Aim true: Anna Thomasson sets her sights on empowering women through firearms training



There’s something about firing an AR-15 on full auto that puts a big smile on your face.

At least it does for my colleague, Helen Roy. It’s also addictive, apparently; no sooner has she emptied the entire magazine into the target than she asks, “Is that all?”

'A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it "lead therapy," because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.'

Behind her, David Prince laughs knowingly. A tall, grandfatherly former CPA, Mr. Prince (as everybody calls him) owns the spacious and immaculate Eagle Gun Range, where we’ve just spent the last few hours getting a crash course in how to shoot.

Beaming next to him with almost maternal pride is Helen's instructor, Anna Thomasson. She — along with her husband, Bryan Wertz — has been kind enough to spend the afternoon giving us a highly condensed version of the extensive firearms training she offers women through her company, Dallas-based Aim True.

Matt Himes

Although Thomasson grew up around firearms, she was always more observer than participant. "My family is very traditional,” the petite Texan explains. “My dad is ‘boys shoot guns and girls stay in the kitchen.'”

That changed in 2015, when Thomasson was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband, Bryan Wertz, was a lifelong avid shooter; during her recovery he suggested she join him at the range as a way to spend time together while getting outside and getting some sun.

Thomasson found she enjoyed it. And not only that — learning to handle a firearm seemed to restore some of the inner strength sapped by her medical ordeal. “I got the feeling I could be confident in the world again,” she says.

She never looked back, taking course after course and honing her skills. She formed Aim True in 2017 as way to teach firearm self-defense to other women. She also organized the “ladies-only” training group Diamonds and Derringers.

Like Thomasson, Helen has always been comfortable around guns. Her father and her older brother (military veteran and active military, respectively) both enjoy shooting, as does her husband. While she's often joined them at the range and has fired off a few shots of her own on occasion, she's never gotten much, if any, formal training. She's here to rectify that. Helen tells Thomasson she should consider her a beginner.

Gun-shy

We start in a tidy, well-lit classroom tucked away near Eagle Gun Range’s front desk. When I ask how they met, Wertz and Thomasson smile as they describe their courtship, more or less finishing each other’s sentences.

There’s an ease between them that automatically puts us at ease, and it sets the tone for the hours to come. As Thomasson runs the training, Wertz sits to the side, doing work on a computer, every so often interjecting to expand or emphasize a point Anna makes.

Thomasson begins by explaining what’s different about firearms training for women.

To begin with, says Thomasson, many of her students are motivated by a newfound sense of vulnerability.

“I have a lot of clients coming to me when they’ve had a divorce, or they’ve lost their spouse, or they’ve had a break-in at their home,” she says. “They’ve never wanted to hold a gun before, they've never had any interest in it, and now a situation has dictated that this is something [they] have to do.”

Matt Himes

According to Wertz, this reluctance tends to make women who do show up for the course very diligent students.

“We always say that a man feels like he was born to stick a gun in his pants and walk around with it,” says Wertz. A woman, on the other hand, “says I really want to know about this gun and I want to make sure that I don't hurt someone with it, that someone doesn't hurt me with it, that I really understand all aspects of it and how to use it and be confident.”

When that confidence finally comes, it’s often a revelation, says Thomasson. “Sometimes they have an emotional reaction to shooting the first time. And sometimes it just goes straight into, oh my gosh, I am going to be able to take care of myself and I don't have to rely on anybody else.”

Pick a holster

When it comes to buying a gun, Thomasson likes to start with an often overlooked question: Can you find a holster for it? “My clients go to Highland Park Village, get a really pretty gun, and I say, ‘And you can leave it on your bedside table because there's no holster to fit it,’” says Thomasson.

Unless you’re planning to use your gun exclusively out in the country, Thomasson recommends a concealed-carry holster, typically worn inside the waistband.

Choosing the right gun

“Our hands are different from men's,” notes Thomasson. “They're usually a little bit smaller.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean you want a smaller gun, but rather a “grip size that we can actually reach the trigger on.”

Ultimately, says Thomasson, how a gun fits your hand can come down to personal preference. She likens choosing a gun to buying shoes. “I can't buy you a pair of shoes and say, ‘Love these shoes. You should wear them.’ But [I can] teach you the aspects of the gun and what you should be looking for.”

Sometimes bigger is easier

One common misconception Thomasson encounters is the assumption that a smaller gun will always be easier to shoot.

“This is our mindset as women. We think the bigger the gun, the harder it is to control, and the smaller the gun, the easier it is to control.”

Thomasson recalls a recent exchange with a client.

“[A woman] in her 70s called and she said, ‘I'm about five foot tall and I don't have much strength. I have a really big gun, a 9mm, and I think I want to sell it and have you teach me how to use a smaller gun.’”

Thomasson quickly got her to reconsider. “I talked to her about the recoil … and the weight of that bigger gun taking some of that recoil away from your hands and your shoulders. Whereas a smaller gun doesn't have the weight to [absorb] that recoil … and it ends up hitting you harder.”

For Thomasson, this is an essential part of the training she offers: “learn[ing] how to figure out what kind of gun is going to suit you best for your hand strength … [and] your situation.”

Loading the magazine

Thomasson leads us over to a table on which she’s placed a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a special slide for training as well as a pile of inert dummy rounds — in this case, spent Simunition blank cartridges. She begins by teaching Helen to load the magazine, which she recommends bracing against the tabletop.

Laughing at how surprisingly difficult she finds it, Helen says, “You know what, this is very important. How do you do gun stuff and maintain a manicure?”

Thomasson has anticipated the question. “You know there's always a girl way and a boy way,” she says, fetching a small device from a nearby shelf and handing it to Helen. It’s called an UpLULA, and before long it significantly increases Helen’s efficiency.

Trigger warning

Matt Himes

Now that the gun is loaded, it’s time to pick it up. But first Thomasson imparts a basic principle of gun safety: “[You] don't ever want to touch the trigger until [you’re] ready to touch the trigger.”

“This gun is developed to be comfortable in your hand when your finger is on the trigger,” explains Thomasson. “So that's the way that your hand is going to want to pick this up.”

