Joe Paterno: Remember the Paradox

"Even decades of professional achievement should not obscure dreadfully reckless and callous inaction that results in child sex crimes,"  

David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a support group. Quoted in Reuters.

Life is a paradox.  You win some. You lose some.  Some that you win can actually feel like a loss.  And when you do something great for one, it is actually harmful for another.  And vice versa. Et cetera. 

When one dies, the paradox that is one’s life becomes washed over and represented as a great and successful endeavor.  We must, after all, have respect for the dead.  Paradox dismissed.  Contradictions terminated.

Joe Paterno was the winningest college football coach of all time. He did a lot for Penn State.  In addition to an expanded stadium due to the football team’s success, his family donated millions of dollars to the university to support scholarships and building funds.  Admirably, he had a reputation for making sure his players graduated.  His influence on the young men he coached and on his colleagues and peers was far-reaching.

The story of how Joe Paterno's career ended is also far-reaching.  His oversight of child sex crimes was more than an error, it was a miserable blunder.  Its significance reaches farther than any good deed done.  But there is something good in his wrong doing.

If Joe Paterno would not have been such a celebrated college football coach, the story of a man who knew boys were being raped but failed to call the police may have gone unnoticed.  Now, it cannot be ignored.  Paterno’s story brings to light the oversight of child sexual abuse not only at Penn State, but also in America.
 

I do not wish to disrespect the dead.  I do not wish to disrespect Joe Paterno, the Paterno family, or any individual he may have helped along the way.  But the controversy surrounding how he should be remembered is one that I welcome.  Yes, we should talk about why he should be remembered for the good he has done.  But Joe Paterno's story will positively impact more people if we talk about why he should be remembered for his moral crimes.  Do not be afraid to face the fact that life is a paradox.

photo credit: seng1011 via photopin cc

Save It for Later Saturday: the Election, Conflict Resolution, and Reassurance

In Save It for Later Saturday you’re getting a brief run-down of the stand-outs from my week's "Read Later" list. 

This week during one of our dinner conversations, my daughters fired off questions about the presidential election.  The questions were not difficult to answer.  I understand the electoral process.  But the questions were difficult for me to clearly answer in a way that was meaningful to them.  There’s a lot to the electoral process and they were not aware of much beyond voting, counting, and winning.  How much do your kids really know about the electoral process and how much of the electoral process can you accurately explain? 

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Scholastic News recently launched Election 2012 which provides answers to all election related questions.  The content is accurate, easy to read, and will capture the interest of school aged kids and adolescents.  The site combines information from Scholastic News with reporting by the Scholastic News Kid Reporters.  You’ll also find election-related games, polls, videos, and an interactive map that tracks the primary voting across the country.  Next time your kids are online, tell them you’d like to explore Scholastic News Election 2012 with them.  Get them involved and excited about this important time for our country.

If you have more than one child, it is certain there will be conflicts between them.  Siblings argue.  It’s normal.  It is wise to let kids figure out how to solve conflicts on their own.  But if they do not have tools in conflict resolution, you can't expect them to effectively settle disputes. 

In the current issue of the NAEYC's Teaching Young Children, Sharma Whitchurch and Jackie Sprague provide a great strategy for conflict resolution within the early learning environment.  The strategy, the daily designation of a student "Problem Solver", can be easily implemented into the home.  And the plan doesn’t need to be reserved for young children.  Older children, adolescents, and even adult members of the family will benefit from it.  I encourage you to look over The Problem Solver Job: Peer-Mediated Conflict Resolution and give it a try at home.

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Once you have your kids up to date on the electoral process and well-trained at conflict resolution, you will feel reassured that you are one great parent, right?  But then one of your kids asks, “Is Barack Obama running for president?” and the other kid smacks him on the head and calls him “stupid.”  You may feel as if all the time you spent was pointless.  So you turn to your blog to vent, check the stats and see your views are down for the day by 50%.  You think, “Oh well, at least I’ve been sticking to my resolution to run every day.”  You go to your scale, jump on and find you’ve gained one pound.  Where is the proof that you are doing something right?

My advice?  Read Seth Godin's post, The problem with reassurance.  After, give your kids a hug, write your next blog post, and go for a run.

See you next Saturday.

   

My Morning on a Web 2.0 Interactive Timeline

I have been wanting to try a Web 2.0 interactive timeline app, so when I saw that one of the prompts for Mama Kat's weekly writing meme was "Describe the Scene at Breakfast" I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to turn the timeline in my October post, A Morning in the Life, interactive.  I was looking forward to trying Dipity because of its ability to add audio, video, and photos, but the site was down.  I began creating one on timetoast but it did not look as flashy.  Instead I created a timeline of our morning routine using Tiki-Toki.  It has a lot of the same features as Dipity, is easy to use, and looks great. The only difference in the two is that Dipity allows you to embed your timeline into your website for free and Tiki-Toki requires a fee.  I paid up because I wanted to share it with you.

