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officalroyalsofpierreland · 1 year

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Private Estate, Isles of Paradisio, Pierreland

Louis: The Isles are definately a family favorite in terms of vaction spots....the family has always had a house here but Mama really was the one that made it more functional for the 8 of us to spend time together and also make Papa do less work Eloise: I cannot imagine growing up with 5 other siblings...my brother and I are just enough drama on our own! Louis: Well, it does help when there's a big age gap...Felipe used to take me on the jet skis while Edmund would tech me how to dive...meanwhile Isabella always made sure to snatch me from my brothers when it looked like I was going to fall asleep in the water! Each trio is a little unit and the bigger one looks after us...sometimes I think a little too closely until recently with Felipe and his wives looking to welcome 2 kids and Eddie and Dee looking to welcome twins Eloise: So you're saying that they had parenthood practice? Louis: Yep! They all mean well, just like my friends...they'll love you!

Eloise: You seem so certain Louis: They've always said that they want to see me happy...and well...you make me happy! So time for them to put their money where their mouths are! Eloise: You are too adorable.

Maxwell: Where is he Hen? Seriously...he knows I burn like a lobster... Henri: Well...he got here early with Eloise so they're probably busy Maxwell: Watcher Dammit Lou...think with your brain and not your- Henri: Sadly Lou took my key cause he left his in Windensen before he went to Iona...he's collecting the miles on the jet to Papa's chagrin.

Magdalena: Did you ever think your career would come to this Captain Mace? Equerry to the Heir? Capt Mace[chuckling]: Not at all Your Royal Highness...in fact, I thought I'd be in command of another ship but the Watcher had other plans for me Magdalena: Surely you'll be able to once more get out on the seas? Perhaps you could practice on the boat? Capt Mace: A splendid idea Ma'am. I'll make sure to- Maxwell: FINALLY! There you are Lou? Got lost?

Louis: I just lost track of time Maxie don't get your trunks in a twist...Everyone, this is Her Royal Highness Princess Eloise...Eloise, well you know Henri, the one complaining that I'm late is Maxwell, to his left is HRH Princess Magdalena of Lunaria who is the best friend I've mentioned and next to her is my newly appointed Equerry because of my dearest Papa, Captain Leopold Mace of the Imperial Navy. Eloise: Hello Everyone...sorry for keeping Louis... Magdalena: It's alright but if Lou Lou can kindly give Max the key so he doesn't burn any more than he has... Louis: OH...right...right...forgot I took Hen's key...

At the Dock near the Home

Magdalena: My mom has told me such wonderful stories of the Isles, and even though I've been here several times, I still cannot help but marvel at the beauty. Capt. Mace: I must agree with you Ma'am. I was stationed out here as a younger man, and it has always been quite the place, one of the most beautiful jewels of the Empire, along with the port cities of Oderia and the Island of Anjou. Magdalena: I have yet to go to Oderia and Anjou but the countryside of Siene is always so stunning, reminds me of home. Have you been to Lunaria Captain?

Capt. Mace: I was there while in university, I took a semester with the Lunarian Naval Academy...Your mother I believe came to speak to us Pierrelander Sailors and she remarked it was nice to hear the familiar tones of home. I only was able to be in the Captial though, I've heard the rest of Lunaria is beautiful and calming...perhaps if the Crown Prince, or the Emperor takes any engagements there then I shall join them. Magdalena: I hope you do! Though you may be stuck in the capital again, though I'm sure if it is Uncle David, Mom and Dad try to get him out to Ancastor so they can all breath a little.

Louis: Come Now Captain Mace, you have yet to undock the boat? Capt. Mace: I was doing some security checks while speaking with Her Royal Highness Sir... Louis: surely you could do both at a good speed, seeing as you are a sailor. Magdalena: Louis! He was making sure the boat was safe and we were discussing travel...be paitent!

Captain Mace: I was about to also let some of the party board before I undid the final ropes Sir. Louis: I think the boat is stable enough if you took off the last rope Captain. Capt Mace: Sir, I leave it with the intention of safety. Louis: Remove it Captain. Capt. Mace: Sir-

Capt Mace: As a Sailor and as someone who would like to keep everyone safe...I will not remove this- Louis: If you won't, I will! Eloise: Louis, this is unnecessary Magdalena [huffing under her breath]: Lou's stubborness is always unecessary

[Scuffle is had for the rope at the front of the boat and a splash is heard]

[Henri's laughter is heard through out the estate] Henri: Having a good dip brother? Your stubbornness worth it? Eloise: Louis? Are you alright? Louis: Quite...alright.. Magdalena: Ego a little bruised there Lou?

An hour or two later

Magdalena: What do you see in him? Eloise: I'm sorry? Magdalena: Of all the princes...people of the world...why Louis? Why not stay with that Arthur guy I read about... Eloise: I'd rather not talk tabloid gossip with you...Louis makes me Happy and I him. Magdalena: Oh, I just did some light research...kinda wanted to know what my best friend was getting into since..he's so naive...he's just a boy trying to be a man Eloise: You don't trust him? Magdalena: I trust him Eloise: So you don't trust me? Magdalena: I don't have enough information to go either way...but Lou trusts you. Eloise: That must count for something Magdalena: It does....but he's also...experiencing a relationship for the first time, he's nothing but a bag of walking hormones...and as you saw, He's impulsive and somewhat immature... Eloise: So are you trying to disuade me from dating him? Magdalena: Not at all...I just want you to know what you are getting...a boy in the body of a man whose brain isn't always in his head.

Louis: Hey Mags! Hey Elle! Elle, do you want to go for a dip with me? Eloise: I'm down! Henri: I know I'm down for some snacks...which I think Max found..

Henri: Come on Maggie! Let's go save some snacks from the ever hungry Max [whispers] And walk away from the snog fest going on behind us Magdalena[whispering]: Thanks Hen...I owe you Henri: Doesn't everyone?

@simsroyallegacy @funkyllama

#officialroyalsofpierreland #story #sim: louis #sim: henri #sim: magdalena of lunaria #collab #funkyllama #sim: eloise #simsroyallegacy

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autistic-elias-acorn · 2 years

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so I’m gonna have to wait until the court finally resolves the dispute between us and my aunt over my late father’s life insurance to start HRT, not because I can’t do it now, but because our car was illegally taken again despite the fact that mom had an agreement with the bank that oversees the payments and now I can’t get to the planned parenthood in worcester

fucker came at 1 the morning btw, and we only knew it was being taken bc he literally came up to the door, smacked it, and went back downstairs

and imo this is why I despite capitalism. if you’re struggling and can’t fork over the cash you’re punished for it, and they don’t care. ‘oh you need this to get to places? lmao too bad fuck you it’s ours now’ and it’s so gross

slightly good news tho? she never responded whereas we hand delivered our response and evidence to the court so...gonna see if we can get it dismissed and ruled in our favor so we don’t have to wait until the 12th of next month

#hazelnut rambles

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phanfictioncatalogue · 2 years

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Future Fics (2) Masterlist

part one

A Change of Scenery (ao3) - fringesandcringes

Summary: Phil hesitates at the prospect of meeting with a prestigious film producer to discuss a possible project, but Dan pushes him to consider. The series of developments that come after, however, was not something either of them anticipated.

(Alternatively: five years into the future, amidst a settled life, they try something new.)

An announcement (sort of) (ao3) - PerseveringIntegrity

Summary: There’s something that’s been on Dan’s mind lately, and it’s finally time to tell the world.

archives (ao3) - winchysteria

Summary: You brace yourself for seeing them in the same room.

And despite everything, it's really, really sweet. Awkward, definitely; embarrassing, for sure, but something about it makes your heart hurt. Even with the choppy editing and the distracting bursts of movement, you can see the bumbling happiness of a Beginning with a capital B, the kind that feels permanent from the first few words.

aka: self-indulgent fluff imagining the bright future spinning out in front of my favorite british camera nerds

baby bluebird (ao3) - plinth_of_life

Summary: Dan Howell wants a baby. This is the story of the aftermath of that desire.

Or, a journey to parenthood in several parts.

Be My Forever (ao3) - obsessive-fics (xoPrincessKayxo)

Summary: Dan and Phil renovate a house and finally get their forever home (and a dog).

Etched in Stone (ao3) - Emptylester (timelordangel)

Summary: Short little family fic! Dan takes their son to go surprise Phil.

Forever Starts Today (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan and Phil meeting their daughter for the first time.

october to april (ao3) - uselessphillie

Summary: “Let’s get married,” he says, mildly surprised at the way his voice doesn’t even waver.

Dan pauses mid-click, hands hovering over his keyboard. He glances down at Phil, one eyebrow quirked up. “What, like today?”

