Notes on raising a Brony

           The theme song is noxious, the colors are vibrant, and the voices sweet enough to give one cavities. Not my first choice in toons, My little Pony: Friendship is magic has taken over my house.  Contrary to popular belief it isn't even my daughter putting on this super cute cartoon, it's my 9 year old son!  At first I was simply glad the two of them were getting along and enjoying the same show, and then I heard John De Lancie.  In case you're not in the know Mr. De Lancie famously played "Q", a Star Trek villain of, well, god like supremacy.  In true form, the character of "Discord" would make  Q proud, stirring up , well, discord.  While this did little to alter my desire to watch the show it certainly elevated it in my geekpinion. 

          As homeschoolers,   issues of " girly" v . "boyish" things rarely come up even though my kids definitely display a lot of distinct traits true to the pre conceived notions of what one gender or another happens to find of interest. In our house my husband cooks and I love power tools, so we are pretty loosey goosy with the gender roles.  This is why I was surprised to find my son completely terrified that his friend might discover his love of the ponies.  Being not only a total fan girl, but also bisexual, supporting my kids in whatever they love is a deep passion for me, especially when it calls into question who they are "supposed" to be. So, what does a mom do when her son loves ponies but hides them under his pillow? Well, to the Interwebs went I!

        To say that I was surprised at what I found is an understatement.  Not only was my son not alone in his boyish love of the very girly ponies, there was even a name for his forbidden love; Brony.

Finding this legion of mostly grown men ( guys around 19-25), literally brought tears to my eyes. Not only did my son have zero reason to be embarrassed  ( a fact I knew, of course), but it would be possible for him, in some near future, to find other guys to share his love with.  There are so many of them they have their own convention, and their group is growing so much they sell Brony tees at the  ever trendy Hot Topics.

        Maybe he won't always love Rainbow Dash, but I am so glad to know that he is growing up in a world where Bronies exist!

        So often we worry about how little girls see the world, how their roles will be shaped by the notions of the media and the masses and we forget our little boys.  How are they affected by the pink aisles in the toy store, and by the deliberate separation of girl and boy toys?  My mission, as a mom and a lover of freedom and joy, is to make sure that my son is comfortable in his skin, that he can embrace all parts of himself without feelings of doubt or fear.  The fact that there are literally thousands of other guys out there leading the way warms my little heart cockles.  It is my greatest hope that things will keep on shifting and evolving until one day there is only one toy aisle, and its filled with rainbows and Legos. 

Making Friends and Rocking out

Being a younger mom can be a lonely land. Being an extremely geeky home school mom is a whole other level. For the first few years I tried like hell to fit in with the other moms, but in the end I realized I want my children to embrace themselves and to set that example I had to do the same thing. For me this means embracing my hobbies and geekness and living it up in cosplay heaven. Luckily I live in LA, which, when one searches, can provide no end of the strange and unusual. On a jont to one of my favorite geektastic establishments, one Whimsically in Hollyweird, I came across a card for an adult Harry Potter fan group. I checked it out online but most of the activities took place in the city and it just wasn't in the cards for me. Fast forward a year and I am at my first geek convention ( not counting Star Trek conventions and the Ren Faire) Comicazi. Checking out voice talent, comic artists and fellow geek cosplayers I came across the table of the same group, Los Angeles Dumbledore's Army. I met and chatted with three very cool people and felt more inspired to get into the group. Logging on to find the book club within the group was reading the same book I was currently reading I bite the bullet and joined up. Its never been terribly easy for me to find people who speak my language, but within an hour with just a portion of the group I had found more kindred spirits than I had in years of park days and play dates. Beach Party dueling and great social media conversations and I am in geek heaven. LADA turned out to be a group of some of the raddest people I have met. Every one filled with the love and friendship one would imagine on the Hogwarts express. Every new face friendly and open. And they don't just love the Potter, virtually any obscure reference I espouse will undoubtedly be met with at least one nod of understanding. So, last night, thanks to my wonderful husband who totally supports my geek habit, I joined my fellow Potter Geeks at the Troubadour  in Hollywood to rock out to some wizard rock and watch a puppet show. Don't hate, these puppets will have you rolling in your seats. Side note for Home school pride; I learned of the puppet pals years ago because the creator was home schooled.

