Women used to encounter shame if they went to work. Now there’s shaming if they don’t. I am a year out of college and in the minority among my peers because I want to have kids more than a 60-hour work week. Of course I want some of both — all people need meaningful work. I want to write, maybe teach. But I mostly want to have kids and be involved in my community. Some argue that women’s liberation allowed for women to come out of the kitchens and do anything they want to do.

Now if a woman wants to be a “mom” for a majority of her life, she can do that, but it’s kind of lame if she does. No one says it, but they don’t have to. “So, what are your goals,” they ask instead? To “stay at home” would be to undo progress. However, according to studies cited by Penelope Trunk, at least 20 percent of women won’t be happy unless they stay at home with kids. And kids do better overall if they have at least one full-time caregiver, and it’s most likely going to be the mom.

This is partly in defense of my own desires and choices but also of the presently less defended choices by many women today. Some of my peers assert that most women who end up staying at home with kids do it mostly because they think they should; they think that’s what a “good” woman does. This may be true for some, and certainly not for others. But it’s also true that we need to clarify who a “good” woman is. She’s certainly not prim-but-dishonest mother and wife like Betty from Mad Men. And a good woman certainly needs to mean more than not having sex before marriage (though I think chastity is helpful). But in and out of Christian culture, a “good” woman has become synonymous with compliant, boring, and blank. ‘Good’ is cheesy, almost backwards, too traditional. Good is not financially successful and cannot coexist with competition. I also think that because simplicity, virtue, and family life are often disdained in our culture, women are educated incorrectly, and shamed into one sort of work when personality-wise, many women don’t really want to do that. This cynicism has largely won the battle, especially in the Southern California culture in which I grew up and live.

It’s true; there are more than two types of women. We aren’t just CEO’s or stay-at-home-moms. We women aren’t labels. Our society has created wonderful opportunities for women — to own our own businesses, compete for equal wage, but what if not every woman wants to climb, climb, climb? Growing up, I was a quintessential “good girl” and often felt shunned as early as 3rd grade for my lack of certain experiences, mostly sexual and dating. These latter categories have become a litmus test for ‘real’-world wisom. Because if you haven’t done ‘x,’ then you live in the dark ages and couldn’t possibly have anything relevant to say to today’s girls, where their identities are disproportionately formed based on sexuality. I was raised playing with American Girl dolls, watching Anne of Green Gables, and making-believe in the backyard with my sisters as colonial characters in a red Radio Flyer — all, in which good was just good. Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post writes on the bland, shallow narratives for the new American Girl dolls, which is a sign, she argues, our culture’s current image. (Dolls? Is she seriously talking about dolls? Hold on). Almost every girl I knew or babysat for had an American girl doll. They read the books, collected the accessories, and acted out the stories. Presently, the publishers at American Girl have swapped historical narratives of young female characters with real rooted challenges that demanded evolution of mind and character for dolls who look just like the little girl who buys her, with crises about school sports injuries. Not to mention Disney (i.e. Hannah Montana). Since when did she deserve to be the little girl’s hero?

Maybe I was blessed with simplicity and innocence. I know I was. Maybe I was “sheltered.” Sure. Yes. Is that so terrible? It is this innocence that I want that for young girls today in a world that feels very different from my childhood more than a decade ago. Because this innocence—including a centered view of my body and sexuality— has preserved parts of my soul that I will need for a healthy marriage and healthy relationships with my friends and future children.

Goodness is one of the fruit of the Spirit. It isn’t prudishness, but it does involve prudence—a wisdom that is thoughtful and balanced decision-making based on more than: “what’s good for you” no matter the cost, without thought to others. Goodness leads with love. I have watched girlfriends do “what’s good for them” based on bad, cultural tales and in reaction to a church that has been judgmental to them based on illogical reasoning. But, a reaction in itself will not lead to life.

Full-bodied narratives for adult women begin with stories we give to and create for girls. The stories that we believe most about the world (i.e. the Soulmate story, the Cinderella story) will manifest themselves in our lives. But if goodness and virtue are ideas of the past, as represented by hilarious, yet shallow, sitcoms like “How I Met Your Mother,” then we are in big trouble. (And this goes for both men and women). If these values aren’t apart of being a true “good” girl, then they most likely won’t be a part of her concerns when she’s older. So, I am not advocating that a ‘stay-at-home-mom’ is the alternative litmus test to promiscuity. But, be she a business owner, artist, officer, and/or mom, we need to support her and not become hypocritical when we employ jargon about “a woman’s choice.” We need to help to ensure that virtue and love— this “stuff of life”— pervades our work and our intentions, whatever the wrapping surrounding them.

