An Unkept Woman

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I had one of "those" conversations a while back. You know, the one you kinda wish you had never had  because it gave you a glimpse of how others view you that you wish you had never seen. A friend and I were talking about work and our struggles to balance a family and a career. I thought we were completely on the same page. I figured another mother of two would understand as I expressed my wish to be able to stay at home full time with my family. Instead I got side eyes and the comment "I guess, if you're comfortable with being a kept woman. I couldn't do it." She realized later how it sounded and apologized, which was sweet. You can't unring a bell though.

A kept woman. That phrase has been ringing in my ears ever since, it's hung over my head like an ominous storm cloud. A kept woman. You never notice how many red Toyota Corollas there are in the world until you buy a red Corolla and suddenly everybody and their fucking dog drives a red Corolla. Well I didn't realize being a stay at home mom was such a big deal until I became one and then suddenly these anti housewife sentiments were everywhere.

In the express lane at the supermarket, two women overheard gossiping about their coworker "I should have a baby too so I can have an excuse not to work anymore." 

In a bitchy dressed up as funny comment from an acquaintance "You're still not back to work? Who's paying for all those yoga pants and Soap Opera Digests, har har"

In an actually funny comment from a friend "You have a job...making tasty sammiches...so go make me a tasty sammich"

A kept woman. What does that even mean? I picture a chick from a cheesy romance novel. Someone who doesn't work so they can devote all their attention to their husband or lover or both.  A woman who gives up her autonomy and markets her anatomy. Someone who is beholden to another for their lifestyle and has a "keeper". Naw, that can't be right. That's just my taste in beach reading coming out. No one else thinks this way. Surely Google will have a definition...OH GOD, LOOK AWAY.

Huh, you would think that would pay better.

I've always been very open about the fact that becoming a mother completely tilted my world on its axis. I had a well thought out five year plan with straightforward goals: education, money, career, material comfort. I was content to be the breadwinner, proud of my ability to be the provider so that hubby could work a light schedule that wouldn't completely hobble him. I never thought I would be a mother, to be perfectly honest. Four contraception free years produced nothing but a couple of minor scares and a few wasted pregnancy tests. Years of harsh disease and harsher medications had taken its toll on my husbands body and we figured "Hey, maybe it's just not meant to happen for us". We were quite reconciled to the idea that it was just going to be us and the dog and that was fine. He was going to start college in the fall. I had switched jobs with an eye to advancing my career. It got to the point where I had convinced myself that I didn't even want kids.

Until two pink lines on a pregnancy test changed our lives forever.

Suddenly all those things that had dominated my priority list were replaced by a baser instinct. That day, that very minute, I put my plans on hold. The future could wait. We were bringing a baby into this world and we were going to do it our way dammit.

So we made plans.

I'm very fortunate to work in a flexible profession that gives me the freedom to somewhat set my own hours. I would take my full year of maternity leave and then go back to work part time, spending as much time as possible at home with our baby. He would finish college and embark on his new career, one that utilized his mind and not his body. His chosen profession paid well so we would be able to swing part time daycare and I could keep plugging away at my career. We could do it. We could have it all. I'd even have time to blog. Living the dream, baby!

Until two more pink lines on another pregnancy test changed our lives forever.

True story. Karma is a real bitch.

Really? After we just went through all that work reorganizing our game plan? Ok, back to the drawing board. Two kids in daycare changes everything. I don't know how it is where you live but where I live it costs anywhere from $60 to $70 a day to have two kids in daycare. A day. I only make about $100 a day after taxes and all that jazz...wait a sec...you mean I have to pay someone else to watch my kids while I work and at the end of the day, after I pay them, I am taking home less money than they are? Less than half actually. No wonder so many mothers elect to stay at home and watch other peoples kids for them...they're making a killing.

So we made different plans.

I would be a stay at home mom. No hesitation. As much as I loved my career it would still be there when my kids were gone off to school. Hubby gets weekends off and could watch the kids on Saturdays and I could take that day to work. It would give me a break from the kids and an excuse to put on makeup and do my hair once a week. I could keep some loyal clients happy and make a few extra bucks a month...actually it would be close to the same when you factor in what we would be saving in daycare...wait a sec...you mean I can make the almost same amount of money working one day a week and NOT using daycare as I would if I put both kids in daycare and worked five days a week? We could do that. We could have it all. I wouldn't have time to blog but that could wait, right alongside my career. Living the dream, baby!

