The Winds of Change Blow

Greetings to the Ladies Jane --

After an extended absence, rejoining you is a pleasure!

I'm a steadfast Third Wave feminist. I've spent my entire life proving to the world (and myself) that I am the equal of any man in anything that I choose to do. Beginning with schoolyard fisticuffs, I fell in love with high school Junior ROTC, refused to marry young, established a career in a (predominately male) technical field, and have vociferously insisted to anyone listening (and those not) that women have value that has nothing to do with creating new life

Adamantly, ferociously, with the crystal clarity that only true passion brings, I have practiced what I've preached. I refuse to cry outside of my own apartment. When I'm frightened, I snarl. When I'm weak, I attack. When I'm paralyzed, I bark orders at others. When I feel stupid, I boast. Full of bravado and vinegar, I dare anyone, everyone, to call my bluff. Intelligent women older than me have told me, "I'm so jealous! You're your own person: You never gave yourself away."

While battling a sleeping disorder that eradicates many useful hours, I've lived my life with what time I have as my own. My responsibilities are with my friends and parents, not with the husband or child/ren that my culture (and well-meaning individuals) say that I am missing.

The only time one of my girlfriends and I are ever catty is when we praise Glory for the fact that we are childless. We revel in the fact that we still have the luxuries of self-absorbtion and non-bowel-movement conversation. We are snotty towards and gossip about parent who don't control their children and parents who have nothing to talk about besides Johnny's ear infection or Janie's latest goo-goo-ga-ga babbling.

We know your little precious is the most amazingly wonderful thing in the multiverse to you, we do, I promise! Really, that's probably the way it should be, but please, dear God, would you just shut up about it?!

"That is just not going to be us, we actually have something to do with our lives," we snark, as if childrearing is relegated to those without the capacity to do anything else. I always felt a bit guilty for snarking about women whose choices have been different than mine, but not enough to actually stop the snarking. I'm positive that there's a portion of the human animal's social need that yearns for validation so much that even self-provided validation will suffice.

I've been proud to use the courtesy title of "Miss," although at the age of 38 people occasionally double-take when I do. My boss says I look 30. I refuse to change my name if I ever *do* marry. I'm not against the idea of marriage per se', but I am still not sure (while having discussed it with my boyfriend) that I am or ever will be ready for such a thing. I'm a fiercly independent, oddly particular, strongly-willed, and reliable overachieving only child who is used to having things her own way.

Let's say that the arts of negotiation and domestic order are not among my stronger points. :-)

I've been an apartment dweller my entire adult life, and I've found myself daydreaming for the last year or so of a permanent home, of putting down roots, of neighborhood block parties in the kind of place where Girl Scouts ring the doorbell to sell their boxes of yummy goodness every year. I've been daydreaming of older neighborhoods, with narrow driveways and old-growth trees, neighborhoods that have 50 years of architectural styles represented in the little houses lining the streets while the larger city sprawled around, creating little enclaves with their own little newletters and residents who know the family name of the house two blocks over who just bought that sweet new Mazda RX8 . . .

This picture never includes a husband or child/ren. I see the garden, I see the porch swing (and the kitty dozing in it), I see the cute white trim around the round accent-lighting windows, I see the kitchen with it's glorious chrome-trimmed appliances, and I see the window-box with custom cushions, begging me to wile away the sunny afternoon with my Kindle . . .

But I never see the other pieces of the house, of that life, and I've assumed that's because I'm not yet ready to see them. I'm not ready to get married, I'm not ready to be a parent, so those pieces are not yet visible to me.

As a result, I've been thinking that I've just been wanting to put down roots, that I'm finally looking for an adult level of security, stability, and serenity. That my kitty and my project house are what I'm yearning for, what I need. I'd come to the conclusion that this was just a larger, albeit more gentle, form of the insistent nesting urge I experience every time that I have PMS.

I realized just last night that I've been wrong. All at once, a thought leapt up from my subconscious brain and burst into my conscious mind with the stopping power of a close thunderclap:

I want a baby.

