Letters to My Daughter: Yesterday, I Marched

By Riot Trrrt

Posted on January 22, 2017

To My Lovely Daughter,

Yesterday, I marched with 250,000 at a Woman’s March, held on the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.   I marched because an irrational, childlike bigot who brags about sexual predation and flip-flops on abortion rights was just elected to office.  I marched because I’ve never understood how people don’t see a connection between women’s rights and abortion rights.  I marched because I hated feeling substandard for being a girl in college.  I marched for everytime a man cut me off or talked down to me when having a political argument.  I marched because I hate the idea of you growing up with a president who brags about groping women.  I marched because I hate the fact that I was groped one night in a bar and I froze.  I marched because I’m tired.  I’m tired of having to justify being mad, being heard, being female. 

I will never consider it a dirty word to be a feminist, the same way it will never be a dirty word to be Muslim, Jewish, black, white, or poor.  I will never consider it wrong for you to love pink.  I will play princesses with you.  I will play ninjas with you.  I will each you math.  I will do your hair, and I will teach you how to throw both softballs and a punches.

I will not teach you how to throw a football.  My spiral is nonexistent.  But I will find someone to do it when the time comes.  Try your father.   He might know.

I will teach you everything I can so that you never feel like you do not matter because you are a girl.  I will keep marching so that you will make the same amount of money as that bro you work with.  What I will not do is be quiet.  I will not sit down.  I will not shut up and I sure as hell will never back down from the fight. 

Yesterday, I looked around and realized I was surrounded with the young and old. With blacks, whites, and people of all sorts of other races.  With men.  With those who are transgender.  You’ve come with me on these marches before.  You came with me the last time I marched, when you were still in my belly.  Your little sibling was with me this time, but I waddled down the street with my head held high.  I felt guilty that I didn’t bring you this time, but I was afraid of something going wrong.  If something were to happen to me, I wanted you to be safe and grow up knowing that I went down fighting. 

Because that is what I do.  I fight.  It is what I will always do, and I do it because someday I hope that you won’t have to.  It blows my mind everyday that I’m still protesting this shit, but as long as I have to, I will fight.

Love,

Mom

About the Author:

A master of dry sarcasm, I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of knowledge and good music, subverting the system, celebrating good times, enjoying the weirdness of life, pointing out the ridiculous, and helping others. I consider myself a breaker of glass ceilings/chains, a fighter of equal rights, and a lover of chocolate chip cookies.

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Sorry Not Sorry: I'm Not Going To Straighten My Hair

By Riot Trrrt

Posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2016

“Your hair is so pretty! Have you ever thought about straightening it?”

For many people, that is a compliment. Yes, on the surface, you just told me my hair was pretty. According to girl code, that’s a baseline of small talk. If you had left it at that, it would not be an irritating statement.

When you have curly hair, people LOVE talking about your hair. From the time you are born, when people remark that your curls are beautiful, to elementary school, when kids tease you incessantly because you were the unfortunate singleton cursed with non-straight locks that your mom cut into a bowl of ugly crazy for some unknown reason, to junior high, when the other girls are constantly offering to gel and straighten your hair out of the goodness of their kind souls, but then laugh at you for looking different the minute you fall out of their good graces, to high school and adulthood where people constantly feel the need to discuss what you do with your hair and what you should be doing to make it actually be pretty. Yes. People love talking about your hair. Particularly while sticking their hands in it without permission. People love discussing where it comes from. Is it because you’re Irish? Is it because you not all of your ancestors are white? Inquiring minds need to know!

I was blessed to have the particular kind of curly hair that refuses to cooperate under most circumstances. I inherited it from my father, so my poor mom had no idea how to deal with her daughter’s coarse, thick, tangly mane. To cut down on time spent brushing my hair, she cut it into a bob in first grade that lead to three years of kids laughing at my general appearance. It didn’t really help that there was one other girl in my school with thick hair, who was mocked even more than I for her general ugliness. I never thought she was ugly, she just looked different, like me. I'd sheepishly defend her, and people would look at me like I was insane for thinking she was anything but strange, despite looking quite similar to her.  

