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Back from a mission, ready to cure his lonely condition.

Posted by AtheistMom on April 22, 2012
Posted in: Other, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 comment

How time flies. My brother-in-law, who I first mentioned here (and then again, here and here) is back from serving his two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Better known as the Mormons. It was great to see him again and he has changed so much. His mission was a Spanish speaking one so he has returned completely fluent in Spanish. Pretty cool. While I obviously don’t support missions, I do think the church does an amazing job with these young people. My hubby served in France and remains fluent in French to this day. The church, very deliberately, takes these young men (there are some women missionaries but they are overwhelmingly young men who begin their mission at the age of 19) at a pivotal point in their lives and immerses indoctrinates them even further into the teachings of the church. They are shielded from the world (no tv, no music, no movies, no shopping, no fun) and do nothing but read scriptures or teach scriptures for every waking hour.

I could go on and on about missions but I will refrain for this post. After strictly adhering to the rules for two full years, they are sent home. They have one big rule that they need to follow when they return to their “normal” lives. Get married. The church puts a lot of pressure on these young guys, to go home, figure out what they are going to do with their lives (i.e. decide whether they are going to be a dentist, a doctor, a chiropractor or a podiatrist) and above all, find a wife and start a family. Young girls have a similar goal – find a returned missionary (or RM for short) and marry him. Preferably within months of meeting him, so you know, the sheen doesn’t  wear off before you’ve sealed the deal.

Before my little BIL was even home, my MIL was plotting and scheming with another mom in town to find him a wife. The one she had chosen for him (I am not even joking about this…it makes me mad. Apparently the idea of him choosing his own wife is too much to handle) is a family friend and just graduating high school. She is 17 years old. That’s right folks – 17 years old. And she wants her 21-year-old son to marry her. Like now. WTF?! Even writing this makes me all sweaty and ragey…what the hell is wrong with this woman? But, I digress.

Thankfully, my BIL has his eye fixed on another lady who has a job and is older than him. They have been dating for a matter of weeks and the entire family is giddy and waiting with baited-breath for the engagement announcement. I really like this young woman and as far as future wives go, she is a real catch. But they just met! And he just got back from a mission! And he’s starting University in September! And he just turned 22! And he has his whole life ahead of him!

Given that my little BIL was afraid of girls when he left on his mission and had never had a girlfriend, I thought he might be immune to this. As it turns out, he isn’t.  He is proud of the fact that he was the most “obedient” missionary in his mission and he obviously intends to follow all the rules now that he’s home.I just think it’s important that he decompress from his mission, het some perspective, maybe date a couple of people and get some education under his belt before he settles down. There I go with my radical thinking again.

There is nothing for me to do really. He’s a grown man (sort of) who can make his Mom’s own decisions. I just feel disappointed. Not in him…but for him.

What I Believed to be True

Posted by AtheistMom on April 12, 2012
Posted in: Atheism, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , . 9 comments

Wowzers – I was going through my external hard drive tonight (it’s full of old documents, pictures etc…a real time suck!) and came across this document. I wrote it in early 2001 when Brian and I had recently started dating. Religion was clearly weighing heavily on my mind:

What I Believe to be True:

I believe that God is the creator of heaven and earth. I believe He did this through the orchestration of what we call “evolution”. I believe that God laid for us a foundation on which to build. What we build is up to us.

I believe that God loves us for who we are. He loves us not only despite our shortcomings and failures, but because of them.

I believe that God is omnipotent. He is capable of anything.

I believe that God is all-knowing. He knows that our lives here on earth are only a fraction of what He has in store for us. For this reason He is able to withstand the pain of seeing us suffer.

I believe that all people are born good. Evil develops where other people fall short. Evil is where God isn’t, whether that be by circumstance or design.

God has given us moral agency. We can choose to believe or not to believe, we can choose to obey or not to obey.

I believe God is forgiving. He will forgive anything as long as you are genuinely repentant.

I believe that churches are man made institutions and are by that definition, fallible. God gave us his only son our Lord, Jesus. We built the buildings in His name.

I believe that God appreciates our churches and knows that we are trying to keep to His word.

