Simplicity

"Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more." -Jon Kabat-Zinn

Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations. --Rabindranath Tagore

"The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always."
-William Faulkner

"People who do not see their choices do not believe they have choices. They tend to respond automatically, blindly influenced by their circumstances and conditioning. Mindfulness, by helping us notice our impulses before we act, gives us the opportunity to decide whether to act and how to act."

-Gil Fronsdal

"An understanding heart in everything is a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling."

-Carl Jung

"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."

-Marian Wright Edelman

"Invisible threads are the strongest ties. "

-Friedrich Nietzche

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/HealthScout/070122/6012217AU.html

"When you are in a state of nonacceptance, it's difficult to learn. A clenched fist cannot receive a gift, and a clenched psyche -- grasped tightly against the reality of what must not be accepted -- cannot easily receive a lesson."

-Roger John

Diversity does make a difference: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/14/AR2007011400720_pf.html

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

-M. Scott Peck

"No one knows your capability as well as you do. No one knows how big you can dream and no one knows how far you can go. You, like water, can seek and reach your own level."

-Lynne Cox

"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."

-Napolean Hill

"You and I posses within ourselves, at every moment of our lives, under all circumstances, the power to transform the quality of our lives."

-Werner Erhad

"When we let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present, there is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect with the present moment is to begin to appreciate the beauty of true simplicity."

-Jack Kornfield

Wounds Endured During Childhood

A very good opinion article from the Philidelphia Inquirer.

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By Karen J. Hamilton
In most cultures of the world, celebrations mark the passage of a boy from childhood into manhood. It is usually a time of affirmation, increased privilege and great joy. Why, then, do I feel such anxiety, concern and sadness for my own son's entrance into manhood?
James is a 15-year-old honor student at one of the city's best public high schools. He is a caring, pleasant child, the oldest of four children, who loves playing basketball, eating fried chicken and fidgeting around with the latest technology. He is generally fun to be around, responsible and motivated to do well in life.
James is also an African American man-child. Very much a boy, James still watches Nickelodeon, laughs at his dad's jokes and makes adolescent wise-cracks. But he is also becoming a man. His brown skin now frames 5 feet, 5 inches of toned muscles, and his face is no longer boyish, but handsomely masculine. His presence is now marked by a velvety, baritone voice and the bouncy, confident gait of a man-child. In our society, my son reflects the image of someone who scares many people to death.
The new response to my growing black man-child became evident to me - and sadly to him - during a snowstorm in March.
James went through his normal routine of bundling up to go outside and shovel our walkway. He noticed a neighbor's unshoveled walk and asked if she would like him to clear a path. "No, no . . . that's OK . . . " she retorted sharply, with the body language born generations ago that shrieked, "I am afraid of you! Get away from me, black man!"
As he recounted the ordeal to me, I was struck by his own woundedness. "I was just trying to help her. I didn't want money or nothing. She acted like I was some kind of thug . . . ," he said, drifting off in thought.
I had noticed traces of these reactions to other black men and the unspoken sentiment was all too familiar to me. I had observed the nervous stares from people in public as black men laughed and talked, boisterously unashamed, dominating buses, street corners and malls like they belonged to them.
I had seen the careful clutching of purses by women when they passed a black male pedestrian. I had sensed the tense transformation in the atmosphere when black men came on the scene. And I knew of my husband's frustration when cabdriver after cabdriver passed him by while waiting on a Center City corner after dark.
Most of the black men I know are just like you and me - going to school, working to support their families, meeting in churches, obeying the law. This is overshadowed in a city where the murder rate is already at 150 and where the daily media images of black men threatening our safety seem to validate the stereotype of the black man as someone to fear.
We feel justified that our fears are at least backed up by some statistical information. But they don't tell the whole story.
I want to scream, This is my son! Not only is he an honor student who has never been in a fight or disrespected a teacher, but he is a decent person. I want to scream, This is my son! He is kind to his friends and compassionate to people in need. He is generous, regularly contributing money out of his allowance to our church. He is gentle, babysitting his siblings and expressing dreams of becoming a teacher.
Nearly 40 years ago, a great American leader was assassinated. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that people should be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. As my own son enters adulthood, it is a period tainted by the sad reality that he and I realize this society does not want him to become a man.
Without dwelling on the past, I reflect on the time in his life when he was little James - a bright, playful and outgoing boy, embraced and nurtured by white and black teachers alike. To the world, he was just a boy. Period.
When I think about that snowy day I am saddened. I mourn the loss of my son's innocence, pierced by the crushing blow of what it means to be an African American man-child.
I pray that as we prepare him for a society that can at times be hostile and unkind, he will be committed to the ideals of Dr. King and will respect people for who they are and not for the color of their skin. That will be worth celebrating.
Karen J. Hamilton lives and writes in Philadelphia.

We love our animals too

For more information about Bull-and-Terriers visit the following:
• People for Pitbulls: www.peopleforpitbulls.com
• Pitbull Rescue Central: www.pbrc.net
• Pittbulls.com: www.pittbulls.com
• Pitbulls on the Web: www.pitbullsontheweb.com
• Therapy & Search Pitbulls: http://www.forpitssake.org/
http://www.pbrc.net/flyers.html
http://www.fourfriends.com/abrw

I must be doing something wrong...

