We are approaching the midpoint of a season meant to focus on peace and preparation, yet the moment my children get in the van in the school pickup line, they are at each other’s throats. I lose my temper quickly these days, thanks in part to cyclic hormones, in part to the busy-ness of the…
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Frozen Is Taking Over My Life
Frozen is taking over my life. Which I suppose should not be a surprise, considering that a) I have a daughter, and b) we just visited Disney World. We were kind of late to the Frozen party. We took the kids to see it in the theater and we thought it was a great movie.…
Read MoreThe Way We Talk To Each Other Matters
In the spring and early summer of 1994, I was a sophomore in college. I spent the late semester gnashing my teeth about who got which solo parts in the orchestra, and my summer working on the farm. I was aware enough of the world to know something awful was going on in a country…
Read MoreBirth Control Really Isn’t Health Care In The First Place
It is no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I am a not a fan of birth control. I think it’s unconscionable that women have been expected to suppress or perhaps even damage a healthy, normal part of who they are in the interest of unrestricted sex. Contraception has led to an expectation…
Read More12 Years A Slave
There are times when you walk through the world filled with awe and joy and gratitude, aware of the wonder, the beauty, the innate goodness of all that exists on earth. Other times it’s like a veil is ripped from your eyes, revealing the brokenness of the world in all its heartbreaking clarity. A brokenness…
Read MoreItching For A Fight (a 7QT post)
___1___ It began Tuesday morning, when I pulled into a spot at the public library twenty minutes before it opened. I let Michael get in the driver’s seat and play with all those fun controls while we waited. We were not the only people killing time between school dropoff and library opening time. There were…
Read MoreBig Boys, crazy hair, and sex ed (a 7QT post)
___1___ We had a friend over for dinner last weekend, and as we were asking her about her studies and her plans for the future, Alex sat across from her shaking his head. “This is why I don’t want to grow up,” he said. “There’s too much work.” ___2___ This reminds me of what I…
Read MoreParenting In Fear
Last week I read a news story that really disturbed me. It was about a woman who was arrested after leaving her kids in a vehicle while she shopped for a phone. The story is really short (you can read it here), and there aren’t many details given. But here were the things that I…
Read MoreChild Abuse, Part 2: Personal Defense
A commenter once took issue with a post I wrote about parents’ responsibility to arm their children against the threat of child abuse by teaching children about their dignity as human beings, and in particular the dignity of the human body. This person took issue with the idea that such concepts can provide any protection against predators.…
Read MoreChild Abuse in the Church: A Parent’s Response, Part 1
When I was twelve years old, a teenage kid working the ticket booth at the movie theater told me I could pass for seventeen. I developed early and I had the curves to attract attention. But although I may have looked older than some of my peers, emotionally I was far behind them. I was…
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Kathleen M. Basi 