children

I saw the documentary Jesus Camp on A&E last night. This part really got to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefXbLXlRpw

Later in the film the children stand in front of the capital with the word "Life" taped over their mouths.

I'm not against children being in political rallies or being involved in political action. If my daughter asked me at young age what abortion was I would explain it to her. This kind of propaganda is dangerous. The way in which the woman says "don't be a promise breaker" is scary. Such a small sentence, but it could have a huge impact for the girls that are in that room and then young boys that are "warriors for Jesus".

When I first found out I was having a girl, I promptly ordered everyone not to buy her pink stuff. No pink dresses, no pink strollers, no pink blankets or toys. NO PINK.

Of course, after she was born every single item of clothing she received was pink. Pink with love birds, pink with teddy bears, pink bunnies, pink socks with hearts! I was really upset. I couldn't imagine forcing my daughter to wear pink, just because she was a girl.

I guess you could say I am a strong believer in general neutrality. I planned on everything being yellow and green. I didnt want my daughter to have a gender complex before she was even old enough to know her gender. I didn't want my daughter to be held down by the expectations of what a girl should be. I thought lots of other parents felt the same way. I kept seeing gender neutral car seats, playpens, baby furniture etc. But then I got it. All the expensive stuff was gender neutral so it could be used by several children of different genders. All the clothing was gender specific so people would tell which gender the child was. After all most parents hate it when people call they're child the wrong gender.

The Higher Power of Lucky is about a 10-year-old girl tapping into the power of herself. It was so powerful, apparently, that it won the Newbery Award.

But, like always, the parents came after it. What was Susan Patron's (the author) crime? She wrote about scrotum. Specifically, she wrote about an accident where a snake bites a dog on the scrotum.

Was it used in a sexual manner? No. Was it inappropriate? Not if you think that simply revealing a medical term to refer to one's body is inappropriate. What is wrong with speaking frankly about a part of one's body that half of our kids have already?

Last night my boyfriend and I attended a holiday party that was being thrown by the company he works for. It was my first night out since having the baby. So like at most adult functions, one of the first questions people asked me was "So, what do YOU do?"...what I could I say... that I was a student, a graphic designer (that's what my boyfriend keeps calling me, but so far the only things I have 'graphically designed' have been ideas for political buttons), a knitwear designer, a blogger, an artist, or heck just admit I was unemployed? Instead I said words I never thought I would say, "Well I guess I'm a stay-at-home mom right now". Just writing these words make me cringe.

It's been said that gender roles aren't really defined in children until they are four or five years old, and wouldn't be nearly so extreme if it weren't for pressure from parents and peers- e.g., a Family Almanac column in my local paper featured parents that were extremely worried over their 3-year-old son's interest in Disney Princesses. I support the notion that it isn't the kids themselves that learn these roles, and here's a small anecdote to support that:

I babysit a little girl fairly regularly. She's going through a phase now where she likes to play House, and insisted that she got to be the mommy (I got to be the daddy), and a stuffed animal of hers named Love was the baby. After these decisions and after hosting a party "for the neighbuhs," she put on a pair of fancy shoes that were impossibly large for her, some binoculars, a doctor's kit, and a hat.

Now that the summer is here (apparently... I havnt even been able to wear shorts yet!) I have been madly working 3 jobs to save up so I can get out of here next year and on that (oh so long awaited) plane to Vancouver. One of those jobs, which is my very favourite, is nannying for three awesome little children, two little girls ,Molly (4) and Frances (2), and the baby boy Darcy (9 months). I have been there for over a month now, and I love those kids, I have known their parents for years and so they already knew me before I started and they are just such a cool family.

There were a couple of incidents that really have had me thinking over the past little while, and I was hoping to get some discussion on these things. The other day, I was dropping Molly off at kindergarten, I had little Frances and Darcy with me in their push chair. Earlier that day, Molly and Frances had been playing with a butterfly stamp, stamping each others hands, one of them (probably Frances!)put a stamp on Darcy's cheek just as we were running out the door to walk to kindergarten. We get in the gate to kindergarten when one of the other mothers stopped and told me he (Darcy) had something on his cheek, saying I should take it off soon because "its a butterfly and thats not a really good look on a little boy". She was not the first to say something like that whilst we were at kindergarten.