I believe that God sent many prophets to represent Him. Including such great
leaders as Mohammed, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

I believe in one God. I believe that He goes by many names and has many faces. I believe that Allah and God are one in the same.

We’ve come a long way baby. :)

Screen-Time

Posted by AtheistMom on April 10, 2012
Posted in: Other, Parenting. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

This recent article about reducing screen-time for young kids centres around childhood obesity and decreasing activity levels, but the take home message is the same. Get the kids away from the digital devices and into the real world. This issue has never been more relevant than it is today. I remember watching TV as a kid (especially in the winter as I grew up in a very cold climate) but mostly I remember playing a lot. Today, everywhere I look, young kids are playing with iPads, iPhones and portable gaming devices. They are plugged in and zoned out. They are usually sitting next to their plugged in, zoned out parents.

At Paisley’s weekly swimming lesson, there is a bleacher set up on the pool deck for all the parents and siblings to watch. The lesson last half an hour. The first few times I sat there I couldn’t believe how lonely I felt. I was surrounded by parents of young kids and each and every one of them (I am not exaggerating here folks) was either texting on a phone or watching a video on a phone or playing a video game while their kids swam. I was hoping to meet some other parents, have a little chat, and heck, maybe even watch my kid swim. All the siblings were on devices too. I watched an 18 month-old sitting in front of me play a video game on her Mom’s iPhone. She clearly knew what she was doing. Last week I saw a Mom pushing her preschooler around the grocery store with a DVD player in the little girl’s lap. What the hell are we doing? (Okay, I totally know that I sounds like a 90-year-old woman but bear with me…)

Our job is to teach kids about the world. I get that it can be exhausting and hard but that’s what we signed up for. I get that children sometimes need to be entertained while we get something important done but surely, texting our friends isn’t that important. When kids people are forever plugged into devices (and by extension, unplugged from the world) we miss things. We miss opportunities to meet new people, to have interesting conversations, to talk to our kids about healthy food or why we are buying what we are buying or where a lemon comes from. We fail them physically when we put on the TV rather than take them outside. And at some level – we know we are failing them.

People usually know what the right thing is. It’s the doing that’s the hard part. People often choose the easy over the right. Whether that applies to staying with the wrong partner because it’s too hard to leave, believing in God because the alternative is too frightening, or putting on the television instead of getting on the floor and playing with your kids…it’s all the same. Is choosing the easy path really a lesson we want to teach the next generation?

 

 

BYU: It doesn’t get better…

Posted by AtheistMom on April 9, 2012
Posted in: Church, Other, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 comment

This recent video made by the newly formed Brigham Young University USGA (Understanding Same Gender Attraction) made me mad. And sad. And so, so frustrated.

First of all, I have to commend the young people in this video. I am sure it is unbelievably difficult to come out as a Mormon homosexual and then to come out publicly and make a video? That takes real guts. The men and women in this video are courageous and strong. And sadly, they are wrong. It doesn’t get better. It won’t get better until they leave the Mormon church.

This video implies that somehow, the LDS church has changed their draconian ways and come to accept gays into the fold. They have not. All they have done is loosened the rules on being out. You can now say you are gay. And wow! You can even advocate for your rights as a gay person (bring on the Nobel prize). But you cannot be gay.

You cannot hold hands with someone of the same-sex while on campus. You cannot act on your urges in any way, with the exception of in your imagination. You cannot date, fall in love, get married, have children or lead a healthy and full gay life. In other words, you are not entitled to the very things that the Mormon church claims to hold so dear. You are not entitled to be a family.

It makes me sad that these young people are so in love with their church that they are willing to sacrifice their own mental health to remain a member. That is how strong the church is. These young people must make the choice to either remain chaste for their entire lives or overcome their same-sex attraction. That’s right – over come it. Get married and play straight.

If any of the students in the video chose to act on their sexual orientation in any way, they would automatically be excommunicated and kicked out of school. An excerpt from the the BYU Honour Code, which each student must adhere to:

Homosexual Behavior

Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code.

One’s stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same-sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.

