I had a wonderful chat with Belen this morning. She just gave birth to her second child three weeks ago today. He was born at home into his Parents hands.
Click HERE to listen
The first few minutes of the show are choppy. To watch this podcast as a VIDEO Click HERE!
I was talking to one of the Moms before our closing performance last night. She is also a Homeschooler and very educated about political ideology and controversies. She had no idea how political the stage show was and used her girls performing as orphans in the show as an opportunity to have her teenage children conduct some research on FDR and his New Deal and what it did to the American People during the depression.
Many historians refer to the depression that occurred in 1921 as being just as devastating as the stock market crash that hit in 1929. And some historians claim that FDR’s New Deal extended the depression by a decade.
“In order to make sure that this version of events sticks, little, if any, public mention is ever made of the depression of 1920–1921. And no wonder — that historical experience deflates the ambitions of those who promise us political solutions to the real imbalances at the heart of economic busts.
The conventional wisdom holds that in the absence of government counter cyclical policy, whether fiscal or monetary (or both), we cannot expect economic recovery — at least, not without an intolerably long delay. Yet the very opposite policies were followed during the depression of 1920–1921, and recovery was in fact not long in coming.
The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics — urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third.
The Federal Reserve’s activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.”[2] By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and it was only 2.4 percent by 1923.”
As I talked to Barbara about the assumptions of the show and how the original cartoonist who created the Little Orphan Annie strip was a free market conservative who would have been very upset to see what was done to his characters in the BIG Government solutions to the depression that the show presumes solved everything, I was struck with the thought that tens of thousands of little girls have potentially performed this show over the past 35 years, and with the new revival on Broadway last year, Annie fever will only get revved up to a much higher level as we go forward.
This culture war crap is really demoralizing.
But the truly crazy thing to me is that I LOVED performing the show.
Those songs are embedded on my heart. I have sung them since I was a pre teen, and as we closed the show with a cast performance of Tomorrow last night, I found myself breaking down emotionally with how uplifting it all was…”The sun will come out tomorrow”… yadda yadda yadda.
Hopefully my next show will be Ayn Rands Night of January 16th to even me out politically with my theatrical efforts.
I am grateful for the friendships formed during the production of this show and the extra time I was able to spend with Jeffrey, who will be leaving on his mission next month. Musical Theatre is a magical place to hang out, and the professionalism of the cast, crew, and orchestra was truly amazing. It was a level of Community Theatre that I did not know existed.
Here are some photos and videos!
Enjoy!
More thoughts on this subject HERE
Hatch Children at Pearl Street Mall in 1997
I have spent the past few months debating in my own mind whether or not to come back. Over my Blogging career I have quit several times…mostly during times of angst when it felt like the stakes for me and my family were too high.
But this time, yeah I admit it, I have been in a political funk.
A couple months of No Blogging was my ticket to peace of mind after the most mind bending election ever (and I thought a second Clinton term was about as bad as it could get!)
I have decided that if I feel like commenting or sharing something on my Blog, I will, but I don’t have any illusions about how the next few years are going to go. The American Voters, especially women, are going to experience the most intense buyers remorse of their lives!
The day after the election I read these words on Rush Limbaughs Web Site:
In a Nation of Children, Santa Claus Wins.
Since the day of the election in early November I have read hundreds of hours of political analysis, but I did not have the heart to blog about it.
I chose instead to focus on the holidays and sharing a wonderful final few weeks with my son Jeff before he takes off for South America to serve his LDS mission. Paul and I enjoyed one of the most sacred days of our marriage a few weeks ago when we took him to the same Temple in St George Utah where we were married and escorted him through the endowment for the first time. Jeff has since been doing a weekly shift in the baptistry at the Temple and has been helping to homeschool Ben.
(For a great read on Temples check out Michelle Lehnardts Blog Scenes from the wild to learn more about this amazing endowment for our young LDS sons and daughters who are preparing for missionary service. Michelle is my favorite mom blogger on the web.)
He also picked up the part of Bundles in our community production of Annie that I auditioned for last August and he and I have spent many happy hours rehearsing with a dynamic and talented group of actors in our community.
Last saturday night we choreographed the final song in the show, A New Deal for Christmas, which is a political ode to FDR’s Big Government programs.
I was amazed that right in the text of the script it suggests that FDR stand at the head of a fake sleigh and the orphans stand in front as if they are Reindeer and while the president shouts out the names of the men in his cabinet, he is supposed to crack an imaginary whip, mimicking Santa Claus calling out to his Reindeer.
