Women still do the majority of household caring labour. But not only this, women's caring labour has expanded to include care not just for families and their needs but also for the environment and sustainability. Some studies frame this as a form of inequality, another example of how the 'dirty work' of society gets lumped... Continue Reading →
Update: Getting Kids to Do Stuff
So most of you have probably worked this out well before me, but once your kids can read LISTS ARE AWESOME. My blogposts this time last year were about the emotional labour of managing a family and resentment at having to make sure everything that needed to be done got done. And the nagging. I... Continue Reading →
‘Potty Pauses’
I normally avoid talking about toilet-training and elimination communication on my blog -- not because it is not interesting and worthwhile, but because it has become so much part of our everyday lives that I don't even think about it much any more. Until it all grinds to a halt, that is. We have practiced... Continue Reading →
Enacting a postcapitalist politics
So it has been quite a long time since I blogged -- mostly because the second half of 2015 was taken up with intense teaching and a return to fulltime work. Ironically, a lot of my research work is about how the home and domestic spaces are sites of enacting postcapitalist politics for different kinds... Continue Reading →
Academic mothering: reflections from guest blogger Dr Ann Hill
My friend and colleague Ann Hill has contributed a blog post for me today, inspired by the conversations we have had about managing our academic and mothering practices. Dr Ann Hill is a member of the Community Economies Collective, and has conducted research on food economies in the Phillipines. She is currently working on a... Continue Reading →
Mums and sleep deprivation
So, I am really tired. I am also coming down with something, or just struggling against a low-grade cold. My son is sleeping better this week, but even when he is asleep, I wake up after four hours or so. After all, that's how much sleep I have been accustomed to getting in the last... Continue Reading →
Gender, Personality, and Social change
I have recently been reading David Keirsey's book Please Understand Me II, having read Please Understand Me in the first edition many years ago. He uses the Myer-Briggs personality categories to describe four basic temperaments and 16 role variants. His main point is that much of our differences in communication and the way we interact... Continue Reading →
Emotional Labour: An update
In the previous posts 'Wife of a Stay-at-Home Husband' and 'How to get children to help around the house' I began to think about shifting out of the role of 'Household Organiser' that I seem to have acquired over the years. One of the commitments I made while writing the Wife of a Stay-at-Home Husband... Continue Reading →
How to get children to help around the house.
The wonderful Avalon Darnesh shares her grounded and compassionate strategies for getting children to help around the house. I need to do this. Want more help around the home? In this article you’ll learn how to nurture your young child's innate desire to contribute, and what to do if your older children don't give a... Continue Reading →
Wife of a stay-at-home husband
There seems to be a misconception out there that having a stay at home husband is some kind of pinnacle of feminist achievement. You go out, focus on your rewarding job, come home to slippers warmed, the paper and a brandy while your hubby gets dinner ready and bathes the kids. I don't want to... Continue Reading →