What the hell happened to me? Who am I to become?

~Riot.Jane

Woman "Not Guilty" should Son Rise from the Dead

Baltimore, MD -- A former religious cult member has agreed to an unheard-of plea deal: She has plead guilty and will testify against four others in the starving death of her 1-year-old son but reserves the right to rescind her plea if her son rises from the dead.

Ria Ramkissoon, 22, a native of Trinidad, is the prime witness in the Maryland's case against Queen Antoinette, 40, who purportedly lead the now-disbanded One Mind Ministries religious cult out of a Baltimore row house. Prosecutors allege that Antoinette instructed cult members, including Ramkissoon, to deny the child, Javon Thompson, food and water as punishment for the child not saying "Amen."

Prosecutors allege that Antoinette, believing that Ramkissoon would be weak and feed the child or give him water, instructed Javon be given to another cult member who followed her food-and-water-denial instructions. After the eventual death of the child, the cult members prayed over the body and the mother danced around it. When that didn't succeed in raising the child from the dead, two cult members purchased a wheeled suitcase in which to carry the child. Ramkissoon's attorney said that the cult believed that the child could be raised from the dead at a later date if they could carry the body with them. The cult moved to Philadelphia and asked a men they'd befriended there to store their luggage, and police found the body in a shed behind the man's house.

Javon's father, Robert Thompson, did not attend the plea agreement hearing due to illness, and is reported to have been incarcerated at the time of Javon's birth. Court documents indicate that Ramkissoon joined One Mind Ministries after Javon's birth. Ramkissoon left her parent's home with her 7-month old son, joined the cult, and moved into their house at the age of 19 because (according to her attorney) she didn't want to work or go to school but wanted to raise her son full-time, in Christianity, and the cult offered her this opportunity. At the time that Ramkissoon joined the cult, it had approximately a dozen members. Reportedly within the cult, cell 'phones and discussion of one's family were banned and marijuana smoking was common.

Prosecutors are charging Antoinette and three other cult members with child abuse resulting in death and first-degree murder. In a March 30 hearing, Ramkissoon plead guilty to the first charge (abuse/death) and agreed that she will testify truthfully against the other four. Should this occur, the prosecutor's office will recommend sentencing comprised of release from jail, a suspended 20-year sentence, five years probation requiring mental health assistance (including "deprogramming" treatment with a specialist in cult behavior). Sentencing is currently sheduled for August 11.

A prosecutor's office spokeswoman said that, regarding the child rising from the dead, the fine print of the plea agreement states, "This would need to be a Jesus-like resurrection. It cannot be a reincarnation in another object or animal."

"She [Ramkissoon] certainly recognizes that her omissions caused the death of her son," Ramkissoon's attorney said. "To this day, she believes it was God's will and he will be resurrected and this will all take care of itself. She realizes if she's wrong, then everyone has to take responsibility ... and if she's wrong, then she's a failure as a mother and the worst thing imaginable has happened. I don't think that, mentally, she's ready to accept that."

Ramkissoon's attorney also said,

"On one level, she certainly is competent to stand trial, because she does recognize that as far as her legal entanglements are concerned, this is a grand-slam resolution for her. On the other hand, she's still brainwashed, she's still delusional as far as the teachings and influence of this cult, and she certainly is going to benefit with professional help and deprogramming."

The current disposition of the four other charged cult members: (Leader) Antoinette, Trevia Williams, and Marcus Cobbs are currently incarcerated without bail. Steven Bynum is, for some reason, free on his own recognizance.

Source documents available for review.

~Riot.Jane

Gender Neutrality: Pop and the X-Child

A young couple in Sweden have decided to raise their child in as gender-neutral a way as is imaginable: They've decided not to tell anyone which gender their child Pop is.