To avoid this, says Thomasson, we have to force ourselves to rest our finger on the frame as we grab the rest of the gun with our hand.

Thomasson points to the fleshy webbing between Helen’s index finger and thumb. “When you pick this gun up … I want you to see how high you can get this part of your hand up here,” she says, indicating the curved little overhang separating the top of the grip from the rest of the pistol.

Helen does, which gives Thomasson the chance to point out an important physiological difference between men and women. “Now if I had one of the boys pick this up, then all of the meat [between his thumb and index finger] would be squished up at the top. But females don't have that kind of muscular development in that part of our hand.”

It’s a difference that can often be overlooked, says Thomasson. “A male instructor will tell the female you need a higher grip, you need a stronger grip. And the lady says, ‘This is all the grip I've got. I don't have any more hand.’”

It's something neither of us have ever thought about, apparently. "It's almost as if men and women are different," marvels Helen with mock incredulity. She examines my hand and compares it to hers.

"I do have that space," she says, smiling brightly. "Confirmed woman!"

"Confirmed woman!"Matt Himes

When it comes to finding a properly fitting gun, Thomasson says it’s all about how your finger reaches the trigger. You want to have it close enough that you comfortably pull it back, without it being so close that your finger wraps around to the other side.

Proper stance

After teaching Helen how to complete the grip with the placement of her non-shooting hand, as well as how to use the pistol’s metal sight, Thomasson talks proper stance.

“Did you notice that you leaned back?” she asks Helen. “The minute you picked up that gun, you got away from it.”

Thomasson says this is an unconscious expression of fear — “we think the gun is going to go off and cause a big bang and we’re already scared of it.” This is precisely what her training seeks to overcome.

Lead therapy

After Thomasson advises Helen on the proper stance, it’s time to dry fire — that is, “shoot” the gun without any live ammunition. We all know it’s loaded with inert rounds, but as Helen aims, the tension in the room builds, and when the hammer makes its quiet little “click,” there’s a tangible sense of release.

Helen lets out a deep exhale and smiles. She looks a little flushed.

“What went through your mind?” asks Thomasson gently.

“Something about having bullets in the gun made me a little nervous,” says Helen. “It's weird, there's so much psychological stuff built up around guns. And I have shot guns before, but ...”

“Because you loaded this and you made that action happen,” says Thomasson. She puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“I'm good. It's kind of powerful, though. Do women often have an emotional reaction when they shoot?”

“I would say 75% of the females that I have, the first shot they go into tears. We put the gun down and we step back and we hug and we talk about it for five or ten minutes. A lot of the ladies that do come on a regular basis call it ‘lead therapy,’ because while you're out there, you're going to feel all this energy hitting you, and then you just want more of it.”

Get a grip

At this point Bryan chimes in to emphasize the power of a good grip.

“So a lot of times, ladies will ask Anna, you know, should I have a gun because I'm tiny and a man will take it from me?”

He demonstrates by trying to pull the gun out of Helen’s hands. He can’t. “I'm just not going to get it from you before you could use your blaster.”

He then addresses how to hold the gun before you’re ready to point and shoot; for example, if you’re preparing to defend yourself against what could be an intruder in your house. In this case, says Wertz, its best to hold the gun pointed down toward the floor.

He demonstrates on Helen. If she holds her gun above her head, pointed toward the ceiling, it’s easy for him to keep her from bringing the gun level.

Wertz then shows what happens if he grabs Helen’s gun when it's pointed to the floor. “If you kneel, then what am I giving you? I’m giving you the perfect first shot.”

Home on the range

David Prince is old enough to have had an entire career before this one, but he radiates boyish enthusiasm when he talks about Eagle Gun Range.

He opened it in 2012, after noticing that there hadn’t been a range built in the Dallas area for 30 years.

“My wife's inspiration is my perspiration,” he jokes. After building a fence and a rock garden, among other projects, they decided to think bigger. “Let us build a gun range. … I can do that.”

“We wanted someplace [that was] really family-friendly,” Prince says. “Especially friendly to the mothers and the women, because stereotypically, women and guns don't mix. … We wanted a place for them to come and feel safe.”

A big component of Eagle Gun Range’s family-friendly atmosphere is its state-of-the-art air filtration system, which removes the contaminants produced by firearm discharge. “It’s cleaner in the range than it is outside,” says Prince.

It’s clear that he’s proud of what he’s created. “Our mission statement says it all: to have a place that's safe and fun to shoot.”

And it’s not that he’s pandering to the ladies, either.

“Indoor shooting is a great co-ed sport,” he says. “Women outshoot guys all the time. Women are great shooters. It’s a fun sport. It doesn't take massive muscles. You can do it and compete against each other, and it's a fun thing, especially for families. Kids get to shoot against the parents. It’s something the whole family can enjoy.”

Shots fired

Now it's time for Helen to put her classroom training into practice.

We head to the private bay Prince has graciously arranged for us, and Thomasson introduces Helen to the first gun she'll be shooting. It's a Glock 9mm, the same as the practice gun she used. Only this one, of course, shoots real bullets.

Matt Himes

Helen loads the magazine, sorts out her grip, and gets into her stance. She aligns her sights at the paper target, then finds the trigger. She takes a deep breath and very slowly pulls it back.

Bang. We all exhale. Helen smiles. "There we go. That was fun."

It was a decent shot, hitting the human silhouette just above the bull's-eye over the chest. Helen fires off another. This one still hits the target, but a little wide. Thomasson reminds her to take it slow.

"When you pull it really fast, you kind of jerk the gun down, and then that's when you end up with shots that are not in the target. Not that, if you were defending yourself, it still wouldn't hurt the person. But if we want to get that perfect shot, [we need] control of the trigger."

Thomasson then has Helen shoot the same cartridge in a smaller gun: a subcompact Glock in turquoise. This gun's grip is significantly thinner and shorter than the previous one; Helen's pinky just barely wraps around the bottom.

