The Helpless Shopper

My father never was a gift giver. Many were the times when he bought us candy, doughnuts or eclairs. But I can count on one hand the actual gifts he gave me: a silver pin in the shape of the Scottish thistle, some vocal music, and the night before he died, a hideous multi-colored ceramic worm-type character which he had painted himself. It wasn't that he didn't love me. It just never occurred to him to buy things for me, since Mother purchased the essentials for the family.

Apparently, I was not the only one who found this difficult. After they got married, Mother looked forward to her birthday, Valentine's Day, Christmas, Mother's Day--dreaming of the surprises she would receive from Daddy. Shock was more like it. She didn't get a thing from him for the first two years of their marriage. Finally, she blew up. He apologized and immediately bought her a dozen long-stem red roses that they could ill afford. Mother was apoplectic.

After about 25 years he figured out that she would be very happy if she received a corsage on Christmas and Mother's Day, a bouquet on her birthday, and a single red rose at random times. For some reason, he got the idea that she would like new panties for every occasion. I was never told of the conversations behind this, but I suppose Mother commented that other women sometimes liked gifts of lingerie. As Daddy was oblivious to lingerie on or off Mother, he settled on a practical gift: panties. We are not talking about sheer, exotic-colored, silk, or frilly panties. I mean plain cotton or tricot panties--up to the waist and down to Bakersfield. Problem was, he never seemed to know her size.

I remember shopping with him for these when I was about 10 years old. It was an adventure and I was thrilled to be sworn to secrecy (I don't know why, because it certainly wasn't a secret to Mother after all those years). We stood at a sale table on which were arranged pastel nylon panties on sale. Now what size should he buy for her? "I want five pair," he announced, holding up a lavender pair by the elastic as if it were a dead rat. "Does this look like her size?" I had no idea. Always resourceful, Daddy glanced around the lingerie department for help. A rather large woman stood at a rack of underwire bras several feet away. Daddy smiled and stepped over to her.

"Excuse me, could you help me?"

The woman glanced around at him. Daddy had adopted an awkward, boyish, "HELP ME!" expression on his face. "Of course" she said, smiling.

"I'm trying to buy some panties for my wife and I don't remember what size she wears. She's about your size, I think. Can you help me know what would fit her?"

"You think she's my size?" the lady asked, her brow furrowing.

"Yes."

"That would be a size 12." She looked pleased that she had helped a clueless man. "What a nice gift," she added wistfully.

"Thanks!" Daddy sang out, turning back to the panty table. Turning to me he said, "Wasn't she nice?"

And to the good Samaritan, "Thanks again. My wife will be very surprised!"

She was, too. Mother wore a size 5. "Raiford!" she exclaimed, exasperated, looking at panties that could hold two of her. "What, pray tell, size do you think I am?" Whenever Mother punctuated her sentence in this way, we knew she was beside herself.

"Well," Daddy began to stammer. "I thought the woman standing there was about your size and she told me what to buy." His eyes were twinkling and he would start laughing when Mother held the large panties up to her diminutive frame.

"Oh, my soul!" she would exclaim, laughing uproariously. "Honey, you need your eyes checked! And you can't be asking women what size panties they wear. Someone is going to think you're out for no good."

"I didn't know what to do and she was a pleasant looking woman. She didn't seem to mind me asking what size she wore."

"Well you just can't do that. Kindly return these... size 12!"

It was a yearly joke that never seemed to get old. Mother would exchange them herself and have a good laugh with the store clerk about it.

I don't think Daddy bought Mother any panties recently before he died. I would think she had enough to start an underwear store out of her bedroom after so many years. He had progressed to flowers by that time, which that suited Mother better.

As the holidays get closer I think fondly of those wonderful memories. As I spirit away gifts in the guestroom closet, hidden until Christmas, I wonder if the holidays will surprise me in any way.

I wish that I had more things from my father so that in the using of them I could feel that he was closer to me somehow. Alas, it is not to be. But at least, I had him. That was gift enough.

Failed!

There is no particular pleasure in failing a student at the end of an academic term. Students bellow, threaten to involve their parents, other students, or legal counsel. Parents call and beg or use all sorts of inappropriate arguments to try to coerce you to change a grade ("Didn't you ever get a grade you didn't deserve?" "I thought this was a Christian institution!" "He's tried so hard," ad nauseum).

