Health Care

The term "Socialism" has become the taboo word of our day, with complete disregard as to when it might actually be an appropriate tool to fix certain problems. Fundamentally, Socialism is how any kind of insurance works - the risk is spread out, everyone pays in to a "pool" - aka the insurance company - and then you receive a payout when you get into a car accident, a hail storm damages your roof, or you get sick or need surgery, etc. Golly, if I didn't have to buy health insurance, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and life insurance, I could probably put all the money I'd save into an account and I'd have more than enough to pay for my new roof, new bumper, or doctor's visit. But maybe I wouldn't. Like driving without insurance, the stakes are high - once serious accident could spell financial ruin. That is not a risk I am willing to take for me or for my family, so I keep on paying those premiums.

The truth is, we already HAVE a socialized health care system. If you have a routine outpatient surgery and get a bill for $10,000, your bill is so high because you have to pay the hospital enough to make up for all of the other patients who don't have insurance or Medicaid or sometimes aren't even legal residents of the US. Anyone who needs health care can walk into any hospital and get treatment by law, regardless of their ability to pay the bill. Women have figured out that if they come to our hospital in stage 2 labor, they don't get sent to Parkland, they get to deliver in our nice hospital. They know it and they tell their friends. They aren't concerned about getting a bill they can't pay, because they have zero assets and don't care about their credit rating since they live on cash paycheck to paycheck. Yet a friend of mine, who is going through a divorce, not yet working, and only has a house and a car, can't go to the doctor even though her arm is giving her so much pain that she can't sleep at night. Why? Because she's an upstanding citizen, doesn't want her credit ruined, knows she can't pay the bill, but can't qualify for Medicaid because she has assets. You can't pay for a doctor's visit with your house and car. While it's true that there are people who abuse the system, it is also true that there are many people for whom the system should be helping get back on their feet. There needs to be some way for an upstanding person who wants to help themselves to do so. The whole system of not qualifying for help unless you're penniless and jobless doesn't do anything to help people who are trying to work, trying to pay their bills, and trying to improve their situation.

A disabled person who is able to do a minimum-wage job saves the system thousands of dollars in their lifetime - many thousands more than it took to provide them with job training and coaching to make them employable in the first place. That person then becomes a sustainable taxpayer, not living off assistance, etc. OK, what if my son Ryan is one day able to be a grocery sacker or a towel-folder, and earns minimum wage? My fondest dream for his future is for him to maximize his abilities and be the most that he can be, and a minimum-wage job would be an incredible goal to work towards for him, given the scope of his disability. But, at minimum wage and with the nature of his disability, he would not be able to live on his own by a long shot. But having an income, no matter how small, means that he won't qualify for HCS, Medicaid, SSI or anything else, and he may well not get health insurance at his minimum-wage job either. Am I actually supposed to hold Ryan back and put him in a sheltered workshop, when he could have been doing a productive job, just so that he won't have to live at home with Jay and I supporting him for the rest of his life and then end up in a state school after we're gone? Holding him back and putting him in a group residence and sheltered workshop is no panacea, either. Our special needs financial planner tells us that parents whose adult children go this route still don't collect enough in government benefits to have any quality of life. If we want Ryan to have clothes, snacks, outings, a CD or a movie, etc, we will wind up contributing an average of $1000 per month to his living expenses. Even if we could afford that during our working years, what about during our retirement years? And who will provide that after we’re gone?

This is shameful that these are his (and our) 2 choices.

I have heard the argument that we should leave the health care system alone because if everyone were suddenly to have the right to health care, doctors’ offices would be inundated and there would be long waits! Hmmm...do ya think? Maybe we should stop saving premature babies because all they do is require months and years of care; that would free up some doctors. Maybe we should stop treating cancer patients too...hey, in addition to freeing up some more doctors, that would help reduce the population problem. Maybe we should just get rid of all people with disabilities or pre-existing medical conditions while we're at it - then the medical system would really be cleared out. It would save us a lot of money!

