Here are some things I enjoyed reading in the past few weeks. Click the titles to read the whole post.
All the baby mama deets and drama.
on pregnancy after multiple losses, from Joy’s Hope
“I look through pregnancy with a dark and shattered lens now. One that I wish I never knew. I am much older, much sicker and much more fearful than I was nine years ago. But somehow, I carry on. Through the crazy. Through the trials. Through the uncertainty. Because each time my heart has shattered, God has lovingly put it back together. Each time He puts it back together it is stronger
Have you Heard about Hugo and Kim?!
a look at communication in the internet age from Citizen of the Month
“Remember, friends, when we used to talk on the phone for HOURS about our algebra homework? Or about the cute girls in the junior class? Or whether a “time warp” could really exist? Or whether the Mets can win a game this year? Hey, Barry, remember the time we spend three hours on the phone, watching the same Mets game in our own homes at the same time? Does anyone really think social media does a better job in creating real communication between individuals?”
and has the capacity to love more fully, deeply and authentically.”
Harbor House: The People, The Place
on helping young women in Haiti learn to be mothers, from Livesay (Haiti) Web Log
“Teaching a young woman to be a gentle and involved mother takes time, especially when that young woman did not have an involved and gentle mother herself. Modeling behaviors and attitudes takes time. Living an example of healthy conflict-resolution and non-violence is a day-to-day task. The long-term investment (years – not weeks or months) into the lives of these young mothers and their children may eventually sow tangible results, but patience will be required in order to see those. In six weeks or six months we won’t write a post telling you that one of the teen moms is ready to launch into the real world again. This is going to be a long process.
This program is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is our hope and our belief that investing in these young mothers is investing in the future. Ten young moms raise ten secure, well-loved, well-attached children who go on to raise their own well-loved, well-attached and secure children … and so it begins.”
The benefit of the doubt
a resonating post for bloggers from Is There Any Mommy Out There?
“I don’t know, do you see what I see? I don’t think blogging is petty or "cliquey" or fraught with horrible, mean people. Blogging is relating to and interacting with people, which is really hard. Rewarding and joyful and hard. Bloggers are people. And people are complicated. People suck sometimes. I suck sometimes. The mantra that I try (and sometimes fail) to keep in my head is benefit of the doubt. Our entire legal system is based on it. Lives are spared or lost by it. We need to give ourselves – and others – the benefit of the doubt.”
Oprah made me think
considering the church’s response to homosexuality from The Terry Family
“Growing up in a small country church, I don’t remember anyone who was black, gay or single parenting ever gracing the doors of our church. When I grew up and changed churches, I find that it is still mostly the case. I love my church- but I fit the "norm". I am white, middle class, and married to a man. I always wonder if any of these characteristics about me were different, would I still be as accepted? As I watched the documentary, I watched gay men walk into church. They were searching for something- God, peace, connection- something. Every now and then, they were welcomed with open arms into a church. But more often than not, the church immediately began to work on these men to change them, giving them books about how to erradicate their femine ways and embrace God’s plan for masculinity and praying over them to be "healed" from their homosexuality. The documentary followed how conflicted these men felt as they worked through choosing between being themselves and having a relationship with God.”
Fill Your Paper With The Breathings Of Your Heart
in response to oversharing about kids on the internet, from Her Bad Mother
“I also said that it was a struggle, sometimes, many times, to balance my belief – my sincere belief – that telling the truth about motherhood serves an important public and cultural and historical service with some of my reservations about the practice of telling that truth. Because, as I said above, motherhood does involve a lot of complicated feelings and our children do not always walk a perfectly straight line in providing us with charming stories in which they are perfectly adorable and perfectly lovable and, let’s face it, the truth about motherhood – about parenthood – is sometimes painful. William Wordsworth exhorts us to fill our paper with the breathings of our hearts, but sometimes the breath catches, is ragged, hurts upon exhale.”
Sometimes I wake up feeling lucky
keeping balance and a sense of identity while homeschooling, from this woman’s work
“I’ll tell you though, nearly a decade into homeschooling and watching families drop in and drop out, I’d say the happiest homeschoolers are families where mom gets to keep her own interests. The ones who struggle the most are the ones who feel like they have to continue to give their all or who think there’s only one right way to educate their kids. If a mom is miserable because she thinks she ought to unschool but the lack of structure goes against her nature, she’s going to burn out. Likewise if she thinks she ought to do lessons but hates making her kids sit and do them, she’s going to be depressed. And then giving up everything (grand passions, happy hobbies, beloved jobs) to be a full-time MOMMY works for no one. Sure when they’re tiny it’s normal to be consumed but your kids grow up and out and we have to grow up and out with them — away from each other, too. It can seem paradoxical to people who don’t know homeschooling (how can you not be all about your kids when you spend most of your time with them?) but I’m living proof that it’s possible.”
I Hope This Doesn’t Cause a Paradox. I Like the Space-Time Continuum Without Giant Tears in It.
a funny peek into the future of blogging from Backpacking Dad
“When I was a kid, dad actually had to type in order to get a blog post up. We could tell when he was ignoring us, because it came with choreography. Nowadays, because of government and private sector investment in blogging technologies, bloggers can ignore their kids just by engaging their Dragon Naturally Thinking mod and upload the post via their eye’s EyeFi, and the kids have no idea that no one was paying attention. Without those cues, kids aren’t learning how to act out. And kids who never learn how to act out, as we all know, turn into actuaries. The evolution of dad blogging means a rise in compound interest calculations all over the world. It’s out of control.”
Happy Sunday!
