… I bet you can’t guess who my all-time favorite cartoon character is. It’s not like I make it painfully obvious on my WordPress profile or anything.

So, the real ones, those who know their early-90s animated films, already know who #1 on this list is going to be.

But there are at least nine others also worth mentioning:

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Cartoon characters and I, we have a long history. Going all the way back to early childhood, I’ve had these phases of intense obsession with certain cartoon characters.

I think this fictophilia is connected to the AVPD in some way: fictional figures are easier, less dangerous, to love; in the safety of your imagination, they can’t hurt you, and you can’t fumble it with them. Imaginary worlds are the only places where it’s safe to experience strong emotions. I’m sure many of us socially anxious nerds out there can relate.

But the catch is, made-up characters can still hurt you — when they’re not your own.

Because you have no control over someone else’s intellectual property. You might daydream about it, you might wish you did, but you don’t. Thus, when you love a fictional character, there’s still a risk. You don’t get to decide what happens to them in their story. You have to wait, with bated breath, for the creator to release new content. You’re reliant on an outside source for canon information. (Unless you’re into fanfiction, I guess, which I, being a fierce individualist, have never been; with exactly two notable exceptions, I’ve always looked all the way down my nose at fanfic; be original, if you’re going to create something; don’t steal someone else’s characters, ffs!) You can’t just access their world at any time — you can’t have any actual agency in the character’s “life.” And besides, all the other fans have just as much right to them as you do. You have to share them. You never get to own them.

I didn’t like that. It made things too stressful, for me, too roller-coastery, too unpredictable. Made me feel helpless and weak and needy and pathetic. I hate being dependent. Also hate sharing what is deeply important to me — no, you can’t love this character too, they are mine! I hate being a trend-follower.

So, I came up with the best solution: OCs.

My own fictional people to obsess over. And now I make the rules, and am not a slave to any creator but myself.

And it worked! Beautifully! Since the inception of my fictional world in early 2003, I haven’t had any more intense obsessions with other people’s characters. Only mine. I am free. I am alone — the sole member of this little fandom, with no one to geek out about characters or new content with — but, I am free. And I get to decide what is canon now!

There are still characters that I’ve greatly enjoyed, though. Not all of the characters on this list are ones with which I had one of my signature pre-2003 intense obsessions. Some of these, I just think are super cool. Even though I’m no longer subject to such obsessions, I still have a lot of love for animation/illustration and fictional people in general. Anyway — I’ll explain more as we go along. Without further ado:

10. Buzz Lightyear. I’m no Pixar fan, not anymore, and it honestly pisses me off that they are still making Toy Story sequels — shamelessly milking every last penny out of that dried-up franchise that they possibly can, instead of coming up with original ideas — disgusting. But, Buzz couldn’t not make this list, because he was my first love — my first real crush. My first cartoon obsession. I was in first grade, and the original Toy Story had just come out, and I was as in love with Buzz Lightyear as a seven-year-old could be. I had all the merch, the action figures, the sweatsuit — it was my Whole Thing. Even then, it had an unhealthy element of intense shame. I was afraid for people to know how deep were my feelings about Buzz, but also longed to talk about nothing but him every minute of the day, which was a very isolating sort of feeling. It felt like a proto-addiction. I don’t know why I was already like this at seven years old.

9. Clopin (the puppet guy from Hunchback of Notre Dame). He became my next obsession after Buzz. For years, I thought something was very wrong with me, psychologically, for finding Clopin so strangely attractive — but in recent years, I’ve learned that I’m far from alone! There are lots of girls out there who salivate over him! He has quite a fandom! What is it about him? In real life, I’m not into skinny twiggy guys. But Clopin has a certain weird charisma for sure. Second-grade Mith was not the only one who noticed, after all.

8. Rei Kashino from the manga series MARS. This was 2004, so the post-OC era; thus I never developed an intense obsession, but this series came pretty close, and got under my skin way more than media usually does (and, tbh, had quite an influence on my fictional world, which I’m ashamed to admit can still be noticed in my writing to this day). I’ve said it before and will say it again: this is the best manga of all time, and Rei and Kira are two of the most beautiful characters ever drawn in the genre; they’re everything that the stars of a high school romance should be. Plus, it has that ’90s aesthetic that I’m such a simp for.

