This month Fenna, my youngest child, has finished university with a good degree and secured her dream job far away from my home. I have celebrated her success, my heart overflowing with joy, and that same heart has mourned at one more letting go, as she moves forth into her brave new life. It seems [...]

Being a mother is a series of lettings-go. From the day we give birth and bid farewell to the bump, allow the cutting of the cord, release any illusion that we will ever be the same again, we are on a roller-coaster ride of letting go and catching up. The first time we feel the [...]

I’ve got big breasts. I have had since, at the age of 11, the startling bumps that had recently appeared on my little-girl chest suddenly inflated into something with a definite cleavage. Mortified with shame, I grew my hair longer so that if I bent forward it would form a curtain to hide the cursed [...]

Throughout the ages, women have been required to be, and not to be, many things. As a little girl I was required to be quiet, demure, pretty, delicate, polite, obedient, sweet, helpful and subservient to boys. I was required not to be boisterous, loud, demanding, “too brave”, muddy, fascinated, curious, wild, angry or self-sufficient. I [...]