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Some of us were fans of Northern Exposure in the early 90’s. It was an off-beat American TV comedy about the diverse and often eccentric inhabitants of a fictitious town in Alaska. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s newly appointed veep, hails from Alaska. This woman, a supermom of five, with her beehive hairdo (Amy Winehouse has one too) and retro glasses could have stepped off the set of Northern Exposure.
credit: AP
She is an attractive, warm and very telegenic woman: apparently. She might very well give Obama a run for his polls. As the conservative American radio chat show host, Rush Limbaugh said, ‘We’re the ones with the babe on the ticket.’ But there is something unsettling about her too. I am not sure how much being a Northern Exposure fan has prepared me for her many quirks.
She is pro-life. Her comments on having a Down-syndrome baby are very moving. But pro-life is not pro-choice. Also, her love for hunting unsettles me: that picture of her and her daughter next to a caribou she shot in Alaska is pretty weird. She looks dangerous.
If I were an American Democratic I would be worried. But that would be better than if I were a peace-loving moose out for a morning munch – I would be dead.
This last week we’ve watched the Democrats put their best feet forward at the convention in Denver, US. The speeches were moving, passionate, brought my husband to tears and hopefully will help bring the Democrats to power.
Much of the content of the speeches was about family values. References to education and children abound. And most of the main speakers referred to their own children. Some of them (Hillary Clinton, Michelle and Barack Obama, Joe Biden) even brought their children onto the stage. Read More…
My earlier blog about breastfeeding inspired some passionate responses. I thought I would talk about some of the issues here. But first here is a lovely picture of Raul Montoya, a 4-month-old, wearing a crown, sash and sceptre after winning the King of Breastfeeding contest in Lima on Tuesday this week.
credit: AP Photo/Karel Navarro
And really I have lots of friends who have breastfed for years. Some have even breastfed twins, and babies and toddlers at the same time. But in the debate on breastfeeding often the women who can’t breastfeed are forgotten. Read More…
This morning I got an email from my sister in New Zealand alerting me to a New York Times story about a Craigslist post. The post, which I read too, is an advert posted by an Upper East side mother, Rebecca Land Soodak, looking for a nanny for her four children in New York. I read it this morning and loved it. It’s an honest, wild description of her parenting style. She found the nanny, a young university graduate, Christina Wynn, who starts work on Tuesday. I would have linked you to the Craigslist post but by this afternoon it had expired. Luckily I printed out the post this morning (why use printers?) and have scanned it for you. Read it… Read More…
My post yesterday “Looking for Israel’s Madeleine: Rose Ron disappears” had a misleading title. It could imply that I think Maddie’s parents killed her. As Rose’s grandfather allegedly killed Rose. (Although no body has been found to confirm this.)
I never for a nanosecond thought this. I used the blog headline because international newspapers used similar headlines. The only similarities between Rose and Maddie’s stories are: they were the same age when they disappeared and both stories are big.
I felt the tragedy of Maddie’s disappearance. I followed the story very closely – not only because I work on a newspaper, but because, as a mother, I felt the pain so intensely. What a terrible thing to happen: come home and find your little girl’s bed empty. No trace of her whereabouts. Your life would change forever.
My little girl was born on the same day as Maddie. I still dream that she will one day return to her parents Gerry and Kate McCann – unharmed, just a year or so older.
This week has been a terrible week for stories of infanticide. In today’s The Times there is a story of the five-year sentence handed down to a father who beat his six-year old daughter to death because she dirtied her school clothes. On Sunday, the Sunday Times Extra ran the story about a father who killed his three-year-old son by slamming his head against a washbasin.
In Israel, a four and half year old French girl has disappeared. Rose Ron went missing in May this year. Police fear that she is dead and that her grandfather killed her. The story has made headlines in Israel since Sunday when police launched a public appeal for information on Rose’s whereabouts.
The partial lifting of a court-imposed gag order on Tuesday has uncovered a shocking tale of child abuse and possibly death. Read More…
It’s been a month or so since I stopped breastfeeding. For the very last time. It’s not something I particularly miss. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I did it because we’re told by various ”experts” that breastfeeding is the best way to feed your little baby. Nevermind the possibility that your milk might be contaminated with various toxins. Or that it can hurt like hell.
Now, my baby is on a bottle, drinking formula milk which is mostly dried cows’ milk with many healthy additives. Cows’ milk is for calves not babies, my GP always tells me. My baby is drinking milk from another species! Allergies can develop. But there we go… I am no longer so tired. No longer having to abstain from drinking wine. And my body is my own again. What a pleasure! Read More…
On Monday, Iraqi police paraded a teenage girl caught wearing an explosives vest to reporters. In video footage released by the police, the girl, with the vest tightly strapped to her body, is seen handcuffed to a metal grid, her head repeatedly falling forward as several policemen huddle around her. She had apparently changed her mind about staging a suicide bomb, an allegation she denied. She claims that she never intended to carry out the attack and only wanted the vest removed.
The girl was arrested on Sunday in Baqouba, capital of the Diyala province, an Al Qaeda stronghold. The girl’s father was a suicide bomber, and apparently a relative of her husband of five months had recruited her.
The arrest of the girl, who gave her first name as Rania, heightened concern about a rise in suicide bombings by women in Iraq. The number of female suicide bombers has tripled this year, from eight in 2007 to 29 this year, according to US officials. Women in Iraq are motivated to engage in suicide bombings by revenge and grief.
There have been many surrogacy stories in my life the last week or so.
I recently heard that a friend of mine in London is getting married to his boyfriend. It will be a grand affair in their beautiful Hampstead apartment. Shortly after their wedding, they will become the parents of a baby who is being ‘cooked’ by a surrogate mother in the US. I am deligthed for them. They will be great parents. And they are so looking forward to this new phase of their lives.
I’ve been wondering this week what Morne Harmse’s parents are thinking and feeling at the moment. Today this letter was published: it gives you an idea of their suffering.
”We want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the Pretorius family. We realise that your most precious possession was taken away due to our child’s deeds. We are truly sorry and wish that these were not the circumstances and that we could change them.
Morné is scrawny for this age group. We would never have thought, until Monday morning, that he would be capable of doing something like that. We are a very close family and we raised our children in a strict fashion, but with love.
Because of Morné’s small stature, he was bullied during his formative years.
Where were able to, we stood up for him and at one point took the bullies to task, but we also accepted it as being part of life. However, until yesterday during a visit to Morné, we did not fully appreciated the impact of the physical and emotional degradation on him.
He explained to us that he felt powerless and worthless and that he wanted to prove a point. Read More…