Saturday, June 16, 2012

Questions and comments

Though I do not get to respond to them as often as I would like to, I truly do love getting comments (well, most anyway), and answering questions. 

Of course, being a busy mother to six children, combined with my need for extra sleep while pregnant, I rarely have the time to thank everyone individually for their kindness, or respond to certain questions. But rest assured, your comments are much appreciated, and usually put a smile on my face! 

I will try, maybe once a week or so, to answer questions that pop up throughout the week in a separate post. For some reason, my "Q&A" label is not working correctly at the moment, but hopefully I can figure out why. (edited to add: I was able to get the issue resolved, and the new tag is now working)

Also, my apologies to those of you who have left (unpublished) comments with your email addresses, and specific questions you would like me to answer. You are not forgotten, I promise! 




Are you feeling any better? Please let us know.
Yes, as long as I don't get too hot. My severe morning sickness ended several months ago, but if I get caught out in the heat, it typically makes me very ill for the rest of the day. Other than that, the pregnancy is going smoothly.


My question is: after listening to one of your husbands sermons, I was wondering why he has chosen a more "fire and brimstone" approach to preaching. Does he, and you, too, through your blog, not think it drives some people farther away from the faith? 

We believe in a literal hell, with literal torment and fire. Just as Jesus warned people of this place, we do the same. If your house were on fire and you were fast asleep inside, your neighbors would loudly alarm you to the danger you were in, too. As far as driving people away - most unbelievers expect Christians to take their religion seriously. Besides, I'm not the one who created hell, I am just the messenger. My job is not to stand in judgement of God, or to hide the truth because I am worried about offending people. 


How did you "train" your hair to not need washed on a daily basis? I would like it if I could wash it every other day but it gets so oily after a day that I end up washing it. 

It took years, and ultimately, pregnancy hormones helped tremendously. Switching to natural products that are gentle on the hair also helped. Basically, you go from washing once per day, to washing every two days. Some days are better than others, so try to start this when your hormones are cooperating (typically mid-cycle). After your hair learns to adjust, cut it back to every three days, and so on. Right after having a baby, I have to wash more often, about every 3 days, but other than that, I can go about one week without any noticeable changes. 


Perhaps you can offer some advice or write a post on how to get along with unsaved family members who find your lifestyle disturbing, offensive, judgmental basically crazy. 
Sadly, it is not always possible to get along peacefully with such people. No matter how kind you are, some people will always take offense, because ultimately their beef is with God. Avoiding confrontations works sometimes, but not always. Thankfully, my mother-in-law is a wonderful Christian lady who does not take exception to our beliefs, so that's a huge blessing. Then there are other relatives who could easily stand in as the quintessential "mother-in-law from hell", even though they aren't. I suppose everyone has relatives like that in their lives. 


How do you rise above their [meaning: internet haters and stalker websites] intent to hurt you and their mean spiritedness? It is so cruel what they say, and for what reason? Why do they find themselves to be so much better than a family believing in God?  

I never visit any of their sites. Not knowing what stupid things they are saying keeps me from feeling the need to clarify an issue, or defend myself. Plus, with people like that, I would seriously question myself if I had their approval. I mean, water seeks its own level - some people, I'm flattered when they hate me.


This is so random, but have you ever read What Would Jesus Eat? By don culbert, m.d. I think you would enjoy it.

No, I haven't. But I do think that the Bible has much to say about how and what to eat. I don't buy into any modern "scientific" advice that is contrary to the Bible.


I know you have great midwives but do you think you and the pastor could handle it on your own if need be?


Good question. I think 95% of births would turn out just fine without a midwife present, assuming the mother was healthy and had a good understanding of birth in general. I see the midwife as a life guard - watching, and stepping in only in the rare event that she is needed. Any mother should be aware of the most dangerous conditions, such as PROM with cord prolapse, sudden excessive bleeding, etc. - for most of these, no medical professional would be immediately there to assist.

