For those of you unfamiliar with the IAV, it is the thinktank founded and still presided over by David Blankenhorn, the prominent opponent of same-sex marriage who recently (kinda sorta) reversed his position. Marquardt is a staff member there and also blogs regularly at the Family Scholars Blog.

Why did I bother to read a 72-page report coming out of the IAV, you might ask? Well, sometimes I just can’t help myself. Too, I always think it’s worth trying to understand the worldview of people who are afraid of and/or opposed to the life choices and broader social changes which give me a deep sense of  inspiration and hope for the future of humanity.  In this case, intentionally non-normative family structures.

It’s tempting — but ultimately won’t be very helpful in effecting social change — to dismiss anti-gay-marriage sentiment as simply bigoted and wingnutty. It may well be these things, on some fundamental level, but that’s rather immaterial when it comes to trying to help people be less frightened of social change. Calling them homophobic bigots is about as helpful as calling someone who says something racist or sexist a racist or a sexist. While satisfying in the moment, it’s not the best way to get your opponents to listen to your point of view.

So. What’s the deal about my upcoming marriage? Why does it make certain people so uncomfortable? Inquiring minds want to know!

In One Parent or Five? Marquardt’s argument is clear. She (along with many of her colleagues at the IAV) believe that sociological evidence shows that stable two-parent households in which both parents are the child’s biological parent are the best type of environment in which to nurture children. Full stop. If you get nothing else from One Parent or Five? the takeaway would be that for Marquardt family structure is the factor to trump almost all other factors in terms of child well-being — and that the two-parent bio-family unit is the best of all possible family structures. The ideal to which we should all yearn toward or strive.

Why she believes this is never fully explained.  She begins the report with a romantic description of hetero couples who successfully conceive children within wedlock:

When at all possible, the married mother and father usually opt to conceive children the old-fashioned way, through sexual intercourse (or what our parents’ generation quaintly called ‘making love’). The married mother and father can be found pretty much everywhere, from the parks of San Francisco and Seattle to the streets of the edgiest neighborhoods of New York. Diverse and resilient, the married mother and father has for millennia put down roots everywhere in the world. Generally thriving wherever planted, the fruit this family produces — children– is among the hardiest and healthiest in the world (8).

I would argue that there are two unexamined assumptions in this paragraph that weaken Marquardt’s position: 1) her belief that the married hetero couple with children has been the norm for “millennia,”* and 2) that the welfare of children is the primary function of marriage.

Is it really sociologically-sound (or possible?) to compare even an early-American married couple with children to a late-twentieth-century one and argue the marriage itself was the source of individual children “thriving”? We could look at the married couple in Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s study A Midwife’s Tale, for example, and see how a husband and wife parented their family in rural Maine in the 1790s in ways that Marquardt would find objectionable (fostering out children to relatives, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, an absent father away on business, etc.) and yet — look! They’re married!

Yet this assumption that marriage itself, specifically the marriage of a child’s biological parents, is the source of better outcomes for children pervades the report. There is nothing wrong with forcefully arguing your case, certainly. The problem is that Marquardt et. al. fail to make a strong case for marriage and blood relations per se being responsible for a difference in outcomes (even if they could persuade us that such differences exist). In many of the studies Marquardt cites, hetero marriage of biological parents could be said to stand in for a whole host of other factors — not the least of which is structural and cultural support for that form of family life — which could account for the difference in outcomes, rather than the fact that the parents remained married and/or had bio children instead of adopting or seeking out sperm/egg donation and/or surrogacy.

There is a stark dichotomy created here between these two parent bio-families (viewed through gentle rose-colored glasses, their faults all blurred around the edges and explained away in favor of “generally thriving”) and all other family forms, from single parents to co-parenting arrangements of three or more, which are viewed as recent innovations worthy of suspicion until they prove their worth (and it’s clear Marquardt is highly dubious of positive outcomes here).

It’s worth noting that what was, thirty years ago, taken as read (that a heterosexual, married parent was always going to trump a single parent or sexual minority) now requires seventy-two pages of justification with “science” in order to gain very narrow ground: that “studies have shown” that children from two-parent bio-family households out-perform all other populations in a variety of measures. Admitting that the social support for this particular family model (and the discrimination suffered by all other family forms) may contribute to these uneven outcomes, Marquardt is left with the modest argument that before whole-heartedly endorsing new family forms we should wait to see what grown children have to say about their experience.**

Let’s assume for a moment that Marquardt’s skepticism toward all family forms but those families that consist of hetero married couples with bio children is justified, and that this nuclear family unit is somehow proven to be the most ideal family form for child well-being.

My question is then what’s actionable in this picture? Even if this model were ideal it will never be achievable in reality.

Because some people aren’t heterosexual. Some people get married with the best of intentions and then are so miserable that getting divorced is the best of all available options. People die, so there are widows and widowers. Infertility happens, so adoption and infertility treatments come into the picture. Some people have the strong inclination to parent, yet know themselves well enough to know they would not do well in a marriage relationship (or simply haven’t found the right person yet, but don’t want to wait to have kids). Sometimes parents, bio or otherwise, are incapable of parenting for one reason or another and grandparents, aunts and uncles, adoptive parents, teachers, social workers, the church — any and/or all of these folks hopefully step in to provide the child with unconditional love and acceptance, and the material support they need until such time as they can maintain a household of their own.

So even if you believe that two hetero, bio parents are the absolute surest way to a happy childhood and well-adjusted adulthood, I’d venture to say that from the dawn of the human race to the present day, world-inclusive, maybe 5% of children have grown from birth to adulthood in such an environment.

Maybe.

