May 31

Why it is important to talk about values in parenting

We all have values, many of them strongly held values. If you press us on ethical issues, if you test us or challenge us, and if you go deep enough, there will come a point when we reach a point where we will say that we will (or won’t) do something because it is the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to do in that particular context. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that these values are born with us: Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK, in his excellent essay ‘Twenty-First Century Enlightenment‘, refers to recent research from the Yale University Infant Cognition Center, who discovered that even infants make “rudimentary moral judgements”: “In one experiment babies between six and twelve months old watched a simple coloured geometric shape – for example, a red circle with eyes – try to climb a slope. When other shapes intervened, apparently either helping or blocking the circle, the children’s responses showed a clear preference for the helping shapes.”

And yet we shy away from talking about our values. In part this is because the media of our times do not deal well with the complexity that an honest discussion on values would entail. Open any newspaper and you will tend to find judgements that are polarised into one view (right) or an opposing view (wrong). A wise person would smile at such simplicity of judgement; human life is far more complex. In a contrary but understandable juxtaposition, we have grown nervous of absolutes – two world wars in the twentieth century left their mark in this respect – and this has had the effect of making us fearful of anything other than moral relativity. We have taken tolerance to such an extreme that we are often afraid of questioning the values of others, no matter how appalling we may find them.

The circle of debate closes down when we are faced with such conflicting messages; it becomes too hard to explore our values and to test them out safely and in meaningful philosophical debate. No wonder that we give up and that the vast majority of visible and audible debate in our society revolves around the superficial … not that this makes the world any safer or better. Absence of strong and positive values translates very quickly into the pernicious and the amoral. Values are there for a reason – they are the framework on which we base our lives – lives that I believe we want to be in large part good, valuable and meaningful.

We need to talk about values, and we need to find a space to engage with this discussion particularly as it relates to our children. Our children may be born with values, but the nurturing of these values is down to us as parents, and to the society around them. If we as parents do not spend time delving deeper into our own values, and finding ways in which to discuss and explore them in the context of the world in which we live, then we will find it harder to guide our children. Our children need our guidance – more so now than ever before, given this superficial backdrop to the world in which they are growing up.

So … we need to start a debate. Not a confrontational debate, where we seek to squeeze our understandings about values into an ‘either’ or an ‘or’. Not a debate in which we seek to justify our own understandings at the expense of the understandings of others. Not a debate which seeks instant solutions. Instead, we need a debate where we create spaces for parents especially to be able to reflect on the advice, guidance and wisdom about the world that they and others possess. Throughout the ages, human beings have sought enlightenment, and we know by now that this will not come in the shape of a blinding light or a ‘quick fix’ answer. Our enlightenment will come through openness, exploration, inquisitiveness and honesty.

This is one of the main reasons why I wrote my book. And we all owe it to our children to engage with our values.

 

May 25

The academic benefits of team sport

The results of a fascinating US study into 9,700 high-school students aged 14-18 are reported in this week’s Times Educational Supplement in the UK: according to research conducted by academics from the University of South Carolina and Pennsylvania State University, participation in team sports during adolescence makes a “significant and consistent difference to students’ academic grades”. In fact, they report that teams sport is the only extra-curricular activity that consistently has this effect, and while those of us in schools can attest to the fact that many other extra-curricular activities can have a similar effect on individuals we have known, this finding is really interesting.

The study was a wide-ranging one, looking at correlations between a variety of extra-curricular activities and the success in other areas of school life enjoyed by teenagers who participate in them. It looked too at the likelihood of progress on to tertiary education. It can be hard to identify trends that are meaningful when dealing with students from different socio-economic backgrounds, different geographical locations, and different genders and ethnicity; moreover, every individual is precisely that – an individual – and will have his or her own motivations and triggers for success. The fact, therefore, that these researchers have found a consistent correlation is really important.

Why should team sport have such an effect on grades? There are many reasons, ranging from fitness (healthy body, healthy mind) to the discipline and focus needed to train and prepare. Skills learned in one sphere of life can transfer to another; we all understand this – sport is no different in this respect. And the benefits of team sport go further – team sport teaches awareness of others, leadership, the ability to co-operate … it also encourages mentorship and the setting of one’s sights high. All of these are essential characteristics for success in the world of work.

