I Am Thankful for Reality Checks

Of all the things I love, and do not love, about my family, the big, heaping, strong spoonful of reality is what I love the most.

There are the little things.

"Okay, I'll run down to mom's, finish my blog, grab the spinach, and be right back to make the spinach dip," I explain to my sisters, both beautiful, sitting elegantly sipping wine in Tammy's kitchen.

"No.  Get the spinach and come back here and make the spinach dip.  It's an appetizer.  Dinner's in an hour,"  Tammy knows how to give me a look that tells me she knows me so well, and that she is not going to buy what I am attempting to sell.

"What?  I already started it.  It will take me like ten minutes.  I'll be right back."  I head out the door, and before it closes behind me, Tammy says, "Shanna, don't finish your blog."

Well, in the 3 minutes it took me to walk down to my mother's house I realized she was right; it would have taken me at least another hour to write and edit my blog.  Sure, I would have been satisfied with my own personal accomplishment, but I would have let my family down.

Never mind the fact that no one ate my spinach dip.  I still can't figure out why my family is so anti-vegetable.

And then there is the family I chose.  Well, kind of.

All day I have been shopping and prepping for a big post Thanksgiving meal.  My mother's dinner was fabulous.  It always is.  But it was the traditional turkey, mash potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, gravy, etc.  I have been compiling new Thanksgiving recipes for the last few years that have made their way into my own celebratory meal and I was looking forward to putting some perfections on already tried dishes and to trying some new ones.

I spent hundreds of dollars at Whole Foods.  Not like that is a difficult thing to do; the wine, chocolate, and cheese alone cost upwards of fifty dollars.  For dinner I prepared a turkey, unstuffed, baked herb apple and onion stuffing, roasted bacon brussel sprouts, crock pot cheesy potatoes, and a cranberry and mandarin orange green salad with citrus vinaigrette.  All but the turkey, bacon and cheese were organic.  And everything was made from scratch except the pie crust.

I was pretty proud.

I had planned on having a few people over, friends and family, and was disappointed to be stood up by people very close to me.

But the fact that our good friend Scott showed up has been a huge reality check for me.  No matter what happens, Scott is always there.  He specifically took the time off work, at a very busy time of the year for his business, to be here with his "family," telling his coworkers that he was "going to his brother's house for dinner."

Scott loves my husband much like a brother.  They both moved to California at the same time and were new employees where they instantly became friends as food servers at Chevy's.  I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Scott will be with us for the rest of our lives. We have been through ups and downs with Scott, celebrating the ups, and comforting through the downs.  He hated me for being the one Carlos chose, putting an end to Scott's hopes that Carlos might cross over to the other side.  He humbled himself to me soon afterward, acknowledging my firm position in Carlos' life.  He toasted us at our wedding.  He was one of the few people who came to see me in the hospital after Celaya was born.

He always brings wine when he visits.

And he always makes me laugh.

As we sit here now, Carlos and Scott watching boxing (correction: Carlos is watching boxing.  Scott is admiring the half naked men), me eating the perfectly tart (if I do say so myself) Lemon Merengue pie I made, my brother is looking through the front closet for something, and Scott calls over to him, "hey Teno, is my boa in there?"

"What the hell is a boa?"  Teno wonders from the hall.

"You know, a boa.  It's green.  I think I left it here a long time ago."

"Like a snake?"

"No, it has feathers.  It goes around your neck."

Teno looks at him, looks at me, and heads back down the hall toward his room, shaking his head.

Scott looks over at me.  "Is that a no?"

Yes, Scott is family.

And this most recent reality check, though bittersweet, is nonetheless a great reality.

I Am Thankful for Noise

Loud.  Raucous.  Rambunctious.  Ear Deafening.

That's the family I come from.  I come from a woman who loves to talk and a man with a booming voice who also loves to talk.

So I am loud and I love to talk.

My mother is the oldest sister of five girls.  All of them love to talk.  And they talk over each other.

I am the oldest of three girls and a boy.  The boy is the only quiet one.

So last night I'm sitting at the computer, trying in earnest to finish my latest blog post before I forget the funny moments I want to put in print, and I am noticing the volume of the room.  At a regular level, meaning no arguing (well, no angry arguing), no boxing matches or football games to yell about, the room is full of noise.  We talk, we laugh, my nephew screams, my niece sings at top volume, the television is on.  And I look at the monitor to see my baby sleeping soundly through all of this.

