Being a parent to grown-up kids

Be there for emergencies, share leisure time together

There are two different things I'd like to convey with this blog post:

Staying together for the kids

A) If you have young children, and your marriage isn't great and you feel that the only reason you are staying together is "for the kids" then stick with that idea for now. As your kids get older, especially after they reach their 20s, you'll find that you and your spouse have more time for each other again and the closeness you originally had can re-emerge. Also, if a lot of your kids move out within a short period of time, consider getting a dog, as it will keep the activity level up in the house, and make you less lonely.


Benefits of grown-up offspring

B) If you think that you'll be done raising your kids once they reach 18 or 20 years old, think again. We have 2 boys and 2 girls all in their early twenties. Both of the girls have called us screaming and crying in the middle of the night within the past year, one that ran into an abusive taxi driver who abandoned her on the side of Highway 404, and the other was physically assaulted by her now ex-boyfriend. Each of these instances meant running out the door and driving at high speed in the middle of the night to the location where the daughter was ... very scary both times.

With our sons, there was a moment when one of them was 15 or so and he really really needed my encouraging words and hug, and it frightens me to think of how he would have felt had I not been there to show him the love and support he deserved (he is a fantastic young man).

Regarding our other son, I can't think of any instance where I have had to come to his rescue, emotionally or otherwise, however with him that is not the story. This son and I go to concerts together and play guitar / jam quite frequently, so even though he may not have needed me around as much as the others, the key is we enjoy spending time together and my quality of life is so much higher because of the activities we share an interest in.


In summary, if you feel you are staying together "for the kids," that may be a better idea than you can understand at this stage in your marriage, so don't be ashamed of that, just be loving to your children and kind and respectful to your spouse.

Your kids will soon be grown-ups, and if you show them the love and respect they all deserve, then you will have raised your future best friends, and there's no greater reward or feeling in life.

Except maybe Grandchildren, though we're not there yet...

Mary Spencer fights the good fight, mentors Cape Croker kids

If there's anything I admire in this world, it's a gal who knows her roots and honours her father by continuing his mission, and if she can throw a mean right hook, well, that's pretty cool too!

Here is a story about Canadian Olympic gold medal hopeful Mary Spencer who regularly takes time out from her busy life to travel many hours to Cape Croker reserve near Wiarton, Ontario, where she hangs with the kids, brings boxing equipment and generally continues the benign tradition of her dad, who was Ojibway and was the United Church minister on the reserve.


By Randy Starkman
TheStar.com Olympic Sports Reporter


Mary Spencer is a true freedom fighter

WIARTON, ONT.—For Canadian gold medal hopeful Mary Spencer, the road to the 2012 London Olympics runs right through the Cape Croker Indian Reserve.

The three-time world champion, in heavy training for the Olympic debut of women’s boxing next summer, somehow finds the time to drive 10 hours here and back from Windsor — at least once a month — to hang out with “her kids” on the reserve.

On a recent visit, one perfect summer’s day, Spencer and the native children she mentors go out for a run, paddle canoes, play volleyball and tuck into a barbecue together. It’s as though Christmas has come early to Cape Croker, and not just because the champ has brought four cartons of new boxing gear.

From the moment she arrives, Spencer draws the kids like a magnet. They crowd around, vying for attention, peals of laughter echoing along the shores of Georgian Bay. The youngest literally hang off her as they splash in the water.

“I’m a leech!” cries Breanna Watkinson, who attaches herself to Spencer during a swim. But they all seem to get some quiet time with her, too, teens and younger ones alike, including 8-year-old Halle Johnston, who skips rocks with Spencer as they wait for the canoeing to commence.

Spencer asks Johnston about school: “I like it, but there’s bad kids there. They call me names.”

“But you don’t listen to them, do you?”

The visits have an extra meaning for Spencer because her father, Cliff, who is Ojibway, was a United Church minister at Cape Croker when Mary was younger.

“I feel like this is my own version of it, that I can come out and hang out with the kids and be there for them if they need advice or show them stuff, teach them stuff,” she says. “It’s almost the same thing. That’s the way I kind of see it, a ministry of sorts.”

A ministry it may be, but there is no preaching. Mary has an easy rapport with the children, many of whom she’s known for years.