7. Trent from Daria. Again: not a serious obsession, but I always loved this show, and Trent was my favorite male character. How I longed, back in those days, for a lazy stoner band guy of my very own. I was as infatuated with him as Daria herself was. (Interestingly, she and I both actually ended up with well-adjusted, wholesome, intelligent, literature-loving Good Guys.) My favorite female character on this show?: undoubtedly Sandi. “GEE, QUINN 🤨” is something I still repeat semi-regularly to myself, when the situation merits it, because her accent was just so hilarious.

6. Johnny, the Homicidal Maniac. This is such a gross, terrible comic book series, and I no longer have any love for it at all, but when I was in seventh grade I thought it was just sooo extremely ~Edgy~ and ~Dark~ and ~Punk Rock~. 🙄 Nny was, in fact, my last major cartoon character obsession; it was the unbearable emotional turmoil of that particular phase that made me realize I couldn’t do this anymore, I had to get some OCs of my own. The secrecy, the irresistibility, the maddening weight of it. I won’t even go into detail about the great lengths that I went to to obtain a copy of the Director’s Cut — my parents, obviously, didn’t want me to have it — and to keep it a secret. It’s truly embarrassing to admit, now, but there was a time when I thought Johnny C. was dreamy as heck and fantasized daily about being the only person in his life that he wouldn’t want to kill.

5. Miguel and

4. Tulio, from The Road to El Dorado. Obviously, I mean, come on. These guys were my 4th-5th grade obsession. DreamWorks knew exactly what they were doing here; this movie had no business being so sexy.

3. Izaya from DRRR!. I discovered this one in 2018, so well beyond the era of my youthful obsessions… but, this came pretty close to mirroring that, and if I’d found the show/manga prior to 2003, I just know it would have become a Whole Thing. Izaya specifically is the magic ingredient that makes the series so much fun; he is the best anime villain of all time, and he and Shizuo are my favorite anime couple (I know the creator has said that they’re not in love, and I know I said above that fans don’t get to decide what’s canon, buuuut, yeah, in this case, sorry, Shizaya is canon.)

2. Invader ZIM. My second-to-last major cartoon obsession. And before you accuse me of being some kind of trend-following HotTopic scene kid, know that I was there when it began. I watched the ZIM pilot not the Friday night it aired, but two nights later when they re-aired it on Sunday night (April 1, 2001). Immediately it became a Whole Thing. I was 11, and positively indignant that no one (in the show or irl) took Zim seriously, no one else understood him, but I saw him for what he really was, I respected him, he and I were made for each other, we would take over this miserable planet together! I was extremely secretive about this obsession, to the point where I’d literally build a privacy tent by draping a big blanket over my head + the family PC (or my head and the TV, while standing like 1 foot away from the screen) to watch ZIM or look at pictures of him on AOL. So that the family wouldn’t see what I was doing. It was all I cared about, and I lived in constant, sickening fear of being found out. Again, I don’t know why I was already like this at such a young age.

And finally, my favorite cartoon character of all time:

1. Batty, of course. Batty was never a Major Obsession of mine, never a crush or anything (even I’m not that weird, haha!) but actually, that makes my associations with him even more positive, because, as mentioned, these obsessions were always riddled with so much fear and angst and shame. No, Batty has been a constant; he’s always just made me happy when I see him, happy when I think about him, and as a vegetarian/vegan/supporter of animal rights and a generally tense, anxious, mistrustful, creepy, and weird person in general, I’ve always strongly identified with him as a character. I’m never getting any more tattoos, but if I had to get one, it’d be of Batty for sure. Plus, as you guys know, I’ve loved rap music from an early age, and Batty Rap was one of the first rap songs I loved — it is to this day probably the hardest song in any kids’ movie ever. I mean come on:

… So yes, there’s that; now you all know how weird I really am. Whatever. I’m in the back half of my 30s now and happily married to a real life flesh-and-blood human person, and wouldn’t have it any other way, so, go ahead and call me whatever you want. If I cared anymore, I wouldn’t be posting this on my blog. If somehow you are still reading this and can actually relate to any of it — hi! we should be friends.

