I Miss You Grandpa

Have you ever taken the time to listen to the elderly about their lives? Could you imagine all of the things that they have seen in their time living on this planet? It's sad to see that younger generations aren't more respectful to the elders. Just the other day, as I was making my way out of church and I was ready to hit the road to grab a bite to eat. I found that people ahead of me were walking slowly. I didn't mind it but I did notice the significant change of pace. I was curious to see what the hold up was when I noticed other people were jumping over the railings to bail out of the slow moving cluster of people. I looked ahead as far as I could, there was an older man whose body was tired and rigid, yet still strong enough to support who I assumed to be his wife. She was short, slow and used a walker for she was incapable of walking without assistance. I took compassion of the old couple and found myself growing less anxious to move past them. Instead I conformed to their pace, in part because it would have been completely rude to pass them up since the walkway was quite narrow and would require me to squeeze past them. In the meantime I began to think to myself, "I wonder how old they were, how long they have been together, and if they knew they were holding up the line, or if they even cared." I don’t get to interact with older folks very often, so this was interesting to experience. The fact that I made the choice to slow down to their pace rather than hurry past them was a perspective changer. While most people thought that waiting was a waste of time, the slowing down gave me the opportunity to appreciate my surroundings. I have been attending this church for 6 years and I have never even noticed the beautiful rose bush at the entrance of the building. If it weren’t for the elderly couple slowing down the crowd, I might not have noticed the gorgeous shrubbery.

Young people don't realize that patience is a virtue. Everything has become so fast paced and advanced, that we have grown accustomed to getting everything in a matter of minutes or seconds which has made our patience grow thin. Take the people at the church who decided to jump the railing, they did not take the time to appreciate the moment and did not think about how the elderly couple felt. Their act of impatience was purely rude, and they can never take back what they did. Respect your elders, they came before you and deserve to be celebrated and honored.Teaching our youth to respect the elderly will set the expectations for future generations. A lot of youngsters these days can be so rude and their disregard for their elders is utterly disgusting. Everyone deserves the same respect regardless of age, race, sex, and gender. We are all human and have been fortunate enough to walk the earth, we should honor that and keep that in mind always. We are only here momentarily, sooner or later we will all depart this cruel world. Growing old is a privilege, not many people get to grow old. Studies have shown that old people are growing rapidly extinct, let’s enjoy them while we can.

My grandfather passed away about a year and a half ago. He was a great musician and played in a band with his sons and his grandchildren. In his younger days he was a busy man. He played in different places around Mexico and taught music to a number of people, some of whom became famous and are still very successful today. My grandfather built a legacy for our family, and it has carried down through the generations. I wish I could have spent more time with him to get to learn more about his life and his travels around Mexico and the US as a musician. As someone who wishes they could have had more opportunities to learn more about their grandfather, I encourage you to be patient with your elders and elders in general. Fortunately I still have my grandmother, however, I don't have the privilege to be with her every day. If I'm lucky, I get to see her at least every OTHER year. My grandma-ma is the only living link I have to my ancestors and I will cherish every moment with her and not take it for granted. Take the time to get to know the elders in your life, they will not always be here. Learn all that you can from your antecedents and cultivate the relationship as much as possible so that when they are gone, you won’t be stuck with the feeling of utter regret and sorrow. When they are gone, they are GONE. There is no turning back the clock because time waits for no one.

Remember this, treat others how you want to be treated. Even though older people are slow to walk, hard of hearing, and some smell funny, they are still people who live, breathe and matter. Anyone who has an impact in our lives will take a piece of us with them when they are gone. When it comes to our grandparents that bond is stronger, because without THEM, WE would not be here. In order to move forward in life it is important to know where you come from. So take the time to learn what you can from them … treasure it, not everyone has that opportunity.

LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH

Beauty For Sale: Pageants

How many of us look in the mirror each morning and are happy with every inch of who we are? I can honestly say that I do not, and I know why; the media is always telling us that we are not skinny or pretty enough or our skin is not the right tone … but let me tell you this -> no one is perfect, yet knowing this we still let the media cloud our judgement. At the end of EVERY summer we Americans turn on the TV to watch the Miss America Beauty Pageant (it came on this past weekend). I personally do not watch it, but I know that there are people out there that plan out their day to make sure they can, but what for? What purpose does this beauty pageant serve? I know that this particular pageant is to help the girls further their education by offering them a scholarship and they must also do community service. I am sure that the pageant opens up many doors of opportunity for the contestants as well, but how do they even pick Miss America? It should not be about how you look! If anyone wants to further their education they should be offered the opportunity! Beauty is only skin deep, you will only get to know someone if you dig beneath the surface. You do not know someone’s story unless you take the time to ask AND take the time to listen.

