Entries from June 2008 ↓

by Tracee Sioux

When considering things that go into raising a confident, strong daughter having the benefit of a great dad ranks right up there.

As I watched my husband twirl Ainsley around a dance floor Friday night – and even flip her around just like her Dancing With the Stars fantasy – I thought, She’s so lucky to have an exceptionally good dad.

Ainsley was an only child for 4 years and he never shied away from the traditionally “boy things” with her. Now that she has a brother, he does these things with both of them.

He wrestles with her nearly every day. He took her to Yankees and Mets games when we lived in NYC. He watched sports with her on TV. He takes her golfing with him. He supports her participation in athletics like soccer, t-ball and karate.

At the same time he always responds positively when she fishes for compliments about her beauty and fashion sense.

He will expect her to go to college and he will expect her to get good grades. He will expect her to expand her intellect over her appearance.

He never tells her she can’t accomplish anything because she is a girl.

He does dishes and helps cleans up around the house. He’s such a good example for what she can and should expect from a husband in her future.

He is gentle and loving with our son as well. Secure enough in his own masculinity to allow Zack to wear Mommy’s red pumps, carry his money around in his sister’s purse, or cuddle with a baby doll, without hysteria about turning him gay.

He prays with both kids most nights, teaching them how to access God and gives them a spiritual foundation.

He’s home with us most nights and weekends, so regularly that Ainsley almost experiences his occasional working late as a rejection or trauma. I miss Daddy, she’ll cry if he has to work late several days in a row. Often he’ll come home for the evening and return to work once they’ve gone to bed.

He is patient and firm, in a way I can’t seem to manage. They never question his authority, which makes me jealous and a little mad because it seems her hobby is to question mine.

I have very rarely seen him lose his cool, while I lose mine semi-regularly (see above paragraph for a simple explanation).

He grounds us.

I have never once seen him raise his hand to her or speak an insulting or belittling word to her.

Happy Father’s Day, Honey. The kids and I nominate you Father of the Year.

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EIGHT hours later we emerged with a giant garbage bag full of trash – kindergarten papers, church papers, artwork, broken toys, mucked up play makeup, pieces of jewelry, rocks and sea shells.

We also had a giant bag of clothes – clothes she’s grown out of, pants that show her panties when she sits, and the ones she thinks are too ugly to wear.

She can now close her drawers and she’ll be able to find her stuff for about a week.

In 6 months we’ll go excavate again.

I wish the church would stop handing out loads of paper every time we walk through the door. She never looks at it again, but feels emotionally attached to it.

It wouldn’t have taken so long if she hadn’t gone through every single paper to remark, This was some of my best coloring.” She was emotionally attached to every piece of scrap paper she ever scribbled on.

We can’t keep everything Ainsley. If we want new things, we have to make room for them by getting rid of old things. (Said the mother who keeps more than one ugly sweater, lots of old notebooks, parts to who knows what, and pants that don’t fit “just in case.)”

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by Tracee Sioux

Over drinks, after the convention, I spoke to young college-aged single women who voted for Obama and tried to see where they were coming from.

What I saw was that they haven’t experienced sexism because they aren’t mothers yet.

In the same conversation they told me about their dreams of a sexual Utopia in which they get to have sex with whoever they want and still reap the rewards and intimacy that comes from commitment. They told me all about their ultimate goal of bisexual polyamoury and truly believe it will work out for them.

One told me about her undying love and insanely romantic feelings for her perfect new husband, in the same sentence she professed her frustration at not finding the right BFF+sex.

Which just goes to show they still believe in fairy tales, be they ones from porn magazines or Disney.

In my head I kept thinking of that old Ronald Reagan line, I will forgive you your youth.

I sure felt conservative. I was wild in my youth, but experience makes one more realistic, I guess.

They seemed profoundly ungrateful for all the women/mothers who fought for their rights and autonomy. Maybe they were just oblivious?

How can take such new found and hard won rights for granted so easily? I guess if you are born to them it’s easier.

It was as if they believed men had generously offered our rights up, rather than women having to viciously fight for them.

