Not Just For The New Year

new years eve resolutions

Not just for the new year, but always, seek to improve!

The above meme is the next in my series of New Years Eve memes that Pinteresters seem to like. My 2015 version. Have you seen it? I've put one or two of these out for the past four years and they are well-pinned. But I have a problem with them.

The thing is, these suggestions, these WAYS OF LIVING can be started and lived any day of the year.  EVERY day of the year.  February 13th. March 28th. June 9th. September 3rd. December 19th. Today. Tomorrow...  

New Years Resolutions are game unless you really choose to make improvements in your own life. If you're going to make a resolution, make it every day, not just January 1st, because we all know that resolutions are bullshit. I stopped claiming to have a NYE resolution years ago because I knew that they were simply another way to fail, another delay tactic.

I call this:  DO IT or DON'T DO IT. It's your choice.
It always has been.

January first is not magic, it's not a reset button.
As my wise and amazing friend Rayven said:  

 Let's be real for a minute folks, if you truly want to change something about yourself, your life, your situation, what the fuck ever it is, you don't need to wait until the 1st of January to start those changes. Every fucking day of your life is a chance to switch shit up. Every fucking day is an opportunity. The 1st of January is just another damn day on the the calendar. It's just as magical as the 12th of May or the 4th of September. So, before you start cluttering social media with your resolutions and half-baked promises, stop and ask yourself "Why does it have to be the 1st? Why not today"? If you find your answer is an excuse then you'll probably still make that same damn excuse in 2015 so don't bother stating you're going to change when you know damn well you'll always stay the same.

Do you have a NYE resolution?
What are you going to do about it?

What Do You Want To Read About?

atheist parenting

I have been invited to write a chapter for a book on atheist parenting.
It's such a cool offer and I am considering it.
My problem is that I don't really know what to write on...?
Any ideas?????
It could be anything related to parenting without religion...

I Embrace My Feminine Side

feminism, masculinity, homeschooled ethics, character pinterest

I am a big fan of Pinterest, mostly because I can horde crap without having it actually occupy space in my house, and my favorite stuff is great memes and sayings. I have boards there where I pin stuff specifically for Elizabeth and John. I enjoy showing "their" boards to them and each of them enjoys seeing what I have posted for them.

Their reactions and thoughts about what I post for them are so interesting.

One day this week John and I were looking at various memes on Pinterest together, many of the memes were what we might call feminism memes, pro-female memes. John's observation was that many of the memes weren't just pro-feminine, but also neg-masculine.

He knows that there is a long history of anti-female politics, religion, practices in culture. He is aware of how females are portrayed in the media. John's internal compassion barometer goes crazy whenever any meme attempts to beat any person or group of people down, even if they are doing so in order to empower another group. He's wise enough to know that is is unnecessary to attack another group during the process of empowering one's self. Overall, though, he is only just so aware of centuries of male privilege.

But he is right, many of the memes are very strongly anti-male.

I explained to him that as a person or a group of people begins to assert their power they tend to speak loudly and angrily at those who have held them down and oppressed them for so long. So some women can be quite angry with men and the male-dominated world culture. His sister Elizabeth is experiencing some of that feminism anger at the moment. He can't quite understand the need for such vehemently angry memes against men. He has never carried the male entitlement membership card.

He has asked me to create a few memes to post on Pinterest that reminds pinners that all men are not anti-feminism.

John has often made comments about how much he values female things, because he considers all of those things to be human things. My favorite comment that he made about the subject recently is when he said I embrace my feminine side and all of my friends do too! 

Our family completely loves and accepts human beings in all of their vast array of sexualities. I mean, why the hell not? We, in fact, celebrate that array and feel fortunate to know and love so many people who would consider themselves somewhere in the grey ares.

John enjoys the discomfort of others who can not do this. He is aware that some very good people have this hateful little nugget in the way they move through the world and John likes to see that challenged.  In fact, when he is around a certain homophobic person that we know, John puts on a light stereotypically gay persona, just to create dissonance in this person. He is aware that his actions put this person into such internal stress because this person loves John so very much.

One day we won't need the terms feminism, racism, 

homophobia...instead we will use the term HUMAN.

Yes, I'm optimistic about the next generation and their healthier, wise, and equal view on humanness.

I'm writing this post so late at night

and I'm pretty sure it isn't as clear as I mean it to be.

Forgive me.