You see, despite a heavy marketing campaign that tells you otherwise, being different is considered a social faux pas among students in the microcosm of elementary school.  Kids can be great, but they can be awful, and my childhood was no different.  Just like every other kid, I wanted to be a regular kid.  One that was accepted by her peers.  I’m sure that my other generally strange mannerisms and habits, in addition to my being a neurotic know-it-all didn’t really help my social status, but having an easy insult placed upon my head definitely set me into a lower social caste to begin with.

By the time I reached junior high, I had begun perfecting my outwardly visible lack of really caring about what my peers thought. For whatever reason, my winning personality had made me more acceptable amongst the pretty girls, although I highly doubt any of them truly considered myself a friend. They often spoke with me with a tone of pity, offering to do my hair for me, since they apparently knew better. While they were doing my hair, they would always try to commiserate about their own hair troubles, about how they actually had really curly hair (curls that I never saw, it looked pretty darn straight to me). Because their hair always ended up straight, it always seemed like curliness was considered a defect that some people were able to mask, like acne being covered with makeup and pudginess being eliminated with crash diets. When they were finished, I never really felt that my hair looked particularly different when they were done, but I did feel like that week’s charity case. 

My own group of friends was actually fairly awesome towards me, but in true junior high form, whenever we would argue, their first line of attack was to comment on my inherent ugliness in the form of insults about my hair texture. I put on a brave face. I laughed it off when people pointed out that one curl was doing something especially weird. I pretended to not care when people pulled curls and yelled “Boing!” (seriously, don’t stick your hands in people’s hair). I acted like “Wow, you should really just straighten your hair” wasn’t an insulting thing to say to a person.

High school was more of the same.  By then I had some control over the curls via a system of hair gel and braiding while my hair dried.  Still, it was curly.   I was invisible to the male species, except as being their awesome friend. As a sort of defense mechanism, I became more a “dude’s chick”, because if they weren’t going to want to sleep with me, it would be nice if they at least wanted to hang out with me more than the other girls. I still remained a sort of whipping girl amongst my female friends. It was the 90s, the time of the short bob, and my hair just didn’t allow me to conform. I took more of a punk/hippie stance to my appearance. If I couldn’t make it behave, I’d at least have it be long and streaked with whatever color I wanted.  I could at least pretend that my appearance was a little bit intentional.

My school was quite small and 99% white. From a young age we were taught that you would never mock someone for being special needs, a different color, or a different religion. However, less obvious differences were fair game. To this date, one of the most Mean Girls moments of my life occurred in my sophomore year, when I walked into school and up to my friends one morning. I said hello, and a girl who was usually nice to me turned around and said, “If I were you, I’d just shave my head”, before turning back to her conversation. It was in front of everyone.  Everyone heard.  I responded with, “Thank you?” and walked away, hearing just one person saying, “Hey, that was kind of mean”, but being followed by nobody. That’s how it was in high school. At that point in my life, I was used to people randomly touching my hair (but please, really, get your hands out of my hair). I was used to them pointing out that it didn’t curl uniformly. I was used to boys pulling it because they were being “funny”. Whether I wanted it or not, curly hair had started to become a part of my identity. Being told to shave my head by a friend as a part of general morning pleasantries was too much.  Even worse, nobody else seemed to think anything of it.  I made it through the school day, went home and cried.  Later on, people came to me and said they thought that the girl was really horrible for saying that.  It didn't change the fact that nobody really stuck up for me.  The damage was done.

By my junior year, I’d had enough. I decided one day to try straightening my hair. Armed with my friend’s 2” barrel, we spent an hour going through each lock of my hair. Imagine my surprise when it suddenly looked like everybody else’s hair! This would show them! I really wasn’t that different. When I showed up to school, I got the most compliments of any day of my life. I assumed that would happen, because I agreed, it looked good. I was not prepared for the added “compliments” that accompanied 50% of the responses:

   “You should do that all of the time!
   “You’d only have to do it every three days, and it would look so good!”
   “It looks so normal!”
   “It’s so much better this way!”

That day, something inside of me changed. I had spent 17 years of my life being someone with curly hair. Whether I liked it or not, I had hair that was different, and it was mine. Yes, I looked different than normal when my hair was straight. Telling me that I needed to look different than myself as the norm was so insulting, and they didn’t even realize it. For years, I had accepted their insults as the natural order. It made sense to insult curly hair, because hair should it be straight. For whatever reason, being told that I could be just like everyone else if only I changed this one feature of me was the ultimate insult.

