This friend of mine has been very consciously raising her young daughter outside of stereotypical gender norms. They’ve done quite a number on my friend, and she’s like, “Nope, my kid’s life will be different.”
Her daughter is small for her age, and will probably remain small. This has affected her self-confidence. Earlier this year, my friend decided to tell her daughter a slightly sanitized version of Arya Stark’s journey in GoT, to basically demonstrate how a small girl could learn to be badass.
Six months go by, and the daughter turns from 5 to 6. Her mom asks her what she wants for her birthday. The daughter says, “I want to learn how to fight.” So my friend, who has zero martial arts experience, looks up a place, and they go there.
The moment they get there, my friend is thinking, “This may not be the right place.” It’s a Krav Maga/MMA gym. Lots of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, basically. Not your kid-friendly karate dojo.
But she doesn’t want to tell her daughter that they have to leave because the place is filled with intimidating men – it would pretty much fly in the face of everything she’s trying to teach her. So she says, “Okay. I don’t know if they have a kid’s class here. Why don’t you go ask who the teacher is, and then ask them?”
So her daughter walks up to one dude, asks for the teacher, then gets pointed to this tattooed, musclebound dude with his head shaved and a goatee. As my friend put, “The guy looked like your bigger, meaner younger brother.”
She trails behind her kid a bit, ready to step in, and listens in. Her daughter walks up the guy and says, “Hi! Do you have classes for kids? I want to learn how to fight.”
The guy looks down at this wee little girl, and he says, “Uh, well, no, we don’t really. Maybe I can talk to your mom and suggest some places for you? This isn’t really a place for little girls.”
Her daughter reaches into her jacket pocket, pulls out a nickel, holds it out to the guy and says, “Valar morghulis.”
The guy takes the nickel, looks at it, then says, totally deadpan: “Valar dohaeris. Of course I can teach you.”
The mom comes over and says, “I thought you said you didn’t have kid’s classes?” The guy says, “We do now. Come into the office and we’ll work up a training schedule.” The mom: “Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost?” The guy holds up the nickel. “She’s already paid up.”
A great story about a little girl who wants to learn how to fight.
I’m working earlier and this guy comes in and seems anxious. We usually wait until people need help to ask, but he comes over and tells me, “I’m cosplaying Bowser and need spiked wristbands.” I immediately start heading towards the jewelry / accessories and try to strike up some friendly conversation
I respond, “Ah, cool. You doing NonCon at all?” remembering that our local convention is this coming weekend.
He looks at me super seriously and replies, “no, my friends and I are going go-karting downstairs and we’re all dressed up as Mario Kart characters.”
Meet 63-year-old Lyn Slater, who has, until recently, been an ordinary professor at Fordham University. One day she went to meet a friend for lunch outside the Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week. Foreign journalists suddenly surrounded her, mistaking her for a fashion icon and attracting spectatorsIt was a defining moment that turned Lyn into an ‘Accidental Icon’. Her blog of the same name, inspired by the experience, soon began making international waves. She is now a public voice against ageism in the fashion industry and the world.
“Fashion and my style help me struggle against that invisibility that comes with age.“
She was once asked about the old notion of ‘dressing for one’s age,’ and her response was clear:
“We use language to control people’s behavior. This phrase is a way of putting older women in their place. I’m certain that if you feel comfortable in your own clothes, it’s completely irrelevant how old you are.”
