Don’t worry, we’re still the same blog you’ve always loved, we’ve just expanded our ethos a little. I don’t really identify as a mother (I am transgender) but I am a parent just the same, and I realised that the old title – Mothers For Women’s Lib – might have alienated male and genderqueer parents and implied that feminism works solely for women. Of course we know that feminism works for everyone, in an attempt to destroy kyriarchy and patriarchy. So we’ve rebranded as Parenting Against the Patriarchy, and I hope you’ll enjoy our new vision.

Also we’re looking for writers! If you’re a parent or carer of any gender and you have something to say, whether you’d like to be a guest blogger or a regular contributor, shoot me an email; I’d love to have you on board!

Here’s your chance to request a post. You tell me what you’d like a feminist parent’s perspective on, and I’ll make sure it happens. Go go go!

I had a couple more thoughts about this. The first is that it’s pretty heterosexist to assume all women of childbearing age are likely to have sex with men; it completely erases the existence of lesbians and asexual people. Alongside this is the reality that not all women have the capacity to become pregnant (trans women and infertile cis women spring to mind) and many men do.

The second thought I had was “oh gods, another psychiatrist who has absolutely no clue about the safety of psychiatric medication in pregnancy and breastfeeding”. You see, I spent a pregnancy taking antidepressants, with my doctor’s approval. I am currently taking antidepressants and antipsychotics, while trying to conceive, with the complete support of my psychiatrist. If my psychiatrist can see that the benefits to my mental health outweigh the risks to a potential foetus, why can’t this doctor?

Unfortunately I am aware that there are fewer doctors and psychiatrists like mine than I’d like there to be. The majority, unfortunately, are ignorant and uneducated about the safety of various medications in pregnancy – give me a copy of Hale and I’d be more informed than they are! Even many drugs considered “contraindicated” are normally safe, and there are levels of safety to be considered, rather than a simple dichotomy between “safe” and “NEVER safe”. But, not wanting to break the illusion of Doctor/Psychiatrist As All Knowing God Figure, they basically make things up and impose a blanket ban on medications during pregnancy because it would harm their precious egos to admit they’re not sure and then go and look it up.

It’s pretty scary to think that a lot of doctors are going to see this psychiatrist’s report and see that it reinforces their own misguided opinions, and that women’s mental health care might be in jeopardy as a result. It just feels like a huge step back in both the rights of women as human beings, and the rights of the mentally ill to receive treatment for their illnesses. As someone who comes under both categories, I can only hope that more doctors and psychiatrists take the time to admit their ignorance and educate themselves about the real risk factors of psychiatric medications to foetuses.

Reblogged from Reel Girl:

Tired of sexed-up, "cute," and endless princesses and rainbow fairies marketed to your daughters on Halloween?

A Mighty Girl has put together a great collection of awesome costumes.

My three year old is super- psyched to be Batgirl. We actually own this, but I bought a new one because ours is worn, ripped,  and missing parts.

(Of course, potential Batgirl enthusiasts would be helped along if there were multiple Batgirl movies and derivative toys, games, and clothing.

Read more… 33 more words

Autonomy doesn’t automatically mean enlightenment. Responsible ownership must include education — seat belts and bike helmets must be worn, vegetables need to be eaten, hands must be held in busy parking lots, hair must be brushed. I insist that she do these things not to assert dominance over her but because, as her mother, it is my job to teach her how to care for the frame that her persona will inhabit for her entire life.

Having her own body is a privilege. I want her to discover that her body is capable of amazing things. I want her to feel the power that comes with a sense of total control over her own private and finite space in the world. The sense of satisfaction that comes with enthusiastic consent, and the feeling of self worth that comes with a firmly stated “No.” The ability to exercise that control over her anatomy is one that comes with time, but it is her birthright.

Click here to read the full article.