It dawned on me right then that Rush had nailed it with his analysis.
I suppose the short answer is that if I were to only audition for purely free market type shows, I would not perform much because so much of Broadway is tinged with leftism, that actors are hard pressed to find politically pure pro capitalist fare.
I also saw the traveling show in Detroit when I was a young girl and spent my childhood singing and performing the show in a variety of venues. Then when I was seventeen I choreographed a medley of songs from Annie and taught it to fifty young mormon girls to perform in our stakes Dance Festival in 1985.
I love certain songs and was thrilled to be cast as understudy for Ms. Hannigan. As I have practiced my parts and re learned the songs, a strong sense of the familiar and upbeat message of the show that Government can step in and fix Depressions, Homelessness, Hunger, and provide Billionaire Daddies to cute little orphaned girls is definitely an easy sell to theatre goers hungry for anything that provides escape from current reality.
The show is cute, has some morality in the sense that the theives and liars get caught, and who can resist a whole passel of young hoofers singing and dancing about A New Deal that will usher in the age of Unicorns and Rainbows?
As for me? I look at participation in this show as an opportunty to hone my craft while attempting not to choke on the words of the songs that have portrayed a Marxist Fraud like FDR as Santa Clause for the past forty years.
I read somewhere that the producers of this show were so thrilled with Jimmy Carters election in the early seventies that they felt the need to write a celebratory musical for the sense of optimism and hope that Carters Presidency manifested in their hearts.
They obviously did not write the show during the final years of his pathetic reign over America.
I have been trying to think what sort of Musical would be appropriate to celebrate the death of Keynes Economic Failures during the final months of 2012.
Iowahawk, my favorite political blogger and a must read on Twitter “Coined” (sorry for the pun) the perfect title for the Musical to be written fifty years hence in a Twitter feed he started a few days ago.
The Twitter Hash Tag #SaveUsMagicCoin contains some hilarious commentary and spoofs the Progressives Delusions about how to fix the Economy.
I would like to officially volunteer to write the Musical that will be the Anti-Annie in the years to come.
We could also title it “Hayeks Revenge”, or “Atlas is Still Shrugging”, or even “Sorry Virginia Santa Claus is really and truly DEAD!”
It began during my first birth. 
My sister had purchased a can of Vernors Pop from a vending machine and was sipping away on it. I asked her for a slug while I was sitting in the wheelchair waiting to be taken to my birthing room.
A nurse appeared right as I was sipping the can. (For the record, I do NOT recommend mothers drink soda during labor – raspberry tea with honey is a much better choice)
The nurse got right in my face, and said, “you will not do THAT again, no food or drink during labor.”
This was 1988 and my husband and I had just watched the movie The Verdict on television the night before. (Not exactly the best viewing right before giving birth to your first baby) So I understood WHY it was not a good idea for me to drink some soda, but I was thirsty…
This was the beginning of my first effort to claw my way to a normal birth in a teaching hospital in Michigan.
As I look back at my life as a mother, the one constant is the level of juxtaposition that came up again and again as I wended my way through the maze of modern mothering. As each experience contrasted with the last, I had to chuckle over and over at the level of extremes that appeared to be my lot in life.
I did not just have Post Partum Depression. I had Post Partum Psychosis.
I did not give birth for the first time in a reasonably balanced medical environment. No, I had to choose the hospital where I was born, Beaumont, in Royal Oak Michigan, a high risk facility that catered to high risk mothers and had a fifty percent c section rate back in 1988.
Back then I did not know that I was a Freebirther in embryo, a smoldering cauldron of birth activism willing to put it all on the line for my family and the families who were also being risked into medical slavery at just about every intersection with drugs and surgery.
The idea for this essay first entered into my mind a few weeks ago as I observed a chat on Facebook between my friend Carla Harley and a few Doulas who were expressing dismay that Unassisted Birthers were asking them to attend Family Births and play the role of midwife/protector and they were not comfortable and did not feel qualified to assist these families. Carla gave them sage advice as she is wont to do, and the conversation reminded me of my own attempts to recruit people to assist me with home births.
When I was expecting my second baby I sent a copy of Emergency Childbirth to my mother and asked her to help me with a home birth. She bluntly informed me that she did not feel qualified to help. In frustration I accepted her response and let go of the idea of Mom playing midwife and dug a little deeper into my own resources as a parent. As I began labor with my second daughter I found myself wrapped in fear. I had been going to prenatal appointments with a Family Doctor. At my last appointment before labor began she told me that she believed my daughter was breech. I refused an ultrasound and told my husband that I would rather spend that three hundred dollars on herbs to help me after the birth with emotional illness. I was so bottled up with terror that upon the birth of my child I would awake in a mental hospital, that the fear of a return of emotional distress was my upper most concern.