This lead to the ultimate moment of teenage introspection.  If I was a 90's movie, there would be a Gin Blossoms song playing in the background while I wandered aimlessly for a night.  Who cared if my hair was different? Why was that so wrong? The fact was that it wasn't wrong.  If people didn't understand that, they were jerks.  I straightened my hair a few times after that, always to the same reaction. After the novelty wore off, I saved straight hair only for dances, times when people would go to the salon for fancy hair anyway. My prom pictures had me rocking some natural curls, and I looked beautiful.

I soon left for college, where I went to a large state school. I suddenly went from being a girl nobody noticed to being a girl boys liked. Every guy I dated had a thing for chicks with curly hair. For the first time, my hair wasn’t a liability with the boys. For the first time, people didn’t really care (not that I was going to change it anyway). The first time I went to the East Coast, everyone made sure to point out if something contained pork. After a day of this, I asked my friend why, and she said it was because I looked like a stereotypical Jewish girl. What? I look like other people? I’m not a weirdo? That was the moment I realized I was never moving back home. I would never be a novelty again.

After all was said and done, the moment I finally felt truly at peace with my appearance happened because of an interaction with a 9-year old. It came randomly while I was working with her at a camp. She reached into my hair, petted it, and said, “Hey! You have ‘mixie hair’ like me! We could be sisters!”. She then pulled her hand out and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t touch it. You should never grab other people’s hair. I hate that.” This five second reaction remains one of my favorite life moments.

Now I’m old. Most of my childhood neuroses are gone. The only time I get annoyed now is when I go to a salon for my hair being highlighted. It always leads to two hours of people first discussing how my hair looks when its brushed out (spoiler: large), then discussing how dry my hair is, then realizing it isn’t really unhealthy (it was just brushed out while dry), and then telling me that they are really great at styling curly hair (maybe, but not mine). Also, have I thought of the Keratin treatments or a Brazilian Blow-Out? I’ve solved that with going to a salon that specializes in curly hair. It’s worth it to not have to have a two hours of feeling like a corkscrewed frizzy side-show attraction. Sometimes if I’m feeling generous, I let the stylist straighten my hair. 

But no, I’m not going to straighten it all of the time. This hair is mine. And seriously, get your hands out of it. 

About the Author:  

A master of dry sarcasm, I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of knowledge and good music, subverting the system, celebrating good times, enjoying the weirdness of life, pointing out the ridiculous, and helping others. I consider myself a breaker of glass ceilings/chains, a fighter of equal rights, and a lover of chocolate chip cookies.

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Full Bellies: 9 lb 5 oz

By Riot Trrrt
Posted on Monday, June 27th, 2016

“She’s 9 lbs 5 oz!”

Normally that statement would be a sound of joy. You hear that sentence and you picture a crying baby covered in goo, a crying mother, a proud father, doctors, nurses, and maybe even a machine that goes, “Bing!” 9 lb 5 oz is a healthy newborn weight, a big baby. Something that makes you view a mother as one with a vagina of steel.  

“What?”

9 lbs 5 oz is a great weight for a baby born prematurely. For a baby born at 4 pounds, they have now officially more than doubled their birth weight. What a great mother! She must have toiled for hours in the NICU, carefully feeding, worrying about her little baby. At four months, that NICU baby has grown so much. That baby is surely on track to do wonderful things.

“I’m going to go get the doctor.”

My baby was not born prematurely. She was born at 39 weeks and 2 days. She was not born weighing 9 lbs 5 oz. She was born weighing 8 lbs 3 oz. At her four month check up, she had only gained 1 lb. It was official. For the first four months of her life, my daughter had failed to thrive.

How did this happen? How could I let my daughter all but starve? I was not some dumb young uneducated teen mom. I was in my 30s. I work with children. I call DCFS on children who exhibit signs of neglect. Was I neglecting my child? Was I evil? What was wrong with me? Was something wrong with her?

I went into pregnancy with a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards breastfeeding. If I had learned anything throughout my short time in this life, it was that God laughs at me anytime I plan on doing something. I had assumed purely because God had made everything else complicated, it would most likely take us years to get pregnant. I was wrong. I assumed I would have a problematic pregnancy. Other than my pelvis trying to fall apart (stupid hormones), it was cool. I assumed labor would go horribly awry and I’d have a c-section and all of my organs removed due to complications. Other than the fact that I was almost forced to have a natural childbirth (another story for another day), it was cool. I ended up with a baby. We were both healthy. Neat. I convinced myself that the only way to get breastfeeding to actually work would be to fully expect it not to.