We probably didn’t need this research to tell us that team sport is an essential part of the education of young people; it does, however, give a boost to all those teenagers currently engaged in team sport. Well done to them for making such a great choice!

 

May 17

Redefining ‘richness’ in working motherhood

Lat month I attended an all day festival at the Sydney Opera House entitled ‘All About Women‘. A number of speakers spoke about their various opinions about women’s role in the world today, and the day was supplemented by a number of ‘conversations’ – panel discussions which tackled some of the issues facing women in the workplace or around whether or not, for example, to have children, and so on: some deliberately provocative subjects. It was an interesting day and a pause for thought, in the presence of hundreds of other engaged and questioning women – the fact of their presence on a Sunday, of course, being proof enough that these issues are far from being resolved in our society.

During one of the talks, by Liza Mundy, the American journalist, who was talking about the ideas in her latest book, “The Richer Sex”, an incident occurred which caused me to reflect and which I have been thinking about ever since. Ms Mundy was describing how women now have an unprecedented opportunity to “out-earn” their husbands, for all sorts of reasons, and what this might mean for them. She looked back at the (very recent) history of women effectively having to surrender any money or income they had to their husbands, and described how this still played out in the world today, with suspicion and unease towards women who earn more than their husbands – often by and among the women themselves, who are nervous about pairing with a man who will earn less than them, as if, deep down, this is somehow against the natural order.

Ms Mundy went on, then, to talk about what it would mean for women who did earn more than their husbands and become the main breadwinners, and although she stressed the positive, she also said, almost in a throwaway line, that women with children who were in this position might need to grow used to becoming the more distant parent. At this point, a woman sitting a few seats away burst into tears and had to be consoled by her companions. I don’t think many people noticed – it is a big venue, after all, and we were sitting in the dark – but the impact of these words was clearly significant for this participant.

Of course, there could have been many reasons why she burst into tears, many of them unconnected with the words of the speaker; I certainly didn’t pry, and it would have been inappropriate afterwards to question her. She was clearly emotional, however, and the coincidence of her dissolving into tears at that precise moment in the speaker’s talk made it likely that there was some connection and some personal impact on her life. It made me reflect again on what it means to be a working mother, or a working parent.

As I did so, I grew increasingly cross. The truth is, of course, is that we have all been set up to fail in our expectations of parenthood. We will never feel good enough. As parents, we are biologically and emotionally attuned to want and need to be there for our children, but we also need to be realistic about what we need to do to support our children well. Moreover, bringing up children is hard. Advertising for baby products, meanwhile – to use only a small example of the pressures on women – emphasises the beautiful moments of mother-baby (less often, father-baby) interaction, played again and again on screen or in the pages of magazines for us as if there for eternity, and as if this is what having a baby is always all about. If we don’t experience this constantly, we are effectively told, we are failures as parents. Our logical brain may tell us that playing with a happy baby is only a part of the parenting experience and process, but our emotional brain cannot help but to be influenced by what it overwhelmingly sees and experiences around it – and besides, it is easy to want to be influenced by this essential beauty.

In truth, there will always be separation by some parent at some point even from their baby, and for the baby to grow in experience, this will be essential at various stages. Most significantly, for parents to be able to afford to bring up their baby, one or other of them is going to have to work. This is not to suggest, however, that the status quo in our society is by any means good enough. It simply isn’t, and I came to the conclusion in my reflections that Liza Mundy was wrong in her too-causal assumption that the new, ‘richer’ working mother would simply replace what working fathers have had to endure for too long.

Instead, we need to rethink society’s relationship with parents. We don’t value parenthood enough. We don’t support our parents enough. We need to think through all our workplace structures to make sure that we can allow all parents to be fully engaged in bringing up their – our – children, while still contributing effectively to the work and activity of our world.

Richness comes from engaging fully in life, in all its imperfections, but also challenging what it wrong and making a difference. Our parents need our help to allow them to do exactly this.

 

May 10

Why it is important for girls to blow their own trumpets

A recent initiative at Wimbledon High School for Girls in London has received quite a bit of coverage in the UK – the school encouraged the girls over a number of months to scribble down their thoughts whenever they realised that they were proud of something that they had done and then the school spent a week “trumpeting” these achievements in assembly and drama classes. The purpose, as the Head herself said, was “about the girls recognising their own self-worth and being honest about what they are good at. We want to build their confidence so that they’ll try new things even when they know it might go wrong.”

