SHAMING GIRLS AND THEIR BODIES

Tonight I read an article (click here) in short, about a Utah high school girl being shamed because her outfit was deemed inappropriate for their school dance. Check out this picture of the wildly inappropriate (enter sarcasm) outfit below:

Now what kills me about this story particularly is that this outfit is beautiful and demure and perfect for a 16 year old girl to wear. However upon entering her dance, instead of feeling proud she was immediately asked by a school official to cover her shoulders. Because apparently her dress didn't meet the approval of the school dress code. This dress code is enforced so as to rid boys of "unclean thoughts". So cover your bare shoulders little girl.

Now we are all aware of the wide assortment of body shaming we as women have to deal with everyday, but this is entirely new to me. The realization that we are to feel anything but comfortable in our God given skin. That we should be shamed in covering up a normal outfit because we don't want cat calls from men, or to elicit unclean thoughts from the opposite sex. Now correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't the objectification of girls be the issue that is dealt with.

The issue that we've created such a sexualized idea of the women's body that women no longer feel comfortable showing any part of it. Isn't the issue that a girl can't walk down the street in a pair of shorts without getting cat calls from boys? That you have to deal with the inevitable and penetrating stares anytime you choose to wear something that hugs your beautiful body? It's ludicrous to me that we are pinning this on the girls and women as something we should be ashamed about.

I think people should be ashamed of treating girls' bodies as an object. Treating women as if they don't have feelings about the way you react to them. And the comment that kills me is "well what do you expect?" Let's see, I expect to be able to walk out of the house on a scorching day wearing shorts without feeling like I'm going to be eaten alive by 80% of the male population. I expect my daughter to be able to wear normal clothes when she grows up without the perpetual awareness that this will attract sexual attention. This creates self-consciousness, it creates a false ego, and it tells our girls that all they have to be proud of and offer boys is their bodies. That's a load of shit.

Can we teach our girls to be proud of their bodies? Show them how to dress like a lady but feed the idea that beauty isn't just your flesh. Can we teach our boys that bodies are beautiful things, but to have respect and manners. That it's ok to have these desires but that beauty goes beyond the physical and delves into the mental and spiritual aspect of every girl they see? To treat girls the way they'd want their daughters to be treated?

It is not anyones responsibility to conform or change themselves in order to manage the thoughts of other people. Thus it is not this 16 year old girl's responsibility to cover up her bare shoulders to ward of unclean thoughts of boys. So stop putting that responsibility on women and let's teach our youth better.

8 WAYS FOR SAHM TO RID THE BLUES

Being a stay at home mom was a very difficult transition for me. It was going from an environment being surrounded by my peers and getting tangible feedback everyday to staying at home with a baby who doesn't talk and getting little to no feedback everyday. There was a definite paradigm shift from the feeling that as a stay at home mother I needed to prove in some way that what I was doing was valuable, to feeling 100% within me that what I do everyday is the most important job in the world. 

We who choose to stay home and take care of our children can't seem to catch a break from tons of the negative questions. "What do you DO all day?" "God that must be so easy, I wish I could stay at home" "Well when are you going to get a REAL job?" All of these questions are interesting to me to say the least, but really to hear them repeatedly it rob's the SAHM of the value that we should feel in our day to day real job of raising our future.

But even once that shift occurs in your brain where you begin to really feel that what you do in and out is valuable, I've found out the hard way that it's very easy to get the blues. Depressed. Whatever you want to call it, it's not pretty but I've found it is avoidable.

First to start I'd like to offer to anyone feeling this way that is a SAHM mother that it's actually normal. Very normal. Because in a very general explanation, it's many times a very selfless job. 98% of your day you are not thinking about yourself and that's a hard transition to swallow. If you still aren't sure if it's normal, Google will have plenty of discussions and even scientific articles to assure you that your not going off the deep end. 

After having on and off weeks as I like to call them, I decided to start experimenting with different things to see what kept the blues away. Now after about 15 months of experimenting I feel confident in saying that these are tried and true. They always work and if you commit to doing these things daily you will begin to feel a huge shift in how you feel.

1. Wake up earlier then your kid(s). That precious me time is a necessity to your sanity and many times we don't get it at night.

2. Go on a morning walk. Getting even 30 minutes of sunshine per day is scientifically proven to  lift your mood.

3. Cut down on the coffee. We are all tired, but the effect mass amounts of coffee has on how you feel when your not caffeinated feels like shit. Drink tea or lemon water. Even better, go to sleep earlier.