Why yes, WordPress Daily Prompts! There is a book that I regret reading! I read it six years ago, and still think almost daily about how much I regret reading it. An absolutely despicable trash heap of an excuse for literature. Seriously — may as well bind up a bunch of used bathroom tissue between two covers and call it a book. Buckle up folks!

(– oh, wow. Now I actually feel kind of bad writing this. I just Googled the author to see if he was still alive, because if so I wanted to begin my post with a quick little aside directed at him personally, to say that I mean him no offense; my revulsion and horror at his book is a clear sign that he accomplished his goal to a T, and he’s actually a very gifted writer; he set out to write something despicable, gross, and nightmare-inducing, and did so perfectly, more memorably than anyone else I’ve ever read. I was going to write him this little note, here, and then saw, upon Googling, that he apparently died earlier this year. I had no idea. May his soul rest in peace.)

The author in question is one Dan Simmons (1948-2026), and the horrible book of his that I regret reading is Song of Kali.

Have any of you ever read this? If so, then you know what I’m talking about. If not, then don’t read it — especially if you’re a parent.

Why did I even read this book? I don’t usually go for dark horror. (I do enjoy some fun paranormal horror sometimes, like a bit of Stephen King, but not the heavy/grisly stuff.) The reason is, my husband and I were looking for a book to read together, as we often like to do, and a coworker of his, knowing that my husband likes horror, recommended this Dan Simmons book. We didn’t know what to expect, but decided to give it a shot.

I am going to spoil this book for you (TW), because I don’t believe it merits not spoiling, so, stop reading here if for some reason you actually plan on reading this piece of garbage.

The baby dies. An eight-month-old baby girl dies brutally. Why, I still wonder, did my husband’s coworker recommend this book to him, knowing that he had an eight-month-old daughter at home at the time? FFS.

Sometimes a tragedy in a book is good, is meaningful. Sometimes it’s earned. This one… was not. Everything leading up to the death was horrible and miserable, and the death just felt like: “oh wow, okay, we’re really gonna stoop this low now.” It wasn’t even the thrilling, exciting kind of horror. It was just dreary and miserable from start to finish; not a single moment that made you feel like any of it was worthwhile. Horror should at least be fun, imo.

“Well, that doesn’t mean dark horror is bad, Mith, it just means you don’t like it.” Wrong! If Song of Kali is a good example of “good” dark horror, then the entire genre is objectively shit and anyone who believes otherwise needs to see a psychiatrist.

If you’re going to make your audience straight up miserable from beginning to end, you’d better have a very good reason for it (exhibit A: the movie Calvary). “Look at how horrible I can make you feel” is not a good reason.

The other thing that pissed me off about Song of Kali was, it left a really bad taste in my mouth for anything relating to the beautiful nation of India. I’ve always appreciated India (some of the best vegetarian cuisine in the world!), which was one reason why this book appealed to me at first. The novel focuses on an American family’s trip to India, and is very much about India, and dwells a lot on the sensory details of its scenery, cityscapes, customs, and culture — always casting it in an extremely unappetizing light. Making the whole country look like one big nightmarish circus sideshow. I think if I were of Indian descent, I’d be downright offended! It’s a truly unflattering portrait of a perfectly decent country. From the time I read this book, for a long time, any mention of anything Indian gave me the major ick. (Until I discovered this absolute gem of a song, that is; thank you to this artist for singlehandedly healing my India trauma.)

Well, that’s enough. I’ve already wasted too much time on this book. In conclusion: Song of Kali is trash. No offense to Mr. Simmons, who clearly was a sick genius of some kind. I wish him all the best, but, dear reader, if you value your time and/or your inner peace, do not read this book. I’m still mad about the hours of my life that I wasted allowing myself to be tortured by this book for no reason.

The older I get, the less trusting I am in general. Like, all through my twenties and into my early thirties, I felt pretty sure that the government genuinely had our best interests at heart — why wouldn’t they want the best for all citizens?! They themselves are citizens, after all — and that their recommendations could be trusted.

Ha! Things are a bit different now.

There are a number of conspiracy theories that I find believable, now, which most of you would probably laugh at because “science,” but really, isn’t “believing the science” just as much a matter of faith as religion? I’ve never seen an atom or been to outer space. I wasn’t there at the dawn of life on earth. I’m just taking The Scientists’ word for it.