University administration, on the other hand, send out missives about grade inflation and the ethics of assigning grades that students don't deserve. There is a subtle message given that students should have to really work hard to get an A in your class--don't make it so easy. How else will the academic standards of the university be upheld? I agree.

But the business of failing a student--an advanced, doctoral student--can be an intimidating prospect for someone like me. It never fails to surprise me that a number of students feel that if they showed up for class, they deserve to get an A grade. Not to merely pass, but to pass in the top 10% of the class. Amazing. I don't like to have people angry with me, and they are typically very angry when they know they received a failing grade. I find it hard to turn off the therapist mode and move into teacher mode ("I didn't do this to you. This is the grade you earned, and I suggest that you consider that carefully before you say anything else disrespectful or inappropriate to me.") I always have to brace myself for the onslaught of tears, tirades, or threats.

As you may guess, I failed a student this quarter. Tuition is expensive and the class was a four-credit hour class. It met four hours per week and let me tell you, those were some very long classes! We had debates, in class activities, student presentations, discussions; we reviewed articles and talked about all sorts of things to break up the time so students wouldn't die in class. It can be hard to sit there for four hours at a go for 10 weeks. One thing I don't tolerate well is to see students surfing the web on their laptops in class. Worse yet, wearing an ear bud and listening to an IPod. My syllabus states, "Professional conduct of students is anticipated. Repeated tardiness, listening to IPods or surfing the web on laptops during class will result in a reduced grade at the discretion of the instructor."

I dropped two students a letter grade last year. They were livid.

My failed student has left the class to take phone calls many times; surfed the web and responded to emails most classes; and giggled and whispered with another student every single class period, most of the time.

Because it was a survey of research course and covered a lot of ground--and most students are intimidated by research, I told the class that I would give them one main assignment for the class. I wanted them to work on their dissertation proposals or perform a critique of literature on their topic of choice. In addition to daily participation and frequent conversations in class about the issues that arise in the writing of their papers, they would discuss four articles for five minutes each, over the course of the term. I would rather have them leave the class learning something useful than to do busy work that prevented them from really applying themselves to the process of research. The main assignment would be due on the last day of class, when they were to present their work to the class using PowerPoint, handouts, or other visual aids of their choice. They were thrilled. I encouraged them to email me drafts of their work throughout the quarter so I could provide feedback and help them craft a defendable proposal.

The day before the last day of class, Failed Student called to tell me that she didn't think she would have her paper done. "It's been just one of those busy times of life and I haven't had time to work on my proposal." Why then didn't you tell me this earlier in the quarter? Why didn't you drop when you realized that you couldn't do the work? Why do you think this is an acceptable excuse for not doing what is expected here?

"Well, this is the only real assignment and you have had the whole quarter to work on it. You have not emailed me anything to look over, and have not asked any questions pertaining to the proposal process. So you will need to turn in a product tomorrow and as you know, your grade will be dependent on the quality of the work."

There was lots of conversation about wanting it to be perfect before it was turned in, writer's block, missing just one thing (the lit review!!!), too much life happening, etc. I maintained my "broken record" message that communicated her responsibility for the outcome.

The grade she earned was 23/70. She has failed the class.

Scrutiny of the "properties" tab for her document indicated that she started writing the night before it was due. While other papers were 45 - 60 pages long, hers was 20. It was really bad.

So I notified her as well as her advisor, that she has failed the course.

