Excuse Me, Is Your Daddy Home?

This was inspired by the controversy over this article.

First of all, I’m not going to even bother addressing the actual argument in the above mentioned article. This topic has been debated among women for the past 20+ years, and there is no right or wrong side! I will say that I’m tired of it always sounding like we’re in this huge competition to see who can do what; who’s a better mother, who has a better career, who’s a better wife, or who’s a better woman! It’s not a competition. It’s not. We’re just a bunch of women doing what we can, or what we have to do, and trying to get what we want out of life.

What really got me was that in this particular post, the woman complained about all that she has on her plate: job, kids, housecleaning, etc. And I thought (and even commented to her) “where is the husband/father in all this?” Am I the only one not living in the 1950’s? They say “women can have it all”, but I didn’t know that meant that we’re supposed to actually do it all! Are we saying that our husbands are just hard working sperm donors, or what? My take is pretty simple: I didn’t make the child on my own, and I certainly didn’t hear any complaining about that part of it; so I definitely don’t want to hear any complaining about the responsibility for the child. And by responsibility I mean, changing diapers, feeding, bathing, dressing, rocking, nurturing, teaching, guiding, disciplining, chauffeuring, and just knowing what the hell is going on with the kid in general. I realize there are still couples who feel that the mother nurtures and attends to the technical care, while the father provides financially. I don’t. My children will be better people because they have a mother and a father who both attend to their needs. My husband can change a dirty diaper like nobody’s business, I can work hard to provide financially for our girls, and vice versa. There are no set lines or boundaries. They are his children as much as they are mine. Just because I’m female and more nurturing and emotional by nature does not mean that I should be the only one to provide the technical care of our children! My husband can offer them things that I cannot. He can teach them what a man’s role is (or can be), he can show them how grown men behave, what they can offer in a marriage and to their children, what they bring to a home. He has interests, hobbies, and personality quirks that I do not possess. He is showing them himself…..something that I cannot do for him. So as a society we’ve come to terms (most of us anyway) with the fact that women can work full time, have important careers, earn more money then their male partners, remain childless if they choose, have maids, etc, yet we haven’t been able to decide for sure if these same women should still be solely responsible for all the child care, house cleaning & cooking! I don’t get it.

Old Pictures, Fresh Memories

While I was in a picture posting mood....

Look who can barely hold her cheeks up in the bath. It's Livy!


Alexandria's first day of Kindergarten.....where has the time gone? (sniff, sniff)


"Ice-cream is GOOD, mommy!"


Alexandria graduated Pre-K four days after her little sister was born.

I Did It Again

Okay, so I’ve let the blogging slide again. What started out as just one week of covering half the night shift, has now turned into 5. But after Friday I am done. I’m going on vacation and never looking back!

We’ve been busy with softball season winding down, basketball camp last week, and Olivia starting gymnastics. Alexandria’s team won an important game on Friday so they will most likely be in the district playoffs now.

Here are few pics from this season (okay they’re really all from the same game……and someone else took them for me…and then sent them to me on Facebook). I will also try to post more pictures from now on, but seriously I can’t do much but work, sleep, and eat this week! And P.S.: That's her daddy as assistant coach in the last two pics.

Disney's Black Princess

So Disney is coming out with a new film starring a Black princess. My first thought is how great this is, and how long overdue! However, I quickly discovered that there is already controversy stirring among the Black community as to whether or not Disney is “about to vaporize stereotypes or promote them” with the movie’s characters. The movie is set in 1920’s New Orleans and the star of the show is the Black Princess Tiana. After reading this article, which discussed at length the various racial issues people are having with this movie, I definitely felt the urge to put in my two sense.
Here are some excerpts from the article that was published in the New York Times on May 31st. My comments are the words not italicized.

“The film, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, two of the men behind “The Little Mermaid,” unfolds against a raucous backdrop of voodoo and jazz. Tiana, a waitress and budding chef who dreams of owning a restaurant, is persuaded to kiss a frog who is really a prince. The spell backfires and — poof! — she is also an amphibian. Accompanied by a Cajun firefly and a folksy alligator, the couple search for a cure.”
Pre screeners have found fault with “the prince’s relatively light skin color”. “Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince,” Angela Bronner Helm wrote March 19 on the site. “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking their head in befuddlement and even rage.” While I’m not exactly sure why a couple of mixed ethnicities in the year 2009 would bring out “rage” in anyone, I will say that because they’ve always given the White princesses a White male partner, it does come across as questionable as to why they would choose to give the Black princess a male partner of a different ethnicity……especially in the 1920’s. But, I do however applaud Disney for writing an interracial couple into one of their stories!