An article in the English-language Swedish news source The Local, tells the story of "Pop" and parents "Nora" and "Jonas" (all are pseudonyms). At the end of The Local's article is a link to an interview (original Swedish, English machine-translation) with the parents regarding the reasons for their controversial decision, their life with Pop to date, and comments from three professionals: a psychologist/newspaper columnist, a gender equality consultant, and a pediatric endocrinologist.

Pop's parents are raising Pop in this way as a result of the feminist belief that gender is purely a social construct (I personally disagree) . They believe Pop will grow up less constrained if allowed to develop without the societally-imposed baggage of gender role expectations. "If I can keep my child from being forced into a slot, I want to do it," Jonas said.*

Nora and Jonas believe that they can already see the effects in Pop of their alternative upbringing, "I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime," Nora said. Nora and Jonas describe Pop as a confident and stable person.

Pop is currently 3 and a half and living with parents (no siblings yet, although Nora is currently expecting her second child in August). Pop has a range of clothing (from dresses to pants) and clothing colors to choose from daily, and Pop's hair changes regularly. More often than not, Pop chooses what Pop will look like on any given day. Though Pop is aware of the physical differences between males and females, the parents never use personal pronouns when referring to Pop. Much as this post is phrased, they just refer to Pop.

Nora and Jonas allow others to assume Pop's gender without correction. When asked directly, they respond with something to the effect of "I've chosen not to disclose my child's sex."* Some people approve of the concept, others do not, but the couple doesn't often have trouble with naysayers because, according to Nora, people are afraid of conflict. According to Jonas, Pop has remained as quiet to outsiders as he and Nora have.

The part of this story that I found most fascinating is that only other people don't know Pop's gender. Pop is fully aware of Pop's gender. Pop's parents have discussed gender in general and Pop's gender in specific with Pop, just not with others. The parents believe that the time to reveal Pop's gender is when Pop is ready to do so.

Nora and Jonas believe in what they are doing, and approve of how Pop is developing, so they're planning on raising their second child the same way, i.e. raising a child instead of raising a girl or a boy.

Pop's story, as Nora and Jonas present it, reminds me of a Lois Gould story purportedly published in Ms. in 1972 with the title "X: A Fabulous Child's Story." X is the fictional story of a baby raised without gender that focuses on the trouble this causes other people rather than the (mostly minor) troubles this causes X.

While I can't find a copy (digital or analog) copy of the 1972 issue of Ms. magazine, I did find the story itself republished in Issue 22 of Polare with the title "A Fabulous Child's Story."

Polare is an in-service magazine that provides a forum for the discussion/debate of gender issues and is published quarterly by The Gender Centre Inc. The Department of Community Services funds The Gender Center Inc. under the S.A.A.P. Program and is supported through Australia's New South Wales Health Department, AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch.

In a gender-issue discussion magazine, this particular story found its home. It's a timeless piece that still speaks to us clearly 37 years after its (purported) first publication. Excerpts are below, click through to read the entire story of X.

Once upon a time, a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else. They couldn't even tell Baby X at first.
. . .
Also, long before Baby X was born, all those scientists had to be paid to work out the details of the Xperiment, and to write the Official Instruction Manual for Baby X's parents and, most important of all, to find the right set of parents to bring up Baby X. These parents had to be selected very carefully. Thousands of volunteers had to take thousands of tests and answer thousands of tricky questions. Almost everybody failed because, it turned out, almost everybody really wanted either a baby boy or a baby girl, and not Baby X at all. Also, almost everybody was afraid that a Baby X would be a lot more trouble than a boy or a girl. (They were probably right, the scientists admitted, but Baby X needed parents who wouldn't mind the Xtra trouble.)
. . .
But, finally, the scientists found the Joneses, who really wanted to raise an X more than any other kind of baby - no matter how much trouble it would be. Ms. and Mr. Jones had to promise they would take equal turns caring for X, and feeding it, and singing it lullabies. And they had to promise never to hire any baby-sitters. The government scientists knew perfectly well that a baby-sitter would probably peek at X in the bathtub, too.

