Puffs of chemical pollution from a temporary chimney installed on top of the Sistine Chapel by Vatican handymen and firefighters heralds the selection of the new pope.

Have we reached peak patriarchy? It’s mind blowing the ‘leader of the free world’ has never been a woman in 235 years of US Presidents.

It’s impossible to look at American politics right now without thinking WTF? In the blue corner there is the faltering, forgetful, and possibly demented Biden and in the red corner we have a vitriolic, revengeful, pussy-grabbing sociopathic, now-convicted felon who is Trump.

I don’t mind having my ideas shredded. But criticism rarely stays there. It becomes personal. I usually don’t engage. I just let people fight it out with themselves. But I came across this one comment, on a thoughtful post I’d written, that enraged me. The writer accused me of making ‘motherhood statements’. That statement was like acid. I couldn’t let it go.

When I was six years old my father was killed in a car accident. By then I had witnessed countless incidents of domestic violence. I had seen my father physically and verbally abusing my mother. I had been locked in a room for safety, only to have the door smashed in with a chair. I’ve seen my mother pushed. I’ve seen her punched. I’ve heard her crying and begging. I’ve felt the fear. I’ve heard people whispering about me. I’ve felt the shame.