The Kind of Mom I Want to Be

This afternoon I went out to the barn to check on our momma goats and their Fab 4 kids.  I needed a dose of cuteness.  The moms, tucked safely into our two kidding pens, were doing exactly what I expected to see them doing:  loving on their kids.  Cricket and Ivy are great experienced mommas, and they know exactly what to do with their babies. (We built the kidding pens a couple years ago to provide mom and babies some time away from the herd to bond and establish nursing while accessing free and plentiful food without competition.  The pens also give us a chance to monitor mom and kid health for a few days.)

While I was out there, I decided to check in on the ladies in the barn and noticed that Astrid, a first time momma expected to kid any day, was in active labor.  We only have two kidding pens, and they were both in use, so after a quick conference with my two Sapplings, we decided that Cricket could easily handle her kids in the barn.  She is, after all, the one all the other momma goats count on to help with childcare when they are grazing.  She'll fiercely defend anyone's kid from a perceived threat, and her girls were already thriving after just one day in the kidding pen.  So we moved Cricket and Opal and Bea to the barn and moved a very panicky Astrid to the empty kidding pen.

Once we got her settled, I went back into the house to give her some time.  When I returned an hour later it was to find Astrid really distressed.  Labor is HARD and PAINFUL, even when you are goat.  Especially when you are a goat, maybe, because you have no idea what's going on and there's nobody to give you ice chips and rub your feet.  Astrid was struggling.  I felt so bad for her, and despite my best efforts to calm her, I knew she just had to go through it.  That's when Ivy poked her head through the little crack that separates the two pens and "talked" to Astrid.  I don't know what she said, but Astrid calmed after that for a bit.

When Kid #1 (Thunder) started crowning, it was clear that he was REALLY big.  Strain as she might, this guy was NOT moving.  Thankfully, he was positioned correctly and I was able to use a little pull and the force of gravity to assist in his birth.  His teeny brother Kid #2 (Storm) appeared shortly after with no issue.  As I vigorously rubbed down the kids to get them clean and dry and breathing, poor Astrid just stood there, forlorn.  Can you imagine?  WHAT THE HECK ARE THESE THINGS THAT JUST CAME OUT OF ME?!?  WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THEM?  I would have been forlorn too.

When you have farm animals, one of the first things you want to do with new babies is get colostrum in them.  This life-giving substance is so important to newborns.  Sometimes with new moms they are so freaked out that getting a kid to nurse is a fight.  Sometimes you have to hold the mom and force her to let the kids eat.  Sometimes the kids are too weak and can't latch on.  Sometimes they are stupid and can't find the teat.  There's a lot to worry about, especially with new moms.

So there I am, sitting on the floor of the kidding pen, babies just getting dry and alert enough to stand, trying to get Astrid to agree to let them nurse.  She's nervous, and does NOT want me to put those things under her.  The babies are dumb and weak, which means that not only are they not finding the teat, but they can't even hold themselves up to look properly.  We've got the makings for a super frustrating moment. 

Then Ivy did that thing again.

She put her nose into the crack separating the pens and she "talked" to Astrid.

I don't know what she said, but here's what I saw: Astrid calmed down.  She started licking her babies.  She let both of them nurse.  She started momming.

I've honestly never seen anything like it. 

I know I'm a weirdo, but at that moment I totally thought of all the moms in my life who have talked me out of being crazy.  The moms who were there for me during the newborn phase.  And the ones who talked me through scary medical stuff.  And the ones who stood with me during life's most stressful moments. Those moms were with me.  Not judging.  Not comparing.  Just present and talking.

I'll admit I've had moments where I was the judgy mom.  I'm not proud of those moments.  I remember thinking that *my* kid would never...whatever the thing is.  Or that my kid was a better...whatever.  In those moments I isolated myself and my kids, and we lost out.  We were the family standing there scared and alone and not knowing how the heck to do the next thing.

I'm glad those moments didn't last long.  I'm glad I had moms who loved me and my kids anyway and were there for us anyway.  And I'm glad they showed me how much nicer it is to be a part of a whole tribe of moms who support and care for each other.

I want to be the kind of mom Cricket is--the mom other moms trust with their precious treasure.

I want to be the kind of mom Ivy is--the mom who quietly and patiently advises and coaches without judging.

And I want to be the kind of mom Astrid is--the one who has no idea what the heck is going on, but has a tribe of strong and powerful women she knows she can trust and rely on.

Cheers to you, awesome moms!  I'm glad you are part of my tribe.

What Does Support Look Like?

