Recently, I had a conversation about identity. About my identity to be precise.   I was having a well needed cuppa with a friend and we were discussing high schools. In passing, she mentioned that the school has an LGBTQ+ club. I was very pleasantly surprised. It had never occurred to me that these clubs now exist in high schools. They certainly didn't when I attended in the 90s.  Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash It got me talking about my own sense of identity. My own exploration of it.  For background, my parents are of Indian descent and moved to the UK in 1970 and 1980, I believe. We grew up in a very white Christian home counties town. There were very few, if any kids that looked like me and while my first language was my mother tongue, I stopped speaking it when I attended nursery and preschool. So at home, I'd experience my parents culture but outside of the house, where I increasingly spent more time, I was exposed to everything British. I grew up with British TV,...

When I was very young, future jobs, careers and career progression were seen as something you started and continued in, as you were, for life.   Microsoft CoPilot Designer powered by DALL-E 3 You chose your profession or your life direction and it was set in stone. A job for life until you retire with your pension. That very quickly and dramatically changed as job security became more precarious and a job was no longer 'a job for life' . It became something more fluid and changeable and something quite alien. I would say it was easier as an 80s child because the huge shifts happened parallel to our childhood, so by the time we entered it as adults, it was the norm. The History of the UK Job Market In the UK, under Thatcher, there were mass factories closures and policies that weakened trade unions. It's been 40 years since the coal miner strikes, ending in the majority of coal mines closing. There were 20,000 jobs losses and coal-mining communities were left decimated and i...

Fairness. Justice. These are things I contemplate as the week ends.  Photo by Ronak Valobobhai on Unsplash This wasn't the article I was planning on writing but it's the one shouting the loudest. As we watch American politics play out, it seems there is a sense of hopelessness.  The world — humans seem to be on a continuous loop, damned to repeat the ills of the past forever more.  Yes it's bleak. I feel bleak but I also feel a spark of something else. I'm in the middle of reading A Beginner’s Guide to Dying  by Simon Boas . Yes, if you've noticed, I have an obsession with death because I have an equal obsession with life and living. The yin to the yang. You truly can’t comprehend one without the other. He succinctly makes a very valid observation about life. The life we all live. At 46 he was facing a terminal cancer diagnosis with only a few months to live. He recognised that while his years may not seem long, he'd lived far longer than the majority of the hu...

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING. This post touches on grief, child loss, stillbirth and pregnancy complications. At the end, there are links to UK organisations that maybe helpful if you've been affected by anything you've read. Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash This post starts and ends with Nick Cave .  Yes the Australian singer, Nick Cave .  The most I knew about him a couple plus years ago was that duet he sang with fellow Aussie Kylie , the Peaky Blinders theme song and The Mercy Seat re-released by Johnny Cash . I’d also vaguely heard about his sons' untimely deaths in the news. I was very ignorant to all things Nick Cave . After a hiatus, he started doing interviews again and it was around this time, in 2022, when I read an article that caught my attention and piqued my interest in Nick Cave . Nick Cave lost his teen son 7 years ago. Just as he finished a book about grief, the unthinkable happened. He was talking about writing a book with someone during lockdown and how ...

Whoever said you can have it all, was blatantly lying or living in an alternate reality. As I was discussing with a friend, we are a generation trying to live out this crazy fantasy instilled in us during childhood. There is this immense pressure and immense guilt on everyone's shoulders. Photo by K HOWARD on Unsplash Having it all, what does that even mean?  It means, not just having a job but having a career.  Great!  No, think again, that's just the beginning of the list that reaches the floor.  We need to have a significant other, that then becomes a spouse.  We must own a home.  We must then have children, not too early to cause condemnation but equally not too late, in case our ovaries have shrivelled up and died.  We must somehow then raise our children well, maintain the household to pristine condition, continue to have a close loving relationship with said spouse, all while holding down a job which we excel at. Wow, that's a lot but it doesn...

This week, my eldest turned 11, and it made me think about becoming a first time parent; the whole aspect of being a mum that nobody thinks to cover or talk enough about, if at all. Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash Obviously, what's covered is the practical side of pregnancy, birthing and then the initial stages of looking after said baby. The physical and emotional side of motherhood is usually in the context of the newborn and then, if you have decent care, about the baby blues and postnatal depression. There is a whole side of entering motherhood that isn't always properly explored or articulated. It's the loneliness.  Suddenly you aren't just you, you have the title of mum. You have the baby and usually most mothers have some time at home as maternity leave. I know the length of this varies dependent on where you live in the world and circumstances. In the UK, it's not unusual for women to take 12 months maternity leave.  The big question is, what happens during ...