The #good100 experiment

About a month ago I had a very long and interesting conversation on Twitter with a few people whom I respect and admire. At the end of this convo (which, in case you are wondering, was about gender equality and relationships), my Twitter pal @DebMerriam invited me to a fabulous local event. The Good Hundred Experiment.

In the words of the day's organizers, it was "An unsectored gathering of Edmonton’s savviest do-gooders, with the objective of connecting with future partners & collaborators, getting meaningful & actionable feedback on your project (from people who know what they're talking about) and being inspired by some of YEG's most bad ass do-gooders."

I was honoured to be invited and also wondered if in fact, I was sufficiently qualified as a do-gooder to attend this event. I mean, one look at the list of attendees and I was inspired (and somewhat intimidated) just reading their bios, what on earth would it be like actually being in a room with all these folks!

Well, I can tell you.

IT WAS AMAZING!!

Do you have any idea how many awesome people are doing good things in our city?

Let me give you a couple of examples.

There is Catherine from iHuman, a fabulous non-profit organization helping at risk youth through the arts. And if you head on over to THIS LINK, they have partnered with Telus Empower You and every Facebook Like and Share and every Tweet is a further $2 that Telus gives to the iHuman program. Get clicking people!

Then there is Joey from Knottycase.com. Joey and his brother are the amazing and HIGHLY energetic team behind this fantastic company and they make beautiful, unique and environmentally sustainable iPhone cases from salvaged and reclaimed woods. And the best part--all the manufacturing is done right here in Edmonton! The energy that flows off of this man is infectious and his intensity makes you believe wholeheartedly in what he is doing and then some. Not only is he an environmental do-gooder, he is a true DO-ER!

For me, though, the person who made the biggest impact on me (and what I see my role is as a do-gooder) was the one and only Brittney Leblanc. If you don't already know or follow Brittney on the tweeter, then get on that. This 26-year-old woman is smart, funny, civic-minded and so, so darn cute. And she is on a mission. Well, actually, she is on a couple of missions, but of everyone there I think I learned the most from her. Not necessarily about Brit (cause I kind of have the great privilege of knowing her already), but about what it means to be a woman who wants to make a difference in this city, and by extension, in this world.

Throughout the day's workshop we were discussing some of the BIG PICTURE themes that kept coming up within our smaller groups and not surprisingly, women's issues and women's engagement were biggies. The last round table discussion at the end of the day was to find your theme and discuss what is being done, what needs to be done and how to collaborate together to get things done around those themes. Seven women and two men sat at the Women's Issues table and what happened next was... well... to be perfectly honest, less than stellar. The conversation quickly moved to women's rights in regards to reproduction and birthing and all things mother-focused. And across the table from me, I could see Brittney bristling. And I knew why.

Brittney is not a mother. And neither were a couple of other folks at the table. And all we were talking about at the table were issues that may or may not affect mainly mothers. All day long, my 30-second pitch to people was about how I want to help women to embrace all sides of themselves and break out of the "I am just a mom" talk that we do oh, so, well, and here we were at this table, discussing birthing options, infant feeding options, and the usual rhetoric that ensues whenever someone brings up women's, or as it turns out, MOTHER issues! And for all the talking that we did, we did not even get close to answering any of the what needs to be done or how to collaborate questions and this was frustrating for a lot of us.

Later that night at the #good100party at the very cool Kazbar, Brittney, the incomparable Jennifer Banks and I sat down, had some super yummy hummus and had a chance to discuss this topic some more. And what Brittney said to me was this. "As a young woman, I want to have women in my city who are visible, who are making a difference and who I can look up to as role models."

And that is when it hit me. HARD.

I talk about being an advocate for women, but in reality I have been primarily using my voice as one for mothers. I seem to have forgotten the main tenet of my do-goodery, that before we are all mothers, we are women first! And Ladies, we are SO MUCH MORE than the sum of what we can do with our uteruses and our breasts!

Motherhood may be one of the most rewarding and at the same time difficult roles of all time, but to think that all that we are, all that we have learned in this life as a girl and then a woman, serves only to prepare us for that role is completely narrow-sighted (and somewhat patriarchal too). If we forget what we have accomplished or can accomplish and reduce ourselves to being "JUST a mom", not only does this do a disservice to us, but it also does a disservice to the generations of girls following us who need role models and strong women to look up to and see that being a voice for ALL of our community is possible, that being a woman means more than just getting paid the same wage as a man and that our opinions in all things, be it work or home or politics, MATTER.

