[deeepsea]

“Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.”

— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (via theliteraryjournals)

[deeepsea]

“To my children, I will say, “Fill your skin with kindness and find solace in your solitude. It takes bravery to be kind. But to be brave you will need to know how to stand for something even if you are completely alone.”

— Nikita Gill, Lessons I Will Teach My Children (via meanwhilepoetry)

[deeepsea]

“Someone once told me that human beings have three dimensions: how you see yourself, how others see you, and how you want others to see you. The closer the distance between the three dimensions, the more at peace you are and the more stable you become.”

— Marwa Rakha, The Poison Tree (via purplebuddhaproject)

[weltenwellen]

“The distress you feel in the middle of your chest, in the depth of your soul, that’s a lack of control. A lack of authenticity, a lack of a belief, in yourself and in your convictions that’s been strong enough to force out personal omissions and make you a pawn. You’ve got to move on, and remember that you have a vision.”

— Bianca Sparacino, Planting Seeds In Concrete

[bluegrasslove-moved]

when kristin chang said godhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believed or when laurie penny said it’s no surprise that so many women and girls have control issues around their bodies or when fiona apple said there’s no hope for women or when elana dykewomon said almost every woman i have ever met has a secret belief that she is just on the edge of madness or when carolyn gage said you can terrorize her with her own body and then she will torture herself or when angela carter said i often felt like a female impersonator or when leslie feinberg said i don’t feel like a man trapped in a woman’s body i just feel trapped

[soracities]

“The importance of touch is that it places you. It is the medium of the articulation of a relationship. Touch yields two different senses–that of connection and that of separateness. It makes for a sense of oneness … as well as for a sense of difference. One thing is sure: if we are not touched, we might begin to suspect that we are not here.”

Kathleen Woodword, Aging and its Discontents

“The longing to touch/be touched. I feel gratitude when I touch someone—as well as affection etc. The person has allowed me proof that I have a body—and that there are bodies in the world.”

Susan Sontag,  Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh: Journals & Notebooks, 1964 - 1980

“Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here?”

Ocean Vuong, ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’

“While the skin appears to be the matter which separates the body, it rather allows us to think of how the materialisation of bodies involves, not containment, but an affective opening out of bodies to other bodies, in the sense that the skin registers how bodies are touched by others.”

Sara Ahmed, Strange Encounters

“There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? The touch of another person’s hands. Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us…”

Jim Butcher, Skin Game

“Touch me, /  remind me who I am.”

Stanley Kunitz, ‘Touch’

[deeepsea]

(x)

[afrafemme-blog]

A friend and I were out with our kids when another family’s two-year-old came up. She began hugging my friend’s 18-month-old, following her around and smiling at her. My friend’s little girl looked like she wasn’t so sure she liked this, and at that moment the other little girl’s mom came up and got down on her little girl’s level to talk to her.

“Honey, can you listen to me for a moment? I’m glad you’ve found a new friend, but you need to make sure to look at her face to see if she likes it when you hug her. And if she doesn’t like it, you need to give her space. Okay?”

Two years old, and already her mother was teaching her about consent.

My daughter Sally likes to color on herself with markers. I tell her it’s her body, so it’s her choice. Sometimes she writes her name, sometimes she draws flowers or patterns. The other day I heard her talking to her brother, a marker in her hand.

“Bobby, do you mind if I color on your leg?”

Bobby smiled and moved himself closer to his sister. She began drawing a pattern on his leg with a marker while he watched, fascinated. Later, she began coloring on the sole of his foot. After each stoke, he pulled his foot back, laughing. I looked over to see what was causing the commotion, and Sally turned to me.

“He doesn’t mind if I do this,” she explained, “he is only moving his foot because it tickles. He thinks its funny.” And she was right. Already Bobby had extended his foot to her again, smiling as he did so.

What I find really fascinating about these two anecdotes is that they both deal with the consent of children not yet old enough to communicate verbally. In both stories, the older child must read the consent of the younger child through nonverbal cues. And even then, consent is not this ambiguous thing that is difficult to understand.

Teaching consent is ongoing, but it starts when children are very young. It involves both teaching children to pay attention to and respect others’ consent (or lack thereof) and teaching children that they should expect their own bodies and their own space to be respected—even by their parents and other relatives.

And if children of two or four can be expected to read the nonverbal cues and expressions of children not yet old enough to talk in order to assess whether there is consent, what excuse do full grown adults have?

[luvlyhuman-deactivated20150629]

I try to do this every day I go to nursery and gosh it makes me so happy to see it done elsewhere.

[bebinn]

Yes, consent is nonsexual, too!