The Mormon church does not love gays. It tolerates their existence for political reasons. It doesn have a “space” for them unless you consider perpetual chastity a “space”. This video, while the intent is good, is misleading. It does not get better for gays in the Mormon church. It gets less torturous…that’s about it.

But there is a better way. In the world outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there is a future for these young people. There is a chance for them to be truly accepted. A world where they can be who they are and express it fully. Where they can fall in love and get married if they want and be parents if they want. Where they can be their authentic selves.

Man does this church piss me off.

Good Friday?

Posted by AtheistMom on April 6, 2012
Posted in: Atheism, Parenting, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 7 comments

Growing up as a Catholic, Easter was easily the biggest holiday of the year – at least from a religious perspective. Easter meant a lot of church and a lot of ritual (I loved Palm Sunday and getting the chance to put a nail into the big wooden cross at Good Friday mass.)  There was washing of feet, somber, silent masses and then jubilation and fancy dresses on Easter Sunday. It was all so ritualized and I loved that. I was Roman Catholic – ritual and God went hand in hand.

When I first started dating my husband I was shocked at how the Mormons didn’t celebrate Easter. Sure, they had Sunday mass but there was nothing on Good Friday and it didn’t seem to hold the same significance it did for other Christian churches. From a doctrinal standpoint, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean Easter is it. Christ’s death and resurrection is the reason Christians are Christians. It remains one of the things that confuse me about Mormonism actually. One of many.

When Easter rolls around (and Christmas too) I sometimes miss going to Church. I miss the memories and the feeling of having a blank slate. “Jesus has risen and all is forgiven.”

Yesterday, Paisley and I talked about Easter. She asked me what it was all about and I told her it’s a chance to celebrate re-birth and fresh starts. That Easter is about Spring, and new flowers and baby animals and that the earth is getting ready to start a whole new cycle of life. She loved that idea (and of course, it is much easier to tie that into a mythical egg-hiding rabbit than it is a 2,000 dead resurrected man) and so do I.

As my kids grow up in a secular household, my hope is that they will develop strong memories and positive feelings towards the things we do to celebrate the different holidays. None of their memories will be tied to church or religion and I am so happy about that.

I guess Easter really is about new beginnings.

Parenting in a Vacuum

Posted by AtheistMom on March 30, 2012
Posted in: Atheism, Church, Parenting, Reason, Religion, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 9 comments

You hear it a lot: teaching your kids to be an Atheist is no different and no better than teaching your kid to be a Christian/Muslim/Hindu etc. It’s brainwashing them, just the same.

I actually used to think this was a frustrating and somewhat valid argument. That is, until I actually became a parent.

Kids don’t invent God. They don’t usually require that you introduce am omniscient, omnipotent being into their lives in order to help them make sense of the world. They have what they need. Raising an Atheist (at least during the early stages) doesn’t require you to do anything at all. You just don’t talk about God. You don’t teach them about it. When they have questions, you answer them honestly.

That is very different from raising a religious child. In doing that you are forced to introduce a whole other realm of “reality” that they cannot see or touch. You answer fairly simple questions with complicated answers involving a man who lived and then died and was raised from the dead over 2000 years ago (Or insert other weird religious story here). You must teach prayer and how to behave in church. You must drill them on how to pray and how to incorporate religiosity into every day occurrences. You must teach them to rely on more than their own sensibilities. You must enforce the idea that they are being watched (and how every subtly you introduce it, judged.) You must introduce the idea of heaven (and by extension, hell) and salvation and the idea that everyone in the world is not equal. Some people are like us, and others are not. You teach them, before they have had the chance to evaluate the evidence for themselves, what is true and not true and demand that their tiny, developing brains embrace a world view that they don’t have a chance to test.

A child without religion experiences love it its truest form – unconditional and with no strings attached. Religious children learn very early on that love is often tied to the choices they make. That there is judgment to receive, guilt to feel and apologies to be made.

Free-Range Parenting?