So realistically-speaking, rather than spend your time angsting about how children aren’t getting that environment, if our concern is  that actual children who are alive today are getting what they need to grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults, shouldn’t we be asking how to get them what they need where they are at rather than waste time trying to control what will never be a controllable situation?***

I’ve also been thinking about how this way of conceptualizing “family” — as primarily a unit organized around the raising of dependent children — leaves out the well-being of the parents and other adults. I believe that families are for children, yes, but I also believe they are for grown-ups. Families are for people, full stop. And all of the people in a given family unit have needs and desires that should be on the table and actively attended to in order for the family to thrive.

In Marquardt’s version of family, adults seem to exist primarily to perform functional roles, slotted into “mother” and “father” positions, and — in her ideal world — remaining there, fulfilling certain very specific functions — until the children are capable of adult self-care. The personhood of parents is obscured, even erased. All of the case-studies Marquardt invokes of alternative arrangements highlight adult selfishness or short-sightedness. Women who pursue parenthood while single are referred to as “choice moms” (“choice dads” also get a brief look-in); gay and lesbian couples are maligned for depriving children the presence of one or more biologically-related parents, and same-sex couples looking to maintain close ties with such third-party parents are derided for confusing their children with too many parents.

Um … is it really possible to have “too many” caring adults in your life?

While I absolutely agree with Marquardt that children’s voices should count when it comes to evaluating where and how they thrive, I’m skeptical that Marquardt herself is a valid conduit. Too often she slips from acknowledging how little-studied non-normative families are to imagining how horrible these arrangements must be for the kids in question. Furthermore, she chides professional organizations such as the American Academic of Pediatricians and the American Psychological Association for affirming the ability of queer parents to care for their children, instead arguing that:

I would rather that we wait and let a generation of young people raised by gay dads and lesbian moms grow up and tell social science researchers — and all of us — how they feel about mothers and fathers … I would prefer to let them tell us if anti-gay stigma was their only problem or if they faced other problems as well (32).

It’s unclear to me what we gain in continuing to stigmatize non-traditional family forms (and thus increase the difficulties for folks of all ages within them) while we wait for a generation of children to grow up to tell us how such marginalization injured them — when we could, in fact, treat them with support and respect (as we do hetero-headed families) and then study the outcomes.

Finally, this is where my desire to understand the opposition with a certain amount of empathy beings to falter.  Because while I’m not standing in my (non-normative) corner arguing we should uphold laws and policies already on the books which discriminate against hetero two-parent, bio-related families, Marquardt and those who agree with her are doing exactly that about my family and circle of friends from their corner: Arguing for institutional and cultural discrimination to continue against non-normative families (including the children who are a part of them!) because they believe these families are not the best of all possible situations.

I simply don’t believe that Marquardt (or I! or you! or anyone!) is in a position to know what is the best possible situation for everyone — let alone legislate or create policy as if they can know those things. And I cannot get passed the fact that Marquardt is advocating for policies that make the lives of people like myself — and the children of people like me – more precarious and vulnerable in the name of building a better world for kids.

Some of whom will grow into people like me.

*Not to mention “globally,” as the report claims. Those interested in a brief glimpse of the true diversity of family organization around the globe would do better to check out Unhitched by Judith Stacey. Marquardt’s “global” examples are ad hoc and hardly a valid cross-section of family life around the world

**Why a certain segment of the population (for example, myself and my fiancee) should be expected to wait patiently for our constitutional right to freedom of religion (1st amendment) and equal protection under the law (14th amendment) while the rest of the world gnaws at their cuticles and waits for our children to come of age is unclear to me.

***I was struck by the parallels between the vision of an ideal childhood as one of total biological continuity and marital harmony and the rhetoric of the purity movement that encourages young people not to have sex until married. Both of these narratives seem organized around the notion that we can somehow protect people, perhaps eternally, from imperfection and heartbreak, from loss and sadness and grief. While I don’t believe “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” there is simply no way that we can escape negative experiences. Avoidance of those experiences is less important to well-being than learning skills to help yourself recover.

To escape the heat on Saturday, Hanna and I went to the movies and saw Brave (Disney and Pixar, 2012) which most of you have probably heard much of a muchness about since it was released back in June. There’s been tons of insightful, critical analysis of Brave and what it does and doesn’t do to advance our cultural narratives about girls and women. I’m not going to try and reproduce or summarize the conversation here — but a few of my favorite reviews/reflections come from Amanda Marcotte, Jaclyn Friedman, Heida, and Lili Loofbourow.

What follows are some heat-and-humidity-infused reflections on what moved me about Brave and thoughts about some of the non-Disney cultural narratives the movie may be drawing its inspiration from.

Spoilers below. Also massive rambling.

First and foremost, the most striking thing about Brave – and I’m far from the first person to point this out — is that the story centers on a mother-daughter relationship. Let me say this again: The story centers on a mother-daughter relationship. Just last week, my friend Molly tweeted about how her six-year-old son Noah has just started noticing all of the dead and absent mothers (thanks Freud and Jung!) in children’s literature. When parents aren’t dead, they’re most often either out-of-touch with their children’s lives or actively malicious. Often, for women, there’s a twofer with the dead-mother-evil-stepmother theme.

The lesson in these stories is, so often, that parents and children (and the generations they represent) are inherently in conflict, and that women are naturally rivals with one another — usually for power as represented by male attention/alliances).

In Brave, Merida and her mother are in conflict to begin with: Merida is a rebellious teenager (very much a modern American construct) and Elinor is a mother trying to do what she thinks is best for her daughter and letting her fear muddle her ability to see clearly what is best for her daughter. The narrative tension of Brave revolves around mother and daughter finding their way back to the quality of relationship they have lost, while incorporating into that relationship a greater — more adult — knowledge about themselves and one another.

