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Devi Abraham

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In the beginning to get seen on Instagram, you nee

In the beginning to get seen on Instagram, you needed to be a quality photographer. Then it was microblogging and stories. Now it’s reels, saves, and shares. Next year, it’ll be something else. Soon enough there will be a new platform.

It’s capitalism, the product changes to meet the demands of the market. And you and I scroll on in the service of a San Fran algorithm.

Have you noticed how controversy builds platforms? You know the demure influencer, “I don’t know you guys,” she coos, “masks are great and all but...” Then there’s the other one whose not going to be persecuted for writing about (insert topic here). They are *of course* encouraging us to do our research and make up our own mind.

Does the algorithm rewards these posts? Or are we are more reactive, inclined to like, comment, and share something that provoked a strong reaction, which then triggers the algorithm in controversy’s favor?

It’s also the way “influencers and “thinkers” and “public ____” use their platform to shout at others. “I’ve been getting so many DMs about (Rachel Hollis) (political post). Here’s what I think.”

It’s your response to someone’s idea. You grow your platform by disagreeing with others. But instead of a conversation between the two of you, it’s competing content, followers gained on all sides.

Anger, rage, cynicism, this too is common, addictive ground.

I think what we long for is connection, conversation, and community. To be seen, to name what we excavate, to right the wrongs, to tell the truth, but to do it together. We rejoice communally, we grieve communally.

This is a long, slow road. It is built one conversation at a time, another minute spent listening, putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, changing our actions, loving our neighbors.

This slow work yields community.

Friends, this app is enormous. It owns our content. Will it own our souls?

Push back.

🛑 stop asking your favourite influencers to comment on other people’s posts

🛑 stop sending your followers to hate comment on a post you disagree with

✅ read well, pause, comment.

✅ follow accounts that encourage dialogue.

What can you do to keep conversations central here?

Let’s do a round of #fridayintroductions, but to

Let’s do a round of #fridayintroductions, but today I want you to meet someone.

Josephine Butler.

She was from a wealthy, progressive Christian family, devoted to the study of the Bible and living out what they learned. Yes progressive then meant Christian who believed women should have an education. She married an educated man who delighted in her abilities. They had three sons and a daughter and before they moved to Liverpool, their daughter died in a tragic accident.

So this woman grief stricken in every way, moves to a new place where her husband is principal of a boys school and her sons go to school and she has nothing to do.

Just a reminder that she’s privileged, she doesn’t need to do anything. But a friend tells Josephine to channel her pain into something.

She finds out about the Contagious Diseases Act, a law in England written to prevent the spread of STDs in the army and navy but carried out by the forcible inspection of women suspected to be prostitutes. As in they forcibly examined her to see if she had an STD. Not the men of course, just the women.

Josephine Butler stumbled upon an eternal truth - the law prioritizes the wealthy, the educated, the privileged to the cost of those she called “outcasts.”

That’s still true today by the way.

So she starts working. She unpicks rope with women in the cellar of the workhouses, prostitutes dying of STDs come to live with their family, she starts houses of rest for these women to live in. And she campaigns tirelessly for the law to change. I won’t give that ending away - go listen to the podcast to find out.

Are you sick of Christianity that prioritizes the powerful over the weak? Do you look at the world and despair because it seems like the mountain of justice is too high?

Learning about Josephine Butler was like being baptized again in a fire of truth.

People can change culture.

Love can motivate us to fight for change.

It’s going to take a long time.

You’ll need a strong hope to give you patience to keep going.

What is broken in your world today? Maybe it’s time to look backward for inspiration. Start with Josephine.

Podcast episode about her here www.wheredowegopod.com/39 link in bio

Hi all you Victorian Mums and Dads, I’m sitting

Hi all you Victorian Mums and Dads, I’m sitting in my quiet house and thinking of all of us right now.

Remembering the way we laughed at the silliest things.

Trying to forget the tears spilled in despair.

Collecting the fragments of the life we knew in January that are now scattered everywhere like LEGO.

