{"id":9666,"date":"2014-12-18T18:41:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T23:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9666"},"modified":"2014-12-18T18:41:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T23:41:49","slug":"the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html","title":{"rendered":"the other side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion\"<\/a>You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That’s it. Mine is a family of women, mostly. We talk about ‘the aunts’ — my mother and her three sisters — and ‘the sisters’ — my three sisters & me. My grandmother was one of five sisters (and two brothers, but we don’t always even get their names correct!). And that’s just my maternal side — my father had four sisters, as well.<\/p>\n

In other words, I grew up w\/ a LOT of female input. And about zilch male. My dad worked overseas, and my grandfathers were both dead. There were some uncles, but they weren’t very active w\/ little kids.<\/p>\n

How does this matter to beginner’s heart, you’re wondering??<\/p>\n

It’s hard to get only one side of the story.\u00a0Which is what is happening in much of America today. When you only see\/ hear one side of the story, you can bet it’s … well, one-sided.<\/p>\n

My mother’s ‘side’ was that she raised us by herself, virtually. My father was almost always gone: stationed overseas, fighting a war, working for the government. But years later, I began to see my father’s side: cut off from the raising of his four daughters by his job — really the only job he knew how to do. A man awash in girlie stuff, that poor war hero!<\/p>\n

Today, it’s black vs. white, rich vs. middle class vs. poor. It’s very hard to believe, if the police look like you, and have always been helpful, that they are verrry bad guys to many many African Americans. If you don’t\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0how hard it is to make it on minimum wage, you may well think that folks on food stamps are just spongers.<\/p>\n

I don’t know when I began to see the ‘other side’ of matriarchy. Which is the ways in which men, too, are done in by the system. Women aren’t the only done-to, done-by<\/em>. Perhaps it was when I began to watch my beloved. Perhaps it was the birth of my two sons.<\/p>\n

All I know is this: if everyone you know looks like\/ sounds like\/ worships like you? Make new friends. You need to get out more. Because chances are, you only see one side of a very round world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That’s it. Mine is a family of women, mostly. We talk about ‘the aunts’ — my mother and her three sisters — and ‘the sisters’ — my three sisters &…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560,914],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1306],"class_list":["post-9666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prejudice","category-privilege","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-prejudice"],"yoast_head":"\nthe other side - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That's it. Mine is a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the other side - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That's it. Mine is a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-18T23:41:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/12\/WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion-281x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"the other side - Beginner's Heart","description":"You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That's it. Mine is a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"the other side - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That's it. Mine is a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2014-12-18T23:41:49+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/12\/WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion-281x300.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html","name":"the other side - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/12\/WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion-281x300.jpg","datePublished":"2014-12-18T23:41:49+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-18T23:41:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"You will notice, if you look at the picture, a dearth of men. There are the outlaws, w\/ the exception of grandchildren, and a cousin. That's it. Mine is a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/12\/WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion-281x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/12\/WrightSkidmoreFamilyReunion-281x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/12\/the-other-side.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"the other side"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9666"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9672,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9666\/revisions\/9672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}