FLDS Press Release

Read the FLDS press release HERE in response to the report released by the Texas CPS.

Parents' Anniversary

My parents are celebrating their 42nd wedding anniversary today. Happy anniversary, Mom & Pop!

Memories of Grandpa

When I was about three or four years old, I went to play at a house next door to mine. Shortly afterward, the family left, but let me stay in the backyard playing on their swing set. They had a giant, mean dog, though, that came into the backyard and trapped me there. He scared me, so I climbed to the top of the swing set and sat there for what felt like forever, calling and calling for someone at my house to hear me and rescue me. After a while, my grandpa W (my mom's step-dad) came into the backyard at my house and saw me crying, trapped on top of the swing-set in the neighbor's yard, and he came right over and saved me from the big dog. Even now, I can clearly remember his voice saying to me, "There, there, little princess. You're alright now."

He took me for my driver's license test at the state fairgrounds when I turned 16. I was so nervous! The scariest part was driving into traffic and doing a left turn in a busy intersection. Thankfully I was able to parallel park where there weren't any other vehicles. Parking in between cars would have been pretty tough. After I got my driver's license, my grandpa let me drive back to his house where my family was visiting with grandma. I was driving my mom's station wagon, freshly painted like it was spanking new. We swung in to pick up some burgers at Arctic Circle up the street, and I pulled too close to the round cement bollard holding up the drive-thru sign, and scraped the bottom of the driver's side door. I froze and panicked. I didn't know what to do, and my grandpa told me to drive forward and away from the bollard, but when I did that, it dented the bottom of the passenger door behind! Ultimately, I had to back up to get away, and I was crushed! I drove home in shame rather than achievement. My grandpa faced the music for me... He went in and gave the bad news to my mom to soften the blow. I didn't get off the hook. I was driving, after all, and we didn't lie about what happened.

His funeral is Saturday. It looks like my husband and I will be singing "The Prayer". My husband speaks fluent Italian so that part is perfect for him, but he's really had to work with me on those lines we sing Italian together!

Interesting Article about the FLDS

Here is a link to an interesting article by a guy whose aunt became a plural wife in the FLDS: Polygamy & Playtime: My Childhood with the FLDS, by Shane Hensinger

More on the Texas CPS Report

There is an additional analysis of this report on the Salt Lake Tribune's Plural Life blog, by reporter Brooke Adams, who has been following the FLDS raid developments from the beginning. Brooke writes that the report states: "96 percent of the cases, involving 424 children, have been nonsuited, or dismissed, because the children have been deemed safe with their families after their parents signed safety plans and took parenting classes."

Here is her article about the report.

Not very New News: TX Child Welfare Authorities Releases Report Claiming Abuse at YFZ Ranch

The Texas Child Welfare authorities have released their report re the YFZ ranch raid & child abuse investigations. Not surprisingly, the state reiterates some of the claims made at the shelter hearing shortly after the raid. Of course, the news reports are declaring "widespread abuse" at the YFZ Ranch, based on the report's classification of 262 children as "neglected" because they lived in "households" with girls the state has declared "abused." The more interesting information is probably what isn't in the report. What happened to all the claims of broken bones? How is the state defining "household" now, in contrast to its earlier definition of the entire ranch as "one household"?

The report claims that 12 of the 43 girls taken from the YFZ ranch were "spiritually united" between the ages of 12 and 17. According to the Deseret News,

"The report claims two girls were 12 when they married, three were 13; two were 14 and five girls were 15. Seven of the girls had one or more children after marriage. The report acknowledges the earliest of the spiritual marriages took place in 2004 and the latest was in July 2006. CPS identified the perpetrators as the parents and the husband of each girl."

How old were the seven girls when they had their children? Why doesn't the report specify this? We know that at least one of the 12-year-olds did NOT have a child, and the alleged marriage was not consummated. She is currently 14 and in state custody in Texas.

The AP reports that "Another 262 children were listed as neglected because the agency said their parents knew there was sexual abuse in the household but did not move to protect their children from possible abuse."

