illogicalword-blog

[illogicalword-blog]

Freedom in Parenting

I have to wonder, as I watch the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, what today's children would find more unbelievable. Would it be more absurd for them to consider being trapped in a parallel universe like the Upside Down?  Would it be crazier for them to think about a beast like the Demigorgon haunting the town?  Maybe a girl with psychic abilities?  Or would the most absurd thing for a child of this modern generation be a group of kids running around without any sort of supervision?

No cell phones, no chaperones, very few rides from a grown up (or older sibling). Today, if you see a group of kids running around, I hear people voice an assumption they must be troublemakers. They act like troublemakers, wild and destructive.  Adults clutch their belongings a little closer, keep a firmer hold on their own children if they're in the park.  Why is this? What happened to kids playing in front yards with friends?  What happened to baseball games in the streets?  You might see one once in a blue moon, but they're no longer a regular pastime.

Society has moved beyond the days of children playing on their own, at least in the United States.  Now, if your kids walk home alone from the park, you're judged a bad parent—maybe even visited by the cops.  A recent Washington Post opinion piece observed that in Switzerland, even kindergartners walk to school on their own, without the intervention of adults.  In Sweden and Germany, children can stay outdoors in all weather in the popular "forest kindergartens" with only minimal adult management.  The article found that "helicopter parenting" is more common in places of social inequality, suggesting, "The common denominator in countries where intense, achievement-oriented parenting abounds is a large gap between the rich and the poor. Conversely, where inequality is low and governments provide safety nets, a more relaxed, permissive parenting style holds sway."

It seems as though these helicopter parents, so involved with trying to improve their children's lives by spending hour upon hour with them doing homework (that's a subject for another day, believe me), signing them up for music lessons—which they must also attend—and extracurricular class after class are doing so in an attempt to make certain their child can do better in life.  And yet, it doesn't seem to be helping, at least not academically.

According to research compiled by Pew Research, in math, the United States ranks 38th in math and 24th in science, out of 71.  We also rank 24th in reading, though that wasn't specifically mentioned in their article.  Some people, like myself, still consider reading important.  Even if we switch to audio books, isn't somebody going to have to record all of those?  Or shall Siri do that, too?

Why? If helicopter parenting isn't the answer, what is?  I saw a link at the bottom that read "Half of Americans think young people don't pursue STEM because it is too hard," but I didn't want to deign that with a read.  Young people only think things are as hard as we let them.  Such things as STEM, the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (why does no one care about reading?), can be taught in a more engaging fashion!

Switzerland, with no helicopter parenting, ranked 7th in mathematics and 17th in science.  Germany ranked 14th in science and 15th in math.  Sweden ranked 23rd in math, though they did do worse than us in science at 27th. Sweden and Germany both surpassed us in reading.

Now take Japan.  According to the World Values Survey, as referenced in the Washington Post article, Japan's cultural values are similar to such nations as Germany and Sweden, rather than neighboring China (who did not, as a whole, participate in the Program for International Student Assessment used for the Pew Research article). Japan ranked 2nd in science, 5th in mathematics, and 8th in reading.  Japan is not known for having "helicopter" or, as they are known in China, "tiger" parents.

Think back to your own youth.  Did you have hour after hour of homework?  Did you have time to play with your friends without a parent standing right behind you?  It seems to me, and I freely admit I am not a parent, only a critic of the education system as it is right now, as though everyone is so focused on their child succeeding they forget all about their child learning.  Which, oddly enough, is exactly what will lead to success.

What does it say about our society when the most bizarre thing about the movie It is the idea of a group of kids playing in the woods on their own?

[illogicalword-blog]

Objective Psychotherapy

To what extent does a person's ideologies impact their work and daily life? Can a person truly extract their devout religious beliefs from their day-to-day practices?

I do not ask this idly.  Recently, I was shopping around for a new counselor after many months of living in my new/old city and not receiving any counseling services.  On one clinic's website, I came across a counselor whose list of specialties was perhaps three times as long as any of her co-workers and suggested she treated a wide array of psychiatric issues, including blending families, families in conflict, cultural differences or differences in values, and they key aspect I'm addressing in this article, LGBTQ+ issues.  Since this counselor listed seven specialties "and more" compared to her coworkers who listed no more than three, including their modalities, it made me curious.  I clicked on her profile to read more.

