Many of my mentors are fictional. Characters in novels whom I not only like but also want to be like. I really like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and I’d even enjoy being her for a bit, apart from the lack of modern plumbing, medicine and feminism. But I don’t find myself thinking ‘now, this […]
My own theories on the place of toy guns haven’t been put to the test yet, but the ever wise and thoughtful blue milk‘s have: Since that night I have been either giving up or making well-considered peace with him; I never can tell with my parenting. In my head I played with some of […]
Christmas carols start wafting through shops earlier and earlier each year, but this year one thing about Christmas is later than usual. The church season of Advent runs for four or so weeks before Christmas, helping us to imagine life before Jesus, and anticipate the celebrations of his birth. This year it begins on Sunday […]
I attribute my brilliant and amazing parallel parking skills to all the Lego I played with as a kid. I’m good at reading maps, too. Here’s a step up, though, if you want to encourage not just spatial development, but the kinds of skills in technology and design that lay the groundwork for an engineering […]
A guest post by Jenny Bucksmith. I sometimes feel like the third wheel in my own family. As the only female surrounded by boys there is a definite imbalance of hormones – but I wouldn’t actually trade that for the world. I love having two sons, I couldn’t imagine having a daughter, I wouldn’t know […]
Just like reading the comments section of any Guardian opinion piece, shopping for baby clothes makes me world-weary. Every time. In every single shop I’ve entered, a good 90 per cent of baby clothes come only in blue, pink, beige or white. The remaining 10 per cent in the boys’ section comprises camouflage and trucks. […]
The Girls-Can-Do-Anything 1980s seem to have melted into the Girls-Can-Be-Princesses 2010s. Is there any other costume option for girls in kids’ media? Pop culture has become a morass for parents of little girls. You have to sidestep sexualised clothing for 6-year-olds and billboards of unusually skinny women in their knickers before you even get to questions of […]
I was a feminist before I knew the word. The eldest of three daughters, a child of the Girls Can Do Anything! eighties, brought up by strong, thoughtful, culture-critical parents, I was never going to be keen on the patriarchy. When I was a kid and asked my Mum why she was at home and […]