Motherload

I found Caitlin Moran's heartfelt open letter to her teenage fans moving and upsetting to read. Caitlin Moran is certainly right to point to a very unpleasant aspect of modern life: the hysteria that surrounds young girls. I think her letter is intended to defuse some of that hysteria, but I would love her to write a letter to me, because I think she should target the source of the hysteria not its object. She's right that there are teenage girls who hate themselves, and harm and sabotage themselves, because they are trying to find ways to cope with their own overwhelming feelings. They cannot see any other outlet than to hurt themselves. And something is fuelling that. Yes, this self-loathing exists, I can attest to the fact myself – not in my own girl, I hope, but certainly in my own memories. And I do love Moran's promise to our girls, that we only ever have to face the next minute . This is wonderful advice, and probably shows that Moran has done a Mindfulness...

When I was working for Cambridge, I could not envisage working for myself (although oddly you are like a barrister and you do work largely for yourself). I had a monolithic and binary view of working/not working, being/not being. I existed through my achievements. As things went wrong and went on, though, I went through a long (l-o-n-g – a positively Proustian) process of change.  Over time, I have stopped working overtime. I’ve completely revised the way I see myself as a working person. I now think of myself as a Working Mother, and give both terms equal weight, because they have equal weight in my mind and life.  I don’t apologise any more for existing, being a woman, being a mother, underachieving, trying to balance, and I don't judge myself for failing to be all things to all people. Stopping justifying myself is the single hardest thing I have ever achieved – far harder than the Phd and two births and relocating to and from Australia,...