How can children be considered victims by association merely for being a member of a "household" in which one of these twelve girls lived? Were they physically present when the claimed abuse took place? How much exposure did the other children actually have, beyond perhaps a knowledge that an alleged underage girl was pregnant? Since when does the existence of a pregnant teen in a home constitute abuse of other household children, and is that a standard in Texas? (If it is, Texas is big trouble!)

Is the state now willing to classify all children who live with sexually active or pregnant teenagers "at risk" if the parents or authority figures of the household are not actively campaigning against underage sex or marriage?

That's a stretch on the part of Texas to claim 262 kids are "neglected" because they resided in the household of these 12 girls.

I'm frustrated with this for a number of reasons.

First, while I firmly believe adults are better equipped to make marital decisions, I do not trust child welfare authorities in Texas to tell the truth anymore. I'm jaded because of all the false and highly sensational information they've released in the past. It is intensely hypocritical for Texas to preach against marriage or even betrothals, for teenagers, when it has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Texas would be better off encouraging teens to marry than justifying the YFZ ranch raid with yet more inferences and broad-reaching classifications.

Secondly, news organizations immediately run with this and assert "widespread abuse" among the YFZ ranch families. That is shoddy journalism at best.

Here is a response to the report from the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. They're calling the report "self-justifying clap-trap."

My Grandpa Died Yesterday

My Grandpa died yesterday. It was a release for him, since his quality of life has steadily deteriorated since his stroke two years ago. His funeral will be two days after Christmas. I'm sad.

I'm going to sing at the funeral with my cousin, but I'm not sure what we're going to sing, yet.

My strongest memories of him are of when I was little. He was always smiling and he threw me in the air. He and my grandma were always there for me. They came to Philadelphia to see me right after I was born, and loved that I was a feisty redhead. My grandpa carried me up the steps to the top of the statue of Liberty and held me out over the edge...

I had their phone number memorized by the time I was two and called them to rescue me every time I got in trouble. Once, I mixed up some flour, sugar and milk on the kitchen floor and had a blast until my mom found me. My mom said that my grand parents showed up while she was cleaning it, and she learned that I had called them to come over, and they came right away. She heard my grandma exclaim from the bathroom that she better hurry and clean me up before my mom saw me...apparently I had gone into the other room in tears and scribbled with markers all over myself while waiting for my grand-parents to arrive.

Years later, when I was about five, my grand-parents came to visit, and I sneaked out to their car and hid in the back. I revealed myself when we got to the freeway on the way to Salt Lake City.

Utah AG Mark Shurtleff Meets with FLDS

This is long overdue, and finally things are moving in the right direction. :o)

Follow these links for the articles:

Deseret News - http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705271494,00.html

Salt Lake Tribune - http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_11264228?source=rss

Happy 40th Birthday to Me!!

My husband (dh) brought me flowers last night. I was pretty low and emotional yesterday. I had a tough day but I didn't break my commitment to eat healthy and stick to my exercise program. I am proud of myself for that. Yesterday was like a test of my commitment. The frustration I mentioned about the driving was only a part of it... it was the kind of thing that I would use in the past as an excuse to quit. So, those things surface when you make a new commitment with yourself.

Dh asked me last night how he can support me. He has helped me with diet support in the past; he is a great cook! This time, I thought about it and said no to all of his suggestions. It occurred to me the best support he can give me right now is help to get the kids to bed at night so I can get to bed on time and rise early enough to get my exercise in every morning. That is a HUGE thing for me, that I get up and do my exercise every morning faithfully.

I told dh that this is a significant commitment I've made, because I'm not doing this for anyone but me. That means I'm accountable to me. I feel so empowered in that. There's a strength that comes up inside and spreads throughout as I think about it.

I cried a little in my work-out this morning; I'm releasing a lot of emotion, and that's good considering what a cruddy day I had yesterday. I ended the work-out with smiles, though. It really injected happiness into my mood.

I also went thirty minutes today. It would have been easy to step off at 20 minutes, but I knew I could go longer... My goal is go a little further when I feel I can, so that I can stretch my abilities. I'm taking it slow, though, and listening to my body. I know how it feels to go too far and wipe out. I'm not going to do that. I may not be able to go thirty minutes tomorrow, but I will always keep twenty minutes as a minimum now that I know I can tolerate it well.