Of Times Gone By (ao3) - Spring_Haze

Summary: Dan reflects on parenthood. He and Phil share two teenage daughters, Willow Rowan and Adrienne Katherine. The girls are growing up, and Dan chooses optimism and gratitude as the Howell-Lester family faces a potential change in it's dynamic. There is nothing but love and fluff here.

seasalt (ao3) - watergator

Summary: prompt: retirement

dan and phil have lived a good life together

Something There That Wasn't There Before (ao3) - JuniorWoofles

Summary: Domestic, adorable idiots filming a 'Phil is Not on Fire' of the future

The Bait (ao3) - consciousness_streaming

Summary: Phil drags Dan into another video, but doesn't give him the full story

the stars look very different today (ao3) - lestered (clonetrobed)

Summary: "Sometimes I take for granted that you’re always around, but then sometimes I look at you and i remember that you’re, like, the most beautiful thing in my life, and that I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t have you and all your love, encouraging me to keep plodding on through the fucking… great unknown, or whatever. You don't fix everything or solve all my problems, but you do make things brighter, and prettier, and less scary."

truly the angel's best (ao3) - aesthetichomo

Summary: "Not too bad, huh? I tried to tell Papa that yellow was too cliché for a nursery, but I suppose it works.”

or, dan and phil's early morning with their newborn baby girl.

#phanfictioncatalogue #phanfiction #phanfic #phan #masterlists #future #future masterlist #au

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pankataratos-ficdump · 6 months

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behind the scenes [respawn garbage]

You are ROSE LALONDE. The trouble, of course, is always figuring out which Rose Lalonde you must be at any given moment. Sometimes you are drunk Rose. Sometimes you are pedantic, petty, and unkind Rose; sometimes you are a young girl who just had to bury her own cat, and do not remember how old you were when you actually did it.

Most often, at least lately, you are simply a Rose. An expendable Rose. You are one of the thousands you have heard of that, who are just like you. All of them are nearly Rose, but are not quite. You are also not dead yet, which you aren't sure you can say for the real deal.

You deem that as being unfortunate for you, as today has been very, very shitty.

- You are still asking the wrong questions, Seer. Though, of course, I knew you would be. I must admit that I am a little disappointed in you nonetheless. -

Most often, at least lately, you are simply a Rose. An expendable Rose. You are one of the thousands that you have heard of that are just like you. All of them are nearly Rose, but are not quite. You are also not dead yet, which you aren't sure you can say for the real deal.

You deem that as being unfortunate for you, as today has been very, very shitty.

This paradox of there being no true 'self' would not otherwise bother you much, you think. You spent a lot of time talking to Dave about it, and have had plenty of time to watch more and less fortunate yous zip off to their respective futures. Many of them were very, very bad. Yours is not.

With your excess of free time, though, you have found yourself wondering what happens when you and the timeline you ran away to are no longer needed by their 'real' counterparts: will you disappear in an instant, or will you die for years? Will you have even been at all, once that timeline is set into the garbage with all the other not-quite-suitable timelines?

Will it be your fault if you take anyone with you? Or were some of them unsatisfactory, too, and thus you'll all be aboard that particular literary Lusitania, comrades-in-arms all?

Sometimes you think, sour and teenage, that the gods of your universe—

not this one, which was made for you, and which you unlike them do not rule because you do not want to

—might actually trying to be kind in how they have chosen to redact you and your unsatisfactory cousins. It is an eternal but peaceful and quiet death; an early retirement; each of you given unto a world made just for you, more or less. It is a place where you and the other failures live out your happily ever afters, safely removed from anyplace where you could cause trouble or have trouble caused unto you. Each and every one of you gets to live in a universe that only exists for you—so long as you remain a willing princess of whichever Everafter you were given, of course. It is an asylum for the chronologically inconvenient, and little more.

You are, in the most miserable way imaginable, only mostly wrong.

PESTERLOG HERE (DIDN'T FIT ON TUMBLR, SORRY) You deeply misunderstand your situation.

Scratch makes your mother look like an optimistic. Scratch makes your mother's impossibly overdressed performative parenthood seem like a genuine attempt. Scratch makes your mother look like she never knew you at all. You have been incensed since the minute you got here that he knows you so well as to apparently easily custom-craft a personal hell, just for you, and then how to make sure that you will be grateful for it regardless. You are not dead yet. You must not be the correct version of ROSE, with the capital letters, either.

You have, over the time that has passed since you had (and hid) this conversation, come to believe that you actually do understand where you and your friends are. You are to play the part of a particularly heavyhandedly camp (but intriguingly genderbent) Dante. This unchanging snowglobe of a world is your very overliteral selva oscura.

There are up sides to that. Namely, #1 and the only one you have ever really cared about: no one is dead—or at least, no one is dead that you know anything about, much less actually care for. Your friends have always been occasionally... terrible, though only in the way that makes your heart ache for them. You adore them. They suck. This is a universal truth of friendship.

Though you feel it is rather poetic that they are now your literal entire world, given your psychological tendencies towards codependency and deeply private hyperattachments, you are still trapped here with them just as much as they are trapped here with you. Con #1 (Pro #1, Subsection a): You just had to admit to yourself, at least in writing, that you have started to feel trapped with—or even by—the only people that you ever wanted to see. This has been a longstanding feeling, which you assumed was born of your lifetime of emotional avoidance and non-functional interpersonal relationships that weren't had exclusively over a keyboard until you were well past that particular developmental milestone. You had dismissed it as such.

Con #2: Some part of you listened to Scratch, and has begun to think that you actually are, or you would have thrown the laptop by now. You are tired of how much he always seems to know about you, and how long he seems to know it before you do.

Maybe you really would have dismissed him summarily, under any other circumstances, but then again he surely knew you wouldn't. Scratch is a liar among other, worse things, and he is also well beyond any place that should be able to reach you with more than a shoddy, laggy chat window. He also is not an idiot.

He's right, too. He usually is, but this time it stings: you should be able to find out. After hours of pretending not to have been bothered by it, you find an excuse to shut your eyes. The sun is warm. Its silhouette burns orange-yellow and green spots into the backs of your eyelids.

This is to say: you see the same thing as everyone else.

#I wrote most of this like. A year ago to explain some of the lore that was never going to be explained. But the pesterlog was hell so #I never finished it or even about 1/3 of the prose til now. It might be a lil disjointed bc of that

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uf200singleproject · 1 year

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The Impact of the Stigma: Societal

Progress for any social or political movement will naturally fluctuate, and that is certainly true of the single positivity movement. Between “spinsters” coming into the public eye as an undesirable group and the efforts of women like Susan B. Anthony, there was resistance and advocacy. Between the definition of the “New Woman” and the release of Disney’s Brave, there was resistance and advocacy.

We have seen positive change, but there is still resistance on the ground, and single women continue to experience it on scales from societal to internal.

In Lisa Lynn Hancock’s dissertation “How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles,” for unmarried individuals, there are tangible repercussions to being single, as supported by a range of literature on the subject: “discrimination has been demonstrated to manifest in inequities in pay, housing rights in the military, promotions at work, subsidized employee benefits, Social Security benefits, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, insurance, housing, in vitro fertilization, adoption, family care leave, travel packages and experiences, club memberships, and even expectations for longer work hours.”1

As long of a list as this is, it wasn’t at all difficult to visualize how each category is impacted for those unmarried. Many of these programs were set up with the nuclear family in mind, and the societal expectations that come with marriage and parenthood have room to bleed through in spaces that weren’t.

And Hancock’s research didn’t end there—as of 2005, “researchers were still finding participants more likely to describe singles as lonely, shy, unhappy, insecure, and inflexible.”2 And as of 2013, “Narrative research revealed that single women were generally perceived as less happy, having fewer social skills, being less successful, being flawed, and having less life satisfaction than married women.”3

While a decade has passed, when it comes to a cultural mindset, I think it would be overly optimistic to believe that these perceptions have fizzled out so quickly. I wanted to hear firsthand what it was like to be on the other end of these assumptions over time, so I reached out to a family friend for an interview. Michelle is in her late 40s and unmarried, though she had been engaged in the past. No matter what question I asked, the most prominent topic in our conversation turned out to be religion, and for good reason. We were both raised Christian, and I was unsurprised to find that she one of the primary struggles she encountered—both in getting engaged and breaking it off—was religious pressure to marry from both her family and community.

In the West, I can imagine that this brand of religious pressure and traditional obligation is common for single women to experience. But Michelle and I agree that certain perspectives surrounding gender roles along our religious lines have noticeably lightened over time. She told me that in her community, around the time she got engaged, “people started to figure out that women could help out without a husband, and that women could preach, and that nothing had caught on fire since they started, so it would be fine.” It's a great thing to see this kind of change in real time, but Michelle made sure to tell me that even as certain people grow and change, "when something is taught for so long, there's plenty of judgement left over." That line was especially impactful to me because, though I'm not sure she meant it this way, that leftover judgement can often come from yourself. 1. Hancock, Lisa Lynn. How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles. Walden University, 2017, p. 8. scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3994/.

2-3. Hancock, Lisa Lynn. How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles. Walden University, 2017, p. 33. scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3994/.

