I think a mini-van boasts more actual space than an SUV.

An SUV sure takes up more room on planet earth, but there is somehow a lot fewer compartments, less luggage area and less leg room for passengers.

* Unplug everything so don't use (pay for) vampire energy - check.

* Shave husband bald - check. (He won't let me post photos!)

* Turn off air conditioner - check.

* Run dishwasher - check.

* Take out garbage - check.

* Empty fridge of left over food- check.

* Pick up clutter so clen house is waiting - check.

* Ask neighbors to call the cops if anyone lurks - check.

Road TRIP!

Last night our van broke down again.

Who cares? It can wait till we get back from BlogHer08, because GM is loaning us this '08 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. Truly I've rarely even sat in a car this nice.

It's $52,780!

Yeah. An entire annual salary.

But, check out the features:

DVD Player for the back seat How my childhood family vacations, and all the memories, would have been so different if we took a Tahoe and not the Toyota Corolla with 4 kids in the back.

GPS System - I don't know what I was thinking yesterday when I said I was going by my mother's directions. Are you kidding? I'm testing out the GPS System! Hello?

Reverse Camera - I put it into reverse and the thing shows me on the radio monitor what is behind me. How cool is that? No blind spots!

Get this no spare tire. They have a tire inflation system and sealant instead. Hmm.

It says it gets 22 mpg on the highway. Which, really isn't great gas milage. It's only great gas milage in comparison to the 10 mpg some SUVs get.

I'm anxious about how much the gas for this trip is going to cost. It will only get more expensive the further west we go and it seems to go up daily.

But, don't care. Nothing's going to spoil my good time. Vacation with Chevy Tahoe on my way to BlogHer.

Life is beautiful! I wish Hubby would get off early. The anticipation is bittersweet. I guess I better go pack Zack's clothes.

So Sioux Me Family Vacation

Dove's new Campaign for Real Beauty viral video - Under Pressure.

GM is giving my family a Hybrid Tahoe to drive across the country to BlogHer. Woo Hoo! We'll actually drive it to Salt Lake City because we already bought plane tickets to San Francisco from there.

Itinerary & Pit Stops

We'll drive straight through from Texas to Utah. Average driving time 24 hours. This is a pilgrimage my extended family has been making for 3 generations. Last year it took us 36 because Hubby, who's new to this family tradition thought it would be fun to go 5 hours out of the way to visit Telluride, Colorado with a 1 year old strapped in his car seat, to ride a free tram. This year he said, "I think we should just get there as fast as possible with no detours at all. What's the shortest way?" Yeah, that's what I thought.

"Call my mom." I told him. You go on mapquest and look up your directions. But, we've made that mistake before too. MapQuest didn't jive with "turn left at the Texaco at the second light." You think I'm trusting the GPS system in this fancy Hybrid over 50 years of tried and true family short cuts? I think not.

We will stop to pee, on the side of the road and at gas stations, which have become progressively cleaner in the last decade. We will buy snacks at Sams to save most money and drive through the $1 menu a few times. We'll stop at playgrounds to temper Zack's inevitable "GET ME OUT OF THIS CAR SEAT!"

We will leave after the Hubby gets off work and shaves his head. Yeah, he says this is the perfect time to shave his head while he has two weeks of vacation time to grow it back. He's got a very round head so I'm expecting it to be sexy. (After the hilarious laughter from me and the kids from the shock of it.)

So 7 pm on Friday night, we'll get in a car a full decade and a half younger than our minivan, which has also been in the shop all week. We'll relish the new car smell. We'll hope it's fully insured for spills and food - hey, we've got two kids.

My husband will drive as long as he can. The kids will fall asleep and we'll have peace for a full 12 hours. Around midnight or 1 p.m. he's going to say he's too tired. I'll stop and grab a Monster, which I only drink when driving all night. Before that it was nasty caffeine pills that made me feel icky.

The directions, on a piece of scrap paper, read like this:

Denton - 278

Wichita Falls

Amarillo (This is where the humidity lifts and you can breath again)

40 to Albequirqui, New Mexico

25 to Bernadillo

Farmington

Shipwreck

Cortez

Montecello

Moab

Price

Provo

Estimated Time of Arrival, factoring in stops to post blogs at truck stops and a 6-year-old and 2-year-old and "it's too dangerous for me to drive at this point naps" sometime Saturday night.

