They should promote public awareness of this day by offering discount coupons.

2-for-1 specials?

Yay, will's dad! (I think. Isn't that right? I don't know if he's still working or if he's retired, of course.)

You could always raise a glass if you were pregnant, and then have an abortion. No harm done, really.

Yay abortion providers! Thanks for taking on a tough job.

You can tell a lot about a community from the location and setup of the local Planned Parenthood office.

If it weren't for abortion providers, my oldest child would be 22.

Have one on me

Wait, W-lfs-n's buying everybody an abortion? On a grad school income?

If it wasn't for abortion providers, some of my friends would be dead.

*raises glass*

Not buying, but providing with certain other necessary means.

We didn't get any appreciation. But, we did get some protests.

My son and I ran by the protesters and laughed at them. BOOOO protesters.

2-for-1 specials?

Just say "Who wants to sex Mutumbo?" for your 2-for-1 special.

12: I believe the medically appropriate response to that is, "Isn't that what got you into this mess in the first place?"

We make no judgments.

7: So what you're saying is that abortion actually slowed down Keegan's aging process by about 1/2? Interesting. I sense a business opportunity!

13: I have actually heard that in a medical setting. When my ex was in labor with my oldest kid, the doula was working with her on pain management techniques and told her "try wiggling your butt," which elicited that very line from the delivery nurse.

16: "try wiggling your butt" s/h/b "try sexing Mutumbo"

Yay for them, indeed. We used to have a clinic defense project that worked with a coalition of providers in the D.C. area. The shit they had to go through was unbelieveable. This was in the early-mid '90's, when Operation Rescue was at its height. Now it's mostly limited to a handful of Catholics out front saying novenas.

Now, how do we get more doctors to provide abortions? Show up at med schools and offer to sleep with residents who learn the procedures? (87% of counties -- covering, IIRC, about 1/3 of the pop. -- have no abortion provider.)

Now, how do we get more doctors to provide abortions?

Get rid of unions. And illegal immigrants.

That age-old tradeoff, abortions or butter.

Actually, if you have butter, you don't need abortions.

21: Very true.

221: Depending on the application, that could very well be what got you into this mess.

Thank you, Marlon, for making that explicit.

Any time. You got anything other than the assumption that implicit jokes will be left implicit to rebel against around here? Because I could rebel against that too.

23: Pre-emptive:

223: apo is sexy!

26: Aw crap. "223" s/b "221"

223 and 221 both get it exactly

28: Getting it is exactly what got you into this mess in the first place.

227 was a TV show.

007 was a spy.

87% of counties -- covering, IIRC, about 1/3 of the pop. -- have no abortion provider.

I had no idea. That's awful.

Hooray will's dad!

Free abortion on demand!
US out of Afghanistan!

Raise a belated glass--if you're not pregnant

grrrrrrevidencebasedmedicineyoulittlebastard.

Free abortion, feed the poor!
Weapons for El Salvador!

35: took ya long enough.

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Somehow I hadn't appreciated the full depth of Emerson's trollishness before reading his rant about statistical mechanics and cosmology over at Crooked Timber today. Wow.

|>

I'm sure that all those counties without abortion providers are just blessed with easy access to birth control and sex education, making abortion almost completely unnecessary.

38: Huh, I was thinking about some stuff yesterday and came up with an elaborate rant about Emerson. I think I'll keep it to myself, though.

221 and 223: Do Not Want.

117 wins the thread.

Thank you, Marlon, for making that explicit.

That's my boy.

87% of counties -- covering, IIRC, about 1/3 of the pop. -- have no abortion provider.

I would be curious as to how many of those counties have much more than a regular GP if that.

43: Counties are pretty big units -- I'd generally expect something that could be described as a hospital somewhere in a county. But I don't know from the big square depopulated states out West.

I thought it would have been more counties than that. 2/3 of the population lives in a county with an abortion provider? So a much larger percent must live at least within driving distance.

What percent of counties have any provider of any sort of surgical procedure? Where is this data?

I'd generally expect something that could be described as a hospital somewhere in a county. But I don't know from the big square depopulated states out West.

No hospital in the county where I grew up, which isn't even a depopulated western state. There were hospitals in only two of the four counties that bordered us.

Eh, come to think of it my sense of normal is NY metropolitan area and environs. So not actually informative about the rest of the country.

I'd generally expect something that could be described as a hospital somewhere in a county. But I don't know from the big square depopulated states out West.

Not around here there isn't. I would guess with 53 counties that there are well under a dozen that have hospitals. You have clinics with a GP in them, but for anything over slightly invasive you are in for a drive in most areas of the state. I would guess that there are a decent number of counties that don't even have a clinic in the western half of the state.

Let's see, Kentucky has 120 counties.

And, well, there are a lot more entities that consider themselves "hospitals" in Kentucky than I would have guessed. I count 98 on that list. 31 of which are in either Lexington, Louisville, Ashland or Bowling Green. Probably less than half of the counties in Kentucky have a hospital, but you're basically right.

What is a "hospital" anyway? Has there been a massive amount of semi-bogus hospital accreditation recently, akin to how every "college" in the US is now a "university"? Has it gone the other direction? What enables an entity to refer to itself as a "hospital"?

Texas, hilariously, has 254 counties. 80 Texas municipalities claim to have hospitals in them, presumably representing less than 80 counties.

there are a lot more entities that consider themselves "hospitals" in Kentucky than I would have guessed. I count 98 on that list. 31 of which are in either Lexington, Louisville, Ashland or Bowling Green

Several of them in Louisville are conveniently located next to the "hospital curve" in I-65, site of numerous accidents from which people have to be rushed to the hospital. It's a win-win!

Counties vary hugely in size (both area and population) from region to region. The South is famous for having lots and lots of tiny counties, hence the numbers for Kentucky and Texas, which have the most in the country. I would not expect many of these counties to have hospitals in them, much less abortion providers.

Western counties, on the other hand, are enormous in area but generally sparsely populated. I suspect most would have at least a clinic or something, but not necessarily a full hospital. The Northeast and Midwest have counties that are sort of in-between in area, but generally a lot bigger in population. These are the ones that are most likely to have hospitals and other medical services.

It's also worth noting that in many Southern states cities are separate units of government equivalent to counties.

North Carolina has exactly 100 counties.

Yeah, the idea of deciding whether or not "a county" has a provider in it is a recipe for bogus stats. Every city in Virginia is not part of a county, for example. Are they considered counties for the purpose of this?

What percent of Americans live within 50 miles of an abortion provider? 100 miles?

Minnesota and Iowa have way too many counties. In Maine, counties don't count for shit.

54, 56: Huh, I had no idea that there were places not in a county in some states.

The South is famous for having lots and lots of tiny counties, hence the numbers for Kentucky and Texas, which have the most in the country.

Kentucky is third, Georgia has 159.

PDF facts:
"In 2005, 92% of Georgia counties had no abortion provider. 62% of Georgia women lived in these counties. In the South census region, where Georgia is located, 21% of women having abortions traveled at least 50 miles, and 10% traveled more than 100 miles."

Apparently 13 counties in Georgia have an abortion provider. I'm surprised it's that many. And even so, only 21% of women having abortions traveled at least 50 miles.

53: Georgia is 2nd with 159 counties, but your general point is correct. so you have that going for you.

Huh, I distinctly remember reading somewhere that Kentucky was second, but apparently not.

ANd I only got pwned a little, so I have that going for me.

Kentucky must have by far the most counties per capita, though, so there's that.

In Maine, counties don't count for shit.

This is true of New England in general, where the town is the main unit of local government. Several of the counties in Massachusetts don't even exist anymore as formal units of government.

Kentucky must have by far the most counties per capita, though, so there's that.

Always remember to check Wyoming before saying any other state holds the record for something related to being underpopulated.

Here's a map of the US with all counties shown. The regional variations are immediately apparent.

65: Oh, hell.

It looks like Kentucky has 8 times as many people as Wyoming, but only 6 times as many counties. Wyoming might not hold the record though. Someone rank them all, please!

63: Kentucky must have by far the most counties per capita, though, so there's that.

True, if it weren't for North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

68: North Dakota wins.

I'm really not distinguishing myself here, am I?

Anyway, the Wikipedia article where I got the above map is pretty informative.

North Dakota has 53 counties and 640,000 people...
Wyoming has 23 counties and 500,000 people...
Kentucky has 120 counties and 4,240,000 people...because it actually has a couple metropolitan areas

North Dakota wins

Boooyaaa.

69: Oh, and Iowa. You're probably fatigued from your trip.

75: And Montana and Mississippi. But I'd prefer not to sully this important topic with one-upmanship about boring geography trivia.

Speaking of my trip, unless I counted wrong, I appear to have gone through 36 counties and one independent city.

Speaking of North Dakota, was that the state with a single abortion provider, and that doctor commuted there from MN or somewhere, like, once a week? I seem to recall hearing or reading about that story, but I can't recall where. Google's not helping.

There is only one provider. It is in Fargo so commuting from MN could be less than a mile commute.

79: Well even if it's that close, kudos to that doctor for going the extra mile.

79,80: And highlights the problem in a very large state like North Dakota. (I thought Rapid City in western SD might have one, but it looks like only Sioux Falls in SD, which is also in the far eastern part of that state.)

