MiTHology (4.0)

Excommunicated?

July 7th, 2026

The usual disclaimer: I’m not an expert. I’m not like Kennedy Hall or Dr. Kwasniewski or Taylor Marshall or any of those super-smart TradCath commentators. I’m just some little random mom who comes to WordPress to process my thoughts & feewings and to seek out companionship & feedback. Please don’t take any of this seriously. It’s just my scattered little thoughts and impressions, as a lay follower of the SSPX.

I know I said a few days ago, before the consecrations, that I wasn’t too worried about the impending excommunication, because I was confident that I was on the right side no matter what. And that was true.

Now that it’s happened, though, I admit to being kind of troubled about it. Not troubled enough to stop supporting the SSPX or to stop going to their Masses – but because it’s an objectively very troubling thing to be told by the Pope that you are excommunicated. That is never a negligible thing, imo, no matter what.

And I’m troubled by all the vitriol and accusations and assumptions and threats from the modernist side. It’s troubling to see all this infighting within Catholicism. It’s ugly and shallow and it’s a really bad look for us. – “But this isn’t infighting,” you might be saying, “because the SSPX isn’t Catholic” – but how are they less Catholic than any of the bishops and parishes who’ve strayed so far from Catholic teaching without being penalized? “Catholic teaching = doing absolutely whatever the Pope says, no matter what,” you might be saying – but that’s not true. The Pope exists to uphold the faith, not vice versa. We worship Christ, not the Pope. How did we lose sight of that?

It’s just very sad.

I’m trying to figure out whether I, personally, am excommunicated or not. Rome said that all the lay faithful who “formally adhere to the doctrinal positions” of the SSPX are automatically excommunicated along with its Bishops. – but, which one of the Society’s “doctrinal positions” am I supposed to disagree with? They published that profession of faith shortly before all this, explicity stating all of their doctrinal positions for all the world to see, and it was literally just… the Catholic faith?! I’m confused. So by professing the Catholic faith we’re schismatic?

I guess the part we’re not supposed to agree with is that the modern Church is heading in the wrong direction — which is not stated as a tenet of doctrine in their document, but it’s obviously implied, it’s painfully clear from reading this actual Catholic doctrine! It’s so clear that it’s the modern Church that’s becoming less and less Catholic. From my little uneducated lay POV, I really feel like this misunderstanding about schism stems from a misunderstanding about what the Catholic faith is. Like I said, we’re not Pope worshippers, contrary to what Protestants think of us. Apparently this is yet another way in which a great many modern Catholics think like Protestants. Just another symptom.

Some article I read clarified that not all lay faithful are in schism, and that it’s a case-by-case basis. Am I among those in schism? I admit, I hope not – I don’t think I have a schismatic attitude. I love the Pope and my diocesan Bishop and believe in their legitimate authority and pray for them all the time. I keep apprised of what’s going on in my diocese. I mingle with NO Catholics (at least, I have been doing so, up until now – now, I’m kind of afraid to, given the atmosphere). I wish we could all just get along – I don’t see why Rome can’t just let the SSPX in, formally. There are so many different flavors of Catholicism within the Church, even the Melkites, Maronites, et cetera, who look very different from your average Roman Catholic and don’t even share many of the same rituals; but it’s the Society who has to be excluded? Why?

– I feel like it’s just that Rome doesn’t want any of its members to speak up about what’s wrong with the modern Church. Which feels, imo, not very “synodal” of them. A little hypocritical, I daresay.

It’s really sad. Reading the commentary online, it’s obvious to me that it’s the modernists who are being hateful and divisive. The Society and its followers are expressing only sadness and sorrow and a humble resolve to keep the Faith – meanwhile, all the NOrmies are name-calling and saying we’re all going straight to hell and making wild assumptions about the mindset of individuals within the Society. Just very poor taste. I’ve even seen people making fun of the way our new Bishops look (as if it’s not the modern Church that embraces ugliness). Just petty, sad, immature stuff.

And it’s really sad to me that the Society tried to reach out to Pope Leo for like a year prior to these consecrations, begging him to meet and talk, and they kept getting ignored. Until literally a day or two before the consecrations, when everyone was already on site and getting set up – then he sends a letter saying “no, wait, let’s talk!” – isn’t that just blatantly recreating exactly what happened to Archbishop Lefebvre prior to his consecrations?! He begged Rome repeatedly for permission and they kept ghosting him, and he was literally worried that he wasn’t going to live long enough to get it done, which was why he made the call. To me it seems obvious that the Society has always acted out of a sincere desire to uphold the Catholic faith in a state of emergency, and Rome has been rather mean to them.

So yes, I do believe, earnestly, that I’m on the right side of this argument. Given the way that the Society’s been excommunicated in the past, then un-excommunicated, then given faculties, now excommunicated again – to me, that just shows that it’s Modern Rome who’s being inconsistent with their position, not the SSPX. You can belong to something and disagree with some things about it. You can believe in someone’s authority and still take issue with how they exercise it. Who among you readers has never once disagreed with a single one of your parents’ decisions? But does that mean you’re not a member of their family?

It’s sad. I’m just trying to do the right thing for my family. I want to bring my kids where they will be taught the whole, real Catholic faith, and where they will experience real beauty and reverence, as a remedy to all the evils that surround us in the secular world. That’s what religion is supposed to be. I’ve literally seen Catholics in Facebook comment battles arguing that “the Church needs to modernize to keep up with the times” and “our interpretation of God’s Word must be perpetually changing and fluid” and stuff like that – good grief! Are we for real?! It’s just really sad.

As you all know, I’ve been Catholic for almost twelve years, the last two of those with the SSPX. I don’t think the world of the Society is perfect by any means, and have certain issues with certain apsects of the lay subculture – but, the real Catholic faith is more important than any of that. (One upside to all this, for me, is it’s renewed my commitment to the SSPX way, when for a minute there I was starting to waffle due to the social pressure.) It’s been very difficult for me, personally, to figure out how to go about all of this. I have four kids and a husband, and in my family I’m the spiritual decision-maker, the one who teaches the kids the faith and takes us to Mass and all that. And I’m no expert – I’m just some girl who converted from atheism! It’s been really hard, honestly, probably one of the most difficult decisions of my life if not the most difficult, to determine whether to stick with the modernists or to go the way of the RadTrads. I made my choice from a place of sincerity and prayer – at least, I hope I did. Only God really knows my soul, doesn’t He, and I guess it’s possible that I’m operating from some secret arrogance or pride that even I can’t see – but, to the best of my knowledge, that’s not the case, and all I can do is keep praying that He will help me to know myself and know how to follow Him.

As of right now, I still think the SSPX is in the right. I still sincerely believe that they will, one day, be vinicated, and that the Archbishop will be canonized and recognized as a hero who singlehandedly saved Catholic Tradition. Hopefully within my children’s lifetime.

So yes, I’m confident that I’m on the right side, but I’m still sad and troubled about it all. I know some lay faithful out there just totally don’t even care – “Rome isn’t even Catholic anymore,” they say, “so anything they say is meaningless” – I don’t agree with that. It does matter what Rome says, even though it’s also true that there are problems with modern Rome. I wish people could be more balanced about all this. I wish people could have some compassion. The way the modernists get so heated about the traditionalists – to me, it shows very plainly that they know something is wrong with the way they’re doing things – otherwise, why would they get so affronted? I think they know, in their heart, that something is wrong, but they’re too afraid to do something about it for fear of being labelled “schismatic,” which, if I’m being really cynical and conspiracy-theoristy, might be exactly what Modern Rome wants – to use fear to suppress Tradition. I hope that’s not true but that’s kinda how it looks. It just feels to me like a big ugly family feud.

Well, this has all been a bit rambly and pointless and venty, but I’m going to put it out there anyway because, as usual, it’s my silly little personal blog and I can post what I want on it. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, but know that any hateful and bigoted comments will be deleted.
On the eve of “excommunication”

June 30th, 2026

I’m wondering: what is belief?

I write this here post not as any kind of expert — just as one little random layperson who doesn’t even worry much about Church politics or goings-on, and barely even reads the news. When it comes to matters of faith, my aim is to take care of my family, and so that’s where I keep my focus. I just attend Mass, at an SSPX chapel btw, and say my prayers and mind my own business.

Before you holler “schismatic!”, hear me out.

I’ve only been going to the SSPX since 2024. Those of you who know me will remember how I agonized for months, reading and studying and earnestly praying and waffling repeatedly back and forth, losing tons of sleep and basically losing my mind, over whether or not to switch from my friendly neighborhood NO to the nearest SSPX.

I always, on some level, knew that the SSPX was the right way to go. But all this complicated business about “obedience to Rome” and “irregular canonical state” and all that, had me over-intellectualizing the whole matter. I won’t go into all the issues here, or the actual reasons why the SSPX is right, although I kind of touched upon them, in my own humble terms, in a previous post.

Suffice it to say that at last I came to see that it’s actually very simple — the SSPX position is so commonsense, it was (and remains) truly painful to see how so many people seem to deliberately cover their eyes and go “la la la” real loud in order to not acknowledge what’s going on — and all my overthinking had been a laughable waste of time. I’m confident in what I believe now.

Which brings me to the point of this post: what even is belief? I know what I believe, which is why I’m not worried about the impending “excommunication.” I am confident that my family and I are on the right side.

I know what I believe — but what exactly is this action of believing, and how do we do it, and how do we know we’re doing it. My own answer to this question feels murky to me, so perhaps writing this little post will help me clarify it for myself.

I became Catholic in 2014, for reasons that were entirely intellectual. It was evident that I needed a religion; Catholicism was a logically watertight system, and seemed superior to all of the others for numerous reasons, so I went with that.

At first I was worried that I didn’t actually “believe” all the things the Church taught. This felt like an obstacle to conversion. But then I learned that “belief” is not just some feeling you have inside. It’s a choice. I could choose to believe. As long as I was willing and did my best to walk the walk, that was enough. That was groundbreaking!

Well for ten years I tried to walk the walk, but something about church never clicked for me. I felt uninspired — something about the NO world felt, in some hard-to-articulate way, shallow and fakey. Too normal. Too worldly. In that environment, I actually sometimes felt embarrassed for trying to take Catholicism seriously, like I had the strong sense that a priest would laugh and roll his eyes at me if I asked him a question about sin or doctrine, or asked him to make time to hear confession; like my fellow parishioners would laugh at me for wanting to wear a veil or kneel for Communion. I felt malnourished.

Until I found the SSPX.

On some level, I knew immediately that they were right about things. That this was real Catholicism. This was serious. These priests, I trusted their advice, I trusted them with the welfare of my eternal soul. I felt inspired! I felt spiritually fed. — But of course, I couldn’t trust that feeling, could I? Because belief is not just a feeling, I knew that! Belief is a behavior. It’s a choice.

So, I had to figure out what to choose.

Thus began the over-intellectualizing, the agonizing. For a while there, I even considered Orthodoxy, and the path before me forked off in not two but three directions. Each side, I found, had many intelligent people arguing in its favor. Each side could be described as “a logically watertight system.” So how on earth was I to decide?!

What it came down to, even before I was able to admit that that’s what it was, was: intuition. Just some feeling inside. Even though Orthodoxy seemed sound, it just wasn’t right for me, a white American; the arguments could go on forever (and indeed have been going on for a thousand years now), but the arguments in favor of Catholicism were, I decided, good enough for me. When it came to choosing between the NO and the SSPX, that took a bit more time. And what ended up swaying me, even before I’d made sense of the logical “why”, was: intuition.