Why am I writing this? Don't most professors go through this, and why is it a big deal? I think I have a harder time with this because I've never had children--never learned how to deal with the rolling eyes, disdainful teenage glances, opinionated comments of kids ("How can you look so dorky?") I've never had to set limits and have kids buck them--send them to their rooms for being mouthy, or say, "Because I said so!" with a sense of maternal entitlement. My choices and behaviors are guided by well researched principles that I have learned and taught to many parents. I can institute them pretty well and people don't know that there is any hesitation on my part about setting limits, being quick on my feet about what is happening, and call kids on what I see. But I do it from principle, and not from that place most mothers have--a visceral knowledge that their children will still love them in the end and that they are doing the right thing by discipline, motherly critique, or issued imperatives. I am a stepmother. I have four years of experience dancing around these issues and never quite knowing on a gut level that what I am doing is the right thing or best thing for the kids or for me. There is no guarantee of love or loyalty to me in 30 years when I am old. I can be rejected outright if my ideas of discipline, behavior, manners, or ethics are too different from those they have grown up with. I can be viewed as eccentric with old maid ideals, inexperienced and even stultifying to their healthy development. I have to watch whatever I say because I can be judged to be unfair, mean, heartless, unfit. "I don't think of you as a stepmother. You're my dad's wife." (I corrected that on the spot, but it still rings in my ears). There is very little entitlement in my position and I have no experience tolerating kids pushing back against me. All the hugs, kisses, and "I love you"s that I hear can't entirely erase my concern. I operate as a stepmother out of two parts intuition and one part principles learned in books. I suppose that no biological mother can ever say with great certainty that what she is doing with her kids is a failsafe method, so maybe I'm not such an outlier as I think. But I am filled with consternation when I either set limits in class or fail a student because it is all attached to the issue that makes me feel most vulnerable in life.

It's hard. The students have no idea what comes up for me when this happens--nor should they. I just spend several days stewing and second-guessing myself to be sure I've said and done everything fairly and as kindly yet firmly as possible.

I think I'm getting better at it. Perhaps the day will come when I can issue fair directives and completely ignore the "stink-eye," etc. When an F grade will truly be about the student and not about me.

Found here

This morning's devotional reading caused a startled jump. It was the story of Ananias and Saphira: the social climbers of the early church. Apparently, they wanted to get in on the philantropy and esteem from the community that came from providing for the fledgling church--and all those who needed their support. Apparently many people had been disowned when they embraced a crucified Christ and were living communally with other church members. They were dependent on the goodwill of those with wealth in their midst.
So as they people sold property and gave the proceeds to the apostles to distribute as needed, Ananias and Saphira decided this would be something good for them to do. Perhaps their motives were pure in the beginning. They made a pledge to sell a piece of property to support the early church. Except they decided after they had the money in their hand, to keep back part of it. I've had thoughts like this before. Have you ever sold a large item, or gotten a very large bonus check? When we sold Mother's house and I held the check for the amount in my hand, I confess that my mind flitted to numerous projects that the money could be used for. It wasn't mine, to start with, and second, it is funding Mother's life and must be tucked away and invested wisely. So I did that and have not looked back.
To hold a large sum of money, or to think that you may receive a large sum of money, can drive people to behave in uncharacteristic ways.
This must have happened to Ananias and Saphira, because they decided that they would hold back some of the money from their property sale. That in itself wasn't awful. But what was, was that they indicated to Peter that it was the full sale price (lying), and presenting it as a way to maintain standing in the community (hypocrisy). And down they both went, dead.

It is a shocking story. I'm sure that the early church was stunned. The Bible says that "great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things" (Acts 5:11). No kidding. Can you imagine what the church would have become if other people decided to follow their example? Heartless philantropy, performed to make themselves look good, not to provide honest, good-hearted service. Their treasure was not in heaven, it was here.

I hadn't read this passage for some time, and I was again reminded that God expects honesty, purity of motives, and obedience in all things. As I was thinking of this story, I wondered, "But what about grace? Why was God so hard on these people? Didn't their gift count for anything? After all, the early church depended upon such generosity. Did these people have time to confess their sin before they died? How would God view what they did in the light of their eternal destiny?

There are probably a variety of responses to this question. What I learnt again this morning is that God expects obedience and purity of heart. Anything less is not pleasing to Him. And that what we have here in terms of wealth and holdings, are not just to consume on ourselves. These blessings are expected to extend to others, both for the relief of suffering, and for extending the Gospel commission. This seems to be a law of the Kingdom of Heaven: don't withhold what you have promised to God. By giving away what we have, we gain more than we could imagine. By becoming poor, we become rich. Being smart with what God has given us (investing or sharing it) is God's intent for us.

Food for thought at this time of year when everyone is thinking about what they will get, not what they can give.

Right and Wrong

Is it a sin to overeat? she asks me.
I think it is. Our bodies are "bought with a price" and we are told to honor God in our bodies.
What about telling white lies as a way to avoid hurting someone's feelings? Is that wrong?
I look at Briana's upturned face, intensity burning in her eyes. Is there a perfect answer? I hedge. Well, providing appropriate information for children, for example, is often preferable to absolute honesty about things they don't need to hear or know.
Oh. I hadn't thought about that.

