Tag Archives: USA

A letter to my children, on Occupy Wall Street

Dear children,

I am watching as Occupy Wall Street the camp is being destroyed by the NYPD, barely two days after participating in the protest against a smaller, but similar, dismantling of Occupy Portland. I am filled with rage and impotence and grief and fear — but also hope.

I hope that you know this night only as the inflaming of a movement, not its destruction. I hope that by the time you are grown, you do not understand Occupy Wall Street any more than I understand the women’s movement of the 1970s, because the changes we are agitating for have long been your reality. As with that wave of feminism, I do not kid myself that Occupy is perfect or that all our problems will be fixed, but if I pray, I pray that you will have moved on to a new movement to improve some other area of our public life. (I pray that we do not ruin your grandparents’ work and allow those progresses to be lost as well.) I hope that by the time you pay taxes, we will have returned to a healthy, progressive tax code, and that you will not be shouldering a larger proportional burden than the people employing you and your friends. I hope that if you ever need it, the government will provide for your safety net, as well as your libraries and health care and advanced education, and you won’t have to turn to an illegal encampment for it. I hope some part of you disbelieves us when we speak of peaceful protest being illegal, because that will be such an unfamiliar idea to you.

But if not: I am sorry. I am sorry we did not do enough, did not care enough, did not defeat our cynicism enough to provide you a better, more just life. I am sorry our apathy overcame our determination, sorry our fear won over our rage. I am sorry we continued to elect people who worked against us, who worked for the few obscenely rich people who helped them convince us to reelect them. I’m sorry we believed the stories told to us by a media willing to be bullied into silence. I’m sorry we failed you.

That, my children, is my deepest fear on this dark night.

I love you. I love you so much that if my fears are realized and we do fail you, it won’t be for lack of my trying.

Forever,
Your mom

5 Comments | Posted on 15 November 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: Occupy Portland, Occupy Wall Street, USA

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F*** the USA and its lack of paid parental leave

Because I have a not-even-two week old, a house in disarray, an unhappy 4.5 year old still adjusting to being a big brother, probable cellulitis, a migraine, and daily panic attacks, and we can’t afford for The Man to stay home more.

So fuck it. With a rusty pipe.

(And no, I don’t want anyone else. I want my lifemate, my partner, my coparent, the person I signed up for this gig with. Help is great. I have an awesome community, without which I could not survive, and for which I am so very grateful. But it ain’t him.)

20 Comments | Posted on 13 September 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: baby, I shouldn't blog at night, USA

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Quick hit on paid parental leave

The kid just threw up. And this is why we need universal paid parental leave.

No really.

The kid just threw up, and his preschool has a 24-hours-without-vomiting rule. Which means he can’t go to his (long) day of preschool tomorrow. Which means I lose 6 of my weekly 10 work hours this week. Because I have to stay home with the kid.¹

Why?

I, being self-employed, don’t get any paid leave, so there’s no scrimping needed there², whereas we’re saving every minute of The Man’s paid time off we can for after the baby comes.³ So he can’t take tomorrow off (not even for a half day) as he used to do regularly when the Boychick was sick.

Just one tiny example from a relatively-privileged family, but still: my kid threw up, and this is why we need universal paid parental leave.

No, I can’t work while he’s home, even if I plant him in front of the TV. Ariel Gore wrote about distractability in How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: when we can be distracted or interrupted, even if we’re not, we cannot really focus. Maybe not true for everyone, but absolutely true for me. This is yet another reason I do most of my writing at night, at the cost of my sleep (and thus why I’ve been doing so little writing recently, because sleep is, at this stage of pregnancy, far less sacrificeable). ↩
And not having a salary or a direct dollar-per-hour payback for my work — and, really, not getting paid much/anything for my work at the moment at all — it’s a lot easier on the budget to sacrifice my hours than his. This is not normally something we pay attention to, but when we’re trying to buy a house, pay the midwife, and save for the babymoon? Yeah, it does matter. ↩
And it still won’t be enough. With him having a “really great” salaried position, he’ll be able to go 40 hours in the hole on PTO, which means he’ll probably be paid for about 2 weeks off. And if we can, we’ll take another 2 off unpaid. I know to be able to do so, even potentially, is a sign we’re fucking privileged. But it’s still criminal that a new parent gets so little time. ↩

11 Comments | Posted on 25 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: class privilege, paid parental leave, pregnancy, Privilege, sick, USA

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Dear Erica Jong

Dear Erica Jong,

I am about to enter my 30s. I cosleep. I babywear. I breastfeed (for years). I am monogamous. And I have fucking fabulous sex.