And no, it’s not just about the “vibes.” I know a lot of modernists like to accuse RadTrads of doing what we do just for the vibes, because we like the aesthetic and enjoy LARPing the 1950s (actually, these accusers are even further off than they realize: if anything, it’s the 1850s these Trads are LARPing, lol). I can’t speak for everyone, but for me personally, I don’t care that much about historical reenactment. I’m no crunchy mom; I like modern medicine, Tylenol, rap and hip-hop, vaccines, TV, grocery shopping, alt fashion, tofu, the internet, and all kinds of modern conveniences. I live decidedly in the present day. But what the SSPX offers — not just their “aesthetic,” but the actual substance of Tradition that underlies and informs that — is timeless.

“You’re just boasting about how stupid you are,” you may be arguing: “you couldn’t understand the texts, so you lazily went with the place that ‘felt’ cooler, and now you’re romanticizing your own stupidity, calling it ‘intuition.’” You know, I’d be lying if I said this never worried me! I’m not that brainy; I simply do not care to pore over a jillion Vatican documents and dry old encyclicals and big thick tomes of nonfiction. Maybe if I forced myself to do all that…

But here’s the thing: I don’t believe that God requires that of us. I don’t believe He is hiding the truth behind some kind of intellectual paywall. He’s not a 400-level professor who’s going to assign a bunch of heavy reading and only award Heaven to A+ students who read the most books. Simple folks like me can find the truth too, even with the aid of intuition.

Which is obviously not to say that intellect is useless! The right Church does need to be logically watertight. They do need to teach things that are edifying and smart and challenging, and for that reason, priests do need to be disgustingly educated. Lay folks, however, do not. Lay folks like me, see, our job is to use our God-given faculties (including both reason and intuition) to know where to go to get our formation, and to be the best little lay folks we can.

Why did I need to overcomplicate things? I knew already, I feel it in my body when I’m in church: the SSPX teaches what I believe. It’s been a journey to get here. It’s taken me all these years to accept that belief actually maybe is, in part anyway, just some feeling that you have inside.

I think it’s got to be both, actually; for me, it can’t be one without the other. I can’t assent with my brain unless I feel it in my body too, and don’t get the feeling in my body unless my brain agrees with what’s being said. But the feeling in your body — it does matter, after all, which was news to me, a very cerebral person by nature.

So maybe belief is like a “whole person” experience, more real and tangible than I formerly thought.

All I know is, from both study and empirical/lived evidence, I believe the SSPX is right. It feels so good to be able to say, with confidence, that the place where I go to church really represents what I believe (even if I don’t always feel like I fit in well with the lay Trad community, socially speaking, as my readers very well know). It’s not just a placeholder or a franchise of some big organization. It’s real.

Which is why I’m not bothered by the impending “excommunication.” It’s sad, sure — devastating even — this is not how I hoped things would go, and I’m sad that the Church is splintering, and selfishly sad that I had to live during the crisis.

However, I’m not disturbed. I’m not rethinking my decision from a couple years ago.

Which is actually significant, because normally I’m extremely thin-skinned and highly susceptible to peer pressure; normally, hearing a bunch of people talk shit about something I agree with, would bother me deeply, or possibly even start to make me disagree with that thing. But not this. I see so much anti-SSPX noise online and it just makes me feel… kinda sad for the people who believe all that. And grateful to have found a safe haven where I can rest and tune out the noise. There’s so much peace to be found when you finally realize what you really believe, and can have confidence in that!

But so this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Is all of this to say that there is a subjective element to the truth? That it’s not 100% objective? — I don’t think so, and don’t want to be accidentally heretical or anything here, and am certainly not equipped to talk about this anyway; but it just makes you wonder. I guess “believe” is different from “know” for that reason; it’s a different action, and probably does involve more subjectivity, or something.

Anyway, I’m praying tonight for the new bishops and for the healing of the Church. I hope you are too.
Leave Big Families Alone

June 28th, 2026

When you’re married, it seems like everyone in the world wants you to have exactly two kids: one boy, one girl. No more, no less. You announce your first, and everyone is thrilled! “Oh goody! Oh hurray! You’re going to be parents! Babies are so wonderful!” Then: “When is the next one coming? I hope it’s a [whichever gender you didn’t have the first time] this time!” (And if it’s the same: “oof, I’m so sorry, what a bummer!”) Then, you announce a third, and people start to give you funny looks, raised eyebrows. Like: “on purpose?” “but why though?” God forbid you have a fourth or more. People, even strangers, seem to take that really personally.

My husband and I, we have four kids, the oldest being six, the youngest being almost a year old. And people around us are always telling us how much they love our kids. “They’re so wonderful! They’re the best kids!” (Which they are.) “You’re such good parents! You’re doing so great!” (Which I hope we are.) But then, practically in the same breath, with feverish urgency: “you’re done, right? You’re not having anymore? You’re getting a vasectomy, right?”

Good grief. Get your story straight, people.

For one, stop asking about the state of my husband’s/my reproductive organs and whether we plan to mutilate them. That’s no one’s business but ours, and why are you so obsessed about them anyway — gross. And for two: does you like our family or does you don’t? ‘Cause you’re sending pretty mixed signals.

(This hypocrisy annoys me almost as much as people who offer condolences & sympathy when you have a miscarriage, but then in the same breath are pro-choice. Did a human being die, or did one not? Did that baby’s life matter, or did it not? SMFH. Get your story straight.)

“But Mith,” you might argue, “of course we like your kids and your family. That’s precisely why we don’t want you to have anymore kids. Because the ones you have are so great that they deserve your full attention and all the nicest things you can afford for them. We don’t want them to have to sacrifice. And plus, having that many kids would be too hard, you’d be unhappy, and we want you to be happy.”

I’ll cut the snark now. This is valid. Let’s not be radical. You may not agree, but I actually think I’m pretty moderate on this whole issue. If you have a legitimate reason to believe that having additional kids would put a family in a bad state — like, maybe the family is homeless or on the literal verge of homelessness, or maybe one of the parents is struggling with active addiction, or maybe there’s a debilitating genetic condition that they’re likely to pass on, or maybe the mom suffers from serious postpartum depression — those are valid reasons for the parents to avoid future pregnancies. (Still not valid reasons for you to ask them about their private parts though — come on now.)

But. If it’s just that you see the way they’re living and you personally wouldn’t want to live like that: stop projecting. Besides. You just said a minute ago that our kids seem so happy and well-adjusted, now you’re saying they’re disadvantaged and doomed to a life of abject misery? Which one is it?

Yes, there are valid reasons for a couple to avoid having kids. You not agreeing with their lifestyle choices is not one of them.

“We love you and want you to be happy, that’s why we want you to stop.” With this argument, you’re projecting your personal idea of “happiness” onto someone else’s situation. Just because you wouldn’t want to live like them doesn’t mean they’re doing something wrong.

“But it is wrong for them to put their existing kids in a situation where –“

Where what? Where they have to make some sacrifices? Where they don’t get to have every single material item they’ll ever desire? Oh, the horror! I also don’t get to buy every little thing that I want — may as well go kill myself immediately, because this is no life worth living!

Ahem. I said I’d cut the snark.

“But we love you and we don’t want to see you struggle.” Thanks, but isn’t struggling to some extent a part of the human condition? It just doesn’t seem to me like avoiding financial/material discomfort is a compelling enough reason to avoid what is basically the greatest thing a human can do: co-create a new human life. Because human life is a really good and cool thing. Even when it involves some discomfort.

I get that the people who make the “we don’t want to see you struggle” arguments are coming from a place of love.

But it’s also a place of fear, isn’t it? And I get that too. The two unfortunately tend to come hand-in-hand. I love my kids so much that I’m plagued by constant fear that something bad will happen to them. The fear is intense.

But you can’t let it rule you. You can’t let fear govern your every decision. If your objective is always “avoid discomfort and stay safe at all costs” — you’re going to have a bad time and an empty life.

Like, I have driving anxiety, and am constantly petrified of car accidents, especially when my kids are in the car — I never for a moment am able to forget how their risk of death or catastrophic injury skyrockets every time I put them in the car, and how I have zero control over other drivers. But if I let this fear govern me, if I opted for “safety at all costs,” I’d never take them anywhere — to friends, to lessons, to church — we’d just sit at home. And what kind of a life would that be?

You can’t just make major decisions out of a desire to avoid all discomfort. Being a parent at all means inviting a certain amount of sorrow, pain, struggle, and sacrifice, and accepting that those are part of life now.

“We just want you to be happy.” — Again, thanks, but for some of us, the “happiness” that we’re striving for isn’t about peace in this world. Not that I’m like super holy or anything. That’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s just for me personally, the good of a human life outweighs a bit of material discomfort.

“Easy for you to say now while your kids are little. Wait until they’re older and your house is crowded and they all want the bathroom at the same time and they resent you.” You know what: valid. I do worry about this. I do worry that my kids will resent me, for this or any other reason. I worry all the time about their mental health as adults, and do all I can to try to protect them and fortify them.

But, I also try not to make important decisions based off of fear of other people’s opinions — even people who are very important to me. I would like for my kids to like me, and I hope they do — but that is, to some degree, outside of my control. All I can do is my best. Life decisions need to be informed by my conscience and what I believe God’s will to be.

And I need to try to raise my kids to not care so much about this world, to not be so hung up on their physical circumstances in this life. Because this is not all there is. I need to keep in mind that I’m raising souls for eternity.

.

This whole idea of controlling how many kids we have, as if kids are not unequivocally a good thing to have, is, if I’m not mistaken, a pretty modern innovation. Even a great many couples who for religious reasons don’t use birth control are infected by it — this idea of “should we be open to life or should we not?” I think a more appropriate, sane, and healthy approach to the whole question is a respect and awe for the mystery of life, and gratitude for it.

So I guess if you believe that this life is all there is, then sure, I can understand your concern. But that POV just frustrates me so much — again, the hypocrisy. People rarely seem to think it through. People rarely seem to take it to its logical conclusion. If you really believe this life is all there is, then sure, why have kids — why do anything at all! Philosophically, I have more respect for those nihilists who say extreme stuff like “humans are actually morally obligated to commit suicide” than for people who just float through life trying to enjoy it as much as they can until they die.

But that’s just me. To each their own, right? Isn’t that the creed that y’all secularists claim to live by? I apparently can’t cut the snark, sorry. Unless you’re my husband, my parish priest, or my medical doctor, please leave me alone about how many kids I have. That is all.
#11: “The Violent Bear It Away” by Flannery O’Connor

June 25th, 2026

Contains Spoilers

I’m embarrassed to admit that this is the first thing I’ve read by Flannery O’Connor. 🫣 (Well, I have a vague impression that I might have been made to read one of her short stories once, in English class many ages ago — but if so I have no memory of it.) Downright shameful that I hadn’t read her before, not only because I’m a Catholic and 36 years old and someone who claims to love reading and writing — but also because, as those of you who know me IRL are aware, I have a certain personal connection to her life. So, for many years now I’ve been like “I really should read Flannery O’Connor one of these days!” and for many years now I simply haven’t. Until now.

Of her works, I wanted to start with this one, because I prefer novels to short stories, so that narrowed my options down to two; and between this one and Wise Blood, this one seemed more highly-acclaimed. Also I just like the title. I think of this Bible verse often:

This will not be any kind of intelligent analysis or proper “review” of the book, so if you’re looking for an essay worth talking about in your English class, please go elsewhere. No, as ever, this will simply be my little impressions and silly personal thoughts about the book, because I like to think of you, my imaginary reader, as a friend that I can just chat with, without pressure or expectations. So, if you’ve read this book, please feel free to chime in in the comments, because I want to hear your thoughts too.

