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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Jet Setting


While my parents took charge of my kiddos and my husband went to a convention in Atlanta I had (gasp) time to myself in a (sigh) city.

We took the corporate jet so there was zero hassle.

I went on a quest to find my perfect pair of jeans, and I did. I rode the subway back from the mall, because I miss things like people watching on subways.

I got my breasts visually sized (ever since I saw the bra episode on Oprah I've wanted to know what size I should be wearing) at this store called Intimates and found out I'm a size larger than I thought.

I got a 90 minute massage! Seriously, the massuese spent 30 minutes on the knots in my shoulders and neck that results from carrying around a 30 pound baby.

I went dancing.

I ate indian food.

I ate whatever I wanted. I didn't have to make the food. I didn't have to clean up the dishes. I didn't have to pay for it. It's was a purely guilt-free 5 day food fest. I don't think that's ever happened to me before.

I worked uninterupted for hours.

I slept into the afternoon - twice.

I saw The Drifters and danced the night away.

I spent Martin Luther King Day at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Atlanta. I met a woman and talked her into going with me. It was awe inspiring.

I haggled with street vendors for souvenires on Auburn Ave.







So Mom, maybe you guys could watch the kids for a week once every six months?

All Diva Media Says Hmmm

I am proud to have been spotlighted on All Diva Media again by DJ Nelson.

My story, Girl Fight, was featured in 5 Posts That Made Me Say Hmmm.

Thanks! I'm honored to have made you think.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Super Skinny Me

Tune your DVR to watch Super Skinny Me on the BBC on Sunday at 10 pm to get the truth about what it costs to be a size 0.

Two British journalists, who had never dieted before vowed to lose 6 sizes in 6 weeks.

two average-size British journalists, Louise Burke and Kate Spicer, agree to a radical experiment -- drop five dress sizes in just five weeks. The journalists reported spiraling into depression and feeling worse than they've ever felt in their lives, according to this ABC News story.

It would not be a bad idea to watch this documentary with your daughter and use the opportunity to talk to her about body issues. Unless she lives under a rock, she's not oblivious to the pressure to be thin. Certainly, my six-year-old hasn't missed the message.

Take this opportunity to talk to her about the dangers of eating disorders and the necessity of nutrition. Talk to her about media messages and the size of super models versus normal women.

(Depending on the age of your child you may want to screen the film first to be sure there's nothing completely inappropriate.)

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Maternal Emotional Inheritance


Please, please, please take the time to watch the second video of How to Look Good Naked if you have ever uttered any words like, "I hate my freaking thighs."

This episode (click on the second one down) illustrates how girls develop negative body image from listening to their mother's criticize themselves.

The good news is that we, as mothers, have the power to pass positive self esteem down to our daughters by developing it in ourselves.

Easy? Maybe not. But, considering the consequences (eating disorders and self-loathing in our daughters) of passing on a negative emotional inheritance, definitely worth the effort.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Girl Fight


by Tracee Sioux

I found some alarming statistics in my local paper about physically violent fighting in the local high schools.

There were five physically violent fights in one high school so far this year. Ten girls were involved. No boys.

At another high school there have been seven fights and five of them involved girls.

The trend seems to be escalating from last year's statistics where 81 fights in the 2006-2007 school year involved 32 girls at one high school. At another school last year 21 fights involved 28 girls. At still another local high school, one of the better ones in town, girls accounted for 7 of 7 fights.

Authorities at the school report that physical violence among girls is generally the result of gossip and even teacher intervention does little to deescalate the violence.

Principals and teachers discribe boys as posturing and easy to redirect and girls as more vicious and more likely to follow through with threats of violence.

While this trend is alarming, and I think further research will indicate a national trend, it isn't really all that surprising.

Mean girl behavior is getting out of control in preschool and going completely unchecked as I wrote in Girl Drama. Parents are sending four- and five-year-olds to school as if it's a Kindergarten Fashion Show and turning their tots into fashion divas as I wrote about in Second Generation Mean Girl.

Common responses in preschool and Kindergarten by teachers, in my experience, has been to minimize the behavior, yeah, girls do that.

What continues to surprise me, though it may only illustrate my naivete, is that girls' parents are defending mean girl behavior as opposed to punishing or stopping it.

Take the national news story (not an urban legend as I had hoped) about the two girls who took a photograph of their supposed friend in the shower at a slumber party and spread it all over their high school via cell phone.

This is disturbing in and of itself.

The girls were suspended and kicked off the cheer leading squad.

The mean girls' parents, however, hired a lawyer to ensure their daughters would suffer no consequences.

The girls were put back on the cheerleading team. The father of one of the mean girls was on Dr. Phil saying the victimized girl and her parents were making too big a deal over a little prank. The other parent of the mean girl has a website defending his "brave" daughter's behavior.

Neither parents disciplined their mean girl daughters. Neither felt it was even an assault worthy of a good old fashioned grounding.

Have girls become so sexualized in our culture that to be angry that the whole school has a nude photo of you is being a poor sport? That to take the nude photo is a simple childish prank?

What message are we giving to our girls?

To me, this action is the equivalent to pornography of a child and should be punished accordingly.

This case is important for all parents of girls. If our daughters are not the mean girls, they may become victims of mean girls.

This is not an isolated incident, it's just one that has gotten national attention.

One teenage girl I know shared that a boy had shown her a cell phone recording of another girl having intercourse with his friend. She didn't understand my shock and outrage. It didn't occur to any of the girls involved to go to the police or other authority figure. It didn't even occur to the girls that they had a right not to be sexually victimized in this way.

This kind of thing is likely to become more and more prevalent as no one, not the police or the school or the parents, seem to dare to take action to nip it in the bud punitively.

Isn't it our responsibility to teach our girls the difference between right and wrong? Isn't it our responsibility, as parents and educators, to enforce consequences for mean girl behavior?

If we fail to take action and provide consequences to mean girl behavior aren't we teaching them that it's an acceptable and excusable way to behave?

Is it any wonder that gossip wars have begun to escalate into physical violence?

Is it too complex for parents to understand that insulating our children from consequences is not what's best for them?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Clingy Kiddos


Forgive me for taking a day or two from blogging.

I'll resume when my parents go home and my children stop clinging to me (tomorrow or Monday).

They did wonderful while I was away.

But evidently, they missed me.


Please don't unsubscribe or delete me from your bookmarks though. I've still got oodles and oodles more to say.

Monday, January 21, 2008

King & My Dream


A few weeks ago:

Hey, Ains. What did you learn in school today?

