"Gimme a Crisis" by Howard Green

"Gimme a Crisis:  In the Room With Global Banker Rick Waugh" by Howard Green, a prominent Canadian business journalist,.is not my usual kind of reading fare. But I had a special interest in the subject matter. Let's just say I am very familiar with Scotiabank, where Waugh spent his 40+-year career, as well as the events and many of the people mentioned in this book.  ;)  So when I heard about it last fall,  I immediately added it to my reading list (and finally got around to downloading a copy and opening it).  

If you're not interested in a book about risk management, Scotiabank, or Canadian banking generally (or even just banking, period), this might not be book for you.  For me, though, it was a bit of a blast from the past! 

The central theme of the book is that Rick Waugh, the personable CEO of Scotiabank from 2004 to late 2013, was a master crisis manager. (Author Green points out his father was a fireman -- perhaps a gift for putting out fires, literally and figuratively, ran in the family.) During Waugh's tenure as a top executive and, eventually, CEO, Scotiabank -- long known as Canada's most international bank, with broad global operations, particularly in the Caribbean -- experienced one crisis after another -- most notably in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and the 2008 global financial meltdown (from which Canadian banks emerged relatively unscathed). The book also details other highlights of Waugh's career, including his role in bringing an NBA team (the Raptors) to Toronto, and advancing the careers of women at the bank. 

Amusingly, there's a chapter (excerpted in the Toronto Star a few months ago (gift link) -- which is where I first heard about this book) about Waugh's encounter with Donald Trump (!), back in the 1980s when Trump was still just a real estate mogul, looking for financing for his next project, and Waugh ran Scotiabank's New York City office.  (The bank did not take Trump on as a client.)  

The book was maybe a bit long and a bit repetitive in spots. It occasionally lapses into financial jargon and dizzying explanations of complex financial instruments that made my eyes glaze over. ;)  But overall, I thought it was very well-researched, well-written and entertaining, and that it rang true to my own personal experiences and observations about the bank and the man. 

4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded (after some internal debate) down to 4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #6 read to date in 2026 (and Book #1 finished in March), bringing me to 15% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: Uber-Boomer ;)

I got a chuckle out of this recent Globe & Mail article (gift link): "What happens when a Boomer tries Uber for the first time."  I'm not QUITE as technologically inept as the author, but I *am* a (late) Boomer (or early GenXer, depending on how you define the timelines) -- and I have yet to use Uber. 

For one thing, we don't often have need of a ride somewhere. I don't drive (long story), but dh drives us most places we need to go. When we lived in our old community, I would sometimes get off work earlier than he did, and in that case, I would usually take the bus home from the train station. (There was a stop conveniently located near our house.)  Once in a great while, if I wasn't feeling well and had to wait for the bus, I would take one of the cabs that was generally lined up in the parking lot outside. And I occasionally took cabs to assignments in far-flung areas of the city as part of my job  The department had an account with one of the city's large cab companies. You'd get a "chit" from the office administrator and fill in the details for the driver when you reached your destination, including the amount on the meter and a tip. 

(I got offered a cab chit by the HR person who was handling my termination, but I said no and took the train home as usual. Dh -- who had lost HIS job a year earlier -- picked me up.) A colleague who also lost her job that day -- and who also usually took a train home -- told me she took the chit. "I'm gonna take them up on everything they offer me, make them pay," she laughed. Made me think I should have taken the chit too!  lol  Oh well.) 

BIL usually takes us to the airport & picks us up again, when we're travelling, and when he's not able to do so (as was the case last year, because of his health), I've found a reasonably reliable airport limo company to take us. (And, depending on where else we need to go, there's a rapid bus service right outside our front door that takes us directly to the local subway station in a few minutes' time.)  

Yes, it's more expensive to take a cab or an airport limo anywhere than an Uber. The cabs can be less than clean sometimes, and the drivers don't always speak or understand English very well. (Limos are usually a much nicer ride, and the rates to & from the airport aren't that much different from taking a cab, which is why I prefer to use them.)  I remember one memorable cab ride where the ashtray was full of cigarette butts, the car reeked of stale smoke, and he was playing music loudly while talking on his cellphone, all the way home from the train station.  Not my sort of music either...!) 

But... I've heard some iffy stories about Uber, particularly about women travelling alone. I figure that, at least with a cab, there's a license involved, a tangible company behind it with a physical, local presence (versus an app) and a phone number you can call to voice your complaint to a real person, if you're not happy with the service.  Yes, I know you can rate your Uber driver (and they rate YOU, as a passenger!), but there's no easy recourse if you have a complaint or concern.  Also, as many people in the story comments pointed out, if you don't rate your driver five stars AND give a good tip, you may be more likely to find yourself without a ride in the future. Sounds vaguely blackmail-ish to me. I mean, what's the point of a ratings system if you're not going to welcome honest feedback? 

How about you? Do you use Uber or other such rideshare services, versus more traditional methods of transportation?  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: See you in my dreams

I've been having a lot of dreams lately. I don't always remember them in great detail, but I do remember snatches of some, and hazy overall themes. And I've noticed that a lot of the same themes keep popping up, over and over again!  

Some of them include:   

• Being chased: getting inside the house -- but the door will NOT latch!! (There's always a gap between the door frame and the door!)  
• My teeth falling out (and rattling around inside my mouth -- eek!). I haven't had one of those dreams in quite a while (knock wood!) -- but I remember the horror of realizing I had broken a tooth once (in real life!) and fishing chunks of tooth out of my mouth and thinking, "OMG, it's just like in my dream!!"  
• Flying! -- on my own, not in an airplane!  (In my dreams, it's like doing the breaststroke in the air, lol.)  
• Tornados. (I know where this one comes from:  my grandfather was deathly afraid of bad weather, and kept an eagle eye on the weather report. At the first sign of approaching storms, he'd hustle us over a neighbour's house where there was a basement we could shelter in.)  
• My grandparents' house, built in the early 1900s, had a simple dirt cellar, accessed through a trap door in the kitchen floor.  I do remember going down there during bad weather when I was very young, but my grandfather didn't think it was very stable -- which is why we began heading over to the neighbour's house!  But in my dreams, I'm often heading down into that cellar -- and finding not only a 1970s-style rec room down there, but an entire underground city...!  
• Related:  Finding hidden rooms & attics in my grandparents' house (which was torn down in 1998).  
• Finding a book that takes my family history back several generations, with handwritten notes that I'm dying to read -- but I wake up before I can actually read what's in it!  
• Visiting a cemetery or mausoleum and wandering around endlessly, trying to find where Katie & other family members are buried.  
• Being back in school, not attending class all term -- and then finding out I still have to write the exam! and scrambling to make my way across a HUGE campus to get to the exam location on time! (I think this is a common one!) (Note that the last time I was in a classroom of any sort was FORTY YEARS AGO!!  lol)  
• Being back in my old university dorm, and wandering around through the hallways, up & down stairs... 
• Wandering endlessly through the underground PATH that connects all the office towers in downtown Toronto. It's often either deserted, or crowded with people.  And I'm often trying to find my way to a bookstore!  lol  
• Being at work. (Yes, 10 years after I was let go, I am STILL dreaming about work!!)  
• Being at work AFTER I was let go. In my dreams, I was told they wanted me back, urgently -- so I return to the office, only to have people giving me funny looks, like "What's SHE doing here?"  
• Related:  Going up & down endless flights of stairs between floors. (We DID have elevators!) 
• Being the odd person out/the only one (if not specifically childless). Not only a reflection on my childlessness, but probably also my childhood, where I was often "the new girl" and the oddball because of my good grades, love of reading (and using big words!), and my ineptitude at sports! 