But one of these theories in particular, I’ve been dwelling on a lot in recent months, and I have become increasingly convinced of its truth. The theory is: people, especially poor people, are being actively, deliberately poisoned via our food supply.

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I remember some time ago hearing about someone who believed that popular, mainstram nutritional recommendations were BS. That all of the “eat fruits and vegetables!”, “fresh produce is the best thing for you!” advice, which is drilled into our heads from infancy, was propaganda and lies. That the “Food Pyramid” / “MyPlate” stuff, which encourages eating mostly vegetables and fruits, was an evil government scheme to make people unhealthy.

Hearing about this person’s outlandish conspiracy theory, I laughed. “That’s ridiculous,” I thought. “That’s crazy! Everyone knows fruits and veg are the best foods for your health. The Science says so.”

But a seed had been planted in my mind, and I couldn’t forget about it.

As you guys know, for a while now I’ve been researching and reconsidering the whole vaccine issue, and have concluded that the antivax position is more compelling than I originally thought. That’s a different story though. I bring it up because, in researching vaccines, I learned about “Big Pharma” and the fact that they are the ones funding most of these “studies” that have pro-vaccine findings. How chronic health conditions from our food and drugs lead to people’s further dependence on Big Pharma for more drugs. It’s all for proft. I learned how the billionaires benefit from us being sickly.

And at the same time, as new parents, my husband I began paying more attention to the national grocery recall alerts, in order to stay apprised of what was safe to buy for our kids. Every day, another recall, another contaminated item on the shelves.

Most of it, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Apparently regulating the cleanliness of the farms that grow our food supply is just not that important to the folks in charge… or, could it be that are they doing this on purpose?

Because here’s the other thing about produce. Unless you shell out for organic, which is easily more than twice the price (and can you really trust that little “organic” label, anyway?), so prohibitively expensive for poor people… you’re inevitably ingesting all kinds of toxic pesticides. And you can’t just wash them off, no matter how long you scrub or soak, or with what cleaning materials. (“However much you’re doing,” a former farm employee told my husband, “it’s not enough.”)

I’ve been reading a lot about these pesticides and their effects. Everything from cancer and thyroid disease to early onset of puberty in girls — which is in itself linked to myriad physical and mental health issues.

Early puberty (which I addressed in this post) is a huge problem and it’s getting worse. I read that in the days of early humans, girls didn’t menstruate until like 18-19. More recently in history, it was 14-15. Nowadays, it’s like 11, creeping ever lower.

And it’s because of our food.

Which was so enlightening for me to learn, because as a religious person I always wondered why God would design girls so that they attained physical maturity years before psychological/emotional maturity. I know not to question God’s design, but that seems like a questionable choice.

But then I leaned: He didn’t!! This screwed-up arrangement, which damages our health and our society in a number of ways, is a result of our gross toxic diet.

And even those of us who eat obsessively healthy, shelling out for organic everything, can’t avoid these effects entirely, because these toxins are everywhere. They’re in our environment. They’re in our bodies. Flame retardants in breastmilk. Microplastics in the placenta. It’s true. We’re so cooked, y’all.

And where do we find most of these harmful pesticides, but on fresh produce: the very food that Big Government keeps pushing us to consume more of.

And here’s further evidence that this war is being waged against poor people specifically. WIC, the program that provides food for low-income pregnant women and little kids, provides mostly what kind of foods?: fruits and vegetables. Also, non-organic, low-fat and fat-free dairy — some of the absolute worst food for you, hormonally, full of bovine sex hormones. This is what the government wants you to eat. (The packet WIC gives you specifically reads “Do not buy organic.”) Also, they give you a metric ton of dry cereal, like a boatload of dry cereal, which we all know is highly processed and straight trash for your health, just one big blood sugar spike in a box. Oh, and don’t get me started on the jarred baby foods!

Not saying the government is obligated to give us organic groceries or anything! That would be entitled and absurd, and is not what I believe at all! I’m just pointing out that this is what they are encouraging, in the nutrition counseling that they offer to these poor young families; these are the only kinds of foods that are available to low-income people; WIC is concrete evidence of that.

