I hate labels so much. I do not self-identify as a feminist and I try hard to not make this into a beef with women who do, though I have had women who self-identified that way be ugly to me.
If you follow my writing closely, you may think some things don't add up. I got secretly married at age nineteen and didn't tell family and didn't tell the college and then dropped out the next year rather than commit fraud while filling out federal student aid paperwork or tell my parents "Um, actually, technically...like I'm MARRIED."
A friend of the family once said to me "Everyone thought you would be like a millionaire by age thirty. You were so smart. What happened?" and I pointed to my kids and said something like "They happened and they take all my time."
I have health problems and I have special-needs kids. I was molested as a child and I needed and wanted time to deal with that and sort my baggage and become OKAY and not pass on my garbage to my kids.
I studied this problem space a LOT and concluded that one of the best means to make sure my children did not get molested -- other than teaching them about consent from birth -- was to not leave them with other people very much and to not leave them with people they didn't like and didn't want to be left with.
A working mom tends to have no real choice but to do the expedient thing and leave the kid with a childcare provider even if the kid is clearly unhappy about it. And then the kid learns to not bother to protest and this can cover up a world of sins in the name of 'normal.'
When my oldest was still an infant, I left him at a childcare facility so I could go to a doctor's appointment and he was crying. They told me "Just leave. He will stop shortly."
He cried the entire time and never stopped. He did the same thing the second time I took him there and they told me "Make other arrangements. We can't deal with this. We have other kids to look after, not just him." and he was clearly miserable.
So I know what the "standard" wisdom is: Ignore the child's protests and misery and wait for them to stop complaining. Professionals told me to handle it that way and that this was NORMAL.
Next, I found a lady who provided daycare in her home and I took him and stayed with him several times and let him get to know her, get to know the other kids she cared for, get to know her house and I sat and talked with her. And after doing that a few times, I then left him with her and he was fine with that.
It was really rare for me to ignore my children's protests that they didn't wish to stay with a particular daycare provider. If they weren't happy, I made other arrangements and I did not buy the argument that "Well, kids just cry."
Child molesters routinely seek to be in positions of trust. They often become childcare workers, elementary school teachers, etc. and they try to get on that "list" parents fairly often make FOR their child of whom to implicitly trust and "scream if anyone else tries to touch your private parts."
One mom told me what she felt was a "funny" story about her child dutifully screaming at the doctor's office because the doctor wasn't whitelisted as a safe adult you should trust who could see you naked. And she had to quickly have a talk with the kid and add "doctor" to the list.
My children were NEVER told that some ADULT or someone other than them had the power to decide whom they should trust. They got to practice that themselves from birth because hugs and kisses required consent and I did my best to as much as possible NOT leave them with anyone they didn't want to be left with.
And I had latitude to be picky about things like that in part because I was a full-time wife and mom. And when my special-needs kids were older and being homeschooled by me and complained to me about their dad being a jerk, I was like "Yeah, he's a jerk. AVOID HIM. You NEED me HOME with you and HE is WHY I can be here." and they accepted that answer.
I'm not a woman without interests or intellect or depth. I'm not a woman who isn't smart enough or hard working enough or ambitious enough to have a real career.
I'm a woman who believes that The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. and that coming up with better answers for EVERYONE, not JUST women with career ambitions, is critical to the welfare of this world and the people in it and I walked the walk and rearranged my life to prioritize the things I felt most mattered.
Like putting down my own baggage so I didn't screw up my own kids and making sure they never acquired similar baggage so they would not need to spend years and years of their adult life sorting out questions about their sexuality and myriad related issues like I did.
I'm not against women having real careers. I'm just against acting like the ONLY path forward is for women to have careers designed for a heteronormative world with the implicit assumption that a REAL CAREER is held by a FAMILY MAN with a full-time homemaker to take care of cooking and cleaning and so forth.
We can rebuild this world. We can make it better. First, we need to stop being prisoners of a set of deeply held implicit assumptions that actively screw over EVERYONE -- adults and children alike, regardless of gender -- when we do NOT put them down while trying to leave behind The Flintstones age of modern America.
I hate labels so VERY much. If you MUST give me one, I would rather be called a humanist, not a feminist.
"To you a housewife has sold her soul...she has no depth, no intellect, no interests..."
If you follow my writing closely, you may think some things don't add up. I got secretly married at age nineteen and didn't tell family and didn't tell the college and then dropped out the next year rather than commit fraud while filling out federal student aid paperwork or tell my parents "Um, actually, technically...like I'm MARRIED."
A friend of the family once said to me "Everyone thought you would be like a millionaire by age thirty. You were so smart. What happened?" and I pointed to my kids and said something like "They happened and they take all my time."
I have health problems and I have special-needs kids. I was molested as a child and I needed and wanted time to deal with that and sort my baggage and become OKAY and not pass on my garbage to my kids.
I studied this problem space a LOT and concluded that one of the best means to make sure my children did not get molested -- other than teaching them about consent from birth -- was to not leave them with other people very much and to not leave them with people they didn't like and didn't want to be left with.
A working mom tends to have no real choice but to do the expedient thing and leave the kid with a childcare provider even if the kid is clearly unhappy about it. And then the kid learns to not bother to protest and this can cover up a world of sins in the name of 'normal.'
When my oldest was still an infant, I left him at a childcare facility so I could go to a doctor's appointment and he was crying. They told me "Just leave. He will stop shortly."
He cried the entire time and never stopped. He did the same thing the second time I took him there and they told me "Make other arrangements. We can't deal with this. We have other kids to look after, not just him." and he was clearly miserable.
So I know what the "standard" wisdom is: Ignore the child's protests and misery and wait for them to stop complaining. Professionals told me to handle it that way and that this was NORMAL.
Next, I found a lady who provided daycare in her home and I took him and stayed with him several times and let him get to know her, get to know the other kids she cared for, get to know her house and I sat and talked with her. And after doing that a few times, I then left him with her and he was fine with that.
It was really rare for me to ignore my children's protests that they didn't wish to stay with a particular daycare provider. If they weren't happy, I made other arrangements and I did not buy the argument that "Well, kids just cry."
Child molesters routinely seek to be in positions of trust. They often become childcare workers, elementary school teachers, etc. and they try to get on that "list" parents fairly often make FOR their child of whom to implicitly trust and "scream if anyone else tries to touch your private parts."
One mom told me what she felt was a "funny" story about her child dutifully screaming at the doctor's office because the doctor wasn't whitelisted as a safe adult you should trust who could see you naked. And she had to quickly have a talk with the kid and add "doctor" to the list.
My children were NEVER told that some ADULT or someone other than them had the power to decide whom they should trust. They got to practice that themselves from birth because hugs and kisses required consent and I did my best to as much as possible NOT leave them with anyone they didn't want to be left with.
And I had latitude to be picky about things like that in part because I was a full-time wife and mom. And when my special-needs kids were older and being homeschooled by me and complained to me about their dad being a jerk, I was like "Yeah, he's a jerk. AVOID HIM. You NEED me HOME with you and HE is WHY I can be here." and they accepted that answer.
I'm not a woman without interests or intellect or depth. I'm not a woman who isn't smart enough or hard working enough or ambitious enough to have a real career.
I'm a woman who believes that The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. and that coming up with better answers for EVERYONE, not JUST women with career ambitions, is critical to the welfare of this world and the people in it and I walked the walk and rearranged my life to prioritize the things I felt most mattered.
Like putting down my own baggage so I didn't screw up my own kids and making sure they never acquired similar baggage so they would not need to spend years and years of their adult life sorting out questions about their sexuality and myriad related issues like I did.
I'm not against women having real careers. I'm just against acting like the ONLY path forward is for women to have careers designed for a heteronormative world with the implicit assumption that a REAL CAREER is held by a FAMILY MAN with a full-time homemaker to take care of cooking and cleaning and so forth.
We can rebuild this world. We can make it better. First, we need to stop being prisoners of a set of deeply held implicit assumptions that actively screw over EVERYONE -- adults and children alike, regardless of gender -- when we do NOT put them down while trying to leave behind The Flintstones age of modern America.
I hate labels so VERY much. If you MUST give me one, I would rather be called a humanist, not a feminist.