Entries from November 2007 ↓

by Tracee Sioux

How does this sound?

While I am a so-called liberal democrat nearly everyone I know and love is a conservative Christian.

Here’s the thing – we all want the same things and share the same basic values.

Women who describe themselves as “stay-at-home-moms” are working. They are working part-time for low pay and getting no benefits, no security, no acknowledgement or validation from their work, but they ARE working.

Women who describe themselves as “working mothers” would stay at home more and work fewer hours given the flexibility and choice.

Then there is a whole class of women who vacillate between the two distinctions and make various compromises depending on age of children and practical economics. Those compromises usually sacrifice health care and benefits for more time. It’s not a necessary sacrifice when we could just require employers to offer it up without penalty.

We, as voters and citizens, need to remember that the government works for us. Not the other way around. In a democracy, we get to decide what the rules are and how the game is played. We do that by writing letters and electing the people that are looking out for our best interests. Let the employer look out for his own best interest – they pay people to lobby for that. The US Constitution wasn’t design to protect employers, it was designed to protect We, the People.

Both the liberal Democrat and the conservative Republican family can see how telecommuting, working from home, benefits for part-time work, paid family leave, after school programs and health care are good for every family in America.

American families deserve it and Momsrising is demanding it. There is a bill before congress right now called The Balancing Act that makes life easier for families.

If you want to see the divorce rate go down and more face-time between kids and their parents, it’s laws like The Balancing Act that make it possible.

Follow this link and write your representatives and tell them you expect the American Government to do this for American Families.

Our daughters deserve better choices than we have. Just as we have better choices than our mothers.

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by Tracee Sioux

I can hardly wait for New Year’s Eve to come because I never have to put “Quit Smoking – for real this time” on my list of resolutions again. I can move on to getting organized and saving my receipts so I can deduct them.

The best thing about this year is that I’ve become a non-smoker. I really and truly quit smoking. Well, maybe the very best thing is that I’ve encouraged thousands of other smokers, to become non-smokers with the breakout success of one BlogFabulous post about the miracle drug Chantix (around 957 comments). It feels fantastic to effect the soul of the world in such a positive way.

If you still smoke here’s what I want you to know:

You’ve been underestimating the tole smoking is taking on your emotional life.

The chronic sense of failure, guilt and shame is effecting everything you say, think and do. You’ve been doing it so long that you think it’s who you are.

It’s not.

You’ll have to take my word for it, but after a few months you’ll discover a deeper person underneath all those negative surface emotions and that person is worth knowing.

It’s liberating and confidence-boosting to be without that sense of shame, guilt and failure.

Smoking undermined every relationship in my life. If you always leave a conversation to smoke you rob yourself of the full relationship – usually the healing, reconciliation and understanding that comes at the end of conversations.

You think you can’t find the emotional strength to deal with people because you’ve been mentally checking out as soon as conflict comes up by thinking about how you’ll escape to smoke.

That you can’t deal with stress is a fiction created by your addiction to cigarettes. Period. It’s a fiction and it will take some pain and a lot of practice – but you deserve to know that you can deal with everything you think you can’t deal with. You can learn to deal with stress, loss, pain, trauma, anxiety, insomnia, conflict, boredom and every other emotion you’ve avoided by smoking.

You’ll need to dedicate yourself to finding new coping strategies for every instance where you previously smoked. That’s seriously uncomfortable. It’s painful sometimes. It’s overwhelming. I promise you – it’s worth it.

There is no way to quit smoking with total ease and comfort. But, Chantix will take the edge off. And if you’re a smoker, I know you understand that by edge I don’t mean a slight discomfort, I mean the depths of hell. Chantix will elevate you to purgatory levels of discomfort which almost feels like heaven if you’ve ever been to the depths of hell.

Today is the Great International Smoke Out. Ten years ago I ended up on the front page of a Lithuanian newspaper for smoking it up on the street on this day. It’s embarrassing to be held up as the epitome of stupidly continuing to smoke.

This year, when I see smokers on the street, I want to tell you: You don’t have to smoke anymore.

You deserve to be a non-smoker.

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by Tracee Sioux

I’m reading this little book called Bergdorf Blonds by Plum Sykes where I’m seeing the word ana. As in you’re looking totally ana, you must be deliriously happy. Ana is short for anorexia and is considered the best thing to be.

It’s not just appearing in trashy hip-chick lit, it’s appearing on social networking sites where the lines are being blurred between recovering from eating disorders and glamorizing being so thin they’re near death.

Worlds Largest Pro Anorexia site is where girls go to support each other in keeping their anorexia or bulimia.

Comments samples on Pro-ana and Pro-mia sites:

after a two day fast, i f*ed up. and had six slices of bread and butter :’( plus a bowl of spaghetti. i tried to purge but i couldn’t. then i spent ages crying. how sad can i get.

i love stepping on the scale and seeing the numbers go lower. i really do. it feels like a high– but sometimes i actually get scared for my own health and well being. my BMI is 15. im scared sometimes that i wont wake up. i tell myself i will eat healthy and maintain my weight but then in contrast i get scared to eat TOO much. so i cycle on eating too much, maintaining weight, losing weight, freaking out, eating too much… over and over again.

Xanga, Facebook and Myspace all have pro-ana and pro-mia sites. Those who participate in these sites defend their “right to their lifestyle choice.”

They exchange purging tips, ways to avoid eating when they are in social situations, how to hide weight loss from doctors and parents, and what pills and laxatives work best. These strategies are quaintly known as thinspiration.

