A Letter to a Father Who Wrote to Victoria's Secret, from a Mother

I will go ahead and throw out there right away that I am not a proponent for 13-year old girls to wear lace thongs that say, "Call Me" on them.

However, I had mixed feelings when I read the "Letter to Victoria's Secret from a Father" that has been getting a lot of publicity lately. Don't get me wrong, I agree with so much of what he is saying.

YES, it is sad that our society continues to sexualize younger and younger girls.
YES, our daughters should be focused on more important issues and thinking about careers and philanthropy and whatnot.
YES, I hope girls like Blakely don't find their self-worth in their underwear choices.

But as a parent, albeit a new one, I refuse to place the blame for how this next generation turns out on Victoria's Secret. It is NOT Victoria's Secret's job to raise my child. It is NOT their job to influence her clothing choices, her morals, or certainly not her life choices.

I've noticed more and more that this generation of parents have become "facilitators" of their children's upbringings. They've become "supervisors," who dictate how everyone else needs to make sure their kid turns out right.

We want to tell teachers how to teach, what to teach, what NOT to teach...
We want schools to teach sex ed... to not teach sex ed... to teach abstinence only sex ed...
We want sports leagues to give our kids participation trophies, so we don't have to tell them that they PROBABLY won't grow up to be an NBA superstar...
And we want stores, like Victoria's Secret, to base their offering around shaping our kid's morals, behavior, and taste in clothing, so we don't have to.

Does it suck that now as parents we're going to have to navigate another struggle in raising good, moral, Godly kids? Yup. Will I do my best to tackle this issue with honesty and openness, with or without Victoria's Secret's help? Yup.

Because I worked for Bath & Body Works (owned by the same company as Victoria's Secret), I KNOW that they have done huge amounts of research, and if they are making this line, they absolutely have reason to believe that it will sell, resulting in big profits. I'm not going to hold a for-profit company  at fault for making business decisions that will result in profit.

So what will I do if Blakely asks me to go to Victoria's Secret this side of high school? *Gulp*... I will talk to her. I will be open and honest with her about my thoughts, and I hope that I've raised her to do the same. If she can give me a compelling reason that she wants Victoria's Secret underwear, and she wants to use her own money to buy them... I will consider it. I will talk through it with her. I will choose my battles, and I will instill morals through my behavior and a relationship with God, not by trying to rip every possible bad choice out of her grasp.

If we're not going to give Victoria's Secret credit for our kids turning out well, we can't give them credit for them turning out poorly either.

When the Dryer is Broken in the Promised Land

So many of you know that this past weekend was a HUGE milestone for the Morrisons in their church planting journey - we FINALLY moved to Normal!

We had about 10 people (more including kids!) come out and help us move, which was a HUGE blessing. A lot of those people truly made personal sacrifices to be there... we have such, such cool family and friends. :-) The first night in the house, Nate and I sat at the kitchen table and he prayed, thanking God for the blessing of our house and the calling on our lives. It was honestly one of the best little moments of my whole life. We were HERE!

But then... the promised land began to fall apart. Sunday morning, we noticed some water on the floor downstairs. Sunday evening I realized that the load of laundry I had washed (causing water to get on the floor), wouldn't dry no matter how long/how many times I ran it in the dryer. By Monday night, we realized that every time the water was run, the drains downstairs were backing up. EVERY TIME. Luckily, as part of our purchase agreement, we negotiated that the seller would pay for a home warranty, so we called our home warranty company to get a plumber to come out. They agreed to make it an "emergency" status, but lo and behold, 24 hours later we still didn't have a plumber for the service call. They gave us the option to call plumbers on our own, but we'd have to pay the full amount up front and be reimbursed in a few weeks. Oh, and then Sears lost my dishwasher. LOST my dishwasher. Which I guess didn't REALLY matter because I couldn't run the water for it anyway.

Wednesday I texted my husband and said, "If Gary Busey and Lindsay Lohan had a baby... that is me today mentally and emotionally." (Luckily for both us, our sense of humor is the last faculty to leave us)

And ya, those things stink... and Normal didn't feel like "home" yet... but why the violent/emotional reaction on my part? I think it's because Normal was our promised land.