Do you remember your dreams?  Do you find certain themes or scenarios being repeated over & over again?  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

Odds & ends

• Last Sunday (July 23rd -- always the last Sunday of July) was Aunties Day. I had it written in my calendar, or else I probably would have forgotten about it completely -- it's not like it's well known outside the childless/free auntie community, right? (and it's not even that well known there/here, sadly...)(unlike that "other" holiday...! -- as I wrote a few years back), and I haven't been on social media much lately to notice if anyone else was posting about it. Anyway, here's to all the unsung aunties & godmothers out there!  
• Yael Wolfe wrote about Aunties Day after the fact on Medium: "It’s Aunt’s Day…and It’s Time We Celebrated the Aunties of the World."  It's for members only (and there don't seem to be gift links), but here's an excerpt:

As a culture, we seem to understand the value (at least to some extent) of having grandparents actively involved in their grandchildren’s lives. We understand how enriching it is to all parties, helping generations bridge the gap across time and build strong family legacies.

Strangely, we do not seem to recognize the value of having aunts and uncles actively involved in their niblings’ lives.

I’m not surprised by this — again, I call out pronatalism that would attach the most value in families to relationships that are forged by parent-child bonds. We value grandparents more because they are parents. Aunts and uncles might not be, and even if they are, their contributions to their families are often seen as secondary in the absence of these parent-child bonds.

and 

We love them. We absolutely love them.

And what’s all the more notable about this is that we don’t have to. Parents are stuck with the kids they push out into the world. They have a legal and (ideally) emotional obligation to them.

Aunts and uncles are under no such obligation. And yet we keep showing up just because we love those little beings.

Makes you wonder about all those parents who say women without children could never know true love and true sacrifice, doesn’t it? They don’t have any choice but to practice “true love” (whatever that means) and sacrifice.

But aunts do, and many of us figured that out without having become mothers… 

 and 

If we’re so committed as a society to value our children and the family that raises them, why don’t we make more of an effort to show those who pitch in how much it means to us?

• I haven't had much time for podcasts lately, but I did manage to tune in live to hear Christine Erickson in conversation with Stephanie Joy Phillips about World Childless Week on New Legacy Radio. You can listen to the replay here, or on many other podcast platforms.  
• World Childless Week 2023 is coming up!  Sept. 11th to 17th.  Deadline for submissions is Sunday, August 27th!  The list of this year's topics is here.   
• I love, love, loved this recent New York Times story about intergenerational friendship between two women/neighbours. (It pays to get to know your neighbours!)  Bonus: children are not mentioned as part of either woman's story. I am assuming they are both childless/free. (Gift link.)
• The Guardian recently talked to an embryologist at a fertility clinic about how her own infertility journey and losses have affected her and how she now does her job.  Headline: "The IVF specialist who lost multiple pregnancies: ‘I had spent years making people’s dreams come true. It felt so unfair’." 
• From the Daily Mail:  "Why we childless women are sick of being exploited by mums in the office during the holidays."  
• Sample quote: " 'What upsets me most is that I had their backs during lockdown, manning the phones in the office so they could stay at home, as I understood how hard it was to work while home-schooling kids. I feel sad the same goodwill doesn't seem to be there for me.' " 
• (This was a frequent issue mentioned in the discussion about "Your Childless Experience" on Anne Helen Petersen's Substack newsletter, "Culture Study," which I wrote about here.) 
• Jody Day of Gateway Women appeared on two different radio programs to comment on this issue: 
• BBC Essex (link available through mid/late August) -- the relevant segment begins around the 3:09 mark, and Jody appears around 3:24.
• And on Newstalk Breakfast (Ireland)(link within story). 
• This Globe & Mail article doesn't mention pregnancy loss, infertility or childlessness, but I thought it was still highly relevant:  "Paying the ‘grief tax’ and the other hidden costs of caregiving." (Gift link.) 
• Mel recently posted that it's been 10 years (!) since the demise of Google Reader (and shared a great article about it). Says Mel: "Social media is often blamed for the decline in blogging, but I think closing Google Reader contributed to the mass exodus to Facebook updates. Make it hard to read blogs, and people will stop reading blogs. Alas."  
• I think she's right. I sometimes mention blog readers to women in some of the non-blogging childless communities I participate in -- and they have no idea what I'm talking about. 
• I still miss Google Reader. As you all know well (I've complained about it enough here, lol), I used Bloglovin quite happily for most of the past decade, but it rapidly went downhill in recent years and became increasingly unreliable. I finally bit the bullet, downloaded Feedly and paid for the premium service (because the free version limited me to 100 blogs -- hahahahaha....).  I haven't had a lot of time lately for blog reading, but so far, so good...  

