Mothers For Women’s Lib

Welcome to the twelfth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting!

Sorry it’s late – I intended to get working on it on Saturday but my computer’s graphics card chose that day for its capacitor to burst open rendering my entire PC useless! Thankfully my partner came to the rescue, bought and installed a new graphics card and I’m now able to get on with the Carnival. Unfortunately life has been very busy (as it always is with kids around!) so this is the first moment I’ve had available to sit down and properly work on it. So my deepest apologies for the tardiness, I hope you’ll all forgive me!

I’m ashamed to say it’s a lazy Carnival this time round; usually I write a sentence or two describing what each post is about but I simply do not have the spoons. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a bumper issue this time around – I believe I’ve had nearly seventy submissions! So make sure you have a couple of hours spare, make yourself a nice cup of tea and sit down to enjoy all the wonderful pieces included in this edition.

Pregnancy and Childbirth

• When fighting rape culture means changing birth culture posted at Spilt Milk.
• Who Cares About Pregnant Women? posted at Her Authority.
• Another Doula Ban, Another Bad Birth Plan posted at Birthing Beautiful Ideas.
• Birth Trauma Can Cause Women to Develop PPD & PTSD posted at Associated Content.
• Reclaiming Birth, and the Albany Midwives posted at London Anarchafeminist Kolektiv.

Adoption

• Adoption, Race, Disability and the Vaule of People posted at The Trouble Is….

Bodily Autonomy

• Pregnant Women to be Tested for Smoking posted at Feminist Philosophers.
• Who Owns a Woman’s Body Pt 2 – Pregnancy posted at Finding Summer.
• Fragments of Evolving Manhood: Do You Like Your Body 4 (More on the Expendability of the Foreskin) posted at Alas, a blog.
• Honey, I poked holes in all the condoms posted at f/law.
• A different sort of female genital mutilation posted at Morrígan Reborn.

Reproductive Freedom

• My Mother’s Abortion Improved All of Our Lives posted at Women’s eNews.
• The love is the same; it’s the parenting that’s different. posted at abortionclinicdays.
• Word to the wise: Never date a guy who reads Details posted at Feministe.
• The Horror of Forced Abortions and Sterilizations in China posted at Women’s Rights Change.
• “Un bebé no se hace solita, or, You can’t make a baby by yourself” posted at Womanist Musings.

Breastfeeding

• What does feminism have to do with breastfeeding? posted at Breastfeeding Medicine.
• A Dad’s View on Breastfeeding posted at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma.
• Society is creepy (not breastfeeding) posted at PhD in Parenting.
• Breastfeeding is a feminist issue posted at Spilt Milk.
• normalizing breastfeeding through solidarity? posted at Living Peacefully With Children.
• Small fries, a coke and a McBreast please. posted at wood turtle.

Gender Stereotypes

• Where’s Mom? posted at Shakespeare’s Sister.
• It’s a boy! posted at Think Mama Think.
• Do we pigeon hole our children early on? posted at Single Mummy.
• I’m a little teapot posted at Living Peacefully With Children.

Motherhood

• Feminism Beyond the Veil posted at Courtroom Mama.
• Cyberbullying not just for kids: moms get bullied too posted at Feminist Mom in Montreal.
• My classes must be over because this post is damn long. posted at Bitch. Ph.D.
• Mother’s Day in the War on Terror posted at Sajid Malick Blog.
• Paris-Ankara Express: The Weekend Charter posted at Paris-Ankara Express.

Fatherhood

• Review: Do Men Mother? posted at A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land.
• Guest post: It’s a MAD dad world posted at fertilefeminism.com.

Fat and Sizeism

• Where the Fight Against Child Obesity Can Go Very, Very Wrong posted at Huffington Post.
• Do Overweight Pregnant Women Need Separate High-Risk Hospitals? posted at Unnecesarean.

Employment Choices

• Tell me something I didn’t know already posted at In a strange land.
• Yes, I am a feminist housewife posted at Offbeat Mama.
• EU rules on pregnant workers’ pay posted at BBC World News.
• Me, a Radical Homemaker? posted at Laura Grace Weldon.
• Is stay at home motherhood a class issue? posted at used to be somebody.
• Downing Street goes family (time) friendly posted at Fertile Feminism.

News and Media

• I Can Slay the Jabberwocky! Disney’s New Alice Serves as a Strong Role Model for Girls posted at DisZine.
• Why My Daughter Doesn’t Watch Disney Movies posted at domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew.
• Birth and Breastfeeding in Season 1 of Lost posted at Birthcycle.
• Sexualised Girls and Macho Heroes – Gender Depictions in Children’s TV posted at Goethe Gender.

Race and Racism

• If You’re Not In Prison and Not Making Babies What Are you Doing? posted at Womanist Musings.
• Quick Hit on Hair: Not-White Is Not Other posted at Raising My Boychick.
• Daycare Subsidy and the “Good Single Mother” posted at Womanist Musings.
• My Daughter, Her Hair, and the Seattle School District posted at The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Disability and Ableism

• Too Disabled To See Your Children posted at Womanist Musings.
• This Is Not Education: Abuse of Autistic Students in Pennsylvania posted at FWD/Forward.
• ‘Crazy’ Mother Kills Presumably Autistic Son, Media Reports posted at Astrid’s Journal.
• Signing with my baby posted at BBC – Ouch! (disability).

