- Update to Monday's post: My brother-in-law is thankfully much better, and next Monday's operation is still a go. However, he is still in the hospital: the doctors there have decided to keep him there for monitoring until his surgery next Monday (which is probably a good thing).
- His wife/our sister-in-law has been at the hospital every day -- and Older Nephew & his wife are still both working until the surgery next week. Which means dh & I have been tapped to stay with Little Great-Nephew several days this week. We were there 8 hours yesterday, almost 8 hours today and will be there again tomorrow. (We go to BIL & SIL's house, since he's comfortable there and all his stuff -- potty, toys, wading pool, etc. -- is all there too, plus it's convenient for his parents too.) Needless to say, we are BEAT. He's a great kid, but he is 3 & 1/2 years old and we.... are NOT, lol.
- Did I mention tomorrow also happens to be dh's & my 38th wedding anniversary?? I don't think anyone else has remembered -- and I'm not going to remind them. I usually switch over my Facebook profile & cover photos to wedding-related pictures, but I've decided not to do that this year. I don't want anyone feeling guilty for forgetting; they've got other things on their mind. Plus, I think I'm too tired to start tinkering around with my FB right now, lol. Needless to say, we have no plans, but we'll probably order some takeout for dinner and pick it up on our way home.
- I can't resist sharing a funny Little Great-Nephew story. (I have lots, of course, but this is a recent one that sticks out.) Older Nephew (his dad) recently shaved off his beard, and LGN asked him what happened to his face. ON explained he'd shaved off his beard. LGN: "I don't like it. Shave it back on!" (lol)
- The New York Times recently published a "25 years later" critique of "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding. (Has it really been 25 years??) (The link to the story, above, is a gift link.)
- Yes, "Bridget" may be outdated, full of sexism, fat-phobia, etc. etc. I don't care. (And I'm glad to see women standing up for her/the book in the comments!) As I know I've shared on this blog before, I read "Bridget" as I was recovering from Katie's stillbirth. It was a time in my life when I thought I would never smile, much less laugh again, and having difficulty focusing on the printed page -- and yet there I was, desperately trying to stifle my giggles over "Bridget" on public transit. THANK YOU, Helen Fielding, for bringing some fun & humour into my life at a time I desperately needed it. I will always think of Bridget fondly for that reason. :)
- (I tried to leave a comment to this effect on the story, but alas, between the time I read the article and a few of the comments then and went to write mine, the comments section had closed.)
- Andy Harrod is one of those rare men who is writing and speaking about the experience of involuntary childlessness. I recently learned he has a Substack newsletter. Check it out! -- "(In)visible Childlessness." (I've added it to my blogroll on the right-hand side of this page.)
- I thought this article from the Washington Post (gift link) was a fairly realistic/well-balanced look at the facts (pros & cons) of egg freezing.
- I was both amused and horrified to see how many people in the comments said they thought this was an article about freezing egg-eggs, as in breakfast. Duh. (And then we wonder why no one understands us as infertile people??) (Although I wonder whether people are really THAT clueless/blissfully ignorant, or just trying to be smart-a**es?)
- Some exciting news from the New York Times (gift linked): the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a blood test that can identify pregnant women who are at risk of developing pre-ecclampsia, with 96% accuracy.
- Ten years ago (!), I wrote about my own mother's brush with ecclampsia when she gave birth to me, 62 years ago, after it was in the news when Lady Sybil Crawley, a character on "Downton Abbey," died from it.
- Talia Lavin is having a lengthy, fascinating conversation with Moira Donegan about modern feminism in her Substack newsletter, The Sword and the the Sandwich. (And yes, she writes about sandwiches there! -- among other things.) I think Part 2 was published yesterday? Sample passage (with a fist pump from me near the end, lol):
You know, I think it was an understandable mistake for feminists of the nineties and aughts to sort of try and disavow the second wave. Because that is a generation of thinkers who disagreed with each other on a lot, but who are coming from a tradition that took the question of women and their liberation very seriously. I’ve taken a lot from my readings of the second wave. It is really useful to read Kate Millett, and it was useful to read Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin — not that I think you have to take it like the Bible.Another problem of feminism that really stuck with me when I went back and read the big feminist texts of the late sixties and the early seventies: these are fights that we are now having in 2016, 2017, 2020. And because of this idea that we have to kill mom every twenty years, and disavow the mistakes of the past by completely abandoning the work of those generations of thinkers, we get stuck in a repetitive cycle of reinventing the wheel. Don’t discard everything from people who were wrong or misguided or stupid about some stuff, and don’t disregard everything that comes from a generation that lived under different circumstances than yours.