TEENS ONLY PLEASE!

homeschooling teens

This week John and I have been working on increasing his group of friends. Since returning from Brisbane so many things have changed and many of his friends have kind of........moved on.

He's pretty proactive in some ways and he has found some really nice new friends out there. I just thought I'd show you an email that he and I put together so that you know how we are working on this. I am changing some information so you can't follow us there and join in on the fun:  *wink*

John has arranged a schedule of ideas for his teen friends.
Please join us for all or all of these activities, TEENS ONLY PLEASE, and please bring a friend! It would be wonderful to see a nice group of friends getting together regularly. Maybe with this kick-start we can see the kids start to schedule activities themselves.

All activities are weather-permitting. Call the Loets if you are unsure.  Karen:  314-7xx-5555

Kids can be dropped off at our house half an hour before any event and we will bring them home OR you can drop and pick up at the event location yourself. Let me know your plans! Call me with any questions or concerns or ideas.

314-7xx-5555

PLEASE RSVP to me; it’s a drag to get to an event and have no one else present.

 **********************

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014, some time
The Hobbit: Five Armies

Local Cinema

Some upcoming day, December xxth, 2014, timepm

Local climbing place with pertinent information

Some Day, January xx, 2015, timepm

Local Ice skating

address and cost

Some Day, January xx, 2015, timepm

Local roller skating Rink

Cost, Snack bar available.

Some Day, January xx, 2015, timepm

Some other day, January xx, 2015, timepm

Local Bowling

$3 per game plus $2 shoe rental

I just mailed this out today and haven't heard from anyone yet, but we are hoping that a nice group of 3-10 kids can start to get together regularly; I hope this works!
Also, I'm proud of John for being proactive about this.  *GRIN*

Welcome back, Larissa.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
Homeschooling and Socialization, Socialization and Homeschool
Homeschoolers and Socialization 
Homeschoolers and Socialization, Again

Secular Sponsorship and Service

secular charities

For years I have wanted to sponsor an overseas child through monthly donation-type of system. While I was in Australia the opportunity walked up to me on the street and introduced itself.

I was leaving the chemist and walking to my car when two women on the corner stopped me to talk about ChildFund Australia, a child sponsorship program. Totally secular.  **

I barely gave it two thoughts; 
I joyfully signed up right there and then at Wynnum Road and Algoori Street, Morningside QLD, Australia!

Since then our family has been sponsoring a little girl in Kenya named Linda. She and her brother Benson send letters to me at least once a month. I send my few dollars monthly as well as a nice, long letter from our family. I love it that the kids participate in the letter-writing and story-sharing.

This family has become very important to me. I have sent a few packages, though that is actually discouraged by ChildFund, and have been deeply gratified by the good it has done for this family. Linda is my child, but her entire family means so much to me. I often think about what it is like for her mother to put meals on the table each day and shoes on the feet of every person in the family. But she does it! And it is a thrill knowing that my help has made it possible for this ten year old girl to have what she needs to get a good education.

One month I sent shoes or sandals to everyone in the family. Sadly one of the boxes didn't arrive (hence the reason packages are discouraged) but I was so happy to know that at least a few feet were being adequately shod in that climate.

John and Liz encourage you to
sponsor a child through
ChildFund!

Now that our family has moved back home to the US, 
I am still sponsoring Linda's family through the 
US ChildFund branch rather than through 
ChildFund Australia. Because, WOW, that is a fiduciary challenge with the different banking systems!  LOL

Please, if you are able, please sponsor a child!
If you prefer, you can sponsor medical advancements, community improvement projects, leave a legacy to the program, become an advocate, and more. Excellent programs are in the works for parts of India, Ecuador, and Belarus. Past projects include playgrounds and safe places for children in Afghanistan, USA, Ethiopia, and other places, mosquito nets in Africa, and so many other worthwhile projects.

The kids and I recommend ChildFund! I promise, 
it brings so much happiness to the heart of a small child
...and your heart will benefit as well.  ;)

**  ChildFund was a Christian Organization at it's inception, formerly known as Christian Children's Fund.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For More Posts Like This One:
We Want Peace 
Independence Day:  Free and Equal 
25 Ways to Pass On Love and Tolerance to Your Children
Family Values
How I Planned to be as a Parent

A Parental Confession

good enough mom, terrible parent, guilty mom

The other day Elizabeth and I were in the car talking when, suddenly, she got very quiet. We were driving on the highway so it took me a moment or two to notice that she had become introspective. She was looking out the window and dabbing her eyes.

