If you want a Mr. Bates, you have to be an Anna

This is another thought that has been buzzing around in my brain for a while, but also suffered from my lack of opportunity to post.  I seriously need to get a notebook and start writing myself little notes, because I am going to forget some of these topics before I get to post.

Downton Abbey is PBS' biggest success in years.  People talk about it resurrecting a dying network.  It has the largest audience PBS has been able to garner in a long, long time.  People bring all kinds of reasons along with them for liking it.  In fact, I have one friend who claims to watch it just for the clothes!  (As an Anglophile, I can't resist pointing out that this show is actually a BBC production, which most of PBS' best stuff has been over the decades.  So really the most credit they can take is for being good shoppers.)

One huge reason that Downton's largely female audience loves the show seems to be because of John Bates, one of the main characters, who is Lord Grantham's valet.  His unfailing moral uprightness, stoicism, self-sacrifice, and utter devotion to Anna Smith, a maid, seem to be like catnip to American women fed up with little boys in adult bodies who can't seem to commit to anything lasting longer than a hookup.

But here's the thing, girls.  If you want a Mr. Bates, you have to act like an Anna Smith.  There was a scene in the second season (spoiler alert, but since the shows have been out since January, I apologize for nothing) where the frustration from John's attempts to gain a divorce from his evil, scheming wife so he can marry Anna has reached the boiling point, and Anna suggests she should just become his mistress.  What non-watchers of the show need to understand is that this was a momentary lapse for Anna.  Through most of the two seasons, she has been so proper as to be painful.  The growing feelings between her and John became more and more obvious, but they hardly ever touched, and never even kissed until after they were engaged.  It was clear they both wanted to throw themselves at each other.....BUT THEY DIDN'T.  No matter how in love, sex and physical involvement is clearly for the married in their world.  Anna makes it clear in her interactions with John that no matter how much affection she has for him, there are lines she can't cross unless she is his wife.  John, an old soldier who has clearly seen the more worldly side of these issues, loves and respects her so much that he wouldn't dream of violating her boundaries.  When Anna breaks down and suggests that they live together illicitly, John immediately refuses, though it's clear he wants her very much.  He says, "That's not you.  You couldn't be happy that way."  He also tells her that he could not live with himself if he compromised her honor in such a way.

The result of all this is that when John and Anna finally do marry, their tastefully done nuptial scene, in a beautiful room of the mansion provided to them by the family as a wedding gift, is so much lovelier and more meaningful.

Women of America, the reason too many of us don't have this is because we don't demand it.  If you want to stop being a victim of the hookup culture, then stop participating in it.  Will this make it harder for you to find a man?  Probably, because they have all been programmed to expect sex by the third date, and if they don't get it, they won't waste time on you, but find another woman who is easier.  But what would happen if ALL women stopped degrading themselves in this way and started demanding actual involvement and commitment from their men before consenting to sex?  One of the basic facts about male psychology is that they value much more what they have to work hard to obtain.  Women who give it up too easily betray all women, by making a culture of commitment impossible.  Just look at our divorce and non-marriage rates to see where the sexual revolution has taken our society.  Being that woman who decides to make herself unavailable for sex without commitment could result in eventually finding the right kind of man.  But these days the deck is so stacked the other way that it could backfire and lead to a woman never finding a mate.  Personally, though, I think it's worth the risk.  It's the advice I am giving my daughters.  In fact, my oldest, who is 14 and a Downton Abbey fan, has already heard the title and concept of this post.  Talking about it with her is what inspired me to post.

There are ways to meet men who share your values, and none of them are perfect, but they do increase your odds.  Meeting men at church gives you better odds than bars or frat parties, for example.  I worry about my kids being able to find mates, make marriages that last, and build strong families.  The culture is so toxic to those goals.  But I will stand by what I believe, and teach my daughters the virtues of Anna Smith, and my sons those of John Bates.

Because ladies, if you want a Mr. Bates, you have to be an Anna.

Roger, roger! Baby birds to nest: we have flown!

*sigh*

My fifth and last child started kindergarten this morning.  Millions of mothers have been through this before me, and millions will come after me.  I am a little different in that I never went through this with my first child.  I homeschooled her through 2nd grade, so when she left me, she was 7 years old and very self-possessed.  We were also both very ready for that change for several reasons.

With my three other children, of course I felt tugs on my heartstrings as each of them entered school, and each first day of kindergarten was an event both celebrated and mourned, at least by me.  But it all felt like natural progression, and each of them was so excited and so ready that I had no real concerns about letting them go.  And all four of my older children have proven out my confidence by becoming outstanding students and good citizens of their school communities.

