A Humanist Dad

30/07/2026

WSL fixtures are out. I'm excited to see as many BHAFC Women Fan Page games as possible. Gutted that I won't be able to see the opening game against Arsenal. and interesting to see that this will be followed by three home games at the Ammex - building up our ability to fill big stadiums ahead of 2030, or disrupting continuity at the Broadfield?

Highlights I'm looking forward to include my first nighttime game - possibly a few depending on Subway Cup fixtures - and posting more and more about women's football while making (sometimes tenuous) connections to my usual parenting and community building content.

Our 26/27 Barclays WSL fixtures 💙🤍

*25th Oct is West Ham at home

27/07/2026

This is such a wonderful gift, covered in another great episode of The Family Skeptical. It shows how secular families can still have and create rich traditions of parenting and ethical knowledge. I enjoyed the discussion about intentionality, how central it is to skeptical/secular/humanist parenting, and the importance of recognising when stresses are preventing us from parenting intentionally. Also the talk about raising issues with children before they necessarily bring them up was good - a good range of social justice oriented and diversity focused books is one of the best ways to open up those conversations.

I've long been an advocate of avoiding the one 'Big Conversation' approach to important topics. But Pops said something on this that I hadn't thought of before - it also takes pressure of of parents to feel like they have the 'perfect' response ready. I think that secular parents are particularly vulnerable to this when it comes to 'The Religion Conversation'.

New episode alert. Listening to atheist call-in shows on road trips. Being intentional. Things we feel the need to talk to the kids about whether they’re interested or not.

Jaeger has been taking cello lessons, ensuring that all of his activities include bags that don’t easily fit through a doorway. The system his teacher uses includes a lot of parental involvement which is all Pops. The other night, we were sitting on the couch after the kids went to bed and I glanced over and he was watching videos on his computer by a cellist talking about technique. Before I even thought about our episode topic, it just made me so happy to be parenting with him. The intentionality of learning technique for an instrument he isn’t even going to play.

One intentional thing I started doing is whenever the kids bring up anything they’re interested in or want, I add it to a gift list. It’s still impossible because their interests change so fast, but it’s come in handy at times.

And can I just say - I love my mom’s handwriting so much. It’s instantly recognizable and fills me with deep comfort whenever I see it.

27/07/2026

24/07/2026

I’ve been thinking about how often we view young people’s presence in public spaces as inherently a problem - and how big a part disdain and just real dislike for young people is a part of reactionary outlooks.

Where I like working in the library there’s desks and then a divide and the waiting area for citizens advice bureau services and the registry office. So I often hear conversations going on and it’s a bit of a slice of life. And very often you hear older people talking very loudly, and sometimes I have to move to a quieter part of the library.

Surprisingly regularly - as on this Monday - you hear a lot of rather loud obnoxious casual racism and complaints about how terrible the country is, mixed in with well intentioned but horribly authoritarian advice to the parents waiting to register their babies birth.

The other thing that regularly happens - like clock work - about 15.30 is groups of school kids start coming in to the library, often being loud, boisterous and yes a little obnoxious,. And every time they are swiftly squashed and normally pushed out by library staff.

It’s just night and day how the two different groups are treated. I’m happy to put up with a bit of noise in the library if people can access so many services and make human connections there. But why can’t we extend the same grace to young people going to one of the few places they can hang out for free?

Sharing this reminded me of a WhatsApp I wrote in October 2024 in the same library.

An older man and woman (early 70’s?) met in the library today and had a loud long recital of a Daily Mail comment section. Eventually I moved to the other side of the library, but could still hear the highlights, including:

* How much the head teacher and all the students praised her for telling school children they couldn't eat until they were all lined up in silence.

* A few years ago social services made it illegal to discipline children, and you're not even allowed to say no to them now days.

* Various countries that were better when the Brits were in charge.

* Lots about the need to bring back national service and how young people today would just cry.

* Young people and those she thinks are on benefits spend too much money on coffee and it's making it too expensive. Because she kept going on about it costing £4 I looked this up, and assuming that was true, that's actually a smaller percentage of the average weekly wage than it would have been for a woman in 1980 in full time where she'd earn 65% of a man's wage, but of course everything's getting worse today and people aren't young ladies like they used to be.

* Young people wouldn't ride bikes on the street if the police could give them lashes like in Singapore, and she'd like to ship most of these young people off to Singapore.

* When he was 14 he (his nephew?) was dragged out of bed to the market stall and told it was his job now, but young people today are too lazy.

* When he was younger if you knew martial arts or karate, the police had this recorded in their notebooks, and he saw his name and status once. It was "lethal weapon walking" or something like that. But he would never use his skills unless it was a war (queue another round on the need to bring back national service and how young people today would just cry and say it wasn't fair).