I think the radical audacity of this storyline finally hit home to me in last act when Merida defends her mother (temporarily turned into a bear) against the clan leaders who believe they’re avenging Elinor’s death. And then when Elinor-as-bear comes to the defense of her daughter who is nearly killed by the real beast, Mordu. It’s a powerful thing to see, on screen, a princess defend her living mother from death rather than speaking in her absent/dead mother’s name. And an equally powerful thing to see a living mother, a fierce mother bear, coming to the defense of her girlchild — not only rescuing her from Mordu, but ultimately listening to Merida’s wish to delay any marriage plot until some nebulous future.

Let’s just say that when Merida says to her father and his soldiers, “I will not let you kill my mother!” I could feel the tears spring into my eyes. How often does a girlchild get a chance to say this in our Western fairytale canon?

This reworking of the mother-daughter relationship speaks not only to our own interpersonal relationships, but also to the broader social narratives of generational tensions. I’m thinking especially here about feminist “waves” and the way we’re so often encouraged to think of feminist activism in generational terms, with overbearing, bitter, jealous mothers pitted against bratty, sexually-potent, ungrateful daughters). Brave points out that division between mothers and daughters — the failure to listen on both sides — obscures the true villain of the piece: adherence to (patriarchal) tradition borne of fear.* I’d argue that such a message is one we truly can’t get enough of in this world obsessed with generational rebellion and rupture. By seeing each generation as a threat to the one that preceded it, we’re hobbling our chances for deep, progressive change.

A few more (briefer) observations.

Merida owes much of her adolescent truth-telling, I suspect, to fictional fore-sisters such as Jane Eyre and Psyche. As Carol Gilligan argues in The Birth of Pleasure and more recently in Joining the Resistance, children — she would argue particularly girl children on the cusp of adolescence — are bellweathers and truth-tellers, pointing out the deceptions we practice on ourselves and one another, and demanding honesty from themselves and those around them. I’d also suggest that Brave‘s narrative lineage owes debts to Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, and to virtually every film produced by Miyazaki. Particularly Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and (Hanna tells me, since I haven’t yet seen it) Nausicaa.

As with Into the Woods, we have themes of parents having to let their children grow up and forge their own path (see: Bernadette Peters’ brilliant witch) while not abandoning them wholesale (see: “You Are Not Alone”). The message in Brave as in Into the Woods is that heroes — regardless of gender — are strongest when working in cooperation with others, and that this message of community isn’t incompatible with forging a new path.

As in Miyazaki’s films, the protagonist(s) Merida and Elinor must learn values such as respect for others, harmony with the community, and a balance between the qualities identified as “masculine” and “feminine” in our culture. Merida is fierce and physically fearless, yet needs to learn the art of political persuasion and empathy for others. There is a subtler morality at play in Brave that shares closer kinship with Eastern folk traditions (in my admittedly limited experience) than it does with the fairy tales Disney usually draws on for inspiration.

And, of course, there’s the brilliant freedom of watching a film about a teenage girl that is decidedly not a marriage plot. Merida’s age is indeterminate, though her body is that of a young woman gone through puberty. She isn’t anti-sex, or anti-marriage even — she’s simply not ready to make the choice. As others before me have pointed out, to have a teenage girl in a mainstream film whose sexuality is indeterminate — meaning she could swing straight, gay, bi, fluid, or something else entirely. We don’t know. And, for once, it’s immaterial to the plot.

This is the exact opposite of pretty much every princess movie — and even most YA novels! — out there on the market, because romance is a driving force in stories about adolescents. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but when coupled with heteronormative plots it means that girls look at the narratives about young adulthood and they see that they’re expected to be boy-crazy, or at least boy-interested. They could be boy-interested in the most kick-ass, gender-bending guy on the planet — but boys it almost always is expected to be. And if not boys, then girls (or girls and boys), and it’s always, always, always meant to be an all-consuming preoccupation.

Teenagers are expected, in our culture, to be preoccupied — for better or worse — with sex and relationships. And as a teenager who wasn’t personally driven to explore these things (except in a fictional, future-looking sort of way), I often felt really out of step with stories that depicted my concerns in that way. Merida’s maybe someday but certainly not now attitude toward romantic relationships, coupled with her deep, passionate involvement in her familial relationships, show how teenage girls (and, I’d argue, teenagers more generally) are more complex persons than our media so often portrays them to be.

My one frustration with Brave (and then I promise to stop rambling!) was the one-dimensional portrayal of the male characters, particularly Fergus (Elinor’s husband, Merida’s father). It’s understandable in a 90-minute film that some characters get short-shrift, but the buffoonish character of Fergus, coupled with Elinor’s  level-headed political thinking and parental role can all too easily be read according to the “smart woman married to a boorish man” trope of situation comedy fame (Simpsons and Family Guy anyone?). While the teenage boys put forward to compete for Merida’s hand eventually speak up for their own independent choice of spouse** they are also caricatures clearly meant to communicate “brawn but no brains,” “brash, vain hottie,” and “sensitive weakling.” Since Merida’s protests regarding marriage are valid regardless of the merit of her suitors, it seems like a poor choice to recapitulate harmful stereotypes about men in a film that is otherwise quite smart about women and gender.

I suspect that this shortcoming has less to do with Brave in particular than it has to do with the fact that our culture has still not answered the questions of masculinity posed by feminist thinkers and activists. We haven’t figured out how to tell a story about fully-dimensional, human women, that also includes fully-dimensional human men. In order to tell a story in which a mother and daughter are the central relationship, Elinor’s husband, her (much younger) sons, and Merida’s would-be suitors, cannot be taken seriously — must provide, in fact, the comic relief to an otherwise revolutionary plot. Which leaves open the question, of course, what place fathers, sons, and male lovers might have in this brave new world which Merida and her mother are building for the clans?

Some anti-feminists would argue there isn’t a place for men in the world Elinor and Merida seek to build. I’d argue it will be up to the men — and women alongside them — to discover and create that place for themselves.

