Tag Archives: identity

The Boychick’s Bookshelf: My Two Grannies

Welcome to The Boychick’s Bookshelf! In this series, I review children’s books of interest to parents who want to raise children free from and opposed to kyriarchy. These reviews will focus on books which showcase stories and lives beyond the dominant culture of white straight middle-class families, or which contain explicitly anti-kyriarchy messages (anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, anti-cissexism, anti-violence, anti-colonialization, and so on).

My Two Grannies

The Story

My Two Grannies is about Alvina, a multiracial girl, and her two grandmothers, one from Trinidad (Vero) and one from Yorkshire (Rose), both of whom now live in the same city as Alvina and her parents. Alvina loves spending time with each of her grannies, and doing the things they did as girls in their very-different cultures. When her parents decide to go away on holiday for their anniversary, Granny Vero volunteers to take care of her — but Granny Rose objects, saying she’ll do it, and Alvina suggests they both come care for her.

Thus starts the conflict of the book, as each granny insists things be done her way, and Alvina, unable to choose between the grannies (and the cultures) she loves equally, chooses neither. Alvina, showing far more maturity than either of her grannies, suggests that they each take turns for a whole day, and we see what a day with Vero in the lead looks like (a trip to the zoo to see the animals she grew up with, playing Dominos, eating red beans and rice, and telling an Anansi story for bed), and one with Rose in the lead (feeding the ducks in the park, playing snakes and ladders, eating steak and kidney pie, and telling Jack and the Beanstalk at bedtime). Alvina loves both these days, and we see the not-leading granny also learning to appreciate different ways and foods.

Intended Audience

Unlike most of the books on the Boychick’s Bookshelf, My Two Grannies is aimed not at middle-class suburban USians but at middle-class more-or-less urban Brits. Although it never explicitly states the city that Alvina and her family live in, it’s clearly meant to be a UK city, and many word choices reflect British English, such as mum instead of mom and pudding instead of dessert. None of it is overt enough I think it would be inaccessible to non-UK-English readers, and British children (and Doctor Who fans like the Boychick) might appreciate having a book whose colloquialisms are familiar.

While one appreciative audience for this book might be another child trying to combine multiple heritages, multi-race or not, the story is also about learning to share, to negotiate, to take turns, and to appreciate other cultures and customs (equally applicable to the macro cultures of Trinidad v. Yorkshire and to the micro cultures of different households).

Changes in the telling

There’s nothing we change in reading this to the Boychick (in part because he already knows the Britishisms), but some readers might find it a bit repetitive or preachy. I don’t think there is anything in it that particularly needs to be “fixed” for it to be palatable to readers of the right levels.

Right on!

I picked this book up for its depiction of a multiracial child and a multicultural family, and brought it home for the lessons in the fine art of taking turns and navigating jealousies. I also adore the illustrations, especially that Granny Rose is fat, Alvina’s kinky hair is natural and loose, and her outfit is midriff baring but not at all sexualized or hyperfeminine.

But does it appeal? The Boychick’s take

I had some concerns the Boychick wouldn’t like this, because it’s about a multiracial girl with two grannies and he’s a white probably-boy with only one living grandma, but I needn’t have worried: he loves it. He likes hearing about the grannies’ childhoods, and gets excited when Alvina dances with each of her grannies, and he always takes great pleasure in pointing out the scenes where the grannies are cross with each other. He’s at the perfect stage where he can sit through the length, but doesn’t mind the repetition or not-particularly-subtle moralizing (taking turns = good!). He does, however, get quite annoyed that Alvina refers to Vero and Rose as “Granny V.” and “Granny R.”, and tries to correct us, but we use this as an opportunity to talk about nicknames and the many ways people are referred to.

Buy it, Consider it, Skip it, or Compost it?

Strongly consider My Two Grannies, especially for multiracial or multicultural children. Even if your child, like mine, is monoracial and doesn’t have multiple grandmothers, consider it anyway: the story is enjoyable, the drawings delightful, and the messages universal.

Your Take

Have you read My Two Grannies? What do you think, and what do your kids think? What other books do you know of with multiracial families, or that address sharing or jealousy in an engaging way?