What I find to be incredibly ironic is that the Republican Party is against abortion, yet also against health care for all. Why is it wrong to kill an unborn baby yet acceptable to deny health care to babies, children and adults of all ages? Do fetuses have more civil rights than people? The people who are suffering with our current system AREN'T the deadbeats that everyone can agree need to go away and be sterilized. Ironically, with our current system, those people actually qualify for assistance. The people who are suffering are the people who want to work, have jobs, pay their bills, care about their credit rating, but don't have insurance and don't want to lose what they do have in order to qualify for assistance. The people being marginalized by our current Socialist Healthcare System are the ones we ought to be helping, in my opinion.

And some quotes from the sign in front of our church:
"Jesus would have been in favor of healthcare for all."
"Healthcare is a civil right."

Troop Beverly Hills

Katie is now in kindergarten, and that means we get to enter the world of Girl Scouts. It's a different world than Boy Scouts! Not that the boys don't have their issues - for one, there's the bit about teaching scouts to be respectful to all people, religions and cultures, yet banning gays and lesbians. (What's more - since Unitarian Universalists refuse to discriminate on anyone based on sexual orientation, the Boy Scouts have removed the Religious Emblem for Unitarian Universalism from their lineup of Religious Emblems that can be earned. But I digress. Here's an interesting link if you want to read more: http://www.uuscouters.org/)

Anyways, I dutifully signed up to be a troop leader because, well, your child gets out of scouts what parents put into it. Drop-off parents lead to drop-out scouts. I am uneasy about leading groups of kids. Adults barely listen to me, muchless kids! But, parenthood is nothing if not a great adventure in stepping out of your comfort zone and doing things you didn't know you could do. Sometimes I think I learn as much as or more than my kids do from scouting.

So once I made the decision to volunteer, I signed up for the required volunteer courses. There are several different courses that new leaders must go through. They do a criminal background check, they call all 3 of your character references, they even wanted my resume of previous volunteer experience. Pretty serious stuff! At one of the training courses, I was advised that troops could use their cookie money to pay for stuff like the following examples:

Flying to Chicago to go to the American Girl Store
Going to Libby Lu's at the mall to get made over as rock stars

And that troop activities could include such educational opportunities as:

Putting on jewelry and makeup to learn about our appearance
Fashion design
Home economics (that's dandy....but I want to see the boys learning this too)

Then someone made the comment that planning a troop meeting was like planning a birthday party. I just about lost it.

I raised my hand to ask the trainer if she was serious. She was. She then sheepishly added that she herself had not done these things with her troop, but that others did. She added that "since not all girls like to camp or do ourdoorsy things, you have to do some activities to cater to their interests in order to keep them in the scouting program."

I have a couple of issues with that. One, I don't believe there's such a thing as girls or boys who don't like to camp or do outdoorsy things. Only parents who feel that way, probably raised by parents who raised them the same way, who put their irrational fears of dirt, bugs or whatever onto their offspring. Two, perhaps scouting isn't for everyone. When scouting has to become something other than scouting in order to keep kids in scouting, what have we really accomplished?

Also, what of teaching kids values? Scouting is supposed to teach kids to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, responsible, respectful and environmentally conscious. What are you teaching when you set kids up with the "I live to be entertained" mentality? Scouting was never meant to be entertainment. Scouting is meant to be character building.

I am starting off with 5-year-olds. But mark my words, if I ever find out that Katie's troop is going to the American Girl store as a troop activity, we'll be looking for the nearest 4-H chapter.

Tiny Diamonditis and Now It's Much More Fun to go Shopping

My friend (who shall remain nameless) called me from the highway the other day where, as she drove to East Texas to drop her son off for a camping weekend, she saw a billboard. In East Texas. It said this:

"Gentlemen, does your lady suffer from Tinydiamonditis? Is she embarrassed to wear her diamond in Public? Is her daughter or Daughter in laws diamond bigger than hers? We can help your cure this terrible complex..." (You get the idea)

My friend was pretty appalled at this. Was it the notion that men actually think that women feel this way about their status and their jewelry? Or the accusation that this mentality may be true? Of all the places for this kind of thinking to be pervasive, I would not have suspected rural East Texas. But I didn't make too much of it. Maybe they're not serious....maybe it's just an advertising gimmick to get your attention by offending your sense of priorities. Maybe.

