ProWomanProLife

…are contagious.

The sun-drenched common room at the south end of Columbia Garden Village retirement home in Invermere, B.C., is quiet most days. The shuffle of slippers on linoleum, the clink of a coffee mug in the sink, or the click of knitting needles are often the only sounds.

But every Tuesday and Friday, 18 kindergartners from Eileen Madson Primary School arrive in a yellow school bus and take over, turning the home’s common room into a classroom, and the home’s residents into active participants. The kindergartners go about their lessons, crafts and play time surrounded by the seniors who live there. Some elders watch from the sidelines, others roll up their sleeves and build block towers or indulge in a reading of a Scooby-Doo storybook.

If you’re in the Halifax area, the next PAIR meet-up is January 21st.

Beyond the disappointment of Herman Cain, this insightful little piece uses his example to talk about the kind of decorum that is necessary in order to avoid inappropriate engagements between members of the opposite sex, in government or business:

One congressional wife says emphatically: “Receptions are a danger zone. Members need to quickly learn that attending receptions is optional, and there are very few they actually need to attend. Members need to learn where to buy quick meals and how to use the microwave. Receptions should not be viewed as the place to get dinner. Married Members should avoid alcohol use in public and private conversations with single women. Do not give out or request private contact info. Staff can handle legitimate requests. Talk about the wife and kids to any and all women!”

I have a friend who pointed out to me when I complained to her about the unwanted advances of a (single) man that emails with too much detail can send the wrong signal. I had been emailing a single man with whom I had what I wanted to remain a fully platonic relationship. He did not perceive my emails thus. In any case, I took it as instructive. Merely emailing, forget any personal contact, was quite enough to get things started. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to put rules in place for male/female friendship, if one values one’s marriage, because something small and innocuous can get the ball rolling–and it gets away from people often enough.

The story of a mother who will lose her son to a rare genetic disorder, likely before he turns 3. She talks about how parenting is all geared to the future, as indeed, much of it is. But her job is in the here and now, exclusively:

Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.

It made me think that perhaps more than we think, all relationships are about the here and the right now, since we never know when we might breathe our last.

I am a seraphic single.

Take today, for example. I woke up at six am, briefly wondered whether I was late for something, realized it was Saturday, rolled over and slept in…until eight. Eight am constitutes a sleep in for me. Earlier is work territory and later means your sister has done her homework, been for a run, baked muffins and already had time to get bored…There I go channeling high school again.

Back to this morning: I opened the curtains at eight, looked at the changing leaves in the sun and approved. I made tea and drank it from my Made in Poland cups. (This is a growing collection, and simply looking at my Made in Poland butter dish makes me happy. You must see it yourself, and you will agree.) I made pancakes and checked the internet. I responded to a response from a woman who works in an abortion clinic to my defence of Roxanne’s Law in the Calgary Herald.

Good times for Andrea. And not, perhaps, what I’d be doing if I weren’t single.

I am a seraphic single, except when I’m not. And I wasn’t when I received Seraphic Single: How I learned to stop worrying and love the single life by Dorothy Cummings  in the mail, for free. My actual thought was something along the lines of Oh For PETE’S Sake!: Does the one thing I ever receive for free thanks to my blogging have to be a book about singleness? For when I received this book I had just had a relationship end. And abruptly ended relationships disturb the equilibrium and the seraphicity of life, to put it bluntly.

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When I wrote my piece for the Calgary Herald, I deliberately put the name of the blog Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome in. It’s the best way to ensure the blog author takes note and responds.

And respond she did.

A couple of small things. She seems to be annoyed I didn’t link to her in the piece. That’s just silly–of course I couldn’t, because the piece was published in print. Interested parties are supposed to go and do what everyone does: Use Google.

She also seems to think I’ve misquoted her. I have not. Someone landed in her clinic who did not want an abortion and made a big fuss about it. That was the sole point. That the blog author made fun of her, that the girl left without having an abortion is entirely irrelevant. She got that far in a process she didn’t want to participate in.

That Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome disagrees with me is no great surprise. She works in an abortion clinic. Most women do feel some relief around the day of the abortion. That’s the short term effect; it took care of the pregnancy. It made it go away. I bet Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome gets thank you cards for her work. In the short-term.

That’s the thing about abortion. You feel relief that you didn’t have to have a child with the wrong person, in a wrong relationship, at the wrong time…But in the long term you look back and ask yourself: Was it really so dire? Did I have to kill? My kid would have been X years old today. And that’s where I get the feedback. The questions. The friends lying curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, sobbing for a mistake that can never be undone. And it’s a mistake to have an abortion. It’s a mistake to think that life problems are solved through abortion.

Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome is 26 years old. She sounds like the type of person I’d like. After all, she’s someone who started up a blog about a topic she believes in. But she could afford to open up the dialogue and listen to the heart of what I wrote. It was something I was hoping people working in clinics would hear, and be aware of, since I fully understand that they are not wanting to do abortions on women who are unsure, or don’t want them. They should be the front lines in diverting women out the door. They should be the front lines of asking the tough questions on whether or not a woman wants to be there. They should be at the front lines of diminishing abortion numbers. I know some who actually want to do this.

No reason, then, to laugh at my article. I wrote it with a good heart, and representing the many women out there who regret their abortions, but only do so in the long term.

Oh, look! Another stupid comment!

So this is what marriage is coming to?

Americans are taking a cautious approach to marriage and are seeking more prenuptial agreements before walking down the aisle.

[. . .]

More women and middle-class couples are opting for prenups, which can also include adultery clauses, protection of retirement benefits and even custody of the dog, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), which represents more than 1600 lawyers.

“It’s a planning tool. Given that half of marriages end in divorce it makes sense to plan,” said Marlene Eskind Moses, the president of the AAML.

Sure, I can understand that a pre-nup makes sense from a legal standpoint, but from a relational standpoint? I don’t think beginning your marriage with, “Hey, I love you but I don’t think I can ever fully trust you” is a good way to start.

It’s also worth pointing out that the “half of marriages end in divorce” statement isn’t true. No wonder they’re so cynical, they’re getting bad facts. Not that it should matter, everybody else’s divorce rate holds no bearing on your own marriage.

And now these pre-nups include requirements for date nights, nights per week a spouse can go out without the other, and who gets the puppies if their dog gives birth (somebody please tell me when a divorce is really going to coincide with a litter of puppies being born?). Sounds like a recipe for a legalistic marriage if it’s just full of rules as to who can do what and when.

But I’m a traditional girl, my vows included, “I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life . . . to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poor, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” If that’s not good enough for people, then I don’t know what is!

Poor Big Pharma, not making quite the profits they hoped to on the HPV vaccine? So they’ve done what any business would do. Put it on sale! Now you can force school age kids through school programs. But what about women in college?

Young women are clearly not aware of how important it is to be vaccinated against this cancer,” said Joan Murphy, head of the division of gynecologic oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. She said vaccination, along with regular Pap testing, provide the best protection against cervical cancer.

I don’t really think the price point is the problem.

First of all: who on earth is paying these researchers and why are they wasting their money on them?

Second: I knew their conclusion already. Why can’t someone pay me to tell everybody? I probably offer way better rates. Just sayin’ . . .

While the article is kind of all over the place (including defining love — at one moment it’s a flimsy emotion and paragraphs later it’s actually commitment and putting your partner above yourself? Make up your mind! Personally, I was raised with the latter definition, which is what works:

Lasting marriages combine commitment, passion: Researchers

I think we all struggle to cope with failed relationships. And having a failed relationship doesn’t mean you are, as a person, a failure. But reading this  made me wonder whether the author wouldn’t just feel better if he called a failure a failure:

Since I’ve been divorced, I’ve had more than a few people imply this means that my 10-year relationship (and three-year marriage) was a failure, or even that I am a failure at relationships.

My ex-wife, Jane, hears this too, and says she has often felt ashamed to be divorced so young, barely into her 30s. Yet despite the stigma divorce carries, both of us feel that not only was the relationship a success for the decade it lasted, but the fact we ended it at the appropriate time is a sign we are, in fact, quite adept at love.

Keep telling yourself that, buddy. With this illogical idea that failed relationships are actually success, the author does people struggling with a failed relationship a great disservice, a harm. Because there they are, struggling, crying, trying to cope, learning from their mistakes, and along comes Joe Genius here and tells them: There’s no problem! You should feel good about this!

I didn’t intend to write about abortion here, but I will. It’s similar to telling a post-abortive woman that the abortion was a simple matter of choice, no worries, she shouldn’t feel bad. This must exacerbate the pain immensely. (“I’m not even supposed to feel bad!”)

So, Mr. Growing Up Jung, can it, grow up and learn to grapple with your failure and those of your family members. After all, the beauty of life is that we get up when we fall down. (We don’t instantaneously, upon getting up, try to claim we never fell in the first place.)