• The days when my alarm would go off at 4:50
• The days when I would see Blakely for 15 minutes the whole day
• The days when I worked all day and then came home and worked all day on church stuff
• The days when I couldn't find my work shoes because my dear mother cleans obsessively and had "put them away"
• The days of house showings trying to find renters - packing our crap up in our car so our 720 square foot house looked more "open" if that's even possible...

It was a beast and there were many, "We were better of in Egypt" land between moments... but that's what they were - moments in the land between. In transition. In flux. In between. Those days I would say, "It won't be forever! Some day we will be right where God has for us." That thought woke me up, put me to bed, and kept the grain of sanity that I had.

So while the issues we were having probably didn't warrant the full Busey-Lohan meltdown that I had... It was in the promised land! THINGS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER IN THE PROMISED LAND. MY DRYER WAS SUPPOSED TO WORK IN IN THE PROMISED LAND! This is what I waited for... this is what I worked for...

But the more I grow in faith... the more I realize that everything we experience until Heaven is the land between. It's dangerous to look at any place, any calling, even if it's from God as "the promised land"... God's called us to be movers and shakers for his will, and I think the Busey-Lohan Promised Land meltdown of 2013 was just God's way of reminding me that my personal comfort never was and never is His will. His hope and His call isn't in a house or a city or even a church, and He won't let me sit back and say, "I made it"... Ever!

So the flooded water is cleaned up, the plumbing is fixed, the dryer is fixed, and Sears knows exactly where they can put the dishwasher when they find it (hint: it's not in my house...), so it's quiet again in the Promised Land... or should I say... the land between.

Death of a Coward

I'm scared of a lot of things - heights, losing loved ones, large bugs/spiders - and while I wouldn't necessarily call it a "fear," I also have a strange aversion to raw meat.

But I'm not a coward.

I will draw the distinction for you... EVERYONE is afraid... scared... fearful. No matter how strong your faith is, the human side of all of us is terrified of something. Usually more than one thing. And usually something that we have to face every day. Cowards are the people who allow other people to be hurt because of their fears.

You might be thinking of people who are faced with a split second decision of whether to take a bullet for someone else and decide not to, but the decision of whether to be a coward or not is much less dramatic and much more widespread.

My last boss was a great example of a coward. I don't really feel bad saying that because I have significant amounts of evidence that was the case. He would consistently find someone to blame for anything that might be perceived as negative on his behalf. In fact, we had a joke about not missing meetings, because you would most certainly be blamed for something in your absence. The fact was, he was scared of being inadequate. He was a coward because he let him fear allow him to blame and manipulate others.

Sometimes being a coward means NOT taking action. Not standing up for someone who is being blamed or made fun of or ridiculed. And how do we justify this? "Oh, it's one of those political things..." You hear it in churches, workplaces, even families. Whenever someone doesn't want to do what should be done it's "politics." This literally drives me crazy. I refuse to be a part of the political game, which anyone who knows me can tell you (and a few people who don't know me, but once witnessed me telling a Senior Vice President of our company that he needed to "get out of my face" when he tried to intimidate me). I would contend that "politics" is a code for "we're keeping the status quo, for our own benefit." And if rising in the ranks and not rocking the boat are your objective, by all means, fall into the "politics" of your organization. But I can tell you that when I left my last job, the CEO requested to meet with me, wanted MY feedback on the organization, to thank me for my work and find out if there was a way I would stay.

Everyone is scared of commitment. Cowards cheat.
Everyone is scared to be a parent. Cowards leave.
Everyone is scared of losing their job. Cowards place blame.

Embrace your fears, give them to God, and let your coward die.

Too Nice.

A couple weeks before Nate and I started dating, I was on the phone with him while I was at a friend's house. She motioned for my attention. I covered the mouthpiece. She asked me, "Do you like him?!"

"Who?" I said. "Nate?! No! He's too nice!"

I later found out my phone covering skills were subpar, and that Nate heard all of that conversation, which he still likes to remind me of occasionally to this day.