Yep.  She's one of us.

Despite the fact that she is accustomed to sleeping in a pretty quiet environment, she settled right into the cacophonous clan.  It makes me proud.

I do enjoy my talkative, debating, crazy family.  They remind me why I love being from a large family. Every time.  Even when we fight.

At one point I observed my brother having a conversation with my brother in law while also playing a video game, and my sister having a conversation with my other sister who was sitting next to my brother in law.  So there's this triangle of discussions going on, my brother on one couch, talking across the room to my brother in law, my sister on the adjacent couch talking diagonally to my other sister, with my nephew crying in my sister's arms, my niece watching her cartoon on my sister's phone, my mother commenting on whatever television show she had been watching earlier in the day, to no one in particular, and my other brother in law playing a video game on his phone.

You would think this was chaos, especially in our small living room.  But it was a normal Thanksgiving for us.

In fact, if one of us wasn't there, the topic of conversation would frequently come around to what a jerk that person was for being absent from our chaos.  My husband, my brother, my baby and I all drove up for a quick two day turnaround trip specifically to be part of the jocularity.

The table is always packed, Celaya singing ABCs, Myah refusing to eat anything but bread, Shaun pointing out Teno's unshaven baby face, Teno coming back that Shaun looks as though he hasn't showered, Max telling everyone that he hates us (he's joking... I think), and my mother running around trying to please everyone, always sitting last, always cleaning up after everyone.

I love the noise.  Without it I would be lost.  I would be lonely.  I would be a different person entirely.  When I was younger my own personal noisiness was a bit obnoxious, I'll admit.  But I hope that mine has now become a more mature, playful, participatory noisiness.  And I hope I'm raising my daughter to be the same fun, joyful, infectious kind of noisy.

Like when I point out the pterodactyl on the page of my daughter's book, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! and tell her, "That's a pterodactyl.  It says, 'PCAAAAAAAAAAH!'"

And she dutifully responds, at top volume, in her sweet baby voice, "PCAAAAAAAAAAH!"

And in the end, I get in the car, my baby falls asleep, and we sit for an hour and a half of our ride home in silence.

The rest of the car ride was noisy, of course, music, conversation, ABC songs, and so on.

But I got to come home, put my baby to bed, and sit at my computer with the dishwasher running quietly in the background, my brother settled in his room, my husband watching Spanish television on low, candles lit.  I look out over the street below, cars rushing past, and think about how much I enjoy the quiet, the calm, the peace.

And how much I miss the noise.

I Am Thankful for Travel

I was not dreading the trip north to my mom's house, but I certainly wasn't looking forward to it.

This sense of trepidation came mostly from knowing that my daughter is not a fan of the car.  She starts pitching a fit on the way to Trader Joe's.  She gets buckwild crazy traveling to Berkeley from Hayward, especially if there's traffic.  I could only imagine her mood on a day trip to Humboldt from the Bay Area, a 300 mile distance.  Add to the mix the fact that it is the day before Thanksgiving.  During rush hour. 

Not too bright, huh?  Yea, I'm aware. 

But I had grown tired of night travel, arriving at 2 in the morning, exhausted, up again at 6 or 7 when Celaya pops up, "hi!"  No, she was old enough now, I figured, to pitch a fit (if absolutely necessary) and get over it.

So we hit the road...

And it was great.

Sure, Celaya pitched a couple of small fits.  She's at the age now when the waterworks come on whenever she is upset.  We sat in two hours of traffic, so she wasn't a huge fan of that, but all in all, she was great.

I have only grudgingly begun to allow Celaya to watch Baby Einstein videos on YouTube in the mornings when we wake up.  She watches "Discovering Shapes" on my phone while I cling to the last dregs of sleep or, if I'm surprisingly fully awake, sip coffee and browse one of my magazines. 

These videos were a life saver in the car.  Celaya looked at clouds.  She enjoyed the cars.  She sang along to Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and ABCs (sorry Teno).  And she played with her special car toy that we had just purchased that day.  That all lasted about an hour and a half, of a five hour drive (without traffic).  My plan was to save the YouTube videos as a last resort secret weapon.  They worked like a charm.  She watched the same videos over and over for the last bit of driving before dinner.  We stopped at Round Table for pizza about halfway up the coast, and she fell asleep quickly after getting back into the car for the last two hours of the drive. 