Here are mine, although they’re probably not worth reading, because I am not anywhere near smart enough to have understood this book. I probably shouldn’t even bother trying to say anything about it. But maybe some of you will find it mildly entertaining to read one dimwit’s reactions to this literary masterpiece, the same way it’d be kind of entertaining to watch an average Joe try to compete alongside the actual world-class athletes in the Olympics. (Or, to use a baking show analogy: the way the show Nailed It! is entertaining.) I invite you to have a laugh at my expense.

Well, I was surprised by how enjoyable this book actually was to read. I think part of the reason I’ve been avoiding Flannery O’Connor is because she’s so, well, serious. So heavy. Such gravitas attached to her name. Was I up for it? Was this a good time? No, not today, not today. I finally decided to just do it, since I’m on a roll here with this Rediscovering Reading venture. And this book was surprisingly really fun and gripping, like, you’ll want to stay up late reading it. (Yes, you can tell I’m no great scholar; I like for a novel to be fun.)

The second thing that surprised me: and this is where my lack of understanding really exposes itself: if I had read this book without knowing anything its author, I never would have guessed that she was a Catholic. Everyone talks about how Flannery O’Connor is “A Great Catholic Writer,” but like where in this book do we see Catholicism? She wrote Rayber’s thoughts, feelings, and contempt of religion so convincingly, so sympathetically, that I almost at times was like: “is she actually an atheist/humanist herself?” But no, you can see the author’s faith shining through from underneath. The story is very much informed by belief in God. That much is clear, and it’s very thought-provoking. I just fail to see what makes it “Catholic” specifically.

The third thing that surprised me: I was not expecting there to be SA in this book, damn. That caught me off-guard! At first I was like: “did that really just happen?” and after finishing the book I had to Google it to make sure I’d read that right. I unfortunately did. I don’t know why that surprised me, considering she’d already shown us attempted murder and then actual murder, so it was hardly sunshine and rainbows up to this point. And it wouldn’t have been so shocking in a contemporary novel, but here, in this context, it was just really unexpected, which made it all even more dark and grisly.

But of course that scene wasn’t just there to be dark and grisly. There was all this symbolism going on — dense as I am, it didn’t elude me that Young Tarwater’s “friend” is the devil, and the stranger in the car who drugs him does seem to have a lot in common with that “friend.” Something about the violence done to him here is supposed to be symbolic, but exactly how — that much did elude me.

Another thing that, well, didn’t quite elude me, but made me wonder: what was the hunger/thirst thing about? I guess that Young Tarwater was unable to eat food despite being so hungry because his hunger/thirst was for the eternal Bread of Life, and he had to face that? Was that why the food that his great-uncle had fed him was satisfying but no “worldly” food or drink was? He had to accept the fate that he’d been avoiding?

We also see this avoidance of God in the schoolteacher, Rayber. He talks about this terrifying love that sneaks up on him sometimes and which he doesn’t like to look at or acknowledge; it’s frequently triggered by his son Bishop, but also, Bishop is like the only thing that keeps it at bay, because in Bishop it has a tangible form and a location, but if Bishop were not there, he’d have to confront it all around him — he’d have to face the staggering and terrible beauty of life as a human being? Am I reading that right? I found this a bit baffling because it was so unrelatable. I’ve never felt any kind of persistent, overwhelming, terrifying, nameless multidirectional love (except maybe back in my drinking days, lol). I wish I did because that seems very obviously like an acute awareness of God’s presence — something I honestly don’t have too often. I guess maybe we’re supposed to see that it’s true, that Rayber has the prophet blood in him. You have to wonder what will happen to him now that Bishop is gone. I guess he’ll have to finally confront it.

And I couldn’t help thinking at the end, even in the midst of the burning bush and the Voice of God and all, about the boring logistics: Rayber still, legally, owns this land, right? Do you think he’ll come back to it? Will he and Young Tarwater join forces? (It was interesting how, once he was away from him, YT started to think Rayber wasn’t all bad…) Or will YT really just live here alone until he manages to somehow rebuild the house, just out in the wilderness like some actual John the Baptist?

No need to point out how great Flannery O’Connor’s prose is. She’s obviously a genius at things like metaphor and describing the environment, both external (the silence was corrugated by the trucker’s snores… the column of puke into the lake… Old Tarwater’s fish eyes…) and internal (“He saw with perfect clarity that the only feeling he had for this boy was hate,” “He was not deceived that this was a whole or a full life…”) — just so many lines like that, that make you go “how does anyone think of these things? How would she even know to say that?”

I think the most interesting thing for me was Rayber’s relationship with Bishop. It’s plain that he loves him (that scene where he strokes his ear absentmindedly and then recoils once he catches himself doing it) but I mean also he tried to drown him, so. Is it just that he’s that afraid of a love that knows neither limits nor rationality nor logic? Is the message that to avoid God is to avoid all love and even forfeit life itself? Or what was going on there?

Overall, this is a 10/10 for stretching my feeble brain and giving it a good workout while also satisfying my hunger for delicious prose, for smart, thoughtful writing that’s also fun as heck and hard to put down. If you haven’t read it yet, you should go do that and then come back here and chat with me about it.
How The Hell Do I Feed These Kids

June 20th, 2026

That’s not a rhetorical question. And no, this is not going to be a post about the price of groceries, although that is of course also an issue worth complaining about.

No, in this post I am wondering about how, i.e. in what way, according to which method, I am actually supposed to feed my kids. How, in 2026 America, am I supposed to feed them in such a way that they are healthy and full, eat a good variety of real foods, and form a healthy relationship with food that won’t require years of therapy to repair later on?

If you’re sitting here reading this going “what a dumb question!”, “but it’s obvious!”, “just do xyz!”, then you are not the target audience of this post; this post is not for you; congrats on being a superior parent and human; here, take your gold star and cookie and move along: ⭐️🍪

For those of you still here: ah, I’ve found my people. Now, let’s brainstorm this together. Because there is so much conflicting advice out there. And I am about to lose my ever-loving mind trying to figure out how the hell to feed these kids.

A bit about me and my situation: I have four kids, ages 6, 4.5, 3, and 11 months. The 11-month-old is a baby so he’s easy enough. The other three, though — I’m at my wit’s end, currently.

I feel like things were pretty stable before I got pregnant with my youngest. Meal planning was still a pain in the ass, because my husband and I have different tastes and the kids have different tastes so it’s like I have to make three grocery lists and plan three sets of meals. But I remember back then there was at least some semblance of order, to mealtime; a vague nod in the general direction of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

But then, with the all-day first trimester nausea, I lost control and it was all I could do to survive and keep everyone fed; the nausea lasted up until nearly twenty weeks, and by the time things felt under control in the house again, I was late third trimester, and then had a newborn, and things became more chaotic than ever.

Now my baby is almost one and I still haven’t been able to get the kids’ meal situation under control. It’s just chaos. There is no “mealtime.” There is no breakfast, lunch, or dinner anymore. There is no table, there is no chairs. There is only snacks. From morning till night, everyone is constantly hungry, and everyone wants a snack. All I do all day every day is serve snacks. PBJs, crackers, berries, cheese, yogurt, chocolate milk. Those are the only things my kids like now. I try to keep it to two PBJs per kid per day, but sometimes it gets to three and they still want another. If I offer them anything home-cooked, even something benign and toddler-friendly like pizza or pasta, they take one look and declare that it’s “BWEH!” and refuse to touch it. PBJs. There are bits of snacks all over the house, pulverized Goldfish and half PBJs, because even though they are starving they rarely seem to actually eat. How the hell do I feed these kids.

I’m so torn, constantly, between “let kids be kids! Make happy memories!” and “raise them to be healthy, responsible adults, even if it’s hard.”

The former philosophy is the one I was raised on. I was a picky eater, and my mom didn’t fight me on it — she just accommodated me. I ate a lot of Chef Boyardee, Kid Cuisines, and Lunchables, when I was little, without shame. My family didn’t eat meals together except on holidays, and there was no strict schedule; I was pretty much fed what I wanted, when I wanted, with some limitations (like chocolate only after the meal). However, as you all know, I haven’t had a good relationship with food & eating, as an adult — quite the contrary — so, do I really want to replicate what my parents did? Clearly, something about that didn’t work!

The latter philosophy — the more strict approach — is the one that my peers, my fellow TradCath moms, seem to endorse. The old-fashioned way. “Picky eating is such a uniquely modern American problem! Up until recently, kids have always eaten what their families ate and it hasn’t been an issue. Just serve them real food, and not that highly-processed junk, from the very start! If it’s not an option they won’t ask for it!” — sounds so simple, right? But I think most of us real moms know it’s actually not that simple. Things happen. Convenience foods enter the household one way or another. And soon they’re the only thing your kid wants.

And that’s when you find yourself in my shoes. What do you do now?

I’ve tried taking away all the convenience foods. “We simply do not have any more PBJs or yogurt tubes. You’re going to have to eat the stir fry.” — that never goes well! Even if I make sure to serve it with something “safe,” like plain rice, as the experts advise! The kids don’t eat, the food goes in the garbage (waste of my time and money), and then they are hangry and life is hell for all of us.

“Just wait it out,” my inner critic scolds me. “You have to be patient. If you cave and give them junk, they’ll learn they’ll get junk food if they just refuse dinner and tantrum enough. If you wait it out, they have to eat eventually.” This seems awfully harsh to me. I remember being a kid; I remember how it felt, how repulsive certain foods were. The prospect of putting certain things in my mouth was so abhorrent. It’d be torture. Call me a softie, but I don’t want to torture my kids. Also, my kids are monsters when they’re starving, and I prefer for us to enjoy our life. Is that a moral failing?

Then there’s the middle ground advice. “Just keep exposing them to new foods! Just keep it drama free and don’t make it stressful! That’s how they’ll build positive associations with healthy foods.” — First of all, any advice that starts with “just” is surely BS, because nothing in parenting is “just xyz” — it’s hard. And furthermore: in practice, this advice is basically saying I need to serve two dinners, making things even more complicated than they already are. The “exposure” food, for them to just look at and “be exposed to,” and then the food they’ll actually eat (i.e. PBJ). Great, thanks for that. Real helpful. Waste of my time and money again. I may as well just show them pictures of food in a book if that’s how we’re gonna do it.

There’s been times over the last couple years when I run out of energy to stress about this whole food question, when I just say “fuck it” and stock up the fridge with GoGurt and string cheese and frozen nugs and let them eat what they want at whatever time — as long as they’re ingesting food and in a good mood, that’s a win! Sometimes I wonder if this is really the best strategy! Maybe it’s okay to prioritize our sanity! Maybe I need to get over the mom guilt, take the pressure off, stop comparing myself to other moms, and just let my kids be kids! Isn’t this the best way to avoid giving them an eating disorder? To keep food fun and low-pressure?

I sometimes start to think yes — but then I see these other moms, like the moms in my church mom groups, whose kids (the same ages as mine, or younger) are such good eaters. They never eat junk. These toddlers are chowing down on green salad, homemade kefir, baked fish, homemade sourdough crackers. “How do you do it!!” I ask my fellow moms. Their reply: they don’t offer junk, they are consistent about mealtimes, they don’t allow constant grazing. Basically: the “strict” tactic I mentioned above. And their kids are so much better-behaved than mine! Surely, they must be doing it right.