In order to find ourselves in a situation where the midwife is not there, one of two things would have to happen: (a) Baby is coming very fast, after a short and/or easy labor. The fact that baby is coming out so easily on his/her own, and quickly at that, means there is probably no cause for worry. Obviously, there must be no issues with poor position, stuck shoulders, etc. (b) We find ourselves cut off from access to a midwife, for whatever circumstances outside our control: in this case, we would just trust God that if He put us in that situation, He will watch over us.

Last night, I had this wonderful dream that I was taking a bath, when suddenly I was overcome by the urge to push, and the baby was born peacefully just a minute later, with only me there. It was so nice! :)


My question is - what if you have an emergency during labor (I sincerely hope you won't) and have to be transported to the hospital? There is a good chance that either one or both of the paramedics that transport you will be male. You know that sometimes paramedics end up delivering babies that arrive rather quickly. Do you consider these men perverts? Or, how about an anesthesiologist at a hospital? Let's say that you have to have an emergent C-section (again, I really hope not) and are fortunate enough to have a women OB and women nurses deliver the baby. There is also a chance that the anesthesiologist could be a male. How would you deal with that? Obviously this man is not an obstetrician/gynecologist, but he must be in attendance while you are being delivered. Is he also a pervert in your mind.

I do not believe that receiving medical care in a life-and-death situation is wrong, no matter the gender of the responding physician. The law and commandments were given to protect us.

That being said, our society should have enough decency and propriety to have members of the same gender respond to medical emergencies whenever possible.

Every male OB is a pervert because they see thousands of healthy, "normal" women for "well woman" visits. It is impossible not to be affected by that, just as no man can look at pornography daily and not be affected. A trauma patient is very different in appearance from what would be displayed in dirty magazines.


I love their bunk bed. Where did you get it?

The boys' bunk bed was custom-made by a local carpenter. I stained and sealed it myself, though.

I just realized I never posted an update with pictures of the finished room. Maybe soon :)


I'm sure you probably posted this, but have you put up a link for purchase to your 1 year menu plan?

It's still not quite finished. :( The menu part itself is done, but I have yet to add all the recipes to the book, and fine-tune the shopping lists accordingly. Usually, the only time I work on it is when I am pregnant and laid up on the sofa, so it might be a while. 

Do you "force" your children to share, or do you think that might make them even more reluctant to share? 

No, I don't force them to share. However, I do encourage them to do so. If they insist that they don't want to, I might send them to their room to play with a disputed item, so as to not make the other sibling feel taunted.

Fighting over toys seems almost inevitable in the 1-3 year-old crowd. Anna is currently obsessed with dolls, and even though we have at least a dozen different ones, she insists on only playing with Becky's or Miriam's. Sometimes the older girls let her (especially Miriam), but other times they want to keep their own "babies", so there have been quite a few tears shed over that in recent days. Better to learn you can't have everything you feel entitled to when you are 1, then as an adult on welfare.


Are you sure it isn't dyslexia rather than being artistic?

Get this: I don't buy into dyslexia. Do some people have a harder time learning to read and/or write than others? Yes. Do some people need to learn differently? Sure! But short of being certifiably mentally disabled, every child can and should learn to read well. For some, that will be sooner than others.

John has just recently reached the level of being able to read pretty much anything independently. As he is now devouring books, I'm sure his writing of letters and numbers backwards will soon vanish completely. Already, he has improved greatly since I started pointing it out to him.

25 comments:

  1. Thanks for answering my question about hair care...I will have to try it again.

    About dyslexia: it is a real thing! It has nothing to do with intelligence (in fact dyslexic kids usually have either normal or above normal intelligence) and everything to do with difficulty in reading, writing, etc. It is best to catch it as soon as possible. If you really want to read more try this link (I hope it copied right): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002379/ or you can easily google it. I have an uncle who struggled in school in fact he never could get his GED although he tried several times. He is very intelligent & God has opened some amazing opportunities for him. But although he can read and write enough to get by, it is still a struggle. My brother also has it, although his dyslexia is much more mild and he does very well for the most part. When they look at a page they view it completely opposite of us. Because of this, Math also can be difficult (my brother still struggles with math). It takes alot of perseverance, patience, encouragement & understanding but it can improve with the right tools.

