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I’ll never forget the moment it dawned on me that cajoling our children into kissing their grandparents, or hugging a friend, or being tickled against their wishes was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way of teaching children about respect for their bodies and personal space. My friend Meg put language to this reality early into my days parenting Addison, and it has stuck with me ever since. While I ensure that my children are polite to their grandparents, elders, peers, etc., James and I never force them to hug or kiss, or be hugged or kissed, against their wishes. If they don’t want to hug or kiss, they can offer a polite “hello” and a handshake instead. That maintains our respect for their wishes to not be affectionately embraced, while still teaching them about politeness and courtesy to others.

To all adults, I STRONGLY urge you to read this piece. We are all complicit in reinforcing these problematic cultural norms that lead to much more serious consequences when our children grow up.

We’re talking to kids about sex all day, every day, without ever saying the word. We do it when grandmothers insist on a kiss and parents make children comply. We do it when we tell girls to “be nice” and “good” when they don’t want to. We do it when we tell boys to take what they want from life. We do it when we tell them that God wants them to be “strong.” We do it when we watch football games with kids on TV and spend half the game talking about players’ girl friends in the stands like they’re trophies. We do it when school administrators police clothing and use girl’s bodies as props to demonstrate violations of dress codes and reinforce heterosexual norms. We do it when we don’t allow children to pick their own clothes and chose their own hairstyles. We do it when we think it’s funny to let kids “tease” each other, even though the person being teased isn’t interested. We do it when an uncle grabs a nephew and tickles him, even though he hates it and tries to get away. Never. Ever. Saying. “SEX!”

Full post here.

Kinder

Just over a year ago, classrooms full of children were massacred. Innocent babies gunned down thanks to a whole host of problematic systems in our society: from gun laws (or lack thereof) to mental health support and access (or lack thereof) to our society’s depictions and desensitization to violence through television, video games, the news, movies, all the noise noise noise noise of the media around us, to our culture’s characterizations of masculinity and how we speak to our boys about what it means to be male (and our girls about what it means to be female). While it is easier to try to point fingers and blame only one element of our society, the truth is that we have so much work to be done. So many pieces that are broken and to which we must attend.

My heart was shattered on Friday when, a day before the anniversary of Newtown, another community suffered a school shooting. While not at the scale of Newtown or Colombine, Aurora or Virginia Tech, it was a sad reminder of how little progress has been made despite the mass murder of twenty innocent children one year ago.

While in Sweden this spring, Maja and her friends had two topics that constantly arose as points of drastic contrast and confusion to Swedish society: America’s Healthcare System and America’s Gun “Laws.” They were bamboozled. Completely stumped and horrified by how America handles (or doesn’t handle) these two critical aspects of our society. How we don’t take pride and action in protecting one another, our fellow Americans, all of us, with laws and regulations that keep a society (all of a society, not just the privileged elite) safe and healthy. I admitted that I was similarly ashamed of that aspect of American life. While I am indeed a proud American, and grateful to have been born in and live in this country, it does not mean that I don’t think it could be better. And on this front, I was in complete agreement with my Swedish friends.

I snapped these images of my daughters enjoying Kinder eggs that I brought back as gifts from my trip to Sweden. They are illegal in the U.S. because they are considered a “choking hazard.” How truly problematic that we’ll “protect” kids from candy eggs but when it comes to weapons capable of mass murder, we don’t have similarly strong regulations. I was so struck by the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America campaign as it spoke to this very problem.

I do not have the answers, but I am a voice, and that voice matters. All of our voices matter. You can’t fight guns with silence.