Scene: Daniel rushes into the bathroom after school. Stays for many minutes. He walks out, visibly relieved.
Daniel: Whew! I really had to go!
Me: Okay.
Daniel: Mom, can I tell you something?
Me: Okay.
Daniel: I feel uncomfortable going poop at school.
Me: Welcome to the family, honey. Welcome to the family.
Redneck Mother has written this amazing entry on the forces of nature politicians and morality police are attempting to regulate.
The Target Store I GO TO has actually fired someone for refusing to fill Plan B prescriptions.
This is good. I learned of this story over at Cecily’s, even though it’s in my neck of the woods. You can read the story HERE.
Apparently, this righteous woman, Heather Williams, has been refusing emergency contraception to women for the last five years without reprimand or incident. Even though she is supposed to refer women to another pharmacy, she refused.*
She blames Planned Parenthood for her firing, not Target.
Williams emphasized that she was blaming Planned Parenthood — not Target — for her predicament. She cites Planned Parenthood’s heightened national campaign to persuade major pharmacy chains such as Target to agree to fill emergency contraception.
The part I just adore is that Williams is concerned about her rights and actually compares it to women’s right to obtain EC.
Said Williams: “I’m not in judgment of anyone. I want my right not to fill something, much as they have their right to get Plan B filled.â€
Yet, she doesn’t seem to understand that she was grossly infringing on those other women’s rights which could, in fact, cause them to miss the deadline for EC and force them to undergo an unecessary abortion. She is not “saving babies” with her methodology, she is forcing women to put themselves at higher risk through a more complicated medical procedure. Additionally, EC doesn’t work solely by preventing implantation. Often, EC works by inhibiting ovulation, preventing conception in the first place.
Williams already has the right not to fill something, she can choose a different profession or choose to work in an institution that feels similarly to her views.
So, yay for Target.
Unfortunately, there is a kicker. You knew there would be a kicker. Because we are in Missouri and Matt “I Love Uteri, But Only Gestating Christian Uterti” Blunt is our governor.
Governor Matt Blunt is pushing for legislation that would give legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill emergency contraception prescriptions and any other prescription they feel is against their personal morals/beliefs. He is using this case as an example.
Williams plans to testify soon before a state legislative panel considering a bill to give legal protection to pharmacists who decline to fill a prescription for Plan B or any other drug they believe could cause an abortion. Gov. Matt Blunt says such legislation is among his top priorities.
He is not interested in giving such protection and insurances to women’s health, only the morally righteous are allowed to have their actions protected by law.
Thankfully, for today, Target is taking a good stance for women’s health by firing an employee who refused to care.
However, for all of you in Missouri, I urge you to write Governor Matt Blunt and demand that he value women’s health and women’s access to their prescriptions over high-handed morality. Demand that he care about Missouri’s women.
Click HERE to email Gov. Blunt.
*The referral idea is not an acceptable option. Women in Missouri and other states have bounced from pharmacy to pharmacy in search for someone to fill their damn emergency contraception. Demand that pharmacies fill your doctor’s prescription, as is.
I have finally updated The Art of Motherhood. I know! Hooray!
This week, I chose a Caravaggio for three reasons.
First, no one makes a scarier Medusa, except maybe the director of Clash of the Titans. Because that was one scary Medusa to a little kid.
Second, after all this TKPOT talk, I needed to pick a little something that once again showcased what painting light really means. And people, it doesn’t mean yellow streaks out of another cottage window.
Third, I think this image accurately captures my facial expression du mois.
Go, check out this week’s rant about my children’s behavior Art of Motherhood.
My eleven-year-old son a notorious nose bleeder. If the air is dryish, his nose bleeds. If his spectacular nose membranes touch chlorine, he bleeds. The poor kid has actually passed out once from a nose bleed. Talk about making mommy drink…
Last summer, friend Christine and I took our kids to the community pool. As expected, Daniel’s nose becomes a blood faucet and try as we might, we can’t stop it. The lifeguards notice and hustle us into their little urgent care office to staunch the flow. It stops. It starts. It stops. We get near the water. It starts again.
Yummy, isn’t it? There’s more.
Finally, the lifeguard pulls out a tampon-looking item and stuffs it up Daniel’s nose. Works like a charm. I kick myself for not thinking of this before and we go on to enjoy our way.
Here and there he’s had his regular nosebleeds but they’ve stopped fairly easily.
Fast forward to yesterday.
Daniel, hey surprise(!), gets a nosebleed. But this one is bad. We’re going through wads of tissue and toilet paper like mad and it won’t stop. Daniel looks at me and says, “Mom, go get a tampon. Get it out of the cardboard thing. Hurry!”
Here, I thank God and Allah and anyone listening that we’ve had numerous talks about bodies. We talk about male and female bodies both. Simply because I don’t want his body to be a big mystery to him as he grows and I don’t want women’s bodies to be a mystery to him, either. My boy knows, and has known all his life, what a tampon is, why it’s used, and how it works. It’s a girlie item, sure, but it’s as common to him as my antiperspirant. Both my kids learned around age two that if you hit the applicator hard enough it shoots the tampon across the other room. Good times, good times.
