Category Archives: Parenting

Properly theirs.

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As we saw earlier this week, Sarah Palin has come under attack for choices her teenage child has made.  It shouldn’t have to be said at a fucking feminist blog that criticizing a woman for the choices that her grown children make is pretty fucked up, and for fuck’s sake I would rather not be defending a right wing fuckwit, but here it is.  If we want people to believe that we think teenagers are old enough to make complex decisions regarding their reproductive systems and their sexuality then we need to start showing that we believe it.  That begins with recognizing that children actually have a right to make decisions that are properly theirs to make.
Psychologists Adler and Dreikurs (apart from their views on homosexuality which I thought were horrible, but I recognize that it was an older time and we have evolved in our understanding of humanity slightly) are pretty spot on when telling us that children respond and make decisions based on how equal they feel.  When a child is raised to believe that they have agency over what happens to them they will make better decisions.  The theory here is that by standing back and allowing children to make decisions that are properly theirs to make we are encouraging them to learn while giving them a safe environment to do so.  I don’t know that they saw sexuality as a normal part of this learning process, I haven’t read all of their writings, but I very much see sexuality and the choices regarding it in this light.
Sexuality has to do with their own bodies.  At some point as children mature into adults they need to know that they and they alone are responsible for those bodies, and that no one has a right to make decisions regarding their body other than themselves.  The choice to engage in sexual activity, while unpleasant to think about for some parents, is a choice that is properly our children’s to make in their older childhood.  It is foolish for us to pretend that our children (our teenagers, if I am not clear about that) are not thinking about or already engaging in sex.  Applying Adler and Dreikurs here, instead of shaming them and pretending that our children are not sexual creatures we should be doing everything in our power to educate them and give them all the tools to properly make decisions regarding their own sexuality.  This is what we call giving them a safe space to make mistakes.
And the safe space is the most important part.  Sometimes we forget that making mistakes is part of growing up.  We didn’t learn to talk in complete sentences and we didn’t learn to walk without falling down a few times.  We learned by seeing these things done, and by trying.  As parents we need to provide a place where children won’t crack their skulls open during their first steps, but we need to stand back and give them the room to take them.  Even if they fall.
Unfortunately for our children, sometimes that fall will result in an unplanned pregnancy.  Part of this safe space that I mentioned earlier is information.  Free from our judgement and free from our own inclinations to choose one way or the other we should be making sure that they have all the knowledge there is regarding birth control, and all of their options should they become sick or pregnant.  Knowing that we trust them with this knowledge is part of making them feel like equals in their relationship with us, their parents.  This encourages them to make good decisions based on good information when making decisions that are properly theirs to make.  Knowing that they are responsible for their own choices encourages them to make better choices, and knowing that they have our love and support should they screw up (no pun intended) makes them more confident.
We may not like dealing with the sexuality of our children, but we can no more ignore it that we can ignore the fact that they will eventually grow out of those clothes and may one day call our music lame.  At some point we need to realize that what they do with their bodies really is their own choice.  Children grow up and make choices that don’t always fall in line with what their parents believe or want, however recognizing that children should be able to make decisions that are properly theirs to make also means that parents are not to be shamed for them anymore than we should shame a teenager for making a decision we don’t agree with regarding their body.
And that is part of being Pro-Choice.

Ok- I’ll bite

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Echidne has a great post up about choice feminism (I feel like I should be using scare quotes around choice).


Another was the idea that feminism somehow made all choices any woman made into feminist ones or at least immune from feminist criticism. If a woman chose to stay at home, that was a feminist choice. If a woman chose to be employed, that was a feminist choice. If a woman chose to relinquish all her rights and to subject herself to her husband’s authority, well, even that was a feminist choice! (No, I’m not making that last one up.) The very definition of “feminist” became identical with “some woman has chosen it” and that “some woman had chosen it” became identical with “feminist.” This is circular thinking, but what is worse is the usual addition that these choices cannot therefore be criticized or discussed. After all, wasn’t feminism all about giving women more choices?

Women are humans, and as humans, we sometimes make stupid choices. Somehow, feminism has become tied to unconditional support of women’s choices no matter what. But how is that any better than the old thinking that women shouldn’t get into politics because they were too good for it? Both cases make us into things that are not quite human, on one hand we shouldn’t get involved in politics because we’re too ethical and pure, on the other hand our choices should not be questioned because we are women. If a man made a choice to do something stupid that drastically impacted the welfare of himself and his family, we would have no problem calling him a tool. If we really want equality, we need to stop patting ourselves on the head for making any choice, regardless of how stupid it is.

