Black Friday... but first, Thanksgiving!

Okay, okay... we bit. There are a couple of "Black Friday" deals that we just had to move on.

The first is an iPad for Mal. It went on sale last night at 9 PM... it had been $329 until then, and that's still a pretty good price for a brand new iPad. Mal has a 3rd gen tablet now (they're on to the 7th gen at present) because I hadn't wanted to pay full price when we didn't know if he'd like it. We moved on to iPad after Mal got into games that were just killing his $40 Kindle. But now, there are a lot of games he loves, like Sonic Forces, that just aren't compatible with an older iPad. So when we saw they were going to be on sale for $250 last night, we knew now was the time! That's about $100 more than I paid for the older refurb, and it should run everything he wants to play. I just have to get an app to move his game data over. That sound like fun, right?

The other thing we got was a Ninja Foodi Air Fryer Oven. It's basically like a big toaster oven. And it's usually around $250, but was on sale for $229. Then it was even lower for Black Friday (I mean, I bought it Monday... the Monday BEFORE Cyber Monday; I don't question the timing on the savings.), with something like 20% off at Kohl's. Anyway, we got it for $152 AND we got $45 Kohl's Cash to spend next week, so it is almost like we got it for just over $100. D won't use our toaster oven because it is old and smoky. This thing is allegedly easy to clean, and can cook a batch of cookies or a 13-inch pizza. We'd been eyeing the June Oven when it was in pre-release, but it's still $500-700, and that's a lot to spend on a countertop cooker. So I'm super excited about this one!

Now we don't have to do ANYTHING tomorrow, except go pick up the Panda Express I ordered for lunch. We got a 20% off coupon from them on a family feast, and that sounded like it would probably be a welcomed change after Thanksgiving lunch and associated left-overs.

We're going to my parents' for Thanksgiving lunch in a bit. Right now, my guys are still asleep. We're taking some stuff for the younger kids to do (magnets, marble maze, etc.) as well as three dishes made with sweet potatoes: Chocolate cake (the batter was good; the icing was a little meh so I added powdered sugar), savory sweet potato mash with Morningstar Farms "bacon" and Swiss cheese (DELICIOUS!), and sweet potato mac and cheese (D taste-tested this one and pronounced it "so good" accompanied by rapturous eye-roll).

Those dishes are my passive-aggressive way of addressing two things: 1) Sweet potatoes deserve better treatment than marshmallows and cinnamon. (Cinnamon alone is fine; with salt.) 2) Sweet potatoes are GOOD (that one's for my husband). Basically, family love and all that. I mean, I like providing delicious treats everyone will love, too. I think even the kids can appreciate the macaroni (technically pennette) dish; the other might be a little much but if so, I'll gladly polish it off!

James worked from home yesterday, and I got done with my T-day prep pretty early, so we went down to Mozart Coffee Roasters to see their annual holiday light show.

It was a nice evening, and we enjoyed it. The last time we went, Mal was a year old and not feeling well. I think the finale that year was "Let It Go." This year, it was... "Baby Shark." Mal said, "That's not a Christmas song! But most of the kids were singing and dancing along, so it worked.

We need to leave in about and hour and a half, so it's time to get ready and start putting things in the car so I don't forget anything! Happy holidays, weird-os

ALSO... if you leave a comment, know that we read them all. For whatever reason, I can't leave or respond to comments. James can. Not sure what the deal is, but my email address is my first name dot last name at hotmail dot com, and you're welcome to email me any time! I'm going to add that to the comments area so everyone will know. Thanks for being here!

The Girl I Used to Be

One thing about having blogged pretty regularly for more than 18 years (!!!) is that I can look back and know almost exactly what I was thinking at any given point. Sometimes, I purposefully left out stuff -- some I remember and some I wish I'd included because I have no idea -- and sometimes I talked around things, like a particular relationship difficulty, or a relationship altogether because the person I was with didn't want it known.

