David Minerva Clover

We’re trying to raise him with a lot of options and very few assumptions, but I won’t be mad at you if you call my kid “handsome little boy” or something. It’s fine. People have a hard time talking about babies without gendered labels. Even I have a hard time with it, and I’ve put a kind of ridiculous amount of energy into analyzing this stuff.

However, I do have one favor to ask. Please, for the love of everything that is good in this world, stop calling him “little man.”

I learned binge-watching Mister Rogers that he wasn’t just being comforting, he was rephrasing many of the things I was hearing in therapy.

Babies, while awesome in so many wonderful ways, do not give a single shit if you really need another hour of sleep. If the baby is up, you’re up. So we were up.

The reality is the shift is happening slowly; for queer kids, and kids of queer parents, it might be too slow. Representation for LGBTQ families matters!

Something had clicked in my head. Suddenly I didn't give a shit when life began or whether or not a fetus counts as a “baby.” I was overwhelmed by the new-found knowledge that pregnancy is unfairly invasive in every single way.

If you believe in bodily autonomy and consent, folks should get to consent (or not) to the process of gestation. Full stop. No caveats.

Here’s the thing though, hating romantic comedies, and avoiding them when I could, didn’t stop me from absorbing their all consuming messages about love, sex, and romance.

This morning my son woke up laughing. My son woke up laughing and I woke up crying. My son woke up laughing and his little squeaky voice was a light in the darkness to me. I went into his room and moved towards his crib and he smiled at me. And I was so grateful, grateful for him and who he is, but also grateful that he is still a baby and I do not have to explain what happened last night.

[W]hen tickets went on sale for a DIY punk music festival that my wife had attended several times before we were married, and she lamented that there was “just no way” that she’d be able to go, a light bulb went off in my head. “What if we just all went together?” I said.

The whole concept of salaries for stay-at-home moms reveals both the classism in parenting culture and what we really think about poor people.