– THE COLLECTION –
Borderline
A longer collection —
since I’ve been gone for 4 weeks
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If you read any news at all, you’ve heard about immigration and family separation. Haley Byrd wrote about the US House “solution” and Amy Otto had a representative, middle ground small twitter thread when the topic was surging in the news, before the Administration backed down.
Besides the many and weighty principled objections, the whole thing has been another example of the Administration’s lack of forethought or preparedness. We see the failure to anticipate the public reaction. Then there is the fact that the possible consequences of enraging parents and traumatizing children coming to our shores make this a profoundly stupid idea whether they end up remaining or being deported to their home country. Why are we cultivating anger and rage?
Still, journalism stuck its foot in its mouth again. As Kira Davis explains, the picture that has come to represent this moment in our history, did not document a child separation. TIME can claim all it wants that the picture represents the general idea, and they might be right. if it was put in an art gallery, the public might accept that. But this is journalism, not art, and we expect, or really we need our journalists to be honest and transparent with us. The past few decades have seen too many instances of “fake but accurate” advocacy journalism. When they are constantly spinning the narrative, do they really expect the public to trust them?
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Ylonda Gault Caviness tells us things that black moms know. It’s from 2015 but I missed it then. I’m sad that I missed it. It’s good. White moms used to know some of this stuff, but we’ve clearly forgotten. She is spot on here save that today the someone raising kids is usually a black or brown woman:
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Certainly, white women have their mothers’ wisdom to fall back on, too. But nowadays too many have been manipulated into thinking that wisdom is something to be found in a book. So they read, research and hire coaches to teach them how to parent. As they parse the latest tips for “happiness,” oftentimes someone else is charged with raising their children. From slavery to today’s economic realities, that someone has usually been a black woman.
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And earlier in the piece:
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When women are persuaded to ignore their maternal instincts and common sense in favor of contradictory and competing instruction manuals, it’s no wonder they turn on one another.
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I could not agree more. This is the root cause of the Mommy Wars.
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Evangelicals have had a difficult year. There was Rachael Denhollander’s aside comment about losing her church that became its own issue and the lawsuit dropped against Gothard, to name but two high profile scandals. Kaitlyn Schiess goes though the church leaders' responses and the use of relativism for religious purposes. As long as it is authentic it is supposedly okay. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. And once upon a time—I suppose when the public scandals were other peoples' scandals—church leaders knew this.
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NASTINESS IS
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
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See Mona Charen and Andi Clifford on the Tony Awards showboating, and a lovely little reply from the professor who doesn’t think her title on her Washington Post oped, “Why Can’t We Hate Men?”, qualifies as hate speech, that I will comment on later this week. (Apparently, if you provide data and don’t call for actual action on your hate, then it isn’t hate speech. That and she thinks it is impossible to be biased against men.) Susan Goldberg, now the mother of 2 little boys, asks Why Can’t We Love Men?
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Reaching overseas, German writer Khadija Khan explains how there is no such thing as Islamic Feminism by pointing out that the claim is rooted in the idea that women are “free” to be women as described in religious texts. What struck me: the whole theory sounds a lot like Biblical Womanhood teachings here in the US. The fulfilled woman is the one that meets male church leaders' interpretations of certain passages. (The same church leaders using relativism to excuse their own sins? What a coincidence!) Toni Airaksinen reports on feminist professors designing a college program on masculinities. Toni’s reporting on the University of Texas’s attempt at a similar proposal at the University of Texas earned the University so much push back that they put the ill-conceived program on hold.
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KIDS & PROTESTS DON'T MIX.
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Karol Markowicz on the kid in the cage. Edge of the Sandbox and Jennifer Greenberg concur with the overall point: parents should not use kids as props or proxies for protests. And this point appears at the end of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", the documentary about "Mister Rogers Neighborhood." In 2003, protestors appeared at Fred Rogers funeral, with their children. By the way, I finally saw the film yesterday. It is worth your time, and the many recommendations on social media to bring tissues are good advice.
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DESCREENIFICATION –
IT'S A NEW WORD
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New writer Brooke Raish is a school teacher and mom of three littles on a mission to help parents with raising screen free littles. She has stories and advice (some of which will be at IL soon.) And for older kids, of the tween and teen stages: Deanna Lawson has practical advice on cell phone introduction.
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I have no idea about her political leanings, I just liked the story. A new NEA inductee.
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Related to the immigration question, Natalie Goodnow on faith based agencies and child welfare.
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Carrie Lucas on Female Genital Mutilation in the US.
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Nicole Fisher has done a short History of Hospice: A Different Kind of Health “Care”
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A deep and long read for Texans, Kara Belew, Bill Peacock, and Emily Sass on abolishing the Robin Hood tax system for education.
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Ginni Thomas’s tribute to her husband on the occasion of his 70th birthday
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Who knew a toilet could do this? from Catherine Cocke
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Toni Airaksinen on Title IX actions now that men are the minority. Suits against Yale and USC proceed.
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Katharine B. Stevens with ideas for federal early childhood education partnerships
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Melissa Braunstein gives us The Cat in the Hat? We’re Too PC to Publish That; I'm disappointed that she didn't write the whole piece in Sussian, but then Cat in the Hat was a dare from his publisher that he couldn't write a bestseller that only used 100 words. It was only easy for him.
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I did mention that this email would arrive at irregular intervals over the summer, but I did not anticipate disappearing for 4 weeks. Sorry about that, sort of. This is still an endeavor run by a bunch of moms with kids at home, and while my writing time is easier to come by than, say, Rachel’s or Susan’s with two very littles under foot, and much easier than Melissa’s with three littles, a fourth on the way, and sandwich generation challenges. I’ve been there, I know. If they can get an hour to read each day, they are doing well. And that's a cumulative hour. But I think I speak for all of us when I say no regrets. We can't/won't yield to a regular schedule or any of the things that most writers do to appear successful to the outside world. That public success is less important to us than our family’s success, and funny thing about that, we may be smaller but we have loyal, engaged, and lovely readers. In time we may have something to say about the seductively quick and easy path vs the slow and unbeaten path.
I won’t lie. I get discouraged and frustrated about pace and reach. But then I get some morsel of information that encourages me to stay this irregular, unusual, and very slow course.
Anyway, this email was much longer than usual because it was a catch up collection. I had gathered a bunch of links over the weeks. I didn’t stop reading, I simply had little brain power for writing. Another note for Texas readers, I opened a new publication on Medium: Houston & Texas. It will be local political commentary and when appropriate I’ll explain how my city or state relates to national trends.
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This Sunday collection of works by conservative women is usually curated by Leslie Loftis. It is part of Iron Ladies, a Medium magazine by conservative women. It's for anyone but written with the concurious in mind. If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, you may sign up here. For past issues, see The Collection archive.
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On social media, we may be found on
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook: @IronLadiesUS.
Come look around. Forward this to a friend.
Otherwise, until next week,
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