I’ve had fabulous sex in bed next to my sleeping child.

I’ve had fabulous sex with my child sleeping in his bed three feet away.

I’ve had fabulous sex while breastfeeding my child.

I’ve had fabulous sex while pregnant.

I’ve had fabulous sex while pregnant with my second child.

I’ve had fabulous sex in my kitchen.

I’ve had fabulous sex in my living room.

I’ve had fabulous sex in the shower.

I’ve had fabulous sex in public.

I’ve had fabulous sex in other people’s houses. (When we were spending the night anyway, for those concerned.)

I’ve had fabulous sex on the phone.

I’ve had fabulous sex on the “sterile” internet.

I’ve had fabulous sex that required an hour of washing up afterward — and not just of us.

I’ve had fabulous sex by myself. Lots of it. Lots and lots and lots of it.

I have a drawer full of accessories that I sometimes like to use while having fabulous sex, and a wish list as tall as I am of more that I’ll buy just as soon as we have the spare thousands.

I’ve had fabulous sex with a man — one man! one person! ever! in my life! how puritanical! how old-fashioned! — who wears our baby, who never was so ignorant as to think my breasts were “his” or “for him” to start with, who has seen me (was there for me, helped support me, caught for me) push a baby out of my cunt (in our bedroom, in which we had had, and later proceeded to have more, fabulous sex), who has snuggled next to our child nearly every night for the last almost 4.5 years, who helped me conceive our second child with still more fabulous sex (lots and lots and lots of it, given how long it took us).

I don’t know what issues you have with your daughter, or why you think extrapolating from (your understanding of) her to every other woman in her generation is such a brilliant idea, but when you say things like:

Better to give up men and sleep with one’s children. Better to wear one’s baby in a man-distancing sling and breast-feed at all hours so your mate knows your breasts don’t belong to him. Our current orgy of multiple maternity does indeed leave little room for sexuality. With children in your bed, is there any space for sexual passion?

I truly wonder what universe you’re living in, or why you think you understand my life and my motivations so well, when you are so very wrong.

And I wonder what form of feminism you’re practicing when you blame women — mothers, women with children, women who already have placed on us additional burdens and double binds galore — for this “backlash against sex” you hypothesize, and never investigate what societal pressures might exist that create the situation (you think you see), give only the briefest, un-nouned mentions of forces other than (your daughter’s) choices of which you disapprove.

Because us modern-day mothers? The “freedom” you supposedly bequeathed to us hardly exists. We are still called sluts if we say yes. We are still called frigid if we say no. We are still threatened with the removal of our children if we have sex, if we admit we like sex, if we admit we don’t like sex, if we dare to write about sex. (Heavens forbid we be non-white, non-cis, non-middle class, non-straight, non-able and attempt those things, but then, you don’t seem to care much about those of us who fall in those categories anyway.) We are exhorted to be available, always, cautioned still that even if not in the mood (when, say, pregnant and exhausted — because we couldn’t possibly be pregnant and want sex) we should “be creative” and find ways of “meeting our partner’s needs”. We are told — by the generations before us, who really ought to know better — that we’re not doing sex right because we’re not doing it like they did, like they wanted us to.

When our sexualities are still not our own, when (middle class straight white) America is still obsessed with a very particular sort of (matriphobic) sex performance, when the “sexual revolution” still hasn’t allowed us to have children and sex only when and how we want, when the burden for fixing all this is still placed on our (be-slinged) shoulders, is it any wonder that some of us say “enough!”, would wash our hands of the whole messy topic?

I’m not sure I agree with you that there is a backlash against sex (a war against women and a backlash to what little autonomy we’d achieved, no question), but to whatever extent there is, I object to your definition of its parameters (we are only liberated in “open marriages”?), to you building your argument on our backs, to the idea that it is because we “[want] to give it up”.

Monogamous partnering and parenting — even the attachment parenting you so loathe and deride — have not limited my passion for sex, for orgasm, for physical connection with my lover and life partner (which are, please note, three different, though oft related, things). But if I were constantly held up in measurement against your visions of sex, your ideas of passion, your standards for sexuality, I might declare surrender and pretend disinterest as well.

