Category: Children

Tick Tock

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

collection of vintage alarm clocksChange, chaos, confusion! No, I’m not speaking of the political realm but something far more insidious, the springing forward to Daylight Savings Time that occurs each March. Even after a week people are still dragging around trying to adjust their internal clocks to the loss of an hour and wondering just why we insist on torturing ourselves by moving the hands of our mantlepieces twice a year. Who thought of this process and does it really make a difference of any kind?

During World War I someone decided that Daylight Savings Time might help the country save energy. Maybe it was a good idea back then but somewhere along the way as our world turned into a twenty four hour frenzy of lights, television programming, computer use and shopping the concept of everyone quietly turning off their lights and going to bed doesn’t appear to be what it might once have been. Research shows that having an extra hour of daylight does little to curtail the use of electricity, gasoline, natural gas or any other form of energy, not the least of which is because we use the same hour’s worth of lighting when we rise in the dark each morning that we would have used if night came a bit earlier in the evening.

I recently read that more people have heart attacks and wrecks in the first weeks after a time change than at other moments in the year. Farmers report that their animals have difficulty adjusting to changing routines as well. So the burning question that keeps coming back to mind is why we torture ourselves by doing something that most of us dread? Why don’t we just choose either Daylight Savings Time or regular time and then stick with it forever? It would certainly be easier on the constitution.

I generally reach the point at which I am fully accustomed to the new timing just shortly before it is about to readjust again. I sleep well in those last weeks and feel a level of energy that is unbounded. Once we go through the gruesome alteration process I find myself dragging for weeks and I am plagued by insomnia for months. I suspect from comments that I hear that most people feel the way that I do. I don’t particularly care if my mornings are dark or my evenings come a bit earlier as long as I get to become acclimated to one way of marking time or another and then never again have to change unless I choose to travel to a different time zone.

Unfortunately we seem to be doomed to continuing the silly tradition of switching from one method of timing to another simply because we once started it. Have you ever noticed how reluctant we are to abandon a process once we decide to try it? It is some crazy aspect of human nature to prefer sticking with a plan even if that plan proves to be ridiculous. We see it most especially in government where that status quo becomes the way of doing things ad infinitum. We fear the idea of admitting that we my have been wrong about the merit of an idea and so we commit ourselves to absurdities again and again. It almost takes a rebellion to repeal a rule once we have made it part of our routine.

I applaud states like Arizona and Indiana that don’t go along with the time change shuffle. They merrily buck the tide and enjoy the certainty of no loss or gain in hours. They have no need of clock changers who must spend wasted time moving the hands of timepieces back and forth, back and forth twice each year.

I once saw an interesting documentary detailing the unbelievable number of days that it takes just to adjust all of the clocks that belong to the Queen of England. Many of them are complex antiques that must be very carefully calibrated and only experts are able to do so properly. It is a herculean task that is both expensive and time consuming.

I feel as though we have so many truly important problems in the world and recalibrating the time again and again should not be one of them. I advocate for suspending this policy and freeing ourselves from the tyranny of sleepless nights and energy-less days. I call for letting the natural rotation of the earth determine the timing of our habits just as it did for the thousands of years before someone got the not so bright idea of artificially determining when our days should begin and end.

Since it is more than likely that we will never rid ourselves of this onerous habit I instead extend my sympathies to those who become discombobulated each March and then again in the fall. I feel for all of the teachers who must spend the next many weeks looking at students slumped lazily on the tops of their desks. My heart goes out to the mothers of babies who insist on keeping to their sleep routines regardless of what the clocks may say. I understand the frustration of pet owners whose kitties and puppies react to the sun rather than the manmade schedule. For those like me who are now spending their nights staring at the ceiling I give you the hope that this too shall pass sometime around September or October just in time for it all to begin again.

What a piece of work is man. We sure know how to make things more complicated than they need to be. Maybe instead of making so many more new rules we may want to consider getting rid of some of the ones that make our lives more difficult. Starting with omitting all of the time changes seems to me to be a great place to start.

