On Bandaids

The super-awesome mommy who is taking care of my daughter until school gets out offered her a Spider-Man bandaid today for her stubbed toe. My daughter insisted that no, Spider-Man was for boys.

This, from the daughter of a mom who dressed her in neutral clothing as a baby, who makes sure the toy collection contains as many cars as it does dolls, who herself challenges gender roles whenever possible.

Clearly no amount of counter-indoctrination on my part can successfully shield my daughter from internalizing gender stereotypes. 

But I think differently about shielding kids than I used to. I took a grad class that reaffirmed the disastrous effects on children of racial and gender stereotypes in film, in advertising, on TV. A lot of us in the class were young parents, and one of us asked, despairingly, how we could possibly shield our own children from this. 

"You can't," my professor replied, herself a mother of four. She suggested that our kids will pick up those stereotypes regardless of our best efforts to shield them. Her advice was to acknowledge the stereotypes, engage in conversation about them, train our children from an early age to view media critically, rather than chasing the impossible goal of shielding our children from the media.

So I'm grateful to the women and men in my daughter's life who confront gender stereotypes. I'm thankful for my friend who argued back today: No, it's not. I'm a girl and I like Spider-Man.

I was talking to an acquaintance online, and he discussed the evolution of his own understanding of gender. He has gradually developed a more egalitarian belief system than he was raised with. And I'm glad for him. Because it's more than Hot Wheels and action figures. How we grown-ups talk, subtly, about what's for boys and what's for girls affects the careers our sons and daughters will choose. It affects the way they will interact in the workplace-it has affected the way I interact at my workplace, despite my best feminist intentions. It affects how our kids treat their friends, their partners, themselves. 

This is my daughter playing cars. She also plays dolls. That's really not the point.

So Sweet of That

This week's current events will be a little more local - actually, extremely local.

My daughter was with the same childcare providers from 11 to 32 months of age - or, in teacher terms, for two whole school years. This week, her teachers are moving back to the wife's hometown. And I am learning a lot about the complex emotional life of a two-year-old undergoing her first experience of loss.

Two days ago, she was sullen on the car ride home. As I was getting her out of her car seat, I asked her if she was sad. Her reply: I'm sad because Becky and John are moving away.

Ouch. Until she said that, I really believed she had only a vague concept, if any, of what was happening. But no, these are her friends, and she's sad they're moving away.

I never used to really understand parents wanting to pretend everything was okay in the world, to keep their kids happy at all times. How artificial, I used to think, how emotionally dishonest.

Then I had a little girl who was heartbroken because she missed her friends, and I had to force myself to admit to her that I was sad about it too, when all I wanted to do was make things be okay. We sat around and talked. She painted a picture.

Tonight, we talked about it again. I asked her if she felt sad. Yeah, she said, but I'm a little bit happy, too.

Why, baby?

Because they loved me. And then, the biggest toddler compliment she knows: They're so sweet of that.

So that's where I will stand too. Sad, but happy.

11 months old - first week of school.

32 months old - last week of school.

Botched

Sometimes shit is so messed up, you have to start a new blog.

Botched execution.

Two words that drip with meaning.

Don’t read the comments, I tell myself, don’t read the comments, don’t read the comments.

I read the comments. The comments keep me up all night.

Legions of self-proclaimed Christians call the incident God’s will, call it the guy getting what he deserved, argue that it wasn’t botched at all, he’s dead isn’t he.

One commenter suggests the condemned prisoner pulled this stunt on purpose. Dehydrated himself so he’d blow a vein. Suggests he planned this.

To the governor’s chagrin, other planned executions are on hold until they can figure out how to prevent another unfortunate incident like this one.

To the governor’s chagrin, the state must temporarily stop killing prisoners until they can find a way to kill them that looks less brutal.

I read the way European outlets report this story. Another frowny face for the USA, for the state I made my home for eight years. Mentally I rank where our country now stands, globally. I lie in bed and think of escape routes. Canada. The forest. For if the shit hits the fan.

I wanna know what version of the Bible we’re reading that tells us this is Christlike.

I wanna know what version of the U.S. Constitution we’re reading that tells us this is legal.

And right now, I'm not even mildly interested in entertaining conversation about what this man did, about how violent and heinous his actions were. He was A Bad Guy. The State is The State. When our leaders act worse than our murderers, where do we go from there.