Bones has been analyzed, Murdoch is still up in the air and Castle is still in the baby stage, so while we wait for a break I might have a little rant about another bug that gets up my nose. Labels.
We label everything around us. Working Mom’s, Home Makers, Writers, Doctors, Lawyers… you name it we have a label for it and a nice little pigeon hole to put them in, and most of the time they fit in there quite perfectly, but what about those that don’t? Why do we get to decide what the norm is or what is not?
Take writing, I am a writer, I classify myself as a writer and have done since I finished my first novel, IMO since I did complete it (ie. sweated blood to get almost every word out!!) that makes me a writer. I am not an Author, I would only earn that title if I became published, but I can live with that.
However I can not live with other people trying to shove me into a box I don’t fit into. In all truth I have lost friends over this and it still smarts to this day. I don’t write every day, I don’t hound the web looking for publishers or agents, I don’t sign up for every writing course I can find and… I occasionally write fanfiction. Now there are many writers out there that will slam me for that, I have been told it’s not real writing and I should concentrate on my novels (I have to-date completed six full length novels) instead of playing with someone else's toys. And I can not call myself a writer unless I write every day.
As D would say “true story!”
It’s rubbish of course, and while I am old enough to know its all some bitter twisted individuals who think that their way of looking at the world is of course the only right way and spend the majority of their lives policing those of us that dance to a different beat, it still gives me pause. I have lived a very unusual life, raise four children and am now a grandmother, so I really couldn't give a monkeys left nut what other people think I should be or do, but there are younger writers who would care, and who would be damaged by this kind of totalitarian attitude. And that does not just apply to writers, young mothers are particularly vulnerable. They have everything stacked against them already before the baby is even born, every book, magazine article, friendly neighbor or family member will have different idea’s and opinions what the mother-to-be should do and how she should do it, and a lot of them get very pushy about it.
My daughter smoked during both her pregnancies, did I approve of it? Of course not. She’s read the books, heard it from her OBGYN. I’m not going to waste my breath barking up that tree. Do I give her advise, yeah, but I'm also very quick to tell her that if she feels I’m being pushy she should tell me to back off, and I meant it.
Which brings me to my point, people are different, they walk different, talk different, look different and smell different.. Why the fuck should they all act the same?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… it’s probably a Goose, leave it the fuck alone.
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