Except the dream is a lot different than the reality.

The reality is that I am exhausted. It's bone deep exhaustion that never goes away, even after stealing a couple of extra hours of sleep on a Sunday. It's exhaustion that comes, not only from the late nights and early mornings that every mother deals with, but from the constant flurry of activity that is the life of a stay at home mom. It comes from barely ever seeing my amazing man because my one day of work is one of his few days off. It comes from feeling guilty about asking for time off to plan a family weekend because "You only work one day a week, how much time off do you actually need?!?" I finally gave up working altogether.

I double dog dare you.

Staying at home means making sacrifices. It means working harder so we can live better and cheaper. It means making bread every week because its better for my kids and cheaper than the bakery. Its using cloth instead of disposables and saving hundreds of dollars on diapers and wipes. It's growing my own vegetables so I can supplement my grocery budget with food I can trust so I can cook meals from scratch because it's healthier and cheaper than convenience food. I do everything but knit my own goddamn yogurt and although I wouldn't have it any other way it is Work with a capital W. Just having two toddlers clinging to me for fourteen hours a day is hard, emotionally draining work. You wouldn't dare tell your daycare provider that they don't actually work for the eight or nine hours a day that they have your children, why is it OK to imply that the work I do inside my home is somehow less valid than theirs? Because they earn a paycheque? Do I need to earn money to validate my existence? Is my worth measured not by the sweat and effort I put into my family but by something as common as money? Fuck that.

I'm not kept, I keep.

I keep my kids around all day: healthy, happy and engaged. I keep the two of them from beating each other senseless on a daily basis. I keep their butts, clothes and noses clean all throughout the day. I keep the house as clean as one can with a couple of three foot tall terrorists underfoot all day. I keep the yard and gardens neat and tend to our humble crops. I keep my family fed with wholesome meals, made from scratch.  I keep things organized around here and I am the glue that keeps this family together. Through it all I try to keep my wits about me and keep my sense of humor despite the fact that I keep having to listen to people insult my lifestyle to my face. Through it all I just keep on keeping on. There are always going to be people who don't understand what I do everyday, that think I'm some lazy bum eating bon-bons and watching soap operas all day. That's fine. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

Some days though, I really wish they would keep it to themselves...

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Clearing Out The Cobwebs

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Yeah.

That pretty much sums up the activity level around here lately. There are cobwebs in the corners of my blog.

It's not that I don't WANT to write more. It's just that my girls have reached a delicate age, and by delicate I mean shoot me in the face. Quickly please, I haven't got all day. The laundry isn't going to fold itself.

It's not even that I haven't been writing...I've got fourteen stories in draft status at the moment and a composition book full of ideas and dialogue for a novel that I will, in all honesty, probably never finish.

So what is behind my sudden and uncharacteristic quietness? I've been (somewhat) avoiding the Internet and guess what? It feels kind of good.

No such thing as 2 much Internet @MamaZinga. Dislike. #icanstopanytime

It is an awful thing to admit but I was getting a little too involved with my online persona. I had become "that mom". I mean, I actually heard myself telling my three year old "Hang on, mommy has to post this update"

Really.

Those words came out of my mouth. A couple of times

I told a three year old that Facebook was more important than her. Not in so many words of course, I'm not a COMPLETE monster. Just a little. Around the edges.

But seriously, I decided to pull WAY back and dropped out of roughly 256374 Facebook groups, including the ones I started. I stopped checking Twitter. Surprisingly Pinterest is managing to stay afloat despite my defection. In short, I unplugged a little. I started spending some REAL facetime with my kids and stopped getting so wrapped up in the petty squabbles of the people who live in my computer. I don't want my kids to grow up resenting how much time I spend online. I want them to be able to read this blog one day, when they're older, and catch a glimpse of me. I want them to know about my ideals and ideas, even just my sentimental ramblings. I don't want them to look back and think "So this what mom was doing all those times she shoo'd us away from the computer? What a bitch." because they were too young to tell the difference between Mom busy working on blog and Mom busy arguing with strangers in the comments on Huff Po.