But mostly, there's a record of almost two decades. If you journal, you know what I mean... but mine's semi-public. I actually shut down the oldest part a few weeks ago when I read something political I'd written and realized I never ever EVER wanted anyone who doesn't know me now to read it without present-day context.

There are other things, too. I've written about religious faith with a confidence I don't have anymore. I've linked to articles and songs that meant so much to me but that I no longer believe are even valid.

And the flowing language I used to talk about James when we first got together? Gross! Don't get me wrong: I'm ridiculously enamored of him. But the limerence is hard to take. I guess that's what happens when you have someone who actually loves you after having been in contentious relationships for so long. Still... gag reflex engaged.

Oh, and other people's kids? I guess in the beginning, I knew it was just my immediate family keeping in touch through the "online journal." I complained about so many people's children! Over time, of course, I became sensitive to how public this milieu is. But also, I had a second kid who embodies a lot of the characteristics I used to hold against other parents!

I used to do a lot of reviews, because when I had a bigger reader base, it made me feel like people cared about my opinion in a mere substantial way than anyone probably did. So I wrote with authority and finality about my experiences. Weirdly, the two most viewed reviews to this day are the McDonald's steak and egg bagel (DELICIOUS!) and L'oreal's Couleur Experte (??!) hair color. Like people still find those through whatever search terms they're using to this day. But I don't think I've done a blog structured like that in years. Because, really, who do I think I am?

WAY OFF TOPIC ASIDE: The name of L'oreal's dye always annoyed me. And this skit sums it up perfectly.



Finally, I notice that I used to do a lot of long-format, photo-rich posts. They were coherent and cohesive in a way that I feel like I need to excuse myself from the house and sit somewhere alone for hours if I'm going to make that work now. I blame this on two things: First, I used to have a fairly self-sufficient only child who didn't tax my brain so much that there was nothing left over for literary creative pursuits. Second, I didn't used to have anyone to really talk to, so everything came out in my blog.

Whereas I used to craft narratives with a beginning, middle, and end, now I'm perfectly aware of how often I end with "Welp, gotta clean the bathroom!" or "It's three days later. I guess this post is over." You wouldn't believe how many unpublished drafts I have just because I started something substantial with a head of steam, had to stop, and then a few days later just didn't care about. I just looked: it's 40 over the past three years. More than once a month I've thought, "This needs to be said and I'm the gal to say it!" until I ran out of craps to give because my aging brain can't keep up with verbing and a small child.

It is fun and humbling to look back on the things I've felt mattered enough to write AND publish (although I can also see the stuff I didn't publish... and the 6 of you can't, so ppppthh). I laugh, I cringe, I have amnesia about some of it. But it's kind of amazing that, in one form or another (first Diaryland, then Wordpress, and now Blogger), I've been writing about both day-to-day minutiae and big-to-me ideas fairly consistently for nearly two decades.

But, really, I have been doing it for even longer than that. Way back in the olden days of dot matrix printers, I used to make newsletters using templates from a word processing program we had. I'd select appropriate clip art and compose stories about what was going on with our family, what I was looking forward to, and what my friends were up to and send them to classmates, my grandma, and basically anyone who would read them.

Over the years, I've written some things that have made me money, and that's sweet, but think this encyclopedic volume of random thoughts and happenings is both the best and worst thing I will ever have completed. As they say, writers write. And it doesn't matter that no one asked me to, or that few people read it (including my kids; my mom used to worry that D would be offended by my honest expressions of frustration about parenting an infant... and D has zero interest in this blog on any level!). I've left huge imprints of my truest self over several URLs on the World Wide Web, and that's pretty cool.

Weird Conjunction About Religion/Kindness

Preface:

My understanding of Christianity is rooted in the basic idea that you should love everyone else as much as you love yourself.

There's a *lot* of implications in there.

Let's just start with that.