Long weekend odds & ends

• What a crazy week it's been...!  I think we've had something to do -- usually involving an alarm clock -- almost every day.  
• Monday: dh drove BIL & Older Nephew downtown for a medical appointment, early in the morning, and was out until early/mid-afternoon. I took advantage of his absence to wash the floor mats & mop the floors (the tiles in the kitchen, entryway and bathrooms, anyway). And then enjoyed some rare "me alone at home" time!  ;) 
• Tuesday, we stayed with Little Great-Nephew from 7:30 a.m. until about 2 p.m., while BIL & SIL went for a lengthy medical appointment. 
• Wednesday morning, we travelled into midtown Toronto (the neighbourhood where we lived when we were first married) for dental appointments (cleanings & checkups). (We were also there last week for an optometrist checkup for me.) All good!  
• When we got home, we did laundry. 
• Thursday morning, we set an alarm, got up early and did the housecleaning, so that I could attend a Zoom meeting/chat/planning session at 11 a.m. 
• We usually do the housecleaning on Friday, but... 
• Friday morning, we returned to our old community for much-needed haircuts!  
• Dh is out again this morning, heading up to Older Nephew's house with BIL to do some guy-type stuff.  ;)  I could have slept in... but of course, I was wide awake at 6:30 a.m., even before  dh's alarm, set for 7, rang. Oh well...!  
• It's been (mostly) milder here lately (no humidity -- yet! -- yay!!), but overcast/grey -- possibly (likely?) the result of the wildfires that are burning in Alberta right now -- some 3500 km/2200 miles away!  Air quality has been "moderate" (not really bad, but not great either). The pollen count has been very high too.  We like to have the balcony door open when it's nice enough to do so, but needless to say, we've both had dry, irritated eyes and we've both been sneezing! :p
• It's raining today, so hopefully that will help the air quality issues...   
• It's the Victoria Day long weekend here, regarded as the traditional kickoff to summer. We've been invited to BIL's on Sunday, along with the nephews and their families, and we're looking forward to that. (We haven't seen our new Little Great-Niece since Easter!)  Hopefully the weather will improve, though...!  
• Fireworks on Victoria Day are also traditional (although they tend to be seen & heard all weekend long, not just on Monday night...!) -- and sometimes we see even more displays this weekend than we do on Canada Day, in July! -- but I guess we'll see what happens re: the weather...!  
• Several friends' & relatives' kids recently turned 25, or will be soon (just as another certain young woman would have, if she'd arrived as planned in November 1998):  my cousin's youngest daughter in early March, dh's cousin's oldest son in mid-April (I was newly pregnant and "out" at his mom's baby shower earlier that month), and just this past week, the son of one of my best friends from growing up, as well as a high school classmate's daughter. I will admit, seeing those birthday photos and greetings gave me pangs. Sigh.  
• I got an email recently from my alma mater, the university where I got my undergraduate degree in arts: "Congratulations on the 40th anniversary of your graduation from the Faculty of Arts with the University of....! We are so proud to have you as part of our alumni community...."  My first reaction:  "Yikes!! FORTY YEARS??!!"  (My second reaction: how much money do they want??  lol)(Answer:  none -- this time (!) -- but they did suggest I should make plans to attend homecoming this year...!)  
• Ugh... I recently got one of those "Lori, do you know...?" emails from LinkedIn. The person in question was my old boss -- my last boss, before I was unceremoniously shown the door after 28 years of fully satisfactory to above average service, almost 9 years ago now. She emailed me at home a few days after I was pinkslipped ("if there's anything I can do...") -- I thanked her, and that's the last I've heard from her (or she from me) since then. It's too long and complicated to explain why here (and to be honest, I'm not even entirely sure why myself), but... I just... had no desire to stay in touch.  
• Anyway, I was curious what she's up to these days, so I clicked to have a look at her profile. Or so I thought. What happened instead was I sent a "connection" request to her.  (!) I had no idea how to rescind it (and to do so without her knowing), so I reluctantly let it stand. 
• She accepted my request this morning. Oh well. I'm not on LinkedIn much these days anyway...  
• No links for you this time!  (Sorry!)  Maybe next week...

"Still Life" by Louise Penny

I may have both my Canadian and mystery novel fan credentials revoked for admitting this, but I had never read a Louise Penny/Three Pines/Gamache novel -- until now.  I'd heard great reviews from many sources and always had it in mind that I should give the series a try, but... well, you know... so many books, so little time, etc. etc...!  

Then, in a recent Friday Roundup post,  Mel mentioned: 

The Substack (Loribeth is so right! Substacks are blogs in disguise.) Notes from Three Pines is hosting an ongoing Inspector Gamache read-along. It kicks off on February 22, so you have time to read the first book (Still Life). I will jump in because my old book club closed down, and I’m looking for a more structured community beyond Goodreads. But not too structured because I don’t want to leave my house.

Does anyone else want to join along? And then go on a road trip to the greater Montreal area?

I responded in a comment: 

I am game for Montreal (and maybe the read-along too, albeit I need another book club like a hole in the head, lol). Despite my (relative) proximity — it’s only about a six-hour drive from here, and I think some of the nonstop trains can get there in 4 — I’ve only been there once, overnight on business (followed by [note from Loribeth: actually, preceded by] six hours in Quebec City before flying home again). This was about 30 years ago, and I spent most of my time either in a hotel room or board room. My mom & I were going to take the train there for a few days when she came to visit me about 20+ years ago — the train tickets were bought and hotel room booked, I’d researched stuff for us to do — but we had to cancel. I was suffering horrible anxiety attacks, post-infertility treatment, just before she got there and I did not want to be in a strange city and not feeling well. 🙁

Despite the fact that (as I alluded to Mel) I'm ALREADY trying to keep up with 3 -- wait, 4! -- active book clubs/reading groups (D.E. Stevenson, L.M. Montgomery Readathon, and Lighthouse Women -- both the NoMo book club and the "Living the Life Unexpected" reading group -- plus two other groups are that are inactive at the moment) -- plus read some books of my own choosing once in a while!  ;) -- I couldn't resist the opportunity. ;)  Conveniently, I already had a copy of "Still Life" in my Kobo e-reader, purchased on sale a while back, so I was able to dive in as soon as I finished reading my previous book.  

*** *** *** 

In many ways, "Still Life" is a standard murder mystery, with echoes of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. I didn't find the opening chapter, where the stage is set and the body discovered, especially exciting or attention-grabbing -- but once Chief Inspector Armand Gamache arrived on the scene, my interest was piqued.  The body in question is that of Jane Neal, retired schoolteacher and amateur artist, whose painting was just accepted for exhibit at the local art show. Upon closer inspection, the cause of death is revealed:  an arrow, straight through her heart. Was it a hunting accident -- or was it murder?  Who killed her, and why?  

Two things in particular set this book apart and made it a good read for me: first, the Canadian/Quebecois setting and references. Examples:  it's Thanksgiving -- *Canadian* Thanksgiving, in October! :)  There are mentions of Tim Hortons, United Empire Loyalists, the Parti Quebecois, the referendum on Quebec independence (I'm assuming the one in 1995, which came dangerously close to destroying the country, and not the earlier one in 1980) and Prime Minister Mulroney (who stepped down in 1993 -- which, along with the referendum reference and a teenager's Discman suggests the book is set in the early 1990s). 

Second, I loved the vivid portraits of the village of Three Pines and its quirky residents -- and of the principled and thoroughly decent Gamache and his fellow police officers (even the clueless and annoying Yvette Nichol). I'm not convinced I'd want to move to Three Pines -- there are some rather dark undercurrents there (aren't there always, in small towns?) -- but I sure would love to spend some time browsing in Myrna's bookstore and have a meal and a cafe au lait in Olivier's bistro.  :)  Especially in October, with the glorious fall colours on full display.  :)  

What I didn't like: I don't want to give away any spoilers -- but let's just say that I share a phobia with one of the main characters, Clara ;)  which figures prominently in a chapter near the end of the book. That scene alone probably knocked half a point off my rating, lol. ;)  

4 stars on Goodreads. As I said, this was my first Louise Penny novel, but it won't be my last. I'm looking forward to reading more about Gamache and Three Pines, very soon.  :)  

Have you read any Louise Penny books?  Are you doing the Notes From Three Pines Readalong? And have you watched the new streaming TV series based on the books, "Three Pines"?  Thoughts? (I don't have Amazon Prime and haven't seen it, but I must admit, I think Alfred Molina was a good casting choice for Gamache. :)  )  

This was Book #8 read to date in 2023 (and Book #2 finished in February), bringing me to 18% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."  

#MicroblogMondays: A "monstrosity" of a dilemma

Author Roxane Gay offers advice on the office, money, careers and work-life balance in the New York Times "Work Friend" column -- and this week's column included a doozy. 

The scenario: the writer (gender unspecified, but many commenters assumed it was a woman), was irritated by a proud dad co-worker's baby photos displayed in their shared workspace. (The term used was "giant photos of a baby-acne-mottled monstrosity sitting on my desk.")(!!) Whenever it was their turn to be in the office, they would put the photos in a drawer, and then leave them there. The dad would put them up again when he was in the office... lather, rinse, repeat... 

