We need to stop giving a platform to sick people…

I just watched a clip of some misogynistic prick (who doesn’t deserve a platform) publicly lecture a 14-year-old girl on why she should go to school for her “MRS degree” instead of political journalism. Since my parents did not deeply fail me, I had to google this term. 

So, apparently, getting an “MRS degree” is when a woman attends college for the sole purpose of finding a husband. Seems popular in Utah, if that helps paint a picture of what it is and also why I, a progressive raised in Brooklyn, not only loathe the existence of such a notion, but the word itself makes me physically ill.

Currently, I am a person that a grotesque portion of America hates (and not just for our strongly opposing political views). I am unemployed, I am on Medicaid and was recently approved for SNAP benefits. To some, I am suckling from the nourishing teat of the federal government. At least, that’s the picture they paint of anyone in need of these services.

But I do not care what they think of me. While having my debit card declined at a supermarket with a cart full of groceries and a growing line behind me was not a high point in my life, I am not ashamed to admit that I am utilizing government assistance. I got my first job at 14 and have been paying into the system ever since. It’s a simple fact, and part of why I pay taxes. Anyone in my position would feel the same.

But why am I in this position, you ask? Why would a college-educated professional in her forties be in need of food stamps, you ask? Well, because I traded my own degree for an “MRS” back in my twenties, and shit has been rolling downhill ever since.

I want to make two things crystal clear. First, I created two perfect, beautiful lives, and I wouldn’t trade either of my amazing children for anything in the world. I only wish I had the world to give them, instead of hand-me-downs and boring summers. 

Second, I had big dreams. It was never my intention to be swept off my feet by some hot Marine heading off to boot camp, then get knocked up and quit my first corporate job to raise a baby alone while daddy went off to war. But that is literally what happened. I was a lot more hopelessly romantic than hopelessly logical back then, and like the optimist I was, I figured it would all work out. Happily Ever After would start the day hubs returned and met our son. It did, for a little while, at least. I even have some magical photos to prove it. Real hero homecoming tearjerkers.  

But like the undiagnosed ADHDer I also was back then, I decided if it didn’t all end up working out perfectly, I’d just worry about it later. And worry about it later I did…

Because also on my list of things I never intended was getting a divorce at the start of a global pandemic. 

So, exactly five years to the day Mr. Sexy Marine moved out, I finally tapped out. I had to call it. I just couldn’t do it all for one more fucking day. It started with me alone, homeschooling two children while working my own full time remote job and ended with me alone, rage quitting because I was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. I had gotten great at being alone, but my mental health was fully depleted, and it was taking a toll on every aspect of my life, even – especially – parenting my children. 

I want to add that their dad is not a bad guy. We are just such different people now than we were back then. Hell, we were different back then but you have some thick blinders on when you’re in love at that age. But we were SO fundamentally different by the end of our marriage that our Myers Briggs tests were complete opposites. Two fully clashing personalities trying to raise kids does not make a very happy home. I probably should have known it would end badly when our first fight was about whether or not Hillary could be president. 

So here I am, on a mental vacation I have needed since 2008. Money is beyond tight, but if I couldn’t rely on the government for that help I don’t know where I’d be. It’s been there for me in ways no “MRS degree” could ever be. 

So when I see douche canoes like this “man” asking young, impressionable girls to give up their freedom, their education, their ticket to a life lived their own way, FOR A MAN, it fills me with absolute rage. 

Being a mom is absolutely amazing, but being a single mom – with a career – is a struggle. I lost sight of my future for a guy. I gave it up for some kind of bullshit American Dream. Turns out the real American Dream? Is simply utilizing your rights to become whoever you damn well please. In MANY other places around the world, things we consider rights, things we take for granted, are a privilege not enjoyed by all.

In America, women enjoy freedom of education (well, for now at least, before we go full Handmaid’s Tale). Ever hear of the AMAZING Malala Yousafzai? She was literally shot in the head by the Taliban just for being a girl in Pakistan trying to get an education. Thankfully, she survived and went on to become an activist, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and truly one of the most inspiring women of our time.  

And here we have walking piles of garbage telling impressionable CHILDREN to just give up their education for some GUY? Gross.

Shame on us as a society for allowing a vile human being like that to be platformed, and shame on the parents of every young person in that room for letting their child occupy the same toxic air space as him. They’re probably safer in Chernobyl.

Let’s do better for our daughters. Let’s do better for all of our children. Let’s just do better.

Photo: Pexels/Kaboompics.com