Laura's poly dream

She had a dream where I was planning to marry her, plus someone else. And she decided she wasn't cool with the whole idea.

Until the second time I had a poly relationship go down into a crash and burn, I would not have been interested in monogamy at all. It works for us, but I still think we're probably the weird outliers.

Pence: creepy rise to power

On the way in to my day-job this morning, NPR did a little coverage about Mike Pence's religion, and his rise to power.

I remember growing up in a very "Evangelical" Christian ethos where all his professed beliefs would have made complete and total sense.

I get it if you're in a space where he makes sense. I've been there myself.

I'm not a clinical psychologist. I cannot diagnose others.

But his entire "Holier than thou" persona just screams sexual predator.

In a way, I cannot blame him for refusing to be alone with members of the "opposite" gender.

On the other hand...why does he believe that women might be so tempted by his masculinity that they'd accuse him of being a sleazebag?

Let's Destroy Your Christianity

And then another friend at my day job shared a story about this militant atheist who crushed her religious beliefs.

He sounds like an abusive slime-ball in general.

Honestly, the story sounds like one of those horror scenarios that I grew up with where some dirt-bag finally pounds the Belief right out of you.

I completely and totally understand not Believing yourself. Let's be honest: the entire point of Belief is that it's a little irrational.

What kind of jackass crushes someone else's Belief?

Now, I feel obliged to provide disclaimers that I probably *will* challenge the details of your Belief if we ever wind up in a religious conversation. I really enjoy trying to understand why other people believe what they do so I can make adjustments to what I believe.

Trump "almost" ruined Republican party (America?) by [almost] losing to Hillary

I called out political parties in general.

It called out as a Trump vs. Hillary thing.

The other person in this conversation fell back here.

I reframed it in terms of 2 parties, and his eyes glazed over. The "2" parties have framed politics in such a way that it's always an obvious either/or.

And that's where the system is completely broken and absolutely must be fixed.

It is not Democrat vs. Republican.

They are aiding and abetting each other.

Trump might have done the US a favor by crushing the Republican party.

Old Atheist Friend:

Why can't we just be kind to each other because it's the right thing to do?

It's a weird idea. Even though it *is* what Jesus commanded. But...why is it so difficult to love one another as though we were each God's chosen children?

Why is it easier for people who do not believe in God to just be kind to each other?

Before I Forget...

Today, I was playing with Mal at a McDonald's Play Place (even though it was a gorgeous day and we'd just been at the park, where there were many homeschool children, but Mal wanted to go to Walmart instead, and then we ended up at McD's where he groused that there weren't any "friends" to play with) and he was using our "superhero" names that he made up. He's had them for almost a year, and in case I hadn't written them down, I wanted to.

Mal's superhero alter-ego is Save-an-Alligator. Kids have told him that's not a good name, because alligators are bad and you don't want to save them. Fortunately, my children are largely undaunted by the criticism of others. So Save-an-Alligator it is. The villain in Malcolm's superhero world is Ken Trash. I think he got this name somewhere, but I'm not sure where. And then my sidekick name is Asheroni. (I was just Googling these, and Trash-Can Ken was a Garbage Pail Kid. Interesting.)

-- It's the next day. Wednesday. We walked to the library this morning for story time, then played at the lake a bit. Mal didn't want to do story time first, but I talked him into it. He made it clear to the librarian that he wasn't going to listen to either story, and then he left without doing the craft. Sigh. Sometimes when you let a kid be master of his own destiny, he asserts his power a little too aggressively. Same when we left the park yesterday half an hour after arriving, even though, because of construction, it had taken us longer than that to get there.

Both of the stories the librarian read today were Thanksgiving stories. The one about the first Thanksgiving was full of pilgrims with literally one single "Indian" in a few of the pictures. Like, it was the same male Native American on every page. They acknowledged that the Native American taught the pilgrims how to grow things in North America, so that's something, I guess. It was super white-washed, though. We talked about it on our walk down to the park... about how, often, things that happened are told incompletely, and from only one point of view.