It’s only rich folks who can afford organic. What are poor folks to do? Growing and raising your own food seems like the only option, if you want to feed your family safely — but who can afford all that land and livestock, not to mention organic feed for said livestock? Answer: only rich people. Poor folks can’t win. There’s no way around it. Literally, it’s be poisoned, or starve. This is probably why poor folks have lower life expectancy.

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So yeah, I no longer think that one person’s claims were so crazy or ridiculous. I don’t think it’s true that “fruits and vegetables are unhealthy,” per se — as a vegetarian who loves vegetables and fruit, I know how good it feels to include a lot of them in one’s diet, and surely they provide a lot of micronutrients! — but in America, for most of us, they are toxic and a major health hazard, because of all the contaminants.

The government knows this perfectly well, and probably has all along, yet they continue to let poorly-regulated, contaminated, toxin-laden produce onto the grocery store shelves — and to pressure us, especially the poorest among us, to buy them.

I’m don’t even identify as a “crunchy mom.” I vaccinate, I take Tylenol, I wear Bath & Body Works, and all of my babies were born in a hospital. But imo it’s become painfully obvious that we, the lower classes, are being poisoned by the big food and drug corporations, and we’re pretty powerless to do anything about it.

Disclaimer: if you’re someone who uses this phrase regularly, I have nothing against you. Seriously: my favorite person in the world, my beloved husband, uses this phrase regularly. Most people don’t really think about it when they say it, and that’s fine! It’s just become a normal part of the English language nowadays, unfortunately. So please don’t take this post as an attack. I’m just taking a moment to wallow in my irritabiliy and give my inner “armchair critic” a moment to sound off, because it’s fun and cathartic, and what else is this stupid little personal blog for if not a bit of fun and catharsis and sounding off.

A word or phrase that annoys me: “my truth.” As in, “speak your truth,” or “I’m telling my truth.”

In addition to simply sounding, imo, annoying, snivelly and whiny, à la “safe space” or “love yourself” or “holding space for…” or any of those saccharine pop-psychology catchphrases that turn my stomach — it’s also philosophically disastrous.

There is no such thing as “my truth”! There is only the truth.

What I have is: a perspective, an opinion, a point of view, a version of events, a personal understanding of what things are and how they happen… but that is not the same as truth.

I get it. It’s just a saying. “My truth” is just a cute, concise, and heartfelt way of expressing all of what I just listed in the above paragraph. However, I still take issue with the phrase, because I think it betrays a flawed understanding of reality.

We say more about ourselves than we mean to. Often, the way we use language conveys things about us that we don’t even realize; there’s more meaning in our speech than just what we’re trying to convey literally with our words. When we use phrases like “my truth,” it exposes a basic belief (or at least a tolerance, a passive acceptance of the belief, which essentially amounts to belief) that truth is subjective. That there is no objective truth.

Which is of course false, and hugely problematic. I suspect that the rise of the phrase “my truth” is just another symptom of (here we go again, with Mith diagnosing grave societal ills while sitting in a recliner nursing her baby, but) this grave societal ill of “me first”-ism. “Self-love” gone haywire.

Our culture these days is so secular, and so self-centered. “Just be a good person” and “just accept everyone and let them do what they want (unless they are Christian)” seem to be the religious tenets that we live by. Celebration of the self and its carnal appetites is a heroic virtue, to us. There is no objective truth — truth is just what any individual wants it to be, and no one has any right to tell them otherwise! To believe in objective truth is offensive. It’s a violation of others’ individual freedoms. “Freedom,” not being subject to any law but ourselves — that’s what we’re all about.

Which is so far from a healthy and sane understanding of reality and our role in it. The truth exists independently of us, and we ought to serve it and be subject to it. We need to acknowledge that our faculties are limited, that we are small and dumb, that our little POV is not the be-all/end-all — far from it. Something greater than us exists, and that’s the truth… but some of us aren’t ready to hear that.

There is no “my truth.” There is only the truth. Saying “my truth” just makes you sound juvenile and flaccid of heart.

Ahem, alright, I’ll hop off my silly little soapbox now. I’ll just leave you guys with this quote from Scripture:

John 18:37-38: ” ‘For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth.’ … Pilate saith to him: ‘What is truth?’ And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: ‘I find no cause in him.’ “

Depends… who’s asking?

