David Minerva Clover

Here’s the thing though, hating romantic comedies, and avoiding them when I could, didn’t stop me from absorbing their all consuming messages about love, sex, and romance.

Something had clicked in my head. Suddenly I didn't give a shit when life began or whether or not a fetus counts as a “baby.” I was overwhelmed by the new-found knowledge that pregnancy is unfairly invasive in every single way.

If you believe in bodily autonomy and consent, folks should get to consent (or not) to the process of gestation. Full stop. No caveats.

My kid, who turned three the day after Mary the duckling died, wasn’t old enough to get any of it. Yet talking to toddlers about death is part of life.

But what I did write, and write constantly, were diaries and journals. I kept notebooks and three-ring binders filled with observations about my life that I thought were interesting. Sometimes I worried that these personal stories were too naval-gazing, but I still held on to them, hoping that someday someone would want them.

People might raise their eyebrows when they hear me say “snowperson” for the first time. But it makes perfect sense. A man is just a kind of person.

I had always considered myself to be extremely body positive. I loved my body! I had several close friends who were fat activists, and I was working hard to be a good thin ally. But despite all of that, I wasn’t ready for the changes that were happening in myself.

Babies, while awesome in so many wonderful ways, do not give a single shit if you really need another hour of sleep. If the baby is up, you’re up. So we were up.

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!

It was like how you might feel if you thought you were the only person who liked apples. Maybe everyone else just thought apples were for decoration, but you liked to eat them. And then one day you found someone else who also ate apples, and you got really excited about that! And then suddenly, it hit you… What if everybody secretly ate and enjoyed apples, only we were all too afraid to mention it?

Faced by the extreme pressure to conform to impossible beauty ideals, I followed my instincts (and my budding feminism) and rejected them wholesale. I wasn’t going to play like that; I wasn’t going to let my gender require that I wear makeup or perform a certain way.