We learned about a king. He got the black people freed.

You mean a president?

No a king.

You mean somewhere else?

No here.

This is America. We don't have kings here. We have presidents. Could they be talking about Abraham Lincoln?

No, it's a king. And we also get to not go to school on Monday.

It says on the lunch calendar that there is lunch on Monday. You just got done with Christmas break. I think you have school.

No, they said there won't be any school because of someone's birth day.

A week later at dinner.

What did you learn in school today, Ainsley?

We learned about Martin Luther King. He got the whites and the blacks together.

Right. A king. That brought freedom to black people. No school on Monday. Martin Luther King Day.

Mommy did you know they used to not let blacks and whites go to school together or drink out of the same drinking fountain? Did you know they weren't allowed to be friends or be together in the bus?

I know.

Isn't that terrible?

It is terrible.

Isn't it happy that we all get to be together now?

Yes, very happy!

My dream is that she'll have a similar conversation with her daughter about women's equality.

Mommy, did you know that women didn't used to have equal rights?

I know honey. Isn't that crazy? she'll say, remembering absurd it was.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Qigong


Stop. Right where you are. Take a moment.

Is this the type of woman you want your daughter to be?

Do you treat yourself kindly?

Do you take time for yourself?

Or do you run yourself to the ground trying to do too much for everyone and always putting yourself last?

Is this - right now - the way you want your daughter to live?

If not, I recommend trying something else.

I'm going away and leaving the kiddos. The opportunity came knocking at my door. I'm answering with a big smile on my face.

I need the break from my kids. I need to not be needed for a few days. I need some silence and adult conversation.

When fill my cup. I teach my daughter to fill hers. I teach her to be kind to herself when I am kind to myself.

Happy, rested and relaxed Mommy makes for calmer, nicer, more together Mommy.

Of course I saw Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing, on Oprah yesterday! Wasn't it fantastic? I L-O-V-E when she talks about our feminine bodies. And heck yeah, I'm totally going to Qigong my lower heart and smile into my vajayjay! It's been a while since I got to fill my cup in a hotel room!

The bottom line, in case you missed it, is that if women do not take care of themselves we will get sick. Our bodies and our emotional selves will break down.

Personally, I've already had enough of that to last me a lifetime so I'm going on vacation without the kids.

Allomothering


I love the concept of allomothering, especially for daughters.

Allomothering is non-maternal infant care.

It usually refers to fathers, aunts, grandmothers or siblings of an animal caring for and nurturing it while mommy takes a break or goes out foraging.

While you'll never hear me say anyone can take the place of Mommy, there are benefits of providing as much exposure to other family members, friends, and caretakers and babysitters as possible. There are obvious benefits of allowing a child to be surround by many people who love them.

There are also benefits for girls to see how other women live and think. Women have been in dramatic transition in the last 30 years and different women have reacted in various ways.

Exposure to the different choices women make can only benefit daughters. There is no right or single way to be a woman - more choices for daughters is what I'm after.

If girls only see the one way their own mother's live out their chosen roles we rob them of exposure to all the other choices.

I believe there are also generational hangups that will take more than a single generation of women to iron out or correct. I'm hoping that Ainsley won't have such terrible guilt about working outside the home if that's where her dreams take her. I don't necessarily want her to work fulltime at an office, but any terrible guilt is is an undue burden I don't want to put on her.

Ainsley is quite lucky in that she has many women who are more than willing to allomother her. She has two sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, family friends, even three sets of great-grandparents.

My parents are coming to stay with the kids while I jaunt off with my man on a business trip to Atlanta for 5 whole days. I love that my parents are willing to do this and I love that Ainsley will have the attention, love, affection and interaction of others.

Exposure to a different way of doing things is healthy for girls to experience.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Encourage Girls Athletics


Since Title IX has enforced rules about spending for girls sports in the public school system it has led to a 400 percent increase in the rate of female participation in college sports and a more than 800 percent increase in participation at the high school level.

Sports are great for girls. They encourage healthy competition, good physical health and feeling physically, emotionally and mentally strong.

Boys are not the only athletic winners, except when it comes to some school athletic budgets.

Despite the significant gains girls and women have made since the enactment of Title IX, a significant drawback to the law's enforcement at the high school level involves the lack of data reporting. The U.S. Department of Education has not required these schools to report athletic opportunity, participation, and funding statistics to any higher authority. Colleges are required to report this data, it's time our high schools are too.

American Assocation of University Women strongly supports the High School Sports Information Collection Act (S. 518), which would require high schools to report basic information on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs and the expenditures made for their sports teams. Sadly, this bill only has five cosponsors. The Senate is currently working on adding provisions of this bill in the No Child Left Behind Act. An increase in the number of cosponsors will demonstrate support for including the provisions in NCLB.

Be a girls' athletic supporter by clicking on this link and letting congress know that you want to empower girls through sports.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Miss America Reality?


Miss America, the pageant of all pageant's. The, the, the . . . most obsolete thing in the world.

TLC got a hold of the Miss America pageant and aims to modernize it on a reality show called Miss America Reality Check. Which sounded like a potentially promising thing. For a minute.

There was this part of me - the wicked part - that loved every minute of the tongue lashing the 52 pageant contestants got from What Not to Wear stars Stacy and Clinton. Admit it we've all wanted to say "enough with the sequins and take the hair down about 1,000 notches, you look like a drag queen, and for goodness sake stop it with the spray tan!"

I watched again last night (after the kids went to bed) thinking maybe they were going to move onto to some actual modernizing or dare I dream, feministing, of the pageant.

No, we had an intellectual competition. Who is the most smartest beauty pageant contestant? Host Michael Urie, the mean boy from Ugly Betty, made the girls get into their swim suits and stilettos and they were forced to {gasp} jump in the pool to ruin their make-up and hair if they got it wrong.

So, then it became just another way for women/girls to be humiliated in as little clothing as possible. And was it really a challenge of intelligence? The last winner-takes-all question was about which country Borat comes from.

Borat? That's how we gauge intelligence in this country now? From knowing about last year's crude comedy? Fictional geography?

Why did we give carte blanc to all gay men to humiliate women on television? Why are they allowed to be as insulting and cruel as they like without any public backlash? Were a straight man or a woman to say most of what Michael Urie says on that show it would be socially unacceptable. What makes gay guys the ultimate in fashion experts anyway? They don't have to wear the clothes or the heals or use the products - why should women care what they think looks best on us? Why don't we expect even a minimum of respect from them? It's like women have become the gay man's real-life Barbie to make-over as he sees fit.

