CN: emesis, classism, fatphobia from doctors, medical negligence, disordered eating
Motherhood
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Ni Bueno, Ni Malo
In the past two years I’ve fallen in love with my hair. I’ll post pictures and videos of my bouncing curls. I’ll apologize to my friends for maybe appearing shallow but to please indulge me. But it hasn’t always been this way. In the past I regarded my hair as a nuisance. Something that needed taming; kept small.
Gender Policing Children
I’m writing this becuase I am sick of the constant gender policing my daughter goes through. She has an Avengers lunch box. She got it for her fourth birthday. It’s one of her favorite possessions, but every few days she comes home from school sad because people keep telling her she likes “boy things”. She gets the same type of comments when she wears her Batman jacket. The conversation usually goes like this:
TJ: I’m not going to take my lunch box to school anymore. Everybody tells me I like boy things.
Me: Do you like the Avengers? Are you a boy?
TJ: Yes. No, I’m not.
Me: Alright then. You’re just someone who likes those things.
TJ: They’re what makes me, me.
We have a similar conversation every few weeks. It gets exhausting.
TJ also loves a lot of feminine coded stuff, like Barbies and My Little Pony. Her favorite Disney movie is Frozen. She prefers dresses and skirts over pants. On days when she’s completely femme, there are people who are surprised becuase they’ve seen her with “boy things” in the past. These people seem to forget that children are actual people, and just like people have varied goddamned tastes.
I went with her on a field trip and the amount of gender policing that went on was mind boggling.Some girl classmates were playing and a little boy came by and asked if he could get a turn. One girl told him no because it wasn’t a boys’ game. I told him he could play. The game? Wizard of Oz match three.
Another boy said he didn’t like flowers because they’re for girls. At one point I was sitting on a blanket with a bunch of girl classmates and one another boy sat down with us. His mom came along, grabbed him while saying, “why are you here with all these girls. They’re all playing girl games. Go play with the boys”. The girls were telling me about school.
I’m constantly told not to judge parents who restrict their children’s play based on perceived gender. Frankly, I’m going to judge you. You’re raising your child to believe in harmful stereotypes. Stereotypes which lead to trans and gender non-conforming people getting harassed and killed. We have states trying to ban trans people from using public restrooms. All because we reduce people to their genitalia. Then your children spread these bigoted thoughts and make children like mine afraid to express who they are.
If gender is so innate why are cis people so afraid of a boy who plays with dolls? Of a girl who loves trucks?
I’ve seen a lot of cis parents claim that Target making their toy aisles gender neutral is silly because gender isn’t a big deal and the people asking for these things are overly sensitive babies.
You wanna know who are the overly sensitive ones?
Cis people who can’t handle their son wanting a Barbie. Cis people freaking out about which bathroom trans people use.
Apparently gender while being so innate is also very fucking fragile and anything could make children go into gender questioning chaos. And if that child tells their parents and the world they are trans, they can get killed for it. But yeah, keep making it sound like people asking to pee in peace and gender neutrality in media are the bullies in this.
Brad’s Tips for Growing your Home Garden
Today’s post is written by Brad E. Man
Hey y’all
I’m writing this today because Sunflower Punk can’t possibly comprehend this because she is a woman. I mean she tells me she’s “non binary”, but we all know that there are only two genders. Binaries are for computers and we all know women don’t know how they work.
Anyway, I’m here to talk to you about growing your own tomatoes.
It is not hard to grow your own food. Literally anything you say is a barrier is an excuse. Disabled? Nope. The only disability is your bad attitude.
Have kids? Should have kept your legs closed, slut.
Too busy at work? Do what I did. Don’t work and have your fiance pay for everything.
My Guide to Saving Money to grow tomatoes:
Step 1) have a fiance that pays for all your shit
Step 2) bully single moms on the internet
Step 3) profit (the profit is a tomato)
Really, that’s all there is to it. Step 1 was hard because some women have ridiculous standards like “don’t harass women online”. But I pressed on and after following PUA tactics, I negged someone enough to think I was the best they could do.
Which brings me to step 2. I was peacefully minding my business eating Doritos, drinking mountain dew and perusing return of kings. A woman I don’t know posted the above image. Obviously I had to point out how wrong she was.
She told me she’s homeless. Can you believe that? Homeless and on facebook! I bet she also has a phone. Ridiculous.
Another woman told me her budget and how it doesn’t cover enough to grow a home garden.
Excuses! My phone bill is $200/month, rent is $600 and our food budget is 181 dollars. All this is paid by my fiance while I stay home and tend to the garden. It is after all my pride and joy.