Searching for Love and Truth

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

normamccorvey6The world is filled with interesting stories, some more than others. So it is with Norma McCorvey, AKA Jane Roe. Norma grew up in the same era in which I lived. In fact she was very close in age to me. She was born in Louisiana to parents who seemed ill prepared to raise children. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and her parents’ union ended in divorce not long after Norma was born. Some women have a very unfortunate habit of falling in love with bad boys and so it was with Norma’s mom who forged a second relationship with a man who sexually abused Norma on a regular basis. By the time that Norma had reached her adolescence she was continually at odds with the law and ended up in juvenile detention centers and foster homes. Hers had been a confusing childhood without guidance, loving protection or opportunities. Little wonder that she was married and pregnant by the time that she was only sixteen.

Norma, like her mother before her, made many bad choices and was left by her husband to raise the child on her own. Realizing that she did not have any of the resources needed to care for herself much less a youngster, Norma gave the little girl to her mom. After that her life became a continuing series of unfortunate events. She became pregnant again and decided to give the little one up for adoption. She repeated her mom’s mistakes, seeming to be unlucky in love and life in general. When she became pregnant a third time she wanted to have an abortion but it was still illegal to do so in the state of Texas where she resided. A couple of lawyers who were looking for a test case to challenge the law took Norma under their wings and fought all the way to the Supreme Court for her rights and those of others to abort fetuses that were unwanted, claiming that particularly because Norma had been raped she should not have to have the baby.

The court case took well over three years to complete so Norma was forced to bear the little girl that she carried all the way to birth. She gave that child up for adoption just as she had with the earlier baby but ultimately won her case in the famous Roe vs. Wade decision that forever changed the way many women would view unwanted pregnancies. Norma never again became pregnant nor did she ever require or receive an abortion but she nonetheless became a celebrity in the pro choice ranks and even worked for many years in an abortion clinic. She seemed to find finally find her footing when she settled down with another woman in Dallas continuing to fight for women’s rights on a regular basis.

Along the way Norma met members of a Dallas pro-life group. They discussed with her their own beliefs that a fetus is a human being with its own rights as a person. Initially she scoffed at their arguments and in the feisty way that was her trademark made fun of their religious thinking. Somehow in an unlikely alliance they began to respect one another and Norma was taken by the way in which her opponents seemed to love her in spite of their differing opinions. Nobody had ever treated her with so much respect. She began to listen to what they had to say and to consider the possibility that perhaps their thoughts were valid.

She found herself feeling bothered by what she saw happening in the abortion clinic where she worked. Finally she renounced her pro choice position claiming that she had been used by the two lawyers who represented her in the landmark case. She even insisted that she had lied about being raped in order to make her situation appear to be more worthy of sympathy. She was baptized and in a stunning reversal became a spokesperson for the pro-life movement. Eventually she even left her long term partner and became a Catholic.

Norma was living in Katy, Texas not far from where I live when she died a couple of weeks ago. She never again saw the two children that she had given up for adoption but she is said to have thought about them often. The daughter that her mother had raised was by her side as she breathed her final breaths.

I was particularly taken by the sadness of Norma’s life. I encountered so many young girls like her when I was a teacher, sad souls who were forced into adult roles long before they were ready because their parents were unable or unwilling to care properly for them. I have taught twelve year olds who were raped by family members and became pregnant. They were angry, confused and fearful over what had happened to them. Their children became more like younger brothers or sisters than someone for whose life they were responsible. They were totally unprepared for the difficulties that lay ahead of them.

I have seen the loving results of children who have been saved from such situations through the process of adoption. When paired with genuinely caring adults they generally thrive and lead incredibly wonderful lives. There is something quite special about the realization that they have been chosen that helps them to grow to be strong and confident. I’d like to think that Norma’s adopted children found happy homes and that they were able to break the cycle of poverty and abuse that had been the definition of Norma’s lifestyle.

The question of abortion is a complex one that will not soon go away. There is much disagreement about when an unborn child becomes a person. We are inching further and further into the developmental cycle of the fetus in determining where the line is drawn in determining what state defines viability.  There are now places where abortion is permitted all the way up to twenty four weeks. Many consider it a form of birth control and each year millions of women end their pregnancies not because they have been raped or have health issues but because they do not want to have a child.