- Hopefully this article from The Atlantic -- "The Gravitational Pull of Supervising Kids All the Time" -- is not paywalled. As a kid who used to walk six blocks to kindergarten, across a highway/main road, often by myself (albeit this WAS rural Saskatchewan in the mid-1960s...! -- I'm not talking six lanes of heavy traffic or anything like that...!), I find the whole "helicopter parenting" phenomenon highly bemusing. I have said this before, and I will say it again: I am sometimes grateful/relieved that I didn't get to have children (much as I wanted them), because if this is what it takes to be a "good" parent these days, I don't think I would have been able to cut it...!
So glad BIL is doing better, and that the docs will keep an eye on him until the surgery. I will be thinking of him and his family, and especially you and DH. I'm not surprised you're exhausted with the three-year-old!
ReplyDeleteOh good grief, that article about Bridget Jones! What a clash of cultures (US/UK) and inability to put yourself in the shoes of women in the 1990s! I hope the writer doesn't judge her mother quite so harshly. Like you, I applauded the comments defending her. The humour was necessary to make the point that there are really hard parts of female life - sexual harassment in the workplace, obsession about weight and appearance (which is worse now than it was then, from what I can see), marriage (for her mother), the idea that you have to have a man to be worthy, etc etc. The humour didn't excuse these aspects of life. It highlighted them. Or at least it did for me. Argh.
Good to see an egg-freezing article actually addressing success rates.
And oooh, thanks for recommending the feminism article. I really loved the conclusion in the last few paragraphs. And as a result, I've now subscribed!
Yes, the bulk of the Atlantic article was paywalled for me. But like you, I walked to the bus-stop alone - albeit on a country road - as a child from the age of 5. I did encounter some stranger danger but managed to avoid it (wrote about it in Memories of the Road on A Separate Life). Having watched friends and family raise children, it has been really interesting seeing those who have let their kids have more autonomy, and those who haven't - the helicopter parents, and "tiger moms" - and then seeing the kids grow up. If I'd been a parent, I guess I'd have been somewhere in the middle? DH would definitely have been on the "free range" side of things. lol
For once I had time to read all the articles. So much food for thought. Thanks!
I couldn’t read the Atlantic article, but I can probably imagine what it says. I find hovering parents alternately amusing and aggravating. I tend to benevolently ignore my kids unless they are near an obvious hazard, like a deep river or something. Things like road crossing also make me nervous still. But we walk in our community and I coach them to look and listen for cars, walk together, etc. I trust the 8 year old mostly, the 5 year old somewhat less. But over protection doesn’t protect. Probably some of the best learning experiences were when things went mildly wrong, including AJ getting lost at the Superstore when she was 3 or 4 and then last year at the zoo (she was with a couple of other friends at that time). Both times she did the right thing and was found within a few minutes. Such experiences make an impression lol.
ReplyDeleteIt probably helps that I really don’t care much what people think of me: as an introvert I have to consciously make an effort to pay attention to people, and when I don’t I live in cheerful ignorance of their opinions and judgments.
—torthuil
Also thanks for the link to the sword-and-sandwich article. Interesting to compare and contrast that view of the world to other things I read. :-)
ReplyDeleteAwesome reads, you always find such good ones! I loved Bridget Jones although it's hard to think how long ago that was, I agree that it was a critique of lots of those things it got criticized for. I'm glad BIL is doing better! And hooo, 3 1/2 year olds are pure energy. Bless you!
ReplyDelete