So I crack down again. “We have no more yogurt tubes.” “We’re not doing Goldfish in bed anymore. You will eat your dinner at the table.” — and once again, life becomes hell in my house! And the vicious cycle of guilt and misery and wasted time and money rolls on.

I wouldn’t say that feeding kids is the hardest part of parenting. The hardest part of parenting, for me, is the anxiety, the staggering responsibility, knowing that you are responsible not just for their safety, health, and happiness here on Earth, but in large part for their eternal salvation or damnation. It’s almost too much to think about. — The second hardest part is the socializing. As someone with AVPD, I hate socializing, but I force myself to do it, to attend play dates and play groups and parties and classes, so that the kids can have social experiences. The third hardest part of parenting, though: the third hardest part is the feeding. Undoubtedly the feeding. Harder even than the lost sleep, the lost free time, the messes, the potty training, and the financial costs — the feeding. Is it just me? How the hell do I feed these kids.

“Just model good eating yourself!” Maybe that is the secret. Eating as a family is hard for me to do. Because of the ED stuff and my weird control issues around food. Also, because of my upbringing, sitting around a table for family meals just feels weird and uncomfortable for me — always has. And my kids hate sitting at the table anyway, and whenever they eat are constantly asking me to bring them stuff — a napkin, some water, some ketchup, a clean spoon because they dropped theirs — so I wouldn’t really get to sit down anyway, even if I wanted to. So usually I don’t even try. I eat later, once the kids are in bed — the same way my parents used to do when I was a kid. If my kids see me eating, it’s normally like a string cheese or a square of candy or a cup of juice, on the go.

“Well no wonder, then,” you’re probably saying. “They’re eating exactly as you do.”

Ugh.

But once again I ask: is it such a moral failing for me to want to make life somewhat easier for all of us? Are my kids really suffering, am I giving them some great disadvantage in life, because I don’t like to sit down and eat lunch at a table myself? Is it that weird and bad for parents and kids to eat separately? Am I really setting them up for an ED by not actively eating meals in front of them three times a day? (I cannot stomach the thought of sitting down and eating three meals a day, ugh!) Am I making excuses? — Maybe my answer is buried somewhere in this paragraph and I’m just avoiding it. — or, more likely, I could sit with my kids at table three times a day and serve us home-cooked food and they’d still refuse to eat anything but PBJs. Probably the ED isn’t caused by family meals or the lack thereof, but by other factors and influences.

Do any of you have any firsthand experience to share? Can anyone commiserate? Does anyone have advice that’s not just a condescending “just do xyz”? How do we feed these kids? Comments are open!
#10: “Fever Dream” by Samantha Schweblin

June 18th, 2026

Have any of you read this one? It’s a short (183 page) little horror novel, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell. I had never heard of it before today, when I grabbed it at my local library because it was on a little display they’d set up of horse-themed novels. “HORSES,” read the little laminated sign, and immediately my inner horse girl was awoken like a sleeper agent, and I made a beeline to the shelf and was tempted to scoop up all six or eight novels there, but I was holding my baby on one arm and a giant sack of kid’s books on the other, and my three little kids were scrambling around making trouble as usual, so I had to just quickly grab the first one that caught my interest. And here it is:

I was really hopeful for this one because in addition to horses, I also love a good psychological horror story — and this one was shortlisted for the Booker prize, so it was sure to be good!

Thing is though, as fun as it was (because yes indeed, I did manage to read it in one day, in stolen moments, and if I hadn’t had work to do, could have read it in a single sitting; it really does go that fast)… I’m a bit disappointed.

First of all, and this is nothing wrong with the story, but rather my library’s fault: it’s kind of a stretch to call this one “horse-themed.” Yes there are horses in it, but they don’t do much. They’re just kind of mentioned a few times.

Second of all, and more importantly: the ending just kinda fell flat for me. It felt pretty anticlimactic. Probably I’m just too dumb for the book. After finishing it, I was like: “that was it? Did I miss something? Where was the big creepy reveal?” So I looked up some reviews and discussions online, and apparently I didn’t miss anything, it’s just a very straightforward little story.

There’s nothing even slightly supernatural — and I don’t even need supernatural elements tbh, like for me most mainstream supernatural horror is way over the top; but when I’m promised a “ghost story,” I do hope to have at least something unexplainable or spooky or left up to the imagination! This story was entirely natural and explainable (well, to be fair, I guess it’s left up to us to wonder whether what the green house lady did was real or if it was just the lasting effects of the boy’s illness).

The only thing that made this feel like a “ghost story” was the hallucinatory, fever dream style of the narration. Which was very effective. But I dunno, I kept hoping for something that would make me gasp and go “Oh, shit! It all makes sense now!” but that just never came. The story just kind of rolled along until it stopped.

But like I said, I’m probably just too dumb for it.

Or too sad. Another discussion pointed out that the book is actually more sad than scary. And I have to agree. It’s called a “horror,” but it’s really more of a tragedy. And a tragedy was the last thing I needed in my life today. So, yeah, a bit disappointed.

I mean, climate fiction… that’s the big surprise? Reminds me a lot of the “twist” in M. Knight Shyamalan’s The Happening, which was simiarly unsatisfying for me. It’s disappointingly, upsettingly realistic, I guess. I was hoping for something a little more escapist. Shoulda known escapism wouldn’t be shortlisted for a Booker prize. You’ve got to be socially aware to make that list.

Don’t get me wrong though, Fever Dream is an amazing little book and really holds your interest. And it is creepy. There were parts that were so suspenseful I almost couldn’t stand it, like where David is going this is it, this is the important part, and you’re just watching and waiting for something climactic to happen. His rushed, italicized interrogation really did add to the suspense.

And a lot of the discussions and reviews online are talking about how relatable it is for moms: this idea of a “rescue distance” (which, if I’m not mistaken, is the original title in Spanish; I kinda wish they’d kept this title in translation!): the constant awareness that we moms have of how far away your kid is, where they are, what they are doing, how long it’d take you to get to them in an emergency… like an invisible rope from your stomach connecting you to them (an umbilical cord, one might say). The way it pulls taut and shortens or ties in knots when something scary happens or you don’t know where they are. Those moments are indeed extremely relatable and well-written. And in the end make the story that much sadder.

Overall, I do recommend this book if you are someone who’s smart and socially aware — but I do not recommend this book if you’re looking for a satisfying, mysterious ghost story, or if you’re someone who doesn’t like being made to feel sad.
Snow globes: revisiting my ridiculous 20-year-old novel, & wondering what (if anything) we can learn from our former selves

June 16th, 2026

Do you guys ever look back at your old stories you’ve written? How’s that typically go, for you?

At this time twenty years ago — spring/summer 2006 — I was sixteen years old, and spending my every spare moment on this old desktop PC in the corner of my room, writing this massively-long and pointless novel while listening to AFI’s freshly-dropped “Decemberunderground” on my headphones. It was, without a doubt, one of the happiest and funnest times of my whole life.

Recently was the twentieth anniversary of “Decemberunderground”‘s release (6/6/6, remember? Lol) and it occurred to me that it’s been exactly twenty years since that happy novel-writing time. So, for shits and giggles and old times’ sake and all, I decided to look back at that old novel, for the first time in a really long time. Looking at my old writing is always a bit risky, for me, because 99.9% of the time it’s so cringe it makes me physically ill and then I want to go fling myself off a roof. But, I guess I was feeling resilient, because I opened the doc anyway.

I just skimmed it though — I’m not about to read the whole thing. Because that sucker is, I kid you not, 210,682 words long. Good grief!

Oh, to have that much free time again, time to write 200k+ words! — but, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t just a surplus of time, that allowed me to write such a long novel. It was a lack of inhibition, and a pure, childlike joy that I don’t know how to get back.

Let me tell you about this thing. It is the story of a certain guy, with whom you’re probably familiar if you know me at all, when he was seventeen years old, going to crash with his friends for a period of four weeks during the summer. Basically, it just follows all their silly little random antics over this four-week period. There is a plot, but it’s very loose and understated — the book could easily have been a short story or novella, but it was crammed with so much filler, SO much filler, just loads and loads of filler that served no purpose at all other than to tickle me and make me (and my bff at the time) laugh. I literally just followed the characters every waking moment of their lives for four weeks and wrote down all their pointless conversations and everything.

That’s all it was. I wanted to just hangout with them, that summer, so that’s what I did.

Publishable? Hell no — not by any stretch of the imagination! Of value to anyone except me (and maybe my high school bff, who btw I added in both myself and her as characters, too, in true sixteen-year-old author fashion)? Hard no! Is it at least any “good” as a piece of writing, though? Absolutely not! It’s cringe AF! — and yet, there’s something about it that’s imo kind of better, kind of lovelier, than any fiction I’ve written since roughly college, when I started to become more “serious” and self-aware about writing.

Is it just me? I miss how much fun writing used to be. Oh don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun. That’s why I do it. It’s still the only thing that makes me forget to watch the clock. But it’s a different kind of fun now, a very self-aware fun. Always, it’s directed toward some invisible audience, some target reader; always, practicality is a priority: would anyone else like this? Is it publishable? What am I doing, what is the point of this? So what, so what, so what?

It didn’t used to be like that. At some point I lost the ability to write just for myself, the way I did twenty years ago. I guess that was when I stopped being a child. I lost the ability to play.

And the thing is, I don’t even really want to write like that anymore. It’s so selfish. It’s such a waste of time. It’s just titillation — it’s pointless.

But I kind of miss the days before I worried about such things.

It’s not like I wasn’t worried, at sixteen. It’s not like I was some happy-go-lucky carefree kid. I was properly angsty, actually, in the thick of all the ED stuff and afflicted with terrible social anxiety that made high school a nightmare — this though, this little (er, not so little) book, this was my escapism. Pure escapism! These days, there’s no escape quite like what this was for me at the time. I guess I’ve outgrown it.

I’m glad I don’t write like this anymore, but also, I kind of miss it. Still, when I hear “Decemberunderground,” or any of the other songs that were on my playlist then, I go right back to this stupid book, in my head, and the nostalgia is so sweet. I’m grateful to have built this world to go back to whenever I feel like it — but it’s a place frozen in time now. It’s like a snow globe. I can pick it up and gaze at it, but I’ll never live in it again.

Like many of us who write, I have a whole collection of these snow globes, a whole mental curio cabinet of them, which I love to pick up and play with from time to time, and I can’t help cherishing each of them in its own ways, even the hideously cringey ones; this one, though, this stupid thing from spring/summer ’06, will always be one of my favorites.

Without further ado, in case you’re curious, here’s an excerpt from that ridiculous novel — raw, unedited, completely un-retouched, just fresh out of my sixteen-year-old brain (and, of course, completely irrelevant to whatever there was of a “plot”):

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“You’re gonna die, Roger,” Pete said. It was Sunday morning. Roger had just awoken to the sound of Pete using the shower. Now, he was seated on the sofa, yawning. Pete emerged from the bathroom with his hair wet, wearing what had once been a pair of black pinstriped pants but had been cut off at the knees with scissors, the hem then re-fastened with duct tape.

“What?” Roger asked. He turned around slowly.

“You’re gonna get a whooping. Leslie’s mom is going to kick your ass.”

“Why?” Roger asked. He wasn’t all the way awake yet. It was especially difficult to imagine Mrs. Willoughby kicking his ass. Or anyone’s, for that matter.

“Look here,” Pete said. He had stopped in his tracks in front of the sliding glass door.

