(no subject)

[maevele]

so it's time for the mommy-feminism wars again? because no.

Comments

[dancesontrains]

:| What's happening?

[maevele]

oh good lord. it's uuuuggggly, with stupid on both sides. this is the center of it http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/07/27/shorter-cuter-more-honest-people/

[dancesontrains]

Ack. Is that the thing Karythia/ABW was talking about a little while ago? I've been skipping a lot of the srs discussion on my lists/feed the last few days.

[trouble]

This one just started yesterday, I think, and has continued on to a new post today, but it's the second time in the past month and a half that Feministe has been the center of this sort of conversation.

[ajnabi]

yeah, that's definitely one part of this going on. i disagree with that post in a lot of respects but i also disagree with karnythia in quite a few respects -- i do wish people could just treat children like human beings who are just as complex as adults and deserving of respect (no patronization, no assumptions, either about *all children*'s needs, because there isn't any universal there, or about some cultures over other cultures with family and child spaces, etc etc ..) but then, oh wait, privilege, goddamnit.

[maevele]

yeah, this whole thing is more complicated than people are making it out to be

[pantryslut]

Yes, somewhere in here there are legitimate and interesting issues to discuss, but the way the Feministe post was framed--ugh, no.

[pantryslut]

Oh, and that second post! My God.

[karnythia]

When we're talking about a 15 year old in a bar there's a lot of room for debate. But, a 3 year old staying up all night on a mini bar crawl with Mom? I just don't see a lot of wiggle room on that one.

[ajnabi]

I think it depends on how the three year old feels about that. Also, sleep times really vary a lot for different children, and what times they like to sleep (not necessarily diurnal or nocturnal, etc).

[karnythia]

Three year old's will indeed stay up all night if you let them. That doesn't make it a good or healthy idea. They want to be Superman so bad they tie blankets around their necks and jump off buildings. Regardless of how super smart a kid might be they still don't have the capabilities of an adult when it comes to decision making.

[maevele]

yup, and if Karnythia hadn't brought it up, I probably would never have seen it.

[cereta]

I saw that post when it already had 150+ comments and just went...no.

[oh-annalouise.livejournal.com]

It is the most terrible comment thread in the history of comment threads.

I don't think people actually understand how tantrums work.

[keeva]

i am in the karnythia camp here, and also i am really tired of people with economic/social privilege trying to find any excuse to come up with "ZOMG CLASSISM" as a derail, i.e. saying that poor people can't afford sitters or poor people can't afford internet access to locate other moms.

it's a derail not a legitimate argument, and especially blatant when it's someone with internet access going on about poor people and their lack of internet access.

(i read as much as i could stomach of the responses to her on Alas)

[maevele]

Yeah, Kar has been the most reasonable voice in all this, and the whole thing is getting caught up in the extremes, though. There are some bars you take kids to. there are some you don't. there are some kids you take to some bars, and some you don't. There are some places, even, that adults without kids really shouldn't go to. It all depends on the place, the people involved, and the time.

My kids have been in a number of bars, usually of the bar and grill type, or pizza joint with a bar, or the bowling alley, but taking them to the club, or one of the hard drinking bars, would be a shit decision. I was in a lot of bars as a kid myself, but I was a quiet kid who didn't care where I was as long as I had a book, and they were small, family run bars, that my mom's drinking buddies' kids were at as well, and we'd usually move on to a house party by around dark. Of course, I also started getting served shnapps and seven up when I was like 12 at the bar my folks hung out at, but that was a matter of inattentive parenting and a skeezy 20 something bartender.

[ithiliana]

i read the post on my feed and did not click over.

i've been hearing variants of this debate since the 1970s.

i cannot stand another one.

*hides under covers*

[amadi]

I just can't get over 400+ comments at Feministe, all beating the same "but there are mommies not parenting their nuisance-making chilluns ZOMG!!!11!1!!!" (Because you know most of the time it's moms. It's almost universally moms.) Yeah, sometimes that happens. It's life, get over it.

I'm not even touching the babies in bars thing because that, IMO, was a big derail.

[hot_tramp]

It's a HUGE derail. People are deliberately misreading "Let's not exclude children from public spaces" as "It's totally awesome to keep your child up all night and bring them to sexy night clubs!" I don't even know.

[amadi]

The bar was so not the point, and not only was that a derail, it was a repulsive show of US-centrism, where the shady dives the commenters seem to favor (where drunks fall on people!) are the only kind of bar that exists in the whole wide world!

[badgerbag]

I liked the one where moms with children in public are holding other people in an "almost hostage situation".

[amadi]

And a child being loud is the equivalent to assault.

[badgerbag]

Is it ever NOT time for that? Because... *eyeroll*

[badgerbag]

one more thing though. This made me think of my job, and our conference...and how our conferences and parties are always full of moms with kids. Cocktail parties with tons of babies in slings and so on. Also, we run child care and a lactation lounge.

[jesse_the_k]

I want to thank WisCon and LJ/DW for introducing me to a delicious mob of moms!

(that is all.)

[aris_tgd]

*hides in corner* Feministe is one of the blogs I can read at work, so I saw that post (and read all of the 350 comments at that time in shock), and then the followup came up today and made me want to throw things.

I would really like to have a discussion somewhere on the fucked-uppedness of child-raising in US culture, how other cultures have solutions maybe we could borrow from, and talk about how accessibility for children is a feminist issue. I don't like being told I'm not a part of the movement and have nothing to contribute because I'm not a mother and don't want to be.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I know.