                                                                                  _________

Image credit: bossmomonline.com

Since I was first pregnant and learned I was going to have a girl, I could feel in my bones the question she would one day ask.

Not “What is my destiny?” or “Who will I become?”

But, “Am I pretty?”

I hoped she would ask the other questions, too,  but the beauty question is the trump card in our culture.

I’m afraid the deck was stacked against her when she entered this world, and not because she isn’t beautiful — no, I see her beauty every day — but because the world around her tells her, tells me, all women, that we are not beautiful, we are not pretty.

Our standard of beauty is impossibly high.

This is new. A few decades ago, people were made to look pretty with makeup and airbrushing. Years ago, you may have only seen a few astonishingly beautiful people in your lifetime.

But now, with the magic of computers, filmmaker and scholar Jean Kilbourne thinks that the women we see all the time in television shows and movies are “inhumanly perfect.” In Miss Representation, she says:

“Girls get the message from very early on that what’s most important is how they look. That their value, their worth, depends on that… So no matter what else a woman does, no matter what else her achievements, their value still depends on how they look.”

I’m not sure how old my daughter will be when she first wonders if she’s pretty.

I remember when I was in elementary school and all I wanted was to look like this girl on a Sunkist commercial. She was tan and thin with long blonde hair and a little nose and dazzling smile.

If only I could look like her, I thought. Although I didn’t know what it would mean to look like her, I felt in my depths that it had to be something very, very good. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I knew I would never come close.

If my daughter asks me if she is pretty, I will say, “Yes, undeniably, you are pretty – not just pretty, but beautiful.”

And we will sit and talk about Barbie and Hannah Montana.

And I will tell her that definitions of pretty are different in different cultures and times – from tiny feet in China to long necks in Africa. In our country, just over the last 100 years, pretty has ranged from small chests to large breasts, and from curvy bodies to straight and skinny forms.

And I will tell her that she is more than just pretty, never just pretty, but “pretty intelligent and pretty creative and pretty amazing.”

I will tell her that her worth is not connected to her appearance, that her worth lies in the fact that God made her. And maybe her appearance is exactly what God intended, to best bear his image, as Dale Fincher highlights in Living with Questions.

But the thing is, no matter how poetic my words or well-researched my ideas, I know they won’t be enough. This will be a journey she will have to travel.

So instead of planning my perfect response, I’m working on one thing I can change: my own perception of myself. If I can see my own beauty, look in a mirror and be kind, see good features and good purpose, then maybe that’s a start.

I will see beauty not just in models, not just in my friends, but in myself.

I will teach myself that I am pretty.

And I will learn that I am more than pretty — I am made by God to bear his image.

Now that is beautiful.

__________

Image credits: babble.com and anythingfancy.files.wordpress.com

Just before her 15-year-old son was shot and killed not far from the Obama’s ‘Tony’ home in Chicago, Timika Ruteledge-German prayed for her youngest child.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the prayer went like this: “‘Cornbread’ [her son’s nickname] is stressing me out. I’m going to ‘Let go and let God.’” According to Rutledge-German, God said, “Ok, I got you.”

And I got this.

Although I’m sure most readers met her assertion that she heard from God with rolled eyes and shaking heads, I’ve had too many words from God (Who’s got this? God asks. You do, I answer, when stress arrives) to dismiss this. Nor can I dismiss what came next.

When Ruteledge-German was asked how she felt about God letting her son die despite his words, she said: “I’m questioning my faith.”

And I got this, too.

This is the awful thing about prayer. About faith. Even about God, if I may be so bold. I believe God hears us when we pray. I believe he turns his ear toward us and listens to whatever we bring him, to our worries, our fears, our frustrations, our petitions, our thanksgiving. And I believe with all my heart, mind and soul that God puts his mouth to our ears and whispers words that comfort and assure, words that sooth and embolden, words that wipe away fears and words that make us believe he indeed has “got us.”

