David Minerva Clover

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.

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.

The reality is the shift is happening slowly; for queer kids, and kids of queer parents, it might be too slow. Representation for LGBTQ families matters!

I’m a poor person. I live below the U.S. poverty line. And yeah, I deserve to make my own financial decisions. The reality is that I did not become poor because I ate a meal in a restaurant one too many times, and while it’s true that eating out less can affect one’s budget, refusing to ever eat out again won’t make me not poor.

I don’t want to deprive my child of these magical Halloween memories, I just also want to light candles and talk about our ancestors.

None of us follows any one parenting philosophy to a T; we’re all making split-second decisions about what is and isn’t dangerous.

My family relies on having our food delivered specifically because of our less-than-ideal financial situation. We don't do this because we're rich.

[CN: PTSD, pregnancy, birth] Something snapped inside me and I was transported backwards in time.

It is worse to be fat shamed because thin shaming is often just fatphobia in disguise. Let me say that again for the people in the back.

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.