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Feminist Parenting Topics

Actually managing to get these posted on a Sunday for once, how organised am I? A small selection of the feminist parenting-related goodness I’ve been reading this week.

    The Invisible Mother – “The mother/breeder binary is readily obvious in most parenting magazines. The stories are often written by white women of the privileged class, while the lived experiences of women of color are absent from the pages. Despite the courage and strength of will that is necessary to raise a child, when you exist as a marginalized body your stories are not deemed compelling, or marketable. Women of color are meant to serve as “mothers helpers,” not exist as actual mothers.”

    Mothers For Justice – “Our serious concerns regarding our children’s welfare is not being addressed. Courts are putting our children in extremely dangerous situations daily, we will not tolerate this abuse any longer. Please join us in our fight for justice.

    Think we have a fair and just system? Think again…”

    I’m sick of discreet! – “Think of things you’re told to do discreetly. Normally things that are a bit “naughty”, not really allowed. You’d meet an extra-marital lover “discreetly”. You’d slip a few extra bits and bobs from the supermarket into your pocket “discreetly”. Oh, and… that’s right, you’re supposed to breastfeed in public “discreetly”.However, we live in the real world. The reason breastfeeding mothers often want to be “discreet” is not often out of some sense of “modesty” but because they want to protect themselves and their children from nasty comments, the embarrassment of being asked to move and what (I think it was) Morgan calls that very British protest, the tut and head shake (I’ve had more than my fair share of those).

    I understand that need. I’ve felt it myself. The older my son gets, the more I feel it, as normal-term nursing is still misunderstood and stigmatised, sometimes even to the point of it being labelled “child abuse”.”

    The Rights of Pregnant Women: Not a Matter of Equality – “The spokesperson who thinks pregnant women’s inequality isn’t inequality finds it completely unacceptable that emplyer break existing laws. Laws which she finds to be perfectly clear. Yes well, the law may be clear, but so are the laws against murder, rape, theft, assault, etc etc and that never eradicated those crimes now did it? Someone who’s of a mind to do something immoral won’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks about his/her actions, what they (might) worry about is the potential consequences their actions might have. And as long as the consequences are so inconsequential that there’s better business in committing the crime and taking the punishment than there is doing the right thing in the first place, then that type of crime will continually be committed. Laws don’t deter people, CONSEQUENCES do.”

    Snip-ereedoodah – “It’s not natural,” he balks.

    To which I get furious. It is not natural for a woman to be on the pill for 10 years. It is not “natural” to slice open my abdomen and pull out a nearly 8 lb human. Let’s not even get into the STITCHES on my vajuj.

    But it’s his body. I am pro-choice and therefore have to respect his right to make the decisions about his body. I wanted to get pregnant and have two kids, so I assumed the pains and complications that came with that decision.

    The other day, he went to the doctor and actually asked about the snip. It’s been almost exactly a year since he first went in to discuss the snip and “forgot to ask.” Now, I could probably count on my fingers AND toes the times we’ve had sex over that year — which he argues is more than most parents with kids the ages of ours. But frankly, it’s not enough for me. I’m still youngish, I’m in my prime and unlike a lot of the moms I know, I actually WANT to “do it.”

    As Real As It Gets – “My little boy was so deeply upset, he wanted to nurse, for comfort and love. Had I been able to nurse him, just for a few moment, he’d have recovered on his own, and gone off to play under his own steam. He would have taken control of his own distress.

    Unable to allow him this heinous act, in a Nursery of other children, I had to refuse, and load on distress, rather than provide him comfort.Because my body, and what I do with it as a mother, is socially controlled. As a woman, my mothering, and my body, is controlled by the gaze of others. I didn’t even feel I could ask to withdraw to a private space, as I didn’t want the entire “she’s a freak” thing to enter into my, and my son’s, relationship at his wonderful Nursery. I was too afraid. Too scared.

    The next time someone tells me that ‘discretion’ in breastfeeding isn’t a feminist issue, or that they have the right to determine how, where, and when, I offer my breast to my child, I’m likely to punch them in the face.”