Well then today I opened my mailbox and found my "Living" magazine, you know, one of those local publications filled with ads for granite countertops, teeth whitening, overpriced baby furniture and the like, with perhaps a one-page article on fitness thrown in so that they can call it a magazine instead of junk mail. The back cover is this ad for a local plastic surgeon. According to his ad he specializes in botox, body contouring, tummy tuck, liposuction, face lift, brow lift, eye lift, lip enhancement, breast augmentation, reduction and lift. Yes, he has built a career capitalizing on women's insecurities and vanity. The picture is of a sexy Jessica Rabbit type woman (read: not proportional) with shopping bags in both hands, proclaiming "Now it's much more fun to go shopping!"

Okaaaaay...where to begin on this? Are women seriously so shallow that (a) appearance is valued above other traits, and (b) shopping is an actual life calling to which one can more thoroughly enjoy when one is more beautiful?

Ok I must admit that not being beautiful is not hard if you have never been beautiful to begin with. Aging isn't nearly so painful when you realize that beauty lies within before you reach adulthood; somewhere between the hormone storm of puberty and college graduation is when I believe that "healthy" women get their priorities straight. These people who are having a hard time not being depressed as they get older are having these problems because their values are so skewed that they never actually found something to be happy about other than their looks, and then when the body ages, they have nothing left to be happy about - no higher calling, no purpose for living, no life's ambition, no joyeux de vivre. Just living from shopping trip to shopping trip. (Isn't there some kind of psychiatric diagnosis for women who become sad and depressed if they do not get a shopping "fix" every so often?)

At any rate, as a mostly-intelligent and average-at-best looking person, I am embarrassed to be a part of a population, time and place that actually has these kind of warped values. What will future generations look back and think about us as a society?

Now another whole bend on this is that, out of all those surgeries that this guy performs, the breast reduction is actually meaningful and warranted. As a consumer of said surgery (although not with this surgeon) I really despise being lumped into this category of women. Especially by my insurance company. "Yes we cover that surgery under your plan - if your pre-operative photos show your nipples hanging down to the leve of your navel." Well I could wait a few decades to get to that point, but frankly there are some actual physical consequences to not having that surgery when you need it, not just cosmetic consequences. If other women weren't so vain, perhaps my insurance company would not have been so quick to lump me into that category and deny my claim. Thanks, ladies.

Nutrition, Picky Eaters, Juice Plus and the like

The following thread appeared on one of my Mommy listserves. I was going to bite my tongue and not reply, but after reading about Juice Plus, I couldn't resist the urge to chime in. Below the thread is my reply.

---- Melissa wrote:

Melissa posted:

Does anyone else have a stubborn toddler. Maybe it's just me. Ben does not eat any fruits or vegetables and I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so do you have any suggestions.

I always say I get my best ideas from other people so please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Melissa

Angel commented:

Tommy will not eat fruits or veggies either, except bananas. I'm taking him to an occupational therapy evaluation this week to see if he has any sensory issues. I'll let you know what I find out. Let me know if you get any other tips.

Angel

Kate commented:

I'll mail you a few packs of what my kids drink to meet their fruit & veggie requirements, see if Ben likes them. It's what my kids drink every day to get all their servings of fruits & veggies.

Christine also has an awesome recipe for brownies that hide spinach in them, she made them for me when James was born. Yum.

Christine commented:

Juice Plus is another way to get kids to get their vitamins in. They come

in gummy form and they have veggie ones and fruit ones.

Christine

Holly commented:

I would be so interested in your packets Kate! Also - our November speaker (who does Juice Plus on the side I think) is going to help us with that exact topic!

And here is my reply –

I hope I don't alienate anyone, but I have been chewing on this thread in my mind all day, and feel inclined to voice my opinion. Opinions are like bellybuttons - we all have them! So, no offense intended to anyone who disagrees.

First of all, I think that the concept of children being picky eaters and stubborn about food choices is pretty much universal - across cultures and throughout history. So while there are some kids with genuine sensory or swallowing issues, I believe that the vast majority of picky eaters are normal children displaying a part of normal development.

That said, it's not all about the food. I think that a lot of the stubbornness and willfulness with the 2 to 4 year old crowd is really more about testing to see who is in control and who gets to make what decisions. Sure you can sneak in multivitamins and put spinach in the brownies and carrots in the cake. I do those things too. But to the kids, it's not just about what's to eat, it's about control and it's about learning the difference between things you do because you enjoy them and things you do because they're good for you (or an adults tells you that you have to do.)