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mainsballs · 2 years

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Quentin quarantino for planned parenthood

He warned another attack was “highly likely” and the State Department called the threat “specific” and “credible.” The Pentagon said the remaining contingent of U.S. (AP) President Joe Biden has vowed to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. It is unethical, but, strangely enough, legal.”īiden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS Jaak Joeruut, a former defense minister and diplomat, said in a recent opinion piece that “elections with one candidate belong to the Soviet era. Some Estonians have even suggested that the small European nation, where the prime minister holds most political power, should abolish the head of state post altogether. Holding a vote with only one candidate has flummoxed the country, and several politicians have called for a complete overhaul of Estonia’s complex presidential election system. Karis, a former state auditor, is the only one who has managed to get support from the required minimum of 21 lawmakers. As no further candidates registered by the late Saturday deadline, the director of the Estonian National Museum, Alar Karis, will be the sole contender. 10, and lawmakers in the 101-seat Riigikogu parliament must elect a new head of state to replace her in the largely ceremonial post. President Kersti Kaljulaid’s five-year term expires on Oct. There will be only one candidate in Monday’s vote, a situation unprecedented since the Baltic nation regained its independence 30 years ago. (AP) Estonia is gearing up for an unusual presidential election in parliament. Museum chief is only candidate for Estonia’s presidency “The mountains slid down and they lost everything.” “They lost their gardens, they lost their animals,” Tiné said as he took a break from helping unload boxes of rice. It was for distribution to remote mountain communities where landslides destroyed homes and the small plots of the many subsistence farmers in the area, said Patrick Tiné of Haiti Bible Mission, one of several groups coordinating the delivery of aid. Most of the material, however, wasn’t destined for Jeremie. In Jeremie, people waved and cheered as a Marine Corps unit from North Carolina descended in a tilt-rotor Osprey with pallets of rice, tarps and other supplies. Aircraft flying out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, arrived throughout the day Saturday in the mostly rural, mountainous southern peninsula that was the epicenter of the Aug. military aircraft are now flying food, tarps and other material into southern Haiti amid a shift in the international relief effort to focus on helping people in the areas hardest hit by the recent earthquake to make it through hurricane season. Still, for the moment, no abortion facilities are operating in South Dakota, which is a victory for pro-life advocates, even if only a potentially temporary one.US airlifts food, tents to quake-ravaged southern Haiti Neither law can go into effect until the injunction against the previous abortion pill law is lifted. The second bill made it a felony to coerce a woman into an abortion 67% of post-abortive women have said they were pressured into the decision. Two further laws were subsequently passed, including another ban on telemedicine abortion. South Dakota lawmakers have passed numerous pro-life bills, and Governor Kristi Noem issued an executive order banning telemedicine abortions, which was blocked after Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit. “We have had to make the difficult decision to pause scheduling abortion appointments,” she said, adding that they “can’t in good faith keep scheduling patients when there’s a chance South Dakota’s trigger laws could go into effect.” READ: South Dakota pro-life laws take effect, including protection for babies with Down syndromeĮmily Bisek, Vice President of Strategic Communication for Planned Parenthood North Central States, further told KELO that it was due to the upcoming Supreme Court decision.

#Quentin quarantino for planned parenthood

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englishchinesetranslations · 2 years

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I was waiting in a fashionable café for Tang Xiaohe* in the Dongzhimen district in Beijing. Every bit of the décor in the café signalled the prosperity of China’s capital city. So did the price of a cup of cappuccino.

Xiaohe is a 35-year-old mother-of-one who works in a large tourism company. She contacted me when I put a call out via WeChat seeking women born under China’s one-child policy in the 1980s who were willing to talk about their transitions to employment and parenthood for my ongoing research. Xiaohe chose this café, which is two miles away from her office, to avoid any lunchtime haunts frequented by her colleagues.

So far, I’ve interviewed 82 women, and I always ask them how many children they have – and if they want another one. Xiaohe gave a resounding no. But this was hardly a surprise. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, there was an increase of 0.88 births per thousand women of child-bearing age between 2015 and 2016, after the end of the one-child policy in late 2015. Although there was a rise in second births in 2017, there is little prospect of a new baby boom now couples are allowed two children. Urban Chinese families no longer want more children.

In recent months the Chinese government has even hinted that it may relax the current two-child policy even further as way to solve problems caused by an ageing population.

Hemmed in Women born under the one-child policy between 1980 and 1987 are the first generation of Chinese women in many years to be given an opportunity to have more than one child. Yet this is a generation sandwiched between the responsibilities of child rearing and looming old-age care for elderly family members. Xiaohe was born and raised in a small county in Hebei, northern China. Like many girls of her generation, she passed China’s gaokao university entrance exam with flying colours, went to university and subsequently worked in Beijing, which she now calls home. Like many generations before her, she manages the childcare for her six-year-old daughter with help from her parents and in-laws and is committed to looking after them in old age. Looking after her daughter and a mother in a wheelchair, on top of a senior management role, is challenging but manageable. But these are not the main reasons she gave me for not having another child. It was her fear. Her fear of poisoned milk powder and of lead-covered toys. Her fear of dermatologically untested nappies, unsafe vaccines and child abuse in nurseries, followed by cover-ups. Under the glossy metropolitan lifestyle and outward appearance of having made it in the big city, Xiaohe confessed her anxiety and the worries which sometimes keep her awake at night.

It’s the urban middle class who have been the main beneficiaries of China’s economic growth. It has led to increasing personal income, ever-rising property value, the urban hukou or residency permit, and the associated benefits such as access to good-quality schools and healthcare. These so-called “pocketbook” factors keep them loyal to the state. The middle class tend to resist social reforms that would bring down the barriers between urban and rural citizens, between wealthy eastern and poorer western regions, or would introduce changes to the education system that might undermine their privileges.

Read more: 'Hukou', and what birthplace can still mean for marriage in China

Broken chain of trust

Underneath unquestioning support of the state, there is a pathological distrust in the ethics of businesses and manufacturers and the power of local institutions to regulate them after a string of scandals related to children’s welfare. This trust deficit is best captured by a Chinese saying: “事不关己高高挂起” which translates as: “Don’t get involved in anything not relating to my own interests and stay aloof like a lamppost from trouble.”Instead, people often mobilise their own resources or networks to solve any problems. Xiaohe turned to a university friend who was studying in the UK and asked her to ship milk powder regularly from the UK. She also begged her relatives or friends to buy foreign-made nappies when they travelled abroad. She paid much higher premium for all these products and also owed people for their help, known as “returning favours” or 还人情. Xiaohe explained that this was a common strategy taken by members of the middle class – to solve problems by dipping into their own pockets.She thought money could make any problem disappear – until a recent vaccine scandal. Her daughter was given the standard vaccines for children against diphtheria, tetanus, polio and hepatitis B made by the pharmaceutical company Changchun Changsheng. But in July 2018 it emerged hundreds of thousands of the vaccines were faulty

My daughter was vaccinated by this product. I was so angry but I am helpless. I thought I could avoid this. I avoided the nursery and the milk power. But there is no escape no matter how much money you have.

She added: “Why do I want to bring another child in the world like this? You just cannot trust anyone or anything.”

The Chinese state has engineered one of the most successful economic transformations in the 20th century, keeping much of the population on-side in the process. Yet, it might have difficulty in mending the broken chain of trust between people and business, local institutions and society. The state can use every trick in the book to encourage Chinese citizens to have more children, either for the sake of the nation or for the nation’s economy. But if couples are worried that their children’s welfare will be at risk, they won’t see any point in having more children.

* Names have been changed to protect anonymity.

Correction: This article was updated on October 29 to clarify that there was an increase of 0.88 births per thousand women of child-bearing age between 2015 and 2016, not that the overall birth rate in China had increased by 0.9%.

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61below · 3 years

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So the US birth rate has fallen to its lowest point in more than a century.

Gee.

Good golly.

I wonder.

Fucking.

W h y.

#the fact that just yesterday I read an article about how the collapse in child care accessibility and lack of paid leave has made the #women’s recession the Worst and Still Bad #and I also saw that pic of the woman helping their child while on a work call while the husband was in the other room NOT on a work call #and I know that we have not had children for many salient reasons but No.1 has been sheer fucking cost #parenthood in late capitalism

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lofijazz · 3 years

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List of things people have mentioned they're gonna spend their GameStop Stock money on:

Someone's friend's HRT

A lesbian who couldn't afford a wedding for her and her fiancé can now get married and go on a honeymoon

Medical debts can be paid for a cancer treatment

Someone mentioned wanting to use it to move to Ireland, which has been a dream of theirs for years.

I personally want to give my share to charity, probably a little to Planned Parenthood l, I owe 'em they've saved my life, and I thought about buying a whole bunch of menstrual products to give to thrift stores to sell at a way cheaper price, I've seen them sell these products. That way people around here can spend $2-$4 on a big pack of pads instead of the stupidly high price they're at in most retail stores. I will take recommendations for charities if you'd like to tell me!

People wanna buy houses with it! That big because it's so hard to buy one anymore!

Somebody is going to use their money to fast track their family to immigrate here to America! Which sucks you basically have to have a lot of money to exist here but if they wanna screw the system I say let them.

A paraplegic mentioned getting new prosthetics.

I have seen someone say they want to get some plastic surgery and you know what? Good for them. I hope they get exactly what they want and love it, because it doesn't have to be charity or helping a loved one out, it can be this.

