The Advocates Who Activate

And then I thought, What happened with the boy who hit Bea?

"Amy, whatever happened with the boy who hit Bea at recess that day?" I asked my wife.

It had already been a couple of weeks and I felt guilty about not following up, about not being a father and asserting myself as the patriarch protector of my girls. About not being a man.

The irony wasn't lost on me, considering that one of the sentiments I despise the most -- boys will be boys -- has written off many a legitimate abuse and acquiesced to the most aggressive provider/protector male behavior for thousands of years.

"No, but I can check. I did talk with the yard duty teacher after it happened, and she said she didn't see it happen, but would look into it," my wife said.

"Please do. Thank you."

I should've done something, I thought. I compartmentalized my guilt and frustration and went on with prepping for the day ahead, a day of community protest and political activism at the local Women's March. My wife had a Kidpower workshop to teach and would meet me and our two girls downtown.

At the time, what we could best glean from Beatrice about the recess incident, and what she initially told her Mom the day it happened, was that she was at recess playing with another friend when she accidentally kicked the boy (or something in the context of play), and he thought she did it on purpose. So he punched her in the stomach. Twice.

It's unclear if she used her voice to tell him to stop, something we've instilled in both girls, but she's still socially timid at times. We assumed it all happened so fast that the boy had moved on and then recess was over. She did say she told him to stop, but only after us asking her over and over, and I wonder if she knew that's what we wanted to hear. I told her that it's never okay for a boy (or another girl) to hit her like that. Never. She told us to stop talking about it. She was done.

Shortly after that, I read a Facebook comment from a woman who warned of the siren song, those women who lie about being harassed and/or assaulted to bring down the "great, able-bodied men who have built this nation." Oh, how I wanted to comment, but didn't, because I felt that either I wouldn't contribute any positive dialogue, and if I did, it would've been missed by those who agreed with her.

Of course there are those who fabricate abuse, but there are so many more who never speak their truth for fear of reprisal. These are the everyday women (and men) who aren't the high-profile cases we've come to know in the past year, who have to keep swimming upstream through toxic water.

And just because the boy hit my daughter in a moment of playground angst doesn't mean he'll grow up to be violent. (Although he does need to know that aggression like that needs to muted and reframed in dialogue and other constructive channels as he gets older.)

Two weeks later on a day that celebrated inclusivity and equality and social justice for women (and men) alike around the world, regardless of race, cultural background, religious affiliation or sexual orientation; a day that abhorred sexual harassment and assault with lifts from the #metoo and #timesup movements, I felt like I wasn't very good father, or even a good man for that matter. All because I wasn't there to protect my daughter on the playground and ensure justice for her.

My patriarchal guilt, thousands of years of socialized gender roles and the ever-present thin biological and religious arguments to "justify gender inequality and the continued oppression of women" dissipated for me when we made our way downtown to march with friends and about 30,000 people from our community. With my wife and daughters walking just in front of me, and the thousands of women (and men) all around me chanting phrases like "What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like!" -- I thought, The middle may thankfully hold, but the status quo cannot. 

After the march I sat at the CPVAW table among the 50 non-profits represented at Louden Nelson Community Center and talked with a variety of women and men from our community. I again realized what I already knew deep down -- something I had known for decades and that my own mother had instilled in me -- that we as men are just as important to the progressive equation of social justice and putting an end to sexual harassment and violence. And that we can and should be the advocates who activate other men around the world to nurture the lives of our sons and our daughters.

Side By Side And Hand In Hand

"Hands across America
Hands across this land I love
Divided we fall, united we stand
Hands across America..."

Two months later it was still a joke. We'd mock the song and the promotional video and all the stars who appeared in it. We'd mock the do-goodness of those millions of dinks who held hands from city to city and state to state. We were twenty-somethings who didn't have a clue as to the why of the movement and didn't really care. Maybe it was something about helping poor families and the hungry and the homeless. Whatever. It was just cheesy and easy to make fun of.