“Do you ever swear?” Daisy Jones asks as they come out of the water.

“No,” says Spencer

“I don’t believe you,” says Jones. “You said the word sh-ts.”

“That’s because you guys were trying to drown me,” laughs Spencer.

While the visits are exhausting — for all involved — Spencer says she easily gets back just as much as she gives. Spending time at the reserve replenishes her spirit in a way little else can.

“I think about when I was a kid . . . little things that somebody probably didn’t think would make a big impression on me, but it did,” she said. “So, I’m hoping these are the kinds of days that these kids are going to remember. . . . They’re having a lot of fun while doing things that are good for them.”

Spencer says her obvious bond with the young ones here comes naturally.

“Coming back to Cape Croker is special for me just because some of these kids are my cousins, their parents knew my parents or know me. I feel like I’m at home when I’m here.”

It’s all a far cry from Spencer in the ring, a fearsome opponent who has been known to send a message with more than her fists. She won her third world title by dismantling reigning world champion Jinzi Li of China last fall in the Barbados 14-2 in the final — a feat made more impressive by the fact she moved up in weight class from 66 to 75 kilos, because there are only three women’s Olympic divisions.

Rather than go out and celebrate, Spencer had a plan. She made sure she woke up first thing the next morning to go for a run around the hotel complex where the athletes were staying, hoping opponents would see her.

“My whole reasoning for that is, I want them when they get in the ring with me to be okay with losing to me, to be okay with giving up when they should be pushing harder,” she told the Star at the time. “I want them to think I’m supposed to win.”

To the other boxers, Spencer is simply the reigning world champ and the one to beat. But there is another part of her identity she would like the world to know about.

“I remember every time I used to represent a native team, whether it was a basketball team or a volleyball team, there was just that sense of pride,” she says. “I think other native athletes need to feel that sense of pride when they see me competing, the same way other Canadians do. There should be something special for aboriginal Canadians.”




That something special is evident to 8-year-old Halle, who was on the receiving end of the pep talk about bullies at school. What’s so special about the boxer’s visits to Cape Croker?

“She’s fun, she’s cool and she’s awesome,” says Halle.

Jennifer Johnston, Halle’s mom, says what Spencer provides, apart from the laughs and chats, is inspiration.

“The kids really love her. I see a huge difference in the kids that do go. She’s a good inspiration to the children here. They look forward to having her,” she says. “Every month, they make sure they ask when she’s coming and they’re waiting for her, they’re waiting at the door with open arms and great big ‘I love you’s.’ ”

The boxer is slowly drawing more kids out to the group. On this day, 5-year-old Madeline Linklater turns up because she wants to meet Spencer after seeing her featured on TSN. She shyly hands Spencer a note and picture she has made in a handmade envelope. It wishes her good luck at the Olympics and shows a podium with a medal and boxing gloves.

Spencer keeps it real with the kids with an easy laugh and a self-deprecating sense of humour. They talk about anything and everything.

Some of the kids struggle with motivation and get into trouble, something that Spencer can definitely relate to having grown up in a housing project in Windsor. She’s reluctant to delve into her misspent youth too deeply, but admits she skipped more classes than she ever attended and even failed gym.

Her transformation happened the moment she stepped into a boxing ring.

“Boxing for me was almost supernatural,” she said. “I started boxing and it was like ‘Okay, this is what you’re going to do and you’re going to make sure you become a champion.’ Day one, I wanted to be a champion. I was serious about being a champion.

“Some things took time to change, like my group of friends. That took a bit of time. . . . If you’re doing something right, other things just won’t mix with it. Eventually things just turned around.”

It’s a powerful story, one that takes on more resonance for the kids here as they realize she is just like them. They are following her every step of the way, and recently went to watch her fight in Wasaga Beach. The community has started talking about trying to raise money to send some of the children to the London Olympics, although they say it’s unlikely to happen.

But the kids will be in London, anyway, just as they were in Barbados when Spencer went up against the reigning world champion from China.

“As I was walking up to the ring, I was imagining that these kids were in the stands, that they were watching this fight and I needed to win because they needed to see me win, they needed to know that I was going to win,” Spencer says.

