did i ever tell u guys that in fifth grade my class wrote a play bc we were studying ancient greece? it was called persephone and the (not so hot) heroes. i played demeter. basically, persephone got kidnapped by kronos and i strong armed hades into giving me 3 heroes from the underworld to get her back but they were actually terrible and i forget how she was actually saved but bottom line is that you wish you were my fifth grade class
this wasn’t little either, we used the town hall and we wore togas and shit
me as demeter
some lines (this was a joint effort of a bunch of greek-savvy 10/11 year olds):
athena: ‘im the goddess of wisdom but you don’t notice me telling everyone. i’m too smart for that’
-
aphrodite: is zeus chasing some mortal woman again?
athena: no this time he and hera have gone for marriage counselling
-
athena: we can ask hades to let them out of the underworld to help
aphrodite: he’ll never agree, he’s such a deadly bore (we made a fucking pun im so angry)
-
demeter: hades wont pick up. he’s too busy torturing the dead in tartarus
-
hades: i can’t undo the laws of death. just think of the paperwork.
-
aphrodite: the humidity is messing up my hair. it’s getting all frizzy
athena: is that all you care about?
aphrodite: no, it’s also messing up my dress
-
demeter: it’s so dark, and there aren’t any trees or flowers
hades: what do we need trees for, everybody’s dead
-
paris: yeah, and i can shoot straight! isn’t that right, achilles?
-
(hades enters)
paris: who are you? do we know you?
-
achilles: im mighty achilles
odysseus: im wily odysseus
paris: and im hungry paris
-
kronos: i really am awesome, aren’t i
-
aeton: one wrong move and you’re history
odysseus: fool! we already are history!
-
demeter: where are those mortals? i left them right there.
athena: are you sure? this isnt the first time you’ve lost someone.
I suddenly have the need for the entire screenplay, and to direct it at my college.
These are funnier than literally any retelling I have ever done and I’m not even mad about it.
Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”
I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.
I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”
Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.
Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.
It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.
It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.
Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:
Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.
Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.
Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for - surprise surprise - depression.
Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”
TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:
Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.
Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.
I love this post.
Too many parents wonder why their kids aren’t honest with them, and never realize their own non-receptive behavior and their failure to listen are the reasons why.
At one point or another, a child WILL keep a secret from you, but if it’s to a point where all their emotional feelings are being poured away from you as opposed to toward you, it’s probably because you haven’t been emotionally trustworthy or open.
Adultism :(
not to mention, you then take away one of your child’s coping mechanisms. if your parents read your journal, you’re never writing in it again. if your parents monitor your conversations with friends, you won’t tell them when you’re depressed anymore. if you have a therapist that reports what you say to your parents, you won’t tell that therapist anything. now all those methods of venting, feeling better, self-soothing, sorting out your issues, and feeling safe are gone.
“i want information” is not synonymous with “i want my child to talk to me.” those are two separate goals, but i think parents conflate them – i want my child to talk to me, but since they won’t, i’m stealing information from them. no. you didn’t ever want them to talk to you. you wanted information. if you wanted them to talk to you, if that was your entire end goal, you would have approached things completely differently. stealing information from a child ensures they will never talk to you again. but if all you want is information, then you can take it however you want and call it a parenting success.
if what you wanted was a child who talks to you, you would apply the same principles you do to literally any other human interaction in your life, and cultivate a relationship and trust.
I had to stifle my horror and revulsion at my last job, when a conversation about removing the door from a child’s bedroom came up, and I was only one not in favor of it.
May be worth noting I was the only millennial in a conversation that was otherwise full of baby boomers.
When a child starts to not tell you things, do NOT just start pressuring them or going behind their back. If it’s something like Depression and/or other mental illnesses that you think they have and they tell you they’re fine. DO NOT start to observe their every move. Try to explore another way to ask the question.
Also if you are never around your child, the worst way to try and repair that broken bond it to snoop around their things. If you want them too talk and respect you, then you need to earn it. I don’t care who you are, your child doesn’t owe you anything, least of all respect if you haven’t earned it.
I’m gonna add and bold this too to sum up a very important point just in case people still don’t understand:
Kids aren’t inherently sneaky but they become so if you violate their privacy because each person deserves a safe place to vent to breathe and to live away from judgemental adult bias.
It gives them autonomy to be able to give them a small space with a diary, journal and friends where you don’t monitor them and trust me, you’ll know when something is wrong based on behavioral differences and only then is that your opportunity to approach them with the topic to be like hey can we talk I noticed these things, what’s going on?
This gives them space to tell you or not tell you but more often then not if you’ve allowed them that separation of space and allowed them that semblance of autonomy, they’re 10000% more likely to be real and honest with you because they know you’re doing this out of love and care instead of out of the need for control over their lives.
Kids and teenagers need space away from parents prying eyes. It’s natural for their development, too!
Policing every little thing they do never let’s them have a chance to experience their own thoughts and form their own opinions so they’ll hide it and the only opinions they’ll have of you is that you didn’t care enough to respect them as a person.
Don’t be the commanding overseer, be a parent or guardian the child can look up to and trust.
ok but what if like. werewolves transform under the full moon but theres just this one and by day hes a big tough guy and then when he transforms hes a tiny dog. just fucking. just fucking turns into the tiniest, fluffiest dog
imagine that howling at the moon
imagine
Truly a ferocious predator.
And lastly: (He’s the pack leader obviously)
the big wolves are his younger sisters
Okay I’ve literally reblogged this prob a hundred times but it’s the best post ever so here we are again.
this has over a million notes and ive n e v e r seen it before what corner of tumblr did this crawl out from?
Someone may have done this already, but here’s the members of Queen T-posing and asserting their dominance over the record industry.
News Anchor in my area loses it over a Fat Cat that likes to swim.
I don’t know what’s funnier, how she said physical activities or the snort.
I love how she gradually loses it. She gives it her best try and then you can just hear where her composure starts breaking down.
i always lose it when her voice trips into the fifth dimension as she says physical activities
This made my day so much fucking better
My fucking roomba woke me up at 5 am to tell me she’s stuck near a cliff.
The base of the fan counts as a cliff now, i see.
He was very scared
save him
I’m dying
if 👏 you 👏 haven’t 👏 seen 👏 the 👏 best 👏 phil-holly-gino 👏 moment 👏 you 👏 need 👏 to 👏 right 👏 now 👏