I've been thinking a lot about this question over the last two and a half years.  In the victim's statement I gave at the sentencing last March (and shared here) I mentioned to the judge that we were not surprised (and were even glad) that the defendants had a support system, but that they way those people chose to support the young men they loved was way different than the way we chose to support Chelsea.

When we first heard about the crime in September of 2015, we simply circled the wagons and figured out what Chelsea needed.  We didn't have all the details, but as discussed in my statement, she needed lot, so we focused on that.  There were the nightmares and panic attacks to deal with, and the friendship issues to navigate and support through.  Figuring out how to deal with school staff and their varying degrees of information was a challenge. There was the line of boys (including some who had seen the videos and others who had heard about them) who suddenly saw her as some kind of challenge to conquer.  Then there was the very real biological response to stress.  She stopped eating.  She started vomiting.  She lost twenty pounds in a week.  She was so weak she couldn't open a water bottle. She cried in pain.  We took her to the emergency room.  They evaluated her and sent us home with instructions to come back if it got worse.  She got worse so we took her back to the emergency room.  They evaluated her and sent us home with instructions to come back if their was blood in her vomit.  There was blood in her vomit so we took her back to the emergency room.  They said, "Unless she's vomiting a cup or more of blood or is unconscious, don't come back."  Then, a nurse pulled me to the side and said, "Take her to a pediatric ER in Portland.  They might be able to help."  So that's what we did.  They admitted her and we stayed there for a week while she recovered.

So yes, back in 2015, we circled the wagons.  We didn't post about the crime on social media.  We didn't make jokes about it.  We didn't brag about getting away with anything (though we heard the defendants were doing this).  We didn't talk about the defendants--we let them go through their senior year of high school without interference from us.  We just quietly cared for our kid.

At the beginning of 2016 I remember having a conversation with the DA.  They'd investigated and had enough to go forward.  We agreed with that decision.  We didn't see the police reports at that time, and didn't go over the details of them with the DA, so we didn't know yet that the crime hadn't been the "practical joke gone awry" the defendants were telling everyone about.  At that time we still thought that Mr. Jones (still changing the names, as we're not looking to get even here, just looking to educate) was just as unaware of the filming as Chelsea was.

In June of 2016, after the grand jury indicted the defendants and they were arrested, we still weren't clear on what had actually happened.  What we did know was that the local newspaper ran a big article about it and it was on the local news stations, and things got ugly.  The newspaper is how we learned that it had been planned, but we didn't understand the details.  What we did understand is that having your name and picture on the front page of a paper for committing a sex crime must have been really really embarrassing (not as much, maybe, as being filmed without your knowledge or consent and having it shared, but embarrassing nonetheless).  We understood that the parents of the defendants must be heartbroken and sad and scared.  So we did what we thought everyone should do:  we started praying for them.  I posted daily quotes and reminders about kindness on my social media accounts, hoping to remind my friends and family that despite the incredibly ugly situation we found ourselves in, the best option was kindness. We continued to not discuss the crime or the defendants on social media or in public.

We were not prepared for the ugly storm headed our way.

It was just a few hours after the local newspaper ran the story that it hit.  At first, the adults supporting the young men were just angry at the system.  They still believed that this whole thing was just a harmless prank gone wrong, because that's what the young men had told them.  Mr. Jones had recently had his eighteenth birthday, so an assumption was made that the DA and law enforcement had stalled until then so he would be prosecuted as an adult (this is a false assumption for a whole lot of reasons, but mostly because Oregon law requires they be prosecuted as adults starting at age 15 in crimes like this, but I get the anger).  The first bashing was definitely towards the DA and the newspaper, which they believed had published lies.  Those angry outbursts in public and on social media were uncomfy, to be sure, and understandable, even if they were misguided and misinformed.  What happened next was unfathomable.

