Tag: parenting
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Unparenting
What if they don’t live? Do the safety briefing. Let them go. I wrote those words just there back in 2016. It was the first time myself, friends and my husband were really discussing the questions and logistics around a bigger question; What if I give my kid a freedom/responsibility – because they’re growing up…
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Privilege as a Parrot
Are you sitting uncomfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin. It’s like that at the moment, isn’t it? That is if you haven’t absented yourself completely from the news and are staying engaged by degrees, trying to figure out what to do to help the world. Sometimes, things feel hopeless. Sometimes again, you realise rock bottom’s a great…
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Install/Uninstall
I’m working on clearing a great big thing right now. It’s tightly bound with a lot of the things I thought about last year along the themes of self-actualisation, self-esteem and self-sabotage. The thing I’m clearing is the programming of a few hundred ideas and memories that all lead to one beautifully pleated but ultimately useless…
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52and39/51 Back to the Future
I’m feeling festive in fleeting bouts that buzz like wee jingle belled flashbacks, all present and sparkly then, gone. Nonetheless, home is hyggelig at this time of year. Following prelims, my son’s deciding what to do with at least some of his future. My head tells him to go with his heart. His heart says…
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52and39/26 When The Lights Change
Relocating is an enormous hall of mirrors. You’re a tourist and resident, a stranger and a statistic. It’s four years since spaces were unexpectedly available in an Edinburgh school. I was there at 9am the next day, in the mad last hours of term. At noon my husband found a rental house that allowed pets. …
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52and39/16 Time for Everything
I often start the day wondering how I’ll get everything done. I can get lost in a fog of over-thinking. The things I’d like to do before 10am tangle up with the things I want to do before 2025 so that sometimes I shoot myself in the foot and lose my mojo a bit. I…
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Raising Expectations
I’m going to get right to it: sexism in any form helps all of its forms to thrive. I didn’t quite get it when I was younger but now I see the connectedness between all the parts of the gender inequality jigsaw. It’s another of those things that once seen, can’t be unseen. I understand now that stoning…