And who do we have making over Miss America? The fashion industry. Brilliant! Because they've been so wonderful and uplifting to girls and women in America thus far. The fashion industry knows exactly what the American people want to see in Miss America. Not.

Let's see . . . Who has done more harm to women's self esteem and self image -pageants or the fashion industry?

Really I would love to know - how is this better?

NYTimes Opinion on Juno


There is a column worth reading on the New York Times Opinion Page about the film Juno. Juno, is the name of a teenager who gets pregnant and gives the baby up for adoption.

Columnist, Caitlin Flanagan, has a valid point about the message of the film and how it effects girls. (I, personally, haven't yet seen the film.)

Monday, January 14, 2008

Little Miss Sunshine

by Traces Sioux

Every parent of a daughter should see Little Miss Sunshine.

It's the story of a normal girl, Olive, from a dysfunctional family scrambling to get their hands on the American Dream.

Olive's aunt entered her into a beauty pageant and she placed as a runner-up. The winner couldn't make it to the California Little Miss Sunshine Pageant, so Olive gets in at the last minute.

Olive wants it, so the family drives their beat-up VW van across the country. When confronted with the complete insanity of what little girl beauty pageants have come to, both brother and father have serious misgivings about allowing Olive to compete.

This is a funny and entertaining flick. It's also a poignant commentary about the sexualization of girls and the importance our culture places on beauty as success.

Little Miss Sunshine is disturbing, but then so is what we do to girls in our culture.

Support this blog by clicking on the Unboxed DVD in the right side bar to watch the film right now. Or click on the Little Miss Sunshine link to order the DVD.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Validation Time


Again, I would love some validation for what I do here on So Sioux Me.

The Eighth Annual Weblog Awards are accepting nominations through the end of today. Please go there and nominate So Sioux Me (and/or Quit Coping and Blog Fabulous) for some sort of award. Best Kept Secret or Best New Blog of 2007 or Best Writing or Best Topical Blog come to mind.

Winners receive $20.07, but it's not about the money. It's about the little button that says Bloggie I'll get to put on this site and the droves of traffic that will come and think about the girl-revolution.

More people should be thinking about how we're impacting girls, right?

Don't Be A Girl


Get your shoes on Zack, come to Home Depot with me, he said.

We were going to watch Jon and Kate plus Ei8ht, I said.

He'd rather go to the hardware store.

Zack loves the babies. It's his favorite show.

What do you want to do Zack? Pick the hardware store. Don't be a girl!

There is nothing wrong with being a girl!

Sometimes I think he forgets who he's married to.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Law of Attraction Action Pack


One of the things most important things I want to teach my daughter is how to make her life happen, as opposed to allowing life happen to her.

I want to give her power. Power to do or be anything she chooses. I don't want her to be limited by the past. I don't want her limited by history. I don't want her limited economically or politically or socially.

I want her to know how to dream. Then to know how to achieve her dreams. Since it's my job to teach her these skills, and dreaming is a learned skill, I've been exploring these issues myself.

Can I make my dreams come true?

During this quest I saw The Secret and I've been experimenting with The Law Of Attraction with success (remember my new house that seemed custom-made for me?).

And see you, you are reading this blog are you not? I've been praying that you would come read this blog.

A month ago I attracted a Law of Attraction Mentor, Jeff Howard, who sent me his Law of Attraction Action Pack. It's a seven day program with tools to help you focus on what you want to attract and shows you how to attract it.

While going through the process I have included my daughter. Great tools for me equal great tools for her. We've made dream boards and listened to the meditation exercises together.

I think it must be working for her, because you would not believe her new room. As a child, I never could have dreamed up such a room. Her new room has two closets, one of them is so big it has a reading nook and a whole rack for her dress up clothes. She even has her own bathroom! A six-year-old has her own bathroom.

As we progress in our spiritual journey or our goal-achieving quests, it's important that we include our children in the process. Whatever the process is for us.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

First Female Primary Winner

I hope you shared this moment, when the first woman ever won a United States Presidential Primary, with your daughters last night.

Regardless of your political leanings, I sincerely hope that the significance of Hillary Clinton's participation in the democratic process is not going unnoticed.

I also hope you watch what you say about her femininity in front of your girls, whether you agree or disagree with her politics.

For parents of girls this is no time to be laissez fair about the first female presidential candidate of the most powerful national on earth.

When so much of the media exposure portrays women as sex objects or a joke, and the national feminine chatter is about the battle to be beautiful or catch a man, it is vital that girls see a woman on the national political scene being taken seriously.

I think the psychological impact of having a female Commander in Chief would have on our daughters is as relevant to the race as anything else. As a woman, I need to see it and my daughter needs to see if even more.

When we were growing up, women in the media were primarily portrayed as housewives, because sex was highly censored. With the increased sexualization of women in the media, it's even more of a struggle for girls to grow up strong and confident.

Last night when Hillary was in the lead in New Hampshire, Ainsley and I shared a high five that made me a choke up. For her, maybe anything really can be possible. As a mother, that's the reality I want for her.

Certainly, witnessing a woman being taken seriously about real issues will make girls feel more legitimate, valid, and ambitious.

Don't miss this opportunity, call your daughter over to the computer and watch the acceptance speech right now.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

How To Look Good Naked


by Tracee Sioux

Did you catch the premier episode of Lifetime's How to Look Good Naked?

I think there is enough evidence that body image is, at least partly, emotionally-inherited.

When mothers feel bad about their bodies, daughters are more likely to feel bad about their bodies. (There are always exceptions, of course.)

Nothing is going to change the fact, however, that mothers being critical about our bodies puts daughters in a more vulnerable position self-image-wise.

How is a daughter to stand up to the onslaught of negative messages about a normal woman's body in this highly sexualized and beauty-conscious culture, if Mom can't learn to love her own body and cut herself some slack?

The problem is self-perpetuating. Mom criticizes self, daughter criticizes self and grows up to become mom who criticizes self.

Women need to get proactive about their own self esteem. It takes work to develop and maintain a self esteem. We need to be honest that self-loathing internal chatter is getting us no where.

Enter metro-homosexual Carson Kressly to help us solve our self-esteem issues. Whatever it takes, right?

I was very pleased with the first episode of How to Look Good Naked. While this appears to be a make-over show it is about making over a woman's insides - her self image. Let's face it, women, as a collective-conscious seem to need an internal self image makeover. A lot of us feel like crap about ourselves and that has a negative impact on our daughter's self image and self esteem.