So now we come to the youngest.  She was equally excited and ready, even though she is still only four years old.  She passed the school district's assessment for admission to kindergarten before the birthday cutoff (which is in September, while her birthday is in October) with flying colors.  I have just as much confidence in her as I did in the others.  I watched her this morning, walking across the playground and uncertain where to go, approach a teacher and ask for help, with no fear or hesitation.  Clearly she can navigate this new environment and will be fine.

I'm sure I am not the first mother to be more deeply affected by her youngest child starting school than by some of the others, and to wonder if that makes me a less-than-stellar mother to my other children.  Of course I really do know that is not true, that each child is different, and that my relationship with each is different.  But feelings don't really respond to logic.

However, there is a certain element of my relationship with my last baby that is unique.  Not many people can say that God basically commanded them to have a specific child....but I can.  Every child is a gift from God and His creature, but let's face it, usually we decide when and if to have a child or not.  From our perspective, even if God works in the background, our decisions are the only ones we see leading directly to the creation of our children.  For me, with this particular child, that is not true.  It is impossible to express the sense of obligation and responsibility I feel about my baby girl, because her existence is attributable only to direct, and extremely obvious, intervention by God in my life and consciousness.

I know, I know.  Some of you reading this are rolling your eyes and thinking, "Oh great, another Jerry Falwell claiming direct messages from God."  I assure you, that is not it at all.  No one needs to send me money to prevent my being struck dead.  If anyone feels compelled to make sure, however, I am happy to provide a mailing address.  ;-)

I don't think I have ever shared this story with anyone besides my husband before, but I feel like I want to today, on this momentous day in the existence of the child God pretty much forcibly placed into my life.

I have never been a perfect Catholic, and have always struggled with the Church's teaching on birth control.  (In fact, earlier this year, I chronicled my ultimate failure to obey it.)  In late 2006, when my fourth, and what I thought would be last, child was a little over a year old, I had enrolled in a clinical trial for a new method of sterilization.  It seemed like the perfect solution.  No surgery, no artificial hormones (which can be abortifacient and so are a humungous NO NO, but which also made me feel horrible the short time I did take them), and no cost because I would be assisting in the testing of this new method before it was approved and marketed.  Basically it was to be a small spring-type device inserted into each Fallopian tube, which would cause scar tissue to grow and block the tube.  I was uncertain, but I figured all women go through some doubt before doing something as radical as ending their fertility, so I tried to dismiss it.  I also was fully aware that I was acting directly against my Church and its legitimate authority, and that was tearing me up.  I am not one of those that could claim ignorance... I had read and studied and struggled for years, so I knew exactly what I was doing.  Contemplating mortal sin and its consequences isn't peaceful and obviously shouldn't be!  But I was trying to ignore all that too.

We happened to be running a yard sale at our house a week or two before I was supposed to go in for the procedure.  So my husband took the kids to Mass with him early in the morning while I attended to our sale, and then I went to the noon Mass by myself.  During Mass there was a baptism, and I saw the sweetest little rosebud of a baby girl, all frilly and frothy in white, carried against the shoulder of her father.  The sight struck me to the bone, and I realized I would never see my husband that way again.  While my feelings were in turmoil, the ground under my feet rocked.  And I don't mean like the little 3.0 earthquakes I felt growing up, I mean the earth turned about 45 degrees under my feet, I lost my balance, and was forced to sit down on the pew before I fell.  Everyone else in the church acted normally, so I know I am the only one who saw or felt it.  (Literally, the altar was diagonal in my sight!)  I have since heard the quote from Blessed Theresa of Calcutta that goes something like, "I know God will never give me more than I can handle, I just wish he didn't trust me so much."  Boy can I relate to that quote.  Suffice to say that once my physical environment righted itself a second later, I was trembling and having a serious "holy shit" moment.

When I got home, I told my husband what had happened, and told him I could not possibly proceed with my plans.  He had never been really thrilled with the idea, so he didn't take much convincing.  Then I told him I thought we were being called to have another child.  That gave him a lot more pause.  We have struggled financially for much of our marriage, and adding a fifth child seemed irresponsible from that that standpoint.  There were also times we felt overwhelmed trying to be effective parents to the four we had, and so adding another child to the mix would mean taking the risk of parenting all of them at a lesser level than what they deserved.  But the biggest complication was that we had suffered two miscarriages in the few months leading up to this, and the desire to end our ability to have children was in part motivated by wanting to avoid ever facing that pain again.

Let me take this aside to say that our culture has absolutely no understanding or respect for the pain of fathers in that situation.  I was utterly shocked and stunned by how the loss of his baby destroyed my husband.  I can count maybe two or three times that I have held that strong, brave man while he cries..... and that was by far the worst one.  Even in my own pain, I saw that his was raw, deep, and primal.  It frightened me.

