Month: February 2023

I grew up with wonderfully supportive grandparents on my mother’s side. My father’s mother died when he was only 15 years old and by the time I was born, his father was on his third wife and recovering from his third stroke. So, what I learned about grandparenting came from the example of my mother’s parents and then from watching my own parents assume the role of grandparents to my three children. My mother was terrific while my father failed miserably because of his struggle with alcohol. My former husband’s father passed away years before we were married, and his mother was too absorbed running a household of unmarried adult children and grandchildren who lived close by to pay any attention to my children.

My grandparents served as a “safety net” for my mother, particularly after she and my father divorced for the first time and my mother became a single parent, abandoned in California when I was two. My brothers were sent back to our hometown, Detroit, to live with the grandparents. For a short time, my grandfather came to California to take care of me while my mother got her footing in the workforce and secured childcare for me. I’m told that my brothers remained in Detroit for two years.

Throughout my childhood, I recall spending summer vacations and a few winter breaks with my grandparents in Detroit. I later learned that my Easter clothes, weekly allowances, and many extracurricular activities were funded by my grandparents. When my parents separated for the second time, it was my grandparents who provided the down payment on a lovely home in the San Fernando Valley for us to live. Even my first trip to Europe in high school was partially paid for by them. Their sustained support for my mother and for us made the difference between stability and instability in our lives. Their economic and emotional support kept us out of poverty and allowed us to thrive socially, economically, and educationally.

I can see now that it was their support (along with the support of my mother’s younger sister) that enabled my mother to thrive in her career, to climb socially as a community leader, and to establish her own import business. When I married and had my own children, my mother clearly decided that she was going to pay it forward. Even though we were not struggling financially, she decided to ease the financial burdens of raising three children by paying for their preschool, piano lessons, Easter clothes, and by providing them with their weekly allowance. We had fun shopping together. She watched the kids so we could have regular date nights and even travel on occasion. She attended recitals, graduations, and every special occasion involving the grandkids. When she visited, she did laundry and cooked. She was available 24/7 for consultation on every issue, sicknesses, or problem that faced me as a mother. My mother had decided to be a blessing to us, and she was.

Sadly, my mother passed away too soon. My eldest was 14 and the youngest, just eight. In my speech at her funeral, I shared how she taught me to be both a mother and an eventual grandmother by her example. I am so grateful that she left both a social-emotional legacy as well as a financial inheritance because none of us could have guessed that shortly after her death, I too, would become a single mom. Her fiscal responsibility, her example of resilience, her loving kindness, her unwavering faith in the Almighty, as well as her wise counsel throughout my life literally got me through the divorce and my seven years as a single parent.

In the last two years, I’ve finally been able to put those grandparenting lessons to use. The difference is that I am substantially older than my mother and my grandparents were when they became grandparents because my children took their sweet time becoming parents. For me, the only good thing about them waiting is that I am retired. I have the freedom, but not the unbounded energy, to come and go without work commitments.

I’m thankful that my children are married, employed, and are all homeowners. Their safety net is broader than my mother’s and mine ever was. They are blessed with parents on both sides who have the desire and means to help support them both socially and financially. Of course, like any family, they have issues and challenges to face because they are human. I’ve acted as consultant on many occasions. I’ve cooked, cleaned, and decorated. And I’ve done far too much worrying for my own good. I’ve suffered under the accusation of being called “pushy” on occasion as well.

But the question I struggle to answer for myself is where to draw the line? How do I reorganize my living trust and my will to provide “what” for my grandchildren? Because they don’t really need a safety net beyond occasional babysitting and consultation, I’m not certain how much spending and inheritance is too much or how much energy spent in caretaking is too much. I laughingly joke about how all my knitting and spending on baby clothes is like a sickness. But I question whether I’ve done too much when my daughter (who just had her first baby) told me that my son explained to her that the thing about Mom was that they’ve never had to buy their son any clothes. That grandson is nearly two years old, and I have yet another box of clothes wrapped up and ready to mail as I write this. Granted my son and his wife are busy professionals who seldom shop and happen to like my style choices, but is this the role I’ve carved out for myself as a grandmother? Child stylist?