I was never particularly attached to the idea of breastfeeding. When I was in my 20s, I asked one of my bosses why she was so into it. She held up her baby and said, “Well, it is kind of cool when you think, ‘Hey, I grew this human!” I could see her point. I understand science well enough to know that the benefits of breastfeeding are negligible, but I knew humanity well enough to know that people like to judge women who don’t try, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. I signed up for a two hour breastfeeding class offered through my hospital. I was nine months pregnant at the time, so I spent most of it having to pee and wanting to take a nap. The instructor kept talking about how fabulous the lactation consultants were at the hospital, so I figured it would all come together when the baby came.

When the baby came, the first thing they did was sit her on my chest. The nurses kept telling me to try to feed her. I had just pushed for two hours and really just wanted to hold this whimpery pile of baby that showed no interest in eating. I wanted some time with my kid. Instead, strangers were touching my breasts and grabbing my nipples. I really just wanted to be left alone.

For the first two days, I could barely get the baby interested in my boob. She would kind of eat, but she couldn’t latch. The nurses’ methods of helping mainly consisted of squeezing my nipples and telling me to try again in 15 minutes. On the second night, as I slept for two hours in a row, I was woken up by a nurse who told me I needed to wake my baby up to eat. The baby didn’t really seem interested, so they told me to wake her up every 15 minutes to try for the rest of the night. Now, I may have been a new mom, but I was fully aware that sleep was about to become incredibly elusive. I put her down and slept for two more hours.

The next day, I asked for a lactation consultant to come and help me get the baby to latch. The actual instructor from the class came. I knew my problems would be solved. She squeezed my nipple and told me to change how I hold the baby. Then she left. That was it. Not once did she mention a nipple shield. Not once did she mention nipple ointment. Not once did she mention pumping. Not once did she mention formula. My daughter lost weight, but nobody seemed concerned.

At this point, my baby’s poor latch was starting to wreak havoc on my boobs. I pointed this out, and I was told to change how I held her. We were released from the hospital, and I tried diligently to get the baby to latch. Sometimes she did, sometimes she wouldn’t. We took her to the doctor, where they were concerned about her weight. I had to come back every two days for three weeks to get her weighed. Each time, she gained just enough weight for them to say, “Keep trying every two hours”. I was given the very useful suggestions of, “Drink whole milk!”, “Eat Oatmeal!”, and “Eat More Carbs!”.

After four days, I was crying every single time I tried to nurse. I decided to pump to just to relieve the pain of the poor latch. I called a lactation consultant hotline to find out how much I should give the baby. I was told that if I gave her milk from a bottle, I would cause nipple confusion and she would never nurse again. Not once did this voice on the phone mention a nipple shield. Not once did she mention nipple ointment. Instead, she told me pumping would harm my baby. Not once did she mention formula. I hung up the phone and sobbed. I then figured out how to use a breast pump. The baby drank the milk so fast I thought she would spit it up for sure.

This was the first time I flat out ignored a lactation consultant/doctor, and not coincidently, the first time my baby was full.

I made an appointment to come in to a consultant, but they had to get approvals through insurance. The breastfeeding class made it sound like it would be so easy. After all, consultants were covered through Obamacare! However, no person in our insurance network could agree on who the lactation consultant was for our network. We were told to go to one, and after we went, we were told she wasn’t covered. We were told to go to another. We were promised this one was covered. I handed the lady the referral at the doctor’s office and told her I knew this one was required. She told me that even when you have referrals, that means nothing. I was told I had to have referrals from both my OBGYN and my baby’s pediatrician. Insurance for lactation consultants became the largest fiasco of all time. I ended up seeing two different consultants, and there were insurance issues with both that took months to clear up. If there was something that a first time mother was not equipped to handle, it was dealing with insurance screw ups throughout her entire maternity leave and beyond. If there was something that I don’t feel I should have been expected to deal with in that time, it was insurance drama.

