This Week's Miscellany (03/23/24)
Magic and Fairies, Birthrates, Tradwives, Death Cleaning and Welcome!
Hi, I’m Haley! Book midwife (editor) and author. Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.
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If you’re one of the hundreds of folks who just subscribed after reading this week’s feisty piece on tradwifery, I fear you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting regular fiery missives from me on controversial topics. I usually write about:
books
the creative life
the sacramental imagination
a narrative of hope
education
Jane Austen
supporting family life
wanderlust
investing in your community
and more books
If you’re still interested, then I bid you welcome to ye ol’ substack.
I’m a 38-year-old mom of 4 (ages 5-15). I’ve been married to my high school sweetheart for almost 18 years and he makes whisky for a living. I’m the editor of a children’s imprint and the author of non-fiction books for grown-ups and fiction for children. I’m a Catholic convert and I love to travel. Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.
Last weekend my 15yo and I drove through southern Georgia to see Jim Gaffigan’s show in Albany. We had a blast.
We made a stop in one of my favorite small towns: Thomasville, GA where I taught ballet for a few years. It boasts an adorable downtown including The Bookshelf, second only to Fabled (Waco, TX) in my heart, a great coffee shop, and delicious places to eat. They also have one of the biggest, oldest live oaks around.
Thomasville is only a 45 minute drive from my house but I didn’t know about this whole enormous tree situation until reading about the Big Oak in Andrew Peterson’s book, The God of the Garden, which I finished a couple of weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed.
My son also played all the good music in the car that I’m too old and out of touch to discover myself. But occasionally, he’d say absurd things like, “Have you heard of The Postal Service?" or “Do you know about Band of Horses?” to which I’d have to respond
Links
I wrote about the tradwife Instagram fantasy aesthetic and it struck a chord, becoming the most widely-shared post on my Substack:
Would We All Be Happier as Tradwives?
There’s nothing wrong with more “traditional” choices. I’m not sorry I stayed home with my kids, grew our own food, or even potty trained on a compost toilet! But I watch with concern as women (especially young women) are being sold a lie. That lie is that your family life should match a certain tradwife aesthetic, that the way certain influencers are living life is not one way but the way.
The topics explored in Ezra Klein’s podcast are often so fascinating. This one was really interesting, particularly concerning the reality that while you can easily convince a society not to have children, no one has figured out how to reverse that trend when fertility rates drop catastrophically. And also that shifting the cultural response to children (including them—and therefore their parents—as welcome members of society) can move the needle.
Birthrates are plummeting worldwide. Why? The Ezra Klein Show
For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today.
Along those same lines, this review of Tim Carney’s new book on how the challenges for parents in American society contribute to the plummeting birthrate was thought-provoking:
Why Aren’t Americans Having More Children? by
Carney argues that the increased financial, emotional, time, and energy demands that our anxious culture and ill-designed infrastructure place on parents makes many people hesitant (frightened, even!) to have children at all, or to have additional children if they are already parents.
This piece about Katherine May’s new book is gorgeous. My research deep dive over the past six months has been fairy tales and how and why they’re necessary for children (as well as grown-ups) so it was right up my alley.
Do You Believe in Magic? by Cornelia Powers
When we experience awe, all vanity and cynicism vanish as the walls that separate us dissolve into what feels like a thick, golden liquid, renewing us from the inside out. Mysterious and fleeting, this awe reawakens what G.K. Chesterton once called our “ancient instinct of astonishment.” If only for a moment, it enables us to remember what we have forgotten—including the things we forget that we have forgotten.
It’s about time to buy yet another bookshelf and I do find myself wondering if I’ll ever read all my books before I die…
Book Death Cleaning: What We Keep and What It Means by Molly Templeton
What is a home for if not to fill it with books? What would I do without them? I can’t get rid of these stories, even though I’ve internalized them. They’re part of me. They’re mine, and the physical reminder of that needs to be here, on the shelf, too rarely dusted.
Time is running out to join us this summer!
On the fence about coming to Belgium and Germany with Fr. Harrison Ayre and my husband Daniel and I this summer? Now’s the time to sign up! 🇧🇪 🇩🇪
If you’re looking for a small group to travel with, daily Mass, beautiful cathedrals and abbeys, and the best Trappist breweries in the world, join us! We have 6 spots left before we close the trip at 30 people. And time is running out to reserve your spot!
⛪️ 🍻
We’ll see the stunning Ghent Altarpiece (The Mystic Lamb), go on a canal boat tour of Bruges, pray at the Flanders Field American Cemetery, visit the crypt of St Damian Molokai, go to gorgeous Belgian abbeys (and taste the beer from their breweries), see cathedrals in Germany (Aachen and Cologne), and more!
We’ve been anticipating this trip for two years and I can’t believe it’s just around the corner. Half of the pilgrims on our whisky pilgrimage in Scotland in 2022 are coming back for Belgium which just goes to show you that the experience of traveling with Select International Tours is something special. I can’t wait to see them and meet new friends and this year we’re even bringing our teenager for his first overseas trip.
You can check out the registration page: Heavenly Hops Pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre to Belgium and Germany.
And below you can view the full itinerary (except one update is that we’ll be flying home from Frankfurt rather than Cologne):
Wishing you all a wonderful week! And a huge thank you to all those who upgraded to a paid subscription this week. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you enjoy getting these emails, please consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription with the button below.
Thanks for reading!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Votive, Author, Podcaster)
Haley’s books
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
Cracked up at your comment about your son introducing you to music. When my kids were teens, I'd often ask about the music they were playing - stuff that I liked but didn't recognize. It often went like this:
Me: Ooh, I like this. What is it?
Teen: It's Modest Mouse.
Me: .... is that the song or the band?
LOLOL
Thanks for reminding me of this!! And thank you for your wonderful work!
Years and years ago, when the doomsayers were all predicting population explosion, Dr. Janet Smith was the voice crying in the wilderness saying it wasn’t so. It turns out she was telling the truth all along but few people were listening.