I made up a set of music for today: Natasha Beddingfield, Sean Kingston, Information Society, Tin Tin, Big Pig, Mika. The eighties music brought back a lot of memories. I used to go dancing all the time when I was single (and before I turned 21), and I loved dancing! I never go dancing and I miss it. Work-outs kind of give me that feeling.

I'd love to go out dancing with my husband, but I wouldn't know where to begin to even look for a place to go. I am wary of going to singles clubs, but that might be all there is. Does anyone in the Salt Lake area know of any place where couples can go dancing, and not get hit on? Dh said he'd be willing to go, and THAT is a surprise, because he has never liked dancing in front of people. Slow dancing, sure...

I absolutely feel that I have made a "life change" mentally and emotionally. It feels different from other attempts to diet or lose weight. My friend Linda K (Principle Voices founder) says that it's not about my weight at all; it's about making agreements with myself and keeping them. She is so right; she has been an amazing, insightful and unconditional friend and coach to me over the years. I am so thankful for her in my life. :o)

I feel reconnected to myself. It's like something that I feel in the core of me. I understand a little better what Valerie Bertinelli meant when she says that she found herself as she lost her weight.

Today, for the first time during my exercise, I spent a lot of time self-reflecting. It wasn't painful. It was personal, intimate. I am so busy all the time that I rarely get time to myself, to just be alone, and I've really craved it. This is another benefit of my work-outs, private, intimate time with myself.

Good news: my weigh-in was this morning and I've lost 2 1/2 pounds since I started (it's been about a week?).

The better news? I'm happy about the weight loss, but I'm more happy about everything else that's going on inside of me. The weight loss, while it was my initial goal, has become secondary to the other things I am feeling and experiencing in myself. I am really excited about that, and it seems like the weight loss is really the frosting on the cake, rather than the cake itself.

The ultimate goal seems to be me becoming my own best friend.

Frustration

I am so tired of having to drive my kids to and from school every morning. I'm trying to be positive about it, but it's been years and years, well, since they started school! But in the elementary school years I only had to drive them at 8 a.m. In Sandy, the middle school kids had a bus so I didn't have to drive them. Later, when they got into high-school, we were outside the bus boundaries, so I had to drive my oldest son for a year, then the three boys the next year at 7 a.m. every morning. They could ride the bus home so I picked them up at the bus stop every afternoon, and still had to drive the elementary school kids to and from school morning and afternoon, too. Now I'm driving on fumes, I think. I did car-pool for a time, and I have driven neighbor kids regularly. For the longest time, I didn't feel comfortable letting my daughter who has down syndrome walk to school.

My older boys are driving and that helped a lot this year with the high-school commute, but they're now doing a different school program and can't drive my 10th grade daughter to school anymore. Thankfully, she's found other girls to car-pool with for the most part, but I still pick her up in the afternoons, drive her to and from work, and to and from school for debate tourneys. Sometimes I have to pick her up at midnight after a tourney, and drop her off at 5 a.m. the next morning for the second day of the tourney.

We drive the girls to Sandy to see their friends from the old neighborhood. We want them to be able to maintain those friendships. Once my older daughter can drive, that will ease a lot of it...

My husband and I trade off a lot of the driving, but I do all the early morning commutes because he is NOT an early riser.

I guess this is one of those "perseverance" things.

Jamming Out!

My daughters Holly and three-year old V are so fun to watch when they dance! They really have got some moves; clearly they've picked up some impressive dance moves from the Disney channel. :0)

It used to be that when I worked out, they'd come tearing into the room and want to do it, too, and they'd just end up dancing next to me or mimic my Tae Bo or other workouts.

Then, when I lie down to do my crunches, they'd invariably sit on my tummy, and I'd have to scoot them off, and oh boy they'd be mad.

Now when I do my workouts, they just dance and spin and laugh. They're pretty entertaining.

19th Anniversary, My 40th Birthday, and I Dream of My Thinner Self

We celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary the other night with a quiet, private dinner at Market Street Grill. It was very nice, though our waitress was really nervous and, as a result, somewhat flighty. She also had really bad breath and that did detract from the ambiance. He bought me some nice dress pants and a shiny silver blouse and I got him a book of essays by intellectuals discussing evolution from different perspectives.

