reprobatemum

[reprobatemum]

What happens when a beloved relative gets suddenly ill with something that looks a lot like something we were warned about when we were children? Mad cow? Well, I might be. But there sure is something fishy going on...

[reprobatemum]

To you, whatever you are - possibility, probability, liability.

You barely exist. And yet you have the potential to cause so much pain. I didn’t want you or not want you. The idea of you is lovely, but, from experience the reality is so hard. It’s not that I don’t want you. Society doesn’t want you. And I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to fight all the battles I’d need to fight to make your life worth living. The world is an unfriendly place, but it’s not…

[reprobatemum]

Storm in a D cup

So I wrote a thing about Sydney Sweeney and genes and it blew up. A load of bald men with beards and MAGA rage started getting angry at me for having thoughts they likely couldn’t understand, and then rating my looks out of ten to feel powerful again. I’m too old to be really upset about all the comments about my face, but I shoved a picture of me aged 25 on my feed, just to shut them up. I am…

[reprobatemum]

Summer survival tips

Ah, summer – when the days stretch long and the kids are home, ready for adventure. Or maybe not. For many parents, this is a time to juggle sunscreen, snacks, sanity – and screen time! For those of us with neurodiverse kiddos, it requires an extra sprinkle of creativity and patience. Each day can offer a mix of mayhem and, let’s be honest, meltdowns. But fear not; with some clever planning,…

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Before you flame me, read the whole article. This is a comment on how female skills are valued. Not a denigration of a national team. Not much, anyway. I am angry though. Really angry.

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Keeping up appearances, or, getting over not being the fit girl at school

Yesterday, I had the uncanny, yet singularly modern experience of being contacted on Facebook by a girl I last spoke to in year eight, at school. I hesitated at her friend request. It’s a long time since I thought back that far, and I keep up with so few people from my childhood. We were not especially close. She came from a side of town my dad disapproved of, and we were divided, as much by…

[reprobatemum]

Jellicle Cats, Hexbugs and new beginnings

I’m through. I walked out of work for the final time. It was a ignominious departure. The bank of desks where I sat all but deserted. The head honchos have long since flown off to wherever in Europe from whence they hale, and all who remained were the lowliest administrators. Only the CEO, a woman in her 40s brought her kids in too. She looked across at my two, absorbed for a change in CBBC, and…

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Poisoned by breakfast

I have been uninspired. What with the world apparently going to hell in a handcart coupled with the fact that my life has settled into a quiet routine of work – new job – and – well, not much else, I’ve found myself rather lost for words. There’s so little point commenting on terrorism, war and politics because already, too much is being said. And so, taking the advice from that old adage, “if…

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The world really is conspiring against you: Food, fashion and film against a backdrop of high finance

Sometimes the illogicality of modern life baffles me; that we’re all going full pelt all the time only to struggle really to get anywhere. It’s not just big things, like inflation outstripping wages, or the fact that the poor are relentlessly penalised for it, as I found myself describing to Jonah when he asked what finance was, looking at bikes today at Evans Cycles in the sale (which basically…

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Seeing stars - on feeling dazed by a health service that assumes parents are guilty when their kids get hurt

As soon as you’re admitted, your freedom is requisitioned. Put on a ward where wellbeing is secondary to scientific assessment: poked and prodded ever hour, machines and children wailing all around, sleep is always out of reach; water is provided, but ordinary human kindnesses – a cup of tea, a meal – forgone in favour of the stripped back serviceablity of enforced rest and regulation cereals or…

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I told you I was sick - why doctors aren't just wrong; they're dangerous

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ADS signs to look out for in the early years

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Sleep walking into evil

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On pissing people off

I’ve a remarkable knack for it. Perhaps it’s a blinkered unpleasantness I don’t intend and am not always aware of, or a dogmatic approach to arguing a point that many fail to understand- or perhaps would rather not. In the past, it has certainly been about power and jealousy, a sort of mob reaction to a threat in the pack. Now, it is more likely a reaction to my aversion for doing what I’m told…

[reprobatemum]

Miscarriage of justice – how modern living contributes to pregnancy failure – and what we can do about it.

Losing a baby in the first 12 weeks is, to any medical professional, entirely normal. In fact, you’re almost as likely to as not, with as many as one in five babies lost in the first trimester, many women never knowing they were pregnant in the first place – which is why your personal heartbreak may not be taken too seriously by anyone in the medical field: it’s almost viewed as “just one of…

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The power of blonde - feeling better at Beau, Bethnal Green Road

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Happy, ever after

Once upon a time, I had a stepfather I didn’t much want and because of it, and well-versed in Ladybook Tales, I cast myself as the innocent victim and he the storybook baddie. As a child he seemed a veritable ogre with his loud voice, forceful manner and sharky teeth, and it’s hard to be much other than a victim of circumstance when you are five and taking a bit part in someone else’s drama. In…