So asking him to be open to having another child was asking almost too much of him.  We had learned the hard way that there were no guarantees, that even if we conceived, we might never have another baby, but only have to mourn another death.  There is a saying that still waters run deep, and that perfectly describes my husband.  He is a man of deep faith, and he recognized God's intervention when I described it.  He put his fear aside, trusted God, and came along on the journey with me.

When the little plus sign showed up on the pregnancy test, we told no one.  After having had to tell our children that the baby in Mommy's tummy had died, we decided no one would know I was pregnant until after the first trimester, if I made it that far.  We never wanted to see that look in our kids' eyes again.  I think my husband probably didn't want to face a repeat, either, of his mother's comment when he informed her of the first miscarriage.  I really don't understand how when your son calls you to inform you of the tragedy of the death of his child, the first thing that comes to your tongue is, "Well, you really didn't need another one anyway!"  But that is what happened, and I still don't think he has forgiven her for it.  (I certainly haven't.)  So for many reasons, we waited.

That twelfth week blessedly came and passed, and we both breathed.  Maybe we would hold this baby after all.  We finally started telling people, and allowing ourselves to plan.  We took our kids to the ultrasound appointment at 16 weeks, and they all cheered to learn there was a sister in there.  They started calling her by her chosen name, Victoria.  They delighted when it seemed she could hear them and would kick their hands on my tummy.  My husband played his favorite pregnancy game again each night, pushing back wherever that telltale little lump appeared, and being rewarded by her thumping his hand again and again.  All of us still had a little fear, the kids would occasionally express concern that this baby would die too, but as I got bigger and bigger, the worry faded and some of our pain healed.  We looked toward birth and joyously waited for her to tell us she was ready.

As if we hadn't had enough indication that this child was special, her birth turned out to be unique as well.  I had had a planned home birth with my third child, after two cesareans that I am convinced were medically unnecessary.  When the doctor supervising my care in that small Montana city told me my only option was to lay down on that table and be cut open again, because that was how SHE felt comfortable, I rebelled and called a midwife, with support and encouragement from my husband.  I had to pay out of pocket but it was worth every penny to prove those impatient, meddling "professionals" wrong.  My body can birth the babies I grow!  When we moved to Arizona, differences in the laws governing midwives meant I had to give birth in a hospital, but we found one that allowed VBACs (and the fact that we had to search for that is disgusting), and had a wonderful and peaceful birth there.  We had planned to return to that hospital, which is about a 30 mile drive away in the middle of Phoenix, but Victoria had other ideas.  She was in an awful hurry to be born, and so she was, in my bathroom, while I stood holding onto the sink and the towel bar, and my awesome husband knelt underneath me to catch her.  All 10 lbs. 5oz. of her!  I found out later that even though my husband had kicked them all out of the master suite, my other kids sneaked in again and watched their sister being born into their father's hands.  I cannot describe my feelings when I think about that moment.  Few families can say they share anything like it.

After she was born, we settled into nursing whenever she fussed, sleeping fused together most of the time, and learning to incorporate her into the rhythm of a family with some kids in school and several activities going on.  She was amazingly calm and easygoing, and never lacked for arms to hold her, voices to sing to her, or faces to entertain her.  Such are the dividends of being a fifth child, born three years after the last one!  As she has grown she has never lost her serenity, except when mightily provoked by a sibling.  I don't want anyone getting the idea she is some perfect angel.  She is a normal kid, and she has been frustrated, thrown tantrums, and lied to get out of chores.  But her baseline personality is so calm....it seems weird to a high-strung person like me.

I have no idea what God's plan is for this little girl.  But I have no doubt He has one.  And to a far higher degree than with my other kids, I feel an obligation to stay out of its way and not interfere.  I am here to guard and guide more than direct.  Today is the beginning of a new phase in her journey to discover it.  She is going out into the world to achieve things that are completely hers, separate from me.

Today also represents a personal milestone for me and the fulfillment of a parenting goal I set before I even had children.  I have been able to care for my own children during their pre-school formative years.  I have been able to fulfill the commitment I made to them that their own parents would be the ones to care for them, and not any paid institution or outsider.  At times the sacrifices required to keep that promise I made to them have been painful, bordering on impossible.  But I did it.  We did it, my husband and I together, and it's an accomplishment of which I feel proud.  No one loves or values them like we do, no one is as invested in their futures as we are, and we thought they deserved to have that level of investment every day, all the time.  I am grateful we were able to provide it.

Even though there is a little sadness in my heart as my last baby bird starts her test flights out of the nest, today is overwhelmingly a day for joy and celebration.  It is truly the day the Lord has made! 

Get thee to a nunnery!

Right now a convent sounds good.  A cloistered convent.  A nice, cloistered convent, with tall walls.  On a mountaintop.  In Switzerland.

What, you're thinking I'm a bit old and a little too married to be thinking about this?  Not for me silly.