My 40th birthday is coming up in a few days. I have decided what I want most for this coming year is to lose weight. I want to uncover myself, and rediscover the me that I've suffocated with these extra pounds.

I am almost finished reading Valerie Bertinelli's book, "Losing It, and Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time." I have really enjoyed this book, which was a surprise because I usually don't bother reading celebrity books, especially life stories. They are generally self-serving, and I don't have any interest with tell-all's that list one-night stands or celebrity bed-hopping. Valerie is pretty open about her relationships, even ones that left her feeling rejected, stupid, or guilty. I was blown away by the challenges she faced in her marriage, and amazed she stuck it out so long ~ 20 years! But I understand the desire to maintain commitments, and the determination to persevere.

The weight loss portion is pretty short. It comes near the end of the book, of course, and her struggles with moving 10-20 pounds up and down the scale through a variety of diets and abandoning of diets is something I can relate to. I was actually, frankly, shocked when I realized that she is 8 years older than me! I thought she was closer to my age, maybe a few years older, but not 8. It gives me hope that if she can do it as 47, I can do it at 40! I'm starting at about the same weight as she did, and if I can lose 40 pounds in the coming year, it would be tremendous!

The last several years I have looked at turning 40 as the end of something, like I can't get myself back, or be thin again, and what's the point because I'm not young anymore...but now I am inspired by Valerie. She lost 40 pounds at 47 years old, and she looks beautiful.

I AM inspired by Valerie. At a time in her life when she was rediscovering herself and dedicating herself to lose weight and take care of herself, she just opened her heart to her boyfriend Tom's four children from a prior marriage, and still managed to do what she needed to do for herself. I have a bunch of kids myself and they take a lot of care and devotion, and I tend to put myself at the bottom of the priority list, you know? Still, it's about making choices. I can still take care of my kids and take care of myself, too.

I am not going to allow myself to excuse my weight anymore. It's easy to blame stress, life, pregnancies, overwhelm, lack of support or encouragement, etc., but the truth is, I've learned to enjoy food and I am a social eater (and sometimes an emotional one). I mean, if I'm getting together with friends, we go out to eat; when my husband and I go out, we go out to eat. It's actually been one of the pit-falls of my diets in the past because everything revolves around food and who wants to go out with friends with the intent to enjoy yourself, and then eat food you don't enjoy while everyone else is eating the food you DO love?

I do need to shift my thinking, though. When I think about going out with friends and eating a salad, I think I'm "settling" for the salad, all the while reinforcing that what I would prefer would be the Chicken Alfredo pizza (very fattening!) but I'm "depriving" myself.

Not Anymore! No way! I'm not settling when I eat right, I'm Choosing instead a different life, a thin life. I do believe that I have to change my environment in order to lose weight, because clearly I've created an environment in which I live that supports the weight I maintain so that the status quo continues.

Anne and I went to see Australia, the movie, the other day, and I passed on the popcorn and soda, and did well. I had a little struggle with myself before I left the house, and as I thought it through, I asked myself, do I want to see the movie or is it that I want to eat? Well, what I really wanted was to submerge myself into a movie and really feel it and let myself go into it. I held that vision in mind as what I really wanted, and food wasn't any part of that picture. Having set my intent and expectations for what I was going to get from the movie, I helped myself out by eating a small lunch before I took off to the show; I wasn't hungry at all when I got there and felt no desire for popcorn or even a coke (which is my favorite drink in the whole world).

The best thing about reading Valerie's book was that it leaves me feeling encouraged. I can do it. I really can!

Valerie made a comment in the book that I really liked, she said that every time she has a choice, she chooses "happy". I think we do choose our moods. Sometimes we just want to be angry, or drown in self-pity and depression, and sometimes we don't know why we feel the way we do... It's important to get in tune with your feelings, your expectations, your desires, your motivations. If I have the power to choose happy, why am I choosing sad, instead?

