⚠️ 🚨 Warning 🚨 ⚠️

This post is entirely too long and I know it. But I think it all needs to be said so here we go….

The actual story is often missed when emotions get involved. We act out of passion & not out of knowledge. No one is perfect. That concept applies to me as well. And because of these human flaws, I do believe a little back story is overdue.

I grew up on a farm. I have one brother and two sisters. I am the youngest of us 4 and my brother is the oldest. My parents were both stay at home farm parents & we grew up living a very happy life down on the farm. As each of us grew, we trended in the way most siblings do. We picked on each other. We had each other’s backs when we accidentally knocked the Christmas tree over when my parents were gone but, for the most part, we picked on each other. We purposely picked my oldest sister last to be on our team and dared each other to touch wasps. And the list goes on. And amongst that list you will find playful banter among siblings. My sisters & I often teased my brother that he smelled like chickens & his hands were permanently going to turn black if he didn’t invest in soap soon. And the favor was often returned in smug looks that were shot our way when he got to pull the tractor in or when we all partook in batting practice and he always hit the ball the farthest because “he’s a boy and boys are strong”. Our mild competitive streaks & smack talking never suggested that we ever believed one gender was better than the other. We all had our turns in the tractor & we all talked about how we drove it the best. We all had our turns planting the garden and sweeping the aisles of the chicken house. Because no jobs were gender specific. All could be done in a dress or a pair of blue jeans. And my parents didn’t care as long as the jobs got done.

Fast forward to today. My kids are growing up on a farm. I have a boy and two girls. My husband and I both work full time outside the farm during the day but still come home to work full time on the farm every night & our children are living a very happy life down on the farm. Just as my husband & I did when we were kids. And even more similarly, there is playful banter amongst my children. My 3 year old daughter tells my son he smells like cow poop almost every night and my son often brags that he got to ride in the semi today. These inside jokes and teasings do not leave our family & my children are kind and respectful little beings. In terms of gender, my kids know that there are boys & that there are girls but that’s about it. And that’s a belief preference. It’s not that we don’t know that there are people out there who don’t identify as one gender or the other. We do. But in our faith, there is man & woman. That’s it. And our faith has yet to let us down so it does not deserve for us to turn our back on it due to one discrepancy. Anyways, back to the point, my daughters enjoy running up & down the aisles in the cow barn just as much as my son does and my son enjoys helping me make lemonade or bake a batch of cookies just as much as my daughters do. And no matter what job they do, they both enjoy egging each other on (My oldest two anyways. Our youngest can’t talk beyond simple words yet. She’s one). Neither of them see gender as a factor to jobs or smells as it is just something they say to get a rise out of each other. All comments are totally appropriate in regards to our way of life and our children’s ages. Our children are the ones who are telling us who they are, despite what many of you reading this may think. My son gravitated towards tractors & trucks & cows before crawling but that doesn’t mean you won’t catch him playing baby dolls, house or dress up with his sisters. My daughter could pick out the color pink before she could walk & you’ll often find the clothes she has picked out for herself to wear for the day will either involve pink, sparkles, a dress or a combination of all 3. In her entire wardrobe actually. But that doesn’t mean you’ll never catch her in the barn or climbing the gravel pile. Because my kids are growing up knowing that anything they want to do, even if it’s seen as gender specific to some, to go ahead and do it. Because they understand tomorrow might not give you an option to do it and that is something they’ve witnessed first hand.