    Are Women To Blame For The Loss Of “Kitchen Economics?” – “Yet Holcombe’s major flaw here is this: there is not ONE mention of a man in this article at all. She scolds young women for their choices, and lashes out at how some mothers choose to feed their children: “There is a swath of young women who have time to get a manicure and go out partying, but still genuinely believe they’re too busy to cook. At the other end of the scale, there are women who should know better, but who dish up a nonstop diet of poor-quality ready meals to their children because it seems like the easy option.”

    There is no mention of a father knowing better, or a man spending money on frivolous things instead of a decent roast or some such, no mention of families or couples making these decisions: it is, in Holcombe’s mind, the fault of women that “kitchen economics” are fading away, lost to a world of busy families and young hussies who dare to get their nails done instead of buying butternut squash at the Farmer’s Market.”

    When feminists catch fleas – “Hating children is in itself grotesque (because it is bigotry).. it is also invariably a thinly veiled hatred of their mothers. Don’t believe me? Time how long it takes the next conversation you overhear about ”children behaving badly”, ”over-population”, “social welfare” or “the cost of raising children” to turn its nasty little mouth to mother blaming. Hating mothers is of course really just about hating women, particularly poor women.

    Feminists should know better than to buy into this crap, but misogyny is a very powerful thing with seductive packaging.”

    Why I hate “I hate children…” – “One of the things that really hit me at the time was how openly these commenters were expressing their hatred of children- one commenter called children “crotch droppings,” for gods sakes (but later apologized and admitted it was wrong). It wasn’t just the animosity, though, it was the lack of outrage that followed it. Can any of us imagine someone posting “I hate women. How is it disrespectful that I don’t find bitches awesome?” and there being less than serious outrage over it? Replace “women” with any number of other groups, and I think that the result is the same. Children, though, are generally seen as a group that it’s okay to hate, in some ways.”

    Breastfeeding: radical, feminist and good for you – “The second time a male hand touched my breast, I was 30 and the hand belonged to my newborn son. It was curled into a semi-fist as he tried with confused urgency to work out what hunger meant, and how it might be resolved. I gently persuaded him to open his mouth, take a mouthful of breast and suckle. That hunger was the first question he asked, and I was able to answer it in a way that gave him both food and a reassurance that my body was home to the baby as well as the foetus.”

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Sixth Carnival of Feminist Parenting

Welcome to the sixth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting! This month has been a spectacular one for articles and blog posts related to feminism and parenting, and I’ve really enjoyed putting this edition of the Carnival together. There’s a bit of a change in format from the previous carnivals – every time I’ve put it together it’s evolved a little bit. Eventually, when I find a format I like and that you the readers like, I’ll stick with it. ;)

Anyway, without further ado: November 2021’st Carnival of Feminist Parenting!

Children’s Rights

    In Feminist Parenting: The Larger Picture, Elena Perez talks about the intersections between feminism and children’s rights, explaining why children’s rights should matter to feminists.

    Ruth Moss has written an open letter to Kate Harding, a response to Harding’s child- and mother-blaming article about children screaming on aeroplanes.

    Arwyn wrote a fabulous explanation of the personhood of children, explaining how when we say ‘people’ we often mean ‘adults’, and what it means to respect children as people.

    Ruth Moss (again, she’s that good!) wrote a response to Arwyn’s post, adding a couple of paragraphs about encouraging age-appropriate behaviour.

    Noble Savage has a great post titled On child hate and feminism, talking about her impressions of motherhood/children before she had children and why feminists should be in favour of children’s rights.

Mother-Blaming

    In a guest post at The F Word, Amy Clare talks about the most recent attacks on mums, with news of a study which appears to show children of paid-working mums are less healthy.

    Blue Milk has a quote from a recent blog post by Carrie Fisher in which she (sarcastically) apologises for not meeting certain beauty standards post-children.

    Deanna Dahlsad writes an excellent article about why we vilify single mothers, discussing the history of negativity towards them and how that is relevant today.

Race

    Renee Martin has a post titled Who Will Love The Black Child? talking about how Black children are taught to devalue their colour, and how parents might counter this.

Teaching and Learning

    Kathleen Deveny writes In Praise Of Bossy Girls, explaining how girls who are assertive are often accused of bossiness, whereas the same accusation is not placed on their male peers.

    Renee Martin talks about how We Teach Our Children Homophobia by passing on heterosexist notions to them, even unintentionally.

    In If She’s Not Having Fun You Have To Stop, Thomas writes about an occasion where he witnessed a father teaching his two-year-old an important lesson.

