David Minerva Clover

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.

I’m not scared on the street very often, but y’all, this time I was scared. But if there’s one thing I know, it is that you do not answer these guys, because that only makes it worse. So I held my breath and hoped that if I didn’t engage, he’d drive off eventually. I felt for my cell phone in my pocket, wondering how quickly I could get ahold of someone if I needed to.

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!

After the solstice, the light very slowly begins to return, and every day is a little longer. Yule is a promise: winter sucks, but spring will come again.

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.

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.

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.

I believe in reproductive justice. I believe everyone deserves a say in how, when, and if, they choose to reproduce. I believe comprehensive sex education and access to safe and legal abortion are important parts of giving women, girls, and other people with uteruses full agency over their reproductive lives. Could we extend this to cats, too?

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.

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.