Fast forward even further to my potty training post in which I told my daughter that if she can’t pee on the potty like a big girl than she can no longer dress like a big girl. She would have to dress & wear her hair like a boy. And I told her the clothes would turn her into a “boy”. So I changed her out of her wet underpants & her wet dress and put her in her big brothers plain grey shirt, her cousins navy pants & pulled her hair up in a bun. And my daughter became upset about it. Which was intended by my words & actions. That does not make me a monster of a parent. Actions with consequences as a disciplinary choice has been around for centuries and many wonderful & influential people have been raised that way. Yes, “bad” people have been raised that way too, but the same can be said in regards to a more relaxed parenting approach. This approach does not make me a “lazy” parent or mean I deserve for “my children to be taken away from me” or that I “should probably have a hysterectomy because I do not deserve to have any more kids”. Yes. Those were actual messages & comments that were said to me. Anyways, not the point of this post. I just want to say that I did intend for her to correlate not peeing on the potty with not being treated like the big kid SHE BELIEVES she is. A big girl to be exact. Because she values being a girl over being “big” by her own choice. And if you had to take one away, a parenting style I believe in, she could live with not being seen as “big” any day of the week if she got to keep her dresses. So I took away something she loves. Her dresses and her pigtails. I didn’t take away her identity in the least bit. And any person who actually knows me and my family, that has followed my page for longer than 3 hours or 3 days, and have seen multiple posts & pictures with her in them can attest to that. This little girl is a girly girl through & through & putting her in sweats & a tee is below the last thing that could change that. Me telling her she’s now boy does not make her a boy in her mind. I could tell her she’s a mermaid, and she can dress like a mermaid, and we can pretend she’s a mermaid, but she know she’s Mya. And the minute she’s done playing pretend she will come find me and tell me “I’m not a princess anymore. I’m Mya” or “I’m not a cowboy anymore. I’m Mya”. So no matter what anyone, including her own family, tells her what she is, unicorn, princess, or boy, she knows who she is. She is Mya. The girliest of girls that can rock purple sparkly boots in the deepest of cow poop & can make literally anything look cute. Including her brothers shirt that was a bit too big & her cousins pants.

And to those who think that because my daughter correlates looking like a boy to smelling like cow poop means we are belittling the male sex and making my son feel small have also just proved they know very little about myself or my family or my page & what its purpose is. I have had numerous posts exclaiming that I could not do what I am doing without my son or husband because they are amazing. And my son is five so I think that says a lot about his character and the person we are raising. But the actual correlation arises when you come back full circle in a regards to playful banter. My daughter puts “dress like a boy” in the same category as “smell like a boy”. She’s a 3 year old girl. And in her world, boys DO smell like cow poop! Or at least like a barn. Her Dad & her brother practically come in the house every single night smelling like something farm related. Her Grandpa on both sides either smell like chicken or cows on the daily. Her boy cousins all are from families that raise livestock & help out on farm. So “smelling like cow poop” is not a bad thing! Do my kids say “ew” and think it’s funny? Of course. It’s poop. But as an adult we know all the hard work it takes out there. Or at least I hope so because it does not deserve to go unnoticed. However, according to her princess shows that SHE PICKS out, princesses don’t smell like cow poop. So that’s my thought process when my princess want-to-be girly girl wet her pants, again. I chose to take her out of her girly girl clothes and put her in what I call at my house, boy clothes. I view it no differently than taking away a favorite doll or a monster truck. I don’t think I should have just let her run around in no clothes at all and leaving her in her wet clothes isn’t a disciplinary action I partake in. We already have her clean up her accidents & we discuss why peeing in our pants isn’t something to be proud of & we ask her what happened in order for her to have an accident (did she just not make it in time? Did she forget? Etc.) EVERY TIME it happens. Which many of my real followers know.

Now, for the part that all these new “followers” are looking for. An apology. I do agree an apology should be made to all members of the Trans community. I did not mean to unintentionally offend anyone with my course of disciplinary action. And I am incredibly sorry for any sorrow it may have caused you or someone you love. I’m also sorry that I did not provide enough detail in my original post for all that do not know me. The world is made up with way more people than just the little following on this page. A following that generally knows me, or get me, or are in or know someone in a similar situation such as my own. And the more people you have reading a post, the more ideas & perspectives there are. And I apologize that I did not take all perspectives beyond my own, or those similar to mine, into account before sharing my post. My disciplinary actions have obviously offended more than a handful of people. And I apologize for the extra worry that my post has caused you. But I can assure you that I have 3 very happy, very healthy, emotionally intact, loved little people living under my care. And if wasn’t for safety & privacy concerns, I could prove that to a number of you beyond some words and a picture.

Anyways, I hope this cleared up the mud puddle that was created after the potty training post. I’ve learned a few things first hand off this particular post that I will be sure to teach my children & any other blogger that comes to me for advice. So for that I thank the commenters & private messagers despite some of the select words & phrases that they chose to use. I hope each one of you can rest peacefully tonight knowing you said your peace. And for the moms that the post was meant to encourage, you’re not alone. I know mommin’ ain’t easy and I know some days are wayyyy harder than the rest. But I want you to know that those little eyes aren’t focusing on your frustrations or your under eye bags. They see a mom or parent that loves them and cares for them and has impromptu picnics on the porch just to make them happy. So you’re doing a good job. I hope you know that.

#TheOneLeggedMommy #BeKind