Kristi Pahr

It seems like everyone is an introvert these days.

I feel like if I’d started earlier, had my first kid at 28 instead of 34, maybe I’d be a little less tired right now. Maybe I’d be a more fun mom if my knees didn’t sound like small arms fire every time I tried to run with my son. Maybe I’d be a better mom if I was younger. But I don’t think so. My kids? They’re awesome. And I’m the mom they have, so I must be doing something right, old or not.

Don’t be an asshole is my barometer. It’s my go-to for figuring out how to respond to any given situation, big or small, personal, local, or global.

It is understood that to effectively and officially attachment parent your child, you need to hit all the markers, check all the boxes, and do it without dissolving into a crying mess on the floor when your baby won’t stop crying and you only slept for two hours and you have to go to the supermarket because you’re out of coffee, but you shouldn’t even be DRINKING coffee and you’re the worst mother in the world.

I found my first gray hair when I was 12 years old. Twelve. I had gray hair before I had a period.

I’m not a TV person. I used to be, but not so much anymore.

These women are from all over the world. They are from different socioeconomic brackets. Their assaults took place during different times over the last 35 years. The victims are completely different, but the stories are all so similar. Victims of assault, rape, harassment, coming forward, being brave and telling the truth, and being stigmatized, ostracized, blamed, ignored, ridiculed. People they love, people they trust, people whose job it is to protect them, blaming them for their assault. It’s common. Almost expected. That women are assaulted, harassed by men, is a given in our culture. That women are blamed is standard procedure. Is it really any wonder that the majority of sexual assaults go unreported? Is it really shocking that a woman would want to save herself additional trauma?