Back when I started in the IF blogosphere 10 years ago, people would write “Children Mentioned” at the top of a post if children were mentioned.  Some people thought this was silly and there were a lot of comments or posts about how people should assume that parenting after infertility blogs might mention children.  Some people thought this was good practice; if people weren’t up to reading a post about teething, they could click away.

I was in the latter category, and I put up “Children Mentioned” before posts that mentioned the twins.  Over time, everyone stopped doing it, myself included.  Most people knew how much I spoke about the twins, and either they weren’t bothered and would put up with the occasional post, or they were bothered and wouldn’t read my blog at all.

Plus, I realized that there were ways to give people a heads up about trigger warnings that fit naturally into the flow of the post.  If you look at the Roundup each week, I try to mention a child in the description if there is a child in the post.  If no child (or parenting itself) is mentioned in the blurb, it’s a pretty safe bet that you can click over and not encounter a story about a baby.

When I can’t figure out a way to weave it into the blurb, I write the words “trigger warning,” as I did for one of the posts last Friday.

While I am not upset when a post or movie or book or game comes without a trigger warning, I appreciate the creator taking the time to give consumers a warning before they dive into the experience.  I think it shows a sign of respect between the creator and the audience, and it sends a clear message that the audience’s experience with the piece is important to the creator.  It’s not that the opposite is true: that people who don’t post warnings don’t care about their audience.  But I do see the inclusion of the word “trigger warning” to be a concrete way of saying, “I care.”

I care that my piece adds to your life instead of detracts from it.

I care that you can ready yourself if you need to ready yourself.

I care about what you’re going through, and I appreciate you taking the time to read my words or watch my film or play my game.

I care that you are a human being and not a bot, so I treat you like a human being with feelings and thoughts and baggage you may carry into an experience with what I created.

There are universal moments that need trigger warnings such as rape or hate speech.  And then, within communities, there are specific moments that need trigger warnings.  In our community, I think it’s loss as it is happening (as opposed to generally discussing the concept of loss) and babies.  The absence of someone who was once here, and the existence of someone who is here.

I don’t know if we need to slap “Children Mentioned” at the top of every post on a parenting after infertility blog.  I tend to agree at this point that the network is such that people generally know what they’re getting before they click over to read.  (As opposed to when the community was so new that you were meeting new bloggers on a regular basis.)  But I still support the idea of giving people a “trigger warning.”  Just as a sign of respect.  Because I care how they feel after they read a post.

Where do you fall on the spectrum of giving trigger warnings?  Do you wish posts in the community still came with a “Children Mentioned” note at the top?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Remember how I couldn’t find the jacket for Harry Potter 4?  I finally bought a new copy this week so the bookshelf in the kitchen would look orderly.  I now have an extra copy of the book (actually, a 4th copy of the book), and beyond donating it, I was trying to think up something creative I could do with it.

There is a British artist who turns old books into jewelry.  I don’t think I would want to wear Book 4 — but it made me think about which book I would want turned into jewelry.  I would love to wear The Phantom Tollbooth, first and foremost.  After that, Fellowship of the Ring.  After that, The Magician’s Nephew.

What would be your top three books to wear, not read?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

1.	Mali (No Kidding)	13.	Geochick	25.	Journeywoman
2.	Mali (A Separate Life)	14.	one and Done?	26.	sharah
3.	Persnickety	15.	Stephanie (Travelcraft Journal)	27.	Jess
4.	Middle Girl	16.	Traci York, Writer	28.	deathstar
5.	Just Heather	17.	Upside of IF	29.	Kechara
6.	Karen (Formerly Serenity)	18.	Conceptionally Challenged	30.	apluseffort
7.	* Our Wish*	19.	IF Pom	31.	articulation
8.	Unpregnant Chicken	20.	Vinitha	32.	Chandni
9.	Lori@ Laughing IS Conceivable	21.	Grass Grows Long	33.	the OCD infertile
10.	Cristy	22.	Kim
11.	Isabelle	23.	Rain
12.	Loribeth (The Road Less Travelled)	24.	Virgí nia

 

Do you need a distraction? It sounded like people needed a distraction from this day.  So I present to you the most fun article from Mental Floss this week: Cool features in people’s homes.

Think hammocks as floors or slides instead of stairs.

Which makes me think about what I’ve always wanted in my future home: A dolphin pool like the one in the movie 2010.  I may be misremembering this scene, and Googling has not brought me a clip, but I have vague memories of the family having breakfast in the kitchen, and the floor opening up into a dolphin tank.  The dolphin could swim right up to the kitchen table.  How amazing would that be?  Or what if there was a thick glass floor overlooking an aquarium, and you could lie on your stomach underneath the table and look down at the fish while you read a book?

