Family-friendly. Who would have ever thought that the juxtaposition of these two words could be so contentious? That an expression could encompass so many contradictary meanings. That it could be exclusively claimed by some and denied to others.
If you google ‘family-friendly’, you discover that the expression was coined by feminists who attempted to reconcile paid and unpaid work, to validate both women and men’s parenting roles and to secure employment conditions that are not discriminatory towards workers who have children. And as family responsibilities shifted, the notion also grew to include caring for ageing parents.
‘Family-friendly’ is often used by commercial establishments who are willing to accomodate the combined needs of adults and children as clients, when offering services and goods such as housing, travel, entertainment, home furnishings, convenience foods and dining.
Now it’s become a weapon appropriated by those who consider themselves to be in absolute possession of the right to attack any other definition of family that is unacceptable to their standards. And they also use it to shield themselves against criticism.
In case you were wondering who are these people, let’s refresh your memory.
According to them, DisneyLand™ and DisneyWorld™ are NOT family-friendly because same-sex spousal benefits are provided to their gay and lesbian employees.
Planned Parenthood is NOT family-friendly because it respects: women and men’s choice to forego breeding, women’s choice to limit the number of children they want to bear, and women’s choice to end an unwanted pregnancy.
For Better or For Worse is NOT family-friendly because its creator Lynn Johnston included a sympathetic gay character inspired by her brother-in-law, in her family-oriented comic strip.
Moms who breast-feed in public places are NOT family-friendly because …. because some people say so.
Affordable daycare is NOT family-friendly because such people don’t use it and won’t support it.
What they consider to be family-friendly on one of their websites though, are hateful screeds that incite violence against the sons and daughters of parents who love them very much exactly as they are. Gay men and lesbians have families too – mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons.
But I digress. At this feminist board, parenting discussions include advice about baby poo. There have been long, heartfelt and supportive threads about sometimes difficult pregnancies, by women who choose to give life, and those who support their decision. In the last year, five babies were born; many vicariously shared the joys of the new parents. This is what family-friendly looks like.
*applause* Well said. Family-friendly should mean friendly to all families.
Sheesh, deBeauxOs, you’re missing the point. ‘Family-friendly’ means ‘no bad words’.
Here’s an example from just this morning:
See? No bad words. Just hate.
I’m really trying to get how they’ve coopted “family friendly”.
So, breast-feeding in public is not family friendly, but letting children die because of inadequate health care is.
Does not compute.
The co-opters of the phrase ‘family friendly’ will no doubt, someday soon, (or has it already happened?) come knocking on our doors, asking for support.
Hello, darlings, it’s BLANCHE. You know, she who is so wunnaful she signs her name in capitals. And capitols.
New words, huh? Well, out here on the far west coast, we’ve been spot on the prob even before it was recognized as being a prob.
If you read your mythology, or hell, even if you don’t, Avalon was a mist enshrouded island in the West, where apples bloomed and grew year round, a place where Morgana La Fey and the Lady of the Lake dwelled in peace. And Avalon, probably because it and they didn’t much care for the shite coming down on the mainland, drifted away, into the fog, headed West, ever West.
And here we are and we’ve allowed them to change the name on the maps , the better to disguise ourselves. But we’re busy, and one of the areas of endeavor is words, the more descriptive the better, and phrases, similarly pungent.
Arstle, for example. An arstle is an asshole without the excuse of needed function. Arstles are usually accompanied by arstletarts, who are even less useful. Lugan, that’s a two legged upright nourishment devouring lump yet to say one single worthy thing. Witherdick is usually used to indicate either a politician or an upper level bureaucrat. I think we all know NumbNuts but do we all know Beanballs? I think we do, but , as always, I welcome correction. Dipstick seems to have caught on over on the mainland, and I suspect means the same there as here.
I notice she who considers herself the last word in everything, objects to the word bitch. Whoa, Nelly! I am a bitch. My daughter is a bitch. My grand daughters, I most sincerely hope, will grow up to be bitches of the first order.