The day the Joneses brought their baby home, lots of friends and relatives came over to see it. None of them knew about the secret Xperiment, though. So the first thing they asked was what kind of a baby X was. When the Joneses smiled and said, "It's an X," nobody knew what to say. They couldn't say, "Look at her cute little dimples!" And they couldn't say, "Look at his husky little biceps!" And they couldn't even say just plain "kitchycoo". In fact, they all thought the Joneses were playing some kind of rude joke.
. . .
On page 1654 of the Official Instruction Manual, the scientists prescribed: "plenty of bouncing and plenty of cuddling, both, X ought to be strong and sweet and active. Forget about dainty altogether".
. . .
Mr Jones wandered helplessly up and down the aisles trying to find out what X needed. But everything in the store was piled up in sections marked "Boys" or "Girls".

There were "Boy's' Pyjamas" and "Girls' Underwear" and "Boys' Fire Engines" and "Girl's Housekeeping Sets". Mr. Jones went home without buying anything for X. That night he and Ms. Jones consulted page 2326 of the Official Instruction Manual. "Buy plenty of everything", it said firmly.

So they bought plenty of sturdy blue pyjamas in the Boys' Department and cheerful flowered underwear in the Girls' Department. And they bought all kinds of toys. A boy doll that made pee-pee and cried, "Pa-pa". And a girl doll that talked in three languages and said "I am the Pres-i-dent of Gen-er-al Mo-tors". They also bought a story-book about a brave princess who rescued a handsome prince from his ivory tower, and another one about a sister and brother who grew up to be a baseball star and a ballet star, and you had to guess which was which.

Whenever the Joneses pushed Baby X's stroller in the park, smiling strangers would come over and coo: "Is that a boy or a girl?" The Joneses would smile back and say, "It's an X". The strangers would stop smiling then, and often snarl something nasty - as if the Joneses had snarled at them.
. . .
Finally, Joe and Peggy's parents decided to call an emergency meeting of the school's Parents' Association, to discuss "The X Problem". They sent a report to the principal stating that X was a "disruptive influence".
. . .
So the Principal reluctantly notified X's parents that numerous complaints about X's behaviour had come to the school's attention. And that after the Psychiatrist’s Xaminiation, the school would decide what to do about X.
. . .
Wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, the psychiatrist began in a hoarse whisper.

"In my opinion", he whispered - you could tell he must be very upset - "in my opinion, young X here -"

"Yes? Yes" shouted a parent impatiently. "Sssssh!" sssshed the Principal.

Click through to read "A Fabulous Child's Story" in its entirety.

What do you think about the real case of Pop and the fictional case of X? How much of gender is biological, and how much is societal? Are Nora and Jonas enlightened or barbaric? Short of physical damage, where does the parental right to raise a child as one sees fit end and insanity begin? How realistic is X's outcome when compared with Pop's parent-reported current status? Do we want to follow Pop's life with a series of interviews and psychiatric evaluations over the next 20 years, or would such have unintended side effects on Pop's development, therefore raising questions about the observations gleaned?

*The machine translation from Swedish to English is not of high quality, so these "quotations" are paraphrased.

~Riot.Jane

To Cut or Not to Cut?

The decision to circumcise your new baby boy is difficult for many parents. Religious, emotional, naturalistic, societal, hygiene, parental personal motivations, and side-effect concerns are a part of a decision that will affect your child for the rest of his life.

As a single woman with no children (and no upcoming plans for any), I have very little opinion on this topic. I've always been a "to each his own" on the matter -- Circumcision is, oddly, one of the rare parenting (or lack thereof) decisions upon which I've not yet passed judgment. My non-opinion might be changed, though, by a couple recent articles in Science Daily.

The first Science Daily article discusses an intervention review published by Wiley InterScience and available from The Cochrane Library that discusses clinical trials between 2002 and 2006 in Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda that included more than 11,000 (presumably adult) men who underwent circumcision. The results of the trials indicate that circumcisions reduced male HIV infection rates by 54% over a two-year period when compared with non-circumcised men. The researchers say that the 54% figure is a best-estimate average, and that the true reduction in male HIV infection among circumcised men would be 38 - 66%. More research must be conducted to determine if male circumcision will reduce HIV infection rates among their female partners.