Roger pulled his lazy self up off the sofa and went to go check out the carpet. Because for some reason, Pete was pointing at the carpet. Roger had no idea what the problem could be. And then, he saw it. There was a trail of big reddish-brown boot prints, leading from the sliding glass door over to the armchair where Roger had collapsed last night. And that was where the culprits were lying- the two old, mud-caked work boots.

“Damn,” Roger said.

“Yeah. True dat.” Pete laughed, and stepped over the mud trail to get to his mass of posessions lying in the corner of the basement. “Way to go. Carpet, one. Roger, zero.”

“I can clean it up,” Roger said. Even though he knew nothing about cleaning things. That always aggravated Susan. He would spill a glass of orange juice on the kitchen floor, and she’d tell him to wipe it up, and after five minutes of wiping the juice had somehow expanded and was covering an even larger section of tile than before.

“Yeah. Of course you can,” Pete said. He was digging through his pile, presumably looking for a shirt, as he still didn’t have one on. He soon located one, a red t-shirt with some skateboarding logo unknown to Roger. The red clashed violently with the fuschia of Pete’s hair. It didn’t bother either of them, though.

Roger thought about the footprints, and what he would need to clean them up. Whenever he tracked mud on the floor in his house, Susan would pull out the Swiffer WetJet. But this was a carpet. He couldn’t Swiffer a carpet… or could he?

“Hey,” Pete said, “did we catch any of those mice?”

“I dunno,” Roger said. “Haven’t checked.”

“I’m gonna go do that.” Pete hopped over the pile of clothes, towards the nearest plastic box. The first one he reported as empty, except for the wad of Twinkie. While Roger investigated the mud prints, Pete walked over to the second mouse trap, and made an announcement: “Dude! We got him!” Pete laughed out loud in victory.

“Awesome,” Roger said. What he was thinking, though, was that he should probably just get some new shoes. As much as he hated that idea. Roger liked those shoes. He had gotten them in eighth or ninth grade, and they had been ridiculously large then. Now they were only kind of large, but they were perfectly adapted to his feet. He liked them. But he knew that there was probably mud caked into their soles, dried mud from God knows how long ago, that turned into instant carpet stainer when moistened. Not good, not at all, especially since Leslie’s basement had carpet.

“He’s still alive!” Pete exclaimed. “He’s moving around! Ha, ha, little bitch! What now, huh?”

“Let’s take him outside,” Roger said.

Pete scoffed. “Why?”

“I dunno. So he can, uh, run into the woods or whatever.”

“You’re such a hippie.”

They heard someone coming downstairs. And then they saw the slate blue Chucks descending the steps. It was Leslie.

“What are you guys doing?” Leslie asked. “I can hear you all over the house.”

“Yo, L-sizzle, we caught one!” Pete cried out, refusing to lower his voice.

Leslie blinked. His eyes narrowed a little.

“Where?” Leslie asked.

Pete pointed towards the corner from which he had retrieved the mouse trap. “Right there. Come see it.”

“Oh my God,” Leslie said, sounding exasperated, but coming over to look anyway. Roger joined them. He was curious to see if it was the same mouse that had so rudely awoken him yesterday.

It might have been the same mouse. It was difficult to tell. It was just a small, grey-brown mouse, cowering in the corner of the tight plastic box with its nose nestled beneath its belly. It was kind of pathetic. Roger was glad that they hadn’t bought the poison pellets.

“How did that get in my house?” Leslie wanted to know.

“I dunno. You tell me,” Pete said. “Let’s name it.”

Roger laughed. One minute Pete wanted to step on the mouse’s head, the next, he wanted to name it.

“Let’s not. Let’s just take it outside,” Leslie said. Leslie was still wearing his green-and-navy plaid pajama pants, with a black polo shirt. He glared at the mouse, like it had personally offended him by being in his basement.

“Yeah, that’s what Roger said,” Pete said dismissively. “What should we name it?”

“Frank,” Roger said. The mouse looked like a Frank to him. It was round and helpless.

“That’s a gay name,” Pete said.

“Don’t name it,” Leslie told them both.

“What do you want to name it, Leslie?” Pete asked. He held up the plastic mouse trap, and shoved it in front of Leslie’s nose. Leslie jumped backwards.

“I don’t,” he repeated. “Let’s just get rid of it.”

“Sam,” Roger said. He supposed Sam would suffice if the mouse couldn’t be named Frank.

“That’s double gay. Let’s name it… umm…”

“Mouse,” Leslie said.

“Burt,” Roger said.

“I say we name it Leslie,” said Pete. Suddenly he burst out laughing. “No, no, get this. Let’s name it Leslie Two. No! Leslie Two: The Return of Leslie,” he exclaimed, and sang three dramatically descending notes in a minor key.

“You suck,” Leslie said. But he was trying not to laugh. That was the closest Roger had seen him come to laughing in a long time.

“Why not? It looks just like you,” Pete said. “Doesn’t it, Roger?”

“Oh, yeah. Practically twins,” Roger agreed.

“That name’s too long anyway,” Leslie part one pointed out.

Pete decided that the mouse was to be referred to as ‘L-Two’ for short.

Since Leslie was sure that his family did not want a pet mouse, they held a releasing ceremony in the backyard. Pete called Bonnie’s cell phone and left a message about the mouse, so that Bonnie could be an honorary guest. It was a bleak, grey morning, still wet from the rain. Roger was barefoot. He didn’t want to get any more mud on his filthy old shoes. He could feel the bottoms of his jeans getting soaked from the grass as he followed Leslie and Pete out to the edge of the woods.

“…We’re in the backyard. We’re about to let him go,” Pete said into the phone. He was narrating the entire scene to Bonnie. “Roger’s gonna open the box. Right, Roger?”

“Right,” Roger said. “Hi Bonnie.”

Leslie crossed his arms and watched solemnly. Roger carefully pulled off the removable end of the trap, trying not to jostle L-2. The plastic box made a sharp popping noise when it opened.

“Did you hear that?” Pete asked Bonnie’s answering machine. “That’s the box opening. Here he goes.”

Roger knelt down so he was closer to the ground. The wetness on the grass was now soaking through to his knees. He tipped the plastic box over just a little bit, so that L-2 could slide out into the grass. There was a soft plop, and after a second, the little mouse had disappeared into the greenery.

“There he went. He’s gone,” Pete said. “Bye, L-2. Have a nice life. See ya, Bonnie.”

Pete hung up the cell phone, and they went back inside.

Leslie noticed the mud prints. Roger was surprised that Leslie wasn’t angry. Not only that, but Leslie even helped him clean it up, using some blue liquid in a squirt bottle, and a coarse scrubbing brush from the bathroom cabinet.

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#9: “Till We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis

June 15th, 2026

What a surprise to find myself here. I was not planning on reading this book.

For years now, I’ve kinda vaguely intended to read more C.S. Lewis — not having read anything by him since The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was forced upon me back in fifth grade, and bored me to tears — because, you know, being Catholic, you’re pretty much required to love C.S. Lewis (even though he was Anglican, not quite Catholic; he totally should have been Catholic). But I had no concrete plans to do so, because even though I love how quotable and brilliant Lewis is, I wasn’t sure if I’d like his fiction; that fifth grade experience had kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. And even if I had chosen to read him, this was not the book of his that I would have chosen. With very few exceptions, I’ve never cared for high fantasy.

But then, one night a couple weeks ago, my sister, who’s super smart and reads a ton of books (and also doesn’t typically read high fantasy), texted me at like 1AM to tell me that she’d just finished reading this book for the first time and was so amazed, she absolutely could not wait to talk to me about it! When I told her I had not read it before, she went and bought me a copy and had it overnight-delivered to my house so that I could read it. And here it is:

And here we are. I’m afraid I can’t say much of anything intelligent about this book, as I am not that intelligent. So if you’re looking for an insightful, enlightening essay about it, move along — there are plenty of those on the internet that you can go find. As ever on this blog, the only thing I can offer are my silly little impressions, opinions, and thoughts. And here they are:

As a non-fantasy reader: I loved this book! 5 stars. It only took about three or four pages for me to get past the “hmm, I dunno, this is pretty fantastical 🤨” and arrive at fully committed. And by about a third of the way through, it was un-put-downable. Pleasant surprise considering my former prejudice against C.S. Lewis’s novels. I actually loved being in the fantasy world he’s built. Glome is what the Greeks call a “barbarian” society, but by the end of the book we see it becoming more “civilized” and Greek-influenced, thanks to Queen Orual, who was of course educated by the Fox, a Greek.

Interestingly, it seems like the rationalization and “civilization” of this society — like, the way the new priest tidies up the House of Ungit and brings in a new, representational statue of a goddess, instead of the old giant rock — it’s heavily implied that these changes bring the society further away from the truth about the “Divine Nature.” Remove it further from the Truth.

One of the most interesting and impactful things, for me, was the constant association of the holy with the horrible. What’s Divine is mysterious, dark, bloody, stinking, grisly, terrifying, brutal — at once earthy and transcendental. Very real and present everywhere, instilling fear and awe. This ancient attitude toward religion is sorely lacking from modern-day American religion, which loves to portray Jesus and Mary as warm-and-fuzzy and friendly and “relatable.” Reading this book kind of reminds you what a healthy fear of God and awe of His ways should feel like. Even though the religion in the story is pagan, the truths in it are just as true in a Christian worldview and practice.

I’m pretty slow, but even I was able to pick up on the themes of self-deception, examination of conscience, penance, honesty with oneself — the symbolism of the veiling of her face, which reminded me also of U.H.I.D. in Infinite Jest (amiright?!) (someone smarter than me should really write a paper comparing/contrasting Orual & Joelle). So it’s rich in symbolism and metaphor and all without being heavy-handed. I appreciate that.

You all know I like delicious prose, and this is about as tasty as it gets. I love it so much I could almost literally take a bite out of it and ingest it (which is apt, considering how one of its major themes is that of the unsettling, visceral commonalities between loving and devouring — the Holy Eucharist, anyone?!). The phrasing is ancient-feeling and poetic, and you’ll discover lots of fun new vocab words.

It’s fun and accessible, but it’s definitely not what I’d call “light” or “pleasant” — this is certainly not in the “beach read” category. It’s sad, heartbreaking even, it’s upsetting, reflective, and very heavy — it will really make you meditate on your own moral blind spots, the sickness of your own soul, whether you can possibly be redeemed, and your own powerlessness to save yourself. Ya know, all that fun stuff! But it does all of this while being very sensorily rich and delicious and romantic and vivid.

There’s really not much I can add to the conversation about such a famous masterpiece, so before I go I’ll just show you one of my favorite passages. Everyone always talks about Orual’s last words at the end of Part Two, and rightfully so, but here’s a part that I think deserves to be quoted more. This is when Psyche and Orual are talking on the night before Psyche is to be Offered, and Psyche’s telling Orual that she’s actually kind of okay with it, because in a way she’s always kinda longed for death:

Our longing for eternity, they say, is itself proof of an eternal God, and this passage puts that in words so clearly! I dunno about you guys but reading this my brain was like YES because I never quite had the words for it but this feeling is so relatable: always, every moment of great happiness, every experience of beauty, is always colored with a certain sadness, because it’s ephemeral, it’s passing away even now, and it’s like you can’t really sink into it enough. It’s never real enough. “Somewhere else there must be more of it” — exactly! This is our longing for Heaven.

