Maternity and paternity leave is really important, paternity leave is, I think, a really important part of equality. Normalise the idea that men will raise children, be these men hetero or gay.
All parents need time to bond with a new baby, and time to acclimate themselves to all that’s required to care for one.
On top of forming a connection with their child, this can help to simplify distribution of labor when it comes to childcare. This way, there isn’t just one parent doing everything most of the time and then one confused parent in over their head anytime the other hands the baby off so they can go shower, get some food in them, go shopping/to a meeting, etc.
ALSO a woman will need weeks and months to heal from the birth. My husband always felt so guilty about leaving back to work just two weeks after the baby was born with BOTH our kids, because he knew I was still figuring out breastfeeding, getting used to the new baby, far too tired to clean/cook, etc. He obviously helped out outside of work, but that is so much to ask of anyone to work 9-5 and then play homemaker on top of that. Fathers need rest and time to enjoy the baby too.
It’s honestly ridiculous that fathers are expected to only spare a few weeks (at most) post-labor. The mother just went through one of the most physically traumatic episodes the human body is capable of, she’s not going to be bouncing back to normal after a few weeks. It’s a critical time when the father is needed more than ever to ease the adjustment period.
I’ve seen people complain that paternal leave is a “scam”. Certainly a lot of companies seem to think so. But the truth is that our culture is so consumer/work based, that career and money is everything, that we (a) assume that any attempt at paid leave is gimmicking the system, and (b) that parenthood is not a reasonable thing to prioritize over making income
Fathers are often portrayed in media as helpless with children or unable to empathize as well as mothers. And you know what? There’s some truth to that because of how society depicts men’s roles in parenthood since the early 20th century. Their job is to make a living and discipline. Not spend time connecting to their offspring.
Let fathers bond with their kids. It starts at the beginning. Spare them at least a month to get to know their son or daughter. Let them enjoy getting to know each babies’ unique personality outside of late-night wake-ups. Without paternity leave, they must choose between being a good husband and father, or putting bread on the table.
note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway.
Also, when it comes to creative things? There really is no “better”.
Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you – you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically – but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it – even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.
I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.
And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.
Art is about connection. And the more you create, the more chance you have of finding other people who experience the world the way you do.
“But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.“ via @neil-gaiman
The “two cakes” theory of content production.
It was only yesterday that I was lamenting thing I no longer felt allowed to do because someone had done similar.
I ought to read this post daily. Maybe twice daily.
Fic writers don’t have to share their works with you. They don’t have to write them at all. They do it and they share it because they’re fans of the show/book/movie etc. just like you, and they want to contribute to everyone’s enjoyment of fandom.
Fanfiction is hard to write.
You need a lot of creativity and passion to write fic. You need a ton of motivation and drive to write a complete fic, let alone a good one. Fic authors write for hours and hours and hours, often staying up late into the night just to write. They write through job struggles and personal issues, resorting to phones and tablets when their computers are on the fritz, tapping away on public buses and trains just because they can’t find any other time to write.
Fanfiction is free.
Fic writers give away thousands and thousands of words of pure fandom magic, and you get to consume all of it for the wonderful price of nothing. The only reward writers receive for themselves (besides a sense of accomplishment) is the response they get from you, the reader. Some don’t even feel that accomplishment until they see kudos and comments telling them how much their work was enjoyed.
Please.
No matter how much time you have, even just clicking the kudos button takes less than a second. And if you have time to read 5k words at one go, it’s no stretch at all to take a few more seconds to type ‘good job!’ or ‘i loved this!’ in the comment box and hit send.
Still not convinced?
1. IF YOU’RE EMBARRASSED / SHY,
Fic authors LOVE hearing from you. Don’t worry about whether you think you’re going to phrase your response well. That’s literally the last thing we care about. Just knowing that you had a good time with something we made is EVERYTHING to us.
2. IF YOU STILL JUST DON’T SEE THE POINT,
I have a very special challenge for you, my friend.
Write a fic.
Go forth, and write a complete, well-structured, well-characterised fic with organic, stimulating dialogue interwoven into a proper, fully fleshed-out storyline.
its kinda scary how your whole life depends on how well you do as a teenager
oh my god No it doesn’t don’t put this kind of pressure on people?? you can absolutely fuck up in your teen years and continue on to a good life just fine. you can drop out of school, get a GED, still go to college and finish your degree as late as you want. i know people in my school who still haven’t graduated and they’re 26. some older. you can always transfer someplace else, always build yourself up from the ground. after a certain amount of college credits, a lot of schools really don’t care about your high school GED or your SAT scores anymore. if you fuck up in your teenage years you are not a failure!! you can ALWAYS re-invent yourself, always start over. there is always a second chance.
Reblogging this for my followers freaking out over art school/college. I dropped out of high school and never thought I’d get into college as easily as I did. You will be fine!
Fun story my biology professor just told us: When he was 23 he was married to his wife and worked two jobs to support them since she was in college: gas station attendant and construction worker. He worked these two jobs because that was the only work he could get since he was at the reading level of a third grader.
