America, why are you surprised?

I can't help but be puzzled by the reaction of the media surrounding the story of the abortionist in Pennsylvania who is charged with murdering 5 people.

Let me be clear - If he did what he's accused of, it's horrible. Absolutely horrible. But so is the murder of all of the other babies he's killed in his "clinic."

And that's what puzzles me. The media is upset almost to the point of vomiting when they talk about what he did to "four viable babies" and one mother, BUT they are not upset when talking about those very same babies when they are killed when inside the womb.

Huh? Let's look at that again. They are upset when the baby comes out the womb and killed, but not when that same child is inside the mother and killed.

Years ago - in 1973 - "freedom of choice" won over morality. In the last 40 years, millions upon millions have died inside the womb. Where's the outrage from the media for all of those deaths? Now we have 4 babies in Pennsylvania who died outside the womb and there is a huge outcry!

America, this is what you asked for! By the same argument used for "freedom of choice" the doctor was merely exercising that freedom wasn't he? It just happened to be that the baby was outside of the womb this time. So why the outrage? If we can see the baby, we're outraged, but take that same baby out of sight (i.e. in the womb) and we don't give a rip.

If we allow "freedom" over morality, this is what we get. Freedom does not mean the ability to do whatever we want no matter what the consequences. License is the ability to do whatever you want without considering the consequences. According to Merriam-Webster license means "3a : freedom that allows or is used with irresponsibility." Freedom on the other hand comes with great responsibility and is not the same as license.

When we provided women the license to kill an unborn child, it was only a matter of time before something like the deaths of these babies came about. How? We seared our collective conscious in order to grant license for abortion. Once the conscience is seared, the license only grows into actions similar to what this doctor is accused of doing.

America and the media - your outrage is off kilter. It should be outraged at the actions of this doctor, but it should also be aimed at the murder that we cleverly disguise as abortion.

Respecting Referees

As parents, we try desperately to teach our kids the right things - eat your vegetables, don't play with matches, look both ways before crossing the street, and respect the officials at the game. Huh? respect the officials? Yes, in youth sports, we talk to the kids about respecting the officials. Over and over and over I've heard the coaches say "don't argue with the refs."

Flip the page to the NFL in 2012. They are using replacement officials and there has been a lot of frustration surrounding them - blown calls, not following some of the rules, etc. Teams are in an uproar because they feel they were "cheated" out of a victory. The most notable is the Green Bay Packers loss to the Seattle Seahawks on September 24th on the last play of the game. After repeated reviewing by all of us, the official blew a call and it cost the Packers the game.

People are yelling - literally and via social media about "those terrible replacement officials." Some have used language that I won't repeat, others have ranted and still others have been just plain mean.

How then do we reconcile the mixed messages we send our kids? "Son, when you play sports, always respect the officials." With "When I watch the BIG game, I reserve the right to curse, berate, smear, and just plain hate the officials."

Let me offer some perspective.


Once upon a time, I was much more opinionated about my sports teams and the officiating at the games. I've been guilty of yelling (but not cursing) at officials for a bad call during a contest. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but nevertheless it has happened.

Over the years, I've learned a thing or two from others and have changed my perspective on what officials bring to any sporting contest. The first thing I learned sometime ago from an article that pointed out at the end of a contest, the official goes home to his or her family. That article talked about the family members of the official sitting in the stands and being mortified as spectators used language for their loved one that no one would use on their dog! That article opened my eyes to their humanity and started to change the way I viewed officials at a contest.

The second thing I learned was from a coach that my older boys had. She has said for years, "If they didn't call it, it didn't happen." In other words, you can't change what the official did or didn't see so get over it. This taught me that the officials deserve respect, even when they are wrong.


A blown call is horribly frustrating. Ask Armondo Galarraga who lost a bid to have a perfect game for the Detroit Tigers in 2010 by a blown call from umpire Jim Joyce. Here's what the umpire said after the game, "It was the biggest call of my career," an emotional Joyce told reporters, "and I kicked it. I just cost that kid a perfect game." A perfect game is nearly impossible to complete and this one was taken by a human error.

As frustrated as he was, here's what Armondo said, "I feel terrible. I don't know why life works this way, but sometimes life just isn't fair for people. He's a good umpire."