I'm thrilled that Briana is asking these sorts of questions. I want her to think about right and wrong, about good choices and the ethics of living in a less-than-neatly-packaged world. She seems temporarily satisfied and quickly flits off into reveries about a Gray's Anatomy character.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
I smile to myself.

I think back to the early days of graduate school. Some of my questions about ethics in complicated human dilemmas at Bible study had been met with more than a frown and slap on the wrist. I had been told by well-meaning but rigidly entrenched, conservative religionists, that if I kept studying counseling I would lose my way spiritually. Pretty soon I'd be on the slippery slope to perdition--a humanist agnostic whose postmodernist leanings had made me so deconstruct the notion of God that I had become morally and spiritually destitute in a relativist world. What a picture!
No, they reasoned--you must learn how to use the Bible in therapy and encourage people to become baptized Christians. Otherwise, your work is worthless. Worthless! (Wonder what they think about doctors who don't pray with their patients!) But they were so glad that I asked about these issues so they could set me straight.

It is anxiety that makes people talk like that. Fear that differentness, a kind that they don't understand, is somehow the enemy. Concern that another way to view life is incompatible with faith in, and love of, God. That if the skills of science and the human mind are called into practice, that God as Ultimate Healer has been set aside. So they denigrate and discourage. This is somehow acceptable, but my way of working with human relationships so people can view God as loving, warm, always faithful--this isn't a good thing.

This makes me chuckle now, although in the early days it caused marked consternation. We are only as important and powerful as our enemies. Some railing and upset is like a feather in the cap, apparently.

I may have written about this before in this blog, but I am thinking about this again and it bears repeating. We all have a list of life issues that we feel are either odious to God or absolutely morally unacceptable. Non-negotiables. There are people who become quite exercised over things like returning tithe to God, or eating certain kinds of foods (or not), or divorce, or the politics of morality in this country. But while these folks focus on these issues, they privilege other issues or behaviors that are oftentimes much worse than what they are lobbying against. In the end, what does that say about us as humans? We try to be clear about what is right and wrong, try to live by those ideals, and yet while we are looking at the "mote" in our brother's eye, our heads are obscured by boulders we can't see around.

There is a movie that speaks to this: Priest. I haven't seen it for several years, but it is a movie that had a profound impact on me. It is the story of society's privileging of issues. Very moving and a must-see for those who are interested in seeing a thought-provoking movie.

More and more I see that we all embrace sin in one form or another. We can't not do it. "For with my mind I serve God and in my flesh, the lusts of the flesh." (Romans 7). We are cut from the cloth of imperfect humanity. As such, it is difficult to see with clear vision how God sees us and this world.
I am so grateful that he is the judge in the final analysis.

Unrequited

"With Longing" found here

Friday morning on the way to work, my drive took me past a large medical office complex. As I sat at the red light, a familiar form hurried through the crosswalk. A 20-something young woman was on her way inside to work. Because it was raining, her head was tucked down into her chest and the hood on her coat hid her face. But I knew it was her.

She had the same profile when she was sitting on my couch, her head tucked into her chest, tears rolling down her face. "I don't know what to say to him," she had said over and over. Her black hair falling over her eyes, her mouth flexing open and closed as she sobbed.

She ended up leaving her husband after coming to terms with his cheating on her. She came to therapy for almost a year and a half, "just to get my feet under me," she apologetically said. She didn't think she could have made it otherwise, she said.

I hadn't seen her for a good six months since we ended our work together. We had said our goodbyes--she looked so victorious and happy when she left. I told her how much I had learned about courage, perseverance, and hope from her. I felt honored to share her struggle and victory. She left, smiling. I had a lump in my throat as I finished the paperwork for her file.

I remembered all of this, sitting in my car at the crosswalk. I wondered how she was doing. Had she ever garnered support from her critical parents? Or did they still attribute the divorce to her refusal to behave like a Southern belle? Had she gotten up the courage to start going to church alone? Or start volunteering at the tutoring center like she always wanted to? Had she been able to hold firm to her boundaries with her ex-husband? Was she happier now? There was no way to know. I couldn't exactly call her to find out what was going on in her life now. I was just grateful to get a glimpse of her again.

