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Original poster

Theory: like parenting toddlers

35 replies

oxalisRed · 01/12/2021 11:59

It's stuck me time and again, a lot of the discussion about centering women's rights is not dissimilar to parenting toddlers and enforcing boundaries. Bear with me...

MN, obviously, has been built on an audience of women who over time have become/ want to be/ stopped actively parenting, mothers. We're all aware of the pressures, societal and personal, that motherhood induces; aware of the limits and miracles that our bodies can perform.

Then we're actively parenting toddlers whose lives we're guiding, we're teaching them everyday how to become their own person but setting limits and boundaries for their own safety.

"I want to do what I want to do" is a phrase uttered by my toddler that has stuck with me - of course she did, who wouldn't want their cake and to eat it?

Now women are yet again defending (hard won) boundaries that protect us against people who basically act like toddlers. Who cannot or choose not to behave with reason, who want everything even though it would be a cost to safety (predominantly ours).

Is it because we're mothers that we understand this fight so well, the fundamental importance and absurdity of it?

Many of the younger women I've spoken to (not yet mothers or never plan to be) see no issue with changing the boundaries that protect women - I wonder if that's because they've yet to experience a 3 year old demanding so much chocolate that it would make them sick? Grin

OP posts:
OldCrone · 01/12/2021 16:00

@Lliikklkkj

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?
I don't think you can make generalisations like this. I'm not the only regular poster on here who doesn't have children. The only gender evangelist I've had a conversation with about this in real life has daughters and grandchildren.
Fariha31 · 01/12/2021 15:35

This interview is great on this topic.

Lliikklkkj · 01/12/2021 14:48

That is very interesting foxgoose. I would love to see some research on this.

OneEpisode · 01/12/2021 14:44

I think parents just know that saying “no” doesn’t mean you hate your toddler?

foxgoosefinch · 01/12/2021 14:41

@Lliikklkkj

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?
Pretty much all my colleagues who go in for this are men and women without children. Interestingly, very occasionally of my colleagues who are into gender ideology, the odd one or two women with children get on board with this, but I’ve noticed that they invariably have boys, especially boys who are a bit gender non-conforming.

All the most GC women and men I know are all parents of at least one girl; or they are lesbians. (Actually I also know a fair number of gay men who are pretty scathing about gender ideology, too, but mostly from a distance as they tend not to be bothered by it.)

Original poster
oxalisRed · 01/12/2021 13:53

Yy, society has become so transactional and self-centred it seems (I'm really coming across as an old gimmer!)

While not admitting that it is imaginary. so true!

OP posts:
Lliikklkkj · 01/12/2021 13:51

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia. Knowing the leaky pipeline to senior roles- could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

IvyTwines2 · 01/12/2021 13:22

I heard an interesting comment on the radio a few days ago from a teacher saying today's children were so rude: she said they seem to think of her and other adults as 'Alexas', do this, do that, do it now. They don't talk to her with politeness and respect, as a fellow human being, but as a service robot. Just generally there has been a societal shift with the online everything to the idea that anything you want you can get, and get it instantly, and get stroppy if it isn't there on your doorstep the next morning (or within minutes, if it's a fast food order).

NecessaryScene · 01/12/2021 13:12

And watching them fight is like watching toddlers fight. Saw something on Ovarit today - they'd spotted someone in r/honestransgender having a rant about "otherkins":

"HOW can you identify with something you cannot possibly experience? You can only identify with projections from your own imagination of this thing. This is make believe, pure and simple!"

Aside from the obvious hilarity, the Ovarit posters noted:

It's like a child angrily yelling at another child for not playing their imaginary game the right way

I think that is the gender identity wars entirely. Everyone just fighting about imaginary stuff and the right way to do it.

While not admitting that it is imaginary.

JellySaurus · 01/12/2021 12:59

Totally.

This is why posters on FWR so often ask "Where are the grown-ups?"