Quick pieces I loved reading on hols
Love & trouble: half term reads and family thought for the week
For almost 20 years holidays have meant the six of us going away together. Now for the first time it is just four of us for half term. Our eldest, almost 20, is at Uni and number 2 is revising for A levels and decided to make the most of a peaceful, empty home without us. So this week it was just me, my husband, our 15 year old son and 11 year old daughter.
The different dynamic, a foursome instead of the full set, is of course an expected rite of passage. It is part and parcel of family life yet this constant change still catches us by surprise even though we are two decades deep in parenting. Some how I am in illogical denial about this ebb and flow of family times, and I don’t see these melancholy moments coming. Before I know it I am accidentally laying the table for too many people and dolloping extra portions of oven chips on to plates in front of empty chairs! And of course wishing time would stand still and that I could still see all four of them racing round a Cornish beach at sunset in their ketchup covered PJs!
So if you’ve got little ones, pre-teens or tweens and may be feeling that the word ‘holiday’ isn’t quite describing your week off right now I am here from your future to sound a little alarm bell, please take a moment to relish the scenes of today because it’s all over in a flash. People say this all the time I know, and it used to make me roll my eyes, but hearing it and feeling it are very different things. So treasure your days away together team, they don’t last forever.
And as we’re away right now this newsletter is a shortened version of the weekly Candy Club for you; just a few things to read that may make you think or entertain you.:
Talk with Her: A Dad's Essential Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident, and Capable Daughters by Kimberley Wolf. This new book was recommended by an expert on adolescent mental health. I think it is essential fathers/male father figures engage well with their teen daughters. Little is written about the brilliant side of the daughter/dad relationship specifically and while I have yet to read this it has had good reviews and Wolf is a respected academic and parenting expert in the US. Read The Book here
Love & Trouble:A Midlife Reckoning: Laura Kipinis’ review in The Atlantic in 2017 of Claire Dederer’s memoir is brilliantly written and gave me a laugh out loud thrill. It’s about sex and relationships and is a spirited antidote to a lot of the wishy washy stuff written on this subject. Kipinis revels in Dederer’s blazing honesty and refusal to tow the party line eg what society expects older women to think about when it comes to sex. It’s a magnificent review of a unique book. Read here: Love & Trouble
If you don’t want to have kids, you don’t have to want to have a career instead; Refreshing take from 26 year old Vice journalist Marianne Eloise on this perpetual ‘struggle to juggle’ nonsense. read here
Stacy London wants to talk about menopause: I have a cynical view of some of the stuff that appears on Oprah’s website (though I love actual Oprah obvs) but it is fascinating to see how the US views women and midlife. This is a thoughtful piece: Oprah read here:
Love this Lorraine. So very true. Mine are 17 & 15 and it honestly stops my breath the thought of us first being a 3, then a 2. Thank you - as ever, for sharing. Hope you managed a nice time though 😘