When confronted by the dad (in a good-natured way) -- at an office party, no less! -- the writer lied -- and claimed they found it difficult to look at the baby photos because they were infertile (!).  Now they find themselves the object of office sympathy (!), with other infertile coworkers wanting to comiserate.    

Gay was clearly flummoxed:  "I don’t know how you get yourself out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself. This is mighty awkward," she says.  No kidding!  

The reader comments are just as interesting and thought-provoking as the letter itself.  (Beware if you click over to read them, though!) I did not read them all (there were more than 1,000 as I write this -- although there were other letters being addressed as well as this one) -- but I read a lot!  Here are some of the things people were saying (paraphrased, not direct quotes):  

On the one hand:   

• This is petty and unnecessary drama. 
• This is an insane overreaction on the writer's part. 
• Why not just put the photos back up at the end of the day? 
• Why didn't she just tell the truth, instead of making up a story? 
• Why are we becoming so selfish?
• Anyone who makes those kinds of comments about an innocent baby is odd.  
• I didn't know so many people hated babies. I despair for humanity. 
• Most people take pleasure in other people's babies -- this person has issues.
• She needs professional help.  
• She should be fired for harassment/inappropriate behaviour. 
• Maybe the new dad isn't getting enough sleep to be rational?  [lol]
• I'm just glad I'm retired. [lol] 

On the other hand: 

• This is hilarious. 
• This is like something out of a "Seinfeld" episode. 
• Why did the dad confront her in front of their coworkers (even in a joking way)? 
• The writer escalated the situation unnecessarily -- but so did the dad for refusing to take a hint and then calling them out in front of all their colleagues at a work function.  
• Parents should realize that not everyone likes babies. 
• Not liking children is one of the world's last remaining taboos. It's not a crime. 
• The writer's attitude toward babies is not relevant/not what's at issue here. 
• It's a shared workspace: personal items should be kept to a minimum (if they're allowed at all), and removed/stored at the end of the day.  
• The writer is under no obligation to discuss her fertility further with others in the office. 
• As long as her coworkers don't start a GoFundMe for fertility treatments for her, she should just tell them she doesn't want to talk about it, if they bring it up.  
• The writer may have lied, but they inadvertently did a huge favor for all those of us who are actually infertile and have to deal with baby pictures at work, etc., by reminding their coworkers how hurtful something like this can be.  

My thoughts:  "Baby-acne-mottled monstrosity" does seem a bit harsh...! (I was startled when, 20+ years ago, I first started looking for resources on living with children, and stumbled onto some childfree-by-choice message boards with disdainful discussions of "breeders," "sprogs," "crotchfruit" and the like...!)  But I agree that it's not a crime not to like children. The writer obviously knew that their aversion to babies was not socially acceptable, though --  hence, the spur-of-the-moment lie about infertility, which they knew would probably elicit more sympathy and put an end to the debate over removing photos. 

As someone who IS infertile, I have mixed feelings about that. Why anyone who is NOT truly infertile would want to claim that label is beyond me (hence my personal dislike of the term "social infertility," which describes people who don't have kids simply because they haven't met the right partner yet, or didn't meet them in time). And I wonder if people pretending to be infertile might make it less likely that others will believe or take seriously or sympathize with those of us who truly do have issues. 

Ultimately, I agree with the many commenters who felt that, in a shared workspace, photos and other personal items should be removed/stored at the end of the workday. And that the writer's in/fertility and feelings about children are nobody's business, and she should just tell her coworkers, however well-meaning, that she does not want to discuss the issue further. 

(Tangentially related side note: Towards the end of my working life, we had an administration manager who instituted a strict "clean desk" policy. Personal items weren't mentioned, but because we dealt with a lot of confidential material, the (logical) decree came down that all files and work materials had to be locked up at the end of the day, and all computers logged off. Many people already did this, of course -- but it was not unusual to see stacks of files sitting out and papers spread out on someone's desk. I didn't think my staff magazine story about the company's United Way campaign was particularly confidential, but I started dutifully clearing my desk at night, locking the drawers and hiding the key. I came into the office early one morning and saw this manager, walking around and testing people's file drawers to see whether they were locked. If they weren't, she deliberately left the drawer wide open. I'm not sure what, if anything, happened to the unlucky employees who forgot to lock up the night before...!)  

Thoughts?? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

Odds & ends -- and thanks

• I was on a roll this morning with Heardle.  :) I got EVERY SINGLE ONE, many within 2-3 seconds -- right up to Heardle 90s. (I don't do Heardle past the 90s version, aside from the original all-decades version.) Never heard of either the song or the artist. But I guess you can't always win them all...!  
• Prior to our cottage weekend with dh's cousin & his family, I was rummaging in my drawers to find my ancient swimsuit, in case we were invited to use the hot tub (and we were! -- and did!). I found it in a drawer with the remnants of my pantihose collection, and I found myself wondering WHY -- some 25-ish years after my office adopted a more casual dress code (and women wearing pants was no longer deemed shocking/a subject of disapproval -- seriously -- this was the mid-late 1990s...!), 8 years after I lost my job and 6 years after moving (when I culled a LOT of stuff) -- I STILL had so many pairs of pantihose (and knee-highs)??  The last time I wore pantihose was to Younger Nephew's wedding, four years ago. And before that...?? (I didn't wear pantihose to Older Nephew's wedding in 2016 -- which was a mistake, when I saw the photos...! Live and learn..!)  
• Among my pantihose collection: a pair of fishnet tights that I think I bought when I was in university, about 40 (gulp!) years ago (!!). 
• I chucked all but two pairs of hose and two knee-highs (already used and laundered), and three pairs still in the original, unopened packaging. That's probably still too many -- but, progress...! 
• How many pairs of pantihose (if any??) are still lurking in your dresser drawers?? 
• The tale of the swimsuit:  back in the spring of 2001 (!! -- yes, 2001!), my then-immediate boss invited all of us over to her house after work one night for dinner and a dip in the hot tub. Since our team at that time was entirely women (most of us in our 40s or older -- the majority of us childless too!), there were no real qualms at the prospect. ;)  My problem: no swimsuit (at least, one that fit me).  I remember going to the Hudson's Bay department store near my office on my lunch hour and spending way too much on a one-piece Christina swimsuit -- black-blue bottom, bright royal blue top with a black design and sparkles on it -- that didn't look half-bad on me. I wore it in my boss's hot tub -- and it's languished in the drawer ever since then. (I used to LIVE at the swimming pool in the summertime when I was growing up;  sadly, not so much these days.)  
• Last year when we visited the same cottage, the hot tub was out of commission -- but it's been repaired since then, and our hostess reminded us to bring our suits last weekend. I fished the suit out of the drawer, and what do you know -- after 20+ years (!), not only did it still FIT (!), the elastic was still good too.  :)   
• I'm still in touch with my former boss and one of my co-workers (my office bestie) from that long-ago party, and I mentioned this to them in an email after our cottage weekend, because I knew they'd get a kick out of it. Lo and behold, my boss responded with a snapshot of us all in her hot tub, back in 2001. Mostly just our heads are visible, but you can glimpse a sliver of a blue strap on my shoulder, lending credence to my story. ;)  
• I LOVED Kate Kaufmann's recent "Unapparent" column (lol -- I love that title) on the Psychology Today site about "What Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Mean for Non-Parents."  She zeros in on the "belonging" label as a "gamechanger" for people without children, and suggests ways to give non-parents a stronger sense of belonging, include balancing family-centric events with ones that celebrate adult accomplishments. 
• I've long been fascinated by the idealization of motherhood and the role of "momfluencer" culture, and the power they have to warp women's sense of self-worth. Most writing in this vein, of course, focuses on the pressure this puts on mothers to live up to the ideal -- and fails to take the next step and ponder how these unattainable ideals affect those of us who wanted to be mothers and never even got the chance to try to live up them.  Still, it's a topic worth pondering. 
• I recently discovered the writing of Sara Petersen (through Anne Helen Petersen's "Culture Study" Substack newsletter -- not sure if there's a relationship there?), whose Substack newsletter is called "In Pursuit of Clean Countertops" and whose book "Momfluenced" will be published in April 2023. (Two other great writers on this topic, also introduced to me by Anne Helen Petersen:  Meg Conley at homeculture, and Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who began with a Substack newsletter called "Mothers Under the Influence" and now writes a column called "Brooding" at The Cut.)  
• Sara Petersen's latest post: "I don't cherish every moment: What unsolicited parenting advice tells us about America's Ideal Mother."  You might not relate to her description of struggling with the demands of new motherhood and post-partum depression -- but this passage sure struck a chord with me: 

