Right to Privacy In Tact?

In the last couple of weeks it seems that Americans have lost their collective minds. I've tried my best to watch quietly from the sidelines and not devote any energy to these things, but I just can't keep quiet anymore.

My top 3 dumb ass things are:
1. the man arrested for being nude in his own home;
2. pregnant mothers being called "crazy" & "inconsiderate" for making birthing choices that are alternative to standard hospital deliveries and;
3. the over-saturation of the debacle that is John & Kate Plus 8.

Now, as a woman who grew up in a very free environment, the one thing I am very comfortable with is my body. While I love fashion, my favorite thing about being at home is that it's clothing-optional. Most times, I opt out. From my days in a college dorm to my first apartment, it was firmly established that if you crossed my threshold you just might see anything and if you couldn't handle it, you shouldn't cross. Those not as free preferred to wait until I emerged from wherever I called home to interact with me. Others still thought it was all the more interesting and bravely entered my habitat, surely to sneak a peak. This isn't to say that I'm always naked, but I certainly see no reason to be fully clothed in the house.

This poor gentleman was making coffee, albeit naked, in the privacy of his own home and at 5:30 a.m. no less. Some nosy woman and her daughter were walking past his home and called the police upon discovering my man's manhood on full display. If I happened upon such a sight, depending on who he was and what he was working with, I might stop and look on for a minute, taking care to wave or give a thumbs up should he notice me. If he didn't move me, I'd just keep it moving, no harm no foul. At no point would it cross my mind to call the police on someone doing something as innocent as making coffee. If he were naked with a woman (or a man) bound and gagged and she didn't seem to be into it, then I'd probably hover over the send button on my cell phone for a 911 call. Ultimately, it's in his house and NOT my business. I feel for him, cause I too could surely be in jail for reading while naked, watching TV while naked, eating dinner while naked...or close to.

Dumb ass thing number 1, done. The 2nd issue is close to home for me as well. While I've never been pregnant, I've spent a great deal of time around pregnant women and babies over the span of my life. I witnessed my sister's home birth and was the birth partner for my goddaughter's mother in the hospital. When I was 5, as a result of seeing my sister's birth, I wanted to be an obstetrician. I've considered studying midwifery or becoming a doula. For my goddaughter's birth I was privy to the insensitive handling of [especially Black] women in labor, discounting a woman's intuition and the connection to her own body and her baby. That juxtaposed with my mother's sense of calm and support having her baby in the same room she was conceived in and surrounded by women who catered to her every whim, helped sway me against hospital births and lean more toward a more natural experience.

The medical industry [this is about dollars and cents] is chastising women for having children the "old fashioned", "barbaric" way, without the assistance of drugs and the pushy, impersonal demeanor of doctors delivering babies as though it's a factory roll out of a new car model. I can certainly understand the desire to have a trained professional present should complications arise, but other than that, I can't imagine being anyone other than some "neanderthal woman" attempting to have her baby the way nature intended.

My choice, as a woman who doesn't actually have to make it, doesn't matter. The issue I have is with anyone, especially an industry, trying to push women to deliver their new lives into the world any other way than the way they choose. If that way is a scheduled C-section, so be it. If that way is in the hospital attached to every machine imaginable for precaution, so be it. If that way means squatting in a kiddie pool in your living room, it's a woman's choice. It is up to no one but that woman, and her partner (assuming he's in the picture), to decide how their child will enter this world. And it is not "crazy" to want your child's entry to be as peaceful and nurturing as possible. The hospital industry will simply have to understand that.

Dumb ass thing number 2, done. The final issue: John & Kate and their litter. First, who gives a uckf?? I can't quite figure out why I'm supposed to cry for or with a family that clearly went too far with fertility drugs (which I'm totally opposed to), then pimped their family as an oddity for cash, and now Kate's wondering what she's supposed to do to feed her family if John vetoes continuing the show. Let me think for a minute....wait for it....GET A DAMN JOB like everybody else. There's a woman in a hood nearest me and you named Tanesha and she lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with 6 children. The Tanesha near you might be collecting a check, the Tanesha near me might be hustling something, but Tanesha's children are wearing Jordans and they're eating. Kate's position is that the lifestyle her children have come to know, the traveling, etc, is all as a result of the show and they deserve to continue in that vain. Guess what, Lady, kids are resilient, they'll adjust. Perhaps you should've thought about how you were going to care for your litter before you agreed to have sextuplets living in Middle America (not that the location makes or breaks one's struggle with that many children in tow). Now that you've got 'em, it's your responsibility, and John's, to figure out how to raise 'em the best way you can. That doesn't necessarily mean forcing networks to air your boring show or forcing your children to continue living their lives in front of cameras.

I need for nudity at home not to be under attack. Maybe we're all just receiving a warning to make sure the blinds are closed. I need for medical officials not to have ANY say so over what women do with their vaginas and where they stretch them out at. & I need John and Kate Plus Eight to be minus nine (to make sure all of them disappear, no stragglers).

Y'all keep making the news & I'll keep trying to ignore it.

Watch me move.