One night he was writing something and his wife noticed he was writing from right to left. Since she was studying occupational therapy she realized he had a learning disability and started working with him. He slowly began to learn to read, and at 26 got his GED and went to college.
His first year of college he took the lowest level math course he could take, 001. Over the years he worked on learning what he needed to, ended up graduating with a biology degree. He then went on to get his masters and PhD, graduating at the top of his class. He is now an extremely accomplished biologist and professor.
So don’t let anyone tell you that you’re future is based on your choices as a teenager.
Seriously. Do not believe this. You aren’t even stuck with your choices you make in your 20s. I didn’t start working in my current field until just after my 30th birthday. It has nothing to do with what I went to school for in my 20s. My husband has a political science degree, and he’s a sports journalist.
You are not tied to anything. Go. Be.
My day job did not exist when I was a teenager. And the idea of trying to be an author was a distant thing on my radar. I thought I was going to be an English teacher. And then I thought I was going to be a music teacher. And then I thought I was going to be a drama teacher.
Also in there: therapist, early childhood educator, then finally: web developer–because by then it was an actual thing that existed. I didn’t actually figure out what I “wanted to do when I grew up” until about eight years ago, when I was 36. I tried pursuing writing when I was 30, stopped, then started pursuing it seriously again when I was 40.
There is always time to change. And don’t let anyone tell you that high school is “the best time of your life” either, because that’s bullshit too.
Reblogging for my followers. My high school teachers didn’t know what to do with me, and I failed everything but a low photography grade. I thought university wasn’t for me, and settled for marrying a mediocre man who spent all day on Warcraft. Then I went to community college. Now I’m in uni doing a double English and philosophy degree, just back from America. I am also single.
Also important: College is not the only option. Don’t let anyone try to tell you it is. If you’re not academically inclined, the trades are an option and they are a good option– if the only thing you think you’re good at is make-up do that. There are people who can live comfortably just doing make-up. We have this idea planted in our heads as teenagers (and younger) that not fitting into an academic mould of some sort means you’re failing at life and this is bullshit. There’s no reason to feel like you’re “failing at life” because you don’t like school or were never good at it. We need skilled workers in the world, and the thing they don’t tell you is all work is skilled work. If it’s work, it takes skill. Yes, this encompasses “service” jobs, it encompasses all jobs. Please don’t think that what you do, or what you have an interest in doing is of less value than something that requires a college education. This coming from the college-educated white girl who is a seamstress because it’s what I enjoy. If college isn’t going to get you where you want to go, than you don’t need to go! It’s that simple. Take whatever path you need to get to where you are happy and comfortable and fufilled. If you’re doing what you love you are sucessful.
i didn’t graduate with my bachelor’s until i was 26 and life took a few turns along the way but now, at 37, i have a job that makes me genuinely happy. and it’s got nothing to do with how well i did in high school.
This! This make me cry… I’m 23 and I really don’t know where I’m going, so reading this kinds of storys makes me feel hope!
I love all this support and inspiring stories, but what I think op was getting at was that our teachers/parents/elders ingrain this idea in us that if we fuck up in our teens, we fuck up everything. So don’t ever let adults make you feel less for needing/spending more time to achieve your goals. You’re still amazing if you get a degree at 24 or 44 or even not at all
for everyone needing this as much as i do right now
My tummy doesn’t have to be cute. It holds my internal organs. My thighs don’t have to “crush men’s skulls”. I use them to carry myself. My stretch marks don’t have to be tiger stripes I earned. They came when I grew.
Stop.
feeling this
This!
I feel like even body positivity is too focused on, like, the appearance of the body. I know I became a whole lot happier with my body when I started thinking of it less in terms of how it looked (to me or anyone else) and realized, that, like…
When I feel cool breeze on my skin on a really hot day, my body did that for me.
When I step into a bath after a hike, and my muscles ache, but in a good way, and the steam all around me makes me feel like a flower blooming, my body did that for me.
And the hike before it, and standing on a large rock breathing the raw winter air seeing the power of the half-frozen river. That too.
When I’ve had a plate of pasta puttanesca, and I chopped and sauteed the ingredients and now I’m full-but-not-uncomfortable, and warm all over, and perfectly content, my body did that for me.
My body doesn’t have to look awesome to be awesome. It’s awesome because it’s where I live.
Please don’t ever let anyone shame you for attending.
Do yourself a favor. Save money
no seriously. my biggest regret is going to a 4 year university when what i want to do doesn’t really require a college degree at all. and now i’m stuck with thousands in loans.
It is More than okay!!!! Please go
You can go to a community college to get your lower division coursework done and then transfer to a four year to finish your degree. The best part is once you go to community college it wipes the slate clean, so if you had bad grades in highschool they wont matter, as long as you do well in community college.
And if college isn’t for you, that’s absolutely okay, too. Skilled trades pay super well and trade schools are very affordable.
listen binch. no one has an original style. no one pulls a unique style of art out of their ass. we get to where we are through observing others and being influenced by them and that’s how art works
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