Master's Degree in such-and-such from blah-dee-blah...experience with families from Latin America and the Caribbean so she's comfortable with other ethnicities, okay, sure...bachelor's degree in Spec Ed from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, all ri—wait, what?

I re-read it.  Sure enough, her bachelor's degree was from Brigham Young University.  Let me give you an idea what this means.  Since Brigham Young University is a private, and not public school, their tuition is not set by residency or not.  They determine it by LDS or non-LDS.  At the time of this writing, according to the website, 12+ credits per semester there for an LDS student is $2810 and for a non-LDS student it's $5620, twice as much.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does, in fact, sponsor the school, confirmed on their website.  All in all, there was a high probability she was Mormon.  Sorry, LDS.  I mean, they only coined the term Mormon, but have recently decided they no longer want to be associated with it.

Well, this counselor happened to have a link to her personal website in her profile.  Sure enough, there on her homepage (I'm not going to link it here to protect her privacy), she is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  These leads me to my thesis.  Can a person's religious ideologies truly be separated from their work?  If so, to what extent?

Case in point, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc..  Hobby Lobby, the craft store, is owned by evangelical Christians, the Greens.  They believe life begins at conception and did not want to supply emergency contraceptive pills or IUDs.  While the court upheld their right to do so, the employees were provided with government alternatives three days later.  I find the timing of the decision humorous.  I find the decision less so.  Corporations are not people, and cannot have values.  They can be owned by people who have values, but the idea that they express values is foolish.  I do not shop at Hobby Lobby.  Plus walking into one with its overt and omnipresent Christian theming makes me feel like I'm about to be burned at the stake or tortured by the Inquisition.

Or the many stores and restaurants, some, like New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona's Blake's Lotaburger, who didn't even have a presence in California, who donated funds to support California's Proposition 8 in 2008, the ban on gay marriages.

Wait a moment.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was involved in that as well!

Now, of course, it's quite all right, in the LDS belief system, to be gay or lesbian, as long as you never act on it.  You can't choose the feeling, you simply choose how to respond to it.  So don't act on it.  Marry someone of the opposite gender anyway, or live a life of chastity.  You can still fully participate in the church!

This counselor includes transgendered people in her list of specialties.  The LDS church doesn't really have a stance on transgender.  I mean, except the word salad their first presidency tossed out: "ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."  Look at the last line.  If I'm interpreting it correctly, it makes it sound like gender is predetermined. What you are at birth is what you are. There is no such thing as transgender. So...what kind of counseling, logically, would the LDS church recommend?  Ignore it?

Different wards have had different treatments of this subject in recent years. I turn you toward this article on the subject.  Finding information has been complicated. However.  Utah has the fifth highest teen suicide rate in the country, far above the national average.  Many commentators have attributed it to the lack of acceptance by the LDS community of the LGBT youth.  Even in states other than Utah, teenagers who don't feel acceptance among community, friends and family are more prone to attempting suicide—I say this as someone who used to work in a psychiatric hospital.

People who are members of some churches separate it easily from their daily lives. They go to church on Sunday, perhaps one other day of the week, and may or may not pray at night or before their meals. For others, it is a part of every moment of their lives.  They go to church often, they evangelize to others, they speak frequently about their belief and the importance of those beliefs to them and the world around them.

Can a counselor whose homepage on her website openly declares her as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints be trusted to separate her faith from her duties as a therapist?  What sort of advice would she give, and is it the kind advised by her church...or not?

In closing, I'd like to share an anecdote that came to me from a friend back in college.  Her boyfriend throughout high school was LDS, and he was puzzled when his grandmother died. Rather than having her funeral at the Mormon temple, it was held at a secular location.  He didn't know why...until he was introduced to an uncle he'd never known he had.  An uncle who was gay.  An uncle he'd never been told about.  An uncle who had been neatly photoshopped, to use the modern parlance, from every family photo.

This would have been only fifteen years ago or so.

You tell me if an LDS counselor can be truly objective.

[illogicalword-blog]

Religion and Secular Injustice

           I've lived in the state of Arizona most of my life. Sometimes, I'm really proud of that. For instance, we just elected Kyrsten Sinema to the US Senate.  Not only is she the first Democratic senator elected from Arizona since the eighties, she's the first openly bisexual member of Congress and the second LGBT member of Congress.

