My Two Dads

Today being Father's Day, I wanted to pay tribute to both my dads.

Les Neves, my step-dad

An unhappy divorce left its mark on my family, but without it, we would have never been blessed with my step-father who made all seven of us his own.  W. Leslie Neves is the "Daddy" of my childhood.  I was four when he and my mother wed.  Gentle, soft-spoken, loving and self-sacrificing, he was the great intercessor whenever I would knock heads with my mother as teenagers are wont to do.  He could always restore peace to our home.

A subset of our family, 1972

Les never owned anything he would not sacrifice for my mother or us children.  After they wed, more were added.  Ultimately, he counted twelve children his own.  He hated his job at the IRS but sacrificed his dreams for us: the law school he had to abandon to care for us, his writing career that always got pushed back for something else.  But most dearly, he sacrificed himself, for his needs always came lowest and last.  We lost him in 1999 to cancer and he has been sorely missed.

Glen Tarbet and my step-mom of 15 years, Ann.

Ironically, Glen F. Tarbet, my biological father, is the "Dad" of my adulthood.  Seven hundred miles of desert separated him from six of his seven children, but he performed miracles stretching the dollars to suit the distance at least twice a year.  My childhood is filled with fourteen-hour treks across the great deserts of the Intermountain West, Los Angelas to Salt Lake City and back again.  We would always fist-pump drivers of the big rigs we passed who would obligingly blow their big horns for us.  I can just imagine the sight: six kids piled into a long-finned station wagon, the windows rolled down, the wind ruffling through my sisters' long hair,  the tailgate window hosting two pair of dirty bare feet, each urchin with their nose stuck in a book.

It's a Pleasure to Be of Use

I try to get up to The Woodlands at least every couple of days to visit with my elderly friend.  She is currently in a skilled nursing facility recovering from a broken patella, and the subsequent surgery to repair it.  We (me, Marjorie, and Leslie, her roommate) visit, I jabber mindlessly hoping that they may find something I say mildly entertaining.  I ask them how they're doing and about their physical therapy.  Marjorie tells me if she needs anything, like her clothes collected and laundered. Then, I break out a book and read.  Currently, we are reading Marjorie's Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, and book of Leslie's called Visions in the Night, which is about messages God sends to us.  Dallas goes with me more often than not, we usually stay at least an hour (if not two) and we come away feeling like we did something worthwhile that day.

Today, after I got home from work, I decided that I really needed to go and see Marjorie because, due to my starting my new job and a trip up to College Station for Lynda's baby shower, it had been the better part of a week since we had last visited her.  Today being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Dallas was off work, so we gave in to my niggling conscience and headed out to see Marjorie.  We didn't get very far.

SDL: Worthless Women and the Men Who Make Them, My response(s)

Again, Dan Pearce of Single Dad Laughing has written a killer post that hits home with a lot of people.  The comments posted in response are truly eye-opening and even distressing.  Read Worthless Women and the Men Who Make Them here.  Below are two responses I made, one on the blog site, and the other to my family Google Group (including parents, siblings, grown children, etc).

To the blogosphere:

Great column, Dan, as usual. I definitely am going to forward this to my guys, and blog about it and share it. It really, really, really needs to be said. 

However, I do see one glaring omission. You have concentrated on many things under the umbrella of 'media', but I think television needs a big section of its own. Every day people allow into their homes shows like 2 & 1/2 Men, Big Bang Theory, According to Jim, and countless others. The tradition is carried back to the inception of TV, with George Burns & Gracie Allen, I Love Lucy and All in the Family. 

Both men and women watch and laugh at these shows which scream WOMEN ARE INADEQUATE. In 2&1/2 Men, the two female characters are 1) a *****y ex-wife and 2) a obsessed stalker. Both of these are grotesques at which the audience laughs hysterically because they 'identify' with them. The closest to real they get is the biker housekeeper, but even she is a caricature with very little depth. 

In Big Bang Theory, the only permanent woman character is a buxom beauty always scantily or tightly clad over whom the other four male characters constantly drool. Her job is to walk on stage, say something witty, get the guys going, and then leave so they can make lewd comments or jokes about her. Can you see that character actually appearing in an entire episode in loose comfy sweats and her hair in a ponytail? Let's get real! 

TV is so insidious because too often it dictates acceptable societal norms, and these sitcoms and those like it preach that it's really cool to mock women---just about as cool as it is to lust after the fake stuff. And, worst of all, it teaches *women* that this is the sum total of their worth or their lack of it. We need to stop piping this sewage into our homes wholesale. We need to stop blithely exposing our children to it and indoctrinating them from birth. 

Don't even get me started on Glee. 

Oh, and, thanks for my word of the day. I'm not certain I can even pronounce pulchritude, but it's an absolute keeper.

To my family:

Okay. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak up because this really hits home with me, especially the last comment on the first page and the replies to it. 

Dan's blog today talks about the way men send messages to women. It has been said time and again and far more profoundly by our apostles and prophets, but it can never be said enough. Read it. Be honest with yourselves and own up that you do it. 

I know the post is about ogling women, but the principle is the same when it comes to mocking them. Admit that you make jokes about the women in your lives and their perceived inadequacies, whether physical or otherwise, and open your eyes to the harm it does to them. I am going to stick out my neck and say, I truly, truly, truly hate it. To be mocked by a perfect stranger is nothing. To be be made the brunt of jokes by people one loves and respects is crushing, especially when it regards something you have really put yourself into. To actually work up the courage to ask them to stop and then be completely ignored is devastating. 

I don't care how hilarious or absurd something seems. I don't care how clever are the pithy remarks or how much people laugh at them. The person mocked will probably laugh to make a good show of it, but the barb sticks and worms its way under their skin. The fact that that person trusts and loves those laughing makes the burn that much deeper. Let's try offering up sincere spontaneous praise to the women in our lives---to the people in our lives, especially those we love and cherish. I know we don't want our loved ones skulking around us like an abused dog trying to avoid another beating, but how can those people believe we do love and cherish them if they feel they are treated as such? 

I know it's 'our way', but it is not all harmless fun. Perhaps we could take a little detour from the beaten path for a while and see how that suits.

Guys, build up the women in your lives, especially your daughters. Keep them on the pedestal where they belong. There will be influences enough to knock them off it. You be the one to restore them and teach them how they should expect to be treated. What you say and how you treat them does stick, especially in your daughters. So many of the comments on Dan's post today repeat time and again how their fathers were the ones who planted the seeds of self-worthlessness in them. When little girls grow up with their father's disapproval ingrained in them, (even in jest) no amount of husbandly support will ever completely obliterate it---if they're fortunate enough to find such a husband, rather than be drawn to more of the same. 

Just my two cents. I guess this post really probed a tender spot. Or, perhaps this is just a really good opportunity to voice some things that have been on my mind of late.

Please share.  Please speak out.  Please be an instrument of change.  You might be surprised at how large your sphere of influence may be.