Later that night, Jen sent me the link to this TED talk by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. Now while this talk is primarily about women in the workforce and why we don't see more of them in C-level jobs (CEO, COO, CFO, etc..) I believe the themes are kind of universal. Women need to step up more and sit at the damn table!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4[/youtube]

What became very evident for me this past weekend is that I myself have been limiting myself and my voice. Lately, I have said (more often than I would like to admit) to people who ask me what I do, that I am a 'Mommy Blogger'. Now, you all know how I feel about these kinds of terms, but with the name Natural Urban Mama, it is kind of hard to escape this kind of labeling.

In my opinion, the #good100 experiment was a successful day on many levels. So many connections were made in that room and I foresee a  lot more do-goodery forthcoming in our beautiful city. I know that another workshop is being planned for the spring, and I hope that I get the privilege of being invited once again.

Personally, my take-aways from the day were three-fold.

1 - I really need to open my eyes to all of the good things that are happening here and be an advocate for the city that I have called home for every one of my almost 41 years on this Earth! Like Brittney very eloquently said in her recent Pecha Kutcha presentation, I need to bragg more about where I am from! It's EDMONTON y'all and it is AWESOME!!

2 - I need to broaden my definitions of what being an advocate for women and children means to me and to those around me. I need to use my voice and my passion to inspire and empower more women to get involved and to be heard and to break out of their own self-imposed insular lives of 'just' this or 'just' that. My hope is that one day, maybe I will be one of the role models that the female generations to come are looking for and looking up to.

3 - I may need to rethink my personal brand. Is Natural Urban Mama all that she can be? Is this name, this site, still a true reflection of me and what I need to be to do #2. This is something that I am seriously pondering people and I may need to get your input about this in a future post.

So, that was my weekend. My brain is still spinning from all of it and I can't wait to follow up on the connections I made and the ones I want to make for some of the people who were at this great do-gooder event. I highly encourage everyone to look for the good things being done in your own communities and find a way, however big or small, to contribute.

"Do your little bit of good where you are;

it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world"

~Desmond Tutu 

Natasha~

Prince Charmings need not apply

Last night I was up until 1:00 AM having a very interesting conversation with a few people on a friend's Facebook wall. Kevin posted this status update to his page and his blog and then let the chips fall (and as you can see, they did indeed fall... 115 times).

The conversation got off to a quick start when another commenter posted that he disagreed, did not love 'bitches' and then said this,

And I think a lot of modern female culture is just an excuse for bad behaviour and out of control narcissism.....

I couldn't resist, at that point I HAD to say something.

I asked him for clarification on what he thought "modern female culture" was and after some initial back and forth and outright and admitted ignoring of my question, he finally answered.

Natasha - modern female culture: a couple of weeks ago I met with a public relations strategist. Years of data and research led him to conclude that the only demographic that makes sense these days is women 30-55. They make 47% of all family decisions alone, 33% of family decisions in collaboration with their partner but they are dominant in the discussion, and men make 20% of the decisions (most of which revolve around golf and cars). The conclusion? Men have become functionally irrelevant in modern society. Women rule. Male presidents and prime ministers and CEOs only mask much deeper and profound changes of the past two decades. Your gender is now dominant.

He went on to state a bunch of other anecdotal evidence of the above as well. That most of his male friends admit that their wives and girlfriends are the dominant ones in their relationships and that they are unhappy about this and that in general, men don't like to date women who are dominant.

While in this day and age the concept of one party being dominant in any relationship, especially a marriage/life partnership, smacks of some severe dysfunctionality to me, I was really trying to understand this person's point of view. Why, you ask? Because lately, I have witnessed some of this very behaviour in a few relationships around me and I am trying to figure out why this is happening.

Have men truly become 'functionally irrelevant' in our society?

A woman does not NEED a man these days. A woman can support herself financially, can train in any profession or trade she chooses, and can even have children without a man. Women make 85% of consumer purchasing decisions and 75% of women identify themselves as the primary purchaser for their households.

Women continue to seek equality in terms of jobs and salaries paid (we are still a ways off from this as the most recent statistics from Stats Canada reveal that women are still only making 83.3% of what a man makes). We want our relationships to be true partnerships, with each person having their strengths (and weaknesses) complimented  by those of the other person.

We have come a long way from the fairy tales of princesses needing knights in shining armour to save and protect us from all things. And although that "princess culture" still exists, we fight it, some of us more fervently than others. We tell our daughters that they can be anything they want to be, that there is more to life than being a pretty princess waiting for her prince charming to come along.