The lactation consultants that I saw were, in all fairness, much better than Hotline Lady. I felt like they were there to help, not judge, and I trusted them. They at least recommended a nipple shield. They advocated pumping, as long as I used paced bottle feeding. The told me about that amazing All Purpose Nipple Ointment that seriously saved my boobs. They all assured me that she was receiving adequate supply from my boobs. Nobody mentioned formula. My baby got weighed before and after feedings and they all marveled at my supply. They all swore my daughter had a posterior tongue-tie and insisted we take her to an ENT doctor to get it snipped. That would fix the latch! The ENT doctor (another referral) looked at us like we were nuts and said that even if she had one, we surely didn’t want to put her under anesthesia when we could simply wait for her head to get bigger. In all, my baby went to five different doctors a combination of thirteen different times in the first four months to address her weight gain. Eleven of those appointments occurred in the first two months.

At the doctor weigh-ins, the baby never gained enough weight to be considered good, but she always gained just enough so that the doctors weren’t too worried. It took almost a month for her to get back to her birth weight. At two months, she had gained an extra pound. We were told she was on the right track and to come back at four months. I went back to work when she was seven weeks old. I pumped every three to four hours, around the clock. At night, I nursed her every 2-3 hours. I had a very structured work schedules, so I couldn’t really pump more at work, but she got enough milk to get through the day.

I became obsessed with pumping and having enough supply. I had really severe postpartum depression/anxiety and completely fixated on producing milk. I ate the cookies. I drank so much milk that I would get sick. I ate so much at every meal that I felt nauseous all of the time. I didn’t particularly like breastfeeding- in fact, I really started to hate it. I hated that I constantly felt like I wasn’t good enough. I hated that all of the pressure of feeding my baby fell on me. I hated the look that I got at every weigh-in. I hated pumping in the car while my husband drove me from work to doctor weigh-ins. I hated crying every time on the way home. I hated crying when it hurt to feed her.

All I wanted to do was be able to enjoy my baby. From the moment she was born, people had been yelling at me that she wasn’t eating right, that she wasn’t growing enough. Aside from her weight gain, she was a pretty good baby. She cried and refused to sleep like the best of them, but that was just her M.O. She didn’t act like a baby who was starving. She didn’t cry excessively. All of her milestones, aside from weight gain, were on point. She was a daredevil from the beginning when she learned to roll over at three weeks. She just didn’t grow.

I was proud that despite breastfeeding being a generally awful experience that I was able to keep going, but I’m not sure why. I suppose that I just wanted to be able to say I tried. I have a background in the sciences. I believe in doctors. Doctors would never fail me. They would tell me to do things differently if I needed to do things differently. It wasn’t a supply issue. Websites run by Kelly Mom and La Leche League tell you that formula will tank the supply you have, and you just need to keep trying. In fact, according to message boards, many women give up on nursing altogether with formula, because they can. That sounded just like me. I should probably keep trying, or else I might get judged for not trying enough. Now, in my brain, I knew that these websites will never suggest formula, but surely my doctor would if it was necessary? Obviously the reason they are not saying this is because we just haven’t reached a point of panic yet. Maybe, as every lactation consultant and doctor said, it was just because my husband and I are short. Maybe we will just have a petite baby. At one point, I did actually bring up the idea of formula with the pediatrician. I got a look and was told, “Well, you can try it, IF YOU WANT, but you can also just keep doing supplemental pumping.”

At four months, we went to a brand new pediatrician. We hadn’t been to the doctor for two months, as the old doctor seemed satisfied that she passed her birth weight. We weren’t given signs to look for. I was a new mom. I didn’t know that it was very strange for a three month old not to be able to hold up newborn-sized pants. I didn’t know that it’s a very bad sign when babies don’t have fat rolls. Her grandparents watched her everyday, and they never said anything about how she looked. My sister saw her at three months and seemed shocked at how small she was, but she even said that it must be that she just wasn’t around babies anymore.

“I’ll be right back with the Doctor.”

I looked at my husband as the nurse ran out of the room. He gave me a look of complete understanding and pity. He knew I was approximately 45 seconds from completely losing my shit. He had watched me obsess about pumping. He’d watch me panic if I thought bottles weren’t clean enough. He had watched me cry when latching was so painful that it felt like needles. He ran out to Target at 9:40 pm to buy me a nipple shield when I had finally learned what one was. He drove us to every weigh-in, every doctor’s appointment, every ENT visit. He looked at me and said, “I think we finally found the right doctor.”

