tiny kazoos

a celebration of feminist prayers, talks with GAWD, and misanthrope parenting

Hellooo! And welcome to a peak into the paid-subscriber-only zone, where we celebrate the week’s tiny kazoos. (Tiny because they’re less visible than the big stuff of growing up. Not because they’re less lovely. Kazoos because they’re less shiny than the traditional milestones. Not because they’re less worthy.) If you’d like to gift someone a subscription to this part of the Good for You newsletter—or gift one to yourself!—I’d be so happy to spread the itty-bitty confetti.

1. Shannon Evans’ new book, Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, is right on time. My oldest daughter just turned eighteen, and I am learning to love her anew from within, from afar, from my bed, like I prefer. But—also?—with prayers for supportive female friendships, for when gender boxes are too small, for a world without photoshop, and for so much more—may these prayers re-member me, a woman who is someone other than a mother, too, a woman who is powerful not because of who she loves but how she is beloved to the bone.

2. What do you do when you find out you have professional development money for the first time in, I dunno, ever? You hire a leadership luminary.

3. Black women are not magical. But they can embody a different way of knowing, a knowing that invites me to occupy rather than absent my life. This week, I had the spectacular pleasure of attending a conversation with five black women who call themselves GAWD: the Grown Ass Women’s Delegation. Honestly, the recording is worth watching for the introductions alone. “I am my name.” “I am precious and rare.” “I am the daughter of…” “I bring dead things to life.” “There are no margins, only expanding centers.”