Posted by AtheistMom on March 29, 2012
Posted in: Parenting, Reason. Tagged: , , , , . 12 comments

The one thing about valuing rational thought is that you don’t get to pick and choose where you apply that thought. As parents, my husband and I believe strongly in teaching our kids how to evaluate evidence and make considered, educated decisions. In turn, I have to do the same thing when it comes to parenting – and it isn’t always easy.

Today’s parents are afraid. We are afraid of perverts and pedophiles. We are afraid of cars and traffic and head injuries. We are afraid of sex and drugs and what teenagers will do when given any opportunity at all. We are afraid of razor blades in candies and terrorists in airplanes and serial murderers. Now don’t get me wrong – we should be afraid of some of these things but we need to be rational about it.

I recently read the book “Free Range Kids” by Lenore Skenazy. If you don’t know who she is, she’s the mom who let her nine-year-old son take a ride on the NYC subway and was subsequently called the worst mom in the world. Yikes. I read the book and it confirmed a lot of what I already believe. Kids are too sheltered and parents are too worried. The 24-hour news cycle has made us aware of every single bad thing that happens to a child. It has vastly exaggerated the risk our kids face in the world. I was comforted to read that violent crime, sexual predation and abductions are all far lower than they were in the 70s and 80s. It is much safer now than it was when me and my pals were traipsing through the woods for hours, armed only with backpacks full of matches and lemonade.

The dangers we don’t consider when looking at our perfect little angels are actually far more menacing, and statistically more significant. Obesity. Heart disease. Isolation. Fear of the world beyond their front doors. Over-dependence. Disconnection from their community. An inability to perform certain tasks (there is some evidence to suggest that more kids are getting hit by cars because they’ve never been taught how to cross a street – because they’ve never had the opportunity to try it!) and an increasing reliance on electronic entertainment. These risks are more than risks. For some they are guaranteed outcomes.

I don’t suggest we should stop parenting or that all of us should put our kids on the subway (although really – the subway? Where you are surrounded by people/witnesses, police offers, video cameras etc.? What on earth is unsafe about that?!) but we do need to stop and evaluate a risk before we make a decision. Don’t parent how others are parenting. Don’t parent out of fear. Rationally evaluate the risk. And prepare to be judged:

Last week I took Paisley swimming at the local rec centre. Afterwards, I decided (for the first time) to leave her at the front while I ran and got the car. Her hair was wet, the wind was howling and the car was in the parking lot, two minutes from the door. I thought about it and despite an inner voice telling me I should never leave my child, I did it anyway. Paisley was put on a bench right in the entrance with a cookie. She was told to wait (I could tell she was pleased as punch to be left alone) and I went and got the car. It took me four minutes to get to the car and pull into the loop at the front of the building. Paisley was sitting there, eating her cookie. Right next to a woman who appeared to be having a heart attack. “There is a child alone!” she was saying. I said, “It’s okay. She’s mine.” The woman looked at me, still flustered and (right out of a movie) fanning herself! “I just, oh my goodness, I am not okay. That is not okay. I am not comfortable with that.” I wanted to say, “Good thing she’s not your kid then, isn’t it?” But I didn’t. I just smiled and collected Paisley and her things.

On the way home I started to second-guess myself. Did I make the wrong decision? I re-evaluated the risks…that a mad-man, who happens to lurk around the local rec centre, would see an opportunity and in front of other parents and kids, run in the front doors and throw Paisley in his truck, all within four minutes? That she (a bright, capable four-year-old) would wander out into the wind and into traffic, of which there isn’t any? What was that woman afraid of?

A child being alone – she had said it herself. How are we supposed to teach kids self-reliance if they never get a chance to practice it? How can they learn to manoeuvre through the world if they are always protected from it? How do we foster community from behind closed doors?

While I do not teach my children to have faith in God, they must learn to have faith in themselves and in humanity.

I’m curious to hear your opinion on this…have you read the book? Would you have done what I did? Do you have any ideas or suggestions for those struggling with the concept of free-range parenting?

