It's Hyperfixation time babey

the testament of ann lee, deeply unironically:

““When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor’s wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn’t believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day, when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking–the first in his life. She told him that he would have to go outside himself and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, “Mama, I couldn’t find a switch, but here’s a rock that you can throw at me.” All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child’s point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy into her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because if violence begins in the nursery one can raise children into violence.””

In 1978, when she received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Lindgren spoke against corporal punishment of children in a speech entitled Never Violence! After that, she teamed up with scientists, journalists and politicians to promote non-violent upbringing. In 1979, a law was introduced in Sweden prohibiting violence against children in response to her demands. Until then there was no such law anywhere in the world.

just started rewatching downton and i can't stop thinking about the profound loneliness of the end of the grand finale. it happens so gradually over the course of the series that you almost don't notice it; sure, there are fewer unnamed servants in the background, and we lose the whole genus footman, but it happens so slowly. upstairs, edith gets married and leaves and tom starts his new life, but that's the natural order of things. the deaths of sybil and matthew and violet are devastating, but there's sybbie and george and rose, so the show is focused more on the absence of sybil and matthew and violet themselves rather than the concept of loss.