In my opinion, I would be careful about setting a precedent that if you don't like something, I'll make it tasty or make it fun for you. Much of life is not pleasant, and some if it is downright unpleasant. The sooner kids learn that life is not one big opportunity to be entertained and everything is not fun/tasty, the better off they'll be as they grow up and face bigger challenges. Much of what adults do, they do because it's good for them, their family or their community, regardless of whether it's fun. (I could digress here on how work becomes fun when you throw yourself into work that you feel passionately about, but that's another conversation.)

A few sayings have played over in my head like a tape recorder.

(1) One was our first pediatrician, an older gentleman with old-school thinking, telling me "Mom, your job is to serve nutritious meals. Your son's job is to eat them. You just worry about your job."

(2) This is something I heard a speaker on Nutrition say at a MOPS meeting: "The parent is in charge of WHAT the child eats, WHEN the child eats, and WHERE the child eats. The child is in charge of WHETHER they eat and how much they eat." To me, this pretty much sums it up. If you present your child with a nutritionally balanced diet, day in and day out, they are going to snub certain things and sometimes you may have to serve a certain food 20 times over several months before they ever even try it. But you won't end up with a child who eats unhealthily if all of the choices are healthy. Additionally, if you serve the meal with a smile on your face and don't worry about what goes uneaten, you remove the element of control. Much of what kids refuse to eat, they refuse simply because they realize that Mom wants them to eat it and/or will put on a great display of emotion or persuasion if said food does not get eaten - so, what better way to control Mom? Better not to make the dinnertable into a battleground to begin with.

(3) This I heard from a speaker on Nutrition at a CECPTA meeting, and my husband and I have laughed about it over the years. "It takes 60 days for a toddler to starve!" Of course we're not starving our kids - but if they snub a meal entirely, that's their prerogative. If they go to bed hungry, so be it. But I only serve one meal and only at the designated mealtime. If you don't like any of it, you don't eat. "I am not a short-order cook." (My kids will quote me on that!) If my child says, "But Mom! I'm staaarving!" I smile and say sweetly, "Don't worry honey, it takes 60 days for a child to starve." A side story - one of my friends came to this particular CECPTA meeting because she was dealing with these very issues with her son. She raised her hand and asked the speaker, "What would you recommend for a child who only eats french fries?" The answer was obvious (but not to my friend): "Stop serving french fries."

(4) And my last favorite saying - this is one that my kids have heard me say so many times, that they tell their friends who visit during mealtime - "You don't have to like it, you just have to eat it!" This is of course a great reference to the fact that eating isn't always about entertainment, it's about giving your body the fuel it needs to be healthy. Nobody said it would always be fun. Putting spinach in the brownies is a great way to get more green stuff down the hatch if it's done in addition to nutritious meals, but be careful about sending the message that you only have to eat stuff that's fun to eat.

Lastly, and this is more about nutrition than parenting, I believe that foods are most nutritive when eaten as close to their original source as possible. Meaning, fresh fruits and veggies are best, followed by frozen, canned, etc, on down the line. But in my mind, the nutritive value of a fruit or vegetable is reduced to a shred of its original value when put into a pill, powder or concentrate, etc. There is no bulk fiber either. Not only that, such items offer false security if parents see them as an alternate to proper dietary intake instead of a supplement. But even as a supplement, I question the need because if you're already eating healthy then you don't need it, and if you're not eating healthy, the supplement is not meant to take the place of healthy food choices. I could go on about this but these two websites really do a good job of dissecting this issue.

From Quackwatch: http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/juiceplus.html

Juice Plus - A Critical Look: http://www.mlmwatch.org/04C/NSA/juiceplus.html

I hope some may find this helpful, and if you disagree please know that my intention was not to offend. We all make so many choices as parents, they will not always be the same choices, but we all have the best interest of our children at heart.

The Ignorant Lady at the King Tut Exhibit

Jay, Andy and I went with a friend's cub scout pack to see King Tut when the exhibit came to Dallas. It was very impressive and very well done! I was dissappointed not to see the actual mummy in the last room of the exhibit, but understand that it is fragile. The artifacts are simply amazing. It's amazing to think that people in a civilization over 3 thousand years ago lived much like we do, in fact, probably better than we did here in America until only a century or two ago. Everything from culture, art, and government to daily life and personal affects are eerily similar to life as we know it today, or at least, not too long ago.