But where does this leave all those Prince Charmings? All those boys who are now men, who heard the same stories and grew up believing that it is their job to take care of the princesses, move them into their own castles and live happily ever after? Is there a whole generation of men who really don't know how to have functional relationships with women who have brains as well as beauty? Women who refuse to BE the princesses, who don't tow the old lines of "honor and obey thy husband" or society's historical expectations of what a proper woman is or does (IE, shut up, smile and look pretty)?

From what I read and contributed last night on my friend's Facebook thread and from what I have witnessed recently in my own world, I think that for some men, this may indeed be the case. They need to be the dominant ones in their relationships, the one pulling the strings, making all the major decisions and the one being the knight who has the pretty, helpless (and quiet) princess on his arm at the ball.

I don't think they make up a lot of our society and I do think that this may be limited to men of a certain generation (40+). I highly doubt we will see this in the next few generations of boys and men who are being brought up by strong women who no longer buy into all of this princess/prince charming culture, but are strong, intelligent and independent Queens who are running their own kingdoms, with or without a King of equally valuable strength, intelligence, love and compassion at their sides!

What do you think? Are the middle-aged Prince Charmings of the world struggling with their role in modern society? 

Natasha~

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This is Post #29 of the Summer Blog Challenge that ENDS TODAY!

Please visit these other sites and congratulate all of the challenge participants for getting through this month

and giving you all some great reading!

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

The babysitter conundrum

Ah, the babysitter, that coveted being that you can trust with your kids, that will play with them, feed them, care for them, and keep them alive long enough for you to sneak in a date night here and there, or get to a spin class or do those errands that take 1.5 hours when you are alone, but at least 4 hours when the kids are with you. For some of us the babysitter is a family member. Grandma and Grandpa or the aunties and uncles. But what happens when no family is around to help out? When you live far away from your family or caring for your kids regularly is a bit much for the grandparents?

Besides our family members, my kids have had three babysitters. One is the teenage daughter of my former La Leche League leader and has known my kids since they were teeny tiny and has loved them ever since, one is a wonderful woman that I met at a Modern Mama babysitter mixer and has been our regular day-time sitter for the past 18 months and the third is a new girl that also sits for one of my best friends.

The problem is that two of them are heading back to school in the fall and our regular sitter had the nerve to go off and get married and is starting a family of her own (Sheesh!). So I am now without a regular sitter for any or all of the above reasons that I would need one!

And being as we just moved into a new neighbourhood, I have been keeping my eyes open and ears to the ground for any leads close by. It just so happens that our immediate neighbours across the alley are a lovely family with two teenage boys (14 and 16) and my first thought moving in was, "I wonder if either of them would want to babysit for us?".

I am bringing this up, because the topic of babysitters came up today with the kids while out for a family walk. Little C asked me if our new babysitter was going to be a boy. Up to now and before we moved, I had not really contemplated the idea, mainly because we did not have any boys of the babysitting age around us or available and I already had the best sitters around!

One of my kids favourite story books is a Fancy Nancy one called, "Fancy Nancy & the Sensational Babysitter".  In it Nancy is anxiously awaiting her new babysitter 'Alex' and is bitterly disappointed when HE shows up! In the end Alex turns out to be quite good at this babysitting thing and Nancy gives him a big thumbs up and hopes he comes again soon. The concept of a boy being a babysitter is not a big deal to my children.

But it seems that for others, this is not the case. Tonight just before dinner, I posed this question on both Twitter and Facebook.

"Have you or would you hire a teenage boy to babysit your kids?"

The responses have ranged from a straight up "Hell, no!" to "I have, I do and I would gladly sing his praises. He's an excellent kid and is a fabulous sitter for my 2 year old daughter!".  A few have said that they wouldn't want to 'take the risk' with a boy sitter.  Most comments say that yes, they would and that choosing a sitter is about knowing the person, regardless of gender. A lot of comments have been about fabulous memories of the boy babysitters people had as kids and the common thread is that they often tend to play more with kids than the girls do.

But the two comments that have stood out the most for me are from my friend Farren and from the husband of another friend.

Farren said, "We limit boys and men as nurturers simply by entertaining this idea. Trust people, not genders."

And Doug said, "...Boundaries are defined not only by what they contain, but by what's outside them. It's not about the teenage boy, it's about those who question the teenage boy... and why. It all comes down to individual trust, and I don't see what gender has to do with that."