On the other side of the argument are those who believe that conception is the defining moment of personhood and that abortion is murder of a human being. They find the practice to be barbaric and morally wrong and fight continuously to outlaw the abortion once and for all. Many consider such individuals to be little more than religious zealots but they see themselves as soldiers in a battle against an evil that must be stopped.

Ironically Norma McCorvey was the face of both sides during her lifetime. She believed that she had seen the light in her later years when she became a pro-life advocate. She felt that she had been used and abused for most of her life and that it was within a community of faith-filled individuals that she finally found the love and respect for which she had been searching since she was a child. She died convinced that her part in Roe vs. Wade was flawed and terribly wrong.

It appears that Norma somehow found a modicum of peace and even built a loving relationship with the one daughter with whom she still had contact. She found friendships that she enjoyed and her life became bearable. I would like to think that she is now enjoying the peace that had been so elusive for her for so much of her existence. Hers was a search for love and truth that is now at an end. May she forever rest in peace and may those of us still here find the answers to the questions that she posed and the strength and wisdom to work for what is right just as Norma tried to do.

The Conversation

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

early_summer_morning_513429I had a long conversation with my grandson this past weekend. I had traveled to visit him and his family during the long holiday day weekend. One morning he and I arose before the rest of the household and we had an opportunity to quietly talk about this and that.

He is a serious and sensitive young man who only recently became a teenager. He thinks long and hard about a number of things. He loves to build with Legos and his room is filled with Star Wars spacecraft and enough buildings for an entire town. He has bridges and cars and trains all made from the tiny blocks. He is quite proud of his collection. He assembles the pieces and then displays the intricate items that he has but together on bookshelves and table tops. His room is a veritable Lego museum. It’s fun just to browse all of his creations.

He is a rather interesting fellow. He collects elements and put them in little jars attached to a magnetic board in the shape of the Periodic Table. He has models of the planets hanging from his ceiling. He’s rather sentimental about his possessions, many of which date back to the time when he was a toddler. He could name the planets and their moons when he was only twenty months old and he has always had a curiosity about the world and how it works. He enjoys mathematics and appears to have a profound sense of numbers. He is a deep thinker so it didn’t surprise me much when our early morning talk turned to ideas about the world and the seeming unfairness that exists in the distribution of food and wealth.

My grandson was feeling a bit guilty because he desperately wanted a new Lego set but would have to wait until he had earned enough money doing chores around the house. He was feeling impatient and had even felt a bit sorry for himself but now he was sensing that his greed was inappropriate. His guilt was couched in the knowledge that he has had a very good life from the moment that he was born. He thought of all the young men his age around the world who live in terrible conditions both because of economics and political situations. He knew that his impatience in wanting to purchase those Legos right now was somehow wrong but he confessed to sometimes wishing that he had even more resources so that he would never have to wait to gratify his wishes. He even admitted that he had never really known any people his age who were poor. He had only read and heard about them.

We spoke of children that I had taught who literally lived in cars or garages or homes with dirt floors. I mentioned a little girl who had only wanted a bed for Christmas because she was tired of sleeping on the hard wood of her living room. He said that he often thought of the children engulfed in the civil war in Syria. He found it difficult to even imagine what it must be like to have an entire way of living torn asunder. He wondered what he might do at his age to help to right some of the wrongs that occur around the globe.

We spoke of change and how difficult it often is to break from comfortable routines. He is a creature of habit who prefers the quiet of his home and familiar friends. He has a certain way of doing things but he realizes that the demands of the world are such that he will have to learn how to adapt. I spoke to him of my own fears of the unknown and how we all worry more than we probably need to do.

It was quite nice having the special time with him. We are usually surrounded by a house full of people and rarely have the occasion to just talk and let the conversation go wherever it may lead. It was a treat for both of us, confirmed by the especially big hug that he gave me once our little soiree was interrupted as the rest of the family began to awaken.

