Inappropriate Reading

That's my adorable little brother, Shane on the stool

As a child, I was a certified bookworm. I remember my parents and other adults constantly telling me to "get my nose out of that book," or to "put down that book and go outside and play."  You can see me in action in this picture.  I'm absolutely engrossed in my Nancy Drew book, circa 1975 at my grandparent's house. Just lost in it.

Can you imagine telling a child to stop reading today?

For the past 3-4 years I've put a great deal of effort into trying to get my now 16 year old's nose out of her iPad/iPhone, and I'm wondering if it isn't pretty much the same.  My parents told me to go outside and play because that's how they were raised.  I want my kids to read actual books cause that's how I was.  My oldest child was also a certified bookworm.  She's 30 and still a huge reader, but of course all of her reading is done on e-devices now.  She grew up with her nose in a book, and I was pleased, to put it mildly.  My middle child was also a reader, although not as epically as her older sister.  Neither of them grew up on iPads or iPhones, so because this is not how I was raised, OR how I raised my two older girls, Zoe my 16 year old is paying the price.  This is her several years ago on the iPad.  See the similarities?  I'm certain that after taking this cute picture I told her to get off the screen. 

I know that kids today are doing all kinds of other things on their phones besides reading books.  My Nancy Drew book didn't have an option to switch over to tumblr or Reddit.  But I was reading all kinds of inappropriate stuff.  One year my mom sent my dad to buy books for me for Christmas.  This was 1977, so keep in mind I was only 11 years old. Because he couldn’t find the books on my Christmas list, he ended up buying me me a trilogy of books by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I still have these extremely well-worn paperback books in my library today, pages missing, covers falling off, multiple dog eared corners.... ahh, the signs of a much-read, well-loved book....

They say that smartphones and e-devices will be the downfall of modern youth - much like rock and roll in the 60's and 70's or video games in the 80's.  I was spared most of the demonizing of rock and roll by my parents.  While my father was generationally contemptuous of bands like Led Zepplin and AC/DC, he grew up loving Elvis Presley and rockabilly bluegrass music.  He famously brought home the 1972 live double album, "Hot August Night" from Neil Diamond's Los Angeles outdoor Greek Theater concert, which became a staple of my and my younger sibling's musical childhoods.  I grew up smack in the middle of the video game predictions-of-horror-period, though.  As a teenager, considering all the doomsday opinions I had heard from adults, read about in magazines and watched on tv, I was positive that all the kids who played video games were going to be either vegetables or serial killers by age 25. This turned out not to be true: My brothers are relatively normal.* Also, Dad, I did not become a drug addict after listening to Ozzy's "Diary of a Madman" album my sophomore year of high school.

But back to those books my dad bought me, when I was 11 years old.  First in the trilogy, The Flame and the Flower, is "...an epic historical romance with a strong heroine and actual sex scenes...spawning the modern romance genre, becoming the first romance novel to [follow] the principals into the bedroom."**  You can bet this was not what my parents wanted me to be reading, even though they gave it to me for Christmas.  Much like when I gave Zoe an iPhone, I hadn't intended for her to watch Shameless at age 15. Kids today bypass smartphone parental controls with the same kinds of dexterity, zeal and ingenuity that I displayed figuring out how to sneak out of the house nearly every night during my freshman year of high school, ending up at places like the rest stop on interstate I-35 North right around the Garden Ridge Pottery exit.  The way I look at it is that while my 16 year old may not physically travel as far, she's still exploring the dangerous world, just in a way that is way different than I did. 

Even more significantly, instead of being irrevocably scarred by my inappropriate Christmas gift of literature, the 2nd book in the trilogy, "The Wolf and the Dove," inspired me with an enduring love of European history, and a strong desire to read more about it.  The smallest details about the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 are seared into my brain for all eternity. Eventually, (some 500 historical years later) I developed such a strong obsession with with Elizabeth the First that over the next 20 years I  devoured everything ever written about her. What a badass queen she was.  #rolemodel

I guess my point is that being glued to the screen might not be as evil as we predict.  It's just a different way for kids to explore the world.  And their world is far bigger as a result of the e-device resources.  It wouldn't have taken me 20 years to fully study Elizabeth the Great if I'd had an iPad. 
 