Not only that, but one of the reasons many child victims of sexual abuse don’t reach out is that they don’t have the understanding or words for what is happening to them, and why it isn’t okay. Teaching kids about consent helps them build better relationships and gives them the tools to seek help if they or a friend need our protection.

[geshertzarmeod]

Teaching Consent to Small Children

[lotesseflower]

I wish this post featured the OP’s name more prominently; it’s by Libby Anne of love joy feminism, and she writes fantastic stuff. A survivor of Christian patriarchal fundamentalism, she writes about parenting from the perspective of someone working through her own traumatic experiences. I love reading her blog.

[sylviasybil]

I met my nephew (codename Totoro) in person for the first time when he was eight months old. Before this, I’d known him only through video calling. A few hours after getting home from the airport, my sister (codename Mystery) was holding him on her hip. I asked her, “Can I hold him?”

She smiled and said, “Ask him.”

“What?”

“Hold out your hands to him and see if he leans toward you or away from you.” So I did, and he leaned away, and I dropped the subject. Five or ten minutes later, he was leaning towards me, overbalancing and almost falling out of Mystery’s arms, and she said, “He’s asking you to hold him now.” So I did, and it was magical, getting to introduce myself to my nephew and the firstborn of the Sybil family.

I am all about respecting children’s agencies and teaching good boundaries. I didn’t ask at the airport, when Totoro was surrounded by new stimuli and needed the reassurance of his mother. I didn’t ask when we first got back either; I gave him time to settle down, get used to his surroundings, and get used to me in person instead of a moving picture on a cell phone screen. I thought I was respecting his boundaries. But it had never occurred to me that an eight month old, who couldn’t speak or even understand most speech, might be able to establish his own boundaries.

A year later they came to visit again, when he was 19 or 20 months old. The weather was what we Northwesterners call “a bit nippy” and what thin-blooded Midwesterners like my sister call “fucking freezing, are you kidding me?” As we were getting ready to leave the house, Totoro objected vehemently to the need for pants and a coat. Finally Mystery had me stand by and hand her things as she near-literally wrestled him into his clothes. He was screaming and kicking and saying, “No pants, no no, don’t wanna, no Mama.”

And as she worked, Mystery kept talking to him soothingly. “I can hear you saying no, and I understand that you don’t want to wear your clothes, but it’s my job to keep you safe and warm. I know you’re saying no, I can hear that, but it’s very cold outside and I have to keep you safe and warm.” Over and over, reassuring him that she understood what she wanted and that she had a good reason for ignoring his wishes.

And it hit me all over again, an aspect of respecting children’s agencies and boundaries that had never once occurred to me. Because sometimes it is necessary to override their wishes. Part of being a good guardian is keeping them safe even when they want to play in traffic or eat nothing but candy. But I’d never thought about it from Totoro’s point of view, how frightening and how helpless it would feel to scream “no” into an unhearing void. Mystery made sure he knew he was being heard, he wasn’t being ignored, he was important enough to have people react to his words.

It’s just, geez. Every time I watch Mystery interact with Totoro I learn something new about agency and boundaries and just plain humanness. It blows me away.

[bitter-badfem-harpy]

It’s so so important to acknowledge your child’s wishes even when you have to ignore them. Let them know why you have to ignore them.

[faxmachineart]

Always. 

[fresh-mornings]

Cinque Terre

[girlinthepark]

Molly Yeh | Rose-Topped Rosewater Cake. 

[bibidebabideboo]

(Succulent Cakes By Ivenoven Will Make Every Succulent Lover’s Mouth Water | Bored Pandaから)

“ジャカルタを拠点とするアーティストIvenovenさんによる、多肉植物のようなケーキいろいろ。http://www.boredpanda.com/succulent-terrarium-cakes-cupcakes-ivenoven/ …” (山田ホタテ(@camparired)さん | Twitterから)

[wild-mare-of-prosecution]

@gabzilla-z HAVE YOU SEEN THESE?!!?!?!?!!?

[girlhaggard]

from a post on my college’s confessional page, i thought it was a really good vocalization of some of the issues with the sex posi movement/bdsm/kink

[blackfashion]

Photographer: @autenaphotographyblog

Models: @kierrabazilio , Darrick Sanders

Location: Los Angeles, CA

[culturenlifestyle]

Stunning Miniature Landscape Paintings on Mint Tins            

Colorado-based artist Heidi Annalise illustrates hypnotic landscapes inside mint tins, while showcasing the beauty of their color palette.  The impressionist paintings highlight Annalise’s love for the outdoors. Find them in their Etsy shop.          

View similar posts here!

Keep reading

[library-mermaid-blog]

I get a ton of asks about fonts, which unfortunately I don’t have the time to answer individually, so I’ll be publishing lists like this of my most commonly-used free to download fonts! I hope they’re helpful!

[makeuphall]