psu revisted

at first, i tried to be sympathetic.  my sister is a penn state alumna and i know how much penn state means to her.  when the story first broke last year, she was devastated.  for the sake of my sister and my friends, i tried to stay supportive of the students, all the while expressing my discontent, disbelief, and disgust at the way the administration handled everything - from their knowledge that sandusky was a pedophile to their firing of paterno.  each time i put down the administration, i acknowledged that penn state is a great university and that i support its students.

after the ncaa handed down their penalty, i continued to support the students and alumni.  i said that it's a shame for the current players who had visions of bowl games and nfl contracts dancing in their heads.  not that i don't think the penalties are fair - i absolutely do (and here's why).  but i sympathize with the plight of the current students and athletes.  

then i saw this.

and now i'm pissed off.  any sympathy i had for the students and players is gone.  all i keep hearing from my friends who are penn state alumni is "we are more than just football."  you want to prove that?  this is not the way to do it.  this is a disgrace.  this is distasteful.  penn state is better than this.  this proves everything that every naysayer has said about penn state.  this shows that this is not an academic institution but a football school.  this shows no thought whatsoever for the victims. how do you think the victims feel, knowing an entire football team, university, and alumni network are pissed off....because they came forward? 

quit showing me pictures of thon and telling me you care about the kids.  everyone knows you care about kids with cancer.  one of my sister's friends posted "caring about penn state and caring about the victims is not mutually exclusive."  no?  prove it.  show me you care about sandusky's victims, and all victims of childhood sexual abuse.  this year, make thon benefit victims of childhood abuse.

it is time to move on.  coach o'brien says it's time to stop looking at the past and look to the future.  the ncaa has handed down the sanctions and like them or not, you are going to have to deal with them.  penn state is not the only school who has been dealt sanctions, or did you forget about ohio state, who has scholarship reductions and is still banned from postseason.  the exact same penalties handed to penn state.  no, these weren't field violations (which is the argument i've seen many times as to why the sanctions are out of line), but they were moral violations that were perpetuated by the athletic department.  and that athletic department needs to be held accountable.

yes, it's a shame that the current students and players are having to pay for crimes committed 10+ years ago.  yes, the university as a whole will be affected by this.  but think about the children who lost their innocence at the hands of one man, and who weren't protected by those in a position to do so.  who have been affected by this for the past 20 years and will continue to have to live with this for the rest of their lives.

penn state, you are better than this.  you are a strong institution.  a true football legacy.  the biggest alumni network in the country.  it's time to band together.  your legacy is at risk because a few men didn't do the right thing.  be better than they were.  i am not a penn state fan, but i know you can do this. 

psu

if you were paying attention to my "if you really knew me" post, you'd have noticed that one of the things said that if you really knew me, you'd know i was a michigan fan not only because i have family who live there, but also because i hated penn state so much that i just wanted to cheer for one of their rivals.  this is 100% accurate.

if you ever set foot in central pa, you know very quickly that you are in penn state territory.  growing up there, everyone was a penn state fan, if not a penn state alum.  we may as well have lived in state college.  penn state football was the religion, and joe paterno was the deity.  he was revered like a god.  in the eyes of most central pennsylvanians, joepa could do no wrong.

i realize now that i have never been one to like something just because it's popular.  in fact, i will often choose to take an opposite stance on something just so i can be different.  or just so i can argue.  i always thought that i chose to be a michigan fan because my favorite cousin, who i idolized, lived in michigan, loved u of m, and ended up going there for college.  as i've gotten older, though, and as i've secretly relished watching my penn state fan friends wallow in misery as michigan beat them year after year, i've started to realize that my loyalty to michigan had nothing to do with my cousin and everything to do with my chance to be a thorn in everyone's side.  i privately gloated as penn state lost games and as they played terrible football.  and i say privately because i don't like to be an obnoxious sports fan and rub it in people's faces.  nobody likes that person. 

none of this is to say that when the scandal broke about jerry sandusky i was in any way, shape, or form happy to see penn state fall from grace.  when the story first broke, i made clear my belief that joe paterno and others in administration did far less than they should have, but that i still supported the school and the students and alumni, many of whom i count as friends.  i got into arguments on facebook with friends who refused to acknowledge that their precious joepa had done any wrong.  when i made a statement that paterno didn't do enough and didn't do the right thing, one of my sister's friends, who had graduated from penn state with callie, asked if i had read the report that stated that he had done nothing illegal.  i responded that i haven't read the report, but i don't need to to know right from wrong.  but then the university fired him.  and didn't let him finish the season.  and it made me sad that he was being forced out ahead of schedule.  i mourned for my sister, who was devastated by the news.  it all seemed tragically wrong to me.

and then this past week's fbi report came out, confirming that coach paterno and the 3 others in administration had knowingly covered up the abuse for 14 years.  they had continued to let sandusky on campus, around children.  they had covered it up, all for the good of the program.  and i'm sad all over again.  sad for all the students and alumni who thought that there was still some way that they could hold paterno up to a higher standard.  and it all came crashing down.  he was just as guilty as everyone else.  he knew about the abuse and he didn't do anything with that knowledge.