It is mothers day, and its beautiful out, and my husband is pointing out the fact that I am sitting inside in front of the computer. Something I have to do at work. Yet I feel the need to give an update on here. The past two days I have been looking at other peoples blogs- there are so many of them! Multi ethnic families, families adopting, families adopting from Ethiopia or anywhere you might be interested in. One thing that I find so shocking is the amount of time people put into their blogs. Look! http://www.thirdmom.blogspot.com, http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/ or http://swerl.blogspot.com/. All times of the day you see postings, its incredible. Being on the computer when I am at home makes my husband very frustrated, he just does not get it. We have tried to get rid of prevalent media at home, and I think my dependency on the computer is hard for him. I just find such a wealth of information out there, sometimes I get lost in it all. There is something different about this blog though, it has a very distinct intention. It is not my journal, although occasionally I dive into personal subjects. It is really my forum to allow people to know our family, learn about the journey we are moving forward in, and encourage them to follow along. I know I am not outgoing enough, I am quite shy and often find it hard to encourage myself to talk. Networking is just not my strong point. I am getting more anxious.
My friend Nefertiti, who is an incredible person- social, outgoing, engaging- she tells me to be patient and open. B e open to what ever opportunity may present itself. And so I am trying. I want desperately to engage people in the struggles of human beings, to encourage people to care for one another. Uplifting quotes and stories one might enjoy reading. I feel somehow the need to prove my love of parenting, show off the certificates from several different hoops we were made to jump through. What it really comes down to however is that people have a hard time parting with their money, there is a fear and an insecurity about giving it away. We wonder- does this person deserve it? Will it be used wisely? I understand this. I frustrate myself sometimes feeling crappy because I cant give enough here, or I am worried I gave too little here. In the end for me it becomes about learning to give without expecting in return. It is about giving with no strings attached, and feeling positive and whole because of it. Am I not vulnerable enough to allow people to see who I really am? To allow people to see the pain we have gone through to get to this point? Not even four years ago I would walk with my three children- my daughter Kiana and my two foster children. People would smile and stop us to ask about the children. People were so friendly and so curious about our lives, our collaboration. And yet when the state "re homed" the children (placing them in a non adoptive home) barely anyone asked what had happened! Was it me, was I stand off-ish? I am not quite sure. Were people afraid to ask? Or just not prepared to discuss the subject, not sure if they wanted to open that door. I thought that friends or acquaintances that saw or experienced, even from afar, our struggle that year and the next- saw us trying to heal from loosing the two children we felt were our family- would be the first to support our international adoption quest. That just hasn't been the case.

I have been immersing myself in books recently. I love to read, love, love, love it. If I could have a job where I just had to read all day and report back my findings, it would be perfect. I feel guilty for taking so much joy in reading however. My husband feels I am not engaging when I am reading. I just feel I have so much to learn, so much to discover. A fantastic woman by the name of Chandler gave me an excellent book that I struggled and fought my way through. It is called "Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption" by Barbara Katz Rothman. This book was such an eye opener for me. It has a sociological slant that I enjoyed, and it forced me to reconcile the privilege of whiteness and all that that encompasses. It has touched upon my naivety concerning raising Kiana here in the Berkshires. What is diversity? How can we assist our children in feeling accepted and not constantly different. Because it would be nice to continue to believe that all a child needs is love and devotion, it is simply just not true. Our world is filled with nuances and references to race and to financial privilege constantly. My daughter suddenly yearns to be able to move more freely in the larger sense of community and multi cultural ism. She gets frustrated when people ask her if she is adopted, or when she wears her hair in a natural fro they ask her if she is a boy or a girl. She is self assured- direct. She tells people exactly her thoughts. But I know she wishes it was more of a non issue, that she could see other people on a daily basis that look similar to her. I do not believe it is enough to have black or multi ethnic friends, I think it is much more about community diversity, but where does that start? Who are the pioneers?


"...We talked about what it is to be the mother of a black child. When you mother that child and that defines who you are, the mother of that child. When you've put those eggs in that basket, when your future lies there with black kids, with the world black kids live in and will grow in. When who you are is kind of besides the point, when you've reached the limits of how much white privilege you can extend to your kid, and your standing there watching the kid go forth into the world, as a black woman, or a black man......To weave together a family as we are doing, taking a child marked as one thing and raising it in a family marked as another, is to weave together the two communities themselves..."
(page 150).

"...The thing most of us white parents learn right away when we bring home our black children- from adoption agencies or our own births- is that we are white. No doubt I have always been white. But I never thought to describe myself that way, never thought about myself as white. That is what it means to be white, not to have to think about how white you are. But now?.......I think of myself as a white woman now.....raise a black child, and you gain whiteness: you see yourself as white..........But raise a black child and you loose whiteness: you are not and never will again be white, not white in that raceless, taken-for-granted way you used to be..." (pg. 157).