That's SD. The doctors fly in to Sioux Falls, on the Eastern side of the state. So tough fucking luck if you happen to live in the Pine Ridge Reservation 300 miles away.

Well even if it's that close, kudos to that doctor for going the extra mile.

I don't actually know where they come from so they could be commuting from the Twin Cities or something as well. Which would be over 200 miles.

38

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Somehow I hadn't appreciated the full depth of Emerson's trollishness before reading his rant about statistical mechanics and cosmology over at Crooked Timber today. Wow.

|>

||

Airlines suck. Don't fly, walk.

|>

Is 84 an internet tradition I'm unaware of?

The pause/play symbols? That's just Unfogged. Bitching about Emerson is more widespread.

What about quoting someone else's comment and then not adding anything to it? Is that a tradition too?

87: The pause/play symbols and bitching about Emerson were there in my comment 38, but thanks.

Whoops, I missed the quotative nature of 84.

Pause / Play? So THATS what those symbols are!

I was going to ask for a link, then I found the comments myself.

http://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/11/time-after-time/#comment-268743

Emerson's a bumbler, but at least a mostly benign bumbler, unlike ____________

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Pretty breathtaking Full Worm Moon out there for my fellow Burghers.

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Joe the Bumbler?

Hey, that's neat: I have marriage licenses from the 2nd largest county by area and the largest county by population.

I believe mine is from the smallest county by area, and I bet it's the one with the highest population density.

Please make an exception and keep 95, because 97 is som awesome.

So it looks like the worst place in SD to need an abortion is Lemmon. The closest abortion provider appears to be in Billings, MT, 334 miles away.

North Dakota looks like it has an even worse story, with Crosby residents having to travel 388 miles to Fargo. (Things change if you throw in a trip to Regina or Winnipeg, but crossing international borders has to count for something.

Wow. I was wondering earlier where John was, and now I know. We need a thread to pull him back over here, for the sake of the rest of the blogosphere.

Huh, I was thinking about some stuff yesterday and came up with an elaborate rant about Emerson. I think I'll keep it to myself, though.

If it was just about how he's a bitter old man with a lot of esoteric knowledge and a few well-worn hobbyhorses, it's old news. Including to him.

Abortion providers are generally older males.

Interesting that as women start to dominate the profession, fewer go into providing abortions.

104: Well, you see, will, back on the veldt...

Essear might say what he objects to, either here, at Crooked Timber, or by email.

As far as I can tell, Minnesota has abortion clinics in the Twin Cities, Duluth, and across the border in Fargo. This means that some women are 130 miles from a clinic no matter which way they go.

And Weman, I guess.

Also, I'm right about my hobbyhorses, even though they're less interesting to the hoi polloi than shoes and stand mixers are.

I'm increassingly at Trollblog now, though I occasionally still post here under the name "Minneapolitan".

Ah, so here's the motherhood thread. A digression:

The relevant background, which is nothing I haven't shared here before, is that I grew up in a devoutly Mormon family, I'm gay and an atheist, have been out to everyone including my family for more than ten years, and have a fairly distant but cordial relationship with my parents.

Well, a few weeks ago a friend told me that my mom had donated money to the Yes on 8 campaign. I was at a party, so I didn't really dwell on it and in fact kind of forgot until today, when I was prompted by a blog comment to search the donor list and found out that yep, my mom gave two grand. Not sure if it was her idea or my dad's, as he's generally more political, and I'm not sure if she even gets the connection between Proposition 8 and her son.

Questions to the Mineshaft: I'm justified in being pretty upset about this, right? And how would you handle it? (My inclination is to explain why it upsets me and say "no more visits home until you've given double the amount to PFLAG."

though I occasionally still post here under the name "Minneapolitan"

Yeah, and cut that out, will ya?

I don't see the slightest thing wrong with the CT rants; comment 27 there is adorable.

108 Questions to the Mineshaft: I'm justified in being pretty upset about this, right?

I would say so.

Of course you're justified in being pretty upset about it. I'm upset on your behalf.

99: I believe mine is from the smallest county by area, and I bet it's the one with the highest population density.

Mine too. But only half right. New York County is easily the densest—about double the next densest and 4x any county that is not contained within New York City (San Francisco County which covers the same area as its city). But Arlington County Va*, 26, and Broomfield County, CO, 28 are smaller than NYtheotherC's 34 sq miles.

I also take inordinate nerdish pleasure in having spent some time in the least populous county (Loving in Texas, population 67).

*Many of the Independent Cities in Virginia are smaller, but Arlington, which comprises about 90% of Virginia's portion of the original DC was organized as a county. Broomfield, which I had never heard of, is apparently a recent creation of a county from a Denver suburb that straddled four different counties.

There's a song called "The Goodnight Loving Trail" which is just about a trail in Goodnight and Loving counties. I always wanted to connect it to Loving v. Virginia, which also seems like an elaborate pun.

Well, a few weeks ago a friend told me that my mom had donated money to the Yes on 8 campaign

Pretty sure my mom voted yes on 8 as well. Annoying as hell.

But whaddya gonna do? They're old and a bit nuts and are swallowing the propaganda hook line and sinker.

Bave - How you handle it has, I think, to be a matter of how much you can or are willing to overlook/forgive in your parents. I don't think there can be a general answer. Depends on how much you can or are willing to talk to them, how much comity means to you. It might mean not saying a word.

If it were me, I'd absolutely raise the topic and explain why it upsets me, and see how that pans out; no ultimatums or anything.

(Sorry if my tone seems at all pedantic. The subject is a little close to me, as my brother's gay, and my mother cried to think that she was a failure as a mother because of it, so this is seriously tiptoeing territory.)

Bave, you're totally right on this, and you totally need to discuss this with yr mom.

But instead of donating to PFLAG, she should have to gay marry someone (also a nice lesson for yr dad).

Amusingly, in light of 107.last, 113 could totally be John.

Loving County. Now that's sparse.

Bave, yes, of course you are justified. That's very upsetting. Even though you of course understand that this is about a belief system that's much larger than the sum total of the personal beliefs held by your own parents, there's no way this doesn't feel personal, and like some sort of betrayal.

Bave, you're totally right on this, and you totally need to discuss this with yr mom.

Oh hell no. There's not a rational conversation to be had here. Like my Mormon mother, she's taking the things the church said about Prop 8 at face value, and is not going to entertain the notion that it was a bunch of lies.

Questions to the Mineshaft: I'm justified in being pretty upset about this, right?

Fuck yeah. You'd be justified if they'd donated $20. When's the last time they donated $2,000 to anything (other than the church)?

And how would you handle it? (My inclination is to explain why it upsets me and say "no more visits home until you've given double the amount to PFLAG."

Seems like a good strategy to me. Are you willing to stick with it, though, or be able to back off at some point in a way that will make you feel okay?

Move to Massachusetts and marry some dude, Bave.

Pretty sure my mom voted yes on 8 as well. Annoying as hell. But whaddya gonna do?

Refresh my recollection, gswift. You're straight, right?

Essear might say what he objects to, either here, at Crooked Timber, or by email.

Mostly that you have no idea what you're talking about? Part of your bitching is like a highly abstracted version of the "I don't even know if it's going to rain on Saturday, so how can you tell me there's global warming?" misunderstanding you can find all over the wingnut blogs. And you don't seem to have understood Cosma's chief complaint about Prigogine. Anyway, I'm not going to argue, and I don't think you actually want to learn anything, so it's sort of pointless to continue.

113 is me. I'm at Minny's house, in case there's any mystery, and I haven't been checking "Remember personal info". Otherwise he'd end up posting as me.

Hmm, now the "I'm justified, right?" looks like a plea for sympathy. Which I guess it was, so, thanks. I've been feeling quite raw about this all afternoon and evening.

Parsimon, you're totally right that what to do depends on individual situations. In mine, I feel like I've given my parents a long time to figure out how to deal with their commitment to their faith and their commitment to me. I was already getting pretty impatient -- they never ask if I'm dating anyone or anything else about my life that might lead to such discussions -- and this donation really highlights for me how unsatisfactory our relationship is. I really think I'd rather not have a relationship with them for a while if it's going to be so full of (what I consider) culpable misunderstanding on their part.

If it was just about how he's a bitter old man with a lot of esoteric knowledge and a few well-worn hobbyhorses, it's old news. Including to him.

It wasn't just about that. There was also a part about how some of his hobbyhorses just happen to intersect quite closely with some of my personal characteristics, which results in me getting a lot more upset about his antics than I probably should.

Refresh my recollection, gswift. You're straight, right?

Yep. But was raised Mormon. Mom's in the church and her side of the family goes way back in it. Dad's an agnostic.

I fondly recall the first abortion I purchased: the lucky lady was 17 and two weeks since my ex. $425, she said, and I paid. Then, $325 for anesthesia, she said, and I had no idea if I was being shaken down, and didn't really care. "Knock yourself out," I said, and I forked over the cash.

Admittedly requires a fair bit of commitment on your part. We could totally introduce you to some nice, marriageable guys, though. And that'd show 'em!

