Mahogany Rain

Stunning.

Stop asking little girls if they have boyfriends Stop referring to the boys that little girls are friends with as their “little boyfriends” Stop telling little girls they’re going to have boyfriends or be “boy crazy” Stop raising children on heteronormativity and let them be children

no offense but fuck adults who are like ‘you kids never just go outside and play anymore’ where the hell in my schedule of going to school for 7 hours, coming home and doing 3ish hours of homework, going to extracurriculars, and finding time to sleep do i have time to go outside and fucking frolick in the streets

Not to mention that teens who do spend time outside are seen as trouble-making or deviant for doing something as simple as using the fucking swings at a park.

Okay story time. So I used to work at an environmental education center where school kids would come for three days and do all their classes outside. It was pretty much expected that inner city kids and suburban kids were going to freak out being outside, because it was just accepted that inner city kids playing outside got them labeled as trouble makers and suburban kids were only allowed outside in the most structured ways possible. As an educator, you had to know and be prepared for these kids to be freaked out by bugs and shit because they’d never been exposed to it. Parent chaperones, and even their classroom teachers, however, seemed to miss the memo. You would always get these parents talking about IN MAY DAY WE PLAYED OUTSIDE and essentially making the kids in their group feel like shit for being afraid of dirt and bugs and whatnot. My job was to make the outdoors an approachable learning experience for kids, and i can not tell you the number of times i had the same parents who would shit on these kids for being standoffish about nature, the second those kids would get brave enough or comfortable enough to play in the creek, or catch a crawdad, or stomp in the mud, were the same ones yanking those kids out of there, screaming about how they were going to get messy or touching a frog meant they would get ecoli and die( literally had a woman say this to a fourth grade girl. I it’s the only time i have nearly hit a parent. This kid wasn’t even her daughter.) You don’t get to shit on kids for not playing outside, then the moment they start to enjoying themselves, make them feel bad or afraid for playing outside. You don’t get to take that experience from kids and then blame THEM for not having it.