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.

Geek Pride

Geek Pride, like any other pride , is all about being, well, proud.  I was in the geek closet for a long time, I must admit, though many would tell you I never really shut the closet door. In school I was the nerd, the girl who sat in front of the class and knew all the answers. I was the only kid in my JR. High science club who cheered when the teacher ( the hot Mr. Gussin) put on Buckaroo Banzai, and knew half the lines. But it wasn't until high school that I really embraced. it. Fine, I thought to myself, call me a nerd, call me a geek; I freaking AM and I love it! Now geek is cool, geek is chic and that's okay too. It means little dorks like me will grow up proud of their love of Science AND science fiction.

 What does a geek look like, you ask. Well, some are in disguise as moms and dads, some as lawyers and doctors ( not THE doctor, to be clear), they are mechanics and check out girls, teachers and students ( especially the Jedi). How can one tell when one is near or speaking to a geek. Well, you can have built in geek-dar, like many of us, or you can pay close attention. Here is a list of possible signs you are dealing with a geek and not a nerd or a dweeb ( nerds and dweebs, while highly intelligent,  normally lack imagination and character; they are not geeks)

1. Obscure references. These may be references of popular fandoms; i.e comments about Yoda, Spock, The Dr., a towel, or He -who-must-not-be-named. Extreme geeks will reference things of  which you have never heard nor have any hope recognizing, these are the best kind of geeks
2. Fan attire- comics tees, movie tees, periodic table of elements, dragons, etc. More subtle geek attire may be donned, but you're going to have to really know your stuff to spot these geeks, they have likely been in hiding for years and now how to blend with the normals.
3. Snort laughing. pretty obvious
4. Most of them are smarter than you. Many of us geeks are highly intelligent and know it. They called me Miss know it all; now my one goal in life is to know it ALL.
5. You're in a comic shop, fan convention, the lego section of Target and you see an adult...this adult is a geek. Hug them.
6. No more pocket protectors; the modern geek has a phone that may as well be a tricorder; she/he will google any question she/he does'nt already know the answer to and school you like a boss ( or spock, as it were).

In closing; GEEKS RULE!!! Be proud of your brain! If you are a geek still in the closet because you were teased as a kid let me tell you, it does get better. Find a group of fellow geeks into your favorite fandom, hit up a convention, hang out at the comics shop. You're not weird, you're cool beyond the comprehension of the normals, and we love you.
p.s. Check out this RAD video, it is my current life theme song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFhgupR565Q

Comics, Movies and the NEW princess paradigm

It is a popular theme in feminist literature to rag on the Disney princesses. Recently a new acquaintance mentioned the fact that in all the new princess merch. none of the princesses are looking at each other...well, of course they aren't, they are posing for a picture, they are looking at the "camera". Sure, Disney princess are super girly and totally add mass amounts of fluff to stories that once taught little girls the dangers of going into the woods alone, but lets look at some good points.

 I'll start with Ariel, since she was really the first of the new princesses. Yes, they totally ruined the original story, but Ariel is a tough little fish chick. At this point Disney was only beginning to scratch the surface of what it is little girls really want to be. They don't want to be told what to do, where to go, or who to love. Then there is Belle.  First, she loves to read. What a great example for little girls. To me it says " look, its beautiful to be smart." Next, she shuns the pretty boy and falls for a big, hairy monster because love is not about what one looks like but rather ones inner being and potential. Yes, he saves her, but doesn't she save him too? Moving on we have Jasmine. She is strong willed and, despite living in a culture where her father would choose her husband she rebels and proves herself to be fully capable of handling herself ( except when pitted against an evil wizard, but who among us can say she wouldn't have some issues here aswell). Pocahontas saves John Smith and stands up for peace between her people and the white man     (yes, please don't even get me started on fact v. fiction here, we're talking about princesses hot history)and , in fact, Disney here creates a stronger female character than the real person Pocahontas was.  Mulan (who was never a princess but always finds herself mixed in with them) cuts her hair, learns to fight and ultimately saves all the tough dudes in China. Tiana, a hard working girl from the "wrong" side of town, saves a prince with no desire what ever to marry him. In fact, she does it all for her friend! Yay! Rapunzel knocks out a would be attacker ( so she thinks) with a frying pan and despite having been sheltered in the worst possible way, makes her way in the big scary world. Disneys newest princess, Merida, a fiery red haired archer with a desire for adventure sets off alone to tackle the world. Perhaps the problem is the idea that because a princess is pretty that gives little girls the desire to be pretty, but doesn't nature do that anyway? Is it not a natural instinct to desire to be attractive to draw a mate? And yes, some of the princesses do reflect a more subdued female role...but they were written in the 40's and 50's and are based on stories written in the 1500's, how can we compare what we are seeing now with ideals that have long since changed. Clumping the new wave of characters in with those first few damsels in distress is simple folly.  Disney is not alone in recognizing the importance of stronger female roll models for little woman. The new Mirror, Mirror has our damsel, Snow white, taking on a fearsome beast all on her lonesome...and totally kicking ass! Fiona, another tough princess turned Ogre, showing not only do you not have to be quiet and obedient, but you don't even have to be pretty to find love and to be admirable. Kim Possible, Kitara, Toph, Rogue, Storm, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, and lets not forget one of the most kick ass princesses, Leia!

