Author: Rebecca Trotter

A mom, writer, thinker, talker, teacher, Christian and odd duck . . . www.theupsidedownworld.com
culture, kids

Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 3 The Myth of the Spoiled Child

I bet you didn’t know that I’m psychic. For example, I predict that my 2 year old will hit someone and my 6 year old with start screaming at her sister before I finish writing this blog post. Further, I predict that if you go to a big media story about that school bus monitor who was bullied by a group of 7th grade boys, the comments sections will be filled with people claiming that what these kids need to turn them around is a good ass-wupping. Further, I am so psychic that I already know that at some point in the last couple of years there were a flurry of “I spank my kids so they don’t wind up in jail” messages on your facebook feed. And if you can stand one last display of my amazing psychic prowess, I predict that not a single one of those people talking about keeping their kids out of jail or how kids causing trouble just need a good ass-wuppin’ have actually spent time working with children in juvi. Not. A. Single. One. Of. Them.

Now, just let me say that I’m not some anti-spanking purist. I wish I could say that I’ve never so much as swatted my children on the heinie (although the rare swat is the extent of my version of spanking). In a more ideal world I would never hit one of my kids. But my children just aren’t that good (ha!). Continue reading “Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 3 The Myth of the Spoiled Child”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter11 Comments
religion

Why Do I Keep Faith?

Why do I keep faith? Believe it or not, that’s not a question I have much of an answer for right now. I know I should say, “because God is good and his promises are sure and He’s always been faithful to me.” But that’s just not where I’m at right now. Instead I have been asking myself quite seriously on a fairly regular basis – why do I keep faith? What is it? Why can’t I let go? It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve kept my faith, I’ve kept on the narrow path, I’ve been obedient in things big and small, I’ve relied on God’s grace and forgiveness to cover me. And for what? Misery and humiliation and rejection and poverty? A husband with more issues than Reader’s Digest Magazine? Kids who I love but who just take and take and take and need more than I have left in me to give?  Boys who I put my all into and adore, but who can’t even pull together a decent report card or a crappy certificate of achievement? A God who won’t show himself to me? A bird’s eye view of my every ugly imperfection with the full realization that I’ve done my best and I’m still a hopeless wreck? A million whiny, complaining, woe-is-me blog posts to break things up around here? Continue reading “Why Do I Keep Faith?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter
culture, kids, race matters

Do You Think I Should Send This?

Dear Bertha*,

I am writing to let you know that my daughter mentioned to me today that on several occasions now your daughter Suzi-Q has made derogatory comments to her regarding her half-black heritage. The poor thing even tried claiming that you had told her that you didn’t like black people too. I knew you would want to know about this right away so you can talk to Suzi-Q about not repeating every ridiculous thing she hears some ill-bred child on the playground saying. And of course, we wouldn’t want other, more credulous people to catch wind of her claim that you don’t like black people. I’m sure that she’ll never repeat such nonsense again once she understands that people will assume she is being raised by repugnant trailer-park trash who doesn’t deserve to breathe the air that the Good Lord provides us. I mean, obviously I’ve known perfectly fine people who live in trailer parks and it’s completely possible for scummy filth to reside in a lovely home like your own. But you know how people can be with their ridiculous stereo-typing and absurd assumptions based on the shallowest of pretenses. We’ll just have to hope Suzi-Q’s unfortunate statements haven’t gotten back to anyone else and harmed your family’s good standing in the community. Continue reading “Do You Think I Should Send This?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
culture, life

Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 2 The Uncle Problem

If you missed the explanation for what I was doing in juvi (serving kids, not time. I’m interesting, but not that interesting!), you should check out Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right.

Today I want to talk about the uncle problem. Of all the kids I met at juvi, I can hardly think of more than a hand full who had a father in their life. And as everyone thinks they know, the solution to raising a boy without a man around is to find him alternative male role models. Because that’s all a boy needs a father for – to role model, dontchano? (Deep sarcasm here.) So. many of these kids moms had turned to their brothers to fill that role. Problem fixed, right? Yeah, except that over and over and over again as I talked to these boys I heard stories of uncles who helped them join gangs, gave them spending change for running “packages” around the neighborhood for them, given them drugs and alcohol, hooked them up with women – often females seeking intitiation into their gangs. You name it, uncles brought it. I mentioned it in my post about fatherlessness, but one of the worst stories I ever heard came from a boy who had been given drugs starting at age 5 by uncles who thought it was funny to see a little kid stoned. Continue reading “Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 2 The Uncle Problem”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
enjoy life, prayer, relationships, religion, thoughts

Allow Me to Screw Up Your Sex Life a Bit

“We monks do not try to repress our sexual passions . . . Woe to those monks and nuns, who shovel into their subconscious their sexual passions. . . There is no spirituality in that. What happens, and what we aim at, is the transmutation of erotic energy from earthly attractions to God.” – Father Maximos quoted in The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos C. Markides