I actually have personal beef with this question; I hate it, and it will never not make me cringe. Because (story time!) way back in tenth grade, my World History teacher made us answer this question for some accursed “getting to know each other” game on the first day of class (an introvert’s nightmare). And, trying to make sure everyone knew that I was edgy and dangerous and troubled and mysterious, do you know what my dumb ass wrote down for an answer?

“Problematic.” 🤦‍♀️

Not entirely untrue, lol, but, come on. As you can imagine, people just kind of frowned and scratched their heads and gave me a wide berth. Best believe that incident set the tone for my sophomore year of high school. Ugh, the cringe is painful.

But whatever. Honestly, that whole class was lame anyway. I’m pretty sure that the teacher, a very charming and youthful twentysomething ESE (my conflictor type, me being an ILI) was just there because he wanted to party with the cool and popular high schoolers; so, he wasn’t a big fan of mine. My only fond memory of that class was when my BFF and I collaborated on a presentation about the emporer Nero, recording a sock-puppet show full of our goofy ironic humor and random gags that left the whole class (and teacher) once again frowning and scratching their heads like wtf is wrong with those two, while we sat there crying with laughter. See, this time it was funny, because someone else was being weird with me.

But, I digress.

One word that describes me, now that I’m 36… it depends who’s asking. If you’re someone that I don’t know too well and want to stay on safe/neutral grounds with, I’d probably just smile and mumble some sheepish, guarded response like: “introspective,” “overthinking,” “boring,” or something like that — all of which are true of me but don’t really get to the heart of the truth.

But since it’s WordPress’s Daily Prompt that’s asking, and since this blog is my little space to be really honest with you, since I don’t know who you are — you could be anyone — and since probably no one will read this anyway, so what does it matter; I’ll try to give an answer that gets to the heart of the truth.

My best answer today: conflicted.

I feel like “conflicted” sums it up, what I essentially am and what it’s like to be me. And basically sums up what this blog is about. It’s the but in between two clauses, creating the tension that I live in. Like: I’m a homeschooling Traditional Catholic SAHM who wants to fit in with the other TradCath mommies, who are all so feminine and classy and well-mannered, but I’m also a tomboy with AVPD and a weird sense of humor and a fine arts degree. I’m married and love being a wife but, also, ain’t no freakin’ wifey. I want to be a writer, but my ideas are shit and I’m pretty sure no one will like them and am too afraid to try and find out. I am proud of my body for having four perfect children, but I also hate it because it’s a hideous meat-tank and I wish I could trade it in for a different model. I’m all for body positivity and fat women being free to be themselves, but I also believe the body positivity movement is sick and wrong and needs to be undone. I’m a closeted alt kid who loves blue hair and weird fashion but I also believe that modesty and conformity to societal norms are important, and I ain’t no woke liberal. I want to love and serve God but I’m still so entrenched in sin. I’m vegetarian/vegan but I also understand carnivores and why they do what they do. I love hip-hop & rap but I also believe that popular hip-hop culture is unhealthy and steeped in sin and we shouldn’t listen to it. I’m a conservative, but I kinda relate more to liberals most of the time. I’m this but I’m also that, and it creates conflict.

I can see things from both sides. Which way to be? Which side to lean towards, or, how to find a happy medium? About most things (not all things; the few things that I’m sure of, like Catholicism, provide an anchor, without which I’d surely just float off into the ether and never return), I’m conflicted.

And that’s why this blog exists, really. If any of this resonates with you, we should be friends. Like I was saying, it’s so much more fun being weird with someone else.

Let’s start with an indisputable truth. Public education — at least in the US, I can’t speak for other countries — is bad. A public school is a bad place; it’s a cesspool. The whole idea of compulsory public education is just a terrible concept, a failed experiment, and needs to be overhauled or abolished, and that’s a fact, but that’s a rant for another day.

Myself, I had the misfortune of attending public school all thirteen formative years, K thru 12, and those thirteen years messed me up in irreparable ways. That’s what public school does: it messes kids up. It robs them of their precious innocence far too early.