So we survived our first long day trip with Celaya.  I am very thankful.

But even more than that, I am incredibly grateful for the time I got to spend in the car with my immediate family.  I do love road trips.  I loved making stops along the way in different places for coffee, for pizza, for gas.  I loved listening to random music, 90s on 9, 40s on 4 (Carlos does great jazz hands), on Sirius radio in our rented VW Jetta. 

I adore renting cars as a Hertz Gold member.  My stepmother is a Hertz employee and for the last year I have rented several different vehicles of different sizes.  As a bike commuter looking to buy a car in about a year, this opportunity has been wonderful for exploring my options. 

One unexpected surprise joy was the chance to watch my brother close up with his niece.  I know, logically, through experience, and through Celaya's reactions to her Teno, that he is a good uncle.  But watching him in the rearview mirror reach out and play with her feet, lean his head against her carseat, and, best of all, listening to him read her books before she fell asleep, really brought home for me the strength of their bond.  Carlos and I sat in the front seat and exchanged smiles as we silently mouthed the words to the books we have both read hundreds of times:  "'What big blocks!' said the dinosaur.  'Those aren't blocks.  Those are buildings.'  Said Danny.  'I love climbing.'  Said the dinosaur.  'Down boy!'  Said Danny."  Hearing the stories come from an uncle who cherishes his niece was heartwarming.

Finally.  I forgot how funny my husband, in our long road trip conversations, is.

"Well," he began, as Teno and Celaya slept in the back seat, the road dark, our headlights the only ones brightening up the path ahead, "if I ever can't take care myself, we should tell our kids that whichever one wants to take care of us will get our house."
"What?!"  First of all, we don't have a house.  Second of all, our children are not wiping our dirty old butts. 
I told him as much.
"Ew!  Why do they  have to wipe our butts!?"  He was genuinely shocked and disgusted.
"Um, honey, what do you think 'can't take care of ourselves' means?"  I wondered  "If you get dementia, you're going to need someone to wipe your butt at some point."
"Dimension?  What does dimension have to do with anything?  This is a tramp."
I couldn't help laughing out loud.
"Dimentia.  Dimentia.  It's when you get old, your mind goes, and basicallly, you can't wipe your butt.  Don't worry honey, no one is sending you to another dimension.  And I am not setting a trap."

It was a great trip.  I am so glad I made myself leap into the unknown.

I Am Thankful for Shame

Yes.  Shame.

In my work on the American History curriculum at our tutoring center I have been reading about the stark contrasts between Europeans and Native Americans in pre-Columbian times.  In the most liberal textbooks this wide ranging area of differentiation is a major point of focus because understanding it is crucial to understanding the way the colonists treated the Native Americans upon arrival, like aliens, like foreigners.

Some of the differences are common knowledge: the sense of community; sharing housing, food, and trade goods was a normal way of life for most tribes.  One colonist wrote in his letters home that no one would ever starve if even one person in the tribe had riches.  There was no hoarding and no boot-strap theory.

Other differences may not be so familiar to all:  a woman could hold positions of great power, sitting on councils, choosing her husband, and having the option to divorce a man who displeased her; she simply placed his belongings outside the home.  "You really messed up this time, buddy," I can imagine his friends saying.

But one custom I was reviewing of the Native American tribes is one that, while I was already aware of, struck me in a profound way now that I am a mother:  shame.

The Europeans practiced as a centuries-old tradition corporal punishment, physical discipline.  It was expected that you would hit your child for misbehaving, that you would yell, berate, and make him or her feel small and powerless.  "Spare the rod, spoil the child."  While I believe this biblical advice is not advocating hitting your kid with a stick (or even physically harming your child at all), I do realize that that is in all actuality how it sounds, and that, more importantly, that is how good Christians interpret it.  

Adults in a European society could expect to be tortured, jailed, hanged, stretched, lashed, put in the stocks, and on and on, for any matter trivial or great, depending on the magistrate and current rules mandating discipline.

The lesson, at least as I learned it, being brought up in much this way, and in a society that still pretty much adheres to the good old European way:  don't get caught.  Oh, and also, hitting is okay if you have the power and someone else wrongs you.