One particular exercise was brilliant. Three women were shown on a monitor walking down the street. One was dressed in a slouchy over-sized sweater, one was in a boring office outfit and another was in a confident, sexy dress. The woman with poor body image was asked to identify the one that weighed most. She chose the one wearing over-sized clothing. What was revealed was that they were all the same woman. It was only her clothing - screaming about her confidence level - that made others think she was the most overweight.

While this is only a television program, it does seem logical to me that we might expect a cultural cure to a cultural problem. In other words, if we can feel better about ourselves while watching such a program - then we should watch it and implement some of the feel-good psychology suggested.

When we feel good about who we are and what we look like - well that translates into a health self image for our daughters. Which, to my mind, is totally worth the effort.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Slutz, Bratz Parody

This You Tube video is a parody of Bratz dolls by the Latin Comedy Project. This video is not appropriate for children, but then neither are Bratz.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Precocious Puberty

Did you know that it is now common for girls to start their menstrual cycles when they are nine years old? Pubic hair and breasts begin showing up one to two years prior to menstruation, which put many girls in precocious puberty or early puberty at around age seven.

I find this shocking.

My first reaction is to find out the cause of such early development and put an abrupt and definitive stop to it before it effects my daughter.

Yet, immediately, I realize that I do not have that kind of power as a parent.

It's not something I get to decide, like how much and what kind of television she's exposed to. It's pretty much up to God and some kind of backwards evolution.

Evolutionarily speaking females are having babies later in life, as opposed to earlier, right? Marrying and reproducing later rather than earlier. Why then, would the biological event of puberty be happening sooner rather than later?

Doing a Google search on the early maturation in girls was upsetting at best. There are lots of theories, some credible and some not, and it's kind of hard to tell the two apart.

The best article I found was Growing Up Too Fast published in the Denver Post, by Jackie Avner who took the time to research the various theories.

Now, as you know I already told my six-year-old daughter Ainsley that we, females, bleed every month to explain the tampons and pads. She sees me naked nearly every day, as I can't seem to train her to leave me alone in the bathroom. So, the pubic hair and breasts are things we've discussed frequently and openly.

I must be honest though, I previously told her she'd probably get breasts and hair when she was about 12 years old, because that's when I got them and I thought it was hereditary. I had to amend that information and inform her that these things might be happening several years earlier.

Logan Levkoff, Sexologist & Sexuality Educator and author of Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults had this to say on the topic of early maturation of girls, I think that there are two issues to consider: the implications of early menarche and how we teach our girls that an adult body does not mean that they are supposed to engage in adult behaviors and how to we teach our girls to love their bodies (and their menstrual status), when they get so many messages about how horrible having a period is, Levkoff said.

Also, Levkoff added, we need to teach fathers to remain present and affectionate with their daughters even as they physically transition through puberty.

As a mother, I can not control the onset of puberty, however I am her primary influence about the attitudes surrounding her femininity.

If I am curled up on the couch whining and moaning about how horrible my period is or muttering against God and his blasted curse, there is not much chance she will look forward to, embrace or accept her own period in a positive way regardless of when it happens for her.

Avoiding the issue that very young girls do have very adult bodies on today's elementary school playground would very likely backfire. But, for today I have to digest this information before I can begin that dialogue. In other words - she might be ready for further discussion but I, most certainly, am not.

And her Daddy, maybe we won't tell him about puberty till she's 13 and he's prepared for it - I'm only kidding! Jeez.

Further resources:
This is a fairly recent New York Times article about different cases.
This article blames early menstruation on childhood obesity.
This article describes gonadotropin-independent precocious puberty
This article insists it might be the absence of a father and the presence of a step-father.
This article hypothesises it's exposure to unknown contaminants.
These studies link early puberty to the mother's exposure to estrogen (in creams or medication) or similar hormones during pregnancy.
This article blames it on hormones present in cow's milk and a lack of attachment parenting.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Mowing & Gender

I often have to bite my tongue to prevent myself from exclaiming, Oh, Zack you're such a boy!

It's almost a reflex anytime he plays with machines, pushes around a car, stacks some blocks, plays with a ball or tries to fight. It's a reflex most people in our family do not resist.

Stereotypes are ingrained in us, as much as they are in society.

It's the activities that are seen as masculine - but if you look to the left or right, nearly every time my girl is doing the exact same activity.

She too plays with balls, climbs on any tractor she sees, wants to drill holes in the wall or sling a hammer (like Mommy) and is as likely as he, to jump on your back and holler, You're going down!

How do you think it feels to her when she hears Zack is such a boy! for participating in an activity she too is doing? She might feel excluded from the activity or irrelevant in the situation. Overlooked. Dismissed. Obsolete. Unimportant. Left out. Invalidated and unacknowledged.

For girls and women these are familiar feelings.

You'll notice in the above photograph, Lowes has added women to their marketing displays for mowers. I had two simultaneous responses to this.

The first was, It's about time they acknowledged that women also mow the lawn.

The second was, We already do 75% of the housework and childcare and now we have to mow the flippin' lawn too?



But then I was distracted by Ainsley moving to a new machine and declaring loudly, I'm going to take over the world!

I believe her.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Collectors Items


The Iowa Caucus is only days away.

Get your custom-designed Hillary 2008 Bumper Stickers now for only $5. Email me at traceesioux@yahoo.com to place your order. (More designs in the left side bar.)

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Caroline's Name


by Tracee Sioux

I always thought I'd have four children growing up. But, then I had one and realized how incredibly hard it was and changed my ideal to two.

When I had Ainsley I thought I'd save my sir name Sioux for the second girl. For some reason I can't recall now I thought it would be odd to give both girls my name. I gave her my mother and great-grandmother's name Sarah as a middle name.

Now, with one boy and one girl and no other girls coming - well, I regret that Ainsley doesn't have my name.

Lately I've been wondering if the naming traditions should shift to passing down names from mother to daughter and father to son. Would that work?

I've been considering changing it, but she's six-years-old so it's not a thing I would do without her wanting it too.

Ainsley, I've been thinking about changing your name.

Okay I want to be Caroline.

What?

Caroline and you can call me Cara.

I meant adding my last name, Sioux, to your name.

Okay, I want to be Caroline Sioux.

What about daddy's name? His feelings will be hurt if you don't keep that. Don't you like the name Ainsley?

I like Caroline better.

What about Sarah?

Just call me Caroline from now on.