...living in a world which prioritizes someone else’s should over your own truth is maddening, exhausting, and invalidating.

It’s difficult to assert (and sometimes, even to understand) our authentic maternal [note from me: substitute "non-maternal" if you're childless] identities in a culture which determinedly foists a one-size-fits-nobody straightjacket of motherhood onto all of us.

• It's the (Canadian) Thanksgiving long weekend here, and among my many blessings, I am so thankful for this blog and all of you!  Thank you for enriching my life with your own blogs, your comments and your support!   

World Childless Week 2022, Day Four: Childlessness in the Workplace

Day Four of World Childless Week is focused on the topic of "Childlessness in the Workplace."  

Have you been bombarded with mum talk during a Zoom chat, swamped with pregnancy announcements in emails, trapped in a maternity leave office party, expected to work late, denied flexi-time, fallen to the bottom of the list for holidays or just felt embarrassed to approach your line manager or personnel department because you are childless? Perhaps you’ve spoken out and instigated changes or helped to create inclusive policies? Have you run to the loo for sanity and to shed a few tears or decided enough is enough and spoken out for change? 

Let’s talk about the problems we face and what we can do to create positive changes in the workplace. 

I'm retired now -- downsized out of my job, eight years ago at the age of 53 -- but before that, I worked in communications for the same large Canadian bank for 28 years. Most of my work-related posts on this blog are tagged "work/office." I didn't have time to go through all of them in anticipation of this topic, but there are a couple of posts and anecdotes that I remembered and wanted to share with you here. 

I never thought much about it at the time but later realized that, for more than 15 years, my closest co-workers were a core group of older women, most of whom did not have children. I knew that several of them had thought they'd be mothers someday, but it didn't happen for them, for various reasons. They rallied around me and supported me when my only baby was stillborn in 1998. 

And I needed their support: in the first year or so alone after my loss, I had to endure TEN office pregnancy announcements/maternity leaves -- and there were many more to come in the years after that. Over time, those supportive close co-workers all left or retired, and I was left to find my way among new (and increasingly younger) colleagues, most of whom hadn't been around at the time of my loss and knew nothing about it, and who were getting married and starting to have kids of their own. I was fortunate that I never once had to work over Christmas and was able to go west to be with my family over the holidays -- but I still endured umpteen baby showers and office visits, mat leaves (and the additional work they entailed for the rest of us, even when the position was covered), excited chatter about ultrasounds and bragging about grandchildren. Sometimes it was harder/easier than others (and I've written here about some of those times). Whenever it got to be a bit too much, I would quietly slip  out the back door near my cubicle for a tea break or early lunch and/or go browse the magazine stand in the concourse downstairs for half an hour (even if I'd just been for a tea a while earlier). 

Canada's Employment Equity Act came into effect in 1986, just as I joined the company, and it was one of the first things I remember writing about for the staff magazine. "Employment equity" gave way to "diversity" to "diversity and inclusion," and I wrote extensively about these issues over the next 28 years.  There was lots about the four groups designated under the Employment Equity Act (which the bank, as a federally regulated institution, had to track and provide progress reports about) -- women, visible minorities, natives and people with disabilities (some of the terminology may have been updated since I left work!).

In later years, employee resource groups (ERGs) were formed for women, natives/aboriginals, people with disabilities, employees from the Caribbean and Asia, Spanish-speaking employees, LGBTQ+ employees, GenNext (younger employees). These groups were formed for the purposes of networking, education and to advise the company on policy issues. I heard lots and lots about the challenges of working parents and how to accommodate them, but nowhere did I ever hear anything mentioned about employees without children and how to better accommodate their particular issues and interests. Jody Day of Gateway Women has called it "the biggest diversity issue HR has never heard of." 

By the mid-1990s, "flexibility" was the watchword -- flexible benefits and flexible working arrangements (such as working from home/remotely, compressed work weeks, flexible hours and job sharing). Early on in this blog, I wrote a post about work that mentioned an interview I did -- with a childless/free person -- for a story in our staff magazine when the bank first adopted flexible working arrangements. This was some years before I realized I was going to wind up without kids myself. and I've often thought about her and what she had to say in the years since then.  

In 2011, toward the end of my career, I attended a workshop on diversity and inclusion that had a huge impact on my understanding of these issues and how they connected to infertility, loss and childlessness. Here's an excerpt, and here's a link to the whole thing, if you'd like to read it: 

Part of the presentation was to open us up to the idea that diversity is more than just the four groups designated under Canada's Employment Equity Act -- women, Aboriginals, persons with disabilities and visible minorities -- that diversity encompasses all sorts of things about us. Our religion, political views, education, age, education, socio-economic background -- and lots of other, more subtle things about us, too. 

The part of the presentation that really hit home for me (& got me taking notes) was the idea of privilege, of insiders and outsiders....  Life is easy when you're an insider, isn't it? 

...As you can imagine, throughout the presentation, I was thinking about my own particular frames of reference -- bereavement, infertility, childlessness -- and the challenges they present to the majority worldview. About how so much of the world is built with families in mind -- not childless couples (or single people, for that matter). How so many people just assume that they WILL get married, get pregnant within a reasonable timeframe, bring home a live, healthy baby nine months later (and then perhaps another one or two after that)? 

Until they don't. 

And how, when the way we try to build our families falls outside the "norm" -- dead children who are nevertheless talked about openly and treated like the important family members they are -- adoption, IVF, donor eggs, surrogates -- families of two (without children), families with two dads or two moms -- then people who have never had to think about building their own family in any way except the "norm" somehow feel threatened. Their assumptions about their cozy, easy, privileged world have been challenged. They find it difficult to relate to us in the same way they did when they assumed that we were just like them. 