Most people think therapists sit back in their chairs, adjust their glasses, and think of questions to ask like, "What do you think of that?" "Is that okay with you?" "How is that for you?" and, "Can you say more about this?" Many therapists, however, move the conversations along in ways that get to the crux of the issues, knowing that the questions they ask will bring temporary discomfort to the clients whom they love.

Love. Not in a forbidden, romantic, sense. Rather, as new stakeholders in our client's wellbeing.

"Healing occurs in the in-between." This, from Gestalt literature that informs us that healing and growth depends on the quality and strength of the relationships we form with our clients. Some therapists put on "therapist face" every time they enter the therapy room. But some of us take a moment to check our hearts to be sure we are capable and eager to emotionally connect with our clients before we see them. We enter into their experiences with them. We hear things that they can tell no one else--things that make them feel terrified, dirty, faint, ill. Even though we don't necessarily focus on the magnitude of pain so much as the moving along of growth and change, our hearts are wrung at times, as they only can be, so close to rawness of lived experience. We also enter into their terror, shame, overwhelm. We bring all that we can muster to the job of working through unpleasantness and challenge. We become closer to our clients than any other soul can be at times. It is emotionally expensive sometimes. It is also a sacred privilege. It just doesn't last.

Nor should it. When our clients either feel they have gotten what they came to therapy for, or we mutually decide that it's time for them to move on, we part ways. Hopefully, we both have good memories of hard work and that slow, almost imperceptible emotional and mental shift that happens as the clouds begin to lift and life's path is more clear. They move out of our offices, off our schedules, and into lives that are hopefully more ordered and liveable than when they first came to see us. We stay behind, wondering and hoping that they have received enough to help, and that they will make good choices with the tools offered in therapy. That they will realize that someone, somewhere, believed in them and thinks of them warmly. It's just that we seldom ever know for sure, what happens in the long run.

My therapy students struggle with this. There have been many times when, after saying goodbye to a long-term client or family, they have returned to the supervision room and broken down. "I learned so much from that family!" "Do you think they are ready to stop coming here?" "Isn't there any way I can ever see them again?" We talk about legal and ethical principles that we adhere to and how we can't intrude on our clients to check in with them, nor can we even acknowledge, in a public place, that we know who they are. Otherwise, their friends will ask, "How do you know her?" and the confidentiality that we guarantee our clients will be compromised. We do our best with the time we have and the motivation our clients bring. It is often a crapshoot, what will happen. But we are obligated to bring the best of who we are and what we know to the table. Then, it is time to let go, to give our clients wings and send them off with a sense of accomplishment. Students aren't so sure. They had no idea that they could feel so strongly about clients who may have driven them crazy with resistance or the "yes-but" syndrome. And now that they are gone, the student may be surprised by the strength of their feelings of loss.

"We are paid intimates," I hear myself telling students over and over. People pay us to listen and understand them. To walk through a period of life with them and help sort through emotional and social issues. But mostly, to be on their side and to engage with them. It is a silent care that is part respect, part hope, part protectiveness, part admiration and part fondness. All together, it feels like altruistic love. Many clients we become attached to of in spite of our objective detachment. But most of the goodbyes are forever.

So our responsibility, I tell students, is to be sure we have people in our personal lives whom we can love openly, with abandon. People who don't come and go--who we talk to as much as we listen, and who are more intimate with us than our clients are. People who share our homes with us, rub our backs at night, share all our secrets, fears, and hopes (but nothing about our clients!). They are our anchors and we can't do our job without them.

Sitting at the crosswalk, the faces of many clients moved across my mind: Sal, who had been inappropriate with a young man at work; Julie, whose husband was an utter brute; Linda, who was so ill that I didn't know how long she could keep going; Mel, whose affairs left him guilty, ashamed, and still unable to find love in the right places. I cared deeply for all of these people. Only, they will never know it.

Maybe they did know and that's why they kept coming.

The grey hoodie of my former client bobs through the crowd of medical staff going through the front doors. I watch until I can't see her any more. Traffic begins to move and I drive on through the intersection. There are new people in and out of my office doors every week. I step on the gas. I have a 9:00 appointment and I don't want to be late.