Nate being "too nice" has been an issue in our relationship more times than I can count. When I'm trying to get out the door at Starbucks and he's trying to set up a time to give the barista our copy of the movie "Role Models" because "you just gotta see it, man!" When he got totally ripped off buying his car, because he believes the best in people. One of my favorite "too nice" moments was when a young man stopped us outside Walmart and asked if we'd contribute to his sports team. He had a bucket with some change and few dollar bills, and a generic looking poster with some clipart on it. Nate said, "Oh man... I only have a $10..." He glanced at it for a minute and handed it to the young man. "Thanks man!" the guy said, walking in the store. Nate took a few more steps toward our car, pondering the odd scenario. He looked at me and said, "That guy's going to buy crack with my money, isn't he?"

"Almost definitely," I responded.

But what I love about Nate is that he shrugged, and then chuckled.

In more serious times, I've angrily told him "WHY are you still helping those people? WHY do you think that this time will be anything different, when they've let you down so many times in the past?"

Nate looked at me when I said that, and said simply, "It's okay that I get let down... I will keep trying and keep helping and if that also means I keep getting let down... that's fine. Because maybe, one these times, I won't get let down."

I was probably right when I said that Nate was "too nice," but I hope everyone someday has someone "too nice" on their side. Christmas is a great time to go above and beyond... forgive and forget... and be "too nice" to someone who doesn't deserve it. I've been blessed to know and love many "too nice" people, who inspire me every day to be a little bit nicer.  :-) I'd challenge you this holiday season - and moving forward - to allow yourself to risk your own personal disappointment or sadness, in order to be "too nice" to someone who you usually aren't. Maybe you'll be let down... but maybe you won't.

Best Mom Contest

I have been very careful to not say, "When I'm a Mom, I will always..." or "When I'm a Mom, I will never..." because I had enough sense to know that huge generalizations don't have a great success rate. For example, I really wanted to have a natural, drug-free labor and childbirth. Until, of course, I was actually in labor. To be fair, I was induced with Pitocin and made it until about two hours before delivering, before my husband (who I had thrown up on and told pretty intensely that 'we are not talking during contractions anymore') and the nursing staff convinced me to get the epidural when I was vomiting in pain and my BP reached 180/110. I knew another person who said she was "devastated" that she couldn't deliver drug-free. I, on the other hand, had the nursing staff cracking up when I said, "What is this crap about the joy of natural childbirth? I'm getting one of these EVERY time I have a baby!" But nagging at the back of my head was the thought that maybe I could have made it without the drugs. That maybe I would have been a better mom if I would have.

And let's just be honest fellow Moms - we don't exactly make it easy on each other. For example, my daughter wears cloth diapers, so I am by default a better mom than anyone whose child is in disposables. ;-) I'm totally joking, but isn't that what it feels like sometimes? One mom says, "I breastfed my child for a year" and another mom chimes in and says, "Oh, that's nice... I did two years... like the World Health Organization recommends." And then another mom is like, "Oh, you might have seen me on the cover of Time magazine breastfeeding my kid before his little league game." It makes sense then why everything seems like a contest.



My mom was a young mom, and I know she felt a ton of the pressures of being a good mom and doing things just so. One of her best friends was an older Mom, though her daughter was the same age as MacKenzie - her name is Paula, and she is seriously one of the coolest people ever. Paula and my mom led MacKenzie and Kate's Girl Scout troop, and when my mom would fret over this or that, Paula would smile and say, "Our only job in raising kids is to make well-adjusted adults." Paula always encouraged Kate to dream big. Kate was always incredibly creative, sometimes not fully dressed when it might have been appropriate, and told people in Kindergarten that when she grew up, her goal was to "be Chinese." Everyone laughed, but now Kate is studying Asian Studies in college and has done semesters abroad in Asia and Europe. She's a pretty darn well-adjusted adult! I try to remember Paula's mantra and take being a Mom both terribly seriously and not seriously at all... at the same time. In the Best Mom Contest... let's all help each other win.