    But to say it isn't real is saying that people who struggle are just using it as an excuse & that is far from the truth!! My brother and uncle are two of the most determined people I know, they have worked hard along with those who have taught them to get to this point. They can learn ways to deal with it, but dyslexia isn't something that completely goes away. It isn't about being labeled it is about getting them the right tools to help them learn. You mentioned that some people have to learn differently, well that is really an important key when working with a child with dyslexia: you have to teach them differently, use different teaching tools, etc.

    Perhaps your son doesn't have dyslexia, but I have to admit when I read your posts about John it reminded me of my brother. But it does sound like he is improving. I'm sorry if this was too long, it's just education & especially learning problems are two very important issues to me personally.

    God bless!

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  2. I don't teach my kids that they have to share either but I do have a rule that they are not allowed to take a toy from another child until that child puts down the toy and goes to play with something else .

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  3. I enjoyed all your answers, your dream of having the baby in the bath tub easy peasy sounds nice. I had a similar one that was SO vivid but it was a boy (I am told I am having a girl) and it was being born sunny side up. I woke up and looked for a baby it felt so real!

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  4. Awww, you have answered my question! (the 1st one). Thanks! Stay inside as much as you can! There's only a few more weeks to go.

    You should absolutely ignore mean and stupid people, absolutely. Like, zero attention, comments not posted, no answers given. You have to train them like dogs, seriously, no offense to dogs. They'll learn their place. As soon as your trolldar goes off, delete the comment, you starve them of attention, they'll go to other fundie blogs to harrass people.

    Take care!

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  5. Zsuzsu, I am a relatively new reader to your blog. I was surprised to see that you feel male OB/GYNs are perverts. Aren't you a Ron Paul supporter? You know that he was an obstetrician, don't you?

    Also, several of the midwives at the clinic you use are lesbians. How does that affect your health care decisions?

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  6. I just have to comment on your assertion that all male OB's are perverts. That is NOT the case. Though I see midwives and give birth in natural birth center, the midwives are supervised by a wonderful OB who has been proacticing medicine for 35 years. He is also the Christian, homeschooling, father of 8 children. He is a godly man and well respected in the community. When the earthquake in Haiti happened a few years ago, he went down for a few weeks to provide maternity care for the victims. It is crazy that you would generalize and say all male OB's are perverts. I am currently 30 weeks pregnant w/ my 8th baby, and I am thankful that if something occurs in my delievery that the midwives can't handle, I have the back up of a godly Christian doctor with years of experience to take care of me and my baby. You need to be careful w/ your generalizations as there are often exceptions to every assertion.

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  7. anon at 6:47 pm,

    I agree about not giving the haters a platform. Many times, though, it is hard to tell if a comment is sincere, or from those people. There were quite a few regarding the dyslexia question, so I chose to answer it because I think others will benefit from realizing that every weird thing little kids do is not a "disorder".

    Rivkah,

    I don't go to a clinic, nor are there midwives (plural). There is one midwife (who is not a lesbian), and she has a couple of apprentices (who are also not lesbians, but I am never even seen by them). Some time ago, she was working with another midwife who was one, but my midwife told me that from the get-go and we had a clear understanding that none of my care would have anything to do with that person. I also told my midwife that "informed consent" should require any care giver to disclose such information, as there are many who are not comfortable with a doctor/midwife/etc. that is attracted to their gender. If it's as natural as rain, why hide the facts? There is nothing shameful about being a man, but yet I would never see a male OB. Even those who think being a homo is fine, might not want one to care for them.

    I actually take a very strong stand on this issue. Last month, somebody who was supposed to pick something up at my house tried to send a lesbian couple to do it in her absence. I told them in no uncertain terms that they were not allowed anywhere near our property (we have children to keep safe!), and also told the person who sent them to never get in touch with me again. She can think being a deviant is fine, and I have the same right to think it is not.

    I know that Ron Paul used to be an OB. For one, I don't even vote, but if I did, it would be for president, not the pastor of our nation.

