It's time for the Valerie Kondo Experince... i don't really know who Marie Kondo is. i haven't watched her show. Something to do with decluttering your life and home and work space i believe. But this week, when tbV [aka the beautiful Val] shared her latest idea with me, she was the first person to came to mind. Val has decided on an eight week project of clearing out the things, which i wanted [...]
We are continuing on with our series aimed at sharing ideas with parents who are looking for some creative ways to parent better. #40TipsForParents 40 Tips for Parents: Tip #11 Talk to your children about important things first. This links to explaining things and raising the bar [tips 4 & 5] but is a little more specific. Some people are really great and feel at ease when talking about topics like sex, periods, racism, [...]
A new Prayer of Lament Yesterday i was invited to attend another prayer vigil at the Clareinch Post Office where a man killed Uyinene Mrwetyana. This time it was in my role as a volunteer with the Peace Justice Witnesses which i haven't done since #FeesMustFall days probably about two years ago. It turns out we weren't really needed because nothing out of the ordinary happened, but i felt privileged to be able to [...]
Continuing with the next 5 in our series of #40TipsForMen: 40 Tips for Men: Tip #11 Be aware of a potential need to step towards. My friend Janet really caught my attention this past week when she used the word 'hyper-vigilant' when she described how women in South Africa always need to be on the alert. One of the ways we men can help make the world a safer place is by increasing our [...]
Jess Hill's Mission to understand Abusive Men What's Rape Anxiety? This woman explained it to her favourite men and they were shocked. Relax Ladies. Don't be so Uptight. You know you want it. How to be a Woman in the 21st Century Twitter trending Hashtag 'Men are Trash' proof that men centre themselves on feminist issues. Eusebius McKaiser wrote a piece titled 'The Chain between Words and Violence' 'Why we're not working today' by [...]
40 Tips for Men: Tip #6 Hold your voice. This is connected to Tip 3 which involved listening but is bigger than that as well. We live in a world that for the most part has been dominated by the voices and actions of men [see history!] We need to be doing what we can to help redress that, keeping in mind the saying that, 'When privilege is all you've known then equality may [...]
40 Tips for Men: Tip #1 Respect a woman's 'No!' This should be an easy one. It should be an unnecessary one. It should not have to be said, right? Except that, having been married for ten years, just the stories i have heard from my wife, in two different countries [USA and SA] in bars and in the street and in living rooms and in restaurants and in churches and in spaces of [...]
Why do we need 40 Tips for Men? Today has been such a heavy day in South Africa as we heard the news so many of us were dreading about the fate of Uyinene Mrwetyana. The How of it made it seem so very much worse. Which is why i thought it was essential to start up this series of tips aimed at helping men to be better than we currently are. Hopefully so [...]
Her name is Uyinene Mrwetyana. Or is it was? Already? Has it changed from an 'is' to a 'was' in just the few hours since they found her beaten and broken body? i didn't know her except for the missing posters all over social media and it didn't take long for that deep-knotted feeling in my gut to emerge. It feels like it's too late. We would have heard something by now. But you [...]
We are busy working through a series where we look at Tips for Parents and these are the next five tips: 40 Tips For Parents: Tip #6 Present a united front. This came from a comment one of the parents shared on the discipline survey i shared last week, but feels like such an important one. i remember as a child the whole idea of trying to play one parent off another. So if [...]