This summer I have spent most of my days working with children and their often more annoying parents.

I direct children's activities at resort in Myrtle Beach. Me and my co-workers have a room in which we paint, colour, play games and make complete fools of ourselves for the entertainment of our clients.

A lot of times parents come in and the room is sheer chaos. Sand is all over the floor, balls are being kicked up to the ceiling, and kids are racing around the too-small room, screaming at the top of their lungs and tripping over chairs.

Often a parent will come in and see their son trying to hit another kid over the head with a shovel and smile. "Boys." They say and hurry back out to the poolside bar.

I want a family. I want a lover, maybe not a husband but I want a lover. I want a son. Is this wrong of me? My family will respect me and I will be a good mother and a good partner.
They have to appreciate me. But still; I want a man and a son.
A huge part of this is Daddy's death. I am now even more aware that I am the last Gunn who can have children. I am also aware that I was named after my grandmother Diane Gunn.
I want a son. I will name him Shane, in honour of Daddy. I want a lover, and someone to help me raise our son. I really want this. A lot of discussion is happening about babies and keeping them away or having them or adopting them.

When I was very young I told my mother that when I grew up I would adopt. Both my sister and my mother thought babies and children were icky when they were little, changing their minds as they got older, but I always knew I wanted children, just not my own.

The night before last I had a very long chat with my mother about babies and pregnancy. I had heard of something that can happen during labour and whilst talking about this with her we started a long discussion on the pros and cons. I had it all about right. As I saw it in my head, the pain, what you went through, how it felt she agreed with. I asked her, concerning the 'magical' side of pregnancy by saying 'Is it like, if you're sat in the garden on a sunny day just relaxing with nothing to do you look down and go ahh, I'm creating life, how magical. But the rest of the time it's horrid?' She said 'Exactly'.

So I'm sure some of ya have heard the name Joy Williams and some of you haven't. As a point of reference she's sort of the latest christian popstar singer. I'm not a huge fan but my sister is and our families know eachother. Anyway we went to eat at her Mommy and Daddy's house one day down at Mount Hermon. My claim to fame? Meh...

So while we were packed in this house of God, my siblings and I happened to be in the living room randomly discussing due to lack of internet or gaming console, and we struck up a bit of conversation that might have better been put off until we got home. It seems worth sharing though I think. To add to the context, Joy's dad happens to be a big hunter. He had pelts and deer heads everywhere. It put my green nature on edge sort of. They seemed unusually accustomed to it though. "The hollow of death," seemed a fit name to me. Anyways, from there stemmed this conversation.

One thing I find difficult to do is take life seriously. That is, when people talk about politics and careers and equal rights I'll argue with them, and take sides and have an opinion, but when I think about it later I think, but what does it matter?

I sometimes feel like a timebomb, waiting to die. I don't say that with fear, I've never been afraid of death and I don't understand my focus on it, but I'm so very aware of it. I don't like making short term plans, or bad decisions, because they distract me from what I really want to do with my life and I want to get on with that. Why? As they always say, I could die tomorrow in a car accident, next week by a freak weather accident, get kidnapped, murdered, or of course just live old and die. Naturally the latter is preferable, though when I consider it I can't help but think of dementia, incapability and the like when I do, which makes me harbour plans to move somewhere where owning a gun is legal when I get to an old age.

This is an important story. I am a proud Torontonian and a proud female. (Can't call myself woman. I'm a girl.) I am a proud Pagan. I stand up for my rights. I want to live in a better world.

So I'm going to tell you about something we do once a year in Toronto. I've only done this once, two years ago. Last year I was busy being in the hospital to do anything.

The closest thing I've ever had to a 'feminist hero' is my grandmother. I admit it, I've always been closer, and looked up more to Daddy. Because he was a wonderful person: he was almost everything I wanted to be in life. But he wasn't rich or anything. I spent that time with him.