The latest booklovers’ chain-letter going around Facebook seems to be a challenge to list (without too much agonising) your ten most ‘influential’ books. Heavens. To stay in the spirit of the challenge I’ve tried to write this in one sitting, presumably missing a lot of worthy contenders, but hopefully capturing some kind of truth. And […]
This is part of a series on the experience of re-reading LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books as an adult. This one focuses on book two, Anne of Avonlea, so you may want to wait till you’ve read the first book to catch up here, though it’s not really full of spoilers if you’ve read […]
I didn’t get it before I had a baby. And now I really, really don’t get it. One of the ‘reasons’ women as a group, in all professions, all areas of paid work, are paid less (per hour) than men is that so many women ‘take time out of the workforce’ to raise children. This […]
[Trigger warning: if you have experienced sexual assault, please just be aware that rape and rape culture are discussed in this post. Many of the links similarly lead to pages that need a trigger warning.] Sad, sickened, shocked, triggered, appalled, horrified, not-actually-that-surprised. Most New Zealanders could tick most of those boxes this week as our […]
My sermon on Sunday and the accompanying blog post were mainly directed at the ‘neighbours’ of an unborn child: those who have the opportunity to support a little family in crisis. What I also want to say loudly, and separately, is that if you have experienced a crisis pregnancy, for any reason, in any circumstances, […]
This is a post about crisis pregnancy that is aimed mainly at those in a position to support an unborn baby and its family. If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy yourself, you may prefer to read this accompanying post dealing directly with such a situation. Inspired by Germany In the United States it’s […]
Are you ‘courting’? ‘Going steady,’ as they said on Happy Days? Or my favourite early-twentieth-century ‘walking out together’? Yay! Enjoy it! What a very pleasant time of life, whatever you call it. The best piece of advice I have for you – just on the off-chance that you are in the market for some, and […]
Do you care about self-care? If you had the marvellous good fortune to host a goose who laid a golden egg for you daily, would you lovingly feed her the best worms in the garden, massage her little wings, make sure her bed was comfy (though not plumped with goose-down…) and generally cherish her? Or […]
Set in 1930s Mississippi, in the year that Cassie realises being black can be a liability, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor is one of my favourite children’s novels. It’s packed with Mighty people I’d love SBJ to get to know. Cassie is lucky to have been born into one of […]
If you had a six-year-old child, and institutional schooling had never existed, how would you go about preparing them for adult life? In the next few posts on unschooling, I want to tease out a few different issues and discuss them separately. Today it’s the different social experiences schooled and unschooled (or homeschooled) kids have. […]