We didn't even get to talking about the initial book, which was about a squirrel family wherein the siblings weren't thankful for each other, then their rotten cousins came over, and after the visitors left, the original family realized how grateful they were for each other because they weren't as terrible as the extended family. Sweet. Praise Jesus, all.

Anyhoo, I guess that's it for now. I feel like I had a lot to write, then... parenting, wifing, eating, trying to sleep... life. More later!

The Kids are All Right

This weekend, we found a Ziploc bag of coins in one of Mal's drawers. When we took his silver piggy bank out to transfer the bounty, I noticed a date of June 3, 2017 on the side of the bank. Mal had had a bank that he LOVED, but he'd dropped it in the floor when he was carrying it around. We'd bought an identical one, then he saw a pink piggy bank at Target and expressed dismay that we hadn't gotten one. So I let him paint the silver one with some acrylic paint we had.

I distinctly remember looking at that date a lot in the year between when we did the project and its first anniversary. It felt like A LOT longer. But this past year? It hasn't felt nearly as interminable.

Yesterday, Mal and I were killing time playing with LEGOs in the Target cafe when it hit me: This feels like "normal" parenting, like I remember from when D was little. Mal has always been a bit "more" in terms of hands-on and emotionally taxing parenting, to the point that his first few years were just relentlessly sluggish. I'm sorry if that sounds like something a loving mother shouldn't say, but it is true. I've always loved him. He's always made me laugh. And he has always been a lot harder than the typical kid.

But yesterday, it seemed like we were in "this is what I expected from past experience" land. And it was super nice! I enjoy being around Mal so much, and it's nice to be able to take him places and engage with him as a bigger kid.

Which isn't to say he doesn't still have big feelings and big needs. Yesterday, he wailed at McDonald's when his friend and another kid they were playing with refused to be defeated by his various iterations of Star Wars bounty hunters. "I can't find the right one!" he wept, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I can't get a strong enough bounty hunter to defeat them!"

He didn't seem hugely comforted by my reminder that when you're playing pretend, the only way an opponent can be defeated is if they condescend to it, and that didn't seem super likely, no matter which bounty hunter he pulled out of his arsenal.

Meanwhile, D has gotten a snake, and is spending most of the day watching the new baby peek out from a hidey-hole pretty tentatively before disappearing again. Now we have a few days at home alone because James and Mal are headed off to San Antonio for the weekend on their first solo (duo?) trip.

It's all pretty great.

That Time I Did Blackface

When I was on social media, I disclosed this episode... and I'll add more information and introspection on it here... AND I'll say that it's part and parcel to something I experienced this weekend at the Austin Powwow and American Indian Heritage Festival.

Also, when I was on social media, I had a LOT of regular blog readers. It's fallen off to a very small number, and I know that if I keep posting soapbox issues, it might be tiring and you folks might be tempted to catch up on something less... whatever this is. However, this is something that's true about me and I can't ignore it: I believe in full human rights and justice for everyone, to a person. For every person from any nationality or of any ethnicity. For gay, trans, and folks who defy categorization. For victims. For prisoners. For people I disagree with. For fat people. For people who are in situations through no fault of their own AND as a result of their own choices. For everyone.

Especially when I see my complicity in injury or oppression, in upholding systems that have marginalized others, I want to speak up. I need to confess so that no one will think I don't know what I've done, or that I am not deeply sorry. And I need people who have developed understandably low expectations of white ladies like myself to have a bit of hope to cling to... not because of anything I am doing, but because of these kids. These kids give me a needed respite to my cynicism, and it is my sincere desire that the affect of these stories will be the same for you.

First. Here are two pictures for you.