She looked over at me and said Mom, when I am a mom I hope I am a mom just like you.

INTERNAL CHEERLEADER JUMP

Honey, I replied, I'm sure you will be, then, if that is what you want to be. I promise you, though, I haven't always been this great paragon of motherhood before you.  

I went on to describe a few moments from her childhood where I went totally ballistic on her about...I have no idea what.

She replied Well, I don't remember those things, but you have mentioned them before. What I want to be like, Mom, is patient, supportive, permissive, and really and truly loving me as I truly am. Then she went on to tell me about recent times when, in her mind, I was the ultimate in loving.

Well, anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that raising this daughter/being a mother to this child has been a constant learning process for me. I have done everything wrong. I have made mountains out of mole hills. I have made incorrect assumptions. I have been harder on her than I have been on John. I have been snarky. I have been childish. I have torn down things from the walls in my rage. I have been awful at times. None of the really bad stuff has happened in awhile, but I remember it clearly.

As the years have rolled forward I knew that I wanted to be the kind of parent that my daughter needed me to be because it was pretty clear that she was going to be herself, not some version of her that I had in my mind. So most of the change happened on my end.

I have learned so much about loving a child with this strong personality. At times I have cursed that personality. I have been proud of that personality. I have fought it, felt overwhelmed by it, criticized it, battered it, cried about it, been snide toward it. 
Yes, I have fought this child.

But one day I realized that, instead of fighting her and trying to get her to be...something else, I simply walked over to her and hugged her.  Long and hard, letting her know that I loved her so much.  Really, just a hug right in the middle of some awful exchange we were having in the kitchen. And that changed the course of our entire relationship.

I realize that she wants us to get along. She wants me to love her exactly as she is. I realize that she was struggling too, not just being contrary. I became Pro-Elizabeth instead of Pro-Karen.  It made all of the difference in the world.

While I will never forget that time I took her Pretty Princess bed topper down in a fit of anger, (a thing that she doesn't even remember, a thing that I can't forget), I will also never forget that moment when she was proud of me, saw good qualities in my parenting, decided that she wanted to be like me, bragged about me to her friend.

All because I went where she was rather than waiting for her to come to me.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More Posts Like This One:
It's Going to be Worth It
Can I Rebel Now?
Shooshy:  Raising My Daughter
My Thirteen Tips For Raising Your Strong-Willed Child

What if They Never Learn to Read?

homeschooling

What if my child never learns to read?
This might be the single biggest fear of young homeschooling moms, especially when the kids don't naturally take to reading like their mommas! Or when the kids don't behave as you imagined that they would.

I'm a huge reader; my daughter is a reader; 
John...not so much. 

Let me tell you, I have worried.

Conversely my daughter is practically math-phobic and I can't help her with that. I'm the same way. She is also homeschool-phobic, lesson-phobic, being-told-what-to-do-phobic, won't-participate-in-your-idea-of-a-lesson-phobic, and not-having-a-choice-phobic.

She started her dual enrollment this past summer, half lessons at the local community college and half here. This fall she had a full class load. My biggest fear was that she would tank. The classes, the note taking, the organization, the syllabus, the deadlines, the testing, the strict attendance expectation, etc.

She has thrived!  She has a 4.0 GPA.
She gets up on time, gets herself to class, has her work done, her reading done, her math lessons done, her papers written, her monologues ready for her theater class. Furthermore she is pushing herself and adding another class next semester, her choice.


So, of course, John can read.
He skipped the Magic Tree House level and went straight to reading his high school level textbooks...and ALGEBRA! It wasn't that he couldn't. It was that he wasn't interested, wasn't ready, and didn't freaking want to.

Don't worry, they're learning!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You Might Also Like:
He Just Doesn't Get It
Part One:  How to Create Great Vocabulary and Spelling Lists
Part Two:  What to do With the Spelling Words
Tape on the Wall

Tea and Biscuits for Atheist Parents

Why do I have an atheist parenting blog? I mean, without the religion part, isn't it just... parenting?!
Why do I spend so much time getting atheist parenting information out there into the ether? Once a person finally let's go of the shackles of their religion, isn't that... enough?!
In that case, why do I feel the strong need to blog about atheism and atheist- or humanist- or skeptic-related issues? Isn't enough that I just AM?!
Isn't this just giving me a label: atheist?!
What is the point?! 