These are things the rich want to keep us away from, they say and laughed while drinking champagne when they screwed over protestors in 2008, let's screw them back over and post pictures of our closet full of champagne, tagging them about how much fun were having on vacation using the money they tried to steal away.

#stock markets #stock market #i had to read about the 2008 thing i only sorta remember it but it still happened #eat the rich #lgbt #late stage capitalism #capitalism kills #american capitalism #anti corporations #gamestop #wall street #the stock market #planned parenthood

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d3nt4l-d4m4g3 · 3 years

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Hi! I’m also a baby radfem nice to know I’m not alone💞 I’m curious what is it like living with your roommates, like what do you find the most difficult, and do you think you’ll ever feel comfortable sharing your experience of de-transitioning with them? If you don’t mind me asking of course. I hope they would at least listen to your pov.

Hello! Indeed, you are not alone!

Living with my (trans) roommates is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we have family dinner every week, and watch tv together at night. We ask how each others’ days are.

But since I have completely detransitioned, I know I cannot share much with them. I’ve told them how I believe that I was a victim of medical abuse, and hinted that the medical abuse (by planned parenthood, my therapist, my psychiatrist, the government) is systemic. But when I say I’ve been harmed, they don’t think of me but their own identities. If I say I’ve been harmed, I’m threatening their own lives, their own futures. they are fine with me “discovering who I truly am” but are not willing to face the fact that I WAS trans, and I WAS harmed, and they could be too.

So they have been willfully blind to my very real pain of being mutilated and betrayed by my (their) community. I don’t matter more than their genders do. They will not listen to me until my narrative serves them. And I must trust that one day it will, when trans is viewed as a social epidemic, a gross medical malpractice, and a symptom of late-stage capitalism. But I don’t place my bets on that day being soon. And when that day comes I don’t know if I will be able to welcome them with open arms.

#radfem #feminism #terf safe #gender critical #radical feminism #radblr #lesbian #ask

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coochiequeens · 2 years

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“I’ve seen contracts with North American surrogates saying no to hair dye, perfume, dentistry, and even sex. Other times parents try to restrict a woman’s movements: no moving out of state, for instance, or no traveling more than 100 miles from home.” If a man tried to restrict the mother of his child like that he would be called abusive and controlling.

Nothing crystallizes the “her body, my baby” conundrum of surrogacy quite like a war. Should a surrogate be tucked away somewhere safe, to protect the child she’s growing for someone else? Or should she be with her own family, or in her hometown, or even out on the streets defending her nation?

That is a live question in Ukraine right now.

Ukraine is an international surrogacy hub, one of only a handful of countries in the world that allows foreigners to enter into surrogacy arrangements. That means people from the United States or China or Germany or Australia can go there and hire a local woman to gestate their child. There are conditions—the parents have to be straight and married and have a medical reason for needing a surrogate—but surrogates are plentiful, paying them is legal, and establishing legal parenthood for the intended parents is uncomplicated.

How many babies are born in Ukraine through surrogacy is not known—perhaps 2,500 a year. BioTexCom, one large fertility clinic based in Kyiv, confirmed to me that it is expecting some 200 surrogate babies to be born in the next three months.

There can be tensions in these relationships. The woman carrying the baby deserves bodily autonomy, the parents deserve security for their child, and occasionally the two are at odds, even under the best conditions. Parents may want a surrogate to abstain from certain foods, such as coffee, or certain activities, such as kickboxing. I’ve seen contracts with North American surrogates saying no to hair dye, perfume, dentistry, and even sex. Other times parents try to restrict a woman’s movements: no moving out of state, for instance, or no traveling more than 100 miles from home.

Ukrainian surrogates face similar restrictions. Even before war threatened, many of them were contractually obliged to move closer to their clinic and birthing hospital a few months in advance of their due date. Surrogates I spoke with by Zoom two and a half weeks ago, all working with the New Jersey–based surrogacy agency Delivering Dreams, seemed fine with that requirement. They each had their own apartment, and some brought their families with them.

At the time, the women I spoke with were not worried about what they saw as an unlikely war. One surrogate called the idea “total nonsense.” But the intended parents whose babies they were carrying, who live in the U.S. and Canada, were nervous. They were hearing that Ukraine might be invaded, and they wanted the surrogates—and the babies in their wombs—to be safe.

Back in late January, Susan Kersch-Kibler, Delivering Dreams’ founder, held a Zoom meeting with parents to talk about contingency plans. I listened in, intrigued. Kersch-Kibler herself did not expect anything more serious than cyberattacks from Russia, she said at the time, but nonetheless she was preparing for the worst. She told clients who were scheduled to bring home their babies from Ukraine in the coming weeks to pack lots of cash, in case banks went down, and warm clothes, in case electricity cut out.

She also advised them to buy very flexible airline tickets. Exactly where their babies might end up being born wasn’t clear, she told them. She would move surrogates west to Lviv if there were significant military actions in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a full-scale military invasion, though, she was prepared to move them out of the country altogether. The women’s passports were in order, she told the parents.

When, in mid-February, government advisories took on a more urgent tone, exhorting foreign nationals to “avoid all travel to Ukraine” and “leave while commercial means are available,” and when even embassies started to decamp from the capital, Kersch-Kibler decided to start moving her surrogates west to Lviv.

“We cannot have the surrogate in any danger,” Kersch-Kibler told me at the time. “And whether they consider it danger or not, if the parents consider it danger, they’re going to be stressed out of their minds. And I don’t want that to spill over to the surrogate.”

I could sense that familiar tension: the parents’ need to feel secure versus the surrogate’s need to make decisions about her own life.

The women I communicated with were not happy to go. Mostly, they thought it was unnecessary. They did not want to uproot their families yet again, and most decided not to—they went alone. But a few days after the move, two of the women told me via WhatsApp that they missed their kids. “I hope we go back to Kyiv as soon as possible,” one said.

We all know what happened next.

In the days following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fertility clinics in Kyiv, now under serious assault, shut down. People took shelter or fled.

BioTexCom had told me earlier that it had secured a bomb shelter nearby to protect parents, surrogates, and newborns. A YouTube video it shared showed that the shelter was kitted out with beds, cribs, sleeping bags—and gas masks. There was a stockpile of food and medical supplies, and the facility had running water, washrooms, and cooking facilities. I emailed to see if anyone had actually used it during the first or second night of fighting in Kyiv, but I did not hear back.

Meanwhile Kersch-Kibler was frantically trying to move more surrogates to safety. The heavily pregnant women were already in Lviv, but now she began urging the newly pregnant, and even some women who’d recently started taking hormones to prepare their uterine linings for embryo transfers, to travel west as well.

But some of the surrogates did not want to move—or in some cases, to remain in safe locations but separated from family. They wanted to make their own decisions, about where and how they might survive the next days and months.

Many people have jobs that force them to be separated from their families—military personnel, diplomats, foreign correspondents, international nannies, home care workers. And in Ukraine, being a surrogate is not only a job; it is often a well-paid job. But most jobs you can quit, or at least put on hold. This one you can’t, really. This one might keep you from your family or from acting on your sense of duty to your country. It might physically impede your ability to get to safety. It might require you to seek medical attention even as medics are overrun with the injured and dying.

Some people in wartime can turn all of their attention to family and the war effort, but surrogates cannot. Even if they defy pleas to go to places of safety, they carry their work with them, inside their body.

Should a surrogate in Ukraine stay safe for the baby? Or do what’s right for her own family? Should she seek refuge in a third country, such as Poland or Moldova or Hungary, where parentage laws consign the intended parents to legal complications, or should she press on to a country such as the Czech Republic, where laws for parents are better?

The reality is that the interests of the surrogate and the interests of the parents don't always align. War just makes it that much more stark.

#Ukraine #wealthy people exploiting Ukrainian women #No one is entitled to children #End commercial surrogacy

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punkofsunshine · 3 years

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Neoliberalism, conformity, and the monetization of individuality

Hey guys, I’m back! Ready to get into some more heavy topics, this week it is the topic of neoliberalism, also known as the modern capitalist system.

First. What is neoliberalism?

Essentially, it is what was initiated under the Reagan/Thatcher administrations which “freed the market” and allowed corporations to globalize more than they were already. As some may know, capitalism subverts democracy by placing power into the hands of people with money, not those who are supposed to have control over legislation (the government). In that way, capital has more say in our political system than anyone/anything else making America a modern day oligarchy which is an extension of a traditionalist system of governance; monarchy. The (western) heads of the neoliberal governance are sometimes called “new world kings” due to their vast swathes of wealth and influence in governmental affairs, but it also became the reigning ideology among the people as well, however “unleashing the market” turned out to have disastrous consequences even until today. A research article by Vicente Navarro states “. . .[pharmaceutical] companies that systematically prioritize their objective of maximizing profits over any other ends, such as preventing and/or curing illnesses (which, by spreading, may turn into pandemics – as we are witnessing in the current crisis). Many other sectors of medical care show similar behavior. And it is this commercialization of medicine and prioritization of private interests over public ones that have affected very negatively the health and quality of life of millions and millions of people (see my book Medicine Under Capitalism, 1976). These behaviors have been accentuated in the neoliberal period, which started in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Western world.” This specifically discusses the neoliberal economic system and how it effects us here and now during the COVID-19 pandemic (which at time of writing *15/02/2021* is still going on in the US and various other places).