The first is from 1978, at the present-day Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village Museum in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The second is from 1979, at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma. Obviously, my parents wanted us to learn about the Native American history or we wouldn't have visited the sites. VERY often, we were the only children at places like these. We had no ill intent. But that doesn't change the fact that in our attempt to "embody" the culture we were supposedly respecting, we appropriated stereotypes in a way that is harmful. It further perpetuates those stereotypes, and it personally hurts individuals. I apologize for my ignorance, and for any damage my actions caused. I pledge to keep learning and keep doing better.

The above pictures are the ones that popped into my head as we were walking through the market at the powwow this weekend. Many of the sellers were Native Americans, and Mal saw something that caught his eye. There were a couple of rows of slightly-smaller-than-life-size ceramic partridges. They were each painted white with lovely designs on their backs. Each one was different. The seller told me that her son made all of them, as well as canteens and other pieces, with no pattern... just whatever came to him while he was designing.

Mal asked me to take a picture. In the past, I can see myself taking a picture of the neatly-arranged flasks, then using it as wall art. But because of what other populations have taught me, I said, "It IS beautiful. But if you think that art is lovely, and you want to look at it, then you need to buy it." That meant nothing to Malcolm in the moment, I'm sure. I could have just said, "No." But it's part of a bigger picture that I'm trying to paint for him. Eventually, hopefully, the whole thing will click into place into his worldview.

We did buy a partridge. I got it for D, whose birthday was Saturday, and who adores birds. Incidentally, here's a picture I took a decade ago when I took my own now-adult child to the Cherokee Heritage Center.

The guide's name is Robert, and he patiently showed D (we were the only people under the age of 60 on the tour) how to weave, play stickball, shoot a rabbit with a blow gun, and how to make an arrowhead out of an antler. Also, he told us that in the early 1800s, the literacy rate of the Cherokees was higher than their white neighbors'.

I want to tell you something about D: D was not raised by any kind of "woke" parents. I have read blog posts from this same time frame, and I cringe now at the thoughts I used to have. Yet somehow, D became this incredibly empathetic, conscientious human being all because that's just who D is. In fact, much of the growth I've sustained over the past few years are because D has dragged me into the light through a strong will and influence. 

We've had plenty of times when D has called me out for, say, enjoying a song on the radio that contained a racial slur. I didn't buy it, but came home and did my own research... and realized that, dang, that song was out.

So if that's the person D is, maybe, just maybe, Mal will be, too? And he'll even have a head start? I'm going to hope that, and maybe you can hope it, too.

Now we'll get to what I wish had been mere clickbait, but which was, in fact, an actual event in my life. As I mentioned, the Native American poses were from when I was 6 and 7 years old. Let's move forward to 1987, when I was 15 years old.

My high school had an annual lip synch contest. Sophomore year, my favorite group was The Pointer Sisters. I'd been in love with their song "Neutron Dance" ever since it had been released. I remember my friend Pam and me dancing around my house to it, and her slipping and injuring herself in the kitchen.

I wrangled two friends, both white like I am, into doing this with me. So I'm in the "it has to be realistic" camp that I see now is ridiculous, but I also am skeptical when contemporaries of mine like Seth Meyers say "everyone knows this isn't appropriate." Adolescent me in northwest Arkansas in the late '80s had maybe a passing awareness of minstrelsy (the only "Jazz Singer" I knew was Neil Diamond). Or Jim Crow. Or any of the baggage that is wrapped up in black face. I wish I'd known. I wish I'd made a better decision.

As I've thought about it over the years, I can't help but wonder what the grown-ups in the room were thinking. Did any of them realize it was a bad idea? If they didn't, why wouldn't they tell me? I was quite open about our plans. We had a dress rehearsal, and I made sure that everyone knew we would be actual black folks the next day. The only feedback I got was that I needed to wear a better bra because my chest was too bouncy for a wholesome high school program.

The morning of the lip synch contest, I left the house looking like this, because I had classes before the program.

I think my distinctly uncool high school self was trying to approximate the style on the "Break Out" album as best I could. Remember it? (Also, does the shirt say "Dance" on it in puffy paint? I believe that it does.)