That is NOT what an average woman looks like! Those women in the pageants are a misrepresentation of who the American woman is. Granted that there are variations among women, we all come in different shapes and sizes but that is not reflected in the pageant’s contestants. There comes a point when all the contestants LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME, they all have that SAME “cookie cutter” body. What message do these images send to our children? I'll tell you: to some degree the young girls watching this will start to internalize those images and start to believe that they too need to look like that. We should be telling our kids to celebrate who they are and to love their uniqueness. Beauty is what WE make it!

So how in the world do they actually pick the pageant winner?!?! Well I decided to take a look at how they score the girls. The composite score is 30%. Next we have a whole 20% in the “Lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit” and a 20% in “evening wear,” sorry to break it to you but … how you look in a swimsuit does not tell me much about your lifestyle or fitness, and ANYONE looks good in an evening gown, so what does this prove? Then there is a whole 30% for the “Talent” portion, now looking at the talents that the girls decide to display are mostly singing or some form of dancing, but occasionally you will get the out of the norm talent. However I fail to see how this shows that the contestant deserves the scholarship or is capable of serving the community.

I want to make it clear that I am not hating on the girls that are competing in these types of competitions. I am well aware that there is more to a person than meets the eye, if you have not read my past post about Eye Candy check it out. Which brings me to my next point, the girls are asked one question on stage… only ONE question. Most of the time these questions are generic, and do not allow the contestant to display the full extent of their intelligence. This scholarship is for the women to further their education. How are we supposed to learn about the contestant if the question does not challenge them? Not to mention that the onstage question is not even a part of the final score, so what is the point?!?! Please tell me because I don’t have a clue!

The only reason these types of competitions exists is because they need money to do whatever it is they do, so they put on a big show. Why is it that we have to put on a “show” to raise the funds for a scholarship, and community service? Everyone has the obligation to go out and do something for their town. Companies should be willing to donate money to help out their community, unfortunately this is not the case and sex sells! The companies that give the money up want something in return, so they get a show. Furthermore, is beauty something that can be measured and defined? Who decides? You decide, every morning when YOU wake up you have the choice to love what you see or hate it.

I have learned to love myself no matter what. I may not be happy with every inch of myself when I wake up, but I make it a point to love myself before I go to bed. Beauty is not about what you can change about yourself, however, it is about how you embrace the person you are in the inside as well as the outside.

~Be beautiful.

Gender Neutral

Gender roles today are slowly changing, but not fast enough. For the longest time, women and men have been assigned different roles that set the precedent for society’s expectations of them. And these separations create an unequal, biased spectrum of what is socially acceptable of either sex. our social construction of assigned gender roles can be traced back to the moment we are born and it shapes our mentalities for the rest of our days. The only way to change the mold society has put us in, is to break it and make a new one.

It starts at a young age. Parents’ roles in the home are an important piece in how their children interpret what is socially expected of them based on their gender. For example, in a nuclear family if the father takes on the role as the “bread winner” and the mother takes on the role as the “homemaker,” a son will believe that it is his responsibility to provide for his family when he grows up. The same goes for a daughter in the exact same setting, she will believe that she has to take on her mother’s responsibilities in the future. Now, I know that this is not true for EVERY situation, but parents influence the roles of each sex, and it all starts in the home.

We establish gender roles even before birth, from first determining the sex of the baby, to then planning a baby shower, then preparing the child’s room … the funny thing is ... we have not even met the pre-born yet, so how do we know what they would want in their room? These standards are also reinforced once the child begins to go to school. Instead of shaping their lives for them and coloring their lenses in pink or blue, we should be conscious about how we manipulate the child’s environment. We need to find ways to NOT influence our children's decisions based on gender specific expectations that WE’VE been raised with. By doing so, we can begin to start breaking the mold.