When a heterosexual couple with children decide to part ways, sometimes they come to an amicable conclusion as to who will be the ‘parent with care’; that is, the parent with whom the child or children will live most of the time. But sometimes, when things are more acrimonious, it is up to a court to decide who ‘gets custody’ of the children. And yes, a lot of the time, it ends up being the mother who becomes the parent with care. And yes, on the surface this doesn’t seem fair…

…until you look into why she gets given custody. You see, the legal system isn’t skewed in favour of women because it necessarily decrees that women are automatically better or more important parents. Instead, it looks at what will cause the least disruption to the children’s lives. We live in a patriarchal society which tells us that the only valuable thing a woman can do with her time is to raise her husband or boyfriend’s children. Childcare is “women’s work”. So in the vast majority of families with a mother and a father, it is the mother who has been doing the lion’s share of the childcare since the first days of their children’s lives.

So of course, a court looks at a family’s situation and says, who are these kids used to being with most of the time? If the father has been a stay-at-home-dad, the court will award him custody of the children, because that would cause the least disruption to their lives. But we know this isn’t usually the case, so because the kids are accustomed to being cared for by Mum most of the time, they are left in the full-time care of Mum – not because courts are discriminating against Dad, but because it’s easier on the children.

So the next time some dude starts moaning at you about how his kids (or his brother’s kids, or his buddy’s kids) were ‘given’ to their mother unfairly, ask him who had been doing most of the childcare before the relationship came to an end, and point out to him that perhaps if we lived in a less sexist society which emphasised the importance of fathers caring for their children as well as mothers, things might have been more ‘fair’.

I saw a link on Pinterest today about a game to play with your children to teach them good table manners and ensure ‘good behaviour’ when eating out. In the game, each person at the table (adults and children) gets three lolly sticks. If you (child or adult) ‘catch’ someone breaking a ‘table rule’, you get one of their lolly sticks. The person with the most lolly sticks at the end of the meal is the winner.

Now this isn’t about my discomfort at trying to push an adult model of behaviour onto children who are behaving age-appropriately when they exhibit ‘bad behaviour’. I think there’s enough room in allowing kids to act age-appropriately to also teach them the way in which they will need to behave as they grow older in order to be accepted by the rest of society. No, my issue is with the way this game was worded in the blog post in question; the writer says “My kids love this game. It is the only time they are “authorized” to correct Mom and Dad.” Later the writer adds, “Also, remind them that ordinarily they are not allowed to correct adults. They may only due so during the Manners Game.”

Now I’m not picking on this writer specifically – he or she was just the latest in a long list of writers, and people I’ve met in real life, who adhere to the belief that children should never correct adults. The idea, I think, is that children are obliged to respect adults and that they should show this respect by never correcting them, even if the adult in question is clearly doing or saying something that is wrong.

I have two problems with this. The first is that adults automatically deserve respect from their children. Wee Chum is seven now, an age where he is properly carving out his own identity in a world that expects him to behave in ways that don’t necessarily fit with his instincts. He has, I feel, a great deal of respect for me, my husband, his father and most of, if not all, the other adults (and children!) in his life. But I’ve never demanded respect from him. I remind him not to be nasty or rude, and I model respectful behaviour to him, and above all else I ensure I behave in a way that means I earn his respect.

Because really, I don’t automatically truly respect any person I meet. This is a two-part statement. Firstly, I think everyone is deserving of some level of respect (respect for their bodily autonomy, respect for their beliefs, etc), whether they are adults or children. But the sort of respect that these people are talking about – the respect an adult “should” be shown by a child – that sort of respect, I think, should be earned. I want my son to respect me because he admires me as a person, because I do and say things that he finds worthy of respect – not simply because he is forced to by expectation.

My second problem is that somehow children are less entitled to point out another’s wrongdoing than adults. As a parent, I think nothing of telling Chum that he’s doing something wrong, be that chewing with his mouth open, not letting another child have a turn on the slide, or being rude to somebody. What makes it all right for me to correct him, but not for him to correct me? He is, after all, a human being, no more or less a person than I am. I am very comfortable in the fact that Chum feels confident and comfortable enough with me to correct me if I do something wrong. The thing that comes to mind straight away is swearing. I try not to swear around him, but if I do he reminds me that swearing is not allowed in our house. And I don’t tell him off for telling me off. I apologise, because he’s right!

