https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/upshot/how-to-raise-a-feminist-son.html?_r=2
Staff have Clocked Off at Rantingparents.com
Bollox to Me Time
“Being a parent involves being told off and disrespected on an hourly basis. I have tried throwing drinks in my children’s faces, but it is simply a waste of pinot noir.”
– See more at: http://www.scarymommy.com/me-time/#sthash.mM5Gsua9.dpuf
Gender Stereotyping creates myth that male and female brains are different
Extreme sports and motherhood
Rollerskating whilst caring for a child is not advisable
I do find pushchair-less pedestrians can amble along far too slowly at times, would it be rude to get a horn, or bell to let them know you want to get past? It is your ‘vehicle’ after all. I once tried skating whilst pushing 3 wheeler – prat. Well I only moved to Brighton for the rollerskating facilities, then was barred due to pregnancy. Still don’t do it for fear of breaking wrists (and not being able to carry child) pehaps now he’s walking I can give it another whirl. Have found that motherhood has brought on more ‘preservation of life’ decisions. When faced with a red run on a ‘back in the good ole days’ skiing holiday, I chose life, Why throw myself down a mountain, ridiculous, I might break something, and not be able to look after the children. Stick to blue runs, like a walk in the park.
How long and how far does bedtime take?
Tonight I face booked about…
The particular-ness of a certain member of my family has lead me to take on either the persona of a robot, or silver service waitress in order to make light of his masters incessant, irrationally specific demands.
4 stories, 3 fun mum charm incentives, 2 toilet visits, 1 yellow car, no i mean red car requests later,
Despite having gone the extra mile, might as well be a half marathon, still get the same result. The 'its bedtime now' battle always end in tears. Forget fairy tale endings, more like fairly testing failings. Nevertheless, after Mr Bounce bounced off and banged into Mr Bump, as for Mr Nonsense, he didn't get a look in as Mr Fussy overruled the narrative again, and that was that; fussy old fusspot!
So without further a do, Little Miss Frazzled speed read the final pages, put the book 's' back on the heap of kid carnage and enforced an 'unrequited' kiss on the cheek.
Finally, shutting the door behind her, Little Miss Frazzled, retreated back to her glass of wine and wired herself back into her machine, to find her virtual reality persona there waiting for her, all over again.
Little Miss Frazzled (robot silver service waitress)7 minutes ago · Like · 0 – Bedtime Scenario Score 10/10 for effort. 3/10 Attainment. 1. 4 hours duration.
Campaign to stop retailers categorising toys according to gender
The Entertainer takes down gendered signage – article
Great news and good progress made towards putting an end to retailers categorising toys according to gender. Toy retailer The Entertainer has re categorised the toys it sells and will no longer use gender specific signage.
I’ve been banging on about this for years, basically it boils down to blatant gender stereotyping. It’s rife when you think about it. Labelling toys as pink or blue, girls or boys. Separate aisles for what retailers class as boys or girls toys. Pushing upon them (and parents) stereotypes of what it is to be male or female, right from the off. The rot sets in and girls begin their towards the sparkly world of looking pretty, acting dumb and becoming a princess.
Can’t bear the way they have aisles of pink packaged fluff for girls and label construction or making toys as blue so girls don’t want them because they’re boys toys. In the early years children are oblivious to this, everything is an object to explore, yet to be labelled, everything’s potentially a toy! It’s adults, society that apply the labels and supply the constructs of signified meaning of what the object is.
Children are mirrors and copycats, they want to do as we do, they copy each other and are particularly interested in what the elder ones are doing. This appears to have more sway than what gender the toys are stereotyped as. They may well develop favourites, but its us that decide this is because they are a boy, or a girl. My daughter went from playing with all sorts of bits and bobs, including the predominantly vehicle and construction based hand-me-down toys My youngest has the pick of the bunch and we’d never never even buy him a toy as he’s got all the things they barely played with anyway. And it happens that the best kept and plentiful collections are those of his father. As in his day, kids took care of their toys. Personally I’m happiest playing with the Matchbox vehicles, farm and train set, so its no wonder he ‘s into them too.
Forced between choosing a a pink or a blue low level table once in The Early Learning Centre, I muttered to myself, why don’t they have a yellow, or green, non-gender specific colour and thought how ridiculous that I knew my daughter would want the pink one of course, because blue is a boys colour.
I bought a T shirt in a charity shop, for my daughter. I liked it because it was green and because it had a cool robot on it. When I got home I noticed the writing on it said, ‘only for boys’ , we both agreed this was stupid and she would wear it anyway. Furthermore it served as a good example of ignoring the nonsense and playing, doing, wearing what you like.
Need to sort out the packaging design for toys next.
Let children be children, and toys be toys. Let them decide what they want to play with…. which tends to be a computer or console from 5+ these days. Gaming world dead guilty of gender stereotyping too. Don’t get me started, that’s a whole other ball game !
I could go on, perhaps I will. Pleased in recent years to read others writing and campaigning on this now. Such as the Pink Stinks campaign, (what was that book?) Keep up the good work (will add contacts, groups, campaigns etc)
TBC… tired now and haven’t tidied the toys away yet!
Drawing on Life Experience
The Green Eyed Monster
Bonkers before bedtime
Its that time of day when Brutus goes ballistic with over excitement and you know it’s more than likely going to end in tears. This is when accidents happen.