But here we are at a temporary finish line because we know the goal posts will likely move again. But for now, one glorious deep breath.

We did something new. We got through a whole term and more of being the chief educators of our children, something we never planned to do.

We worked and navigated kids on zoom. We cleaned and broke up fights. We had meetings while we cooked. We took one step at a time to get through each day.

I keep telling people it’s been the best of times and the worst of times. It’s been all of life distilled into a few months of grief and joy and failure and victory. And the very very mundane bits all in there too.

But now we are here on the threshold of a new beginning. I raise my warm mug of tea to you tonight. You did it. Well done.

Now tell me, how are you celebrating tomorrow?

To clarify, I don’t recommend the bottom four bo

To clarify, I don’t recommend the bottom four books.

I read an article today about why spanking is still a biblical method of discipline. I have thoughts.

I’ll say this as it’s only positive - millennial parents do need input from older parents and a community of people supporting, mentoring, and guiding.

But the rest of it, I don’t even know where to start. No you can’t take three verses from Proverbs and say the totality of the Bible commands spanking as biblical discipline. No human in the Bible is commended for their parenting except maybe Timothy's mom and grandma. Jacob doesn’t take his sons on family camping trips. Mary MOTHER OF GOD isn’t doing family devotions. My guess is we would be horrified by the way our biblical heroes parented (please google David man after God’s own heart, Tamar, and Ammnon).

But how can I explain to you how much having a Good Christian Family is the prize for most married Christians? It’s the thing we work toward, kids who sit quietly in church, respect their elders, and obey (the first time, cheerfully, straight away). How do I tell you what it’s like to feel like you completely failed at this when your kids don’t?

Tilley Dillehay’s article gets straight to this fear, speaking to the myth of what Christian families are supposed to be like and the way to get there. Spanking. Discipline via pain because it’s how God does it.

I’m thinking of you moms and dads who feel frustrated by what you see at home but struggle with the methods offered to you.

You are not alone. We did some things well. We did some things badly. But we are trying to focus on our kids instead of having a model Christian family.

You may have to forge your own path, but it is not too late. There are better tools out there, there is research on what works and doesn’t, and there is your family. Your unique children. Who need you and their village. But they don’t need this false myth of a Christian family.

(Swipe for good people to follow on Instagram)

Before we talk about women who have 7 children (or

Before we talk about women who have 7 children (or less) working as Supreme Court judges (or anything), we need to talk privilege.

So first, a story. I grew up in the Philippines, we lived next to an empty lot where a large, extended family of people built their tenement homes. It was a squatter community, “houses” with tin roofs that blew off during typhoons. I sat on their dirt floors watching TV with my friends because we didn’t have one.

All of the mothers, aunts, grandmothers tried to earn a living. They looked after each other’s children, they did what they could to give their children an education and put food on the table.

You and I live in a middle class world, a world other women fought to build, one where we can work. Or stay at home. Put our kids in childcare. Or not. Work part time or full time.

These are choices.

Choice when it comes to work is a privilege.

Should a woman with seven children be able to do her work well as a Supreme Court justice?

Yes she should. But that doesn’t change the road of privileges that paved her way there.

The income it takes to sustain a family of nine. The money involved for one partner’s work to take a backseat. The privilege of a permanent long term carer. These are privileges.

The people who shape the conversation of women and motherhood tend to come to it loaded with their privilege. How did Sheryl Sandberg Lean In and become Facebook COO? She had a nanny and a husband. How did Rachel Hollis invest all her first earnings back into her company? She had her husband’s Disney health insurance and pay check (also a nanny).

We should all be glad that the doors are opening for women to be in decision making positions, government, business leadership. But we need to acknowledge the privilege and wealth that can be involved in getting them there.

Because there are women for whom these options don’t exist.

There is no one to share the partnership of child raising.

There is no money for nannies or babysitters.

There aren’t the discretionary dollars for business or grad school.

But she’s got ideas, and her ideas will change the world.

What about her?

Get the good stuff here.

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Devi

Home
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Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

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