           But last Monday, February 11, 2019, something happened in the Arizona state legislature that makes me ashamed of this state.  Representative Athena Salman delivered the morning invocation that day. Representative Salman is nonreligious, and delivered a secular prayer inviting all present to ponder the "wonders of the universe" and the interdependence of the earth, how insignificant we are in the grandeur and size of that same universe.  She asked, in a secular way, if we could fathom what it takes to support the many types of lifeforms on this little planet in this out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy.

           There was a response to this invocation. Representative John Kavanagh has sixty-eight years to Representative Salman's twenty-nine or thirty, a booming voice, and a good ol' boy's mannerisms.  He invited his "guest:" God.  For God was in the gallery with them, "as he is everywhere." It was rude, it was snarky, it was demeaning.  It sounded like it was meant to be.

           But Representative Salman did not let it lie. The next day, with a group of supporters behind her, she quoted a number of ways Representative Kavanagh had displayed "behavior unbecoming of a member" of the House.  That day, the reason, perhaps, that Salman was delivering the invocation, was Secular Day, and members of the Secular Coalition for Arizona were in the gallery.  This was likely the reason for Kavanagh's rebuttal to the invocation devoid of a traditional deity.  He sent an emailed response to the Phoenix New Times that expressed no regrets, calling what he said a "friendly counterpoint to Representative Salman's hijacking of the prayer."  He added, "I felt it proper to restore God to the prayer, which is the purpose of the prayer."

           I invite you to view Representative Salman's invocation, Kavanagh's "friendly counterpoint," and her rebuttal the following day on the YouTube channel secularcoalition.  It was how this actually came to my attention, bad local politics follower that I am.  Let me know how friendly you think Representative Kavanagh sounds.

           I have to admit, I have a lot of admiration for open atheists and secularists like Athena Salman in politics.  I've heard it said before that being an atheist in politics is committing career suicide, but she's been reelected more than once.  This isn't the first controversy that's come up over her invocation, either.  In 2017, the House took her to task for delivering one that wasn't religious enough.  No, really.

           I found an article about that on Arizona Central, and the House required by policy for the invocation to invoke a higher power. The House Majority Leader, John Allen, had suggested that if the lawmaker making the invocation had no interest in a higher power they should "ask the members to focus on theirs."

           At this point you might be asking, as I was, why in the hell there's a prayer before a legislative meeting anyway? I've never watched one, I should point out.  But apparently this is a common occurrence in every single state (at some point in the proceeding) and even at the federal level.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, "The constitutionality of legislative prayer was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983.  In its decision on Marsh, Nebraska, State Treasurer, et al V. Chambers, the court ruled that Congress and state legislatures do not violate the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state even when clergy are paid to lead devotionals."  So apparently that case was more about the payment than the secularism, but Chief Justice Warren Burger went on to say that prayer during these legislative proceedings is not "an establishment of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment or beliefs."  Again, no mention of lack of beliefs.

           Evidently, this use is part of the pomp and circumstance of legislation, part of the ceremony of the proceedings, and while it may be unnecessary, it goes all the way back to the British Parliament, preceding the creation of the United States of America.  I might point out that the British government is distinctly religious (in theory), with the monarch being the head of the Church of England, while the United States is designed to be the opposite.  But perhaps I shall leave that for another day.

           Representative Salman brought up several arguments for why Representative Kavanagh's behavior was unbecoming of a member of the House. Let's take a thorough look at each of those in turn.

           First, she brought up the Arizona Constitution, Article Twenty, Section One.  This reads, in full, "Perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured to every inhabitant of this state, and no inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship, or lack of the same."  The Arizona Constitution was ratified in 1912, when Arizona became a state.  Other subjects of section twenty include a banning of polygamy and a requirement of state officials to read, write and speak in English.  It determined which lands were public lands, which were Native American lands, where the state capital was located, and which lands belonged to the state.

           The point is, the very first section established not only religious freedom, but freedom for "the lack thereof." And yet Representative Salman was publicly shamed for offering a secular invocation on a secular day with a secular group in attendance.

           The second point she offered was the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 of the Town of Greece vs. Galloway.  This ruling involved a town that had similar invocations in their meetings, but the town was largely dominated by one religious denomination.  The ruling determined that volunteer chaplains could open each session with a prayer.  Now, Jewish and atheist women who had filed suit were disappointed by this ruling, as were secular groups.  Ultimately, though, this comes down to what is a prayer?  We already know what Arizona thinks a prayer is.  Cough, cough, higher power, cough.