Due to the rise of the neoliberal mindset, punk and Gothic styles gained quick popularity among the outsiders of modernized society, as did a sub-genre of punk (specifically in the 80′s-90′s), cyberpunk. Cyberpunk imagines a world controlled by corporations, climate change, rampant crime, and no heroes to save the day. Real life cyberpunks didn’t adhere to the aesthetic we think of now, during the rise of the internet they were/are the code monkeys, the people who knew how to navigate commonly uncharted space by the rest of the people online at the time. As good as it all sounds, that’s where the problem begins however. As technology progresses so do the ways to exploit the people using that technology, same thing goes with everything we use now. Just as the outsiders created their own thing, a capitalist will find ways to sell that to you packaged as individuality, the good thing is that punks accounted for this already and are big users and advocates for DIY. However the Goths got the short end of the stick when their style got repackaged and put into malls, thus mall goths were born. I say all of this because now, when in pursuit of individuality one must be aware of whether it’s truly fringe and custom or just another re-branded aesthetic like mall goth. In other words, true individuality doesn’t come from what you buy or how you look, it comes from who you are. Conformity doesn’t come from how you look, but how you act.

Now why did I talk about mall goths and punks? Have you seen how much Gothic and punk style clothing costs? That’s the monetization of individuality, at least physically speaking. This also is applicable to Cottagecore, maximalism, plant parenthood, and other aesthetics/movements that cost money. To hear more about that click here to read about Marxian alienation, capitalism, and the commodification of the individual. And no, this is not me saying that if you have that style you’re a conformist, it’s just marketed heavily towards those who want to oppose capitalism and our blatantly imperialistic government, which is incredibly ironic. I personally know punks who made their clothes by themselves instead of buying clothes from fast fashion companies. If you don’t, don’t sweat it, although it’s really useful to learn those skills, sewing specifically. Just keep in mind that they’re trying to sell you rebellion. Anything that can be sold, will be sold.

Sorry for rambling so much this time, I try to not make it a habit. I hope you learned something though.

This has been punkofsunshine, have a good one and stay safe.

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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For millennia the family has stood as the central institution of society—often changing, but always essential. But across the world, from China to North America, and particularly in Europe, family ties are weakening, with the potential to undermine one of the last few precious bits of privacy and intimacy.

Margaret Mead once said, “no matter how many communes anyone invents, the family always creeps back.” But today’s trajectory is not promising. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, family formation and birth rates were declining throughout much of the world, not just in most of the West and East Asia, but also in parts of South American and the Middle East.

The ongoing pandemic appears to be driving birth rates globally down even further, and the longer it lasts, the greater possibility that familial implosion will get far worse, and perhaps intractable. Brookings predicts that COVID will result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer U.S. births in 2021. Marriage rates have dropped significantly to 35 year lows.

…

These predictions turned out to be vastly exaggerated, with a rapid decline in global hunger. The anticipated population explosion is morphing into something more like an implosion, with much of the world now facing population stagnation, and even contraction. As birth rates have dropped, the only thing holding up population figures in many places is longer lifespans, though recent data suggests these may be getting shorter again .

These trends can be felt in the United States, where the birthrate is sinking. U.S. population growth among the cohort aged between 16 and 64 has dropped from 20 percent in the 1980s to less than 5 percent in the last decade. This is particularly bad for the future of an economy dependent on new workers and consumers.

This demographic transition is even more marked in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and much of Europe, where finding younger workers is becoming a major problem for employers and could result in higher costs or increased movement of jobs to more fecund countries. As the employment base shrinks, some countries, such as Germany, have raised taxes on the existing labor force to pay for the swelling ranks of retirees.

Similar patterns can be seen in China. Expanding workforces like China’s—which grew by 380 million between 1980 and 2012—drove a world-shattering economic boom. Now, this resource is already in peril; birthrates have cratered to historic lows. China’s working-age population (those between 15 and 64 years old) peaked in 2011 and is projected to drop 23 percent by 2050. This plunge will be exacerbated by the effects of the now discarded one-child policy, which led to the aborting of an estimated 37 million Chinese girls since it came into effect in 1980. By 2050, China is projected to have 60 million fewer people under age fifteen, a loss approximately the size of Italy’s total population. The ratio of retirees to working people is expected to have more than tripled by then, which would be one of the most rapid demographic shifts in history, and by 2050 will be roughly 20 percent higher than that of the U.S.

…

Today’s demographic stagnation represents a throwback to earlier times. After the relative buoyant growth in Classical times, the Middle Ages also were a period of global demographic stagnation, caused by famine, pestilence, pervasive celibacy and poverty. Population growth soared with the rise of liberal capitalism in the Early Modern period, aided by changing attitudes toward motherhood, children, and families. Simon Schama describes the Netherlands, the fount of this transition, as a “Republic of Children” built around the nuclear family. The medieval obsession with the Virgin Mother and the unrealistic cherubim typical of Renaissance painting were replaced with domestic images characterized by “uncompromising earthiness.”

We now seem to be moving away from those values, and as in the Middle Ages, becoming less centered around the family. Serfs at least had religion and a sense of community; our societies have become increasingly lonely, with single men hit hardest and children, often without two parents or any siblings, and chained to social media, increasingly isolated around the world. In the U.S. since 1960, the percentage of people in the United States living alone has grown from about 12 percent to 28 percent. Even intimacy is on its way out, particularly among the young; the once swinging age groups now are suffering a “sex recession.”

The percentage of American women who are mothers is at its lowest point in over three decades. Intact families are rarer, and single living more common. In the United States, the rate of single parenthood has grown from 10 percent in 1960 to over 40 percent today. This is very bad news for society, particularly minorities, because intact families tend to have fewer problems relating to prison, school, or poverty.

This social collapse is going global. In Britain, 8 percent of households in 1970 were headed by a single parent; now, the rate is over 25 percent. The percentage of children born outside marriage has doubled over the past three decades, to 40 percent. In the Scandinavian countries, around 40 percent of the population lives alone.

…

In Japan, the harbinger of modern Asian demographics, the number of people living alone is expected to reach 40 percent of the whole population by 2040. Japan has a rising “misery index” of divorces, single motherhood, and spousal and child abuse—all of which accelerates the country’s disastrous demographic decline and deepens class division. More and more people are not only living alone but dying alone. There are estimated to be four thousand “lonely deaths” in Japan every week.

…

The disinclination to form families is often described as generational choice. But American millennial attitudes about family are not significantly different from prior generations, though perhaps with a greater emphasis on gender equality. Among American childless women under age 44, barely 6 percent are “voluntarily childless.” The vast majority of millennials want to get married and have children.

High housing prices, crowded living conditions, and financial pressures certainly account for much of this gap. This phenomenon is particularly marked in the urban centers that dominate the world’s economy and culture. Today many large cities are becoming childless demographic graveyards. Between 2011 and 2019, the number of babies born annually in Manhattan dropped by nearly 15 percent, while the decrease across the city was 9 percent. The nation’s premier urban center could see its infant population shrink by half in the next thirty years. The share of nonfamily households grew three times as fast in gentrifying neighborhoods as in the city overall. In the future, writes Steve LeVine in Axios, shifting local priorities “could write kids out of urban life for good.”

…

Nearly half a century ago, Daniel Bell saw a “new class” rising with values profoundly divergent from the traditional bourgeois norms of self-control, industriousness, and personal responsibility, which together form the essence of familialism. Instead, Bell envisioned a new type of individualism, unmoored from religion and family, which could dissolve the foundations of middle-class culture.

Indeed, for some, particularly in Europe and North America, declining fecundity represents an ideal result, chosen by those who “give up having children to save the planet” in order to reduce the carbon impact of each additional human. The recipe for reducing family size fits with the widely promoted notion of de-growth which has strong support from the oligarchs and financiers associated with the World Economic Forum. The goal is no GDP growth, less consumption, smaller houses, less class mobility, policies likely to reduce birthrates.

Others, particularly feminists and gender activists, celebrate the decline of the family for more ideological reasons. The late feminist icon Betty Frieden once compared housewives to people marching voluntarily into “a concentration camp.” One recent New York Times article even linked women who choose to stay at home with “white supremacy.” Black Lives Matter, true to its quasi-Marxist ideology, has made clear its antipathy to the nuclear family, an attitude widely shared in the mainstream media as well.

The more conventional Marxists in China, for their part, see these post-familial attitudes as a threat to the country’s future. China’s Communist leaders, while officially genuflecting to Maoist ideology, now promote the filial piety central to both traditional folk religion and the Confucianism but long reviled by the founders of the People’s Republic. Once terrified by overpopulation, China’s leaders are seeking ways to raise childbearing and family formation into “socialist” values.

