoped to do. She chose to dance with a crowd instead of dashing off to the bathroom or hiding out in the corner with a safe adult. She said yes to two sweaty-palmed boys, and yes, their palms were every bit as clammy on her waist as she feared they would be, but she pretended not to notice and was able to talk to them while they slow danced. She smiled and laughed and would not let herself be controlled by her deep social anxiety. She had fun, and she had victory. Not my kind of victory, but one that I cherished as much as any other I've ever known.
I was not the model 14-year-old, or 17-year-old. I had big hair and a bad attitude. I paid much more attention to what people thought of me than I did to God or truth or goodness or kindness. And yet I can still think that my experience was "right" or "normal." Thank you, Lord, for redefining "normal" for me and for deepening my understanding of what true victory looks like.
There is no shortage of parenting advice in this world. But I think the deepest wisdom is the learning that comes from the trenches, the kind that with the help of the Holy Spirit, you figure out all on your own. My wisdom from the trenches this week is this: A major part of parenting well is celebrating my kids' victories, even when they're not the kind of victories I was looking for.
I have written about this before. My husband and I assumed we would be cheering for our son on a football field or a wrestling mat or a basketball court. We expected his victories to come in the form of records broken and medals won and internal fortitude shown when his team was down. Remarkably, though, children grow up to choose their own interests and passions. And we parents have the opportunity to grow up and check our own dreams and expectations at the door, and embrace the child we have instead of the child we expected. So we've learned to see our son's victories in managing his time well, choosing a good attitude during a stressful week, responding sensitively to a young lady's feelings, and stepping outside his comfort zone to try new, hard things. I am a football coach's daughter, indoctrinated nearly at birth with the belief that sports teach and hone character like nothing else in life. But now I'm a parent of four kids, and I see that just living in the hard places of life and choosing to do the right thing teaches and hones character. Victories can be found everywhere.
Back to my daughter. What I can learn relatively easily with a son comes much harder with a daughter. I think it's because I have even greater expectations for her to be like me. But this daughter is not like me. Sometimes for fun, we sit and think real hard about ways we are alike. The one thing we've come up with so far is that we both like cherries.
If 14-year-old me was going to the biggest event of junior high, the 8th grade dinner dance, I would have spent months planning what to wear, primarily by researching what everyone else planned to wear. I would have had to have perfect hair and make-up. I would have required friends around me at every step--from choosing the clothes to doing my hair to showing up at the event. (There's no way I would have gotten out of my mother's car alone!) I would have only wanted to dance with the cutest boy there, and I might have spent the evening trying to dodge the uncool ones. If all these criteria were met, the evening would have been a victory.
Not one of these was met last night for my daughter. She got ready at home, quietly and alone, 20 minutes before the dance began. She surrendered her basketball shorts and t-shirt and wore the dress that I picked out for her online. The hair that she barely remembers to brush she allowed to be curled, which hasn't happened since 2005. She rode in my car alone with a smile on her face, telling herself that she was going to have a good time--no matter that she hates dressing up, doesn't know how to dance, and is terrifically uncomfortable in social situations. She would muster up her courage if some sweaty-palmed boy asked her to dance, and she would eek out some morsel of conversation, no matter how awkward. She held her head up high, stepped out into the rainy night, and had the time of her life.
She accomplished everything she hoped to do. She chose to dance with a crowd instead of dashing off to the bathroom or hiding out in the corner with a safe adult. She said yes to two sweaty-palmed boys, and yes, their palms were every bit as clammy on her waist as she feared they would be, but she pretended not to notice and was able to talk to them while they slow danced. She smiled and laughed and would not let herself be controlled by her deep social anxiety. She had fun, and she had victory. Not my kind of victory, but one that I cherished as much as any other I've ever known.
I was not the model 14-year-old, or 17-year-old. I had big hair and a bad attitude. I paid much more attention to what people thought of me than I did to God or truth or goodness or kindness. And yet I can still think that my experience was "right" or "normal." Thank you, Lord, for redefining "normal" for me and for deepening my understanding of what true victory looks like.
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