Echidne also goes on to say that:


My own observations suggest that feminists criticizing housewives or strippers for their occupational choices are less common than non-feminists criticizing employed mothers, say. But in any case feminism never promised the total lack of any questioning about the choices people make.

Here’s where I bite. I’m one of those feminists who will criticize women for choosing to be housewives. By choosing to be housewives, women choose to do a very difficult job for no pay, and by not getting paid for it, they devalue the work that they do (and that the rest of us have to do even if we work full time outside of the house).

The work of caring for children and the home is no less difficult than being a garbage man, yet garbage men are paid reasonably well and generally receive benefits and retirement packages. And they get time off, housewives don’t. But because of how we idealize motherhood, mothers do not receive payment for their services. They are expected to satisfied with being paid in kisses and love and their children’s accomplishments.

Yet all the services that housewives provide are vital to the continuation of society. If no one ever cooked a meal or did laundry or read bedtime stories or even just had babies, society would literally end. And we have ways of paying for these services. Even housewives use dry cleaners and restaurants. There are nannies and daycares that will read to children and house cleaning services that will scrub your toilets. Hell, you can now even outsource your pregnancy to an Indian surrogate. All of these things are jobs that pay you for your time and effort.

By doing all of these jobs for no pay, housewives set the bar very low for the wages of the people who do those jobs for pay. The job of the housewife is idealized so that we can continue to get vital services without paying for them. And they should be paid for. All we need to do is look at Germany to see what happens when women realize that the costs of having children outweigh the benefits. Birthrates drop, drastically.

So I will criticize women for being SAHMs. You’re bringing us all down. Either get work or start demanding to be compensated for your time and energy in something more tangible than sentimental fluff.

Is motherhood harder than

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Being bent over all day picking lettuce for minimum wage

Being a grave digger

Being a secretary who knows more about whats going on that the boss that makes 10 times what you do

Being a customer service rep answering the same questions over and over again during the day and being yelled at for things you have no control over

Being a prison guard

Being a counselor to rape victims or domestic violence victims

Being a nurse in a burn unit

Being a pilot flying a 747 full of people in rough weather

Being an immigration lawyer

Being a published author

Being a social worker

Being a scientist working on a cure for cancer or AIDS

Being a hospice care provider

Being the head of you own company

Probably not.

The Mommy Fetish- short version

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My piece for the anthology is about how we fetishize motherhood so we don’t have to pay women to do the actual work of mothering. It’s also about calling bullshit on the “motherhood is my greatest accomplishment” line that moms (both SAHM and working moms) are supposed to spew out instead of any accomplishments that might get the recognition outside of the home.

Over at RandomBabble and today at Pandagon and with some of the people (mostly guys) that I have talked to about the essay, I have started some shit. Apparently being pissed off that women get pigeonholed into an unpaid and thankless role means I’m bitchy or something. Fine.

But here’s the thing. Women have been having babies and raising them to adulthood for at least 200,000 years, and pretty damn successfully. In developed countries with access to prenatal care and childhood vaccinations and general freedom from the violence of wars and famine, raising a child to adulthood is a given. We don’t spend every day of our child’s life worrying about whether they are going to starve to death or be turned into war fodder. We worry about whether they are reading at grade level or socializing properly or getting the right organic nutrients and college entrance test scores. These are not life or death concerns, they are marginal. Being a mother in a developed country rarely means making life or death choices for your kids.

So if you’re a SAHM in America claiming that your kids are your greatest accomplishment- I call bullshit. If you’re a working mom in America and you say the same thing- I call bullshit on that too. We (moms) are doing a tough and thankless job, yes. But not a job that hasn’t been done by billions and billions of women before us.

And lots of people have tough and thankless jobs. Fast food workers, secretaries, farm workers, customer service people. I have yet to hear any of those people demand that people acknowledge their sacrifice for showing up everyday at a crap job. Because we pay them. Moms, on the other hand, get paid in stupid cards and flowers one day a year and a giant shitload of platitudes and sentiment the rest of the year.

I would rather have the cash than the sentiment. And I am sorry if you feel hurt because I think choosing to stay at home with your kids isn’t an accomplishment worthy of my admiration. Whopdee fucking do. You’re not some poor Sudanese mother who has managed to keep all of her daughters from being raped and her sons from being slaughtered (which would be an accomplishment). You’ve just managed to get little Chloe or Zack to sleep through the night or pick up cheerios in a pincher grasp or whatever. And so have we working moms, with half the time and twice the workload.

