Parenting

I caught up with parent/teacher/blogger/activist Paige Schilt to get her take on the new wave of parenting emerging from the genderpocalypse.

I'm devoting this entire week to gender-nonconforming kids and the parents who raise them.  Later I'll follow up with parent and Bilerico blogger Paige Schilt, who will share her perspective on parenting during the genderpocalypse.

But first, here's last year in parenting, an overview:

A recent article in TIME magazine reveals a study that says kids are not getting outside enough. It is the girls who are neglected the most—they're 16% less likely than boys to be taken outdoors. Really?

In this post and my next one, I'm taking a look at a selection of four parents' guides on autism and Asperger syndrome, to see how sex, sexuality, and gender are addressed. This is not a book review, but an overview of how these topics are presented in literature intended for parents of adolescents. Do these texts contribute to the erasure of autistic sexuality? What do the books have to say about gender?

How much does it actually cost to raise children?

You might be thinking about the price of diapers, health insurance, or preschool programs when trying to work out a rough answer.  But don’t forget the $230 silver ballet shoes that your five year old will grow out of in a few months, or the $56 baby blanket, or the $500 bassinet.

Our culture is obsessed with all things celebrity, and has long been over concerned with the reproductive goings-on of our favorite stars. Is she pregnant or isn’t she? Did they use IVF? What was the birth like? How fast can she get her pre-baby body back? And then, after all that—what is the little one wearing?

My goal in writing this series was to delve into the intersections of feminism, parenting and pop culture, and I did my best to tackle as many topics as possible in my eight weeks here. (Although of course, I’m still left staring at a laundry list of things I wanted to write about...isn’t that always the case?)

The problem is that while a lot of music (I'm thinking mostly of pop and hip hop here) that’s geared towards teens and adults also appeals to kids, it’s not actually appropriate for them. So what’s a mama (or papa) to do when they want to rock out, but not expose their kids to music and musicians they’re just not old enough for? Thankfully, besides the classics, there has been a lot of kickass kids music coming out lately. Perhaps a lot of musicians have become parents themselves and realized the lack of quality kids’ music? Regardless of the reason, there are now many options to choose from beyond "The Wheels on the Bus."

We’re (not so) slowly creating a new social contract where oversharing has become de rigueur. Blame it on the popularity of reality TV or the easy access the Internet provides—either way, we’re currently at a place where a video of a mom intentionally terrifying her young son while he belts out Britney Spears has over 10 million hits on YouTube.

I understand that reality television has to have some sort of "hook" to get you, the viewer, interested enough to stick around. For the most part, that's usually drama. Even when shows are about parenting, it’s not the day-to-day rhythm that gets airtime, but rather the sensational, unbelievable, and usually questionable parenting decisions that take center stage.

So...is that really the "reality" of parenting?

With gender stereotypes pervading our TVs, movies, toys, clothes, etc., can't we just have kids' books without adding more labels?