Anyway, I donned my So Cali summer wizard garb, my husband his top hat, and we set off. Approaching the line I found a couple of very cool LADA members, and I was home. Being able to express ones self with abandon is truly a freeing experience, and finding others with which you can do so is even better. A few other people joined us in line and in no time I was inadvertently recruiting for the Army, and they were glad to be recruited! We took our seats, ordered our drinks, and chatted away in eager anticipation of the promised wizard awesomeness. I even saw a few other home schoolers hanging around, but the coolest was yet to come. As the minutes ticked by, the Troubedour filled ever so slowly, until the lights dimmed and looking down I saw the place was PACKED!! the red and gold for Gryffindor house was, of course, prominent.

There were graying old couples, finicky nursing toddlers and rawking Hufflepunks. I was touched, as lame as that may sound, by the sheer number of those in attendance. Everyone of us there because of a book. Ok, well, seven books. Everyone of us touched by the story of the boy who lived and those who loved him. In true form the Puppets of the Potter Puppet Pals delivered a fabulously funny show, to which many of the audience sang along. Then Harry and the Potters took the stage and rocked that place like a...something magical and rocking...leaving the crowd wanting more. The encore song, an epic ballad to our great and lost leader, Albus Dumbledore, nearly brought tears to my eyes as I was filled with the love in the room, the love that comes for a mutual understanding of what matters in this world, a shared love of life and of a book. A BOOK!! Do you have any idea how freaking awesome that is?!? For me, a girl who once found her friends solely in the pages of books, to find myself surrounded by literally hundreds of others who are like me. Well, lets just say when the songs came to an end and I bid my new friends good bye I was at once sorry to see them go and eager for the next time we would geek out to the extreme. J.K nailed it when she wrote of the importance of finding friends, friends who like you no matter how much of a dork you are, or better yet, those who will don cloaks and carry wands and play wizards right along side you, even if you're all proper grown ups.

L'chaim!

I tend to get pretty emotional this time of year. See, its nearly my daughters birthday, which in and of itself isn't much to get all choked up about, but for me there is so much more to it than that. My delivery was at once the most amazing and the most terrifying night of my life. I had succeeded in delivering my daughter in swift fashion without drugs, having cleverly absconded to the bathroom every time one of the drug pushing nurses came into the room, and was resting happily in the dark as this tiny new person suckled away as though she had been doing  it, well, all her life, that's when the scary part started.

Having been given an unnecessary dose of pitocin, I began to have contractions..again. Fast forward past the gross parts you really have to love me to hear, I was bleeding to death. I handed off my daughter to my terrified and exhausted husband and was rushed into the operating room. I had already lost a good part of my hearing and my vision was fading fast on the edges, I was going into shock and in the process of actually dying. It was like one of those horror movies where the heroine is strapped to a bed and surrounded by bright lights and doctors with masks in place of where noses and mouths belonged. I was prodded, poked, hooked up to bags of blood. Yes, I said bags, as in more than one. As in I had lost so much blood they had to give me double doses for the next three hours. In the end I am alive, obviously, and I had my daughter with me in recovery and was able to watch her sleep. She was such a trooper, they kept trying to give her a bottle, something I really didn't want her to have, and she just kept falling back asleep, already the adorably little sneak. My body was a wreck for at least two months, no one tells you how you're going to feel with someone else's blood in your veins and let me tell you, it ain't great. But, I was alive. Every time she woke me to nurse, I was alive. Every minute of lost sleep, I was ALIVE. In this country we take for granted the dangers posed by child birth ( not to mention inept hospital employees). Never in a million years would I have imagined I would find myself on the wrong end of a bag of donated blood, but there I was.

Every year, around this time, I get to thinking about what would have happened had I not been lucky enough to find myself in an American hospital, a point of fact I find ironic considering my overall opinion of the medical "industry" here. How many smiles I would have missed, how many hugs. What would life have been like for them; my husband and our children? My daughter is an amazing little being all her own, full of song and art and all the wonder one imagines a little girl should be, but to me she is the very personification of life. With every year she celebrates her birthday I, too, celebrate my life. On that night I was reborn. I was enlightened. Life is the briefest of things, the most precious of treasures. In her sparkling little brown eyes are all the potentials in life. In her dimples are the hopes of tomorrow. Excuse me as I wax poetic, but I really cant help it. This little person, a girl I had hoped would be a boy, has taught me so much with her very presence. She reminds me of all the wonder I had become too jaded to see, she reminds me that tea parties are great fun and that little girls may have a lot harder fight in this world but are every bit as great to raise as boys are.

So, happy birthday to my ninja princess surfer girl. You make my days bright and cheery and my life richer than I could have imagined.

Also, I'd like to get a little preachy...if you qualify and are able, please donate blood. The life you save could be mine.