30 Jun 2015
We’ve just had a period of six weeks where nothing but nothing was in our control. We had no dog to leave us but when the silver lining in your life is your rent increase (much lower than we were expecting) you know that things aren’t being as much fun as they could be.
But we’re through it now. My cousin once called me “bee’s dick Al” meaning that I frequently come within a bee’s dick of disaster but somehow it all works out. At the time I was mightily indignant that he perceived of my life as so chaotic but to be honest, there is some truth in it.
Fools and my good self frequently rush in where angels fear to tread.
But while the chaos may be all mine, the avoidance of disaster has nothing to do with me, and rather a lot to do with good old fashioned luck and the fact that we are surrounded by an incredible community of people.
In the six weeks we were without a car (when we were only supposed to be without it for ten days), we had a friend loan us a car for two weeks, another friend loan us one for a week and were flooded with offers of loans from various neighbours and even the guy that owns the takeaway near our place. Parents from child care offered us lifts, friends came to us, and working out how to get obscure places on public transport become a competitive sport.
During the period of no car when we had to take our daughter to emergency with a head injury, a friend dropped everything to take us and then we were surrounded by incredibly ace medical professionals who tested the four year old for all that was necessary and sent us home with the all clear, a hyper but healthy four year old with a black eye and most importantly, peace of mind. Turns out that four year olds should not generally pass out, but she had given herself a corker of a concussion. She takes the go hard or go home rule very seriously it seems.
When my husband’s job was unexpectedly made redundant we discovered that we know an awful lot of HR professionals who were incredibly generous with their knowledge of industrial relations, law, recruitment and best practice which made the process much easier. He received lots of messages of support and some incredibly thoughtful texts from friends and most importantly, has woken up with more verve, joy and bounce than he has had in a very long time. The plot twist was a good one for him.
And there was more. Lots going on emotionally, mentally and physically and I stopped wanting to answer the phone or open emails because the universe was really being an arse to both us and some people we care very much about. Those stories aren’t ours to tell and some events aren’t ours to share. But through all of it, through every twist and turn there was the growing realisation that we don’t just have a good circle of friends, but we are surrounded by an incredibly empowering community.
Whether we see people face to face, chat over the phone or via the various social media platforms, our little team of four is incredibly blessed.
While we may come within a bee’s dick of disaster far more than most are comfortable with, I am confident that we are living the right life and the evidence is in the people by which we are surrounded.
People that not only like us, but love us and so very preciously of all, believe in us, even when we are very clearly making it all up as we go along.
I’m not so foolish then it seems. #justsayin’
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
19 Jun 2015
I was recently hanging out with a group of friends and our assortment of little people and I was struck by the fact that collectively – parents set their kids up to fail a lot more often than we care to admit.
I thought maybe it was just the assortment of people. But then I started listening to other circles of parents – at the shops, parks and on buses, and we all do it. And not only to our own children.
Basically, adults are contrary arseholes.
We are committed to this ideal of bringing up children who are kind and confident (and some parents want their kids smart as well – I clearly lack ambition) and we set up a framework that we think will make that happen. We fret about it. We read about it and Colin only knows, that if you have a blog – you write about it.
But yet, despite all best intentions at regular intervals every single day we ask them questions we know the answer to, but we ask them in such a way THAT SCREWS THEM OVER NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY.
And by that I mean that while our words seem innocuous our body language and tone of voice clearly says to the child “DANGER DANGER – THE QUESTION COMING IS NOT ACTUALLY THE QUESTION BUT A TEST TO SEE HOW WELL YOU CAN GUESS WHAT THE PROBLEM ACTUALLY IS BASED ON YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF ADULT IRRATIONALITY”.
The top three seemingly innocent questions are:
“Did you do this?”
You know they did it. They know they did it. They know that you know they did it. If they answer no, we’re pissed off they didn’t tell us the truth BUT if they answer YES they are in trouble anyway.
We don’t even think about it – it’s so ingrained into “what parenting looks like”, it’s a seamless segue into a humph or a chastisement that changes absolutely nothing except that the kid feels like absolute rubbish and chances are you do as well.
We could say “Hey, this mess you made – please clean it up and let me know if you need help.”? But we don’t. We set the whole thing up as if we’re trying to catch a criminal and far too frequently, we react as if we did.
“Did I/mum/dad/whoever say you can touch that?”
Well no. But they didn’t say they couldn’t touch it either. And the kid is getting a clear message that you don’t think they should but they’re really not sure why not? How the hell is a small person supposed to differentiate between things you consider an ‘ask first’ experience vs what they see as ‘an opportunity for sensory play’ when it’s at their eye height, within reach and clearly coloured in a way to draw a child’s attention?
If they aren’t allowed to touch it, it’s up to their responsible adult to do something about it before it becomes a problem. Boundaries are supposed to be defined, not something the kid has to guess at every time they encounter something new or want to try something different.