Be your own damn greatest accomplishment, let your kids be theirs. Give them an example to follow, not a fucking martyr.

Feminist lessons for the kid

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The Kid is reading the Da Vinci Code, and like most people who have read it he has become OBSESSED.

I remember this age, I think I went batshit over the Mist’s of Avalon, but I am sure I was not nearly as cute in my obsession as the Kid

Kid: Mom, did you know that the symbols we use for man and women, you know the one with the arrow and the one that looks like a person, are wrong.

Me: Really, what are they supposed to be?

Kid: Well, the woman is really a cup, but it looks like a V. And the men, it’s an upside down V. It’s supposed to mean spear but (In super quiet whisper) it really looks like a phallus.

Me: You know why I like the other symbols better?

Kid: Why?

Me: Cause in Christianity there is this idea that women aren’t really people, but empty vessels that are useless till you fill them up, like a cup. I like the other symbol better cause it let’s women be people, not empty objects.

How poverty really works, and how sometimes the universe gives you presents

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Three months ago, when I started classes, I stopped receiving food stamps. My income level is such that based on income alone, I am unequivocally eligible for the full amount of food stamps per month for 2 people.

But I had the gall, as a poor person, to get an education. And not just an education, but I was going for an academic degree. And people in academic programs are not eligible for food stamps.

If I had known my place and instead went for a technical certificate in something like medical assisting (a career where I would make less hourly than I do now) then I would have been eligible not only for food stamps but for a whole host of other programs.

With few exceptions*, technical and vocational programs do not lift people out of poverty permanently. They stave off poverty only as long as those skills are in high demand. And once the demand is met, those technical certificates are worth little.

So we have been without food stamps for three months. It is not a coincidence that those are the three moths I owe rent for. It was a choice. Feed the Kid or pay rent. That is the total of what my meager earning can provide. I chose feed the kid.

So now Christmas is looming along with an eviction. Payday isn’t until Friday and my bank account is overdrawn. The cupboards and fridge are near bare and last night I had the Kid eat a super loaded baked potato for dinner. The last potato, actually. He was mortified that I was skipping dinner and kept trying to give me his potato. If he had known that I skipped lunch too, I don’t think I could have gotten him to eat. After he went to bed, I had some celery and some chicken stock. I swear I’m not on some super restriction diet, though it sounds like it.

Today is the last day of class, and I filed for food stamps this morning. In a week or so, we can go to the grocery store and restock the cabinets (if there are cabinets to be stocked). In the mean time I just have to get through till Friday.

So I came into work today. On the last day of every quarter we have a big pot luck lunch, but I usually get here too late to get anything. The universe smiled on me today though, cause I have never seen such a spread in over four years here. I just loaded up a plate with turkey and potato salad and orzo salad with artichoke hearts and mashed potatoes and …….

I was planning on skipping lunch today too. I’m really glad I didn’t have to.

*Exception- the program I work for actually teaches skills that people can use to start their own business. They have high earing potential straight after graduation. This is a program that was originally designed for a very male dominated field, which might explain why the income potential is higher than that of other vocational programs. We have a large population of female students and a very gender friendly campus.

News from the home front

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I have been under some major stress. About a week ago I got a legal notice from my landlord that they are trying to evict me. This same landlord has recently raised my rent without giving the required 60 days notice, (actually she gave it to me after the effective date of the rent increase with a note that said I owed x amount in back rent plus late fees) and I have been without cabinet doors in my kitchen or heat in my bedroom (okay, there is a heater but it’s a fire hazard and not usable) for going on two years now.

Yep- I haven’t paid my rent since October. Granted, I have no idea what my actual rent amount is since she raised it and despite being pretty damn patient I am not in the mood to spend another winter sleeping in the living room, effectively turning my two bedroom apartment into a one bedroom because it’s too damn cold to sleep upstairs.

So I sent my little non-legalese response to her attorney. I don’t know how this is going to turn out. Kid and I may end up homeless for Christmas. But just having sent in the response I feel better.

Wish me luck- I think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Kid comes home

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from the library and in his best imitation of a moaning whale yells

“Foooooooooooooooood”

So of course I respond with

“Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude’

“Foooooooooooooooooood”

“Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude”

“Fooooooooooooooooood”

“Mooooooooooooooooood”