    Apu writes about raising liberal daughters, pondering the “gap between what parents expect and what young women would like to be and do”.

    Stephanie writes a critique of the book ‘Rules for My Unborn Son’, pulling apart some of the more problematic ‘rules’ in the book.

Breastfeeding

    Molly writes some more on breastfeeding, feminism, cost, and value, explaining why she believes breastfeeding is not an inherently antifeminist act, and is even a feminist act.

Gender Equality

    Kate Townshend talks about Gender in the playground, the ways in which children learn the gender divide and particularly how girls learn that their appearance is the most important thing.

    Renee Martin writes Don’t Let A Girl Beat You, talking about how boys are encouraged into sport while girls are discouraged from competing, and the messages this sends to both.

    In To tutu or not to tutu? Misty writes an intelligent, thoughtful response to a woman who is concerned by her son’s propensity towards traditionally ‘female’ clothing and toys.

Media

    In her post titled Fuck you Disney princesses, Jenn talks about the effects the Disney princesses had on her as a developing girl.

    Rosepixie gives us an excellent critique of Dora the Explorer’s massive transformation from brave explorer to “pink, fashionable and girly”.

    Catherine Porter writes about raising brave princesses in a Disneyfied world, negotiating the minefield that is the influence of Disney princesses upon our daughters.

Pregnancy & Childbirth

    Shira Happlin has a lot to say about The Loss of Childbirth to Male Physicians. It’s a very old article, but much that she says is still very true and relevant today.

    In Birth & Babies, Jennifer Fink uses the world’s first live birth as a springboard to talk about lack of belief in ourselves and adequate support during labour.

Reproductive Freedom

    Sandy Maple writes about the insurance company who told a woman to get sterilised or they wouldn’t cover her, simply because she had had a previous Caesarean and for her to have another wouldn’t be profitable for them.

Parenthood

    In the Hot Moms Club post Motherhood and Feminism, the writer talks about how parenthood has changed her feminism, and the realisation that she can be – and is – both a stay-at-home mother and a feminist.

    In Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood, PhDinParenting discusses the need for society to recognise fathers as parents in the same way it does mothers, and how this would benefit all.

    Laurie writes that she is a Wanna-be Selfish Mom, talking about the ‘Mummy Guilt’ she feels when she does things for herself, and promising herself a little selfishness.

    Judith Warner writes about The Choice Myth, positing that for many women, the choice between being a ‘working mum’ and a ’stay at home mum’ is not really a choice at all.

    And finally, Nikki gives us a list of 10 things you probably shouldn’t say to a teenage mum. It’s concerning that anyone might need to be told not to say these things, but I heard almost all of them myself!

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. The next edition will be here at Mothers For Women’s Lib as usual, on Sunday 13th December. Get your submissions for next month’s Carnival in by Sunday 6th December using our carnival submission form. You can also submit articles by sending your link as a reply or DM on Twitter to @m4wl.

If you’d like to read the previous editions of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting, they can be found here – 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th – enjoy!
When I Inhabit Too Much Space

I am grateful to Mamalode for hosting my story today. That space always feels safe… even when I’m feeling most vulnerable.

Thanks, Mamalode. XO
Hot Mess

I always wanted to be Carolyn Ingalls. And then my air conditioning went out. In Mississippi. And now I take all that prairie life nonsense back. Every single bit of it. I don’t even care if Pa plays his fiddle. I’m out.

Indiana has her share of hot, humid days. They can border on unbearable. But I’ve never experienced anything like Mississippi heat. The thick, chewy, edible texture of the air. Oppressive oxygen. I’m not even sure what’s breathed down here in the summer is oxygen. I think it might be pudding.

So when the house started heating up earlier this week, we all took immediate notice. Chris went outside and announced that the fan on the air conditioner was kaput. We got out all the box fans, made the necessary calls, stripped down to our wardrobe essentials.

The temperature crept steadily up, and my patience and good nature plummeted. Extreme, unreasonable heat is torturous to those of us who are already hot-natured in general. The sweating. Oh, the sweating! And this heat would not be persuaded to go away. I begged and pleaded and cajoled and bribed to no avail. She just kept getting hotter… and hotter… and hotter. (She was kind of a bitch that way.) We had a 48-hour repair window, and my window of sanity turned out to be just a little bit smaller than that.