This is unless of course whatever the kids is going to touch or try is going to cause PAIN, DISMEMBERMENT OR DEATH in which case, stop asking stupid questions and get the kid out of harm’s way.
“Did you say please/thank you?”
Manners are important. I’m big on manners. BIG. But I notice that when a group of adults gets together with our children we all of a sudden start insisting on kids using please and thank you as if it’s the only way we can prove we’re good parents.
As adults we don’t say PLEASE every single time we ask for something. We just don’t. We say “would you mind?”, we say “Dankeschon”, we say “Grab that for me darling”, we say “Aren’t you a dote for doing that?”.
When we are just parenting on our own children and teaching them something we take into account their moods, the environment, their intent and our understanding that “YUM YUM MUM. I LOVE WEETBIX” is the equivalent of a big fat “THANKS FOR THAT”.
But get us in group situations and then all of us act as if the only two words that matter in the whole wide world are PLEASE and THANK YOU. If we’re hanging with people that are that judgemental we should be reconsidering our friendships not yelling “WHAT DO YOU SAY?” every 2.76 seconds.
Children spend most of their time just getting on with life, doing stuff that interests them and hanging out with people they like. Very, very, very few children are going about life intent on doing the wrong thing and yet, once you start noticing how contrary adults are to children, you will realise we spend a ridiculous amount of energy being cross at children for situations that adults manifest. And it by no means stops with the three scenarios above.
The time we could be spending delighting in our offspring and all their glorious eccentricities and innocence is spent moulding them into what we imagine ‘well behaved’ looks like and imposing ways of doing things without even truly understanding why we ask it of them.
And it has to be said, we don’t play fair.
It is not what we do consciously which disables our children, but that which we do without thought.
I challenge you to second or even third guess your own responses and motivations for a week or two and see how easily we slide into parenting habits which are at best, negative and at worst, destructive.
We don’t have to be perfect parents, but we do need to be conscious, aware and evolving parents.
At least some of the time.
Do as I do and all that jazz. Y’know?
What do you think?
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
11 Jun 2015
“It’s fine for you Al, you’re an extrovert!”
“It’s fine for you Al, you love meeting people!”
“It’s fine for you Al, you never shut up!”
Talk about damning with faint praise. It happens a lot. Like every single time I say something will be “fun” because I have never got the memo advising me to stop with the endless enthusiasm for things that are new or different. I am, at every level, a dork.
I don’t mind generally. Being an extrovert is essentially a community service and I’m big on giving back. We all have our own small ways of contributing to the universe and being an ESFP is sometimes mine.
This week the gorgeous Kelly Exeter wrote a really useful article called 7 ways to kick ass at conferences when you’re an introvert. Useful in that I’m not an introvert and it’s always great to see something from somebody else’s perspective and it was delightfully written like all that she pens.
Kelly shared it in the ProBlogger event group and this is where things got daunting. Judging by the comments, it turns out that every single person attending the event this year is an introvert.
Except me.*
You KNOW the definition of an extrovert is an outgoing, gregarious person; primarily concerned with physical and social environments; fond of directing our attention, interest and minds outwards to things or people outside the self.
Basically, we like people. And we genuinely enjoy the company of other people without needing a reason. An irritating trait I’m told but none-the-less highly sought after at parties.
The thing is my friends – extroversion is not necessarily about bucket loads of confidence, charisma or self esteem. 99%** of extroverts are just as f**ked up, insecure and chronically unsure as the next person.
It’s just that we can’t admit to it. There are HORDES of introverts out there waiting for us to start conversations, or ask the dumb questions (an uncanny knack we have) or start the whooping at the back of the room. Our duty is clear and there is no ‘i’ in extrovert.
Successful events rely TOTALLY on the chutzpah of extroverts to get the ball rolling.
And that can be terrifying.
Extroverts are not immune to the flushed cheeks of mortification or the happenstance of saying really dumb things to people.
Example 1: Mrs Woog now has a security team purely to deflect any future contact with me after she gave me a second chance and I was even more embarrassing than the first time. When I come within 50 metres of her good self they throw a blanket over her head, link hands around her in a protective circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’ until I get the hint and walk away.
Example 2: The first time I ever spoke to Darren Rowse I sounded like the Fonz trying to pick up one of the ladies. In fact, I think I even primped my collar and I was in a cami-top. Thankfully he just smiled kindly, albeit warily, at me while I morphed my nervous tics into an interpretive dance and fled to the toilets to pat cold water on my burning cheeks.
The cubicles were full and after Kelly’s article I now know why.
The point is – it’s not always easy being the extrovert because people make assumptions that are versions of incorrect, very wrong and not right. We extroverts, like everybody else at the same event as you, are just trying to find a tribe.
However we are more likely to say HASHTAG tribe because it’s cray cray and hilaire. And unerringly annoying.
It is no less difficult to front up to an event like ProBlogger, with extroversion on your side. Our sole advantage is that we like social environments because we get to bounce off the energy of all the amazing people we meet.