I can't pretend to understand what shifted in the minds of the defendants' supporters, but there was a clear shift, and it clearly started with adults.  It started, at least from my perspective, with someone on Facebook saying something like, "Stop saying bad things about Matt and Josh.  It was just a prank and just a few seconds and none of you know anything."  I think this was in response to people sharing the newspaper story on their pages.  In the comments of that post, one of the defendants' parents posted that since Chelsea's face wasn't visible, and she seemed fine at school, and she wasn't raped, this wasn't a big deal at all.  I think that comment is what opened the floodgates, because shortly after that, I saw kids posting the same thing.  When that wasn't enough and people said, "But it's still a crime," they (I'm talking about all of the defendants' supporters in general as a group now, and understanding that not every person did each of these things, but that they supported each other as these things were done.) took it a step farther and called Chelsea a slut and other awful names.  They said she had lured the boys in and that it was all her fault.  They said she wasn't the victim.  They said she deserved to be in jail too.  They said we (her parents) should be coming forward to explain ourselves.  A woman who used to babysit my kids and LOVED them even joined in, probably unaware of who she was talking about. Someone revealed Chelsea's identity, ensuring that she would continue to be at the center of everything.  I remember going to the bathroom at least twice during that time and actually vomiting after reading some of the comments.  The behavior was SO counterintuitive and SO different than what I was trying to promote that I couldn't grasp it.  It made me physically ill.  I'm including one example here.  There are more on my March 13, 2017 Facebook post shared above.

During that time I got a couple of messages from friends.  They told me how sorry they were and encouraged me to not go on social media.  Mostly, though, as a family we felt under attack.  People who had approached us in a friendly way in public before made obvious attempts to avoid us now.  We didn't understand why.  Others messaged me and talked about how they hoped Chelsea had learned something from all of this.  I was so confused by what they meant I usually didn't respond.  There were a few people who messaged me and said something like, "Please know that I think what is happening is awful, but I can't say anything because I'm afraid of what they'll do to me."  I understood that.  Looking at what we were facing during that time, I can't imagine anyone else seeing that and wanting it for themselves.  Some of the supporters approached us and Chelsea's closest friends when we were out in public, resulting in really uncomfortable moments where Chelsea actually worried about her safety.  Some people messaged Chelsea, saying things like, "You do know they were joking, right?"  The whole situation was so crazy at times it felt like a bad movie.  We started changing our habits:  picking a new favorite family restaurant, implementing safety procedures, limiting Chelsea's time out alone.

We read the police reports and were shocked and horrified.  The story the young men had told everyone about the reason why they had done this horrible thing, and the extent of its seriousness, was very different than what we'd heard.  They'd planned it.  They had the goal of doing this, and they carried out their plan.  They worked together to get it done.  They conspired against Chelsea.  It wasn't a SnapChat.  It was a lengthy video and some shorter ones.  It was shared more widely than we were first told.  The whole situation was more disgusting than we had imagined.

Then something unexpected but lovely happened.  A very small group of people started publicly correcting and supporting Chelsea.  It started with Meisha, a young woman who had just graduated from high school that summer of 2016.  While in high school she had been the victim of a sex crime and had loudly and proudly taken a stand for herself during her high school graduation speech.  Meisha said, (and I'm paraphrasing here) "The time for boys will be boys is over.  We can't excuse crimes like this."  She was immediately attacked.  People called HER a slut.  They told her she was just looking for attention.  They called her a traitor.  They threatened her.  Because she was so young, I honestly expected her to crumble and hide.  She didn't.  She stood her ground, and continued to be threatened and name-called by her community.  We watched the whole thing play out in front of us.  It seemed ironic:  the attacks against Chelsea started with adults, but the stand for Chelsea began with a person most would consider a kid.  Meisha's stand emboldened others to take a stand, and provided an opportunity for people unaware of the situational specifics (former teachers, adult friends, etc.) to support her and Chelsea.

Meanwhile, two moms privately connected with me and offered support.  They asked what we needed.  It was different than the standard "let me know if I can help" so many of us offer friends during difficult times.  I could tell they meant it.  I told them we couldn't go to the hearings that summer because of how ugly things were, and they offered to go to them for us.  Amanda and Christal took time off work and rearranged their schedules to go to every hearing they could:  quietly observing and collecting information for us.  Because of their presence at those hearings, they were gossiped about.  They were accused of just looking for entertainment and harming the process.  Yet they kept going, quietly attending the hearings and sharing information with us.  Christal began countering some of the social media posts with facts, and asserting that she stood for the victim.  She explained, without naming Chelsea, what Chelsea was going through, and asked people to be kind.  She was attacked.  Her parenting skills were called into question.  She was accused of looking for attention.  She was accused of lying.  These moms'  faithfulness to support Chelsea and our family through that very ugly time was like a beacon of light.

Sometime during that summer I was approached by another mom in the grocery store.  She was someone I would consider an acquaintance.  I honestly remember feeling terrified as she approached me, because I'd had some hostile interactions in public that summer.  As I was bracing myself for what she was about to say, she told me, "I just want you to know that I'm with you."  I was so overwhelmed I cried.

