Conservative Conversation and Community
Spoiler alert – I think mothers staying home with their kids is best. Hold on! Having said that I have known many wonderful mothers, including my own, who worked outside the home. I understand all circumstances are different but do believe that staying home – is best. More
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My wife and I spent yesterday afternoon at the Willamette National Cemetery. We were there for the interment of her stepmother. She was going be interred next to Karen’s dad. Karen’s dad began WWII as a sailor in the Merchant Marine and, before the war ended, was a sailor in the US Navy. While waiting to be escorted to one of the shelters for the memorial service, Marines arrived for another service. So we missed the endless parade of pundits for the Senate verdict on President Trump’s impeachment.
Karen’s dad was a farm boy from North Dakota and joined the Merchant Marine to escape the farm, and a chance to see the world that existed beyond the Dakota plains. He saw a bit more of that world than he bargained for. On his first voyage, his ship was sunk by a German U-boat. He and some of his shipmates found themselves in a lifeboat and watched as the U-boat surfaced. They thought that the Germans were going to finish the job they started. The sailors on the U-boat gave them some food, and then gave them directions on the course they needed to follow to get back to the US coast.
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Karol Markowicz joins Kay Hymowitz to discuss raising young children in New York City. “Raising a family in the city is just too hard,” concluded The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson last summer. But in Park Slope, one of New York’s most desirable neighborhoods, thousands of families thrive. Still, parents must navigate a host of challenges unique to urban life, including […]
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(Reflections on prior conversations) It’s a fact often remarked on that a lot of us ordinary folk, out here in flyover country, look to celebrities as role models—that we dream of being famous and rich like them, living a lifestyle like theirs—in fact, that many of us want to play-act as if we were celebrities. […]
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Prince Harry and his new wife, Meghan announced they want to step back from royal duties, move abroad and make their own money. The world loves a love story, especially a successful one. I do. I watched their wedding, his mother, Princess Diana’s wedding, her divorce, and sadly the funeral. I hoped as I watched […]
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In one of my favorite films, “The Two Towers”, we’re introduced to a brave maiden warrior from the kingdom of Rohan, Eowyn. Her striking beauty and fierce determination is compared to the cold of “a morning in pale spring that is not yet come to womanhood”. Eowyn wants much more than her provincial life and is convinced that saddling a horse and drawing a sword will provide that.
The film is dark and grainy, and the room is poorly lit. None of the cast is wearing the proper sort of clothes or makeup. And all of them, particularly the father of the little moppet with the starring role, are bursting with their pride in the first member of a new generation in the family. It’s the iconic Christmas of my childhood, my first real memory, one I have been able to call up at a moment’s notice all my life, but which lived only in my heart and in my mind for almost 50 years. Until, that is, a most unexpected gift from Dad gave it back to me “for realz,” as the children say.
Granny and Grandpa’s. 104 Church Lane, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham 20, England, UK. Northern 4749, if you wanted to phone and have a conversation. (This entailed going under the stairs where the telephone was located, and hiding yourself away for the duration, almost as if there was something a bit untoward–nay, rude even–about standing there talking into the air, as if to someone who was actually in the room with you, but, really, wasn’t.)
MoreIn a special holiday edition of 10 Blocks, Timothy Goeglein joins City Journal assistant editor Charles McElwee to discuss how people of faith can help renew American society—themes explored in his new book, American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation. Coauthored with Craig Osten, American Restoration calls for a revival of spiritual values in America […]
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In the days following Christmas in 2000, I traveled from Montana to California to visit my older sister, who was dying from cancer.
Carol was no longer eating solid food; she had a bag that fed mocha-colored goo into her stomach. Oh, every once in awhile her longing to taste something would overcome her, and she’d eat something, all the while knowing that the consequences would be unpleasant. But her life was circumscribed to a recliner; her life closed in; her passing, imminent. Yet she was still her cheerful, almost ebullient self. We ran through some chitchat, catching up on our families and their activities. That took about an hour.
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I just got a text from my childhood best friend. She texted three pictures from our other childhood best friend. This time of year, people reconnect, share stories, and think of their lives in context — as in the past, present, and future. Let me tell you a story:
I recognized the older sister, the lovely Mary Beth. She was beautiful, blonde, and so talented. Growing up, I was constantly at my friend Kitty’s house. They lived on the next street over, easily accessible through the alley. I asked Mary Beth to make me a dress. I coveted Mary Beth’s navy and black velvet dresses with lace collars. She could sew anything. I found a pink paisley material and she whipped up a gorgeous mini-dress with bell sleeves. I strutted into grade school and got sent home because it was too short. My best friend Kitty lent me her Maxi-coat; so cool that I’d throw off my plain nothing, kick off my ugly snow boots, and put on that beautiful wool coat that dragged the ground. I slipped and struggled over the ice and snow to school because the coat had to have pretty shoes under it. So vain … Wait – did I tell you Mary Beth was deaf? She taught me sign language. Kitty and her baby sister could hear.
