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Articles by Amy Hollingsworth available online: "When Being a Mom Isn't Enough" I have to say, it took me by surprise. After all, I had ditched the feminist side of me long ago. It was tossed in the same heap where I left my fierce independence, my career ambitions, my single life. Now I had settled down into the oft-challenging, endlessly rewarding life of a wife and mother. But out of the smoldering heap where I left my feminism wafted an ember with a little spark left. And the spark whispered, Isn't there more? "Most Likely to Succeed" One of the biggest questions yet to be answered by educators is whether academic success is an accurate predictor of success later on in life. My youngest sister works at a busy restaurant in the town where I grew up. One night a couple of guys who were a few years behind me in high school asked her what I was up to now. “She’s a rocket scientist, right?” one of them guessed. “Well,” my sister replied, “not really. She’s a mom.” Both men burst out laughing. “No, really, what is she doing now? She’s a doctor, right?” "Educating the 'Off' Child" I just wanted her to be a "normal" four-year-old girl. But what I ended up with was an appreciation for her uniqueness and a determination to let her idiosyncracies be her gift, not her disability. "Educating the 'Off' Child" Update “Why do people call me the ‘off’ child?” Emily asked as she emerged from the shower and proceeded to put her underewear on backwards. “People don’t call you ‘off,’” I tried to explain. “Your pediatrician did once, but that was a long time ago.” It surprised me that a word that had once carried so much weight could now be spoken so matter-of-factly. Emily examined herself in the mirror, the extra material of her backwards underwear bunched up in front. “Now what’s wrong?” she asked her reflection. "Invisible Neighborhood" Fred Rogers' favorite saying was a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic fable, The Little Prince. A framed copy of the quote in its original French sat on a table in his small office at the WQED station in Pittsburgh where Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was filmed. It read: "L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux," which means "What is essential is invisible to the eye." "According to Their Step" This story reminded me of a time when I was walking along the beach with my daughter, who was about three at the time. She would stop every minute or two to play in the water, pick up a shell or rub her feet in the sand. But I had an agenda; I wanted to cover as much ground as possible. So I kept pulling her along, telling her to hurry, admonishing her to catch up. Then it occurred to me that my impatience was a societal one: We rush our children through life; we overschedule their every waking moment; we feed them facts and figures in order to cover as much ground as possible. So I slowed down to let my daughter explore and learned a valuable lesson. "Escape from the Hobbit Hole: Learning to Say Yes to Adventure" “Do you know the way the dragon twists people’s words around?” my son was saying. “He tells them a little of the truth and then twists it around to weaken them.” We were sitting around the kitchen table talking about Smaug, the gold-loving, doubt-evoking dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Jonathan had been curious about a particular adage in the book, “Every worm has a weak spot.” Discussing that proverb led to a mutual confession of our own weaknesses. “That thing that Smaug does to people, I think that happens to me sometimes,” Jonathan admitted. “People say things to me and what they say may be partly true, but they twist it to make it hurt me." Read full article here ."Much Ado About Midlife" I guess it was obvious that something was wrong. The books stacked high on the shelf above my bed hinted at the struggle: Questions Women Ask in Private; What Every Mom Needs; Pillow Talk: The Intimate Marriage From A to Z; The Guilt-Free Book for Pastors’ Wives; Working Women, Workable Lives. I may be crazy, I thought to myself, but at least I’m resourceful. Unfortunately, the books—though excellent in their own rights—did nothing to quell the confusion that was ruining my life.
"Welcome to the Sisterhood!" This summer I attended my first statewide homeschool conference. I noticed a common thread there, too. I walked in the conference hall and stood amazed, awash in a sea of 4,000 denim jumpers. Amy and her children, Emily and Jonathan, the muses for most of her articles!
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