I know this is in direct conflict with my desire for a tiny home, but… you know… dolphin pool filled with dolphin friends.  How cool would that be?

The only other thing I really want is a window in the shower.  I had that in an apartment in Rome and have wanted it ever since.

What feature would be in your dream home?

It has either been raining or in a state of pre-rain for… weeks. At least, it feels like it has been weeks.  Baseball has been cancelled a bunch of times, and I’ve been using up the cheaper hair gel because why bother with the good stuff when my hair is going to frizz anyway?

I’m not a big fan of rain (see above: frizzy hair), but I didn’t realize how much it affected my mood, especially since I consider myself immune to needing outdoor time.  Josh always says that when we need to crawl into underground bunkers because zombies are roaming the surface of the earth, I will thrive because I am perfectly content never stepping into the sun.

But we may need to rethink this because every time I wake to another day of greyness, I want to curl up into a ball and sob.

Are you affected by the weather or indifferent toward rain?

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My friend and I took our sons to an arcade that had an original Super Mario machine.  [Quick trivia question: Mario made his first appearance in this arcade game before showing up in Super Mario Bros.  Don’t Google.  Put your guess in the comment section.]

I haven’t played in at least 24 years but probably longer.  It was amazing to feel the muscle memory kick in the second my hands grabbed the joystick.  I wasted a game getting accustomed to the controls, and then immediately started sailing through the boards.  I remembered the location of every hidden coin, every portal.

I coached the boys, telling them where to squat down and jump up.  The only thing I was missing was a track suit and whistle as I prowled behind them, critiquing their technique.  That’s what I want to be when I grow up: an arcade coach.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “#StartAsking for Recognition” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “NIAW: #StartAsking Yourself” (Unpregnant Chicken)
• “Perfect Imperfections” (Lavender Luz)
• “#StartAsking About What Causes Infertility” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Family Build With a Twist has a post about life long after resolving infertility.  As you’ve probably guessed, resolving infertility doesn’t wrap up the experience in a neat package that you can set in a storage box, never to look at again.  As she writes, “As the mother of a tiny human well into childhood as opposed to babyhood, I should be over all this infertility stuff, right?  I’m not.”  Clearly this resonated with me because I feel the same way.  (And, yes, I am a glass half empty person, too.)

No Kidding in NZ has a post highlighting the Joy Olympics — the exact opposite of the Pain Olympics in which the person is told that they have no right to be happy (instead of no right to be sad).  It’s a bizarre idea; that people believe there is only one path in life in which you can feel joy.  And it made me stop and think about all the other places we play the Joy Olympics in life: you can’t be happy if you don’t get married, own a home, go on vacations.  It’s a really thought-provoking post that will have you recheck the way you view the world.

Lastly, do you ever get that feeling where you think you should do X without really knowing why, and then by doing X, you end up being in the right place at the right time?  Hello, Universe?  Our Wish has a post about a day when she was considering taking a day off of work, and what happened when she decided to go in anyway.  Trigger warning: a miscarriage is discussed in the post.

The roundup to the Roundup: The rain is bringing me down.  Super Mario muscle memory.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 29th and May 6th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Image: Angela via FlickrMother’s Day in the UK happens 2 months before our Mother’s Day in the US, so I read this post about JK Rowling back in March and then remembered it today.  She had a bit of brilliant advice, one that twists the holiday in my mind.

She writes, “If your mum isn’t here to treat, do something nice for yourself, because she’s part of you.”

Today’s Mother’s Day in the UK. If your mum isn’t here to treat, do something nice for yourself, because she’s part of you. Take a hug, too” class=”emoji” draggable=”false”>

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 6, 2016

I love this sentiment because she didn’t write, “Because you came from her,” which would have ignored a chunk of the population that has built their family through non-traditional means.  She didn’t write, “Because she raised you,” because that may not be true, either.

“Because she’s a part of you.”

And regardless of your situation, the person you consider your mother is a part of you, even if you’ve never met her.  Maybe she contributed genetic material.  Maybe she contributed the right words.  Maybe she contributed perfectly timed hugs.  Maybe she protected you from the larger world.  And because that woman has touched your life, her actions or her words live on inside of you.  Every single human being in this world is tethering, in their own, small way, the generation before them.

You can make the day about looking ahead, or you can make the day about looking behind.

I am very lucky that I get to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mother this year.  But I also like this idea of taking time to honour yourself because, in doing so, you also honour her.

So I am going to do something nice for myself this weekend.  I’m going to go to a comic book store — something my mother has probably never stepped foot inside because it really isn’t her thing.  But in doing so, I’m honouring the woman who encouraged me to march to the beat of my own, very loud drummer and not give up the things I love to fit into someone else’s idea of who I should be.  So I’m spending some time with my Marvel friends before heading to her house to say thank you.

So do something nice for yourself this weekend.