Career Advice

Dear children,

Here's some valuable career advice from your ever-loving mom:   
DON'T BECOME A WORLD-FAMOUS ROCK STAR.

Why?
Because I said so. Now, go clean your room.

Just kidding. There are many reasons to avoid this career option:

• Poor job security
• The grueling, mind-numbing travel of world tours
• People throw their underclothing at you

But there's more... If these disadvantages aren't enough to deter you on the road to rock stardom some day, I now have research findings [click here to read] that supports my cause. This study, published yesterday in the prestigious British Medical Journal, found that rock stars were statistically more likely to die prematurely than the general population.

Like we didn't know that already, right? But still, we moms appreciate having SCIENTIFIC DATA to back up our sound advice. We can print it up and leave copies on your pillow, in your electric guitar case, and on the front seat of your car, as needed. We can say, "See? I told you so."

We love saying that.

Here's a little more advice:  if you still can't resist the allure of rock stars, consider becoming a ROCK STAR SCIENTIST, like the university professors and British Health Department researchers who conducted this study. These authors got paid to read about 1,489 rock stars who were famous between 1956 and 2006. Elvis Presley! Jimi Hendrix! Kurt Cobain! Amy Winehouse!

Seriously. When I was a scientist, my research subjects were drosophila melanogaster (which is just a fancy way to say "fruit flies") and cultured fibroblast cells. They just weren't that cool. No groupies, no glitzy award ceremonies, no crowd surfing. Just me and a microscope in a quiet lab, maybe listening to some world-famous rock star singing on the radio, as I pipetted and aliquoted. The only exciting part was using a jellyfish protein to make the cells fluoresce. Then the whole microscope field glowed with little cells -- like a rapt audience raising their lighters in solidarity during a rock ballad. Beautiful.

Besides, there's just something so odd-ball and fun about researchers reading People magazine (or some such authoritative source on the lives of rock stars; or attend concerts as "field work"?) and then write lines like:

An actuarial methodology compares postfame mortality to matched general populations. Cox survival and logistic regression techniques examine risk and protective factors for survival and links between adverse childhood experiences and cause of death, respectively.  

Am I right? Anyway, just another little tidbit of maternal advice to help smooth the road to adulthood.

You're welcome.

A Response to Evil

(Or What I Was Trying to Tell Sally But She Was Too Busy Describing How She Could Hide inside Her Classroom Filing Cabinet)

Dear Huckle and Sally,

In the wake of the horrifying tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, there is so much I want you to know, so much I hope I’m already getting across to you. 

First, I love you so incredibly much. I can’t imagine life without you. I can’t imagine having you ripped from my arms and then life going on:  another weekend, another Monday, another anything. 

Second, I want to remind you that God never promised us easy lives. Evil is a real and constant presence. The same day as the Sandy Hook school shooting, a man in China stabbed 22 children outside their school. Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo are humanitarian nightmares. Every day is tragic day for someone, somewhere. Some tragedies just hit closer to home than others.

Why does an all-powerful, loving God allow this constant barrage of evil? I don’t know. But I’ll bet he hates it more than we do, more than I hate it when you trip and need stitches on your chin. Or when I tell you “don’t push your sister” and you do anyway and then she gets hurt. Is this about free will? Is it about God allowing us to choose to believe in him rather than forcing us to believe because only those who do are rewarded with trouble-free lives? Is it because life, though it’s all we know, is a tiny flash in the bucket for our eternal souls and that the ultimate goal is far, far more wonderful than a trouble-free life, or not achievable with a trouble-free life? If I knew the answer, I’d be as smart as God. But I’m not. In fact, the main thing I learned in graduate school was that there’s far more that we don’t understand than that we do understand. If we don’t understand the creation, we certainly won’t understand the creator. I’m sorry -- that’s not a satisfying answer.

God doesn’t promise us trouble-free lives, but he does promise to be right beside us in our troubles. He is our Emmanuel, our God-with-us. I wasn’t there in the Sandy Hook elementary school, so I don’t know what that meant to the victims and witnesses. I only know what it has meant to me in my darkest moments. Huckle and Sally, God loves you and is right there with you.

That’s why, despite the constant presence of evil, I want to raise you to live fearlessly. Don’t just be aware of evil; don’t ever accept it. Hate it! Fight it! Love what is right and do what is right and fight for what is right. Be a source of comfort and strength to those around you. Be a hero. Be God’s arms and legs in a broken, hurting world.

Finally, Sally and Huckle, value every moment of your life, but know something better awaits you. Our post-modern culture insists that there’s nothing after life on earth, that we end like snuffed flames –in endless darkness and nothingness. My Loves, this is conjecture. You and I understand that the absence of empirical evidence does not automatically mean the absence of anything; nothing can be proven without data. We must try to answer this question without the help of science. Can you accept that there is a source of wisdom higher and nobler -- yet more accessible to 6-year-olds -- than reason? Many can’t and consider faith to be foolishness. I don’t. In faith, I rely on the testimony of the living God in the Bible -- a God who loves us and who promises life with him in heaven. Cling to this, my sweet children. Live like survivors, knowing that the war is won even if the battles still rage. Think eternally. Good ultimately wins.

Love,

Your mom

An Open Apology to Santa

Dear Santa Claus,

First, I owe you an apology for that time at the mall when I was three years old and screamed bloody murder because my parents made me to sit on your lap. Sorry about that. No offense, but I still think it’s a little creepy to make a kid sit on a stranger’s lap. 

However, my main reason for writing is not to apologize for my own issues with you; it’s to apologize for my son’s. Any time your name is mentioned, he says things like, “If I saw Santa, I’d do a Jump Spin Crescent Kick to his solar plexus.” 

(Don’t worry – we’re steering clear of the mall this year.)

I didn’t mean to raise a Santa-hater. True, starting when he was three, I made it clear to him that you aren’t real. I wanted him to understand that I would never ask him to believe something I don’t believe myself. It’s a trust thing, setting the stage for the honesty I want him to expect from me his whole life. (By the way, I don’t judge parents who approach the Santa issue differently; there’s no “right” way.)

Still, not believing in you isn’t the same as wanting to fight you. So what gives with Huckle? Plus, it’s shocking to hear my son talk that way. We don’t condone violence or hate in our family. We hardly even use the word “hate.” (We dislike overcooked broccoli, homework, and anything pink.)

But then I thought more about my son’s reaction. 

I’m no expert on boys – I’m learning on the job and making plenty of mistakes – but here’s what I suspect. I think a ten-year-old boy needs an enemy. He craves danger and conflict, purpose and adventure. He needs an outlet for his energy and a challenge to his "brute" strength. I can’t understand it, but I can learn to respect it.

For boys that play team sports, their enemy could be the opposing team. For boys who read comic books or play video games, maybe it’s enough to fight vicariously through superheroes and avatars. Even kids from uber-political families have an enemy:  the other party battling it out in elections.

My son doesn’t play many team sports or video games and has politically unexcitable parents. I suspect he’s been missing out on having an enemy. So, when he rooted around in his peaceful little life, he only found you, Santa. And now I think you might be a decent choice, since you aren’t even real.

So thanks, Santa, for being my son’s nemesis. 

Respectfully,

Huckle’s mom 

PS. You might want to give the Tooth Fairy a heads-up. In case she’s next.