Long weekend odds & ends

• It's the Family Day long weekend here in Ontario (and a couple of other Canadian provinces).  This holiday always sneaks up on me -- I knew there was a long weekend coming up (although long weekends don't mean quite the same thing when you're retired...!) -- but it hadn't really sunk in that it was THAT long weekend until I looked at my email on Friday afternoon and saw a promotional message from a friend's small business:  "Happy Family Day Weekend!"  Ugh. (So far, not TOO much hype. But it's only Saturday...!)  
• Past rants (ummm, posts) on this subject here. 
• Speaking of family:  the son of one of dh's cousins -- six months older than Katie would have been -- is engaged. His mom announced it via our cousins' WhatsApp group this weekend, along with a photo of the happy couple, showing off the ring. Everyone is excited -- "too long since we've had a family wedding!"
• I'm happy for them. He's a very nice young man, and she seems like a nice girl.  But I couldn't help but think about my own little girl, who would be 25 (!) now -- older than I was when I got married, at 24 (!!) -- who will never grow up. let alone become a bride. :(  
• Also speaking of family (and on a lighter note) -- BIL called yesterday to tell us that Little Great-Nephew's teacher asked each student to tell the class who they would most like to have dinner with. All the kids were naming celebrities, athletes, etc.  -- but LGN said, "All the people in my heart" (!) -- and then named off everyone in his extended family! -- including me & dh!!  Needless to say, we were both absolutely tickled when we heard this (and yes, I got kind of teary too!).  
• Something else that gave me a chuckle:  I got an email from Kobo.ca on Friday night, promoting their long weekend bargain books. Scrolling through the selections, I started laughing when I found the title "Mayo Clinic Guide to Fertility and Conception" -- in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section!  lol  
• I'm not sure if this article is behind a subscriber paywall, but it's an interesting read:  "My partner and I want to have a baby, but we can't afford it without leaving Toronto. Is that our fault — or part of a much bigger problem?"  (Subhead:  "You always hear "there's never a perfect time to have kids," but that minimizes major structural inequalities that affect a huge amount of Canadians.") 
• I feel for this couple (and I get pissed off by politicians whose main solution to reversing declining birth rates seems to be going after abortion and birth control). The expense of having a baby, and the lack of support (no mother or mother-in-law nearby to help me, expensive and limited daycare options, etc.) were certainly among the reasons why we procrastinated on trying to conceive until I was in my mid-30s. (And our rent ranged from $650 a month in 1985, when we moved in, to $975  by the time we bought our house in 1990 and moved out. This was for a small one-bedroom apartment in a charming renovated brownstone building in a  tony midtown neighbourhood near the subway that, when we first moved in, did not allow children. I'm sure that would seem incredibly cheap to renters today, but it was pretty expensive at the time...!)     
• You MUST read Jody Day's post on her Childless Elderwomen Substack about childless daughters, caregiving and pronatalism ("It's not like she's got anything else to do, is it?")  She absolutely nails it. I'm so grateful she is doing this work and calling some much-needed attention to these issues! 
• This opinion piece in the Guardian generated quite a bit of discussion in one of the online childless communities I frequent:  "Facebook’s endless back-to-school photos spark complex feelings for childfree people like me – but sadness isn’t one of them."  I'd be curious to know what you think of it!  
• Personally, I found the writer's tone and wording minimized (perhaps even dismissed?) the very real pain that many childless women feel -- and I worry that readers who have not shared this experience might not understand that she does NOT speak for all of us. (Some of us would LOVE to have friends like hers...!)  
• Quote:  "In the patriarchal, restricted and desperately sexist world that came before, one can imagine that a woman without children may have been a object of concerned pity..."  Well, we certainly have more opportunities and other fulfilling experiences these days -- but that doesn't mean that the world isn't still full of patriarchy & sexism, or that childless women aren't still objects of pity in some quarters...
• I also chafe at the idea -- which I've seen a fair bit of recently in various books & articles -- that suggests the childless/free should "[embrace] active roles... in the broad community of family and friends that actually helps people with kids raise their children."  Yes, it's an option -- but it shouldn't feel like an obligation, just because we don't have children of our own to occupy our time & energy.  Some of us are happy to help out, some of us would rather not, some of us don't have any family or friends with young children nearby, and some of us would like to help but (inexplicably) meet resistance from some parents. It's not always that simple.
• I questioned why a writer/publication would be highlighting back to school photos in the middle of February??  An Australian in the group explained to me that the writer was an Aussie, and the school year there runs from late January/early February through November/December. Oops. I apologized for my northern hemisphere-centricity.  ;) 
• Also from the Guardian:  Bravo to Carla Dejonghe, a Belgian woman who has persuaded her local municipal council to confront a highly common blind spot, and consider the impact of its policies on single people (including many childless women).  36% of households in Belgium are currently made up of single adults. That number has grown by 30% in just over a decade, and it's likely to keep getting larger in the future. A couple of excerpts (boldfaced emphasis is mine):  

The text of the charter stresses the aim of ensuring that single-income households are treated on an equal footing with others, adding: “It is our interest as policymakers to no longer think from the perspective of the traditional family as the norm, but to strive for measures that are neutral to living arrangements.”

It includes measures that range from encouraging new housing projects to feature communal spaces for more social interaction, to tweaking municipal invitations to specify that guests can bring a “plus one” instead of only a partner...

The charter also commits to championing single-friendly practices within the local hospitality industry, such as communal tables and a wider selection of quality wines by the glass. Workplaces will also be encouraged to reconsider the common practice of relying on people who live alone any time overtime is required.

“These are just simple things,” said Dejonghe. “They don’t cost much money but they’re very logical.”

...Dejonghe, who is also a member of Belgium’s parliament, said she had yet to receive any negative reactions, chalking it up to the care she had taken to emphasise that the charter was in no way aimed at diminishing the importance of traditional families.

“It’s about equality,” she said. “Everyone has to be aware of two things: if it’s good for a person living alone, it will be good for everybody. And second, whether you want to or not, at some point in your life you will be all alone.”

She described the charter as a first step towards tackling this reality. “Our society has evolved but our policies haven’t kept up,” she said. “These are small steps but we have to start somewhere.”

• Annnnndddd just as I was set to hit "publish" on this post, a message popped into my inbox. From Parents Neighbours Daughter. A photo of the Littlest Princess (all smiles, as usual). Wearing the handknit sweater set that another neighbour (M., long dead now) had made for my Katie, 25+ years ago. (Full story here.)  "It fits!" she wrote. 
• I brushed away tears as I messaged her back: "M. would have loved that!"  
• Is this frickin' weekend over yet?