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    1. Hey haven't been able to get to you, but I heard from a certain source that you think those with depression are not true Christian is this true?

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  8. Just because your non-fan base is living on crazy pills, you don't have to buy into this "every unusual thing people do - even the rude and anti-social ones - have a name in the medical dictionary" thing. They treat everything unusual as a diseas, mainly to allow people to forget their manners, being looked down upon, whatever even floats their boats. Rude kids are called ADHD-s, autistic, whatever, point is that the sweetheart must be treated as a delicate little flower while they destroy the lives of others. There is a cure for these behaviorial "diseases": PROPER raising... and no, there's nothing wrong with Johnny developing at his own pace.

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  9. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
    I enjoy reading your blog, and admire & respect you very much.

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  10. Zsuzsanna, how do you know the women sent to your house were lesbians? It's not like you can tell by looking. And why would it matter? That's what I don't get. My primary care physician for 20 years was a lesbian. She was a great doctor. My husband was a M.D. who delivered babies, including doing home births. He was good at it. What I want in a doctor is someone who has a great deal of knowledge and skill. I don't care what their religion, nationality, or sexual preference is.

    I hope the rest of the summer isn't too bad for you. I can only imagine Arizona in the summer. I know I would hate it.

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  11. Elizabeth,

    if, as you say, people's sexual orientation doesn't bother you, why does mine bother you? Homosexuality is on par with bestiality and sexual abuse.

    My sexual orientation is STRAIGHT, with extreme disgust for sexual perverts. See, we all have strong opinions, yourself included. Why is it noble to like deviants, and criticize those who don't, but the other way around is wrong?

    The tip-off to the homo couple was that they shared a last name. I looked them up online (thank you, facebook) and learned that they are "married" and very vocal about their perversion.

    My husband is a pastor, but also owns and runs his own "secular" business. Would any sane person in the world think it would be normal if he worked as an OB, as well as a pastor? What if he did all the ob/gyn care for the women in our church? Our daughters? That would be sick and bizarre. Why? If he were, say, an ophthalmologist, there would be nothing weird about that. Because deep down, everyone knows that no normal man can look at one naked woman after another and not think a thought that should only be reserved for his wife. Period.

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    1. I was abused by a bully of the same gender they forced me to do things I cant say

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    2. the police did nothing

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  12. Does your church have VBS? We just finished VBS last week and had 130 children enrolled-84 were non-members. We had 2 of these non member families visit our church today. If you don't have VBS, why not?

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  13. Hi Zsuzsanna, I'm glad to hear you're feeling better--stay rested and stay well, we're thinking of you and your family. Weirdly, I had a restless night last night and had a dream you had your baby (which is beyond strange, being we've never met, etc.) and it was definitely a boy--hey, my dream has a fifty-fifty of being correct, now doesn't it? ;) Now if you name him the same name as in the dream, you'll have to get me up off the floor! Have a good week,

    God bless you, Dad, and the seven,

    Mindy

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  14. Male Ob/gyn's get no more sexual excitement out of their patients bodies then female obs do or midwives do. To say they are perverts is absurd. Rarely do MD's ever treat their own families and friends. I have never known a male OB who gives his wife prenatal care. He sends her to another DR. Dr's do not take their work home, they separate their work from their home life and I have never known a male Ob to have any problems with sexual addictions because he looks at and examines women all day anymore than I as a nurse practitioner would have problems. If it makes males perverts what does it make females? I am not a lesbian yet I touch women's privates all day long because I give pelvic exams and breast exams. Your logic is just baffling.

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  15. Zsuzsanna, your sexual orientation doesn't bother me, I don't think I said anything that implied otherwise. I reread what I wrote, I said nothing about your orientation. I'm straight too. I also didn't criticize you for your orientation. I just wondered why a person's orientation is more important than what kind of person they are.

    Doctors do not treat their own family members. An OB/GYN treating his own daughter or wife would be reported to the state licensing board. An ophthalmologist doesn't treat his or her own family either. It's considered a boundary violation for a doctor to care for his immediate family members.

