We've all been deputized into the parenting police. Should she[it's always on a she] have had so many? Should she have waited? Should she have had some sooner? The list of ticketable offenses is long- too young, too black, too undocumented, too poor, too single.

So I don't really feel annoyed that after being told that their mothering, their babies are invading the United States, that if single black women just got married all problems in the black community would vanish like a dream, that their darn hellions are the downfall of the American empire, they would embrace mothering.

After dealing with all the judgment based on half overheard conversations in grocery stores, half forgotten news articles, and whatever the relative someone hates the most supposedly did, who could blame folks for saying fuck you, I'm a mother?

Motherhood has not always been seen as an apolitical state of preventing only one's own children from eating their own poop. In fact, the root of Mother's Day was for mothers to use their moral position for political power! Let's reclaim motherhood back for feminism*!

Stand up for mothers who have been told they are too poor, too disabled, too black, too brown, too asian to mother. Stand up against shackling mothers to beds, against the crime of ripping an infant from a woman who cries "I want my baby" night after night. Let's tear off our parenting police badges. Let's refuse to use them. Let's hold out our hands instead.
*with a small f.

Posts on children in public are a hot topic. This is because we have to share public space, and everyone has so many different mores[should children have more freedom or should they be more disciplined? How well behaved can we expect a child to be? What is the role of the parent and the role of the public in this?] and most of our desires are mutually exclusive.

I try to err on the side of not being the parent police, but due to long socialisation and general irritability, I often fail. Intellectually, I understand all that about the policing of women's reproduction, and the different standards for children of color, and there's also the issue of individualism versus community and different social mores[to me, a gun shop is not a family friendly space, to others, it is], but it's all such a jumble and a mess that I can't say anything coherent about it. So here's what other people think:

Ma'ia- ain't I a mama? Personally, I don't like even being mistaken for a mother in public, but I'll think on it.

Also, Karnythia has an opinion on this too. Although I'll note that Jack in comments might be talking about alcoholism there.

Support women and children's rights!

People w/ disabilites vs moms?

I think there has been a 'college bubble'. Costs have risen and risen, so much that homeless students aren't uncommon, and the rewards have gotten so low that privileged graduates are telling stories about how they are going to India to get a job. So higher costs with many working the same jobs they were working before college, with a lot more debt. This system is unsustainable.

News With Nezua | Our Post-Racial Paradise from nezua on Vimeo.

I wish this was shown on television or something.

You know, this is an awesome post on fear of female masculinity. How we're encouraged to go "We're not scary and masculine, oh no!" and Rachael Maddow is like fuck that! I like how I look!

But sadly, in the comments, we mostly hear about the problems of feminine lesbians, but at least we're not getting a lot of "those mean feminist hate how cute and pretty I am". Remember to make space for masculine women!

A post collecting almost everything I needed to link blog for months.

The human zoo- how humans of color are equated with animals. BTW: Have you ever noticed that cartoons with Africa as a setting always have animals as the characters?

Social Illiteracy- Why is the canon so narrow? The canon of one group might include Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and the canon of another might be Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Metroid. Who determines which makes one more intelligent or cultured?

I admit that it can really help to have a shared canon. Fun Home was a beautiful comic, but I felt that because I wasn't as familar with James Joyce and Proust as I might be, I lost a level of the meaning.

Behind Teach For America.

On Sick Systems.

I really like how they pointed out the problems of prostitution along with their push for legalization.

This is your brain on ADD.

Stop branding- start creating.

She's just now noticing that the icongraphy of video games is a language?

The floating castles of the super rich.

How hot we are or aren't has nothing to do with our opinions and our politics.

Feminism- hurting and saving.

This guy sure doesn't get twitter.

Fuck Seal Press.

Fuck Blockbuster. They may have allowed me to explore my interest in anime, with their scattered collection of half dubbed tapes, but their late fees, and harassing us for years because my brother had some, earned them my eternal hate. Good riddance.

Woman making sustainable homes for homeless.

A different reading of freedom.

100 years of hilarious beauty ads.

Hetronormative and silly rant slammed.