*As an aside, the historian and feminist in me would really love to know the details of Elinor’s back-story. She and her husband seem to have a loving relationship, yet she clearly sees marriage to some extent as a political alliance. I yearned for a glimpse inside her head, so that we could understand some of the reasons for her fear, and the reasons for the decisions she made — both in pushing Merida toward a betrothal of political expedience, and then later in choosing to support her daughter’s desire to forge her own path.

**And seen through slash goggles, Hanna and I agree that in the final scene it’s clear at least two of them have found each other as potential mates!

Cross-posted from the feminist librarian.

are children part of the (virtual) public commons? should they be?

There’s been some discussion recently about Facebook making it possible for people under the age of thirteen to open accounts and create personal profiles at the popular social networking site. Predictably, many people have Strong Feelings about this possibility. They’re concerned about cyberbullying and social isolation, about predatory marketing towards children who don’t yet have strong media literacy skills. They’re concerned about kids spending too much time on the Internets instead of outside where, it’s assumed, they’ll have higher-quality interactions and participate in more healthful activities.

(Why is it always “outside”? When my mother was a child she used to be harassed by her parents for spending too much time with her nose in a book instead of our skiing or swimming or playing on the playground. These arguments for what’s acceptable or appropriate childhood pastimes predate the internet by decades, if not centuries!)

I have some Strong Feelings myself about this debate, although those feelings are very muddled. On the one hand, I am sympathetic to the desire expressed by adults to establish childhood has a time and place for children to develop as human beings, with (in an ideal world!) stronger support and protections than most adults have.  My parents were very mindful about the amount of time we kids / the family watched television and/or played computer games (“online” time was not an issue, since we didn’t have Internet access at home until I was in college). As our parents, they exerted adult authority to participate in decision-making regarding age-appropriate media consumption. So I get where the anti-Facebookers are coming from, at least in part.

But there are ways in which the debate is making me edgy. To whit:

1) Why is it Facebook’s responsibility to limit participation to those over thirteen? Detractors are up in arms that Facebook is considering expanding user access to a younger audience, albeit with accounts that are tethered (it appears) to parents’ accounts. They believe this shouldn’t be allowed. Isn’t it up to individual families what is right for their youthful computer users? Arguing that Facebook, as a company, should be responsible for limiting children’s access to their social networking tools, seems analogous to arguments that television, movie, and video game producers should be responsible for limiting children’s access to their products. If parents don’t like what their children are watching on television, they always have the options to destroy, lock up, or simply not purchase a television and/or cable package. If parents don’t want their kids on Facebook, they can exert parental authority and say no. I might think that’s a shit way of influencing your kids (more likely to encourage subversion than compliance), but in the United States we allow parents a great deal of control over what their children have access to — and parents are definitely allowed to veto their children’s access to the ‘net.

2) To what extent is social media now part of our public commons? What are the implications of excluding children from (virtual) public spaces? I’ve written at great length elsewhere about the importance of children’s access to public spaces without being hated on by adults for being different and/or for being at a different developmental capacity. I believe as citizens we have a responsibility to make public spaces accessible to all – including children and youth. Granted, there are serious discussions to be had about whether Facebook — as a private company — constitutes a “public commons,” and whether the Internet is a “public space.” At the same time, I think it’s important to acknowledge that, increasingly, our online and “real world” social lives overlap. I spend 8+ hours per day in close proximity to a computer / online environment due to the nature of my work. I use Twitter, email, Google Reader, Facebook, Tumblr, and chat interfaces to communicate with family and friends, most of whom I also communicate with offline.

To some extent, a conversation is a conversation is a conversation, whether it happens via email, chat, Facebook, or over coffee at the local coffeehouse.  I realize that we shell out millions of dollars annually to study how dissimilar the Internet modes of communication are from all previous forms of communication — but I honestly believe that sooner or later we’ll quit wringing our hands about the novelty of delivery system and realize that it’s content that counts, not the packaging it comes in.  Children are growing up in an age wherein computing technology and the Internet landscape computers make possible will be an increasingly integrated part of our daily lives. So there’s an argument to be made that exploring that landscape with them is analogous to taking them on trips to the grocery store, or introducing them to the public library. Instead, it seems like many adults still think that children + internet connection = PRON and VIOLENCE. I’d like to see us get beyond that level of moral panic and actually discuss how to support children’s participation in multi-generational spaces as opposed to age-segregated ones.

(Not to mention the unspoken assumption in these conversations that children are exposed to sex and violence online but not in real life which just goes to show the class and social privilege that pervades such debates. For some kids, virtual spaces are a haven from real-world social isolation, bullying, and abuse. These children rarely figure in the adult-centric discussions about child-appropriate Internet use.)

3) Why do we use the language of addictive behavior for technology and/or assume computer use is a “bad habit” children people need be protected from? When people raise concerns about young peoples’ media consumption and/or technology use, they overwhelmingly employ the language and framing of harmful addiction. They talk about brain chemistry and habit formation and about how children will get sucked into online environments to the detriment of other activities (see my aside about the importance of “outside” play above). My sense is that much of this concern (trolling?) is not actually about the child or children under discussion, but about what the adult doing the talking wishes for themselves, now or in some idealized Childhood-that-never-was. When a person holds court about young people being sucked in the drama of social media, or not getting enough real-world playtime, I hear a) that the grown-up in question wishes they felt more in control over their own virtual interactions, and b) they feel helpless about the positive power of real-world interaction to compete/co-exist with virtual interactions.

As grown-ups, we should be modeling the sort of life interactions, social skills, and self-care we want the next generation(s) to adopt, learn from, and improve upon. If we feel that computerized interactions are inferior to face-to-face interpersonal time, the first thing we need to do is get our own house in order rather than turn around and police the dependent, vulnerable, and marginalized by concern-trolling their online habits (via, it should be noted, blogging online!). To my ears, hand-wringing about children’s use of technology is most often a proxy for hand-wringing about our own discomfort with the virtual world.