Stop hitting your sister! I swear, once I'm done catching up on all these Ryan Gosling vines you're in trouble.

"But wait! Aren't you the same lady who defended a mothers right to downtime in this blog post?"

Why yes, yes I am. I still defend that right and I stand by every word I wrote then. Mom's need an outlet and kids need some independent play. I'm not a giant hypocrite, biting the hand that feeds me by slamming the medium that allows my to share these scrambled thoughts with the world. I'm just a mom looking for balance. I feel like my priorities needed a subtle alignment. I still went on Facebook, I just didn't linger. I'm slowly dipping my toes back into my groups, although I have scaled it back to three.  Most importantly I stopped reading the comments on anything even slightly controversial. Did you see the comments on that blog about that thing? I sure didn't. They may be completely innocuous but I'm not chancing it. Odds are I'll get sucked into an argument with a stranger and that would be a pointless waste of time.

Besides, I don't need a reason to bang my head against a brick wall, I've got toddlers.



Abandoned House stock photo - Image courtesy of artur84/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Shocked Lady With Laptop - Image courtesy of Michal Marcol/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Woman With Laptop In Park - Image courtesy of Marin/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Dear Mom Passing Judgment on my Smartphone

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I see you over there, condemning me with your eyes. It feels good to sit there in the sun doesn't it? Especially when you are steeped in self righteous indignation. I can feel your eyes burning into the back of my head as I brazenly ignore my children. How dare I squander these precious moments in their childhood. You are a way better mother than me, the way you devote yourself to your children twenty four hours a day. Clearly you are qualified to pass judgement. You were able to see enough in ten minutes of observation to inspire your blog post "Dear Mom on the iPhone"

I guess it's ok if you only blog while your kids are sleeping...

But momma...let me tell you what you didn't see.

You didn't see me at 3:30 am rocking my baby back to sleep when teething pain woke her up crying. You didn't hear her gentle murmurs of contentment, or see her downy head nestled against my cheek as I lulled her back to sleep with a song.

You didn't see me at 8:30 pm, as I lay in a narrow bed with my toddler, easing her fears about boogeymen with kind words and much wiping of tears. I held her in my arms while we talked about her day. By the time she fell asleep she was laughing. She knows that I will always keep her safe from the monsters in the closet.

You didn't see me at 6:00 pm, bathing my daughter and gently working the tangles from that beauty queen hair that you were kind enough to admire. Did you think she had braided her own hair this morning? Nope, that was me. It's our special time. She loves to sit on the floor, on my feet, while I brush and braid her hair. Another precious memory.

There's a lot about me that you don't see.

Let me get this straight Mommy, this lady went on the internet to complain about you being on the internet? IRONY.

Believe me, my eyes are on my prizes. All day long. We play. We laugh. We create a thousand happy memories every day. It is an insult to mothers everywhere that you feel qualified to judge our parenting skills based on ten minutes of creepy park stalking. You don't see the work I put into my relationship with my kids. I signed up for motherhood, not martyrdom. What I choose to do with my downtime is my business. Why shouldn't I catch up on my reading while my kids are occupied with independant play (which, by the way, is an integral part of their early education)? Should I just give up now? Put away all my interests and hobbys and spend my every waking minute engaging with my children? I think if anything that would just weaken my bond with them. I can just picture my oldest daughter in a few years thinking "Man, I wish mom would get a life. She's cramping my style" There will come a time when they no longer want me to come to the park with them all the time but it will be because they are confident, independant girls who aren't dependant on me for every facet of their entertainment, not because they feel they come second to my mobile device.

Damn, I wish mom would get off her phone. I'm not having any fun digging in the dirt by myself.

Perhaps next time, instead of lambasting us for how we choose to spend our downtime, you could celebrate the fact that our children are outside playing in the fresh air and making new friends. I guess you missed the part where my daughter got bored with twirling and went up to that dark haired girl and asked her if she wanted to play. For the next half an hour she was completely oblivious to my existence. I'll try not to take it personally. I'm pretty sure my kids are just happy to be at the park after this long, dreary winter. And thanks for the suggestion about discussion topics for swing time with my baby but I think shes a little young for either meteorology or theology. Right now she's still amazed at the fact that swing goes up, swing comes down.