Amanda Marcotte, white feminist, hates sex! I mean, she doesn't exactly think that milk enemas and yelling slurs is sexual entertainment that really advances the feminist agenda, even though there was a WOMAN in it, making it automagically feminist!

I think this whole "anyone who even thinks that porn is less than feminist hates sex" meme is played out. One can have plenty of enjoyable bedroom activities[although it is alright not to have sex, btw] even if you think that slapping a woman, calling her a cunt, and suchlike doesn't exactly become non misogynistic because there's fucking there too.

My situation is I just graduated with my Master's degree and can't find a job in my field. I had an internship that was SUPPOSED to lead to a job, but the agency I worked for went on a hiring freeze, so after I graduated I was laid off from the internship so they could hire some fresh new interns instead (interns didn't count in the hiring freeze because they were part-time so they didn't need to pay them benefits, so it's cheaper to just hire a bunch of interns to do everything... bascially they would get the same amount of work out of two interns working 20 hours a week than one full time person, but more cheaply).

This commenter on slacktivist is discussing the intern problem. It's basically when Company X takes on 20 interns, but hires 1 or 0 graduates, and all the other companies do the same. This is a big problem as professionals can't get established, loans can't get paid back, and people with fewer qualifications are pushed out of low paying work.

Personally, I think they should have courtesy payments for interns to raise the price of interns, and make sure that the interns can buy some ramen.

Some people don't know what racist is. *shakes head* Folks hear the word racist and start repeating it even though they have no idea... It's like a little kid saying fuck.

I have no idea what's going on in Israel- apparently the ultra orthodox wants to challenge the Jewishness of people? And why can't women read the Torah at the Wailing Wall again?

Although I am surprised that this guy turned down a 40K job, this article does give us information about the many young people who are being frozen out of the job market- such as the 37% that are either out of the labor market or unemployed.

I also wonder if they take into account people who need a full time job to pay their bills, but can only get part time. I think that older people need to understand that while wages have stagnated, the price of college and housing have gone up, so a person could graduate with $5000 in debt, and be looking at a $1000 apartment, on $10 an hour, part time.

Not to mention, I have a strange theory. OK, I'm piggybacking on hard working people who have come up with spoon theory instead of doing what I should be doing- probably coming up with some of my own. Anyway, my theory is that some people can do five jobs and raise five kids and not collapse from exhaustion, while others, the best they can do is one job, and have a messy house. There of course are various reasons- some people use their energy on navigating obstacles like places that aren't accessible for people with mobility issues, and some folks are just plain born tired- this is me. My throat is sore, my head is aching, and my bones hurt.

People who are more 'able' are judgmental towards the rest of us, but sadly, that's not really any help. What you're able to do is probably worlds away from what the rest of us can do. You wouldn't expect a paraplegic to dance a jig...ok, maybe you would, but that would be wrong to do. Use some of your energy to understand the rest of us.

In political news, a tweeter called funkywhitegirl posted these pictures: 1 2 3 of an anti semetic anti Cohen, pro Herenton flyer she received. Now, we don't need this sort of rhetoric. It's unnesscary to put down Jews to build up blacks. Let's start arguing about merits, not who is a Jew and who is a Christian.

Also,
1,500 come to a job fair at the library. Notice that a social worker[needing at least a bachelor's] can not find work, even at Walmart. I don't think this recession can be 'retrained' out of.

Redemption, my ass! I don't care if Rihanna was the most bitchy jealous whatever in the fucking world, there's no excuse for beating her ass. We are so quick to blame black women. We buy into stereotypes that we're violent, mean, unlovable, deserving of dudes whaling on us. If we 'forgive' him, what are we telling our girls? That they don't matter? Fuck that shit.

Dude, chica's working for free, and doing you a service. I mean, I'm not saying people should wear flip flops in a hospital or something, but really? You're slamming some college student who is working for free because they wore flipflops? You should be glad anyone can afford to work for free in your for profit office.

Oh hell naw, I'm not forgiving Chris Brown. No excuses for violence. No, she hit him too shit [and notice that his face ain't battered. If one person is beat down and another is just fine- that shit ain't 'mutual abuse'.] We need to stop saying it's OK for a man to straight out punch a woman. Why? Because when we say "Oh, he's young! Oh, we can't blame him forever', a less famous, but no less violent guy will think that sort of behavior is OK.