When labor finally kicked in I stayed home for twenty hours and gave it my best shot. My mother and husband were with me, and they were very concerned that we not arrive too early to the hospital as we had with my first child. When I showed up the nurses sadly informed me that I was only dilated to one. I was so disheartened by this news that when the doc insisted on an ultrasound to check positioning, I said, “OK”. Allison was indeed breech and I spent the next three hours negotiating with the staff on how we were to proceed. I struggled to know what was best for my baby. They told me that they could give me a drug that would stop labor, then another drug to relax my uterus, attempt a manual version, then another drug to start labor and then I could birth my baby vaginally.
I managed to call Dr. Bradley in Denver during labor and ended up talking to his wife Martha. She encouraged me to just have the c section and it was helpful to have her advice during that difficult time in my life.
During my third birth I again attempted a Family Birth at home and labored for three days alone.
We had mistakenly thought that Jeff was overdue by two weeks and my doc, who I had once again hired to do my prenatal care, insisted that we be induced on a monday at ten am. Jeff ended up being born at that exact moment, and the three days of his labor were a marathon of prayer, soul searching, and overkill in terms of the help I had set up for our older children. I had an army of friends who helped with the girls, assisted us at the hospital…it was so much over thinking that when I remember it now, I just feel silly that I felt the need to give all of those people “assignments” to help with the birth. It would have been so much simpler if we had just done the pregnancy ourselves, with no deadlines, and allowed labor to kick in when he was truly ready to be born. We did all sorts of “natural” things to induce labor, and while they worked, he was NOT ready to come out.
There were so many “Nos” from my doctor during his pregnancy and labor that this experience was the final “I’ve had it” moment for me. I walked away, literally ran from them. I am so grateful for the many writers and thinkers who influenced my choices. The clarity of the many doctors and midwives whose books I absorbed during this time gave me the courage to run away and free myself from the power of those who say NO! This was in 1994, before the internet was truly up and running for the average family.
I am so grateful for the Nos.
Because the professionals in my life said no to me over and over on various issues, it caused me to dig deeper and deeper looking for answers to big perplexing problems.
There is another group of professionals, family, and friends who also had the courage to say no. And it is to this group that I would like to address this post. Dont’ feel bad or guilty to say no to Family Birthers. It might be exactly what THEY need to hear.
I am a Doula, so I can say with confidence that the thought of helping any family with an unassisted birth scares the crap out of me. I have done it, but each time it was reluctantly and when they asked me if I wanted my name on the birth certificate as “attendant”, I said “NO!” and made it very clear to them that I was only there to help with older children, clean, cook food, and generally assist the family as they welcomed a new family member.
During my fourth labor I thought I wanted my friend Laura Shanley to attend. During a moment of pre labor that occurred a week before the actual birth, I invited Laura to come over. While I contracted in my bedroom she took my three oldest children to the park, and then came in to “help”. As most in the birth community know, Laura is considered the Mother of Unassisted Childbirth, yet for some reason it annoyed me that she was in my private space. During the final weeks of Andrews pregnancy I had bouts of pre labor almost every night that lasted four to five hours. His pregnancy was a real tease because I was so large I thought I was having twins and had decided to put my faith on the line and welcome him into our home after doing my own prenatal care. These bouts of pre labor were so confusing, I thought I was going into “real” labor about a hundred times.
It was curious to me that I did not want Laura there, and as I have thought about it, I think that I was loathe to have any sort of expert around me. Although Laura would be the last person on the earth to interfere with the process of labor I figure it was my own sense that this was supposed to be about Paul and I, not my friend.
During my fifth pregnancy I watched one of my best friends marriage dissolve after she had given birth to three children unassisted. The high divorce rate in the Family Birth community has been a blight, but I believe that many marriages cannot withstand the scrutiny, rejection, and bullying that non conformist parents experience.
