Guest Post, Siv Ottem: Lost and Found

It's my privilege and honor to introduce this guest post. Siv Maria of “Been there, done that.” has an amazing and personal story to tell that will warm your heart and perhaps bring a tear to your eye. Don't forget to visit her personal blog, too.

One year ago today my son found me, 35 years after I had given him up for adoption. Those of you that have been following my blog this past year probably know the story, but for those of you that do not, I am re-posting some of those posts today. Here is what happened and how it has changed my life forever.

The three of us, lost and then found

May happens to be an amazing month for me. Do you have a certain month where for some unexplained reason; life grabs you and makes you pay attention? May is that month for me. Maybe my mother, who was born in May, genetically imprinted this month for future events into my DNA. I married my husband in May, my youngest son was born in May, and two children who were lost to me found me once again, in the month of May. Two years ago on May 12th my daughter, who I lost through a messy divorce years ago, found me on Facebook. Last year on May 10th my firstborn son found me as well.

You cannot possibly imagine the effect this has had on my life and the life of my family. In one year, I gained two more children, two grandchildren, a son-in-law and various new friends, including the estranged father of my first son. My husband became a step-father, my mother a great grandmother, and all my children gained more siblings. My son, who lost both his adoptive parents and had no siblings, suddenly had a huge family with grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins. I often think how overwhelming this must be for him, and how many more surprises are still in store for all of us.
My youngest daughter traveled to the states last summer to meet both her sister and older brother for the first time. I traveled there soon after and got to spend time with the both of them. I also got to meet my grandchildren for the first time. There have been a lot of first times for everyone and this summer there will be even more. My son is coming to visit us and finally meet more members of his family!
We all connected through Facebook and keep in touch using Skype. My son learned a lot about me before we even had the chance to talk. He found my blog “Been there, done that” on Facebook, went there and read all about me and my life. Questions he has asked himself his entire life were answered in one tiny corner of cyberspace called blogger.

One year ago I got out of bed and started the day with ordinary expectations, when I went to bed that night I realized that my expectations would never be ordinary again. How could they be? In one year I had given birth to two grown children, and the funny thing is ...
No matter how grown up they may be,
they still feel like--- my babies to me.

All of us can get lost, but thankfully we can also be found.

the Bad...

Today we continue with Arlee Bird's Challenge analysis

The Good, the Bad, and the Evaluation...

Artwork by Ada Z at Collagepodge.com

We're gonna talk about the negatives:

        Two weeks ago we looked at the good of the A to Z Challenge. I think it's fair to say that from all the feed back we've received through the Reflections posts and your comments, the positive aspects of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge far outweigh the bad.

         Some of the negatives that have been cited are more personal and were covered  in my post on The Negative Responses to the A to Z that appeared last year.  You can go to that post if you want a more detailed coverage of negatives.

         Repeatedly this year we saw essentially the same negative aspects brought to our attention.  Some of these we tried our best to fix and I'm not sure how we can change them.

The dreaded Captcha:

        The matter of Word Verification or spam filters rests with individual bloggers.  On this A to Z site, on co-host sites, and on some of your sites requests were made repeatedly for bloggers to turn off spam filtering devices to make comment access easier.  Some of the co-hosts and participants even went so far as to leave our requests in the offending sites' comments.  We were somewhat effective, but many blogs still remained that required visitors to get through Captcha to leave a comment.  We tried.

No play, no stay:

       After sign-ups closed we eliminated about 200 blogs from the list that were advertising or non-participant blogs.  Nevertheless many of you discovered more that we missed.  Also as the Challenge progressed there was an attrition rate of bloggers who fell by the wayside.  I'll cover a bit more about this topic of the "blogs that waste our time to visit" next Monday when we evaluate the Challenge as it stands now and ideas on how to make it better.

What if we don't agree with content?:

        There were also some complaints about certain blog content that some deemed as inappropriate.  The co-hosts labored over this issue to a great extent and concluded that it was not necessarily a good thing to get into the business of censorship.  We came to the conclusion that some blogs needed content warnings, but we would not want to be excluding any blogs based on content as long as the other A to Z stipulations were being followed.  We'd like to get some feedback on this issue as we don't want to alienate any of you who sincerely want to participate in the April Challenge.

