Watching my teens interact on the Internet sometimes feel like coming full circle. My own experience with Internet relationships started in the early nineties on a fetish board, complete with black screen and green print. During that time, I was on the tail-end of an emotionally abusive relationship coupled with a lot of confusion about my sexual identity. Socially awkward … [Read more...]
Not Easy, Still Worth It: 4 Strategies for White People to Address a Racist Relative’s Racism
A great distance separates me from my family. Not just geographical -- they live in Maine and I live in Georgia -- but also the distance of identity. I am a leftist agnostic who practices a vague form of religious expression that encompasses paganism and Catholicism. They are right-wingers with a strong belief in evangelical Christianity. Conversations at the Thanksgiving … [Read more...]
5 Ways I Teach My Children Intersectional Feminism (And Why It Matters)
The Maine of my childhood was a very homogenous state in terms of race, and really also of class, at least in my small town. For the most part, everyone I knew looked like me. Their families looked like mine. We usually practiced the same religion and even when we didn’t, we knew the language. Even so, I was different. I was the weird kid, quirky, and the other kids bullied me … [Read more...]
Rethinking Beauty, Ableism, and My Own Self-Loathing: What Raising My Disabled Daughter Teaches Me
“Mama, a little girl said Jude has an ugly face,” my six-year-old told me tearfully. Tears stung my own eyes as I lead us through the lobby to the van. Looking down at my youngest daughter, Jude, who has Down syndrome, I felt my chest contract. You know these things are coming, but still, when they arrive? It feels like it’s with the force of a trailer truck. And I knew that … [Read more...]
“I Can’t Believe She Wore That!”: What Shaming Others Reveals About Our Own Body Shame
One day at the grocery store, I saw three young people walking through the parking lot. One of the girls wore short shorts. Very short shorts. And Ugg boots. I commented -- a lot. My children were with me. I didn’t think at the time about what they processed as I ranted about how short the shorts were. How ridiculous she looked wearing Uggs in July. My own words came back to me … [Read more...]
How I as a White Woman Am Unlearning Dangerous Sexual Stereotypes About Black and Brown Men
Content note: This article contains references to rape. When I pick my son up at the library, he is standing in front of a blonde girl. As I move closer, I hear them talking, laughing, flirting in that awkward early-teen way. I stop, catch my son’s eye, and give them their space. She clearly likes my son, and I can see him basking in the attention. I admit to some motherly … [Read more...]
5 Things I Did After Turning 40 That Changed How I Saw My Aging Self
At thirty-eight I experienced a bit of a midlife crisis. Well, hardly midlife, but still a crisis nonetheless. Forty loomed on the horizon, and I felt a kind of aimless terror at that number. Some of it was kind of silly. What did a mature woman wear? Would I be forced by some secret fashion police to give up my band and anime t-shirts? Would I have to turn in my Chucks and … [Read more...]
Why I Started Intervening Early: Raising My Gay Son in a World of Toxic Masculinity
Things I have heard about having a son: “You’re lucky your son is gay. You won’t have to worry about him getting someone pregnant or treating women poorly." “It’s good you have a son because he can watch over your daughters.” “Boys are easier than girls. You don’t have to worry so much about them.” “It’s too hard a world for girls. It’s better to have sons. At least you … [Read more...]
Por favor, no sexualices a mi hija: Aprendiendo el equilibrio entre libertad y ser “buenos” padres
Cuando mi hija, P, empezó a ir a una pequeña “unschool” (*no existe este término en español, adjunto link para saber más de este movimiento), no solo descubrió una educación alegre, sino también la alegría de un pelo pintado. Los unschoolers creen que los niños aprenden mejor cuando escogen lo que aprenden y cómo aprenden dichas lecciones. No fue una sorpresa encontrar niños a … [Read more...]
Leaving Christianity and Seeking the Goddess: How Reshaping Religion Transformed My Self-Love
When I was about seven, I remember going to a revival service with my grandmother. The preacher at one point launched into a sermon on women and makeup. He said, “Makeup isn’t bad, but remember, ladies: you paint the barn, not decorate it.” Those words haunted me throughout much of my life. Even now I can remember them and the way everyone laughed. But it underlined the … [Read more...]
Holiday Stress: Five Ways to Manage the Chaos That Comes With the Holidays
With the coming dark, my own body shifts into a cycle of down time. As someone who celebrates the shifting of the yearly cycle, I’ve learned to let myself flow with them. When winter comes, I hibernate and it’s okay. But hibernating is hard with the rush of the holiday season. There’s just so much to celebrate, along with so much to do. In the last couple of days alone, I … [Read more...]
Political Parenting: 5 Lessons Resisting the Trump Administration Taught Me and My Kids
I’m walking my daughter home from the bus stop and she’s chattering about the elections. I’m glad she’s learning about it at school but I listen closely, ready to pounce on any propaganda. While our town is pretty liberal, I’m not so sure about my children’s teachers. Suddenly my child asks, “Do you think my teacher is voting for Trump?” I wish I could say no but I honestly … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Practice Self-Care and Why It’s Necessary
As we roll ever closer to the U.S. presidential election, along with waking up to more news of police violence against people of color, self-care is likely going to be high on all of our to-do lists. For many, like me, self-care also becomes a necessity as the days start to get darker. I’m a big believer that the ways we care for ourselves are as varied and individual as we … [Read more...]
Becoming a Woman On My Own Terms
I am not sure when my ideas about womanhood wrote themselves on my being. Likely it began when I was young, born in the sermons of the Pentecostal church my family attended: “Make up is not a sin,” one pastor told us, “But you want to paint the barn not decorate it.” In those moments, I learned that women were not only objects to these men but objects meant to look pretty but … [Read more...]