Fast forward to August 2012. That same umpire with whatever names people wanted to call him in 2010 after the blown call, made the right call and literally saved a woman's life. From Yahoo Sports.com "Joyce, a 24-year veteran of the major leagues, used CPR to help save the life of a woman having a seizure. The woman, a game-day employee of the Arizona Diamondbacks named Jayne Powers, who joined the organization on its first day of existence in 1998, is said to be "doing well" Tuesday. But if Joyce had not stepped forward, who knows if she would have made it?"

I'm pretty confident that Jayne Powers is thankful that umpire Jim Joyce "made the right call" and didn't quit umpiring the day he made a mistake. If he had, maybe she wouldn't be here.


Officials make mistakes, but don't we all? Have you ever yelled at your kids when it wasn't their fault? Have you ever been speeding and didn't get a ticket? How about running a red light? The list goes on to infinity.

The tough part is that an official's job is magnified a thousand times by instant replay with cameras at almost every angle. The human official gets seconds (if that) to make a decision. The rest of us get to watch the play for as long and as slow as we want and then make our decision. How many of us could get all of the calls right with only seconds to watch the play and make a decision?

What are we going to do? Are we going to follow our own advice to the kids and respect the officials? Or are we going to curse, berate, and shout at "those blankety-blank officials until they see it our way?

Dangers in Facebook

In earlier posts, I made the argument that things like drugs, pornography and even Facebook CAN banned inside our homes. In making the argument about banning things, There's been one comeback I'd like to address. That comeback is "You can't compare Facebook to drugs or porn." Well, I would disagree. First of all, Facebook has porn available all the time. Oh no, not the hard stuff, but take a look at all of those pictures posted and you're sure to find at least one person wearing something that leaves little to the imagination. And comparing it to drugs, that's a slam dunk. It's already been written about that Facebook has been found to be addicting.

But whether or not you agree that Facebook and drugs or porn are the similar, there's still significant dangers for letting a child use Facebook or any other social media.

1. Most children do not have the ability to think into the future. They will not be able to understand that what they write today will be seen by a potential employer in a few years. Let's not forget that many of the kids hope to be married some day. How will that conversation go with the future Mrs. or Mr. when they have to explain why a picture of such and such or why a post stating this and that was on their Facebook page?

2. Many, Many, Many people online are not who they say they are. Don't think your kid will talk to that creepy guy? You haven't seen enough 20/20 type shows.

3. Data is mined. Huh? You mean someone is watching my child? Oh yeah. Any idea why those ads started showing up in your email? Who's email address did they open the account with? Almost every story about what happens to Facebook data is BAD. 'They lost this set of data' or 'someone stole that set of data.' If you put in on the web - even in this blog, EVERYONE can see it and a LOT of people can get it.

4. The more the kids are using social media for relationships, the poorer those relationships are in the long run. You can't possibly interpret body language and voice inflection from reading a post or even looking at a photo - no matter how many emoticons you use. :) ;) :0

Perhaps none of the above concerns you. Well, it does me. I've watched or read the stories over and over and over how someone's life is impacted or even ruined and Facebook played a large part in those disasters. I plan to both protect and educate my children on the dangers of being involved with such a medium as Facebook. I'm not necessarily popular, but my family is also not suffering the ill effects of being involved with it.

Yes, you can ban Facebook, part II

... Previously I talked about banning things in the home and some of the arguments against having a ban on a particular activity like Facebook, or the content of something like TV.

Another way parents get around banning something is to say "If my child is doing it, I'll just do it so I can monitor them."

Try using the argument regarding Facebook that sounds like this, "My child has a Facebook account so I need one to monitor him/her" and then replace Facebook with pornography or drugs. It would sound like this: "My son views pornography, so the best way for me to understand him is to view it myself." Or, "my daughter is smoking pot. The best way for me to understand her is to smoke it myself." REALLY?

Where does the idea come from that if a child is doing it, we as parents must be the followers and do the same? I would not allow myself to try drugs or view pornography on my own. So why would I do it just because my child was doing it? Going back to social media - why would I have to be on Facebook or any other social media just because I learned that my child is on it? Hmmm, I guess I don't, do I?