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I love watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade while I prepare food. Loved Snoopy’s NASA outfit this year, and the cheerleaders, but not performing to a RuPaul song. Santa coming down past Macy’s is to me, the official kick-off.
I don’t know why, but my husband loves Black Friday. He says it gets him into the Christmas spirit to get out early, mingle with all the shoppers and find great deals – so we did that – again.
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My fingers are popping on the flat key board of a red laptop that my mom gave me as backup for when my work computer failed. I’m holding my wrists up to avoid the sensitive mouse pad. One brush on that surface could be fatal to my post.
The round pine table serving as my desk I purchased from our local online garage sale for $60. It is sturdy, with two little chairs whose microfiber padding needed a good scrubbing to get rid of the smoke smell. The address for the item turned out to be a trailer park, in a part of town with a dicey reputation, but I didn’t even inquire about smoke exposure when I pulled up. I needed a table right away, since my parents were going to be visiting. I put cushions on the chairs after they dried out, and I do not regret the purchase.
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I just finished the book, The Family and the New Totalitarianism (2019) by Michael D. O’Brien. The book was originally published 24 years ago as a compilation of various articles and speeches by the author, as a writer, editor, and speaker. As a father of six, he and his friends’ challenges were with the rapidly changing Canadian school system, as they began to incorporate more controversial teachings, such as the introduction of alternative lifestyles and sexual conduct to younger and younger children.
Political and social changes were influencing the content beyond the acceptable norms that most parents would consider appropriate, but they had little say over their children’s education. When they met with school authorities, they were met with indifference, and in some cases, hostility. This forced the O’Briens, as well as some of their friends, into homeschooling.
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All . . . true wealth . . . is biological. – Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
Those words are spoken by the character Count Aral Vorkosigan to his son, Mark Pierre Vorkosigan in the science fiction novel Mirror Dance. The count has suffered a major heart attack and may be dying. His son is a clone, created from his other son, Miles as a weapon against the Vokosigan family, but who rebelled against his creators (and actually everyone). When this episode takes place Mark has been involuntarily returned to his family, believes he may have done something that killed his older brother Miles (who vanished trying to rescue Mark during a battle. (The novel is worth reading – as are all of Bujold’s Vorkosiverse stories.)
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I brought Darling Daughter back to college this week; the nest is, once again, empty. I don’t expect her to spend next summer at home as she did this year: she’s a sophomore now, and it’s reasonable to assume that my days of having a child in the house, other than for a brief visit, are over. And I’m okay with that.
I’ve been a single parent these past eight years, and I have some thoughts about the challenges of being a single parent. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the special challenge of being an only parent, someone raising children without the benefit of a partner, even a separated partner, who remains a continuing presence in their children’s lives. I know this is far less common than divorced or separated parents, but I know of several cases, and I’ve been thinking about them.
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Literally, the one in my office. I have a beautiful Rand McNally globe that sat in my grandfather’s office when he worked for the company in the 1960s. My dad has had it since the 80s, and gave it to me a few months back (ok, I took it and he didn’t object). Only recently have I had time to really take a close look; the first time in 35 years.
The mystery is: how old is the globe?
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Today, my favorite person is celebrating her day.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to assign an individual such an unequivocal spot in the hierarchy of all humanity, but the thing about Miss (the name I’ll use for writing about her on the internet) is that she’s not an ordinary person. She’s special.
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The title of this post may look like rather esoteric, bluestocking, or even erotic clickbait, but there’s nothing to that theory. It’s not a feminist take on the story of poor Peter Abelard, and no guy ends up minus an essential piece of equipment at the end of it. No. It’s just a rumination on one of the dumbest things I ever did in my life (that I’m willing to cop to, at least), and how I got past it, beyond it, and how it all turned out for the best. (It’s also, perhaps, an object lesson in heeding the warning signs, something else I’m not always very good at.)
I’ve mentioned this favorite saying of my mother’s many times before. And for the first time, when I did my due diligence and searched the Internet before I wrote this, I found it attributed to someone else: Helen Gurley Brown. Pretty sure Mum didn’t get it from her, and I’ve long wondered if it was, perhaps, a line from a radio comedy show of the ’30s or ’40s that Mum heard and remembered. I guess there’ll forever be a mystery, and an unanswered question in my mind about that.
MoreDads get little respect today. The foolish father is a stock element in sitcoms, the government treats fathers like the disposable element in families, even as dangerous. Your male buddies, especially the unmarried ones, razz you: you are no longer a free man, they say, you are tied down for the next twenty years, they say.
Yet, dads are vital. Boys need men around to grow into men. There is a difference between a man who knows how to use his strength to protect others and one that knows how to use it only to get what they want. It is the difference between a wolf and a guard dog. The example set by an engaged, caring father is the best way for a boy to learn what it is.
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