           That being said, Representative Salman pointed out a passage in it that "prohibits the disparaging of other faiths or none."  Moreover, one of the constitutional prescriptions for the prayer is that "The body may not dictate what is in the prayers and what may not be in the prayers."  That kind of suggests Arizona can't say that it needs a higher power, though I'll admit the prescription goes on to say, "A prayer may invoke the deity or deities of a given faith, and need not embrace the beliefs of multiple or all faiths" and says nothing and a prayer invoking no deity at all.

           Let us briefly consult our friends at Merriam-Webster, since I have no subscription to the Oxford dictionary.  While the first definition of prayer is "(1) : an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought, (2) a set order of words used in praying," the second part of the definition is only "an earnest request or wish."

           Representative Salman's next point turned to the Arizona Supreme Court of Appeals and Cochise County 1982.  The court stated in that treatise "We cannot imagine that the Legislature would give preferential treatment to one religion over another because one is perhaps more established and thus more acceptable than another." For the record, this appeal had to do with a family of Christian Scientists whose children had been taken away after one had died due to not receiving necessary medical treatment.  And in defense of my state, who it seems decided there was no abuse other than the lack of medical treatment and was awarding the children back to the parents, they also referenced the case of Prince vs. Massachusetts, stating, "Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children."  This suggests they were still going to have people follow up on whether the children were receiving medical treatment if they were in need of it.  I hope.

           Arizona is a peculiar state.  It leans conservative, despite being surrounded by liberal states.  This is because the largest population center, the Phoenix metropolitan area, leans conservative while many of the other populations centers such as Tucson and Flagstaff lean liberal.  And Sedona. Whacky, whacky Sedona.  According to pewforum.org, Arizona is 67% Christian, with 21% Catholic, 26% Evangelical Protestant, and 5% Mormon.  And yet 27% are Unaffiliated.  Looking at the United States, 70.6% are Christian and 22.8% are Unaffiliated—with another 15.8% being nothing in particular.  So by that logic, there should be 38 Senators who are not religious, and 165 members of the House of Representatives.  Or at least who are nothing in particular.  In reality?  There is one. Representative Jared Huffman of California.  In 2017, Representative Huffman gave an interview with the Washington Post didn't say he was an atheist, but did say he was a non-religious humanist.  He is quoted as saying "I suppose you could say I don't believe in God."

           He was reelected in 2018.  Thank you, California.  Few other states would have done it.

           Even more interestingly, in seven states—eight, if you count an ambiguous line in Pennsylvania's state Constitution—it is still on the books that you must believe in a god to hold public office. This despite the 1961 Supreme Court ruling of Torcaso v. Watkins in which the Justices ruled unanimously that it was unconstitutional for the notary public in question, Roy Torcaso, to be submitted to any kind of religious test upon being appointed to office. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states, and has stated from the beginning, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  This supersedes the line in the Constitution of Maryland—which, I might add, is still there today—where "a declaration of belief in the existence of God" is necessary for somebody to take public office.  For the record, the next time a referendum can be held in Maryland to discuss modernizing their Constitution is 2020.  People of Maryland, I urge you to let your voices be heard!

           Religion is a divisive subject for people.  I don't understand how people can be so offended when they feel their religion is being belittled, and yet treat people who profess to believe in no religion in the same way.  For many, choosing not to believe in a god is a logical conclusion after study, questioning, and learning.  It's not something we choose so Christians can mock us or preach to us—or both at the same time.

           The original prayer that brought Representative Salman up in the news—you know, the one that wasn't religious enough—was as follows:

Take a moment to look around you at the people gathered here today. We come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but the passion that ignites us; the fire that burns within us; is similar.  We all seek to form "a more perfect union," creating change from an abiding passion to improve the lives of the humans of this city. There is wonder in that. More importantly, though, there is unity.  In a nation often eager to be polarized in its views, allow us in this moment to recognize what we have in common: A deep-seated need to help create a more just and positive world.  As we speak today, remember that commonality. Remember the humanity that resides within each and every person here, and each and every person in the city, and in all people in the nation and world as a whole.  In the words of former President of Illinois Wesleyan University Minor Meyers, Jr., "Go forth and do well, but even more, go forth and do good."

But remember.  Don't just take my word for it.  Learn everything.  Question everything.