I've tried talking to my mom about this kind of shit, with little success, but I'm glad I did. She generally thinks gays are wealthy annoying people who want special rights. But I say, "What about my friend A, whom you love?" And she says A's special because he's not like a regular gay. And I say, "What about B, whom you also love?" And she says B is special because he's not like a regular gay. And we go down the list of all my gay and bi friends she's met. And I ask if she thinks these particular people should be treated like less than full citizens. And she says yes, because none of them are like how gays really are.

So how many gay people do you know, Mom?

Well, it turns out she knows A and B and C and D... all my friends. And no one else. It's sort of like how my dad hates women because they're stupid shallow sluts, even though all the women he knows are borderline-genius professionals.

That someone would have that attitude about gay people despite having a gay son, though, is still a conversation worth having. "Why don't you want me to be able to get married someday, Mom?" might be worth asking. Even if her version of God doesn't approve, surely she can understand the impulse to fall in love, get married, etc.

122: But you're in California, Tweets! And engaged. And my dude's in Brooklyn, anyway, and I don't think either of is is the marrying type.

Oh, Bave, I'm sorry.

When I found out in much the same way that my grandma had given, it really wasn't as immediate. I could be sad and disappointed, but the only gay family her stupid obedience injured are already dead. Still, she knew them well and should have known better.

Your parents don't have the excuse of being 85. I know that the church presented it as a matter of principle, separating the idea of MARRIAGE from whatever lovely gay people you may happen to know. Maybe you could explain that this shit actually does have a real impact on the lovely gay person who happens to be their son? Yes, you should probably let them know how hurt and angry you are about it.

Lastly, Jesus Christ, but if there's one marital institution that isn't going to be affected by laws about gay unions, it's the Mormon Temple Marriage. No, you can't have a temple marriage because you're not a virgin. No, you can't have a temple marriage because Bishop Elder Joe the Plumber doesn't think you were honest in your recommend interview. No, you can't SEE your sister's temple marriage and must instead wait in the parking lot. The California state law isn't going to alter one single megalomaniacal detail of the LDS temple ritual, and Mormons need to calm the fuck down about their privileges.

No, really lastly this time, tell your parents that if they want to throw 2 grand away, you know this lovely mormon girl in New York who's just itching to make a honest woman of herself.

Bave, however you decide to deal with it, that stinks. I'm so sorry to hear that they did that, and that you had to find out like that.

Some people do seem to end up working themselves around to an attitude like gswift's. In my personal opinion that's a lot easier to do when the issue isn't quite so close to home (e.g. my friend who is a devout ethical vegetarian, but whose parents are just obnoxiously oblivious to her preferences).

Regardless, that doesn't change how painful it is when people who should love and protect us instead consciously do things that will hurt and betray us, and refuse to acknowledge that's what they're doing.

All those books I've read have suggested that reversible time might run backward for an individual or an object of our experience. Do you think that that is true? That's where the physics porn comes from.

I don't object to the cosmology. When you start to suggest that things which are true of fundamental physical entities (reversibility) must also be true of composite things, I say that you're wrong. Carroll simply evaded that question, as I said.

Wasn't Eddington right when he said about a fairly easy case of reversibility

The reason why we ignore this chance may be seen by a rather classical illustration.... If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. The chance of their doing so is decidedly more favorable than the chance of the molecules returning to one half of the vessel

?

Bave, don't visit home again until you can bring your boyfriend with you---and exact a solemn vow that they will treat him with kindness and hospitality. I'm not even kidding.

126: I really think I'd rather not have a relationship with them for a while if it's going to be so full of (what I consider) culpable misunderstanding on their part.

Okay. That's a reasonable, justifiable choice on your part. It wouldn't make you a bad son. Making the reason for the increased distance very clear to them seems important; you said you intended to do that.

Yep. But was raised Mormon.

Yeah, I remember that part. I think it's much easier to say "whaddya gonna do" about a philosophical disagreement than about a disagreement over whether you parents think you deserve equal rights. In other words, your straightness is more relevant than your Mormon-ness here.

Bave, my sympathies as well.

I have no idea what you do in that situation.

There's a song called "The Goodnight Loving Trail" which is just about a trail in Goodnight and Loving counties.

The trail is named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving (who may, for all I know, have also lent their names to counties).

I always feel like I'm about five years behind myself in forcing my parents to acknowledge and consciously support the person I am. I wish I could get that up to speed, but it's hard to demand to be loved in full acknowledgment of things your parents hate.

In other words, your straightness is more relevant than your Mormon-ness here.

Definitely.

And I'm not saying he shouldn't be pissed, just that confrontation is going to be pure frustration for him. Basically he's going to have to decide if he can overlook it or not. If not, shun them!

I was wrong about the G-L Trail. It's a mournful song that sounds by the title as though it should be about a trail with a lot of good loving on it, just as Loving v. Virginia sounds as though it should be about some guy trying to change some girl's mind about saving it for marriage.

Bave, don't visit home again until you can bring your boyfriend with you

Yeah, the problem with this is that I'm bad at keeping boyfriends and often find myself without one. (Not that I'm planning on getting rid of the current one anytime soon! To the contrary!)

I wonder if they'd consider it a good deed to help lift someone like yourself from a life of sin into holy matrimony for a mere $2k.

Loving County is indeed named after Oliver Loving. There does not appear to be a Goodnight County.

When you start to suggest that things which are true of fundamental physical entities (reversibility) must also be true of composite things, I say that you're wrong.

Eggs do not unbreak themselves. I don't know who your crazy strawmen physicists are who would say otherwise. I mean, they could, in principle, but it's fantastically improbable. That's because there are many more microstates corresponding to "broken egg" than to "unbroken egg". And we call that "higher entropy", and say that entropy increases, and that's this little obscure thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics that non-strawmen have probably heard of. It's even in the textbooks and stuff.

MY ex-wife catered to her mother's narrow-mindedness for so long that it did her a lot of harm. Her mother was a Mormon, as it happens, but this really shouldn't be a Mormon pileon. It could be any stubbornly intolerant parent, of any religion or none.

Only Loving has a county. Goodnight only has towns in TEX and OKL named after him.

I'm sorry, Bave. That's a sucky, sucky situation.

I think I'm going to call my mom and tell her how thankful I am for her.

a Mormon pileon

Kinky!

it's hard to demand to be loved in full acknowledgment of things your parents hate.

It takes people time to do that, to love you even though you're x, y or z. Sometimes they can manage it, but it takes time. In the meantime you just have more distance, less distance, more distance, depending on how vulnerable you yourself are during a given period.

"OKL"?

140: Yep. Although I feel like I'm now about ten years behind, not five, and that's too many.

in full acknowledgment of things your parents hate

That's the trick, right? It's actually quite easy for my boyfriend to say my parents are being jerks, because he doesn't understand where they're coming from. But I understand their religious and cultural commitments, so I feel like I have to have a bit more compassion for them. On the other hand, I'm also complicit in this little system of silence we've constructed about my being gay and not Mormon, so is my compassion just an excuse to stay complicit and avoid confrontation? Sure.

Not that I'm planning on getting rid of the current one anytime soon!

Chappie I met, right? That one's a keeper.

I feel like I appreciably grow up each time I demand that my parents respect some choice I've made. My parents respond pretty well, on the whole, and it's really only by pushing their boundaries that we can co-exist in any kind of adult, honest relationship. Some parents may not be okay with that, which maybe means that they're not okay with seeing their children grow into autonomous people. Their loss, in the end.

153: I'm also complicit in this little system of silence we've constructed about my being gay and not Mormon, so is my compassion just an excuse to stay complicit and avoid confrontation? Sure.

Oh man, is this familiar. I sympathize. Dammit it all! Are you an only child? Because a supportive sibling, or other family member, can help.

I'll be home soon, folks. 146 was me again.

Essear, all thepop physics porn I've read suggests that the reversibility of time in fundamental physics has some application in our lives. Maybe Carroll doesn't do that, I haven't read his book. People have been writing these pop reversibility of time books for a century, and I've been reading them for 20 years, and there's always this "OH WOW" tone, as though something hat been discovered or as if our understanding of the world had been fundamentally changed. (Some examples at link).

And meanwhile economists ignore entropy and laugh at anyone who tries to get them to think about it.

Perhaps Essear and I should remove to Crooked Timber.

I feel like I appreciably grow up each time I demand that my parents respect some choice I've made.

Yeah. My parents sometimes respond well, sometimes poorly, but I need to do it anyway. It's not something I'm good at.

Are you an only child? Because a supportive sibling, or other family member, can help.

Oldest of five. One brother has also left the fold and is pretty supportive, although he's young and a bit callow. I'll talk it through with him, though.

No, it's super hard each time for me, too. I think I've really geared up to insist on something maybe four or five times in my life.

On a lighter note, maybe looking at this link will cheer you up?

That link always cheers me up.

'Night, all, and thanks for the kind wishes and for kicking this around with me for a bit.

133 seems to suggest that the requirements for a Mormon Temple Marriage are very stringent indeed. I don't know anything at all, really, about LDS practices, but eh, I dunno.