Inevitably there were mixed responses from commentators in the press and correspondents who felt moved to write in to express their views, many of whom mistook positive affirmation of achievement for boastfulness and arrogance. Quite rightly, we value neither of these latter qualities in our society; equally, it can be difficult to reconcile the messages we give young people constantly in school about the importance of service to others, and of valuing others ahead of themselves, with a focus on the self and on their own personal achievements.

If our young people are to achieve a happy and wise balance in their lives, however, they have to learn to acknowledge and embrace who they are in their entirety. This means accepting the positive and praiseworthy as well as those areas that would benefit from greater attention and improvement. We all have many of these weaknesses hidden within us – we are all imperfect beings – but we all too have many strengths, and we have to learn to live with, and be comfortable with, both. Our strengths are not something that we should hide under a bushel; to do so risks underutilising them and existing merely as a half a person. Finding a way to acknowledge our strengths and our weaknesses is part of our life’s journey towards self-acceptance.

Moreover, learning to recognise and acknowledge strength is arguably a prerequisite for contentment in life and work. The central premise of Sheryl Sandberg’s book, ‘Lean In’, is that girls and women – who have in general been encouraged not to emphasise their strengths to the same extent as boys and men – must learn to accept what they are good at, and say so, “coming to the table” rather than hiding in the corner.

We are all – every single one of us – distinctive and individual human beings. Our uniqueness and specialness depend on the unique combination of attributes that we possess in varying degrees, and once we recognise this and can feel comfortable with this, we will have a platform on which to build further.

Our children learn from the role models around them. Maybe we should all take time this week to blow our own trumpets.

 

May 05

“Equality’s just gone well out the window.”

A quote in the IPPR report about which I wrote in a recent blog caught my eye in particular. Describing how she felt about her equality with me, a 19 year old woman from Manchester said the following:

“It went from empowering women to women are just items again. It’s gotten even worse, because women are just portrayed as if they’re just a piece of meat: it’s dead, it’s cold. We’re not even human beings …it’s just, equality’s just gone well out the window …I’ve been on a date, right, and the guy was trying to practically maul me – just because he’d bought me something to eat, he thought he had the right, do you know what I mean?”

The authors of the report – Great Expectations: Exploring the Promises of Gender Equality – devote an entire chapter to exploring the presentation of women in our cultural life, ie the representations of women that we see around us in mainstream media. They do this, of course, because how women are represented in the media will naturally either reinforce or challenge who we expect women to be. At its best, it will encourage us all to defy traditional and restrictive expectations of women; at its worst, it will trap women into believing that there is a specific cultural norm to which they should adhere, or which they should strive to attain.

As the report points out, the situation is complex – the concept of what it means to be a woman has indeed changed remarkably, and this change has been particularly noticeable since the latter third of the twentieth century. This does not mean, however, that the change has been as empowering for women as the rhetoric around this change would suggest. An analysis of the evidence in fact suggests – just as the 19 year old woman from Manchester notes – that “Over the past few decades, the passive wife, mother and hostess has been replaced across mainstream cultural forums by a more assertive and sexually empowered woman, in control of her own choices. While she can ostensibly be anything she wants, however, critics have noted that her choices appear to be narrowly centred on shopping, self-improvement, marriage and babies.” Girls and women today are subjected, constantly, to a “narrow, unrealistic and sexualised vision of what it is to be a woman”.

Take a moment today to look around you and see how women are portrayed in the media. Pause for a moment to ask yourself if they really have the choices so ostensibly on offer to them, or if their choices are paralysed by critical expectations of their appearance, behaviour and thoughts. As the authors of the report point out, we are fooling ourselves if we think our work on gender equality is done. We have a lot more to do, and every day matters.

Do something today to make a difference. Share your thoughts with someone else. Let us ensure that the national – and international – debate is a loud one.

 

 

 

Apr 30

Coming to terms with the First World War. Reflections on ANZAC Day

Last week Australia paused on ANZAC Day to consider what that day meant and why it is so important that we recognise it. Fresh in the minds of students across the nation will be their study of the Gallipoli campaign, but the purpose of ANZAC Day goes far beyond the anniversary of that fateful landing on the Gallipoli peninsula, in the Dardanelles Straits, in 1915. On ANZAC Day last week we remembered all Australians who served and died in all wars, all conflicts, and all of the many peacekeeping operations in which our armed forces are involved around the world.

