An open letter to the Boy Scouts of America

To the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America,

Why do you have to make this so hard for my family?

We want to be a Scouting family. My son, Sawyer, will be 13 in June, and the thing he's most proud of is that he's supposed to make Eagle Scout this summer. My husband is an Eagle Scout. So's his brother. My father-in-law was a troop leader who won some kind of award that was a big deal. I know this because I hear ALL THE TIME about the Silver Beaver award and how it was a BIG DEAL.

I knew, when I got married, that I'd have to be involved in Scouts. It was a done deal, like marrying into a Catholic family when you're agnostic, or marrying a Red Sox fan when you don't care about sports. They care about it. They love it. You love them, and you're along for the ride.

All I knew about Scouts was that it was quasi-military and that it made me vaguely uncomfortable. All that boy-to-man, God-and-country, uniform, straight-back, meetings and badges stuff was not a part of my world. Give me Girl Scouts and craft night over pitching a tent in the dark anytime. But my husband Mark talked about Scouts like men talk about college, football and their first girlfriend, all rolled into one. There's a camp in New Mexico called Philmont he never stops talking about. Mount Baldy, camping for days, dehydration. Sounds like hell, but he couldn't wait to have a boy so he could go to Philmont with him.

All of the best men I know were Eagle Scouts. It was a secret club. My uncle, who I adored growing up, is an Eagle Scout. When he met Mark for the first time, that was their connection -- both Eagle Scouts. It meant something -- perserverance, an ability to get things done, a way of seeing the world as an obstacle course that could be navigated through, if only one was prepared enough. I liked that. I wanted it for my kids.

Mark loves to talk about the Grand Canyon -- he hiked from one rim to the other. That means, yes, he walked down into the Grand Canyon, across it, and then back up. He almost fell off a cliff at one point, but another boy saved him. At one point, on a trip, I said I might stop by and take my two boys to see the Grand Canyon. "Not without me," Mark said. "I need to show them. That's MY Grand Canyon."

I couldn't wait for my kids to be a part of Scouts -- of something that makes my husband feel that good about his experiences, this many years later.  And now, with boys ages 8 and 12, we're really in the thick of Scouting. My husband wears a Boy Scout uniform to meetings, which I think is pretty hokey, but he's really proud of it. My older son, Sawyer, has learned more from Scouts than I could have possibly imagined. Mark has two weeks vacation a year, and took a week off last year to go to Scout camp with Sawyer last year in Colorado. They had an experience that I wish every boy could share with his father: Camping under the stars, long days of hiking and talking, and watching Sawyer learn every day.

Sander's still in Cub Scouts, and I have to admit that years into Scouting, I still can't understand the difference between a pack and a troop, a den and a council. But Sander loves it, too, and there's a race on to see who's going to hit Eagle Scout at a younger age -- Mark made it at 14. Sawyer's hoping for 13. Sander's planning on trying for a tie. My littlest one, a girl? She's named Scout.

But I'm afraid that I might have to just back out of the whole thing now, and it breaks my heart.

How, how, how can I justify to Sawyer that a Scout is "Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent," when every action that the Boy Scouts of America has taken lately has been shown to be deceitful, cowardly, unkind and untrustworthy?

Either you believe that gays are immoral people who don't belong in Scouting, or you don't. If that's truly what you believe, then fine. Don't let gay children into Scouts if you believe they're going to grow up to be warped, immoral human beings -- it would be cowardly of you to do so! But if that's the case, Scouting is no longer a place for us, and you have secured your place on the wrong side of history. The organization will shrink, wither away and die.

If you don't believe that being gay is a moral issue, then by all means, stop caving in to religious sects and let gays in to help lead! Actually, just let *people* in -- it really helps not to categorize people by what they do with their genitals in private at night, and instead to notice what they do during the day. 

Some of the best people I know are gay, and they're parents, too. And they're gay parents who were once Boy Scouts. And they would make amazing adult leaders. Better than you could possibly imagine. And some of the best people I know stay away from Scouting, because of the intolerance and bigotry. And I have defended you to them, and told them, "We're working for change from within."

But I can't do this anymore. A policy that is drawn to please as many members as possible is by design disingenuous and dishonest. You don't believe that gay kids are fine and gay adults are evil. That's not a real thing. So, apparently Scouts are NOT to be trusted. How could I trust an organization that could come up with this policy?

Show your courage, and change with the world, and accept everyone. Or, hell, show your courage and stand behind your belief that homosexuality is wrong in all forms. But this? "Sure, gay kids are fine. And then they turn 18 and an evil zombie bug attacks their brains and turns them evil and they can't sleep next to other kids. But they could when they were 17. Just not when they're 19."

