Fifty Shades of Crap

You knew it was coming at some point.  I promise this will be the only blog that is political in nature and I promise that it very much applies to parenting.  And there are no pictures because I'm mad.

If you know me, you know that I am no fan of Donald Trump (and, quite honestly, not that excited about Hillary either) but this past week solidified what I have been feeling for months: Donald Trump in NO WAY deserves to be president.  A person elected to the highest office in our country should be respectful.  They should have a sense of service.  They should see value in ALL people and treat them accordingly.  I have many, many other issues with Trump, but this is where it begins for me. Reduced to it's simplest form, I don't want my kids to see a deplorable human being elected president.

However, this past week has brought me to an even more important realization. I saw the memes and tweets asking "If women are so outraged by Trump's dirty talk, then who bought the 80 million copies of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'?" I have seen clips of reporters speculating that it was just the actual words used that had women upset.  I heard Trump himself say that his words did not define him, as if they were somehow separate from the disgusting actions they described. That is all crap.

Most women are not offended by language.  Most women don't care that much about "locker room talk," when it is actually talk and not a description of sexual assault.  But all of this comes down to CONSENT.  Please, people!  Even Christian Grey, in arguably the worst book ever written, knew about consent.  That's why we spent 6 chapters agonizing over the weirdest contract on the planet. Don't pretend you didn't read the book!

After a summer of Brock Turner, the long over-due spotlight on rape culture and Donald Trump, I've realized that this may be the number one thing to teach our daughters.  CONSENT.

I've also realized that my own daughters have had very little experience with the idea of consent. They were born in a wealthy, safe, developed country. They are sheltered.  Their father is a model for how to treat women and people in general.  Furthermore, I am a control freak and don't always give them the option to consent to eating food, let alone bigger issues. But trust me, I'm going to start.  I have thought a lot about modeling and addressing consent with children over the last few days.

To my daughters:
1.  I will never force you to kiss anyone, even Grandma, when you say you don't want to.
2.  When I am tickling you and you say "STOP,"  I will stop.
3.  I will fight for you for as long as it takes you to fight for yourself.
4.  As hard as it is being a control-freak mom, I will respect your voice and your choices.
5.  I will never, NEVER tell you that a boy is teasing you because he likes you.  I will help you make him stop.
6.  I will teach you to accept nothing less than kindness and respect.
7.  I will teach you that you always have a choice, that nothing should ever be done TO you and that there are plenty of instances in life when you don't have to be polite.
8.  I will try never to tell you who to vote for, but I will always tell you that we have STANDARDS and we expect people to live up to them.

Especially our President.