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Purchases made through the Amazon links offered here support this blog and compensate — quite minimally — my time and work as a blogger. I encourage you to support local, independent booksellers whenever possible, but if you’re to order online anyway, why not support an independent blogger?

9 Comments | Posted on 14 August 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, The Boychick's Bookshelf | Tags: identity, navigating cultures, Race, sharing

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A Mothers’ Day Secret

Here’s a secret:

I am, basically, the same person that I was before I had a kid. I am still just as selfish. I am still just as petty, as cruel, as small minded. I am still wondering what the fuck am I going to be when I grow up.

Maybe you’re not. Maybe parenthood was a revelation, a small but complete revolution in the halls of your psyche. But me? I’m still Arwyn. Everything I did before, I still do. Everything I was bad at before, I still fail to do. My house is still a mess, clutter is still the default state of my house and mind, I still alternate between concocting plans to take over the world and barely clinging to the skin of sanity trying to simply survive each day.

Because motherhood isn’t a magic cure. I didn’t have a baby and suddenly wake up a morning person, minivan in the drive way, clothes picked out, and lunch already packed. I wasn’t that person before I had a kid, and I’m not her now. I don’t think I ever will be her, and some days I’m really ok with that.

We have this idea that when a woman birth/adopt/partner with a parent, she becomes A Mother. And we have all kinds of idealized notions of what A Mother looks like and acts like and accomplishes in a single day. But the truth is — my truth is, at least, though I suspect you’ll find it true of others as well — that it doesn’t work that way. I may have, eventually, over time, become mom to my kid, but that transformation into A Mother I was supposed to undergo never came.

I have changed, because change is inevitable. My life has changed — if for no other reason than now I’m trying to keep two humans alive through the day instead of just one — but the habits and patterns of my life largely haven’t. And the me-underneath-all is still here, still as bewildered and confused and scared and cocky and self-centered as ever, wondering when someone will notice that the transformation never occurred, waiting for The Mother to come save me and do things properly.

And that’s the thing: she’s never coming. I don’t think she ever came for my mom, either, and isn’t that a terrifying thought to the part of me still two years old, who remembers climbing into my mother’s lap like I was ascending into heaven, being granted audience with Love Herself and welcomed unreservedly thereby.

Because The Mother is a myth, and all those women we assign to her pedestal are rather more like me than they are like the Perfection Incarnate whose face I stared into. Even after adolescence, even after seeing my mom’s imperfections, her bad habits, her failures and shortcomings, her encroaching crows feet and lengthening greys, even after fighting with her over issues both substantial and trivial, I never lost the idea that she was A Mother. And when I look at myself and my motherhood and find it lacking in any significant capitalizations, I feel I have failed.

But the failure isn’t in me — it’s in a Hallmark society that puts the capitals there to start with. The problem is a culture that puts women-with-children on unattainable pedestals. The problem is the group-think that says women with children are somehow fundamentally different from (and better morally though inferior intellectually to) women without children.

The truth is — we’re not.

We never become A Mother except in the eyes of our children; we muddle along, muttering prayers and curses under our breath and hoping we don’t fuck things up too badly, and our children (though we fuck them up inevitably, though not usually irreparably) are the ones who see us as angels (or devils), as Love (or Hate) Incarnate, as significant capitalizations. Whether we do well by them or earn our disownments, some part of them sees us always through the eyes of a two year old, capitalized, Their Mother.

One day they’ll grow up, and they might have kids (or they might not) and wait for their selves to be improved, their parenthood made profound — and then they might realize that Their Mother was only ever a person, struggling to fill up the enormous space they had assigned to her.

The truth is, all mothers are only this: only you (whether you have kids or not), only me. Only gloriously imperfect, entirely human, completely lacking in capitals.

Terrifying. And wonderful.

Happy mothers’ day.

18 Comments | Posted on 9 May 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Parenting | Tags: Gender, identity, motherhood

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The Boychick’s Bookshelf: Being Friends

Being Friends

Karen Beaumont, pictures by Joy Allen

The Story

In a pleasantly rhyming first person narrative, we learn about two friends: one of whom, a white girl¹, likes jeans and caps and cookies and hanging upside down, the other of whom, a black or multiracial girl, likes gowns and crowns and cake and spinning around, but, as the oft-repeated refrain says, they “both like being friends.”

