Hey!
My name is Lauren, and I am so excited to be on this educational journey with all of you. I am a WGS major here at UMassD, so I can’t wait to dive into ecofeminism!
I am a 30-year-old mother of one feisty 3-year-old toddler. Quite frankly, there should be an entire course for adults literally just dedicated to teaching us how to not be bullied by a toddler. (I am sure they have those, but most of us are just out here winging this whole parent thing.) In reality though, that little girl is most of the reason I am here typing this now. She is pure light, and unfiltered happiness, and has shown me how to see the good in all corners of our little space in this world. I live in a Suburb of Boston in a small house with my ever-so-patient and supportive hubby, our little one, and our goofy boxer/pit mix, Nova Binx. (Pics below because I am obsessed with this dog on an almost unhealthy level…)
I currently help manage a small private psychiatry and holistic healthcare clinic, love it, it’s my full-time job. On the weekends, I work for a community behavioral health center as a certified peer mentor and recovery specialist. I am part of the youth mobile crisis unit, so we are out in the field, sometimes all day. I also love it, though. Mental healthcare is my passion, it’s another part of the reason I am here trucking right along toward that BA, because my ultimate career goal is to become a licensed clinical mental health counselor. Of course, I need to make it to this graduation, then through graduate school, that graduation, land a MA-level job, complete supervised clinical hours, apply for licensure, take the licensure exam, hopefully pass that, and viola! (Typing all of that out just now was scary.)
When I can find some spare time, I still attend some general NAMI membership meetings, I volunteer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), as well as the Crisis Text Line (988) or (741-741.) I adore reading fantasy, painting, knitting, and yoga! I am also a die-hard Eagles fan, so I am trying to make it to the SuperBowl in one piece…
Saquan Barkley, 26, is currently one of my heroes.
While I was taking a look through some of the different blogs in this module, I fell in love with More To Hate by Kate Manne pretty much right away. Kate seems like a cheeky author, and I am a big fan of sarcasm and dry humor. As I was reading through some of her blog posts, another blog caught my eye titled “liberating motherhood” by Zawn Villines. I clicked on it, because yes please, I love to complain about motherhood while I am in the thick of it, and love my tiny human at the same exact time. Strange feeling, really. I immediately felt a strong sense of comradery as I started to sift through Zawn’s posts. They raise some important points in regard to day-to-day challenges that mom’s and caregivers face, as well as relationship issues, where to find support, ect. Liberating motherhood has a podcast too, and I think I might subscribe, to be honest. I think that Zawn’s style and liberating motherhood could be a model for my own work, because sometimes when things are as bad as they are, (current feminist issues, the environment, the current political climate…) satire becomes a coping mechanism. On the flip side, it can’t be a model for my work when I need to buckle down and convince the more academic side of me to do some work.
I am a vegetarian, so that means I am pretty much always concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. Even though my fam and I do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint, I know it’s not enough. Instrumentalism makes me sad, why are humans the way that we are? I can’t stand the “that won’t happen in my lifetime” sentiment, because 1. we are getting dangerously close to “that happening” in this lifetime, and 2. there are several generations to come that will be directly related ancestors that we leave behind, what about them? I am excited to be taking this course and gaining knowledge on how to address some super scary issues from a feminist perspective!
