Privilege

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how a person's current circumstances are determined by the privilege that person has or has not had in life. And that privilege is, more often than not, pure luck. Sure, personal choices and temperament have something to do with where one ends up. But some people, regardless of decisions made or personality traits possessed, will never have the opportunity to make particular choices.

For example, a child born into poverty and barely scraping through life is likely never to have the opportunity to choose to go to college. This child, as he grows, will be forced to make choices about how to acquire food, shelter, and other basic life needs. If he does make a stab at getting a secondary education, he's likely to be put off by the need to work more than he can study. Lack of education will be one more thing to keep him in poverty.

A child born into a middle- or upper-class family is likely to be expected to go to college. And when he does, the majority of his expenses will be covered by parents, loans, and maybe a part-time job. Nevertheless, once he's finished, he's much more likely to have acquired the skills he needs to break even. He'll not be 90% focused on meeting basic survival needs.

This is just one of many examples. (And there are outliers; I won't deny that. But this is not about outliers.)

The point was illustrated by two cases I came across at work recently. One is a 12-year-old girl who lives in a group home for troubled teens who've been kicked out of their homes and/or schools. A staff member from the group home called to make a post-run appointment for this girl. A post-run appointment is made after someone has returned from running away from the facility. During that appointment there are toxicology and STI screenings done to see if they have done any illegal drugs or contracted any infections from unprotected sex with who-knows-who. It's heavy stuff -- especially for a 12-year-old.

I have a 12-year-old.

Wanna know what he's into? Legos. Minecraft. Nerf anything. His iPhone. Making goofy faces. Fart jokes. Building and programming robots. The farthest thing from his mind is running away from any where. Unless the farthest thing from his mind is doing something that would get him kicked out of his home in the first place.

Because I cannot fathom ever kicking him out of our home, I cannot fathom what circumstances this young girl has come across that have put her where she is. But things in her life are vastly different from the things in my son's life. Most of the decisions these two children will need to make in life will be the result of where and to whom they were born. There is almost no changing that.

The other case that demonstrates the pure luck of the draw was even more personal. I met a young mother with a newborn. She also has 3 other children, all 3 and younger. She is living in a safe house because her newborn child's father punched her in the face, leaving her with broken bones. She is younger than I was when I had my first child.

When I stopped to count up all the strikes she has against her, I might as well have been counting up all the things I have had going for me. But for a few differences, I could be her. I'm lucky that my grandparents paid for nursing school. I'm lucky I didn't get pregnant a fourth time. I'm lucky my ex-husband didn't physically abuse me. I'm lucky that when I finally gathered the guts to leave him, I had a supportive family. I'm lucky that when all of that came crashing down on me, I had a few years more of life experience and emotional maturity than she does.

I'm unbelievably lucky and so are my children. And that, folks, is the essence of privilege.

Musings on My Career

I have recently begun to face facts.  Or one fact, anyway.  Namely, I do not have the time to go to nursing school and I won't have the time any time soon.  Any decent nursing program has a murderous clinical schedule that I cannot swing as a single parent.  I have done everything I can, worked out every plan, researched all the options and it's just not workable.

Now, I'm not one to let obstacles get in the way of what I want.  I don't give up easily.  I'm a hard worker.  I'm also a realist.  All the encouraging, feel good, don't give up-ness in the world cannot change the facts.  I don't know a single person in my situation -- single parent with the other parent 400 miles away -- who has done this.  Every BSN candidate I know has either 1) a spouse who works full-time and supports the family while caring for children; or 2) moved in with parents who can fill the childcare and financial support roles as needed; or 3) a vastly superior financial situation that allows for not working any kind of job.  None of these three are possible for me.

I was lamenting all of this to Paul and he said, "What else do you want to do?"  And I immediately said, "There's nothing else.  This is what I want."

But then I thought some more and I came up with these requirements for my career, such as it is or might be:

1. I have to be able to meet thousands, if not tens of thousands, of different people.  As much as individual people might drive me absolutely bonkers, I love humanity in general.  I need to be immersed in all the stuff that makes up people.
2. I have to be able to help those people.  I need to feel that I can have a personal impact on someone's life.  It may not be a lot to humanity as a whole, but I need to connect with at least a few people on a personal level.
3. I have to be learning stuff.  All the time.  I don't want a single day to go by where I don't learn something, be it fascinating or mundane.

I've never articulated before why I love nursing so much.  That's it right there.  Those things mean the world to me.  But that doesn't mean that nursing is the only way I can be fulfilled or happy. I can't believe I'm just now seeing this.  I think I could pursue a degree in biology or nutrition or something else that hasn't occurred to me yet and still be fulfilled and happy.

I would love to work in a research hospital some where.  If I could study disease processes or microscopic pathogens and figure out what makes them tick, I'd be happy.  If I could make them stop ticking, I'd be ecstatic.  If I could save lives by stopping the ticking of fatal pathogens, I'd die happier than anyone ever has.

I have a lot to consider.  I need to do some research on where I might fit.  I need to see what my realistic options are.  But I'm excited.  There is a whole world out there -- that doesn't require grueling clinical hours -- that I haven't considered before now.  And I can't wait to see what it might hold.

7 Billion. For Realz.

This video reminds me of the time I was 9 and our family sat around the dinner table one night talking about how big a million and a billion are. Dad had come up with some awe-inspiring amount of time that it would take 1 million people to walk in front of our mailbox, one right after the other. I can't remember it now but I remember the feeling I had trying to comprehend that then. It's the same feeling I had just now trying to comprehend 7 billion people here.

I'm Too Emotional & Too Cynical

Found this video.  Watched this video.  Teared up over some of the footage, giggled at other parts of it.


As it ended, I felt affection for this world and all its inhabitants and our interconnectedness.  And then I thought to myself, "This is really just a commercial for Google."