I call bullshit. How is this kind? "Sure, kid! Be an Eagle Scout! Join us, and help represent everything good about Scouts! But since you're gay, when you get married and your kid hits Cub Scouts, we don't want you around anymore!"

How is this cheerful? I've got a pre-teen that cries because his gay friends think he's a bigot for still being in Scouts, and because most of my friends think I'm an idiot for not getting out before this. Cheery, all right.

Loyal? How the HELL is it loyal to tell kids you accept them for who they are, unless they're gay, in which case they're dumped at 18?

Reverent? I'm trying to love the sinner, Scouts of America, and hate your sins, but it's tough. How can I see past your arrogance? Your willingness to meld your beliefs into a Frankenstein policy in order to keep as many Scouts as you can, rather than standing up for what's right?

I want to be a Scouting family. Even though many of the people who are left in Scouts are bigots who believe you're better off without gays. Seriously -- a lot of really good people who would be great Scouts won't touch the organization. They're joining Campfire/Indian/Rainbow Warriors or whatever the "We include everyone, and we still go camping" groups are.

But I want to be a part of this. I want my sons to be Eagle Scouts, and I want it to stand for something besides bigotry and "Old-fashioned-conservative-white-Christian-America."

I want it to mean the Grand Canyon and starlit nights and campfires and tents and pushing yourself for one more mile to Mt. Baldy. I want it to mean good men. The kind who stand up against bullying, bigotry and hypocrisy. I want it to mean Truthful, Trustworthy, Loyal and Brave. 

I just want my kids to know how to go camping, without it hurting people we love just by the act of being a Boy Scout.

I don't want to break up with you. You've meant a lot to me.

I don't want to tell Sawyer that we can't as a family, do this anymore. He'll quit if we discuss this with him -- he wants Eagle Scout more than you'd believe, but he wants to grow up to be a good man even more. Don't create an environment that means Sawyer has to decide between being a good man and being a Boy Scout.

Get your act together, and live up to the Boy Scout Law. 

Watching whales

This is the face of a seven-year-old boy who has fulfilled a dream.

We went on a whale watch off the coast of California this week. The day was glorious, the weather amazing, and off we went, 40 miles out to sea, with a group of people who had, apparently, lived in caves their entire lives.

They had never heard of being seasick. They had no idea that perhaps, before you spent more than seven hours out on the open water, you should, just maybe, stock up on Dramamine. That if you get a little queasy on a roller coaster, maybe a whale watch isn't where you want to be.

That taking little girls who vomit at the idea of vomit out onto a boat where every third person is heaving over the side might not be a picnic. And that if you're actually eating a picnic and there are people barfing onto the table next to you and it splashes onto your lunch, you might lose your lunch, so to speak.

So, despite the trauma of being on a boat surrounded by people who threw up, copiously, conspicuously, loudly and profusely, as well as, shall we say, closely, violently and often, the lucky few of us who were NOT part of the "barf boat brigade" managed to have a very good time.

Sander was a little green, but some Dramamine helped. Sawyer has my stomach, apparently made of steel wool and impervious to any movement. And Scout was rocked to sleep the entire time by the motion of the waves and so missed the entire technicolor experience.

When we could look away from the human drama inside the boat, what we saw outside was astounding.

The whales are migrating this time of year, and we were hoping we'd get lucky enough to see a humpback or two.

We saw 35 or 40. Plus a blue whale, 1,500 saddleback dolphins, six or eight bottlenose dolphins and enough sea lions to start our own Sea World show.

For a boy whose dream was to "see a whale in the wild," this was the trip of his life.

He still wants to see an Orca, and they weren't in this part of the world, and of course the platypus is still highest on his list.

The whales were amazing, and though I know that's an overused word, it's still a good description of it. To think that people went out in tiny rowboats to go and try to kill one, and that they succeeded! I was scared at the size of them while on a huge boat made of steel, with a motor to take me safely away. The thought of being on a wooden ship, with sails, or in a rowboat armed with harpoons is beyond my grasp. And how desperate you would have to be to even attempt it!

Plus, of course, the seasickness. We were able to laugh about it, but spending months and months like that, in the hold of a ship coming from England, or worse, from Africa?

And yet people survived it, and worse.

That's why we go on whale watches, I think. Because it reminds us of how we got here, how small we really are, and how little we know about the world around us.

And because the human dramas played out on the barf boat were every bit as interesting as the dramas played out in the water. 

Porn. Really, it's about porn, so be warned.

I've already alerted you that this blog post is about porn, so honestly, if you're easily offended or don't like to think about icky things, look away. Or skip to the next post -- it's all touchy feely about parenting rules.

This one, however, will have bad words and worse ideas in it.

Now that that's out of the way:

I want there to be websites for porn for teenage boys and girls that are, well, normal. And relationship-centered. And, frankly, I want it to be like Playboy was when I was a kid. Or even the really bad one, Hustler.

