soapboxdiner

Paula rocks

Okay, I don't want to leave that last entry up, broadcasting to the world my parental insufficiencies. It's a humiliating and worrisome and very troubling thing for me to admit (especially to myself) - which in large part is why I don't ever talk about it. My son is a good kid, but sometimes he is really too much for me to handle. He has developmental difficulties that I never experienced. He's boisterous and full of energy - always running and jumping and rough housing. Sometimes I just don't know how to relate to him, to get him to spend that energy only when it's appropriate, rather than every moment of every day. So yeah, if you're a parent and know about this kind of thing, your advice would be very helpful.

In other news, I was watching one of those Hollywood gossip shows on TV yesterday - watching the legal problems Paula Poundstone is currently going through. Apparently, Ms. Poundstone was convicted of drinking while intoxicated with her children in the car. Subsequently, she lost custody of her kids and was given five years of probation. Now her advisaries are trying to force her to go through Alcoholics Anonymous before considering allowing her to regain custody of the children.

Now, I can't say that I agree with or condone her original actions. But I greatly respect her compensatory actions. She's completed her drug treatment and has gone back before the judge. She has fought ceaselessly to regain her children. To her opponents, whom she is continuing to battle over the requirement that she go to Alcoholics Anonymous, she says (and I paraphrase), "I will not go to AA. I don't agree with their religious beliefs. Step three in the program calls for turning your life and addiction over to God, but I tell you, no one other than me got myself into this, and no one but me will get me out. And I won't be dishonest to myself by saying anything differently on the matter.

To those who say, 'How can she think she deserves her children back?' I say, 'I don't teach my children that making a mistake means you roll over and die. Anyone who wants to send that message to children, well *frowns and shrugs*. When you make a mistake, you get back up and you go on. And that is what I try to teach my children.'"

I salute you, Paula. And I agree with you on both your points. I'm glad that you have taken action yourself to correct your alcohol problems. But you are very right. When did we as a nation decide that religion is the best way to rehabilitate a person?

Enforcing religious conversion is not the right or privilege of the state. I would have thought that the US had banned such judiciary mandates as archiac remnants from the Scarlet Letter days when we opted for separation of church and state. Drug counselling, yes; but telling a person to turn to a God that is not their God?

6:25 pm - 12.08.02
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