Odds & ends

• Today is FIVE YEARS (!) since the World Health Organization declared the covid-19 pandemic. You can read all my pandemic-related posts -- from the beginning to present day -- under the label "COVID-19 pandemic." (I've been re-reading some of my posts from those early days of March 2020... surreal...)  
• Lisa Sibbett at "The Auntie Bulletin" examines the classic movie musical "Mary Poppins" and the lessons it contains for aunties, in "The Moral of Mary Poppins." 
• My mom took my sister & me to see the movie when it (finally) came to the small town where we were living in Saskatchewan, in 1966. For Christmas that year, we got a record player, along with an LP of the movie soundtrack, as well as an album of Julie Andrews singing Christmas carols. (For my 6th birthday a few weeks later, I got "Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits Volume 2" -- which I still have!)  
• My high school drama club did "Mary Poppins" as our spring musical the year I was in Grade 11 (in the late 1970s). (Our music teacher wrote Disney to ask about the script and sheet music -- she got some music, but no script, and wound up writing her own, based on a Disney novelization of the movie for children. In hindsight, knowing Disney's firm copyright grip on its properties these days, I find this amazing. I guess they weren't quite as strict on these points back then...!) 
• I was cast as Mrs. Banks and, I am proud to report, got to sing "Sister Suffragettes." :)  (My feminist credentials have deep roots, lol.)  
• "Adoption and Fostering Are Not a Cure for Infertility:" Lisa Kissane shares her personal experience with fostering in "Life Without Children." 
• On International Women's Day, Jody Day of Gateway Women reminds us (on her Substack) that "It's International Women's Day... not International Mother's Day!"  
• Also on IWD:  the Toronto Star is featuring this story:  "Revenge of the ‘childless cat lady’: New research shows single women are the happiest people in the world."  (The research comes from the University of Toronto.) I realize that not ALL single women are happy about that status (and the article does nod to that), but it's an upbeat look at a subject that is so often mired in stereotypes. 
• Happily, the Star recently instituted gift articles for paid subscribers (of which I am one!) Enjoy! 
• Jessica Grose, who covers family, religion, education & culture issues for the New York Times, recently wrote in her newsletter about falling birth rates and how to create a more pro-child culture.  One of her key points:  that shaming childfree people is NOT the way to do it.  The article focuses on childfree people (vs childless), but I think it's worth a read.  ​(**CONTENT WARNING:  the article is illustrated with a photo of a baby.** )
• There are a couple of other items, including a bit of commentary about the pronatalist movement.  And, at the end, a part you may or may not want to skip, about a comedian whose new Netflix special is called "The Mother Lode."  
• Labels -- and how unsatisfactory they are -- is a topic that I know many of my CNBC peers grapple with, especially early in their journey. The third post I ever published here (in early November 2007) was on this subject:  "Am I childLESS or childFREE?"  It's also the topic of Y.L. Wolfe's latest Substack post too: "I Used to Call Myself Childless…But I've Realized I Might Be Childfree, Too."  
• Wolfe also muses on how her feelings on certain labels have changed over time -- and how, the older she gets, the more she resists being labelled by others. I can relate to that too.