Bottom line: I don’t see this as something Facebook, or any other social networking platform, has a responsibility to police. Rather, it’s something that should be worked out within families in the manner we work out most other questions of children’s personal autonomy vs. parental rights and duties to protect and foster the well-being of their young. And grown-ups who fear what social media is doing to the quality of human interactions should look first and foremost to their own lives and think about what social media does and doesn’t do for them.

Personally? I’m grateful that the Internet has made possible the level of continued connection I have with my family and friends, near and far, and the way it keeps me hooked into political and intellectual circles that I would not otherwise have the time or social stamina to interact with. There’s an overdue post in here somewhere about how, given my personality and temperament, I have much more energy to think and talk with people about ethical and social justice issues online (via text) rather than in-person, where I burn out almost instantly — especially in groups involving more than two or three people to concentrate on (which is why the best classes in undergrad and grad school were also the most draining!).  The point is, there are children like me growing up in the world right now. Children for whom textual communication is their strength, and playing outside on the playground with large, chaotic groups of children is not. Those children are probably content to spend 8+ hours a day reading, writing, drawing, online and off, possibly going out for a solitary game in the back garden when they feel like it, or helping an adult bake bread in the kitchen, perhaps having a good friend over to play quietly together for a few hours, or composing an email to a pen-friend, or playing a collaborative online game together. Talking with a grandparent over Skype or exploring the local library’s online catalog. These are all things I either recall doing as a child, or would have done had the technology existed. And I don’t think any of them are inherently damaging.

Discuss, Harpies! What do you think about the (virtual) commons, and children’s participation therein? If you are a parent, or interact regularly with young people, what observations do you have about the under-twelves interacting in virtual spaces? If you were under twelve with access to the Internet, what are your observations from first-hand experience? Are you happy with the balance of online/offline social interactions in your life? If not, what efforts do you make to alter that balance? I hereby cede the floor.

Image credit: LeClan McMillan with her baby (via Annie Urban). (via bluemilk.wordpress.com)

Image Description: The color photograph depicts a motorcross cyclist sitting astride a bike in full gear (including helmet) nursing a child, also in biking gear. Both appear to be Euro-American, with pale skin tones. The parent has long dark red-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and the child has slightly curly white-blond hair in a bowl cut. The photograph is a close-up of the parent, child, and bike, but you can see the motorcross course in the background.

A few days after this image went live on Tumblr, I noticed a lot of people were liking and reblogging it (to-date the image has had over 300 “notes” since I posted it). Aside from the popularity of the image, what caught my attention was the additional commentary folks felt compelled to add when they re-blogged the photograph. I thought it was really telling what Tumblr folks felt necessary to criticize about the photograph (and about other peoples’ commentary). I share some of the comments below in a Q&A format, with my thoughts on each response.

To back-track each quotation to its original Tumblr blog, see the thread of notes below the original post.

Tumblr: “Except for that kid is like 3 and shouldn’t be breast feeding anymore.”

Anna: There were actually many people who had this concern, which I thought was really interesting as a response. I’m the eldest of three and my mother breastfed all of us until we were roughly 2 1/2-3 years old. Not exclusively, obviously, but alongside other forms of nourishment. LeLeche League International recommends that children be introduced to other forms of food in their first year, but affirms that “A mother and her baby should breastfeed for as long as they wish to breastfeed.”

Given that breastfeeding at “like 3″ is not medically contraindicated, that means that the perception that the child in the photograph “shouldn’t” be breastfeeding is a socially-conditioned determination – and one I think is kinda fascinating to observe and think about. Why have we decided that toddlers are “too old” to breastfeed?

T: “How about not gendering people nonconsensually. not everyone who breastfeeds is a ‘mama’”

A: While I take this person’s point, the original post a blue milk identifies LeClan McMillan as a “her” (see original caption reproduced above), so I assume that the cyclist identifies as a woman/uses female pronouns. I did do a bit of searching online to find outside confirmation of this, but nothing came up. If you follow motorcross and know McMillan feel free to chime in in comments on hir self-identity.

T: “Hello badass mom, hello badass babyboy. Thumbs up all around.”

A: I’ve already responded to the gendering of the cyclist above, but I thought it was interesting that this person (and, actually, a number of others) assumed the child was a boy, despite the fact nothing in the original post indicated the child’s gender. Is it the colors the child is wearing? The haircut?

T: “not being a concern troll – breastfeeding on a motorcycle makes absolutely no sense. that’s like….paying bills on a motorcycle, or playing monopoly, or eating. the logistics baffle me”

A: Mostly I just love this one. Because I bet the person who wrote this comment has, on occasion, eaten a snack while driving, or stopped while on a bicycle ride to down a power bar. Sometimes when you’re out doing shit you get hungry (even when you’re a kid!), and you just gotta eat. When I look at this picture, that’s what I see. And I’m not sure why that’s baffling.

What about you, Harpies? What does this photograph say to you — and what do you think of the Tumblr responses?

My 16-year-old son has disappeared into the bathroom several times with a laptop for extended periods of time. I know he has been looking at pornographic websites and, when asked, he freely admits it, putting it down to “a young man’s needs”. I know, and we discussed, lots of the arguments around the damaging pornification of society v the recognition/legalisation of the sex industry. However, on a personal level I feel that porn does harm to people who consume it and I want to discourage him. Am I being old-fashioned and heavy-handed, or, if not, how can I gently dissuade him, apart from saying that sex with real people is much more fun/rewarding?

So I’m going to start out my response to this with a few disclaimers. I’m not a sex educator or therapist, don’t work in any field related to the sex industry, and while I’ve been a teenager myself (haven’t we all) and worked with young adults on a volunteer basis, I’ve never actually parented a teenager.