“So I think it's time we discuss formula.”

After four months, my daughter wasn’t even on the 1st percentile curve for weight. We got her blood taken. She was anemic, but she was fine. I went home that night and fell down the dark hole of WebMD as I tried to desperately learn about all of the possible effects failing to thrive could have on my daughter. Brain damage. Heart conditions. Kidney troubles. Later on, Learning issues. I was convinced that my belief in doctors had failed me. Wasn’t there an episode of Law and Order about this? In the episode, they made it very clear that a good mother would look at the signs and go buy formula.  A good mother wouldn’t ignore her baby. However, I had now gone to five different doctors because I knew something was wrong. ONLY THE FIFTH ONE SUGGESTED FORMULA.

We came back two days later, and my daughter had put on a pound. We returned the next week. She had gained two more pounds. The new doctor could not believe that nobody had ever suggested supplementing with formula. My husband still rants about the first doctor and believes her to be truly negligent. I will never forgive that first consultant from the hotline who told a crying mother that she would harm her child if she pumped.

The best part about this doctor was that she never looked at me like I was stupid. The minute she suggested formula, I dove in head first. In those four months, it never occurred to me that formula would really solve the problem, which in hindsight seems so strange. I had no aversion to formula. I knew it was just as good as breast milk.   I would say that out loud.  I believed it.  However, I had been told that if I used it I might never be able to nurse again, and I wasn’t ready to give up completely. I think that my new doctor realized that I had fallen right into the trap of Big Lactation. She told me that everything would be fine. The doctor would make sure my daughter didn’t have digestive problems. Anemia can be fixed with supplements. Eventually, my daughter would catch up. I gave her bottles of formula that first night, but still nursed her as she fell asleep. It turned out that when I wasn’t obsessed with supply, I had an appreciation for snuggling with my daughter. I went from counting the days until six months was up to still happily nursing each morning after a year. I’ve asked her pediatrician what went wrong. I was told that it appears that the milk I produced didn’t have enough nutrients. Sometimes, it just happens. It won’t necessarily happen with the next child, but it did with this one, and as a result, my child needs to eat something else.

“I can’t believe this is the same baby!”

Now, at 12 months old, my baby is back at the 50th percentile for weight. She still wears 6 month pants, but she’s getting there. She’s no longer anemic, and she’s a great eater. I still nurse my daughter every morning, but I haven’t turned on a breast pump since we were given formula to feed my little girl. I enjoy nursing now, because it helps her wake up and get ready for the day. Plus, we get to hang out before I go to work.

I don’t mind breastfeeding anymore, but I hate Big Lactation. Every time someone shares a meme about predatory formula companies, my amygdala fires and my blood boils. Every time someone talks about how formula samples are the devil, I have to bite my tongue. Maybe even five years ago, that was the case, but times have changed. Hospitals are now required to educate women on breastfeeding. They have lactation consultants telling you every reason not to use formula. Hospitals no longer send women home with formula samples. I was very specifically told that if I gave my daughter formula, it would wreck my supply. I was told I wouldn’t even want to nurse any more.

Women on breastfeeding message boards talk about doctors suggesting formula as if they are trying to set women’s rights back 20 years and destroy milk supplies. Do you know what would have happened if Doctor #1 suggested formula? My daughter would have gained weight. I have seen internet comments where “well-meaning citizens” say “There is no such thing as low calorie breastmilk”. I don’t need to be told that if I MUST give formula despite adequate supply, I need to attach a lactation aid to my boob or else my child reject breastfeeding. I don’t need to be told by doctor websites that they “cannot recall seeing a baby for whom slow weight gain in the first 2 to 6 weeks was the only sign of a problem.” I needed formula.

We talk about supporting women with breastfeeding, but that means supporting women with all problems, not telling them that problems are in their head or that they just need to keep trying. I was told I would be supported and I really tried to find that support. All that I ever found was judgement and correction. Part of supporting a new mom is giving her all of the options, not just options that support an agenda. The only support that existed was support to get me to continue breastfeeding, and it wasn’t working. It wasn’t my supply; it wasn’t in my head. My baby was not growing. I get that it is a lactation consultant’s job to help women breastfeed, but it should never be at the expense of a baby’s health. I know that not all lactation consultants would do the same as the ones that I saw, but I think that it is time that they admit that Big Lactation is a big business, between pumping supplies, breastfeeding supplies, storage containers, products designed to increase supply, etc.  Formula is not an enemy, and it does not deserve to be treated as such.