We'll let the kids acclimate to Grandma and Grandpa for one day, and take a long nap, before we leave for San Francisco and BlogHer.

My much adored cousin told me I just HAD to read Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1), by Stephenie Meyer, which is flying off the shelves as women indulge our addiction to the love story.

In the meantime, I've been contemplating a few things like why girls and women can be so self-defeating.

Why does the battered wife stay or go back?

Why are girls willing to put up with blatant disrespect for boyfriends?

Why do women and girls tend to glamorize "giving up everything" for their husbands and children?

What is wrong with us?

Women make up 50% of the population, yet we have so little of the world's power. Why?

Read Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1).

Edward, the beautiful vampire tells Bella, the teenage human girl, over and over that his biggest desire is to kill her. That he can barely contain himself whenever he's around her. Her own demise only turns her on. She has zero sense of self-preservation. She "Loves" him. Within the first week of meeting Edward, who immediately treats her like crap, because he wants to harm her so badly he finds it difficult to resist, she gives up her friends, her studies, her father and her mother and all of her interests. Giving up everything is "worth it." (Where have I heard that line before mothers?)

The answer to all those questions is - we think it's romantic. It makes us hot. It makes us linger in the bathtub or passes the time quickly on the treadmill.

The self-defeat, the sacrifice, the giving up of self, is in our feminine collective dialogue and it's like crack cocaine to us.

Women are addicted to this emotional drug we call "Love", but which is really a lot more like unhealthy emotional psychosis.

It starts with the Disney Princess drama as toddlers and children.

But, then we grow up and it has no effect on us our "real life?" Right?

Then why is the Twilight Series flying off the shelves?

There's no sex in the book (because he would crush her vulnerable and breakable body). But, really, is sex the most self-distructive thing girls participate in? I think not. I would hold up "Love," and our distortions of it, as the most dangerous thing to girls' confidence, their self esteem, their sense of self, their psychological and emotional health. How many girls have sex too soon for this distortion of "Love?"

Here's the other thing that gets me about this type literary dialogue, it's so prevalent in the collective female culture. Yet, the "give up everything" theme doesn't exist in men's literature.

How many relationships have actually self-destructed with these words, "But I gave up everything for you!" women/girlfriends/wives declare.

"Who asked you to? Why would you do that?" men want to know. Love is not described in the same terms, nor defined by the need for women to give up so much of themselves that they no longer actually exist, in the literary consciousness of men.

Women keep acting out the same self-distructive communication patterns and the same self-sacrificing behaviors found in books like Twilight and men are completely bewildered by it.

The only literature or culture in which this exchange - women giving up everything - shows up is in their pornography, where women aren't featured for "LOVE" as we write it, they are featured as inanimate objects for a mere moment's pleasure.

Stop this little cultural miscommunication and you most likely increase not only the duration, but the quality, of marriage in this country.

Stop buying into this ridiculously absurd self-defeating definition of "LOVE" and we might actually give our daughters a shot at healthy love, positive and fulfilling relationships, and enduring marriages. One where they get to keep their selves, their identities, their interests, their talents, their careers, their hobbies, their sense of self-respect and their physical safety.

The question is - can we have both?

Can we have our trashy teenage romance vampire romance novel where we "pretend" to give up our choices and our well-being, our life even, our families, for the "love of our life" who wants to kill us and flat out tells us that and then live empowering strong lives?

Or, do we hardwire our brains to believe that doing self-defeating things for a man is "romantic?" If our brains are hard wired this way, are we passing that down to our daughters? Especially if we allow them to indulge in this type of culture and media?

So, of course I wanted to know, who owns the domain empoweringgirls(dot)com? I went there and it seemed to be parked. I wanted to contact the owner to see about acquiring the web address, so I scrolled to the bottom and clicked.

I was redirected to wildpartygirls(dot)com.

Porn, of course.

Girl is a 4 letter word.

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating

Sorry, no pictures today.

Whatever the cause of Ainsley's recent attitude problem, I was talking to my friend Jen from Jlogged.com.

She's got 3 boys, and I was telling her how FED UP I am and that I don't really know the most effective thing to do.

