Parenting THOMPSON, blog.

Academia Parenting Pregnancy

Let’s Do That Thing That Doesn’t Work

November 30, 2022 48 Comments

Janice Fiamengo pokes through the outpourings of Sophie Lewis:

Only a Marxist-feminist could pledge with a straight face that children will be better off when they are raised by a shifting coalition of non-relatives—or that being paid (by the state, one presumes) to raise someone else’s children will be more gratifying and less tiring than looking after one’s flesh and blood.

But Lewis’s utopianism is undeterred by evidence or common sense. “To abolish the family,” she has stated reassuringly in interview, “is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them.” To prove this point, Lewis’s book includes a historical survey of Marxist and queer imaginings of new types of social-family.

Given that such ideas stretch far back into the nineteenth century, one is struck less by the radicalism of Lewis’s propositions than by their tired predictability and centuries-old lack of viability. Does Lewis ever stop to ponder why attempts to replace the family have never managed to sustain themselves, even on a small scale? […] Does Lewis ever ponder the fact that it is mainly Marxist-feminists and queer radicals who seek a world in which caring for children could be farmed out to acquaintances?

Ms Lewis and her fever dreams have of course been mentioned here before:

So far as I can tell, and despite Ms Lewis’ theorising, mothers-to-be don’t generally feel a need to parse their pregnancy in terms of “abolishing the private nuclear household” and “global regimes of colonial and commodity exploitation.” Or indeed to champion abortion, via drugs or dismemberment, as a form of “anti-violence.” But that’s probably because – to borrow a phrase from Joan – they haven’t been tugging on the intersectional crack pipe.

Reading time: 3 min

Written by: David

Anthropology Feminist Witchcraft Parenting

I Have Some Reservations

October 26, 2022 124 Comments

From the pages of Scary Mommy, where ladies of a progressive bent share their fever dreams,

Could Witchcraft Make You A Better Parent? Real Witches Say ‘Yes’

I suspect the word real is creaking under the strain there. Other creaking may occur during our travels. Still, the author of the piece, Annie Midori Atherton, is keen to entice us with the prospect of paranormal parenting:

As a new mom fumbling through the daily grind of work, caregiving, and what little social life I can manage to eke in, I often find myself wondering how other parents pull it off… Some days I’m so worn down… that I feel I’d need to summon supernatural energy to thrive — rather than just survive.

And so, obviously,

For a growing number of people — including many mothers — witchcraft doesn’t begin or end with Halloween. According to one scholar, the number of Americans who identify with Wicca or paganism has risen from less than 200,000 twenty ago to nearly two million today.

Uncorrected narcissism, or fears of being an uninteresting person, or both, will do that, I suppose.

Reading time: 3 min

Written by: David

Academia Behold My Massive Breasts Parenting Political Nipples Pronouns Or Else Psychodrama

You Will Practise Not Noticing

September 21, 2022 76 Comments

Further to recent rumblings in the comments, the Globe and Mail’s Phoebe Maltz Bovy offers what I believe is called a hot take:

Most will be familiar with the following scenario: a young girl, a teen or tween, gets in trouble with her school’s administration for a dress-code violation. Her supposed crime against decency: looking provocative. It will turn out that the girl was wearing some normal teenager outfit, jeans and a T-shirt or something equally boring, but had the audacity to attend school in a body with breasts, hips and a post-pubescent-looking behind… She is not choosing to draw attention to herself simply by existing. It’s the fault of the adults around her for sexualising her.

Given what follows, do keep that last line in mind.

But in a twist to the typical narrative, this time around, a high-school teacher in Oakville, Ont., made headlines for her curvaceous classroom presence.

That would be this chap’s curvaceous classroom presence.

“The conservative press and right-wing social media” are then mentioned, complete with implied hissing, on grounds that those irredeemable right-wingers have noticed something untoward:

Reading time: 4 min

Written by: David

Academia Anthropology Free-For-All Parenting Politics

Those Horrible White Children

September 4, 2022 90 Comments

“It’s just nice we don’t have to hide our activism… We don’t have to hide who we are.”

Noted, madam.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Reading time: 1 min

Written by: David

Academia Books Media Parenting Pronouns Or Else

Victimhood Invoked, Victory Lap Indulged In

September 1, 2022 112 Comments

TIME spoke to Gender Queer author and illustrator Maia Kobabe about eir work, the efforts to restrict access to eir writing, and what ey make of the current cultural moment.

Captain, your signal’s breaking up. I’m getting a lot of static. Must be solar flares. That, or dangerously high levels of pretension caused by the proximity of Ms Kobabe, an activist and supposedly ungendered being, complete with boutique pronouns, and TIME’s Madeleine Carlisle. Given what follows, the words “restrict access” – and the subsequent claims of persecution – may seem a tad misleading. Ms Kobabe’s book, we learn, explores,

Questions around how to introduce nonbinary pronouns to people who might not be familiar them. And also how to be a role model as a nonbinary adult, especially in a setting like a classroom.

You see, our aspiring role model has produced a book combining hardcore self-involvement with dysmorphic cartoon pornography, with the results being made available to schoolchildren, including 11-year-olds. As one might imagine, there have been some, shall we say, reservations regarding whether a book of this kind should be circulated among children without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Readers may recall scenes in which parents attempted to read aloud passages from the book among fellow adults at school board meetings, typically resulting in reprimands, the shutting off of microphones, and threats of physical removal. Apparently, “vagina slime,” fellatio and “strap-on hotness” are inappropriate topics for adult discussion, even as an attempt to specify a problem, but totally fine for kids. Who apparently need to know about the joys of masturbating while driving.

Reading time: 3 min

Written by: David