I do believe that in many ways, at some point people turned feeding a child into an agenda.  That is not okay because that is not how feeding a child should be. It should just be about making sure that a child gets fed. Why? Every child deserves a full belly.

About the Author:A master of dry sarcasm, I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of knowledge and good music, subverting the system, celebrating good times, enjoying the weirdness of life, pointing out the ridiculous, and helping others. I consider myself a breaker of glass ceilings/chains, a fighter of equal rights, and a lover of chocolate chip cookies.

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Rage Against the MLM: The Wizard Edition

By Riot Trrrt

Posted Friday, June 17th, 2016

Full Disclosure: I used to be a “consultant” for a multi-level marketing (MLM) company.  I was pretty awful at it, but:

• I had just reached new levels of life failure
• I wanted cheap face wash.

I threw two “parties” (to family only), attended two meetings, and realized it wasn’t my bag.  I could write an entire novel about why, and I probably will someday.   For the next three years, I acted as a dealer to family members until I couldn’t justify ordering enough to be considered “active”.  Since then, the MLM business model has absolutely fascinated and confounded me.  I have spent many hours pondering the methods by which they grow and remain in business.  Because my brain is amazing, this has lead many conspiracy theories. I’m going to explore the first of them below. Enjoy.

Conspiracy Theory #1: The Wizard-style Marketing

Yes.  The Wizard. The pinnacle of cinematic entertainment of 1989.  THE summer blockbuster. Actually, I’m pretty sure that when Fred Savage looks back upon his acting career, he thinks of this movie and vomits in his mouth.  In one of those strange moments of irony, this movie is arguably (yes, you can argue against it) one of the most culturally important movies of my generation?  Why do you ask? Two reasons:

1. It was the world’s introduction to Super Mario III.  
2. It introduced every person born within a 5-year radius of 1982 to the not just the existence of the all-important warp whistle in Super Mario III, but the ACTUAL LOCATION of the first one.  

The movie is also the most blatant example of product placement in movies that was marketed to my age group.  It had everything: Fred Savage, Universal Studios, the Power Glove, Fred Savage, Super Mario III, and Fred Savage.  The latter went on to become the best selling game of all time, not surprisingly.  I’ve completed two minutes hours of looking at Wikipedia peer-reviewed research and can not at this time find proof that Nintendo made the movie, but I’m pretty sure they did.  I’d be curious to see how much they paid Universal Pictures to be in it.

Why do I bring it up?  The rise of abuse of social media from MLMs in recent years.

I'm very aware that multi-level marketing existed before social media.  However, when I was but a wee consultant, I was never once counseled to post anything on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, My Space, Friendster, etc.  I was just expected to randomly talk to people about their skin-care needs.  But times have changed, oh how times have changed.  At some point in the past 7 years, the MLM industry got together and forged a campaign to take over the world.  Thanks to social media, consultants of all brands have limitless opportunities to gently nudge me to buy their wares.  With a click of a button or a swipe of a keyboard, they can spam my wall/feed/page with their advertisements/please with ease.

Let’s take a minute and take a virtual tour of my Facebook newsfeed:  

1. Baby picture.  
2. Fancy meal.
3. Baby picture.
4. LOLCats.
5. Trump Meme.
6. Anti-Trump Meme.
7. I see “Dear High School Friend” who is recently starting their life’s greatest journey.  You have decided to not just experience your facial moisturizer, but invite me to share in your journey to facial yourself via pictures.  
8. Click-bait (You’re right, I WON’T believe what happens next)
9. I also see “Old Co-Worker”, who makes her own videos that discuss her newest method of contouring her eyes with the makeup she sells, or pleas to the general population to purchase her makeup so she can afford her next trip.  
10. A recipe that I will surely mess up being put together in fast forward.
11. Passive-aggressive Vaguebooking
12. Not-so-passive-aggressive Vaguebooking
13. Fifty-two slightly different blurry pictures of high school friend’s kid’s dance recital.
14. I see “Random College Person that I Met a Few Times” has added me to her other friend’s “Facebook Party” (spoiler: no booze) so I can luckily receive constant updates about the leggings and shirts I can buy, or the newest way to use Essential Oils.  Thanks for that last one by the way.  I hope you choke on your free Lavender Oil.

