It rings true on so many different levels. Your nod to Gramscii and comment on theory in university being applicable to your daily life made me feel relief! I’m a university student and have had quite a few arguments/down right fights with my mom about the ivory tower syndrome that I seem to suffer from. Somehow my experiences are less real than her’s because all I do is textbook stuff. Needless to say, it hurts.

There’s a book I’m thinking of now – “Raising our children, raising ourselves” by Naomi Aldort. If you ever get to read that I think you’d like it.

Yes, that! I have spent my whole life doing exactly that, and a quick look back tells me I needn’t have wasted my time—should’a said “fuck ‘em” a long time ago. Of course, I didn’t have the luxury to do that, and still don’t…but I can excise that internal censor out like the cancer it is.

I like that “Alien” analogy; how it eats you alive from within in the process of being born. And I don’t want to give birth to that monster anymore. I can’t help but think how it’s related to the rise of cancer, how that poison of “you don’t deserve to be here, to be metastasizes quietly within, killing you bit by bit every day….

I love what Baby BFP does…bring all her stuff with her, so she has what she needs when she needs it. A lot of us do that; it’s just that as we grow into adulthood we learn to take up less space as we do it—even (as you pointed out) in our own chairs. For what, y’know? It’s not like anyone else’s ass is gong to fit there with me! That’s one of the things I really love about being around children—they still have unadulterated selves.

And now I’m going to spend an extended weekend with my mother, my stoic mother, who is now openly admitting that she feels pain. I got some mango syrup at the italian store, so I’m gonna make her mango margaritas. Mango margaritas, and the garlicky guacamole that my dad hates because it gives us bad breath. And we’re gonna take up space on the couch, and watch the movies we want to watch, and breathe stinky garlicky guacamole breath all over the living room.

btw, what’s with the ears? I haven’t been poked in the ears yet! what does that do?

Thanks for this….much.

so much of the way we as a society deal with kids is about trying to squeeze them into boxes instead of giving them room to grow. elementary school for example is so much about making kids prove themselves day in day out, making kids earn their gold stars or their stickers or their fucking RECESS when it should be about helping them grow and learn.

so much of the way we deal with each other in this society is about proving your worth to basic human decency – the way for example people talk about weight and talk about “well x is no EXCUSE to be fat” like, what matters is not that you are healthy or happy or doing what works for you but what matters is that you are constantly compressing yourself, that you are striving to erase yourself.

and it’s just so incredibly sad to me that these are our priorities. that it’s about “EVERYONE MUST PROVE THEMSELVES WORTHY” instead of “how can we help each other out?” when life is so short and other people are such a huge percentage of what matters. how sad that we are asked to spend so much time policing ourselves and each other when we have so little time together.

oh thank you as always for this post.