As the summer ended and the defendants were released on bail, things calmed down a little bit.  There was a brief fundraising attempt on a crowdsourcing site for a defense attorney for one of the defendants.  People still seemed to avoid us in general.  The defendants were told to have no contact with Chelsea, but she still saw them everywhere:  at stores, at high school games, while she was showing her animals at the county fair, and around town.  One time we were at Costco and she had to use the restroom.  She called me after she was done, telling me that one of the defendants and a large group of friends were blocking the pathway she needed to take to get back to me.  I had to go get her and walk her by this large group of people and the anxiety and panic were so real.  When we asked for help from people to limit exposure it was like they didn't think it was that big of a deal.  It felt like people were annoyed with her and us for bringing it up.   She chose to miss many of her senior year activities because she was afraid of running into them and not having someone who would protect her from them.

As sentencing approached in March of 2017, Chelsea knew she wanted to attend, and she knew she wanted me to make a statement for her.  I started reaching out to strong women I thought might be willing to support Chelsea at the hearing.  We asked them to wear purple, Chelsea's favorite color, so that she'd be able to spot her supporters in the courtroom.  The response was overwhelming.  This group of people, who we dubbed the Purple Posse, took time off work or out of their schedules to come to the courthouse not once, but twice, after the original sentencing hearing was postponed due to a technology issue.  They filled the courthouse with faces of support and strength and encouragement.  They said nothing--they just sat there and were physically present for Chelsea and our family, and it made all the difference. Their presence gave me strength when I was giving Chelsea's statement and the defendants' supporters were laughing and scoffing.  Their presence gave Chelsea encouragement to know she wasn't alone.  Their presence calmed Mike, who was so upset about what had happened to his little girl. Just being there--physically taking up space in a room, wearing purple, and having calm and supportive faces made a difference.  

Months later I wondered how things might have been different if the defendants' supporters had been more like the Purple Posse.  What if they had said things like:
* We're having a really hard time right now, but we love and support our sons.
*  We understand this is serious, and we love and support our sons.
*  We feel like the newspaper got it wrong.  Having that article published was really hard on our families.
*  We won't talk about the victim.  She deserves privacy and respect.
*  We don't understand why the process took so long, and that's frustrating.
*  We're going to work with these young men to make sure they have good outcomes.

What if, instead of liking or commenting on or ignoring some of the worst social media posts, the friends of the people attacking Chelsea had said things like:
* Wow.  This really stinks, but you probably shouldn't talk about the victim that way.
*  I'm on your side, but let's not make things worse here.
*  I don't really understand what's happening.  Let's focus on the facts.
*  This isn't going to help your son.  Why don't you try...

Maybe I'm being too hopeful and optimistic here, but do you see the difference?  It would have been entirely possible to express support and frustration and confusion and hurt and disappointment without further hurting Chelsea.  As a teacher, I spend a lot of time on the power bystanders have in bullying situations.  I teach students that when they stand by and let someone get hurt, they are part of the problem.  I think most adults can imagine a bullying situation with kids at school and understand this idea.  I think most parents would want their kids to stand up in situations like this to support another kid who was struggling.  If that's true, I just have such a hard time understanding how adults would allow their friends--other adults--speak so unkindly and so viciously about a child.  It baffles me.  Were they afraid of losing these people as friends?  Were they afraid of losing business connections?  I really believe that if someone close to those who were being the most awful had privately expressed concern about the direction things were taking, Chelsea's experience would have been so much different.  It just makes me so sad.

In the summer of 2017 I was approached by someone who I know is friends with the defendants' families.  The conversation was almost surreal.  There was some expressed disappointment over kids in general making bad choices, and no real understanding of what had actually happened.  When I tried to explain, I was cut off, "Well, I don't know anything about that.  It was all just too much."  It was almost like the person was intentionally trying to NOT KNOW how bad things really were, because not knowing is easier than knowing and having to make a decision.

Here's the thing:  we can't go back in time.  What's done is done, and somehow, miraculously, Chelsea got through this storm and came out a stronger, braver, and kinder person.  But as much as I want for Chelsea to be the very last girl something like this happens to, I don't think she will be.  We have a long way to go in shifting our culture to value and respect every human being, including girls.  I'm just not convinced it can happen.  I think what CAN happen, however, and what SHOULD happen, is good people standing up for what's right:  refusing to allow victims to be blamed and shamed. That's why I won't shut up about Chelsea's story, and why I hope you won't either.  No young woman should ever have to go through something like this.  If enough of us agree to stand against victim shaming, we can shut it down.  We really can.  I hope you'll join me on this mission.