How Horrible are the Elsie Dinsmore Books?

They need to be taken out of print immediately. The behavior of these adults is not portrayed as villainish, and that’s a huge problem. This stuff is normalized, not presented as a tragic backstory or obstacle to overcome. Children’s stories, from Harry Potter to Cinderella to A Series of Unfortunate Events, but especially Victorian literature,

No “They”, Only “We”

There is no default kind of human being! There is so much freedom in not seeing yourself or people like you as the standard norm for society. This “one of the bunch” mentality unlocks something more refreshing and rewarding even than superiority. You are not interesting or worthy because you’re the right kind of person,

Being Alone

Being alone is hard, worth it, draining, empowering, and lethal to overdose on. Do it, learn to enjoy it, do it often, and know when to quit. It’s more than just taking yourself out to eat or on a solo vacation. It’s watching major life moments – the happy ones – happen in front of

When to Step Away

Not every close relationship needs to – or can – stay close forever.. Some relationships reach a place where they should no longer be at all, at least for the foreseeable future. And some just need to hit the snooze button for a while. There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every

Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe is mesmerizing. It’s a lush, occasionally brutal, attention-grabbing, and deeply personal, masterpiece. We see a woman who for the most of her life has lived in the absence of love and therefore wants the next best thing: to be left alone. Her magic is chiefly used to this end. She despises power games and

Abel’s Abuse: Reading the Roadmap of Violence

“Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that’s not how

30 Things I Learned Before 30

Courage is a necessity, not a luxury. If you don’t have it, you can’t get through even ordinary life. If you have it, the world is at your fingertips. “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” – C.S. Lewis Empathy – choosing

Control is a Poison

Terry Crews, at the end of a very personal, candid interview in which he described growing up with a violently abusive father, was asked what message he would like to send to young people. What do you predict he said? Was it something cliché and obvious like “Hitting is never okay” or “No matter what,

Singleness: A Woman’s Rare Good Fortune

We are the lucky ones. In a world rife with child marriage, teen marriage, and many more millions of women trapped in traditional patriarchal societies where women are expected to be household servants and treat their husband as an honored guest/helpless man-child, we lucked out. We made it. We got out. We dodged a bullet.

When Strength Gets in the Way of Survival

Have you heard the (only slightly macabre) story of the Spartan boy and the fox? Some context: Sparta, that famously militaristic city-state in ancient Greece, had a rigorous system of military education. Boy children were essentially on loan to their parents from the state until the age of 7, when they had to leave their