When she shoots, the kick is powerful enough that her left hand slips off a little. Helen also notices that because the gun's size allows her finger to wrap all the way around the trigger, it has a tendency to pull to the right when shooting.

It's all a vivid demonstration of Thomasson's earlier point about women and gun size. "[They] say shrink it and pink it and that's how you sell it to a woman," says Wertz. "Well, that's no good because then it's just a pink gun and it's tiny."

As an alternative, Thomasson shows us the Walther PDP F-Series, a full-size 9mm pistol designed for shooters with smaller hands. To get the gun's ergonomics and fit just right, Walther consulted with expert female shooters, including Olympian Gabby Franco.

'Smith and Wesson ... and me'

Noting that the training so far has used Austrian and German pistols, I ask Wertz about the American gun industry.

"When we get into rifles, bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, carbines, we win," says Wertz, "but the Europeans kind of have a hold on the striker-fired market. The polymer lower, steel upper type gun like Glock, Sig, H&K, Walther, all really great handgun manufacturing companies."

Wertz is quick to add that Smith & Wesson does make an excellent striker-fired pistol that many competitors use.

Of course, the iconic American brand has other claims to fame. "Smith & Wesson makes a better revolver than anybody in the world," says Wertz. "And then if you want a 1911-style, old kind of World War II Heritage American pistol, nobody makes them better than we do."

In this latter category, Wertz singles out Florence, Texas-based Staccato. "Anna's got a Staccato that she carries a lot, and they make a better gun than than just about anybody else."

'It's gonna get sporty'

Matt Himes

According to Prince, Helen is something of a natural. He pulls her target and examines it with admiration. "This is extremely good shooting. She's at five yards, but she shot with several firearms, not having any practice rounds."

Helen does equally well on the AR-15 rifle Prince offers her; in fact, she finds it to be her favorite firearm of the day. "I feel so much more confident with [the AR-15] than the smaller ones," she says, when asked if she'd rather have it or a pistol for self-defense.

Wertz says that despite the media's relentless propaganda about "assault rifles," this is a common reaction from women after they shoot an AR-15. "You can see how accurate you were with very little effort and without having any training."

Then it's time to try the rife on full auto. Prince is thorough and professional as he coaches Helen on what to expect; at the same time, you can tell he can't wait for her to let it rip. "It's just natural — when you first squeeze the trigger, you're going to let it rattle off about five rounds. You're going to let go. We're going to reload. Squeeze. Turn around and smile."

Just before Helen pulls the trigger, Wertz smiles. "It's gonna get sporty."

Matt Himes

To watch some of Helen's training with Aim True at Eagle Gun Range, check out the video below.

For more information about Aim True and the wide variety of firearms and emergency preparedness training it offers, see here.

To learn more about Eagle Gun Range or to explore its online store, go here.

What I learned from having 3 kids under 3



Implausibly, October is here. My eldest turned four yesterday. Dare I say that disbelief at the pace of the passing of time — whether the unbearably long days or the unfathomably short years — is a universal maternal experience?

Oh, the melancholia of motherhood ... the slippery seconds, the diamonds raining from the sky, the inability to catch them in your hands for longer than a moment.

Because our social lives as moms have been so hollowed out by technology and the changing participation of women in the workplace, all of these little things in their little ways now require courage, consistency, and creativity.

Now that I no longer have three three and under, I thought I’d share my lessons learned from the experience, because people often ask how I manage.

I don’t know if I’ll ever feel fully qualified to proffer parental wisdom. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and my kids are underbaked. But in terms of keeping one’s sanity and smoothing day-to-day operations, I think I have some helpful tips to share. My advice boils down to three virtues: courage, consistency, and creativity.

Courage

Victim mentality is the antithesis of courage. It is pervasive, and it is practically, spiritually corrosive. Reject it.

One of the defining spirits of the modern age — unfortunately for everyone — is that which defines the self as a perpetual victim of circumstance and makes appeals to others, for pity or provision, on those terms.

This is the heart of identity politics, and of leftism generally, and so plays a major role in formal political discourse domestically and internationally. But the political right is not a stranger to this pattern of thought. In fact, self-identified right-wing people often indulge it while they denigrate it in others.

Take for example the ascendant “meninist” movement, which in many cases has retained the icon of victimhood but simply switched its subjects from women to men. As a Catholic, I cringe to see the same tendency in reactionary traditionalist movements that seem to relish their status as perpetually persecuted. Social media enables it by structurally prioritizing talk over action.

Victim mentality is dangerous, especially at scale. I would argue that it paves the way for totalitarianism. This mindset arrests the individual’s capacity to self-govern and achieve real things in the real world by redistributing responsibility through externalizing locus of control. It relieves persons and groups of the culpability and consequences of their actions.

To a mind colonized by a victim narrative, free will is alien, and the triumph of the will over challenges big and small is regarded as impossible. If someone succeeds, it must have been either a matter of luck or corrupt scheming.

But rarely does victim mentality result in true openness to the circumstances of life; instead, it encourages what Nietzsche called slave morality: cowardice, passive aggression, pathological consumption, and parasitical claims on the goods and services of others to compensate for one’s own impotence and discomfort.

Modern mothers are no exceptions to the zeitgeist. We are all subject to mainstream media and cultural narratives encouraging us to indulge our own sense of victimhood when things get hard. The nature of modern technology encourages passivity. And if we aren’t careful, we can wallow. Life is unfair. No one is helping me. My husband doesn’t do enough for me. Society doesn’t do enough for me. My kids don’t do enough for me. There’s no sense in trying; things will never get better. This is too hard.

It’s easy to indulge because it’s plausible and because selfishness is wired into humanity’s genetic code. Raising children under the current socioeconomic conditions can be a real challenge.

Sometimes our kids scream through the grocery store from entry to exit without ceasing, responding neither to discipline nor to desperate pleas for cooperation. Sometimes our husbands disappoint us. Sometimes our efforts seem futile, and the “payoff” for maternal investment remains unclear for a very long time, by definition.

But it has been so unspeakably important, in my experience, to resist the temptation to indulge these kinds of thoughts because they lead directly to passivity, despair, and consumerism.