I have a distant cousin up in Renfrew Co, Ontario who has turned Mormon and who has posted all of this genealogical (mostly records-based, so actually rather useful) stuff on the internets. Basically, it looks like I'm supposed to believe that Paddy and Bridget, who, as best I know, thought and believed in good faith that they were baptised, married, and buried as Catholics, were actually, though perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, either actual or future Mormons. This cousin claims their marriages have all been Temple-sealed or something, whatever that means, when I know for a fact they were married by an RC priest at Our Lady of Holy Angels Church at Brudenell. It all seems a bit loosey-goosey to me, frankly.

Essear, all thepop physics porn I've read suggests that the reversibility of time in fundamental physics has some application in our lives.

Well, I'm sorry you wasted your time reading books written by idiots, but that's no reason to bloviate rudely at CT.

Bave, sorry for taking Emerson's bait in the middle of your discussion. I hope you're able to get your parents to understand that they've hurt you.

103 - BOOOO! I agree with a couple of Emerson's hobby horses and am grateful he is willing to flog them where people can read them. Besides that, he often cracks me up. I adore (the) Emerson (persona), so no badmouthing him around me.

And Bave, I'm sorry that you have to face this dilemma. I had to quit an Ultimate team because I wasn't sure I could see some Mormon teammates without picking a fight. I really wanted to have that fight, too.

Sorry, Bave -- that really sucks.

Trying to empathize with -- not excuse! -- the parents... I wonder if the fact that you describe yourself as not the "marrying type" and have been "complicit in this system of silence" has made it possible for your mom an dad to rationalize that their actions are in no way an affront to/rejection of you. "Oh, no, Bave is not one of those gays who think they should get married! This has nothing to do with him!"

Which is not, of course, suggesting you ought to go get hitched for the cause or anything. But I do wonder if it would help to try to gently and sincerely explain to your parents how their donation has made you feel and why. I don't know your parents and have no basis for asserting that they love you and would never intentionally hurt you. I want to believe that's the case, though, because that's what we all deserve in a parent. Of course, they may respond defensively and get all pissed off that you are "blowing it all out of proportion" or have no business taking it so seriously. They may make it clear that their religious convictions mean more to them than you do. But they may slowly take in the realization that these things hurt you and realize that hurting you is the last thing on earth they would ever want to do.

Damned if I know what the right answer is, and distance may in fact be it. But why not try to have a conversation first. If it goes poorly, you distance yourself anyway. But it could go well. (Of course, you know best what the odds are -- as well as what kind of silence, distance, animosity you can live with.)

Eh. I should probably have just left it at, that sucks. good luck.

Nu, those're proxy marriages, which the dead people may or may not choose to accept, but for some obscure reason must be performed (even if only with stand-ins) on Earth. It's not intended to rewrite the history of the people's lives as they lived them when alive---it's stupid, but not quite in the way most people think.

Anyway, I too must go to bed.

Baptisms for the dead!. That stuff always cracks me up. And then some like the Jews get pissed off about it, and I feel like I'm watching some kind of leprechauns vs. unicorns debate. Good times.

163

"... I don't know your parents and have no basis for asserting that they love you and would never intentionally hurt you. ..."

Loving someone doesn't mean you can't do anything that would hurt them. Probably Bave's parents were hurt when he came out.

The whole post-facto praying-ancestors-into-heaven thing that Mormons do is, I admit, one of the odder aspects of the religion, but it does result in a lot of very useful genealogical information being compiled, so I'm willing to tolerate it.

166: Ergo my inclusion of the word "intentionally." Sheesh. Also, I strongly doubt Dave's birth caused any pain to his dad, unless the Mormons have some sort of proxy childbirth deal going on that I don't know about.

168

Ergo my inclusion of the word "intentionally."

You saying Bave didn't know his parents would be hurt?

Oh, heh. By "came out" you meant about the whole being gay thing...

103 - BOOOO!

Hey, I wasn't badmouthing JE. I was just speculating about the content of teo's rant, and suggesting that it had already been covered in the existing literature.

On the physics tip, I suspect that John is feeling his oats a bit, having been utterly vindicated in his decade[s?]-long vendetta against the field of economics. essear may wish he'd shut up about it, but I, for one, don't.

I don't know if 168 is a put-on, 170 is out-on, both, or neither.

But I had 3 typos in that one sentence, so fuck it, I'm going to bed.

My mother's own high-school yearbook--and mind you, this thing was collected and printed in west, rural Texas--has more than a couple signatures suggesting that she consider getting an abortion and finishing school. Stay sweet! See you after summer! Abort your unborn fetus!

Instead, ME.

No, 168 was pure moronisity and why I should be writing my brief or sleeping now, probably sleeping.

John, this is the problem with books about science that contain none.

But I agree about the physics porn. Enough, already: there's plenty of good stuff to talk about without going all moony!

Economics, physics, what's the difference?

I think economists pay a lot of attention to entropy. It's just a different entropy.

||

Daylight Savings Time seems to be having an unusually lasting effect on my ability to sleep, this time.

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178: Are you sure you aren't just stuck in a local fluctuation that is time reversed?

I'm with Stormcrow. I blame flux capacitance.

178: It's killing me too. Completely throwing off my sleep patterns and no matter how much I want to sleep through lecture, I just can't. My body refuses to be a slave to the hegemonic artificial time of daylight savings.

161: I need no excuse to bloviate rudely on Crooked Timber. it's what I do.

Even "The Philosophy of Time", ed. Poidevin, Oxford , 1993, mostly ignore entropy and the arrow of time, in order to be able to titillate a generation of AP students with physics porn.

Even other physicists get annoyed by fundamental physicists claims to know things they don't. As for biologists, see above. "Time" as we know it is about what it was before relativity. It just doesn't cover the whole universe or the tiniest units of being.

More later.

Probably Bave's parents were hurt when he came out.

I hope to hell you're not equating that with his parents' homophobia.

178: It's daylight savings time.

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58: Neither did I, until I moved to Virginia. I'm still a little unclear on how things work, but I'm not too interested in local government, so it's more a matter of curiosity than concern.

Also, really sorry to hear about that, Bave. It's a problem I'm unfamiliar with, so I don't have a clue what advice to give or how I'd handle it, but I can imagine almost anything short of vandalism being justified depending on the details. Other than the big gay elephant in the room, were/are you particularly close to them?

I can't say why for sure, but these days Mormonism seems to push my anti-religion button a lot more than other religions. Maybe it's just their increased visibility in politics last year, but also, the baptisms and stuff for the dead seem especially distasteful. I'm not particularly respectful of religious belief, but is it too much to ask of believers to be? Even evangelical nuts have enough esteem for other religions to presume to speak for their ancestors, or whatever the ceremonies supposedly mean.

166/169: If you asked most gay people's parents, before their child came out to them, "Would you be hurt if your child decided that that s/he would keep secret from you most of the details of their day-to-day life, lie to you about some of the most important things going on in their life, never tell you about their friends or their loves or their children? Would you be hurt if - to facilitate all of this deception and secrecy - your child decided they would move as far away from you and the rest of the family as possible, never invite you to visit, and seldom if ever visit you? Would you be hurt if, when your child got married, they didn't invite you to the wedding, or even tell you they were planning to get married, let alone allow you to meet their fiance?"

Most parents would find that hurtful, too, you see.

Homophobic parents who have LGBT children are in for a world of hurt, basically, either because their children shut them out of their lives or let them into their lives.

The hurt is not something that their children do to them: it's something that these parents do to themselves. Blaming gay kids for their parents hurt is like blaming that 9-year-old kid in Brazil because the archbishop excommunicated her mother.

I struggle with an issue about this topic. I want my son to be straight. (As far as I know, he is.)

If my son were gay, I would go through a kind of a grieving process. Maybe grieve is the wrong word. But, in my vision of my son is that he gets married (to a nice Indian girl who will teach us how to make Indian food) and they have really cute little brownish skinned babies.

I am all for adoption, but I would grieve the loss of my expectations and hopes.

But, I want my son to be happy. I am not about to not love him or treat him poorly if he is gay. His sexuality changes nothing about my relationship with him.

So , I struggle with myself about whether I am somewhat betraying my gay friends by hoping that my child is straight.

||

No more masturbating to Bristol'n'Levi.

|>

Back when my ex's mom couldn't stand me because I wasn't a Catholic Filipina, the most charitable explanation I got from all the people I asked was that parents want their kids to be happy.

My ex's mom knew she'd been happy in a Catholic Filipino setting, so that was a proven route for her. Why should her babies deviate from a proven route (with the outsized poorly-dressed heathen white girl), when happiness was at stake?

That was the best anyone came up with, and knowing that she wanted her boy to be happy was enough that I could be respectful to her. It showed a somewhat limited imagination and a lack of respect for her son, but, you know. Good intentions.

I am completely positive that you will do much better by your son, in any context whatsoever. Besides. It is rare to get any specific future, especially if someone else is the primary agent. You can enjoy that vision, but you will almost certainly get a variant, so I wouldn't get too attached. Learn to make Indian food your own self.