But it’s Japan which again epitomizes the shift in Asian attitudes. There, traditional values such as hard work, sacrifice, and loyalty are largely rejected by the new generation, the shinjinrui or “new race.” These younger Japanese, writes one sociologist, are “pioneering a new sort of high quality, low energy, low growth existence.” Maybe they don’t need much energy since nearly a third of Japanese adults entering their thirties have never had sex. This is not a good predictor for family formation.

…

To succeed, such initiatives have to go beyond cash payments and other incentives, as welcome as these may be. There also needs to be a concerted effort to build family-friendly housing— large apartments, townhomes, and single-family detached houses—that generally attract families with children. Rather than shoehorning forced density into already-dense metros, we can encourage the development of less expensive, family-friendly housing; the shift to the periphery accelerated by the pandemic could help reverse the rapid aging and demographic declines associated with densely packed cities. The rise of remote work—something widely embraced by parents—could boost families by allowing them to work at home or nearby.

These are not issues of right or left, but concern the future of our civilization, not just economically but spiritually. Social democracy, as first developed in places like Sweden, sought to bolster families, not hem them in. Some conservatives have placed similar emphasis on the family unit. The debate should be not the utility of supporting families, but how best to do it.

This is a choice we need to make. A woke utopia, where children and families are rare, upward mobility constrained, and society built around a collective welfare system, would create a society that rewards hedonism and personal self-absorption. There is nothing as binding in a society as the ties created by children, who give us reason to fight against an encroaching dystopia.

#joel kotkin #the american mind #low birth rates #demographics

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lalasimmer · 4 years

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Ho Ho Ho 🎄 I’m late of course, but I was @percosim Secret Santa! She asked for urban cc, but she put male cc in capital letters so that’s what I went with lol. I converted these 2 hairs from Sims 4, one from parenthood EP and the other from @xxblacksims here. I converted a shirt, jacket/hoodie, and jeans too, they all have a few swatches, none are recolorable though. I hope you enjoy your gift, hope you enjoyed your holidays and sorry I was late ❤

Download 🎁

#ts3 secret santa #s3cc #secret santa 2019 #ts3cc #percosim

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letsperaltiago · 4 years

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i love you and i like you

Based on @stars-my-darling's adorable post:

“When Mac starts talking he will sometimes just randomly tell Amy that he loves her, usually at the end of an unrelated sentence. They later realise that he learnt to do this because Jake is always randomly telling Amy that he loves her and Mac is copying him." aka. 5 times toddler Mac Santiago-Peralta tells his mommy he loves her

Also includes prompt #101 from the 101 fluffy prompts-list: "…They just grow up so fast."

Read on ao3

Every like and reblog is appreciated <3

Amy Santiago has so far had a lifetime’s worth of great jobs, which, she knows, isn’t that hard when you love work and everything it implies. Everything from assisting her middle school’s librarian to that brief job at a small uptown museum her degree got her to being a respected sergeant in the NYPD. She’s loved every single job but, she’s now come to realise, nothing vill ever beat her most recent employment: Motherhood. With a capital M, yes.

Mac throws her and Jake’s worlds over like the tiny miracle of a storm he is and they’ve never looked back since. It’s brand new, it’s exciting, it’s scary, and though they’re not exactly religious, he’s the answer to their prayers. Parenthood turns out to be nothing like what they’d expected, like nothing they’d ever tried before and looking past some of the rough days, which are inevitable, it’s actually even better. They get to shape and watch a human grow; a human of which they’re both the genesis and they couldn’t be any more proud - both of each other but also their son.

Everything Mac does and achieves is a moment to remember, and they take nothing for granted: every new sound, even simple gurgles, every new movement, even the flick of a tiny finger? They beam, look at each other with wide, joyous eyes and celebrate their newborn addition to their little family. They hold on to everything they can, while they can although, they swear, every other day they’ll be lying in bed with him while he sleeps or watch him begin to explore their apartment on his own and they’ll take turns breaking the comfortable silence with what they’re both thinking:

“They just grow up so fast.”

Even if he’s merely grown a tenth of an inch since the last time they brought it up.

This fact aside, before they know it, their before so very tiny and helpless son can sit without assistance, sooner than later starts crawling and before they seem to have the time to catch up with the ladder he suddenly knows how to say “mama” and “dada” - and the day Mac takes his first steps, Amy filming on her phone while Jake is squatting to entice his son? Both parents guiltlessly shed a tiny tear rewatching the video that night after their little one, who suddenly seems so big, is put to bed.

With the walking comes the talking. Mac, like his dad, is an entertainer and seizes every chance he gets to chat with his parents, and anyone else who’ll listen for that matter, and hopefully make them laugh. Amy quickly sees through the fact that her son’s mannerism is definitely inspired by her husband’s, and Amy’s heart swells at every glimt of it: everything from Mac’s tiny ‘big dramatic movements’ to him attempting to crack small jokes (that sometimes are actually super funny but also mostly make people laugh because his delivery is beyond precious). Despite the fact that his personality is absolutely a solid blend of both parents, Jake’s genes definitely conquer everything else, and Amy doesn’t mind one bit. Although she could do without the short, Peralta-inspired attention span, which can be both very cute but also slightly maddening when you’ve told your barely 3-year old toddler 6 times to finish their meal meanwhile he’s to preoccupied by his father cleaning up the water said toddler spilled just seconds ago.

All in all, Mac is a copy of Jake, and in more ways that one Amy is grateful. Especially when the little boy starts getting a grasp of the word ‘love’ and what it actually means though his parents have showered him with it since before he was born. Jake and Amy will tell Mac ‘I love you’ on the daily and, besides this, his parents themselves aren’t exactly shy of telling each other, especially Jake who often tends to do it out of nowhere or any kind of context which the boy must’ve picked up on at some point.

It starts off quite naturally: the first time he says it.

One night after getting him washed down and put into his favorite firetruck-print pyjamas (the parents couldn’t deny him it even though they were far from thrilled), Amy’s sitting with Mac in his new so-called ‘big boy-bed’. Feeling her son’s curly-haired head nestled into her chest, one hand grabbing onto the fabric of her shirt while the other holds onto his best buddy Leo the Lion, Amy reads out loud from one of the many books she’s managed to accumulate for her son. Obviously worn out from the day Mac, as being almost 3 is very exhausting, stays silent and listens carefully to the sound of his mother’s voice, dutifully paying attention to the book’s colourful drawings and even sometimes pointing at them whenever Amy reaches a part of the story that’s been illustrated.

“Then the little puppy ran through the big big field and the big big forest to get back home-“

“Shee, Mommy,” Mac interrupts her with a lisp caused by the pacifier hanging from one corner of his mouth and points to the drawing of the running dog with his index finger. “Doggy runth!”

“Yeah, I see, baby,” she smiles before pecking the top of his head. Normally she’d ask him to remove his pacifier when he speaks. Her and Jake slowly trying to make the object something Mac knows he can use to relax rather than constantly needs, but when it’s this late and right before bedtime Amy can’t be bothered to reprimand him. For now she’s just proud of her tiny, smart guy. “Where is he running?” She pulls back to look at him, encouraging him to explain further.

“He’sh going home!” he smiles proudly to a point where his pacifier almost falls out, just barely clinging on for dear life.

“That’s right. He’s running home to his family - good job,” she chuckles sending him one last smile before skimming her wristwatch quickly realising bedtime is just minutes away. It’s not that they’re following a strict schedule that depends on every single minute and second of the day: something she’s actually glad Jake’s and his more laid-back lifestyle has transferred to their parenting-style. Although Mac, his parents have come to find out, will reach a point during the evening where it’ll be too late and he becomes overtired and impossible. Therefor 8 PM is the ultimate limit (on weekdays, that is) and Amy sees it quickly approaching so she quickly finishes up their story and shuts the book closed.

“That’s it for today, Mr. Mac. Time to visit dreamland,” simply not able to resist the feel and smell of her son’s newly washed curls, she places another kiss to the top of his head before climbing out of the small bed and hears him reply with a yawn which tells her that she’s probably timed bedtime perfectly. To the great delight of the now also tired mother (a high rank full-time job and a toddler will do that to you) she’s once more proved right when Mac gets under the covers without a trace of fight.

“Roshie?” he looks up at his mother with worried eyes as he hugs Leo the Lion a bit tighter. Those stupid beautiful brown eyes he’s inherited from Jake.

“Oh,” Amy kneels down to the bed’s side and starts running her hand all over the duvet, mattress and bed-frame. “Where’s Rosie, bud?”

Rosie aka. the pink unicorn he’d gotten from auntie Roro back when he was still a tiny baby (though he’d always be Amy’s tiny baby) was missing and they both knew very well that there would be no sleeping without it. Suddenly her hand comes across a bump, to her relief revealing the stuffed animal once she lifts up the duvet.

“Yay, mommy!” her son smiles as if she’s cracked the mystery of the century and Amy can’t help but feel just a bit proud - anything she does that makes her boy happy will do that to her.

“There you go,” she smiles and places the unicorn in his arms right next to Leo the Lion. “All good, Mr. Mac?”

He nods profoundly, eyes suddenly clearly tired and droopy, which earns him a warm smile from his mother before she leans in and kisses his forehead tenderly, all at once running her hand fingers his curls as to get her one last fix for the day. Incredible how your child can become somehow addicting.