I wonder how many fertile people would think of themselves as privileged or an "insider" because of their fertility? 

And how many of us who have had difficulty achieving what most consider to be a "normal" family structure perpetually feel like left-handers in a right-handed world?

Thankfully, things are beginning to change (even if I'm not going to benefit). The pandemic, while exacerbating the parent/childless divide in the workplace, also seemed to bring about a new awareness in some quarters that non-parents have separate and legitimate interests that need attention too. The Brits, as usual, seem to be leading the way on this front. The University of Bristol, for example, has an entire section on its website dealing with childlessness as a diversity & inclusion issue, and how childless/free colleagues can be supported. Within the Lighthouse Women private community (formerly part of Gateway Women), there's a sub-group for Workplace Changemakers involved in creating systemic change around childlessness in the workplace.

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and three free, live webinars: 

• The first, at 4 a.m. Eastern Time (!), looks at being childless in the workplace "Down Under," with Penny Rabarts and Liz Campbell in Australia. 
• At 7 a.m. ET, explore "Navigating Networking" with Berenice Smith, Karin Enfield de Vries and Sarah Lawrence. 
• And at 2 p.m. ET, a conversation about how to advocate for our community in the workplace: "Employers and Policies: How to Bring Childlessness into the Conversation," with Christine Erickson, Julia Forminova, Vita Stige-Skuskovnika and Dr. Fiona McRonald. 

These sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Four page for anyone who cannot make the live event. 

Odds & ends

• Blog housekeeping:  I've updated my Book List of recommended/relevant reads (at the top of the home page, just under the nameplate/header). I hadn't done that since I created it, more than a year ago. (oops!) 
• I started drafting this post last week, before my recent (*cough*/eyeroll) "incident." Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post, or reached out in concern elsewhere. <3 
• Still feeling tired today, and the left side of my face is still a bit swollen/puffy, especially under my left eye, although it's better than it was yesterday.  It's also yellowing under my left eye. Guess I'm going to have a shiner there...?! 
• My family doctor's office called this morning. I won't be able to see him until NEXT Tuesday. Sigh. 
• I removed the dressing/bandages and washed my hair this morning, for the first time since Friday (rinsing out the dried-up blood, but being very careful around the wound area/scab). Ahhhh...!! 
• My weekend was already eventful to begin with, because of what happened to me on Friday (see above). Then Saturday afternoon, a huge, destructive storm rolled across a wide swath of the province. 
• They're calling it a "derecho," similar to the one that walloped Iowa in August 2020, and "one of the most destructive and widespread ‘derecho’ squall lines in Ontario’s modern history" They're investigating whether there were also tornados. 
• Today, three days later, the death count stands at 10. More than 150,000 homes are still without power, and some schools are closed. In Ottawa, more than 187 hydro poles were down, which "not only exceeds the number the city traditionally puts down in a year but also tops the number felled during the 1998 ice storm and 2018 tornado." (Source) 
• I have several weather apps on my phone, and there had been warnings on Friday and earlier that morning of a dangerous storm moving into the area. Then just before 1 p.m., we got alerts on our cellphones through the emergency warning system, similar to the ones we get for Amber Alerts -- very loud, you can't miss them! 
• It was getting increasingly dark outside -- and then the wind picked up. It was coming from the west, and we face north, so we were partially sheltered, but we had an amazing view from our windows (although I was prepared to dive in the closet if it looked like things were turning even more nasty...!). This being a long weekend (generally regarded as the kickoff to summer), a lot of people had just set out their patio furniture, and we saw what was probably a big patio umbrella go flying by from one end of our view to the other at top speed. Wind gusts in some areas measured 120-130 kilometres per hour. (That's 75-80 miles per hour.)
• Our power flickered briefly but did not go out -- thank goodness! Others not too far away from us were not so lucky. I have friends in the Ottawa area who went more than 24 hours without power -- and last I heard (last night), some of them still didn't have their power back. 
• I recently told my mother that I won't be able to come home for the family reunion in Minnesota in late July, because I'll be having my eye surgery a few days earlier on July 25th (plus I'm still waiting for my gallbladder removal surgery to be scheduled). I was bracing myself for an argument ("can't you reschedule?") -- but surprisingly, she didn't say a word.  ;)  
• Speaking of aging parents: the Globe & Mail had an article this weekend ("The great junk transfer is coming") about dealing with our parents' "stuff" (including a companion article with tips!). As the child of two aging parents in an overstuffed house, I can relate...!  
• Of course, articles like this always make me think about my own things -- and make me VERY glad that we've had at least one preliminary round of downsizing and getting rid of stuff before we moved into our condo six years ago!
• As a childless person, of course, I won't have any kids to deal with whatever mess I leave behind me. (And once you're gone, of course -- kids or no kids -- it's all completely out of your hands.) 
• It's bad enough leaving your kids to deal with it all, I suppose -- but in our case, it will probably be our nephews (who will also be dealing with their parents' & in-laws' estates).  And so I feel kind of obligated to try to leave things in at least some sort of order...  
• I was drafting a post (for the future) that mentions a long-ago visit to friends in Saskatchewan, where we lived for six years in the 1960s, when I was kid. That got me reminiscing, and then Googling a few people, including my best friend from those days. Up popped an obituary for her mother, who just passed away in March at age 91. What a blast from the past! -- as well as a few surprises. I had no idea this woman & her husband had lost a child -- an infant son, likely early on in their marriage (named in the "predeceased by..." section). (They had four other children.)  I wonder whether my friend always knew this, or found out about it later in life? 
• I also Googled a couple of my old teachers. I found a 2018 obituary for my Grade 1 teacher's husband, which made me sad. I didn't know him, but I remember devoting a Friday afternoon art class to making flowers out of kleenex to decorate their wedding car (does anyone still decorate wedding cars??)(let alone with kleenex flowers??  lol). I also found a 2020 obituary for my Grade 2 teacher's husband, which mentioned he was predeceased by his wife. :(  He was 77, so she couldn't have been any older than that. :(  
• I noticed a while back that an older woman (in her mid-70s, a lovely artist) that I "know" from one of my (non-ALI) online groups, who had "friended" me on social media, had been silent/absent online for quite some time. She'd been dealing with/recovering from some health issues but was doing well -- and then, she came down with covid. :(  This was fall 2020, pre-vaccines. Since then, all her accounts have been silent, aside from occasional enquiries from friends asking how she was doing. Last week, we learned that she's been dealing with long covid and has significant cognitive impairment. She is well cared for, but she is not the same person she once was. Damn covid!! :(  
• The Walrus (a Canadian magazine) recently profiled Sarah Polley and her new book, "Run Toward the Danger," (which I LOVED, and reviewed here).  I was particularly struck by this passage, midway through the article: 

THERE’S A THING THAT HAPPENS, Polley has found, with people who haven’t experienced much trauma. They have this idea that anyone who has been through the wringer is damaged, that they can’t move forward, that brokenness becomes part of them. “I think I’m finally articulating to myself that, unless you’ve experienced and had to process trauma, I don’t know if you’re whole,” she says. “I don’t think people should look for trauma! But, if it happens, I don’t think it’s a harbinger of permanent damage. I think that, if a person has processed it in any meaningful way, it might make them more fully human, more capable, and on their way to becoming more whole.”