While we were making our way through the various rooms, it became apparent that a woman in our tour group was more knowledgeable than the guide. Her information and anecdotes were more informative and more colorful. The guide seemed irritated and told her that our group was taking too long in each room because we were all flocking to listen to her. Anyways, the woman pointed out that the ancient Egyptians had believed in multiple gods, but Tutankhamun's predecessor had legislated that there would be only one god, which was very unpopular. King Tut made the switch back to many gods. (I suppose that God will just go on being, or not, regardless of what humans legislate, but that's another thread.)

One woman in the audience made this comment: "Wow, it's amazing that their civilization could be so ADVANCED yet so STUPID AND IGNORANT at the same time!"

Wow indeed. One day I expect future civilizations to say that about us. I mean, wow, look at us. With our modern technology and our advanced education and our ability to tame the globe and beyond...yet...there are still people among us who believe in the immaculate conception. Or that priests can turn crackers and grape juice into flesh and blood. Or that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. And flat. Or that we all decended from a man in a garden and a woman made from the man's rib. Or that someone can die on a cross 2000 years ago and that for this reason people can make mistakes without fear of going to the "bad place." Or, hell, no pun intended, even that the "good place" and "bad place" are real.

Yes, so advanced, but so stupid and ignorant. But maybe we, like the ancient Egyptians, are not stupid and ignorant so much as we are not yet capable, or privy to, the ability to wrap our minds around the vastness of all that is.

Cub Scout Popcorn Sales and Other Assorted Well-Intentioned Fundraisers

Cub Scout Popcorn Sale Season is coming! And I am not just picking on the Scouts here. Actually I love the Scouts. I love what Scouting is intended to teach kids, I love scouting values, and I love being a part of a scouting program as a parent as much as I did as a child. But popcorn season comes on the heels of the school fundraisers, sport team fundraisers, girl scout cookie season, church silent auctions, PTA bake sales and book fairs, the list goes on and it has no end.

Note that this entire thread applies to all of the above. Especailly the PTA book fair, they have a special place in my heart for sending the kids to the fair during the school day and thus using peer pressure to convince my 3rd Grader to make poor spending choices. In the case of the book fair, families are actually victimized on both ends of the deal - first, it's no secret that the school only makes a small amount of money compared to what Scholastic makes, and second, the kids are the ones purchasing the overpriced $10 paperback books when they could have bought a whole stack of books at Half Price Books or a library used book sale for the same amount. So the kids get dinged twice - first they wasted their money on poor quality overpriced books, and secondly, their school could have benefitted more had they just given the difference to the school instead of to Scholastic. But I digress. Back to the Cub Scout Popcorn.

OK, so here's how it works. We need to raise some money to support the activities we want our kids to participate in this year. And the scouting program itself is meant to teach our kids values like responsibility, accountability, and making good choices, among other lofty ideals. So there are some obvious (to me) paradoxes here.

If I want my child to participate in an activity outside of taxpayer-funded public school, like scouts or sports or private school or field trips or whathaveyou, I should pay for it myself. Or if my child is old enough, he should earn the money to pay for it. But there is no reason that my neighbors and co-workers should be expected to fund my child's activities. Nor for me to fund their children's activities. If we all took the amount we spent on our friends and neighbors' kids' fundraisers and just donated it to our own kids' activities, we'd be set. Those $5 here and $10 there do add up.

No kidding, it does not take a math genius to figure out how fundraising works. The kids sell some sort of product and earn a small percentage of the sales. Who actually profits? The company that provides the goods for the fundraiser, of course. The goods are always overpriced (so that the company can make a good profit even after giving the scouts their cut) and they are invariably something you do not need nor would you have gone out of your way to purchase had you not been guilted into it because the person asking is your neighbor or coworker's kid. Here's an idea: why don't we buy $10 gift cards to Walmart and sell them for $15. It's the same thing, with the advantage being that the purchaser can at least buy something they want with it. Or wait, here's a better idea: just ask for a donation that's equal to what the profit for the scouts would have been. That way the scouts get the same amount but nobody has to buy $50 worth of popcorn in order for the scouts to get $5.