That all having been said, my initial responses to this woman’s question were along the lines of: “Where do you get off thinking that you can involve yourself this deeply in your son’s sexual life uninvited?” and “Doesn’t your son deserve some privacy in which to explore his sexuality, provided his activities are consensual and legal?”

I realize that feelings around use of sexually-explicit material run high. Many people feel that sexually explicit material has compromised their intimate relationships and/or their own experience of sexuality. It’s a fraught issue on a cultural and personal level, one which many adults seem to have difficulty discussing in any sort of nuanced way — let alone parents trying to communicate with their adolescent children!  So let’s start with what I think this anonymous mother has done right (at least based on the minimal amount of self-reporting contained in her question to The Guardian.

1. She started a conversation. Despite the fact that children and teenagers (as I will argue below) deserve a zone of privacy in which to explore their sexuality alone, I don’t think it’s poor form for parents to communicate openly with their children — even their sixteen-year-olds — about sex. Sexual ethics shouldn’t be unspeakable topics of conversation between family members. Ideally, parents can provide their children with a sounding-board for working out their own sexual ethics. Hopefully, parents can offer counsel based on their own experience, having lived in the world longer than their teenage children. So kudos to the mom in this situation for daring to speak to her child about human sexuality.

2. She differentiates between personal opinion and other valid arguments. “We discussed,” she writes, “lots of the arguments around the damaging pornification of society v the recognition/legalisation of the sex industry. However, on a personal level I feel that porn does harm to people who consume it and I want to discourage him.” I think this is a really good indication that this particular mother is willing to talk with her son about ethical/moral nuances surrounding the use of erotic materials — rather than just laying down a parental edict forbidding him to consume pornography or flat-out declaring that all use of sexually explicit materials is immoral and makes him a bad person. It’s unclear from the original question whether the mother genuinely listened to her son’s point of view or shifted her own position at all as a result. But at least she seems open to conversation. It also seems really important that she uses “I” statements. As in, “on a personal level I feel that porn…” rather than saying, “Porn is evil!!!” Her position is clearly one she has come to after considerable thought, rather than knee-jerk reaction.

So off to a reasonably good start!

Since the letter doesn’t offer us any clues to how the son responded to his mother’s concern (beyond indicating that he ultimately disagreed with her) we don’t have a sense of how communication in this family works … do they regularly talk about sexual ethics or other personal values? Are the children’s opinions valued by the parents in the context of these discussions, or are they routinely dismissed? Is her son retreating to the bathroom in order to evade a hovering parent, or is he being given space and time to explore his sexuality without constant monitoring by his worried mother? Hard to tell. But let’s assume that this initial interaction went okay: A parent expressed concern over a child’s use of sexually-explicit material, they had a discussion about various ethical implications, the parent made their own personal beliefs on the matter clear, and the child came to a decision about their own values and acted accordingly.

The question is how to proceed from this point forward … and it’s at this point that I start to feel that putting on the communication breaks might be a good idea. Your kid knows how you feel about porn and (more importantly, in my opinion), your reasons for feeling that way about it. For now, he’s choosing to explore his sexuality that way. Provided, as I said above, he’s not doing anything illegal or harmful to others — i.e. consuming pornography made without consent or with coercion — I really think it’s time to let your son decide for himself how to explore his sexuality. Put this in perspective: he’s certainly not at risk of contracting STIs or getting someone pregnant this way! And speaking as someone who was sexually active through fantasy and masturbation years before consummating a flesh-and-blood relationship, I really don’t think it’s the worst way to become familiar with your own body.

Rather than thinking about how to “discourage” your son from exploring his sexuality through pornography, a better approach might be to re-frame the question. That is, how, given that your son is exploring sexuality through pornography, might you encourage him to think about what it means to be a sexual being? be a sexual partner? to flourish in and nurture a real-life sexual partnership? Imagine, for a moment, that there might be types of sexually-explicit material out there that are both arousing and compatible with real-life relationships. What would such material look like? Where/how might your son be exposed to it? Porn = harm is a very simplistic equation, and one that I feel bears re-examination.

Now seems like a good juncture in this mother-son relationship to step back from arguments over pornography per se and instead focus your energy on positive ways you can encourage your son to think about healthy, loving relationships and sexual ethics … in the context of pornography and with real-life partners as well.

Those, my fellow harpies, were the words that greeted me at the supermarket checkout stand last week, courtesy of the always classy Grazia magazine. It must say something about just how reactionary our society can be that I was only minimally shocked.

Well, it turns out there was a reason of sorts that the question was being asked. An LSE academic, Catherine Hakim, recently published a paper claiming that it’s time to re-think gender equality policies because, among other things, women and men want fundamentally different things. Most women, she says, still aspire to ‘marry up’, to men who are better educated and earn more than they. ‘Symmetrical family roles are not the ideal sought by most couples,’ she writes in Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine, ‘even though they are popular among the minority of highly educated professionals. It is thus not surprising that wives generally earn less than their husbands, and that most couples rationally decide that it makes sense for her to take on the larger share of childcare, and use most or all the parental leave allowance’.

Dr. Hakim would have us believe that women are simply naturally less careerist than men. Her argument through the whole report is couched in the language of ‘choice’ – women have chosen to work fewer hours than men, so that must mean that that’s their in-born inclination, regardless of financial, social, or ideological conditioning that may have influenced those ‘choices’. The idea that women might be choosing not to work because it has been suggested to them from birth that they are less capable than men, or because they frequently feel that the entire weight of childcare rests upon their shoulders, has either not occurred to her (doubtful, considering that she must be a rather clever woman) or is scandalously ignored.

Heather McGregor wrote an excellent piece for The Guardian today, arguing that women’s claims to yearn to stay at home are often motivated by guilt towards their children. ‘Somehow,’ she says, ‘a mother is always going to feel that she should be parenting more than she does…It is the belief, mainly held by women…that mothers are more important, which causes stress in every working mother and leads them to want to give up work and stay at home full time. Or at least to tick the box in a questionnaire that says that they think that is what they want.’

