Okay, so for the last month I’ve been obsessing in my own secret way over Halloween.
I love Halloween - it has always been my favorite holiday, because it asks nothing from you other than your creativity. What a delight. Over the years I’ve had some really great costumes too — I once went as a can of Tomato Soup, and made dh dress as Warhol, one year I was a picnic (you had to see it), once I was Molly Shannon’s Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL (smellin’ my armpits all night, with great Read the complete Post.
I recently read a funny post by subarctic mama about her husband convincing her daughter to get regular (unlicensed) sneakers instead of Cinderella sneakers and I had to laugh! I fear my own inability to manage such a situation so much that I have gone to rather great lengths to avoid it.
As I mentioned before, I avoid taking Thing 1 shopping to keep her sheltered somewhat from consumer culture and to circumvent what they aptly call in the business, “the nag factor,” but Read the complete Post.
When I was a budding feminist, characters like Cinderella and the Little Mermaid, (the 9 Disney damsels - “G9″ he he - didn’t become “The Princesses” until a marketing overhaul in 2001), and Barbie made my blood boil. Their big boobs, mini waists, and glamourization of victimhood infuriated me — role models of the most irksome kind. Today, as a parent, they still get to me. Add to this world of warped femininity the marketing juggernaut that is Bratz, and kaboom, and there is a lot to make my skin crawl.
But (did she just write “BUT”?), I have to confess that my sensitivities have changed. When I see princess paraphernalia, I cringe, but if I’m completely honest, Read the complete Post.
I try so hard to be cool — not to show Thing 1 when she’s doing something that is freaking me out. Like, yesterday, when she told me under no uncertain circumstances that she never wants a baby to grow in her body - I reassured her that she didn’t have to have a baby, no problem. But when asked THREE times by a 4 year old, “But how do you NOT get a baby?” It’s a bit challenging. Still, I was cool. No problem. Read the complete Post.
If I tried to start someplace coherent, it would be in the beginning, stories of my first struggles (many internal) with these issues, but I can’t remember where they began — debates over names, nursery colors, Christmas gifts..? I do know when they erupted — in September when my precious Thing 1 entered preschool (btw — that is an affectionate Cat in the Hat reference, not a callous disregard for her humanity).
After three years of constructing a tolerable pop culture world of carefully chosen books, a Read the complete Post.