Free from Michelle Duggar's Sweet Quietness

A quote has haunted me for years. One of the Duggar kids said that they had never heard their mother yell.

I yell.

Often.

I can go whole days with no yelling but my kids know that if they do something I don't want them to do, there's probably going to be some yelling.

Part of it is because we have a biggish house and I'm lazy. I don't want to wander about, looking for members of my family. I holler the name of whoever I'm looking for and, if it's one of my kids and it's a long exchange, I yell them to come here. Usually. Sometimes, I feel energetic and go to wherever I hear the answering voice. My husband - I go to the voice. Unless it's short. Then I yell the whole thing. "Supper's ready!" "Phone's for you!"

The Duggars have an intercom system. She never yells.

I tried it for a couple of days. I went to find whoever I wanted to talk to.

I got sick of it.

But I always had that hovering disapproval of myself.

Another part of my yelling is warnings. "LOOK OUT!" "STOP!" "DON'T DO THAT!" I have two adventurous kids who don't always see results ahead of time. I yell to prevent the results I see coming down the pike like a Mack truck.

I think the rest of my yelling is aggravation. I have a short fuse. "Who left the milk on the counter?" "You can't leave stuff in the middle of the stairs! Someone's going to fall down! Probably me!" "Why doesn't anyone else take the hair out of the shower drain?!?"

We all know about Josh Duggar.

There should have been some yelling.

DAMN IT! THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SOME YELLING!

My two oldest girls went through self-defense courses. They were taught to yell, just in case they hadn't learned it already from me. When someone violates you, you're supposed to yell. I'm thrilled that my kids know this. One of them was on the wrong bus in L.A. and had to get off in a sketchy part of the city to catch a bus going the right direction. She called me because she was nervous and in the middle of our conversation, she yelled, "NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

I freaked.

She told me that a man had approached her, saying, "You're cute. Can I sit by you?"

He left. I told her to call her hosts and get a ride immediately. She did. It was not the time to be considerate and take a bus.

The Duggar girls should have been taught to yell. Michelle should have been one of their yelling teachers. It might have accomplished nothing but it might have made Josh realize that his sisters were not prey. He might have never been reckless enough to touch any of those girls because he would have had a thought of, "I do not want to mess with girls! They might go nutty on me!"

Women should not be harmless and defenseless. They should be strong, bold, and opinionated. They should know that when someone is doing them wrong, they should YELL!

So the pressure is off. Josh Duggar should have heard his mom yell. He should have heard his sisters yell. There is a time and a place to yell. I've got it covered in my neck of the woods. Cover it in yours. We don't need any more victims.

Update: I watched a lot of the interview that Megyn Kelly did with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and want to make clear that I respect how they handled the crisis with Josh and I am completely impressed with the dignity that they have maintained through this current media backlash.

So, yes, I am not free from Michelle Duggar's sweet quietness. She is an amazing role model for mothers like me.

Racist? Still?!?

I wrote the following about 4 years ago and lost the flow of words and never got back to it. I feel compelled to publish it anyway because I can't believe how divisive the issue of race has become in my country. You know, that country called "The United States of America".

United. We should be. We can be. We're not. But I am a source of endless hope. I don't care about skin color except to think that the variety makes human beings pretty cool. I'm sure everyone is capable of that.

What I originally wrote is in the quotation marks.

"A while back, I was listening to talk radio and there was a discussion about how you have to live in a city to have any real diversity. After listening a bit, I was flummoxed (cool word, never used it before) to discover that they were basing diversity on skin color. Then a caller said something about when the Hispanics moved into her neighborhood, she had to put up with booming music and squealing tires. I was incensed.

I'm blond and blue eyed. My blond, blue-eyed neighbors play booming music and their friends squeal their tires. So do I. I can't explain it. It's just a noise I love. Dodge Caravans are great for burning rubber. Yes, it was more impressive in a Mustang, but I can't fit my family into one. And I boom music at least once a month, generally during a major cleaning project. I guess I'm Hispanic at heart...along with the hundreds of white (I hate that term) men who show up at car shows every week.

My Hispanic neighbors had luxury cars and enrolled their 2 year old son in more classes and sports than my 12 year old has been in. Both parents work long hours. I am a stay-at-home mom.

I homeschool. None of my white neighbors do. But the librarian whose skin is pretty much as dark as human skin can get homeschooled her kids. She and I have more in common than I do with anyone in my predominantly white neighborhood."

So here I am, trying to wrap it up.

Diversity comes from what's inside our minds, not from what's on the outside of our bodies. It comes from our passions, our tastes, and our pursuits, to borrow from either Jane Austen or Emma Thompson, I can't figure out which. It is shown in what we do and what we say. Some words and actions unite us and some words and actions divide us. But skin color? Something we have no control over? Try not to be so small minded.

Racism itself is an absurd word. We're all part of the human race.  Let's run this race together.