Once upon a time I thought I was tired. I worked hard. I worked long hours, during term time at least. I loved my job and, as a teacher, I worked daily with groups of up to 31 children, who mostly did what I asked them to do. Then I had children of my own […]
I have been lucky enough to meet Louise Beech in person, and she is lovely. Really lovely. But my word, her characters can be thoroughly horrible to each other! Expect child neglect and abandonment, dark, (consenting adult!) sex games and the brutal murder of a pregnant woman – and those are just the secrets and […]
‘Mummy blogging’ is big news lately. In what seems to be a backlash against the mythical ideal of Perfect Parenting, especially Perfect Mothering, and Instagram worthy (#SoBlessed) family life, many bloggers are choosing to share their lives with small children, warts and all temper tantrums, last-minute school run dashes and all. Some particularly entertaining voices within […]
Motherhood. Poetry. Madness – or time travel? Welcome to Helensburgh – home to the young English poet W.H Auden and, years later, English poetess, Dora Fielding, in (English poet) Polly Clark’s emotionally fraught debut novel. What’s it about? Newly married and pregnant, Dora moves to Helensburgh hoping that her new life will engage her as […]
Babies. Toddlers. Pre-schoolers. They’re delightful and amazing and awful and infuriating, switching seamlessly from adorable minx to terrible brat – and back again – in a matter of seconds. (“I said say SORRY to your SISTER. Say SORRY TO YOUR SISTER NOW! Oh, what a lovely cuddle. Ah, I’m sure she loves you, too, she […]
It’s not often that a book leaves me so uncertain. This was my Mother’s Day gift from my little readers, which was received with pleasure and promoted to the very top of my TBR pile. As the title and blurb suggests, it’s a book about motherhood (very definitely so: the fathers are mostly absent), and […]
I’ve admitted before that I like to read books about babies / children / parenting. After all, the perfect way to spend my child-free time is to read about how to parent children, right? As you can tell from the rather fluorescent cover image depicting a ‘busy’ mum, this is quite an old book (first […]
Delays at the dentist? Traffic on the tube? It must be bonus reading time. Bonus reading time is what happens when you’re meant to be doing something else but there’s a hiccup and instead you get to read. This is why I always keep a book in my bag; you never know when you might […]
The Bees: accept, serve and obey. Or else. I enjoy reading dystopian fiction and I like bees, as long as they stay next to the flowers and away from my children, but I’ll be honest: I think it was the brilliant yellow cover that first attracted my attention. What’s it about? Flora 717 is a […]
Equality as identical privilege: a parenting utopia? On Monday I began discussing Asher’s ideas in her book ‘Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality.’ She proposed creating a world of genuinely shared parenting, in which mother and father take significant parental leave – mostly independently – then both return to flexible paid work while […]