Everything you always wanted to know about calling anonymous women sluts via Twitter but were afraid to ask

I'm pretty much just like celebrated Little League pitcher and female sports pioneer Mo'Ne Davis. Except I'm not good at playing baseball. Or 13 years old. Or ever included in the SportsCenter Top Ten. Or a paragon of moral rectitude. But she and I both got called whores on Twitter this week. There's that. And, yeah, that's pretty much all we have in common.

Point of clarification: I was called a whore. Bloomsburg University baseball player Joey Casselberry referred to Davis as a "slut," actually. He was reprimanded and even kicked off his college team for his tweet. Harsh, perhaps, but he was stupid and he made a choice. But of course, as the 24-hour news cycle collapsed around the story it quickly became Mo'Ne Davis' responsibility to fix the situation, even though she had no involvement whatsoever in either the tweet or the punishment. Davis contacted Bloomsburg University and asked officials to reconsider Casselberry's suspension. She publicly acknowledged that hey, people are sick of hearing about me and that is probably why this guy who doesn't know me felt it was okay to refer to me as a slut even though I am a mere child and he didn't mean it literally and I hope this doesn't affect the status of my Disney Channel biopic.

As I read the NPR story praising Davis for her benevolent actions, I honestly wanted to throw up. Not because I had any problem with what Mo'Ne Davis did or how she handled the situation, but because this is the messed-up way our society works. You're only allowed to be a little bit offended by misogyny (or racism or {{insert name of bad behavior here}}), and the responsibility always falls back on women (or people of color, or {{insert name of marginalized group here}}) to react in just the right way. It is NOT Mo'Ne Davis' responsibility to make Joey Casselberry feel better about acting like a jerk on the Internet. Except that it is.

The Internet is great for so many things -- getting life-changing information about how to peel a mango, for example. But it's also a great place to meet narcissistic psychopaths. I'm glad I'm not a famous female athlete or feminist author or movie star, because all those people get all day is Trolly McTrollerson Troll-Trolls. Despicable trolls. I would not even begin to try and compare what was said to me this week by an anonymous person with any of the abuse those aforementioned women have to endure just to be on Twitter.

But yes, this week I was told via Twitter to "Shut up, whore" for presumably no reason. I guess I was saying something annoying; I don't really know. I made a "sad trombone" joke about the NCAA tournament...? Four people favorited it. No one else complained. I dunno. The narcissistic psychopathic who contacted me, I think, believes he is funny. I didn't think he was. I blocked and reported him.

Do I think that, in referring to me as a whore, he is literally suggesting that I routinely sell sexual favors out of a minivan on the corner of 86th and Hickman? No. But that is completely NOT THE POINT. That's why he thought I was offended, though. Actually, it's why he thought my husband was offended; I had nothing to say about the matter, but my husband got a teeny tiny bit enraged. (God bless my husband, by the way, for things like this still bothering him; he has been living in a college-educated feminist man bubble for about 37 years. Also: Why am I putting all my family members in bubbles this week?). But of course the implication was obvious: I am the one who is supposed to tell my husband not to worry about it because if I am also offended by the "joke" then I'm just a crazy feminist.

Here's the thing about feminism and the Internet, though: Hardly anyone seems to understand what feminism actually is. (Thank you to The Onion for making this point hilariously last October.) I realize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for podcasts about intersectional feminism or routinely studies up on infant feeding policy, but I do believe we all have a little bit of feminist inside of us. Today I call upon all citizens to embrace one simple piece of advice about relating to today's woman -- every woman, whether she's as nice as Mo'Ne Davis or as cranky as I am:

Don't call a woman you don't know a slut or a whore, even as a joke, even if anyone on Earth thinks it's even remotely funny.

