I Believe in Writing

I believe writing is therapeutic and I have proudly passed that belief and practice along to my children.

When we first moved back to Manti, we lived with my aging grandmother.  It was a blessing for both of us: she needed assistance and we needed a place to live. However, I had been away for a number of years and had missed out on some of her aging process and it was initially very difficult for me to witness the grandmother of my youth deteriorate both physically and mentally. The woman who lived next door throughout my childhood, the woman who functioned as my second mother, was slowly disappearing and being replaced by a forgetful stranger.

I struggled to know and love this new woman as I had the woman of my childhood, so I turned to writing. I wrote about the grandma of my youth who could find anything being the near opposite of this new woman who could not find anything (in fact didn't know to even look for lost items some of the time). I wrote about feeling sad when she would wait for Evan (her long deceased husband) to join her for dinner and me having to remind her over and over gain that he wouldn't be coming and why. I wrote about a woman who had a sharp sense of humor, and this new woman's efforts to retain that quick wit--often delayed, but still funny.

When she died, I was asked to represent the grandchildren as a speaker at her funeral. I happily accepted and then as I tried and tried to prepare, I regretted my answer. I couldn't center my thoughts; I didn't know what to say. My husband suggested I just read some of what I had written. So I did.

It was a hit (if I do say so myself). Several of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma's friends asked for copies of what I had written. One cousin, obviously a believer in the notion of writing as a chore (or something you would only do as a school assignment), asked me why I wrote all that: I answered that I wrote to deal with my despair, I wrote as therapy, I wrote to cope, and I wrote to remember.

That night, my daughter disappeared to her room. Her kitten had just been killed and she was struggling with grief. When she emerged from her room, I asked what she had been up to. She said she had been writing about her kitten. Not realizing she had been shadowing me all day and listening to my conversations about my talk and about my grandma, I (sounding a bit like my cousin) asked why. She answered: you said writing made you feel better, that it was therapeutic, and so I decided to try it. I could barely mask my pride as I asked her if it worked. She nodded and grinned in affirmation.

Over the years, it seems that we (me, husband, children) have written a lot--I guess we have needed quite a bit of therapy. Without fail, writing has helped each one of us deal with trials, writing has made us more grateful, writing has provided inexpensive but effective therapy. I repeat: I believe--wholeheartedly--in the power of writing!

Red/Blue? A/B? Introvert/Extrovert?

Type A or a Type B?  Introvert or extrovert! As a society, we love to categorize people, to label and pigeonhole actions, personalities, and careers. Using these frameworks, we label ourselves, we categorize and judge others, and no doubt others also categorize and judge us.

Typically, those categorizations are based upon polar extremes and are often mutually exclusive. If you are one, then you are not the other. Those dichotomous labels, following the typical good/bad construction, carry social capital. Extroverts find praise and introverts find criticism simply due to their preference for rejuvenation. Judgments are implicit throughout these systems.

Without ever taking any real personality test, I know I'm Type-A, I'm a Red, and I'm an Extrovert. Most of those labels are positive: I'm assertive, independent, driven, social, and accomplished.  But because I'm a red, I am not a blue. As a result. I'm never labelled as a compassionate, peacemaking, or empathetic person. 

I do have natural personality traits, but I struggle with labeling that suggests those are fixed and unchanging. I am assertive, unless I'm not.  Compassion might not be my natural state, but I show compassion regularly. As an introvert, my husband might dread social events but he attends them and is often the life of the party. My son, labeled blue, is generally a peacemaker but sometimes he instigates conflict. My daughter, a type B personality, is not driven by competition, but she often wins.

At a leadership conference, I was recently introduced to another categorization system for motivation that further continues this division: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is of course privileged over extrinsic motivation. Doing something for a reward is apparently less valuable than doing something simply for the sake of doing it. I reacted the same way I always do: with skepticism (that Type-A personality of mine compels me).

