This Week's Miscellany (05/08/26)

Maycember, Anti-motherhood Rhetoric, The Odyssey, Noah Kahan, Do Books Cost Too Much?

I’m Haley. Book midwife (editor), author, and single mom of four.

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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Friends, Maycember is in full swing with end-of-the-year performances, dances, parties, tests, projects, AP exams, 8th grade graduation events, field trips. And of course, sick kids needing to stay home from school or get picked up from school early and put a fork in me, I’m done.

Last night I was digging into the recesses of my memory to excavate slope-intercept form to help one kid review for a math exam and this morning over hashbrowns at Waffle House at 6am I was with another kid going over the different amendments that might show up on the AP US History exam. Parenting four children in May is not for the faint of heart.

But our annual trip to stay with my parents in the Tennessee mountains is quickly approaching and I am so excited to breathe mountain air and go on long walks and spend time with my family far away from the Florida swamp.

Since the last TWM what has happened? A trip to Ireland. Easter. A talk in San Antonio about children’s literature and the Catholic imagination. Two different spring musicals at my kids’ schools. Whirlwind.

Links:

I was asked to write a response to The Cut’s viral piece about women who regret motherhood for Word on Fire’s Evangelization and Culture (online):

Treating Parenthood like a Lifestyle Choice Results in Anti-Motherhood Rhetoric:

In the trenches of toddlerhood, women often experience the most profound loneliness of their lives. They find themselves burnt out and feeling like a failure for not loving every minute of motherhood when, after all, they chose this. With readily available contraception and abortion, not only are there ways to prevent or terminate pregnancies, these methods are cultural norms. In such a culture, motherhood is no longer part of the normal progression in adulthood for most women but a lifestyle one chooses, like becoming a pet owner or going to law school or getting really into yoga. And just as the presence of a cry room decreases parishioners’ tolerance for babbling toddlers in Mass (“Can’t they just go to the cry room where they won’t bother anyone?”), people have less patience with mothers and less interest in supporting them when motherhood is merely a lifestyle choice: “She chose to have that baby, after all. Good luck to her, but why should the rest of us be inconvenienced because she wanted that experience of motherhood?”

And here’s a short article about the artwork that WOF chose to accompany my piece!

No, Books Are Not Remotely Too Expensive by MILLER’S BOOK REVIEW 📚

Don’t blame books for being too expensive. Everything else is more expensive, and that’s why you can’t afford books.

Meanwhile, books are trying their darnedest to save you money. If they were tracking upward with inflation, as mentioned, your Harper Lee and hobbits would be $43 and $54. Instead, they’re 30–40 percent cheaper than we would expect them to be.

I am intrigued by the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Anne Hathaway as Penelope? Yes, please.

And I really wish I could make it to NY before the end of June to see the Raphael exhibit at the Met!

Also, because I don’t have enough creative side projects going (ahem), I decided to start writing a screenplay for a romantic comedy. It is a delightful process.

Reading Lately

• Mind Your Body by Nicole Sachs: I finally finished this one after losing interest for awhile. I think Sachs’ concept of healing chronic illness/anxiety through what she calls JournalSpeak is actually very solid. (Basically it’s about letting all your suppressed and unfiltered thoughts out in writing so your body can stop sending you alarm bells through pain to make sure you’ve got the message about what’s going on with you psychologically.) But as a book I was left underwhelmed. It feels padded, the writing isn't great, and I kept thinking “this could have been a blog post.” I really like JournalSpeak as a method of learning to listen to your intuition and let your feeling out and avoid rumination and suppression but the book was meh.

What I’ve Been Listening To

• Noah Kahan’s new album. On repeat. Can’t stop, won’t stop. Should I write about why I find it so captivating?

Upcoming Events

• May 15th-17th: New Orleans, LA: Joie de Vivre’s Louisiana Arts and Culture Festival

• July 31st-August 2nd: Wichita, KS: Midwest Catholic Family Conference

Currently Watching

• The girls and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2. Because I will love Stanley Tucci always and forever. And Meryl Streep is a goddess. We also started the new series of The Count of Monte Cristo. So far I really like it, but it’s been ages since I read the book.

Recently for Paid Subscribers: How (and Why) I Travel Overseas with Four Kids series featuring how to get cheap flights and make travel with lots of kids possible.

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Haley

(Editor of Word on Fire Votive, Author, Podcaster)

Haley’s books

Haley’s Catholic Kids’ Cookbook

Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns

Haley’s Book on Jane Austen’s Novels

Haley’s Book about Radical Simplicity