Okay, that's not exactly where I intended for this conversation to go.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Jet Setting


While my parents took charge of my kiddos and my husband went to a convention in Atlanta I had (gasp) time to myself in a (sigh) city.

We took the corporate jet so there was zero hassle.

I went on a quest to find my perfect pair of jeans, and I did. I rode the subway back from the mall, because I miss things like people watching on subways.

I got my breasts visually sized (ever since I saw the bra episode on Oprah I've wanted to know what size I should be wearing) at this store called Intimates and found out I'm a size larger than I thought.

I got a 90 minute massage! Seriously, the massuese spent 30 minutes on the knots in my shoulders and neck that results from carrying around a 30 pound baby.

I went dancing.

I ate indian food.

I ate whatever I wanted. I didn't have to make the food. I didn't have to clean up the dishes. I didn't have to pay for it. It's was a purely guilt-free 5 day food fest. I don't think that's ever happened to me before.

I worked uninterupted for hours.

I slept into the afternoon - twice.

I saw The Drifters and danced the night away.

I spent Martin Luther King Day at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Atlanta. I met a woman and talked her into going with me. It was awe inspiring.

I haggled with street vendors for souvenires on Auburn Ave.







So Mom, maybe you guys could watch the kids for a week once every six months?

All Diva Media Says Hmmm

I am proud to have been spotlighted on All Diva Media again by DJ Nelson.

My story, Girl Fight, was featured in 5 Posts That Made Me Say Hmmm.

Thanks! I'm honored to have made you think.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Super Skinny Me

Tune your DVR to watch Super Skinny Me on the BBC on Sunday at 10 pm to get the truth about what it costs to be a size 0.

Two British journalists, who had never dieted before vowed to lose 6 sizes in 6 weeks.

two average-size British journalists, Louise Burke and Kate Spicer, agree to a radical experiment -- drop five dress sizes in just five weeks. The journalists reported spiraling into depression and feeling worse than they've ever felt in their lives, according to this ABC News story.

It would not be a bad idea to watch this documentary with your daughter and use the opportunity to talk to her about body issues. Unless she lives under a rock, she's not oblivious to the pressure to be thin. Certainly, my six-year-old hasn't missed the message.

Take this opportunity to talk to her about the dangers of eating disorders and the necessity of nutrition. Talk to her about media messages and the size of super models versus normal women.

(Depending on the age of your child you may want to screen the film first to be sure there's nothing completely inappropriate.)

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Maternal Emotional Inheritance


Please, please, please take the time to watch the second video of How to Look Good Naked if you have ever uttered any words like, "I hate my freaking thighs."

This episode (click on the second one down) illustrates how girls develop negative body image from listening to their mother's criticize themselves.

The good news is that we, as mothers, have the power to pass positive self esteem down to our daughters by developing it in ourselves.

Easy? Maybe not. But, considering the consequences (eating disorders and self-loathing in our daughters) of passing on a negative emotional inheritance, definitely worth the effort.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Girl Fight


by Tracee Sioux

I found some alarming statistics in my local paper about physically violent fighting in the local high schools.

There were five physically violent fights in one high school so far this year. Ten girls were involved. No boys.

At another high school there have been seven fights and five of them involved girls.

The trend seems to be escalating from last year's statistics where 81 fights in the 2006-2007 school year involved 32 girls at one high school. At another school last year 21 fights involved 28 girls. At still another local high school, one of the better ones in town, girls accounted for 7 of 7 fights.

Authorities at the school report that physical violence among girls is generally the result of gossip and even teacher intervention does little to deescalate the violence.

Principals and teachers discribe boys as posturing and easy to redirect and girls as more vicious and more likely to follow through with threats of violence.

While this trend is alarming, and I think further research will indicate a national trend, it isn't really all that surprising.

Mean girl behavior is getting out of control in preschool and going completely unchecked as I wrote in Girl Drama. Parents are sending four- and five-year-olds to school as if it's a Kindergarten Fashion Show and turning their tots into fashion divas as I wrote about in Second Generation Mean Girl.

Common responses in preschool and Kindergarten by teachers, in my experience, has been to minimize the behavior, yeah, girls do that.

What continues to surprise me, though it may only illustrate my naivete, is that girls' parents are defending mean girl behavior as opposed to punishing or stopping it.

Take the national news story (not an urban legend as I had hoped) about the two girls who took a photograph of their supposed friend in the shower at a slumber party and spread it all over their high school via cell phone.

This is disturbing in and of itself.

The girls were suspended and kicked off the cheer leading squad.

The mean girls' parents, however, hired a lawyer to ensure their daughters would suffer no consequences.

The girls were put back on the cheerleading team. The father of one of the mean girls was on Dr. Phil saying the victimized girl and her parents were making too big a deal over a little prank. The other parent of the mean girl has a website defending his "brave" daughter's behavior.

Neither parents disciplined their mean girl daughters. Neither felt it was even an assault worthy of a good old fashioned grounding.

Have girls become so sexualized in our culture that to be angry that the whole school has a nude photo of you is being a poor sport? That to take the nude photo is a simple childish prank?

What message are we giving to our girls?

To me, this action is the equivalent to pornography of a child and should be punished accordingly.

This case is important for all parents of girls. If our daughters are not the mean girls, they may become victims of mean girls.

This is not an isolated incident, it's just one that has gotten national attention.

One teenage girl I know shared that a boy had shown her a cell phone recording of another girl having intercourse with his friend. She didn't understand my shock and outrage. It didn't occur to any of the girls involved to go to the police or other authority figure. It didn't even occur to the girls that they had a right not to be sexually victimized in this way.

This kind of thing is likely to become more and more prevalent as no one, not the police or the school or the parents, seem to dare to take action to nip it in the bud punitively.

Isn't it our responsibility to teach our girls the difference between right and wrong? Isn't it our responsibility, as parents and educators, to enforce consequences for mean girl behavior?

If we fail to take action and provide consequences to mean girl behavior aren't we teaching them that it's an acceptable and excusable way to behave?

Is it any wonder that gossip wars have begun to escalate into physical violence?

Is it too complex for parents to understand that insulating our children from consequences is not what's best for them?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Clingy Kiddos


Forgive me for taking a day or two from blogging.

I'll resume when my parents go home and my children stop clinging to me (tomorrow or Monday).

They did wonderful while I was away.

But evidently, they missed me.


Please don't unsubscribe or delete me from your bookmarks though. I've still got oodles and oodles more to say.

Monday, January 21, 2008

King & My Dream


A few weeks ago:

Hey, Ains. What did you learn in school today?