However the the media will always perpetuate these assigned roles by having commercials that show little girls playing with barbies and little boys playing with remote controlled cars. It is our job to not let those images shape what our children think is socially correct when it comes to the toys they play with. I remember when I was very young, during my birthday or Christmas, people who didn’t know me very well would get me gender specific toys that were meant for girls. The toys I got were barbie dolls, makeup kits, a play set that simulated a kitchen, it EVEN came with miniature plastic pots, pans, cooking utensils all the homemaker galore!!!.... yay… Those toys were atrocious, they represent conformity and I was  born a REBEL >:) … hence this blog post. The people who bought  those toys for me were influenced by the images in the media and they assumed that I would like these toys simply because I happen to be a girl. They didn’t even know my personality. DO NOT make the assumption that just because I’m a woman I will be cooking a man’s dinner, cleaning HIS home, raising the children that have HIS last name … well now that my spontaneous rant is over … My point is, we need to move past these pre-assigned gender roles and set a new model that will allow everyone to be themselves without the pressures that society imposes on what we SHOULD play with.

So the main idea I want you all to take from this post is to analyze how you influence specific roles in society. What are you doing that conforms to the rest? What fairytales are you telling your princess? What legends are you telling your knight before bed? Like I mentioned in my previous post, children will absorb whatever you expose their minds to. Use this as an opportunity to break the mold we have been baked into by an EZ Bake Oven. “Children must be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think”- Margaret Mead

Call of Duty: Calling All Parents!!!

Your children are a reflection of who you are. Whatever you teach them (or don’t teach them) is a direct result of what YOU think is important. A lot of folks blame video games for causing violence in our youth. Video games are not bad at all, however the neglect of teaching your kids what is ok and what is not, is unacceptable. For kids, video games are just a hobby, it should not be any more than that … unless they turn it into a career in the future. Video games do not cause violence. Parents need to stop blaming outside sources for the misguidance of their children which results in poor behavior. Our children are always learning, it starts the moment the child is born. Their first teachers are their parent, so everything the parent does is picked up on. Their minds are like a sponge, they will absorb EVERYTHING they see and hear. Video games are NOT to blame, however the lack of parental guidance IS to blame.

How young is too young? Most younger kids haven’t developed the cognitive ability to differentiate why some things are wrong or right. All they know is what you tell them. As they develop they begin to question why things are the way they are and that’s when they’ll fully understand the “why.” If they are exposed to violent video games at a young age, before they have the capacity to understand what is going on they will be desensitized to the content in the video game. They will be more likely to overlook the difference between the virtual world of videogames and reality. Too much gaming will make them think the game is their reality. If the game contains violence, for instance killing someone (COD), will they understand that it is not ok to kill in real life? Each video game has a rating, and those ratings are there to help parents make an informed decision. Children should not even have access to these kinds of games. If they do then somewhere along the line the parents failed at ensuring that these games do not reach the hands of their child. Parents have to be the filter in the home and establish what is allowed and what is punishable by Parent Law.

If kids are spending too much time playing video games, not only are they vulnerable to becoming numb to the violence but they are spending precious time on the idiot box that they could be spending outside. They could play a friendly game of basketball, learn to swim, go for a walk, play with the household pet, or even go camping where they can grow mentally, physically and work on their team building skills and develop social skills. If you don’t want your children to spend so much time on games then set time limits. Video games are not the only form of entertainment for your child, make sure to have books in the home!!! Surround your children with the things that will promote healthy development like educational books and magazines, or take them to museums and exploratoriums. Most importantly always express your love for them. They need constant family support to be able to succeed in life and live happily.  

Parents need to be the primary educator in their children’s life. The earlier YOU start to teach your kids what is acceptable and expected of them the better. Of course this won’t rule out the rebellious stage that most will eventually reach in their teens. The point is that if you teach them at a young age that violence is not good and it is never the answer, they will know when they see violence to decode it as something that is wrong. If the child receives no guidance whatsoever on violence in a video game, whatever they see in that game is going to register as the norm. It is not a valid statement to say that video games teach children to be violent, that will happen only if you failed to instill principles which indicate that violence is wrong. The parents need to teach their kids to distinguish the virtual game platforms from reality. Teach them what’s right and take responsibility for the life you have created. Your little human will thank you for it.

“The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.”

Bill Cosby

-Edith