Because I read Playboy and Hustler when I was about nine and I stole a couple from some guys who did work around our house. And they were gross, and they were thrilling, and forbidden and wonderful and disgusting. I felt shameful and degraded just by looking at them, and I felt excited and adventurous at the same time. So, this, then, was the big secret. This is what all of the inside jokes were about. This was what the movies were talking about, and what the giggling was. I got it, now. I saw that it wasn't anything at all like the anatomy books I'd been given, and it was way, way more complex than "a special feeling between a man and a woman."

But you know, there were some scary things, too. Someone talked about pee, and I was grossed out forever. Someone else talked about (we're gonna get graphic here, people -- we're talking about porn, remember,) anal sex, and I have never been able to un-see that. Not ever.

But that was it. I never saw any other porn until years later, when I was an adult and could make my own choices and didn't have to steal it if I wanted to see it, except from a boyfriend.

And I will not, for the sake of keeping to topic, get in to the very real, very important topic of whether porn should exist, the women and men who make porn, the degrading and dangerous business of making it, and the fact that children are sometimes involved. We're talking about what is.

And what is, today, is frightening.

I have a son who's 12.

He will, at some point, want to see boobs. Unless he's gay, in which case I have an entirely different blog post on my hands. But I have two sons, so let's assume that one of them will want to see boobs.

And one of them, in the next year or so, or maybe two or three if I'm lucky, type in, "boobs" into a computer. Because it's not just computers that can do this anymore. Net Nanny can't save me. He can type in boobs on an iPhone, or an iPad, or an iPod touch, or on a Kindle browser. He can do this on a friend's phone, at the Apple store or when I run to the bank.

It will happen.

And he will not get pictures of boobs. He will not get Playboy images, still-lifes of naked women, posing demurely.

He will go, in one afternoon, from wondering what boobs look like to having more disturbing, icky thoughts in head than were possible twenty years ago.

I just asked him if he'd ever seen a picture of a naked woman, and he said yes -- I'd shown him a picture of a friend of a friend who was a lingerie model, and she posed in a g-string.

That, for him, is porn. He asked why I was writing about porn, and guessed, "Because you're saying that no one in this family has ever looked at porn?"

Do you know what the top hit is on google when you type in "boobs sex"?

"Want to slide your dick through MILF TITS? Saggy tits of housewives, biggest tits, natural tits & sexy tits."

Yup. In ten seconds, he's got images of mothers who like to fuck, housewives who like to go down, you name it.

What if he googles, God forbid, "porn"?

Top hit is "youjizz.com."

Where you'll see videos like "luscious nasty slut immobilized" and "beat-down junkie ho tells all."

The "luscious nasty slut" shows pictures of a woman tied up in a bar, having sex with at least four or five men at once, while others look on. From the little I'm willing to see, it looks for all purposes like a gang-bang of a teenage girl in the middle of a crowded bar.

I like sex. I adore my husband and I love our sex life. "Luscious nasty slut immobilized" has NOTHING, nothing, nothing to do with what adult sex is like in the real world, if you're lucky.

I know that someone, somewhere, wants to watch this, and someone is willing to pay big money for it. And, frankly, I'm sorry for them. But my real question is, how do I teach a decent, sweet, normal kid that sex is a natural, beautiful, wonderful thing between two people that love each other when he will be surrounded by images that have nothing to do with love and are nothing near beautiful or wonderful?

I would not trade away my internet for anything, but I'm sorry this part of it exists. And in case you haven't looked recently, no, you don't have to be 18 to see this stuff, you don't have to have a credit card and you can just click, click, click and it's there.

I am the last person you'd ever call a prude, and I consider myself a pretty open-minded, easy-going person. But seeing that poor girl tied up on a bar, having sex with six or seven men? There's something wrong here when that's a form of entertainment.

And there's something more wrong when it's only three clicks away from children.

I have no answers. I don't want censorship. And I know people who go to couple's clubs and who watch other people have sex onstage because they think it's good for their marriage. To each their own.

But these are tough waters to navigate, these teen years with the internet out there.

If there were a parenting map, when teens hit the internet it would say, "Here there be dragons."

Sawyer's birthday

As of today, I've been a mother for 12 years.

What a funny thing this motherhood is, you know?

I was so disappointed when I found out Sawyer was a boy. I'd grown up in house with my mom and four girls. Girls were all I knew. Boys were loud, obnoxious, liked sports and cars and hated poetry and writing. And they hated arts and crafts and all of the things I loved to do.

I mean, I loved my husband, and he was a boy, but still. Boys were aggressive. They were bullies. They would never let me hug them in public.

And the worst part is that boys grow up and leave. I wanted someone to cook Thanksgiving dinner with when I turned 70. I wanted a friend, someone who would be like me, not the unknown, stinky, truck-loving boy I was getting.