And the violence in our cities and our homes will get worse and worse, and we'll wonder why.

Yea, I've always been suspicious of pushes for more PE, because 11 year olds running around a track and being mocked for not being very good tends to turn those kids off to exercise. And the truth is that ok, as an adult, how many of you go out and play competitive sports? So the intense focus on whether you can sink a basketball or play baseball seems unwarranted. They should teach kids exercises and movement that they can do for life. And parents need to have a hand in this too. Never pull a gun or use threats about sports. This teaches children that sports are so important, you should be violent about them.

And I do think there should be more fun sports for teens and up. I stopped doing track in high school because the focus went from do your best to OMG, WE GOT TO WIN! Now, I suck at running. I'm slow. But I think that we tend to think everyone can become the best if they just try hard enough. Now, that's not true at all. But everyone can try to do their best. Nowadays I feel happy because I've just learned to hula hoop. Small children can hula hoop better than me, but I've just beat my record!

I'm amused by the advice that this dateless man gets- hey! get a mail order bride! and the like, especially as the media is obsessed with bashing attractive successful black women for not being married. While there are millions of men[ok. maybe just thousands- really really loudly] complaining about how they are 'nice guys' and why won't women look at them, the media tends not to focus on how those guys' personal deficiencies keep them from finding love. BTW- In The Upside of Irrationality, it is said that men tend to aim higher, such as a plain man trying for a beauty who is well established in her career, and often that's a problem for these guys, I think.

Now, I'd sure like a rich ripped man who loves books and musical theater delivered to me with a million dollars. But, due to social conditioning, I have learned not to complain about this not occurring. I know that it's unlikely to occur without effort on my part, and really, I'm quite plain, so I may have to go with a love of books and musical theater, and leave the rich and ripped at the door. However, despite my plainness and OH NOES BLACKNESS, I'm not going to date a homeless alcoholic with no teeth, like the media seems to believe I should. [because give him a chance! I'm sure he's good inside!]

Now, with men, people tend to encourage their pretension that unattractive and broke 40 something men with no game can somehow have any woman he wants. When that ends up not being true- there's backlash. Women are blamed for being materialistic, and amusingly, foreign women are tossed up as the answer to this issue. "American women aren't family orientated like foreign women!" they say. The fact is that American women who would love nothing more than to raise children and cook exist, but not just any man will do. The whole mail order bride thing trades on desperation of poorer people to make a better life, but I am interested that no one suggests that black women start engaging in green card marriage.

The upshot of this ramble is when women can't get the guy they want, they are expected to blame themselves[or others will blame them for them-therefore all those black women are awful for getting educations and stuff mess] and if men can't get the women they want, they are encouraged to blame women[in the original letter Cary Tennis tries to break the pattern in his own strange strange way]. So either way, women are blamed. Even if the problem is the guy smells like feet.


LOLZ- and this is funny tooo.

Apparently it's some sort of Helen Keller day, which Renee won't celebrate because it's also Juneteenth. Now being the sort of black person who only really knows about Juneteenth because every year the news reports "And in other news, African Americans enjoy Juneteenth", I am not too worried about them sharing the date, although it would have been nice if they said 'oh and it's Juneteenth too"

The real reason I bring this up is because I read a book, and want to talk about it. You can tell my blog is about my narrow interests,eh? I read The Imprisoned Guest, and thought it was a very well described history of disability through the prism of the education of Laura Bridgeman- apparently the first deaf-blind girl to be educated in America.

I really liked how the author described how Bridgeman had been as famous of Helen Keller in her day, but as she grew older, and was no longer the cute little girl prodigy, but a mature woman who it was harder to project one's own visions of purity and gentleness while suffering on, she became forgotten both by the public and her former benefactors.

The prevalent culture had an image of the pure suffering angel girl, but there wasn't a place for a disabled woman.