"...You cant raise your children in a white world if they're going to grow up to be black.....If your the mother of a black child, you have a black mothers concerns and needs- and, for a while at least, a white mothers privilege. For a while your black child will have a white family, the protective cloak of your whiteness cast over the child. But eventually, that child goes off, as children eventually do, and your whiteness wont do a thing for that kid."
(pg. 232&233).



This topic of multi ethnic families, of black and bi racial children has been on my mind so much recently. It is a frequent discussion on my Ethiopia adoption yahoo group. There is, of course, the occasional mother who states that she refuses to address race, that it is a non issue in their house. But I think that's very ignorant, because regardless of the way you feel, regardless of the amount of love you are showering on your children, they still notice that they are different. That others perceive them differently. They will still scan the crowd to see if anyone looks similar to them. They will still stare at a group of black children and yearn to play with them, if only to blend in for a few minutes. If only not to be the one that looks different.

Reading this book, and loving it, led me the next book I finished called, "Black, White and Jewish"" by Rebecca Walker. I could not put this book down. Granted, the woman is a little narcissistic, but the book was terrific. I felt like I was given a peek, just a peek, into the angles in which a bi racial child might see his or her life.

"....By now I am well trained in not breaking the code, not saying something too white around black people, or too black around whites. Its easier to be quiet, aloof, removed, than it is to slip and be made fun of for liking the wrong thing, talking the wrong way, being the wrong person, the half-breed, oreo freak........Instead of intimidating, the word white people have used to describe what they found unsettling about me, Micheal says I am snobby, the term black people use. He tells me that people, our friends, say I think I'm better than everybody else, that I know more than everybody else..." (pg. 271 & 272).

This book was very good for me to read, it came at just the right time. Im desperate to help Kiana to navigate her life in a healthy, balanced way.
The books I have at home right now to read:
"A Long Way Home" by Ishmael Beah, "the Big Turnoff" by Curry Wilson, "Child of the Jungle" by Sabine Kuegler.
There are also a bunch of books I have on a list to read, like
"The Color of Water" by James McBride, "Different and Wonderful: Raising Black Children in a Race-Conscious Society" by Dr. Darlene Hopson, "Inside Transracial Adoption"by Gail Steinberg, "In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories" by Rita James Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda, "Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience"
by Chandra Prasad, "Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?: A Parent's Guide to Raising Multiracial Children" by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, "Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib"
by Jaiya John, 'What Are You?: Voices of Mixed-Race Young People"by Pearl Fuyo Gaskins, "The Warrior Method: A Parents' Guide to Rearing Healthy Black Boys" by Raymond Winbush "Parenting Well in a Media Age: Keeping Our Kids Human" by Gloria DeGaetano, "12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know: Getting Back to Basics and Raising Happy Kids" by Michele, Ed.D. Borba to name just a few.
Kiana has been reading, and loving "Maizon At Blue Hill" by Jacqueline Woodson. She cant wait to read her other books!
While we are on the subject, here's an interesting NPR link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9849015 about famous multi ethnic people and families.

Hear their voices

"Pausing to listen to an airplane in the sky, stooping to watch a ladybug on a plant, sitting on a rock to watch the waves crash over the quayside –- children have their own agendas and timescales. As they find out more about their world and their place in it; they work hard not to let adults hurry them. We need to hear their voices."

--Cathy Nutbrown

On payday, it's still a man's world

On payday, it's still a man's world

Study: Females earn 80 percent of what men earn one year after graduating from college; falls to 69 percent 10 years later.
April 23 2007: 9:11 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.
One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.
Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.
Even as the study accounted for such factors as the number of hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persisted, researchers said.
"If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?" the study asked. "The answer is no.
"These unexplained gaps are evidence of discrimination, which remains a serious problem for women in the work force."
Specifically, about one-quarter of the pay gap is attributable to gender - 5 percent one year after graduation and 12 percent 10 years after graduation, it said.
One year out of college, men and women should arguably be the least likely to show a gender pay gap, the study said, since neither tend to be parents yet and they enter the work force without significant experience.
"It surprised me that it was already apparent one year out of college, and that it widens over the first 10 years," Catherine Hill, AAUW director of research, told Reuters.
The choice of fields of concentration in college was a significant factor found to make a difference in pay, the study found.
Female students tended to study areas with lower pay, such as education, health and psychology, while male students dominated higher-paying fields such as engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, it said.
Even so, one year after graduation, a pay gap turned up between women and men who studied the same fields.
In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn, the study showed.
While in college, the study showed, women outperformed men academically, and their grade point averages were higher in every college major.
Parenthood affected men and women in vividly different ways. The study showed mothers more likely than fathers, or other women, to work part time or take leaves.
Among women who graduated from college in 1992-93, more than one-fifth of mothers were out of the work force a decade later, and another 17 percent were working part time, it said.
In the same class, less than 2 percent of fathers were out of the work force in 2003, and less than 2 percent were working part time, it said.
The study, entitled "Behind the Pay Gap," used data from the U.S. Department of Education. It analyzed some 9,000 college graduates from 1992-93 and more than 10,000 from 1999-2000.