Some people have asked me why I have an atheist parenting blog, why I blog about atheist parenting in particular. For the people who feel this way about posts and blogs labeled atheist parenting, I appreciate your skepticism. Is it possible that my writing is offering simple basic rational parenting support? 

Yes, I guess that is very possible. 

At the same time, there are many parents out there who are new to living a secular life, new to raising children without the traditional ways, people who are hidden atheists or people living in seclusion due to their secular choices, afraid to be open and yet determined to raise their children as skeptics and as happy people, and looking for those few voices out there who can offer them understanding, community, advice, or just a general feeling of being normal. Many first-generation parents are seeking in earnest and I am proud to be available and open and willing to offer my support. 

Not my advice, not my expertise, not my definition, not my label! 

My support, my friendship, my small community.

Sometimes I am quite shocked by the vehement negativity that has come my way for my atheist parenting blog. Some of the criticism has actually come from other atheists! Why do you have an atheist blog???

But it's OK, I view their condemnation with compassion and with an open mind. I'm quite certain that those who don't understand the place for an atheist/humanist/skeptical parenting blog are coming from the point of view that atheists can simply move forward into the world, parenting, working, forming relationships, living their lives in a wonderful world free of religion. 

And I would love if that were so.

If only it was so easy.

But many of us still have questions and concerns and things that confuse the heck out of us. 

Moving into the World as an Atheist Parent 

• Should we do Santa? 
• How about the Easter Bunny? 
• Is it inconsistent to do the fun part of Tooth Fairy? 
• Is it damaging to pretend? 
• How do we handle religion in the schools? 
• How do we explain the religion that is so much a part of the world without being disrespectful? 
• How do we teach our children to recognize indoctrination attempts? 
• How do we handle family? 
• How do we face the pain of death in the family?
• What do we do with the friends of our children who tell the kids that they are going to Hell? 
• How much openness is best for the kids with their peers? 
• How about openness for us with adult friends? 
• What about those who bully with their religion? 
• How do we handle the Pledge of Allegiance in school each day? 
• How should our family handle the very public religious rituals in our culture? 
• What about Christmas?

These are some of the struggles for newbie atheist parents who no longer accept handed-down rules. 

The earnest questioning goes on and on. 

I, as an atheist parenting blogger, don't have the answers. But I do openly entertain the questions. I fearlessly use the words. In my opinion, what I offer on my atheist parenting blog: I encourage other parents to make their own decisions about how to address these issues. The loveliest part of what I do as an openly atheist/secular/humanist parent is I encourage parents to ask the questions, to explore the ideas themselves within the context of their own families, and to create their own family identity, rituals, practices, answers, and direction with confidence. Sometimes I simply remind parents that not knowing the answers is absolutely OK.

My blog is a place where people come with questions, with confusion, with timidity. If my blog existed in the real world, I'm sure I would serve tea and sandwiches or biscuits and I would have a spot for a nice nap. And a fireplace...

I post what I post... things about holidays, discipline, education, friendships, daily experiences, playtime, the media, parenting questions, my own concerns. Readers who comment give me great feedback, feedback that helps me to see why they come to my blog when they have books available that they can read. Specifically, they are looking for another person with whom they can feel understood, valued, of like-mind, welcomed, and even entertained by with the humor of questionable taste. I love the friends who visit here!

Mom and Lizzie

Yes, now I see it.

Just like regular parenting.

Being a parent is the hardest thing that I have ever done; and just between you and I, that is saying something! Most atheist/secular/freethinking parents that I know are extreme thinkers. These are people who voraciously read, question, wonder. I am proud to be on this parenting journey with other parents ...just normal parents.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other posts you might enjoy:

An Unfortunate Necessary Evil

Everything Happens for a Reason

Sex, God, and Shame

All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Ever-Loving God

I Wish More Homeschoolers were Secular

I Took The Long Way Home

I know that my blog has taken a bit of a turn lately. Less homeschooly stuff and more personal stuff. I'm sorry if some people who read here are turned off by that. My life is changing slowly and I find myself dealing with some personal stuff. I don't mind being honest about them, in fact I am annoyingly honest, some would say.

