tide woman

A child raising their voice, not enough to strike terror and not even enough to startle, but barely enough to show frustration, is considered disrespectful. Meanwhile, in a typical conversation between two adults, the same amount of voice-raising would happen on a regular basis and people would think nothing of it.

A child rolling their eyes, which is caused by confusion and can easily be involuntary, is considered disrespectful.

If a child found another way to express confusion or frustration, that would eventually be added to the list of things that are considered disrespectful.

Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.

When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.

I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.

I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.

"Second sea" - a gouache painting

Ghost Forest, Neskowin, Oregon