What is time worth? Arbitrarily, let's say I make $30 per hour after taxes at my job. Best case: If I take my son out selling popcorn door-to-door for several weekends over a period of several months, which is typical, and we sell a whopping $500 worth of popcorn (only a few scouts sell $500 or above), we'd earn $50 for the scouts. I could have earned that in under 2 hours at my job. This is on top of the fact that I just gave up scarce weekend time in which we could have been doing fun family activities or whatever else. Now on top of all that, we have to pick up the popcorn and deliver it. And it comes in really big boxes and cartons. So there goes some more driving time, gas money, inconvenience. Enough said.

What does selling popcorn teach our boys? Arguably it teaches them how to overcome shyness, how to talk to adults, and perhaps some math. I would argue that there are other and better ways to teach that. Put on a talent show at a senior center, have the kids volunteer at church alongside adults, run a concession stand at a local event, deliver meals on wheels, the list goes on. It is not my neighbors or coworkers job to help my child overcome shyness. Besides, I think we need to give kids some credit. They are smart enough to know when an adult is humoring or pitying them. Most people have good manners and don't want to tell a young child "no." So we are preying apon people's polite nature when we ask them to buy something they don't need or want and put a small puppy-dog-eyed child in front of them. Taking advantage of other people's weaknessess or politeness is not something we should be teaching our kids is appropriate or acceptable.

Let me explain what I try to teach my kids. I want them to understand the value of a dollar, and that little amounts add up over time. I want them to understand the difference between a "need" and a "want." I want them to be able to see through advertising and marketing strategies. I want them to learn how to save for the future, how to make wise financial decisions, how to pass up impulse purchases in favor of long-term goals, how to forgo instant gratification, how to survive without keeping up with the Joneses, and that happiness comes from within and can't be purchased. So, if I am successful at instilling these values into my children, they will know better than to purchase junk food just because it's in a pretty tin and it's in front of them right now. So why, oh why, would I teach my kids that spending money on overpriced popcorn is a bad monetary decision, yet then send them out to go and convince friends and family to make this admittedly poor choice? Why would we teach our kids that this is how we treat people we love, by asking them to do things that hurt them but benefit us?

What about Nutrition? All these girl scout cookies, cub scout popcorn, school peanut brittle and soccer team chocolate frogs are easy sells. Everywhere you turn the media is telling our kids to eat junk. How can we teach our children about proper nutrition when we turn around and tell them that junk food is OK on special occasions, and then proceed to find some reason for all 365 days of the year to be some sort of a special occasion? (My daughter's preschool class this past year was grouped by age. All 16 kids had birthdays in a 2-month period. Class was Monday-Wednesday-Friday. So you know what happened....they had cupcakes or cookies every single day that they went to school for 5 weeks straight.)

I believe that children learn as much or more from what we do and model to them as from what we say with words. If we want to teach wise money management and good nutrition, we should not encourage children to capitalize on persuading friends and family to make poor choices. We should also teach accountability by teaching that we should not expect others to pay for our own wants and needs.

Birth Control

Why do so many educated and otherwise rational women say they got pregnant but weren't trying? And act surprised that they are pregnant? And then, in some cases, expect other people to support their pregnancy, their child, their child care expenses, etc, because none of this was their fault?

First off, we all know how pregnancy happens. And secondly, since we are an educated society, we all pretty much know about birth control. But many of these women who claim to have gotten pregnant by accident, when asked if and what they were doing to prevent pregnancy at the time that they conceived, will readily admit "nothing." Well I have news for you. If you weren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy, then in effect, you did in fact plan to became pregnant, you were in fact "trying" if you weren't actively not trying. And if you were doing something to prevent pregnancy and got pregnant anyways, were you using your chosen method according to the instructions? Because being on the pill but skipping some days in the hopes that you could become pregnant but tell your boyfriend/husband/significant other that it was by accident and that you don't know how you got pregnant because you are on the pill...well...this would still count as a planned pregnancy.

Yes, I am aware that some women get pregnant in spite of using birth control properly. But this would really be a very small, small percentage.

And don't even get me started on the Rhythm Method. There's a word for couples who rely on that method. It's "parents." Ditto for the abstinence method. It only works, duh, for people who are abstinent. It's completely non-effective for people who are not abstinent but whose parents think they are.