I so often hear negative assessments of today’s young people. It is sometimes suggested that they are self centered, lazy, prone to feeling entitled, unthinking. My experience with them is just the opposite. They are as concerned about our world and its future as we were when we were young. They are feeling pulled in hundreds of different directions including attempting to become accustomed to their changing bodies. They constantly feel the pressure of the high expectations that adults have for them and desire more than anything to make their elders happy while also being true to themselves. Like my grandson their concerns are not always about themselves. They are very aware of the inequalities that exist and they are desirous of finding ways to decrease or eliminate them. They are curious but frightened about how world events will unfold and what effect they will have on them. They want to be brave and strong and good but sometimes wonder if they are up to the challenges that they face. In other words they are much like youth have been throughout history.

I have always believed that each of us have multiple duties in life. We must fulfill our own destinies but we also have responsibilities to both those who are too old to care for themselves any longer and those who are young. We have rights but with those rights come duties that we can never neglect. The lessons of childhood must teach our kids how to be proud of themselves as individuals but also how to care about the people around them. Nobody exists in a vacuum. Each of us has to consider the needs of others. Our lifetimes are filled with ups, downs, triumphs, tragedies and we must be able to cope with whatever comes our way. All of us are constantly modeling behaviors to the children around us. They will mimic whatever they see us doing. If we show respect to all people they will as well. If we are willing to sacrifice now and again so too will they. By the same token if we are abusive or selfish they will come to believe that they don’t have to care about anyone but themselves. Behaviors are learned and very difficult to undo once they have been ingrained.

I feel quite optimistic about the future. I have seen damaged youngsters for sure but more often than not I encounter teenagers who are experimenting a bit but never wandering very far from the beliefs of their families. For the most part parents continue to do their jobs quite well and their children continue to grow into happy and healthy adults just as people have for centuries. We all have a stake in how things will turn out. Hopefully each of us will do our best to provide our young with the support and models that they need. It’s also a good idea to have conversations with them now and again. They can be quite enlightening. 

We Are Our Own Narrators

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

come-with-me-7-2011_1-1024x671There is a certain irony that my grandson Jack performed in his last musical with the varsity theater group at his school this past weekend and that the play was Into the Woods. The piece was wildly popular on Broadway in the nineteen eighties about the time that Jack’s mother was ending her own days in high school. It is a profound story of relationships and the consequences of the choices that we make. It is a study of the fine line between childhood and becoming a true adult. Nothing is as it really seems or as simple as we would like things to be.

Jack played both the narrator and the mysterious man, a rather fitting dual role whose significance for me he may not fully understand until I explain. I found myself enthralled by the brilliance of his performance and his ability to nuance the subtleties and complexities of the parts. All in all Jack and his co-actors ultimately moved me to both tears and reflection which is as the authors of the play no doubt intended. 

Jack is named for a man that he never met, my father who would have been his great grandfather. The two Jacks are far more alike than almost anyone might suspect. My grandson like his long dead ancestor is a kind of renaissance man, someone who is as comfortable in a world of mathematics and science as in the domain of artistry. Like my father he is a sensitive soul who often finds himself questioning the ways of the world. He has so many talents and interests that he might follow a variety of paths in life just as was the case with his namesake. Both are known for looking at the world from many different angles. At the same time they might both be described as having a kind of innocent boyishness and joy of living that has made them attractive to others.

My father Jack loved to read and he passed that hobby down to me beginning when I was very young. He purchased two volumes of fairytales that he read faithfully to me. Those stories created a secret bond between the two of us and kept his memory alive long after he had died.

At first my thoughts of my father were romantic and childish much like the first act of Into the Woods and the stories that he read to me. I missed him terribly and often found myself having foolish dreams that he would one day return to guide and comfort me. Sadly reality never really works like that as is so profoundly revealed the second act of Into the Woods. There comes a moment when we all realize that we must cross over from the fantasies of our childhood into the world of reality. We learn that each of the choices that we make have consequences not only for ourselves but also for the people around us. We can only rely on our parents for so long and then we must face the fact that as we make our own ways we will undoubtedly make mistakes just as they did.