We learned about a king. He got the black people freed.

You mean a president?

No a king.

You mean somewhere else?

No here.

This is America. We don't have kings here. We have presidents. Could they be talking about Abraham Lincoln?

No, it's a king. And we also get to not go to school on Monday.

It says on the lunch calendar that there is lunch on Monday. You just got done with Christmas break. I think you have school.

No, they said there won't be any school because of someone's birth day.

A week later at dinner.

What did you learn in school today, Ainsley?

We learned about Martin Luther King. He got the whites and the blacks together.

Right. A king. That brought freedom to black people. No school on Monday. Martin Luther King Day.

Mommy did you know they used to not let blacks and whites go to school together or drink out of the same drinking fountain? Did you know they weren't allowed to be friends or be together in the bus?

I know.

Isn't that terrible?

It is terrible.

Isn't it happy that we all get to be together now?

Yes, very happy!

My dream is that she'll have a similar conversation with her daughter about women's equality.

Mommy, did you know that women didn't used to have equal rights?

I know honey. Isn't that crazy? she'll say, remembering absurd it was.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Qigong


Stop. Right where you are. Take a moment.

Is this the type of woman you want your daughter to be?

Do you treat yourself kindly?

Do you take time for yourself?

Or do you run yourself to the ground trying to do too much for everyone and always putting yourself last?

Is this - right now - the way you want your daughter to live?

If not, I recommend trying something else.

I'm going away and leaving the kiddos. The opportunity came knocking at my door. I'm answering with a big smile on my face.

I need the break from my kids. I need to not be needed for a few days. I need some silence and adult conversation.

When fill my cup. I teach my daughter to fill hers. I teach her to be kind to herself when I am kind to myself.

Happy, rested and relaxed Mommy makes for calmer, nicer, more together Mommy.

Of course I saw Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing, on Oprah yesterday! Wasn't it fantastic? I L-O-V-E when she talks about our feminine bodies. And heck yeah, I'm totally going to Qigong my lower heart and smile into my vajayjay! It's been a while since I got to fill my cup in a hotel room!

The bottom line, in case you missed it, is that if women do not take care of themselves we will get sick. Our bodies and our emotional selves will break down.

Personally, I've already had enough of that to last me a lifetime so I'm going on vacation without the kids.

Allomothering


I love the concept of allomothering, especially for daughters.

Allomothering is non-maternal infant care.

It usually refers to fathers, aunts, grandmothers or siblings of an animal caring for and nurturing it while mommy takes a break or goes out foraging.

While you'll never hear me say anyone can take the place of Mommy, there are benefits of providing as much exposure to other family members, friends, and caretakers and babysitters as possible. There are obvious benefits of allowing a child to be surround by many people who love them.

There are also benefits for girls to see how other women live and think. Women have been in dramatic transition in the last 30 years and different women have reacted in various ways.

Exposure to the different choices women make can only benefit daughters. There is no right or single way to be a woman - more choices for daughters is what I'm after.

If girls only see the one way their own mother's live out their chosen roles we rob them of exposure to all the other choices.

I believe there are also generational hangups that will take more than a single generation of women to iron out or correct. I'm hoping that Ainsley won't have such terrible guilt about working outside the home if that's where her dreams take her. I don't necessarily want her to work fulltime at an office, but any terrible guilt is is an undue burden I don't want to put on her.

Ainsley is quite lucky in that she has many women who are more than willing to allomother her. She has two sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, family friends, even three sets of great-grandparents.

My parents are coming to stay with the kids while I jaunt off with my man on a business trip to Atlanta for 5 whole days. I love that my parents are willing to do this and I love that Ainsley will have the attention, love, affection and interaction of others.

Exposure to a different way of doing things is healthy for girls to experience.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Encourage Girls Athletics


Since Title IX has enforced rules about spending for girls sports in the public school system it has led to a 400 percent increase in the rate of female participation in college sports and a more than 800 percent increase in participation at the high school level.

Sports are great for girls. They encourage healthy competition, good physical health and feeling physically, emotionally and mentally strong.

Boys are not the only athletic winners, except when it comes to some school athletic budgets.

Despite the significant gains girls and women have made since the enactment of Title IX, a significant drawback to the law's enforcement at the high school level involves the lack of data reporting. The U.S. Department of Education has not required these schools to report athletic opportunity, participation, and funding statistics to any higher authority. Colleges are required to report this data, it's time our high schools are too.

American Assocation of University Women strongly supports the High School Sports Information Collection Act (S. 518), which would require high schools to report basic information on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs and the expenditures made for their sports teams. Sadly, this bill only has five cosponsors. The Senate is currently working on adding provisions of this bill in the No Child Left Behind Act. An increase in the number of cosponsors will demonstrate support for including the provisions in NCLB.

Be a girls' athletic supporter by clicking on this link and letting congress know that you want to empower girls through sports.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Miss America Reality?


Miss America, the pageant of all pageant's. The, the, the . . . most obsolete thing in the world.

TLC got a hold of the Miss America pageant and aims to modernize it on a reality show called Miss America Reality Check. Which sounded like a potentially promising thing. For a minute.

There was this part of me - the wicked part - that loved every minute of the tongue lashing the 52 pageant contestants got from What Not to Wear stars Stacy and Clinton. Admit it we've all wanted to say "enough with the sequins and take the hair down about 1,000 notches, you look like a drag queen, and for goodness sake stop it with the spray tan!"

I watched again last night (after the kids went to bed) thinking maybe they were going to move onto to some actual modernizing or dare I dream, feministing, of the pageant.

No, we had an intellectual competition. Who is the most smartest beauty pageant contestant? Host Michael Urie, the mean boy from Ugly Betty, made the girls get into their swim suits and stilettos and they were forced to {gasp} jump in the pool to ruin their make-up and hair if they got it wrong.

So, then it became just another way for women/girls to be humiliated in as little clothing as possible. And was it really a challenge of intelligence? The last winner-takes-all question was about which country Borat comes from.

Borat? That's how we gauge intelligence in this country now? From knowing about last year's crude comedy? Fictional geography?

Why did we give carte blanc to all gay men to humiliate women on television? Why are they allowed to be as insulting and cruel as they like without any public backlash? Were a straight man or a woman to say most of what Michael Urie says on that show it would be socially unacceptable. What makes gay guys the ultimate in fashion experts anyway? They don't have to wear the clothes or the heals or use the products - why should women care what they think looks best on us? Why don't we expect even a minimum of respect from them? It's like women have become the gay man's real-life Barbie to make-over as he sees fit.