“Sleep well. I love you,” she pulls back to take him in, the declaration of love hanging in the air for a few seconds before, taking Amy by surprise, her son answers her.

“I wuv you.”

She knows ‘love’ is an abstract feeling that a toddler can’t really comprehend and isolate as an emotion, which is probably also why Mac’s never said it back before, and although she’s told him a million times before and has never awaited or needed an answer, him saying it back definitely throws her off in the most magical, proud, emotional way in a long time. She’s constantly proud of the little things he does on the daily, slowly becoming a tiny actual human with opinions and a personality, but this is a whole new level.

“Thank you for saying that,” she can feel tears forming in her eyes and throat, but doesn’t want to confuse the small child who’s just begun to understand ‘love’, and therefor doesn’t also need to be explained that crying can also be a sign of happiness. That is an oxymoron that will surely just confuse him when, currently, crying is Mac’s way of expressing and understanding sadness and anger.

“That was very sweet of you and I love you so so much too, baby,” she manages to say it one last time, without breaking, before getting up to turn on his tiny night light and leave. “Me and daddy will be just down the hall watching TV, okay?”

A slight movement from beneath the duvet lets her know he’s heard her before she allows herself to half-close the door and walk back to where Jake is cleaning up after dinner. There she is finally able to let out a few soft cries as she lets her husband in on the small, incredible moment she’s just had with their son. Of course, it instantly makes Jake feel like crying with joy too. Their baby is surely the best.

From there on it’s just one big mess of declarations, at the most random moments and Amy is very amused but also even more enamoured.

One night Jake is away on a stakeout which leaves Amy is home alone with Mac, and to the toddlers immense joy this means he’s allowed to sleep with his mom in her and dad’s enormous bed. Jake has told him to keep mommy safe while he’s gone and of course takes this task very seriously. It’s 3 AM, they’re both fast asleep when suddenly Amy is awoken by what seems to be quite some new weight on top of her chest.

“Mommy,” promptly breaks the silence slowly bringing Amy back to consciousness.

It takes her a second to collect herself but she instinctually reaches out to figure out exactly where her son is in the dark. It’s quickly clear that he’s stretched out stomach down across her chest. “Yes, baby?” she mumbles tiredly eyes still closed hoping that her son is just being restless and will go back to sleep.

“I need pee.”

“Oh.”

This, with a power that almost no other request from her son holds, immediately dawns upon and takes over her body pushing her to sit up. Mac is pretty much fully potty trained but only day-wise. During the night he still uses a diaper, and they’ve only just recently started easing him into the night-potty by telling him it’s an option. The boy showing initiative himself is an absolutely great start and even more importantly an opportunity she won’t let slip by.

“You wanna go use the potty?” she looks at him to make sure and he immediately nods. “Okay, lets go then.”

And so they scurry out of bed and make their way across the hall to the bathroom, hand in hand in the darkness, where once the light is turned on Mac’s potty awaits him.

With a bit of help from mommy, he pulls down his pyjamas pants and diaper before getting settled on the potty. There’s no hiding the fact that they’re both very tired, especially Mac whose head hangs a bit, almost asleep while giving in to his body’s need for relief while Amy sits dutifully on the floor besides him.

“Good job telling me, Mac,” she praises, smiling tiredly but the little boy is too tired to even react.

They stay like this for a while, in silence, Amy not wanting to interrupt a probably concentrated Mac, when suddenly he, to her surprise, is the one to break the silence.

“I’m peeing and I love you, mommy,” he mumbles tiredly almost fully asleep right there on the potty, messy curls hanging in whatever which way gravity will allow.

Then, as if she’d never been tired, asleep, woken up and feeling exhausted, Amy’s body rises to a much higher level of awareness. Warmth, one that completely makes her forget about the bathroom floor’s cold tiles, spreads throughout her entire being and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was currently trying to pee, Amy would’ve pulled him into the tightest hug right there. But she doesn’t, of course, and instead settles for a gleaming smile.

“Mommy loves you too, honey,” He’s her very own bedhead, she thinks to herself lovingly running a hand through his hair. “And I’m so proud of you for waking me up to go potty.”

It’s very faint, too tired to put much effort into it but there’s definitely a small smile growing on her son’s face, When he falls asleep on top of her chest a bit later after he’s done and has been put into a clean diaper, just to be safe, the smile is still there, Amy can tell even in the dark.

Another occasion, it’s safe to say, happens when Amy leasts expects it. They’re running on ‘tantrum from hell: hour who-even-knows-anymore’, this time triggered by the banal fact that, no, Mac wasn’t allowed to play with the big knife Jake had been using to cut vegetables for their dinner.

Everyone has their bad days, the parents are well aware, but this one of Mac’s was particularly bad. All day, from the minute he woke up and went straight to the living room instead of joining his parents in their bad, he’d been extra fussy thereby not feeling content with whichever way his parents tried to fix his mood. They’d been understandable and gone easy on him all day, hopelessly trying to please him while also not just giving in to his unreasonable demands. It appeared that this was very a fine line to walk, and so far it sure hadn’t offered them the intended results. Both parents were exhausted and Mac screaming was far, so very far, from their ideal way of spending the evening in.

Both Jake and Amy have tried experimented with different tactics, some that are known to work. Picking him up to soothe him; ask him if he’s hurting somewhere; offering him to choose one of his daily snacks like a glass of milk, yoghurt or a fruit; suggesting that they play a game… But the little boy wants nothing. Nothing but that huge, sharp kitchen knife.

“Look, you can cry all you want, but daddy is not going to give you the knife. It’s dangerous, Mac,” Amy’s voice is definitely stern but nonetheless still calm well aware of the fact that screaming as well won’t get her anywhere. Besides that she also considers herself a structured, punctual but nonetheless also a cool mom: nevertheless enough is enough. She’s really had it by now, hands resting defensively on her hips as she feels a head ache creeping up on her meanwhile her 3 year old, who’s now lying face down on the kitchen floor, lets out yet another scream.

“Listen to mom, bud,” Jake intervenes the best he can without interrupting his wife’s operation. “She’s super right, you know? The knife is very very sharp and in your small hands it can easily slip and hurt you. We don’t want that.”

Another scream is how he’s thanked for the explanation and Jake, even though he loves his son unconditionally, has to roll his eyes and sigh. Logic is not relevant when you’re working with a toddler, he has learned but nonetheless gives it a try every time they’re back in the arena - only to be disappointed.

They try not to be the kind of parents that scold or punish their kid unless it’s necessary and they but alas this is not one of them. Amy has had it and shares a look of confirmation with her husband before proceeding - she needs him to back her up on this.

“Okay, McClane Santiago-Peralta,” Amy says strictly. Full name? This is the point of no return, Jake knows.

“If you’re going to continue to behave like this then that’s up to you, but that also means it’s time for time-out, because daddy and I don’t know how to help you, when you keep screaming like that.”

God, she hates this side of parenthood and this shade of herself, though she knows it necessary.

“Knife!” Mac cries out rolling onto his back and hitting the floor with the palms of his tiny hands in protest of now both the knife and the time-out.

“I’m not going to keep discussing this with you,” she makes up her mind, picks up her son which results in him screaming/crying even louder while also putting up a fight by wiggling his entire body in his mother’s hold. “If you’re not going to go by yourself, like the big boy I know you usually are, then I’ll have to carry you there.”

And so Amy, knowing that the most important thing right now is that she sticks to her pledges, starts walking out of the kitchen and down the hall towards her son’s room. The wiggling continues, the crying doesn’t come to quit and he even adds kicking into the air as she carries him to the mess of it all. He really doesn’t want to go, even less have his mommy take him there since it’ll mean that he’s really pushed her to the limit.

Then suddenly the next wail he lets out suddenly sends the situation down a completely different path.

“I just want the knife and I- I wuv you, mommy!” her son screams loudly through his cry, face all red and scrunched up as if he was cursing her which by nature results in Amy freezing on the spot, left to wonder what the hell had prompted that outburst.

That one was new, she thinks, and how the hell do you handle this exact situation right? On one hand his previous acts, and the fact that he’s still hysterical, means that he deserves to be sent to his room; on the other hand he just screamed, bloody murder, that he loves her… Parenthood was indeed so confusing sometimes.

A sigh leaves her body.

“I love you too, Mac,” she figures he deserves, and always will deserve, to hear it back - no matter how frustrating and crazy the situation might be.

“And daddy does too, but it’s really hard for us to help you when you scream and cry like that, baby,” she gives explaining the consequences of his tantrum one last shot, and, to her surprise, the boy actually stills in her arms and buries his face into her chest. The cries die out before transitioning to small sniffles and alas Amy sees the opportunity to, perhaps, talk some sense into her son.

“We’d much rather have you use your words, tell mommy and daddy what’s actually wrong, rather than having you scream and cry like this. Do you understand?”

There’s silence but Amy can feel Mac’s tiny head slide up and down in nod against his chest, and relief, although it might still just be a false sense of safety, floods her entire body.