We can confront and negotiate the problems in our lives, and even the selfishness of other people, without allowing ourselves to self-identify, explicitly or implicitly, as victims. In order to resist, we must put ourselves in the driver’s seat.

  • Stop complaining. This is the one-way street to victim mentality. Realize that however much we may be disappointed by others, we disappoint them too. If we must negotiate our problem, orient speech toward action.
  • Evaluate circumstances objectively, and wonder at, first and foremost, possibilities for action. Seek, and ye shall find. If you seek reasons to despair, you will find them. If you seek reasons to push, to reach higher, to go deeper, to forebear, to love, and to have courage, you will find them. This is a fundamental mindset shift toward positivity and production rather than negativity and consumption.
  • Find the courage to fail. Believe in the possibility of action and results, and make goals — but choose action despite the possibility of failure. Objectively observe your own role in the order-to-chaos ratio of your life. How can you improve for the sake of improvement regardless of how you might be immediately gratified?

Consistency

An object in motion stays in motion. Take this literally and figuratively.

One of my earlier essays covers how retraining my brain to operate like an athlete’s made me a better mom. In terms of mindset, this dovetails perfectly with what I’ve just written about victim mentality and goes farther to emphasize the importance of literal physical activity.

I cannot overstate the degree to which prioritizing my physical health, mostly by lifting heavy almost every day, has given my days structure and magnified my energy in every other area of my life. This principle works just as well for intellectual goals as for bodily goals.

Whenever I feel depressed or anxious, exercise is the silver bullet. But how do you find the time?

Simple: Choose it, and stop making excuses. Establish routine and structure, buoyed by the resolute determination to get out of the house every single day. Holding myself to this simple principle by continuously making the choice to embrace the annoying transition from the house to the car to the stroller and back again has done wonders for my mental and physical health. If you can simply make consistent movement a habit, it compounds. Over time, it becomes pleasurable.

Creativity

Find your community, no matter how unconventional the means.

The final helpful lifestyle shift that I believe is foundational to a good motherhood experience is twofold: creativity and community. These things go together. Creativity fosters community, and community fosters creativity. When you find what you love to create, it attracts like-minded people. When you find people you love, you will be energized to create on their behalf.

To make community work in the modern world, one must be willing to be creative in pursuit of it. A combination of the previous mindset shifts (“I have agency over my circumstances, and I can move freely in the world to achieve my goals”) must be present as well as a willingness to try new things in order to meet people and maintain friendships.

Loneliness is one of the primary factors in poor mental health for modern moms. Isolation feels baked into the cake of American society, but this isn’t inevitable! No one ever said fellowship would be easy.

The victim mentality would have lonely people believe that they are lonely because no one is reaching out to them. The couch potato mentality would have lonely people believe that because getting out of the house to commune with friends is difficult that there is only one way of doing this and that it is unworthy of doing.

Here’s where all the principles dovetail together. The COURAGE mentality encourages lonely people to find friendship in the world despite potential rejection. The CONSISTENCY mentality fosters a willingness to fail or to be rejected, and once friends are found, keeps them close through a sense of mutual duty and sacrifice. And CREATIVITY helps on the front end to find your people, and all throughout, to keep in touch with them.

Start the group chat. Start the playgroup. Ask someone to work out together. Attend birthday parties. Bake the cookies. Deliver the postpartum meals. Volunteer. Throw the cocktail parties. Buy outdoor art supplies for the kids and invite moms over for tea.

These actions seem mundane, perhaps antiquated. Because our social lives as moms have been so hollowed out by technology and the changing participation of women in the workplace, all of these little things in their little ways now require courage, consistency, and creativity. Despite whatever difficulties I endured moving from zero to one, they are what have made my life as a young mom of three boisterous little children not only bearable but deeply enjoyable.

Hope these were helpful. I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments section: What helps you persist in motherhood?

Why the ‘bootstraps’ ethic matters more than ever in the current crisis



Plenty of ink, including my own, has been spilled in recent years debunking the Boomer mantra “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Millennials, who inherited a weaker economy, culture, and country than their parents, found this phrase unfair. Rising housing and education costs, stagnant real wages, and the influx of foreign ideologies and populations are not issues of individual effort.

When older conservatives responded to these systemic grievances with calls for personal virtue, they deflected from the real issues, placing blame where it didn’t belong. In this context, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” felt like a deliberate slight — and understandably so.

It is possible to recognize the failings of the federal bureaucracy while maintaining faith in personal greatness.

Yet the phrase still holds value. Young conservatives would be unwise to dismiss it entirely. Acknowledging the failures of the administrative state doesn’t mean rejecting the ideals of individual effort and resilience that “bootstraps” represent. To do so would be to accept a mainstream narrative of personal victimhood.

It is possible to recognize the failings of the federal bureaucracy while maintaining faith in personal greatness. Appalachia’s response to Hurricane Helene illustrates this point.

Most of the material, financial, and service-based donations to the victims came from individual citizens, not the government. Historically abandoned by the American government, Appalachians have literally pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They have led rescues using mules and horses where machinery couldn’t reach, showing a self-reliance that contrasts sharply with federal inefficacy. North Carolina highlights the true American spirit — neighbors working together — and the impotence of the overburdened administrative state.

The narrative of personal victimhood has never fully taken root in Appalachia. Its people's resilience demonstrates a resistance to this mentality. In other regions, where the victim mindset prevails, it stifles self-governance and achievement. Psychologically, it shifts responsibility outward, making people feel powerless to change their circumstances. It absolves individuals and groups of accountability.

To those with a victim mentality, the idea of free will is foreign, and overcoming challenges seems impossible. This mindset rarely leads to passive acceptance of life’s circumstances; instead, it encourages what Nietzsche called “slave morality” — manipulation disguised as virtue, cowardice, passive aggression, and a sense of entitlement to others’ resources as compensation for their own struggles. This mindset paved the way for totalitarianism in the 20th century, using the politics of resentment as justification.