Thank goodness my kids aren’t little. If this had happened when they were babies, I would have been in a full-on panic. Because they’re all in various stages of puberty now, though, they smell funny, anyway. A little extra sweat wasn’t going to change that. And because I’m peri-menopausal, I really didn’t care about anyone but myself and my fiery, burning, spontaneous combustion-worthy face.

But my poor, furry friends. They sat at my feet, chests heaving, tongues lolled out on the sticky, damp floors. They looked at me with canine eyes that said nothing more than, “WTF, WOMAN?”

I sat at my desk trying to crank out some solid marketing copy. My full-time gig is primarily deadline-based, and I had a slew of them this week. But there was a problem.

My brain was melting.

I couldn’t leave my home office because the service dude might have arrived at any moment. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. Phrases such as “return on investment” and “big data” meant even less to me than they normally did. Sweat dripped onto my keyboard as I worked. I think it might have come from my eyeballs.

At one point, Chris said, “Honey, it’s hot. But it’s not that hot.”

(You know this isn’t going to end well, right?)

And I replied, “Don’t tell ME how hot I am! You don’t KNOW how hot I am! Are YOU peri-menopausal? Are YOU an Olympic caliber sweater?” (Not the throw-over-your-shoulders kind, but the wet-stains-on-your-shirt kind — just for clarification.)

I didn’t really see him much over the next 24 hours. Granted, I spent many of those minutes splayed out like a giant starfish on my bed in front of a fan, begging silently for mercy and compassion and a large frozen margarita. I didn’t even want wine. The mere thought of it, in fact, made me a little nauseous. That’s how hot it was.

Friends said, “Come stay with us. Come jump in our pool. Come let us fan you.” But there are six of us. Six. Plus two dogs. Plus a guinea pig. We’re not inconspicuous. We don’t travel lightly. We’d like for our Mississippi friends to remain friends once we head back to the Midwest.

And did I mention we’re in the throes of packing our entire house? Because we’re moving 5 states away in 16 days? And that the truck arrives on the 28th and we have to be ready to load it? Because it doubles our cost if we don’t do all that nonsense ourselves and moving is the most expensive undertaking on the planet? Second only, perhaps, to sending your sextuplets to MIT at full sticker price?

I didn’t want to fork over any money for a hotel, but I knew surviving one night in a 100-degree house was my limit. You know what I found out when I began making frantic phone calls? Dog-friendly hotels are only friendly if your dogs weigh less than 25 pounds. They only want little, yippy dogs to pee on their curtains and their bedspreads. The old woman dogs who do nothing but sleep and sigh and pass endless streams of squeaky gas that always seem to surprise them 23.75 hours of the day? Absolutely not. If they’re mid-sized girls like mine, hotels will engage in full-on canine weight shaming and fat discrimination. (“No Milk Bones for YOU!”) That was my experience with the few, at least, I was able to call before my swollen sausage fingers could no longer push one… more… button.

So, resigned to our fate, I kept waiting for the boatman, Phlegyas, to arrive with our one-way tickets across the River Styx.

When our service dude finally arrived — when he had our beloved AC up and running again — I brought him inside for some cold ice water. And I was so beholden to him, I even made Francisco perform. Yes, I did. I entertained that poor, sweet, sweaty man with guinea pig tricks. It was the least I could do. The absolute least. (If you’ll recall, my brain had already melted.)

So deep was my gratitude, Chris had to gently remind me to not kiss that service angel full on the lips.

But I did give him the most heartfelt high-five I could muster. And don’t forget the guinea pig trick offering, either.

Hug your service dudes today, friends.

They make 107-degree heat index life worth living.
Typical
Dear Indy’s Child,

I read on Facebook that you’re looking for a blogger. I would say you’re looking for “a Mommy Blogger,” but that term actually makes me throw up in my mouth a little. You outlined a few things you’d like to see in an Indy’s Child blogger, and I’m here to “explain how my qualifications and experiences are a perfect fit for your requirements.” (That sounded pretty official, didn’t it?)

1. Must be witty.

Okay, I’ve got this one covered. After all — as my children will attest amidst dramatic eye-rolling — I was voted “Best Sense of Humor” in the GCHS class of 1988. So there’s that.