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this same dynamic at work in my own life. My mother has always worked – when I was a baby, because my parents needed the money; and later, because she and my father had divorced and she had no choice. (I also spent months at a time with my dad, who did the same thing). For me, having parents – plural – who worked and spent time with me was the most natural setup in the world, and I never considered not having a career myself.

And yet, now that I am in my early twenties, the same woman who showed me how it is done, the same one who has been wildly successful in her job and turned out a daughter who, in my admittedly biased opinion, is pretty OK, has advised me time and time again to marry rich so I don’t have to work. Neglecting the value of her own achievements, she looks at her sisters who stayed at home, and says she wishes she had been able to do the same. She thinks she would have been a better mother if she had. But I can’t imagine that. If anything, I think I benefited from being separated from her apron strings for a little while each day. But unfortunately, I can’t make her understand. She will go on beating herself up for something that is not a problem, just because society has told her that the ideal mother is, to reference Marie Anelle’s recent post, a self-sacrificing angel, and that she hasn’t lived up to the ideal.

Those ideas are prevalent all around the world. In Germany, a woman who puts her children in daycare so she can return to work risks being labeled a ‘Rabenmutter’, a ‘raven-mother’, a word implying that she somehow lacks a natural interest in her children.

In the face of pressure like that, no wonder so many women would prefer to avoid the hassle, guilt, and judgment that often come with working outside the home. Dr. Hakim suggests that if that’s the choice most women make, it’s futile to do anything to change that pattern. But history has shown that when it is made feasible for women to enter domains that were previously shut to them, from university to jobs, they seize the chance. Instead of fatalistically accepting the status quo, we should take that as a lesson and start pushing for real equality.

What does that look like? That means recognising that fathers are equally responsible for their children and creating a legal framework which evens out the playing field. I like the idea of mandatory paternal leave, myself, as it would make men and women in their child-bearing years equally ‘risky’ hires. And it also means combating noxious ideas like these. Many young, impressionable women who read articles about Dr. Hakim’s work will undoubtedly be led to feel more guilty about choosing a career, or more uncertain of their choices. If all women want to marry well, they might ask themselves, what’s the matter with me that I don’t? Girls: there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s society that’s the problem.

We hear a lot about how breastfeeding in public is seen as dirty. Women have been shamed in some of the weirdest places. You see men staring, women getting all grossed out and making comments under their breath, old people shaking their heads, etc. I was always an ally for breastfeeding. I didn’t bat an eyelash or stare when it happened. It was never gross, it was natural. I was totally going to breastfeed my kids because I am Captain Awesome and breast is best. Imagine my horror when it didn’t happen for me and what subsequently became my personal battle in the Boob War.

In Canadian hospitals, it is more common for nurses to do absolutely everything they can to have you breastfeed. There are no formula ads, just diagrams on how to get a proper latch. These nurses will also push you after you tell them you’ve had enough. It wasn’t until day 2 when I showed the nurse the chunk of nipple that was missing and the blood running down my breasts that she got some formula out. I later learned after visiting a lactation specialist that I was not producing enough breast milk and I had blocked ducts as well. Factor in various physical breast issues a little too personal for the interwebs, and I had a recipe for disaster. My mother, having gone through the same thing assured me that it was no big deal and that I tried my best. She was in the minority of women who held that sentiment. I soon experienced shame at the hands of the very same women I’ve been keen on defending.

I will never forget trying out this mom group when my daughter was about a month old. The women were echoing the complaints that a lot of breastfeeding women have in terms of the public shaming they endure. I was totally on board with what they were saying. Then, it happened. Daughter got hungry and I pulled out a bottle. One mom actually stared in complete shock, then said “well ladies, I’d rather have the shame of public breastfeeding than stooping so low as to bottle feed my kids”.

Cue my thought bubble: lol, wut?

The conversation then changed to the evils of bottle feeding and how selfish these women are. Right in front of me like I didn’t exist. At first I just thought it was these women until I started telling the story to other female friends, some with kids. Sure enough, I didn’t have a single ally or anyone to understand. These women were right in their eyes. Forget the fact that it didn’t work. As in tore-a-chunk-of-nipple-OMG-I’m-fucking-bleeding-holy-shit-I’ve-got-blocked-ducts-and-my-baby-won’t-latch kind of not working. I am a selfish ninny who must be a terrible parent because I didn’t stay up day and night, bleeding profusely trying to feed my baby milk that wasn’t there. I found myself getting reminders that breast was best like I was an idiot who had never heard that concept before. Never mind that those who were there to experience my breastfail attested to the fact that I really did try, it wasn’t enough for other women. I was less of a woman.

As a first time mother, it was extremely damaging to my self esteem. I questioned myself every day. Did I really try hard enough? Was it really worth it? Most importantly, am I really depriving my child? I felt alone, shamed and made to feel like an idiot by the very same people that I fought for. I kept hearing all these warnings in my head that I was asking for my kid to be obese, prone to allergies, not as smart as the other kids and getting sick all of the time. Was I really damning my kid to lifelong hell because of formula?

Five years later, and the daughter is far from obese, has no allergies, is never sick and thriving so well in kindergarten. Most people can’t tell the difference between her and a breastfed kid, so when I was pregnant with my son I made the decision to bottle feed my son. Of course, that didn’t stop my own sister-in-law from telling me that I’m damning my kid and that I just “didn’t try hard enough”.