Until David kept singing the theme song over and over and over again. One minute he'd be standing there catatonic staring at me as if I wasn't really there. And then the next he'd break into a passionate rendition of the "Hands Across America" theme song, his clear blue eyes locked on mine as if he was singing it directly to me, his arms and hands outstretched to simulate holding hands with people on either side of him.

Over and over and over again.

The summer of 1986 I worked as a YMCA camp counselor for kids and teens with developmental disabilities like autism, Down syndrome and more. Prior to that I had never done anything like it, and to this day I still don't know why I applied for the job. I even convinced my sister to apply, who was much more reluctant than I was to be a camp counselor, especially for special needs kids.

I did the job for less than two months, and although it wasn't a volunteer position (I did get paid a little money for doing the job), in retrospect it was one of the most transformative experiences I had at that stage of my life. David, the camper who sang the "Hands Across America" theme song, had severe autism and struggled to connect in any way to others around him. Except with that song that he obsessively latched onto. His parents would tell me at the end of camp that David had never been so engaged with others until the Hands Across America movement. He watched it live while it happened and anytime it was referenced after the fact on TV he would be glued to the repeated coverage.

But it wasn't until the Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) and I had children of our own when we started to pay more attention to the world around us, to how it affected us and we affected it, to the movements that moved us to activate and participate in our community. To try and make a positive impact in our lives, the lives of our children and others. And we most certainly want our children to know they can and should stand up for what they believe in and continue the active, positive path.

And even then, it took some time for us to fully activate. After years of polarizing economic and political events that rattled the hell out of us, we activated to participate fully -- the Mama becoming a Kidpower instructor, the Mama helping to organize the local Women's March in January, my being accepted to join the Santa Cruz Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, our whole family participating in the local Science March, our whole family participating in the local Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event, and simply volunteering more in our community where and when we can.

Whatever movement you support locally and/or globally, get off the ground, activate your family and participate. Of course we won't all see eye to eye; we'll support what we support, or maybe nothing at all. And yet every little bit of positive change can go a long, long way in a world that continues to rattle the hell out of us.

These activist families today with their peaceful marches and their homemade signs and their spreading good will and their walking a mile in women's shoes. Be the change, kids.

And thank you, David. Divided we fall, united we stand, side by side and hand in hand.

From Boys to Better Men

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” —Frederick Douglass 

Women's March signs made with #BhivePower

I was called a lezbian man-hater for marching. Not directly per se, but the person who posted it within that cradle of uncivil cyber civilization known as Facebook, directed it at my wife who is one of the local organizers of the Women's March (now Santa Cruz County Women's Action) and who had been commenting on the why of the march to those who didn't care for it. He simply lumped her and all the other women who participated into the lezbian man-hater hopper.

That's also how he spelled it -- lezbian. No matter. I'm neither a lezbian, or a lesbian, or a man-hater. I'm a straight man, a husband and a father of two amazing girls. And yes, I proudly wore the pink pussy hat during the march. However, I have no vagina agenda other than empowering our girls to be independent, strong, loving and caring members of society, in spite of them being girls, and because of them being girls. Someday they will hopefully be women leading the way with other women and men to ensure all our human rights are retained and sustained in the proverbial peaceable kingdom known as the United States of America.

There were many other men who marched -- husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, sons and more. There were gay men and transgender men and military men and religious men and atheists alike. But the same can be said, albeit probably a different mix, about the men who marched the week after for the March for Life. Either way, all of us men marched for our families, our communities, our country and our rights.

Personal and politically polarizing reasons aside, I want to focus on the boys now. The boys from every socioeconomic stratum and culturally and ethnically diverse background in this country (and around the world) who witness all this social unrest, the misogynistic, hateful and retaliatory rhetoric from all sides. Those who witness the men (maybe fathers, sons or brothers) and even the women who spell lesbian wrong and degrade liberal women (and probably most women), and those men and even the women who also stereotype and degrade pro-lifers as fascist Christians who want to limit everyone else's rights.