The Biggest Problem is the biggest aspect:

         The most oft cited problem pertained to the overwhelming size of the list.   Over and over I saw requests to label the list entrants, break down the list into categories, or limit the number of participants.   I think the last solution is not a good one and for me is out of the question.  One of the main objectives of the A to Z Challenge is to build community and we have been doing a pretty good job of this.  Limiting entrants would create a spirit of exclusivity that would not fit well into the idea of reaching out to expand our reach to build communities.

          There are some viable alternatives to labeling and categorizing that I think would present a very workable solution to the problem of the large list.  Some of you are in opposition to breaking things down, but I truly think I have an answer that would be an attractive way to approach this problem.   Next Monday I will explain my plan in detail to see what you think.

           Were there any other major negative aspects that you think I missed?   What more could we have done to get bloggers to co-operate with what was explained many times?  Were there any blogs that you found offensive and if so how do you think they should be handled?



       

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Guest Blogger, Jennifer Forbes: When we’re young we’re always looking up to someone…..

I come from a really large Irish Catholic family. One of my earliest memories is me standing in the middle of a bunch of really loud people who were much bigger than me and looking up……

We live in a world of instant information, news 24/7, smart phones, texting, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, blogging....seriously I could go on and on.

Imagine being a kid today being inundated with all types of faces, personalities, athletes, the lure of money, having all types of people to emulate and all of them perspective role models. It really must be difficult to be a kid growing up today. Now imagine having to turn away from all that glitz and glimmer and see your own parent, grandparent, godparent or teacher/coach or pastor and really “get” that they have value to your life and future as a role model; not easy I imagine.

It must be even harder to be that parent keeping your child in check, keeping him or her grounded with all that distraction. Do you find this a challenge as a parent?

When I was a kid Mom would go to the front door and yell out…. Jeeeenifer and I'd know it was time to stop whatever I was doing with my friends and head home for lunch/ dinner or for the day. I'd be outside with my friends all the time TV was something I rarely watched. Maybe in the evenings I’d catch a bit of tube with my Nana. TV and radio and records were basically the extent of media and entertainment back in my day.  I don't recall actually ever considering any one actor, athlete or musician as a role model. I realize now I was lucky that I didn’t have the temptations kids have today so I didn’t have to make those difficult choices.

I actually was blessed in life to have three very special role models, my Mom, my Nana and my Godmother my Aunt Frances; three strong and steady presences in my life throughout my life. I was the only girl one of three children so my relationship with my Mom always solid, never wavering. Even now we share a special bond; she's the person I speak to every day about everything and anything, my confidant, my next door neighbor and closest female friend. Then there was my Nana.  We went to Mass together, we baked together, sewed together, crocheted and knitted together, we took walks, and there is hardly a memory of my childhood that she isn't in. And then my Godmother my Aunt Frances, she had a way of making a person (namely me!) feel special, and when you're a kid there is nothing more important than that. Heck, she made me feel that way as an adult too, she really was an amazing woman.

Now a day, we communicate by "throwing” texts, since most every kid has a cell phone, at least most kids I know do. I text with my grandchildren and nieces and nephews, seriously! Now we communicate by using e-mail or twitter because it's more convenient we rarely even pick up the phone anymore. Let’s not lose our sense of family in all that technology please!

And that gets me back to my original point regarding role models for our kids.

I'm afraid that many kids today are losing those traditional role models [parents, grandparents, godparents, teachers, coaches, and clergy] and are choosing role models who are movie stars, musicians and athletes. While some may be worthy as role models many are poised to fall off the pedestal kids tend to put them on. Many have amazing talent and they wow our children and even us with those abilities. What concerns me is this...what happens when they fall off that pedestal I mentioned due to general bad behavior, excessive drug or alcohol use, criminal behavior and the like. What about our children then?

So tell me folks, is this a matter of concern for you? Who are your children's role models or if you don't have kids who were your role models when you were a young?

Till next time Jen

jenfbs@gmail.com

http://werelivingafulllife.blotspot.com