So what if I don’t breastfeed? I tried it. It didn’t work. I don’t need to be reminded that “breast is best, you just didn’t try hard enough”. First off, I’m not a moron, of course breast is best, but there are alternatives if it doesn’t work out. Second, it is not in the scope of a perfect stranger to grasp on whether or not women who use formula tried hard enough. The kids are going to be alright. Even if there are women who didn’t try at all, it’s none of your business and it does not help to patronize these women. You may not believe in it yourself, but much like being pro-choice, it is not your place to judge or criticize. General rule is if you don’t like being told how to raise your kids, chances are the woman next to you doesn’t like it either.

It’s a backwards kind of world when on one hand, there are people demanding acceptance while shaming with the other. Breastfeeding is absolutely best and no woman should ever feel ashamed about it. On the other hand, a woman should never have to feel ashamed about bottle feeding her child. Let’s strive to erase the shame around breastfeeding AND support women who are incapable or find it difficult to their lifestyle. Shaming either group contributes to a society that scrutinizes women unfairly for their choices, and I think we as a group have been judged enough.

This one hour special explores several different families extreme forms of parenting. From attachment parenting to raising a child gender neutral to raising child without consequences. In the diverse world we live in there are some pretty extreme ways. (Who writes these things? -ed)

The program featured three “radical” families that don’t operate in a traditional manner: Unschoolers, parents who practice attachment parenting, and parents raising their sons without gender stereotypes. The families themselves occupied the vast majority of screen time, but they were interrupted by short clips of psychiatrists commenting on the families’ philosophies and strategies.

The first family was the Parent family; they have a boy and a girl. As unschoolers, the children do not go to school. Instead, their educations are “experiential-based.” The kids learn through the experiences they have in everyday life. They are allowed to make all their own decisions, such as where to sleep at night and what they eat for breakfast every day. I’m not keen on America’s education system, so the Parents’ set-up appeals to me for that reason. But their days are completely unstructured; I think I’d try to incorporate some lessons into the routine if it were my family. The Parents all seem to be happy and respectful of one another.

The Parise family practices attachment parenting methods, including extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing and training the kids to use the toilet from a very young age. There are five children in the family. They planted one child’s placenta under a tree in the yard. I’m down with a lot of hippie dippy stuff so some things about this lifestyle appealed to me as well. However, I could not handle strict attachment parenting. What struck me is that the parents are constantly attending to the children. A woman who breastfeeds each of her five children for four years each must be breastfeeding all the time.

The show didn’t explain how the parents earn a living. I was sort of distracted by that question during the first two stories because these lifestyles are extremely demanding on the parents’ time. All the families appeared to be comfortably middle class.

The Crosley-Corcorans are raising their two sons without gender stereotypes. Their segment was the last out of the three. The show kept cutting to commercial by previewing allegedly extreme quips from the parents, including one wherein mom Crosley-Corcoran said “Jonas asked for a dollhouse for his birthday and we were fully supportive.” I’m sad – but I guess I should not be surprised – that doing such a thing is shocking.

The mom and dad explained their philosophy, and how they practice it, very clearly. The dad was raised in a strict, traditional household wherein his mother waited on his father. He didn’t want his own home to be that way. The mom was raised with feminist ideals (She has a blog named The Feminist Breeder, which is awesome). They make an effort to socialize their kids with girls and boys equally, so they are comfortable hanging out with both sexes. The boys like to walk around in their mom’s high heels, and why wouldn’t they? Little girls do. They place a lot of importance on making their kids well-rounded, which I think is extremely important. The dad said he thinks their parenting will make the boys better partners in the future. I love this family.

Since I’d been watching the experts describe the pros and cons of unschooling and attachment parenting I grew nervous wondering what they’d say about the feminist minded family (the mother’s words). What cons could there be, besides social ostracism?! One of the therapists reassured the audience that letting a boy play with pink toys will not change his sexual orientation (!). Unfortunately a lot of people actually a.) believe that’s true, and b.) want to avoid making the baby gay.

The only con the psychiatrist mentioned is the fact that the world is not gender-neutral; boys raised to appreciate and participate in “girl stuff” will face ridicule out there. So really, it’s not even a criticism of the family, but the wider world (in my opinion). I’m happy with the way the Crosley-Corcorans were depicted. It was refreshing to hear the word “feminist” spoken on television in a neutral/positive context. I especially enjoyed seeing a man espousing feminist beliefs without being portrayed as “emasculated.” It was radical (in the 90′s slang sort of way).

Marley shouldn’t have to wonder about things like that, but obviously she and other children of color do. It’s certainly possible that her classmates’ parents explicitly taught them to fear black people. I think it’s more likely her classmates have already absorbed the many implicitly racist messages all around them: on television, in their school lessons, at family gatherings, etc.

Akilah (the mom) says it’s important (and unavoidable) for parents of color to talk with their kids about racism but I wish white parents were doing the same thing. Do the white girls’ parents know about this incident? Would they brush it off? Tell their kids never to mention – or think about – race again?

Have you ever had to have this conversation with your kids? Did your parents ever discuss race and/or racism with you when you were a child? Did they prepare you for or explain the racism you faced?

Maybe it will sit in a storage closet somewhere next to the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, now that parents in Menifee, California have called its suitability into question. A child discovered the definition of “oral sex,” which reads, “oral stimulation of the genitals,” and hir parents complained to the school. In response, it was removed from the library and the district is forming a committee of principals, teachers and parents who will examine the book and determine whether it’s fit for young eyes.

What the hell is wrong with people? Newsflash: your kids have genitals. No, the devil did not put them there. Is it me or are parents scrambling to sterilize and sanitize and suck the life out of everything their fragile children encounter nowadays? They don’t want to talk to them about gay people, they don’t want to talk to them about private parts, they don’t want to explain a goddamn thing about the world. And they think their own squeamishness is a good reason to restrict everyone’s access to learning material.

Why not just lobotomize your kids so they never exhibit curiosity or ask any challenging questions. If I were a parent I’d be stoked my kid opened a hard copy of the dictionary, you know?