Tell me the part about Cumulus clouds again mommy, that was really interesting...said no toddler, ever.

I'll tell you what my children know...

They know that they are the best thing Mr. Zinga and I have ever done with our lives. I've shown them every day just how important they are to me, to us. Every kiss, every cuddle, every kind word I've ever said to them has been a memory made. I fix their booboos. I fix their dinner. I fix their toys, (even the loud ones that annoy me) all with the aim of making them happy, healthy and safe. I teach them positive values and how to live with balance, moderation and merit. I'll be damned if my children's memories are going to be of a frantic mother, hovering needlessly trying to stave off the mom guilt brought on by hypocrites who smugly denounce "techie" moms from the comfort of their blogs. No. I wont have it. Their memories are going to be of a mother who gave them everything they needed and wasn't afraid to take fifteen minutes for herself. I'm very glad you choose to blog only at night or during naptime. Thats not a luxury I have today. I have to do all my chores during naptime. I didn't get anything done today.

I was too busy taking my kids to the park.

Image stolen from Facebook
All photos courtesy of my smartphone

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Endless Inspiration, Zero Energy

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Hello Friends, remember me? I'm the lady who USED to write this blog. Now I'm the lady who wishes she had time to write this blog. I've missed this outlet. I've been trying, I really have. I have about a half a dozen posts on the go: little starts, nuggets of ideas, or things that pissed me off that day. Unfortunately, by the time I get time to go back and finish writing, it's usually 1:00 am and I gotta get up early with the kids, or I get a free hour in the day and decide to read/Facebook/watch a movie instead. Downtime is precious when you have two toddlers. I am having a really hard time keeping up with life right now and the blog was the first thing to get shoved on the back burner.

It's hard. I have my family, who I love and adore and would do anything for. They are my life, my reason for getting up in the morning with a smile on my face (no matter how sleep deprived I might be). My husband is my rock, he's the strongest man I know. CeeCee is precocious and precious and makes me laugh all day long. Parker is sweet and funny and watching her learn new things every day makes me appreciate the little things in life. They are my heart, they are my joy, they are the most important thing I have ever done with my life.

 

Assholes, the lot of them;

Oh good, my kitchen is not as bad as I thought.

I kid, I kid. I don't actually think my family are assholes but I'm also not going to put on airs and act like I have some kind of Stepford family. It's hard work. One is going through the terrible twos on top of being a "spirited child", the other is cutting what feels (and sounds) like six teeth at once and has started terrorizing walking. Mr. Zinga is just trying to keep up with it all without his body breaking down from the effects of Polyarticular JRA while working fifty hours a week to support us all. And me? I'm just here in the middle trying to make sense of it all and trying to be a strong core for my family. I like to think I'm the glue that holds this whole, crazy life together. Krazy glue, undoubtedly, but it's part of my charm. Yeah, sometimes they're assholes. I'm an asshole. Happens to the best of us. I'm not trying to martyr myself, or fish for sympathy. I knew going in that we were going to have tough challenges ahead and I'm prepared for it.

I don't mourn the loss of drunken weekends, perfect hair and a wardrobe that consisted of more than yoga pants and pyjamas.

I love my job and it brings me joy, but right now my kids are my job and it brings more satisfaction than a nine to five ever could.

I do miss my breasts, although they're still down there (somewhere). Their ruination was for a good cause and I wouldn't change a thing.

Who cares that she's hot. I created life. TWICE.

Anyway, what I really miss is my blog. I miss my computer. The laptop just doesn't feel right. I miss sitting at my desk with a fishbowl sized cup of coffee. I miss having something burning inside me that I just gotta get down on paper right then and there. I miss searching for a decent free digital photo and writing a funny caption for it. I miss the rush I get from writing, and the rush I get when someone reads an article and goes out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed it. I miss it all. There's a whole process to it, editing, revising, marketing...It makes me smile. It makes me happy. It is my second love (just a smidge below my family). One day I'll be able to blog regularly again. In the meantime it'll just sit on that back burner, simmering slowly, gathering flavour and waiting for me to take a big bite.







