Saturday, October 27, 2012

Parent Teacher Trouble

Before I begin, a technical note: I will be referring to "Obamacare" in this post.  If that bothers you, sorry.  I know the proper name of the law, I'm just too lazy to type it all out, and I think Obama should be proud of his law and own it.

So I had a weird situation the other day.  I attended my first parent-teacher conference of the year with my son's third grade teacher, who is an amazing woman.  In the short time I've known her, I've found her to be kind, funny, warm and smart.  She's kind of a "grandma" figure to the kids, and my son just loves her.

As the conference began, she asked me about my impending surgery since we've discussed it on and off when I've been in the classroom volunteering.  The conversation came around to medical bills, and she said she's been worrying about me because my medical bills must huge.  At that point, I told her that one good thing about "Obamacare" was that it would end the lifetime cap on coverage which would be huge for me. She agreed but then asked what would happen if it got repealed.

I should interject here to say that I really hesitated to even bring up the issue, because around here, you kind of have to assume that everyone is conservative until proven otherwise.  So it was a subject I broached very tentatively.

Anyway, as the discussion continued, she told me she had heard that there is a provision in Obamacare that pays for all the children of illegal immigrants to go to college for free.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I politely told her that seemed pretty unlikely to me, and asked her if maybe she was thinking of the "Dream Act" (which doesn't do that either, but I can see how the rumor could get around).  She insisted that no, it was in fact Obamacare, and that "we" (I'm assuming she and her husband?) had fact-checked it because they thought it sounded weird too.  I told her it still seemed fishy to me, and she asked me to let her know if I find out differently, at which point our time was about up, so I told her we should probably talk about my son (who, as it turns out, is an amazing, wonderfully kind and funny boy who really needs to work on his reading and math skills).

That night, I spent at least an hour googling and came across nothing, so I resorted to finding the entire text of the law and searching through it for keywords like "education," "immigrants," and "college" and still found nada.

The next day, I emailed the teacher letting her know what I had found (or rather not found).  I'm not sure how often she checks her email though, so I guess we'll see if she sends a response.

The point of this whole story is that even the most intelligent people can believe very unlikely things, and what that could mean for this election and for our future really kind of scares me.  We live in a world where facts aren't always facts, and you can just about always find somethting to back up what you want to believe, no matter what side of the fence you're sitting on.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Crisis Project


"The Crisis Project" (not to be confused with my cousin Drew's awesome rock band, "Crisis Line") is a website that posts secretly recorded videos of visits to crisis pregnancy centers around the country.  I heard about it while listening to one of my many favorite podcasts, "Reality Cast" which is produced by RH Reality Check.  So I immediately hit the web and found their site, and let me tell you, I could watch these videos all day.

Needless to say, I have a huge problem with crisis pregnancy centers.  If you don't know what they are, think "Birthline" if you have one of those in your area.  It's a religious organization pretending to be a clinic.  They are the ones who post all the "Pregnant? Need help?" ads everywhere you go.  They advertise free pregnancy tests, and then when unsuspecting women go there for their free test, they get hit with all kinds of religious propaganda and medical misinformation.

These centers are a key source of all the misinformation floating around out there in regards to abortion and contraception. For instance:
  • Did you know that abortion causes breast cancer?  Well, no, it doesn't, but that doesn't stop them from telling women that it does. 
  • Did you know that abortion can lead to depression, alcoholism, and even suicide?  Well, again, no it doesn't, but if a person in a white lab coat says it, it must be true, right? 
  • How about your boyfriend?  Did you know that you guys will probably break up because of this abortion?  Well, since I couldn't find any good scientific info on this one, I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume that co-parenting is at least as challenging to a relationship, if not more so, than choosing to terminate a pregnancy.
  • And did you further know that abortion is even more dangerous than childbirth and can lead to death!?  Well, according to a report published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, "Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion." 
So basically, these places trick women into thinking they're getting unbiased medical information, when they're really just getting incredibly biased religious misinformation.  I would feel a lot better about these places if they would just be honest about their intentions.  If they just advertised as a place to get a free pregnancy test and some religious counseling, or at the very least did not advertise that they provide "abortion counseling" (because they don't) I would feel slightly better about the fact that they are receiving my Minnesota tax dollars to operate. 

Think I'm exaggerating about how these places operate?  Go to the site yourself and check out some of the videos.  Or if you'd like a longer, more in-depth assessment, check out the HBO documentary "12th & Delaware."  Then tell me these places don't have an obvious religious agenda that has no excuse for operating with taxpayer money.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Ms. vs Mrs.

I have somehow managed to get myself roped into a weekly volunteering gig in my son's 3rd grade class.  It's every Thursday morning, and my job is to help out with the class store, where the kids can purchase second-hand crap (the stuff parents clean out of their kids' rooms and donate instead of throwing away) with their fake money that they earn by doing their homework and being nice to each other.  I think it's a brilliant idea, because even with kids, money really is the best motivator.

The other mom who volunteers at the same time insists that that the kids address her as "Mrs. X."  (X is not her real last name - I'm just trying to maintain a certain level of anonymity here).  The teacher similarly goes by "Mrs. S" (again, not her real name), as do most of the female teachers in the school.  I told everyone to just call me "Amy," but I can see how the school would want kids to maintain a certain level of respect for the adults by addressing them all by their title.

However, the use of "Miss" and Mrs." is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, especially when it involves children.  We're teaching our kids that women are to be identified by whether or not they're married, but men are just men, married or not.  I prefer to be addressed by "Ms." and I wish that were simply the standard for all women, as "Mr." is for all men.  But apparently that sentiment has not reached our small town yet.  In the recent class newsletter, Mrs. S thanked both Mrs. X, and me, Mrs. H, for our help in the classroom. 

So here's my "dilemma."  Do I ask the teacher, who seems like a very reasonable woman, to please henceforth use "Ms. H" instead of "Mrs. H" when referring to me, or do I just play it cool and maintain the status quo so as not to look like a jerk.

One more tidbit to throw into this situation: Mrs. X lives just down the street from me, and is a very conservative Catholic who only recently put her son in public school after having some sort of falling out with the local Catholic school.  Since our sons have come to be friends and spend a lot of time together lately, she has seen the "Vote No on the Marriage Amendment" sign in my yard and probably already finds me to be a little questionable, and getting into the Ms. debate might turn me into a total commie leftist in her eyes, which could affect our sons' friendship I suppose.

So what should I do people?  Leave it alone? Speak up?  What would you do?  I realize this is a really inconsequential "problem" that will not affect the state of the union, but I really would like some advice.