And as we did so, we all remember that we should never forget the horrors of war, the dreadful destruction, and the terrible impact that war has on families and on our world.

I recently read Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain; written in 1933, it is probably the book for which she is best well-known, although she wrote many other works, including poetry, and became a significant feminist and pacifist. What is significant about this book, however, is that it details her autobiographical journey through the First World War, and how this affected not just her, but her entire generation.

Vera Brittain was born in 1893 to a middle class family – comfortable, well-off (although their notions of comfort were of course very different from ours). She went to a private school in the south of England, and she was just coming of age, going up to Oxford University – in an age where women still couldn’t gain degrees – when the war broke out. She volunteered as a nursing orderly as was sent to various parts of Europe to work in hospitals in dreadful conditions. And what she describes in detail – if you have read it, you will know this isn’t a short book, by any means – is nothing less than the ripping apart of a generation.

The First World War was a shock of seismic proportions in our civilisation. We can look back with the wise eyes of history and see how various elements had contributed to it happening, and how so many people died, and think “wasn’t that dreadful?” … but in doing so we miss the huge personal impact that the war had on individuals and families. Each soldier or civilian who died had a family who mourned, who was never, ever the same again.

It is estimated that around 20 million people died in the First World War. EACH ONE of those 20 million people – each one – was a precious life which stopped – there and then – no more successors, no more children, no more grandchildren. We are the lucky ones, because our grandparents, great grandparents and great-great grandparents survived. We are surrounded, even today, by the shadows of those who never existed, because of the First World War.

The First World War shook civilisation because it challenged the values that had underpinned society until that point – values that we have struggled ever since to recover and blend into something more valuable, more precious, more equal, more human.

The spirit of ANZAC lies in its human qualities of courage and sacrifice, and the importance of supporting one another, of being a good ‘mate’. These are central human elements which have real meaning and relevance for how we conduct ourselves today. But let us also commit never to forget what war does. It is within our power to work together to prevent wars. And when we remember what war does, we will do this so much the better.

 

 

Apr 22

The Boston bombings and an outpouring of human warmth

One of the most heartening aspects of the dreadful events that have unfolded in Boston over the past week and a half has been the visibly great strength of the human reaction to other human beings in distress. News stories captured the heroism of individuals who ran towards the blast rather than away, to tend those critically injured; tales abounded of runners who discovered an almost superhuman determination to overcome exhaustion in the last few kilometres so that they could aid the rescue effort. Runners professed that they would not be beaten, and that out of solidarity with those injured they would run even harder in London a week later; and the packed streets of London spoke of this immense force, with human beings standing – figuratively – shoulder-to-shoulder with their distant cousins across the ocean. They were humans together, any difference transcended by the unity they found in opposing a twisted evil.

One of the most moving stories I heard was of the reaction of Bostonians on hearing of the blast, and the subsequent inevitable transport upheaval that followed. More than 4000 local citizens put their names and contact details into an online spreadsheet containing offers of accommodation and transport to help out visitors who had nowhere to stay. In another context, we would have chastised them for placing their privacy at risk; in another context, too, it probably would not even have crossed their minds to do so. But they did so because they were prompted by a basic human instinct to reach out to those in need – to care, to help, to heal.

The Boston bombings showed the worst and the best of humanity – wanton disregard for human life and ultimate regard for the same. On a scorecard, the regard and care far outweighed the other, and that is what was so inspiring about the aftermath of the event. Human beings have an amazing capacity to care for each other, and we are hardwired to do so. We do not show it often enough, but the fact that we show it when it matters reminds us of how inter-linked we all are as a human race. It inspired hope for the future of humanity; let us capture these moments and build on them.

 

 

Apr 17

Margaret Thatcher and an interdependent society

After the distasteful scenes leading up to it, Baroness Thatcher’s funeral yesterday was a dignified and noble affair, with the streets of London lined with people who were there, overwhelmingly, to acknowledge her long service to the country, and to mark her life and her passing.