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*for the most part...
**Wikipedia

Pour me a drink, my kid is turning 30

The first picture of Ariel

In March 1988, I was a 22 year old pregnant military spouse living in Alamaogordo, New Mexico.  I remember it like it was yesterday. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

I only lived in Alamogordo for a few weeks, just long enough to finish gestating and give birth to Ariel Marie, 9 lbs 1 oz, 21 1/2 inches long, and perfect. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

We moved on to Clovis, New Mexico only a few months later, where we learned to cope with the smells of herds of Texas cattle and the sleep deprivation of having a newborn. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

When she was 9 months old we flew to live in England. When we came back to the states she was 3 and spoke with an English accent.  

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

When she started Kindergarten we were living in Lubbock, Texas, and her beloved sister, and playmate, Lacey, was born. 

Pour me a drink, THAT kid is turning 25 in June! 

In middle school Ariel refused to go to her Confirmation and started reading Ayn Rand and Ann Rice. She was my first, and I had no idea what I was doing. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

In high school she cried before and after debate tournaments and became editor of the school newspaper. She looked like a fashion model in her prom dresses. I had no idea what I was doing. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

Trinity University awarded Ariel the President's Scholarship and she double majored in English and Communications. I thought maybe I'd done something right. 

Pour me a drink, that kid is turning 30. 

I knew day would come when she would move away but I wasn't expecting the news that it was 1,111 mikes away (I looked it up). She went off to Ft Lauderdale, Florida to be a newspaper reporter. 

Pour me a drink, my kid is turning 30. 

When she moved back home 4 years later she told me that journalism was dying, and she was depressed. I had no idea what I was doing. 

Pour me a drink, my kid is turning 30. 

Ariel proposed to her fiancé this past year and they're planning a wedding for April 2019.  They live and work and play and travel together. Her birthday is today and she is in Nevada at a conference for her work in the marketing department of a gaming company. 

Pour me a drink, my kid is a beautiful, accomplished young woman turning 30. 

Make it a double!  I hear 30 is the new 20. 

Prevention is Hard: A prison pipeline story

For over 20 years I have been working in the nonprofit sector youth development space.  Over that same span of time my brother has been working in the federal prison system.  He says his side is winning. 

What he means by that is that he wins in the revenue department.  His system is more well funded than mine. Way more.  He recognizes this despite the fact that he is constantly lobbying to stop cutting federal funding for the prison system.  So here we both are:  Me struggling to find revenue to keep kids out of prison, and him struggling to find revenue to adequately care for them when they ultimately get there. 

Isn't that a happy family story?  

My brother (left) in a picture not involving work. #gospursgo

We came to this realization sitting around a bunch of beer coolers in a parking lot about 7 or 8 years ago.  The story is fuzzy in my memory* except for that vivid illustration of the consequences of a lack of funding for prevention in the youth development space.  My brother's union had a conference and the hotel they stayed in was right across the street from my nonprofit.  They basically packed out the hotel and one night they brought a barbecue grill across the street, and the prison guards and social workers had themselves a party.

We told them about our waiting list of kids needing mentors.  They told us about guard to prisoner ratios and how often that rule is broken. We talked about the challenges the kids in our program face, and how long they stay on the wait list; some til it's too late.  They were familiar with the dysfunctional cycles that plague the families of kids who end up in jail; they knew how common it was for multiple family members to all end up in prison.  We talked budgets and they laughed at ours (around $2 million).  They said the cycle of incarceration was inevitable and it was "nice of us" to try - but we would lose way more often than we win. As the beer flowed, they even laughed at us a little for even trying.

It's not a question of can we prevent kids from going to jail?  At my nonprofit we know that mentoring works.  There is both anecdotal evidence and research that it does. But as I wrote about before, outcomes don't really matter in the current system.  One of the craziest things I have ever experienced in my professional career was when a state government department-head told me that it didn't matter that we were 100% successful in our program, and that had nothing to do with being funded.

A year or so ago we got a list of kids from our local probation department referred to us for mentoring services.  They were all between the ages of 14 and 17.  Most of them were already in our system - un-served back when they were 7,8, or 9 - what we called "file closed, unmatched." They were unmatched because we have around 1,000 kids on the wait list all the time and never enough  funding to meet the demand. You have to wonder if those 7,8 and 9 year olds had had mentors back in the day, would they have gone down the same path?  Probably not. 