Because the foreskin contains cells, called Langerhans cells, that have receptors favorable to HIV, current thinking is that the mechanism by which male circumcision reduces male HIV infection rates is that the tissue containing these cells is removed during cirmcucision.

The second Science Daily arrticle gives us more health news on the benefits of circumcision, describing a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine that built upon previous research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (part of the National Institutes of Health) that found that circumcision reduced the heterosexual transimission of HIV by more than 50%. The New England Journal of Medicine paper describes an experiments showing that circumcision reduces the male infection rates for HSV-2 (which causes genital herpes) and HPV (a group of virii that cause cervical cancer and genital warts). Their experiments with approximately 5,000 circumcised and non-circumcised men showed that circumcision reduced the male infection rate for HSV-2 by 28% and the male HPV infection rate by 35%. The experiment did not show a difference in the infection rate for syphilis between the non/circumcised.

Much like vaccinating your daughter again HPV , if there's the slightest chance that something you do for your child (i.e. circumcision) could prevent a likely terminal illness or a life-long painful/embarrassing one, how could you not do it?

~Riot.Jane

Immigration Group: Hospital/DHS "Stealing Immigrants' Babies"

On November 16, 2008, Ruby Cruz was born to Mexican Cirila Baltazar Cruz in a Pascagoula, MI hospital. Two days later, hospital staff filed a report with the state Department of Human Services regarding the Cruz child's situation.

Included in the hospital report to DHS are allegations of neglect supported by the mother's exchanging sex for housing, the mother's inability to communicate in any laguage besides the indigenous language Chantino, the mother's illegal immigrant status, and mother's plans for giving the child up for adoption.

"After thoroughly investigating Ms. Cruz's situation, we are very confident that our employees acted appropriately in all phases of her care," said a Singing River Hospital spokeman. "We reported her case . . . as we are bound to do by law, and DHS, after its own investigation, made the decision regarding Ms. Cruz and her baby."

Court records indicate that the legal charges of neglect include the tidbits that, due to her only language being Chantino, she "was unable to call for assistance for transportation to the hospital" in order to give birth, that "she has failed to learn the English language," and that this situation has "placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future."

The Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance alleges that Singing River Hospital and the Mississippi DHS are "stealing immigrants' babies" by the hospital only providing a Spanish translator and then DHS charging the mother with neglect as a result of the hospital's error.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting in the Cruz defense.

Additional reading.

~Riot.Jane

Happy Fathers' Day! / the Mosuo People

In a twisted observance of Fathers' Day, we bring you news of matrilineal society of the Mosuo (sounds like How-Sue-Oh) people of the Chinese Himalaya. The agrarian Mosuo are a people that we know hasn't had conventional/formal marriage in a thousand years.

While you're wrapping your brain around that concept, here's more:

The Mosuo practice what they call "walking marriages," where women pair up with lovers and invite them to their homes in the evening only to ask them to leave in the morning.

What? The booty call as the societal function of procreation? Maybe women aren't so different from men after all, eh? ;-)

The Mosuo bear and raise their children, and live their entire lives within homes comprised of their extended matrilineal families. The role of Father is shared by various matrilinially-related male relatives. A child may or may not know the father, either because the mother is still involved with the father or the father does not want to know the child, but the entire culture considers the matrilineal family of first importance because, well, you always know to whom you are related if such things are judged by who's giving birth to whom. The father may or may not have any interest in or responsibility for his own children, but he will have interest in and responsibility for all of the children born to the women of his household.

The Mosuo aren't particularly promiscuous, in fact, many women will pair off only a few times in a lifetime. Serial monogamy is an apt description. There is no such thing as divorce in their culture, because it's not needed. When all property passes matrilineally and all children are in the sole custody of their mothers and her extended family regardless of her relationship (or lack thereof) with the father, divorce never becomes a concept.