The art is realistic and delightful, with enough to explore in each scene to engage the reader but simple enough to be easily taken in. As a pet lover, I enjoyed spotting the dog and the cat (the girls’ pets) on nearly every page.

Intended Audience

By placing the narrative in the point of view of the white friend, this book, however subtly, others the black friend, making it a story aimed more at middle class² white families looking to encourage diversity than being a story by and for children of color.

That aside, I would highly recommend it, especially for girls. While they like doing different things, both the femme and the butch³ (the “princess” and the “chimpanzee”) are physically active (playing baseball, jumping on the bed, having pillow fights), academically engaged (“spelling C-A-T” and “counting 1, 2, 3″, and looking at the planets and stars with a telescope), artistic, and courageous (telling each other scary stories). Girls need to hear this message: that being “girly” or “tomboyish” means liking different clothes (and both are perfectly ok!), but it doesn’t have to limit the options of what we can do.

Changes in the Telling

The one page I would give much to be able to change is where the two friends express their “hate” for, respectively, peas and mushrooms, and their mutual desire for pepperoni pizza. I’ve tried to change this in the telling, but the Boychick has already learned to correct me with “hate” of vegetables. Since mushrooms and peas are two of the Boychick’s favorite foods, and he’s yet to have pizza without any vegetables on it (much less with pepperoni), I do not appreciate this book reinforcing the stereotype that kids don’t like veggies. (Some might not, but much as with gender stereotypes I’m convinced that cultural messages, such as this, play a far greater role than we generally acknowledge.)

Not something we can change, but I really wish there were a line explicitly acknowledging the races of the friends. “You are black and I am white” or “Your dad is black, mine is white, but both our moms are Jewish” or something that states what readers young and old will readily notice. Without this explication, the book becomes yet another brick in the “we⁴ don’t talk about race” wall that contributes to racism.

On the Bookshelf Because

Bought for the message of interracial friendship, kept for the messages gender expression diversity not limiting ability, enjoyed for the acknowledgment that everyone has both similarities and differences.

But Does It Appeal? The Boychick’s Take

I cannot tell you how much the Boychick likes this book. What’s more, even after reading it no less than three dozen times (between The Man and myself), we’re not yet sick of it either. The first day we had it, he wanted to read “the string book” (so called for the picture of the friends playing a string game on the cover) over and over again, and a week later, still requests it multiple times in a row. I think it’s safe to say the Boychick approves.

Buy it, Consider it, Skip it, or Compost it?

Consider it. The lack of explicit acknowledgement of race, the comments about food, and the white narrator stop me from wholeheartedly recommending it, but the positive messages on gender expression, the interracial friendship, and how much the Boychick simply adores it means you might want to consider adding it to your own bookshelf.

Your Take

Have you read Being Friends? What do you think, and what do your kids think? Are there other books with similar messages you prefer?

Note: This book was sent to us by a dear reader who purchased it off the Raising My Boychick wishlist.

Nowhere in the text are the children’s genders identified, but the book jacket and reviews state, and the pictures imply, that the two friends are both girls ↩
The children are pictured in a house or in a field, and always with abundant toys ↩
Femme and butch are not my favorite words, but I’m not sure what better ones there are. ↩
“We” meaning white folk. ↩

8 Comments | Posted on 7 May 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, The Boychick's Bookshelf | Tags: Gender, gender roles, identity, white privilege

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On identity and “who [I] bone”

Sexual identity? Does not actually come from “who you fuck”. See, this is one of those misconceptions which lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, from backing up the assertion that “everyone is bi” (because so many people have had sexual contact with more than one gender) to dismissing sexual identities altogether.

Like in this oh so lovely comment (doomed to forever remain an unpublished reply to Why I loathe “Everyone’s bi”):

We’re being told that our identities — who we are, in a real, fundamental way — are false.

Who you bone is not who you are.

If you define yourself by who you fuck, well, that’s kind of sad to me.

I define who I am by a lot broader criteria than who’s genitals touch my genitals.

