i was brought up Unitarian Universalist, which is a fancy way of saying i was pretty much brought up with no religion. there are a lot of things i like about UU beliefs, but i don’t think it’s a great way of raising children.
it seems to me that some cultures do a better job of raising children in this crazy dangerous modern american world than others. the amish, orthodox jews, and muslims, for example. oh, and mormons. it seems to me that all these cultures raise children that are smart, hard working, and able to resist the excesses of our culture.
but what on earth do you do if you were raised UU and don’t believe all the outlandish crap that goes along with those cultures? if converting is unthinkable? i have found a solution!
make up a culture to bring your kids up in. call it whatever you like. “blueish” for instance. then you can make up all sorts of crazy rules, things like no television, no alcohol, no barbie dolls. you can tell your children what a hard working studious people you belong to. if they want to know where the other blueish are, make up an “old country” and maybe throw in a genocide to explain how few of you there are. for a laugh you can even come up with some ridiculous traditional costume and then laugh to yourself as you send your son to school in a long dress, or force your daughter to wear a silly hat at all times. and unlike any of the pre-existing cultures you can sneak in progressive values, like equality of the sexes and independant thought.
now, certainly one downside is that you’ll have to follow all the rules you come up with yourself. but the beauty of the scheme is that rather than being a strict and unfair parent you can blame all your rules and requirements on your culture. you can bring your child up with a feeling of pride in their non-existent heritage, and if you construct your story carefully enough they may never figure out that their “culture” was a total fantasy from the beginning!
yups, it’s genius i know. too bad i’m not planning on ever having kids, huh?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anorexia, eating disorders, mamavision, pro-ana
got a reply from mamavision, which was nice i guess. its weird in these sorts of situations where i know i was sort of acting-out. is it better for it to just fade away or to at least be acknowledged? on the one hand, everone wants to be acknowledged. on the other i can’t help but be embarassed at my need to pick fights with well-meaning people. if only i were content to rail at the bush administration for the iraq war!
so, i went back and read enough to be sure i have my facts straight. ms. mamavision has a degree in broadcast journalism, and she works in sales (raking in the big bucks- but she still needs her teenage readers allowance money, natch). no wonder she’s so good at getting attention! she’s not just some well meaning, wholesome mom- she’s a pro. i’m not saying that her being a pro makes her a bad person, but she isn’t unskilled in the ways of all things media.
so why does her blog rub me the wrong way?
1. i feel talked down to. when i read her blog i feel like women in general and anorexics in particular are patronised. for instance, she implies that women are mindless zombie victims of the fashion world. as a former model perhaps she has an inflated view of how influential models are in the wider world?
2. she takes and uses pictures from pro-ana sites. once you post your pictures they’re out there for anyone to use however they like, sure. that doesn’t make it RIGHT for someone to take them and use them without the person’s knowledge or permission. she only takes pictures of the sickest girls, which are a tiny minority, and she often subtly mocks the pictures and puts down the people in them. i can’t help wondering, is she trying to help heal girls involved in pro-ana? or just to make fun of them? if you’re victimising the very community you turn around and claim to want to help i think you’re suspect.
3. people fawn over her. i made a small criticism in a comment on her blog post about “child” models and like 5 people immediately responded to contradict me, one of them casting aspersions on my intelligence! you read comments from people who are suffering with eds on her blog and they’re like hi mamav this is my very sad story please help me please respond! it isn’t her fault that people leave those sorts of comments, but the thought that they could find some sort of help from this woman, that this chick has any kind of wisdom or answers for them, it makes my stomach crawl a bit. go to your friends, your family, a doctor, a minister, a therapist, anything for gods’ sake but not some random blogger who makes fairly obvious points about modern culture and claims to care about people with eds.
4. she doesn’t know shit about a real eating disorder. ok, i admit this one is partly speculation. but for her to say “i’ve been there” seems like a HUGE stretch to me. as far as i can tell she got into modelling, had a fairly brief period of eating disordered behavior in furtherance of her career, and was able to leave that behavior behind without too much trouble. as someone who has lost jobs, friends, lovers, and educational opportunities to my eating disorder that sure seems like ED-lite to me. i make an informal distinction between hardcore eds which are resistant to treatment, and light eds which go away after the first round of treatment, or without any treatment at all. one of the reasons i don’t worry overly much about the impact of pro-ana is that i think most people have ed-lite, which means that they’ll soon come to their senses and be fine. as opposed to hardcore eds which will exist regardless of whatever is or isn’t on the internet.
so, do i think this chick is a bad person? probably not. but i think she is self-promoting, opportunistic, and patronising, and i don’t think she ever had an ed the way i have an ed. i don’t think she thinks through her arguments most of the time, and i think her use of pictures off pro-ana sites is a low blow.