Also, she quoted her good friend Julie as saying: "What other people think of you is none of your business." I like that a lot! That really resonated with me. I've really reached a place in my life where I am losing that concern over what people think about me, or whether or not people like me. Maybe it's part of hitting the mid-thirties and beyond because I've been feeling it more and more since I hit 35, and caring less and less about other people's attitudes. They can have their drama and live in it if they want; just take it away from me! :o)

I got started on my work-out routine more consistently five days ago (it's been sporadic for months). I moved my health rider and elliptical machines into my bedroom, and I love it! I can work out to the television now, which should help with any boredom, but I haven't turned on the TV yet. Instead, I got a nice CD player (for my birthday, early!) with detachable speakers, and my husband set them up in the corner of the bedroom (behind the exercise machines), and hooked up my Zen to them so I can play either CD's or my Zen. I put together a work-out play-list with Rhianna, Justine Timberlake, Akon, Kanye West and Brandy, and it's been great! It carries me through. One of Timberlake's songs is seven minutes long! I love long songs because they make the time go faster.

The first day I started my new work-out routine, the elliptical base broke, so now I can't use it. I have done the Health rider instead, and it has been intense. I did 15 minutes three days in a row, missed yesterday, then did 25 minutes today. I got up at 6 a.m. and was finished by 7 a.m., in time to drive my high-schooler to school, then got home in time to put my elementary school student on the bus, and then drove my two middle school students to school. My high-schooler actually drove this morning; she wants to get as much practice in with her permit as possible, and will be getting her license in April. The weather is horrible today (as it was yesterday), but the roads were good enough, and the distance short enough to the school, to give her the experience she needs for bad weather. She's a very good driver. While I was sitting in the passenger seat, guiding her along, I realize how great it felt to have my work-out DONE and it was only 7 a.m. I don't have to worry about squeezing it in during the day. I think that, mentally, I carry it around with me every day until I get it done, and as the day wears on, it starts to wear on me and pull me down emotionally. Having it done so early this morning was not just a relief of mind, it was liberating.

My determination is to lose weight, but more than that, I want to be physically fit, and make fitness a part of my every day routine. Weight loss or not, I feel better, and look better, when I am fit. If it's a part of my life, rather than an intrusion into my life, I know I will reap the rewards of a fit and healthier lifestyle. I am sure that one of those rewards will be some weight loss.

So, that's what I want for my 40th year. I want to strip off the pounds and re-discover the real me inside! Congratulations, Valerie!

Up From Tribulation & Falling in Love in Polygamy

It occurred to me the other day that while there are a lot of polygamy books circulating lately, most of them negative and some that are historical, there are very few books about polygamous families that show the happier families, the successful ones, and their love stories. Where are their love stories?

Scoff if you will, but there are many love stories in polygamy. My friends are all in love with their husbands, and their husbands are in love with them. We share our stories with each other, if not with the public. I imagine the reasons for that are obvious. They would be difficult to tell publicly, in light of the fact that so few plural families are willing to be public and the repercussions of being public are so great.

Still, they are there. Next week is my 19th wedding anniversary. Nineteen years with the same man, the love of my life. I was his second wife, his plural wife. Anne Wilde, my friend and colleague in Principle Voices, was widowed several years ago after thirty three years of marriage. All around me, I have example after example of long-time married couples (dyads in plural families) who know what it means to stay committed through the glorious times and the rough patches. In fact, I had occasion to spend some time with one couple (in plural marriage) who a few years ago had really been struggling through a tough time, but who now look to me like two newlywed kids, flirting, touching and inspiring love poems in each other, but with the maturity and depth that comes with years of togetherness.

I was inspired. I tend to get buried in "stuff" and don't pay enough attention to the most important relationship in my life (second to my relationship with myself and with the Lord). I think it is easy to let your relationships falter without sufficient nurturing; indeed, your marriage needs more than the basic food and water to survive...it needs to be showered with nurturing and devotion (without smothering!).

So, where can a person turn for the more positive stories in polygamy? Our compilation of essays, Voices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage, is one. It doesn't tell stories so much as short essays on how women feel about plural marriage. Our book can be purchased on Amazon here.

