Aunties
I’ll give you three guesses… It’s time again for The Auntie Bulletin, hooray! So did you make a guess about what predicts helpfulness in primate species, as the title of this post invites you to? I’ll give you three guesses and also a hint: the answer rhymes
Health & Wellness
I have biological offspring, I think. The Auntie Bulletin is two years old! Happy birthday to us! I want to get to today’s actual post about the time I donated my eggs, but since we’ve hit a milestone, I also want to take this opportunity to fill you
Aunties
We’re heading into a busy time of year. Take a break and read something nice. Aunties, it’s time for your monthly care package: a collection of writers and others communicating wise, compassionate, funny, insightful, surprising, and/or useful stuff around the internet and sometimes off the internet. As
A Better World
Reframing unscheduled time Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had a super busy life. During the 2019-2020 school year, for example, I was finishing my dissertation[[1]] and teaching graduate-level teacher preparation classes at the University of Washington. I was coaching novice teachers all over the region,
Aunties
Co-housing doesn’t have to mean forever, and it doesn’t have to require owning a home. Aunties, today I’m excited to share with you Rhaina Cohen’s essay in Samantha Paige Rosen’s new anthology, Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection. As I wrote
Aunties
Here’s the beautiful thing about auntiehood: it lets up. Hey aunties! I had an exciting post teed up for you this week — one I’m really looking forward to getting out into the world — but I seem to be having a significant EDS flare-up. I’m coming off
Community Care
No-one can strive this time of year. It’s impossible. Take a break and read something great instead. I'm open about the Auntie Bulletin business finances, and right now I'm offering 30% off Auntie Bulletin subscriptions, forever, for readers on Ghost only. As content continues
Aunties
It’s totally possible to have a good relationship with the teens in your life. Here’s how. Hi there, aunties on Ghost! Today I'm reaching out to you about a conundrum I hadn't anticipated (although I probably should have): when we have a threaded discussion
Such Interesting Aunties
What it's like when you actually have a village to raise a child I'm open about the Auntie Bulletin business finances, and right now I'm offering 30% off Auntie Bulletin subscriptions, forever, for readers on Ghost only. As content continues to be shared on
Practical everyday kinship
Aunties as refuge I'm open about the Auntie Bulletin business finances, and right now I'm offering 30% off Auntie Bulletin subscriptions, forever, for readers on Ghost only. As content continues to be shared on this platform, I'm hoping we can row together like the
Hello, my dear auntie, I'm reaching out to you because you're one of the small but mighty group of Auntie Bulletin subscribers who read this newsletter on Ghost, and I'm hoping you'll chip in a little money to keep our "parallel
It's vibe shift season, baby – and about time, too. Happy summer, aunties! I am loving all the pieces I’ve seen lately about a vibe shift in the direction of love, joy, caring, and community. No false modesty necessary here: we aunties have been on the hope train
There aren’t any, and that’s by design. So, have you read Yesteryear? I read the first two chapters as a free preview in the public library’s Libby app, and I think that’s enough for me. I’ll say more about why shortly. But first, for Auntie
And what came next… Today we have a guest post from the lovely Lexi Weber Johnson, whose work I didn’t know until she reached out to me to pitch this story about sobriety, infertility, and auntiehood. I took a look at her newsletter, Not Expecting, which turned out to
“Attunement to a small person's needs is there in anyone, ready to get unlocked.” There’s not much social science research out there about alloparents. Here’s where you tend to find us: in biological research about the animal kingdom (elephants, whales, birds, primates – lots of aunties!) and
Time to offset the fools on the news and soak up wholesome content instead. Hey Aunties, welcome to your end-of-May care package! This is the part where always I acknowledge what rough and ugly times we are living through (because it keeps on being true). I talk about
"Make it look like a pack of children’s markers, please." Today’s post is a little different from our typical content, aunties, but I’ve been slowly working toward a newsletter rebrand since the fall, and it’s finally time, and I’m really excited about it.
Uncomfortable truths that you probably won’t like, from someone who’s been forced to rest a lot. Rest! It’s the best! Or at any rate, rest would be the best if it weren’t so stupidly hard to pull off. Sure, it’s hard to carve out the
When has a nuclear experiment ever been good, honestly? I got to go on Virginia Sole-Smith’s Burnt Toast podcast recently, which was so awesome. I’m a longtime fan[[1]] of Virginia’s anti-diet parenting newsletter and podcast and grateful for the exposure to her large and
You can start a summer camp now. I first came to Substack by way of Anne Helen Petersen’s consistently excellent newsletter, Culture Study. I knew nothing about the Substack platform, but I got wind of AHP’s newsletter, started subscribing, and read it eagerly as soon as it hit
From compulsory parenthood to informed consent. It took my partner and me a long time to decide not to become parents. We really wrestled with it. I had never wanted kids until, literally from one moment to the next, I did. My partner was game, so we started trying. I
