Mum Is Thinking

I painted this over the last couple of days: unusual for me that I also made a preliminary work in watercolour and ink, so for once I have a hard copy sitting at my elbow. Digital painting seems so natural to me, switching back to traditional work ends up tedious and annoying. And messy. I’m a bit of a klutz, I tend to knock my water dish over and drip ink on places I didn’t want it. It doesn’t help that I haven’t invested in good supplies: I used my son’s brushes, paint and some cheap watercolour paper, bleh.

While I was painting this I kept getting this feeling: hmm: this reminds me of something. It came to me while inking the original watercolour. The pose reminds me of Chuck Closes’ Big Self Portrait. I found myself breaking into laughter while I worked after that point, but I really couldn’t bring myself to paint a cigarette in this fellow’s mouth, and left it at that.

A large version of this can be seen at my DeviantArt account here: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/46889786/

I feel this sorely needs a caption, if anyone can think of something that would fit I’d love to hear it.

I hope everyone is recovered from the holiday festivities. I enjoy the holidays but not all the HYPE. We keep things simple; it’s much more enjoyable that way. I was happy the boys finally saw my favourite Christmas movie this year. How funny, I can’t remember the name, but I bet if I say “Red Rider BB Gun” or “You’ll shoot your eye out!” you’ll know which one I’m talking about. I love that movie.

Luckily I managed to get all our closets and cupboards cleaned during the break, it’s a tradition for me to have that chore finished before New Years Day. I hate messy cupboards, but I hate cleaning them even more: it’s a good time to have them finished and ready to start afresh.

Another holiday tradition for us is eating hoppin’ john (not sure if that’s the correct spelling, but that’s how it’s pronounced) It’s a dish of black eye peas with ham served with a side of rice. Pretty simple. Where I grew up it was traditionally eaten on New Years day for good luck. Some years we’ve had so much bad luck, though, that my husband says maybe it’s having the opposite effect lol.

My step son is away visiting his mum, so youngest son and I have had lots of time to fill. I know he misses his brother, but we’ve also noticed that he’s been very calm and happy during this break. I think he’s enjoying the peace and quiet, and rests assured that his big bro will return soon.

We’ve spent a lot of time trekking around together, going to museums and other trips around town. The best part is discovering a new indoor pool complex with a really fantastic slide (the kind that’s like a big twisty tube). It’s so funny to watch him in the water; he enjoys it so much that he doesn’t seem to care about getting it in his eyes, his mouth, his ears. He hates that in the tub or shower, but in the pool he recklessly submerges himself, blows bubbles and comes up with water streaming from his open mouth and down over his wide open eyes with the biggest smile on his face.

Now for the hard part, the thing that’s had me ’stuck’ this last couple of months:

I still find it hard to read the stories about the treatment that’s come to be called the ‘Ashley treatment’. I dislike calling it that, like I dislike the name ‘Pillow Angels’. It reminds me of calling doses of medicine ‘my meds’ in an affectionate way, or cigarettes ‘ciggies’, like an pal-sy name will take the sting off reality. That’s probably grouchy of me, but at least it’s honest.

I guess it’s lucky that I don’t watch a great deal of television other than the news, and where I live this case has had only minimal coverage - otherwise I would have had a harder time pulling out of the rather deep depression I felt when I first heard of it.

With that in mind here are some thoughts (I realise some of these points have probably been flogged to death in the media where some of you live, so please excuse if this repeats opinions about the case you may have heard ad nauseum) :

1. If the parents trully gave this child the treatment in the hopes that making her an eternal child would avoid the problems of sexual mistreatment, they obviously have never heard of pedophiles.

2. I have read on several blogs that people are worried about ‘judging the parents’ and ‘walking a mile in their shoes’. But I think this case needs to be picked apart very carefully, the rights of our children are more important than avoiding talking about the issues for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. Judging the parents isn’t the point, asking if this procedure should be performed on other children IS.

3. Many people seem to disagree with the procedure, but excuse it because ‘it might be possible the family is in a position where it was beneficial’ or something along those lines. We excuse parents for things we would rail against if they were performed by a foster parent, a care home or a state run institution. At least at THIS point it would seem unthinkable to let anyone except a parent make a decision like this, and I think most people would be very hesitant to give rights like this to a foster parent (not to knock foster parents! I’ve known some excellent foster providers who were wonderful parents.) or other carer. If we wouldn’t like to see this procedure performed by foster parents on their charges, if we wouldn’t like to see it performed by the state or private institutions on their charges, how could it possibly be any different if it’s performed by a family on their child?

The parents will not live forever in any case, the child will eventually be in an institution of some sort, at which time the ’staying in the family home’ reason for it will be null. One of my worries about this case is that eventually there will be calls for similar procedures to be performed by persons and entities who may not have very much stake in the well being of the child (or adult): how can we deny it simply because the carer isn’t a parent? It would be discrimination to do so. If we don’t want to give this right to drastically alter the natural course of growth and development to other carers, we shouldn’t give it to parents.

4. I see little difference between this case and the past practice and general acceptance of lobotomy. If a child or adult is deemed to be too hard to handle in the home due to behavioural problems (or the possibility of problems), if the child or adult cannot receive care in the home from their parents but lobotomising the child/adult makes their behaviour more manageable and home care possible: how is that any different? I don’t think most people would agree that lobotomy is ethical. At least not now. But it was generally accepted by the public at one point. I would imagine there are still people living out there with the effects of what was ultimately deemed unacceptable practice. They have to deal with the ethical mistakes that were made in the past right up until this day. Which brings us to the next issue:

5. If this procedure is repeated and later found to be ethically unacceptable, there will be children whose lives have been irreversibly changed simply because no one put on the breaks and demanded this be discussed further before it is allowed. In any case, I find it very disturbing that an ethics committee, who I’m sure were professionals and honestly not monstrous villains, would ok a procedure like this. Somehow I find that the most unbelievable and upsetting part of this.

Its one thing to suggest something like this, completely different to look carefully through the issues and still give it the go ahead. I worry very much for our children and what this might mean in the future. *In my opinion* there is something more basic at stake here than rights to natural growth and development. There is something fundamentally wrong when a person’s rights are ignored to this extent, and I fear for what will come next if this becomes accepted practice.

I’m sorry I haven’t written for so long. I’ve been busy reading everyone else’s blogs, though. Seems like anything I have to say has already been said (better!) by someone else, so I can’t say I’ve felt particularly compelled to write recently. I’m honestly not much of a word person, anyway. Which is good, I love reading other people’s writing, and have lots of time for my real hobby - painting!