Image taken from Facebook
Image provided by imagerymajestic/freedigitalphotos.net

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A Letter to my Spirited Child

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Today you screamed for two hours because I wouldn't give you juice.

I try to be patient, I really do. I know deep in my heart that you don't hate me. That you aren't doing this out of spite. I understand that in toddlerland there is no such thing as moderation and the fact that you had already drank your juice quota for the day is irrelevant to you. I get that, in your head, the rules of possession state that apple juice in the fridge belongs to you and only you and that when you saw me pour a glass you saw that as stealing. Unfortunately after the first half an hour of screaming my nerves were shot and I was more short tempered than usual.

I cried.

Just a few tears of frustration. My body's natural release whenever I am stressed. I'm still puzzled by the fact that you continued screaming even after I broke down and finally gave you the juice. What's with that? I think at that point you had forgotten what it was you were crying about and were so worked up you were just crying for the sake of crying. Nice touch with the flopping onto the floor and kicking your feet by the way. Very dramatic. I might have been able to see the humor in it if you hadn't told me to f*** off when I picked you up. You remember? Right after you bit me?

I cried.

More tears of frustration. Some days it is so damn hard to not lose my temper. It takes every ounce of patience I possess to stop myself from yelling. It's not that it hurt when you bit me, certainly not as much as it hurt your sister when you bit her this morning, it's more that when I see you lashing out it makes me question my abilities as a parent. I should have been able to nip this whole biting thing in the bud a long time ago. I feel like I failed you. You can count to ten and sing "Twinkle Twinkle" in its entirety. How am I not able to get you to understand that biting hurts. As far as the language goes, well, you don't know what it means. You probably overheard me on the phone, dropping f-bombs while I chat to my friends. That my fault. I'm not punishing you for swearing. It's the biting. I couldn't just let it slide. That's why I put you in time out.

YOU cried.

I know you hate time outs. I wouldn't like them very much either. They weren't an option when I was growing up. I got a slap across the face when I misbehaved. Or a strap across the back of my legs. Neither was very effective but they sure gave me pause. Mostly I paused thinking about how much I hated my family. It never made me stop and think about what I had done wrong. Apparently I'm supposed to be biting you back. I don't quite get how this is supposed to discourage you from biting, especially since you model so many of your behaviors after me. This is why we do time outs. I gotta say though, the end result seems to be the same. Especially when you told me you hated me.

I cried again.

This time it was ugly crying. Body wracking sobs of pain. I don't know why. You don't even know what you were saying. You're two. What do you know about hate? Besides, of course, your hate for vegetables. I don't know where you picked that up from. TV? Do we need to be more careful of what we watch when you're around? When I am moaning about doing housework do I need to start spelling out my distaste for folding laundry? Especially when you grab a pile of your sisters neatly folded clothes and throw them over the railing.

I stopped crying.

I sat down with you on the couch. I got down to eye level with you and told you I was sad. You put your chubby arms around my neck and told me "Don't be sad Mummy". You went and grabbed your smelly blanket, the one you wont let me wash when you're awake. You climbed into my lap and put the blanket around us both. "Snuggle?" you asked tentatively, as if you were afraid of my answer. The smile that lights up your face when I say "Of course we can snuggle" is priceless. It is the look of a blind man seeing the sun for the very first time. We lay there on the couch, big spoon and little spoon, watching Dora the Explorer. I can smell the oatmeal and vanilla of your shampoo as I kiss the top of your head and breathe in deep. All is forgotten, all is right with the world. In ten perfect minutes we have erased hours of tension and frustration. In ten perfect minutes we reset the clock to zero. You reach your tiny hand out, grab my arm and pull it around you.

I cried.

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Flying Spaghetti Monsters: Deliciously Irreverent.

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What do you get when Pinterest and Facebook collide?

Inspiration:)

I have been Facebook friends (and WTE message board friends) with a girl named Sara for a few years now. If you ask Sara what her religion is she will tell you proudly, FSM. Oh, you have never heard of the Church of FSM? Let me share with you.