I remember as early as fourth grade — maybe even sooner, but that was just when I started to become aware of it — all of my classmates seemed to be in a hurry to become teenagers. Kids of eight, nine, and ten listening to the risqué pop and hip-hop on Hot 101.9 and adopting the lingo. Little boys and girls pretending to “go out” with each other. “Where are they ‘going out’?!” I used to ask. “It’s not like they can drive! Why do they think they’re teenagers?!” And all the girls in a hurry to be wearing a bra, and letting everyone know that they were wearing a bra, because, ahem, see, they needed one, and all the boys in a hurry to be snapping all the straps of all these new bras.

Even back then, I was like: what is the hurry? Why are all my peers in such a rush to grow up?

I guess you could say it’s the parents’ fault, not the school’s. If the kids weren’t exposed to mature stuff at home, then they wouldn’t bring it to school, right? Not necessarily. Kids are sponges. They just pick up on stuff. And then they share it. I remember exactly where I was when I learned what a middle finger meant: in my kindergarten classroom, coloring with markers at the table with my little friend. Kids absorb stuff and then, if they’re in school, they go and share it with all the other kids. Like a virus. If not for the filthy swampy hotbed environment that is public school, the sour information a kid picks up wouldn’t spread around all excitedly and multiply the way that it does. School is the problem.

Besides: I don’t like to blame parents (unless they truly did something heinous and unforgivable). Parents already get enough blame as it is.

Even more now than they were back in the late ’90s, kids are losing their innocence too early.

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“Well Mith, maybe you’re just slow. Maybe you’re just childish.” Maybe you’re right. I guess by the current standards I was what they call a “late bloomer,” although I’m pretty sure that for human females it’s actually normal to not menstruate until 13. (As for the “needing a bra” milestone, I can’t really speak on that, as I still don’t really need one now, in my mid-thirties; #IBTC for life.) These days many kids are overweight, which is lowering the age of the onset of puberty. And media is trashier, more explicit, and more readily-available than ever, which if I had to guess is probably lowering the age of “psychological” puberty as well.

Psychologically, as well, I was a “late bloomer.” Academically, I was ahead of the curve, but when it came to fitting in socially, being aware of mature things, and doing things the other kids were doing, I lagged behind. Sure I had crushes all throughout my elementary days, but they were all very childlike, playful, innocent. A boy had nice hair the color of semisweet chocolate, and/or he was smart and funny or could draw really well, and so I was fascinated by him, stared at him across the classroom, thought about him and his nice hair while listening to “U Drive Me Crazy” by Britney Spears on my older sister’s walkman, and that was that.

I was always secretive about these crushes, not understanding why the popular kids kept talking about their crushes during recess like it was hot gossip, why they kept sharing this information with each other, with devious smiles and this weird sort of pride, that they “liked” so-and-so; wasn’t that an embarrassingly vulnerable thing to share? That you felt mushy inside about someone and pictured them in your head while listening to Britney Spears? Why did they think this was such a cool thing to talk about? I’m not trying to say that I was wiser or anything, I was just incredibly naïve. I didn’t know anything about anything. I didn’t get it: and I still don’t: why did people want to grow up?

It wasn’t until eighth grade, age 13-14, when I had my first actual mature crush, the kind that makes you go: oh!, okay, I get it now, why people desire physical contact with other people. (Predictably, this crush was on a rather plain-looking boy, a good six inches shorter than me, named Tyler; all American millennial girls really had the same life, didn’t we?) But even then, it was childlike. There was nothing really adult about it. My BFF and I had a code name for him and would draw little cartoons of him in our notebooks. We actually had this stupid game where, whenever we saw a cute guy walking down the hall, we looked at each other and softly went: wee-oo, wee-oo, sounding the hottie alarm. We were dorks. Being misfits who didn’t really participate in the social scene, we were relatively sheltered from what was hot and trendy. We were nothing like the thirteen-year-olds you see on TV these days, who are so fashionable and sleek and aware and over-sexualized. Who barely had time to just be kids. It’s not their fault.

I blame public schools.