She suggested Boot Camp.

Hard labor she said. When they start acting up and getting out of control like that we sit them down for a family meeting and tell them we're not putting up with their attitude anymore and we're going to make them work.

But, she already has to do chores, I said.

Chores. No. I make them scrub toilets with a toothbrush. I make them rake leaves and do yard work. I make them do really hard and dirty jobs for really long periods of time. I ride them really hard for about 3 weeks and it seems to do the trick.

And the list of things that no one wants to do around here started adding up in my head. And I remembered my parents used to make us work too. And their parents before them. And who the heck cares if Supernanny has never featured the Hard Labor Attitude Boot Camp as a parenting method? It's worth a shot.

We sat down at the family meeting and took her to task for her attitude towards me and outlined the new rules.

Didn't she do a nice job on those weeds?

And the whole time she was out there it was blessed silence and peace. I just tell her she has one warning until she does more hard labor. I almost can't wait until she talks back so I can get the rest of the yard work done and the toilets . . .

Is there a downside to Attitude Boot Camp?

So, you can tell from my Hannah Ban that my 6-year-old daughter's been having an attitude problem lately.

I dealt with one of the causes, but I'm not crazy enough to think the banning of Hannah will be enough to cure her attitude and the constant crossing of my boundaries.

Here's what's really upsetting me about Ainsley's attitude.

It's directed at me. And only me.

Her entire bratty dialogue, talking back, rudeness, fit throwing, defiance is directed to a single person on the entire planet and that person is ME.

Her dad says "go clean your room" and she obediently goes to clean her room.

Her dad says "stop doing that" and she immediately stops.

At church and school and over at friends and neighbors and grandparents the child is a "perfect angel."

I say "go clean your room" and it's 30 minutes of arguing, whining, fit throwing and negotiating her way out of it.

I say "stop doing that, please," and she ignores me.

"Please, don't do that," she keeps doing it and make up an excuse for continuing her behavior.

"I said top doing that," and there is angry fit throwing outburst, negotiating and whining and crying.

I SAID STOP DOING THAT RIGHT NOW! NOW GO TO YOUR ROOM CAUSE I'M NOT PUTING UP WITH THIS!

Jeez. You don't have to scream at me, she says all hurt.

Oh really? It appears to be the only way you listen to me, I think.

What I say is, I'm sorry I yelled.

Here's what I want to know - what is different about my "go clean your room" and her fathers? What is different about my "stop doing that" and the neighbors or the teachers or the church lady's?

I have 3 theories.

The first is that my own mother put a traditional daughter curse on me, "I hope you get a daughter exactly like you."

One theory is that this is growing/mother/daughter pains that comes with puberty - only it's lightyears early.

Another theory is that I'm projecting all my daughter issues from my own relationship with my mother on my relationship with my daughter. Put another way, that my feelings about how my own mother disciplined me is preventing me from being an effective disciplinarian for my daughter. In other words, when I say, "Go clean your room," I hear myself as a rebellious teenager say, No. I don't want to! Try to make me! It's MY room. And my daughter is picking up on this inner-conflict via osmosis or emotional consciousness.

Do any other mothers notice their children treating them in a distinctly different way than they they treat the other parent or other adults? How do you explain it?

Come back tomorrow to find out about Attitude Boot Camp.

What's the #1 thing we should teach our kids? Marketing Resistance. They're really gonna need it.

Goodbye Hannah Montana.

I'm sick and tired of hearing your bratty little attitude and disrespect come out of my daughter's mouth.

Months ago I tried to blame ME for my daughter's snotty tone and disrespectful banter. I tried to ban my "tone" and keep you, Hannah, as harmless entertainment.

But, here's the thing: I add quality to my daughter's life whether I take a tone or not. I'm her mother and she's definitely better off with me than she is without me. There's no question that the benefit of me outweighs the cost of my tone.

It's unfortunate, but I can't say the same about you.

It has nothing to do with your back-exposure Miley, which I felt was a trumped up way for the media to call yet another girl a Whore, as we know that's their hobby. I feel bad about that.

It's Hannah's mouth and Hannah's attitude. That mouth and that dialogue is being used against ME.

My daughter thinks it's funny to imitate.