And that is all. Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Deep thoughts from the innocence bubble

It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon, and I was picking up my 3 1/2-year-old son from daycare. He got excited as soon as I walked in the room -- maybe because he was seeing me, maybe because he was now free to run about the building and break the rules; I'm not sure. But after offering me a glancing peck on the cheek he ran, as he always does, to his favorite "center:" the sprawling "large motor" area. He normally hops on a small plastic exercise bike and pedals for a personal record while I collect the papers and spare clothes from his locker and start the long process of begging him to come home with me now please can we get out of here don't you want to get home and help me start dinner now please just put your coat on so we can go. But this time he bypassed the bike and instead approached a large bin full of tangled plastic pipes in various primary colors. He grabbed a long, green one in his thick white fingers and smiled broadly. Then he took another piece of pipe -- a curved blue one -- and carefully pushed the end of it into the green pipe. He knew what he was doing.

"I'M GONNA MAKE A GUN, MOMMY."

My heart dropped. I knew the day was coming when he'd see something or hear something or learn something about guns, but I was hoping he would maybe please be 25 or 26 years old. I looked on in horrified silence as he circled the room, waving his creation in the air and aiming it toward doorways and piles of nap cots and construction paper-festooned bulletin boards.

"GUN! GUN! GUN! GUN! GUN!" he shouted enthusiastically.

As I sat there wishing I was a toddler whisperer or that I'd at least read some sort of book or article about how to talk to small children about guns, I told myself to say something productive that wouldn't make the situation worse. Finally, I willed my mouth to open and just form the simplest question I could muster:

Hmmmm. What's that for?

"FOR SQUIRTING APPLES," he replied gleefully. "SQUIRT, SQUIRT, SQUIRT."

My relief was immediate. I got in on the game, opening my mouth wide so he could launch imaginary apples into it. Posing questions about the variety of apple that was being "squirted" -- Are these Pink Ladies, Gala, or Honeycrisp? Laughing with my child at the thought of such a funny object. For my toddler, it turns out a gun can just be a silly toy that feeds hungry people a nutritious snack. I wanted to cry. I wanted to breathe a deep sign of relief. I wanted to take my little apple squirter and put him in a plastic time preservation bubble, crawl into it with him, and stay there forever.

I realized I'm starting to understand that horrible thing that nearly every parent hates and fears: my child's loss of innocence. I know he has to grow up and become worldly and learn to defend himself and develop deeper levels of empathy and read Kafka and get a driver's license, but there is just something so wonderful about innocence that makes my heart get big and my eyes get wet when I think about it. I love that he has it. I never want it to go away.

I love when my son waves hello to a passerby from his tricycle and later swells with pride in reporting how he met someone new. I don't want him to ever have to be afraid of saying hello to a neighbor on the sidewalk.

I love that my son gets genuinely enthusiastic about helping me bake cookies. I want him to always want to help me, and I never want anyone to tell him that cookies are bad for you or make you fat or tell him that it's not okay to be fat or to eat a cookie.

I love that my son loves things like popping soap bubbles, clearing the dinner table, and giving the contents of his piggy bank to sick children at the hospital because of how those acts make him or others feel inside. I never want him to not do those things, nor do I want him to ever do them for any other reason.

But I know all of these things will change, and probably sooner than I want them to. And in my mind, that's okay because those changes are part of growing up and becoming who you are.

But in my heart, I see the appeal of that bubble. I understand why helicopter parenting is so popular. Yes, it's overprotective. And yes, it's wrong. But maybe there's something admirable in wanting to preserve that childhood innocence for as long as possible. In covering their eyes during the scary scenes. In kissing their injuries. In believing that guns squirt apples.

Just give me a few more months of this, please?

Ode to Snow

It's March in Iowa, which means two things: winter is starting to wind down, and we're probably due for more snow. Like last year, a lot of this winter's snowfalls were followed by freezing temperatures that were a major disappointment to my 3-year-old son, who just wants to play in the snow.

But there was at least one perfect day for playing in the snow a few weeks ago -- though the snow was melting quickly in the warm sunshine. But we made it over to Wakonda Club for their sledding day event and had an absolute blast. Here are some pictures I finally snagged off my iPhone of the glorious morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 May your spring days be filled with sledding! Happy March from the Bruns family!