188: I had a funny parenting moment where I'm not sure if I did something wrong -- walked into a conversation between Newt and Sally where one of them said 'That's so gay' in the random-epithet-not-specifically-referring-to-homosexuality sense. And I told them that's not cool, how would [X] and [Y] (gay couple who are family friends) feel if they heard you use a word that describes them as an insult. And that anyway, most people figure out whether or not they're gay sometime when they're teenagers, so either of you could be talking about yourselves. And they murmured good point, Mom, we won't use the word anymore, and can we go back to talking about the comparative merits of Pokemon and Bakugon now?

So probably no harm done, but I found myself wondering if it had come across as scare tactics -- you could be gay and not even know it yet! Booga booga! Eh. I've probably done much worse things without thinking about it.

with the outsized poorly-dressed heathen white girl

You don't think the heathen part had anything to do with it? I know that would be a sticking point with my parents.

191: I've probably done much worse things without thinking about it.

Are you angling for a parade?

I think the heathen part bothered her, but she more often commented on my size and dress. Hard to judge which one offended her sensibilities more.

LB:

I had a similar issue with my son. I did the same thing. Would you say that in front of X &Y or Z & P? How would that make them feel?

I was surprised at how angry I was with him. But, we have 4 or 5 gay couples with whom we spend a fair amount of time. He really likes them and they really like him.

WTF, son?!?!?!?!?! You know better.

"And Weman I guess"

Eh? I haven't endorsed anything essear said. All that stuff is over my head, frankly. But you're often fun to read even when I've no idea what you're talking about.

187: Thanks for putting that so nicely into words, Jesurgislac.

Megan:

I understand the expectations thing. But, when you imagine your children as adults, don't you tend to imagine a family similar to your own? (in my case, shacking up in sin!)

When you think about your children's future, is the first thought that comes to mind a straight relationship or a gay? Parents?

Obviously, my vision is going to change is I suspect that he is gay.

The hurt is not something that their children do to them: it's something that these parents do to themselves. Blaming gay kids for their parents hurt is like blaming that 9-year-old kid in Brazil because the archbishop excommunicated her mother.

I agree with Jes.

Besides. It is rare to get any specific future, especially if someone else is the primary agent. You can enjoy that vision, but you will almost certainly get a variant, so I wouldn't get too attached.

I'm pretty sure that will is absolutely invested in the idea of this desi daughter-in-law. Don't dash his dreams, Megan.

Back when my ex's mom couldn't stand me because I wasn't a Catholic Filipina....

My sister's sociopath ex's Portuguese-Hawaiian mom said at a large family gathering "How wonderful it is to look around this table and see all those beautiful brown eyes..... and you too, Christine". She really hated "ugly eyes", though I think that in anther sense the family was proud to score a couple of blonde haole chicks.

Heh. My family has become very ornate in the past five years, so I don't know if I consider it the model. But yeah, of course people want what they know and think sorta-mostly worked for them. That realization was what helped me understand my ex's mom. I think it is a fine baseline, and if the circumstances call for more than that, I know that you'll meet them with love and compassion.

Or, um, reinforce that vision of your half-Desi grandkids to solid rock and let your son know that he'll be a disappointment to you every day of your life if he doesn't make it happen. Glare at anyone else he brings home. Arrange for him to get cute Desi tutors. Have you thought about what region you want her to be from? The food varies a lot, and I bet you're partial to North Indian food.

I hope that my son, when he is an adult, does what I have done and doesn't have any kids.

So , I struggle with myself about whether I am somewhat betraying my gay friends by hoping that my child is straight.

I think it's also something of a betrayal of your son (too strong a word, but I'm not finding the right one) to entertain specific expectations for what you hope he'll be. Not just gay/straight but doctor or college grad or liberal or whatever. We all do it, obviously, and it takes shitloads of effort to dispossess ourselves of these expectations. But when they grow up and are forced between fully pursuing who they want to be and making us happy, it's incredibly unfair.

Okay, only the topmost sentence in italics. And no, my brief isn't going any better than my commenting.

Thank you, Blume.

I trying to get him interested in cricket.

Megan: Your suggestions sound fabulous. Thanks. The region is negotiable, as is the religion. As an Episcopalian, we can adjust.

But yeah, of course people want what they know and think sorta-mostly worked for them.

I suppose Rory lucked out that I still haven't figured out what will sorta-mostly work for me -- no expectations to contend with at all!

Italicized Di gets it right.

You're a good supportive dad, Will. Med school would be a good place for them to meet. There are marriage websites for Indian parents you could join as well if your son seems to be lagging.

Of course, if will follows the advice in 203 and 210, he may be ensuring that his future d-i-l will be dashing the dreams of her own parents, who may not have had a white boy in mind...

By the time she's 27 or 28, her parents will stop being so picky.

205:

I mostly agree. Obviously, most parents have hopes and expectations for their children. And, those expectations and hopes constantly need adjusting and reevaluation.

The only thing that I am absolutely invested in is my children's happiness.

Did I mention that my daughter quickly kissed a boy that she appears to like when she was standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME?@?@?@?@

By the time she's 27 or 28, her parents will stop being so picky think it's the perfect time to tap into all those networks to find her a husband.

211: Which will work out even better for Will -- when his d-i-l's parents disown her, Will won't have to share Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything with them!

Did I mention that my daughter quickly kissed a boy that she appears to like when she was standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME?@?@?@?@

Can he cook?

I bet you're partial to North Indian food.

From sheer curiosity, what makes you say this?

You're a good supportive dad, Will. Med school would be a good place for them to meet. There are marriage websites for Indian parents you could join as well if your son seems to be lagging.

A good friend is negotiating with me on behalf of her niece. We are getting bogged down on my son's required income and whether he will have to call her "Princess."

Also, my dad took in an Indian doc who needed work. So I figure they owes us.

If I was going to have kids, which I'm not, I would do everything possible to make sure they were bisexual vegan anarchists, who could think critically.

Which will work out even better for Will -- when his d-i-l's parents disown her, Will won't have to share Christmas or Thanksgiving or anything with them!

Di, Hindus do not celebrate Christmas.

But, we don't want any disowning. I am relying on the parents teaching me how to cook.

Bave - I'm really, really sorry. I think I'd bring up the hurt without bringing up the counter-donation and see where that leads, sort of optimistically hoping that giving them the chance to redeem themselves might mean that they take the opportunity to do so (and knowing that it's worth more if they choose to remediate, even if it takes more time for them to come around).

After I moved to DC I had several years where I wasn't dating anybody and I was pretty sure my mom feared that I was gay and just afraid to tell her. She always seemed to be picking her words very carefully, and on a few occasions she awkwardly dropped a "whatever you choose to do with your life, you know we'll support you" into conversation where it didn't make much sense except if seen through the context of an uncomfortable fear on her part. I never bothered to disabuse her of the notion, because while I'm not gay I have plenty of gay friends and I'd prefer that she come to terms with it instead of demonizing "those people." If letting her be afraid her son turned out gay helped then I was all for it.

My girlfriend's been living with me for a couple years now, so what I get instead is just the occasional awkward question about why we're not married yet. But, you know, no pressure. Whatever I choose to do, they'll support it.

217 - The default Indian food in America is north Indian. I was surprised at the entirely different menu when my friend took me to a south Indian place. So if you think you like "Indian" food here, and aren't thinking Udipi stuff in particular, it is probably north Indian.

Di, Hindus do not celebrate Christmas.

I didn't realize you'd specified religion, too.

She always seemed to be picking her words very carefully, and on a few occasions she awkwardly dropped a "whatever you choose to do with your life, you know we'll support you" into conversation where it didn't make much sense except if seen through the context of an uncomfortable fear on her part. I never bothered to disabuse her of the notion, because while I'm not gay I have plenty of gay friends and I'd prefer that she come to terms with it instead of demonizing "those people." If letting her be afraid her son turned out gay helped then I was all for it.

Was it discomfort on her part or trying to let you know that she didnt care whether you were gay or straight?

Isnt mughal food from the South?

I don't know. Haven't had mughal food.

Di, Hindus do not celebrate Christmas.

Well, he could marry a Christian Keralan. Bonus: possibility that she can cook tasty fish dishes!

Can he cook?

No. He is very shy and hates loud noises. He wouldnt get on the basketball court for their class team until my daughter did. Now, he gets out there in a fruitless (I suspect) effort to impress her. It is very cute.

Well, he could marry a Christian Keralan. Bonus: possibility that she can cook tasty fish dishes!

I'll need to get Megan to teach him how to bake pies so he brings something to the table.

228: Not so fruitless if he's already gotten a smooch.

Fruitless? She's kissing him in front of you. What more could you ask from playing basketball?

She is actually a kissing slut. If you are ever around her, just make sure that you tell her to "make noise" when she goes in to kiss you. Otherwise, she might not get her mouth fully closed and you get some teeth on your cheek in the effort.

I like Emerson and only wish that he posted more. (Also, I miss McManus, where is he?). But I think it would be completely in the Emerson-esque spirit if others used Unfogged as a forum for elaborate anti-Emerson rants and critiques. There's rarely a good fight around here any more.

I don't know. Haven't had mughal food.

Bet you have. Mughal food is definitively North Indian, particularly Delhi. Much common banquet restaurant fare, especially the dishes with the obvious Persian influence, is derived from the Mughal court - Roghan Josh, anybody?