And I agree. It's funny to imitate.

But, if it's a choice between YOU and ME in my daughter's life. Well, I pick ME. Because I add quality and you, well, you don't. When your snotty, bratty, disrespectful banter comes out of my daughter's mouth - well, to be completely truthful, I feel like slapping her. I don't. But, really, it shouldn't take so much effort to stop the impulse.

Also, you're not really age-appropriate no matter how small you make the t-shirts or commando market to Kindergarteners and pre-schoolers.

She's listening to you talk about your "needs" and how your super-protective body guard is getting in the way of those needs.

Now I feel you're" needs" are probably to be kissed and to hold hands, though you left it vague.

But, that's too much information, and too vague, for my 6-year-old daughter. And again. I didn't really like your tone when you discussed your "needs" up with your dad. In fact, I thought your dad handled it poorly - like a shmuck. (While we're speaking of your parents I have to wonder - why exactly has Disney killed off all the girls' mothers, including yours?)

So, I took control of the remote. I couldn't figure out how to just block Hannah Montana so I blocked the entire Disney Channel. Truth be told I'm not a huge fan of your other influences Disney, what with the snotty attitude from Zack and Cody and the Princess Culture nightmare I've had to wade through with my daughter. Christine Fugate of Mothering Heights is banning you too.

So, there you are Disney Channel.

Blocked - Along with the Pay-Per-View Porn.

Read Tone Turtle.

"Tone Control"

Hannah Branding

Empowering Girls: Miley's Photo

Empowering Girls: Princess Culture Examined

Check out these stats from a Newsweek story on Nerd Girls:

Forty years ago women made up just 3 percent of science and engineering jobs; now they make up about 20 percent. That sounds promising, until you consider that women earn 56 percent of the degrees in those fields. A recent Center for Work-Life Policy study found that 52 percent of women leave those jobs, with 63 percent saying they experienced workplace harassment and more than half believing they needed to "act like a man" in order to succeed. In the past, women dealt with that reality in two ways: some buried their femininity, while others simply gave up their techie interests to appear more feminine.

Read Newsweek's story, Revenge of the Nerdette, to find out about THIS generations' Nerd Girls strategy for staying in their science professions.

Here's a hint - they aren't quitting and they aren't dressing like their male counterparts. They are calling themselves "Nerd-a-licious."

Send your brainy daughter over to join nerdgirls.com

Please click on this link to see a CNN news story about Body of Knowledge: Puberty.

Girls today are reaching puberty around three years earlier than in previous generations. The average age of menstruation was 15 years, it is now 12. Many girls are menstruating at 9 years old, outward signs of puberty, such as pubic hair, as early as 6 years old.

The cause is unknown, so there is little parents can do to prevent it.

Some suspects include environmental toxicity, eating from estrogen-filled plastic products, medicinal hormones in the water supply, hormones in milk and estrogen-like chemicals in soy milk, inundating girls with sexualized images in the media, even rising obesity rates in today's children. Read more about these causes (with relevant source links) in my earlier article: Precocious Puberty.

Concerns of early and prolonged estrogen include higher risk of various cancers. So I wonder if the danger of estrogen-related birth control increases as well?

I have some concerns about fertility that I have yet to see addressed: If a girl's puberty process is on fast forward what does that mean for her future fertility? Will she reach menopause at the traditional time or will that also occur earlier? Can she still expect to be fertile in her late 20s and early 30s? Is there any way to answer that question before this generation of girls reach that milestone?

Here is an interview with Dr. Sherrill Sellman from iHealthTube.com where she calls it a public health disaster effecting one out of six people worldwide in this generation of children.

This news cast is saying they've identified a new factor - stress in the home.

Lest you think boys are in the clear and unaffected, think about who needs an overdose in estrogen, or phytoestrogens, even less than girls? Boys.

At this point, I have far more questions than I do answers for you. Bookmark and subscribe to Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me, as I research the issues, I'll keep you informed.

Ding Dong. Ding Dong.

Hi! What can I do for you?

Did you know your daughter is out riding her bike on the street?

Kids DO ride bikes in their neighborhoods. They have, for like, generations.

Well, I almost ran her over when she shot out in front of me and I was wondering if anyone was watching her.