My friend experienced the full range of invasions into her privacy as she dealt with mental hospital lockup/evaluation, time in jail, being cut off from her older children for months during a social services investigation and unassisted childbirth was the big glaring red flag as she was investigated by every agency and busybody the county of Boulder Colorado could provide. I understand and know that all of this was done out of concern for the well being of her children and after a domestic violence situation where she punched her husband in the face, but it was horrifying to watch and because I was seven months pregnant with Ben and she was eight months pregnant with her son, the full threat and awareness of what we were planning to do in giving birth alone was constantly right in front of my face. Especially since she stayed in our home for several days twice during that difficult time.
Every night she and I would get on our knees and pray for protection and asked the Lord to guide us. I was deeply concerned that as the time for her to give birth approached that if she gave birth in my home, I would be investigated and potentially locked up if anything went wrong, or even if everything went perfectly, because of the situation she was in, I would be dragged into the mess. Through a series of miraculous events she gave birth in the hospital to a big healthy son, and I was able to “lovingly detach” from her situation to prepare for my own birth and baby moon.
It is impossible for me to find the words to describe the horror of this situation and many times I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders.
The final months of my pregnancy I was also overwhelmed by the media focus that was being shoved on the husband of Andrea Yates. Rusty Yates was being blamed for his wife’s Post Partum Psychosis and the deaths of his five children while she was in a psychotic state. The similarities between our family and the Yates family were stark; homeschoolers, five kids, religious, previous episodes of depression and suicidality, etc etc… Paul and I were so overwhelmed by the media spotlight, we had to turn off the news and cloister away from any media influence while we continued to plan and prepare to welcome our son.
During a couple of moments of overwhelm and concern I reached out to several LDS friends who had midwife training and/or were doulas and asked them if they would come just be in the house with us while I gave birth. These friends all said “no”. Again, I had to dig deeper into my own spiritual resources. Each “NO” was an opportunity for growth and strengthening.
When I was seven and a half months pregnant I decided to go see my family doctor. I had a blood test to check my iron levels and while we visited I asked him if he would come into the hospital to help me if I had to transfer during a home birth. He told me he would if I would do normal prenatal care with him, but he did not feel that it was fair to him to be pulled into another deadly situation if I did not have the courtesy to allow him to be a full participant. He also said that he knew the only reason I would show up was if there was an emergency, and again, he said it was not fair. I agreed and told him I understood. He also told me that it was terrible to expect the Emergency Room Doctors to pick up the pieces of a botched home birth because they rarely see childbirth complications. I agreed.
So again, a “NO”. A No that caused me to dig deeper, to think harder, to question everything.
Who was I?
What was the goal?
Why Why WHY did I feel to the need to grasp my Family Sovereignty and NEVER let it go?
For me, it is all about freedom.
Freedom to NOT be induced.
Freedom to choose how I will live.
Freedom to protect the private space around my child’s birth.
Freedom to hire those professionals to attend me and help me in my own space. My chiropractor and Aryuvedic Doula were both at my home within nine hours of the birth on October 25th 2002.
If I had hired a midwife two Colorado rules would have kicked in forcing me to be induced.
My water broke three days before Ben was born while I was at my exercise class. I would have been forced to transfer care from Midwife to Doctor two and a half days before the birth for that reason alone. I also went three days over 42 weeks. The midwife again would have been compelled BY LAW to transfer care to an OB.
Instead I spent those three days eating, sleeping, relaxing in the tub, and doing my normal daily schedule. I also spent considerable time praying to know what was best for me and the baby.
As each moment of those three days passed, I was GRATEFUL for the “NOS”.
Because so many people had said “No” to being involved in the situation of my fifth child’s birth, I was freed to quietly listen to my Heavenly Father and take his perfect counsel without any “professional” or well intentioned advice from friends and family.
And his guidance was perfect.
It was real.
It was all that was needful.
Paul and I were able to revel in the joy of unfettered spirit the night our child was born in our bedroom.
During transition, the most difficult time of my labor, Paul asked what he could do to help. I asked him to sing hymns. He pulled out our Mormon Hymn Book and started singing all of my favorite spiritual songs. The sweet glow of the spirit of the Lord washed over us and and spilled into our bedroom as the final hours of labor were dutifully conducted by my lover and I.
When Ben gave his first gasp for air Paul handed him to me and as I lay down on our bed, I looked over and saw my sweetheart jumping for joy.
Joy.
Love.
Ecstasy.
Perfection.
The most sacred experience of my life.
Worth it?
OH YES!
I would not wish the emotional distress I experienced during that pregnancy on my worst enemy (weird, but Dr. Amy Teuteur MD just popped into my head).
But when I look at Benjamin, who will turn ten years old next month, I am reminded of the miracle of my Mothering Journey and it just makes me feel glad.