Sex and Sexuality

• Trans Children – Challenging the Myths posted at UnCommon Sense.
• Is That a Boy or a Girl?: Talking to Kids About Gender posted at Womanist Musings.
• No, You Mean to be Hateful to Gay People posted at Womanist Musings.
• Kids of lesbians have fewer behavioral problems, study suggests posted at CNN Health.
• Nudity and Gender posted at Finding Summer.
• The hypocrite in the room: Views on female sexuality posted at fertilefeminism.com.

Sex Education

• Protecting Boys with Condoms for Kids posted at Sociological Images.
• Rape discussed at school: shocking or sensible? posted at We Mixed Our Drinks.
• What kind of mirror did your mom make you look at your vagina with? posted at Feministe.
• Rape myths debated in schools posted at Pickled Politics.

Children’s Rights

• My Child Takes Up Space posted at Womanist Musings.
• Children Take Up Space (and Notice When We Don’t Notice) posted at random babble….
• Hay festival video: ‘No child is born a criminal’ posted at Comment is Free.

Miscellaneous

• Because I’m a mother now… posted at Surges of a Heart.
• India’s Growing Surrogacy Trade Faces New Restrictions posted at Time Magazine.
• Kids: screw ‘em posted at Pandagon.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! Submit your (or someone else’s) blog post or article to the next edition using our carnival submission form or by sending a Twitter message to @m4wl. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our carnival home page.

I’ve been a bit grumpy since I got home from the doctor.  OH assumed it was from the speculum prodding, but when I growled at an old man who gave me a funny look, I got asked ‘What is the matter with you anyway?’

I didn’t want to tell him because it was embarrassing.  Eventually admitted that a rather nosey middle aged woman outside the doctors surgery had said something that had got my back up.  The gem I got from her, as I was smoking a cigarette was ‘You shouldn’t smoke when you’re pregnant’.

This had the quadruple whammy of being OFFENSIVE, JUDGEMENTAL, WRONG and also just plain NONE OF HER DAMN BUSINESS.

I gave her a withering look and informed her that actually, I’m not pregnant, just fat.  It will forever irritate me that some people seem to have the idea that women cannot possibly be allowed to be fat unless they are pregnant.  I also told her that I have two health conditions which cause my stomach to be bloated, and that comments such as hers didn’t particularly help.  I then continued on to say that in fact, it was none of her damn business even if I was pregnant and smoking, because she’s a complete stranger and it has nothing to do with her.

I don’t think people should smoke when they are pregnant.  However, being pregnant was a very stressful time physically and emotionally for me, and it would be been quite understandable for me to have a cigarette, which I still didn’t do.  I may have the occasional wibble when I see a pregnant woman smoking, but I remind myself of several important facts.

-Firstly, it really is NONE OF MY BUSINESS.  It’s not up to me to tell strangers what to do.

-It could be her only cigarette of the day.  She could be quitting or cutting down.  Maybe she’s decided that one cigarette a day is a good compromise when she’s previously been smoking 40 a day and the one that she has stops her wanting to put peoples head through windows.  Both pregnancy and quitting smoking make you want to do those things, combined isn’t going to be much fun.

-I have no idea what stress she’s under, what her life is like, if her pregnancy is easy or if she is suffering.  It’s not up to me to judge peoples coping mechanisms.

I would much prefer people didn’t smoke when they are pregnant.  However, your lungs filter out most of the toxins as does the placenta, so I’m not going to begrudge someone a cigarette, no matter how many people turn their nose up at this.  Women who smoke FREQUENTLY AND REGULARLY are at risk of complications with themselves and a baby.  But one cigarette is not frequently or regularly, and you cannot assume this from a chance meeting on the street.  Even if you can see someone smoking a lot, maybe sat in the garden of a pub or a club, it still remains none of your damn business (as well as all the other points above).

Above and beyond this, I am amazed and horrified at the absolute GALL of some people.  I would never presume to comment in this fashion because my delicate sensibilities were offended by something they were doing, unless it was extremely dangerous/immoral/unsanitary/illegal.  I accost people that let their dogs shit on the floor and make no pretence that they are going to clean it up.  I take issue with people being violent to each other in public.  I get annoyed at people that pee in alleyways or puke in the street when they are drunk.

But people, whether or not YOU like it, a pregnant person still has her own mind, her own personality, her own body and her own choices.  She still exercises control over these things and she doesn’t become a walking incubator, subject to the whims, orders and opinions of others when she decides to bear children.  Smoking when pregnant is not illegal.  So if you see it and get your frown on, remember it’s none of your damn business and walk away.

The only person whose choices you control are yours.  Don’t want to smoke when you are pregnant?  Fine then, don’t.  But you’re not such a special snowflake that you get the deciding vote over what other human beings are allowed to do.

I can’t believe I forgot to post this here at the time!

I wrote a post for The F Word titled How do you teach a child about sex? discussing the ways in which I am doing sex education with my young son and asking readers how they’re doing the same. So far the conversation there has been great, and I’d love to hear your input too.