Americans cannot afford to indulge in passivity or resentment, especially as challenges grow. No one is coming to save us. We must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps — to hope and persevere — not because it will change interest rates but because it is the only virtuous way to live or die.

What moving my family to Budapest has taught me about America



We are a few weeks into our travel experience: long enough to form basic impressions, but not quite long enough to develop confident insights into what all this means for our family. Still, I think that the basic impressions are worth documenting, even if I’m someday surprised by future changes or reversals.

The first thing that stands out to me about life here in Budapest is the near-universal respect for public space, be it public school, public parks, or public transportation. Cleanliness and accessibility in all these areas add a basic ease to our day-to-day life here that just isn’t present in America.

Like a boiled frog, I think I’ve grown accustomed to certain experiences in America’s public spaces, coming to regard them as inevitable, as 'part and parcel' of living in a major city.

My eldest had her first (ever) day of school here in Budapest. It is a public school formed by a basic Montessori philosophy, which means the schedules are almost entirely play-based. Upon entering the school, children put on their “inside shoes,” wash their hands, and say good morning to their teachers. They play outside, then inside, where they are taught to put their toys away after finishing.

They garden, they do arts and crafts, and they are fed nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day, which cost me less than $15.00 per month. Teachers are gentle and empathetic; during the first weeks, parents may stay as long as necessary so that the child can acclimate, and children may freely take “mommy days” off of school, free instead to be with family.

Parents can pick their children up any time after lunch. Any ideological activism regarding gender and sexuality is punishable by law, but the people involved would never think of such a thing in the first place. From what I can tell, these provisions were made preventively by conservative Hungarians in Parliament who see America and the rest of the West as a petri dish for self-destructive mind viruses.

I’m truly startled by the high quality and low cost of early childhood development programs. Beyond school, these are present in every museum, the opera, and other artistic hubs. The playground situation is similarly, wonderfully surprising. Almost every block has a well-maintained, safe, enclosed, and well-lit playground with segments dedicated to various age groups. Vagrancy and criminality exist but are relatively rare; I have not yet seen or encountered a violently mentally ill person accosting another pedestrian. It isn’t uncommon for families to gather at playgrounds after dark, something that is basically unthinkable in America.

Getting to wherever we want to go — the zoo, playgrounds, museums, etc. — is basically seamless. Public transportation is similarly clean, free of dubious characters, and accessible. Trams, buses, and metros almost always have handicap and stroller-accessible doors and spaces to store even a huge stroller.

The people of Budapest are as family-friendly as their infrastructure. It is not uncommon for an elderly lady to smile and sit patiently with a stranger’s child on the tram. I have not received any scathing glances from passersby. I truly feel a spirit of understanding and patience for children. They can eat at restaurants and be kids without fear of reprimand.

Like a boiled frog, I think I’ve grown accustomed to certain experiences in America’s public spaces, coming to regard them as inevitable, as "part and parcel” of living in a major city. But the endless chain of instance after instance after instance of unsavory, antisocial behavior contributes to an underlying anxiety, rage, and sense of being trapped at home, especially as a mother of young children. In Charlotte, my husband and I basically stopped going downtown for date nights after being accosted by vagrants and followed to our car on one unfortunate anniversary.

Legal, technical freedom may be enshrined in our founding documents. But not a city in America today can boast that its citizens are free to walk past nightfall without fear of violence. In the past few years, major cities across America have experienced serious increases in violent crime as well as major spikes in traffic fatalities due to recklessness.

I felt it in Charlotte before we left. Despite increased enforcement from officers, our police department saw an 8% increase in violent crimes in 2024. This includes homicides (+36%), aggravated assaults (+9%), and juvenile property crime (+19%), among other things. In D.C., my old stomping grounds, violent crime also spiked nearly 40%, driven largely by a surge of murder, armed robberies, and carjackings, many of them also perpetrated by kids.

That this most basic quality of freedom — as a mode of being in the world, rather than its legal iteration — would make daily life better seems like such an obvious point. It stands out because of the irony in the comparison to a country that has been ruled by communist dictatorship in recent history. Of course, the contours of criminality in America are a third rail, politicized beyond the bounds of polite conversation. This is a tragedy, too, not least because our prissy delay of plain justice just leaves the problem to our children. An object in motion stays in motion.

It hasn’t been long, but living here in Budapest, I get the sense that a more peaceful life is possible — for ourselves and for our posterity.

Deliver us from the 'natural birth' fallacy



What is the opposite of “natural?”

The obvious answer is “artificial.” The obvious answer is not the correct one.

I worry that the rhetoric around 'natural birth' has gone too far by neglecting the question of prudence, the possibility of good doctors, and the reality of the dangers of childbirth.

“Artificial” come from the Latin artificialis/artificium: "handicraft." It is defined by that which is made or produced by human beings. “Art,” as expression through a medium, shares the same etymology.

Art and nature

I recently attended a lecture by Oxford philosopher Dr. Jan Bentz entitled “Objective Beauty in a Subjective World: Introduction to the Philosophical Question of Beauty.” Bentz began with the same question but argued in favor of the classical worldview — held by Plato, Aristotle, and later Aquinas — that art, properly understood, is a continuation of nature, rather than its opposition. Nature, to the ancients, was not the wilderness per se, but God’s imagination: logos. So, Dr. Bentz argues, the opposite of nature is in fact the opposite of logos: It is chaos.

Good art, he went on to say, corresponds to nature by reflecting its material and spiritual reality. Beautiful art must have three components: integritas (wholeness), consonantia (proportion), and claritas (clarity). By these standards, we can judge beauty.

Good art is not capricious or random in its execution, as we so often see in modern art galleries. Truly good artists must be trained (brought out of chaos through order) to imitate nature through their chosen media. Furthermore, good artists are made better by interdisciplinary study. The art forms, in the classical worldview, are not discrete mechanisms of autonomous expression but varied modes with a unified purpose: discovering and articulating truth.

Just prior to the lecture, I’d been chatting with my girlfriends about one conflict in the ongoing mommy wars: “natural” birth versus medically assisted birth, which is coded in the discourse as “unnatural” or artificial. A dear friend has just been through a very difficult experience: an early cesarean section after placenta previa followed by several days in the NICU with her little warrior.

