What Caitlyn Does With Bruce's Penis is None of My Business

I wasn't going to write about Caitlyn Jenner.  In fact, after I read this piece of perfection, I really wasn't going to write anything; because, damn.  She nailed it.  The fact that it came from a Christian woman is what sealed it for me.  

Actually, let's back up.  I almost stopped reading that post when the author at "Motherhood...Unscripted" mentions the she is a Christian woman.  I guess that statement reveals my own prejudices fairly well, doesn't it?  I never said I was perfect.  I am working on it.  Being open to some one's words is a baby step in the right direction, I think.

My biases (that I SWEAR, I am working on!) are the subject of another post (or three) another day.

Okay, so the internet practically exploded when Caitlyn Jenner revealed her new, gorgeous self in Vanity Fair.

The haters came out almost immediately with the pictures.  I won't give them credit by posting any examples, but .5 seconds of Googling will get you many.  On one hand, I get it.  I don't condone it, but I get it.  It can be frightening when people don't follow the "norm".  It makes us question reality and our own place in the world and that is really, really scary.  It's much easier to see the world in black and white and wrong versus right, than to see the infinite shades of gray.  It takes a whole lot of thinking and who has time for that?  (Sarcasm...sorry.)

Seriously, though.  Wouldn't things be much easier (for you) if people just stayed who you thought they were?  And that is precisely my point.  What YOU think about someone else might have very little or nothing at all to do with who they really are. As parents, our kids grow out of the roles we assign them.  They get tattoos and girlfriends that you won't necessarily like.  They get to decide how to live their own lives...as scary as it seems.  We did it, with varying degrees of success, and they will too.

How we react, however, is all on us.  I think it is healthy to ask why, because only in questioning can we get to understanding, or at least, some level of acceptance.  In this case, I think the first, and only question we need to ask is:  How does Caitlyn Jenner's life affect me?  I can only answer for myself.  My answer is:  Mostly, it does not.  I say mostly because she has said that she is a Republican; and Republicans with money can and DO affect my life.  

(again, this is a post for another day)

The only other way Caitlyn affects me, is that her spread in Vanity Fair gives me one more unattainable model of beauty to reach for.  It is slightly disheartening that a sixty-something, former man, can look that freaking great in a corset.  I mean, those legs!  Those breasts!  Those collarbones!  Sigh...  Then again, if I could be made up and dressed by professionals, then photographed in soft lighting by Annie Liebovitz, I would probably look pretty hot, too.  It would definitely be better than yelling at my kids or husband to stop shooting me from under my chin while trying to hide behind my tallest child.

Caitlyn, in the end, is just a human being.  She has asked to be called "she" and I respect that.  It is her body, after all.  She still has a penis.  As confusing as that may be, in the end, who cares?  She has had that penis all her life.  I can imagine she is pretty attached to it (no pun intended...really).  That penis ran across the finish line along with the rest of (eventually to be) her and collected a gold medal in the decathlon in the 1976 Summer Olympics.  Maybe it is this that has people so bothered.  How can Caitlyn be Bruce and vice-versa?  I honestly don't have the answers to that.  Caitlyn herself said in the Vanity Fair article that she still screws up her name.  So, it's okay if we are confused, too.  

It's just not okay to be mean, or belittle those who feel as she does, or others' who don't quite fit into the neat little boxes that we wish they would.  I repeat:  It is NOT okay.  If your reaction to Caitlyn is one of anger or hatred, I suggest that you take a good look at yourself and ask why?

Happy New Year...What The What?

There are two stories making the rounds this New Year's Eve that have me shaking my head.  One is tragic and the other is just...silly.

The first one is the story of a two year old that shot and killed his mother in a Utah Walmart.  Horrifying.  So many lives ruined in a second.  It raises so many questions:  Why was the gun in her purse?  Why was the kid left alone with the gun and purse?  How did his two year old fingers manage to pull the trigger?  What was she so afraid of in that little podunk town that she felt she needed to be armed to go to Walmart?  Did she get the gun for Christmas?

See the story here.

I don't want to get into a gun debate.  I really don't.  My husband is a former Marine.  He has massive respect for what guns and more importantly, bullets, can do.  We don't have a gun in the house, but if and when we move to the country (which we are thinking about in the future), my husband has already said that he would want a rifle; nothing crazy, just something for protection in a remote area where the police response time is decidedly slower than it is in the suburbs.  I know that he will be responsible with it.  He is that kind of guy.  I am no fan of guns myself, but I have no problem with responsible gun owners.  Where "responsible" becomes "irresponsible" becomes a bit more blurry for me, but that is a discussion for another day.  

I have been reading the debates about this incident.  The most ridiculous arguments are being made by some who are bragging about how savvy their own two year old's are with guns.  They are saying things like "They know not to touch a gun, ever".  I even saw a guy compare his having guns and teaching his toddlers about them to electrical outlets.  "We teach them not to touch those!  This is the same thing!".  Really?

Not the same, not at all.  Yes, we teach our kids to stay away from hot pots and electrical outlets...and guns, and accidents still happen.  As much as we parents are on top of our little ones, we still need to use the bathroom from time to time, or answer the door, or check on another child, or make dinner, or, or...so many "ors" in life.  Two year old's (and five year old's and ten year old's and teenagers and young adults...) don't make the best decisions.  Sure, they may have been told a thousand times that running into the street after a ball is a no-no, but how many do it anyway?  The answer is:  ALL OF THEM.  At one time or another, every kid puts themselves in some kind of dangerous situation.  Hopefully, usually, there is an adult nearby to save them from themselves.

While I certainly hope that these parents of gun-savvy two year old's are correct; which I highly, highly doubt, (sorry, THEY ARE TWO!) what I hope more is that they never learn whether they were wrong.  I hope they never have to second guess their actions because of a tragedy.  I also fervently hope that they are more responsible than that mom in the Walmart.  However you feel about guns, I am fairly certain that we can agree that a loose, loaded handgun in a purse within reach of everyone around you, not just your kids, is a bad idea; really, horribly, sometimes tragically bad.

I am thinking about this family today and hoping that they can find some peace in the coming year.

The other story making the rounds is about...drumroll, please...Playdoh.  It seems that in an attempt to design a kid friendly, fake cake making set, the manufacturers made one part look like this 
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I mean, okay.  I see it.  The person that designed it is either totally incompetent or a total, toy making genius.  After all, it is getting attention.

What I don't get is how this ruined anyone's Christmas.  People are actually saying that.  "It ruined Christmas when our daughter opened this present!", they are saying, hands held to throats in horror.

Seriously?  In what world does this ruin anything?  Sure, it looks like a tiny penis.  My question is:  Who cares?  It's not a tiny penis.  It's a tiny, Playdoh part that happens to look a bit like a tiny penis.  

Penises do not ruin Christmas.  They just don't.  Parents who make a big deal over nothing, do.

Why these two stories together, you ask?  What does one have to do with the other?  The way I see it, with all the horrors in the world, including a two year old shooting and killing his mom, tiny plastic phalluses are the least of our worries; or at least, they should be.

Are we really that far gone as a society that we are so desensitized to violence that we shrug it off, but anything that even resembles a penis has to be blurred out for our viewing (like they did here)?  What does that say about us?  Penises, real, fake, purposeful or not, are not the problem.  Our twisted view of what is bad or wrong, is.