In striking contrast, the Native American means of dealing with people who act against the good of the family or the tribe is one of shame.  When children misbehave they are shamed by their parents through losing family privileges, like partaking in family functions, meals, activities, etc., or having a responsibility you are proud of taken away.  You have lost trust, and you must earn it back.  When adults wrong the tribe in some way, they are treated in much the same way, shamed by the crowd, unable to partake in community gatherings and festivals.  If you continue to misbehave, you will be cast out of the group entirely until you prove you are prepared to reenter and follow the expectations therein.

The lesson here:  behave appropriately or you will be cast out of the light, cast out of the love.  That warm feeling you have when you are gathered with your closest friends and relatives will be taken from you.

This idea of shaming is one that has always made sense to me.  I have been hit.  I have been grounded. I have been beaten.  Nothing changed my attitude more than being told that I was a disappointment.  I had let people down.  I had hurt someone.

It also occurred to me that this was a practice I had already established in my own home.  I have never struck Celaya.  In fact, the one time I saw Carlos knock her on the back of the skull in play, Celaya skipping off to play elsewhere, I went on a twenty minute rant about what we are teaching our daughter about violence.  Yea yea, I know, slight overreaction.

But when Celaya acts out in general I tend to get quieter, more patient, and finally, I will become very serious, not speak at all, and just look her in the eyes.  Not angry, just not my usual playful, smiling, laughing self.  On a few rare occasions I have walked away into the next room.  She of course follows quickly after me at which point I'll say, "well then, let's pick up your blocks like Mama said."  I do this knowing instinctively that she will follow because she adores me, because I adore her.  This whole approach only works because of just how much love I show her, just how much I snuggle her, just how much attention I pay to her.  She is the light of my life and all the big bright glowing rays of motherly love shine down on her from me like manna from heaven.  I am her whole world.  The very thought of being cast even momentarily out of that world whips her into shape.  Well, toddler shape.  She basically throws a couple of blocks in the box while I do the rest.  She's 20 months after all.  But hey, it's a start.

This is not to say that I do not yell.  If she goes for the knives in the dishwasher, stands up on a kitchen chair, tries to climb on a bookshelf, or anything else that puts her in immediate danger, she gets a "HEY!" in my sternly raised Mama voice.  It's effective.  She's still alive.

The point about shame as opposed to physical punishment is this:  shame is more difficult; physical punishment is easy.  It takes time, day after day, hour after hour kind of time, to build up the love, trust, and security that people are afraid to lose.  It takes hard work to earn people's respect, even your children's, so that they don't want to lose yours.  It matters to me what my child thinks of me, if she thinks I am a strong, intelligent, moral, wise, loving mother, she will, logically, want to stay in my good graces, most of the time anyway.  I am aware of the sheer and utter insanity that is adolescence.  Remember, I said logically.

But this means I have to work every day to be the kind of person I hope my kid wants to be like.  I have to devote time every day to show her how important she is to me.

I guess this is why they say it takes a village.  How much more difficult this task would be if I had to do it alone, and even more difficult if I had family and friends that belonged to the physical punishment school of thought.  Thankfully, I do not.  They are quite enlightened.

Well, most of them.

And those who aren't?

Well, shame on them.

I Am Thankful for My Period

I don't understand why it is such a shameful thing to discuss.  

I have seen advertisements on television, in magazines, and on public transportation for erectile disfunction medication.

"Hey, grandpa, want to have sex but your body has decided that you're too old?  Here's a pill, because your life only has meaning if you're having regular sex for the rest of your life, literally until the day you die."

Right, totally appropriate.

But if I say I'm in constant snacking mode, or I'm feeling extra cranky or emotional because my period is approaching, even if I use a euphemism, "it's that time of the month," it's inappropriate.  

Why?

The female menstrual cycle is not only normal, it is wonderful.  It tells you your body is working.  It starts everything clean and fresh again.  I remember when doctors first started offering a birth control pill that would allow you to only have four periods a year, and I thought, "why on earth would anyone want to do that?"  

I have been on the worst birth control pill for the last few months and as a result haven't had a period.  I have just felt incomplete.  

But perhaps this has something to do with my basically cyclical personality.  I like the beginning of the week as much as I enjoy the end of it.  I like the early morning as much as the late night.  I take comfort in both the prepping and cooking of a meal as much as in the cleaning and looking around my sparkly kitchen afterward.  I look forward to beginnings and I savor the final moments.  Of everything.