For my daughter.  Let me show you....

I have three daughters, and shown here are the oldest and the youngest.  Meaghan is nearly 14 and as you can see is beautiful.  She is also as smart as Einstein (no I am not exaggerating, ask her math and Latin teachers), kind, funny, and generally a wonderful person.

So what were her father and I thinking letting her just walk around in the world, where everyone can see her and notice her?  What.  In the hell.  Were we thinking.  Because now... someone noticed her.  A male someone.

See now why a convent sounds good to me?

Here's the thing:  in theory, I want all of my children to grow up to be successful adults, to marry, and to raise families.  I want them to know the feeling of laying on the couch with the most important person in their world, watching their children play, knowing the joy of baby smiles and preschoolers learning to write their names.  It all sounds great and wonderful.

But that means that people of the opposite sex have to start noticing them, and that will take place when they are teenagers.  Which means I have to deal with this RIGHT NOW!  Oh dear God help me remain sane.  And nonviolent.  Let's add Meaghan's dad to that particular prayer list too, while we are at it.

Even though we knew it had to be coming, and we could see some signs that at least one boy likes her "that way," we really, literally were not ready for this.  She hasn't seemed to be on this wavelength at all yet, and we were grateful for that.

I trust my daughter.  I trust the upbringing we have given her.  She is a strong, confident young lady with no doubt about her own value.  She is rooted in her faith in a way I didn't know people that young could be.  She continually amazes me.  Hell, she amazes stangers on the bus.  Apparently, an accountant sitting near her the other day told her he would have no idea how to do her math homework!  If I am honest with myself, I don't really expect her to make bad or stupid choices.

I know the young man who asked her out.  He is a fellow altar server with Meaghan at our parish.  He seems like a nice boy and he and his mother are very active in our parish, so I know he has good roots and is grounded in faith as well.

But, and there always is a but.....teenagers are unpredictable.  Raging hormones is a cliche precisely because it is true.  I remember how it felt, and so does every other adult.  I also remember how hard it was to fight temptation once I found the person who made me not want to fight it anymore.  I am now in the stage of parenting where my child is still a child, but yet in a state of development where one poor choice, one lapse in judgement, one devil-may-care moment......can literally determine the course of the rest of her life.  Anyone who doesn't spend at least a good chunk of their time in fear over that is just not paying attention.

By the way, I will feel the same way about my boys as they get older too.  This idea that one needs to worry more about girls, well, let's just say I find that offensive.  If a girl can get pregnant, my son can get one pregnant.  One is exactly as serious as the other.  And any son of mine who thinks he might go on his merry way and leave a girl and his child in the lurch will be forewarned that this family takes the role of a father very seriously, and he will receive no help or support of any kind from us, including room and board, should that be the choice he makes.

I have never been that person that believes that teenagers are "going to do it anyway," so that paradigm and its attendant issues need no discussion here.  I have informed all of my children that I expect them to graduate high school virgins (and ideally stay that way until marriage), never having been drunk, and never having used illegal drugs.  Once they are adults and out of my control, they will have to make their own choices, but that is my expectation and they are aware of it.  And will be reminded.  Many times.  Crazy you say?  Unrealistic in today's world, you say?  I really don't care what you think.  I want better for my children than the social cesspool this country has turned into, so I fight.  I will never lay back and concede defeat.  If one of my kids fails to live up to this, well, then we deal with that and we move on.  But still, never concede defeat.  You can always strive to do better today than you did yesterday.

To say that my parents did not raise me with this kind of structure would be the understatement of the century.  There was no support in my upbringing for chastity until marriage (in fact, the one time I mentioned such a thing it was ridiculed to my face), and the idea was communicated to me that the loss of my virginity in high school was basically inevitable.  I will not go into detail about the consequences that had.  Suffice to say there are choices I wish I could take back.  But they were choices made with a handicap, and I did beat the odds and graduate a virgin anyway.  Looking back now, I wish I would have had something different.  But my parents are who they are, they believe what they believe, and they could only give me what they themselves had to offer.  I proved to myself that I could be more than the low expectations placed upon me by virtue of my own choices.  So I know my daughter can be more than the world around her expects, through the power of her choices, too.

And so.  Here we go.  We will dip our toe into these waters.  Dad and I decreed, intolerant beasts that we are, that Meaghan is ridiculously young for one-on-one dating, so any outings will be in a group setting or chaperoned for now.  We can't stop boys from liking her, and we can't stop her from growing up, nor do we really want to.  But we can exert some control until she is older, much like one holds a toddler's hand during those first few tries at walking.

I really do look forward to the day she breaks my grip and runs away under her own power.  And I will let go when I feel she is really ready.  She may pull before then, she may test the strength of my grip.  But it will never fail her.  She is just too precious and too important for me to let go at the wrong time.