Self-Soothing

Posted by AtheistMom on March 20, 2012
Posted in: Atheism, Parenting, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Back in December, when Declan was about 8 months old, he was having an awful time sleeping. He had had some teeth come in and in the haze of many middle-of-the-night wakings, I had pulled him into bed with me. He learned very quickly that he liked it there and wanted to stay. I had been conscientious from the beginning of making sure he knew how to self-soothe. I had been through that with my daughter and had made sure he was always put down while still awake. He had been doing really well until he realized there was an alternative. And like all humans, young and old alike, he was quick to unlearn what didn’t suit him.

After weeks of struggling to get him to sleep (rocking, singing, nursing, cuddling…repeat) only to have him wake up every 40 minutes I broke down and read a sleep book. The author talked a lot about the importance of self-soothing and how introducing a “sleep-crutch” was usually the culprit when it came to regular waking. Some of the crutches she mentioned were singling, feeding, cuddling…or in my case all of them. Whoops. The book had a plan which involved removing the crutches and re-teaching the child how to go back to sleep on their own. I’m not a big “cry-it out” kind of gal but this plan allowed me to go in every ten minutes if necessary and rub his back or soothe him (but never to the point where I put him to sleep) which helped salve my guilt. After only 20 minutes of crying he feel asleep and slept for 13 hours. The next night, the same thing. It has been smooth sailing (mostly) since then.

This of course got me to thinking about religion (what else does one think about in the middle of the night while trying not to murder their youngest child?) and how it acts as a crutch for so many of us. Without really having to think for yourself, religion answers so many of the questions at the root of our very humanity. I have always believed that opinions, values etc. that you have not come to on your own are not worth very much. Convictions handed to you on a silver platter are not rooted – they are dogmatic. They are easily manipulated and at times dangerous.

Like babies, we need to learn how to self-soothe. What calms me in my darkest hour will not neccesarily calm you. For me, when I feel overwhelmed by the hugeness of life and the enormity of this world or confused about death, I soothe myself with thoughts of nature. How beautiful and amazing it is. How big. How lucky I am to be a part of it at all and how it will continue on, long past when I am gone. The point is, it’s personal to me and how I feel. Everyone is different. The thoughts I have are my own – I have reached them by grappling with big ideas, seeking to understand the misunderstood and pushing myself to places that don’t feel all that safe or comfortable. This is how we grow. This is how we find the true meaning of what it means to be human. And if we cannot self-soothe, the least we can do is think for ourselves.

Happy New Year!

Posted by AtheistMom on January 13, 2012
Posted in: Parenting. Tagged: , , , , . 4 comments

Okay, so as you may have guessed (or perhaps not by my late arrival to 2012), that this blog and you, my readers, make up a big chunk of my resolutions for this year. I need to get my shit together and write more often and more regularly. It’s not that I don’t have things to say, I just struggle to find the time to say them. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with a post in my head but I just can’t leave the warm bed to sit down and write. Especially when I’m sleep deprived as it is. At any rate – bear with me. I’m here and 2012 is going to be a good year.

I’m not usually a big fan of these viral “fill in the blank” thingys, but I found this one at nothingbutbonfires (a favourite of mine if only because I have started to just travel vicariously through its writer. Sigh. Kids and being broke have seriously damaged my travel cred ) so here goes nothing:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Umm, I gave birth to a boy. I moved to a new little town. I ran 9 miles (all at once!). I watched one of my brothers get married. I would like to say that I got myself into the full splits since this has been on my list of New Year’s resolutions for 6 or 7 years now but alas, 2011 was not the year.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?


Please see above. As far as my other resolutions go, yes, I kept most of the ones I can remember. (Isn’t that convenient?) I tried to get outside every day. I lost the baby weight. I worked to be a better wife and Mom. I tried to get down on the floor at least once a day and play with Paisley. I tried to say “Not right now – I’m busy” as little as possible. I made a bunch of new recipes.We made a huge change in order to improve our quality of life and I feel pretty good about that.

What I did not do was write as much as I had wanted, take as many pictures as I wanted and as previously mentioned, get down into the splits.

