Damn, I knew that this whole "I hate kids" thing was a touchy subject. Despite commenters not thinking that hating kids isn't the same as racism, when you call them on it, apparently it's like calling someone a racist.

Anywho, Zuzu has asked me for proof of her anti-kid/parent stance and I give you two posts:

1. March 4, 2007: "Oh, Please" where the entire post is this: "If you let your 11-year-old kids sleep in your bed every night even though you don’t want them to, you might want to consider growing a spine.

   Just a thought." Statements like this showcase perfectly how non-parents make sweeping judgments on us parents without a second thought. While the parents showcased in that article are not representative SES-wise, I do think they are representative of parents in general - DAMN TIRED. So when the munchkin crawls into bed at 2 am, you have a choice to make. You either decide to have a fight with the kid or you just move over and try to get a few more hours of sleep. Guess which I did until Miss Ella learned to stay in her bed on her own?
   

2. Zuzu acknowledging her anti-kid/parent bias with a disclaimer. I assume that the post that set my tone of Zuzu was the one removed on August 13th and then Feministe blocks the internet archive.
   

Zuzu does have a point that if I don't want others to hate kids I shouldn't use the term hater for them. So instead they'll be anti-kid/parent folks.

I think that I've blogged enough about the woes of parenthood and those of you who have met me in person know that I rarely speak of Miss Ella ONLY in positives. She's a child, she's got her dark side! Instead of having to carry a stupid egg around, I think I should go around talking to kids about getting pregnant. I'm not a very positive person about this whole thing. But do I love Ella? Hell yes!

One more thing about this and it may seem out of left field, but be patient.

I am a woman of Mexican descent whose family subscribed to the theory of assimilation. That means that I learned very early on that to 'fit in' one needs to blend into the background. I don't speak with an accent because I didn't learn to speak Spanish as a kid. I rarely wore ethnic clothing as a kid because we rarely got them. I was taught by my family & society to ignore the differences between myself and others in order to fit in. It also helped that I was a smart cookie and that my gender seemed to make me different more than my ethnicity/race. Thus it took until I was almost thirty to realize that assimilation had made me blind to racism that was happening to me and others around me. It had made me blind to seeing anything really in front of me, except sexism. Which is why I'm slowing deassimilating myself.

As someone who learned very early to hide in the background, you have to believe that I teach Ella not to make a scene in public, not to be too loud because gawd forbid that she acts "Mexican" in public. Yeah, still working on that deassimilation thing.

So when people talk about kids being out of control, I take it really personally because we work extra hard to have Ella be in total control in public. Not just for kid reasons, but because we know that she is a reflection of her background and well, to set an example.

Speaking of Ella, it's time for her to get up. So this will have to be it on the topic.

Oh and one more thing. Sorry to seem like I ignored Vanessa & her adorable baby over at Feministe.

Labels: blogging, Ella, feminism