there are a lot of people out there calling for a lot of things, from tearing down paterno's statue to suspending the football program.  i agree with taking down the statue.  his behavior - or lack thereof - shouldn't be memorialized.  he shouldn't be idolized.  if they want to keep it on campus, then move it to the fine arts building, so people can choose to visit it.  don't force people to walk by it and remember the many ways in which paterno disappointed them, not to mention the ways in which he let down those children.  some people argue that he did so many other great things for the university.  so what?  no matter what he did for the university, he still allowed sandusky to destroy the lives of multiple young boys.

i'm torn about suspending the football program.  on the one hand, why punish the current players for wrongs committed by their administration?  on the other hand, the penn state football program needs to learn that they have to held accountable.  that just because they bring in money for the university, doesn't mean they can be above the rules. 

it's all a big ol' mess, and having grown up in central pa makes it so much more intense.  i hope that eventually everyone can move forward.  in the meantime, i think this coming football season is going to be a tough one for everyone involved.  it'll be interesting to watch it all unfold.

time and the mommy wars

oy vey.  you've all heard about this, right?  the time magazine cover that's taken the world by storm.  i'm not a mother yet, but i am deeply offended by the article.  not by the 3-year-old standing on a chair at his mother's breast.  i'm offended by the implication that women who don't adhere to the attachment parenting style of parenting aren't "mom enough."  i'm saddened that this perpetuates and creates more competition among women to be better moms. 

women and mothers have enough pressure on them internally to be good moms.  and while i think that mommy blogs can be wonderful things, they can also be harmful.  it's not hard to read what other women are doing and compare yourself to them.  women blog about their babies' milestones and i'm sure it's difficult to read that if your child is the same age and hasn't hit that milestone yet.  or seeing all the creative things that a mom is doing with her kids, while you feel like you're barely able to get through a day unscathed. 

even as a newly-pregnant woman, i find myself comparing myself to other women.  i have a friend who completely stopped drinking coffee and any kind of caffeinated drinks.  for her entire pregnancy.  she always said she knew that one or two cups every now and then is ok, but she "didn't want to take a chance."  i, on the other hand, like my coffee.  when matt and i started ttc, i switched to decaf, but i still drank it.  since we got our bfp, i've switched to water during the week, but on the weekends, i fully intend to enjoy my cup of decaf coffee..  i'm also going to continue to enjoy iced tea if i feel the urge.  but there is some little voice inside my head that says "you should do what she did and stop altogether." 

the time magazine article talks about attachment parenting as the style of parenting to strive for.  and at it's core, it does sound pretty ideal.  mrs. jacks on hellobee wrote a great post about attachment parenting.  to me, it sounds like a pretty natural, straight-forward way to parent.  provide support, sensitivity, compassion, and love.  it's kind of like, uh, duh.  i think the problem with attachment parenting is that people take it too far, like mrs. jacks says.  it becomes less about nurturing and more about sheltering. 


matt and i talk a lot about the kind of parents we hope to be.  we want to be loving but firm.  supportive but strict.  we will not be afraid to say no or to discipline our children.  and we will draw the line when needed to protect our marriage (and our sanities!), like not letting our children share our bed.  like setting her in a bouncy seat so that we have our hands free.

then i read this.  it was like an epiphany.  we should be fighting a mommy war.  but we should be fighting it for each other, not with each other.  the feminist movement did amazing work for women to get us equal rights and equality in the workplace.  but somewhere along the line, it went a little rogue.  it worked so hard to ensure women equal places in the workforce that it lost sight of the fact that, like or not, women have different needs than men, biologically and hormonally speaking.  and those needs have gotten ignored.

in the us, you are lucky if you get any paid maternity leave.  at my company you "get" 6 weeks.  and by "get" i mean that you can take 6 weeks of short-term disability, paid at 65% of your salary.  if you want to take anything other than, you have to use your vacation, sick, or personal time.  i work at a large enough company that we participate in fmla, so that my job is protected for 12 weeks.  12 weeks.  3 months.  just long enough to get a handle on breastfeeding and get a routine down.  if i want to take longer than that, i risk losing my job.  my plan is to exhaust all but 40 hours of my sick and vacation time (they at least let you keep 40 hours so that you have time if you need to take a sick day), supplement with the 6 weeks of disability, and then any other time i'll take unpaid, as long as matt and i can financially pull that off.  i'd love to take my full 12 weeks but i'm just not sure that that is in the cards for us. 

hellobee is doing a series right now on maternity leave around the world, and reading the series just infuriates me.  most of the world is lightyears ahead of the us in support for pregnancy and new parents.  i mean, mexico has better maternity support than the us.  mexico!  some countries not only offer paid maternity leave, but paid (or at least subsidized) daycare.  it's amazing.  why has the us - one of the richest countries in the world - not caught on? the gop and the conservative right are always going on and on about family values.  where is the fight for the family value of mom being able to be home and raise her infant?

what are your thoughts on attachment parenting?  and would you be willing to pay higher taxes for things like government-paid maternity leave and subsidized daycare?