But then, sometimes, he lets us go. Or, lets our kids go. Or, our spouses, parents, friends, neighbors. Or so it seems. Sometimes he assures us a miracle is coming and then no miracle arrives. Disaster strikes.

Two weeks ago, God was hearing three sets of prayers from me after dropping my kids at school. The first he heard was the prayer I always pray: the Lord’s Prayer. This is my daily go-to morning prayer. But when needs are great — or thanksgiving overflowing — I add more. On this day, I added a prayer for a man in my community whose cancer came back. His family believed a miracle was coming — and they asked for bold prayer for healing. So I joined them in this.

And on this same day, one of my kids fretted about a fitness test in P.E. This child happens to also be having a hard time with God, with believing in prayer. So I prayed another bold prayer: that my child would pass this test and pass it well so that my child know God cared.

That day I believe God heard each prayer. I heard him ask, Who’s got this? And I replied, You, God. You’ve got this, as I pulled into my driveway.

That day my child passed the fitness test. With flying colors. The next day, the man in my community died. Of a complication barely related to cancer.

And even as I rejoiced with my child and shared how I had prayed and how God answered, and was real and true and faithful and good, I wondered. The juxtaposition of “answered” prayer next to “unanswered” was a bit much. Even as my child’s faith was emboldened, mine was shaken.

I’ve reached no resolution — even though I know all the different answers. I’ve been a Christian nearly my whole life and have heard all the explanations. I still believe God hears, and I still believe God speaks, and I still believe God’s at work in this world, but prayer, I imagine, will always be one of those things that shakes my faith. That stirs it up. That keeps it alive and interesting, perhaps.

My childhood was spent designing spaceships with legos or impersonating NBA greats on a mini hoop in my basement or refining my radio voice on my boom box.

Somewhere there are videos. My dad was a relentless, and, at times, stealth recorder. I can recall moments I was sprawled out my bedroom floor, surrounded on all sides by legos, completely absorbed in arranging pieces and scenarios, and then I would look up and find him standing there, a smirk hidden behind an old Sony VHS recorder. Once discovered, he turned into Walter Cronkite. He would ask questions or narrate events. It could be well beyond my bedtime, but he would let the red light keep blinking.

When I look back now, this was one of my dad’s greatest gifts. He let the relationship trump the rules. He often had every right to ask me to clean up or come to dinner or go to bed. But he engaged me. He got down to my level and even played along, especially when Brad (gotta have a good radio name) needed a celebrity guest for his show. His engagement gave me the permission to be myself.

Last week on Facebook, I watched a video from a friend of her 2-year-old son saying his ABCs. The whole time he’s holding a stuffed animal upside down against his face. There was no questioning her delight in her little boy even though she made it clear in the caption that she had no idea why he had the bunny. She connected with him because he was being himself, much like my dad found enjoyment in me enjoying play in my own personal way.

So why is it in Christian circles, when we use the phrase “relationship with God” we default to clapping and cheering for people who have hour-long quiet times or day-long fasts? Why is the primary barometer for indicating healthy connection with God our output. It’s no wonder shame is so prevalent when we go a couple days, a couple weeks or a couple months without reading the bible or attending church. We put the onus, the burden of the relationship on ourselves. And often, over time, when we don’t see much reciprocation, we grow weary and wonder, “What is the point?”

We make for a small relationship and a small God when we base our connection only on what we do for God. Our reading. Our praying. Our serving.

When I think about the times I felt most connected to my dad, most loved by him, it was in those moments when he found me in my element and pointed his heart (and camera) at me, as if to say, “This is my son, with him I am we’ll pleased.”

A relationship with God needs to be taken out of the hands of the Pharisees. I think God is less concerned about my performance and more about my personhood. God longs to come alongside of me in those moments and places where I am my silly little self. He wants to make my delight his delight, my play his play.

No relationship gains when we impose our way on another. I felt so alienated from my grandpa (not the one I lived with for a summer) the day he came in from the fields, smelling of diesel fuel, and sat down across the table from me and said, “You need to get a real job.” He could have cared less about my passion for my work and why it brought me joy. He shut me down, kept me from blossoming more into my own skin.

Our thinking needs to shift. Instead of worrying about our output, scripture seems to indicate that we have every right to think about what God has opened. We were designed to walk into the fullness of life. Our experience of this fullness, of becoming our full ourselves, is something that is as delightful to our Creator as earthly parents swept up in the emotion of watching a child perform at a piano recital or cheering them on at a baseball game.

I felt this distinctly about a month ago when I spent four days watching eight documentaries as part of the True/False Film Festival. I skipped church that weekend. I didn’t read my bible. Instead I braved frigid temps and got callouses on my feet because I come alive, and am more myself, when I get caught up in great storytelling. And what I loved, probably more than any of the brilliant art I experienced, is the blessing and smile of God that seemed to follow me all weekend. There was nothing intense or distinctly spiritual about it. It was a connection forged not during some office hours but a life lived with authenticity.

________

Image credit: scandigital.com/ and instagram.com/courtsidehoops

Recently, as I began the nightly ritual of putting children to bed, I knelt by my seven-year-old son’s bed and had an unexpected conversation.

“Something happened today, but I don’t really want to tell you,” he started from beneath his Tonka truck sheets.

Since I’ve learned that this is how he prefers to let me know that something is bothering him and that he would greatly appreciate it if I came at the matter sideways instead of head-on, I started the normal tucking in, smoothing of hair, and general bedside routine, and casually asked some questions, about his day at school, the lunch I packed, his recess time…

And it started coming out.

“You know Danny,” he said. “Well, Danny said some not good things.”

“That’s too bad,” I answered. “Did he hurt your feelings, or another friend’s feelings?”

“No, no, that’s not it. He said some not good things about God. He said it was stupid to believe in God.”

“Did you say anything to him?” I asked.

As he shook his head, I thought about how to proceed, only to hear my son share more.

“He also said God doesn’t help children, and then he said something else that I really don’t want to tell you.”

“Well, let’s talk about what you’ve already told me, OK? Did you know it’s always OK to tell someone what you believe as long as you’re nice about it?”

His brows furrowed. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I just didn’t answer him.”

“It’s so great that you don’t want to hurt a friend’s feelings. I’m really proud of you for thinking about your friend. But, on the other side, it’s not wrong to let him know that you do believe in God. You don’t have to beat him up about it or try to make him feel stupid because he hasn’t been taught about God yet, or anything like that. Just know it’s not wrong to share what you believe — especially when you’re sort of asked — but a lot depends on how you say it. Letting him know you do believe in God and that you’re still respecting his feelings are both great things.”

He considered this perspective.

Now. This is the kid who’s more at home riding his KTM dirtbike on our homemade tracks in the back fields than having a long conversation about events and feelings — conversations so challenging to his personality type that they generally leave him rolling around on the floor and moaning over the steep effort. (You know. Conversations that start with, “Hey, what did you do to your sister when you were playing the Wii?”) Frankly, this conversation floored me. It continued.

“Mom, he said something else, too. Danny said God is stupid.”

“You know, Danny doesn’t know God. If his parents haven’t taught him anything about who God is, then he really doesn’t know for himself. But you know, God loves Danny just as much as he loves you, even if Danny’s not sure about God yet.”

We talked further about handling ticklish spiritual conversations with friends who believe differently from us, and then I prayed with him, kissed him good night, and left him to sleep.

The next night, in the middle of supper, our son piped up and said he had talked with Danny at school.

“Wow, really?” I said.

He had gone up to Danny and asked to talk to him. Now I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Danny, he’d said, but I do want you to know I believe in God.

“Wow!” I said.

Yes, he had told Danny that the bible is a book about God and it says that Jesus loves kids because Jesus said let the little children come to me. And he told him that the bible says that God’s not stupid, God loves us. In fact, it says we can love him because he first loved us.

“WOW!” I said. “You told him all this? What did Danny say?”

Oh, not much. He just said it’s OK.

My husband and I boggled at him as he plied away at his carrots and chicken.

I have a huge amount of gratitude about how my son handled himself throughout this interaction with his school friend, in both conversations. By choosing to value his friend’s feelings and sense of worth over pounding out what he himself has been taught, he maintained friendship with a classmate who is struggling with his picture of God, and by sharing what he does believe, he openly maintained his integrity and core belief in a loving God.

I mean, wow!

__________

Image credits: education.com and skillsprout.com