“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.” Okay, I’m pretty sure Disney was just thinking of the cultural aspects of New Orleans, the jazz, the food, the strong Black communities, and how well they fit with their idea for the storyline.

Disney originally called her Maddy (short for Madeleine). Too much like Mammy and thus racist. A rumor surfaced on the Internet that an early script called for her to be a chambermaid to a white woman, a historically correct profession. Too much like slavery. I’m not so sure I understand this, because in the movie Aladdin, the character Ali lived on the streets and was looked down upon by royalty and considered to be not worthy of marrying a princess---which I’m guessing fits with the Arabian culture? Sooooo to have a Black woman living in the 1920’s South working as a chambermaid to a White woman…….I’m sorry, but I think that would be culturally appropriate for that time period. History is history, it can’t be re-written just because some of it isn’t pretty.

“people are really excited to see how Disney will handle her language, her culture, her physical attributes.” And, here’s where I have the biggest problem of all. Raise your hand if you think Snow White, Belle, or Ariel accurately portrayed the average White woman in regards to physical attributes, language, and culture. Anyone? I see no hands….. That’s because they didn’t. The average White woman is not 5’9 with 36-24-36 measurements, she does not speak grammatically correct at all times, and her culture is not that of Royalty. So why it is that people are getting their panties in a wad over whether or not Princess Tiana will accurately portray Black women? She’s not a real woman! She’s a Disney Princess, people! Big difference. The Disney princesses float around in monochromatic ballgowns, gloves, and heels; they wait for their Prince to save them from some treacherous fate. They say things like “oh my!”, and go on adventures while giggling carelessly with birds, dwarfs, and underwater sea creatures. So while I’m the first person to say that we are all one blood, and the color of our skin does not matter in terms of equality, I do agree that our unique heritages and cultures should remain significant to us. However, I definitely don’t think we need to rely on the characters of a Disney movie to help our children identify with their own heritage or culture. So to all of you who are putting all your hopes and dreams of breaking down racial stereotypes on this one little movie……don’t hold your breath. Princess Tiana can graciously take her place next to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, and Snow White in Disney’s world of “these women don’t actually exist on planet earth”.

Saying "No"

I’ve been reading several posts on parenting written by Lindsay Ferrier, the Suburban Turmoil blogger. I love her posts by the way, she has opinions and is not afraid to voice them or use colorful language doing so. ANYWAY, after reading about five of them this morning, I was inspired to write another parenting post myself. Afterall, it’s something I not only deal with on a daily basis in my own life, but it’s something I have very passionate opinions and ideas about.

When Toddlers Say “No”

My daughter Olivia, who just turned three, seemed to breeze through her “terrible twos” with a minimal amount of damage. There was the jumping off of furniture, occasional fit throwing, hitting her sister, and of course, my all time favorite …saying “no” to any and all requests made by most any adult she encountered. However, some of our family members seemed to have a problem with this. My grandmother, one of my aunts (who is around us most often), my parents, my sister (you know, the “cool” aunt who has no children of her own), and even my dear husband (who’s supposed to be on my side) would tell Olivia she was “not allowed to tell us no”. Here’s my problem with that. Why on earth would you teach someone, anyone at any age, that they are not allowed to tell someone “no”. Are we trying to raise a people pleasing, peer-pressure bending, doormat of a person? Hell no! Not only that, but she’s TWO. She’s supposed to tell us “no”. It shows that she’s on the right track developmentally and right on schedule. She’s seeking autonomy; she’s learning that there just might be another option when someone is trying to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do. And guess what? This is totally okay with me. If she didn’t tell me no and completely complied with my every request I would……..well, probably be a little afraid, because that’s just not normal. Seriously, what child does that? I want her to have opinions, I want her to have her own idea of how things should go, and I want her to be comfortable with telling someone “no”.

That being said, I totally understand that even though I’m okay with her testing my authority, it does not mean that she is allowed to do whatever she wants, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I back off when she says “no”. I refuse to argue, I refuse to battle it out. I reaffirm what is okay behavior and what is not. For example-- Me: “Olivia get off of the coffee table please, because you could fall and hurt yourself”, Olivia: “no”, Me: walk over, get her down and say “you may not stand on the coffee table because it is dangerous and I don’t want you to get hurt”. Now usually I have to repeat this a few more times before she complies, and we do go through this fairly often (what can I say? she’s an active child and loves to climb and jump), but that’s just parenting. I think there are many ways to assert one’s authority…when necessary. But telling someone else they have no power to make a choice (i.e. telling them they can’t say “no”) is not an okay tactic in my book. Now if I could just get everyone else to see things my way…….oh, what a perfect world. LOL ;)