Recently I spoke with a juvenile court judge and told him that getting kids in our program graduated was not a challenge.  He said that "can't be true," or he "would have heard about it.**  Why is it so hard to believe?  Because it sounds too easy?  Well, it's not easy. Running a quality mentoring program is very difficult.  Human relationships are complicated, and a quality mentoring program is a massive challenge to implement.  Part of the problem is that many mentoring programs are not quality, don't even track outcomes, and everyone assumes we are as marginally effective as they are, if at all.

Prevention is hard to measure. It's a challenge to prove that something that didn't happen might have happened if not for that intervention. But preventing the problem from happening is arguably less expensive - and easier- than fixing the problem once it's occurred. Those teenage boys referred to us from juvenile probation are now criminals.  Changing who they are now is a far greater challenge than teaching them to avoid that path when they are 7, 8 or 9. 

Just when we thought the situation couldn't get worse, along came the proliferation of for profit prisons. That's one way to solve a problem. There's no doubt in my mind that decreasing funding for juvenile delinquency prevention is related to the increase in for profit prisons.  When the future is all about keeping beds filled, why in the world would we invest in preventing it now?

So what's the point of this post?  I'm not sure, but I wrote it while on vacation from my nonprofit work.  The lack of investment in the prevention of juvenile delinquency weighs on me. One of the ways I cope with things that bother me is to write them down.  It doesn't solve anything but it tames the chaos in my brain, perhaps preventing madness. The situation is enough to drive anyone crazy, so you never know. I'm pretty sure that it would cost more to admit me. 

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*there was a LOT of beer
**as if I have the funding to make sure everyone hears about my program! Can you say "nonprofit overhead?"

Prevention is Hard: The story of a glucose monitor

When I was pregnant at the age of 22 I had gestational diabetes.  They told me that it goes away most of the time after delivery, and it did. It came back 5 years later with my second pregnancy but went away again.  However, I started having higher glucose tests at my check ups than I had post pregnancy before, and when I had my third child in 2002, the diabetes stuck.  A lifetime of preventing pre-diabetes from becoming full-fledged diabetes began about a year later, and I have been swimming upstream against a health care system that refuses to prioritize prevention ever since.

During my 3rd pregnancy I was given a glucose monitor.  This is an amazing little device that tells you what your glucose levels are any time you prick your finger and feed it a drop of blood.  It's used to monitor sugar levels for the purpose of learning how to control them.  It was very hard to get one a year after I had my baby.  I wished I had kept the one I had during my pregnancy, but I thought the diabetes would go away.  I probably wouldn't have been able to get the lancets and tests strips anyway though.  As I watched my glucose levels rise and fall at appointments from 2003-2009, I asked several times for a monitor but was told it "wasn't necessary at this time."  In 2009 my A1C* went over 6.

I was determined to beat the evil diabetes and knew from pregnancy that I had the willpower to control it with diet and exercise. I read everything I could find about nutrition and glucose. I lost 40 pounds in 3 months and kept it off for over 5 years.  My glucose stayed steady at 5.  In 2014, I started gaining weight but couldn't figure out why. Over the next 2 years I gained about 30 pounds, kicking and screaming all the way.  I thought it was the infamous "metabolism" slowing down as I aged, but it turned out to be a non-functioning thyroid covered with polyps that may or may not be cancerous,  which I had hastily removed. 

It wasn't until 2016 when my A1C went over 7 that my insurance finally approved nutrition education that I no longer needed because I could have by then taught the classes. I asked for a glucose monitor again but they told me to "just go to the classes" because "the key is eating the right foods." I told them I was eating the right foods. They were skeptical. I asked if the thyroid problems could be causing my high glucose levels. They said no.  This turned out to be false. 

In 2016 I started seeing a glandular disease doctor to monitor my thyroid medication.  He became very interested in my diabetes problem and told me I needed medication.  I told him I could control it without medication and he told me all about how my organs and my eyesight would suffer if I didn't follow his advice. I drove home feeling defeated. I had lost the battle.  I was officially diabetic.

