It's not that she's against dye, or anything like that, but that she is undertaking to accept where she is now. Then she asked the question, ‘how are you practicing self acceptance?'

It was a general question for all of her friends, not me, I imagine, in particular, but I nevertheless screamed in my own quiet mind, ‘Are you kidding! I'm not practicing self acceptance! Bring on the dye!'

Then I went on and explained to myself that she has one of those nice streaks, whereas my hair is going gray right at the top in a confused and tragic way.

From thence I complained to myself about the size and shape of my stomach, the weakness of my arms, carrying on through and criticizing my soul, my foul temper, really everything about how I am and what I look like. #humility Except bashing yourself into the ground every morning is not actually very humble.

In a world where we have both fat shaming and prayer shaming (thank you to Simcha for excellent posts on both counts) I think I have the shame part well in hand. I want to look a certain way, and be a certain way, and I berate and loath myself when don't meet my own desires and expectations.

The stupid thing about this is that these desires and expectations are garnered not from scripture (by no means, as St. Paul would say), nor from the pleasant strictures of my every day life, but rather, most foolishly, from the folly and imagination of my own mind.

I look around at the wide world and think I need to be thinner, and have better hair, and act like this or that, and be thinner. I stand in the grocery aisle gazing at Kate Middleton and examine my own short, troll sized stature and just feel really sad and angry. Self-Acceptance forsooth. Continue reading

• Anne Kennedy is an Anglican mother of six who blogs on Patheos.

The suggestion has been made following the incident in Australia where a Samoan woman has been charged for abandoning her baby in a drain.

She is the 30 year old daughter a Seventh Day Adventist church minister.

The woman has been living with her aunt, uncle and cousins in Sydney's west. Her parents and siblings live in Samoa.

Urging women to be more up front and ask for help when needed, Le'aupepe blamed such incidents on young people having too much freedom.

He said the onset of what he described as a "foreign concept called human rights" has not helped matters.

"In the life of a Samoan, even if you have ten children and married, you still have to obey your parents," said Le'aupepe.

"That is how it was in the past. Parents instructed their children according to God's teaching but the introduction of such belief (rights of a child) has suppressed parents."

"Now we have children turning and threatening their parents with these rights."

The Chairman said smacking children and instructing them on what to do has been reduced because of legislation "but this is where the problem arises."

The elderly Catholic deacon pointed out that in the past, children were taught that a person is an image of God.

He added that having a baby outside of marriage (tofale) is not new.

"When girls had babies outside of marriage in the past, they did not wrap them up and throw them away."

"No, they cared for them and their families accepted them as their own and loved them."

Some Samoan Community leaders in New Zealand have said that often Samoan women who are unmarried and pregnant fear shaming their families.

"I am urging the community to be supportive of what is happening and learn from it - someone in your area next to you is having that problem now," Sooalo Setu Mua said.

The tragic case has been a hot topic at Radio Samoa, with community leaders pleading with listeners to be compassionate.

They say that many people have become incensed by the incident, prompting calls to look at the reasons why a number of Samoan women abandon their babies after birth.

"A lot of the upset people are Samoans because they value the name of Samoa, but at the same time people have come to their senses that yes there is an issue," says Teleiai Edwin Puni, a Seventh Day Adventist minister who lives in Auckland.

Samoa's N.C.C. Secretary, Rev. Maauga Motu agrees Le'aupepe.

He says Samoan women abandoning their babies highlighted the need for Samoa to draw closer to God.

He believes that dumping babies are done by those who have gone away from God.

"I feel that the incident took place because she stopped going to church," said Rev. Motu.

"The pastor's house and the church is where children are nurtured."

"Once they break away from that, they start having problems and begin to take the wrong approach."

"The counseling from the pastor is no longer there, to advice and give support."

He added that because children were made aware of the gospel teachings, they also feared and knew the consequences of wrong actions.

Source

• TVNZ
• Samoa Observer
• Mailonline
• Image: Dailytelegraph.com

Compensation totalling $NZ58 to 98 million will be paid to the estimated 770 survivors of more than 10,000 women who lived in the dozen facilities from the 1920s to 1996.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter said the aim was to compensate the women for their years of unpaid labour and public shame in the workhouses.

The tax-free payments will range from $NZ19,500 each for women who spent less than three months working in a laundry, to up to $NZ170,000 for those who spent 10 years or more there.

Although the laundries were owned and run by four religious congregations of nuns, the Irish state was responsible for about a quarter of all referrals.

Possible reasons included poverty, the loss of a mother, disability, the risk of becoming pregnant, being sexually abused, and having had a second child outside marriage.

But a government inquiry found that most girls were not told why they were put away.

The inquiry found that the laundries were "a harsh and physically demanding work environment" and many of the girls experienced them as "lonely and frightening places".

The inquiry report said: "The psychological impact on these girls was undoubtedly traumatic and lasting."

But the inquiry found that 61 per cent of residents had spent less than one year in the institutions — a finding that did not live up to the stereotype of laundry life portrayed by film-makers.

The four Catholic congregations that ran the laundries have expressed their regrets for how they had treated women and girls in their care.

Sources:

Irish Examiner

RTE

Image: Yahoo! News