While the majority of the comments have been that yes, most would or have had a boy babysitter, the ones that won't even consider it an option because of the potential risk that is perceived when a teenage boy is alone with kids and left to his own devices are the ones that are burning a hole in my gut tonight.

I can understand the need to protect our children from any and all potential harm, but what I can't understand is the blatant sexism and prejudice that exists in our world. Yes, there are bad men out there and they do some very bad things {trust me people, THIS I know}, but to paint all boys with a blatant "never gonna happen" paintbrush, just doesn't sit well with me. My 17-year old nephew is a huge kid, he is 6'2" already, has a deep man's voice and is a guy's guy. He is also the most gentle and patient kid I have ever seen. He is an amazing big brother to his 2.5 year old sister and a super fun cousin for my little ones. That someone would think that because he is a boy, this makes him any less caring or potentially more 'dangerous' than say, his 14-year old sister, makes me shake my head.

These boys are the future fathers of our world and like Farren says, why would we want to limit their potential for nurturing? Why not give them a chance to care for small people, to learn these life skills and be better MEN for it? How many of us are married to men who never spent much time with kids before they had their own? Why would we want to perpetuate this cycle?  How can we even start to contemplate a world in which we are all equal when we can't even see a teenage girl and a teenage boy as having equal merit as a babysitter?

I have a lot of questions tonight and not a lot of answers. Doug's comment has me thinking and thinking. About the boundaries that we put up around our children and ourselves. About what we are trying to contain (innocence? theirs? ours?) and what we are trying to keep out. About my own prejudices and fears and from that {not yet talked about} place from which they stem...

The reality is, that I am still in need of a few good babysitters for my roster. If the boys across the alley are game, are good kids (as I suspect they are) and have some basic babysitting skills (IE, can make a mean PB&J sandwich, know a few things about LEGO building and can muddle through a tea party), then I'm pretty sure I am too.

Wish me luck!

Natasha~

What about you? Would you or have you had a boy babysitter care for your kids? Why or why not?

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This is Post 25 of the 31 Days of Summer Blog Challenge. 

There are some good ones today from my co-bloggers, please check them out.

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

#notbuyingit-part two

I wrote a post last night about how I was upset about the gender stereotyping that occurs at stores like Gymboree and Old Navy for Halloween (and all year long really) and I made a terrible and glaringly awful mistake in that post. I forgot about the boys.

And it is because I totally got called out by this comment from reader Dave (highlighting is mine), that I am writing this now.

...gender stereotyping starts much too young and invades far too much of our society. As bad as it is for the girls who want to be an EMT or Astronaut, and it is really bad, it is even worse in the opposite direction. That’s right, if girls are highly stereotyped as ‘Pretty’, then the degree of stereotyping aimed at boys is far, FAR worse. It is so bad that it is not even recognized as stereotyping – indignation is expressed against the lack of images of girls as pirates or dragons, but no mention is ever made of the lack of boys as butterflies or flowers. The image of girls in traditional ‘boy’ roles may be having trouble breaking into the mainstream, but the image of boys in traditional ‘girl’ roles is almost universally viewed as “queer”, “gay”, or “immoral” to the point where it is never seen and virtually never mentioned – I note that it is not mentioned in your own blog. If we want to see gender equality, then both sides of this inequality have to be addressed...

To be perfectly honest, I didn't quite forget about the boys, I was thinking about them the whole time I was writing the post and struggling with my own ingrained stereotypes.

Because here is the thing...

Even though Natural Urban Dad and I  have not purposely focused on anything particularly gender specific for our children, we are the parents of a superhero, dinosaur, Transformers, and Hero Factory loving boy and a puppy dogs, unicorns , Hello Kitty and fairy loving girly girl. Now that is not to say that at any given point in our house there may in fact be a tea party happening with fairies, puppies AND Transformers all enjoying a sip or two kids running around the house roaring  like the scary T-rex's that they are while wearing their baby dolls on their backs, but for all intents and purposes I am a mama to two kids who A) love each other a whole lot and B) who have pretty specific and somewhat traditional likes and dislikes.

And why wouldn't they?

I am quite the girly girl myself. I like to wear skirts and dresses and jewelry and have pretty shoes and painted toenails and all that jazz. I like to have tea parties (or coffee playdates as we mamas like to call them) and go shopping and I happen to have a love of all things fey as well.