False dichotomy

It struck me during the lecture that perhaps the home-birth vs. hospital debate is mired in the same false dichotomy as the modern art world, which emphasizes non-relational autonomy and prioritizes ideas over technique.

Many home-birth advocates imagine that any form of medical intervention necessarily disrupts the “natural” process of birth, which requires only instinct to facilitate.

But if we consider medicine as an art form, as it was for Hippocrates, then the practice itself is not “unnatural” but rather a continuation of nature, as evidenced by the original Hippocratic oath.

I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, likewise Hygeia and Panacea, and call all the gods and goddesses to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment.

I will reverence my master who taught me the art. Equally with my parents, will I allow him things necessary for his support, and will consider his sons as brothers. I will teach them my art without reward or agreement; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to my master’s children, as to my own; and likewise to all my pupils, who shall bind and tie themselves by a professional oath, but to none else.

With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgment and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage. Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so. Moreover, I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child. Further, I will comport myself and use my knowledge in a godly manner.

I will not cut for the stone, but will commit that affair entirely to the surgeons.

Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood, and (in an especial manner) from acts of an amorous nature, whatever may be the rank of those who it may be my duty to cure, whether mistress or servant, bond or free.

Whatever, in the course of my practice, I may see or hear (even when not invited), whatever I may happen to obtain knowledge of, if it be not proper to repeat it, I will keep sacred and secret within my own breast. If I faithfully observe this oath, may I thrive and prosper in my fortune and profession, and live in the estimation of posterity; or on breach thereof, may the reverse be my fate!

If medicine is so practiced, with reverence for the body and nature, and the determination to restore it to wholeness in proportion to whatever condition it presents with clarity, then it is indeed the art of medicine and is not only not unnatural, but a beautiful cooperation with nature. The act of helping other people is arguably the most natural part of the human experience, in the sense that God created us for one another, to live in harmony and cooperate with His will in community.

Something less than art

Growing skepticism toward the medical community, however, has been earned. I gave birth to all my children at home with an excellent team of midwives. I began my journey as a home-birth mom during 2020, when nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators were behaving in such a way as to inspire distrust, peddling falsehoods about the COVID vaccines, making care inaccessible and inconvenient, and violating HIPAA as a matter of course.

In obstetrics specifically, the cause for mistrust goes back farther. The standardization of abortion — the willful destruction of human life — made the art of medicine something less than art, because such an act fundamentally violates nature. The “cascade of interventions,” as well as the administration of medications with financial gain in mind, is also frequently cited by home-birth or free-birth advocates as a reason they avoid hospitals. Many of us know women who have had terrible outcomes because of medical abuse or neglect. This represents, in many cases, a failure to respond proportionally to the patient and an essentially hubristic approach that too frequently results in more damage than necessary.

A good doctor is hard to find. Still, I worry that the rhetoric around “natural birth” has gone too far by neglecting the question of prudence, the possibility of good doctors, and the reality of the dangers of childbirth. The hubristic, radical autonomy implicit to the exponents of the “free birth” movement is not a proper “return to nature,” as they have branded themselves, but a fetishization of chaos made plausible by the betrayals of modern medicine. Ironically, this is a true betrayal of nature, despite the crunchy exterior.

Perhaps the conflict is necessary to bring to light the shortcomings of both sides and to help women make prudential decisions about where to give birth. I fear that the highly politicized battles, one-upsmanship, and snide condescension on both sides may encourage the opposite. Either way, I think the question of art adds a new dimension to the discussion that might help.

Sour cherry turnovers: A tart Hungarian staple to start the day



Every morning, as my kindergartener and I embark on her trip to school, we stop at a cafe for breakfast and a coffee. I love the routine, and Middle European cafe culture in general, because it allows me to connect with her before she starts her day and further assimilates us in the country in which we are grateful guests. It’s in these little moments where I get a sense of Hungarian lifestyle and of the good things I might integrate into my own when I return home.

These delicious homemade turnovers are filled with tart cherries, wrapped with the butter and richness of puff pastry to balance each bite. They are my daughter’s favorite. A Hungarian staple!

Sour Cherry Turnovers

Ingredients

  • 1 pound sour cherries, pitted
  • ½ cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • Good pinch of salt
  • 1 pound puff pastry, store bought or homemade

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, with the oven rack in the middle position. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Put the pitted cherries, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt in a medium bowl, and toss to combine. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes and then put it into a strainer set over a bowl. Let the cherry juice drain, and set the juice aside for later. Put the strained cherries back in their original bowl.
  3. Gently flour your work surface, and roll each piece of the pastry dough into a 10-inch square. Cut each square into four 5-inch squares, for a total of 8 squares.
  4. Place 2 tablespoons of the cherry mixture into the center of each square of dough, and then brush the edges of each square with some of the reserved juice. Fold each square of dough to make a triangle, and crimp the edges with a fork to seal. Move the triangles to the prepared baking sheets, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
  5. Brush the tops of the turnovers with more of the cherry juice and generously sprinkle the tops with sugar. Bake the turnovers until golden brown (20-25 minutes), rotating the pan halfway through. Move the turnovers off the baking sheet to a wire rack and cool slightly. Serve warm.

Greek lemon chicken is a dog-days delight



Where I am, the heat still hasn’t tapered off: The dog days of summer are clinging to our forecasts like stubborn residue on your favorite steel pan.

It feels like it’s going to take a miracle for the dog days to leave. Until then, this recipe for Greek lemon chicken will have to do. It's a very nice bridge from summer to fall and reheats well for leftovers. It pairs beautifully with a cold cucumber salad (or squash, if it ever starts feeling autumnal around here).

Get our your favorite family casserole dish and prepare for a healthy meal to share. Note: Marinate the chicken overnight for best results.