* He was raised to never hit a woman (quick reminder that the high court only ruled in 1991 that marital r**e was a crime) but he did beat up someone for insulting his mother, or his dad would have beaten him (she was very approving of this and that the police wouldn't do anything about it, and kept repeating 'of course now days...').

* She's too scared to walk in Hassocks. Nothing's ever happened, but it just doesn't feel like it used to.

* He wasn't invited to his daughter's wedding.

24/07/2026

"Taught well, Religious Education can help people understand the truths of Christianity. Taught badly, it can label it as just another worldview, with no more factual basis than tarot cards or Ouija boards." I spent 8 years working on education policy including RE - this attitude may be an extreme example, but the arrogance of Christian organisations who still feel that the subject is there's to control is deeply embedded, and encourages other religious lobbying groups to push for the subject give their own religions proportionate and positive framing.

Would you want your child to be taught about witchcraft in RE?

Christian teachers have become deeply disturbed by the National Curriculum's proposed content of Paganism and even Witchcraft.

It's one of many issues that have been presented as if a consensus has been achieved - where no such consensus exists.

Taught well, Religious Education can help people understand the truths of Christianity. Taught badly, it can label it as just another worldview, with no more factual basis than tarot cards or Ouija boards.

20/07/2026

Book review by The Wall (Marlen Haushofer).

Written by Austrian writer Haushofer in the 1960’s and translated into English in 1990’s, this post apocalyptic novel went on to inspire the Simpsons Movie, and Stephen King’s ‘Under The Dome’. The novel is a survivors account written by an unnamed woman who - while staying at a friend’s cabin is cut off from the outside world by a mysterious invisible wall - outside of which everything dies.

The story explores what it means to be a woman and a person in isolation when womanhood and personhood are defined in relationships with others and to male dominated society. It sets out to completely deromandicise and demythologise the daily struggle for survival that we see in books like ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and would go on to be such a trope of male centred post apocalyptic fiction/survivalist fantasy. Stripped back in this way, beauty does emerge from this survival, but so does a lot of boredom.

We spend a lot of time with the character’s neurosis. But if you don’t share or fully relate to them (I have my own neurosis thanks very much) then it’s unlikely to be for you.

I was thinking about the book in terms of the current tradwife trend in Christian Nationalism, and how the book shares that aesthetic, but stripped of the male fantasy element.

13/07/2026

I'm in love with 'Teddy's Train Day'. I'm so greatful to The Songs Of Love Foundation for writing and recording this new original song based on my little dude's train adventures.

07/07/2026

With the backdrop of Farage circus, I’ve just finished What If Reform Wins, by Peter Chappell. I like the style of ‘What if?’ political storytelling that I enjoy. Other good examples include the serialised podcast ‘Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal’ from 2024.

The author’s establishment journalist experience comes through (and the book is strongest) when considering the minutiae of how institutions would respond, how would the news break, what would the ‘Downing Street operation’ actually function etc. At times, the well researched book feels like it’s prioritising realism over entertainment, and bending over backwards to avoid accusations of alarmism, in a way that would leave both lovers and haters of Reform unsatisfied.

Chappell knows his host of characters extremely well and weaving in their histories with imagining how they’d act through the scenario is believable. Unfortunately, the actual dialogue is the book’s weakest aspect, with the clunkyness not helped by Chappell’s audio narration.

Imagining how Reform’s crazier policy ideas would run into reality is one thing, but it’s more difficult to capture in the narrative how the dysfunction and incompetence would play out in less dramatic ways.

The book’s subtitle is ‘A scenario’, but in the final chapter it takes the ‘what if’ in another direction, considering two different endings to the narrative. I wish we’d seen more of this in the book. It might have been a better approach to consider a range of perhaps 5 scenarios: from power morphing Reform into a mainstream conservative power, to them going fully down the Trumpian fascist route.

The story is intended as a warning. However, besides showing how bad a Reform Government could be, it offers few solutions. While not entirely his intention, Chappell highlights the absurdity of the idea that the monarchy can be an effective check on an authoritarian prime minister. Other areas such as the green transition (thanks largely to policies and contract models enacted under Lib Dem energy ministers) would be far more resilient, making Reforms dreams of winding back renewable energy, far more difficult.

20/04/2026

‘Moms’ and ‘Pops’ of The Family Skeptical Podcast invited me back on for a wide ranging discussion about humanist parenting, Lego and discussing politics/justice with kids.

‘Moms’ and ‘Pops’ of The Family Skeptical Podcast invited me back on for a wide ranging discussion about humanist parenting, Lego and discussing politics/justice with kids.

15/04/2026

Loved this conversation with The Family Skeptical podcast.