Women often head the extended families, and women make most of the business decisions. The political power of the Mosuo tends to rest with the men, balancing the family and business power of the women.

Women maintain their autonomy, men know for a fact that their genes are being passed on (through female relatives), and families are incredibly stable (no divorces, shared custodies, fostering with relatives in another state, etc.), and divorce is a non-item. What could be better?

A short article and 3-minute National Geographic video interviewing several Mosuo people streams here. Wikipedia has a Mosuo entry, YouTube has a 12-minute video about them (too bad the Mosuo weren't subtitled!), and Amazon has a book by a Mosuo woman (with the help of an anthropologist) about her life as a Mosuo.

~Riot.Jane

My Father the Addict

My father has been a drug addict and part-time drug dealer and pool hustler for my entire life. The drug dealing was and is a way to get his own stash for cheap and the hustling was a way to make extra money for the household. My mother was a recovered/ing alcoholic and pill head from the time I was born until the day she died.

I grew up within the drug culture, but the only time my father has been arrested in my lifetime was for “stealing” cable television. I did other people’s drugs in high school, and I lived without water or electricity for extended periods due to lack of money. I was on Free Lunch my entire public school career. An “allowance” was not an option after the age of 10. The only time I ate fresh vegetables was at my best friend’s house.

Even though my father was educated, and is an intelligent man who works hard and taught me a great work ethic, we were always poor because my father’s employment history involved dodging drug tests and taking low-paying jobs that didn’t require them. School didn’t come easily to my mother, and though she was intelligent and widely read, that doesn’t get you a decent-paying job.

When I was in high school, I walked into a house with a friend who needed to meet with his connection there to pick up his drugs. Part of the redneck drug subculture is hanging around and doing a little with the person you’re scoring from (and whomever else is hanging around). I was sitting there, participating in the ritual, when my father walked in.

Apparently my friend’s connection and my father’s connection (at least at that point) were one and the same. We made eye contact and then promptly acted as if we didn’t know each other. My friend, who knew my father, played it cool and we left after the social obligations were satisfied without having to have an awkward conversation with my father. I got more messed up that night than ever before because I was so freaked out by the encounter.

By mutual unspoken agreement, that conversation with my father never happened. We both carried on with life without ever mentioning that experience. In a twisted dance of non-acknowledgement, we never spoke of such things to each other.

I eventually figured out that my father was a connection for some of my older friends. When I confronted my mother about it, she spoke with him and told me later that he swore he never sold to anyone under 18, that there was no way he was going to be picked up for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, as if this made selling drugs to high-schoolers more acceptable.

I grew up with an odd sense of ethics. I was using at the time myself, often in stranger’s houses, but was I was indignant that my father could even be peripherally involved in the same circles. Our worlds were separate, different, and I was pissed that I could come across him anywhere in such a context. You are not supposed to be in a drug den using across the room from your father when you’re 16. You’re just not.

My father has been diagnosed with military-service-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is literally out of his mind without drugs. The prescribed pharmaceuticals never worked well for him, and he didn’t respond to non-pharma treatment. He cleaned up briefly, but the PTSD and depression over my mother’s death had him so close to suicide that he went back to the drugs.

I can’t say that I blame him for going back to them – My recently diagnosed anxiety disorder, along with my own PTSD symptoms and a diagnosed sleep disorder, combined with my own spotty depression medication history and past issues with both alcohol and cocaine give me sympathy for him.

I don’t know if I’m an “enabler” or not. All I can say is that I’m glad he found something that actually quiets his personal brand of insanity. I haven’t yet, but the anti-anxiety medicine has improved things. I just wish that he could remember that I left that stuff, that old life behind, that I won’t participate anymore, that I’m bent on doing something more with my life than he was ever able to.

When he offers them to me as he does them (which is part of the social obligation of the drug subculture), I hide behind the “You know I’m tested for that crap,” answer because I can’t bear to have that conversation with him again, the one where he is almost begging me to approve of his use, to tell him he’s not a bad guy because of it.