New Information on Myself

This week is course evaluation week.

I HATE COURSE EVALUATIONS!!!!

After I handed them out to students and left the room, my good upbeat mood crashed to the pits. What horrible things will those people say about me? Will my good intentions, herculean efforts to provide a well-rounded education, and good faith, be hammered into nothing? My mood plunged and I have fought feeling sad for the rest of the day.

Perhaps I am harking back to some years ago when I received incredibly shocking evaluations: "Barbara is condescending and hard to approach. She shouldn't be teaching." "She is stiff and unapproachable." "The instructor doesn't have the personality to be a teacher."

I wasn't surprised. I was floored. I had almost always received positive teaching evaluations. If people didn't like me, they did like the class at least. These evaluations were something completely different than anything I'd seen before. While there were two students in the class who had skipped out often and got bad grades on substandard work, others were collegial, interested, motivated, and participatory in class. Suddenly I felt stabbed in the back. I had no idea. And the ideas expressed were extremely denigrating. It was not the academic requirements, assignments or tests. The problem was me. I couldn't believe it.
I still don't.

No one is perfect, especially me. But the comments made about me didn't come close to reality, nor were they merely opinions of students. I wondered if they came from a disgruntled individual who wrote in her comments onto student surveys before they were sent in to central administration. But since they were then sent on to an outside agency for compilation and analysis, it was not possible to get them to examine so I could prove my hypothesis. To this day I feel the shock and overwhelm I had when I opened those evaluations.

So today, when I returned to the classroom after the evaluations were taken off to the department secretary to deal with, I slumped into an emotional heap on the inside. Yes, we continued to laugh and have an animated conversation about research. But I had then, as I do now, a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. How horrible a person will I be described as now?

Of course, this is just a reaction to an earlier unfortunate experience. But I do not think my experience is unique, in that a round of really bad evaluations can be devastating. I doubt that many non-academics understand how vulnerable and helpless a professor can feel in the face of course evaluations regardless of whatever experience, credentials, publications, or other scholarly characteristics one may have. Suddenly we are at the mercy of students--some of whom are angry because you held them to the line. Others, because they chose to share something of a private nature in class and you moved the class along because it was neither time nor place to have that kind of conversation. Still others were angry because they did not think that their internet surfing in class for the entire quarter qualified them for a drop in their grade. So we do what we think is right and wait for the onslaught. We finish up the semester on a high note, feeling pleased that so many students earned high grades, or that the papers were of superior quality. Students give hugs as they leave and thank us as they leave on the last day, citing events in class that have been formative in their thinking. Then we get their evaluations a month later and wonder how we could have missed what they have charged us with.

A story by a client illustrates the shock, shame, and confusion that is associated with these evaluations. Kay* grew up in a modest home outside New York. Her father was a mechanic for a famous singer; his mother a laundress. There were three active, happy kids in the family. Kay remembers her young life as very happy: mass every week, family meals and traditions, grandparents and lots of aunts and uncles on the weekends. One day her father came home with the Famous Singer who took a liking to her very quickly. "Can I take your picture with me?" So Kay stood next to him, held his hand, smiled, and had her picture taken with him. He was gone right after the picture was taken, but Kay was so dazzled by being with a famous person--who wanted to be with her--that she didn't mind. Life was good and Kay grew up feeling very satisfied about her young life.
Two weeks ago Kay decided to go through a big box of family memorabilia that had been left behind when her father died. After looking over several packets of papers, she came across the picture of herself and the Famous Singer standing hand in hand in her front yard. The caption under the picture read, "Won't you help unfortunate young girls? Without your contributions, Kay doesn't stand a chance." She had been the poster child for poverty prevention in New York City. She'd had no idea. In one moment, she slid into doubt about everything she had ever known and felt about her life.

The magnitude is different, but the idea is the same. Things that creep up on a person are not easy to take, especially when that information causes one to question everything they know about themselves. So whether that is a course evaluation, finding a letter from one's parent after their death, or an old newspaper clipping. There are good reasons that evaluations sit in a drawer unread until teachers no longer remember the names on the course roster that year; or why we don't examine and memorize everything that our parents leave to us. It is an interesting life, this. And how we think about ourselves can be a fragile thing sometimes.

*Kay is a pseudonym.