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...

Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending the Batmitzvah ceremony of one of my daughter's schoolfriends. The candidate was only just twelve, and the ceremony was held in an orthodox synagogue, very much by the book. I was expecting an impenetrable event, something completely foreign to my lapsed Protestant understanding. As I entered the Synagogue with my blonde hair and blue eyes, I felt like an intruder. Instead I was invited into and witnessed a true rite of passage. The young girl had prepared over many months for this event. For her Mitzvah, she had decided to paint a series of six canvases to represent the six days of Creation, and she spoke eloquently about how each canvas had come about. She had understood early on that, although she had wanted to create something out of nothing, in fact, as a created being herself, she was only capable of creating something out of something — she was not able to create raw materials for her art ex nihilo . Only an ultimate Creator...