In Conversation with Faith Newton

Hi friends,

I hope you’re all ticking along and – as my gran used to say – that the week’s been good to you.

New here? Pop on over to my welcome post for the lowdown:

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Now for a very important conversation…

Faith Newton

is a mother-carer of two neurodivergent children. She writes on here in her publication, Holy Chaos, about creative parenting and spirituality, where without access to the quiet ‘cathedral,’ or at the very least, the office to go to, there is a need to find a way to nurture ourselves in and around the chaos of the every day.

We talk about how, practically, the day really goes when you have a full-time job, a child who cannot attend mainstream school and a toddler at home, too. How our parenting aspirations have to bend to accommodate these wee people when they arrive replete with their own quirks and qualities. We chew over the strategies we can put in place to ensure our mental and physical wellbeing is safeguarded when the going gets tough.

Faith’s book, Inclusive PE for SEND Children, was released at the end of last year. By day, she is an Occupational Therapist working with families, and the book is aimed at parents and teachers. We also talked about how challenging it is to promote a book when caring responsibilities make it really hard to accommodate. Faith has developed a number of brilliant workarounds, which I think we could all employ…

Here are the two posts we reflect on in the conversation:

An Open Letter To Toddler Groups

Rest - The Holy Grail for Special Needs Parents

We also namecheck a few other parent-carers including

Penny Wincer

and

Caro Giles

who do such an important job in raising the challenges posed in a culture and under a government that is incredibly hostile towards parent-carers.

It feels to me that this conversation will resonate regardless of your relationship to caring / parenting. Faith, like me, also has a parent she is responsible for so is very much in the Sandwich Gang… You, too? Tell us all about it.

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While I’ve got you…

I’m currently deep in a new project and therefore in need of conversations such as this one (other podcasts are indeed available right here on

Substack

including two of my favourites, The Shift with

sam baker

and

In Haste

with

Charlotte Runcie

and

Alice Vincent

) to take my mind to a completely different place on my daily walk round the park. Remember that you can listen rather than watch to this episode, just as I did on Thursday when a brilliant discussion on memoir between

Dr Lily Dunn

and

Leah McLaren

dropped into my inbox. As much as I enjoyed seeing them, I also loved having the choice of just popping on my headphones and getting out the door. Maybe this will be how you absorb this post? I’d love to know…

A girl cannot be parted from her headphones. The prospect alone is enough to send a hand to the forehead

Remember, too, that the other episodes in the series with

Caro Giles

,

Annette Vaucanson Kelly

and

Lyndsay Kaldor

can be found right here…

I’ll be darkening your inbox again on Wednesday with episode twenty (yes, twenty!) of my memoir, Held in Mind, so giving those of you still catching up fair warning that you have still some days to get up to speed.

Til then, pals.

Lindsay x