These women with their children and homelessness are haters and will continue to have bad luck because they wouldn’t listen to me.
Brad Every Man is a sometimes writer, all the time douche bag. He enjoys tomatoes, sexism and classism. He has a cat who hates him.
Dads and Low Bars
September 20th is “Dads take your child to school day” at my kid’s school. Because apparently the bar is set so fucking low that a father doing his goddamn job gets a special day marked in calendar.
Children and Boundaries
CN: brief mentions of SA, CSA, use of the word r*pe uncensored
I recently saw the above image on Facebook. Long story short it’s talking about not forcing children to hug people that they don’t want to. To give children a choice and a say in how and when they interact and show affection to known adults. It explains that by teaching children they have a right to say no, that lesson could keep a child from being abused, or it gives them tools to be able to speak up about it.
While most of the comments were positive there was one commenter who balked at the notion of a child not hugging a grandparent, for example. They basically implied that teaching bodily autonomy in the form of hug refusal could lead to intimacy issues or emotional divides. They questioned what kind of family is it that would respect a child’s wishes to hug or not be hugged. They alleged that unless the child is Autistic or has some sort of other sensory issue then that child should always hug someone even if they don’t want to. Otherwise it is disrespectful.
Now please explain this to me: how is it respectful of me to force my child to hug someone she doesn’t want to? Is my child not worthy of respect?
The same person said that the idea of children having boundaries is silly because something about being potty-trained, so that obviously children do not have the cognitive ability to make boundaries.
This person kept going on and on about respect. When I was little my family forced me to hug a certain family member. That didn’t teach me respect. It taught me I had no say, it taught me that anybody had a right to my body. I do not find it a coincidence that I’ve been raped and sexually assaulted. I was taught not to say no. Is that what we want to teach our children?
If I want to model good behavior to my child, if I want to teach them that they have bodily autonomy, if I want them to grow up to be people who respect others’ autonomy; then childhood is the perfect time to do so. It is in childhood when you set the foundation for who they will become as adults.
This goes back to an older post I wrote in which I said that as a culture we do not respect children. We don’t see them as fully fledged people with ideas and dreams and hopes of their own. We don’t think of them as people who can have opinions, wants, dislikes and likes. We see them as carbon copies of ourselves but they’re not.
If we want this current generation of children to grow into compassionate, emphatic adults then we need to teach them that they have value; they have worth. That they have bodily autonomy and that they have to respect others’ right to space and privacy.
We cannot tell them (whether through words or actions) that they are not worthy of respect. As parents, educators, as elders we owe it to our children to show them respect because otherwise, why should we expect them to respect us?
One Year Home-a-versary
It has been a year since my daughter and I left the shelter after five years of homelessness.
I cannot believe it’s only been one year. We got used to things pretty quickly which surprised me. After all, I was so used to being treated like an animal, being carted off to different shelters, nothing more than a number to the State, that I thought not having to deal with shelter life would be a major adjustment.
Since I already wrote about the differences between shelter and apartment living, I’d like to make this post a thank you letter to everyone who helped me get in here and continues to help my daughter and I. Some are named and others I’ve used initials for because they’ve asked/I don’t know how they’d feel about a public shout out.
First I’d like to thank Ania Bula for helping me with creating and sharing my fundraiser.
I was hesitant to make one at first because I was afraid no one would help. I was afraid poor shamers would question why I was asking for money. I’ve seen it so many times before. Angie and Ania helped convince me and they then helped share the hell out of that link.
I’d like to thank my online group of women and NB friends for always listening to me whine and complain and cry about everything in my life. Why you all haven’t gotten sick of me is a mystery.
Many thanks to Sally S. who drove down to the City when I left one of the many shelters (I was being transferred to another) and helped me move my things. If not for that, the shelter would have thrown away everything which would have meant that when I finally moved into this apartment my daughter and I would have had to start over.
Which brings me to thanking KH, ALS, JF, IDT, SG, YR and many others for the lovely housewarming gifts they sent us.
I’d like to thank all of these wonderful people and their friends (strangers to me) for sharing my fundraiser and story. If not for them, I wouldn’t have been able to raise the money to pay off the apartment fees. We were able to come up with the money in about a day!
I was honestly flabbergasted. I could not believe the outpouring of support we received and continue to receive. I feel so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life. People who love my daughter. Our first Christmas here, some friends sent us gifts and my daughter was over the moon.
My friends helped keep me sane while I was dealing with getting the apartment ready. They offered their support, ideas and advice.
