Parents struggle to do what we think best for kids. We also negotiate how others react to results of our parenting. My kid lost a friend whose mom thinks she's a bad influence on her child. I fully understand her decision with no ill will. I also value my child and my approach.
My kid was giggling in class over some problem with number 69. She asked her friend if he knew "the 69 joke" or why 69 was funny. The teacher rightfully called my kid's joke inappropriate and shut it down. Her friend asked his mom why. She said he can't talk to my child any more.
My daughter never heard about "69" from me. But, I give her books, and she regularly hears frank discussion about what sex and sexual activities are, sexual feelings, her body, how to recognize and report when somebody is doing sexual things to her. She can openly talk about sex.
My daughter has 2 older brothers she follows around (though they kick her out of the room), admires, imitates. I'm sure she hears some inappropriate things around them. Plus, with all my internet blocks+vigilance, I don't lie to myself pretending she's never seen mature content.
My approach to parenting on sex is openness, calmness when providing honest, clear info about masturbation and partner sex. In our house, sex isn't secret, sinful, or taboo. We discuss when your body and mind are mature enough for partner sex, and sexual abuse is clearly defined.
With the frankness and openness she's used to on the topic of sex, plus, she's still a child learning about people/contexts/situations she can talk, joke with about sex, my daughter will make inappropriate comments. These are critical lessons on diversity in attitudes and values.
My daughter is 9. She knows about sex, cuz I talk to her about her body, health, life. I also knew about sex at 9. How? By age 8, THREE men in my compound had sexually assaulted me. 1 driver & 1 uncle tried to tongue kiss me, 1 houseboy took me to his room, touched my genitals.
Obviously, I'm mortified my child heard something somewhere about 69 and joked about it at school. I also see it as a parenting win that she feels sex is something normal and natural one can talk and joke about, though she did in a very inappropriate place. I was never so lucky.
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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but, if you’re paying for plane tickets, hotels, meals, dates, and other gifts for someone who travels to have sex with you, you ARE paying for sex. Ass ain’t free—certainly not the kind you like—and you’re well aware of this fact.
Conversely, if you’re getting “flewed out” to provide sex, and an adult doing this of your free will and under no coercion to feed a habit, good for you, enjoy yourself. However, know you’re being paid for sex, so understand these transactions, implied contracts, and your rights.
People out here declaring “I have never paid for sex. I’m a generous lover who pays for tickets, dinners, and gifts.” Nah, trick, you pay for sex. Just like the person you paying for sex is doing sex work. If both are consenting adults, understand the business being conducted.
I take such pleasure in recognizing old hip hop in new Afrobeat. You can imagine my delight hearing that famous flute from Beatnuts “Watch out now” on the opening to Olamide’s “Greenlight.”
In case you don’t know the Beatnuts reference that I swear on my dying breath Olamide’s producer sampled, here it is. And to keep it fully real, Beatnuts got that flute from a 70s funk/disco hit “Hijack.”
And if I’m talking about old hip hop samples in contemporary Afrobeat, I will never neglect to mention Wizkid’s “Ojuelegba” which sampled Snoop and Dre’s “Nuthin but a G thang”
You know there’s a mental illness “drapetomania” that causes enslaved Black people to run, makes them hostile, angry against oppression?
And a psychiatric disorder “dysaethesia aethiopica” that makes them lazy, slow moving, unwilling to work for free, always breaking equipment?
I ask if you know about drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica to ask if you know how the two most common stereotypes of African Americans being violent and lazy are directly situated in dominant ideologies and history of racism and exploitation of Black people.
And just as you should be very skeptical of the notion African Americans are somehow more actively violent and at the same time more inactive and lazier than everyone, you should be wary of the ridiculous, racist idea that they value education and schooling less than anybody.
Did you try to buy your domain name and build a personal website, but discovered “your name dot com” is considered a “premium domain,” and some company or individual is charging THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for it?
Well, I did. Here’s my saga. 1/10
I finally got around to building an online portfolio, only to learn someone already owned my domain name and selling it for $3K. I can’t afford that, plus, it’s my damn name. My dear friend said I could negotiate the price with owners. Whois search ID’d them as HugeDomains. 2/10
I emailed HugeDomains and asked to negotiate the price to buy my domain. They said make an offer. I said $200. I thought this was super generous, since domains cost $9.99, so I was giving them a big return for their investment in snatching up my domain name before I did. 3/10
Understand this basic perversion of patriarchy: It pretends a system of labor is a system of morality by telling girls and women our willingness to submit to biological, domestic, sexual, emotional labor—with no wage or complaint—is a measure of our goodness and divine favor.
Patriarchy also disguises its pretense that unjust division of labor is a moral code by helping men hoard power, money, public space, and free female labor that help them secure all of it, telling any woman who’d compete with them for resources that she is “bad” and “ungodly.”
Folks marveling at how women submit to cooking fresh food daily for husbands who won’t eat day-old anything. We know why this happens. Women struggle daily to live up to Good Woman™️ status, which entails serving and keeping a marriage. Especially if they found a Good Man™️.
This high school cooking class I was lamenting is bringing all sorts of rewards. The boy got a whole carton of buttermilk to use two spoons for his chocolate cookies. Now, not to waste the rest, he looked up buttermilk recipes online and is making us pancakes for Saturday brunch.
So, apparently, pancake cooking is not amateur business someone can just read an internet recipe and make their first time. So I’m giving a lot of support and direction instead of sitting and waiting for my damn buttermilk pancakes.🙄🙄
So his first ever pancake was a hot mess. Literally.