“It just carries that extra weight when you’re trying to reach out to someone or trying to do something. . . . I remember thinking about them going into that final, so of course it fuels the fire.”

As this day draws to a close, Spencer reluctantly pulls herself away from “her kids.” After they’ve all jumped off a concrete pier into the cool waters of Georgian Bay, the fighter prepares for the five-hour-plus drive back home to Windsor.

The young ones and teens, exhausted after being put through their paces, are loathe to see her go.

But they know she’ll be back.


Help Mary Spencer represent Canada in London's 2012 Olympics - Donate Today!

Brantford and the Yuya Joe blog

Those of you who know me and my music may wonder where the fascination with Brantford and Six Nations comes from. It is a deeply-rooted sentiment, only coming to fruition in recent months.

My dad is from Charlottetown, PEI, and my mom grew up in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Each of those towns is a magical memory and a living part of me, as my summers were spent in and around them. I used to spend time at the Tomlinson dairy farm in Arthurette, not far from Grand Falls, and in Prince Edward island my personal Echo Beach, my own Some Beach Somewhere is Brackley Beach, just north of the capital. Cavendish Beach and the Anne of Green Gables area are more well known, but Brackley offers miles of unspoiled ocean shoreline, completely open to the public and left with natural dunes.

I grew up in Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Kitchener and Burlington, Ontario, where my family moved when I was 8 and the town I spent my formative teen years in. We lived at 455 Maple Avenue, just around the corner from Joseph Brant Museum, which I visited many times, studying and memorizing all the exhibits, buying soapstone and postcards to carry the vibes home with me.




Six Nations Chiefs meeting in Brantford


The main thoroughfare in downtown Burlington is Brant Street, which was once the brightest street in North America at night, the primary hospital is Joseph Brant, so I grew up with his iconic legacy in my mind and soul and all around me.



Tom Longboat is a local legend in the Hamilton and Brantford areas, and people who know about his exploits still believe that Tom was one of the greatest athletes humanity has ever produced.








Then of course there is Robbie Robertson of The Band, whose Mom was from Six Nations. Robbie grew up in Toronto but he spent his childhood summers on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford with his mom's family, and the deep resonance of his music emanates from a cross pollination between the Toronto and USA sounds, and the soulful music of North America's Native Peoples.




Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson at The Band's Last Waltz concert





In the Spring of 2011 I helped my dad and stepmom move from Burlington to Brantford, and as I already had several cousins living there, it has now joined Burlington, Grand Falls, Charlottetown and Orillia (where my mom has lived for the past 25 years) as my family "hometowns."

If you know of any Brantford-area or Six Nations blogs I can add here, please make suggestions in the comments section below.

Peace 2 All.

Yuya Joe

Buddhism and Ecology; WHY Buddha touched our Earth

Engaged Buddhism means the activities of daily life combined with the practice of mindfulness - Thich Nhat Hanh

by John Slaney and David Loy, HuffPost Green

In one of Buddhism's iconic images, Gautama Buddha sits in meditation with his left palm upright on his lap, while his right hand touches the earth. Demonic forces have tried to unseat him, because their king, Mara, claims that place under the bodhi tree. As they proclaim their leader's powers, Mara demands that Gautama produce a witness to confirm his spiritual awakening. The Buddha simply touches the earth with his right hand, and the Earth itself immediately responds: "I am your witness." Mara and his minions vanish. The morning star appears in the sky. This moment of supreme enlightenment is the central experience from which the whole of the Buddhist tradition unfolds.

The great 20th-century Vedantin, Ramana Maharshi said that the Earth is in a constant state of dhyana. The Buddha's earth-witness mudra (hand position) is a beautiful example of "embodied cognition." His posture and gesture embody unshakeable self-realization. He does not ask heavenly beings for assistance. Instead, without using any words, the Buddha calls on the Earth to bear witness.

The Earth has observed much more than the Buddha's awakening. For the last 3 billion years the Earth has borne witness to the evolution of its innumerable life-forms, from unicellular creatures to the extraordinary diversity and complexity of plant and animal life that flourishes today. We not only observe this multiplicity, we are part of it -- even as our species continues to damage it. Many biologists predict that half the Earth's plant and animal species could disappear by the end of this century, on the current growth trajectories of human population, economy and pollution. This sobering fact reminds us that global warming is the primary, but not the only, extraordinary ecological crisis confronting us today.

