Evil Mommy » children

The healing power of prayerdoctors

spyderkl — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:01:24 +0000

I don’t write about religion much here. Or the lack of same. But this is a serious thing that affects more children than I want to think about. As a parent, I just can’t imagine not taking a child to the doctor. But there are plenty of people who don’t – not because they can’t afford to, not because they don’t have a doctor that they can easily access, but because their church tells them that healing can happen with prayer alone.

There are lots of examples of this, a disturbing number of which involve dead children. Here’s the latest example. The only difference is that, thanks to Oregon’s DHS and the court system, she’s not dead yet.

Take a look at the picture at the above link. She’s just a baby, not even a year old. Her condition could have been treated easily if it had been addressed sooner, but now she needs surgery. At the very least, she could lose her sight.

Bottom line, as the kids say: Prayer doesn’t work, but doctors almost always work. My faith’s with the doctors.

A Most Inoffensive Billboard

spyderkl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:45:55 +0000

This
has got to be one of the most inoffensive billboards I’ve ever seen:

I’m not very comfortable with placing labels on children that may change as they become older. Race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender (sometimes), biological vs. adopted (or placed/surrendered) – those are things that cannot change. Gender…well, maybe. But things like a religion, social class (and for the most part I’m talking about the US here) – those can and sometimes do change as a child grows up and becomes more independent.

We have always tried to expose School Girl to different religions as she’s been growing up. Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Wicca, Islam, and Christianity so far. Right now, we’re working on talking to her about her friends’ religions and that we aren’t religious at all; which is perfectly appropriate for a 7-year-old. Of course, her “God” is a giant elephant with a lollipop in his mouth…

I should say that I couldn’t see all the fuss about the “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone” that was displayed not far from us last November and December. So perhaps I’m not as sensitive as some.

Field Day

spyderkl — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:33:02 +0000

Yesterday School Girl’s school had Field Day for the 1st and 2nd graders. I went over to cheer her on, along with cheering on her friends.

I have to admit, Field Day has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Our school never had anything like that when I was growing up – come to think of it, the concept of physical education for anybody younger than 4th grade has been a bit…puzzling to me as well. But anyway. I do know that at some schools, Field Day is just that – a big track and field contest, complete with sprints, hurdles, field events (yes, it means exactly what you think it means), etc. At our school, Field Day meant a morning full of loosely organized games involving running the kids until the point of exhaustion. The plastic egg carry through an obstacle course, parachute games, tag, ball tag (no, not dodgeball – tagging a person carrying a ball to the other side) – games like that. Oh yes, and the Tug-o-War. Girls rule. Especially when they outnumber the boys by 1/3 of the class.

School Girl did…okay. She’s got the gift of physical coordination, but she doesn’t really enjoy it. Especially in 85F heat – she’s never been good on a hot day, and by the end of 2.5 hours she was really fading. Lunch came about 1/2 hour too late…

And after lunch, they had a Reading Day. Which she enjoyed much more, I hear.

It comes up in the most unexpected places

spyderkl — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:32:02 +0000

Last weekend, in honor of School Girl having an awesome checkup/not biting the new dentist, I bought her It’s So Amazing! She has been asking questions about sex lately; as in “yeah, a baby grows in her mommy’s uterus, but how does the baby get there?” I felt like I needed some handholding, and I’ve heard good things about that series of books, so it came home with us. By the way, if you’re looking for a handholding device to talk about sex with a young-ish child, this one is highly recommended by Chez Evil.

Our reading and talking about different things in the book has led to some difficult conversations, at least for me. It talks about adoption in the most basic and general way. It also talks a little bit about miscarriage and infertility – again, in a very basic, generic way. School Girl had a lot of questions. Most of them I couldn’t answer; they had to do with why M decided to place her, why she and S didn’t raise her themselves, even what happened right after she was born. I don’t know any of those answers; she’ll have to ask M herself for those.

She also asked if she could have a brother or sister. As in, if Evil Dad and I were going to give her a brother or sister. Funny how the words “You’re not too old” are both easier and more painful to take coming from somebody so close to you. I haven’t had the heart to mention that part of our conversations to Evil Dad just yet.

The best part so far was when she declared that sex was weird. It makes me relieved that I have a few more years yet…We also talked about maybe not sharing what we’re talking about with her buddies at school, as it’s a parents’ job to talk to their own kids about sex. So we’ll see how far that goes.

Here’s another good reason to get vaccinated

spyderkl — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:09:25 +0000

Because children can die from things like whooping cough (pertussis).

True, 4 weeks is too young for immunizations; IIRC, the first round of vaccines are around 2 months of age or so (then again, I was suffering from sleep deprivation at the time, so my memories are a teeny bit fuzzy). However, any adults (parents, grandparents, older siblings, other caregivers) should really be vaccinated if they aren’t already. Really. So that something like this won’t happen to somebody you know – or to your family.