I am a resolution junkie. I make them every year and the list is usually exhaustive and unrealistic. It leaves little room for error or the realities of life with kids. Example: I will wake at 5:30 every morning and go for a run before sitting down with a coffee to write. When writing I will devote the first 30 minutes to my blog and the next half hour to the novel that I am sure is lurking deep within me. Yeah. Tthat very quickly turns into me stumbling out of bed at 7:30 after being roused for the third time by an incessantly hungry baby and a preschooler who insists that “my tummy is telling me I’m hungry and it’s YELLING!” and barely managing to have a coherent conversation with my husband before he abandons me head off for work. I don’t care what anyone says, exhaustion does not breed inspiration.

And yet – I’ll do it again. Cuz a girls gotta dream.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


I did. It doesn’t get any closer than that.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, no. I was pretty sad about Hitch but I obviously didn’t know him personally.

5. What countries did you visit?

Oh piss off. I remember when I could actually answer that question with a straight face.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Money, time and energy. Now that we are out of the newborn stage I am pretty sure I will have the latter two. As for money, that remains to be seen. I am thinking of picking up some part time work but I haven’t quite figured out what that looks like yet. Maybe I could combine my life-long goal of getting into the splits with a lucrative internet business?

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

April 23 – Declan was born. October 15th – my youngest brother was married. September 13th – we took possession of our new place. In December we went to see “Q” live with Jian Ghomeshi and it rocked my world.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


Making the decision to move, pulling the trigger and doing it well (i.e. without killing each other, losing a kid or getting divorced) is the one thing I am most proud of. We were caught in the rat race and knew that we weren’t living our “authentic” lives. So many people live their lives by default and that is one thing that we have always tried to avoid. We made an opportunity and we took it and our lives are so much better for it. Every morning when I wake up in this house, in this cute little town and I have coffee with my husband before he heads down the street to his office I think, “Holy shit do I love it here.” That’s a good feeling.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Probably not writing here as much as I would like. And dare we mention the splits once more?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The pregnancy was touch and go for a while and Declan was a twin until we lost one at 6 weeks. Oh, and I had a c-section but other than that, not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A house.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Who knows? Mortgage, bills…the usual. I will say that moving is very expensive and I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.

13. What did you get really excited about?

I got excited about our new family and having a little boy to get to know. I got excited about our new life in a new town. I got excited that Mad Men was coming back. And then it was over again before I knew it and then I got excited about it coming back again. Oh, and let us not forget, jeggings.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

I don’t know. I thing “Like a G6″ will definitely remind of this period in my life, if not this year specifically. Paisley loves it and calls it her “dancy song”. I smile every time I hear it.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder? Thinner or fatter? Richer or poorer?

Happier, much happier. About the same. Poorer.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?


Write. Travel. Sleep.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?


Worry. Spend mindless hours on the internet.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

We stayed close to home this year and spent time hanging out with friends and family. I fussed too much and did too much but other than that it was really nice.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Mad Men. Entourage. Gossip Girl. Pretty Little Liars. And I’m trying to like PanAm…I’m really trying.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Oh wow. I read a lot so to be honest I can’t even remember what I read. I know I loved The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Wayne Johnston) and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

21. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I planned a big party and then a few days before, remembered I was pregnant and tired and cancelled it. Instead I went out for a quiet dinner with my husband and celebrated my 33rd birthday as lamely as possible.

22. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Winning the lottery? Eating more seafood. Hiring a personal masseuse.

23. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

“Wear whatever you find lying around until you lose the baby weight and even then, ensure that any item of clothing purchased is comfortable, stain-resistant and cheap.” Result? New Year’s resolution of “Be a hip mama” left unmet. Again.

24. What kept you sane?

My husband. My kids. Exercise.The few hours I managed to get to myself. Writing. Early nights. Bubble baths.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.


Living an authentic life is the only way to be happy. Don’t check to see if the baby is poopy by slipping your finger into the diaper.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So, this year? I’m running a half marathon, blogging regularly, making a point of trying to be present and appreciateive of my daily life and I’m going to try to learn to be more assertive. And if I can find time, I’ll take over the world. Oh, and do the splits.