I had two choices:  Give up, take pills and go eat ice cream, or go see a different doctor.  I chose door number 2 and finally! found a doctor who gave me a glucose monitor.**  From February 2017 to June 2017, I lost 30 pounds and my A1C went from 7.1 to 5.3.  My doctor was so excited that she could not stop smiling. Seriously, she was just gleeful.  I don't think they see a lot of diabetes reversal.  I told her it was all the monitor. It is the missing piece in the Glucose Wars because it gives you the intel you need to understand what effect any food you ever eat has on your body.  It also helps me see the relationship between food and exercise.  For example, I can eat ice cream*** and then go for a walk and then test my levels 2 hours later.  If I test high I either ate too much ice cream or didn't walk long enough, or a combination of those factors that I can play with next time.  I can also monitor the effect my weight has on glucose levels.  I know that if I go over 150 lbs, my glucose levels will go higher than if I stay under 150.  It's a very powerful tool.

If I'd been able to get a glucose monitor in 2009, this would be a very different story.  I don't think  my A1C could have ever gone so high.  I honestly don't understand the reluctance to give them out, and it wasn't just the insurance - the doctors weren't supportive either.  Everyone was far more interested in prescribing medication that chemically lowers glucose - medication that can have the some of the same side effects that my doctor told me would happen if I continued to refuse medication! How freaking confusing.

I know the journey isn't over.  Stress can cause my glucose to rise even if I am doing the right things with food and exercise.  I saw that when I had the thyroid problems.  And controlling my weight is hard too, which probably does have something to do with metabolism over the age of 50.  But I feel that much more confident in my ability to win the war, now that I have the right tools.   The moral of this story is that prevention may be hard, but not necessarily for me now.  


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*A1C is the number that measures your average glucose over the paste 3 months
**and an insurance company!
***it's usually not ice cream, it's way more likely to be mac-n-cheese or a hamburger

Volunteering is good for your health

Having worked in the nonprofit sector for well over 20 years, I’m familiar with the concept that volunteering is good for the soul, but I recently came across an article describing the effect of volunteer work on PTSD veterans that just blew me away.  I was researching for a presentation I did for the Women in Finance about how beneficial it can be to volunteer.  Everyone knows it usually feels good to give of your time, but do we really understand the depth of the benefit?

A national survey on volunteering found that an overwhelming majority of volunteers reported feeling mentally and physically healthier after a volunteer experience, and that volunteers have better personal scores than non-volunteers on measures of emotional well-being including personal independence, capacity for rich interpersonal relationships and overall satisfaction with life. This survey found that:

• 76% of people said volunteering made them feel healthier
• 94% said volunteering improved their mood
• 96% reported volunteering enriched their sense of purpose in life
• About a quarter reported that their volunteer work helped them manage a chronic illness by keeping them active and taking their minds off of their own problems

For those of us who have spent time giving back to the community or helping further a cause we believe in, those findings may not be surprising. It's not hard to believe that that helping others makes you feel good, but did you know that it can also help you live longer?

Researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School in the south of England analyzed data from 40 published studies and found evidence that volunteers had a 20% lower risk of death than their peers who do not volunteer. The study also found that volunteers had lower levels of loneliness and depression, increased life satisfaction and enhanced well-being.

Have you ever heard someone say that they often get more out of a volunteer experience than they gave?  It's because volunteering is just plain good for your health.

Evidence of volunteerism’s physical effects can be found in a recent study from Carnegie Mellon University, published in Psychology and Aging. Adults over age 50 who volunteered on a regular basis were less likely to develop high blood pressure than non-volunteers. High blood pressure is an important indicator of health because it contributes to heart disease, stroke, and premature death. This study also found that:

• 78 percent of volunteers said that volunteering lowered their stress levels.  
• Mentally stimulating activities, like tutoring or reading, might be helpful for maintaining memory and thinking skills.

The study I came across involving veteran's mental health was very impressive:  Participants showed lower rates of PTSD and depression after taking part in a 6 month volunteer program. They volunteered 20 hours a week for The Mission Continues, a national nonprofit that deploys veteran volunteers on specific projects for up to six months. The results are amazing: 

• Before volunteering, more than 50 percent of participants said they had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and 23.5 percent reported symptoms of depression. 
• By the program’s completion, only 43 percent showed signs of PTSD and just 15 percent still had signs of depression.