Did I already tell you that I've been telling my baby brother that he needs to be able to make a pie if he wants to get married? I tell him that it is part of his dowry and he should be able to whip up a pie at any time for his sweetie. His crust is coming along, but I don't think he practices on his own.

224 - Discomfort with the possibility of my being gay, totally. Mom comes from a time and place where certain things weren't talked about in polite company even if they were widely known to be true. So there's a lot of stuff that's been swept under the rug, and while if you lift up the rug she'll come around, she'd just as soon leave the rug where it is.

So in my particular case I'd say that if I had been gay and come out to her, she'd have slowly come around to acknowledge that certain long-held beliefs might not be as true as they once were. In the absence of that particular truth that close to her, however, those long-held beliefs will remain undisturbed.

Can BR and I come to Megan pie-making school?

Of course! I'd love that.

Then we can go swimming afterwards.

236: That's pretty touching, actually, fed. That she's really willing to push herself and confront uncomfortable prejudices, if need be, for your sake. Send her some just because flowers, because that "we'll support you no matter what" was really a big deal.

Ugh, Indian food. I have been living on Trader Joe's Indian meals in a pouch as part of my last-month-of-dissertation meal plan. Pouch in boiling water for five minutes = dinner. I can already tell I am not going to want to look at any Indian food, good or bad, for a long time after this is over.

Then, we can play Ultimate??

241: Maybe you're pregnant. My sister still can't eat barbecue, 34 years after her first child was born, because her sociopath husband and his friends barbecued almoost daily while she was pregnant.

Just a helpful thought.

When Blume and Sifu do have a baby (if they so choose -- we'll support them either way), they should name it Comity.

Maybe you're pregnant.

I'm birthing a dissertation. It has been quite a long labor. Intermittent anesthesia.

240 - Yeah, but it only came up because she thought I was keeping things from her, instead of just listening when I told her it really was that hard to date in DC. I appreciate that she was willing to deal with her own boundaries, but I wish it didn't come packaged with wild theories to explain my life.

As for flowers, tomorrow's her birthday and I've been instructed not to buy her gifts anymore. I'll wait until she has some surgery scheduled later this year and sneak some flowers in then. They made her week when she had her knee rebuilt a couple years ago.

bring up the hurt without bringing up the counter-donation

Yeah, the counter-donation is not realistic. But I feel like I do need to ask for something, probably something simple like "Ask me how my boyfriend's doing when we talk on the phone."

Eve Sedgwick has a nice essay called "How to Bring up Your Kids Gay" in which she talks about why there is such a paucity of advice on the subject. I don't think it's worth wishing any particular sexual orientation for your children, since it's probably completely outside of your control and any expectations in this regard are likely to be hurtful if not fulfilled. But will's policy of expectations plus expecting to make plenty of adjustments sounds pretty good. Di gets it right in 205.

I've heard that insufficient alcohol consumption results in brain-damaged dissertations.

Just don't forget and leave your dissertation in the back of a hot car.

I'd be totally fine with it if my dissertation turned out to be gay.

Di gets it right in 205

I mostly agree with Di however as children you can't expect that your parents will never do anything that will hurt you. They didn't sign over their free will on your birth either. I think the most that you can do is voice you disapproval and let them influence their future decisions. You have to respect their decisions as much as they respect yours.

249: I heard hyperthermic theses are hot shit.

You have to respect their decisions as much as they respect yours.

No, you don't.

Then, we can play Ultimate??

Dangit. I have to give a presentation on the cognition of Ultimate in a couple of hours. Plan to not think about schoolwork by browsing unfogged UTTERLY FOILED.

251: I get what your saying, and there's definitely a point at which you sanity benefits tremendously from learning to accept that your parents are in fact going to fuck up. Regularly. But. Parents have a responsibility for nurturing a child's development. If a kid can manage the same for a parent, great, but the moral obligation is not there in the same way.

Yeah, I said moral obligation, I already know I am going to regret that.

No, you don't

Obviously you don't have to, but I wouldn't expect my parents to respect my life decisions if I don't respect theirs. We don't talk about religion or politics since we don't respect each others opinions.

[/out-w-lfs-ning w-lfs-n]

Thanks, Sir Kraab. I think I'm going to start deliberately misusing words in hopes of getting the hazing over more quickly. (Then again, I probably don't need to do anything deliberate, I make plenty of mistakes all by my lonesome).

in hopes of getting the hazing over more quickly

What, you think it ends at some point?

Dude! What is the cognition of Ultimate?! Like, see disc and running people at the same time?

I'm sure there's a whole cycle of dead dissertation jokes we can come up with.

259: a lot of hastily-cobbled together last-minute bullshit, as it turns out.

There are things my adult child could do that I wouldn't respect. I'm not sure what I'd do if they became devout Republicans, for example. Probably avoid the topic but stew a lot.

Is it different from the cognition of any other sport, because of its inherent AWESOMENESS?

I wouldn't expect my parents to respect my life decisions if I don't respect theirs.

That symmetry always has bugged me. Either side can say "My [parent/child] has chosen a terribly wrong path which I just can't respect". It's sad when that happens, and mutually agreeing to disagree while still maintaining mutual respect is one option, but not always the best one.

Parents have a responsibility for nurturing a child's development

When the kid is six sure. When you are talking about an adult child I don't think this is true anymore. At some point they are a fully functional adult and you should interact with them as such. This means possibly disagreeing with them on some very weighty stuff even if that is going to cause grief on both sides. I would be disappointed if my parents changed their deeply held beliefs to save me pain. I would like them to change them, but not just to shelter me.

251: And now agreeing with you... There are those contexts, like where a formerly stay-at-home mom goes back to work and her kids feel hurt by that or a widowed/divorced parent starts dating again or remarries or has more kids and the kids feel hurt by that. So maybe it's something like none of us can expect someone else to sacrifice who they are or who they want to be just because it will hurt our disappointed expectations?

262: Probably avoid the topic but stew a lot.

And form a shared narrative about it with your spouse.

I somewhat agree with CJB, but I'm more absolutist about having Right Value Systems and Wrong Value Systems. If the parents are Wrong like Baves's, then they're Wrong and Should Change. If the parents are Right like I'll be, then it gets complicated.

256: If your parents decided to totally shut you out of their lives, or even just never acknowledge or discuss an important part of your life (for example a relationship to a partner), based solely on your sexuality, would you have to respect that decision?

What, you think it ends at some point?

Well, not end, precisely. Taper?

262: I've told this one before, I'm sure. But I like to repeat myself.

Rory's maybe 3, give or take. Trying to get her ready for bed, I offer stories and lullabies. Stubborn little arms-folded posture, she informs me that she doesn't like books and she doesn't like songs. Forgetting that sarcasm is lost on a 3-year old, I roll my eyes and mutter. "So much for the arts. You'll make a terrific Republican when you grow up." Suddenly, the stubborn pout gives way to rolling sobs. "But..." tears streaming down her little face, crushed, "I don't want to be a Republican."

Bave, don't visit home again until you can bring your boyfriend with you---and exact a solemn vow that they will treat him with kindness and hospitality. I'm not even kidding.

Bave, your description of the relationship as "distant but cordial" felt really, really familiar. I'm in a pretty similar situation, in that my parents simply do not ask questions that might lead to mention of Rah, and when I mention him they pretend they didn't hear me or they change the subject to religion, and I'm really not kidding, and sometimes I'm really fucking pissed at them. On the other hand, they're 70. They are products of a time and a place as alien to me as healthy gay relationships are to them. I grew up in the same town but thank the gods I did so later in its evolution.

I could cut my parents off, and the rest of my family would support that - my sister, her family and my extended family (my mother's sister, her children and her grandchildren) are all completely accepting and ask about Rah and send us Christmas cards addressed to both of us and have repeatedly pulled me aside at the holidays to insist that if Rah and I have a wedding that we invite them - but it would only reinforce a lot of their favorite stereotypes. This is still the likeliest option, it's just not one that I think will change their minds.

I could pretend there's nothing wrong, but that would let them walk all over Rah and my life with him.

I could tell them that they won't see me again until Rah is welcome, too, but what a nice fucking way to put him on the hot seat. "Hi, mom, dad, this is Rah, with whom you'd better fucking get along." I don't care how that makes them feel, but I do care a great deal how that would make Rah feel and it wouldn't make him feel good.

To be honest, what I've started to accept is that part of why I haven't pushed this with my parents is that I just don't care what they think. They're nice enough people with whom I disagree on almost everything of importance now that they're in the sudden clutch of old-age conservatism. I have a lot of fond memories but they aren't really a part of my life. The person who most worked to get us to understand one another is dead and nobody else picked up her good work. Honestly, if they change their mind, they change their mind. If they don't, they don't.

But if I found out they donated to Yes on 8, I would be pissed and I don't have the faintest idea what I'd do.

Heebie solves it in 268.

In my specific case, I feel like I'm doing quite well respecting my parents' different values. I'm very interested when they tell me about what they're doing at church, for example, because it's really important stuff in their lives. We don't talk about politics much because we disagree, but that's actually fine. In return, I get total avoidance of what's important to me in my life and now a donation to the cause of discriminating against people like me. If there's a symmetry of what's expected from parents and adult children, it's not being observed on the parent side in this case.