Swedish designer Niklas Jansson created this interpretation of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam

Back in 2005 Bobby Henderson, concerned with the addition of Intelligent Design to the curriculum, wrote an open letter to the Kansas School Board informing them that if ID was going to be taught then he wanted the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to receive equal representation. The theories are similar in many ways.

• They both refute the logic of Science and Evolution.
• They are both based on books, written by men.
• They both have a (supposedly) fictional character at their helm

For the most part Pastafarians are a peace (and noodle) loving bunch. You will find the occasional one who gets upset when the noodles aren't al dente but as a whole they are very laid back. In fact one of the main tenets of FSM is that there be no dogma and, above all else, not to take themselves too seriously. Sign me up:)

Where am I going with all this?

One day I was putting off doing my housework looking up recipes on Pinterest when I saw this culinary abomination touting itself to be the best snack for kids ever.



Yum! Entrails.

Really? Have we lowered the bar so far that shoving dried spaghetti through tube steak and boiling it passes for a "nutritious" snack? It defies logic, it defies common sense. Calling it nutritious flies in the face of science. It is the Intelligent Design of kids cuisine.

Enter FSM:)

I have long been of the opinion that anything found on Pinterest can either be A) effed up beyond all recognition or B) adapted into something even more wonderful. I got to thinking about how I could make this recipe better. Hmmm, what goes with spaghetti that's healthier than hot dogs? Meatballs perhaps? I mean let's face it, if you can stick spaghetti through a hot dog then ostensibly you should be able to stick it through a meatball. I decided to pay homage to my FSM friends and create a dinner fit for Pastover, or Ramendan. I created my very own Flying Spaghetti Monsters.



...and FSM said unto them "Let there be dinner" and there was, and it was good.

These deliciously irreverent little meatballs can be made either as a snack or a full blown meal. Since there are roughly 6785439 different meatball recipes out there I won't bore you with my version. I will point out that using regular ground beef works a little better than leaner ground beef and spaghettini cooks a little faster than spaghetti. Other than that you're on your own. Use whatever meatball recipe you want, use whatever marinara sauce recipe you want. There is no dogma here. We don't judge.

Skewer the meatballs with pieces of spaghettini. You can use a little or a lot. It's your meal. Boil a big pot of water, add a dash of salt and a splash of olive oil. Once you have a good rolling boil going, drop your meatball/pasta combos into the pot. Let them boil for 7-10 minutes depending on how you like your pasta. The meatballs cook quickly, so don't worry about them. Once the pasta is done, they'll be done (provided you haven't made them too big). As you can see mine are roughly the size of golf balls.




I snap my pasta in half so that there is a hearty meat to carb ratio.

What I don't understand is how the hell the pasta inside the meatball cooks. Maybe its steam, maybe its meat juice. All I know is that it cooks perfectly. Every time. A scientist might be able to explain it but I am no scientist. Besides, science is irrelevant. Every time a scientific conclusion is reached, FSM just reaches out his noodly appendage and changes the results. We're not sure why he does this, we just know that he can. Being ineffable has it's privileges.

Toss the cooked meatballs in a skillet with marinara sauce.

So once you have your pasta strained toss it into a stir fry pan/deep skillet. Add your marinara sauce and toss everything together until the pasta is evenly coated and the sauce is warmed. That's all there is to it. Kids love it, grown ups love it, Pastafarians love it. Whats not to love? It's everything you love about spaghetti and meatballs wrapped up in a satirical little package. I promise you wont go to hell for eating them. Any god that would create the duck billed platypus MUST have a sense of humor. Enjoy.

R'amen:)




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Facebook Bullying: The New Normal?

Pin It ***Warning! Some links contained in this post contain graphic images that will undoubtedly be considered offensive to anyone with an ounce of common decency. I refuse to show the actual pictures (except for one) because it turns my stomach to have to look at them.***


At what point did it become acceptable to plaster the Internet with memes about disabled children? Did I miss something here? I love a good meme as much as the next girl. They can be hilarious and for the most part harmless. They poke fun at public figures, slacktivist causes and other pop culture icons. I'm especially fond of the Gene Meme. You've all seen it. A picture of Gene Wilder looking on condescendingly while pretending interest in everything from Kony 2012 to Northface Jacket wearing suburbanites. Funny shit, it really is.

