Glosswitch

After my hospitalisation for eating disorders, my brother's schizophrenia diagnosis came as a relief, of sorts. Whether family history or chemical imbalance, we desperately seek a reason for the unreasonable.

We’re brilliant at defending the mentally ill in principle, but we can be terrible at hiding our revulsion at some of the sick people we’ve encountered in the flesh.

Tanya Gold writes that "motherhood and autonomy can never coexist" - but how does that affect the debate over abortion?

Teachers must wish Michael Gove worked shorter days and took longer holidays - then his department might stop coming up with so many ill-considered changes to the education system.

Glosswitch reads parenting manuals so you don't have to.

Childcare is a fact of life - making it more “affordable” for some women not to earn money is not the same as granting non-earners choice, status and respect.

The Conservative MP’s concerns only represent one experience of parenting – her own.

Writing about raising children and domestic life is no more trivial than any other blogging subject, argues Glosswitch.

In the first of a new regular series looking at parenting books, Glosswitch takes on Jessica Valenti's "Why have kids?" and other miserable-mummy manuals.

Childcare qualifications are great, but they don’t help you look after more children at once, as the government seems to be hoping.

It’s easy to claim richer students are more confident because of their superior education, but it may be more accurate to say they’re more confident because they’re rich.

Rules girls are Stepford wives with “difference™” stamped on back of their swan-like necks. This book makes me glad we live in an age of rampant oversharing and overexposure.

"Celebrating" female self-esteem assumes it's been destroyed in the first place - why not protect it instead?

If that’s respect, I’m Chrétien de Troyes.