272 -- looks like a pseud slip in there if someone wants/needs to fix it?

"President Rory Kotimy wearily raised her head from the stack of death warrants she had just signed, and reflected back to the long-past day when she had found out that she was a Republican...."

That sucks, Robust. I hope it gets better.

I'm trying to work on "I just don't care what they think." I still have this nagging feeling that they should be part of my life, and that I should be doing more to make that happen, but I think I need to examine that.

would you have to respect that decision

I would have to respect their decision to shut me out of their life. Since they had no respect for my decisions I wouldn't feel any need to have any more respect for theirs at that point.

"When did you first realize you were Republican?"

"Was is hard coming out to your family and friends?"

"I'm okay with you being a Republican, I just don't want to see that stuff in public. Why do Republicans have to shove it in our face like that?"

"I wouldn't want Republican teachers in my child's school!"

The substitution works almost too well.

"Why do all these Republican men keep sucking my dick?"

I don't know, I'm struggling with how to frame this, but it just seems like kids need the approval and acceptance of their parents in a way that parents don't need the same from them. I may well change my mind on that in the next few years when Rory goes all out adolescent and rejects everything about me, but for now I still think it's a bigger deal for kids to work for parental approval than vice versa and that this does set up a not entirely reciprocal obligation.

Next up: dead Republican jokes!

I would have to respect their decision to shut me out of their life.

Why on God's substandard green earth would you have to respect their decision to shut you out of their life for such a shitty reason?

282: I think he means "respect their decision" as in "abide by the terms of their decision". That is, not interact with them anymore.

"Republicans seem so fun and festive on Will and Grace, but in real life it's a different story."

Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

Yes, that is a pseud slip in 272.2 if someone could fix that. I'll shoot apo a quick email. Thank you, Di!

I'm trying to work on "I just don't care what they think." I still have this nagging feeling that they should be part of my life, and that I should be doing more to make that happen, but I think I need to examine that.

I also have a nagging feeling that by confessing that I just don't give a shit about their opinion of me that I'm failing at something. I usually feel like it's a failure of activism, like I'm supposed to make them change their minds or I'm not trying hard enough, but honestly it has been a looooooong time since I stopped taking "what would mom and dad think" into account when making decisions and my extremely lazy way of not having to think further about the quality or quantity of our relationship in that light is to blame it on the wedge driven between us by their own homophobia. That's true, but it's not the only reason I feel very little for or about them most of the time.

My sister could do with a bit more approval and acceptance from her half-sociopath daughter right now. It's really horrifying. It's like she married into a family with a hereditary curse.

Why on God's substandard green earth would you have to respect their decision to shut you out of their life for such a shitty reason?

I would respect their decision of wanting me out of their life for no reason whatsoever. I don't know why they would do that, but if they did I would respect it, or what 282 said.

but it just seems like kids need the approval and acceptance of their parents in a way that parents don't need the same from them.

This is where I consider 25 to be the age of moral accountability. Younger than 25, the parents should be more accomodating than the kids, and if the kid is hung up on some wrong-headed belief, the parents' job is to simultaneously love and support them, while dealing with the belief however is appropriate.

After age 25, I think the relationship is more symmetric, and whoever is Wrong should change.

I still have this nagging feeling that they should be part of my life, and that I should be doing more to make that happen, but I think I need to examine that.

I think this is very common. I see many of my friends, entering into their thirties and realizing that they are completely different people than their parents, without any real ties or connections beyond pleasant memories of childhood, and having a hard time figuring out what to do about it. They feel like they should be having the picture perfect relationships with their family, but don't actually feel any desire to do so or get much out of it. And from that flows personal recriminations and a fair amount of hardship/review of goals.

I'm experiencing something different, in that my biological dad who left the family when I was very young has been making attempts to reconnect lately. I don't think either of us really understands how to go about it, so we're just making an attempt to be friends as adults and dispense with parent-child fiction. It's very, very strange. I keep trying, though, to figure out if there is a way that you can use this approach with parents that raised you, but I am coming to the conclusion that you probably can't. It's also a no go if your parents are the sort of people you'd never be friends with.

286: I got it.

It's their constant attempts to recruit new Republicans, especially young ones, that really bothers me.

Damn it 282 should be 283 in 288.

289 -- That makes sense.

my extremely lazy way of not having to think further about the quality or quantity of our relationship in that light is to blame it on the wedge driven between us by their own homophobia

I hear you. It's not for nothing I live most of a continent away, talk to them on the phone every few weeks, and see them in person usually about once a year.

Luckily, I've got therapy later this afternoon. 50 minutes to fix this mess, Doc.

Allowing Republicans to marry destroys the sanctity of marriage.

295: Email this thread to the therapist in advance to give him/her a head start. Of course, next week you'll be stuck working through your relationship to this blog thing.

I don't mind Republicans in the abstract, but the thought of them doing it grosses me out.

Stay away from that park at night. It's where all the Republicans like to, you know, convene.

Obviously you don't have to, but I wouldn't expect my parents to respect my life decisions if I don't respect theirs. We don't talk about religion or politics since we don't respect each others opinions.

I think this is where I got confused. You're using "respect" with "decisions" in the sense of "accept, abide by", but then you also use "respect" with "opinions". Not really the same.

accept that your parents are in fact going to fuck you up

301: I can't help hearing this in my head via Hans und Frans.

Obligatory link to ben's great take on that poem, please.

Republicans really mess up their rectums. (totally safe for work!)

302: There's a funny skit in there somewhere, where Larkin's mum & dad meet Hans und Franz.

"I slept with a Republican man once, thinking I'd be able to turn him."

"Republicans have such good fashion sense!"

Wait. That doesn't work.

"I wonder who our first openly Republican president will be?"

Crap, that one neither!

"I couldn't get her to stop hitting on me, so finally I just told her I was Republican."

Ah, that works fine!

I think this is where I got confused

Yes poor word use on my part.

308: Wait, so they're just saying that??

310: I'm not Republican. Laydeez.

In recent years, some have suggested that Abraham Lincoln may have been Republican.

"We're HERE! We're REPUBLICAN! Get used to it!!"

The above is a slogan popularized by RECTUP (Republican Coalition to Unfetter Plutocrats)

I think 312 wins the thread (though that may be the historian in me).

I'm not Republican where it counts. Laydeez.

295: I'm glad to hear that you've got a professional to talk this over with. It's something I've considered myself, though honestly I'd much rather send my parents to therapy. I didn't mean to try to horn in on your question, though; more, I meant to offer my sympathies from a similar situation. I would be mystified as to what to do, so don't feel like there's some Right Answer at which you should already have arrived. Go where your conscience takes you but don't feel like there's a standard of behavior you have to meet.

I suspect that many of us struggle to come to terms with our parents due to their failing to meet our expectations about parents. Have little to no relationship? Or accept them for who they are with their many failings?

However, I feel for Bave and RMP. It royally pisses me off when parents are such jackasses.

My grandmother wants so, so badly for my cousin to come out to her, for the liberal street cred she'd gain. (My words, not hers.) But he hasn't. She is reduced to telling the rest of us the long monologue of acceptance that she's storing for whenever he finally comes out to her. The long monologue consists of a list of the many ways she has demonstrated her acceptance of the gays over the past 50 years.

317: You know, sometimes I feel like my mom is disappointed that I am not gay. Not for those reasons, per se, but sometimes I get the feeling that she thinks she failed to make me radical enough or different enough. (Not sure if that makes sense, but that's as close as I can come).

honestly I'd much rather send my parents to therapy.

Awesome.

"I love my dead Republican son!"

"'Republican" used to be a nice normal word, but conservatives have corrupted it into its present debased meaning."

317: I'm guessing your cousin already knows that your grandmother knows, and just wants to avoid the speech?

Variant of 320.2:

"'Santorum' used to be a nice normal word, until that jackass Senator up in Pennsylvania gave it such an unsavory connotation."

321: Definitely he would want to avoid the speech, but I can't see him ever sitting down for a heavy talk about his sexuality with anyone. It has come up incidentally in conversation, but mostly he just doesn't bring up anything relationshippy.

(I actually have a bigger theory that he's 75% asexual, and 25% gay. We're fairly close and open with each other, and there seems to be almost no fooling around with anyone ever, no pursuing or being pursued, or romantic interests whatsoever. And no mental energy being displaced on these topics either. And he's in his late twenties.)

317: Imagine your grandmother's horror when he comes out to her, not as gay, but as Republican!

324: She would really have a heart attack. Boy would she grab onto that like a dog with a bone.

He's dating a Republican and can't bring himself to tell you, H-G.

Imagine your grandmother's horror when he comes out to her, not as gay, but as Republican!

That made me laugh out loud, but it really is how I feel about my son.

"Please don't be a Republican!! Please don't be a Republican!!!"

"It's not a 'lifestyle', grandma! It's my life! Why on earth would anyone choose to be Republican?"

He's dating a Republican and can't bring himself to tell you, H-G.

We have a friend who is an openly gay Republican. WTF?!!??!?! They hate you.

329: I think you mean "openly Republican gay".

Definitely he would want to avoid the speech, but I can't see him ever sitting down for a heavy talk about his sexuality with anyone.