And who do we have making over Miss America? The fashion industry. Brilliant! Because they've been so wonderful and uplifting to girls and women in America thus far. The fashion industry knows exactly what the American people want to see in Miss America. Not.

Let's see . . . Who has done more harm to women's self esteem and self image -pageants or the fashion industry?

Really I would love to know - how is this better?

NYTimes Opinion on Juno


There is a column worth reading on the New York Times Opinion Page about the film Juno. Juno, is the name of a teenager who gets pregnant and gives the baby up for adoption.

Columnist, Caitlin Flanagan, has a valid point about the message of the film and how it effects girls. (I, personally, haven't yet seen the film.)

Monday, January 14, 2008

Little Miss Sunshine

by Traces Sioux

Every parent of a daughter should see Little Miss Sunshine.

It's the story of a normal girl, Olive, from a dysfunctional family scrambling to get their hands on the American Dream.

Olive's aunt entered her into a beauty pageant and she placed as a runner-up. The winner couldn't make it to the California Little Miss Sunshine Pageant, so Olive gets in at the last minute.

Olive wants it, so the family drives their beat-up VW van across the country. When confronted with the complete insanity of what little girl beauty pageants have come to, both brother and father have serious misgivings about allowing Olive to compete.

This is a funny and entertaining flick. It's also a poignant commentary about the sexualization of girls and the importance our culture places on beauty as success.

Little Miss Sunshine is disturbing, but then so is what we do to girls in our culture.

Support this blog by clicking on the Unboxed DVD in the right side bar to watch the film right now. Or click on the Little Miss Sunshine link to order the DVD.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Validation Time


Again, I would love some validation for what I do here on So Sioux Me.

The Eighth Annual Weblog Awards are accepting nominations through the end of today. Please go there and nominate So Sioux Me (and/or Quit Coping and Blog Fabulous) for some sort of award. Best Kept Secret or Best New Blog of 2007 or Best Writing or Best Topical Blog come to mind.

Winners receive $20.07, but it's not about the money. It's about the little button that says Bloggie I'll get to put on this site and the droves of traffic that will come and think about the girl-revolution.

More people should be thinking about how we're impacting girls, right?

Don't Be A Girl


Get your shoes on Zack, come to Home Depot with me, he said.

We were going to watch Jon and Kate plus Ei8ht, I said.

He'd rather go to the hardware store.

Zack loves the babies. It's his favorite show.

What do you want to do Zack? Pick the hardware store. Don't be a girl!

There is nothing wrong with being a girl!

Sometimes I think he forgets who he's married to.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Law of Attraction Action Pack


One of the things most important things I want to teach my daughter is how to make her life happen, as opposed to allowing life happen to her.

I want to give her power. Power to do or be anything she chooses. I don't want her to be limited by the past. I don't want her limited by history. I don't want her limited economically or politically or socially.

I want her to know how to dream. Then to know how to achieve her dreams. Since it's my job to teach her these skills, and dreaming is a learned skill, I've been exploring these issues myself.

Can I make my dreams come true?

During this quest I saw The Secret and I've been experimenting with The Law Of Attraction with success (remember my new house that seemed custom-made for me?).

And see you, you are reading this blog are you not? I've been praying that you would come read this blog.

A month ago I attracted a Law of Attraction Mentor, Jeff Howard, who sent me his Law of Attraction Action Pack. It's a seven day program with tools to help you focus on what you want to attract and shows you how to attract it.

While going through the process I have included my daughter. Great tools for me equal great tools for her. We've made dream boards and listened to the meditation exercises together.

I think it must be working for her, because you would not believe her new room. As a child, I never could have dreamed up such a room. Her new room has two closets, one of them is so big it has a reading nook and a whole rack for her dress up clothes. She even has her own bathroom! A six-year-old has her own bathroom.

As we progress in our spiritual journey or our goal-achieving quests, it's important that we include our children in the process. Whatever the process is for us.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

First Female Primary Winner

I hope you shared this moment, when the first woman ever won a United States Presidential Primary, with your daughters last night.

Regardless of your political leanings, I sincerely hope that the significance of Hillary Clinton's participation in the democratic process is not going unnoticed.

I also hope you watch what you say about her femininity in front of your girls, whether you agree or disagree with her politics.

For parents of girls this is no time to be laissez fair about the first female presidential candidate of the most powerful national on earth.

When so much of the media exposure portrays women as sex objects or a joke, and the national feminine chatter is about the battle to be beautiful or catch a man, it is vital that girls see a woman on the national political scene being taken seriously.

I think the psychological impact of having a female Commander in Chief would have on our daughters is as relevant to the race as anything else. As a woman, I need to see it and my daughter needs to see if even more.

When we were growing up, women in the media were primarily portrayed as housewives, because sex was highly censored. With the increased sexualization of women in the media, it's even more of a struggle for girls to grow up strong and confident.

Last night when Hillary was in the lead in New Hampshire, Ainsley and I shared a high five that made me a choke up. For her, maybe anything really can be possible. As a mother, that's the reality I want for her.

Certainly, witnessing a woman being taken seriously about real issues will make girls feel more legitimate, valid, and ambitious.

Don't miss this opportunity, call your daughter over to the computer and watch the acceptance speech right now.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

How To Look Good Naked


by Tracee Sioux

Did you catch the premier episode of Lifetime's How to Look Good Naked?

I think there is enough evidence that body image is, at least partly, emotionally-inherited.

When mothers feel bad about their bodies, daughters are more likely to feel bad about their bodies. (There are always exceptions, of course.)

Nothing is going to change the fact, however, that mothers being critical about our bodies puts daughters in a more vulnerable position self-image-wise.

How is a daughter to stand up to the onslaught of negative messages about a normal woman's body in this highly sexualized and beauty-conscious culture, if Mom can't learn to love her own body and cut herself some slack?

The problem is self-perpetuating. Mom criticizes self, daughter criticizes self and grows up to become mom who criticizes self.

Women need to get proactive about their own self esteem. It takes work to develop and maintain a self esteem. We need to be honest that self-loathing internal chatter is getting us no where.

Enter metro-homosexual Carson Kressly to help us solve our self-esteem issues. Whatever it takes, right?

I was very pleased with the first episode of How to Look Good Naked. While this appears to be a make-over show it is about making over a woman's insides - her self image. Let's face it, women, as a collective-conscious seem to need an internal self image makeover. A lot of us feel like crap about ourselves and that has a negative impact on our daughter's self image and self esteem.

