Voldemort Day odds & ends

It's been a while, and a pile of odds & ends have been accumulating in my drafts folder!  

• There was an extensive article in the Toronto Star recently on communal living -- a subject of interest for many CNBCers (especially those without partners) -- with a particular focus on the "Golden Girls" model, profiling four senior women living together in London (Ontario).  It discusses the pros & cons of such arrangements, and the move to enact legislation to support them. 
• I was tickled that the article actually mentions that "By 2036, nearly a quarter of Canadians are expected to be 65 or older. Many do not have children to support them in their senior years..." 
• Within that article, there's a link to another story from a few weeks ago that I hadn't seen, about a new documentary about solo aging. (The video is embedded in the story.) There are also links to some resources, including a mention of Ageing Without Children in the UK! 
• I haven't watched the documentary yet, and I don't know if it's viewable outside Canada, but here's a link to the story, fyi. (For some reason, gift links were not offered?? -- hopefully this will work regardless...)  
• Also from the Toronto Star: the stuff of nightmares for fertility patients: "Disturbing errors at Ontario fertility clinics destroy couples’ baby dreams years after province abandoned oversight plans." 
• Sample quote:  "...the person cleaning your teeth or giving you a massage is more highly regulated than the person looking after your embryos."
• Not a new subject, but well written: from Life Without Children, Nadia Huq observes "If I Was in a Hollywood Movie, I’d Be Dead." (Subhead: "Where are the happy endings for single women without kids?")   

Suddenly, everyone is talking about pronatalism (and pushing back on it too)(albeit not necessarily from a childless perspective). Just a couple of relevant articles: 

• From the New York Times: "White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children." (Pronatalism much?) 
• Beware the comments:  the ones I scanned contained a lot of childless/free-bashing by parents (and vice versa). Not good. :( 
• An excellent piece on this topic from Jill Filipovic (unfortunately, I think it's paywalled for subscribers). "Yes, America Should Make It Easier to Have Children." 
• The kicker is in the subhead:  "But the Trump administration doesn't want to help families. It wants to punish single women and childless people."  Yup. 
• Also related (and very much worth reading -- with an irresistible headline to boot...!), from Jessica Valenti at Abortion Every Day: "Bro-Natalists Are Ruining America." 
• Also related, from the Washington Post:  "You can’t bribe and shame your way to more babies." (Gift link.) 

And, a few for Voldemort Day (my pet name -- i.e., "The Day That Shall Not Be Named," lol):  

• Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin and Ryan Rose Weaver of InTending talk about THAT day (both video & transcript available):  "There's No Card for This." Well worth a read!  
• From Y.L. Wolfe at On the Outside:  "A Tribute to the Childless Women Who Feel Invisible on Mother's Day." (Subhead:  "Your feelings and experiences matter, too.")  
• Mild rant:  I was at the bookstore recently and picked up a new title by Uzma Jalaluddin, with the promising title of "Detective Aunty." Always happy to see books about aunties! :)  
• Nevertheless -- while the cover description asks "who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty?" the title character, in fact, is not an "aunty" but a mother and grandmother, whose daughter is accused of murder. Maybe I'm missing something here, but why then isn't the title "Detective Grandma"??  
• And -- like mothers proclaiming themselves "childless" when they've dropped the kids off at Grandma's for the weekend, or "childless cat ladies" just because they own a cat and their kids are now all at college, why must mothers appropriate yet another title that doesn't quite describe their personal situation?? (I recognize that one can be a mother/grandmother AND an auntie, but still...!) 
• (I may still read the book, but still...!)  
• If you are interested in current events & U.S. politics with a historical perspective, Heather Cox Richardson's Substack, "Letters from an American" is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough. On weekends, however, she often switches gears and posts about something else, sometimes just a gorgeous scenic photo. 
• Last night (in advance of That Day), she wrote about an older childfree friend who's influenced her life. It's a delight. :) May we all have a Mrs. A., in our life, and perhaps be that Mrs. A. for someone else!  
• This was written before Easter, not today -- and it has absolutely nothing to do with childlessness, pregnancy loss or infertility -- but it sure made me laugh!  Connie Schulz is such a fabulous writer!  If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you will certainly enjoy "For Easter: A Tribute to Mom's Beehives." :)