Archives for November 2014

I am the mother of a six year-old child whose favorite foods I can count on one hand. He will not touch oatmeal, he is not interested in steak, he doesn’t like mustard, and he cannot be bothered to eat a pea. This is my life, people! I live with a picky eater.

When the announcement for Adam Mansbach’s new book You Have to F**king Eat came out, I was elated. Finally, someone is telling the truth about what it’s like to try to feed small children. I cannot explain how many times I’ve wanted to throw a bowl of spaghetti across the room because my child refused to eat it due to the fact that it had sauce on it. You see, he only eats pasta with parmesan cheese.

Here are some eloquent words from Mansbach’s tale of parental truth:

The sunrise is golden and lovely,
the birds chirp and twitter and tweet
You woke me up and asked me for some breakfast,
So why the fuck won’t you eat?

Adam, have you secretly been in my kitchen Sunday mornings? Because my entire life is on this page.

This book speaks my truth. Both of my children have said these words “I’m hungry!” And then I offer them five options of potential things to devour. They promptly refuse all five options, but do not have another suggestion for what they can eat.

One page in this book that truly resonated with me was about the moment you open up your kid’s lunch box at the end of the day:

How was school hun? Whoa, your lunch box is full.
How are you not passed out in the street?
How is it you’re smart? How the hell are you growing
When you basically don’t fucking eat?

Let me tell you something, Adam, this is why I stopped packing my kid lunch and let him eat school lunch. Every single day I would open his lunch box expecting to see it empty. Lo and behold everything was still in there that I packed him that morning.

This book is genius. It is what every parent is thinking when their child refuses dinner. So, you want to win a copy? Enter below!

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My children don’t know what Facebook is; they have no idea. They are currently ages three and six. I’m elated that this is the case. They have no reason to know about Facebook.

They are children. I want them to do the things that children do, like draw pictures with crayons, go to the playground, have play dates with friends, sing songs, and dance in the rain, weather-permitting.

Facebook is not for children. It is a place where adults can keep in touch with one another. It is a place to share relevant news articles.

Facebook is a centralized location on the Internet where we can discuss current events. It is not a place where children should be spending time browsing.

This is my personal opinion as a parent. Many people will disagree with me on this. I’ve seen parents create Facebook profiles for their children. That is their personal preference.

I will not do this for my kids, because I do not want them spending time on the Internet when they do not fully comprehend what they are looking at and the implications of it.

I do share photographs of my children on Facebook when they do cute things. I share videos of my children when they say something funny. I share these things because I want my friends and family to see them.

Some of my loved ones don’t live in New York and don’t see my kids on a regular basis.

Sharing pictures and videos of my kids is appropriate since I am their mother and I know what I am sharing.

Children do not need to spend excess time on the computer. They are already bombarded with screens in our technologically obsessed
society.

My kids watch TV, the play on the IPad occasionally and we own a WII. They will be just fine without Facebook.

Some time in the future, my kids will not be oblivious to the
existence of Facebook.

The day will come when one of my kids will ask me:
“What’s Facebook?”

When that day arrives, I will tell them what it is.

“Facebook is a place where adults can share information with each other. Sometimes we share pictures and other times we share articles about what’s going on in the world.”

Until my children ask me, I am not going to introduce Facebook to
them. They can go paint a watercolor picture and eat a cupcake instead.

Jenni Chiu wrote about taking the word feminist back. She calls it the F-Word. Feminism has become a word that people are afraid to identify with in our society and that is a shame, because being a feminist is a beautiful thing. True feminists believe that men and women are equal. A feminist is someone who subscribes to gender equality. Men and woman should have equal rights.

I believe in human rights. I believe that men and woman are equal so therefore, I am a proud feminist.

Check out the hashtag #IAmAFeminist on Twitter. Let’s reclaim the word feminist as something wonderful.

Doyin Richards is my friend. He’s a cool dude who is raising two girls in southern California. In case you were wondering, his name is pronounced Do-ween. On the land known as the Internet, you may recognize him from his blog “Daddy Doin’ Work,” where I had the pleasure of guest posting. You also might remember the viral photo of him doing his daughter’s hair while holding his other baby girl in the Ergo carrier.

Doyin is a “Daddy Doin’ Work.” He believes in being an involved parent, an active role model in his girls’ lives and simply doing the work it takes to be a father.

Image from Daddy Doin work Facebook Page

He’s written a book by the same title: Daddy Doin’ Work, where his intention is to empower both mothers and fathers to be better parents. His concept has ruffled a few parental feathers, but I dig what he has to say.

According to Doyin, there are three types of dads:

1. Daddies Doin Nothing: These are men who literally do nothing in the way of parenting their kids. They are typically unemployed and sit at home all day while their partner is at a full time job busting their ass trying to pay the bills and pay for daycare. A Daddy Doin’ Nothing doesn’t play with his kids or interact with them. He is like a third child in the relationship.

2. Daddies Doin’ Something: These dads have full time jobs, and they believe that their role as a father is to work in order to provide financially for their children and wife. But as soon as they come home, they don’t want to do much parenting, they just want kick back and relax. Their wives/partners could be SAHMs, WAHMs or at full time jobs. Regardless, they don’t feel they need to parent when they get home from “real work.”

3. Daddies Doin Work: This is the category that dads should aspire to be. These dads pull their weight as parents. Whether they are CEOs at a large corporation or SAHDs they put in their work as a parent. They change diapers, take their children to the playground, and behave, you know, like a parent.

Doyin’s goal is to revolutionize the world of fatherhood and transform dads into Daddies Doin’ Work. But, on order to get dads to this category, Doyin asserts that we need to make sure moms are not enabling Daddies Doin’ Nothin’ and Daddies Doin’ Something.

I’ve read the book and I think he’s got some powerful words here. I would add (after reading Doyin’s book) that (in my opinion) there are moms who fit into these three categories as well. From a feminist perspective, the way I would look at it is that each parent should pull their own weight and help each other out equally.

Want to know more? Enter to win a copy of Doyin’s book below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


You’re a writer.

You’re a writer if your mind feels ignited by an idea and you must find a way to transmit that idea from your brain to paper, notebook, computer.

You’re a writer if there are words in you that are dying to be heard.

These words.

You can’t stop them.

You can’t hide them.

You need to express these words.

That’s a writer.

A writer doesn’t stop thinking.

A writer never stops feeling.

Writers want to be heard.

But…

often writers silence themselves.

Should I say it?

Should I tell that story?

Who will it hurt?

I don’t want my words to hurt the people I love.

Words hurt.

In the process of self-expression we’re releasing emotions. Those emotions are in a protected treasure chest. When the chest is unlocked those emotional gemstones are so bright they hurt the eye to look at them.

Look away, I don’t want to see that.

I cannot un-see that.

Once the eye adjusts it can see. It hurt at first, but now I see…those stones are beautiful. They are filled with tiny crystals of feeling that sparkle in the daylight. They are grateful to be released.

So open your treasure chest.

Tell your story.

It may hurt your eyes at first to see it in the light…

but once you free them, they will shine so bright that everyone can see them. There are people who will appreciate the beauty of your words as they come to life.