{Case in point: My new sparkly 'Goddess' shoes!}

And Natural Urban Dad is a {ridiculously gorgeous} superhero nerd, who loves his comic books, will never wear pink (although a nice lavender is OK) and firmly believes that all of life's important lessons can be learned from the likes of Superman, Spiderman and The Avengers.

{And it is a key factor in his decorating choices as well.}

Somehow, without quite meaning to do so, not only have we have created  two incredibly lovable and beautiful little creatures, but we have also quite literally created them in our own images!

This is not a bad thing at all, it just means that I need to be a bit more honest about my own thoughts and feelings about gender inequality and stereotypes that exist in this world and in the reality that is my kids lives as well. Am I still upset about the ad images and marketing that kids stores use? YES! Absolutely. Costumes are just that, costumes. To be used to inspire imagination and role play and for kids to pretend to be anything they want to be. Be it a flower, a bug, an astronaut or a dragon. But like Dave said, until we address this from both sides of the gender coin this inequality and stereotyping will continue unchecked.

No one illustrated these points better than my dear friend Alex in this incredible post about her son and his wings! Please read it and know although I am still #notbuyingit from Gymboree, Old Navy or any of the 'girl' this and 'boy' that toys and products that companies keep shoving down our throats, I will likely have a Minnie Mouse and a Zombie on my hands come Halloween this year.

Of course, because he is my son, that zombie may in fact be a daddy zombie wearing his baby zombie in a carrier on his back.

Who knows....?

Till tomorrow,

Natasha~

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This is Day 20 of the 31 Days of the Summer Blog Challenge.

Comments and retweets and sharing makes us all feel special.

Go do some of that over at these blogs too! Thank you.

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now

#notbuyingit

Okay. So I am usually not one to get all worked up about shit like this, but for some reason today, this is really, REALLY bothering me.

I opened up my email this morning and the first thing that I saw was this.

It's the new Halloween Ad from Gymboree.

And according to the fine folks at Gymboree, my girl's choices for Halloween or dress up are Pixie, fairy, flower or bug and my boy, well, he gets to have an awesome job. Now, you've all seen my girly girl and you and I both know that she would gladly choose any of the above girl costumes. But what if the EMT or the Astronaut picture was of a girl model instead of a boy? Would she perhaps choose one of those instead?

This kind of advertising is not just happening at Gymboree. Old Navy's gender stereotyping for Halloween is just as bad, if not worse. They actually have a separate Toddler Boys and Toddler Girls section for costumes. Really Old Navy, save us Moms that extra click and just have them all in the same section!

I mentioned this on Twitter this morning and had a nice conversation with a young man named @traviswallis. When I said that I thought it would be nice to see some girl models in the ads wearing the dragon or astronaut or pirate costumes, his response was this:

And that right there... THAT is the problem in our society!

90% of {North} Americans wouldn't buy it!

And we wonder why there is gender inequality in our world?

It starts the minute they are born. Pink and blue, dolls and cars, Barbies and Superheroes. It's in ALL the advertising that is supposedly aimed at us, the parent consumers, but is in actuality totally aimed at our kids!

Now some of your may be saying, but why does this matter Natasha, you can just let your daughter choose whatever costume she likes and not worry about whether it is a 'boy' costume or a 'girl' one. To this I say, really? Have YOU tried to dress an almost 4-year old girl lately (or 6-year old boy for that matter)? Trust me, I have very little say in what they wear these days and both my daughter, and her older brother, are very aware of the separate Girl and Boy sections at stores when we are shopping. It's not that easy to say it doesn't matter when it is presented like this right in front their very impressionable young faces.

In my opinion, this kind of advertising just solidifies the media messages that YOU, my girl, are just supposed to be pretty, pretty, pretty and YOU, my boy, get to be all kinds of different and awesome and worthy things.

And that kind of gender-based messaging just doesn't fly around here and is NOT gonna happen or be let into this house!

Sorry Gymboree, Old Navy and whoever else wants to continue to advertise to me (and my kids)  like this.

This Mama is #NOTbuyingit!

And my kids are both different and awesome and worthy of a whole lot more than your pithy portrayals of what girls and boys want to be for Halloween!

{end rant}

Natasha~

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Post #18 on Day 19 of the Summer Blog Challenge. 

Have you visited these other fine bloggers lately? 

Zita at The Dulock Diaries.

Meaghan at MagzD Life

April at This Mom’s Got Something to Say

Aramelle at One Wheeler’s World

 Jessica at 2plus2X2

and Liam at In the Now