According to a 2006 survey of eating disorder patients at Stanford Medical School 35.5% had visited pro-ana/pro-mia web sites; of those, 96% learned new weight loss or purging methods from such sites.

They post ultra-thin photos of themselves and long to be, not their own thin selves, but someone thinner and better.

This pro-ana and pro-mia and thinspiration trend is a cry for help from the girls who internalized all our self-loathing jokes and indulged in all the girl-hating media.

Oh mothers. What would we do to protect our daughters from this outcome?

Would we stop complaining about our own bodies and appearance?

It’s a tangible and effective place to start. It’s not meaningless and without consequence to joke about our own fatness, ugliness, lack of beauty perfection. It doesn’t only lower our self-esteem, it lowers theirs too.

Would we take the time to write advertisers?

Is it worth monitoring their Internet use and television exposure?

It is to me.

The mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance vaccinates her daughter against low self-esteem, Naomi Wolf

Self-Loathing Sin Bank

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In response to a meme by Marjorie at 280 Main Street. A meme is what bloggers do if they like you – yea! It’s like blogger approval. I’m digging that.

• I was on the front page of the newspaper in Lithuania. I was teaching English there. It was considered improper for women to smoke on the street. A photographer caught me smoking on the street during the International Smoke Out. Due to the language barrier, I didn’t know about the smoke out. I would’ve done it anyway. It wasn’t a good photo – I had burned my bangs while trying to light my smoke on a gas stove and they were mid-grow out. I quit smoking this year.
• I used to wimp-out when people would say, “It’s too competitive.” There are several moments in my life where I wish I hadn’t chickened out of opportunities. I’m learning to say, “Well, maybe I’m that good.”
• I’m actively testing Biblical promises and the Law of Attraction to get what I really want. It’s working. Especially for garage sale where I found four already hemmed jeans with the exact right waste, leg, brand and sizes.
• I love being in my 30s – I feel so much more powerful and validated now. I’m starting to love cliches, because they are true like, “youth is wasted on the young.”
• I feel freed from my biological clock now that I’m done having children. I’m feeling a sense of sanity that was never there before. Like all my thoughts and actions were somehow biologically skewed to make sure I got married and had children. Now that I’m done I feel free to be more authentically me, only censored.
• I’m resistant to organization and new technology. I get frustrated learning new things and avoid them until I can’t avoid them anymore (just got a cell phone this year – actually three, since my kids destroyed my first two). I finally had to start keeping a weekly calendar and a password spreadsheet.
• I have hemochromatosis. It’s a rare hereditary condition where my body doesn’t process iron correctly. Iron is poisonous in high doses so they bleed me. About 8% of the population has it. I was extremely lucky to find out about it in my 20s, so it is unlikely to effect my health or life expectancy. However, it does make me uninsurable through private insurance. Thank Goodness my husband has a corporate job which is required to insure me. I’ve been denied life insurance too.

I’m going to tag Jlogged, Queen of Violets, Mrs. Blogoway, The Wardrobe Miser, Babylune, and Black Market Beauty (this chick is conjuring up her own make up recipes.) and Blue Milk.

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by Tracee Sioux

When you write about issues effecting daughters, you put a lot of thought into personal action that might not have carried much meaning before.

For instance, having written that women should consider how their daughters will feel before reconstructing perceived flaws through surgery in My Face/Her Face I have to wonder how far I must take the you’re beautiful the way God made you message.

Does that make it wrong for me to color my hair? Am I now restricted to only allow myself my natural color? Am I making Ainsley feel bad about her light brown hair (which is my natural color) by bleaching and coloring my hair? Am I harming her self esteem?

I was a natural blond as a child. I’m not over it. Okay? I’m just not. I want to be a blond. My hair got darker around the 5th or 6th grade and I wasn’t thrilled when I saw myself in a picture. I’ve pretty much been bleaching it since the 7th grade. Blonds have more fun. Blonds are prettier. Blonds are younger. Blonds are more exciting. I think you look great as a brunette. But I, my inner self or my own internal picture of me, is a blond.

I don’t feel as pretty if I don’t have blond streaks. Sometimes I like to put red in it. Sometimes I really enjoy the contrast between the dark brown and the sun-streaked blond. Last Spring I loved my pink streaks amidst the blond. I like the feeling I get when I make a big change, but I like it most when there is blond involved.

I’ll probably never develop a deep satisfaction in my natural color. For one thing, by now it’s probably got some gray in it and I’d color it anyway. I may never get over it – and why should I? There is nothing permanent about hair.

However, after reading my friend Jennifer’s blog A Free Haircut is Always a Super Cut arguing that professional hair color is an expensive luxury. I decided I could give up my blond – for a little while – to free up the $60 it costs me to have it done. We’re buying a house and that 60 bucks, as well as the gym membership, can go to the mortgage.

I went for my natural Light Golden Brown first. Boring. Boring. Boring. I went back for the Dark Auburn last night – I can at least give myself a hint of drama.

And Ainsley, I’ve already colored her hair twice – once with pink streaks and once with red. She even had pink extensions glued in for a while. She asked for it and I couldn’t think of a reason not to.

So, if Ainsley is going to get a message I hope it’s this, You have the freedom to have whatever color of hair you want. You can reinvent yourself every season if you feel like it. But, keep it in perspective – if it’s between buying a house or being a blond – the house should win every time.

Who knew I had this much to say about hair:

• Beauty & Reality
• Pink Hair Fiasco
• Pink Hair Fiasco Take 2
• Curl Maintenance
• The Meaning of Hair

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