He’s obviously not worried about the thought of a tampon up his schnozz.
I run, grap a tampon, unwrap it, and pop it out of the applicator. Then, I cut it in half lengthwise and run to Daniel. A quick shove of one half up his nose and we’re good. We’re so good that he asks for water to wash out the blood that dripped into his mouth.
“Sure thing, honey!” I get the water.
He takes it and goes to drink, plunging the end of the tampon in the water. It balloons.
We laugh. Then, we start laughing hysterically. One end of the tampon is soaked with blood, the other is soaked with water. All sticking out of Daniel’s nose.
He looks at me, giggles, and says, “I guess we need the other half of that tampon.”
Dear reader who found my site whilst googling “wife crushes man’s balls,”
Oh my god.
Crushes? His balls?
I just learned that, apparently, men could actually die from this, although I’m not sure how documented it is.
But if he deserved it, atta-fucking-girl.
Sincerely,
Melissa
Lauren at Feminste asked a fabulous question yesterday: “When Do You Stop Being a ‘Teen Mother“?
My comment was:
I had my son at 18 and am now (nearly) 30 and I STILL get those odd congratulatory comments.
Of course, there are those insulting comments, too. The ones that a person would never ask any other mother. I have my MA and work in a fabulous institution doing what I love, yet my mom’s new boyfriend asked if I was surprised I got to go to college. NO, I am not surprised. I MADE that happen because I was going to do it anyway. My brains didn’t go out with the placenta.
I also still get weird comments about how “great†it is that I didn’t choose abortion. I tend to be bitchy about it and remind people that had circumstances been different, I may not have chosen to parent and I’m happy that I had that choice.
I do get bitchy about it and I’m not apologetic, these are a stupid things to say to someone.
I went to college because I wanted to. Having a supportive partner allowed me to go when I did, but I would have gone at some point. And I would have graduated just the same. I had planned to go anyway, why on earth wouldn’t I go because I was a teen mom? Sure it’s harder, but my husband went away to school when he was fresh out of high school and his time at college was a hell of a lot harder than mine.
It IS great that I parented my boys. I chose that and I love it. But I am very aware that had I not been 18 and about to graduate, not had a supportive mom, not had a supportive boyfriend, and not felt I had a chance in hell to do this parenting thing – if any ONE of those things not been – I would have aborted.
And I would have been justified in that decision, because I could not have been coerced to parent if I had felt I didn’t have the resources.
Go check out the Carnival of Feminists 7 over at Feministe. Be sure to read “Gratutious Ass Shot,” which discusses the gaze of the straight female in comic books. Read about the portrayal of the lesbian community in the l-word in “the white/other binary in the l-word.” In “Dreamlife…and a Feminist Mommy,” a mother learns that her daughter’s new game of fluff and shopping serves an educational purpose. “Body Language” discusses the gender disparity in the exhibition “Body Worlds.” Don’t miss Abortion Clinic Days’ “Why Clinics?” to read a great answer to the question: Why do we need abortion CLINICS? Last but certainly not least, be sure to read “I am woman, see me wax,” a response to moronic Dear Carolyn advice.
Read the good stuff going down in feminism.
I am at work, checking for comments here, and I have realized just how shitty Internet Explorer make my site look.
That masthead text is supposed to all be white and right-justified. The spacing is off on so many things. The sidebar is screwy.
Go, get the free wonder of the world that is Mozilla, because I’m not coding for IE. Apparently, my love for you has a limit.
My class begins tomorrow. Okay then.
In other news, through the power of Mighty Goods I learned that Anthropologie makes THE cutest dresses I ever did see.
The only problem is that they seem to only go up to a size twelve. People, I am not a size twelve anymore.
I’m calling this little number “Incentive.”
And this pink one? I’m calling it “Catalyst.”
I’m calling myself “Sicko Poundage Crazypants.”
Dear reader who found my blog whilst googling, “I hate Kinkade,”
Will you marry me? Because you are the bomb. I hate Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light (TKPOT), too.
I mean I don’t know TKPOT personally, so I don’t hate him per se. But that shit he touts as art? No. Just, oh man, no. It’s pretty enough I guess, but it’s commercial and boring. And oh, it’s also commerical and boring.
I think I actually judge the intelligence of people by two factors. One, do you read fluffy romance novels? (Hint, the answer to this is always no, always. Yes, even as “light” reading, the answer is no.) And two, do you like TKPOT? (Again, no, the answer is always no.)
I mean, you can walk smack into a wall and I will still think you are brilliant. Tell me you love TKPOT and pull out a novel with a bare-chested man on the cover and you will be lost to me forever.
Because really? Painter of light? Are you kidding me, TKPOT? Have you seen a Caravaggio? Do you know tenebrism? Chiaroscuro? Sha-dow? This is painting light. Look, look now.
The Martyrdom of St Matthew (detail)
1599-1600
As I was saying, dear reader, I love you and your anti-Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light googling habit.
Sincerely,
Melissa