Also: I've recently developed a fondness for finishing salts. Lately, I've been enjoying the many varieties Jacobsen Salt Co. makes from salt it harvests from Netarts Bay in Oregon. This Infused Black Garlic Salt would make a great topping for this particular dish; it could also make a nice housewarming or Christmas gift. Too soon to be thinking about that? Not if you’re a homemaker!

Ingredients

  • 8 bone-in chicken thighs
  • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • ¼ cup butter
  • ¼ cup lemon juice
  • 5 garlic gloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon dried oregano
  • 2 teaspoons dried thyme
  • 2 teaspoons rosemary
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Make the marinade: In a small bowl, stir together the oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, thyme, mustard, salt, and pepper.
  2. Marinate the chicken: Add the chicken thighs to a large bowl and pour the marinade on top. Marinate for 1 to 2 hours (and up to 8 hours) in the fridge.
  3. Transfer to baking dish: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the chicken in a baking dish and pour the remaining marinade on top.
  4. Bake the chicken: Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the chicken is fully cooked and registers 175°F on an instant-read thermometer. Optionally, you can baste the chicken a few times while it cooks. And for extra crispy skin, turn on the top oven broiler in the last 2 to 3 minutes. If you're serving this dish up for a dinner party, garnish with lemon slices and fresh rosemary or thyme.

Pistachio cream: Hungary's sweet and versatile staple



A seemingly endless variety of quaint cafes pepper the pedestrian street where Saint Michael’s Church peeks over downtown Budapest. Bells and smells make the area too sweet to resist, especially on Sunday after mass. It was there, yesterday, where my husband and I sat down for a coffee and chimney cake — a classic Hungarian pastry — with our children.

I ordered one filled with pistachio cream; everyone was absolutely delighted by the taste and texture. We don’t typically find that in America, but here, it’s a sweet staple.

I thought I’d share, for novelty’s sake! Pistachio cream in particular has lots of use in the kitchen. You can spread it on a slice of bread or use it to garnish desserts, cakes, and biscuits. My favorite might just be to include it in homemade ice cream.

Of course, we can’t delude ourselves about excessive sugar intake, but pistachios have surprising health benefits that do something to mitigate the indulgence.

They stimulate a good mood and fight stress. They are good for longevity. They protect eyesight. They help the health of bones and teeth. They fight high blood pressure thanks to the potassium content. They prevent type II diabetes: high levels of phosphorus keep the level of glucose in the blood under control and break down amino acids. They lower bad cholesterol. They have anticancer properties thanks to beta carotene, which helps prevent tumors. They help anemia, thanks to high copper levels. They fight infections and strengthen the immune system. Mineral salts such as zinc, selenium, lutein, and vitamin H are a boon to beauty. Finally, they contain Omega 3 and Omega 6, ideal during pregnancy for the correct development of the fetal nervous system.

With the following simple ingredients, you can prepare a genuine pistachio nutella, far healthier and better for you than supermarket products (just check the ingredients on the labels).

Ingredients

  • 200g pistachios (unroasted, unsalted)
  • 150g of good quality white chocolate
  • 100g of brown sugar
  • 30g of butter
  • 80ml of whole milk

Instructions

  1. Bring an inch or two of water in a saucepan to a boil.
  1. Add 200 grams of pistachios and let them boil for a maximum of 8-10 minutes. In doing this, the external purple skin will detach from the grain.
  1. Drain the pistachios, and put them to dry on a clean cloth, preferably cotton or otherwise soft and without lint.
  1. Arrange the pistachios in the center of the cloth and close the ends, trying to form a sort of bag. Now, holding the handle, shake the bag until all the purple cuticles detach from the grain. Remove the remaining purple coating with your hands. Dry the pistachios well in order to have them ready to use.
  1. Once dry, mill the pistachios to a fine grain in a blender.
  1. Melt the 150 grams of white chocolate in a saucepan.
  1. Add 30 grams of butter and then also 80 ml of milk. Stir gently until you reach a creamy consistency.
  1. As soon as the chocolate has reached the right density, add the milled pistachio and 100 grams of brown sugar. Mix everything until you get a creamy mousse.
  1. If, during the process, you find that the mixture is too thick, add a little more milk.
  1. Pour the pistachio cream into a glass container (previously sterilized with boiling water). Leave to cool naturally.
  1. Store in the refrigerator.

To save civilization, become a happy warrior



I used to find myself quietly, yet haughtily, indignant about other people’s unwillingness to have more kids. This is a sentence that should make the reader cringe. It certainly has that effect on the writer.

Our society’s drastically declining birth rate (starkly represented as a precariously top-heavy, upside-down pyramid) and its potential consequences inspire anxiety.

At times, wallowing in doom and gloom seems preferable to facing up to the massive responsibility of raising the children I birthed.

Who will be there to run all the critical functions of an advanced society? Who will be there to take care of the elderly?

Who will be there to maintain our Western traditions and unspoken moral codes before wave after wave of immigrants from high birthrate societies arrive, immigrants largely unwilling to assimilate and unconcerned with becoming productive citizens?

Who will save us from ourselves?

Cleaning our room

When I discovered Jordan Peterson in 2015, I was a junior in college. By then, campus leftism was dialing up in ways that had begun to grate my conscience — even as a standard-issue lib.

I didn’t like the fact that the administration had begun sending surveys requesting my pronouns, asking how it could better accommodate social contagions that were a strange minority, almost universally rejected by the student body.

There was one guy who wore dresses. I once found myself alone in a bathroom with him and left as soon as I noticed we were alone, the hair on my neck bristling.

Peterson’s now infamous exhortation to “clean your room” spoke to me. He invited students who concerned themselves too intensely with the state of the world — be it the impending climate apocalypse or their peers’ “transphobic” use of standard English — to turn their attention to more immediate, personal responsibilities.

Instantiate order in all the small ways first, he said. If you aren’t capable of the small, you’ll never be capable of the large things that currently overwhelm you. The message, simple as it was (our mothers had been saying something similar for years), was revolutionary. For those with ears to hear, it was liberating.

New specters

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The liberation was short-lived. While I no longer feared the prevailing liberal bugaboos, other specters emerged to haunt me. Enthralled by my new “dissident” stance, it didn’t occur to me that I had simply swapped one distraction for another. Surely, I was nothing like those misguided activist-students Peterson humbled in those iconic YouTube videos.

