Month: June 2018

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Joy, pt. 4: Vacation!

A and I went on vacation this week with my family. We went to Cape Ann in Massachusetts (a place I have been going my whole life and my mother before me). Unfortunately, my husband had to work, but A had aunts, grandparents, and extended family to keep him occupied. He got to ride on a boat. He got to swim in the sea. But his most favoritest-favorite thing to do was throw rocks into the water. He could sit there for hours and throw rocks, just to watch them splash and hear them go ‘plop.’ So, amidst all the horror of the world, this week, I present to you: A on his first boat ride. IMG_7193.JPG

Happy wiping,

Olivia

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“What would you do if you had to choose between watching your kids die & crossing an invisible line on a map?”

*Edit: Since writing this post Wednesday morning, Trump signed an executive order to stop the policy of separating families. A problem that he created.

As Matt Cameron, an immigration attorney and author of this viral Facebook post wrote: “What would you do if you had to choose between watching your kids die & crossing an invisible line on a map?” Stop separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border. These are asylum-seekers and refugees fleeing violence. These are children (and parents) who will suffer from life-long psychological damage. While Obama did not handle the problem of undocumented immigrants well, the policy of separating children from asylum-seekers is 100% the Trump administration.

If I’m being honest, it’s hard to keep up with the news when you are taking care of a young child. At the end of the day, it’s easy to feel burnt out. While self-care is important in building sustainable social justice work (and parenting and when you are trying to do both simultaneously), we cannot retreat into our privilege in moments like this. If I find myself retreating into ignorance, I think about everything I would do to keep A safe and know that these parents are doing the exact same thing. While I don’t have legal skills to donate, I do have money. The internet is ripe with suggestions of where to donate financially to organizations advocating against this practice. Our family has donated to:

It’s not enough, but it’s something. Stay awake. Donate money and time when you can (and most of us can.). Don’t retreat.

Solidarity and love,

Olivia.

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What to do with Dr. Seuss?

When I was reading to A before bed a few nights ago, every book he pulled out was Dr. Seuss: Green Eggs and Ham, Cat in the Hat, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, and Fox in Socks are among the favorites in our house. It always surprises me how much he reaches for Dr. Seuss. We didn’t particularly push them on him, but there is something in them that A just gravitates towards. Something completely fun and flamboyant.

Completely timeless, though, Dr. Seuss’s books are not. Dr. Seuss is a product of his time, and I notice that in how he treats female characters and characters of color. In Cat in the Hat, for example, Sally never speaks nor has much agency in story. In And to Think that I saw it on Mulberry Street (admittedly one of his earliest and more notorious works), his portrayal of Asian characters is undeniably stereotypical. In Oh, the Places You’ll Go (one of my favorite books of all time, kid book or not!), there is a weird, racialized exoticization of turban-wearing people.  And I haven’t found a Dr. Seuss book with a human character that looks African American.

Despite that, I can’t abandon Dr. Seuss. I can’t completely censor unfair and unjust images out of A’s life, no matter how much I want to. First, I think that would breed resentment in A—when he sees his friends are able to watch certain TV shows but we don’t let him, he won’t understand and may start to look for opportunities to engage in that content outside of our supervision. Second, explicitly discussing how race and gender are represented in books and movies makes it clear to A our perspective. Color-blind parenting assumes that kids will unconsciously pick-up the messages of tolerance when we put them in diverse environments or expose them to diverse children’s literature. In reality, kids are likely picking up the unconscious biases and unfair treatment of some of their friends or some of the characters in their books. In order to counter that, parents need to have conscious, explicit conversations with kids. Because many parts of Dr. Seuss books are so great and relatively non-problematic, his books provide an opportunity to engage in such conscious parenting, without being overwhelmed by such problematic images with every turn of the page.

Complete censorship for kids is not always the best option. Dr. Seuss is not perfect but rather a product of his time. We can recognize and enjoy the parts of his canon that are absolutely amazing/hilarious/whimsical, while using other parts of his books opportunities to engage in color-conscious and gender-conscious conversations with kids.

P.S. For someone doing a way better job at deconstructing Dr. Seuss than me, look here.

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Plastic-free Parenting (or at least, my bad attempts at it…)

One of the mama instagrammers that I follow (@mamalinauk) recently posted a ‘plastic-free parenting’ challenge for the month of June. Each week, she recommends focusing on reducing plastic use in certain areas of our parenting lives.

  • Week 1: Mealtime (plastic wrapped produce, lunches out-and-about, and saran wrap)
  • Week 2: Bath time (toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and body wash)
  • Week 3: Toilet time (diapers, wipes, toilet paper)
  • Week 4: Play time (arts and crafts, plastic toys and batteries, baking)

I have been thinking about how to reduce single-use plastic for a month or two now. I would say that our house has pretty typical middle-class American consumerist patterns: despite my hatred of clutter, we do end up buying way too much shit and a lot of that comes with single use plastic (via plastic bags, packaging, the object itself, etc).

In the last month, I’ve made a concerted effort to not use produce bags at the grocery store and to bring our cloth grocery bags. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here—on the contrary, this seems like responsible 21st century living 101-type stuff that I should’ve been doing years ago. India is the latest country (as of the day I’m writing this!) to pledge to ban single-use plastic as a country. With our current federal government, I can’t imagine making such a radical commitment, but that doesn’t mean that we as individuals can’t try.

Despite my attention to our single-use plastic at grocery stores, I never really thought about reducing single-use plastic as a parent. But @mamalinauk’s challenge has started to make my brain wheels turn: where are other places in my parenting life that I can reduce waste in general (and single-use plastic specifically)? There was a brief moment while I was pregnant that my husband and I talked about cloth diapers, but (and I’m totally calling him out on this, LOVE YOU), he was really against the idea. I’m sure if I had been more opinionated, my husband would have at least considered it.

In fact, my husband overall doesn’t feel he has the emotional energy left over from his job (he works a TON, and if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t either) to dedicate mental energy or time to this issue at this point in our lives. So, I told him I would try to do it for us. While we may not be willing to make the switch to cloth diapers yet, there are other areas where I will focus on plastic-free (or plastic-reduced?) parenting for the next month:

  • Grocery shopping and food–My older sister is awesome at sewing and has made us reusable produce bags and snack pouches that I will integrate more fully into our day to day lives. Next step is using the farmers market more, because even though I try to not use produce bags, SO much produce comes wrapped in plastic! I didn’t notice it before my grocery shop last week! Oh, and I won’t get plastic straws when I’m eating out.
  • Bath hygiene—after we finish with A’s current toothbrush, we will either buy him bamboo ones or an electric one that will last much longer. I will also try to find soap/hygiene products at the local farmers market that does not come in plastic bottles.

Good luck and happy wiping (with reuseable wipes?),

O.

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‘Wishes for my sons’ by Lucille Clifton

‘Wishes for my sons’ by Lucille Clifton (1987)
i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
i wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn’t believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

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I haven’t read a huge amount of poetry about parenthood, but this is one of my absolute favorites. In fact, it was one of the inspirations for this blog. Late one summer evening in 2017, my dad and I were sitting in my living room. I mentioned that I had been thinking about starting a blog about social justice and parenting. He (someone who actually didn’t raise any sons!) immediately thought of this poem and showed it to me. Lucille Clifton gave words to what it means to raise a feminist son. To raise an empathetic son. To raise a son who understands the anatomy of a body with a different reproductive system than his. To raise a son who does not approach the world with arrogance but with a humble curiosity and humor.

Today, I’m going to let Lucille speak for me. She does it so much better!