Ceridwen is the giver and taker. She is there when we are born and she comes to collect our souls when we leave our earthly bag of meat and bones. She is the one who takes stillborn babes and comforts them, and she is the one who collects the aged and transports them to a place of rest and peace. She is accompanied by a swarm of jet black bitches with red burning eyes and they race to seek out those who need her. Often , as a person is dying, they hear the sound of hounds baying and know surcease is coming. They do the bidding of the one who is the giver and taker. When patrist dominated religion began to spread the ones who followed the old religion were called bitches and sons of bitches in an attempt to slander them, to demean them. Sticks and stones, you arstles, it doesn’t bother us one whit. Being known as a bitch, even calling ones self a bitch, or, for those of the other physiological form, a son of a bitch, is praise and a compliment and anyone who believes otherwise is a tinderwit.
While checking the link, I noticed someone getting needlessly graphic about what their fevered fantasies have disclosed to them about male homosexual sex. One wonders how this expert became one. This self exposed expert said animals do not eat shite. Obviously, this paragon of puerile misinformation, this self exposed blatherskite, has never been within eyeshot of a farm or even a companion animal. Foals eat the feces of their mother-mare, it’s how they get the enzymes necessary for digestion of food other than mares’ milk. If they didn’t eat shit they’d die. Calves often eat cow shit, for the same reason I suspect. Ducks have no compunction about beaking around in wet shit, looking , no doubt, for maggots and flies and such other life forms as are attracted to or dwell in droppings. And then there are dogs. Fine animals, dogs. I have spent my life with dogs, both two legged and four legged and I prefer the four legged but even so do not allow them to lick my face because dogs, to put none to fine a point on it, love to eat shit and I’m quesy. Pigs eat shit. Mind you pigs are choosy about which types of shit they will eat and they prefer dog or human if they can get it.
I must confess I do not hang out in that other place, that concatination of hypocrisy, that training ground for the hive mentality, that festering cess pool of rabid hatred. Thus, I have no first-hand experience with their blethering and bleating unless I follow a link, which is how I saw the family friendly foo foo rah kicked off by she who is so impressed with she-self.
She has a way with words, she slings a good sentence, pity she is so obviously ill. And a bigger pity she has kids who are exposed daily to this mind bending on-going diatribe against all who do not follow her narrow minded dictates. I would suggest she is not a bitch. I would suggest she is a most unhappy footsoldier in the war against women and kids, someone who so fears those with power she caters to their excesses in the hope they not turn their wrath her way. She panders to the patriarchy. So BLANCHE suggests a word, Patrisuck.
Heavy mist from the sea this morning, all sound is muffled, the air is still, the thimbleberries are ripening and the salmonberries delicious this year. A neighbour is expecting family visitors from Outside and, since he has no way to get fresh salmon himself, I took him a large coho. He promised me apple fritters when he gets them made. He’s a Cree metis, an aging bull of the woods, a bunkhouse bozo, a bustup logger and he makes the absolutely best meat pies, even better than my now departed mother made. He collects brass, has one of the few real gardens in the village, and says he refuses to die until 2012 because he wants to see what the coming-full of the Aztec calendar brings. He’s a son of a bitch.
Stand firm against the gormless twits, and never lose your sense of humour. Just don’t discount the fundies, we laugh at them because it drives them booshit, but keep in mind they are dangerous. And she who has decided she is the last word in everything is also dangerous. They are the vanguard of hatred and oppression, and they are goobers.
They are not family friendly, they work against women and kids, and they are barfbrains.
Word, Blanche.
Every one of yours is worth its salt.
I see somebody missed their classes in wildlife biology. The great Canadian Beaver … industrious symbol of our country cannot sustain within itself the proper enzimes to disgest the tender morsels of young trees it so favours ….
They go out with the rest of the ruffage.
So at one stage they must …. er…..er…. well, eat their shit
to renew their supply of these digestive wee beasties …. 