4. Be fully present. I like to carve out 20 minutes a few times a day to focus simply on playing with Penelope. She knows when I'm fully present, and when we're done playing she happily runs off and plays by herself. This leaves out the guilt of thinking you haven't spent enough time with them but also gives you time without your toddler clinging or crying while your getting other things done.

5. Take a shower, get dressed, and put on a little makeup. It doesn't matter if you aren't going anywhere. Doing these small daily things for yourself will make you feel so much better. Promise.

6. Get out of the house. I find being home all day everyday depressing and a waste of life to honest. There's an entire world to explore: go visit friends, go to the park, go run errands, go to the library, go have lunch. Bonus? Time flies when your having fun.

7. Sleep. This I learned late. But let me tell you the positive effects of a good night sleep are unmatched. I have to go to bed earlier and I feel like a Grandma but that's ok. Sometimes I get a little crazy and stay up til 11. This article is a great testament to the effect of sleep on your mood. 

8. Meal plan. It just makes life so much easier. My husband and I will cook tons of food on Sunday. This makes M-F so simple, lunch is practically already ready and I can rest easy knowing that we are all eating super healthy everyday.

That's it folks. Simple little changes. I know that people don't like to talk about being depressed but it's a real subject. Let me know of any other things you do to feel great.

LOVE AND RAPTURE

Hey guys! I'm excited about a little side business I decided to open. It was important to me to have something that didn't take all of my time away from Penelope during the day. I have a love for decor and beautiful things, but most importantly I love things that inspire me. I've created prints that will add sophistication and art to your home, but I also hope that these prints inspire you as well. Currently I am offering instant downloads which you can easily print at home. Here is the first...what do you think?

If you would like to purchase you can find my shop on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/loveandrapture. 

2014: A RECAP

Man oh man 2014 was such a beautiful and complicated year. A beautiful mess. That's what I'll call it. I got to watch my daughter's first everything happen right before my very eyes. Day after day of being a stay at home mother I got to see that first step, the first word, the first time she ate solids, her first big girl bath. I mean...those moments really are priceless. I've sacrificed a lot in order to be a stay at home mother but I think the hardest one for me is who I was before.

In 2014 I had to learn that who I was before many times comes after who I am now. I had to learn that  to have moments of yearning for the life I had before children doesn't make me a horrible mother. I've cried ugly cries because my head felt like it was going to explode from motherhood. I learned that's normal. It's normal to need time for yourself. I can still have the life I had before, I simply need to make time for it. I've learned that I have an AMAZING support group of family and friends that keep it honest. And I've learned without a support group I would go batsh** crazy.

In 2014 I saw my husband transform everyday into a more spontaneous and joyful man. I saw him begin to let go and let god. I saw all of the amazing ways he was willing to make me happy, even down to bringing me a cup of my favorite tea while I'm working. I saw that I married the type of father that I always wanted for my children. I learned from him to be selfless and thoughtful, to consider other people's feeling more. I learned to stop bugging him when he's watching football.

But the main thing that I learned which was such an important lesson to me is that I had to keep moving. My mind is constantly on repeat "What am I going to do with my life? What am I going to offer the world? What can I call a job that will make me happy?" I envy Beyonce. Because Beyonce knew she wanted to be a singer when she came out of her mother's uterus. I envy my sister, because my sister knew she wanted to be a medical biller in her early 20's. What was so wrong with my brain that I didn't just KNOW what I was supposed to be doing.

And I tried. I owned a clothing store, a house cleaning business (true story: I even owned a lawnmower and weed wacker), started a planner prototype, was in the midst of planning a baby boutique. I even thought seriously one day that I would just be a Philosoph and people would simply flock to me for wise meetings like Ghandi. I realized quickly however that job didn't pay well. I mean, I was all over the place.

But what I learned from being all over the place, finally in 2014, I learned that's ok. And my lesson was to simply keep moving. To keep actively trying new things and not sitting on my ass waiting for a light to come on. That it's ok to not know, but to keep going and keep trying. And maybe there isn't some huge universal mystery that I have to figure out. But actively starting was the best way to find out.

I've "failed" many, many times in 2014. But what I'm taking into 2015 is that the biggest failure would be to remain stagnant. To let failure win. And anyone who knows me knows, I'm definitely not about to do that.