There is an argument that completely banning something can make it more tempting. I agree that this could be true, but by banning something, it also tells our children what we stand for. We can say to our kids, "We ban drugs, because we know how harmful they are for you." We can also say "We ban Facebook because there are many dangers in using Facebook that you are not aware of." (A topic for another post)


The crux of this discussion is "who's in charge?" Are we, the parents leading the way? Or are our children and society taking control?

Coincidentally, I read an opinion piece that has a different topic - How children dress - but it addresses the same argument of who's in charge. You can read the whole article here, but I will quote the part I found most interesting:

"I don't care how popular Lil' Wayne is, my son knows I would break both of his legs long before I would allow him to walk out of the house with his pants falling off his butt. Such a stance doesn't always makes me popular -- and the house does get tense from time to time -- but I'm his father, not his friend.

Friends bow to peer pressure. Parents say, "No, and that's the end of it."

The way I see it, my son can go to therapy later if my strict rules have scarred him. But I have peace knowing he'll be able to afford therapy as an adult because I didn't allow him to wear or do whatever he wanted as a kid."

Now that's a dad that's setting a standard! Eventually, therapy or not, his son will thank him for at least setting a standard. He will thank him because kids are always pushing against the boundaries or rules to see if we will stand firm and uphold them. They aren't just testing us. They actually want the boundaries so they will feel safe! Believe it or not, they really want boundaries, but the only way to see if they exist is to test them.

The bottom line of my last two posts is that as parents we can and should set standards. Is it hard work? Absolutely. Are we often alone. You bet. Are "bans" necessary some times? Oh yes.

So we have to ask ourselves - Do we want our kids merely to be our friends? Or are we more concerned about setting a firm foundation in their hearts as we work to build moral character while working on a relationship with them?

I'm with the dad in that article.

Yes, you can ban Facebook!

I recently read some discussion about how much to control our kid's access to social media. The focus was on the question, "What do we do about access to Facebook?" Several items were written stating that the parents felt there was no way to ban social media at home.

I find it interesting that many parents think that they can not ban things in their own homes. The arguments used sound like this. "They'll just do it when I'm gone." or "They have friends to help them do it." Yep, those are very true statements, but that shouldn't prevent us from setting precedents in our homes - even if it means banning something.

It is a very hard thing to try and ban anything. If you ban something at home kids can and do access it elsewhere. But it is also true with: content on TV and radio, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, and the list goes on. Most people ban drugs and porn. Others are mixed on alcohol and cigarettes. TV and radio are perhaps the closest thing to social media since they are content based.

By way of example, we have bans on many things in our home: TV, radio, and internet content, drugs, porn, and cigarettes. Once in a blue moon you might find alcohol in our home (and no, we don't share it with the kids).

So we've set a precedent and started with the standard that those items are banned in our home. We don't merely ban something. We communicate with our kids why we don't think it's a great idea for them to view, use, or participate in the things we've banned. (Side note: we don't use the word ban. We merely say we don't watch that or we don't participate in that.)

We also communicate that we don't want them to participate in those things when they are not at home. Do they always follow the rules? No. But do we always come back to the standard when we learn of their participation in a banned activity or content? Yes. That's where we start the discussion and work toward an understanding of why we've banned those things at home in the first place.

Do they follow the rules some of the time? Yes. And they talk about how good it felt to say to their friends something like "I'm not going to watch that because it's has things in it that aren't good for me to see." OR "I have to check with my parents before I play that video game." They're proud of themselves for standing up for something the family values at our home. We also use those times to praise them and teach them how good it is to stand up for the values of your family.

To be continued...

Food Perspectives

Today was an interesting day in contrasts with regard to food.

I started my day at Andover Elementary where I volunteered to assist the kids in packing food for Haiti.

I had fun doing it.
I was a volunteer.
I worked with my kids.
I worked for 3 hours.
The food we packed was basic stuff - soy, flavoring, nutrients and rice.

By the end of the time it was reported that the entire team had packed enough food to feed 29,000 people!

I ended my day at a taste test.

I had fun doing it.
I was paid a small stipend.
I sat by myself.
I worked for 30 minutes.
The food I tasted was not basic.

By the end of the time, I was full and no one else benefitted.


It struck me as quite the contrast in the world of food. The amount I was paid in the test was the same amount that it cost to make, pack and ship enough meals for one person for 7 months!

Wow. What a difference in activities! How fortunate we really are to live here!