We have this new kids’ gym in town for kids with autism, sensory processing issues, Down’s syndrome, and everybody else. It’s a great place with tons of toys, equipment, trampolines, swings, toy carriages, etc. I took Klara there today, and we had tons of fun.
One thing, though, weirded me out. There were two mothers – not employees, just regular visitors – who kept trying to keep the room tidy. There were about fifteen kids of different ages engaged in very active play. Tidying up was nothing but counterproductive. And entirely useless since the gym has employees who tidy up and clean everything after closing.
It got to this really ridiculous point where a couple of 5-year-olds would set up toy bowling pins and go looking for a ball. When they returned a minute later, the bowling pins were all stored away by these moms. The kids set up the bowling pins again, but guess what? The tidy moms had put away the ball. You can imagine how loud these kids wailed when this happened.
One of the tidy moms was there with three kids and the other one had two. And here is what I wonder. Don’t they have enough picking up after kids at home? I’m not excessively tidy, to put it very very mildly, but it feels like all I do is pick things up all over the house. The whole point of a gym like this is for the parent to veg out in peace while the kids run around. Why else even pay the membership?
People confuse me all the time.
Clarissa's Blog 
Regarding motherhood and the state of today’s feminism, I was excited to read that female Xiongnu warriors existed 2,200 years ago and were apperantly treated as equal to men:
// Stunning belt decorations made from coal and encrusted with jade and coral are found on 2,200-year-old skeletons of female Xiongnu warriors
…
The Xiongnu were nomadic people who by the end of the 3rd century BC dominated much of Central Asia.
They first appear in historical records around the 5th century BC when their repeated attacks on North China prompted them to erect what later became known as the Great Wall.
They were known as fierce mountain warriors that could get together 300,000 archers on horseback at once.
Many of these skilled archers were women who were treated the same as men.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4962602/Stunning-belt-decorations-women-warriors-Siberia.html
I wonder what many today’s American students would think of that. 🙂
After reading about them, I imagine quite a few see all women of the past as 1950ies housewives. 🙂
The article has quite a few photos too; enjoyed looking at them.
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It’s not like students today haven’t grown up with images of ass-kicking women on screen. Nobody ever portrays female liberation as anything but women being stupidly and gratuitously violent. I don’t see how any of this helps me in my life, you know? I’m never going to be able to whoop anybody’s ass. Neither do I want to.
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Those “ass-kicking women on screen” are not real, and everybody knows that.
If those female Xiongnu warriors were truly “treated the same as men,” they were supposedly treated the same not only in battle, but in day-to-day life too.
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Maybe the moms are Marie Kondo-ing the gym.
Nobody ever portrays female liberation as anything but women being stupidly and gratuitously violent.
And sexxay. It must always be boner inducing. And often — plot vulnerable.
What would female liberation look like without stupidly gratuitous violence?
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“The tidy moms had put away the ball”
Maybe it’s the tidy moms who are austistic and not their kids?
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They wore hijabs. Which is a completely non-ideological fashion choice that has nothing whatsoever to do with their incapacity to embrace any other role but that of an unpaid maid.
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