White shirt tied at the waist, check. Boot things, check (actually, they were super-high-top fold-down Chuck Taylors, and my favorite article of clothing. I wore them to a cowboy thing in college, because I've never owned a pair of actual boots until I recently got some snow Crocs). Curly hair, check... it was the late '80s. Layers, not really but I put on a bandana, so half-check? Dark hose so you couldn't see my Caucasian legs? Sigh. Check.

My mom took this picture. She knew I was going to color my arms and face. If she'd known it was offensive, she, of all people, would have set me straight. If there's one thing my mom can't abide, it's people getting their feelings hurt. And swearing.

Do you know how I colored my face and arms? With body paint. I bought it at a Fort Smith costume store. It was basically a tongue depressor that had been coated with this brown "paint" that was dry until you ran the stick under water. Then you could just rub it across your skin, and the color would transfer. I'm sure I talked about the owner about our "cool" plans. That person didn't say anything negative about it, either.

And we danced. We Neutron Danced. We got second place, and I felt robbed.

Then.

Someone complained.

There were three black kids that I distinctly remember from high school; a brother and a sister, and a girl who lived around the corner from me. The neighbor girl went to someone at the school and complained that we'd done the performance in black face. I don't remember how I heard about it. But sadly, here's what I took away from it, since no one told me differently: She liked a guy I had dated the summer before, and she was just trying to get me in trouble out of cattiness.

Once again, I wonder how the adults in charge decided to handle this? I was given no context as to why someone might be upset by what we did ("I ADMIRE them! I want to BE them! That's what we did!" was my refrain, and one that continues to be used by people who are unwilling to examine their actions and attitudes... which was definitely me at 15). 

It's interesting that I've never seen a photo from that performance. It's like even the yearbook photographer knew "These are never going to see the light of day." Oh, the next year, I won the lip synch contest when a friend and I did "Let Go" by Cheap Trick. I dressed up as a man. Until a few years ago, I probably would have insisted that being as "authentic" to The Pointer Sisters as I could was the exact same as dressing "drag" as whichever one of the Cheap Trick dudes I was. 

But regardless of my intent, the impact of my action was that at least one person got hurt, and that I unwittingly contributed to a long history of caricaturizing people of color. I had taken on the easiest and most shallow facet of blackness to mimic, and had not thought of the fact that my classmates didn't get to shower after the ceremony and go back to a position of majority and privilege.

I won't use her name, but on the off chance that the young woman who complained ever reads this, I am deeply sorry. In my self-obsessed outlook, I took your hurt and centered myself. I minimized your complaint to absolve myself of any guilt or need to do emotional labor. I owed you an apology. I owed everyone an apology. I should have gotten up at the next assembly and confessed, repented, and maybe taught a history lesson that just was not covered in our classrooms. You were right. I'm sorry if you didn't feel validated in your concern. I wish we could have sat down and you confront me, if you'd wanted to. You deserved better. 

How does this inform my life today? Well, at least one of my children would never appropriate anything. In fact, when I brought home a shirt with an alebrijes on it as a souvenir for my older child, I had to report that I'd gotten it at the "Discover Mexico" visitor's center, so the sale of it was benefiting a local economy (albeit a robust tourist one) in Mexico. But if the other is tempted, we will talk about it and educate him as to why it's not appropriate.

Although I am totally and fully responsible for my choices, even as a teen, I do wish that the grown-ups in my orbit had done a few things that could have helped everyone. So I will use that as a blueprint in case I ever need to intervene in such a situation:

1) I will try to keep anyone, especially minors, in my charge from committing blatantly offensive and needless acts.

2) If there is a complaint, in relaying it to the offending party, I will use grace but also inform them why their actions were problematic. If I don't know, I'll do the research and learn why on my own, without forcing the offended party to justify their hurt.

