Some Parents aren’t Nice

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Tom Liberman

I use Facebook although I don’t have a huge number of friends. I do peruse the links of those friends as I look for fodder for my blog. One of my friends shared the image at the top of this blog. It purportedly shows an exchange between father and child. It might be completely false but it most certainly does illustrate that sometimes parents aren’t very nice.

What struck me about the image was that it spoke rather directly to a topic that I attempt to analyze in my new novel, The Girl in Glass I – Apparition. In that novel the three main characters are teenage girls, Rhia, Mike, and Marianna, who have had very different parental experiences. A fourth character, Adusko also must deal with childhood baggage. It is not simply black and white, good and evil. There are nuances. One of the central themes of the book, and the trilogy as a whole, is the ability to grow outside of that very important parent/child relationship. Eventually the child must be their own entity.

Mike is raised by loving parents in a privileged environment but is in full teenage rebellion. Rhia left her parents at a young age and has set out on her own. Marianna was initially raised by a loving father but his death left her in the hands of an uncaring mother and an abusive step-father. The three set out together to save Tanelorn. One of the ideas of the novels is they get to know one another and learn to escape the patterns set by childhood. Adusko is the product of an extremely violent childhood although his story is explored in more detail in later books.

There is no doubt that we are all children and subject to the environment that our parents or guardians create. A child raised in one way certainly has both advantages and disadvantages in comparison to a child raised differently. There are certain environments that are more likely to create a happy and productive child and others which are more likely to create a monster.

The main point is that despite the worst or best upbringing it is largely possible for a person to make their own lives. In the Girl in Glass trilogy, I spend time with each of the girls showing how they overcome that initial life direction and eventually find their own way.

This lesson is important for everyone. We are none of us perfect. We all make mistakes. We all fall into patterns in life and too frequently they are those set into us at an early age. Those ingrained habits can be for good or ill but it is important to recognize them and eventually choose our own paths.

In the case of the Facebook post the last entry is a sarcastic reference to the lack of parental support. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? It’s not easy to say. Certainly anger is often justified as is sarcasm but if it hurts us to engage in such, should we choose not to do so? If the need to hurt someone else overwhelms the desire to help ourselves, I argue it is a bad thing.

In the end, if we spend our time trying to figure out ways to hurt those who have hurt us, we only perpetuate the lesson they taught us. Their lesson was that hurting others is a way to temporarily abate the self-loathing.

What would be better is if we moved on. Easy to say ….

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition – Release date: late August 2015

Loud Singing at the Gym

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Tom Liberman

When I encounter loud singing at the gym, or anywhere else, I don’t like it. I make no bones about it. The gym is my sanctuary. I love going to the gym. It’s great for me physically and it clears my mind from the day’s events. When I encounter rudeness at the gym I’m not one to tolerate it. Today I met the enemy and faced it down.

Polite people don’t intrude on other people with loud singing. That’s the bottom line. I don’t care what you’re singing. When you are being noisy in someone else’s space you’re rude and inconsiderate.

My Experience

Monday is a weight workout day and I jump on the treadmill for a five-minute warm-up before lifting. Today I had companions to my right and left. The person to my left suddenly started singing loudly enough for me to hear it easily. I give that person a glance but am studiously ignored. The general behavior of someone being rude who knows it but refuses to acknowledge it.

It goes on for about thirty seconds and I lean over and politely express my desire that the singing stop. I get a dismissive wave, the singing stops for thirty seconds, but then begins again. I lean over and forcefully say that the singing is intruding on my space and it must stop. It stops but I am the recipient of an angry face. Tough.

Final Result

I have no doubt the intrusive singing started up again as soon as I headed off to the weight room and I feel for the poor person who took my spot. I feel for everyone who has to deal with such rudeness but don’t expect me to put up with it. I’m too old to allow that sort of thing to ruin my time at the oasis of my life.

Conclusion

I don’t care where you are and what you’re doing. You don’t have the right to start belting out a song in a public place when a bunch of other people are around. It intrudes on their space in an unwelcome manner. You’re selfishly putting your own interests in loud singing above anyone else who doesn’t want to hear it. Trust me, there are lots of people who don’t want to hear it. Did your parents forget to teach you manners?

Why am I telling you this story? Because I hope you’ll do the same when you encounter such behavior. If we all firmly but politely insist on better behavior from our fellow humans it’s much more likely that we’ll get it. If enough people tell the singer to stop singing eventually the message will penetrate the skull and the world will be better for it.

You’re welcome.

Tom Liberman

Misleading Headline – Court Ordered Circumcision

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Tom Liberman

I just spotted a story from Good Morning America that blares out that a woman was recently released from prison after disputing the circumcision of her son. The headline in this case is actually not bad, it’s the story itself that is misleading.

If you read the story they simply state that the son of Heather Hironimus was to be circumcised and that when she refused to allow it, she was put in prison.

What actually happened was that Hironimus and the boy’s father have been in a dispute about the boy since before he was born. As part of that dispute Hironimus signed a parental agreement document that stated she agreed to have him circumcised. She later refused to honor that signed statement. The boy’s father, Dennis Nebus, then asked the courts to enforce her agreement, which they did.

At that point she didn’t show up for the procedure and was found guilty of violating the court order and thus put into prison.

So while the headline was actually not bad the fact that the person who wrote the story left out absolutely vital information means it, sort of, fits into my misleading headline category!

Have a great Memorial Day.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Black Sphere
Next Release: The Girl in Glass I: Apparition