For me, a period is a fresh start, a washing away of a long month of hard work, preparation for a new, better month to come.  

A month without a period is like a week with no weekend.  Week after week of Monday through Friday with no Saturday and Sunday to reflect on the week, prepare for a new one, think of ways to improve on the progress you made the week before.

My period also allows me to cry just for the hell of it, which can be a hell of a release.  I enjoy chocolate on a different level.  I sleep better at this time of the month, heavier, waking up more rested.  

So I have to deal with blood.  Big deal.  

Yes, for those of you who know me, I'm not a fan of blood, the exact opposite in fact.

But for the benefits that come along, the small mess is resoundingly worth it.  

Oh, you say, how can you devote an entire blog post to something so personal, so private, something that should be so discreet?

This is one taboo subject that I think needs to come out of the closet.  I have a daughter.  Someday I am going to need to explain to her the basics of the female menstrual period, and I want that conversation to be matter of fact, congratulatory even.  Welcome to the world of womanhood. 

This is not Carrie.  Girls should not be terrified, horrified, or, worst of all, shocked the first time they menstruate.  They should be encourage to ask questions, to develop normally, unhindered by the expectations of an intolerant and hypocritical society.   Menstruation is not a choice.  Every woman experiences it.  

If Miley Cyrus can dry hump a stage and great grandpas everywhere can read erectile disfunction ads on city busses, I can celebrate my period.

Please feel free to join me.

Katy Perry Vs. Miley Cyrus

Right now?  Katy Perry.

I turn on the radio and hear her singing about strength, getting the eye of the tiger, and roaring.  Meanwhile Miley Cyrus is grabbing every phallic object she can find and miming blow jobs for the camera.

A couple of years ago?  Miley, of course.

Miley was singing about strength and enjoying the journey while Katy Perry was singing about extraterrestrial sex and kissing girls and liking it.

This ambiguity, I think, is the joy of music.  I can turn the radio on and off, switch the station, encouraging role model behavior based on lyrics and meaning behind each individual song while making irrelevant the singer and the singer's personal views.

This truth also stands with movies and television.  I can watch the remake of The Parent Trap with my daughter and enjoy the content without encouraging her to see Lindsay Lohan as a role model.  She can love reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club someday without wanting to grow up to be like Britney Spears.

Unfortunately, this logic does not hold true with literature, which includes literature that is developed into film.  I cannot turn off a book.  I cannot allow my daughter to read a book that deals with real life, relatable issues (as all literature should) without having a deep discussion about the content and meaning.

Which brings me to the real issue at hand:  Twilight versus Hunger Games.

Both of these series of books and films have sparked a teenage craze.  Many of my students, and even my family members, have read both series and seen all the films.

But if you think about it, these stories teach strikingly contradictory lessons.

Bella is lost, alone, dark, depressed, tragic.  She is inherently weak, only finding strength in men throughout the first three books.  If one were to argue that she stands up and fights at any point in these first three books, it can only be said that she sacrifices herself for romantic love.  She is willing to die for love.  Blah blah blah.  In the fourth book, Bella only becomes strong once she has been turned into a vampire, i.e. upended her life and all of its meaning for a man.

I knew long before I even thought about the dichotomy between these two series that I could not possibly encourage Celaya to someday read Twilight.  What message does it deliver to little girls?  Life is only worth living if you are hopelessly tied to a man whose everlasting loves requires your entire existence and identity?  No thanks.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have The Hunger Games heroine, Katniss.  She is quite the reluctant heroine, too.  She hunts, illegally, for food to feed not only her own family but also the families of those she loves.  She sacrifices herself for her helpless and innocent sister.  She declares that she never wishes to marry, never to have children, because the world is far too bleak and damming to curse a child with its burdens.  When push comes to shove Katniss rises to the occasion every time.  She shows real ingenuity against a brutal and harshly fearsome government entity, not because she is arrogant or prideful, but because she has a clear sense of right and wrong and refuses to buckle under even the harshest pressure.

The messages within Hunger Games are legion.  Is there a love story?  Sure.  Life is full of love.  It would be ridiculous to expect a three book series not to include love.  But even here the reader does not have to bear with unending weeping and heartbreak because of a bad breakup, the heartbreak in these books is much more serious in terms of real decisions about what love even means and who a woman should choose in all practicality (as opposed to pure sexual attraction) to spend her life with.  And the answer to that question, as Katniss realizes, is quite complex (and also, thankfully, not the primary point of the story).