It stops being funny when the memes turn to ridiculing a 5 year old girls disability.

IRONY!

Adalia Rose is a child with a disease called Progeria. It is a genetic disorder that mimics the effects of aging, causing hair loss (alopecia), thickened skin (scleroderma) and often results in a failure to thrive. It causes her to have an almost alien like appearance: Large head, small features and she is also bald, cause you know, she didn't have enough going on. She might have small features but she has a huge heart.

She told her mother she wanted to be a star. Her mother, like the good woman she is, set about to do whatever she could to make her baby girls dream come true. She hit the Internet running and within a short period of time she was able to drum up a huge following of supporters for this spunky little girl. She has her own website, her own YouTube channel and over 4 million likes on Facebook. Not bad for someone who hasn't even been alive long enough to remember what life was like before Facebook.

Adalia Rose

It's what any one of us would have done right? You have a kid, you do whatever it takes to make them happy. Especially when that kid has the odds stacked so hard against her. Unfortunately, for every story of inspiration on the Internet, there is some bottom feeder looking for their fifteen minutes.

Enter Bree.

Bree (I will only use her first name as she is a minor) created a page called Adalia Rose Memes (link contains seriously offensive...everything. Definitely NSFW). She thought it might be a nice idea to take pictures of Adalia and post them with funny captions. Whats funnier than calling a five year old a whore? Calling her an alien? Really funny, at least I'm assuming she found them funny. Personally I thought they were pretty ignorant and hateful myself but hey, I'm no "comedian" as Bree refers to herself. I'm just a mom.

A mom with a lot of friends.

As most of you know I am a social media enthusiast, everyone knows it. I have been involved with the same core group of moms for three years. I haven't met any of them face to face but I have been there, in our groups/message boards/chat rooms, for the births of their children, through divorces and marriages and sadly through the loss of loved ones. We are tight. We fight with each other like sisters but when the chips are down we band together. It's a beautiful thing.

Do you really want to mess with someone who has over 200 sisters?

One of the mommas brought it to our attention that this Adalia Rose Memes page existed. Immediately we all went over and a few of us had words with the followers. No big deal. The problem was they weren't even a little bit abashed by the fact that they had been caught out doing this awful thing. They were PROUD of it. They truly believe that Adalia's mother is exploiting her so in protest they have created this page. That's their story and they're sticking to it. It's not OK to create a support page for your sick child but it is apparently perfectly acceptable to steal their pictures, slap vulgar captions on them and poke fun at their disability. The logic is astounding.

Wanna hear something even more astounding? I know you do.

Facebook, in it's wisdom, thinks it is perfectly acceptable too!

Sure, post a picture of your child breastfeeding and they drop the hammer faster than an auctioneer at Barrett Jackson but bullying a five year old? That's just good fun. These photos have been reported by all of our group members, on the basis that it violates Facebooks policies against hate speech. According to Zuckerberg's minions there is no hate speech. None of the photos have been removed and the page is still open for business. Never mind that this is being perpetrated against a disabled child, never mind that some of these memes are racist in nature. It's the Internet. Suck it up. Freedom of speech. Yay first amendment.

Freedom of speech? How about common decency?

Not offensive or racist at all *eyeroll*

A friend of the family broadcast an appeal to the haters on YouTube, to no avail. There were hate pages and ugly memes about Bree, which ironically were taken down faster than whores drawers. While we got a kick out of the poetic (karmic?) justice, slacktivism isn't really our style. Why flame someone on a website when you can go national? We are currently in talks with NBC, CBS and other news affiliates. They were repulsed by the fact that Facebook has let this go unchecked for as long as it has. We couldn't get through to the creator of the page or appeal to her nonexistent sense of decency so we are appealing to you faithful reader. One thing about us Internet moms, we don't take this kind of thing lying down. Don't let them get away with this, for Adalias sake. Protest this.

Sign this petition.

Report this page.

Contact your local news.

More importantly, teach your children that this is wrong. Where the hell are this girls parents? Do they think this is acceptable behavior?

Do you?


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