Christopher Hitchens: 1949 – 2011

Posted by AtheistMom on December 17, 2011
Posted in: Other. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 7 comments

We all knew he was dying. For the past few weeks I have thought about him for that split second before I turned on the radio or computer and wondered. I sent him a letter, two actually, in the weeks before he died – thousands of people did. We all wanted him to know that he had changed our lives, made us a little braver, a little less afraid and a lot more certain that we weren’t alone in our non-belief. Despite all that, I felt so sad when I heard.

For me, Christopher Hitchens made the arguments I felt but could never articulate. His way with words often left me in awe. How could someone think so clearly, rationally and linearly and then describe his thoughts so powerfully?!  He was passionate, incredibly prolific and a powerful advocate for rational thought. Some people found him to acerbic, confrontational and controversial. I loved him, even when I disagreed with him. I get tired, in this day and age of political correctness, of people mincing words. If you have an opinion, fight for it. If you have the gift of language that Hitch had, you use it. When you see something so absurdly wrong about the world, you change it.

Hitchens was a humanitarian in the truest sense of the word. He aspired for greatness for all of us, for everyone. He wanted us to rise above our base superstitions and fears and long-expired wisdoms and think for ourselves. He saw religion and dogma and theocracy for what they are – shackles on humanity. Dogmatic thought (whether religious or otherwise) keeps us from reaching our potential for creativity, happiness and kindness. He knew we could be better, even when faced with evidence to the contrary. No wonder he sometimes seemed so angry.

He was a voice for atheists everywhere. He, along with his neo-atheist counterparts, made being an atheist something to be proud of. He made being religious look silly and infantile. He cut through all the bullshit and held a mirror up to religion and the religious – this is what your book says, this is how you act, this is what you claim to believe and this is what you’ve done to the world. It was not a pretty image. Nobody wanted to see it.

Christopher Hitchens was a giant and all I can hope for is that his memory will live on and make all of us aim to articulate a little better, think a little harder and feel proud of the fact that we used our brains to come to a conclusion that we aren’t afraid or embarrassed of. We are atheists and we are fortunate to have kept company with one truly great man. May he live on in reason.

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-believer

Parenting Beyond Belief

Posted by AtheistMom on December 8, 2011
Posted in: Atheism, Book, Parenting. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 comments

I get a lot of emails and comments from parents who are recently “out of the closet” atheists and are feeling very alone. Many of you readers are the only atheist family you know and are struggling with how to parent and don’t have anyone to talk to. The comments I read always make me feel frustrated – there really are a lot of us out there but we haven’t figured out yet how to form a cohesive group without getting churchy about it. :) I am glad that this site has made some of you feel less alone and I am always happy to hear from you.

This book is a great read and an excellent resource for those of you who are new to secular parenting. It has a lot of funny/sweet anecdotes and some really practical advice from leading atheists on how to provide our kids with a sound foundation in secular life. One of the biggest misconceptions about raising atheist kids is that they will be immoral. (Despite unending evidence to the contrary- because who needs evidence when you’ve got yourself an opinion?!) This book is further proof that it is possible to raise ethical, kind,  critical-thinkers who do the right thing for the right reason and show empathy towards their fellow human beings. It will make you laugh, it will make you think about what you’re doing as a parent and at the very least it will remind you that you are not alone. Not even close.

In Defense of Polygamy

Posted by AtheistMom on November 25, 2011
Posted in: Church, Reason, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , . 3 comments

Today, a Canadian court upheld our anti-polygamy laws, in a case I have been following pretty closely. This case centers around the polygamous group living in Bountiful, British Columbia specifically and the law has been used to try and protect young women from being forced to marry. Now obviously, I think Bountiful and everything it stands for is sick, twisted and wrong. These young girls are born and raised in a sexist and abusive culture and have very little say in who they marry. Being wife number 6 to a 79-year-old man while still in your teens is wrong by anybody’s standards (well, I guess not everyone…yeah, I’m talking to you Warren Jeffs) and by no means do I support what those crazy Mormons are doing. (On a sidenote/rant: It drives me crazy to hear the rhetoric that the Mormon church and its members are using in order to distance themselves from all this muck. Do you know how many times I’ve heard people say “They aren’t Mormon!” or deny that they are a break-off from the Mormon church? This is what Mormonism looked like 100 years ago folks, deal with it. Ahh, that feels better.)

