gaudior: (Default)
You can have some food, but not the computer
Not the computer, just some food
For though you're cuter
Than the computer
You cannot eat it; that is just rude.

You can have a toy, but not the computer
Not the computer, just a toy.
For though you're cuter
Than the computer
Teething on a laptop won't bring you joy.

You can have a book...
...you'd rather read this, just take a look.

You can have a hug...
...it can't keep you all warm and snug.

You can have my love, but not the computer
Not the computer, but my love
Because you're cuter
Than the computer
You're my favorite little cub!


They seem... unconvinced. Maybe I should try foxxerel rather than doggerel?
gaudior: (Default)
Okay, this one I'm not even torn about, I'm just mad.

Munch, by Matthew Van Fleet, is a cute, funny board book with a simple premise: animals have mouths, and do different things with them!

For the most part, these things are value neutral. The mouths nibble, laugh, sing, etc.

For the most part, the animals are animals-- human sorts of facial expressions, but no clothing or other identifying markers, including any signs of gender.

Except for the hippo, who is wearing a pink-and-red bow. What does she do with her mouth? "Some mouths don't know when to shut-- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!"

ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH.

Why is patriarchy so fucking insidious and omnipresent? How am I supposed to protect my child from this when it's bloody everywhere?

I'm not supposed to protect my child from this; I'm supposed to give them tools so they can recognize it and fight it on their own.

FEH.

For the moment, at least, my mom suggested, and [personal profile] sovay concurred, that a little judicious application of white-out and a grey marker should fix the problem. Fox can recognize and fight sexism on their own when they can, you know, talk.

Sigh.

--R
gaudior: (Default)
So, I was delighted to find this book in the box that [Unknown site tag] very kindly sent to Fox. I remembered loving it as a kid, and thought it would be great to read it to my own kid.

And then I read it. And... um.

The Monster at the End of This Book is a Sesame Street book starring "your lovable, furry old pal Grover," who is horrified to read the title and realize that there is, indeed, a monster (!) at the end of the book. Being terrified of monsters, Grover begs you not to turn any pages, to avoid getting to the end of the book. When you insist on turning page after page, he tries new and more elaborate ways to stop you-- asking, pleading, building bigger and bigger walls, eventually just begging. You turn the penultimate page anyway, and it turns out that the monster at the end of the book is-- Grover himself! Not scary at all! "And you were so frightened," Grover mocks you. And then, on the very last page, he mutters quietly, "Oh, I am so embarrassed."

So, on the one hand, this book is so fun. You, the parent, get to read the Grover voice, which is expressive as only a Muppet can be. For a kid, it's your very first meta-- the character on the page is aware of you, looking right at you, talking to you! You get to affect what happens to them! And you are very strong-- strong enough to knock down a brick wall, strong enough to overcome everything the character is trying to do to stop you.

On the other hand, I've spent the past decade or so thinking a lot about consent. And rape culture. And gaslighting. And... wow, this book sure does have all those things in them, and not in the way I'd like.

I feel a little ridiculous bringing this up. It's just a kid's book, there's nothing sexual about it. I had it read to me (many, many times), and I don't go around raping people.

And yet, I know that for all my conscious political convictions, my unconscious is soaking in the background radiation of sexism, racism, and everything else that I've been absorbing from the culture around me for decades. Fox will get a big dose of that from the real world no matter what we do (their doctor and nurse both love them, but: their doctor is male, and White; their nurse is female, and Black, and guess who's in charge?), but we could try to minimize it.

The toughest part is that I actually think the boundary-smashing is a big part of what makes the book so fun for kids. Kids spend their whole lives with powerful adults telling them "no," putting boundaries around what they can do. Kids rarely have their own "no" listened to. And in many ways, this is a good thing-- no, they really should not get to run in the street. Yes, they do need to go to bed when they're tired. And a good parent will try not to say "no" excessively, and will try to compromise with kids in the details surrounding what the kid has to do for their (and our) health and wellbeing. But still: kids run into a lot of boundaries they can't get around. It's liberating, awesome fun to, for once, get to tear those boundaries into a million pieces-- and have it turn out to be okay in the end. A more collaborative kind of meta might be amusing, but it wouldn't have the kind of visceral delight that you get from making Grover (who is, let's not forget, voiced by your parent, the person who usually has such firm no's) wail about you overcoming his every obstacle.

I'm not sure what to do about this. I want to teach Fox to enjoy problematic media, because everything is problematic. It's just-- that enjoyment will involve conversations about the thing-- why it's fun, what the problems are. I've got a while to figure it out with this book, because Fox doesn't speak in words yet.* What they're getting from the book now is probably "colors! Maybe those are images of real things (?) And Mom's voice is doing funny things. Also, I can whack this thing and make a noise, and I can 'turn' the 'pages,' whoa."

But I'm not sure what to say when I do. "Wow, I'm glad that this book is just pretend?" That sort of messes up the meta. I don't want to reinforce the moral the book seems to have-- "See, he turned out to like it in the end! That makes it okay that you did what he didn't want!"

...except that that is also something that happens to kids a lot. I mean, a famous story in my family is "Gaudior and the French Toast." As a child, I utterly refused to eat French Toast. I insisted that it was Disgusting! and Terrible! and I would Never, Ever, Ever do it! My mother, noting that I had never tasted French Toast, suggested I try a bite. I tried a bite. It was delicious. I loved French Toast.

A major difference here, of course, is that issues with consent for adults revolve around person A forcing person B into something for the benefit of A. With kids, at least in theory, person A is forcing person B into something for the benefit of B. Kids, we figure, don't know what's good for them. That's why kids can't consent to sex: their consent or lack thereof is based on insufficient knowledge of the world, so it's meaningless.

But you can't raise someone for eighteen years with the message that their consent or the lack thereof is meaningless, and then expect them to understand that consent is very important the instant we consider them legally old enough to have sex. "Kids' consent doesn't matter" segues neatly into "my consent never matters" for girls, and "being an adult means you can force other people instead of them forcing you" for boys. Neither of which is a reasonable message, but you see where they get it from.

I don't have good answers for this one, and Fox is now up from their nap. To be continued, I suppose.

--R






*They have one word: "hey!" or "hi!" meaning "pay attention to me!" I don't think that's so much understanding that words have meaning as knowing that people react to them making that sound, and they like when people react.
gaudior: (Default)
So, I've heard that as a six-month-old, Fox (not their IRL name) should recognize their name. The difficulty with this is: here are the things that we call our baby:

Cub
Little Cub
Little Cubling
Little Cublet
Smol
Smol One
Little Smol
Babling
Bab
Little Fox
Little Sea-Eyed Fox
Little Ocean-Eyed Fox
Littling
Bablet
Babe-i-let
Se-basu-chan
Se-babe-stian
Kiddo
Kidlet
Kid
Hey, there.

So, they are basically doomed.

OTOH, they don't know my name either, as I don't go around referring to myself as "Mommy" in the third person, and everyone else calls me by my given name. They are making a valiant effort at naming [personal profile] rushthatspeaks as "Dadadadadadada," so we'll go with that.

--R

(Oh, and, because I haven't posted in basically ever: does anyone not want to see kid posts? Should I set up a filter?)
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