I hope it is. The past two weeks gave me a scare when my daughter faced serious complications and even possible death from childbirth related complications. I worked to exhaustion cooking, shopping, cleaning, running errands, and taking care of her and the baby. The thought of having to help raise one of my grandchildren at this advanced age is terrifying to me. I know many grandparents raise their grandchildren and I applaud them for doing so. But I really do not want to be one of them. It would be a blessing to maintain the role of occasional babysitter, consultant, listener, and grandchild stylist. But given that life can be unpredictable, I must have faith that God will give me the strength, grace, and wisdom to face whatever comes my way as a grandparent.

Next month (March), grandson number three is scheduled to be born. And while he does have a lot of hand-me-downs to wear, I couldn’t stop myself from shopping for a few sharp outfits he can call his own.

After 11 years of trying to get pregnant, my 40-year-old daughter Kim gave birth to a small (5 lbs, 2 oz) healthy son they named Ryder. After being induced because of her age and high blood pressure, three days later she ended up delivering Ryder via emergency c-section under general anesthesia on Super Bowl Sunday. That was followed by two consecutive trips to the emergency room for swelling and extremely high blood pressure (like 181 over 114). It turned out to be post-partum preeclampsia. Needless to say, I’ve been extremely busy cleaning like crazy, taking care of their 3 huge dogs, helping the baby and couple adjust, stocking up on supplies, running errands, and of course praying to keep from worrying. All this drama left no time to write my weekly blog. However, I hope you, my readers, will use this time to catch up on previous posts that were missed or revisit your favorite past posts. I’m always grateful to you readers for taking the time read about my life and I’m hopeful that my stories and reflections in some way enrich your lives.

Things are better now. The house is immaculate, supplies are well stocked, my son-in-law is fully invested in his new daddy role, and we’ve built a schedule that allows all of us a bit of sleep. I plan to return home sometime this week and should have a new blog post for next week. Believe me, I’ll be spilling on the drama of this birth experience.

It’s disheartening to see that some people are so resistant to change that they refuse to accept new information if it threatens their previous understanding of the world and the people in it. I was on another Tic Tok Live discussion where a black conservative male led a discussion on whether the term “cisgender” was offensive.

At first, I wondered why this was even a topic. But when I heard one woman after another complain that it was highly offensive to them to be referred to as cisgender, I realized this was yet another aspect of the culture wars. They agreed that they as original or authentic women saw no reason for anyone to add the “Cis” to their label because there are only two sexes: male and female. One woman was adamant that transgender folks were mentally ill or confused and that because transgender women could never give birth, they were not “real” women. She and others concurred that transgender women will never know what it is to be a woman and that adding “cis” in front of any gender was a slap in the face. They espoused the outdated science that people are genetically and anatomically strictly male or female at birth. They had no notion that there was a difference between sex and gender. Some said they had nothing against transgender women, because people can be who they want to be, however, they resented having to play along with their folly by being called “cis”.

Eventually, a brave transgender woman entered the Live discussion and tried to share her story and said that not all women experience womanhood the same way and pointed out that some biological women can’t have babies either. She tried and failed to convince them of a difference between sex and gender. She tried and failed to convince them that cisgender simply means that your sex assignment usually determined at birth matches your gender identity or comfort with set gender roles for males or females. She explained her own journey to her true gender identity, saying she felt like a girl trapped in a boy’s body from childhood. They belittled her feelings and attacked her horribly. One woman told her she would never know what it feels like to be a woman.

