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What I Think About the Ice Bucket Challenge

August 23, 2014 By

Since the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge started doing the rounds, my opinion about it has gone back and forth. And back again. There are things I don’t like about the challenge, one of them being the choice between dumping ice water on your head and donating $100. The message that being cold, wet and uncomfortable is preferable to donating $100 to charity doesn’t sit well with me.

I do know, however, that many people do both: they douse themselves with ice water and they donate the $100. No-one can deny that this campaign has been extremely successful in terms of raising money and awareness. Fundraising in today’s world is such a monumental challenge. Every year I try to raise funds for autism, and while I am always grateful for the funds that I do raise, I cannot escape the fact that it is getting harder and harder every year. Simply asking people for donations is no longer effective. These days, people seem to need gimmicks in order to donate to good causes.

And that’s fine. It has me thinking that maybe I need to come up with a gimmick to help with my own fundraising efforts. However, as much as I support those who have participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge, I have to confess that I still don’t like this particular gimmick. Yes, it has raised money. Yes, it has more people Googling ALS. Both of these are good things.

But what about those of us who choose not to participate? I have watched in dismay as people with limited financial means have been nominated for the challenge, and I have watched in bitter disappointment as those people have been mocked for not taking up the challenge. I have seen people being called things like party-pooper and apathetic. People are being advised to “give up one cup of coffee a day for a couple of weeks” in order to have funds to donate. I saw a priceless Facebook post in which someone arrogantly stated, “Everyone can afford to donate something.”

You know what, though? Not everyone can afford to donate something. There are people who have to dig around in couch cushions in order to buy diapers for their children, people who are choosing to let their Internet and phone services be cut off because they can’t make the bill payments, people who stand in the grocery store counting their coins and wrestling with the choice between buying milk or bread.

Those people should not be guilted into taking part in a trend that they cannot afford, simply because everyone else is doing it. People who do have money shouldn’t feel compelled to take part. This should be a matter of choice, not of coercion or emotional blackmail. And before people start jumping on me, I do realize that those who engage in these tactics could well be in the minority. But they do exist, and the fact is that many, many people who are short on cash – and some who aren’t – are feeling guilt that they should not be feeling. I’m sure it’s not the intent of those who started this challenge, and it’s not the intent of a lot of people who pass it on, but it has been an unfortunate effect.

The Ice Bucket Challenge is problematic for another reason, which is best described in the following picture that I saw on Facebook this morning.

icebucketWhile people all over the world are dumping water on themselves – water that is essentially being wasted – children are dying of thirst. If we need a gimmick in order to donate, shouldn’t we come up with a gimmick that does not involve so much waste? Could this gimmick be tweaked in a way that raises funds for ALS and also draws attention to the plight of people who do not have access to clean water?

I am glad this campaign has been successful, and I truly applaud those who have participated and contributed to its success. All I ask is two things. First, be respectful toward those who do not take part, either because of financial hardship or simply because they choose not to. Second, if you dump water on your head, try to do it in a way that the water can be reused. Catch the water in something and use it to water your plants, or wash your car, or fill the dog’s water dish – anything that does not result in the water simply wasting away.

And whether you choose to take part in the challenge or not, take a moment to Google ALS.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

Filed Under: ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Charity, fundraising, Guilt, money, Waste, Water Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Autism, Emoticons, And Guilt

May 25, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

Yesterday, an emoticon on a website made me feel guilty.

When I say “emoticon”, I mean those little faces that you put into emails to express how you feel about something. Like this: 🙂

And when I say “guilty”, I am referring to that feeling of being a bad person.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? You’d think there was already enough guilt to go around without having to worry about little smiley or frowney faces.

It all began when I started getting a lot of spam comments on the new, improved version of my blog. For a day or so I lived with this, but then realized that the problem could be solved if I simply activated an anti-spam plugin that was already installed. Activating the plugin involved going to a website to get a numeric key that would then be entered into the plugin settings.

Off I went to the website, where I was presented with options. I could choose the “Premium” version, which naturally involved an annual fee, or I could choose the “Personal Use” version. Somewhat bafflingly, this was listed as costing “$0 – $200”. I selected this one on the grounds that “zero dollars” appeared to be an option, and on the following screen there was a message inviting me to make a voluntary donation to help cover the cost of keeping the software going. The message was accompanied with a little sliding scale thing. If you moved the bar all the way to the right, you were donating $200. If you moved it all the way to the left you were contributing nothing. Beside the sliding scale there was a nice cheerful-looking smiley face emoticon.

Well, I’m hardly going to voluntarily pay for something that I can get for free, right? I slid the bar all the way to the left-hand side of the sliding scale. As I did so, the emoticon’s sunshiney smile transformed into a forlorn-looking sad face.

When I saw that, I found that I was flooded with guilt, to the extent that I almost whipped out my credit card to make a donation. I just couldn’t bear the thought of that little face being so sad. It was almost as if it was an actual person.