Good for him, really. One of the nice things about being straight is that nobody ever expects you to sit down and have a very special heartfelt blossom conversation about it. "Mom, Dad? I know you've probably suspected for awhile now and I know this might take some time for you to get used to, but I like men."

"It's not a 'lifestyle', grandma! It's my life! Why on earth would anyone choose to be Republican?"

Maybe you didn't choose to be attracted to Republican ideas, but it's certainly a choice to vote that way.

325: I'm not getting this. Are you saying that your grandmother would be shocked but happy? Or that she would tear him apart with her teeth?

there seems to be almost no fooling around with anyone ever, no pursuing or being pursued, or romantic interests whatsoever

This describes my life in a nutshell theses days, and I definitely wouldn't call myself 75% asexual.

333: She'd be horrified, and never, ever let it go, and everyone would hear about it in every conversation, and it would involve an excruciating amount of listening to Grandma monologues.

334: But you spend mental energy on the topic, no? I don't think he does.

(And I really don't think he's just making a concerted effort to appear like he never thinks about anything romantic.)

But somehow "Republican Nazis for Christ" doesn't quite work as a name for a softball team.

"The Grandma Monologues" sounds like a wonderful, heartwarming, grandmother affirming episodic play.

336: Truthfully? More like mental energy on how lame it is that I am not spending any mental energy on the topic. Perhaps there is just a very fine line between asexual and uninspired?

336: I have a friend from high school like that -- I've known him for almost 30 years now, and I still don't have a clue about his sexuality -- whether he's asexual or extraordinarily secretive and/or repressed.

338: That's what it wants you to believe. But just try to interrupt or get away at intermission: you'll find out the doors are chained shut and you've just doubled your show length by even thinking about leaving, mister.

340: Would he be named Pat?

341: But heebie, you hardly ever get a chance to see it, and it may be closing soon!

338, 341, 343 are very funny.

343: Oh, it'll run forever. It's just that the actors speak so softly these days, and the lights are a lot dimmer. Other than that, it can't complain. And a lot of shows that used to run concurrently have died.

Di Kotimy has exceptional taste in humor.

I discovered my mother is homophobic when I came out to her.

That was about - oh, who am I kidding? That was exactly 25 years and 6 weeks ago, and while she's got better, sometimes she still says things that make clear she rather hopes I'm going to quit being a lesbian and start dating men, though I think it's been more than 20 years since she outright told me it was just a "phase" I'd get over.

Life got a lot less fraught when I realised that if my mother were going to be coldly rude to all my female friends on the basis that some of them were also probably my girlfriends and she couldn't bring herself to be polite to any woman I'd actually slept with, I should just quit introducing her to my friends. Whether she minds about this or whether she just thinks I no longer have friends, I do not know.

My father says merely "You know your mother isn't good with people," which is true enough.

But neither one of them would have donated to anything like Proposition 8, though I think more because it would offend their liberal sensibilities, than because of me.

I love their liberal sensibilities. It helps me remember that my mother's homophobia is, well... just a phobia. It doesn't have to be political, except when people make it be.

Hurts both ways, though.

Damn, I interrupted the grandma monologues.

....I'm going to hell now, aren't I.

she rather hopes I'm going to quit being a lesbian and start dating men

Maybe for fun, you could find a nice FTM transsexual to bring home to her.

347 reminds me of the San Frantastic sketch on Mr. Show. "Oh, I can't go to San Francisco! I've got homophobia."

349 All the nice FTM trans men I know are way too nice to have to deal with my mother.

...besides, some of them already have beards.

We have a friend who is an openly gay Republican.

I think you mean "openly Republican gay".

I think he meant "openly self-loathing freak."

350: Well, it is the worst disease. Except for academia.

I have a friend from high school like that -- I've known him for almost 30 years now, and I still don't have a clue about his sexuality -- whether he's asexual or extraordinarily secretive and/or repressed.

My sister's on-again-off-again high school boyfriend told her when they were in their mid-30's that he wasn't sure whether he was attracted to women or men. She asked me about this and I think I actually pursed my lips and said, "Oh, girlfriend," but later I condescended to explain to her that perhaps he was simply a perfectly healthy bisexual who didn't yet know the word.

I actually have a bigger theory that he's 75% asexual, and 25% gay. We're fairly close and open with each other, and there seems to be almost no fooling around with anyone ever, no pursuing or being pursued, or romantic interests whatsoever. And no mental energy being displaced on these topics either. And he's in his late twenties.

This describes my older sister (33) in a nutshell. Except I think she's 80% asexual, 20% straight. It kind of drives me crazy but I have become cool with it. I vascillate between thinking "hey, some people aren't into love and sex," and then thinking, "but what if she really is and there's something wrong?"

The instinct to pathologize is very, very strong. I'm sure she gets it from all quarters so I keep mum for fear of piling on. Strangely, we're very close, but I never press her about this stuff. I wonder what I should be doing.

And I think my reaction has to do with my personal proclivities, which is that I'm a love-whore and sex-fiend. I really can't imagine just having no romantic or sexual activities for years at a time. Months, maybe, but that's about it.

I wonder what I should be doing.

Hit on her?

357 - isn't that only if you're twins?

I'm so sorry for you, Bave [and RMcM-p & Rah]. It just isn't fair, IMNSHO, from a compact-with-the-universe stance, to actively betray one's child.

The Offspring hasn't come out to Grandma, even tho' I expect she'd be supportive - she's got gay friends, including a young couple with kids whom she adores. She was very angry about the LDS involvement in the Prop 8 mess. [I think my son is more afraid she'll try to talk to him about safer sex than he is of being rejected.]

OTOH, were she homophobic and a supporter of Prop 8, I don't think I could have continued a relationship with her. It took three years of therapy [with, amusingly, a gay leather shrink] to accept that some people are toxic to one's life and just because they are blood relations doesn't make them any less so - vide my late father, whose absence in my life was a hell of a lot more healthy than his presence.

will: Even if your son is gay, you could still have a cute little brown grandchild and cooking lessons - think surrogate mother and Desi au pair.

My Offspring intends to adopt internationally, but who knows - he may end up with a husband who wants genetic children. There's a whole network of surrogates here in CA who specialise in carrying babies for gay men - and I know they're ethnically diverse, as a couple I met who are Anglo and Chinese used a Chinese surrogate with the Anglo's sperm for kid #1 and an Anglo surrogate w/the Asian's sperm for kid #2, thereby having two bi-racial children. I don't know if any of them inherited a cooking gene.

We have a friend who is an openly gay Republican. WTF?!!??!?!

Even teh gays engage in class warfare.

Not exactly a joke: I was never "out" with my no-relationship policy with my family, and my state bothered my dad. My mom seemed to accept almost everything without much pain.

Karl XII of Sweden was so uninterested in relationships that his chancellors were seriously talking about dosing him secretly with aphrodisiacs. Producing heirs was a big part of his job. Queen Kristina abdicated rather than have sex. Good people. If only Karl had targeted the future Sankt Pieterburg instead of Moscow!

When my 14-y-o niece came out we were all delighted, because of the reduction in the venereal, pregnancy, and dismemberment risks.

I now, sexist. Lesbians are as capable of dismemberment as men.

Kristina wasn't necessarily uninterested in sex, she was definitely uninterested in marriage, which would have met submission. That may have been true of affarirs too. No affairs are known in her youth. I think an affair also would have hurt her position in fanatically moralistic lutheran Sweden (Kings could sire bastards without problems, but that's different).

Men her age, or anyone who wasn't a Descartes or an Oxenstierna may have been too unsubtle and uncomplicated, and of course intellectually inferior to interest her.

Gustav III seems to've been completely without libido, though. Famously, his courtiers had to help when the royal couple finally tried to have sex a few years into their marriage, but it took them several nights to try to figure out how to have sex, and there were strong suspicions Gustav IV Adolf was the son of the Crown Equerry, who helped out in the attempts at sex.

Even the less famous Swedish kings were all weird, unique overpowering larger than life figures. Swedish history is awesome.

Everybody should read Swedish history! But most of it is written in Swedish, or maybe German.

Behold, my son, with what little wisdom the world is ruled.

As I heard the story, Oxenstierna was comforting his son, who felt unready for some major task, by explaining that everyone else involved was even less ready than he was. IE, the world is ruled by idiots. Comforting!

365.2: If I can see further than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarfs.
-- Murray Gell-mann

Huh. I could have sworn it was Sidney Coleman, and "...because I am standing in between the shoulders of dwarfs." Google finds evidence for both, but it looks like people might be mistaken in attributing it to Coleman. Ah well. There's always the other great Sidneyism, "Modesty forbids me, but honesty compels me..."

Some analytic philosopher believes that since philosophy is progressive, every philosopher is greater than his predecessors. Besides the fact that this is self-serving bullshit, it also evokes a pyramid of increasingly huge philosophers on the shoulders of the dwarf Plato.

I read
half the thread
And now, to bed.

essear, all this physics stuff makes me think of this post, which you once said was silly or stupid. Why do you think that?

essear, all this physics stuff makes me think of this post, which you once said was silly or stupid. Why do you think that?

It has too many words.

Sorry, I know that's not a real answer. Maybe I'll try tomorrow.