Motherload

Race for life This weekend, my daughter and I did the local 5k Race for Life ( thank you, you can still donate! ), to raise money for research into cancer. This is the third time we've done it, and it's become a bit of a tradition to see whether we can beat the previous year's time. Logically this should work, because as my daughter gets older, she gets taller and faster. We won't go into what happens to her mother.  I didn't sleep well, and woke already tired and fretful. The rain had bucketed the night before, and the terrain was soggy, so I suggested that she and I head into the runners' group, so that we'd have a fresh start — we weren't going for a runner's time, we just didn't want to be slipping over in the churn.  Within only a few moments, daughter was straggling and slowing to a walk. Not yet well breathed, I was hopping up and down and urging her forwards in what I hoped wasn't too obviously a stentorian manner. She seem...

Go and see Brave . Go and see it if you have a daughter. This is the latest Pixar, and it's directed by a woman, Brenda Chapman. Hallelujah! A female animation director! Brave  manages to bring together Celtic and Norse legend with Astérix-style animation, and produce a story about the transformative power of... transformation. The rebellious tomboy daughter of a Scottish king rejects her upbringing, and the destiny planned for her by her mother the queen, and inadvertently turns her into a bear, when she foolhardily buys a spell from a witch. In wanting to be brave, and challenge the status quo, the girl finds herself in a nightmare in which she is on the verge of destroying everything she knows, mother, father and kingdom. Her bravery is revealed to be impulsiveness and pride. But in turning her mother into a bear, she also enables the mother to see that she is being literally overbearing, and that the daughter needs greater freedom if she is to succeed in life, and if ...