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  16. You do know that in order for a female to get a medical degree they need to have advance knowledge of the female AND male body? Also other types of doctors will likely see naked (and not traumatically injured) female bodies often. I don't think it's possible to get a medical degree without having hands on interactions with the private parts of healthy people of both sexes. You can't specialize in one area without learning about it all.

    Going by your conclusion, just the act of becoming a doctor will turn every doctor into a pervert because she/he will have to look at private parts of the opposite sex that are not their spouses.

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  17. I'm heading to Phoenix to "train" my hair next week at my sister's salon and then picking up the gazillion pounds of product I get for wholesale from her. Interestingly, she's become very allergic to a synthetic ingredient that is in almost all liquid products. It's even in "natural" products. I even noticed it some of Trader's products. It's called methylisothiazolinone. Look for it. You will be so surprised what it shows up in. It wasn't even on my radar. It's a cytotoxin and just came on the market. She's had to change all her product. It had to come by anything liquid that does not have this preservative in it.

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  18. When you have the time I'd love to know how you go about teaching your children about the Solar System and dinosaurs? Much of the information on these topics seems to contradict most if not all of the Bible teachings regarding age of the earth, human development/evolution and so on. Do you teach it at all? (If not, how does that go with state rulings etc regarding set curriculum for home school?) Do you teach it as another theory that other people believe but is wrong as it contradicts the Bible? Or do you have a way or explanation that allows what is known to fit it into the your teachings of creation? What about Biology? High school biology (in Australian public education at any rate) covers evolutionary theories and the development of man from apes.

    Also curious how you view scientific findings that show humans evolved from a lesser species, or that dinosaurs are considerably older than the age of the earth as told in the Bible? My grandfather in law would view them as being deliberately placed by God to test faith. How do you see it?

    I mean no harm by asking and not looking to discuss the rights/wrongs in the scenario, just how it is done in a situation where the majority of that science would be deemed wrong. I'm not looking to challenge your faiths or beliefs, that is not my place and would be rude, I would just like to know how you handle teaching children when so much information on those topics contradicts your teachings? My husband grew up in a church family, and did not learn about any of that until he attended school, but does not know how it would have been handled within the family had he been home schooled. I would really enjoy hearing from you if you have the time to answer.

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  19. Not rejecting your right to choose who does or does not come on your property, but honestly, what harm would have come to your children from the maybe 10 minutes the women would have been there to collect the items? It's not as though they would have been making out on your front lawn or otherwise acting inappropriately, I understand you're not comfortable around homosexuals, and that's your choice not to allow them around you or near your family, but I don't understand the perceived "danger" in having someone briefly stop by to pick up a couple of things. Can you clarify?

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  20. I had not given enough thought male OBs before finding Pastor Anderson's sermons and I immediately emailed it to my husband. I felt so violated having already used a male OB with the birth of my son. With our third child my husband was there on my side to guard off all males from the delivery room and only allowed female staff. All the prenatal care was at an all women's clinic. I am very thankful to your husband's sermons and your blog. I learn so much.

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  21. I do go to a female OB/Gyn for my own personal preference; however, I do not agree with your stand that all male ones are perverts. There are perverts in all walks of life... doctors, police officers, teachers, and unfortunely even pastors. Just because one person in a professional or industry falls does not mean we should judge the whole. If that is the case, then ALL medical doctors are perverts because I imagine that they all see naked bodies all day long. Kinda hard to be a cardiologist without seeing breasts or a GI without being down in the private area. Not to mention, I know you feel that women should be in the home... can't have it both ways... Either male doctors or women leaving the children in the care of others.

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  22. I love how people that were taught that science contradicts the Bible just automatically believe that to be truth. I can't speak for anyone else but in our homeschool we LOVE science and are constantly amazed at how perfectly it supports the Bible. Stop assuming that belief in God means not believing science. It just means not believing all scientific INTERPRETATIONS.

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Your KINDLY WORDED, constructive comments are welcome, whether or not they express a differing opinion. All others will be deleted without second thought.