Why do we feel a need to label and privilege? When I evaluate the traits that are divided up between the extremes, I see traits that are situationally dependent. Sometimes external rewards are good motivators; sometimes they aren't. In some situations, aggressiveness is valued and in others non-aggression is the more valued trait.

I decided a long time ago that I am by all accounts (and reputation) a feminist, but that I was going to more accurately label myself a humanist--again because I don't like what the label assumes. As a humanist, I am concerned about gender issues in society, but not exclusively issues tied to womanhood (as feminist might imply). I care about individuals, I believe that femininity and masculinity are equally important, and I argue both men and women can and should exhibit cross-gendered traits.

I'm tired of either/or thinking, and I believe we should rely on it less. Today, I declare myself situationally traited: I am an A and a B, a red and a blue, an introvert and an extrovert, and sometimes I'm externally motivated and other times my motivation is internal. I am all of these things ... and more ... depending on the situation.


Written June 28, 2015

Child Labor

I believe in child labor.

I am a farm girl, the oldest of five, and I have always had a fervent commitment to equal rights (even as a young girl), which meant that I had to work right along with the the men (and boys) on the farm. That commitment, I am sure, came from the reality that in our home, there was no distinction between women's work and men's work. Chores were a constant need, ever incomplete, and when they needed to be done, we all had to do them--regardless of age or gender.

One chore that everyone disliked was de-beaking turkeys. When poults were a couple of weeks old, their top beaks had to be partially removed for future protection: turkeys have a tendency to peck each other violently as they grow, to the point of death, so debeaking is a preventative and protective measure. Turkeys also subscribe to herd mentality, so when one starts pecking something, its peers join in. We needed a big crew to debeak thousands of turkeys in a single session, so my grandpa and uncles and cousins came to help. The smaller kids herded turkeys into small pens and then the debeaking crew stepped in and snipped beaks (using dog nail clippers) while the penning crew got another group ready. It was all perfectly orchestrated for maximum efficiency.

I was pretty proud when I advanced from the herding crew to the debeaking crew. My first time, though, I was a little reticent. The turkeys squirmed, the clamping down of the clippers required force as the material and shape of the beak resisted, the beaks bled, and the turkeys stumbled around dazed and confused when we set them down. I was also nervous because I had been warned repeatedly about the importance of cutting in exactly the right spot: a millimeter too short and the turkey's breathing would be stifled; a millimeter too long and it could still be used as a weapon, defying the purpose. Grandpa, the patriarch, took it upon himself to inspect each team member's accuracy, and he was not shy about pointing out error.

I got pretty fast (because I got plenty of practice) and I ended up hiring myself out to other farmers. My goal was always to be as fast and accurate as my mother, who held the title of most proficient debeaker.

Another farm chore that had to be done was feed transportation. We had an enormous ten-ton bulk truck, and when turkeys were large, we often needed to haul more than one load a day. My mom and dad didn't get off work until 5:00 pm, it took a half hour to get to the feed mill, and the feed company closed at 6:00 pm, which made it difficult for them to get and unload what they needed, especially when they needed more than one load. The minute I could legally drive, I was seen as a solution. They would send my sister and me for a load of feed after school.

I could reach the pedals if I stood, resting only about an inch of my behind on the seat. The gear shifter was as long as my leg and it required the strength of both my arms and most of my back to shift gears. The steering wheel, also enormous, required my full strength to move. Kelly provided coaching, moral support, and two extra arms for shifting as I fought with all my might to drive that beast.

My friends often laughed when they passed us. They joked at school that I was standing on the seat steering the beast while Kelly sat on the floor working the pedals. We truly were tackling a job that was physically bigger than the both of us.

While I remember complaining about how hard I had to work (a lot), I'm certain no child labor laws were violated.  I'm also certain that my mantra, "no job is too large," was nurtured in those turkey sheds and on the road behind the wheel of that big bulk truck.