How a purple fairy helped our son ditch his pacifier for good
I noticed that my son’s addiction and attachment to his binky/pacifier (“smukk”) was starting to become just as much of a security blanket for me and my husband as for himself. We had great plans of keeping it to night — and naptimes only, but often it was brought out during extenuating circumstances like boo-boos, travels, car-rides, transitions times etc. Then it became a fight. We were not consistent about our rules, so the screaming and tantrums would often elicit more willingness to dig it out of the pocket.
“Which restroom should I use?” Challenges facing transgender children in public schools
The absurdity of it never fails to strike me — my child can’t attend public school because he has no place to pee? The intent behind forcing a seven-year-old boy into the girl’s restroom can only be to shame, and this shaming carries with it a violent hatred that has broken bones, taken lives.
Convincing my five-year-old daughter that boys can like pink
We’re friends with a family with a somewhat gender-variant son, Q, who likes pink and wears his hair long. Our five-year-old daughter, Leigh, has played with Q a few times, and thinks he’s fabulous, and specifically asks if we can play with him again after we see them. She also insists that he is a girl.
Taking a trip out of the country without my kid rocked my world
I feel I’ve done a great job (or at least, one that I am very happy with) maintaining a sense of ME since becoming a mother, but it’s good to see that my son also has a sense of HIM that doesn’t depend on whether or not I’m there, physically guiding him through it. It’s a comforting thing to know that if you leave for a day or seven that your child will keep trucking on — and to know that he or she will also be over the moon when you get back.
Our great adventure: traveling and starting a family
We left Seattle/Tacoma to try out Eastern Oregon rural living a few years ago, thinking that we would probably settle down and start a family shortly thereafter. We became small-town homebodies of a sort, and if there was ever a form of “adult nesting” out there, I think we were trying to practice it. We even rented a larger home expecting that the guest room would eventually turn into a nursery. All of this completely great because it was a future that we both truly wanted — a family life.
Reflections on the difficulties of pregnancy by a Roman Catholic feminist
Now that I’m actually pregnant, I’m realizing it’s not quite that easy. I actually really dislike being pregnant. I felt awful for the first four-and-a-half months. By “awful,” I mean specifically that I thought I was going to throw up at any moment around the clock. I often did, and when I didn’t I usually felt even worse. I couldn’t open my refrigerator door, I couldn’t cook or prepare my own food, I couldn’t food shop — the smells were too intense and the nausea was too debilitating. I didn’t feel like I was having a baby… I felt like I had become the baby.
So you just found out your teen is gay? Rule one: don’t freak out
My parents “discovered” that I might be gay when I was 14. I left a Yahoo! chat conversation with my first mutual crush open, and my mother (being the vigilant snoop that she is) happened upon it. Now, don’t get me wrong — I absolutely think monitoring your children’s online activities is an ok thing to do. However, based on my own experience with my parents, I recommend calmly discussing any “questionable” behavior instead of attacking your child when he or she is expressing their inherent sexuality.
The ups and downs of step-and-biological parenting in tandem
Eight years ago I became a stepmother to two kids. We share their care with their biological mother — they’re half with us, half with her. At the time, my step-son was eight and my step-daughter was four. Step-parenting has by turns been the most awesome and the hardest shit I’ve done in my life — it is second only to having my “own” child. Here are a few of my positive (and negative) experiences.