“All veterans in the service program showed improvements in overall health, mental health and social functioning,” said Monica Matthieu, lead researcher and Ph.D., assistant professor of social work at Saint Louis University.  Matthieu said at first she was skeptical that volunteering could decrease symptoms of PTSD, but the data is beginning to sway her.

If anyone ever needed another good reason to go out and help others, all the research showing the  health benefits for volunteering should cause a rush on nonprofits everywhere.  Get out there!  You'll be happier and live longer.  Bonus!

Kicking Off the Mentennial

In honor of San Antonio's 300th year celebration, Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas has kicked off a "300 Men" Campaign to recruit 300 male volunteers to become Big Brothers to kids on our wait list.

The campaign kicked off on New Year's Day and will run until Father's Day, June 17, 2018.  There are hundreds of boys on the wait list to get a Big Brother.  We hope to find mentors for 300 of them in honor of the Tricentennial. As we say in my home and in my office:  Any excuse for a celebration is a good excuse, but this is a really good excuse. 

My 15 year old, Zoe, created the portmanteau, "Mentennial" to describe this campaign. A portmanteau is a linguistic blend of words.  Zoe, like her sisters, is a wordsmith.  There is a great need to recruit more men.  Men don't heed the mentoring call to action as quickly or in as great many numbers as women do.  This leads to the following inequity in making matches  in the BBBS program:

• 70% of kids who apply or are referred are boys
• 30% of the volunteers who sign up to be Bigs are men

This results in a lot of "cross-gender" matches between Big Sisters and Little Brothers.  Don't get me wrong - these are some great relationships.  I had a Little Brother for many years, and we had such good times together and made lots of great memories over 10 years.  But boys need men as role models too, especially as they grow older.  When my Little Brother because a teenager, there were many times I though he could really use a Big Brother.  It's important to have someone who looks like you to look up to and emulate.

Therefore, it is even more important that we recruit Hispanic and African American men to be mentors because the majority of our boys are Hispanic and African American. The strategic plan developed by San Antonio's "My Brother's Keeper" Steering Committee states that:

"The staggering reality that young men of color are more likely to lag in reading proficiency, be expelled from school, or drop out of high school. Young men of color are more likely to be unemployed, enter the criminal justice system, and be victims of violent crime." 

This is called the Opportunity Gap, and it is exacerbated by the Mentoring Gap. A study commissioned by MENTOR conducted by Civic Enterprises in association with Hart Research Associates,  found that there are 9 million kids in our country growing up without any mentors. That means that 1 out of every 3 young people do not have the support of a positive caring adult . They lack the support many of us relied on as youth.

The findings of this study show a powerful mentoring effect as demonstrated by the life experiences of the young people surveyed and mentoring’s link to improved academic, social and economic prospects. If harnessed, this mentoring effect has the potential to help meet a range of challenges and strengthen our community and economy. Everyone knows that what kids need to succeed is access to positive role models and mentors who help them overcome the challenges of childhood and become successful, contributing members of society.  

Ways To Help

• Sign up to mentor
• Share this blog post
• Share this 1 minute video:  Be a Big Brother
• Share pictures from the video (below)
• Tell a friend abut the campaign
• Use the hashtags #300Men #300MenCampaign #tricentennialsa2018 #realmenmentor #mentoringmatters #whomentoredyou #sa300 #celebrate300 #satx

Also, there are Prizes! 
Men who sign up to become mentors (aka "Bigs") between New Year’s Day and Father’s Day will be entered into a drawing with a chance to win prizes.  Drawings will be held at the end of each month and on Father’s Day. Below is a sample of the prizes we have acquired so far:

• A signed Tony Parker jersey
• An all-team signed Spurs basketball
• 2 game tickets 
• A night stay at El Tropicano
• Free Krispy Kreme doughnuts 

Our campaign will be more successful the more people we get to help spread the word. 
Here's to a successful campaign!

Previous posts I have written on mentoring:

• Growing Up and Giving Back
• Against All Odds
• Mentoring is more doable than you think 
• Who Mentored You?
• Recruiting Youth Mentors
• Grooming the Future Workforce 
• Not a Walk in the Park 
• Little Stories, Big Impact 
• The Mentoring Gap 
• Youth Mentoring programs, worth doing right? 
• What I learned in the summer institute on mentoring