Has Mara taken a new form today -- as our own species? Just as Mara claimed the Buddha's sitting-place as his own, Homo sapiens today claims, in effect, that the only really important species is itself. All other species have meaning and value only insofar as they serve our purposes. Indeed, powerful elements of our economic system (notably Big Oil and its enablers) seem to have relocated to the state of "zero empathy," a characteristic of psychopathic or narcissistic personalities.

The Earth community has a self-emergent, interdependent, cooperative nature. We humans have no substance or reality that is separate from this community. Thich Nhat Hanh refers to this as our "inter-being": we and other species "inter-are." If we base our life and conduct on this truth, we transcend the notion that Buddhist practice takes place within a religious framework that promotes only our own individual awakening. We realize the importance of integrating the practice of mindfulness into the activities of daily life. And if we really consider Mother Earth as an integral community and a witness of enlightenment, don't we have a responsibility to protect her through mindful "sacred activism"?

This year the U.S. president will determine whether or not to approve a proposed pipeline, which will extend from the "great American carbon bomb" of the Alberta Tar Sands to the Texas oil refineries. The implications are enormous. The devastation that would result from processing and burning even half the Tar Sands oil is literally incalculable: the resulting increase in atmospheric carbon would trigger "tipping points" for runaway global warming. Our best climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, states that if this project alone goes ahead, it will be "game over" for the Earth's climate. This is a challenge we cannot evade. It is crucial for Buddhists to join forces with other concerned people in creative and resolute opposition to this potentially fatal new folly.

As the Buddha's enlightenment reminds us, our awakening too is linked to the Earth. The Earth bore witness to the Buddha, and now the Earth needs us to bear witness -- to its dhyana, its steadfastness, the matrix of support it continually provides for living beings. New types of bodhisattvas -- "ecosattvas" -- are needed, who combine the practice of self-transformation with devotion to social and ecological transformation. Yes, we need to write letters and emails to the President, hopefully to influence his decision. But we may also need to consider other strategies if such appeals are ignored, such as nonviolent civil disobedience. That's because this decision isn't just about a financial debt ceiling. This is about the Earth's carbon ceiling. This is about humanity's survival ceiling. As the Earth is our witness.

John Stanley & David Loy are part of the Eco-Buddhism Project.

HuffPost: Civil Disobedience Key To Climate Change Action?

On Dec. 19, 2008, a 27-year-old man named Tim DeChristopher, troubled by American energy policy and its contribution to global warming, broke the law.

He did so by attending a federal auction in Utah, where energy developers were bidding on parcels of Utah wildland that the Bush administration had made available for oil and gas development. DeChristopher bid aggressively, driving up the price of some parcels and winning 14 of his own -- some 22,000 acres in all -- to the tune of $1.8 million. He had no means to pay.

"I understand that prison is a very horrible place," DeChristopher told me last fall, when I had a chance to sit down with him for a lengthy interview. "But I've been scared for my future for a long time. And I think the scariest thing that I see is staying on the path that we're on right now. Obedience, to me, is much scarier than going to prison."

He faced 10 years and some $750,000 in fines.

On Tuesday, the now 29-year-old DeChristopher, who was convicted in March of two felonies associated with his exploits, was sentenced to two years in prison and was promptly taken into custody. He also faces $10,000 in fines.

The judge had barred DeChristopher's defense team from explaining to the jury why he disrupted the auction -- because he saw the auction as both illegal and contributing to the "exacerbation of global warming and climate change," according to court documents.

"We're not here about why he did it," U.S. District Judge Dee Benson said at one point during the trial. "We're here about whether he did it."

He did.




DeChristopher's actions have prompted comparisons to Herny David Thoreau's refusal to pay taxes in protest of slavery, and even to Rosa Parks' refusal to be relegated to the back of the bus because she was black. And indeed, it has been a feature of many social movements, when legal avenues have been tried and exhausted -- and when it becomes clear that the system is set up to efficiently deflect and patiently defer demands for change -- that individuals and groups, dedicated to a cause, decide it's time to start peaceably breaking some rules.