My grandfather was a kind of narrator, just like Jack was in his school play. Grandpa was the father of my father Jack. He often told stories of his own childhood and related history as he had lived it. He gave me great comfort any time that I was feeling down. He was a living link to my own father. His stories were not as lovely as the fairytales of my youth. He spoke to me with honesty because I was an adult and he understood that I must face even dark stories. He admitted to overcoming alcoholism and enduring profound depression and loneliness before encountering my grandmother and starting a family of his own. Like the songs in Into the Woods he found ways of bringing humor to situations that were actually quite tragic. He had developed a wisdom that allowed him to realize that sometimes we laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes we are both frightened and curious. He had lived long enough to see that no person or situation is usually all good or all bad. He taught me that life is complex and we can neither run away from it nor tackle it alone. Like the mysterious man that grandson Jack also portrayed in his play, my grandfather had faced up to his own demons and conveyed to me the wisdom that he had learned from those battles.

I suspect that my grandson Jack has little idea how much his musical affected me. I thought of all of the times when I wanted to run away from the very adult responsibility of caring for my mother that was thrust upon me even before I had begun to explore the world. I had believed that she was supposed to be my rock and foundation but instead our roles were often reversed. I found myself making silly wishes with regard to our difficult relationship when she was very sick. Time again I had to rely on the kindness of others to help me through the most trying situations. I learned that I was much stronger than I had ever imagined and that I really didn’t need a narrator to tell me how my story should go.

I want to share my thoughts about his play and his role in it with my grandson Jack. I want to tell him the tale of his family thus far and how we all worked together and with an odd assortment of friends in reaching this day and time. I want him to know that we have seen triumph and tragedy, jubilation and bitter disappointment. Ours has been a very imperfect family but somehow we have managed to keeping traveling in and out of the woods, overcoming giants and wolves. We have been as human as the characters in the musical in which Jack had a starring role.

Hopefully my grandson will have learned more from his acting experience than just his lines and the melodies that he performed. If he reflects carefully he will see that there is an important message for each of us contained in the wittiness of the words and songs that he and his friends executed so very well. I wish for him to reach the depth of wisdom that is to be found in this musical that is not so much for children as for the child that lives inside all adults.

I suspect that Jack does indeed understand. He would not have been as convincing in his acting if he had not realized the power of the message that he was conveying through his expressions and the tenor of his voice. It is a good way for him to step out of the world of children and onto the pathway that will lead him into the adventure that he will one day call his life. I hope he knows now that he and only he is the teller of his story. How it proceeds and where it ultimately ends is up to him. It is an exciting journey that will not be without its misdirection and loss but will also bring him the realization of some of the most wonderful wishes that enter his head in the quiet of night. Along the way he will have unexpected encounters with people who will both help and hinder him. If he has truly learned his lessons well he will be ready for whatever comes. He will realize that all of us have a once upon a time that is only as lovely as we work to make it be. The magic is not in witches or beans or potions but within our own minds.

Open Hearts

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

1ebff25909b8878c31424a09e6757466I was eight years old when my family and I went to the Trail Drive In to see Tammy starring Debbie Reynolds. I truly enjoyed that movie much as today’s young girls like to watch the programs on the Disney Channel. It was a wholesome and uncomplicated film about an innocent seventeen year old who finds love for the first time. I instantly learned the words to the song Tammy that Debbie Reynolds sang so romantically in the film and belted out the simple tune as I rode my bicycle around the neighborhood. Mostly I became an unapologetic fan of Debbie Reynolds after seeing Tammy and never lost my admiration for her even as the years went by and I became a well seasoned woman.

I often caught snatches of the conversations that my mother had with her sisters when I was a child and I knew that they highly approved of Debbie Reynolds. She was an all American princess in their eyes, as uncomplicated and lovely as the character she played in Tammy. One of my aunts often read a magazine called Confidential which was a precursor to The National Enquirer. I remember seeing photos of Debbie Reynolds in the pages of that publication with her husband Eddie Fisher. He was a singer and a heartthrob of sorts but I never particularly cared for him. Because I was still an uninitiated child I thought that Debbie had the most perfect life nonetheless and I wanted to be just like her one day.

Eventually a tremendous Hollywood scandal made the headlines. Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher had been close friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband, Mike Todd. They had even named their son Todd. When Mike Todd died suddenly in a plane crash a grieving Elizabeth Taylor found comfort from her good friends, especially Eddie. One thing led to another and the two stars wound up having an affair. Stories about the sordid incident seemed to be everywhere and of course my mom and her sisters were aghast by the turn of events as they whispered comments while they sipped on their coffee. I would have had to have been deaf not to hear them discussing how horrible the whole situation was and how much they felt for Debbie who by then was the mother of two children including a daughter named Carrie.