Interactive timelines are popular in educational technology applications. But they can also be used for creating family event timelines for your personal blog.  And your kids would enjoy making timelines of their own based on their interests.  Maybe your child would like to create an historical timeline of fashion or one depicting stand-out moments in her school career.  On Tiki-Toki you can add editors to your timeline. So for your cousin's next birthday have the entire extended family add photos and videos to a timeline celebrating his life! If you don't have a website or blog to embed the timeline, don't worry, you can simply view it on the site and share the link.

In my haste to complete my A Morning in the Life timeline, I see I would have liked the final outcome more if I had added more media and more details to the stories.  I will continue to edit and add as time permits.  So check back to see progress.  And be sure to click on the Mama Kat widget below to read some amazing blogs.

Wednesday's Woman: Help for the Hoarder Next Door

{This is the first article in my new series, Wednesday’s Woman.  Each week I will feature a story of an inspiring woman.  If you know someone who should be featured, please let me know!} 

Corrie Ortner

  Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.

~Maya Angelou

When I came up with the idea for Wednesday’s Woman, the first person I thought of was my friend Corrie Ortner.  I met Corrie on a Dave Matthew’s Band message board about seven years ago.  We connected instantly online, met up for a few DMB shows, and visited each other a few times before I left California in 2006.  We haven’t seen each other since a brief Spring Break meeting in Las Vegas in 2007 because she is in Oregon and I am in Ohio.  But we keep a close watch over each other on Facebook.

 

December 27, 2011, Corrie posted her first update about her elderly neighbor, who I will call Sandra (name changed for anonymity).  What started out as an update about a quick trip to Sandra's home to help her find her lost phone, has turned into a series of updates about an elderly woman who is a domestic violence survivor, scholar, aromatherapist, world traveler, and hoarder.  Corrie and her 10 year old daughter are cleaning out Sandra's home.  Corrie doesn’t have to do this.  Sandra didn’t ask for help.  

Facebook Update, December 27, 2011:

OK, friends. I need help. I just went over to my neighbor's to help her find her phone. . .She’s elderly and lives on SSI. Her place is in horrid condition. It looks like an episode of hoarders but all garbage-mostly paper stacked higher than the bed with a few paths going through. It's a small place-probably 450-500 sq feet-like a studio apt. . . She lives there with her dog-it doesn't look like she's washed her bedding or clothes in months. She also has bad pain (hip and knee) problems as well as depression issues. I want to find a way to get her help-or get a group of people together to go in and help her clean up. It seems like she wants to get it cleaned up... Ideas, suggestions anyone? 

Corrie received supportive comments on her December 27^th update and promises from locals to help. Friends from far away promised to send donations to put towards cleaning supplies.

Facebook Update, January 6, 2012:

 

Operation clean up the neighbor's house commences this weekend! DHS got involved and will check in again in a week and a half. I'd like to get it cleaned up and give her the chance to keep it that way through the next visit. Any help is greatly appreciated-we'll probably work Saturday and Sunday and into Monday and Tuesday if necessary. This won't be an easy task and will involve long sleeves, grubby clothes, gloves, and a dust mask if you're sensitive to dust, dander, etc. If you can't help with cleaning, any donation of cleaning products, boxes, garbage bags, etc would be appreciated. LMK if you can help out!

She's a very nice lady-this is a great opportunity to help someone in our community in need.

***  

Subsequent updates included the fact that she and her 10 year-old daughter had begun the clean-up and it was worse than what they imagined.

But there is progress being made.

And Corrie will continue until the job is done.

Corrie in her respirator

 ***

I contacted Corrie via Facebook last week asking her if it would be OK to feature her story here.  Following are excerpts from her replies:

Sure! Any awareness of the ordeals seniors go through in our society is very welcome! More updates later-I'm off to clean again right now. I'll take some progress pictures!

AND

Wanted to send a quick update with more info than I share on my posts. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of support. Sandra told me today that she really can't believe that all of these people who don't even know her are so generous. I told her that she had earned it.

My sister sent me $75 to help with supplies and my respirator. Someone I haven't seen in over 25 years has offered to pay to have her carpet cleaned or replaced. Another friend (in Oklahoma) is sending some money, underwear, socks, and toiletries. My aunt is sending a check on Monday to help with everything. I'm so touched-I can't even begin to explain how amazing all of this is. I wish I had more help from the local community, but I don't know a lot of people here so it's tough to get out there and find people to help.

I spent over an hour on the phone on Friday being referred from agency to agency, being given numbers to call for this, getting promises to call back, reaching agencies that are there to help seniors only to have to listen to a quickly spoken message with a lot of press 1 now, etc. After this, I'm not surprised that there are so many seniors in this country who don't receive help. Many are afraid that they'll be carted off to a home (the last resort), but I can't imagine how anyone with any type of cognitive or hearing impairment (many seniors) can navigate this system when I had a difficult time .