***UPDATE!!!***
looks like mamavision plans to use her donations to market her book and speaking tour! dude, this is pretty hilarious, isn’t it? when i put in the stuff about her being self-promoting i felt like i was going out on a bit of a limb, but i thought what the hell, it’s a blog no one reads, who cares? but now that she’s suggested using the money to promote herself i can’t help but consider myself prescient!
here at some more of god’s biggest mistakes we spot your character flaws before you even exhibit them!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anorexia, eating disorders, mamavision, pro-ana, somethingfishy
i guess i’m just a complete asshole. i mean, what’s next, my deciding that i am morally opposed to motherhood and apple pie?
i HATE somethingfishy.org. Somethingfishy is an eating disorder recovery website, and it has a forum on it. i was a member of the forum after i left my first pro-ana forum, and i HATED it. it was moderated and censored beyond belief. my specific problem at the time was that i had come to feel very comfortable in my pro-ana forum and i had made a lot of friends there, but i was trying to recover. could i discuss this on somethingfishy? nope. the site forbade any mention whatsoever of pro-ana websites, lest some innocent young thing be led to them by the mere mention of their existence. so my post was locked when i simply tried describing my problem, without mentioning a specific site, or even the actual phrase “pro-ana”. during my time there i had several clashes with the mods, not for violating rules but because if i disagreed with something one of them said i made my case and didn’t back down. this didn’t go over well, and to my knowledge no one else on the site at the time ever disagreed with a mod over anything.
then eventually, after i had mostly stopped going to the forum, somethingfishy was bought out by some corporation that owned a bunch of ed recovery and addiction recovery hospitals. ok, i’m sorry, but that is something DAMN fishy. creepy and unwholesome, for an ed recovery forum to be owned by a for-profit business.
and while we are on the subject of those in the “recovery” business. dont they make their money on us ed sufferers or alchoholics or drug addicts going back into them over and over and over again? wouldnt they lose like half their business if everyone actually got better and never went back after treatment? so what possible incentive is there for them to create a truly effective program???? no wonder relapse rates are so high, out treaters get PAID for our relapses.
anywaysie what brings this little rant on was that i’ve now just picked a fight with this mamavision chick twice. the first i had a sort of point, but i was partly being an asshole. but the second time i was honestly pissed off. this chick has a blog that is part anti-fashion indstry and part anti-ana. which is fine. she claims to want to be some sort of voice of reason to the pro-ana community, which i think is bullshit since i’m perfectly capable of reason on my own- but seeing as most of pro-ana are 13 year old wannabe morons i’m sure they could use a voice of reason.
no, what pissed me off is that this chick is asking for donations to keep her blog going. why does this bother me? well, from what i’ve read she is a journalist. and in the post where she asked for donations she also mentioned that she’s been approached about writing a book based on her blog. she is obviously a pro and perfectly capable of taking her anti-pro-ana bullshit and turning it into financial opportunities for herself. sure, she might have to pay to keep her website going, but aren’t there startup costs associated with any small business? but no, instead of writing her little book and using the money to support the website she goes and asks her 13 year old anorexic moron readership for the money. wtf? what do they get out of it, while she gets fame and fortune by being the “voice of reason” for the pro-ana movement.
on behalf of the pro-ana movement (which i have absolutely no right to speak for) i say: screw you, lady.
***EDIT: ok, when i wrote this i had never had a comment on my blog, but now that it’s gotten a teeny bit of attention i wanted to go back and just say that i don’t think most people on pro-ana are morons, and i don’t think all 13 or 14 year olds are morons. i do think pro-ana has more than its share of morons (and 13 year olds) but certainly it isnt everyone or every 13 year old. also, from what i can tell of mamavision’s readership, she has fewer morons and 13 year olds than pro-ana does, but she still has more than her fair share of anorexic morons, and at least half her readers are under 20***
i have totally failed at keeping this blog up! but i have lost quite a bit of weight, about 30 pounds or so. now i’m 144. but i started throwing up my food a couple months ago and i’ve gotten stuck on that bulimic thing, trying to get back to pure restricting but so far its only half the time that i can make it through the day with no purge
