I know this is the exact opposite of how I normally speak but here’s the thing: when it comes to parenting and housework, I’d really love women to stop asking for help!
Dear exhausted women – stop asking for help(!!)

I know this is the exact opposite of how I normally speak but here’s the thing: when it comes to parenting and housework, I’d really love women to stop asking for help!
Usually at this time of year I’m writing posts like “how to survive the family at Christmas”. So this is weird. This whole year has been weird hasn’t it?
Weird, strange, difficult, scary, heartbreaking, lonely, interesting. Quite a lot to pack into to a 9 month long existential crisis. It’s been a a prison, an escape, a torture, an opportunity, a learning, an eye opener, a mind opener, a mind closer…
Continue readingChristmas has a way of jerking those tears right out of us doesn’t it? It’s a time where the pressure to be happy is really on – HO HO HO! Jeepers. It’s a cheer fest, that’s for sure. One that would make the calmest people want to gouge their own eyes out if they are also trying to cope with feeling of loss and loneliness.
Especially, with COVID. Our second year now. We have feelings that don’t “match” with how we are ‘supposed’ to feel at Christmas.
Here’s the thing though:
Maybe you have a friend or family member who is dreading it. Maybe you are dreading it.
Maybe you, like a lot of people, are facing into Christmas as a separated parent. How can you be sparkly and happy when you feel like you’re on the floor, struggling to find order in the debris of a broken relationship? Everything around us tells us that family is king, happiness rules and life is one big gift-wrapped bundle of glittery joy! It’s a cheerfest – that’s for sure! And really, MUST they keep playing Mariah Carey???
OK, so a lot of us will be joining family for ‘The Dinner’. And for a lot of us that’s super cool and lovely and something we look forward to and truly relish.
For some of us though, that dinner is the most 'Hell' part of Christmas. Sitting with, eating with and spending time with people that drive us nuts, push our buttons, trigger us....at worst, we are sitting with people that are harmful. tweet to another dinner eater
It can be hard to know how to define abuse, and when we are ‘in’ an abusive situation, it can be hard to ‘see’ that it’s abusive. But you might have a niggling feeling, your friends or family may have expressed concern. Abuse can be lethal.
I’ve been meaning to have a wee rant re the whole “Twelve Pubs” thing.
I know many young (and not so young) people who are about to go on this new-and-not-so-noble tradition of mass alcohol poisoning with a view to consuming at least one unit of alcohol per pub (X12) in a few short hours.
We all think of Christmas as a time for giving to others. And that’s nice, it really is, but when did you last give to yourself? Not necessarily a material gift, but time to yourself or with a rarely seen loved one, fun, nurturing things?
We often forget about ourselves and fret instead about the people we love. Are we not allowed to love ourselves?
(Yes we are!).