Thank you for not running her over. I appreciate that.

I just wondered if anyone is watching her.

Well, thanks for letting me know. Thanks for not running her over. I'll talk to her about bike safety again.

Next Day.

Mommy can I go ride my bike?

Yes. Watch for cars. Pull over to the side if a car is coming. Never, ever shoot out in front of one. Look both ways. Don't cross if a car is coming. Be very careful please.

Perhaps I should petition the city council for a sign: Kids play here. Don't run them over.

Read how I taught her to ride her bike in B-R-A-V-E!

Visit Free Range Kids if you need support for letting your kids go outside and play.

It started to rain. The kids wanted to play in it. I went to make sure there was no lightening.

Come out in the rain with us Mommy.

I did. It felt lovely.

Then the little one came at me with a mud clod and threw it at me.

Laugh or lecture?

Before 3, everything they do is so adorable, I couldn't help but laugh.

I remembered a multitude of mud fights out at my grandmother's house in Utah. We would have the best time, my brothers and cousin and I, hurling mud at each other.

I do like mud.

It stopped raining so we turned on the sprinkler.

This is how Daddy found us when he came home from work.

Covered in mud.

We ran to a group shower to hose ourselves down and wash our hair.

I don't know if Ainsley's white shirt will ever come clean - it's been soaking in Oxyclean for a few days.

By Tracee Sioux

As I pull crayoned notes out of your Kindergarten backpack and read, Ainsley loves Brayden, my heart longs to make you understand that it’s just not about them.

At the dawn of my 34th year, having given birth to my second and last child and knowing my childbearing years were over, I felt a wave of liberation wash over me sitting in yoga class.

It was, I think, the decision to have no more children that set me free. Or perhaps it was the vasectomy, which finally liberated me from the love chase I’ve been on my whole life.

This liberation feels like finally taking possession of my own brain. I look back at my own history and think of all the disrespectful positions with men that I’ve been in and wonder how I ever let myself be so compromised. I look back and wonder what on earth could have been wrong with me to have chased those particular men. Why would I put up with abusive, disrespectful or negative behavior? What the hell was I thinking?

It’s all so droll and disgusting. I can gloss it over and make it feel more respectable than it was, but it feels like my entire existence was controlled by my biological clock and my need to create these two perfect and wonderful children for 33 years.

Now that I have, now that I’ve accomplished my mission, I feel a sense of liberation that will allow me to demand more respect for myself than I ever felt worthy of before.

It feels like coming into my self.

Like a birthing of me.

My children are like the culmination of a struggle that I am allowed to leave behind now.

I am mother. Already. Done. Finished. Mission Accomplished.

It’s like I’m giving myself permission to move on. And in the moving on I notice that how I think and feel about my self in relation to men is vastly different.

My biological clock is off and now my real life can begin. My life, my existence, my soul, my wellbeing, my identity, my womanhood, my femininity isn’t about men. I no longer feel relational to them, not even your father. I don’t feel my life is about what I can offer them, give them or get from them.

Romantic love and sex no longer hold the same attraction or urgency for me anymore. It’s hard for me to even fathom why it was ever so important to me. It’s not my main purpose as it was for all those dating years that I look back on my wanting with a sense of regret.

What if I could have avoided all that desperation, longing and wanting? Maybe that wasn’t necessary to create these wonderful children. What if that was just a complete waste of my emotional energy?

What if I inherited my desperation from my mother and she from hers? What if that longing, that allowing men to define my worth by whether they wanted me, desired me, loved me or claimed me was passed from one generation to the next.

"Why does Brayden like Cat instead of me?"

"Brayden said I was cute today."

As I listen to these precocious words fall from your six-year-old mouth I wonder, have I done this to you? Have I passed on my desperation and longing?

How I wish I would have learned that it’s just not about them before I brought you into this world.

As I imagine your future of crushes, dating and heart breaks I want to pass my post-mother, post-birth, mid-life, newly discovered knowledge on to you in an effort to save you some drama and pain:
The process of being You, Ainsley, is just not about them.

by Tracee Sioux

It's effective to make some rules when children are still very young to ensure a healthy self-image, including body image.

Most parents forbid name calling when it comes to siblings or friends.

It's appropriate to make the same rule for name calling against themselves.

