David Minerva Clover

For those of you just tuning in, my wifespouse wanted to go to this weirdo punk festival in the middle of nowhere, and I, a chronic pessimist, decided it would be a good idea to go as a family. That means me, her, our 1-year-old child, and one incredibly intense weekend.

Thin women can overeat, and it is seen as a quirk, or a one-time indulgence they deserve, or even proof that they aren’t anorexic. Fat women though? We are expected to constantly prove that we’re doing our best to not be fat.

Once upon a time, the only thing to consider was “Does your kid watch too much TV?” But now it seems like nearly everyone can agree that kids these days spend far too much time looking at screens of all sorts.

I don’t get out much — and it’s not because I don’t have a sense of adventure or don’t care about learning about the larger world: It’s because I’m broke.

I think “It can be difficult” probably qualifies for the understatement of the century. There is just nothing in a phrase so casual and noncommittal that conveys anything like the reality of this labor of love. I’m not saying that we need to be all doom and gloom about parenting all the time — there are plenty of joys in parenting, and plenty of space to talk about those joys — but I do think that when we’re trying to talk about the hard parts, we should, you know, actually talk about the hard parts.

Breastfeeding brought me back. It kept me in my body, forced me to hold my son’s body, and helped me stay connected to the physical reality of everything. What I remember are flashes of joy in the darkness, his tiny hands clenched in determined fists. His feet curled against my soft stomach. The release of the milk starting to flow. My arms wrapped up around him.

One of the most insidious things that patriarchy does is the complete and utter devaluation of anything that is considered “women’s work.” Not only does patriarchy limit what women (and all trans and nonbinary folk) can do in the world, it also takes what we do manage to do and tells us it isn’t worth anything.

I learned binge-watching Mister Rogers that he wasn’t just being comforting, he was rephrasing many of the things I was hearing in therapy.

I think kids and parents need old school trick-or-treating. I think it has a value far greater than the sum of its candy. I love trick-or-treating!

Here are six tips that can serve as a basic outline of how most parents can strategize to help feed a toddler and to calm the heck down.