However, I don’t know that I’m really opposed to polygamy so much. I guess this is where some of my more libertarian views come crashing into my socially democratic ones. I don’t like the government telling people who they can and can’t be with. I’m a big supporter of gay marriage and straight marriage and any other kind of marriage provided everyone within said marriage is an adult and is happy to be there. I’ve looked into this a little and it turns out there is a whole community of people living in polyamorous relationships and they don’t look anything like they do in the cults/compounds of BC. There are women living with two husbands, men living with more than one wife…every configuration you can imagine (and I’m sure a few you can’t). They aren’t hurting anyone and if they want to have two husbands God help them that’s their choice.

Surely there are already laws in place to protect adult men from marrying under-aged girls several times over. I mean, really. If not then there should be. I’m just not sure that it should ban polygamy outright. There are days when a sister-wife would come in pretty handy.

Swamped

Posted by AtheistMom on July 5, 2011
Posted in: Other, Parenting. Tagged: , , , , . 6 comments

All my life I have been a very organized person. My husband always laughs about how he used to watch me (this is before he knew me) pull out 8 different coloured pens, two highlighters and a ruler just to take notes in class in University. I remember that too…I also remember leaving a class one day after realizing I hadn’t brought a ruler. The mere idea of an entire day’s worth of notes with crooked lines was too much for me. Okay, so maybe organized is the wrong word. Completely insane?

The point is, that despite my good time-management skills, I am struggling these days to sit down at the computer. I am enjoying having a new baby and my life otherwise is running smoothly but what I still can’t seem to do is find an hour of quiet time to myself during the day. And let’s be honest, if that doesn for some reason present itself, I use it to take a nap. So, my blog is suffering and I know it.

I miss writing and I miss the feeling of community I’ve always felt with this particular project. The only good thing is that a lot of my readers (Hi dear reader!) are Moms too and I’m hoping you’ll cut me some slack? Or at the very least give me some ideas?  Baby is up between 6:00 and 6:30am (after eating a couple of times still through the night) and daughter is up at 7:00am which is why I am writing this now. I found a tiny sliver of time this morning and I grabbed a hold of it. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do until things get a little better.

(Also – this baby loves me. A LOT. A lot more than his sister ever did and if I’m awake, he thinks I should be holding him or at the very least, talking with him. As I sit here writing this he is yelling at me to pick him up. It’s like he thinks I’m his mother or something.)

 

40 Weeks?

Posted by AtheistMom on March 9, 2011
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 1 comment

From the very beginning of this pregnancy I have been told by doctors that I will go into preterm labour. I have a bicornuate uterus, diabetes and a history of preterm labour (35.5 weeks) with my daughter. Here I am at 33 weeks and so far, nothing. Which is a good thing I know but I really hadn’t prepared mentally for much beyond 36 weeks. Everything is going so smoothly, I feel wonderful, I’ve managed to keep the weight gain to a reasonable amount and baby is as healthy as can be. For some reason I have a horrible feeling I am going to see April and then even mid-April while still sporting a giant belly. Isn’t that just the way?

My daughter who just turned three at the end of January is getting very excited to meet her little brother (did I tell you it was a boy? It’s a boy!) She tells me all the time about all the things she is going to do with him:

“I’m going to teach him how to eat. He can’t eat though because he doesn’t have teeth. I have teeth. That’s why I can talk. I like to talk. I am going to teach my baby brother how to talk. I am going to take him on a walk and show him the park and he can go on the swings with me. He’ll like that. I can hold him and carry him and I’m going to tickle him and make him laugh. Then we can have lunch and we can play airplane. I’m going to teach my brother how to dance and how to run and put your finger in someone’s eyes. People don’t like that. You shouldn’t do that. I will say ‘No baby! Don’t do that!’ I’m going to be a big sister because I’m so big now.” And so on, and so on, and so on.

If I believed in karma I would say I’m being punished for being such a chatterbox as a kid but I’ll just blame it on genetics. :)