cabulous rhymes with "fabulous"

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July 12, 2012

6 notes

You know what the first thing my mother said to me when I told her I was pregnant was?

“Well, there is such a thing as a false positive.”

Amazingly, it did not even occur to me in the moment that this was a totally fucked up thing to say. I had to relate the conversation to a couple of friends who were both totally appalled before I even really thought about it.

But you know, the fact that this is the kind of thing my mother says? Probably not unrelated to the fact that I peed on three different sticks that morning and control tested my tap water just to be sure.

Whenever people say, “Whatever you do [in regards to parenting], it will be fine,” I think, No! I can definitely make things worse! WHY DO YOU THINK I’M SO CRAZY.

As my sister says, at least (she has anxiety, too), probably getting treatment for my anxiety is the best thing I can do, because it makes it less likely that I will reinforce via modeling any genetic predispositions that AJ may have gotten from me.

In retrospect, I REALLY should not have read Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? when AJ was three months old. Great book. If you have a worsening anxiety disorder and a newborn, for the love of god, don’t read it.

Tags: parenting anxiety mothers

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June 25, 2012

2 notes

Also

aboyscoutandabrownie:

the cute dress I found at the flea market yesterday?

Tried it on last night, planning to wear it to Pride if practical, and was pleasantly surprised to find that although it was a size small, it fit me quite comfortably with only a little bit of stretch around the butt area. (My butt is not small.) Plus, it was a really good style of dress for me.

So I went upstairs to show my mom, and she said, “Oh, yeah, that looks good. And I know you’re trying to lose some weight, so a couple more pounds and it’ll look great!”

…

My thought process:

1) I’m not trying to lose weight. I don’t know what gave you that impression; I exercise because if I don’t, my sciatica will undoubtedly flare up again and that shit is unpleasant.

2) Fuck waiting; I’m wearing it NOW.

And I did. And it looked fabulous, despite the fact that a large chunk of the day was technically too cold to wear the dress and I had to wear a jacket. I feel fucking sexy in this dress, and I plan to wear it more often, stretch or no stretch.

I went shopping with my mother for a dress to wear to a wedding next weekend. She expressed a preference for one dress but when I turned was all, “Oh, but it emphasizes your tummy so maybe you should get the other one.”

1) The other dress was pretty much made out of exactly the same kind of stretchy fabric; I just hadn’t turned sideways in it.

2) My tummy exists. That is all.

Pics?

Tags: bodies mothers commiseration

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August 26, 2011

229 notes

Strawberries. Just Strawberries.: soydulcedeleche: robot-heart-politics:...

kyssthis16:

soydulcedeleche:

soydulcedeleche:

robot-heart-politics:

how-to-kiss-distinctly-american:golden-notebook:

This is such a fucking strawman. Show me a feminist who thinks women can’t be SAHMs and also be feminists. Granted, I tend to side-eye SAHMs when their kids have grown up beyond kindergarten age. But who cares what I think? I certainly don’t think it makes such a woman less of a “feminist”. Hell, if I was in a partnership where such a living situation was possible, lord knows I might take it. (And I’d be just as happy to support a dude who wanted to be stay-at-home-dad/housekeeper, were the tables turned.)

It’s such an irrelevant issue, too. Only a tiny handful of women - usually upper-middle-class to upper class white women, have even the option to “stay-at-home”, making this a convenient divisive Mommy Wars issue to make feminists look like they have more infighting than they actually do.

I don’t really give a shit if Mrs. Posey Chinchilla Jameson III can stay home with her kids, because I care more about the fact that the vast majority of American women have no real maternity leave options and are still mommy-tracked up the wazoo or take pink-collar jobs because they feel they have no other option. Let’s talk about the fact that women often “opt out” not because being a SAHM is OMG THEIR DREAM OMG!!!!111!!!! but because childcare is prohibitively expensive to the vast majority of working women.

Any feminist worth her salt knows SAHMs aren’t the problem nor is SAHM-dom inherently anti-feminist. Let’s talk about the structural inequality that prevents SAHMs who want to go back to work from doing so, and the structural inequality that makes working moms unwillingly stay home because they don’t have other real options.

The Rush Limbaughs of the world want most people to think mainstream feminists froth at the mouth about SAHMers. Media hype.

i…you know. the above rant. there are some…interesting things i noticed.

first to address the bolded statements:

The poster admits she side-eyes mothers with children beyond kindergarden. Do you all realize how common this side-eye is and WHY it even exists? Because there IS a cultural undertone in the U.S. that is largely anti-SAHM. what many of you dont notice is that its also a push thats been sponsored by the corporations who prefer a larger workforce that they pay less, but, anyway,what is it to you what age the kids are if a woman wants to stay home? The fact ANYONE thinks they have a right to side-eye a woman who wants to be a mother is whats fucking side-eye worthy. Let that shit sink in.

Then, only a tiny handful of white women are SAHM’s? well guess what? white women are the worlds minority…anybody stop to wonder what SAHM rates are like for …i dunno…women of color? In most of the world rates for SAHM are really high. In Latin America, its really common and even Latinas in the U.S. are SAHM at really high rates—regardless of INCOME, my dears. Interesting, isnt it? And before somebody comes to talk about how “every woman wishes she was out working her ass off”, nah, not really. Diff cultures have diff norms. Many times women are well-educated and still CHOOSE to stay home and raise kids….past school age! Ok? Everyone doesnt aspire to the same shit.

You’re like “omg who cares about SAHM” what about the north american women who are obsessed with working like animals? what about them? lets forget those who do it because they WANT to because that just sounds bad.

Theres always this undertone that women only stay home if theyre rich or if theyre lazy bitches. FUCK YA’LL. That IS some feminist shit.

And I triple dog fuckin DARE ya’ll to explain WHY oh WHY i got so many fuckin side eyes sneers and jeers and general tones of disgust from ALL kinds of american women (feminist or not, but same feminist ideals) when i was a SAHM? I’m guessing because the fact we werent rich made me seem like I have no business doing so and added to the disgust? i wanted to raise my infant. ME. MYSELF. you know, like people USED to do?

But anyway, fuck anyone who thinks WANTING and CHOOSING to be a MOTHER, when you arent well-off is somehow something to scoff at.

north american kids could use some fucking mothering, i’ll tell you what. all kids do. so i need for white feminists who have NEVER been SAHM’s to STFU about how feminists “dont sneer” at all the people they DO fuckin resent, all sly-like.

ima just say its capitalism and internalized misogyny, along with IGNANCE of other cultures. yeah.

And this is one of my biggest problems with white mainstream feminism: it’s frequent putdowns and general bad attitude of SAHM’s which means HUGE alienation for so many Latinas. Being a SAHM is really common for a lot of Latinas like the above comment points out - which means devaluing and putting down many Latinas, and sneering at us because so many of us stay home with our kids. It pisses me off so much I can’t really so more than this llittle paragraph.

AAARGH!

this. how you gonna be a feminist but undermine the art and struggle of mothering like that? some ol bullshit, if nothing else.