march madness

This post has nothing to do with NCAA basketball. Because I don't know much about NCAA basketball. Although if I was of the betting sort, I'd bet that UNC and Duke will be in the Final Four.

Nope. This post has to do with two stories I've heard this past week that have actually kept me awake at night. These two stories bring a whole new meaning to what I consider MADness.

**************

The first story I heard was on the radio, as I was driving to Los Angeles, about a woman named Donna Simpson. Donna is a 42-year old mother, who is on a quest to become the world's fattest woman. To achieve this hefty goal, she is consuming more than 12,000 calories a day. And to offset the cost of her $750.00 weekly food bill, she has started a website where people can make donations. Apparently, she has raised a significant sum of money from men who pay to watch her eat food.

Donna currently weighs 600 pounds.

But she needs to gain at least another 400 pounds to break the world record.

When I initially heard this story, I was sad. But when I then heard that Donna has a three-year-old child, I was enraged. Clearly, there is a significant mental illness here. But what bothers me the most is how many people are encouraging this woman.

What kind of example is she setting for her child? How can she adequately care for her toddler when she can't walk more than 20 feet? And how can people financially subsidize her, to keep up this self destructive pattern? Shouldn't people INSTEAD be supporting her to lead a successful life, and in doing so - she will teach her child to do the same?

And so on, and so on?

Donna was quoted as saying, "I love eating and people love watching me eat. It makes people happy and I'm not harming anyone."

Clearly Donna doesn't understand the irreparable harm she is causing to herself. Nor does she understand the irreparable harm this is causing to her daughter. Unless I missed the memo, since when is it a good idea to send the message to your child that it is acceptable to critically abuse your body... for attention?

I fully recognize that obesity is a real problem and millions of people struggle with their weight. But Donna is doing all of this intentionally. Perhaps she doesn't realize that the human body is not designed to weigh 1,000 pounds? Or perhaps she doesn't know that joints and organs cannot handle that quantity of mass over a sustained period of time, without failing?

Regardless, unless someone can step in and convince this woman that what she is doing is deadly wrong, and then, teach her how to nurture herself, there is no doubt in my mind, very soon she will eat herself to death and her young daughter will be left without a mother.

Last week, the talented MamaDB left me a link to this video. Whether or not you have children, if you are at all concerned about your own health, you should take 22 minutes and watch this. It's really that good.

I really wish I could get it to Donna Simpson.

Although, sadly, I'm fairly certain it wouldn't matter.

**********

When Charlie was visiting his Dad last week in Arizona, he happened to pick up a magazine article about the gendercide in China. Now, I've long known that China has a "One Child Limit" birth policy which means that each couple is allowed to only have one child. But what I didn't realize, was that since most families desire to have a baby boy, more than 50 million (that's 50,000,000) baby girls have been killed.

Charlie recounted to me a story that he read in The Economist.

Essentially, a journalist was visiting a pheasant family in China. The mother was giving birth in the next room and the journalist ran in seconds after the baby was born. She heard the father mutter, "Useless thing!" and then something caught her eye. When she looked down, she saw a tiny foot sticking out of a water filled slop bucket that had been placed on the floor. She thought it was an accident and the infant had been dropped, but when she ran to rescue the child, she was held back and told that there is no use for baby girls.

Never before have I ever heard a more horrifying story. When Charlie told me, I started yelling and screaming and crying and my arms were thrashing about as I told my husband what I'd like to do to that Chinese father. USELESS? I'll show YOU useless.

YOU NO GOOD PIECE OF....

And then my heart absolutely broke for the Chinese mother. To carry a life within you for nine months. To feel it grow. To feel it move. To see your body change and prepare for birth. To go through birth. The excruciating, anguish filled experience, which at the end - is supposed to yield you the most wonderful of all heavenly prizes. But instead, you watch your precious baby thrown head first in to a pail of dirty water to drown.

Simply because she is a girl.

The same useless gender as you.

I do not care what the politics are surrounding this. Numbers don't lie and right now, the natural ratio of boys to girls is significantly off kilter in a number of countries. Which leads all experts to believe that baby girls are being killed and neglected, en masse.

To add to the heartache, a mother is genetically predisposed to care for and nurture her newborn. It is hard wired in to her biology to keep that child from harm. I know this, from firsthand experience. So when she cannot? When she is bound and forced to watch her baby die? Or when she sees her husband take that child and either abandon it, or sell it off to anyone who will take her, where it is highly likely she will live out the rest of her days as a sex slave?

It very seldom happens, but words escape me.

For a long time now, Charlie and I have been mulling over international adoption. Or rather, I have been mulling over international adoption and urging my husband to please consider the positive impact we might be able to have on a child. Up until this week he has repeatedly said, "You a crazy woman. Go 'way."

But this week, after he read this horrific article, he is at least open to the possibility.

Can we save the world? Heck no. But we might be able to save one.

(Or six.)

(Shhh! Don't tell Charlie I wrote that.)

So if anyone out there has any advice to share on what is involved in an international adoption, please do tell. We're listening.