Category: Family
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11 Painful Truths About Living With Men
To be honest, I thought I’d done my time in share houses until COVID-19 attacked our shores, but it turns out that the most confronting change brought about by this virus is not my fear of catching it but my forced cohabitation with two men. Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash Some of you know…
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17 Signs Your Dog Is “A Princess”
Did I mention that WE’RE GOING TO HAWAII in a couple of weeks? Of course I did. And, as you can imagine, it has been hard to contain the feverish excitement of the old man at the prospect of shopping in Honolulu, taking long, guided bus tours with complete strangers, and our first Luau. But,…
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5 Life Lessons To Take Away From “The Sopranos”
We’re grieving in our household because we’ve just completed the final series of The Sopranos. The Sopranos boxset available at Amazon. But before any hardcore Sopranos fans jump in with an “I told you so” assumption that our grief is linked to THAT final episode – trust me, it’s not. The old man loved the…
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There Is No Better Education In Love, Compassion And Empathy Than Having A Child With Special Needs
A few weeks ago we went to a fundraiser. It was a black tie event to raise money for the family of an old colleague of the old man’s whose son broke his neck and damaged his spinal cord in a freak rugby accident recently. Alex Noble is their son’s name, and if anyone feels…
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Who Said Marriage Was Easy?
Mariella Says (in the Relationship section of The Guardian today, in response to a letter about a loveless marriage): “It’s easy to pontificate about tolerance and investment in a relationship and far harder to put it into practice. During times of difficulty it’s imperative we remember why we got hitched in the first place.” Dear…
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Should We Share Our Birthing Stories Online? Absolutely!
There has been a backlash recently against new mothers who share their birthing stories online. Some people don’t like this latest version of “oversharing” because they think it traumatizes pregnant women. Although, not as much as the birth… I hasten to quip. I have to admit that I always felt a bit cheated after the births…
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Sometimes, A Good Chinwag With People That Really Know You Is All The Therapy You Need
Bonding with someone is ” Like sharing an invisible stream of consciousness with each other.” Those are the powerful words of Zat Rana in his piece The Subtle Art Of Connecting With Anyone on “Medium.” My connection to others has always provided me with the best therapy. I’m needy emotionally. I might even go as far…
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The Twelve Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Get Married
We go through different phases in our marriage. Sometimes we love each other with the intensity of Jack and Rose in Titanic; sometimes he’s George and I’m Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Normal, right? It didn’t take me long to work out that marriage involves a lot of hard work and luck. There…
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Why Are Men So Obsessed With Sport?
Photo by Morgan David de Lossy on Unsplash The old man is that breed of men that needs to hit a ball at least once a day. He delights in telling anyone who can listen to him (without falling asleep) about his childhood spent in the family garage, throwing ball after ball against its back wall. And while…
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I Want “Cheese Lover and Wine Connaisseur” In My Eulogy
The old man and I went on a mini-break to a farmstead in the south of Sydney a few weeks ago. Due to the risks posed by Australian wildlife – wallabies, wild horses, spiders and no doubt brown snakes, waiting for me in every corner – we left The Princess at home with close friends.…
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Kids’ Birthday Cakes: Or As I Like To Call It, The Public Shaming Of Mothers That Can’t
Yep, there it is – new evidence of my failure at motherhood in one of its major disciplines – Kurt’s twenty-first birthday cake. Kids’ birthday cakes have always felt to me like one of the ultimate tests of motherhood; rather like keeping your kids alive when as toddlers they seem hellbent on killing themselves. In…
Louisa Simmonds 