This can have further reaching consequences than the writer, and others who feel children should never correct adults, might have foreseen. For what if an adult was to abuse that child who’s been told to give blind respect and never question an adult’s words or actions? Knowing Chum is not afraid to speak out when an adult does something he knows is wrong, means I am a little more confident that he would be able to say “No”, that he would be able to tell that adult that his or her behaviour was wrong, and that he would be able to come to me or another trusted adult and tell us what has happened.

So there’s my tuppence-worth on the idea that children should never correct adults. I think that to raise honest human beings who aren’t afraid to speak out when they see bad things happening, we need to start by telling children they have the right to speak out, and that even adults get things wrong sometimes. What do you think?

Edit: I had an email today from the writer of the blog post I referenced, and she has also replied to my comment on her post: “I meant that normally we don’t let them correct adults at the table. It is a little embarrasing when we are at someone’s house and they point at the host and say, “You are chewing with your mouth open!” Lol. Of course they are aloud to tell us if someone is doing something seriously wrong. We just want to show them that there is a time when we don’t tell other adults they are having bad manners.” She makes a good point here and I am grateful to her for the clarification!

Not for girls.

Not for boys.

We make clothes for children.

I love this slogan. It sums up everything I want in a clothing store for my child. We gender children’s clothing way before there is much in the way of difference between body shapes, to the extent that even clothing that we might describe as “neutral” (no bows and ribbons; no skulls and crossbones) is gendered by the colour it is (olive green for boys, pale yellow for girls, for example; even blue clothing, for example, has a “girl” shade and a “boy” shade), and vice versa (and orange top, for example, will be marked as “girl” or “boy” by either a subtle puffing up of the sleeves or a small car motif, for example). And it will be gendered, in most shops, by actually putting clothes in different aisles according to gender. (In my local Asda, for example, “boy” and “girl” clothes are even separated by the service counter!) And I’m sick of it and have been sick of it for a long time. (Also, lest we forget, “boy” and “girl” are not the only two genders in the world; we also don’t know for certain that our female assigned child is a girl, and our male assigned child is a boy, until they tell us, which relies on them having the words and us listening. So talking about “children” makes much more sense!)

So in terms of slogan and the idea behind it, Polarn O. Pyret gets my vote. Also in terms of placement within online store; clothes are sorted by type (trouser, dress, top, etc) rather than by gender. This is exactly how I want to search for clothes for my child; does he need a new pair of trousers? Let’s look at trousers then; rather than having to sort by boy or by girl, I can get the full range and choose for myself.

The clothes also look to be of a good quality; outdoorsy, rough and tumble clothes rather than decorative (actually, I don’t have a problem with decorative, and most children enjoy self-adornment; it’s when it’s limited to one gender that I’ve a problem).

The only drawback? The price. And here’s the thing; once again, being able to afford to support a shop with such important ideals, being able to dress your child in good quality, ethically sourced clothing, is very much the privilege of those with a certain amount of money. For example, should I want to buy my child a pair of trousers, I’m looking at over thirty quid. I couldn’t even justify spending thirty quid on a pair of kecks for myself, let alone a child that’s going to grow out of them in about a year’s time.

I do understand why places like this are expensive; it’s not cheap to be ethical, it’s not cheap to care about who makes the clothes you sell and it isn’t cheap to care about where the material in your clothes comes from. I get that; I’m glad they exist even though they’re way out of my price range. I hope parents (and anyone who buys clothes for children) with money will support this store as much as possible.

What doesn’t cost a company money, however, is having a unisex slogan like Polarn O. Pyret; it also doesn’t cost money to sort clothes by size and type rather than by gender. I hope the kind of companies I can afford to shop at follow suit. I might even add one or two bought pieces to my child’s lovely pre-loved hand-me-down collection then!

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.