The Bishop of London, in his funeral address, was very clear on this: “There is an important place for debating policies and legacy; for assessing the impact of political decisions on the everyday lives of individuals and communities. Parliament held a frank debate last week … but here and today is neither the time nor the place. This, at Lady Thatcher’s personal request, is a funeral service, not a memorial service with the customary eulogies. And at such a time, the parson should not aspire to the judgments which are proper to the politician; instead, this is a place for ordinary human compassion of the kind that is reconciling. It is also the place for the simple truths which transcend political debate. And above all it is the place for hope.”

The Bishop continued on to explain that Margaret Thatcher was a great servant in her political life, overcoming many hurdles in her belief that she had a role to play to help the country get back on its feet. He exploded the myth that she was not a believer in ‘society’; her widely quoted statement that “there is no such thing as society” referred in her mind, he explained, to “some impersonal entity to which we are tempted to surrender our independence”. Instead, she believed that we needed to work not to be dependent on others, but to live with others and for others, in an ‘other-centred’ way, beyond ourselves. The word Margaret Thatcher used … was “interdependence”.

Life, the Bishop pointed out, “is a struggle to make the right choices and to achieve liberation from dependence, whether material or psychological.” Margaret Thatcher was very aware of this, and she had a strong sense of the essential values needed to make society – this web of inter-relationships – work: “She was very aware that there are prior dispositions which are needed to make market economics and democratic institutions function well: the habits of truth-telling, mutual sympathy, and the capacity to co-operate. These decisions and dispositions are incubated and given power by our relationships. In her words: “The basic ties of the family are at the heart of our society and are the nursery of civic virtue.”

This is enormous good, solid, common sense. It is very easy to think and speak harshly about politicians. What they do has an impact on our lives – which we tolerate easily if it is exactly what we would like, but (as is to be expected) this will not always be the case, and we can be very quick to condemn them. We expect a great deal from our politicians in other ways, too: for them to be paragons of virtue, models of honesty and probity, and statespeople whose wisdom transcends the norm … it is hardly surprising, therefore, that as mere human beings they often fail to live up to these ideals, and that their fall from grace is greater in our eyes.

And yet politicians are there to serve. They have chosen this path – in large part, at least – to try to make a positive difference in the world, and we should sometimes stop our critical tongues and remember this. The oppositional nature of so many of our political structures should of course continue to be a source of irritation and frustration for us, but maybe we should be a little more generous in our appreciation of what our politicians are seeking to do for us.

In this world, we will thrive as a human race when we learn not to live in isolation from one another, nor to live in dependency upon others, but together, interdependent, with a shared and common goal, but bringing to this our unique capacities and insights. If nothing else, we were reminded of this at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. It was indeed a time for compassion and hope.

 

Apr 13

What we can and should do NOW to make gender equality happen

A really interesting and stimulating report was published a couple of weeks ago by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which justifiably claims to be the UK’s leading progressive thinktank. Their reports are always worth reading – full, detailed, current and to the point, they are a wealth of information as well as, in the main, offering some very practical forward-thinking solutions. Their latest report, Great Expectations: Exploring the Promises of Gender Equality, is an excellent read – a must-read, even – and I thoroughly recommend it.

The main premise of the report is that the time has come to move beyond just empowering women to change. Instead, the authors identify key areas in which – structurally – our society effectively prevents real gender equality from becoming embedded, despite all the legal frameworks in place. The authors look in turn at the state of women in work, drawing on personal experiences as well as on official statistics, and then turn their attention to women as carers – “the ‘unpaid economy” – and then women in cultural life.

The report’s conclusion is quite clear: “Overall, we need a gender politics that is less about how women can succeed in a man’s game, and more about how to change the rules of the game.” In order to do this, the authors argue, we need to be asking different questions from those we largely ask at present: “We should ask whether women’s interests are best served by a focus on women’s ability to compete on an equal footing with men, or by raising the status of the jobs that women do. Whether the gender pay gap is better addressed by promoting women in top jobs, or by tackling low pay and insecurity at the bottom. Whether the difficulties faced by working parents are better addressed by defending women’s right to maternity leave, or a transformation of the role of men in the home. And how much of this can be achieved by state capture, and how much requires us to build democratic coalitions for change.”