Don’t you realize that you aren’t guaranteed to have maternity leave? That most maternity leave is unpaid and you don’t get it if you work for a small company? They are still allowed to fire pregnant women for being pregnant? That they are letting more men and single women work from home than mothers? Can’t you see a few years into the future when you’ll have children? Fight for it now so it will be there when you have children. You can’t understand how painful it is to “choose,” I told them.

They evidently haven’t really heard enough about motherhood discrimination or how women are being subtly pushed out of the workforce. I don’t think they had even heard what it was.

I had an academic understanding of my “choices” when I was their age too. My problem was that I believed a lot more choices would be available to me than there were when I got there. I suppose that’s what those young women believe too.

The good news is that we’ve done our job so well in education that they don’t experience sexism until they go get a job and get pregnant.

The bad news is that we’ve haven’t rallied them to their own future causes.

I suppose every generation of feminists have felt this way. I’m quite positive I felt this way about my mother and her choices.

“I didn’t want to vote for her just because she’s a woman,” they told me.

Wait, isn’t that Rush Limbaugh’s line? God knows I’ve been denied plenty of opportunities “just because I’m a woman.” Isn’t turn-about fair play? Evidently, not for them.

One young woman said at first she saw no hope for either Obama or Hillary and was prepared to support John Edwards. It wasn’t until they started gaining momentum and coming to Texas that she chose sides.

They said they did a ton of research on Obama’s site and I believe them. They said they made an educated decision. I believe that too.

She said that she wasn’t anti-Hillary. What did it for her was the idea that Obama wouldn’t take Political Action Committee or lobbyist money.

But, I also saw these same young women fight tooth and nail and take “Obama-sides” on issues that weren’t between Obama and Hillary.

I hope those young women are right about Barack Obama. I really, really do.

With every passing generation there will – God Willing – be fewer and fewer issues for feminists. Eventually, the goal is that every young woman will have every reason to look at a feminist grandmother and not be able to relate to a word she’s saying. That’s success.

We’re just not there yet.
(But, maybe a little gratitude wouldn’t kill us.)

Check out my story on Blog Fabulous tomorrow to find out about the women I met who say those young women are foolish. They say they won’t vote for Obama no matter what.

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Upon my return from the Texas Democratic Convention I’m experiencing grief.

I’m mourning the death of a dream.

Prone to weeping. While doing my make up, driving the car, working out. I’m just quietly weeping. I haven’t wanted to write. I’m depressed and emotional.

I talked to lots of people this weekend and some of it made me excited and some of it made me sad, angry or depressed.

I bought the I heart Obama shirt for my daughter, but my heart wasn’t in it. My heart is broken.

I don’t want that shirt. I don’t heart Obama, she said. I heart Hillary.

She helped me put the Obama stickers on my car. We’re resigned. Defeated.

I’m trying desperately not to be angry or feel betrayed by other women. Not to be angry at my husband. Not to be angry. But that only leaves me with the emotions of defeat and sadness and hurt.

Why?

I have yet to see a man champion any woman’s issues, personal or political, as if they were his own.

My father has not. My brothers have not. My husband has not. My ex-boyfriends have not. My church leaders have not. My bosses have not. My elected officials have not.

Not. One. Single. Time.

Apathy is no better than misogyny.

Where there was a light at the end of the tunnel that seemed to get nearer, it has receded again at least 4 and possibly 8 years away.

Ainsley will be 14 years old before the light comes close again, unless the next president is a total failure. Which do I hope for?

I didn’t realize how much I wanted Hillary to win. It’s not really surprising. But, I regret not doing more. I should’ve donated more money. I should have wrote more about her. Made phone calls. I was too afraid of criticism.

Right now I’m just going about my business weeping and mourning.

Presidential Score: Men 44. Women ZERO.

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Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic asked me to guest blog. I submitted Body Image: No Name Calling about how I try to teach Ainsley that the habit of self-deprecation is wrong and carries a real cost to the self-esteem.

Thanks to Laurie for the opportunity. Laurie will be sitting on the BlogHer panel about body image with me in San Francisco in July.

Please stop by and read it while I decompress from my political trip and spend extra time with my kids – they missed me.

There’s another reason to leave the kids every once in a while – you can’t beat the experience of seeing them run towards you with pure joy to see you. Who else is that happy when they see me?

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