Jody Allard

Jody Allard

Bio

Jody Allard is a former techie turned freelance writer living in Seattle. Her online work has appeared on Time, xoJane, and Offbeat Home, among others. She writes primarily about food, family, mothering, and life with a chronic illness. 

Jody Allard Articles

Image via Sesame Street

Why It Matters That Sesame Street's First Muppet With Autism Is A Girl

It took five years for my daughter to be diagnosed with autism. There were dozens of red flags, beginning from the time she was about 10 months old, but her pediatrician always told me that she was fine. "She made eye contact with me," she reassured me. "She can't be on the spectrum." Besides, most children with autism, she reminded me, are boys.

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I'm Not The Crazy Ex: What We Need To Learn From The McLeod Rape Case

The thing about trauma is that it creates inherently unreliable witnesses. Victims tell as much as they can bear to tell, in that moment, and perhaps even as much as they can remember. Memories can be hazy and dim until the second that the curtain is lifted and the body is thrust back into the moment of abuse. There is no such thing as one way of processing trauma, and there is no perfectly linear path to recovery, either.

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Sorry Bigots, The Supreme Court Just Ruled That You Have To Do Your Job

The ACLU of Kentucky has already filed a motion for contempt against Davis because even after the SCOTUS told her to start issuing marriage licenses, she was back at work the next morning, stonily turning away gay couples.

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Video Shows What Happens When Men Are Erased From Power

If you've ever wondered what would happen if all men were removed from positions of power, a

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The author and her SEVEN CHILDREN.

7 Things I've Learned From Raising 7 Kids

Through the years, I've learned that our ideologies matter far less than the quality of the relationships we build with our kids. Your rules and my rules may be entirely different, but if we center our parenting around nurturing and compassion for our kids, we will achieve similar results.

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Your Daily Coffee Habit May Actually Save Your Life

If you're anything like me, your first coffee of the morning is just a warm-up for your next cup of coffee. But now, thanks to the wonders of science, you can chug those buckets of joe guilt-free because coffee may actually make you live longer!

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Pope Francis' New Policy on Abortion "Forgiveness" Misses The Mark

While this is, of course, better than excommunicating women for their reproductive choices, it is still founded on the premise that abortion is a sin and that men in power must absolve women of their mistakes. It also continues to paint women as incapable of understanding their options and making autonomous choices for their bodies and their lives.

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It’s taken me much longer to figure out how to simply eat in a way that feels right in my body, and to accept my body for what it is — broken, fat, and mine.

On Learning To Accept My Chronically Ill Body

My only regret is that I wasted nearly 40 years trying to bend my chronically ill body to an imaginary idea of perfection.

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Feminist Icon Camille Paglia Calls Taylor Swift A "Nazi Barbie"

Paglia...suggested that the problem with women’s lives is that career women now lack the multigenerational shared approach to domestic bliss. Apparently, women wouldn’t need friends and silly socializing if they all just went back to the kitchen and did more women’s work.

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Image: Wikipedia

The Problem With Giving Your Kids Experiences Instead Of Gifts

Advertisers don't encourage us to believe that our kids need to make memories more than another toy to wage war on capitalism; they do it because these experience gifts support incredibly successful industries. When we shift our dollars from toys to travel, for instance, we are still supporting big business.

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