Also discussed is how the super crip model affected both of them. Laura had an insistent temper, and her own way of doing things. The author notes that passing as 'normal' had never occurred to her. Helen on the other hand did have the abilities to attempt to 'pass' as she had the energy to doggedly work at passing and the means to get very skilled tutors. I liked how the author notes that Helen Keller is a tough act to follow.

Many of us disabled can't be 'super crips'. Some time ago, I found an article on partial disabilities, but I don't have it now. Anyway, my point in mentioning this is that those of us with strong fatigue, or neurological issues may not be able to 'pass' at all, and this of course doesn't even start to talk about people with blindness or deafness or both. One of the reasons Howe[Laura's main benefactor] wanted to educated Laura was that educating a merely blind girl wasn't considered impressive enough.

I'm glad to know that Helen Keller was a socialist anarchist hero, but on the other hand, many folks right now need scooters just to go into the Borders, or we may be OK today to work but have to take precious days off because of our illnesses, and people don't understand.

Here I shall link to an unrelated post. Why? Because the title "Neighborhoods' is what got me to finally write this post. Basically, I think that a real cause of urban sprawl is that we think we can buy the sort of community we want. We think if we move here or there, there won't be any crime. That we can just buy good schools instead of creating them. We move farther and farther out, but we never find that place. And of course, with more and more people moving to the new 'perfect' place, we get sprawl. Maybe, we could start using the space and buildings we have now. We could build the communities we want where we are. Maybe if we didn't work a million hours a week for the perfect neighborhood, we could connect with our neighbors.

Personally, I got no sympathy for dude who wonders why Miss Flash doesn't do X, Y, and Z. She's got a full time job being hot, probably a full time job working, and dude's like "why doesn't she cook?". If you want a woman who cooks, prioritize that. If you want a hot chick, that's your priority. She may or may not cook. You can't just expect "she's a woman- she'll fulfill my every need without me having to say anything.". Ask her! All women are different. We all have our own lives, so staying home and cooking for you might not be a priority. Especially for fun loving party girl women. Maybe fun is a priority for them.

Also, I think the sort of dude who just flounders- we let them be like that. Women have a lot more expectations on them. It's like with the boys who don't do well in school tip. Now, I have the disorganized,fidgety, etc, personality that would be associated with a male, but since I'm female, no one says "Oh, we can't expect women to sit in a seat and learn things!" where with men,people act like boys are congenitally unable to learn how to do well in school.

Women are expected to grow up faster, and we grow with those expectations.

You know- what is it that sexually 'liberated 'folk have against the missionary position? It's a perfectly fine pathway to pleasure, and maybe even intimacy! Of course there was some good ol' hardy har har I really regretted having sex with an ugly woman, which has a nasty sort of tinge there, and I'm annoyed at the whole tone that suggests that help of any sort for people having sexual issues is just big meanies trying to cut down on sexual fun.

I'm annoyed because people do this all the time when we speak about psychological issues- they say "well, I've had a fight or two as a kid! Diagnose me with conduct disorder, hardy har har!" I think what people don't realize is with psychiatric diagnoses the behavior is extreme and life altering. With 'sex addiction'[not in the DSM 4 as a diagnosis, btw], we're not talking merely someone who gets it in the bar bathroom with some chicks every weekend, or someone who engages in sexual fetishism, we're talking the guy who gets fired from his job because he's been diddling himself with coke bottles and being sent to the hospital because of this. We're talking about someone who spends his life savings on buying sex work. We're talking someone who instead of using pornography in moderation rubs himself raw.

Most folks if their sex life is interfering with things dial it down. "OK, so having sex on that picnic table didn't go over well- I'll find some place more private next time" or "OK, I'll never stick that there again.". But the 'sex addict' for lack of a better word is compulsive. Many behaviors that in many people are normal and life improving can become compulsive. It's fine to overeat sometimes, but binge eating to the point you throw up every day is not adaptive. Shopping or gambling can be entertaining pastimes, but if you've spent your life savings on either one, they are no longer helping you.

So I can see why some people may go to self help groups to deal with these problems. It's free, and it might help. It's not a Christian plot to outlaw sex.

*Note- sex addiction is in quotes as I don't know what else to call 'those folks whose compulsive sexual behavior is hurting them and others'.