2. Must share stories about every day life.

As the Queen of TMI, I don’t think you’ll hear any arguments about whether or not I’m willing to share our stories. In fact, you might be wishing I didn’t share quite so much. You’ve got a strong editorial staff, right?

3. Must submit a blog entry about a “typical day.”

Hmm. A typical day? That’s a stretch.

In this household, there are no typical days. Each and every moment brings new and different surprises to the table. Oh, sure, we’ve paved our own personal trail to the lacrosse fields and back. We can drive to the middle school with our eyes closed. We can run an elementary school open house with our hands tied behind our backs. We will, inevitably, have one kid down with a fever, one who missed the bus and needs to be picked up, one who refuses to eat the dinner his father has prepared, and one who is content to sit on the couch and vegetate… all day long.

Our routine may become redundant at times, but our days are far from typical. There are, however, some Universal Truths we can always rely upon.
1. Sam (14) will never be happy in the morning. It doesn’t matter if we wake him up at 5:00 AM for an out-of-state lacrosse tournament or if he rolls out of bed at noon of his own accord. He won’t be happy. And he’ll make sure the rest of us aren’t happy either. He’s a teenager, after all. It’s his job. And if there are no Pop-Tarts to fuel his eventual smile? Watch out.
2. Gus (12) will spend the majority of his day lurking in the pantry. He’ll steal a few crackers, sneak a couple of Thin Mints. When he’s not hiding beef jerky in his underwear drawer because he’s afraid his brothers will eat it all, he’ll be texting me to see if he’s allowed to pop a bag of popcorn or have a piece of gum.
3. Mary Claire (10) will experience some kind of female drama. She’ll either undergo a “friend break-up,” she’ll be heartsick over her latest crush, she’ll be ready to throw down with each and every one of her brothers, or she’ll blast “The Rose” on her iPod so we all can experience her Bette Midler-inspired angst.
4. George (8) will be put upon. Every day, George will be put upon. His life will be unfair, his siblings will get everything he wants, he will not get his allotted time on the XBox. And because his life is so hard, he’ll cry. Dramatically. And then he’ll be sent to his room. And then he’ll cry harder. And then I’ll turn Brandi Carlile up loudly enough to drown him out. And Mary Claire — who has finally reached a state of fragile bliss due to the soothing Justin Beiber poster taped to her ceiling — will cry again because she can no longer hear “The Rose.”
Every day, Chris and I will kiss each other goodbye, and every afternoon, we’ll debrief and share the day’s stories. We’ll marvel at how quickly our kids are growing, how outrageously sassy and sarcastic they’re becoming (where do they get those tendencies?), and how much money we’ll need to sock away for all the psychotherapy yet to come.

He’ll make dinner. I’ll do the dishes. Or we’ll all go to Chili’s and let someone else pick up the slack.

The kids will argue with us about whether or not they need to shower. And once we’ve convinced them that they do, indeed, stink, they’ll argue about who gets to shower first. And then they’ll blame each other for using all the hot water.

Once they’re all in bed, I’ll grab a novel and Chris will sit down to work on his dissertation. Or check Facebook.

Every day, we’ll love, laugh, argue, yell, apologize, hug, cry, sing, and dance. We’ll feed our kids, clothe them, encourage them, reward them, punish them, entertain them, and ground them.

These things are consistent.

Routine? Sometimes.

Crazy? Guaranteed.

Caffeine-driven? Of course.

But typical? Not this life. Not this house. Never, ever typical.

If you’d like me to blog for you, I will not disappoint. In fact, I’ll even promise to cut out all profanity and liquor references. I might be a bad influence on my own children, but I would never subject all the children of greater Indianapolis to that kind of debauchery. I can be a bit edgy at times. Chris says I’m not always a “gentle breeze.” Sam says I’m usually about a 10 mile per hour wind with a chance of heavy gusts. And there’s always the possibility for tornadic activity. But if you need me to tone it down a bit, I’m game for that, too.

Thanks, Indy’s Child, for considering me. Now I’m off to scrub toilets, make dinner, feed the dogs, clean the guinea pig cage, hit the grocery store, start the washing machine, unload the dishwasher, and shuttle some stinky middle school boys to and from lacrosse practice. It is, after all, just another day at the Willis abode.

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