• I caught up on a couple of recent episodes of New Legacy Radio, with some fascinating in-depth discussions I'm still thinking about:  
• Donna Ward, Australian author of "She I Dare Not Name" (reviewed here), talked about how single/childless women are included and supported (or not) in public policy and in  crisis situations (such as covid and other health emergencies). (Who gets priority? Is it "women AND children first," or "women WITH children"?? -- think about it!) 
• Rhodes Perry, author of "Belonging at Work" and "Imagine Belonging," talked about what it means to "belong," and how to build more inclusive workplaces. 
• Sarah Roberts of The Empty Cradle delivered an impressive, groundbreaking Zoom presentation for the Diversity Council of Australia before a registered audience of 600 (!) people from across the Australian corporate sector, state and federal governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGO) sector.  (And following Sarah's presentation, she and fellow Australians Judy Graham of WomenHood Counselling, Michael Hughes of The Full Stop Podcast and Clan of Brothers, and Liz Campbell of Redefining My Plan A, answered questions in a panel discussion.) The material Sarah presented will be familiar to many of us -- but of course, we were not her intended audience. I can only imagine the impact she made on 600 people who, for the most part, have likely never given us and our concerns much (if any) thought, let alone considered us worthy of inclusion as a diversity group on par with others long established. (Have a look at some of the comments/reviews on the DCA event page!) May there be many more presentations like this one!! (around the world and not just in Australia!) Please watch, and (if you're feeling brave), share!   

Odds & ends

• How was Voldemort Day for you? (You know -- THAT day from this past weekend -- The Day That Shall Not Be Named, lol.)(Karin on Gateway Women calls it "Others Day," which I also rather like.  :)  )   
• We ordered takeout from one of our favourite restaurants on Saturday night -- and then wound up going to a nearby cousin's house for coffee & dessert later, along with BIL & SIL and several other local cousins -- 14 people in all (which was a few too many for my covid comfort levels, but anyway...). It had obviously been a MDay dinner for that cousin's family (her mom/dh's aunt and her sister and family were all there too), but nobody mentioned the M-word while we were there, thankfully! 
• Sunday was very quiet, thank goodness. It was clear, sunny and pleasant outside, and we had the balcony door open for most of the afternoon. Dh napped on the couch, I called my mom, spent two hours volunteering/co-hosting a text chat on the private Gateway Women community, and that was about it, which was fine with me. 
• Dh's cousins' WhatsApp group exploded on Sunday morning with "Happy Mother's Day" greetings and comments like "Toughest job in the world!"  I promptly muted the conversation for 8 hours. I still haven't looked at it. I don't feel like I missed anything. ;)  
• I had to laugh, because around 10 p.m. Sunday night, an email popped up in my inbox from a retailer of women's clothing, with the header "Lori, did you forget about Mother's Day?" FAT CHANCE, right?? -- "I'm trying!!  But YOU WON'T LET ME!!"  lol
• Bloglovin resurrected itself on Saturday night (after being offline for 4 days -- AGAIN... I think that's something like 12 days out of the past month that it's been down??) 
• Mali sent me a link to a blog post with instructions for exporting my Bloglovin content and importing it to Feedly, which is the reader she uses. I actually managed to do it (once Bloglovin' was back up & running again). 
• BUT! Feedly only allows you to follow 100 blogs at a time (unless you cough up money for a paid subscription). I currently have more than (gulp) 500 blogs on Bloglovin. A lot of them are inactive, but I like having them in there, just in case a new post from a blogger I used to enjoy reading pops up (and it does happen!). And even if I culled the inactive ones, I'm willing to bet there would still be more than 100.  Still, I suppose it's time to take a look and see what I can cut... 
• I have tagged all my posts related to blog readers (Google Reader, Bloglovin, Feedly) for easy reference (for myself, if not anyone else!  lol).  
• My eye surgery/keratectomy has (finally!) been scheduled -- for July 25th. That kind of screws up my plans for summer vacation with my family (I'm dreading telling my mother I will definitely not be attending the family reunion, later that week...), but I want to get it over with. Still waiting to hear about gallbladder removal (and probably won't hear about that until sometime in June, at the earliest). That one will have to be worked around this one too. 
• One appointment I didn't have to wait long for: our fourth covid vaccine doses/boosters. We both became eligible last week (age 60+ = 140 days or almost 5 months past our most recent doses = May 5th) and we're going on Wednesday afternoon (tomorrow).  
• We got to pick, Pfizer or Moderna... picked Pfizer simply because that's the last one we got (we've had all three different kinds offered!) but we're fine with Moderna if that's what's available too. 
• How's this for irony? Over the past year, on & off, I have been helping one of my best friends from childhood with a book she's writing, as well as an online masterclass presentation she's been working on. The subject? Coping with an empty nest. (!)  I told her that I'd be happy to make suggestions re: spelling, grammar, structure, etc. -- but as for the subject matter/content, she'd probably be best to check in with one or more of her empty nest mom friends to make sure she had all the bases covered. 
• Jody Day of Gateway Women recently talked about childlessness in the workplace during a half-hour "lunch & learn" session, "The F Word at Work," an ongoing series organized by Fertility Matters at Work, a UK organization. (I can't think of an equivalent North American group, can you?) All lunch & learn sessions are recorded -- here's the link -- and open to all, aimed at HR & line managers. Worth sharing within your workplace, if you feel brave enough to do so...! 
• I thought of Jody (who once gave a talk titled "Who's Afraid of the Crazy Cat Lady?") when I saw this article from New York Magazine's Intelligencer:  "Why Are Conservative Men So Scared of Cat Ladies?" ;)  (Recent political events are discussed.) 
• Kate Kauffman chatted with Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle about Mother's Day and childlessness in the workplace in her "Unapparent" (love the name!!) column in Psychology Today online. 
• Sian Prior, author of the new book "Childless: A Story of Freedom and Longing" (not yet available in North America, unfortunately), wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian that was published on Sunday: "When you’re childless not by choice, Mother’s Day can be a painful reminder of profound loss." Subhead: "When other women are being feted by their progeny, no amount of positive psychology can override the sense of loss I feel."  
• Jill Filipovic interviewed Therese Schecter, the filmmaker behind the new documentary "My So-Called Selfish Life," about pronatalism and the decision not to have children. It's only available to her newsletter subscribers, which is unfortunate, because I think it's a conversation that deserves a much broader audience.   
• The documentary is streaming online until May 16th. Tickets are just $10 (US) -- I've already bought one, although I haven't watched yet. 
• I know surrogacy has helped a lot of couples become parents... but there are certain ethical aspects of it, I'll admit, make me rather queasy. Add in the complications involved when your surrogate is in another country. Then what happens when that country is invaded and becomes a war zone?? -- i.e., Ukraine?  The New York Times Magazine had an article following a group of Ukrainian surrogates and some of the intended parents of the babies they are carrying. (Beware the comments section... too many "just adopts" for comfort...!) 

