After a long day out of town yesterday, I am happy to relax at home and catch up on my reading. Here’s what crossed my browser today.
I found mushrooms growing in one of my houseplants and had no idea how they got there and whether I should get rid of them. They are apparently perfectly normal and do not hurt the plant. (However, they are poisonous to people and animals, so if we had kids or pets, we’d have to pluck them.)
The creator of Honest Toddler is still fighting for her right to register that trademark, against the protests of The (Dis)Honest Company. Peruse her blog for details on how The Honest Company has demonstrated a textbook example of corporate bullying. She’s thrown down the gauntlet and now waits to hear The (Dis)Honest Company’s response. (If you haven’t yet signed the petition to stop the opposition, head over to Change.org and do so, pronto.) Her decision to agree to not create any products using her proposed trademark is short-sighted, but I understand just wanting the bullying to end.
Last night “Iyanla, Fix My Life” aired an episode with former WNBA superstar Chamique Holdsclaw. In it, Chamique talked about how her maternal grandmother was the mother her own mother never was to her. It’s a story I seem to hear a lot from my fellow women of color: their own mothers were harsh with them, were absent, were physically present but emotionally not there. Many times those same mothers dote on, praise, rescue, and clean up behind their son, while being harsh on their daughter’s every mistake and demanding she clean up her own messes.
I have to believe hating our daughters that way comes from hating ourselves, whether we admit it or not.
Mothers, if you can venerate and excuse your son in all of his imperfections, but your daughter can do very little right in your eyes, you have issues you need to face…and your daughter is NOT one of those issues.
