October 16th, 2008

An Open Letter to Moronic Fashion Designers for Children

Dear MFDC:

I love to go shop­ping for my daugh­ter but it is becom­ing more of a has­sle than it is worth. Peo­ple who know me think that I am overly-protective of my daugh­ter. In fact, some­times, I think that I may be too, but then I go clothes shop­ping for her and real­ize that there is no such thing as being too pro­tec­tive. I am a par­ent and pro­tect­ing my child is what I should be doing. But I am feel like I am figth­ing against cor­po­rate giants who want me to fail.

I did not think that I had would have to sayl this to adults, but my daugh­ter is 30 months (2 years 6 months). She does not need a two-piece bathing suit. She does not need a thong, or a tube top, or really short skirts. She does not need high heels, or wedges, or flip flops. She does not need pants that say “Juicy” or “Apple Bot­tom” or any­thing for that matter.

She is a child.

She needs clothes that do not sex­u­al­ize her.

She needs to develop a strong sense of self before her self-esteem is chal­lenged through thought­less mar­ket­ing and idi­otic objectifications.

She needs to be a child.

And you should be ashamed.

Thank you,

An Irate Parent

September 26th, 2008

It Think It’s Time For A Friend Purge

I’m stressed. I’m stressed and feel­ing rather down and under-appreciated and def­i­nitely not respected. See, I don’t have a lot of friends. I have kept my cir­cle small because there has always been drama when I was sur­rounded by too many. How­ever, the ones that I have are drop­ping the ball lately. They are treat­ing me like crap and it is finally start­ing to take its toll.

I am design­ing a web page for a , um, friend– have been for almost 6 months now. I’m not kid­ding. Com­pleted sites nor­mally take me about 2–4 weeks, but this one has been in progress for 6 months now. It’s not that I have been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing. I have been work­ing pretty much every day for more the 5 hours a day. Well, that is until recently. See, the friend is not pay­ing me. The friend is not pay­ing me at all. And despite my Virgo ten­den­cies to want every­thing to be per­fect, some­where in mid August I real­ized that this per­son is a taker. I real­ized that this per­son is not worth the stress. And while I am not going to stop (I’ve put too much work in this), I just don’t care any­more. The site will not func­tion well because this per­son does not respect my exper­tise in a field that I have been learn­ing for the last 10 years. This per­son does not want to com­pro­mise and, so, I will do what is wanted despite what I know is best. In addi­tion, this site is for a busi­ness and while I am bust­ing my ass to get this site up and run­ning, I know that the owner is not will­ing to do what it takes to get the busi­ness going. I know that it will never be suc­cess­ful. And so be it.

But what both­ers me the most is that the per­son I am VOLUNTEERING my ser­vices to, has no regard for my per­sonal time or space. The late night phone calls, the annoyed tone when I don’t jump when asked, lack of con­cern for what is going on in my life has made me pon­der if it is in my best inter­est to con­tinue the friend­ship at all.

And then, there are my other so-called friend (my in-real-life-friends). It seems that since every one knows that I am no longer teach­ing and am doing web and print design for a liv­ing, I am expected to do things for free. I  get emails like the ones below. They are actual emails that I have received in the last week.

Kristina,
My daugh­ter is hav­ing a birth­day party next month. I want you to make her invi­ta­tion. You don’t have to get a gift, just design the invi­ta­tion. Thanks! I need it by next Monday.

K–
I want to do a blog. Can you set it up for me. I know you must be bored being home. Just loook for some images for me and let me know what I owe you for them.

Hey girl! What’s up? I miss you. Sorry I haven’t called or emailed before today. I need new busi­ness cards. You do that right? I was going to go to a ser­vice, but real­ized that I had an in with you.

I don’t mind help­ing peo­ple out, but it should not be expected. In fact, know­ing that I am no longer receiv­ing a steady pay­check should be rea­son enough for them NOT to ask me to pro­vide ser­vices for free. I swear I’m at the point where I DREAD check­ing my email. I mean I really dread it.

Of course, when I say “no” these poor excuses for friends are sud­denly too busy to talk. And when they do call, it is only to ask me for some­thing or to vent to me about their lives. God for­bid I need to vent– sud­denly the kids are call­ing, or the dog needs to be walked, or it’s too late.

The fact of the mat­ter is that the peo­ple who I call friends now are only con­cerned with one thing: them­selves. They don’t care what is going on in my life.

And that hurts.

I do, how­ever, have to say that I love my inter­net friends. Renee, who has never met me in real life, took time to send me a free­lance writ­ing job post­ing for edu­ca­tors sim­ply because she knew I needed money. She is will­ing to hold my hand on our flight to Dis­ney. Mommy at Mom­my­Daddy Blog offered to help me learn to make money off of my blog although we have never met. When I was preg­nant and on bed rest for 5 months and com­pletely stressed it was not my so-called friends who soothed my fears. Kris­ten, Mom-101, and Ninja Poo­dles took me under their wings. They talked me through some tough times.

I guess there are still nice peo­ple in the world. I just wish they lived closer. LOL.

September 5th, 2008

I’m a WHAM (Emphasis on the “Work”)

When we decided that it was worth it– me giv­ing the web design busi­ness a real shot– we also decided that it would behoove us if I did not work out­side of the home. After all, it was way too expen­sive to pay for child-care and my hubby under­stood that I was not happy under the circumstances.

The plan was as follows:

(1) I would work part-time (1 day a week) out­side of the home at my cur­rent place of employ­ment just to ensure a steady income on my part.

(2) I would bust my butt to build my business.

It was a sim­ple plan, right? But hubby and I recently had a lit­tle spat about the roles that we would now play. Specif­i­cally, th “you’re home now so you do the house­work,” com­ment sent this Mom on the Rise down a war-path.

After I man­aged to keep from rip­ping my hubby’s heart out, I decided to explain the dif­fer­ence between a WAHM and a SAHM.

“Let’s get this straight. A SAHM does not find ways to bring money into the house. She works with what the fam­ily has and takes care of the domes­tic duties. A WAHM can­not do both alone. She can­not focus on bring­ing money in AND take care of all the house­hold duties. It’s unfair to assume that would be the way things will work. We are both work­ing Par­ents and we are both respon­si­ble for the house­work. If you want me to do it all, that is fine– I will be a SAHM, but don’t look to me to being in any extra money– that is all on you.”

It did not sit to well with him, at least I don’t think it did. But what I know is that WAHM can­not and should not be expected to carry such a heavy load on their own. When we got mar­ried we both agreed that if we work then we would split the house­hold respon­si­bilites 50/50. Why should that change? Yes, I am home. But I am home try­ing to build a busi­ness while tak­ing care of a 29 month-old while he is at work. Is it too much to ask for him to help with the laun­dry? The bath­room? I think not.