Odds & ends

• This five-year old TED talk popped up in my Facebook feed last weekend... the speaker, Christen Reighter, is childfree by choice, and her talk focuses on the difficulty she had persuading doctors to perform a tubal ligation on her.  Although she came to a life without children from a very different place than I did, I found her words inspiring. "Motherhood is an extension of womanhood, not the definition," she says. She got a standing ovation.  :)  
• I listened in live as Christine Erickson of New Legacy Radio celebrated International Women's Day with Gateway Women's Jody Day -- fabulous conversation! You can listen here or on most other podcast apps. 
• This coming week, on March 15th, she'll be interviewing Laura Carroll, a longtime childfree activist, about how we can bring together both childless and childfree people to build a shared movement for meaningful change. 
• Pamela of Silent Sorority talked about being an infertility survivor, ethics in the fertility industry, and what happens when fertility treatments don't work, on Slate's "The Waves" podcast. Read Pamela's blog post here and listen to the podcast here or on your favourite podcast app. (Pamela appears about halfway through, around the 23-minute mark -- but the entire episode is worth listening to. Have kleenex handy!) 
• From Elle magazine's March 2022 issue, a rare article that spotlights the experiences of some working women without children during the pandemic. I'm retired (and very thankful for that!), but this echoes the experiences I've read & heard about on various childless/free forums. Sample passage: 

For two years, as COVID fortified the divide between parents and nonparents, women’s respective experiences have been framed in terms of work: emotional work, care work, career work. The image of the exhausted, overburdened mother has been emblazoned on the collective imagination. We saw it in the hard numbers—nearly 33 million Americans resigning from their jobs between April and November 2021, mostly women and extremely burned out. And we heard it in the “primal scream,” as a viral New York Times package called it, of mothers struggling to balance the demands of career and family in a time of virtual schooling, curtailed childcare, and not-so-secret disparities between men and women at home. The childless working woman, presumed frivolous by extension, her problems trivial by comparison, often quietly dissolved into her job. In the absence of contact with family and friends, the remote workplace became many white-collar workers’ stand-in for community. No doubt, work is work and, all told, parents had more of it. But career work, unlike parenting, does not offer love in return....

Throughout the pandemic, childless women who were fortunate enough to keep their jobs, and who could do those jobs remotely, comprised a privileged minority within a privileged minority. Their struggles were different from those of working parents, but they were no less real. Among some high-achieving women, the elimination of boundaries between work and nonwork life became a recipe for disaster—and, from there, a catalyst for a major reevaluation of priorities and purpose. 

"Lori, what does it mean to be a “real mom” at work?"

You all can imagine my reaction when I checked my email this afternoon and saw a message from LinkedIn. THIS was the header:  

"Lori, what does it mean to be a “real mom” at work?" 

Needless to say, my jaw dropped.  (Like, "Why the *%$!! are you asking ME?!!")  

Here's what the message said (sender's name omitted):  

Hi Lori,

My name is.... and I'm an editor at LinkedIn News. We often reach out to LinkedIn members who we think can add informed perspectives on the day’s news and trends.

Amid takeover threats from activist investors and transforming PepsiCo’s soda-driven brand into a health-focused company, CEO Indra Nooyi faced different, yet important, battles at home. At one point, her youngest daughter looked at her and said she wished Nooyi could be a “real mom.”

Now I want to hear from you: As a working parent, how do your children view your relationship with work? How do you explain to them the demands of your job when they compete with your children’s needs? If you are not a parent, how do you see this dynamic impacting your colleagues? And lastly, how does the definition of a "real mom" who works need to change?

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this article where others are also weighing in. 

Thanks and I look forward to reading your response.

I clicked over to her LinkedIn post, which read (a slight expansion on the email): 

Amid takeover threats from activist investors and changing Pepsi’s soda-driven brand into a health-focused company, Indra Nooyi faced smaller, yet important, battles at home. At one point, her youngest daughter looked at her and said she wished Nooyi could be a “real mom.” Of course, her mostly male CEO peers faced similar challenges, but those are rarely discussed. Nooyi, now 66, says that needs to change. 

“Men got a bye in all of this, and the woman was considered primary for family management,” she said. “We’re at a point now where men and women have to work together and say female and family are two definitions…. Don’t just equate female with family.”

As the daughter of a single working mother, I hate to admit that I too — at least once — begged my mom to be a "real mom." Now, I want to hear from you: As a working parent, how do your children view your relationship with work? How do you explain to them the demands of your job when they get in the way of the demand of their lives? If you are in a dual-income relationship, do you find your children view you and your partners' careers differently? And lastly, how does the definition of a "real mom" need to change? Let me know in the comments below #WorkingTogether

There was a link to an article and an interview with Indra Nooyi, expanding further on the themes outlined in the post and the email. 

Well, what do you know -- one of the first responses I read said: 

While this is a great article, the email I received prompting me to view it and contribute to it stated that LinkedIn knew I was a parent when I do not have any children. I am not a working parent and I think how ever you came to the conclusion that I am is probably violating the permissions I set to share my data with LinkedIn. It is also not wise to assume or ask people’s parental status in a blanket statement as people can be dealing with fertility issues, the death of a child, or other characteristics that LinkedIn doesn’t need to ask about.

Below it, another woman said, "This is exactly what I came here to say. Thank you!" 

(In a little more than an hour after I received the email, the post received 240 comments. I saw a few others that also challenged the assumption that everyone receiving and reading it was a mom -- "real" or otherwise.) 

I added my own response below hers. (Well, she ASKED for my response...!) I understood that people in my network might see it, but I was, to put it mildly, a little hot under the collar ;) (and hey, I'm retired anyway...!).  This is what I said: 

Thank you, I came here about to say the same thing. My jaw dropped when I saw the question at the top of the email I received "What does it mean to be a real mom at work?" I am not and never was a "real mom" or a working parent; my only child was stillborn 6 months into my one and only pregnancy (and I'm not even working; my employer downsized me out of my job 7 years ago and I am now retired).

I do note the question further on in the email, "If you are not a parent, how do you see this dynamic impacting your colleagues?" Ummm, nice try at inclusion, but I would say this question is rather misguided. Why not ask me about my own experience being affected by this dynamic as a non-mother in the workplace? Your question still assumes that parenthood is the "norm" and the only reality that matters, and ignores the experience of being non-parents in a highly pronatalist world -- an experience shared by approximately 20% of women in the developed world today (and a number that is growing rapidly) -- some of us by choice, but many of us not, for a broad variety of reasons.

As Indra Nooyi herself said above in your post, "Don’t just equate female with family." (Please and thank you.)

I've seen several complaints about the growing pronatalism on LinkedIn recently on some of the childless/free forums where I hang out. I set up my profile as part of my outplacement counselling, and connected with a few former colleagues and other contacts there, but rarely hang out there -- but my understanding is that, in an effort to encourage people to be their "authentic" selves in the workplace, it's becoming increasingly like Facebook and Instagram, with proud parents posting photos of their kids, etc.  In other words, it's becoming yet one more space online where non-parents don't feel like they belong. 

Did you get the email? What do you think?? Did I over-react?