What Makes a Hero?

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, I'm sure that you've seen the hoopla created by Caitlyn Jenner's magazine cover. I usually try to avoid commenting on controversial stuff just because I don't like the drama, but there's one aspect of this one that I just can't shove under the rug.

Let me start off by saying this - I fully support Ms. Jenner's right to do whatever she wants with her body. It's her choice. I may not "get" it and I may not understand it, but at the end of the day it's her body.

I fully support equal rights - for everyone.

I don't care what religion anyone is.

I don't care what color anyone is.

It all boils down to this - if you're a good person, you and I will get along just fine. But if you act like a dick, go and do it elsewhere. Period.

I'm also going to say this - my cousin is in the process of transitioning from female to male. So if you're going to bash anyone in the transgender community, you're screwing with my family. Trust me - you do not want to go there.

Now that all of that is out of the way.....

I've seen several memes floating around questioning whether or not Ms. Jenner is a "hero". Generally, it's a picture of her side-by-side with a picture of a war veteran who has obvious injuries.

Is that veteran a hero? Damned right he is - no question about it in my opinion. My father, my brothers, my nephews, and too many of my friends to count have served (or are still serving) in the military and every single one of them is a hero to me.

Does everyone agree with that? No. There are some people who are anti-war or anti-military for various reasons, and they don't believe that these people are heroes. Do I agree with them? No. Do they have the right to believe what they do? Yes.

What about a police officer? A man who had an officer rescue him from an armed robber might consider that officer to be his hero, while a man who was wrongfully arrested for a crime he didn't commit might not think that officers are heroes.

How about a teacher? She might never put herself in physical danger in her classroom, but the little girl who looked up to her and decided to be a teacher herself might consider that woman to be her hero.

What about the neighbor who called 911 when she saw smoke coming from a nearby home? Because of her call, the house was mostly saved from destruction. I wouldn't be surprised if the homeowner referred to her as a "hero" during an interview later that day.

What about the child who was climbing around on his brother's bed and got his leg caught between the mattress and the headboard and had to yell for his mother to come and "rescue" him? What if he brought this piece of artwork home from school a few weeks later and handed it to his mom, proudly saying to her "you're MY hero, Mom"?

Are you going to tell him anything different?

Caitlyn Jenner might not be a hero to everyone. She might not be a hero to the majority of people in the world. But I promise you this - somewhere, there is someone struggling with his/her sexual identity who is looking up to this woman and who is thankful that she has had the courage to take a very private journey and share it with the world. And that someone might just consider her a hero for it.

We don't have the right to tell other people what to do with their bodies.

We don't have the right to tell people that their belief system is wrong.

We don't have the right to dictate who can or can't be a hero to someone else.

What we do have the right to do is simple -

Stop judging. Be nice. 

Seriously. It's that easy.

Lazy day

We just really didn't do a heck of a lot today. We had to get up to get the older three kids to school, but as it turned out Sarah wasn't feeling well. So we all loaded up and I dropped the other two off and we came back home. Alex and Daniel didn't have school again today, so we spent the day just hanging around the house doing a whole lot of nothing.

They all took turns playing computer games, so I didn't spent much time online - which was odd, but it was a good sort of odd.

I did work on my quilt blocks for the Christmas block swap that I'm doing...

After school, Jared decided to go with his father to a football game, so we ended up having to go pick him up later this evening. After coming *thisclose* to running into a herd of deer in the dark (there were at least 7 of them right next to the road) we got him and headed back home. The moon tonight was absolutely gorgeous. I tried to get some pictures of it, but my camera just isn't good enough to get it (or I don't know how to work it the right way for night shots).

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I was reminded again today about just how selfish and hateful some people can be, and for some reason, it still surprises me. I wish that people would realize that when they act like this, it just makes them look foolish, and everyone who observes the tantrum will remember it.

We all like to get our own way - it's human nature. But we also need to realize that sometimes getting our own way isn't the most important thing in the world. Realistically, the way we handle NOT getting our own way shows the world what our true character is like. Disagreeing is one thing - throwing a tantrum and making threats is something totally different.

I may not have handled the situation in the best possible way, but it's something that I have worked on for a very long time. I don't take well to feeling threatened in any way (no, it wasn't a physical threat) and I tend to mouth off when it happens (surprised?) but I think that I managed to stay calmer than usual this time.

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Lastly, and totally unrelated to anything else....

With the whole "new and improved" facebook format (*snort*) I have seen several postings from bloggers with pages for their blogs indicating that updates that we post on our blog pages aren't showing up in peoples' news feeds. Supposedly, unless you "interact" with the page, it won't show up because facebook will assume that you aren't that interested in the page.

So, if what is being said is true, if you are a fan of my facebook page - you need to "like" the status updates that I post there, or comment on them, or something to indicate that you actually want to see the updates. I don't know for sure if it's true or not but I thought that I would pass it along.

And if you haven't liked my facebook page yet, why don't you go and do that? :) We sometimes get into some fun conversations over there....