I can’t bear to have that conversation with him again because I can’t condone any more than I can condemn.

~Riot.Jane

Our Broken Healthcare System

As if we needed more evidence that the US healthcare system is fundamentally broken, consider the story of Starla Darling, a pregnant 27-year-old mother who was laid off when Archway & Mother's Cookie Company in Ashland, Ohio filed for Chapter 11. With her job went her health insurance.

Starla began her maternity leave on October 1, 2008. Two days later, on October 3, Archway employees received a letter advising them that their jobs would end and their health insurance would be terminated on October 6. COBRA wsn't an option because the company was self-insured (administrated by Blue Cross Blue Shield), and the plan was being terminated.

So, Starla immediately did what any pregnant woman would do when unexpectedly laid off of an 8-year job who fears the loss of her health insurance: She called her midwife and insisted that her labor be induced and her child born within the three-day window in which she still had medical coverage.

Because her first child's delivery bill was approximately $9,000 three years before, and because she knew she would never be able to pay that amount for her second child's delivery, she decided "that we were getting this baby out, and it was going to be paid for."

On October 5, her delivery was induced, but excessive bleeding mandated an emergency cesarean section. Starla's daughter Kathryn was born three weeks early, and both are doing fine.

Because of the more than $700,000 in medical set-aside arrears that Archway was in when it shuttered, Blue Cross Blue Shield has denied payment for Starla's delivery based upon the plan's termination (i.e. no money, no plan, no coverage). She's now on the hook for more than $17,000 for the emergency cesarean section.

Starla hasn't been able to obtain unemployment benefits because recovering from the emergency cesarean section has left her "unable to work." Her husband Derek and her father Frank Phillips were also recently laid off, the father also from Archway the same day Starla was, after having worked there for 24 years.

Further reading available.

~Riot.Jane

Beauty = Full?

Let us talk about beauty.

I am beautiful. I am full of face and have eyes that men have fallen head-long into like a chasm of grief and pain and pleasure and have been lost. Forever. I have a mouth full and sweet like a rosebud, just on the cusp of bursting into a full and long flower that men have kissed and nibbled and sighed into. I have full breasts and midnight hair that tumbles down my back. Yes, it’s true, I am beautiful.

In our society beauty can be everything. Ever since I was a girl all around me have commented upon my face, later my body. I have held value because of these things. I have been lost and devoured and used because of these things. I recognize that I am beautiful, but what is that exactly?

I am visually appealing. I am easy to look at. I invoke pleasant feelings in those who glance in my direction. I kill myself slowly a little more every day to live up to the expectations that others have placed upon me and that I have made my own. I starve myself; I fill my body with chemicals in a desperate attempt to become thinner. Diet pills, laxatives, endless diuretics. This is some months. Then there are the months when I am so exhausted and spent that I just eat to fill the hole left behind. I am filled with guilt and pain and I am filled with more guilt. Every morsel is a punishment and I do this to remind myself that I must be beautiful to have worth. I obsess and the ones who love me the most suffer with me.

The funny thing is I do not believe that others must live this standard that has been set for me. I recognize the beauty in others I love so much. Fierce independence, self-assuredness, the ability to survive, spirituality, loyalty, innocence, worldliness, a loving nature, a protective nature; all are things of beauty and make the bearer beyond compare. I even recognize some of these qualities in myself.

Yet…

Yet, in my darkest hours it’s the ugliness in my psyche that haunts me. In my deepest of depths every pill, every morsel withheld, every graze of the razor across my arms and wrists and thighs is a secret message to myself; a message that says “You must do this to be loved.”

It seems boundless, this pit that I have dug for myself, but I have just written this down. I have acknowledged that it happens. This is my admonition, my cry for help, my pact with all of you and with myself to stop this insanity. I will stop this. I will write and maybe even talk and I will stop this.

I want to be free.

