The Cheat Sheet

Not The Onion:

The news that a 5-year-old had shot and killed his 2-year-old sister sparked a storm of outrage Wednesday, and much of the ire was directed at the fact that he used a .22-caliber rifle manufactured by Crickett, an arm of Keystone Sporting Arms that designs weapons specifically for children. The 5-year-old’s gun—which had been given to him as a birthday present—was marketed with the tagline “My first rifle.” Crickett’s website featured not just a friendly, cartoonish green insect as the company logo, but photos of young children cradling their weapons.

Read more about the guns marketed to children. (Emphasis in above quote ours.)

lagertha-lodbrok:

poopeatoe:

galesofnovember:

shartonnay:

slytherclawgrrl:

cheatsheet:

Gwyneth Paltrow is selling bikinis for girls ages 4-8 on her website – which has critics up in arms. But actually it’s the conversation about ‘sexualizing’ kids that’s harmful. 

As someone who has taken multiple kids to the bathroom during pool time, two piece suits are easier and less messy.

i really dont give a damn about gwyneth paltrow (she can still go fuck herself because she thinks that she can use the n-word because she has Black friends ) 

but fuckin really

people need to reflect upon themselves and see WHY they think a little girl wearing a two-piece swimsuit is sexualization 

tbh it’s creepy as shit whenever somebody even makes that argument in the first place

This is kind of silly though. Bikinis are impractical and uncomfortable and their main purpose is to look good and look sexy.   That’s true when they are on adults and it’s logically true that putting the same kind of impractically revealing outfit on a child is sexualizing that child.

And I militantly anti-bikini in general but especially on children.  If an adult chooses to to go the beach for the purpose of lying around and getting a tan and looking good,  I think that absurd, but their life their choices and I’m sure I do things that other people think are absurd.

But on a child it is not okay.  Just like Victorian era corsets you are putting clothing on a child that prevents her from getting physical exercise while the equivalent outfit for boys allows them.  Look at that thing!  A kid can’t swim in that!  She can’t push herself to swim further and faster,  or try to turn cartwheels in the water, dive down to the bottom and grab seashells.   It’s too likely that one of the many, many strings tying her suit together will come untied or the covering will slip in such a way that it’s revealing and she’ll be embarrassed.   And this can easily define the experience of swimming for a girl:  that going to the beach is about feeling self-conscious about how good you look instead of reveling in your physical abilities. The expectation that young girls will perform fashion or sexiness instead of   doing athletic things is fucking horrible.  It’s starting so young to say girl child needs to be LOOKED AT instead of DOING SOMETHING. 

This kind of impractical string bikini bullshit being marketed to little girls is just one example of how we hamper girls ability to truly love their bodies and the things their bodies can do. 

i didn’t think about it from this point of view at all! i was thinking “what’s wrong with a simple top and bottom, kinda like undies”, but never realizing the impracticality of a string bikini, and especially how it’s designed in that picture.

this probably comes from my knowledge of only wearing one-pieces, which were always extremely uncomfortable for me when i put them on. i thought bikinis were more freeing (never worn one, just assumed), but i hadn’t thought about the “coming undone” part. 

when it comes to both practicality and being a little girl, would a swim top be a good idea in general if someone puts them in swim trunks? something that kinda fits tight like a sports bra? or just one pieces? i really know next to nothing of dressing properly for swimming. also have no clue if people glare if little girls are just in swim bottoms, like boys. it’s been that long since i’ve went swimming in public!

up until kiddo was about 3 I just had her in swim bottoms because she was in swim diapers anyway

the above pictured bikini looks impractical simply because, yes, it’s a tied string bikini which will make it harder for the child to go to the bathroom but also runs the risk of getting caught or snagged and coming undone.

Kiddo wears two pieces, but it’s a swim top and swim shorts. No fancy strings, buttons, or fasteners. It’s a short sleeve top that covers her shoulders and back so as to avoid sunburns, but it still keeps her cool. The shorts are just your usual swim bottoms and they are easy for her to get off and on for potty purposes.

I agree the above bathing suit just would not work for my kid. She needs something that can hold up to running, splashing, jumping, etc. but also protect her from the sun.

this design just doesn’t make sense for younger kids. It’s not that’s somehow inherently sexual, it’s that it’s not designed for what little kids do in the pool.

A couple different and interesting takes on this article from our followers. 

reuters:

Maybe it’s because they’ve learned to live life that bit faster, maybe it’s because they’re doing it for someone they love; in the Olympic cycling time trial, being a mother is no obstacle to getting on the podium.

The American winner, Kristin Armstrong, retired from competitive cycling in 2009 to have a baby.

Few people doubted that she would get back on her bike, though some might have doubted she would get back to exactly where she left off, winning her second straight Olympic time trial gold on Wednesday at age 38.

And Russia’s Olga Zabelinskaya, whose bronze was her second after Sunday’s road race, has two small boys at home of barely school age.

How do they manage it?

“My son has given me balance,” Armstrong said. “I can stop thinking about cycling.”

READ ON: Motherhood and medals do mix in time trial

Go Moms! 

Sounds pretty logical to us. Seriously, go ask Tony, our awesome reporter, anything (it’s supposed to be about his Newsweek cover story on Internet addiction, but hey). 

discoverynews:

that back seat is pretty crazy!

gotagirlcrush:

Got a Girl Crush On: Emily Finch, mother of 6 with no car and 1 incredible bike

Call her crazy. Call her a Portland stereotype—although she claims she doesn’t do it to save the world—“I cancel out my bike riding every day with all the other terrible things I do,” she admits. “I don’t compost, I stink at vegetable gardening”.

But, Emily (34) traded in her SUV for a bakfiets (a traditional Dutch cargo tricycle) to haul her brood of six (ages 2 to 11).

In three years, Emily estimates she’s spent about $135 dollars maintaining her bike.

It also saves her money on exercise equipment or a gym membership. She’s lost 25 pounds since she got the bike in 2009 and says she never thought she’d get back to her pre-birth weight after having six kids. When I asked her why she doesn’t get an electric-assist system, she replied with a big smile, “Because I like chocolate!”

Talk about a POWER-FREAKIN-HOUSE!

Moms are incredible! 

Dwayne Wade on being a single dad and and NBA superstar. In this week’s Newsweek:

I’ve had some ups and downs lately, but the memories of the unpleasant times disappear quickly, in part because of moments like the one recently when I was able to surprise my younger son, Zion, at his school with cupcakes for his fourth birthday. It was the day after we’d won the Eastern Conference finals, but that victory couldn’t compare with the huge smile on Zion’s face at that moment. I will never forget it. Bad memories vanish each morning when I walk into both of my sons’ bedrooms to wake them up for school—their laughter gives me all I need to face whatever is happening in my life.

Awww!

(Photo credit: Pat Carter / AP Photo)

Think this marketing strategy will help? Amy Chua will be re-cast for Chinese readers as an ‘American mom.’ Chinese copies of Chua’s controversial parenting book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, will be rebranded under the title Being an American Mom in China. 

image via

Daughter of ‘Tiger Mother’ Rebuts Critics

“I admit it: Having you as a mother was no tea party,” Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld writes. “There were some play dates I wish I’d gone to and some piano camps I wish I’d skipped. But now that I’m 18 and about to leave the tiger den, I’m glad you and Daddy raised me the way you did.”