It would all be so understandable, if it were only just one person doing it.  Except it isn’t.  You see, there isn’t just one person selling Rodan and Fields.  At this moment, I have no less than four Facebook friends selling R & F, three selling Younique, two selling Jamberries, and YOU ARE ALL DOING THE SAME THING.  YES.  THE EXACT SAME THING.

Yes.  They are slightly different.  However, across the board, I can tell you that selling R & F is a journey (for whatever reason, the R & F “journey” really bothers me.  Who do you think you are, a Hobbit? Are you traveling to Mordor? Are you going to save Middle Earth?) for everyone who sells R & F.  Countless lives have changed #becauseofLulaRoe.  Younique has helped thousands understand the true meaning of a “goal” and “kudos”.  And they are all clogging up my Facebook feed.

Case in point: another friend has started to sell Rodan and Fields.  If it wasn’t for the abuse of Facebook, I would leave this life event with a solid feeling of, “Good for her!”.  She is taking control of her finances, and I would normally wish her the best of luck.  Unfortunately, bad social media behavior has lead me to know what will happen, and it has already started.  Lucky for me, I can now watch another person turn their Facebook wall into a straight up advertisement for a brand (as opposed to their own thoughts and pictures of their own life).  I get it, she’s excited.  She’s off on a journey.  She’s a “small business owner”.  This is the American Dream.  Except, it is not.  

MLM consultants believe that they are small business owner, but they are no more a small business owner than the owner of a Subway.  When I think of “small business”, I think of Bobarino’s, the delicious sandwich store that creates my go-to meatball sandwich.  Bobarino’s answers to nobody but Bobarino himself.  I used to work at a Subway.  I was a Sandwich Artist.  I sold Subway turkey that was placed on Subway bread and covered in Subway mayonnaise.  I can go to the Subway down the street and get almost an exact replica of the Subway sandwiches I made 16 years ago (well, not exact.  They cut the bread differently now).  It is a nationwide chain. So is Rodan and Fields, Jamberry, Thrive, etc.

Why does it bother me?  Because these consultants, who I truly believe have the best intentions, are being used.  

Do they realize that their "journey" is nothing more than free advertising for a company?  Instead of paying for sidebar ads, all a MLM company has to do is convince another person that the way to earn their dream house is post a bunch of social media stock photos and blurbs.  The fact that I have so many people selling the same items makes it very obvious that they are getting these “photos”, “deals”, dreams, etc. from the same place.  As a result, they are giving these very large and not “small business” billions of dollars in free advertising each year.  Why should Younique pay for sidebar Facebook advertisements, when they can convince thousands of women trying their best pay Younique for the privilege of advertising their product?

And that, my dear readers, is what bothers me the most.  I know that on some level, we are being used by corporations every minute of the day.  However, when Kindergarten Riot Trrrt went to the movies to see The Wizard in 1989, she wanted to spend two hours believing that if she played video games enough, all of her life problems would be solved.  It worked for Fred Savage.  She was not looking for two hours of advertising.  It didn’t harm her, but older Riot Trrrt finds it absolutely ridiculous that no adult stopped the madness and called Universal Studios out on their shenanigans.  In a similar vein, adult Riot Trrrt embraces social media, but finds it ridiculous that it is now socially acceptable for people to hijack my news feed with their constant advertisements.  All because they believe that they are somehow bettering themselves when it is only bettering Big Makeup, Big Purse, Big Room Deodorizer, etc.  Let’s face it, most of these consultants spend the majority of their time engaging in socially acceptable behaviors. How do we get them to see that they are becoming the social media version of that lady on the bus who eats coleslaw out of the tub with her bare hand?  That person that you absolutely 100% try to avoid sitting next to?

It’s time to stop the madness.  Let’s go back to the times when you marketed your products via uncomfortable conversations and tricking people into attending parties.  I’m still trying to figure out the best method in which to bring the system down.  It’s time to start a movement.  It’s time to rage against the MLM.

About the Author:

A master of dry sarcasm, I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of knowledge and good music, subverting the system, celebrating good times, enjoying the weirdness of life, pointing out the ridiculous, and helping others.  I consider myself a breaker of glass ceilings/chains, a fighter of equal rights, and a lover of chocolate chip cookies.

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