I punish my children for saying "I'm stupid" and "My legs are fat" the same as I would punish them if they said, "You are stupid" or "Your legs are fat."

Children learn to respect, accept and appreciate their bodies and skills or they learn to self-deprecate.

Respect, acceptance and appreciation doesn't lead to anorexia, self-mutilation or other self-destructive behaviors.

Self-deprecation has been shown lead to self-destructive behavior, depression, low self-worth, drug use and suicide.

Children learn from a Do As I Do as opposed to Do As I Say. Obviously mothers (and fathers) will have to forgo self-deprecation as a form of humor or bonding with other women.

Naomi Wolf said, "The mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance vaccinates her daughter against low self-esteem."

A woman can not stand in front of the mirror annihilating her body and her reflection and expect her children to have a positive self esteem. That's just not likely to happen.

My daughter holds me to this standard. I've spoken with her about my own accountability in this area. If I cut loose with an, "I am so stupid!" she will call me on it and has actually sent me to "time out."

I did go to time out, because I want her to know that what I did by calling myself a name was very, very wrong. If I refuse to live up to the standard I set for her then essentially, the message is that it's "not really that important."

When I read the statistics about teenage girls that declare that 13% of girls are depressed, 10 million women have an eating disorder, 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat, 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner.

All because girls never learned to be kind to oneself?

I know I must vigilantly teach my daughter how to take care of emotional self and accept and appreciate her body from a very early age.

More on Body Image at Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Self-Loathing Sin Bank

Participate in this writing exercise by finishing this sentence:

People should not buy high heels for infant girls because . . .

The company, Heelarious, thinks dressing infant girls in their first high heels "is hilarious."

I think it comes dangerously close to sexualizing infant girls and certainly it crosses the line in genderizing baby girls.

Please, don't start giving this at Baby Showers - what, really, is the mother supposed to say when she opens it? Wow, I'm sure she'll really learn to walk in these!

Read all the great reasons why parents shouldn't buy this exagerated genderization for their baby girls on Menstrual Poetry, Feministing, , Cynical-C BlogThe Tomb of the Unknown Fan Girl, sunluvr, Shoewawa, The Star.

To be perfectly candid I allowed Ainsley play high heels that she received for her 2nd birthday and would even allow her to wear them in public on occasion - for fun.

I have also purchased for her these tacky little 1" heels that she wore every day for about a year. She wore one pair out and I bought her another. We handed them down to another girl. It made her happy. People thought it was adorable.

If infant high heels are over the line, did I cross it myself with those tacky plastic 1" heels? Or is the line somewhere in between the two shoes?

My personal hope is that heelarious goes out of business for lack of consumer interest. In other words, Don't buy them.

Another instance of sexualization of infants I saw this week was on an E*Trade commercial.

The computer generated baby boy says, "What a bad girl."
I hit pause - and questioned my reality,

"Did I hear that right? Did that B-A-B-Y boy just make a P-O-R-N reference?"

Nice E*Trade. Real Classy.

What do you think? Are heelarious and E*Trade sexualizing infants and is that fine with you?

Image Sources: You Tube, heelarious, and Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me.

Can we go out for Chinese?

No.

I want to we go out for Chinese?

No.

How come we can't go out for Chinese?

Because I just took a trip and we're going on vacation in a month and we need to save our money.

I think I need a job. I could do stuff around the house and you could pay me money for my jobs and then I could help you and Daddy pay for Chinese.

So you want to do chores for money to help us pay for stuff?

Right. I could clean mine and Zack's room and wipe off the table and help you with laundry.

I'm not paying you to clean your own room. It's your room, it's your responsibility.

Right. But I could do the other stuff.

Okay, we'll make a chart when we get home.

I think you should pay me $1 or $5 or $10.

A week?

No, a day.

Yeah. Well. I'll pay you $5 for a whole weeks worth of chores - IF you do them ALL. We'll put a check by your name when you do them.

Ainsley's Chores, $5 Week. 
Kitchen Table (7)
Dusting (1)
Windex (1)
Clean Z's Room (3)
My Bathroom (1)
Pick up Stuff (7)

Visit Casual Keystrokes for fancy Chore Chart instructions.

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.)"

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.