3) I will seek as much input on how to handle the problem as the offended party wants to provide.

4) I will strongly suggest that the offending party respond in some reparative way, even if it takes a while for them to figure out why, and then how.

Okay, that's it. Gormless but trying. Your continued patience is appreciated.

Halloween and Costuming

We made a pretty funny observation yesterday about Radical Unschooling: When your kid can eat whatever they want, they might be less interested in Halloween goings-on unless they really like dressing up or are motivated by carnival games.

We went to our city's Halloween festival Saturday night.

Then Mal got to trick-or-treat Sunday after church.

Wednesday, we went to the library's Halloween storytime.

And yesterday (actually Halloween), Mal got a free doughnut at Krispy Kreme for wearing his Boba Fett "costume," which is actually a jacket.

Just as we were finishing that, it was time for a Halloween event at James's work... but Mal was done. He'd had enough and was ready to go home. Candy didn't entice him in the least, probably because he gets to eat candy in general. I think James was a little disappointed, but he took it very well.

Another thing we did yesterday was have James's tires replaced. This is a long, drawn-out story with which I will not bore you, but yesterday was attempt 2 to get tires installed and it worked and I'm very glad that's done and over with.

But also, while we were out yesterday, Mal got misgendered three times. The first time was by a Walmart employee who saw Mal get hurt and was telling me that "she hit the ground with her nose." The second time was by a mom whose son was a little younger than Mal, but whose hair was LONGER than Mal's. The third time was by a very kind Navy Veteran who let us go in front of him after we'd both waited a ridiculously long time to pick up our vehicles when their service was completed. He said something about "you ladies" and Mal said, "I'm not a lady! I'm a boy!" He said, "You're not a boy. I know a boy when I see one. I raised boys." I really hated to break the news to him.

Here's the thing: I realize that all we'd have to do is to chop Mal's hair off, and this probably wouldn't be the daily deal it is now. But why should Mal have to change his appearance for people to accept that he's a boy? WHY is long hair seen as an inherently feminine trait? I understand the concept of "norms" in terms of being average, but I feel like people need to get better at addressing strangers in a gender-neutral way.

I haven't been misgendered, that I know of, but one time I was asked if I was the mother of my slightly-older husband, who was checking into the ER with food poison. It made me feel like absolute garbage. Like, was I so worn-out and raggedy that I didn't appear to be a woman in her VERY YOUNG 20s?? Did I look like I could have a child in their mid-to-late 20s?! So I can only imagine being mistaken (sometimes over and over again) for a different gender.

Mal is young, and only finds it irritating. Fortunately, he has not reached a point where he feels that being assumed to be a girl means he isn't performing masculinity "wrong" and therefore feels shame and anger. I'm GLAD he doesn't see being addressed as a girl insulting, because there's nothing wrong with being a girl, and I never want him to think that's some kind of slight.

But other boys do. When we were at the park last week, waiting for a friend to show up, a boy told Mal that he couldn't play with them because it was only boys. Mal told him he was a boy, and the boy had him perform a feat of strength to prove it. YES, this is INCREDIBLY problematic, and we talked about how you can't tell whether someone is a boy or a girl based on how strong they are. Regardless, that boy seemed to think Mal passed muster. A different kid said, "No, we don't want a girl-boy." Again, Mal sees this as an irritant, not an insult. But I was mad.

Then yesterday, someone shared this video. I believe that people should be able to wear whatever hairstyle they want, and wear whatever clothes they want. I don't think anything should be gendered. Pants are pants. Skirts are skirts. Short hair is for people who want short hair. Long hair is for people who want long hair. Make-up is for people who want to enhance or hide or dress up. Heels are for dummies. Heh, just kidding. They're not for me, but to each their own.




As for me, I'm trying to refer to strangers neutrally until they spell out a gender. I never want anyone to feel insecure about their presentation based on my ignorance and assumption. I'd love it if you'd try it with me.