One particular exercise was brilliant. Three women were shown on a monitor walking down the street. One was dressed in a slouchy over-sized sweater, one was in a boring office outfit and another was in a confident, sexy dress. The woman with poor body image was asked to identify the one that weighed most. She chose the one wearing over-sized clothing. What was revealed was that they were all the same woman. It was only her clothing - screaming about her confidence level - that made others think she was the most overweight.

While this is only a television program, it does seem logical to me that we might expect a cultural cure to a cultural problem. In other words, if we can feel better about ourselves while watching such a program - then we should watch it and implement some of the feel-good psychology suggested.

When we feel good about who we are and what we look like - well that translates into a health self image for our daughters. Which, to my mind, is totally worth the effort.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Slutz, Bratz Parody

This You Tube video is a parody of Bratz dolls by the Latin Comedy Project. This video is not appropriate for children, but then neither are Bratz.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Precocious Puberty

Did you know that it is now common for girls to start their menstrual cycles when they are nine years old? Pubic hair and breasts begin showing up one to two years prior to menstruation, which put many girls in precocious puberty or early puberty at around age seven.

I find this shocking.

My first reaction is to find out the cause of such early development and put an abrupt and definitive stop to it before it effects my daughter.

Yet, immediately, I realize that I do not have that kind of power as a parent.

It's not something I get to decide, like how much and what kind of television she's exposed to. It's pretty much up to God and some kind of backwards evolution.

Evolutionarily speaking females are having babies later in life, as opposed to earlier, right? Marrying and reproducing later rather than earlier. Why then, would the biological event of puberty be happening sooner rather than later?

Doing a Google search on the early maturation in girls was upsetting at best. There are lots of theories, some credible and some not, and it's kind of hard to tell the two apart.

The best article I found was Growing Up Too Fast published in the Denver Post, by Jackie Avner who took the time to research the various theories.

Now, as you know I already told my six-year-old daughter Ainsley that we, females, bleed every month to explain the tampons and pads. She sees me naked nearly every day, as I can't seem to train her to leave me alone in the bathroom. So, the pubic hair and breasts are things we've discussed frequently and openly.

I must be honest though, I previously told her she'd probably get breasts and hair when she was about 12 years old, because that's when I got them and I thought it was hereditary. I had to amend that information and inform her that these things might be happening several years earlier.

Logan Levkoff, Sexologist & Sexuality Educator and author of Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults had this to say on the topic of early maturation of girls, I think that there are two issues to consider: the implications of early menarche and how we teach our girls that an adult body does not mean that they are supposed to engage in adult behaviors and how to we teach our girls to love their bodies (and their menstrual status), when they get so many messages about how horrible having a period is, Levkoff said.

Also, Levkoff added, we need to teach fathers to remain present and affectionate with their daughters even as they physically transition through puberty.

As a mother, I can not control the onset of puberty, however I am her primary influence about the attitudes surrounding her femininity.

If I am curled up on the couch whining and moaning about how horrible my period is or muttering against God and his blasted curse, there is not much chance she will look forward to, embrace or accept her own period in a positive way regardless of when it happens for her.

Avoiding the issue that very young girls do have very adult bodies on today's elementary school playground would very likely backfire. But, for today I have to digest this information before I can begin that dialogue. In other words - she might be ready for further discussion but I, most certainly, am not.

And her Daddy, maybe we won't tell him about puberty till she's 13 and he's prepared for it - I'm only kidding! Jeez.

Further resources:
This is a fairly recent New York Times article about different cases.
This article blames early menstruation on childhood obesity.
This article describes gonadotropin-independent precocious puberty
This article insists it might be the absence of a father and the presence of a step-father.
This article hypothesises it's exposure to unknown contaminants.
These studies link early puberty to the mother's exposure to estrogen (in creams or medication) or similar hormones during pregnancy.
This article blames it on hormones present in cow's milk and a lack of attachment parenting.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Mowing & Gender

I often have to bite my tongue to prevent myself from exclaiming, Oh, Zack you're such a boy!

It's almost a reflex anytime he plays with machines, pushes around a car, stacks some blocks, plays with a ball or tries to fight. It's a reflex most people in our family do not resist.

Stereotypes are ingrained in us, as much as they are in society.

It's the activities that are seen as masculine - but if you look to the left or right, nearly every time my girl is doing the exact same activity.

She too plays with balls, climbs on any tractor she sees, wants to drill holes in the wall or sling a hammer (like Mommy) and is as likely as he, to jump on your back and holler, You're going down!

How do you think it feels to her when she hears Zack is such a boy! for participating in an activity she too is doing? She might feel excluded from the activity or irrelevant in the situation. Overlooked. Dismissed. Obsolete. Unimportant. Left out. Invalidated and unacknowledged.

For girls and women these are familiar feelings.

You'll notice in the above photograph, Lowes has added women to their marketing displays for mowers. I had two simultaneous responses to this.

The first was, It's about time they acknowledged that women also mow the lawn.

The second was, We already do 75% of the housework and childcare and now we have to mow the flippin' lawn too?



But then I was distracted by Ainsley moving to a new machine and declaring loudly, I'm going to take over the world!

I believe her.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Collectors Items


The Iowa Caucus is only days away.

Get your custom-designed Hillary 2008 Bumper Stickers now for only $5. Email me at traceesioux@yahoo.com to place your order. (More designs in the left side bar.)

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Caroline's Name


by Tracee Sioux

I always thought I'd have four children growing up. But, then I had one and realized how incredibly hard it was and changed my ideal to two.

When I had Ainsley I thought I'd save my sir name Sioux for the second girl. For some reason I can't recall now I thought it would be odd to give both girls my name. I gave her my mother and great-grandmother's name Sarah as a middle name.

Now, with one boy and one girl and no other girls coming - well, I regret that Ainsley doesn't have my name.

Lately I've been wondering if the naming traditions should shift to passing down names from mother to daughter and father to son. Would that work?

I've been considering changing it, but she's six-years-old so it's not a thing I would do without her wanting it too.

Ainsley, I've been thinking about changing your name.

Okay I want to be Caroline.

What?

Caroline and you can call me Cara.

I meant adding my last name, Sioux, to your name.

Okay, I want to be Caroline Sioux.

What about daddy's name? His feelings will be hurt if you don't keep that. Don't you like the name Ainsley?

I like Caroline better.

What about Sarah?

Just call me Caroline from now on.

Okay, that's not exactly where I intended for this conversation to go.