Women, and women with children especially, do not need yet another person (and one who claims the title “feminist”, claims to be on our side, at that) telling us what and how we’re doing “wrong”, especially in regards to sex. But if you ever want to come ask what my life is like, why I chose the life and parenting I do, what constraints I live under, and how you could help me work toward liberation, well, I’ll be over here.

Just be sure to knock first. Because I might be otherwise occupied.

55 Comments | Posted on 11 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Parenting | Tags: attachment parenting, FAIL, Gender, misogyny, mother blame, Privilege, sex, Sexuality, societal pressures, USA

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Transgender Child Awareness Week: December 5-11, 2010

Thanks to a tip from reader-and-friend Janelle, today I attended a benefit for TransActive, an entirely volunteer-run organization supporting transgender/gender non-conforming children and youth. It is one of the only such organizations in existence, started here in Portland, Oregon, and serving families in the Pacific Northwest and all over the USA. While there, I was blessed with witnessing Portland Mayor Sam Adams proclaim December 5-11 2010 as Transgender Child Awareness Week; this is the first such declaration from a government agency recognizing transgender children anywhere in the United States of America, and possibly in the world. (Please correct me if you know of other such proclamations.)

The text of the proclamation:

Whereas, TransActive Education & Advocacy, founded by Jenn Burleton, Hayley Klug and Kaig Lightner is based in Portland and is an international leader in providing education, services, advocacy and research that benefits transgender and gender non-conforming children, youth and their families; and

Whereas, transgender and gender non-conforming children and youth are among the least understood, most marginalized and underserved of populations despite constituting at least one percent of all children and youth; and

Whereas, isolation, marginalization and rejection contribute to alarmingly high rates of depression, low self-esteem and suicidal ideation experienced by transgender and gender non-conforming children and youth; and

Whereas, transgender children who receive the love and support of their families, friends, neighbors, communities, schools and culture have every opportunity to thrive and be successful; and

Whereas, transgender children and youth have identities that are, in every way as authentic, valid and natural as cisgender children and youth; and

Whereas, transgender adolescents deserve access to pediatric medical care and healthcare coverage that affords them the opportunity to experience physical puberty in a way that is congruent with their gender identity; and

Whereas, all Oregon children and youth are guaranteed the right to express their gender identity as they experience it by the Oregon Equality Act, and they have the right to be educated in a safe, respectful and supportive school environment as required by the Oregon Safe School Act.

Now, therefore, I, Sam Adams, Mayor of the City of Portland, Oregon, the “City of Roses,” do hereby proclaim December 5 through December 11, 2010 to be Transgender Child Awareness Week in Portland, and encourage all residents to observe this week.

I originally had three giant and boring paragraphs here, but I shall replace them with two slightly less giant and I hope not so boring points:

1) Parents, this is our deal. It’s not something for those people over there to worry about or pay attention to; we’re the ones raising the next generation of trans kids right now. By the time trans kids are aware enough to tell us that the gender we have assigned them into is not what they know themselves to be (if ever they work up that courage), we have had thousands of opportunities to affirm that we love them, that there is a vibrant and diverse and beautiful transgender community, that genitals do not equal gender, that their worth is not dependent on their adherence to our assignment of their gender, that “male” and “female” are sometimes useful generalizations but not at all strict, easy to recognize, or discrete categories, that gender roles are meant to be broken, that we will always love them: do not miss these chances. If it turns out yours is a transgender child, think of how much easier this will make hir life; if it turns out yours is a cisgender child, s/he will grow up all the better off for these early lessons, and hir transgender peers will be safer for it. Don’t wait until you know your child is trans; don’t leave all the work to parents of transgender kids: start now.

2) Please, if you are able, contribute to TransActive. None of the people running it make a single cent off all their work they do for transgender and gender non-conforming children in Portland, the Pacific Northwest, and all across the United States, though they deserve to; all of the funds go to running and expanding their programs and their ability to help transgender youth. The success of this organization, one of the only of its kind, can lead the way for other organizations like it, and through them we can make the world a better, safer place for transgender kids and adults. If there is an organization in your state or country that supports trans youth, let me know about it in the comments, and help them in whatever ways you can.

The official declaration of Transgender Child Awareness Week might only apply here in the City of Roses, but please take this opportunity to educate yourself, your friends, and your community, and to support those working to make the world a little less hostile a place to grow up transgender.