My Mom's Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday. My mom died in 1998 when I was 26, the same age she was when she gave birth to me.

As my mother lay dying, she begged me not to have any children because she couldn't bear the thought of one day my laying somewhere, dying of the rare cancer that has taken several generations of women in her line before the age of 60, looking into my own daughter's face, seeing the pain there. While she was dying, in an inconceivable amount of pain, she was more concerned about my being in the same situation some day than she was about her own quickly-approaching death.

That's a level of love that I cannot conceive of having.

I promised her that I wouldn't bear my own children unless and until we get to choose gender beforehand. I knew what I was promising, and I knew that I would keep it because, well, you don't turn down the dying wish of a family member if it's remotely possible to keep it.

So I've lived through the procreative years of my life not bearing children. I've never married. I've aborted. I've lived with roommates in order to avoid having an empty home and thrown myself into my career with a ferocity that masquerades as workaholism. I have a television on in my home 24x7 to have the sound of human voices around me. I've promised myself that I can always adopt, and I've also promised myself I won't marry a man for whom that's not an option.

I've told every close friend or boyfriend I've had since my mom's death that I won't bear my own children because of my mother's dying wish, my promise to her, and my own fear of the rare (almost undiagnosable) cancer that kills women in my line early. The thing is, that's only half the reason.

The other half of the reason, and the one I've never told anyone before, is that I can't conceive of being the kind of person, the kind of mother, who would or could lay dying, in incomprehensible pain, and be more concerned about my daughter experiencing the same thing than I am about my own impending death.

I can't live up to that. I can't even see the bar my mom set, much less reach it. That's the other half of the reason I never bore my own children and won't unless and until gender selection becomes a viable option.

~Riot.Jane

In 1972...

In 1972 I gave birth to a baby girl. I don’t know her name, I never gave her one. Instead, I gave her to waiting nurses and signed forms that told an adoption agency that they could have her. You may think that my reason for doing this were noble. You would be wrong.

When I hear of mothers giving their children up for adoption I always feel this stabbing in my gut. Most of these women hand over their tiny bundles to complete strangers because they are too young, too poor, too damaged to raise a child and they know it. What they’re doing is a gift to their child. It their final gift to the little life they brought into world. I envy them and the knowledge that they carry with them deep in their hearts. I gave you up because I love you so much.

In 1972 I had a daughter and when her screaming little form came bursting into this world all I could think was how glad I was it was over. All I wanted to do was sign those forms and get out of that hospital and meet my friends to go out on the town. You see, I was 24 years old and I lived to party. I wasn’t an addict, just very selfish. The thought of raising a child as an unmarried woman even in those days didn’t give me pause but the crimp in my lifestyle did. I thought I was a very smart and forward thinking woman. I thought I was ahead of my time. So, I took one fleeting glance at my bawling baby girl and signed those papers.

When I left the hospital I went home to my chic apartment and slept. I slept for days, then more days, more days still. I couldn’t seem to get out of bed. Instead of partying I just…slept. Visions of that scrunched up little face, my face, went around and around in my head.

Here’s the part where I would love to say I called the agency and demanded my daughter back. I would like to tell you we were reunited and I gave her a name, the name I’ve been carrying around in my heart all these years. I cannot. I did not.

I went back to my life. I worked and partied. I was a modern woman and I told myself I would live without regrets…Regrets are funny things. They want you even if you don’t want them and oh, how I regret. If I could turn back the clock and do it over, well, you know the story now don’t you?

I never had any other children. I couldn’t bring myself to look at another little face, my face, and know that somewhere out there was the sweet little girl who should have been mine. I often wonder if she’s tried to contact me. As much as I would love to see her and smell and hold her for the first time in our lives I dread it. What could I possibly say to her? How could I explain why I did what I did? I can’t, there is no explanation.

In 1972 I gave birth to a baby girl. I don’t know her name, I never gave her a name. When I think of her, I call her Elaine, my mother’s name.

Elaine,
I’m so sorry.