I would also recommend Up From Tribulation, by Susa Young Gates, the daughter of Brigham Young. Set in the 1850s, it is based on the true story of Willard Gibbs' conversion to Mormonism. The back of the book says that Willard "arrived in Utah broken-hearted over his separation from his bride because he would not retract his new-found religion. While living in the household of a Bishop with three wives, Willard began to learn more about the faith that was required to live his new religion. To his great surprise, he also discovered love again." (and again, too!)

You can purchase this book on Amazon at this link.

I would love it if people would share their love stories with me on the eve of my anniversary! Enjoy.

Safety Net Meetings are Public, and Broadcast Online

For anyone interested, the Safety Net meetings are now available through webcast. There are three meetings that have successfully webcast, and can be viewed online at: Safety Net webcast

You will need to scroll down the page to where there are a selection of videos at the bottom. The most recent three are Safety Net meetings.

Book Review - Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls

I STRONGLY recommend this book, particularly if you like to read true life stories. This book is a memoir of Jeanette Walls' childhood growing up in extreme poverty, and the challenges her family faced as the kids grew older.

It opens with an adult Jeanette looking out the window of her taxi on the way home from a party (in New York), when she sees a homeless woman digging through garbage, and realizes that it is her mother.

She is stricken with emotion: guilt, embarrassment, grief, and the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that surges from memories of her childhood. She doesn't stop the taxi, or climb out to lend her mother a helping hand. Her mother would scoff at her if she tried that. Her mother wants to be homeless...

To understand Jeanette's feelings, and her mother's, we journey back with her to a significant memory from her childhood and move forward from there to see her life unfold.

A three-year old Jeannette stands at the stove to cook herself some hot dogs (she explains later how she filled the heavy pan with water cup by cup from the sink because she was too small to lift the pan full of water - a very clever girl), and she catches on fire. Her mother, who is in another room painting, wraps her in a blanket and borrows a neighbor's car to take her to the hospital, where the nurses and doctors adore the child but view the accident with suspicion.

This book caught hold of my family, particularly the women. My mom, sister and I have all read it, and my sisters in law are next in line. I am now reading it, with some editing, to my teens. For those of you who are put off by language, you should know that there is some colorful language throughout the book, not so much the big F word, but other words. The swearing is in the dialogue, part of the characterization of the family members, which is actually quite effective.

Jeanette Walls' writing takes hold from the very beginning and never lets go. There are times when I truly, truly hated her parents, but she effectively evokes warmth and sympathy towards them as well. Her parents are real people, with good qualities and big flaws, who offer occasional moments of tenderness and love to their children, but also an unbelievable lack of concern for their care and well-being. The children cope better in their younger years, going more with the flow of their parents' nomadic life, but as they grow older, things get much harder. You can't throw your kids in the car, cut all roots every few weeks, and sleep in the desert for weeks on end, or in a shack with no food and no power in the dead of winter, and expect your kids to accept it all cheerfully as one of life's many adventures.

It does get harder to read as the children become more aware of the harsh realities of their life, and as the stress on the family takes its toll on everyone, the sweeter moments diminish into frustration, sorrow and desperation.

My mom said it caused her to reflect upon her life and what she had accomplished, and what she could have accomplished, but didn't. She and my dad raised seven children, and they both sacrificed so much to give us the things we needed, but not just things, they gave of themselves. I always felt loved, knew I was loved. If it came down to my mom choosing between something she wanted and something we needed, we won every time, hands down. I know she sacrificed many of her own hopes and dreams to be a stay at home mom and dedicate herself to taking care of us. I know she misses the opportunities other paths afforded her, career paths where she could have expressed her talents and put her intelligence to work in the world rather than in debating with us kids over the fairness of curfews or the intricacies of our faith, or the day's politics and current events. I'm better for it. We all were, but it took our parents' giving of themselves, curbing their own desires, to achieve it.

I really struggled emotionally when reading the portions of Jeanette's life in Welch, her father's hometown, where the children have nothing to eat and yet their mother still manages to have paint for her art. Jeanette does not let her parents off the hook, but she doesn't allow the book to drown in condemnation or bitterness. She maintains a careful balance of honesty, self-reflection and accountability that touches the heart of the reader.

If you're looking for a great book, this is it! You might want to consider this for Christmas? Write to me and share your feelings once you've read it!

You can buy this book at Amazon: Glass Castle