There were dissenters in the chat, like me, who tried to explain that “cisgender” is neither derogatory nor threatening to anyone’s gender identity. I asked them to educate themselves on the current science regarding chromosomes and how they have found that it is not actually the binary we once thought. I asked them to read up on the brain findings that biological sex is also determined in the brain and that sometimes the brain sex does not match a person’s genitalia. Others tried to explain that not everyone is born with clear physical appearance as a male or female and that a parent’s guess for sex assignment can turn out to be different from the biological brain sex.

And then an actual neuroscientist entered the live chat and explained in great detail using scientific language how about seven years ago they discovered that sex is a biological brain function as much as it is determined by genitalia and how sometimes they do not match. The scientific language proved too challenging for the women in the Live discussion, and they refused to even try to understand her. Upon request, the neuroscientist broke it down in plain language and they refused to accept it, saying if this was true, it would be all over the news. The neuroscientist explained that it is widely known in the medical field and in academia but that scientists aren’t necessarily the best communicators with the public. They were trying to get the word out as best they could but that scientific news that contradicts religious ideas and political agendas receives inadequate coverage from some new outlets. This was her reason for joining the discussion, but she was disheartened by the lack of basic science to build upon and by their refusal to even try to understand. One woman actually said she was too busy giving her biology teacher a blow job to learn the basics.

And the neuroscientist was absolutely right. The women reacted as poorly as people did when others first claimed that the earth was round and not flat. One woman said that she was taught in high school biology that people have either xx or xy chromosomes and she’s sticking with that. It was impossible to convince her otherwise.

Because I kept emphasizing the need for them to educate themselves on the current science to appreciate the actual sex and gender diversity that has always existed and in the sex chromosomal make up beyond the xx and xy, and because I insisted that “cisgender” is the language of the informed, educated, and inclusive, the moderator commented that they didn’t need to listen to me because I didn’t have a lot of followers. Others accused me of being transgender. I assured them that I was a “cisgender” female who was a mother and grandmother who happened to be educated and that I found nothing to be angry about because someone identifies me as “cisgender” which is simply the opposite of “transgender”. I wrote repeatedly in the chat that cisgender simply means that gender expression matches my sex genitalia.

Some of the women were outright bigots and bullies. The man who hosted the chat sat back silently and let the women attack and insult the transgender woman who joined the discussion in an effort to educate. She finally further identified herself as an academic professor and a practicing therapist who thought she could be provide information and a useful perspective to the discussion.

Sadly, some on the panel and others in the chat used that information to attack her professionally as well. It was appalling and I was among a few who stood by her side, on the side of empathy, science, an open mind to developing information, and educating oneself. Transgender people may be a small minority among us, but they are none-the-less people deserving of safety, dignity, and respect.

One principle of the Fully Present Better Human Project is to be a lifelong learner. Not only it is healthy for the human brain to keep active through learning new things, but it is good for humanity itself. We need fewer bigots and bullies in our society and lifelong learning is essential for good decision making and for understanding the people with whom we live and interact. For transgender folks, our collective learning and acceptance of the full range of human sex and gender could be the difference between a complete denial of some people’s right to even exist.

I spent a significant amount of time this past week participating in several Tic Tok Live discussions centered on a variety of issues vying for supremacy in the clash between conservative thinking and progressive thinking. My next few posts will focus on unpacking the opposing viewpoints and what I believe makes sense and what doesn’t. One Live that captured my attention (and my input) was a discussion on how some frustrated black men (termed “Passport Bros”) are leaving the country in search of submissive wives.

Before that Tic Tok Live, I had never heard of the Passport Bros. Apparently, there are black men with the means to travel who leave or are threatening to leave the country in search of submissive women to marry because black women in the U.S. aren’t submissive enough. The men on the panel were of two mindsets. There were the outright misogynists who expect women to obey them without a word and to service their needs and ambitions. The other men, saw themselves as compassionate men who wanted to take care of “their woman”. They, too, believed that the role of women was indeed to be submissive and supportive, but they saw value in legitimate questions and respectful challenges, so long as their decisions were followed. Both men acknowledged that finding black women who wanted to be submissive on their terms was nearly impossible in the U.S. and so they needed to go abroad.

