More Fun With Ethics!

Since you all did so well with my last ethical dilemma, I now invite your input on other circumstances in which I might be a horrible human being.  (Please don’t actually tell me I’m horrible, because I’ll cry.  Thanks.)

1.  Once upon a time I think I wrote a post about my friend Eric.  I can’t find it now, so perhaps that all happened in my head.  It’s possible.  Anyway, this is a guy I knew in high school, and we didn’t really have that much in common but we rode the bus to school together.  We talked on the bus and went to church together, and we kept in touch after graduation, but it tapered off to occasional emails eventually.  He moved to Oregon, then to Minot, ND, and he never had what I would call a “real” job because he was starting a Ministry or because his back hurt — there was always a reason, but never a plan.  Then he fell in love with a girl in India whom he met on the Internet (that’s the post I thought I wrote), and he actually got somebody to pay for a plane ticket for him to go to Mumbai, and now they’re married.

They want to move to the US, but obviously that’s not easy these days, and Eric hasn’t been able to convince the US government that he can support his wife (his resume consisting of McDonald’s and “living at my sister’s house until her husband said I had to get a job or move out”).  So, he asked me if I would agree to be their sponsor.  He wasn’t directly asking for money, just for my guarantee that if his wife did end up using government services like food stamps, that we’d reimburse Uncle Sam.  I said no.

I think I had good reasons: a lack of faith in his promises, a need to provide for my own family first (including the Jellyman’s cousins in India, whom we would love to help if any of them wanted to come here), and a sense that he has always looked at friendship as a fundraising opportunity.

Whatever the reasons, though, it appears to have cost me whatever friendship we did have left.  So, what do you think — does true generosity mean giving no matter what, or is it wise to allocate limited resources to the causes that seem most likely to bear fruit?

2.  Raisin’s preschool is in a large church.  The church building is built into a hill.  It has 5 (I think) entrances, but 3 of them can only be accessed by flights of stairs that can’t be navigated by stroller.  Of the remaining 2, 1 is locked.  I have a keycard from the preschool, but it only works on the two (non-stroller-accessible) entrances closest to the school rooms.  Since Apple and Orange are with me when I drop off Raisin, that leaves me with the main entrance to the church, which is usually unlocked by the time we get there in the morning.

However, the only parking spots anywhere near are handicapped-only.  This is not a problem in nice weather, but 75 yards with a 20-below windchill seems like it might not be so great for my babies’ tender little appendages.  So, the question: exactly how evil is it to park in a handicapped spot for 10 minutes (assuming that no church functions are in progress and that I will only do it on the coldest of cold days) while I take the kids in? 

Geek=Me

I am so excited to get this shirt, I can’t stand it.

What, you don’t think grammar jokes are funny?  Possibly you are reading the wrong blog.

Oops.

This morning I noticed that we were running a little behind schedule, so I told Raisin we’d have to hurry to make it to school on time.  Which, of course, caused her to start moving as though our entire house was the Chuck E. Cheese ballpit.  When cajoling and yelling shockingly yielded no results, I decided that I would be all Wise and let her experience the natural consequences of being late.

Except she didn’t care.  She missed “morning meeting” at school, something she talks about every flippin’ day, and cared not a whit.  So instead of teaching her that being slow causes her to miss things, I have taught her that lateness has no serious consequences.  I feel really good about that.

Suggestions welcome.  (I am considering telling her that we cannot go late — it’s on time or not at all.  Which I think would work in the short term, since she loves school and one of the other mothers has tried it with some success.  But in the long term would she get the idea that school is voluntary?)

Fight the January Blahs!

Although January seems especially long and heinous in Minnesota, there are things to love:

The squeaky crunch of new snow underfoot.

The hurt-your-eyes brightness of the sun on the coldest days.

Kids in hats and mittens.

Crazy people who will go out in this weather to dig for a medallion for the St. Paul Winter Carnival.  I like to watch them from my van’s heated leather seats.

Preschoolers learning about Martin Luther King.  Raisin recognizes his picture.  That is amazing to me – I don’t think I had any idea who he was until the upper grades of elementary school.

February.  It’s not THAT far away.

Attention Internet Ethicists

Our house is the last stop for a truckload of baby clothes.  In addition to all the things Orange inherited from Raisin and then outgrew, a friend of mine has a son who’s several months older than Apple.  She sent us all her hand-me-downs, with instructions to pass them on when we were done, because she’d gotten most of them that way in the first place.

But I don’t have anyone to give them to — nobody in my immediate circle is expecting a baby, and my basement is starting to disappear in a maze of boxes.

Here’s the question: would it be wrong to sell what I can at a Mothers of Multiples sale?  I’ll send my friend a portion of whatever I make, and then I’ll donate whatever doesn’t sell.  But I don’t know anymore what was hers, and it seems silly not to take advantage of the opportunity.  Right?

A Good Mom Probably Wouldn’t Laugh At This

“Mommy, I drank too much.”

…

“When I grow up, I am going to marry Grandpa J.  And my face will look different, and my voice will sound different.  And my kisses will be different, too.”

“Different how, sweetie?”

“They will sound different and feel different.”

“OK.”

Politics

Although Raisin has been a staunch supporter of Barack Obama thus far, she has some reservations based on an article the Jellyman was reading aloud to me the other day.  The columnist mentioned that Obama’s message includes a desire to “erase boundaries,” including those between red and blue states.  Red and blue being Raisin’s favorite colors, she is very much opposed to this plank of the Obama platform.

I Don’t Know How You Do It

People often ask me “how I do it.” How do I manage with toddler twins and a preschooler (or, at first, infant twins and a toddler)? (Go ahead and laugh, moms with triplets — or those of you with 4 + kids. It’s OK. You have earned it.)

I don’t know.

At home, it’s not too hard. We follow the Routine, and it serves us pretty well. Some days Raisin doesn’t brush her teeth until after lunch, and some days the grit underfoot in the kitchen feels like a million daggers in my soul, but it all gets taken care of eventually.

But I don’t want to be the mom who says “no” all the time, so we venture to the library, or bowling with Raisin’s friends from school, or out to play in the snow. At the library, Orange tries to rip pages out of every book. At the bowling alley, Apple wanted a closer look at the pins, and I had to chase him down the lane. It took me 1/2 hour to get everyone dressed for outside today. Apple and Orange both had their boots off within 2 minutes of being out (a good chunk of the 1/2 hour was me putting one twin back in their boots while the other struggled out of theirs). I made them stay out another 15 minutes anyway.

They deserve to have all these childhood experiences, and the fact that it’s hard for me is no excuse for them to miss out. So, I keep trying. But I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’m “managing.”

The real trick is being OK with that.