 

. . . Friday I found a water damaged purse in the closet where her water heater had flooded. It was a really cool hand tooled "hippie" purse-among the mushed molded papers, I found a menu from a pizza place in Queens, a flyer from a flea market at Picadilly Circus in London, two crystals, baggage claim tags from JFK, and a notebook. In the notebook, there was an entry from 1990 that went something like this: "Here I am in Sisters. I am safe and I am OK. I will be positive and do everything I can to save money until I can afford to move continue on with my life." Yet she's still here. She has two PhDs. Went to Stanford. Grew up in Pasadena and New York. Has lived in Atlanta, England (where she was an aromatherapist), NY, CA, and retired to Bend to train dogs. She left an abusive relationship to move to Sisters and left everything behind in the process. In sorting through her stuff, I've found half of her dishes are Waterford.

The details about her life are just what she's told me-I don't know if it's exaggerated or not, but by that age, I think that we all should be able to live out the rest of our life believing whatever we need to believe to keep us going. I keep finding more and more tidbits that confirm her facts. It's really amazing.

***

Being unemployed, Corrie faces many challenges in helping Sandra.  She doesn’t have the resources  that would make helping Sandra a little easier.  What Corrie does have is a genuine compassion for those who have suffered and struggle to live.  She puts her feelings of compassion into action.  This is something so many of us fail to do.  We spread the word, we send money, we write.  How many of us respond to someone in need with action?  We know of at least one. Her name is Corrie Ortner.

Corrie Ortner is Wednesday’s Woman.

To follow Corrie’s updates on the clean-up at Sandra's send her a friend request at Facebook.

Relationships, Weekends and My Blended Family

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Weekends are a bittersweet time for me.  On one hand they are a welcome respite to the weekday schedule.  I can tackle larger projects around the home, catch up on reading, and take time to assess scheduling and family management strategies that are in place during the week.  On the other hand, because we are a two household family and my daughters go to their dads on the weekends, I feel an underlying sadness due to missing my girls.  If I let it, the feeling can deplete my enthusiasm for all the things I like to accomplish during my two day hiatus from parenting.  

But typically, my motivation to have a house with groceries stocked in the kitchen, clean sheets on the beds, and promised tasks completed by Sunday night pushes uncomfortable feelings aside.  In my haste to create a welcoming environment for my daughters' Monday, I have overlooked an opportunity provided by the weekends without them—reconnecting with my significant other, M. 

This weekend, like any weekend, I had numerous personal and familial related tasks to complete.  M and I began painting the kitchen two weeks ago and I wanted to finish it.  There were shelves for the girls’ room to be painted and hung, groceries, meal planning, scheduling of activities, laundry and vacuuming.  In my obsessive quest for the home to seem “normal” and welcoming on Mondays, I wanted everything crossed off the to-do list. 

It’s 6:00 p.m. on Sunday evening and the shelves are not hung and the groceries are not purchased.  The house is not vacuumed and kitchen cabinet doors we removed for painting are still on the floor. But unlike my customary worry about how the girls will perceive their home upon Monday’s reentry, this evening I feel refreshed and calm.  You see, instead of tending to the typical, M and I tended to our relationship.   

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We reconnected through a marathon conversation that lasted over 24 hours beginning on Friday night and ending in the wee small hours of Sunday.  We talked about the things that we have been hiding away for months:  blended family parenting issues, adolescent parenting issues, personal issues, worries, hopes, dreams, and goals.  We cried, laughed, argued, and agreed.  We also talked news, friends, dogs, technology, exercise, music, food, places we’d like to visit, and whether or not we’ll ever make it official and marry.  I feel as if I reconnected with an old friend.  I feel less alone.  I feel loved.  There is no other bliss like knowing one is loved and if I wasn't so tired from staying up, I'd probably be singing.  Why the need for the all-nighter?

My main goal in life is to be a great parent.  This was not an ambition of mine when I was a child or even when I was a young adult.  This became my mission upon the birth of my first daughter--good timing.  And due to my guilt over my divorce, I have made it my sole purpose in life.  But I have failed to acknowledge that my relationship with M has a significant impact on my success as a parent. 

Newly remarried couples without children usually use their first months together to build on their relationship. Couples with children, on the other hand, are often more consumed with their own kids than with each other.

M and I are not married.  Maybe this is why I allowed parenting to be more important than our relationship.  And maybe I’m not married because I am afraid it will distract me from parenting.  Maybe M and I fail to take the plunge because we are unsure if the girls will like the idea.  But, the "maybes" do not matter.  He’s here.  It’s our house. We are a family.

You will no doubt focus a lot of energy on your children and their adjustment, but you also need to focus on building a strong marital bond. This will ultimately benefit everyone, including the children. If the children see love, respect, and open communication between you and your spouse, they will feel more secure and may even learn to model those qualities.

I do not recommend staying awake for more than a normal amount of time in order to reconnect.  I truly am a bit stressed about the groceries that are not purchased.  But for couples in blended families, whether your relationship status is married or living together, I strongly recommend you and your partner stay connected.  How the girls see M and I in our relationship is much more impactful to their development than if the refrigerator is fully stocked.  Peanut butter and jelly for dinner is always an option.

Quotes:  Guide to Step-parenting and Blended Families at Helpguide.org