This passage really makes you meditate on how great Heaven must be — if you think back, for a moment, over every joy you’ve ever wished you could freeze and live in forever, or every beautiful thing you’ve ever seen and somehow longed to immerse yourself in more totally — every good thing that’s passing away, all of that longing will be satisfied in Heaven, forever! And more! Sometimes we get so caught up in worrying about avoiding damnation that we forget to meditate on the joy of Heaven (it’s me, I’m “we”). And it’s better, after all, to strive for the joy of union with God than to just try to dodge punishment. We shouldn’t just be content to spend a few millennia in purgatory because, oh well, at least we’ll eventually get to the lower tier of Heaven — we should want to be as close to God as we possibly can! We should want to be great saints.

So yeah, as grim and heavy as this book is, it’s also uplifting, and I daresay it will help you grow in sanctity if that’s something you’re working on. Even if you don’t care for fantasy, or religion for that matter, give it a try if you haven’t already. It’s the very definition of good fun.
The only thing I know about “success in life”

June 14th, 2026

Daily writing prompt
What’s your top tip to be successful in life?
View all responses

“Successful in life” — wow, I’m flattered — who do you think I am, WordPress Daily Prompts? Do I look like Elon Musk, or Saint Carlo Acutis, or Kardea Brown (my hero!), or, I dunno, Barack Obama, or any other modern-day example of what anyone’s definition of “success in life” might possibly look like? Me? I’m literally just some wannabe writer blogging on WordPress on my phone while nursing my baby in a recliner.

Although I’m a pretty happy person — happier, I daresay, than many of my peers — I can’t claim to know much about any kind of “success in life,” as I’m not super great at any particular thing, and am very far from holy, wealthy, good, or “high-achieving” by any definition of that term.

I guess if there’s one area of life in which I can maybe say a thing or two about “success,” it is: recovery, as in: recovery from alcoholism and EDs.

First of all, before I share with you what I believe to be “the secret to success” in recovery, I’ll tell you my credentials: the reasons why you should, well, I won’t say “believe” or “trust” my advice, because my advice might not even work for you; different things work for different people, in recovery, contrary to what some folks in Recoveryland like to loudly assert; just in order that you might see that I have a legitimate reason to say anything on the topic at all. Or at least to believe that I may.

My credentials: completely sober from alcohol since March 2019 without the aid of any particular program or rehab or methodology; was in A.A. for four years before that (since January of 2015), but with only spotty bouts of sobriety there. Prior to that, I drank addictively, or at least problematically, since 2007/08. So, that’s approximately twelve years of active addiction, and seven years sober.

And also: virtually fully “recovered” from anorexia & bulimia since the same time, March 2019 (not counting a period of relapse in late 2021), also without the aid of therapy or inpatient treatment or any particular technique.

Prior to that, I lived with some iteration of an eating disorder since 2004, when I was fourteen and first diagnosed with anorexia. In roughly 2011, when I started drinking more heavily, the anorexia evolved into bulimia (alcohol will do that to ya!). I’ll spare you all the gory details. Long story short, the entirety of my teens and twenties were one long and depressing battle, and during this time I pretty much never got periods, because of being constantly in starvation mode, so I was pretty sure I’d never have kids naturally.

But since approximately 2019 (unlike sobriety, it’s harder to pinpoint the exact date of recovery from EDs, because it’s less black-and-white), I’ve been at a pretty stable and normal size. I’ve managed to attain, and even accept, my “normal” weight — i.e., the weight that I am at when I’m living a happy life and not thinking about food constantly. Feeling safe around food, and tbh even bored by it. And! Best of all, I’ve had four kids, naturally, without the aid of any kind of reproductive technology.

So, that’s fifteen-seventeen years of living with an active ED, approximately five-seven years “recovered.”

So that’s the abridged version of my little story. It’s pretty undramatic, I guess — no hospitalizations or brushes with death or whatever — certainly they won’t be making any movies about me, lol. But still, I think it’s evident that I’ve achieved what could be called “success,” in this area.

How? What is the secret?

“The secret to success,” in my opinion at least, is this: and I wish someone had told it to me this plainly at the outset of my recovery: the secret is getting used to being uncomfortable.

You’re not going to feel magically different. You’re never going to be able to eat unself-consciously, without worry, like you did when you were a kid. Let go of that dream. You’re never going to feel great about yourself; socializing will always be hard; you will never like the way you look. Yes, you could say some things about your life are “ruined” or “broken” — you just have a new normal now. You will get used to it — and life will be good anyway!

I wish it had been put to me so plainly — I wasted so much time and energy chasing after this mirage of “learning to love myself,” “finding myself,” “overcoming,” “gaining freedom,” being “happy,” etc. etc. etc., all of it useless lies.

But I guess those ideas are what sell. You’re not going to inspire someone to quit drinking or quit starving themselves if you tell them “it’s true, you’ll never feel good in your own skin, you’re always going to be uncomfortable! You’ll never have a “normal” relationship with food, and you’ll never like the way you look! You just get used to it!” If that’s how you try to sell recovery, sick people will just shake their head and say “I’ll pass” and keep right on choosing sickness — I know I would have!

Maybe that’s why it was never told to me plainly. I guess you have to rosy it up a bit, to inspire people to want to get better. “Learn the art of intuitive eating!” “Practice affirmations of self-love!” “You’ll experience a total personality change as a result of working the Twelve Steps!” Lies! All lies! None of that ever happened, for me, no matter how desperately I wanted them or how hard I worked to engineer them. — But guess what! Life is good anyway!

“You just get used to being uncomfortable,” a fellow alcoholic said to me in A.A. once, and that might have been the single most useful thing anyone ever said to me in my four years in the program, more useful than anything in the actual literature. It’s so true. It’s so unglamorous. There’s no Lisa Frank-looking utopia at the end of the dark tunnel. The dark tunnel is what it is. This is it, you’re already there. Your eyes just adapt to the darkness. And pretty soon you find it’s alright. You have a good life there. You actually have evolved — just not in the fairytale way that you’d hoped to.

Don’t give up! The discomfort gets less agonizing as you adapt. It becomes like the snores of an annoying roommate rather than the shrieks of some homicidal stranger who’s broken into your house, threatening you. Things even out. Things become undramatic. Things that used to bowl you over just make you chuckle and shrug your shoulders now.

My legs are massive — yeah, I hate them, I never want to wear shorts. So what. I’m 36. I literally have better things to worry about now. My life is good and I am happy even though I hate my legs and refuse to go out in shorts.

I don’t like to eat in social situations. So what. They’ll tell you you aren’t really enjoying life unless you can cut loose and eat a spontaneous indulgent lunch with your friends at a restaurant, and order dessert — that is blatantly false. I don’t do that kind of thing, but I love my life and am happy. Accepting my limitations and adapting to them — that was the secret to success.

I have intense social anxiety and can’t make friends — still true. So I just… don’t go out or make friends. So what. Life is still good. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. I find other ways to scratch the social itch (hello, reader!). Am I lonely sometimes? In a way, sure, but it’s not world-ending. Life comes with little pains and sadnesses. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good life.

You get used to being uncomfortable. That’s the big secret. In a way, it’s actually a relief to know that. You don’t have to stress about attaining some mythical RECOVERED status. You don’t have to worry that you’re not recovered enough because you’re not happy enough, those layers of worry folding over and over on each other like puff pastry dough. When you accept that this is simply it, this is all there is, this darkness in the tunnel, then you can just… be, and accept that you are already doing it, you’re already there. You can start to get your footing there.

Now keep in mind I’m just one person and what works for me might not work for you. Or maybe you have actually attained some mythical Lisa Frank place of freedom and joy, in which case, wow! Congrats! I’m happy for you. But recovery is also available to those of us who for whatever reason can’t get there. Life is still good. You just have to really accept that it’s not going to be perfect. It’s actually so much better when you take it for what it is. Things are good now. I wish someone would have told me plainly.

Or maybe they tried. Maybe this is one that you really just have to figure out for yourself and put into your own words when you do.
TOP 10: Best & Worst Children’s Books

June 13th, 2026

That’s right, this shall be two TOP 10 lists in a single post! Hot diggity dog! Buckle up, readers.

I have four kids six and under, and we’re a pretty bookish family, so it follows that I read a lot of children’s books these days. Tbh I read more children’s books than adult books, anymore, and thus I’ve formed a lot of opinions about children’s books, over the past six years.

Some, I love dearly — it’s been a delight to rediscover some favorites from my own childhood with my kids, and to discover some new gems as well! It goes without saying that works such as Frog and Toad, the Magic School Bus series, anything by Beatrix Potter, and Mary Cicely Barker’s Flower Fairies are timeless classics. If I were to list every kid book that I love, this post would be way too long.

Others, though… others give me the ick. Some, for identifiable reasons, but others, just because something about the illustrations or the writing rubs me the wrong way. Nothing against the creators of these books; my hat is off to just about any writer/illustrator of children’s books! (I say “just about” because some of these are, imo, less respectable works than others.) Some of these just make me recoil and/or elicit a gross feeling inside, an aversion like that between twin magnetic poles, and I have to really grit my teeth and force my way through it when my kids ask me to read them these particular books.

I’m a “bad news first” type of person, so let’s begin with the icky. If you’re reading this and you happen to be the author or illustrator of one of these books: I’m sorry, I have nothing against you personally, and indeed have great respect for you for being a traditionally-published writer/artist at all — we all know how hard that is to achieve, especially in this day and age! My criticism is simply a matter of personal taste — and know that you wouldn’t have made it to this list at all if my kids didn’t adore your work and beg me to read it to them. Which was, after all, your goal, wasn’t it?

TOP 10: Children’s Books that Give Mith the Ick

14. Anything by Richard Scarry. I know, I know — this is a controversial opinion. His artwork is adorable and charming and all, I understand that. And so wholesome. There’s not a thing wrong with it. On paper, it ticks all my boxes — it seems like the kind of thing I would approve of. But something about his drawings gives me a chilly, queasy, unsettled feeling. Is it just me?

13. The Madeline books. Yup, call me crazy but I don’t like these either! The first one is a good little story with good rhyming — indeed, good enough to outweigh the icky artwork — but the sequels are dumb and contrived, the rhymes weak and cringey. And yeah, the art is majorly gross for me. I hate it the same way I hate 1930s-40s movies and music; Madeline looks the way croony 1940s music sounds on crackly vinyl. I realize it’s a masterpiece and all but it just doesn’t vibe with me!

12. Most things by Dr. Seuss. Another hot take! I say “most things” because there are a few stories of his that I love so much that it overrides my aversion to his art: namely, Daisy-Head Mayzie, The Sneetches, and of course The Lorax — but, for the most part, his illustration style just feels cold and creepy to me. Sterile, soulless, spooky. I hate his made-up animals, they make me nauseated. Dr. Seuss apparently moonlighted (moonlit?) as a painter of creepy, surreal works for adults, and if you look up his adult work, you can really see that this is where he pulls out all the stops and just lets his creepiness flow unrestrained. Horrifying stuff. There are few places I’d want to visit less than Dr. Seuss’s brain.

11. Ten Tiny Tickles by Karen Katz. Nothing against Ms. Katz, her work is cute and there’s nothing wrong with it, and I like her other books; I simply hate this little board book. Obnoxious AF. I can honestly not even stand to read it out loud. My kids loved it so much that I had to bury our copy deep in the basement.

10. The Froggy series by Jonathan London, illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz. Again, no offense to the author or illustrator! Objectively great children’s books, and highly successful. Just annoying to me. It’s all the “zip,” “zup,” “zing” sound effects and all the “Froooogggyyyyy!!” “Wha-aaa-aat?” dialogue — but it’s also the mouths. Ugh, the mouths. The characters’ mouths remind me of puppets, which you already know from this post give me the major ick.