I found it interesting that the women were also of two minds. The first group of women were willing to be submissive with the right man in charge and the other viewed marriage as a partnership between two thinking adults with differing skill sets. I was part of the latter group.

The major criticism of the Passport Bros was a perception that they were insecure men seeking to enslave, control, and dominate vulnerable women who were poor, passive, and uneducated. They bashed black women and saw themselves as sticking it to black women by going abroad, but the women on the panel and in the chat were like, “Good riddance; please go” because no adult female with a healthy self-esteem and an education would willingly submit to blind obedience and exploitation. These men seemed desperate to fulfil a need to exploit women for sex and ego. It seemed that they either had a distorted view of women or that they cared nothing about the humanity of women, making them capable of treating women like children, sex toys, and slaves that they would “treat well”. Even the “reasonable” men had expectations that any self-respecting educated woman with ambitions and a voice of their own would find unacceptable. Later, a female law enforcement officer on the panel acknowledged that men who viewed women in this fashion were the most prone to use violence against their wives and girlfriends.

The men on the panel weren’t interested in partnership nor collaboration while the women were either seeking an unattainable level of competence, confidence, and strength in a male to submit to or like me, a partnership. But the reality in the U.S. today is that black females have college degree attainment at twice the level of their black male counterparts. They are less likely to have prison records and less likely to be unemployed. A combination of poverty, mass incarceration, violence, and single parent households as experienced in the U.S. have led black women to depend on themselves. Black females have gained a reputation for being educated, strong-willed, independent, hardworking, competent, ambition and very vocal. I guess it should be expected that many black males (along with others) find black women intimidating and emasculating. Many black women neither need nor want to be lead, however, they do want to be nurturing and loved and some are willing to be submissive under ideal circumstances. To the lament of many black women, it’s become common to find educated black males with white women.

On the flip side, black women are turning to men of other races for partnership much more frequently. All three of my biological children have married outside their race and I don’t find anything wrong with it. They have found someone who is a loving partner to them and that makes me happy. They have all elevated their social-economic status in partnership with the person they married. Contrary to the myth, they haven’t encountered a whole lot of drama from their ethnic differences. Rather, their life experiences and opportunities for growth have been expanded. At the same time, their spouses have become greater advocates for black lives. While I never married outside my race, I would not have been opposed to it. I just happened to meet partners who were black.

I’m thankful that twice in my lifetime, I married black men who were seeking a partner, not someone to dominate. We recognized each other’s knowledge, skills, and expertise and deferred to each other accordingly. The first marriage ended because he finally admitted that he didn’t believe in monogamy. I was confident enough in myself to file for divorce, but many women are not. Because we had been partners, we negotiated the terms of our divorce without drama and remained as collaborative co-parents. In both of my marriages, major decisions have been made through discussion until we reached consensus. The idea that one person makes all the decisions and the other mindlessly follows only works when the follower is incapable of rational thought. I pity the many women I saw in church who were passively submissive wives and later found themselves thrust into poverty and hardship when the man they trusted moved on.

I know there are religious women who believe in total submission because they accept the teaching that man is the rightful head of the household. That system works for women who are willing to place their trust, their talents, and their personal feelings in service to the ego, whims, and ambitions of a man because they trust God. If the man is generous, kind, really smart, has integrity, and values his wife’s feelings and gifts, then it might work. The problem is that very few men can meet the high standard required to command absolute submission. So, in my humble opinion, I’ll take partnership and collaboration in marriage over absolute submission any day.

I doubt the Passport Bros will change their mindset and so I feel sad for the women who may become their victims. A few may be happily submissive and do well in these marriages. But moving forward, I hope we as mothers and grandmothers do a much better job of raising our sons to respect and value the full humanity and dignity of women.