“So, what is actually wrong? Why are you sad?”

“I-“ Mac sniffles trying to mould his thoughts. “I just wanted help daddy make food.”

Of course, she thinks internally rolling her eyes.

“I see,” she nods. “And you can help daddy cook, but next time you’ll have to say it like that. Use your words, okay?”

He nods again before lovingly grasping onto a strand of his mother’s hair.

“Good,” she pecks the top of his head. “Now,” she cranes her neck to look down at her son’s face where it’s half buried into her tear-stained shirt. “Do you want to be in your room by yourself for a bit to calm down, or do you want to come help me and daddy clean the kitchen and set the table?”

“I wan’ help,” he mumbles obviously lacking energy after spending it all throwing the tantrum, but if he wants to be with them and redeem himself then Amy won’t be the one to stop him. It took a while, but Amy always tries to remember that he’s still very little meaning that it’s inevitable that some social skills aren’t fully developed. So whenever he can come to his senses, with his parents guidance or not, Amy will of course be the first one to endorse it.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she walks back towards the kitchen with Mac resting silently in her arms.

A third memory that pops into Amy’s mind upon trying to remember the many random moment’s where her son has shared his love for her out loud and of the blue (Peralta-stylez), is one time (of the many) they went grocery shopping together. They’d been wandering around the big grocery store, her and Mac, targeting the cereal aisle, hand in hand with a basket in Amy’s free hand.

“Okay, since you and daddy ate the last of the Fruit Loops this morning we need to get some cereal. You think you can help me with that?” she looks down at her son who’s already looking up to meet her eyes. Mac’s enchanting glimmering eyes instantly light up at the thought of responsibility, a trait he’s definitely inherited from her, and prompts an eager nod. Before she can even say or explain further, which he probably doesn’t actually need her to, he’s let go of her hand.

“More Fwuit Loops!” he exclaims happily as his tiny legs take him ahead, down the aisle, to reach the mosaic of colourful cereal-boxes.

“Sure, if that’s what you want, babe, but maybe…” she walks towards him, "we could try something else for once?” she tries to not be too strict about her son’s eating habits, especially when she knows Fruit Loops is usually the only straight up sugary stuff he eats daily, but also, she has to admit, secretly wishes she could perhaps trick him and Jake to eat something just a bit less… candy-like.

“What?” he stops and looks at her with a frown. “Something else?”

“Yeah,” she catches up with him and looks as the many options before him. “Like… bran-flakes, maybe? They look yummy, right?”

Either Amy is a really bad actor or her son simply too smart, but nonetheless Mac looks more than quite unimpressed when his mom pulls a boring, brown box out from the shelf to showcase it

“I donno want brain-flakes ew, mommy” and the face Mac makes, a face of utter disgust, would be way more solid proof than a paternity test if one was needed - he is definitely, without a single doubt, Jake Peralta’s son - and she definitely can’t help but chuckle at the similarity he constantly carries with him.

The tiny human’s hand starts dancing across all the different packages, probably gathering himself a good dose of various germs that in the moment Amy can’t make herself care about, and every now and then he’ll stop to study a cereal that’s caught his child-brain and eyes’ attention.

“There are so many to choose from, huh babe?” she encourages but keeping her distance as to be supportive of him doing something on his own, independent like a big boy.

First he stops in front of the Cheerios, which Amy can totally be content with, but alas he quickly, to Amy’s chagrin, puts them back in their spot. Then come the Frosted Flakes with their blue box and cute tiger cartoon (the perfect child-trap) which, if possible, are even worse than Fruit Loops. Amy unconsciously frowns at the thought of having to rip the box of cereal from her son’s grip when he in a few seconds won’t let go and instead grab the Bran Flakes. But to Amy’s great relief Mac’s finger continue their trip down past the tiger-trap, mindlessly mumbling small nothings to himself that she can’t quite make out. Then, all at once seeming way more determined than with previous ones, Mac throws himself at a bright and colourful box.

“These!” he exclaims jumping up and down on the spot with the held over his head in victory.

As soon as she gets a closer look, having gently grabbed the box from her son, it dawns on Amy that Jake Peralta being the father of her child isn’t exclusively beneficial. Not when their child is asking for Sour Patch Kids morning cereal and Amy knows it’s because he’s inspired by his dad as Jake will gladly share his candy with his son whenever he happens to have some.

“Oh, baby… “ Amy tries to keep up a neutral face as to not reveal how she dreads to get something that’s somehow even worse than the king of artificial ingredients, Fruit Loops, and sultan of sugar, Frosted Flakes, combined. “You sure you don’t just wanna get the Fruit Loops then? I don’t think you’ll like Sour Patch Kids.”

“Yes I do! I eat them with daddy all the time!”

Of course.

Her son is completely oblivious to her dread and shines proudly thinking he’s pleased his mom by finding something new (which it is - Amy can’t deny that) to have for breakfast. And Amy’s mom-heart can’t get herself to contradict her son’s persuasion of the fact that he’s accomplished the mission she set up for him. No way. Not when his face flows with pride like it does now.

“Okay,” she surrenders with a forsaken smile. “We can get these, but they’re very sugary so only for weekend mornings, got it?” she puts her hand forward as to shake on the deal.

Either it’s the handshake that takes his mind off of it, or her 3-year old actually somehow understands nutritional values, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t hesitate to meet her hand with his own, agreeing with her proposed deal. Immediately after she hands him back the box, it’s a mystery to Amy how such a simple thing can make her son that happy, he beams with excitement and basically hugs the box of sugary sweetness. Amy has to chuckle and then he’s off again to do his own little thing, prancing down the remains of the aisle chanting a made-up song, Amy guesses, to himself.

“Cereal. Breakfast. I love cereal. I love breakfast. I love mommy and mommy loves cereal and me and daddy and breakfast. Cereal, cereal, cereal!”

And to her, and Jake’s, sheer luck Amy manages to snap a short video of it for them to enjoy and fuss about for years.

That same night, Friday, they’re all lounging on the couch watching a movie. Tangled as per Mr. Mac’s demand because “Flynn Eugene whatever is really cool and the pretty princess hits him with a pan and the horse and green little thing are super fun too.”

So, needing no further arguments, they watch Tangled and snack on Sour Patch Kids (the candy, not the cereal) that Jake had bought on his way home from work after Amy had texted him about their adventure at the grocery store, attaching the video of their son singing.

Although, after a long day, by the time the lanterns in the movie light up the dark sky while Rapunzel and Flynn sing to each other, Mac is half, almost completely, passed out with his head in Amy’s lap and legs stretched across his father’s. Mommy stroking your face and playing with your curls turns out to be very soothing and sleep-inducing. Jake can also, if asked to testify, agree with this fact. Guess there’s something special about Peralta-curls Amy simply can’t resist.

“Ames, I think he’s asleep,” Jake whispers discreetly throwing his wife a knowing smile when he notices his son’s current state.

She, having not noticed being too busy watching the movie, looks down and sees, indeed, a sweet angel face with shut eyes and pouty lips that indicated that her son is, if not entirely, on the verge of being asleep. Nevertheless, every 30 seconds or so, his eyes will flutter just a bit, like tiny butterfly wings, as if he’s fighting to see the end of the movie - a movie he’s seen 134 times already.

“You want to go to bed, Mac?” she coos leaning down to peck his temple.

“Nu-uh,” he fights off the urge to say yes, Amy can tell.

“You sure?” she tries again.

He nods heavily in her lap, shuffling a bit in an attempt to get comfortable enough to, Amy knows, fall asleep. But he can’t seem to find the right spot, is surely overtired too and both parents can tell it’s a matter of minutes before he’ll give in to either fall asleep on the couch or demand to be put to bed.

And they’re right.

“Mommy,” he mumbles in the most exhausted and soft soft voice that makes Amy’s heart flutter time after time. “I love you but I wanna sleep - in my bed.”

Those three words, especially coming from Mac, will never seize to send a tiny jolt of joy and dopamine through her entire being. She chuckles softly stroking his back.

“That’s okay, baby. We’ve had a long day. Let's get you to bed.”

“Okay, I love you mommy. And daddy. Love,” he passes out before he can finish the sentence and won’t even notice his father carrying him to bed while Amy gazes after them with loving eyes.

Even three years in, four if you count the pregnancy, she can’t believe this sweet, beautiful and smart boy is hers. A bundle of love that is half her and half the man she loves the most (next to Mac himself, of course). Parenthood is an irregular graph with ups and down, but they have so much love that it’ll make up for the bad days and hard cases. In the very end the most important thing is that he, Mac Santiago-Peralta with his brown curly hair, tiny nose and deep brown eyes, is here and he’s theirs. Not only is he theirs but he is his own and he loves them, his parents, so much, every day. Plus, he’s so good at actually expressing it that Amy can’t help but feel like they’re definitely doing something right. She’s proud to know her son is surrounded by so much love that it has planted a seed that everyday blooms within him, making him spill over and spread his care and love to other people.

So, yes, Amy Santiago is 100% sure: she is definitely the luckiest, most loved mom in the entire universe. Mac Santiago-Peralta will always make sure of this.

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