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Why the hurry to grow up? Maybe I’m just a loser who peaked in fifth grade. I’m not beating those allegations. Fifth grade was my best year. It felt like I knew who I was then; it wasn’t that complicated. 2000-2001; I had just turned ten. I had three close friends — we called ourselves the Diamonds. That was the last time I really had a “friend group,” per se. We laughed and had fun and had sleepovers. We had innocent crushes and innocent drama. Cute boys and toy horse collections. Those clear backpacks from Old Navy. CDs and Lunchables and computer games after school in the family’s computer room. Chips by the pool, with no thought whatsoever of diet or exercise. It all felt very important. It was like living in a middle grade novel.

I liked that year, and was in no particular hurry to switch from my familiar elementary school to the scary, unfamiliar middle school, where I’d have six or seven teachers instead of just one, and I’d have to memorize my class schedule and my way around the building, and the combination to a locker where I’d have to store my stuff. The only thing I looked forward to about middle school was the playground. The place had a really wicked playground outside, a big wooden structure they called The Hive (because the school’s mascot was the hornet), which had a big rope net for climbing and was just way cooler than the metal-and-plastic playground at my old school. That was the exciting part, for me.

I wasn’t ready for middle school. Heck, I still don’t feel ready for a place like that.

In elementary, all those mature themes like bodies and crushes were whispered-about, giggled-about, mentioned sneakily, rippling beneath the surface of the class like something latent, growing. But in middle school, it had all just burst open. It was a free-for-all. Kids that age know too much for their maturity level. Kids that age are animals. Maybe in isolation they’re lovely, but in large groups they’re heathens — they can’t help it, it’s a biological phase. But they shouldn’t be in large groups unsupervised like that. (Because one overworked, underpaid adult per twenty-plus adolescent savages does not count as “supervision.”) Public school is a recipe for disaster.

I did not do well with the transition. Even harder would be the transition from middle to high school, three years later — but middle school, that was where it started. Public elementary school made kids grow up too fast. Made them victims. Public middle school took those victims and pitted them against each other Roman gladiator-style, shamelessly. Public high school seals the deal, drying the cement on their damaged souls. If you had a great time in public school, I’m glad for you, but I also wonder if you’re doing okay, really. Imo homeschooling is not a luxury. Doesn’t matter how little money we have to live on. I’ll resort to begging on the street before I send my children to public school.

Because what is this hurry to grow up? I had such a hard time saying goodbye to my childhood. I fought tooth and nail to cling to it. The extreme dieting that began in middle school, in my case it wasn’t because of a mature desire to be slim and sexy; not in those early days. I think it really started as a desire to stay small, to avoid responsibility, to avoid the sheer horror of living in an adult female body. Please just keep taking care of me. Don’t make me do this, this ‘life’ thing. I didn’t understand the other kids’ rush to act like they were older than they were. We’re still so young, I wanted to shout at them. We’re still so young! What are you doing!

And I kept right on feeling like that all through high school, and through my twenties, no, I’m not an adult yet!, and now suddenly I am 36 and I feel like I missed a boat somewhere. A healthy sense of growing up, of being at the right stage at the right time, was never there. Childhood was just ripped away. I know it’s my own fault I’m a weirdo and I take full responsibility for my own shortcomings. However, I also blame public school.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to fifth grade. I remember at my fifth grade graduation our music teacher had us sing “Time Of Your Life” by Green Day. I remember the sweltering school gymnasium full of folding chairs and the teal-blue flowery dress I wore, without really worrying about what my body looked like in it. For years I’d wish I could get back that freedom, that degree of unself-consciousness. But it was already being pulled away. When I look back at the photos of that awkward girl with the poofy hair and her hands gripping that fifth grade diploma, I can see it slipping away, her innocence and freedom already being pulled away.

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Sure kids will grow up, whether they go to public or private school or school at home. Sure they grow up too fast regardless. That’s a brutal fact of life. But we don’t have to make it worse. Innocence is a treasure. The powers that be ought to concern themselves with protecting and preserving it. But where’s the money in that, I guess. Yes, it’s partly just the tragedy of being human, but it’s also public school.

“But Mith, your kids are going to be so sheltered” — damn right they are! The world is a terrible place and I’m going to shelter them as hard as I can, to let their precious minds form and develop in a safe and nurturing environment, so that when they inevitably have to enter this terrible world, they do so with a healthier, less-damaged sense of themselves, and with a better perspective on the world, and with their purity.