Unfortunately the bigger losers in this environment are the girls and the women. They're damned if they do speak up and damned if they don't. I've seen it happen over and over again with my mom, my sister, my wife and many other women in my life -- some of whom I've been emotionally overbearing with in my own past. Because of all that, I have little empathy for the men who feel left behind, trampled by all these women and minorities who have supposedly cut in line and taken over. Those who perpetuate the elitist, sexist and spiritual divide giving them justification to continue to denounce, degrade and retaliate verbally and physically.

I can't emphasize enough how complicated this all is -- our development and interpersonal relationships are never simple, black and white and wrapped in pretty packages with bright blue (or pink) bows. But it does start with building strong, empathic children, who eventually learn impulse control and to be safe with their bodies and with others, who are willing to listen to others even when they don't agree with them. Especially when they don't.

The other day my wife and I were in the other room when our oldest Beatrice cried out. Her and her sister Bryce had been playing, rough-housing actually, when Bryce got really mad, picked up a toy chair and whacked Bea on the head. We immediately invoked Kidpower safety rules and talked through why it happened and how instead they should've reacted.

The Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) brought out the "hold tight power."

Hold tight power meaning, "Okay girls, grab onto to your pants and say 'hold tight power.'"

Whine. There's always a little whining.

"Hold tight power."

"Okay, if you really feel like hitting or throwing, you can use your own personal power of hold tight power — the power inside of you to not hit or throw and act in an unsafe way."

To then take a beat and be safe and to think about more appropriate responses using our "calm down power" (something we could all use a lot more of right now). I can't emphasize enough how simple and powerful this and many other Kidpower exercises are for children (and for teens and adults).

Because according to UN Women and the current global available data: Between 15 and 76 percent of women are targeted for physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the available country data. Most of this violence takes place within intimate relationships, with many women (ranging from 9 to 70 percent) reporting their husbands or partners as the perpetrator. Across the 28 States of the European Union, a little over one in five women has experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a partner (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014). 

Are targeted. Choice words, yes, and this kind of violence is different than sisters hitting each other because play went awry -- a slippery slope however -- but too many boys are still growing up too violent, and no one's ever asking for it. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year. Less than 20 percent of battered women sought medical treatment following an injury.

It's horrific and complicated, and prevention and awareness still seems to be one of the best paths forward for both children and teens. The organization A Call to Men is one of many like Kidpower working to prevent violence against all women and girls, and ultimately teach safety and prevention skills for all kids, teens and adults of either gender. (Kidpower also teaches self-defense for emergency people safety skills, too.)

For those of us with children, girls and boys, but especially the boys, we have an ultimate responsibility to instill in them their own sense of personal responsibility, empathy, compassion, to be safe with their bodies and their minds, to "hold tight" and not react inappropriately and violently, and to encourage all of the above with others. We need to be clear that violence against women and girls, including sexual assault, harassment, bullying or anything related is never okay.

Whether you feel left behind or taken over -- and no matter where you take a stand in this world -- it's time for us to ensure our children grow from boys to better men.

“It was just before sunrise
When we started on traditional roles
She said sure I'll be your partner
But don't make too many demands
I said if love has these conditions
I don't understand those songs you love
She said this is not a love song
This isn't fantasy-land
Don’t go too far…”

—Rush, Cold Fire

The Transcendent Beauty of Inclusive Community

I could've been called worse considering the context. The girls and I each wore one of the many knitted and sewn pink "kitty" hats of the Women's March, mine with a Santa Cruz patch pinned to it. We walked across the street downtown at a brisk pace, hand in hand, on a mission to Bookshop Santa Cruz to buy some earned books for the girls. The peaceful march crowds were already thick and growing steadily and I needed to hurry us so we could me the Mama (what I lovingly call my wife) at our designated meeting time.

"You're not even a woman, man," someone said to me.

Two young guys, probably early twenties, passed us crossing the street. One of them had made the crack. Peripherally I could see each had long hair and scraggly beards. They were laughing.

We kept moving toward to the bookshop against the clock, my comeback coming too late.

Yeah, well, you look like a women, man, I thought, but didn't say out loud.