I came to my senses, of course, but I was very surprised at how strong an emotion that little face invoked. I suppose the company banks on enough people experiencing that effect and being guilted into paying up.

It is interesting how the mere images of emotions can inspire us to feel those emotions ourselves. In fact, I am using emoticons as a tool to teach my son George how to identify emotions. This is something he has immense difficulty with, and I believe that it leads to his inability to regulate his emotions at times. Not being able to communicate how he feels must be immensely frustrating for him.

I show him emoticons, simply because they are uncomplicated. A round face with a facial expression, and nothing else. I will, of course, have to teach him how to recognize the context surrounding emotions, but that has to come later. He has to first learn how to identify the emotions themselves.

So far, he’s mastered Happy, Sad, and in a recent breakthrough, Mad.

His repertoire of emotions is not big enough yet, not by any means, but it’s more than it was a year ago, and that is progress. While he makes giant leaps in some areas, in other things – like this – he has to take baby-steps.

I’m right there beside him, trying to guide him whenever I can.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/somegeekintn/3810233454. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Emotions, Guilt Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Let Go Of The Guilt For Mothers Day

May 13, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

I have a tendency to take on too much. In this regard I am very much like most moms. Whether it’s genetic wiring or just a normal part of motherhood, trying to do everything for everybody is just what we do.

From time to time, we get challenged on this by well-meaning people who say things like, “You have so much on your plate. You really need to learn how to say no.”

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. We can’t possibly say no, because, you know, we’re doing it for the children. All of the late nights, and the hours spent doing laundry, and the long commutes to full-time jobs – we do it all for the children.

While this is perfectly legitimate most of the time, there are times when we use the “for the children” line simply because we cannot process the idea that it’s OK to actually do something for ourselves once in a while.

For instance, when people ask me why I run, I tell them that it’s for my son, to raise funds for autism. It is true that this is what got me back into running after a long break, and it is also true that it helps a great deal with my motivation. But let’s be honest – there are other ways to raise funds for autism that don’t involve entire Sunday mornings spent running instead of with my family. When it comes down to it, I run because it makes me happy , but I’m darned if I’ll actually say that out loud.

My husband has this computer game that he plays most evenings. It’s one of those war games where tanks blow up other tanks – a guy game that I, as a woman, don’t really get. He says he plays this game to unwind and release some stress, and I completely understand that. He works hard and he does have a lot of stress to deal with. It’s perfectly reasonable that he would need an outlet. But when I play my computer games at the end of a long, stressful day, it is under the cloak of intense guilt. I feel that the time I’m spending actually enjoying myself should instead be spent doing something for somebody else.

I know I’m not alone in this. I ran an informal poll on my social media feeds asking fellow moms for their views. Here’s some of what they had to say:

Kerry says that she feels guilty when she does things for herself or buys herself anything. “Can’t get a hair cut, the child needs one first. Can’t buy a new pair of shoes. Too much guilt!”

Tammy had a one-word answer to the question of whether she feels the guilt: “YYYYEEESSSSSSSS”

Hollie poignantly said she doesn’t feel the guilt, “because it’s very rare that I do anything for myself.” This is in a similar vein to Ruth, who says that she doesn’t feel guilty as such, but she’s simply lost the hang of doing things for herself.

Sara, a single mom of special needs kids who really needs a break, reports that she recently considered canceling a vacation so she could buy a car seat for her child, who doesn’t even need it yet. And Nicole said that the few times she doesn’t feel guilty, she starts to feel guilty about not feeling guilty!

I wonder why that is, just why we moms are able to turn guilt into even more of an art form than the Catholics. I mean, we are fully prepared to acknowledge when other people, like our husbands, deserve a break. Why can’t we do the same for ourselves?

If we got just a little bit better at slowing down once in a while, and unashamedly doing stuff we enjoy simply because we enjoy it, maybe we would feel less overwhelmed.

I have great admiration for the moms who strike more of a balance, the moms who take a stand for themselves and say, “You know what? I deserve this and I’m going to enjoy it without feeling guilty about it!”

Fellow mom Marci says she used to feel the guilt, but not anymore. “I found that doing *me* made me calmer and more available to my cherubs!!! Best thing I could’ve done for the family.”

Marci is one of several moms who have managed to make peace with the idea that they are as important as the people they take care of. As Jacquie says, ” If I don’t take care of ME, who’s going to take care of THEM?”

Randi agrees. “I realize that if I don’t take care of me, I’m going to be grumpy and not a good mom.”

Today is Mothers Day in most parts of the world. It is a day when, if we’re lucky, our families take the time to let us know they appreciate us. Why don’t we do that for ourselves as well, and for each other? Let’s give ourselves a much-deserved pat on the back and acknowledge all that we do.

And let’s make a decision to take care of ourselves and spoil ourselves once in a while, without feeling guilty, not just today but always.

Because we deserve it.

Happy Mothers Day.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sergemelki/3519265411/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Guilt, Mother, Mothers Day, parenting, Self-Care Tagged With: , , , , , ,