This habit of mind — seeing every political dispute in the most totalizing, civilization-threatening terms possible — has been hard to shake, especially given my flair for the dramatic.

For the most part, I’ve successfully confined my political despair to my online interactions. But lately, I’ve noticed it bleeding into my real life. My despair distracts me. Opening X first thing in the morning sets the day up for failure. Have I become addicted to upsetting myself? Is this any way to live?

'Hath much to love'

Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior” comes to mind:

—He who, though thus endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—

Can we maintain a sense of civilizational purpose without indulging despairing images of the future we strive to avoid?

What optimism requires

We can — and must. In fact, this is essential to the character of the happy warrior: hope without fear, courage without anger, purpose without despair.

Collapse — however we imagine it — may still be imminent. My concerns are still valid; the denial of base reality at the heart of transgender ideology, for example, remains dangerous.

But I can acknowledge this truth without letting it overwhelm me. Our family’s recent move to Budapest from suburban South Carolina has included all the expected challenges, as well as some unexpected ones.

At times, wallowing in gloom and doom seems preferable to facing up to the massive responsibility of raising the children I birthed, and I realize that I’m no less tempted by such negative escapism than I was as a liberal.

What optimism requires is far more tedious and labor-intensive. Here, as in much of life, the “fidelity” Wordsworth mentions makes all the difference. The “homefelt pleasures and ... gentle scenes” of domestic life aren’t distractions from some larger battle but the very foundation of any civilization worth saving.

Disney's live-action 'Mulan' is an unsung masterpiece



Almost a decade ago, Disney announced that it would finally be moving ahead with a live-action remake of “Mulan.”

The animated musical adventure was a huge hit when released in 1998. But now it was 2015, and anxieties surrounding race, transgenderism, and workplace sexual harassment were nearing their peak.

This Mulan is not the liberal feminist icon she’s been made out to be; she’s more Joan of Arc than Captain Marvel. What drives her is love, not ambition.

In retrospect, not the best time for an American company to tell a story set in ancient China and inspired by a well-known Chinese legend. Nor was it the ideal environment in which to cast a heroine who disguises herself as a man to in order to join the imperial army only to fall in love with a superior officer.

'Inappropriate' romance

From the beginning, calls to oust white artists from the project trended online. Disney attempted to play ball; its first choice of director, Ang Lee, was unavailable to direct.

Mulan's love interest from the original film, Captain Li Shang, was dropped in exchange for two new characters in response to the #MeToo movement. Producer Jason Reed explained that "having a commanding officer that is also the sexual love interest was very uncomfortable, and we didn't think it was appropriate.”

This then upset LGBT activists who had, unbeknownst to the world outside their bubble, claimed Li Shang as a “bisexual icon.” Production’s attempts to conform to one moral crusade led to accusations of “erasure” by another.

Politics and pandemic

“Mulan” was finally ready for release in early 2020; by then other problems had emerged. It was revealed that some of the film’s landscape B-roll was shot in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where the government had infamously erected re-education camps for Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities to retaliate for terror attacks by Sunni separatists.

Western governments and assorted NGOs urged Disney to condemn China. While Disney didn’t fold, the Chinese found the company’s lukewarm defense insulting enough to instruct state media not to cover the movie’s domestic release.

The final and perhaps most devastating setback had to do with the film’s original premiere date: March 2020. While Disney did pull off the standard gala Hollywood screening, COVID and its attendant lockdowns squashed plans for a wide release.

By the time “Mulan” finally crept into multiplexes that July, Disney, eager to be rid of the problem, had done little to promote it.

Not woke? Go broke

Those who reviewed the movie largely seemed to do so through the ubiquitous lens of identity politics, which constrained their thoughts to the political context surrounding the production rather than the story itself.

Critic Joonatan Itkonen’s dismissive reaction was exemplary: “Mulan is a film best described as an ‘if only’ production. If only the script had the input from actual Chinese people.”

Never mind that Disney had originally sought an Asian director and boasted a cast and supporting crew that was nearly 100% ethnically Chinese — so very Chinese, in fact, that in 2019, lead actress Liu Yifei sparked controversy by condemning the pro-democracy riots in Hong Kong. Given the exacting, contradictory demands of the time, it should come as no surprise that “Mulan” also lost points for being too Chinese.

A secret success

In retrospect, I think its harshest critics owe “Mulan” a reappraisal, if not an out-and-out apology.

I watched the movie with my family this week and found myself pleasantly surprised by how good it was. It was visually and audibly stunning, with a physicality to its performances that gracefully incorporates elements of Chinese kung fu film tradition.

The creators tone down the animated film’s goofiness in order to make something more serious — which in fact brings the story closer to its epic source material, "The Ballad of Hua Mulan."

Particularly impressive was the film’s emphasis on honor, virtue, and a specifically Chinese concept of filial piety. Mulan risks death not for her own “self-realization” (an all-too-common motivation for contemporary heroines) but rather to protect both her father and the father of her nation: the emperor.

When she reveals her true identity to the men in her unit, they reject her. A shape-shifting witch-warrior on the enemy side (a creative reimagining of the hawk from the animated film) offers her solidarity in this moment of cold exile.

Mulan rejects her, saying, “I know my place, and it is my duty to fight for the kingdom and protect the emperor.” The sword she carries, stolen from her father, is emblazoned with three Chinese characters: 忠、勇、真 (loyal, brave, and true).

After she saves the emperor, he gives her a new sword, one emblazoned with an additional virtue: filial piety (孝).

This Mulan is not the liberal feminist icon she’s been made out to be; she’s more Joan of Arc than Captain Marvel. What drives her is love, not ambition.

And this love dares to encompass her nation as well as her family. Americans haven’t seen a film so rich in unvarnished national pride since "The Patriot" (2000). “Mulan” left me yearning that we might one day again employ the vast resources of Hollywood to enshrine our own founding myths. I’m inspired by the possibility.