…really. Who I bone (nice heteronormative phrase, there, by the way) is not who I am? I never would have guessed. I always thought I was The-Man-sexual, since I’ve only ever had sex with one person other than myself. Or perhaps I am, as Recursive Paradox says, vibesexual (shout out to Good Vibrations and It’s My Pleasure). Or, mostly, digisexual (hat tip to Lucy). Bisexual? Well, I’ve never had sex with a woman, so I certainly can’t be that.

…oh wait.

Because that wasn’t actually what I was saying. Y’know, what with pointing out that monogamy and bisexuality (or other nonmonosexualities) are not, contrary to popular belief, incompatible. For that matter, neither are celibacy and bisexuality. Or a history of sex with multiple genders and monosexuality. Because who we bone, as the commenter said, is not, in fact, who we are.

But our sexual identity? Yeah, that is sort of who we are. It surely feels fundamental to me: like a limb¹, or a layer of fascia that twines around everything inside me and holds me together. It feels as bound with myself as my bones, my flesh, my fat, my skin — or my humanity, my womanhood, my age.

Except, apparently, I am denying those parts of myself when I proclaim my bisexuality. I am not, according to the above commenter, also bipolar, or fat, or white, or a mother, or a sister, or a daughter, or a lover, or a writer, or a blogger, or a student, or a knitter, or kind, or compassionate, or passionate, or opinionated, or any of the multitude of other aspects of my self which I’ve talked about, here and elsewhere. No, apparently by asserting my sexual identity, by saying it is fundamental to who I am, I am reducing the whole of my self to this one aspect of me. And if I don’t want some random internet douche to interpret assertions of my sexual orientation that way, then I should damn well shut my mouth.

And become invisible. Again. Still. Always.

But that’s not marginalization or oppression, oh no. That’s just being more evolved, because who needs sexual identity? For that matter, who needs race, really — we should all be colorblind. And gender? The so-evolved all know that’s just a social construct.

Each of these arguments is achingly familiar to those of us who have been erased — who have had those arguments used against us — by oppressive communities. “You’re not bisexual; it’s silly to define yourself by “who you fuck”, I don’t care who you sleep with, just don’t tell me about it, don’t ask for “special rights” because of it. I don’t need to acknowledge the ways in which you have historically and systematically been oppressed because of your race — we’ve moved past that, can’t you angry “minority” types stop playing “the race card” all the time? Gender isn’t real: you’re just “a man in a dress”, and that’s all you’ll ever be, you’ll never know what it’s like to really be a woman.”

This is hate speech, y’all. This excuses murder, and assault, and abuse, and a hundred smaller, subtler forms of oppression. This is how we are told not to find each other, not to stand in solidarity, not to work together to dismantle the oppressions we face — so that we can be picked off one by one for the very identities we’re told aren’t real.

So I say no. I say there’s a lot more — and a lot less — to identities than popularly conceived of. There’s a lot more value, a lot more depth, a lot more nuance — and a lot less checklists and gatekeepers and policing. Identity, especially a nonmonosexual identity, is highly complex, and breathtakingly simple. It’s not about who I bone, and it’s not for you to define for me. It is about who I want and what I feel, and it is for me to declare, if I so choose.

And I? I so choose.

I am bisexual/queer/pan/nonmonosexual/not-even-slightly-straight. And it matters.

I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the loss-of-limb analogy, because those who are born without or lose a limb are not any less themselves for having that particular body configuration, and I have a strong suspicion — ok, I’m pretty certain — using this analogy is a form of ableism. ↩

10 Comments | Posted on 20 February 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: bisexuality, identity, isms, Sexuality

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WFPP Guest Post: Before I was a Mother, I was a Woman . . .

The Womanist/Feminist Parenting Primer is back, with a piece from Zoey of Good Goog about what it means to her to be a woman and a mother.

Zoey discusses her journey from career-driven no-kids-no-thank-you woman to mostly at-home mother, and the things she has given up, as well as gained, along the way. She touches on issues of economic independence (and the risks of the lack thereof), the intersection of privileges and hardships, the blessings of flexible work options, and the notion of sacrifice in motherhood, and ultimately explains how she has continued, “even” in motherhood, to be a woman — to be herself.

Before I was a Mother, I was a Woman . . .

Seriously. I wasn’t always a mother.