For a growing number of Americans concerned about climate change -- and frustrated by the lack of action in Washington -- that time has come.

"People who understand the depth of the climate crisis have long since changed their light bulbs and their lifestyles," said Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and climate activist, "and they know that moral witness is the next step towards shifting our society on a sustainable path."

Part of bearing moral witness involves ignoring certain rules about congregating in front of the White House, and McKibben is among those leading an event next month that aims to do just that.

In this case, the group's target is the Keystone XL pipeline project -- a contentious proposal to build a pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast. Environmentalists abhor the tar sands, a gooey mix of sand and oil that requires copious amounts of water, energy -- and greenhouse gas emissions -- to produce.

James Hansen, the NASA scientist and the godfather of the modern climate movement, laid out the stakes in an essay published at Climate Story Tellers in June: "If emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades and if unconventional fossil fuels -- including tar sands -- are left in the ground, it is conceivable to stabilize earth’s climate," Hansen wrote. "Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over."

The Keystone project hinges on State Department approval, and while opponents have managed to slow down that agency's deliberations, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has said in the past that she is inclined to approve it. Pressures have also come from business lobbies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has called for swift approval of the pipeline, and congressional Republicans, who pushed a bill through the House on Tuesday that would require the State Department to make a decision by Nov. 1.

In a clarion call dubbed Tar Sands Action, Hansen, McKibben and other environmental leaders are soliciting volunteers to descend on Washington at any point between Aug. 20 and Sept. 3. They plan to make their opposition to the pipeline known by occupying the pavement directly in front of the White House -- an area with specific rules regarding demonstrations, including an edict that protesters keep moving.

From the invitation:

[I]t’s time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces. We don’t have the money to compete with those corporations, but we do have our bodies, and beginning in mid August many of us will use them. We will, each day, march on the White House, risking arrest with our trespass. We will do it in dignified fashion, demonstrating that in this case we are the conservatives, and that our foes — who would change the composition of the atmosphere -- are dangerous radicals. Come dressed as if for a business meeting — this is, in fact, serious business.

And another sartorial tip — if you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again? We very much still want to believe in the promise of that young Senator who told us that with his election the ‘rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet start to heal.’ We don’t understand what combination of bureaucratic obstinacy and insider dealing has derailed those efforts, but we remember his request that his supporters continue on after the election to pressure his government for change. We'll do what we can.

Not everyone thinks nonviolent disobedience is the answer.

Former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, a climate change activist himself, told The Deseret News on Monday that he thought DeChristopher's actions were useless. "I doubt his actions convinced one person who did not already agree urgent action needs to be taken to protect our climate," Anderson was quoted as saying.

And Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist and climate gadfly, perhaps best known as the author of the books “The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It," said in an email message that he also doubted the effectiveness of such forms of protest.

"Climate change has dropped down the political agenda, so I can perfectly understand why activists would turn to measures to attract more attention to it," Lomborg said. "But unfortunately, more attention is not what is actually needed to solve this problem — there has already been plenty of global attention focused on promises of carbon cuts that just haven’t happened. What is needed is a focus on smarter, more effective solutions than carbon cuts."

The solution, Lomborg added, involves increases in investment of green energy research and development, so that it eventually becomes cheaper than fossil fuels. But that is "not an easy policy to convert into activism," he said. "It’s hard, I guess, to chain yourself to an increased R&D budget."

But then, such policies are precisely what Americans of all stripes, who are fed up with political inertia in Washington, say they are hoping to nudge by risking arrest -- or even prison, in DeChristopher's case.

"I think that one of the things that critics need to remember is that civil disobedience has always played a role in social movements," said Lindsy Floyd, a program coordinator with the Environmental Humanities Education Center and an organizer with Peaceful Uprising, a group co-founded by DeChristopher after his action at the lease auction. The group's first core principle: "We refuse to be obedient to injustice."

Floyd said she was "sick of signing petitions and 'liking' things on Facebook," adding that her contributions to nonprofit groups working to preserve Utah wilderness have proved ineffectual.

"The system in place is designed to limit our effectiveness as citizens and agents of change," she said. "To critics, I ask: if not civil disobedience, then what?"

Watch video of interview with environmentalist Tim DeChristopher

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