We have a new GG. I wonder what he would have done if presented with Henry Morgentaler as a possible member for the Order of Canada. He is himself a companion of the Order, obviously didn’t give it up, so probably not much. Sigh.

…thought I’d still post this little clip from June 24, about the G8 maternal health initiative.

[youtube:”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5vJede0pA”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5vJede0pA]

I don’t have a lot of time for “happiness assessment” articles. It seems to me we are so spoiled rotten we just don’t know happiness. We need an introduction. Happiness–hello! Nice to meet you! I’m spoiled, lazy, and overstimulated. We seem to always be seeking an ever diminishing pleasure with ever increasing zeal (CS Lewis paraphrased). We grow bored and we try for a bigger happiness hit. Cocaine, anyone? Now there’s happiness. Is that what science would have us believe?

This article is about how children apparently don’t make you happy. But it also speaks to our prosperity and how that changed the game:

Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.

Having spent the weekend with my delightful, beautiful nieces while the deserving parents went away, I will not idealize what raising children is. (Drinks of water in the night, soothe baby by singing rounds of Amazing Grace, put older niece back in bed who woke up crying, morning! Make breakfast–chocolate chip pancakes because I am the Auntie and I don’t have to be healthy–get dressed, easier said than done–babies are squirmy–SUNSCREEN!! lots of it, it’s hot out, wait a second, have to dress myself–make that into a game for kids who are ready and raring to go out, get cold drinks, snacks, extra clothes, diaper bag, shoes–not that foot, the other foot, not those shoes, the other shoes–and out the door! I WAS A HERO!)

Parents are indeed heroes. And happiness may not even be the point. As we walked to the park my niece asked me to stop and take a picture of the ants. The ants. She pointed them out with her tiny finger, following them on the pavement. I did, in fact, and we have video footage now. I expect this to be a popular film anytime soon. Ants: A Special Part of Most Every Suburban Neighbourhood.

Happiness may not be the point, but there is happiness in kids, if you take the time to notice it. There are some things academics cannot measure.

A great piece by one Rebecca Walberg:

There is another way to live, though, one that focuses on personal responsibility: to be a person who recognizes that every moment of our lives counts, and that in every moment we can choose anew how we want to conduct ourselves.

This article from the London Times on June 30, 2010 is worth copying in full. I couldn’t find the link online, so here’s a link to a commentary about the article:

I’ve been wavering. But a woman’s right to choose her own way of life is paramount.

In the Cradle Tower at the Tower of London is an interactive display that asks visitors to vote on whether they would die for a cause. Hmm, let’s see. I like dolphins, but if it came down to a straight choice, goodbye Flipper. I’ll shout abuse at a Uruguayan linesman when my country calls, but I wouldn’t take a paper cut for England, let alone a bullet.

Standing where religious martyrs were held and tortured in Britain’s turbulent reformation, I could think of one cause I would stake my life on: a woman’s right to be educated, to have a life beyond the home and to be allowed by law and custom to order her own life as she chooses. And that includes complete control over her own fertility. [Read more…]

Happy Canada Day! Families are heading up to Parliament Hill wearing red and white as I type this.

A fun item that might pertain to an activity some of you might do today.

This time, for men?

And — what do you know? — they have come up with a really nice one: non-hormonal, so without those nasty side-effects that women have put up with for so long; and long acting, so you don’t have to think about it every day, as women have had to do.

I’m having a hard time caring what pro-choice “feminists” think:

Leaving aside the undefined and rather pretentious notion of authenticity, “pro-life feminism” makes no sense. Feminism is about equality, about a woman’s right to make her own choices in life, including whether to continue a pregnancy. Without that right, women lose control over their lives. Women who run on a platform that includes denying other women the right to choose how many children they will have or whether they have any are not feminists. They can call themselves whatever they want — pro-family, anti-tax, small government — but not feminists. Feminism means more than individual success in the workplace or in politics. Feminism is also about more than reproductive rights, but it most certainly includes that.

Janet Bagnall will feel good about the fact that I don’t call myself a feminist, no. That’s because the feminists I’ve met who strongly self-identified as such are some of the most bitter, ill-informed, out of touch, boring, whining, unhappy lot of old women I’ve ever met.

Just so we’re clear on why I’m not one.

With Lorna Dueck. You can watch online here. Yours truly is featured in one of the segments.