It is undeniably and demonstrably the case that gender equality has made amazing strides forward in the past century. In 1913, few democracies in the world allowed women to vote, to earn money for themselves, or to own property. The world has changed. But it is has also reached a sticking point, and we can’t let this progress stagnate. We need to devote creative thinking power to the issue, and we need to do this now. And as this report so powerfully concludes, we need to do this together. Together we are stronger; together we can explore, collectively, how to dismantle the fossilised structures which are preventing women and men from working and living on an equal footing, and together we can build new and empowering structures which just make it all work.

What a great goal … and if we set our minds to it, I truly believe that it is in sight.

 

Apr 05

Georgia Willson-Pemberton. RIP.

Early on Friday morning I received a distressing message on Twitter from a former member of staff at one of my previous schools, alerting me to the news that was splashed all over the UK press, and on the front page of the Daily Mail: the inquest into the death of Georgia Willson-Pemberton. The coroner established that Georgia, aged just 26, had died of multiple organ failure in December after a battle with anorexia that had culminated in her taking an overdose of laxatives. This had caused “irreparable damage” to her digestive organs; her body could take no more, and she collapsed and died.

Our time at Heathfield School in Ascot – she as pupil, I as Headmistress – coincided. At school, Georgia was a perfectly normal girl – mostly happy (in the way that teenagers only ever are ‘mostly’ happy – a necessary part of this period of transition) and very accomplished on the sports field and ski slopes. I knew her during her early to mid teens, and I developed a soft spot for her – largely because, as most entrepreneurial thinkers are, she was always in one scrape or another, and so ended up spending plenty of time explaining herself to me and promising never to do it again. She earned the praise and friendship of her peers, and was made Head Girl (after my time). By all accounts, she ended her school years on a high.

Georgia possessed a strong strain of self-doubt, however, as achievers in this society – especially girls and women – often do, and this, combined with her innate determination to succeed, will not have helped her as in later years she developed the mental illness that is anorexia. The coroner noted that this had happened in 2008, while she was studying for a degree in international marketing at the European Business School in London, and from this point onwards, her life – and that of her family – became consumed by the disease. People underestimate anorexia – they dismiss it as faddishness about food, but as the National Eating Disorders Collaboration in Australia explains, “Anorexia Nervosa is a serious and potentially life threatening mental illness. A person with Anorexia Nervosa has not made a ‘lifestyle choice’; they are actually very unwell and need help.”

There are many reasons why people develop anorexia – and in fact, it is usually a complex and very personal mix of genetic pre-disposition, trauma, social factors, and the psychological need to control. There is no doubt, however, that our culture of thinness, and pressure on women to look, act and be in certain ways, can be a contributing factor. This pressure can have devastating consequences. In a case in the West of England last year, the coroner reporting on the suicide of a 14 year old girl, who developed an eating disorder, the coroner was blunt and to the point: “I do ask for magazines that trade in the fashion industry to stop publishing photographs of wafer thin girls. For their vanity families like this suffer.”

And yet, this culture surrounds our young people. These messages are reinforced at every street corner, in every magazine, a hundred times over in adverts on TV, or pop-ups online. It is part of the air that they breathe; they are conditioned to think not only that that thin is good, but that without thin there can be no good. These expectations are so pervasive that they are often unchallenged – they are our ‘normal’, and this is intensely dangerous and deeply, deeply wrong. Studies have shown that the body shape typically modelled to young people can only be physically achieved by 5% of our population; the rest will struggle in vain, in an unnecessary battle that if not challenged can only ever lead them to feelings of inadequacy and failure that will debilitate them. Throughout history, people have led happy and successful lives regardless of their shape and size; why – other than for commercial reasons – have we created a body-obsessed society that suggests otherwise?

It is our collective responsibility to dismantle this facade, or at least to place it in the perspective that it warrants. Life is not all about appearance; it is about who we are, and what we contribute. Schools, parents, leading figures in society … we must all take up this cause and seek to make a difference. We cannot all cure mental illness, although thankfully we have professionals in our society who can do this in many cases, even if tragically not in Georgia’s. We can though, all of us, most certainly work towards highlighting and taking apart the pernicious toxic expectations of young people that are currently rarely challenged in our society. Our young people deserve the opportunity to be able to breathe freely, to be able to be themselves, and to be released from the immense pressure that forces them to conform physically, and doubt themselves hugely. We owe it to them to take up this cause.

Georgia Willson-Pemberton. Died but not forgotten.