I have an idea (and I need your help).

A while ago (eons ago, it feels like, as anything pre-mommyhood seems like a completely different lifetime), I worked at an eating disorder clinic. I was a tech, which meant that I was with the girls and women receiving treatment throughout the nitty gritty parts of their day-- meal times, snack times, bed times, outings. I got to go to music therapy, sit through movies where we had the dreaded FNS (Friday Night Snack), and even jumped out of an absurdly tall tree. It was a weird job. It was a great job. I genuinely loved the gals I worked for, even the ones that made the job more interesting than usual.

I learned a lot while working there, but one of the hardest things for me to swallow was the variance in support these gals had outside of treatment. There were the ones that had the parents come every chance they had, and the goodbyes were tearful but encouraging. There were the ones whose parents were completely enmeshed in their daughter's treatment, sometimes in a co-dependent way, sometimes in a malicious way. Then there were the parents who weren't there at all.

That was the hard part.

Of course, it wasn't possible for a lot of them to come often. Girls were coming to treatment from all over the country (sometimes, the world), so travelling for every single Family Weekend would be asking a lot, especially on top of how much treatment cost. Some of the gals who fell into that category would get the phone calls, the letters, the packages. They'd get support in other ways.

Then there were the ones who would come to the nurse's station every day after the mail was sorted, and they would ask, "Did I get anything?" Or after the Saturday night outing, they'd come by the tech who stayed behind, and check to see if they had any missed calls. With their charts right there, and their family's contact information readily available, it was so hard not to pick up the phone and beg them to call their daughter, just once, so she knows that she is loved and isn't fighting this insanely difficult battle on her own. For whatever reason, it didn't register as something important for them to do. So instead, I spent the night of December 23 that year, working my overnight shift, covering my hands with papercuts and scissor slices from curling ribbon to wrap packages of random items (underwear, deoderant, stationery) so the patients who had been forgotten by family would get a Christmas.

Fast forward to now. A few days ago, there was an eating disorder clinic doing an outreach promotion on Facebook as a part of Eating Disorder Awareness week. Each day, they'd post a question, and the answer could be found in their resources section of their website. The first person to answer would get a $10 giftcard of their choice. I happened over right after they posted a question, found the answer quickly, and responded in time to qualify for one of the giftcards. Yay! I love winning things. They told me to email them my address and where I'd like the giftcard to be good for, and I immediately started brainstorming. There are some books that I want, so Amazon? I've also been drooling over some headbands on Etsy in the offhand chance this babe is a girl, so maybe there. Or I could use some more music on my iPod for when I start training after this baby is born, so an iTunes card would be nice. But every thought left me feeling empty. I was on the verge of just asking for a grocery store giftcard, because at least then it would help my family, when I sat down to email the gal and it came to me-- Instead of a giftcard for something I don't especially need, I asked if I could donate it back, and have a therapist or a tech at the clinic use it to go get something fun for one of the gals I described above-- someone who checks the nurse's station every day to see if there is something for her to show that she is loved. I had some anxiety about whether they would think it was a ridiculous idea or not, but they responded so enthusiastically that it got my brain going.

Which is where my idea comes in, and where you can help.

There are eating disorder clinics all over the country, and I'm willing to bet that at any given time, there is someone doing inpatient that fits the description above. One of the hardest parts of recovering from an eating disorder is getting to a place where you feel like you are worth fighting for-- that you deserve to be happy and healthy, and free from the disorder. Without any support outside the walls of the treatment center, it can feel impossible, and the motivation can disappear to even bother with doing the hard stuff. So here is, as my darling toddler would say, "my want-to": I want to put together TEN care packages to send to various eating disorder clinics throughout the USA that would provide a moment of hope to these gals who are struggling. But the idea I have in mind would be a lot more doable if I had my crafty friends on board-- because I'm the least crafty person in the world.

In the package, I want to put in a book (I'm thinking this one) and several postcards that they could hang up in their room, carry with them, etc-- that would say something along the following:

• You are brave.
• You are enough.
• You have the strength to get through today.
• You deserve happiness.
• You are worth fighting for.

You get the idea. So in my head, these cards are beautiful, and decorated, and have those fun chip board letters and decals and backgrounds and doilies and whatever to make them really nice to look at, as well as delivering a great message. I could do them, but I know they wouldn't be nearly as nice as something someone else with an ounce of talent could do, and could do ten of without pulling their hair out. So if you are one of these friends, and would be willing to do this (say, take one of those sayings and make 10 postcards of the same thing), I would be so grateful, and I think we could do something really great.

So what do you think? Are you in?

I have some beef with "freedom."

Yes, it's been a while. There was a delightful little stomach bug that went around, and we were fortunate enough to have it hit our family one member at a time (holy moly, taking on the puke train with multiple suppliers would have probably been the end of me). So while it took less effort at one time to tackle that delightful illness, it was spread out over a long enough period that I constantly felt the urge to both nap and shower at the same time. Unfortunately for me, the water heater is not large enough to acommodate such an endeavor (although, I guess this is quite fortunate for both our water bill and the children that I would undoubtedly be neglecting to engage in such an indulgence).

Anyhoo.

This past week marked an annual occasion that always leaves me on edge-- the distribution of the yearly Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I'm proud to say that I have not stepped inside a grocery store over the past week (unless Costco counts, and since they don't have their magazines by the checkout, I don't count it). Having those images thrown at me against my will, as well as exposing my little boys to women presented as tools to achieve visual sexual stimulation, are not things I look forward to.

So I got excited when I saw this:

Grace Gregson, store manager of the Barnes and Noble SouthTowne Marketplace location, referred to the chain’s corporate censorship policy, which states in part: "Some customers may strongly oppose the content of a particular title and choose not to purchase it. We respect their opinions. In return, we ask that our customers respect our responsibility to offer a selection of reading materials as diverse as the society in which we live, the very society that grants the freedom for these materials to exist."

Okay. I get it. First Ammendment. I work in a world of lawyers, I know how important that right is. And while I have some strong opinions about pornography (normalized and otherwise) and allegories to yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded public space, I won't get on that soapbox for now. Instead, I'll talk about "freedom for these materials to exist."

Yes. They do have a right to publish the continued objectification of women, and they have the right to promote the idea that women are designed purely for the visual stimulation of others. They have the right to suggest that athletic, professional, personal, charitable, and familial merits are not as important as one's ability to arouse members of the opposite sex. And in a world where often the promotion of freedom and rights applies to individuals who oppose traditional values, this right is protected vehemently and adamently, with those who oppose labeled as closed-minded and insecure.

But in a world where people are spending so much time fighting for the rights of the marginalized, can't we recognize that we're stomping on the rights of others to accomplish this?

While I'll consent that those publishing these materials have the right to do so, I disagree that they also have a right to flaunt them in the face of those whose ideals differ to the point of finding these materials obscene and offensive. Why should I have to avoid going to the grocery store if I don't want to see the cover of this magazine? Why should I strategize what errands to run with my sons so they aren't exposed to something I find to be incredibly inappropriate, and what has been empirically shown to have a negative impact on the way they view (and thus treat) women? Why is it okay for their freedom to infringe on the time I get as their mother to teach them things that I find to be adding to their development, rather than expend that precious time attempting to do damage control to prevent this nonconsensual exposure from having a lasting impact on their developing psyche?

You have the right to create it. But you don't have the right to shove it in my face, or the face of my children.

I have the right to walk out of a movie if something is presented that I find offensive. I have the right to close a book if the content is something I find distasteful. But when displays are placed so that I can't even purchase groceries without these images staring back at me, there's a problem.

Looks like Costco will be getting all of my grocery budget for the next month.