In the old pagan world, sex and religion were all tied up together. Temple prostitutes and depictions of group sex on ancient Hindu temple walls and all that. Christianity has too often taken the opposite tact – sex as being so unholy that for a while it was considered a sin even in the context of marriage by the Roman church. Which led to possibly the most dysfunctional set-up ever; putatively and sometimes actually celibate priests being told each time a parishioner had sex with their spouse. What could be the problem with that, eh? Although the actual rejection of sex by the Christian church has varied wildly from place to place and time to time, the reality is that a lot of people continue to see sex and God as inevitably belonging in two separate spheres of our lives. To the extent that God and sex intersect, it is in the parsing out of rules for sexual conduct. But when actual sex takes place, well if our guardian angels could please exit the room, that would be great. And surely God has the good manners to turn his head for a few minutes. Wouldn’t want to be caught in flagrante delicto by the creator of the universe. That would be too weird. Continue reading “Allow Me to Screw Up Your Sex Life a Bit”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter9 Comments
culture, humor, life

The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right

Some of you may know that back in my college days I volunteered in a juvenile prison outside of Chicago. The group I was involved in put on a weekend retreat three times a year for groups of boys. We also did bible study with them off and on. A lot of the boys were from the various ‘hoods in Chicago with others from various rural communities and trailer parks around the state filling out the lot. It probably sounds bizarre, but I was so excited when I first saw the signs looking for volunteers. My Catholic education, at least as I remembered it, mainly consisted of memorizing things. Like the Our Father and Hail Mary and Beatitude and . . . Works of Mercy! Visiting the imprisoned is one of the works of mercy! So being the good, geeky, God-girl that I am, I jumped at the chance. As you can imagine, it turned out to be quite the experience. One day I should write properly about it, but for now, I’m just going to devote a few posts to the top 4 things I learned about life and people from the kids I worked with in juvi. Today’s lesson is the tritest of the 4, but it’s something I feel must be said: Johnny Cash was right – don’t name your boy Sue. Continue reading “The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
family, life, religion

Honor Your Father and Your Mother

Recently I asked a dad I know how the teen thing was going for him and his 16 year old step-daughter who lives with him. “She seems to be doing well. But it would be going much better if she’d just do what I told her to do!” he replied. He was quite serious, but I had to laugh. He’d be happy if she did what he said and she’d be in therapy later learning to think for herself after years of misery. Such is life.

I suppose there are dads out there who have actually heard the words, “if only I had listened to you!” But those are probably the fathers of recovering intravenous drug users and people who get into relationships with the psychotically violent. The normal course of things seems to be that we find our own way down paths that nearly put our parents into an early grave and are glad for the experience. Later we complain that our own kids don’t listen to us. (All this is coming from a person about whom her mother’s most bitter complaint has always been, “not that you ever would have listened to us anyways.” Just so we’re clear where my own sympathies lie! LOL) Continue reading “Honor Your Father and Your Mother”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
religion

Mary, The Bondservant Who Waited

Sometimes I think about Mary. When she was told that she would bear a child who would be “Son of the Most High” she agreed by declaring herself a “bond-servant” of God. Shortly after, while visiting her sister-in-law Elizabeth, she spoke what is known as the Magnificat. Her poem or song shows that unlike many of her contemporaries, Mary understood that the purposes of God were social, personal and redemptive – not political. She really got it – the redemption, the care for the least of these, the re-ordering of the world into the Kingdom of God. As Scot McKnight put it “Mary’s vision is the realization of the long-expected hope when God will create the society he promised to his people and through his prophets. This society will marked by justice and peace, by fear of God and holiness and mercy/love.” This was the mission she was signing on for when she agreed to God’s will for her life. Continue reading “Mary, The Bondservant Who Waited”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
religion

A God of Love, A God of Hate?

You know that old canard that love and hate are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin? Neurobiology seems to have confirmed that there is a lot truth to that idea. It turns out that we have something that neurobiologists refer to as a “hate circuit” in our brains. It is a set of three structures in the brain which all light up together when we experience hate. And the more intense the hatred, the more intense the activity in these structures is. (Each structure is also involved in other activities so it’s not that they exist purely for feelings of hatred. It’s just that when we experience hatred these three work together.) Interestingly, two of these structures are also involved in the feeling of intense love.

Continue reading “A God of Love, A God of Hate?”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter7 Comments
book, giftedness, religion, thoughts

Christianity and Giftedness

When I was putting together my book The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress last summer, I went back and forth and back and forth about including an essay I had originally published here titled “How Being Gifted Means Being Different”. It was one of the most popular posts I had done. And many people had contacted me since I put it up to thank me for writing it. However, it didn’t seem to fit. The book is very grounded in my faith and the post is about being gifted. The two seem incongruent. But every time I went to take it out, there was that little tug that I’ve learned to listen to telling me to leave it be. So I did without really know why it was there. And I’m sure that those who read it wondered what it was doing there as well.

It wasn’t until some time later that I began to understand why it was there. The fact is that the church as a whole does not do a good job of making room for or embracing those parts of the body which are smarter and more creative than the norm. We see this in those parts of the church which fiercely oppose science and will even claim that those who engage in the work of science are doing the devil’s work. It is present in those who insist that a “plain reading” of scripture is good enough and refuse to consider context, history, translation or any of the other issues which affect the way that we read and understand the text. It shows up in how churches deal with their members who produce art, literature or music. Continue reading “Christianity and Giftedness”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments