Tag Archives: heteronormative

Question into the Abyss: Can We Call A Parent Out Without Judgment?

This morning, one of my mom friends sent me a little internet story called, A Clown Shares What Face Painting Taught Her About Male Violence in an Alarming Twitter Thread. It’s super short, so click on it if you want the full story. The gist is that when the clown was face painting at a party, a mother stepped in to stop her four-year-old son from getting the adornment he requested on his cheek (a blue butterfly) and insisted the face painter instead decorate him with something “for boys” (he ended up with a skull and crossbones).

…

Yep.

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I felt anger bubbling up as I read this story, and tears welling as I thought of this little boy, walking around with a symbol of violence and death on his cheek, confronted with the idea that this is what he should present to the world, rather than the beauty and transformation he hoped to present.

Shannon and I created this blog as a place of non-judgment, as a village where its members and visitors treat fellow mothers and parents with grace, giving the benefit of the doubt that we are all just doing our best, that we all want the same good things for our kids – love, acceptance, and for them to grow up being a decent human being.

But guys, I’m really struggling to maintain this sense toward this mother.

I want to step in and paint a hundred blue butterflies on that boy’s cheek, if that’s what he wants.

I can easily come up with the relativistic, supportive things I could say in reaction to this story: I’m hearing this second-hand from the face painter… who knows what else that mother was going through that day… maybe she wasn’t at her best self… maybe she regrets it and won’t ever do it again… we all make mistakes… maybe she really thinks she is protecting her son from being made fun of…

But honestly, I’m mad at this mother (or, at least, at the version of her presented to me). I wholeheartedly disagree with her decision to step in and control her son’s self-expression to keep him in line with stereotypical masculinity. If this incident is truly indicative of her behaviour with her son, then frankly I think she’s fucking up the possibilities for who he could be, and contributing to a terrible system that tries to limit every single person in a binary prison of bullshit.

This is hard for me to admit on this blog. I’m supposed to be leading the safe space for non-judgment. How do I reconcile these two things?

I want to trust that she’s doing her best, and at the same time, I want to shake her by the shoulders and say, “How could you?!”

I want to respect her way of doing things as a fellow parent, and at the same time, I want to step in and paint a hundred blue butterflies on that boy’s cheek, if that’s what he wants.

I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and reassure her that we all make mistakes, but I also feel so strongly this is not an innocent mistake, and that it’s one she can’t afford to make too many times without causing lasting damage.

Help! I need some insight from my village… 

Can I reconcile non-judgment and anger? Or are there, eventually, just lines in the sand that we have to choose or risk having no principles at all?

Will I Accidentally Teach My Sons to Devalue Women???

So often, I’m inspired and intrigued by the writing of another mom out there on the web. It’s wonderful to read another woman’s words and think, yeah, I totally get where she’s coming from, and I am so glad she wrote that!

Today, I’m having this feeling about Kasey Edwards‘ piece over at Role Reboot, entitled, “When Your Mother Says She’s Fat .” Her letter to her mom is a bit of a truth bomb, especially as she describes when, at age seven, she first heard her mother called herself “fat, ugly, and horrible”:

“In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:

1. You must be fat because mothers don’t lie.
2. Fat is ugly and horrible.
3. When I grow up I’ll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly, and horrible too.

Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure, and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself.”

That first idea, that “you must be fat because mothers don’t lie,” really strikes me. It goes along with the notion that “The way we speak to our children becomes their inner voice” (most often attributed to author Peggy O’Mara). But what Edwards implies is that not only does the way we speak to our children become their inner voice, but the way we speak to and about ourselves in front of them contributes to their inner voice as well. I think for many parents, myself included, we place a lot of emphasis on the way we speak to our kids about them, but not quite so much on how we speak about ourselves in front of them. Perhaps, though, this is just as important.

Edwards goes on to talk about the responsibility she feels toward her own daughter: to end the passing chain of self-degradation around ideas of beauty and worth. Her piece makes me think about my role as a mother, too – only I have sons, not daughters. Continue reading →

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