I’d like to thank several of my artist friends for encouraging me to keep up with my own art. So, thank you to the Artful Scientist, Ania (once again!), AG, CW, APV for seeing the beauty in what I do and telling me. As you know, sometimes we’re our own biggest and harshest critics.
To my fellow single mom friends, thank you for reminding me I’m not alone. Thank you for staying up with me when I was worried I was somehow messing up my kid’s life.
Finally, I’d like to thank my mami for always helping any way she can. She’s the Sophia to my Dorothy and I’m proud to be her daughter. She’s a great mom. I love you, mami.
And special thanks to my daughter TJ. She has been such a trooper. She’s gone through so much in her short life but she always manages to stay bright and bubbly. I love that about her. She’s my favorite person and I’m lucky to have her call me “mom”.
All of these people (and so many others I didn’t mentioned becuase they’ve helped in so many different ways, it’ll be a way longer post) are always there to remind me to take it easy. To be gentle with myself, reminding me I’m doing the best I can as a person, mom and friend.
Thank you all so much again. I’ll never feel like I can thank you all enough.
Dad Jokes
So there’s this new thing that fathers are doing called the Cheerio Challenge and it’s about who can prove who’s the biggest tool funniest dad.
Ever wonder why there is such a thing as “dad jokes” but not the mom equivalent? Because dads are allowed to be silly. Dads are allowed to do this type of shit and not have people question their parenting ability. It’s why we have goddamn parades for weekend dads but condemn single moms. Seriously, look at any story about a single dad and you’ll get bombarded with comments on how “selfless” and “wonderful” the dad is. Look at stories about single moms and you’ll find comments questioning her ability to parent. They’ll wonder why she’s single. Single dads (or dads in general really) get praised. Single moms get scorned.
It’s why people went gaga over Chris Hemsworth baking a cake for his daughter. Seriously? He baked a cake. Clearly, he’s wasting his talents on acting. Get that man in culinary school!
It’s why we say dads are babysitting their children while mom is away.
Google “dad jokes” and you get this:
Google “mom jokes” and you get this:
So, do we see a difference?
Dad gets to be silly and fun; we wink at each other over how ridiculous dad is but we never say, “hey fattie, stop the jokes and get in the kitchen and feed your kids. Look pretty while you do it, toots”
The mom results are all a bunch of racist, ableist, sexist jokes at the expense of mom.
Getting back to the Cheerio Challenge: Yes, it’s cute and it’s silly, but as a single mom I really wonder what the response would be if this had been started by moms.
I also have to wonder why the fuck you’d risk waking your baby! Parents know that when baby sleeps, we can try to relax. Emphasis on try. This just seems like an incredibly inconsiderate thing to do. Because we also know how labor is usually divided in households with both parents, we can then extrapolate that mom ends up doing most of the emotional and physical labor while dad gets to waste cereal on a challenge to prove how big his dick is how funny he is.
Fathers, doesn’t the fact that you get praised for doing the bare minimum bother you? Think about it: society is basically saying your mediocrity is just fine. You don’t need to improve; to strive to be a better parent. Doesn’t that offend you? Society doesn’t expect the best from you. It’s much like how rape culture dictates that all men can’t control themselves. We know that isn’t true. So why not do better; be better? Disrupt the narrative that fathers merely babysit their kids. Make people let go of the notion that we shouldn’t expect fathers to be fully involved in their children’s lives.
Tall Barbie: A Review
Previously I had reviewed Curvy Barbie. Today I review Tall Barbie.
Original Barbie is 11.5 inches tall. This Barbie is about 13 inches tall. One of the reasons I wanted to buy this doll was because unlike most Barbies, she has short hair. Plus, she’s sporting a curly Afro!
In addition to the new body types, Mattel has also added new face sculpts. This doll has a wide nose and full lips. Her eyes are light brown and she has a medium skin tone.
Mattel will be releasing other tall (and curvy) dolls with fashions but for now, these dolls have to make do with the outfits they’re wearing. Tall Barbie does fit into Original Barbie’s clothes but since she is a few inches taller, the clothes are a bit shorter.
Original Barbie can fit into Tall Barbie’s clothes but as you can see above Original Barbie has a thinner waist so Tall Barbie’s shorts a bit big around that area on the Original.
Tall Barbie also has wider flatter feet but she is able to wear Original heels, however because her feet are flatter she isn’t able to stand upright with them on.
Like most Barbies, Tall Barbie is not articulated.
Just like Curvy Barbie, Tall Barbie has been a big hit here at home. TJ and I are both tall and we both have curly hair. TJ is thrilled to see a doll with features closer to hers. My daughter has named her Savannah.
Remembering my Tia
CN: domestic violence, child abuse, death