9. The Olivia books by Ian Falconer. These books are actually kinda cute; I’m not sure why they irritate me so much, but they do.

8. The Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney. These rhymes are actually really solid. So what is it about Llama Llama that pisses me off? I think a large factor is the name. Why is he, as a llama, named “Llama Llama.” I get so sick of hearing that repeated a million times per book.

7. Anything by Sandra Boynton. No offense, Ms. Boynton! You’re so hugely popular that I’m sure one stupid little WordPress blogger’s silly little unsolicited opinion is just laughably meaningless to you, anyway. But man, those goofy dopey animals and their little songs are so irritating to me.

6. Anything by Mo Willems. I’m actually conflicted on this one, because my firstborn when she was a year old was gifted a copy of Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus, and she was obsessed with it — we read it so many times that she memorized it, it was one of the first books she ever memorized, and I have videos of her sitting in the glider chair in her nursery “reading” it to herself — the sweetest thing! However, I also find Mo Willems’s ultra-modern style of drawing and storytelling to be highly obnoxious, and even kind of depressing. There’s no beauty in these books, nothing uplifting or enchanting or good. It’s just brainrot for kids.

5. Anything by Aaron Blabey. Again, I’m emotionally conflicted here because my secondborn absolutely loves Thelma the Unicorn. Every time we go to the library, she wants to check out Thelma, and never gets bored of it; I should really just cave and buy a copy, but I hate to, because I friggen hate these books. They’re so vapid! Even the illustrations are like deliberately stupid. The original Thelma isn’t bad, although the rhymes are pretty lazy imo, but the second one is really weak and lame. But, hey, my four-year-old is the target audience, not me, and for her it’s a huge hit, so what does my opinion matter anyway.

4. The Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer. I hate that critter. I hate his face. All the other books on this list, I’ve begrudgingly allowed into my home at some point… but never these. Never these. The sight of that critter’s horrible face has always turned my stomach.

3. The Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy/Herman Parish. I liked these when I was a little kid, but now, as a mom, they drive me insane! I hate reading them out loud — why must they repeat her stupid name over and over like it’s some kind of joke?! I once counted how many times I had to say her name in a single book and it was like 80something. And as an adult, watching her destroy people’s homes and belongings, while acting all cutesy and helpless about it, is so triggering. And why is she always smiling as she does it?! If this woman ever came anywhere near my house I’d chase her off with a hose.

2. The KittyCorn books by Shannon Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. With all due respect to the author and illustrator, who after all have published multiple books while I have published zero: these books feel like an insult to my daughter’s intelligence. And damaging to it. KittyCorn is to little girls what pornography is to adults. The stories are highly simplistic, the artwork is silly and goofy, not beautiful — but it’s about a “KittyCorn,” so little girls are hypnotized, spellbound, and just absorb it. This is the high fructose corn syrup of kid lit. (Same way I feel about the junky chapter book series Mermicorn Island by Jason June. An insult! (My oldest is starting to read chapter books, so there are a few of those that I considered for this post, both bad and good; however, I decided to keep it to picture books. Maybe another day I’ll discuss chapter books & MG fiction.))

and to top it off:

1. The Pete the Cat series by Eric Litwin, James Dean, and Kimberly Dean. These books piss me off. I know the art is supposed to be “highly stylized” and “bold” and “modern” or whatever, but to me it is just upsettingly ugly; the plots and dialogue are senselessly stupid, like a painfully-mentally-handicapped person wrote them, and I cannot STAND the way the cat calls everything “groovy,” it smacks of the 1960s-70s which is a time period I generally loathe, an era defined by ugliness and degeneracy. I used to let my kids check out the Pete books anyway, because they liked them and all, but the last straw for me was in the Easter book when Pete the Cat tells the reader: “helping others is what Easter is all about!” — excuse me, sir? What did you just say?! Ugh! Worldly propaganda at its finest!

Now, moving on to the good! I really had to aggressively winnow this list to keep it relatively concise:

TOP 10: Mith-Approved Children’s Books

14. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, illustrated by Jill McElmurry. I haven’t read all the sequels, but the original is a class act: smart rhymes, tight storytelling, genuinely funny, inviting pictures, and a good moral message. Plus, my three-year-old always shrieks with laughter at the line “Goat jumped over the fence, of course” — every time, without fail, which makes it even more delightful to read aloud to the kids. This series absolutely deserves its success.

13. Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock by Eric Kimmel, illustrated by Janet Stevens. If you haven’t read this one, you should, even if you don’t have a kid to read it to. It’s adapted from an African folktale, and it’s clever and funny as heck. Plus the artwork is so lush and expressive, you can really get absorbed in each page; and the story is so well-told. It’s everything that a children’s book should be.

12. The Max and Ruby books by Rosemary Wells. Another series that 100% deserves its raging success! Everything about these books is sweet and sincere and lovely. Some of my personal favs: Max’s Bath (which made me laugh as a kid and still makes me laugh today) and Max’s Birthday, both of which are board books, and, in longer picture books: Bunny Cakes and Bunny Money. The TV adaptation I don’t really care for, but screen adaptations are never as good, are they.

11. Eloise by Kay Thompson, illustrated by Hilary Knight. How badly I wanted to be Eloise, when I was a kid! And tbh still kinda want to! What a dream life. This book is a brilliant work of art. Eloise’s world is so vivid, so real you can actually smell and hear it.

10. Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak. Everyone raves about Where the Wild Things Are, but I actually love this one way more. Maurice Sendak’s stuff is creepy in a good way, and this book exemplifies that. It’s eerie and chilling, but at the same time it’s wholesome, innocent fun for little kids — just as a fairytale should be. The illustrations are phenomenal, each page a work of art, and, as always, Sendak’s narration is beautiful poetry, just as engaging for adults as it is for kids.

9. Certain titles from Robert Munsch. I say “certain titles” because Munsch is very prolific and, tbh, I haven’t read anywhere near all of his books! But, The Paper Bag Princess and Mortimer are both 10/10 classics. And, of course, Love You Forever — although I actually hate reading that one, because it makes me too emotional. I think it might be the single most tear-jerky book ever written, at least if you’re a parent.

8. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett. No commentary needed! Iconic! We all know this one’s genius. It’s a perfect book. As you can imagine, I was furious when I found out they were making a movie adaptation… but to my pleasant surprise, I found that the movie (the first one, not the second) was actually really good too. It’s a completely different story from the book, just loosely inspired by the book really, which is partly why it was such a good adaptation. Book is still better, obviously.

7. The Golden Egg by A.J. Wood, illustrated by Maggie Kneen. If I could live inside one children’s book, it’d be this one. The pictures are just so lovely. Rhymes are just okay, imo, but the artwork more than makes up for it. I read this one to my kids over and over.

6,. Anything by Tomie dePaola. Catholic moms love Tomie dePaola, and I’m no exception! I especially love his book about Mary, the Mother of Jesus, but they’re all gems. Except The Clown of God. That one is way too sad, incredibly sad, and as I said above, I don’t like being made to feel sad.

5. Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat, illustrated by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey. As a child, I loved this story because it’s funny and unexpected. As a parent, I love it for several reasons; one being how hilariously relatable it is, if your kids, like mine, are picky eaters; but also because it’s actually really profound. The lesson of this book can apply to so many things in life, and I find myself thinking about it often, in all kinds of contexts. (Now, if you’re normal, you might not find this book so profound… but if, like me, you struggle to comprehend this concept of “moderation,” I highly recommend this as like a textbook.)

4. The Sheep and the Rowan Tree by Julia Butcher. A neat little “bloom where you are planted” story with stunning artwork — honestly, every page could be framed and hung on the wall. I love how it’s just slightly weird and bizarre, too — not your typical “bloom where you are planted” story. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.

3. The Giant Jam Sandwich by Janet Burroway and John Vernon Lord. Janet Burroway is actually a serious poet, not just a children’s book author, and it shows. This is a delectable, masterful little poem that also happens to be a hilarious and weird little children’s book. Not a single word of filler. Contemporary illustrators take note: this is how to offer beauty and levity at the same time! High quality and humor! You don’t have to choose. Readers, get you a book that can do both. I can read this one over and over, not even for the kids, just for myself!

2. Anything by Jan Brett. Jan Brett is the GOAT of children’s book authors. I’m so grateful that she decided to use her artistic gifts to create children’s books, because her books are such a blessing to any household with children. I grew up with her Twelve Days of Christmas, and it’s my favorite Christmas book for kids to this day (and has defined how I hear that song); we also love Hedgie’s Surprise, Fritz and the Beautiful Horses, and The Gingerbread Baby. Seriously, even if you don’t have kids, you should go look at her books just for the artwork. Look at the landscapes in Gingerbread Baby. A veritable feast for the eyes. She’s really out here doing the most. The opposite of Dr. Seuss: I feel like Jan Brett’s brain must be a lovely place to hang out.

and finally, Mith’s favorite children’s book of all time:

1. The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Heyward, illustrated by Marjorie Flack. It’s the perfect children’s book. No notes. When I was a kid, I checked this one out from the library as a “book on tape,” which if you’re a crusty old millennial like me, you may remember was the predecessor to today’s audiobooks: the paperback and the cassette tape were loaned out together in a plastic bag that was sealed with a plastic clip that was also a hanger. Anyway, this book made such an impression on me back then, just the classicism and charm and beauty of it, and I still love it just as much. It’s timeless, it’s beautiful, it’s edifying, it’s intelligent, the prose is lovely — just a joy in every way.

What about you guys? Can you think of any great or icky children’s books that I missed? Let me know ⬇️⬇️
Is it ok to hate cooking? (rare uncensored crashout!)

June 11th, 2026
Disclaimer: I’m actually much less mean than this post makes me sound, I promise. I don’t actually hate anyone! Sometimes we all crash out a bit, don’t we, and this was cathartic (and imo funny) to write, so I’m putting it on my blog, because it’s my silly little personal blog, and what’s a personal blog for if not a bit of silliness and catharsis, amiright. TW for bad language and strong opinions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Tangential Ragey Preface (TW: Vaccines)

Shit be pissing me off these past few days, y’all! Not sure what it is, probably some weird postpartum hormonal nonsense, but I have exactly ZERO patience, especially for things that strike me as stupid, lately.

Just this morning I finally officially uninstalled Instagram (if you know me, you know I have an on-and-off toxic relationship with Instagram). The algo was already annoying me, but the final straw was this one stupid doughy-faced dipshit all up on my Suggested Reels talking about how Catholics shouldn’t vaccinate — and I don’t typically make fun of people’s appearances, because that’s just against my personal code of ethics, but damn!, today, that just crossed a line for me. Like don’t be coming up onto my internet with your misinformation and your doughy-ass face talking about “vACciNes aRe deMoNic” when there’s literally an active outbreak of a previously-eradicated virus raging through my neck of the woods right now precisely because of y’all’s self-centered antivax BS. With your bitch ass. Bye bye, Instagram. (And if you’re thinking of leaving me an antivax “dO yOuR rEseaRch” comment, don’t bother, I’ll delete it without reading. With your bitchass.)

ahem! Anyway, that’s not even the reel I came here to complain about! All of that was just a preface to demonstrate that stupid things, things that wouldn’t normally get under my skin, are getting under my skin lately. The thing I actually came here to talk about is: cooking.