It was dumb, I knew. Even inappropriate considering the sentiment of the day. But as quickly as it happened, it faded from immediate memory when we entered the bookshop.

The girls and I had already had a busy morning and then we headed back to downtown Santa Cruz to have lunch and go to the bookshop to buy a book each because of their latest star earnings for reading. The back-to-back rains we've had in California gave us a reprieve for most of the day, so we went to our local community center first where there's a fun playground for kids.

That's where we ran into the Mama. Being of the local organizers of the Women's March, she was at the community center setting up for the post-march community event (the community center is called Louden Nelson, named after a former slave who lived in Santa Cruz in the 1850's). The Women's March mission is to stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families -- recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country. 

Of course there's subtext here due to our recent contentious U.S. election, but it's about so much more now for us and millions of others around the world. The Mama's inspired activism and civic duty has moved and motivated me more than any moment since the day we met. I've never been involved in anything like this before. Neither has my wife. But we've always looked out for our family, our freedom and our future.

We're both white and come from broken homes from one the lowest of socio-economic stratum, me from a conservative Christian one, and yet we grew up and lived our lives, went to college and came together one day on the beach in 1997. Now we're called "coastal elites" because we live on the coast and celebrate an inclusive liberal-to-middle-of-the-road progressive perspective.

That doesn't matter though, because today the stakes are higher than they've ever been for us in our lifetimes. Because now we have young children in a country and world resurgent with misogyny, racism, bullying, xenophobia, intolerance -- and just blatant anger and hate -- from the top down to the cracks in between. 

We will not stand by and let our girls grow up in this kind of world, restricting the rights of the many for the oppressive rights of the few.

So we're all in.

That's not to take away those women, people of color and the LGBT population around the world who have suffered and sacrificed themselves for generations, fighting for their rights and the safety and security of their families (and the rest of us). We have never been beaten in a peaceful march or protest because of our gender or color or sexual preference, or because our land was taken away, or because some or all our rights were taken away -- or hosed down, or sexually assaulted, or arrested and locked up, or had our houses set fire, or strung up in a tree and hanged.

No, not to take away from any of what's come before us and those who have given their lives to making a difference, but to finally rise up ourselves and lend our voices to help ensure social justice, positive change. Just everyday like you and you and you, people doing everyday incremental things to affect and maintain a better world for our children and generations to come.

That's why my wife got involved. That's why we marched. All of us. Including our girls. Initially there were only supposed to be 1,000 to 2,000 people coming to march peacefully from city hall to the Louden Nelson Community Center. There ended up being anywhere between 10,000-15,000 people in all (probably closer to the 15K).

I've never experienced anything like this before. Not even growing up with a loving extended family who, with its own share of daily dysfunction, was still loving and supportive of itself, God and country.

No, this was something so much more. All kinds of people from a myriad of backgrounds swallowed us up once we met up with the Mama near the center of the march. This was a community, like the many others around the world and the main one in Washington D.C., that had come together in support of democracy and something bigger than our sometimes divisive perspectives. Of reminding ourselves that we're the power, the 99%, the difference between a police state and a populace governed by itself.

And so we marched, spirits high, and we sang, laughed and cried. Thousands of us in varied ethnicities, husbands and wives, domestic partners, mothers and fathers and grandparents, many of us with our children and babies, marching slowly and safely through the streets where we live in order to keep them this way.

Yes, there is still a disparate divide. Yes, some of us will always feel like we're going in the wrong direction regardless of who's in power. Yes, there are still too many social and economic problems we must continuously work on. Yes, the world can be a dangerous place, godless and dark and brutal.

But yesterday I witnessed no carnage, no global apocalyptic omens portending the end of us all. Only inspired millions worldwide adding to the momentum of a positive movement, the transcendent beauty of inclusive community. One where we keep ourselves and our leaders accountable, that we must sustain and build on together, or as much together as we can muster.

Now that the initial march is over, for those interested, check out the new Women's March campaign: 10 Actions for the first 100 Days.