Thanks for nothing — exit polls show that 55% of white women voted for Trump in 2020, even more than the 52% who did so in 2016
Exit polls show that 55% of white women voted for Trump in 2020, even more than the 52% who did so in 2016.
To those white women, I say: your internalized misogyny is poison. Your prioritization of white supremacy and fear of those who are different from you over the literal safety and health of our country is poison. You have been drinking and sowing poison from a man who hates women, despises people of color, and mocks people of different abilities. When Trump said he was getting your husbands back to work, did you hear him? Do you know that women are more than half of college graduates and more than half of the workforce? When the credible sexual assault allegations piled…
Tips from a 3X mom currently experiencing it.
By now, I know that it’s worth it. The all-day nausea, heartburn, and frequent vomiting. Not to mention the limitations on your activity that all of the above causes. It’s worth it when you get to take that sweet little baby home and you can focus on them and healing yourself. When you’re out of the purgatory of pregnancy with severe morning sickness and into the newborn stage. That comes complete with its own challenges of course but at least you’re not running for the toilet or trying not to throw up in front of other people.
I’m currently pregnant…
Time to take stock and make plans.
I turned 36 this week, which feels to me like the start of middle age. “Middle-aged” has long had the ring of a demographic slur, a relegation of your experiences to the back of the store-room while the fresh allure of youth is placed in the front. It conjures unfashionable attire, a growing belly paunch, and benign respectability. To young people, middle age sounds unbelievably boring. To me the start of middle age is exciting and full of possibility, as all new beginnings are.
Do you look back at yourself five-, ten- or fifteen- years ago and see something about…
On Loving and Letting Go
My family and I have the privilege of fostering puppies from a local shelter that rescues dogs from high-kill shelters in another state. As a foster family, our responsibilities are to care for the dog through any medical issues they may have and get them ready for adoption by their “furever family.”
How did we get into this? A few years ago, we wanted to get a rescue dog who would do well with our children. …
The eternal call and response between mother and child
Tonight I will breastfeed my second child for the last time. She’s fourteen months old and has been an absolute champion nurser since the moment she was born. The nurses placed her pink newness on my chest and she did the “breast crawl” toward her source of nourishment and latched right on. It felt like my reward for a difficult pregnancy (again) and for making it through the crushing pain of a vaginal birth after caesarian. It felt like a homecoming to the essential, to again be a mother nursing a newborn child. …
Or, the things I don’t miss and what I’ve gained.
I have embraced my existence within my house, where I have been sequestered for more than a year. This includes keeping our family quarantined during COVID-times, and my maternity leave after the birth of my second child. I was already bunkered down in caregiving mode before the pandemic began its meteoric tour through the world. Here’s the thing- I don’t want to socialize anymore.
COVID has brought out my inner creativity, and my inner curmudgeon.
I have a giant pile of delicious books on my nightstand waiting for my hungry eyes. I have a note pad full of story ideas and grab at precious time to work on them whenever I…
TRAVEL. CALIFORNIA
From the beaches to the majestic redwoods
Driving the Pacific Coast Highway in California is an essential American road trip worth doing at least once in your life. I’ve done it twice — once with a friend in a muscle car and a broken heart and once in a rented sedan with my husband, mom, and new baby boy and it was amazing both times.
My grandmother did it for her honeymoon in her third marriage. It’s iconic and eternal, until California burns or falls into the sea.
The Pacific Coast Highway runs from the palm trees and missions of San Juan Capistrano in Southern California all…
Murdered politicians and a seizure of power
There’s an alternative world in which the January 6 coup attempt is a successful bloody massacre. Where sitting representatives are lined up and assassinated, live on social media. Where female Democratic leaders are degraded and assaulted to the cheers of the crowd and the sounds of bullets firing in marble halls. Where Senator Mitt Romney is hanged for speaking his conscience and Vice President Mike Pence is kicked into a coma by jack-booted Proud Boys in Auschwitz fan gear. Where Confederate flags and white power insignia are hung over oil paintings of our founders and a working guillotine is installed…
Turns out cutting plastic rings to save sea turtles isn’t going to cut it.
As kids in the ‘80s and ‘90s, environmentalism meant turning off the water when you brushed your teeth and cutting rings on soda packs, so sea turtles didn’t choke. It meant watching Captain Planet on Saturday mornings: earth, air, fire, water, and inexplicably, heart, all joined together fighting the powers that would pollute. When we got a little older, it meant recycling, sorting different kinds of glass and packaging so that they could be remade into playground mats and backpacks.
Travel. Scotland. History.
From a luxury wedding venue to a nightmare prison.
Castles dot the Scottish landscape like iconic monuments to living history. Visit Scotland estimates that there were once more than 3000, or one for every 100 square miles of the country.
These beautiful landmarks are currently off-limits to tourists due to COVID-19 restrictions, but dreaming of castles is still allowed and should be encouraged.
Several years ago, my husband and I went to Scotland to attend a wedding. Neither of us had been before, and so the discovery was the name of the game. …
Lara Henneman
Telling stories 🖋️ Politics 🖍️ Parenting 🖊️ Travel.
