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.”