I loved Debbie Reynolds even more fiercely after that sensational scandal and thought of her as a brave warrior who somehow soldiered on even after enduring public humiliation. It would be decades before I would be able to forgive Elizabeth Taylor for her egregious behavior and I disliked Eddie Fisher forevermore. I was happy when his star power plummeted in the aftermath. He ultimately disappeared from the limelight and his tryst with Elizabeth was short lived, but Debbie continued to perform and remained beloved to me and her fans.

I was grown when I finally discovered the movie that seemed to most accurately depict the duality of sweetness and spunk that seemed to define the real Debbie Reynolds. Singing In the Rain became one of my all time favorite films. The casting was incredible and Debbie more than held her own with giants of the screen like Gene Kelly and Donald O’Conner. There are few scenes from cinema that are as iconic as the one in which she dances with her male co-stars and they all three end up tilting over a sofa. Her star quality shone through and that charisma would never die even after she left the silver screen for a quieter life.

Debbie Reynolds showed up from time to time in Las Vegas and on television programs like Will and Grace where she always seemed to light up the room but it was her daughter Carrie who would eventually become even more of a Hollywood icon than she had been. When Carrie Fisher played the role of Princess Leia in the Star Wars series she immediately became a role model for a new generation of little girls just as her mom had been for me. Carrie was beautiful and intelligent and showed the same spark of independence that her mom had always displayed. Young men across the world fell in love with her more feminist version of the ideal woman. She was an equal to the male characters who fought side by side with her against the dark side of life.

Carrie Fisher had a brilliant mind and went on to display her intellect and her sense of humor in the five books that she eventually wrote. She possessed a sometimes defiant honesty in which she told of her own demons and struggles. For a time she was estranged from her mother because of her willingness to so publicly speak of her life. She suffered from addictions and mental health issues and was never afraid to talk openly about them. She became an outspoken advocate for everyone who deals with the heartache and loss that comes from fighting for their mental well being. She understood that by admitting her own weaknesses she not only freed herself from their grasp but helped others who so often feel abandoned and alone in the battles against their cravings.   

The world was shocked to hear of Carrie Fisher’s death from a heart attack that she suffered while flying home on Christmas Day. Her many fans both young and old recalled the joy that she had brought to them. Her friends and family grieved for the giving and sensitive person that she was. Her mother Debbie was distraught and missed her beloved daughter immediately. Only one day later she too died, possibly from a stroke.

After my father was killed in a car crash at the age of thirty three my grandmother commented that she had lost her parents, many siblings and even a husband but the death of her child was the most difficult thing that she had ever endured. I watched her change from that day forward. She was a fighter who carried on but there was a shadow of sadness that seemed to follow her in spite of her efforts to smile and be optimistic. She spoke often and wistfully of my father and provided me with snatches of her own history as though she was preparing me for her own demise. Eventually she was diagnosed with stage four cancer and she died after a short but painful battle. Somehow I always felt that it was her broken heart that took her and I suspect that the same might be true of Debbie Reynolds. It is just so incredibly shocking and wrong in the grand scheme of things to lose a child.

I feel a profound sadness today as I think of the family of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. They will be dealing with a great deal of pain in the coming days and weeks and months. In the end the icons that we so worship as fans are just people like ourselves. They have brothers and daughters and close friends who love them and know them in the most personal ways, “warts and all” as my mother used to say. Behind all of the glitz and glamor of Hollywood are humans who experience the very same feelings that we all have. They give away much of their own privacy to those of us who fantasize about them and make them famous. We share vicariously in their triumphs and their tragedies but we never truly know them. We forget just how human they really are. The death of Debbie Reynolds just one day after her daughter reminds us of what matters the most in life. In the final analysis the most important thing that we do each day is to love and never forget just how fragile the human experience is. We can’t take a single day for granted because we never really know what our final destiny will be. We need to attempt to live with courage and open hearts like Debbie Reynolds and her daughter Carrie Fisher tried so valiantly to do.