And then I met Sawyer, and the world was new again, and I had to unlearn everything I knew and start over.

Talking about Sawyer is like talking about my hands.

How can I describe my hands? They're so much a part of me, so much of who I am and what I do, that I don't even think about them, or show gratitude for them, or appreciate them for the miracle that they are.

I don't want to tempt the gods by crowing about how wonderful he is. I don't want to, in essence, hold up my solid gold coin for the world to see, flipping it back and forth to catch the light, and then wondering why it's gone.

For the first five years Mark and I were married, I was convinced we'd be divorced or he'd die. I had been so sure for so long that it was my destiny to have good things taken away that I would say to myself, "Well, at least I've been married for a month, and it was good one. I'll always have that." 

 When I found myself saying, "I've been married two years, and they were happy, and at least I've had that in my life, and that was more than I ever expected," then it began to sink in.

Maybe, just maybe, even I was allowed to be happy. Perhaps I was going to be allowed to be  the one in my family that escaped. Maybe there was no big hand waiting to snatch me back to my past, to all of the bad things, to take Mark away from me. Maybe I could relax.

And then I had Sawyer.

And the realization that having a child was so much worse, and so much better. I would always be happier than I had been. I would always have more of a capacity to love, and know more joy.

It was as if I was threading a needle in dim light, and I couldn't understand why it was damned hard, and then someone turned a light on and it became easy.

But when there's more light, and you see more clearly, you can't un-see the things that had been in shadow before.

There would never be any relaxation. There would never be another time, even for a minute, where I wasn't mentally keeping track of another human being.

 Every second of every minute, even when I'm sleeping for the last 12 years, I have been aware of Sawyer. I know where he is, who's watching him, what he's doing. The day he was born, a small part of my brain activated, the Sawyer-GPS section, that keeps tabs at all times.

See the picture above? One night last year, Sawyer couldn't sleep and asked to get in my bed. When I went in to move him, that's how I found him -- he was holding Scout's hand.

There should be a whole new dictionary for parents with different names for pain, right next to the dictionary for people falling in love for the first time.

Because with the new way of seeing the world comes the realization that this can all end. That the light can go back out and leave you in the dark again, struggling to see. That this really is the most wonderful, amazing, painful, miserable thing in the world, and why didn't anyone ever tell you that it's awful, too?

And then, as he grew, his personality started to reveal itself. Clearly, genetics is everything. There is no nature vs. nurture debate for me anymore: You can screw up a kid, sure. You can enhance a good set of genes. But you have no more control over what that kid's personality is like than you do over turning a Golden Retriever into a Pit Bull.

Sawyer is nothing like the boy I had anticipated. He's more Christopher Robin than Heathcliff; much more Harry than Draco. I was expecting aggression and Hot Wheels and Legos and trains; I got stories and affection and a tiny hand to hold. Sawyer loved to rub my arm to fall asleep at night, but it had to be just the right spot on my arm. His father and I adored him, to the point of idiocy. He was never out of our sight, never with a babysitter, he never cried. It was the three of us, a trio, and he went where we did. We took him to Italy when he was nine months old, and I went to New York with him when he was a toddler.

He rode on his dad's shoulders to see the Macy's Thanksgiving parade when he was three, and when Sander was born, he was four and he took it in stride, just like everything else. 

He's even-tempered, calm, eager to learn, and wants to know everything. He reads more than I do. I didn't think it was possible. He reads MORE than I read as a child. The one recurring argument we have is that I need him to function during the day. He has to stop reading to eat. He has to stop reading to get dressed and go out. He has to stop reading to do other schoolwork, like math.

He has to stop reading when he's crossing the street to get the mail, or he's going to be hit by a car.

He's not easy, though, this child who is more like me than I imagined. He wants to do things the easy way, the quick way, and he's bright enough to figure out shortcuts. I used to hold the thermometer up to the lightbulb to avoid school. Sawyer has a headache and stomachache whenever the dishwasher needs to be emptied.

But he is insightful, honest with his praise, desperately eager to measure up, funny, infinitely patient, kind and always ready to help.

I'm amazed when people tell me their kids don't do any chores. On a normal day, Sawyer empties the dishwasher, feeds the chickens, dogs and cats, changes the cat box, helps prepare breakfast, entertains his sister while I work with Sander on schoolwork, does a load of laundry and takes the garbage out.

It's not farm work, obviously, and it's not hours of manual labor, but he helps keep the house running. He does about half the laundry for the whole house with lots of prompting, and about half the dishes. And he changes diapers, too. 

I can’t imagine him growing up and leaving -- I imagine him growing up and cooking Thanksgiving dinner right alongside me, proud to be home with his family. He’s really a great kid.

Happy Birthday, Sawyer.