 Yes, there are numerous portrayals of weak, pretty girls who are saved by strong men, but so too are there those types of woman in the world. There has been a shift. Woman writers, producers and comic book artists are on the scene in force shaking up the Princess Paradigm and turning the tides in the giant web we call the Media.

 Check out the very witty new comic PrinceLess, which not only tackles the pretty princess ideas, but also what boys get from the stories. We always forget the boys in these conversations. What do they get from these characters. I can tell you, at least among the guys I know, they want the tough chicks, the brave ones, the sassy ones. Yes, they like pretty, but that can only go so far. This new shift lets the boys discover that woman can be so much more than pretty and girls see that when they are woman they can be just as kick ass in a ball gown as in a pair of jeans.
Ragging on Disney for putting pretty girls in dresses is wasted energy. I, myself, am a pretty kick ass chick and I freaking love pretty dresses. I love my bow, my dremel and my needle and thread too. With the media full of reports on "the war on woman" we all need to see that, though on Capital hill, there is a battle going on, the mass media directed at the next generation has opened its eyes and is giving girls what they need, images of girls like them being more, doing more, and standing up for themselves. Here's to a generation of totally awesome, intelligent, kick ass beauties taking over the world.

Dragons and Butterflies

Once upon a time, when the thought of children was a far off fantasy, I dreamed of little boys ( in a totally innocent, non creepy way). I grew up in a house where my mom and I were outnumbered and I always found it easier to get along with boys because girls were always dressing up like brides and talking about boys. I was more often breaking out my STNG action figures or playing Ninja turtles with my brothers. Also, girls never got  the geek references I was using even then. In high school I had the same problem forming lasting friendships with girls, so when the ultra sound tech told us we were having a girl my first reaction was " oh well." All around me my few female friends, and even some of my male friends, were going bonkers because I was having a girl, but I was not impressed. Yes, I'll admit, little girls cloths are cute and all, but what does a geeky tomboy know about raising a girl?! Fast forward five( nearly six) years. I am beyond happy to have my little Han in my life. She is every bit the action adventure girl I was, while ever reminding me that I am a GRRRL. But there is another side to raising a daughter. My son will have little issue in the world, being a handsome white male with a great big brain. I will raise him to be respectful of others and from his Dad he is already learning how to treat woman kindly and honestly. I would love to think it would be exactly the same for my little girl, but even here, in the good old US of A, woman are not equal to men. She will meet assholes, perverts, and dick heads, but that's not even the worst of it. One of the biggest reasons I have had trouble really enjoying the company of other woman is the innate desire to compete. As girls we are inundated with ideas of the prettiest girl being the best, and even though I have tried to provide a balanced view to my own daughter she still has picked up on these ideas.

" Lets play a beauty contest to see who's prettier" WHAT!?! I'm with Mrs. Obama on this one, we are all pretty. We are all on the same team. In a world that pits woman against woman the truth is we, as a sex, are globally under rated. Already she is faced with people only commenting her beauty. Everywhere we go  she hears it " oh you're so pretty" " you should be in commercials" "wont she be a heart breaker." I fucking hope not. What kind of thing is it to wish on a beautiful person that they should hurt those that might love them? So how does one combat the stream of pretty princesses and digitally remastered magazine covers? We go climb rocks, that's how, and dig in the mud and paint our faces with war paint and find our inner Amazon. My daughter will be a tall, beautiful woman with a smile that will stop hearts, but it is far more important that she will be kind, caring, intelligent, understanding, adventurous and BRAVE! We must raise our daughters to be woman and not pretty girls, to stand by their fellow woman and becoming stronger for it. Will I be able to fight the onslaught of hormonally induced self loathing that is inevitable when she approaches puberty, maybe not, but when she comes out the other end it is my greatest hope that she will look into the mirror everyday and see an intelligent, strong woman who happens to be very pretty and not a pretty girl who is intelligent and strong. Also that she knows that its still ok to put on a princess dress and a tiara, its just more fun to don armor and chase dragons.

Yesterday my little girl was playing in a magical world with an old Halloween cauldron when I said what very few parents must; Don't stir your cauldron with your wand, you'll ruin the phoenix feather inside.
Along with " don't hit your sister with a light saber" I am often uttering parental advice that has little resemblance to what " normal" people ( Lets call them Normals) say to their own kids. But its paying off, let me tell you about my geektastic mothers days. First, an early morning jont with just the husband and I to see the latest in comic book movies; The Avengers. Sporting my cool new hand made necklaces ( The one from my daughter has a Yin Yang on it " like the balance in Avatar, mommy" and the one from my son a beautiful clear locket " it looked like a remembrall Mom" ) I was glad to see the theater full of other nerdy moms and their equally geeky kids. We all laughed and cried and hooted as the armor  clad heroes kicked space ass. 

Back at home a lazy day of X-men cartoons, a little spell casting on Pottermore and the perusal of my new stack of comics ( everyone should totally read the new 52 Batwoman, the art is stunning and it has a great story line...plus batwoman is a lesbian and she is totally HOT). On request a cake was made for me to decorate by husband and daughter, and I decorated it with classic yellow and the bat symbol. Finishing the blissful day with the latest episode of Legends of Korra, I must say I live the charmed geek life. hope all you moms out there had a great day too!