Once upon a time, I was a woman and I was quite probably one of the most ambitious people you’d be likely to meet. And I wore really high heels and had impractical handbags. Because I loved it and because I could. I wasn’t ambitious in the conventional way – I didn’t care about earning money (although it did help with the accessories). But I wanted to have enough impact to change something in a big way – to leave something behind and say – look! I left my mark. Maybe it was because I was completely invisible in High School. But I doubt it, some people are just born that way. And although I hadn’t admitted it to anyone I was considering a move into politics because I’d grown tired of banging my head against a brick wall trying to change something from the bottom up. What was I interested in changing? Healthcare and the treatment of mental illness/drug and alcohol addiction but that is a very long story.

If you’d asked me back then what I thought about a woman staying at home while her partner works and living off one income I would have told you that the very idea made me physically ill. Because it’s such a risk to take a gamble that your relationship is going to work out. Because if it doesn’t you have sacrificed however many years of experience in the workforce, have no money of your own and are essentially left stranded to fend for yourself. It’s not about trusting someone, or believing in your relationship: it’s about not placing your future in someone else’s hands. And only a stupid person would do that. Is it becoming obvious that my parents had 6 marriages between them? Full disclosure – I may have a few broken home issues.

Also if you’d asked me back then if I wanted to have children I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, because I knew that if I was to have children I would want to put certain dreams of mine aside for a time. And I liked the freedom of selfishness. I didn’t believe that I was capable of being a ‘do-it-all’ supermum. If I was going to be a mother, I was going to want to be a mother in the home and not miss out on anything. Are you seeing a problem with this scenario? Eventually I realised that while further study and career aspirations don’t have an expiration date, having children does (at least for a woman) and I swallowed my fears about leaving the workforce and did just that. I rationalised that if I ever wanted to go back to work my husband could be a stay at home dad for awhile.

And then she was born and everything was different. Not overnight of course. For the first few days it was surreal. I remember thinking she was beautiful but not quite being able to relate to the idea that she was mine and it was permanent. Within a month I had completely abandoned the idea of going back to work full-time because I loved being at home with her and found that to be more fulfilling than any job could be. In the interest of modesty I would like to say that I got lucky and I was given the opportunity to work part-time from home. But the truth is I am really good at my job and I was lucky that my boss was able to see the value in being flexible. I was also fortunate enough to be born in a country where public education doesn’t end with High School, to have a mother who worked three different jobs to keep us afloat and to not have the kind of obstacles thrown in front of me that indigenous Australians face every single day. Not to mention my phone phobia which had led me to an occupation well suited to at home work.

But how could a woman like myself be happy at home? Had I abandoned the woman for the mother? Surprisingly, no. I am the kind of person who will not do things by half-measures. I embraced being home with my little one and wore her most of the time. I persisted with breastfeeding despite difficulties and didn’t pursue any hard and fast rules – I just followed my instinct. She slept with us most of the time too. Along the way, I found out that I didn’t feel stifled by this because by being true to who I was as a mother, was also being true to who I was as a woman. Suddenly, outside of my usual career-focused environment I was able to rediscover all my creative interests that I’d also put on hold – like writing and photography and even home renovation and I was more myself than I had been in a long while. I will stop working entirely next year and it doesn’t scare me anymore.

I would still like to leave my mark in some way. And while it might be tempting to think that the difference I will make is in the lives of my children, I hope not. Because I want to avoid influencing them as much as possible and just be excited to find out who they are. I still miss my high heels, and my handbags, and spending hours on my own. As my children get older I will actively return to my formerly ambitious self because it’s important to me that they see me the way I see myself. And I am nothing if not driven.

This week I had my first night away from my (now) 18 month old and she had her first sleepover. She was beside herself with excitement when I came back and spent the next day holding on to me for dear life, not really willing to let me out of her sight and giving me cuddles so fierce that her little body shook with force of it. And that’s when I know that nothing I’ve given up feels like a sacrifice. Not because I don’t miss the things that I surrendered, but because they are overshadowed by everything I’ve been given.

Zoey is a (mostly) at home mother of one, and no matter how many people look at her like she’s just weird, she’s still planning to have four more children. Professionally she works part-time as a proposal writer, which somehow evolved out of managing a drug rehabilitation centre for dual diagnosis women and their young children.