In mentioning my feelings about these two series to my boss, he nodded his head, agreeing with my sentiment, and said, finally, "But they both have to look good, don't they?"  Well, duh, it's Hollywood. He was of course referring to the films.  And that is a completely separate discussion.  The point I am making here is about the actual works of fiction.

To that end, I have donated my Twilight books to the local bookshop so that I can stand by my declaration to make all books on my shelves available to Celaya as she becomes interested in them.

As for the Hunger Games series, I will not display it on my bookshelf.

I will put it on hers.

Fathers Are Not Irrelevant

I have had this conversation, coincidentally, with several people in the last few weeks:  what it means to be a good father, the difference between a father and a mother, growing up with a bad father, overprotecting fathers of daughters, and yes, absentee fathers.

One conversation had to do with the relevancy of fathers at all.  The person I was talking to said, quite matter of factly, "fathers are irrelevant."

I did not quite know how to respond to this statement as she speaks from two different, very personal perspectives.  Her father was an alcoholic who died only a year ago.  He did the best he could, as an alcoholic, to be a dad and, like most men who fail at fatherhood, worked hard to make up for it by being a better grandfather.  At the same time, this woman's daughter's father has abandoned them, deciding to take no part in the life of his daughter, a beautiful, happy, rambunctious, innocent toddler.

What do you say to someone who has such conflicted feelings about fathers?  I simply nodded my head, taking it all in.  But I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Is the role of the mother more important than that of the father?  Before my daughter was born I might have said yes.  Now, I watch my own daughter interact with her father in ways she simply does not with me.  He is an altogether different playmate and role model than I could ever be, or even want to be.  He will teach her what a man is supposed to be like, how a man is supposed to love a woman, what kind of man she should look for in the future.  He will show her a perspective on the world that I can say I do not have because of my own particular experience with fathers.

My father too was an alcoholic for over 20 years.  Even after he woke up one morning and decided to quit drinking, my relationship with him only changed in that now he was incapable of showing real emotion without alcohol as opposed to incapable of showing real emotion with it.  And honestly, much of his own stoicism traces back to his brutal stepfather.  My stepfather, who has been in my life since I was seven, had his own set of abuse issues (yep, you guessed it, tracing back to his father) that he only really began working through when he began having grandchildren.  My daughter responds to my stepfather in ways I never thought possible, often insisting during FaceTime with grandma that she get "grandpa! grandpa! grandpa!"

Both of those relationships shaped me, made me who I am.  Would life have been easier/better/fuller if my fathers had been better fathers?  Absolutely.  Would life have been easier/better/fuller if my fathers had simply not been around?  Absolutely not.

This last answer may be surprising to some who know me and know how much I have struggled (another blog, another day) and how much hatred and hurt I carried around.  But I learned from those relationships, for good and bad.  I grew from them.

There is no child psychologist on earth who would say that children would be better off without fathers.  I take issue with women who go to sperm banks, or intentionally get pregnant by men they have no intention of keeping around.  You cannot, you should not, attempt raise a child without a father.  Period.  And saying that fathers are irrelevant is to say that they make no difference, have no impact, and would be no loss if they were not present.

In fact, this kind of thinking, and it is everywhere present (hello Jennifer Lopez in Back Up Plan), is, I believe very strongly, what leads men to thinking they do not really need to stick around.  The blame for men not living up to their duties as fathers lay partly at the doorstep of women.  We women have spent the last 50 years (thank you extreme feminism) telling them we don't need them.

But we do.  And we know we do.

Having a good father shapes your identity.  Having a bad father shapes your identity.  Having a father with issues shapes your identity.

And yes, having no father shapes your identity.

No matter what, without fail, our parents shape us.  We cannot escape this reality.  What we can do is work with it, work through it.  This particular woman I was talking to about the irrelevancy of fathers, I think, misspoke.  She is doing everything she can do reinforce positive male role models, which I fully support.  And because of her awesome and very difficult decision to entirely change her life partly so that her daughter could have a strong, constant father figure in her life, I do believe her daughter will grow up well adjusted and confident in the fact that there are good, strong, compassionate men in the world.

Precisely because fathers are not irrelevant.