Jenny Hatch
PS Read more about Bens pregnancy and birth in my book A Lotus Birth on Amazons Kindle
Natural Family Living VIDEO of the Day!
Recent Conversation with my Heavenly Father…
“Dear Father, I seem to have been pulled into a situation where I find myself mixed up with several people whom I do not know, did not seek out , and simply don’t know what to do.
Father kindly replied and said, “Jen, my son Robert Stacy McCain is not who he presents himself to be on the Internet. You should steer clear of him because he is one of the most evil people currently Blogging on the web.”
Thanks Father, I really appreciate the heads up, now I know what to do. Love, Jen”
Yesterday my friend Larry Sinclair had this to say on his blog in a post titled There’s no crying in baseball:
“See we did not call up a “Mormon housewife in Colorado,” as claimed (again we note McCain has no problem publishing the woman’s religious faith for reasons we simply cannot understand as well as where the woman lives). The fact is that we sent a Twitter message to a friend who we first came to know almost four years ago asking that she call us as soon as she could. This friend, Jenny Hatch (and unlike McCain, we have obtained permission to use her name) who McCain started following on Twitter the day the Liberal Grouch unwittingly published photos of her on his website believing them to be photos of Lee Stranahan’s wife, got our message and called us later in the day. We did not as McCain claims call Jenny, nor did we tell Jenny that Robert Stacey McCain was some “evil person.” What we did (and we continue to stand by it to this day) is ask her if she knew Stacey McCain? She did not and had informed us that until her inbox filled up with Twitter notices of McCain tweeting about the Liberal Grouch publishing photos of her she hadn’t really heard of Stacey McCain. See Stacey claims it was us who called Jenny telling her what an evil person McCain is, but Stacey is wrong again. It was not Sinclair News or Larry Sinclair who told Jenny Stacey was not what he appeared to be, no we can’t even come close to claiming such insight and authority. See had Stacey used his journalism training and experience he would have made an effort to ask us or ask Jenny directly before making any such claim. Had he, he would never have printed the truth anyway. See what Stacey doesn’t bother to point out beyond his unexplained need to identify Jenny as a “Mormon,” is that when all of this craziness took place last Wednesday, Jenny prayed about what was taking place, she prayed for guidance and direction and Robert Stacey McCain might want to know that according to Jenny Hatch, GOD not Sinclair told her Stacey McCain was not someone who should be trusted or someone who she should become involved with. So Stacey, as you have demonstrated yet again, your journalism skills seem to be fading into the sunset the same way your argument that you have been “unjustly attacked” by Larry Sinclair…
…Sorry Stacey McCain, we didn’t call a “Mormon housewife…” as you claim, GOD did that and that’s one person even you can’t accuse of unjustly attacking you as an unwitting dupe of Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser.”
As with all of my interactions with strangers online, I have used prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to know how and when to engage with fellow activists and truth seekers. From the guests I ask to be on my radio show, to the topics I blog about, to the time I have spent partnering with Political and Health Freedom Activists, I always use prayer and spiritual discernment, which is a heavenly gift given to every faithful Mormon Women to help me to know how to spend my time. I even prayed to know if it would be good for me to write this blog post or just let the whole situation go. Since I am typing, you know what my answer was from the Lord.
So far this spiritual approach to Blogging has kept me alive through some of the most outrageous and mind bending experiences of my life.
If anything when I talked to Larry on the phone the other day he simply outlined some factual inconsistencies that were currently being exposed by people who feel defrauded and lied to by RS McCain and others. I called Larry, he did NOT call me, and it was my Heavenly Father who told me Stacey was evil, not Larry. Since I don’t know much about the other situation and have never really aligned myself with any bloggers club or other blogging organization, and have even been banned or shut out from just about every chat room I have ever joined, I don’t really feel called upon to comment about that situation. I do believe it is easier for individuals to misrepresent themselves on line than it is in real life. And my readers will have to decide for themselves if something is off with various bloggers who hold themselves up as victims.
Having been bullied for my own writing, I know that this type of bullying is real. I have never been “swatted” but I could tell a few hair raising episodes of blogging blowback.
But since I am NOT a victim and was not able to get the police to listen to my own stories of harassment and attack, I have moved on with my life preferring to let it all go and wait for the perfect eternal justice that I know will be mine in the next life.
I would encourage those who have been “called out” for devious behavior to take stock of their own lives, repent, and try to make things right.
As for me, I have a show to be in and rehearsals at three…