Getting to the Point: The Reel in Question, and the Real Question

Again, it starts with a reel. And this one was randomly recommended to me on YouTube, God knows why. Here it is, if you’re curious, but be warned, it’s stupid as shit. The gist of it is: it’s a series of clips of street interviews, contrasting contemporary Russian women with contemporary American women. When asked whether they cook at home, the Russian women (who btw all happen to be very stylishly-dressed and made-up, also very fit and sexy) all responded, with their delicious accents: “yes, of course, I always cook for my man,” “lots of meat for my man,” “yes, obviously, I love to cook,” “yes, I cook breakfast lunch & dinner daily.” The American women, on the other hand (who btw were varying degrees of basic, out of shape, and casually dressed) all said: “ehh, a couple times a week,” “maybe once a week.” Moral of the story: Russian women are better than American women, because they cook. And women who cook are better.

Stupid! — but, you know what… is it true, I wonder? Am I mad because it’s true?

You might not be concerned about whether this claim is true; you probably have your existing opinion reconfirmed, and move on, thinking it’s obvious and “why would anyone wonder, let alone worry, about something so obvious?” Most people don’t worry about such things. But hey, this is my job, this is what I do, I worry about such things, so if you don’t give a shit and are just rolling your eyes thinking I’m being ridiculous, why are you even on my blog? Get up outta here. (With your bitch ass.)

I won’t bother discussing the issues of femininity, style, and beauty, as those are things I’ve discussed already (here, here, and here, if you’re curious); but today, will focus specifically on this question of cooking. Must a “good woman” necessarily be a good cook? Is it ok for a woman to not cook?

Backstory: Mith’s Personal Relationship with Cooking

Fuck cooking. I hate it. It’s taken me thirty-six years to realize and accept that I hate cooking. For much of my life, I really believed that cooking was one of my hobbies, that I genuinely liked it. But no. What I liked was “edging” eating. I liked being close to food, messing with food, touching and smelling it, as a substitute for actually eating it. A sick avoidant fascination with food. I developed an ED in adolescence, so my relationship with food is just permanently fucked up. Also booze. One of the funnest things ever in my life was drunk cooking. One of my absolute favorite things in the world: chopping vegetables and listening to music while drinking on an empty stomach — peak human experience. 🤌I used to slice all my fingers up so bad.

But then I got sober and got the eating shit under control, and surprise! IRL food is so uninteresting now. (I specify “IRL food” because I still love watching Food Network, writing about food, looking at paintings of food, reading cookbooks…not to be annoyingly self-referential today, but I discuss all of that here.) It’s no longer some exotic treasure to lust after. It’s just food. Ugh. No offense, but why does anyone love cooking? Don’t they have anything more interesting to spend their mental energy on?

A friend once asked if, hypothetically, a pill existed that one could take to meet all their nutritional needs so they wouldn’t need to eat, would I take that pill? And hell yeah I would. Food, digestion. Ugh. Do you remember that scene near the end of Infinite Jest where Hal is imagining, with a dread that borders on horror, all the food that he will have to eat to sustain himself during his career as a student at ETA? All the space that all that food would take up? All that eating you’ll have to do. Ugh. Why all this fuss over filling your stomach. Cooking. And the more elaborate the cooking, the bigger the mess you have to clean up, the more dishes to wash — yet another waste of my fucking life when I could be doing something mentally stimulating.

Sometimes I feel like: why, in 2026, are we still cooking.

No offense but sometimes, I feel like people who really love cooking and cleaning must not have much going on upstairs. Don’t come for me in the comments, I don’t actually endorse that thought. It just crosses my mind, fairly often, without my consent. I’m fully aware that cooking is an art and plenty of people way smarter than I are deeply passionate about it, and that’s cool. (Like I said, I’m obsessed with baking shows!) I don’t get it but whatever.

Image, as always, from pinterest

I hate cooking. I hate the stress and the mess of it. I don’t like to eat, so I don’t taste the shit as I’m making it, so I never even know if it tastes good or not. Left to my own devices, I’d probably never cook at all. I could happily live on coffee and smoothies. Fuck cooking.

Admittedly, this feeling may just be the result of my current situation in life. Cooking used to be “fun”… but now, it’s dull and practical. Now I have four young kids and a husband, all of whom have very different taste preferences, and we have a tight grocery budget and a kitchen that desperately needs renovation. And my kids pretty much won’t eat home-cooked food as a rule — anything I make, automatically disgusting. Strictly ready-made snacks from a package, for them. It all makes meal planning and cooking a real drag. — But, if the kids actually ate my cooking, and if I had money to blow on all my dream ingredients for all kinds of fun recipes, and a beautiful, efficient, well-outfitted workspace — then would I enjoy cooking again? You know what, maybe! But tbh, I feel like people will do the things they like to do regardless of their circumstances (case in point: me, here, writing this even though I have a zillion other things I should be doing). So if I really liked cooking, I’d probably like it even here and now.

I don’t like cooking, and am not very good at it. I do it, still — I make sure my husband always has a home-cooked dinner of some kind, even if it’s yesterday’s leftovers. But I don’t really fuck with breakfast (unless it’s pancakes/waffles, which I am actually decent at and make quite often, from scratch) or lunch, and my dinners are, at best, adequate. Nor do I care about aesthetics of plating or setting the table or whatever. Meal prep is not a joy, for me. Does this make me less of a woman?

I mean I think it’s obvious that I’m not a “good woman,” by the textbook definition. I’m a homely, frumpily-clad, small-breasted tomboy with cankles, a potty mouth, a bad attitude, and zero social or domestic skills. I’ve never felt girly or womanly. Honestly, I’m super grateful that I didn’t grow up in today’s age of transtrenderism, because if that shit had been popular back when I was a soft-brained kid, I have no doubt I’d have glommed onto the trend and started calling myself a “he/him,” and my liberal atheist parents would have encouraged it, and it would have long-term fucked me up even worse than I already am (lol). (Just pissing everyone off here, today, aren’t I?) Thank God I missed that boat. But anyway: all this to say: I hate cooking; does that make me less of a woman?

Finally getting to the meat of the matter: what is a “good woman,” anyway?

But what do we mean by a “good woman”? What is the textbook definition, and more importantly, who wrote that definition?

I’ll tell you who: men did! Men decided what a “good woman” is — and what they mean when they say “good woman” is: “good wife.”

Which is fine. I’m not complaining about that. That’s natural. And obviously women have a definition of a “good man” that’s gonna be different from a man’s definition. (However, I also think it’s true that women are better at recognizing that a man can be a “good man 🤝👍” without being a “good man 😍🥵” and vice versa — the two are not the same, in fact often quite different; whereas it seems like a lot of men can’t get it through their heads that a woman can be a person of value without being sexually desirable.)

I’m just saying: when I read the sentence “he’s a good man,” I assume anyone of either gender could be speaking, and what comes to mind is: “this man is virtuous, he did a good deed, he did something brave or maybe even heroic, he’s trustworthy and reliable” — but when I read the sentence “she’s a good woman,” first of all I assume a man is speaking, and what comes to mind is: “she’s traditional and feminine, maternal, she cooks and cleans and takes care of her man, and takes care of her house and her physical appearance.” If you want to describe a virtuous, brave, or heroic woman, you say “she’s a good person.” If you saw a woman do something selfless, you would go on to describe her as a “good person,” not a “good woman,” because the latter sounds kind of sexual or even objectifying, like you’re describing a good cow at auction — it doesn’t mean the same thing as “she’s a good person.” Whereas, about a man, the two terms (“a good man” and “a good person”) can be used interchangeably. Is it just me? Am I wrong about this? Do you see what I’m saying?

What I’m trying to get at is: men, and some of us Trad-inclined women, tend to conflate the one definition of “good woman” (“good human being”) with the other (“good wifey”). We tend to think that a woman’s value as a person = her value as a wife. And that is not true. I’m not less of a woman because I suck at cooking. Less of a wife, sure! But that’s no secret, is it?

Brief Tangent About Housewifery and the Purpose of Life

I ain’t much of a housewife. I do my best, and don’t get me wrong, I do love this job! Since becoming a SAHM, I wake up every day with a sense of purpose, because I have the privilege of serving the people I love most in the world, instead of a bunch of often-shitty randos who don’t know me from Adam. It’s honestly so weird when I remember how depressed and suicidal and full of existential despair I used to be, working a job outside the home to support no one but myself. So much what is the fucking point. Might be a life for some, but it was none for me. I love being a housewife! I respect the job, and am always trying to get better at it, trying to improve my cooking, cleaning, and parenting skills — but, for the time being, I also happen to be pretty bad at it, skill-wise. Luckily, we don’t have to be super great at a thing in order to love it and flourish while doing it (exhibit A: me + writing, lol).

Back to the point & Another Question

Being bad at cooking, and/or hating cooking, does not make a woman less of a woman. (To use the real, non-sexual definition of “good woman.”) It makes her less of an ideal wife, sure. Fair enough.

But wait, is marriageability a moral matter? Is it a moral failing to not be good wifey material?

I bumped up against this question in my post about femininity, too. This is one that I can’t seem to decide on an answer to.

If two hypothetical women, Alice and Bertha, are both alike in virtue and holiness and moral qualities and all — love God and their neighbor, selfless, humble, charitable, et cetera — but Alice is a tomboy with short buzzed hair, who wears jeans and t-shirts and has more traditionally masculine hobbies, while Bertha is a super-feminine girl who wears dresses and long hair and loves cooking and taking care of children… is Bertha a “better” person for better exemplifying the qualities natural to womankind? Does she get like bonus points in God’s scorebook for being feminine?

I like to think no. I guess some folks out there would probably argue that Alice doesn’t truly “love God and her neighbor” if she dresses and acts like a dude, because if she really loved God she would honor His design for her as a woman, by being womanly; and if she really loved her neighbor, she would dress more humbly, more appropriately, so as to not call undue attention to herself or present a distraction. This is what my inner critic, Catherine (whom you may remember from this post) is saying in my head right now. But, I somehow don’t believe that Catherine is right.

However, I’m still on the fence with this one, and don’t think I’m going to solve it tonight.

In Conclusion

The dude who made that reel about Russian vs. American women is probably just some gross thirsty incel who’s been rejected by so many American women that he now fetishizes Slavic women and fantasizes about bagging himself a “Snow Latina” who, he imagines, will be just sooo happy to cater to all his needs. 🤮

And anyway, there were plenty of women in the comments going “uhhh, I’m Russian and I never cook” or “I’m American and I cook three times a day” — and someone even pointed out that his sample was rigged because he exclusively interviewed wealthy residents of Moscow. Biased.

And besides, Russia’s national policies really lend themselves to a traditional family structure. Not so in America. Oh no, not so — don’t even get me started. That’s a large part of why our culture looks the way it does. As American women, it’s not our fault. Russian women are not inherently superior — they’re not stronger or made of some better substance, or something. Their culture is just different. If they’d been born and raised in America, they’d be like us, and vice versa. People tend to forget the extent to which they are products of their time and place. People tend to think they’re original and in charge of themselves.

As someone who’s never traveled farther east than Prague, I think it is generally true that Russian/Slavic women are fitter and more feminine than American ones — so what. I do not believe that this reflects negatively on American women. And if you think it does, if you think that a woman’s value as a human being is actually determined by her ability/willingness to feed and take care of a man… then, with all due respect, i.e. zero respect, you can GTFO of here with your bitch ass.

.

And on second thought, I’m not even going to allow comments on this one, because I just know you’re all going to be mad at me, lol.
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