Slonk

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts:

The usual joke is “why are x and y talking about the traffic light system lmao”. but, see, I think that just betrays a lack of understanding of how negotiation works for both sides of the conversation: on one hand, the people who think 1) that you require something like the traffic light system in order to write consensual kinky sex Properly because that’s what they’ve read in other fanfiction that have similar misgivings and they’re afraid that writing kinky sex wrong will get them attacked by their readers and 2) that that is all negotiation is, just the safeword, blandly put out before sex begins to assure everyone that This Is Consensual, only a way to say no and never a way to say yes. and on the other hand, people who see that rote recitation and assume that because they find this misunderstanding of negotiation a turn off, that must mean that all negotiation ruins the thrill of a sex scene.

and so we’re left with this version of Good BDSM Writing where negotiation is a boring requirement instead of an opportunity for character introspection, or hell, for foreplay. Maybe your fav is having under-negotiated kinky, or maybe their form of negotiation is just not going to look like listing out which color means stop. what boundaries are they aware of? how, or how not, do they enforce them? where are they willing to be pushed and how do they let their partner know that? what do they ask for? what would they be too embarrassed to ask for? if you do not hold yourself to a standard that requires you to make the negotiation as unsexual as possible, you can integrate it a lot more naturally into your porn.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.