The thing is that I am coming to some realizations about some of this personal crap and it is making me get all introspective here on my blog. The TMI posts, the personal musings...  It is where I am right now, but it will pass. If you find TMI awkward or difficult or boring to read, I understand.

The thing is that I have grown up weird and some of that crap has reared its ugly head.... again ...and is occupying my mind. When a thing is occupying my mind, I have always made it a point to go there, to explore it, to feel it, to figure it out. I don't have that thing that some people have where they can just ignore it or cover it up or brush it away. I have to go there.

After about three hours of making memes to put on Pinterest for Emotional Abuse survivors, it hit me again that I have two parents who, each in their own disparate way, has given me a mass of emotional crap to work through. And I'm doing it; I'm working through it. I always find my way home.

So why the memes?
Because I figure, if I have to find my way through and out of the maze of emotional abuse, TWICE, I want to offer something to other people who are stuck in it.  Emotional abuse is quite odd and isolating and hard to quite put your finger on. So, here I go, being all public again about difficult things.

Stick with me, I'll get through it.

In case you are curious, here are a few of the memes. 

I made over 60 of them, all with the same background and style

so that they would be easily identifiable...

I will upload them to Pinterest when I get enough time. 

What I wish I could do with them was to link them 

to a really good resource for recovery...

ADDENDUM!
HERE IT IS, A good resource.

I find this quote from Neil Gaiman's U of Arts Commencement Speech is truly inspiring.

The moment that you feel that, just possibly,you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

- Neil Gaiman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For More Posts Like This One:  
I Dunno, What's a Motto With You?
Build a Bridge
This I Believe
This is Me: Things I'm Afraid to Tell You
You Decide Who I Am
Mother, The Word

ADDENDUM!
HERE IT IS, A good resource.

I Find it Hard, The Letting Go

Atheist parenting

I invite you to share in the song I am sort of wrapped up in this evening. To hear it you have to go to Spotify and search for Eddi Reader and find her song called I Won't Stand in Your Way. The kids won't listen to it with me anymore, (No, Mom, I don't want to hear it again!) so I hope you will give it a listen. Share the feels that it gives me...

Eddi Reader is a Scottish folk singer, songwriter that I initially discovered by listening to her on a TEDtalk. The first song I heard by her was Kiteflyer's Hill. I love many of her ballads. Maybe try It's Magic or Moon River or Vagabond or My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. She sings many beautiful ballads but she is probably better known for her auld Celtic Scottish up-tempo folk dance tunes.

The tune that is really getting to me is called I Won't Stand in Your Way and is about those moments in a mother's life where her tiny child moves further and further away from her. When that child stands for the first time and walks away and, finally, when that child goes out into the white lights of the night, lights that they are longing for.

They do, though it's a cliche' and trite to say so, grow too fast. They do, so I find myself forcing my thoughts away from that fact... I stop from saying Do you still play with this? Can we put it away now? I avoid looking in the toy box in John's room so that I don't see those things that are chunky toys for younger boys or superhero costume pieces. I can't bear to see those tiny capes and masks, arm bands, head bands, accessories... long ago tossed into the box.

I no longer think I can't wait for some upcoming day. I no longer shop in the kids' sections of Target. I no longer know when my car will be available. I no longer know where my daughter is at all times. I see my son's arms draped over a girl's shoulders. I no longer expect all shoes and coats to be put away right away because I know that, one day super soon, I will have no coats sprawled over the back of the couch and no shoes crowding around the front door. No board games stacked in their boxes on the fireplace. No juice boxes in the refrigerator. No nail polish on the sink. No giggling on the phone. No texters at the table. No surprise overnight guests.

I don't get annoyed to have to reset my car seat and radio station and mirror. I am okay with toothpaste in the kids' bathroom sink. It does not bother me to have homework all over the floors. I don't mind the restricted diets or food obsessions. I don't mind the unfinished projects in the living room or the Korean dramas playing on the tv. Because I know.

I long for Legos on the floor, Polly Pocket shoes in the vacuum, Radio Disney, tiny clothing in the laundry, kid-focused meals, reading on the couch, baby pools in the yard, song shows, stick figure drawings, cape wearing, car seats, pediatrician visits, visitors in the night needing kisses or laughs or company, snow cones, long gazes of utter amazement at their beauty...