At the end of the day, it's all pretty petty. I read this awesome, awesome blog awhile back about how moms should stop nit-picking each other over silly personal choices and look out for children who ACTUALLY do not have loving and caring parents in their lives. It was beautifully written and a great reminder that cloth-diapered, disposable-diapered, breastfed, formula-fed, epidural, natural labor... we're all doing the best we can, and at the end of the day all we can do is try our best and be a Godly example for our children.

Raising the Stakes

It's probably a fundamental flaw in my personality, but I can make a bet or a contest out of just about anything. So can my dad. So unfortunately, most of our lovely family outings turn into some kind of blood sport. Mom's idea to pick apples and stroll through the orchard became "Race you to the end of this row of apple trees," and Monopoly became... well, let's just say that we don't play Monopoly anymore. And my husband and mother will drive us crazy to no end when they won't buy into our contests/competitions/bets. It's not always a bad thing, though, to be a person who shines when the stakes are raised.

I feel like, aside from God's calling, our decision to help plant the church in Normal has been a "raising of the stakes," of sorts. I'm not comparing it to one of my goofy bets or made up competitions, but it is an opportunity to do more... to give more, to serve more... to invest so much that we just can't afford to fail. And that's a scary feeling. Usually when you push your chips to the center and say, "I'm all in," it's a matter of a few agonizing seconds to find out the result, but it in this case, it will be over a year... and then years after that!

And even though I love the pressure, I've had my moments. When after our initial investment in the project, I sat at the computer, agonizing over financials and Nate said, "Are you worried?" and I hissed in response, "I just wrote a check that depletes a huge chunk of our savings to a church that only exists in our imagination! And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm about five months pregnant. We should all be a little worried!" - Not my best moment.



But I can tell you, God has provided through and through. Unlike a game of poker, when you're "all in" for God, you are assured in your bet. I can't explain it to you, because it doesn't make sense. You can't understand it... you just have to live it. So, go all in for God. Give more, serve more, invest everything you have in God's call for your life. When you raise the stakes for God, He will honor that... and you'll work harder on your end to accomplish the vision. :-)

On-the-job Training

Every time I've started a new job, I've really wanted to dive right in. It's just part of my personality. I don't want to sit and watch 500 tutorials... I just want to dig in and get things done. Never has this passion for on-the-job training served me better than on my recent journey into parenthood.

Blakely Grace Morrison entered the world at 3:50 pm on September 20. When they put her on my chest... the moment that I had dreamed and fantasized about for nine months (and really, even before that)... I panicked. I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't even admit that. I should say that it was love at first sight and I cried delicate tears of joy (that's what my husband did), but that's not what happened. They put her on me, and she was like a perfect, tiny little stranger laying there... a tiny little stranger whose college will easily cost me six figures in 18 years. But while I don't know if I could call that moment love at first sight, I did feel an incredibly strong urge and dedication to care for her in the very best way possible. When Nate asked if he should stay with me or follow Blakely to the nursery, I urged him to follow Blakely and not let her out of his sight.




Over the past two weeks, my love for her has grown every single day, and my days have been full of on-the-job training. The first night we were home from the hospital, she woke up every 15 mins. Literally. And if SHE didn't wake up, my husband would jolt up with this crazy Vietnam flashback PTSD-type reaction to imagined crying. Within a few days, we had given up on the recommended bassinet, opting to let her sleep in her little glider, and Nate could swaddle her so tight that Houdini couldn't get out of that receiving blanket. I've done some bizarre things, and most of my daily tasks, while using my electric breast pump - chatted on Facebook, eaten a grilled cheese sandwich, talked on the phone... And I've been topless in several places that I would never have imagined myself topless, outside of a couple of weird pregnancy dreams (What? You know you had them too if you've been pregnant), including church and the back of our car. I've had every type of bodily fluid on me, probably at the same time, and been strangely okay with it. I've already moved from the differentiation between burp rags, washcloths, clothes, blankets, and wipes to "does this wipe stuff off?" If yes, proceed. I went from being certain that I wouldn't leave the house with Blakely until her first round of vaccinations at two months, to taking her to church at three days old. That, folks, is called on-the-job training.

Even though I read books, watched videos, and took Lamaze class... nothing can really prepare you for the experience of parenthood. I'm just starting... but I already love the on-the-job training. :-)