Do you see what I am seeing?

Baby grew a mohawk.

Your daughter’s hair

I will attempt to write about this with caution because I acknowledge that hair just isn’t the contentious issue for me as a white woman that it is for black women. (Even those of us white mothers who have been known to be a little neglectful with our daughter’s hair get off relatively lightly in any hair judgement stakes).

Observing this discussion I have learnt so much about the politics of hair for black women and girls. I cannot believe how much I didn’t know about this aspect of racism. Consider my mind blown. It is also an interesting case study in the censuring of mothers but I won’t go into that further because I have too much white privilege to reliably unpack that aspect when the topic is centred around racism.

So, what the hell is this whole discussion that I am alluding to? Well, you have a famous white woman who has adopted several children of colour.. already controversial... and one of her children is a little black girl, and this white woman lets her daughter’s hair go natural or wild (depending on where you sit on this matter).. what happens then?.. A lot of opinions about hair care.. you might have heard of this mother and daughter? Angelina and Zahara.

What does one wear to a protest rally?

Lauca put together this outfit for today’s “Save Homebirth” rally and I admired her choice. A bag is essential for any rally, but what is she carrying?

Her toy rats.

Homebirth is in real trouble in Australia.

I am not a homebirther, both my children were born in hospitals (the first in a birth centre). I support homebirth because birth rights are reproductive rights.

I am a little surprised that feminists are not taking this issue up more here. Ya know, when an institution dominated by men tries to shut down an institution dominated by women that should prick your little feminist ears up.. and when that institution is all about controlling women’s bodies, more specifically, how and where women push someone out of their vagina, that should especially ring some feminist alarm bells for you.

When ‘being yourself’ is dangerous

However innocuously presented (in fact, innocence is fetishised), we pretty much don’t know how to see a girl without objectifying her (even when we are feminist). Watching my pre-schooler I have moments where the thinness of her shoulders or the jut of her hips reminds me of images from fashion magazines – images of adults, or rather images of girls who are supposed to be what adults look like. More specifically, certain portions of her body, certain natural postures of hers are associated for me with the selling of a product; it is the very essence of objectification. It annoys me when I catch myself in the act of transposing. Lauca isn’t particularly aware of fashion images, she has almost no control over mine or anyone else’s interpretation of her physical self. The female body really can’t just be.

The problem is not that young bodies are beautiful, it is that, particularly in the case of young women, their bodies have been used to symbolise commodified pleasure, and when everything about you represents consumption you can be terribly vulnerable. The appreciation of youthful beauty would not be so troublesome were it not to come with the sense of entitlement that is the leering eye. In our culture young women are both sexualised and silenced – a terribly dangerous combination for them. Kate Harding sums this up beautifully (in a particularly fine article if your heart can bear to read any more of this Polanski stuff):

Kampmeier told me, “There’s a scene in my film where Dakota’s character is singing ‘Hound Dog’ on the bed, moving her legs back and forth in a very innocent expression of her love for this song.” As Kampmeier tells it, Fanning wasn’t intending to play it as sexual in any way, nor was she directed to — but in the film, a 17-year-old boy is watching, and projecting his own interpretation onto it. Says Kampmeier, “I had men in audiences watch that and say, ‘Well, she’s asking for it.’ Women say, ‘No, she’s just being natural, being herself.’ Why is a young girl seen as asking for it when she’s just exploring the experience of being alive in her body?” It would seem to come down to whether you identify with the 12-year-old girl or the 17-year-old boy watching.

This is what too many people fail to understand about adolescent girls when it comes to sex, rape and personal agency: The experience of being alive in their bodies makes them sometimes sexual, sometimes curious, sometimes desirous, sometimes totally innocent — and at all times vulnerable to other people’s interpretations of their behavior, of their decisions, of their very existence in bodies equipped with brand-new womanly features. And all they have to counter those interpretations are their own voices — voices that are routinely ignored, dismissed and silenced.

But this is not an argument for purity or for restraining young women.

Five minutes after we ended the interview, Kampmeier called me back to say she wanted to add one more thought: “When you rape a girl, the problem is not that you’re taking away her purity — which is what gets the religious right up in arms — it’s that you’re taking away her wholeness. And trying to keep her ‘pure,’ repressing her sexuality, silencing her voice, also takes away wholeness. It’s two sides of the same coin.

“I don’t want my daughter to grow up pure,” she said. “I want her to grow up whole.”

And this is what annoys me about the “we can sexualise girls because, of course, girls are sexual creatures”. Yes, they are sexual, but we as a world are so, so far away from having the integrity or the space or the respect to be able to interpret their sexuality, and their sexuality belongs to them.

So, all good

Bad parent:

Four year old daughter knows “you are being an arse” and “this is a pain in the arse” are terms used when you are feeling annoyed with someone.

Good parent:

Four year old daughter somehow mistakenly thinks it is pronounced ‘ask’ and so uses a PG rated version – “stop being a pain in the ask” when she is feeling annoyed. Even better, she emphasizes ask for full effect, and so in public it can sound no more offensive than a child demanding “ask, ask, assssssssssssssssssk!”. And because I am a good parent I have not corrected her.

Faster and faster

This month I am frequently being swallowed whole in moments of déjà vu. On hands and knees, cleaning up bits of food from underneath the highchair, am I really here, already? And popping him down on the carpet in a video store, to sit with my purse and keys while I choose a DVD – I can recall the first baby and I here exactly, even if we lived somewhere else entirely. Maybe, because he is mostly an easier baby, I am surprised to find us here already. The journey to six months seemed to take all I had the first time.

All the while something else is happening too. My memories of him as a baby are paving over my memories of her. It seems my brain has limited space and it is forced to record over the top of earlier memories. I try to recall her as a baby, recall her as it was in the moment, and I can only find the memory of memories.

I would be sadder were I not to know better.

[More] Feminist parents community noticeboard

Calling all lab rats, subjects needed for research.

Here is an international study on ‘Motherhood’ with an on-line anonymous survey. Easy peasy. Took me about 5-10 minutes and the survey was reasonably well designed.

This survey request comes to me via contacts in academia but on further investigation it seems the project is linked to the You Sexy Mother book/website, which may be a little ‘yummy mummy-ish’ for me, but no harm in helping research.

Almost a year later

About a year ago Lauca took some photographs with my mother’s camera, which you can see here if you missed it (really, how?). And now, some recent photos taken by Lauca.

Why yes, that is five seconds of your life you will never get back.

Unless you are my family, and then you will be treasuring the glorious melancholy captured by a four year old in these photos taken as her holiday with the much loved Aunty came to an end.

I see a photographic future for Lauca creating album covers for Bon Iver.

How to feel suburban

Visit your sister and brother-in-law in their inner-city apartment and from their balcony watch a police seige (complete with police dogs, riot squad, and reporters) unfold on the street below.

A bit more interesting than watching people mow their lawns, isn’t it baby?

The coincidence

Something I didn’t notice until I was downloading the photos, the baby and his father are wearing virtually the same outfit. Kinda sweet, kinda naff.

As a point of mild interest for non-Australians (maybe), lurking above the horizon of trees on the right of these photos is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So now you have your bearings. A seriously good looking bay that one.