I do what I can to know their music, friends, movies, hobbies, interests these days. I look at and listen to them, wishing that my eyes were cameras.  For one day very soon their kites will fly, they will drop my hand, they will go out, the door will close behind them with a loud boom.  They will head off to their new closets, new bedrooms, new sinks, chairs, and homes... and mine will all be clean and vexatiously tidy...

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
24 Hours of my Daughter's Life
I Trusted my Gut
With a Nod to Harry Chapin
Shooshy:  Raising My Daughter
Her Face
My Son's Face

The Essential Homeschool Bookshelf

Stop the presses, your worries are over!

Check out these books and all will be well.

The Essential Homeschool Bookshelf

The Teenage Liberation Handbook:  

How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education

by Grace Llewelyn

Dumbing Us Down:  

The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Learning

by John Taylor Gatto

How Children Learn
Learning all the Time

Teach Your Own:  The John Holt Book of Homeschooling

by John Holt

The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child

by Linda Dobson

The Well-Adjusted Child:  

The Social Benefits of Homeschooling

By Rachel Gathercole

I Dunno, What's a Motto With You?

TMI ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you have a motto in life?

I do, for me it's Question Everything! 

Many years ago when I was in therapy I was constantly being stumped by thoughts that I thought were true, assumptions that I thought were reality, truths that I thought were universal. These assumptions were like huge road blocks in my pursuit of the truth.

While I am fortunate to have been a young girl who knew that her parents loved her and did their best for her...until that day when all of that changed, a day that became my bookmark for everything to come.  From this event forward an event was classified either before or after the divorce: 1977-1978. Those were the hideous years.

I know what I'm talking about.  ;)

Why were those years so pivotal for me?
People get divorced every day!
Those years were acute for me because both of my parents instantly became strangers, delusive, victimy, unavailable, isolating, unhealthy with boundaries and relationships, and oddly spectral.

Both of them, in their own very disparate ways, began to think of themselves first, often leaving the kids completely out of the equation. They were both wounded, I know. It was a period of time when all of those things that I thought I knew were honestly and truly crushed, when the parents that I had known became incredibly inaccessible and self-absorbed, and when my custodial parent began a long-term program of indoctrination and brainwashing and slavishly requiring unquestioned trust.
(I assure you, these words are not too strong or too dramatic; they are completely accurate.)

And the brainwashing was thorough, Man. It was a true brain fuck. I spent many years in therapy where I strongly resisted challenging the truths that I thought I knew.  
It was arduous and painful and extraordinary and odd.

Things finally started to click for me I learned to Question Everything!

And I'm grateful for that moment because the dark years, the missing years, those years that are misty for me, do not go away. Not a single extended family member is aware of how things were for us. Most of them consider me in particular to be disrespectful, cruel, deceitful, perfidious, even profane. They do not know, or cannot know how victimized we were because they, too, are victims of that brainwashing, but they don't even know it. My sibs and I still struggle with this crap today in our forties and fifties.

 ***

But that skepticism and questioning didn't instantly remove religion from my life. It took me another fifteen years or so before I was able to climb out of the religious boat that I clung so desperately to. 
But I did it. The process of challenging all of that, of accepting small, incremental bits of reality seems like it took at least four years or so before the final hurrah of religion left my mind.

The reading, researching, talking, thinking, writing cycle went on for many years. When I read my journals and poetry from those years I still feel the specter of confusion and pain and anguish in which I was drowning in those days.  

I remember where that phrase came from.

I was working with an older guy who was very wise and kind and larger-than-life in my eyes. I didn't share my story with many people; I didn't share it with him. But in how he lived his life he sent out the phrase 

Question Everything!  

and I figured out how to do that in my own life.

It changed everything! Questioning Everything brought me into the light! It is why I am honest-to-a-fault. It is also why it is freaky hard for me to make some types of decisions, because I can so deeply and intimately see both sides to an issue. It is why honesty is essential to me. It is why I will always speak the truth, however alone I am in that. It is why I will stand alone in my integrity. It is why I am so weird and timorous at times. It is why I will raise my children in reality. It is why I am perceptive and intuitive at the same time that I am unaware of things.  I question everything.

Try it.
Try Questioning Everything and see what happens.
You might just learn something...about yourself and about this amazing world in which we live.

Question Everything!

So, do you have a motto? 

..................
You might also enjoy these posts:
My SUPER Super-Sensitive Kid
100 Years from Now it Won't Matter
Lessons I Have Learned as a Mother
This I Believe