two sides to everything. two months waiting.

today marks 2 months on the waitlist for little brother. . . so i thought i'd talk about something having to do with TWO.

if there is anything that i have learned so far in my life, it is that there are always at least two sides to everything.  no thing is all good or all bad.  there is ALWAYS a tradeoff.  always. . . now i know this might seem cliché or obvious, but i think we can all get caught up in thinking we know what is right, and that other people are either wrong or have bad information or just don’t care.  but what really happens, i think, is that we are simply weighing the ‘tradeoffs’ and ending up on different sides. 

 

for example.  look at this ‘genital autonomy’ doll i made.  its pretty cool, right?  well it has two very different sides. . .  i got the idea from the logo of this british charity: http://www.genitalautonomy.eu/# ...  their organization works with groups seeking to end non-therapeutic genital surgery on children whether they are intersex, female or male. . . . i like their message.  and i especially liked their logo.  it definitely catches your attention.  and is a great conversation starter. 

before i was a mom, i hadn’t thought too much about circumcision.  then, when we were waiting to adopt our son, i started to think more and more about it and do some research.   in the end, we decided not to circumcise.  we don’t judge folks who do.  and i understand the many reasons why people decide to circumcise.  it just wasn’t right for us. . . which brings me to the interesting thing i discovered about circumcision: it gets people fired up!!!! i brought it up in casual conversation one evening at a local bar in San Francisco and within minutes, the entire bar was yelling and screaming at each other about it.  interesting, huh?  anyway, that has always fascinated me about circumcision.  so i made this ‘genital autonomy’ doll. . . it’s kind of like a weird coffee table book – its a great conversation piece.

i’m planning some more blog posts to share more about the tradeoffs of other things that i find interesting.  so stay tuned . . .