But first, we need to find somebody that will talk to us and I can tell you from our side there is NOTHING more intimidating than the cool reserve of a seasoned introvert. Do you know how much introversion just looks like A PERSON THAT HAS ALL THEIR SHIT TOGETHER?
Imagine several hundred of you. Exactly. No wonder I’m in therapy.
So my earnest plea to all you dear dear introverts is this. That noise you hear when you enter a room full of people? That thrum of conversation and white noise that sounds like connection and bonhomie? Tis naught but a cacophony of extroverts using bravado and bullshit to make their way around the room hoping that somebody, anybody will reply.
We love people. It doesn’t mean you don’t terrify us. For the love of Colin, be kind.
Talk back. Please.
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
* No, I never exaggerate. Except when I do.
** Never quote my stats. I make them up.
9 Jun 2015
Versions of the following five comments are frequently made in the discussion about marriage equality. And with the topic being back in the media at the moment, they are popping up in badly constructed and mis-spelled sentences with the kind of gay* abandon we haven’t seen since the Biggles books.
Before writing any of the following five comments – check here to find out why you shouldn’t.
You’re welcome.
*as in ‘merry’
- There are more important things for the government to be discussing than marriage equality.
No there is not. Want to know why? Because when the national legislation enshrines discrimination against somebody based on gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability, language or anything else I might not have remembered to mention, we are undermining the human rights of um, humans.
Human rights are more important than any other issue. Full stop.
If this is something you find hard to grasp, repeat after me – IF WE ARE ALL HUMAN, WE ARE ALL EQUAL. Yes. Even the gays.
- I am gay and I don’t give a shit about getting married.
Well bully for you. The point is – a just and democratic society shouldn’t legislate on the basis of one individual’s preferences. Because that would be a dictatorship and they generally end badly.
It’s great that you don’t WANT to get married. I have heaps of straight friends that don’t want to get married either. But they can if they want to.
And so should you be able to if you change your mind. Though with that kind of incredibly selfish approach to the world around you I suspect you’d be a fairly high maintenance kind of partner.
- It’s a Christian country, so marriage should be between a man and a woman.
It’s so awkward when we have to point out that while we generally exist around a Christian premise as does most of the Western world, “Christians” have only been here in Australia for about 227 years and since “Christians” just turned up and just took what they wanted without asking. (Which is incredibly un-Christian and makes this kind of argument hypocritical as well as uninformed)
In addition, we’re talking about the legislation which represents all Australians – not just those that still attend church on a Sunday. Which of course is a steadily declining part of the population. Feel free to fact check this one by speaking to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Your faith, my faith or Abbott’s faith has jack shit to do with it.
- Won’t somebody think of the children?
This is a tough one because it involves me pointing out something you seem to have failed to notice.
Straight people can be crap parents.
I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW. Who’d have thunked it eh?
There are thousands of examples here unfortunately, but I think it’s fair to say that Christianity hasn’t worked out so well for the children over the last century, nor has traditional boy/girl marriage if the divorce rates and domestic violence statistics are anything to go by.
Sure, gay people can be crap parents too, but if you’re using children as a reason to deny two people who love each other the right to marry, I think you’re clutching at straws. And no, not the drink ones.
- I don’t like gay people.
I don’t like stupid people, bigoted people, mean people, Scott Morrison, Miranda Devine or anybody that drives without their lights on in the pouring rain, but I still think they should be able to do all the things I can do. And you must know by now how much that pains me to say that.
Saying you don’t think somebody should be able to marry because you don’t like them is without a doubt the stupidest reason of all to object to marriage equality.
Not liking somebody because they love somebody of the same gender is an ignorant and fearful response . The fact that you honestly think what you do and don’t like should impact the human rights of other people is so breathtakingly arrogant that it boggles the mind. Please stop commenting on articles using your own name and picture. People are judging you and not very nicely at that.
I know there are many more nuances to these five objections but they all boil down to the same thing. It’s not about you.
So for the love of Colin – Shut. The. F**k. Up.
Please.
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
28 May 2015
A brilliant question my darling girl.
And one I palmed off beautifully by telling her to ask her Dad because HEY LOOK AT THAT A YELLOW CAR.
Diverted.
I watched the ABC’s The #Agony of God a few weeks ago and was quite cheered in parts and a bit glum in others. Some people are very good at letting people believe what they want to believe and others are just arsehats.
We don’t all have to believe the same thing. But we don’t have to be condescending numpties if we believe that our position is ‘more right’ than the other.
God is a tricky one for me and one I have spent, and will continue to spend a lot of time thinking about on and off I suspect, particularly in the context of the person I am and the people we want our daughters to be.
I was brought up as a Catholic. My other half was brought up a Methodist. Both sets of parents are firmly in the ‘persons of faith’ category. Our extended family are a robust mix of priests and Peppa Pig fanatics, with the odd Pastafarian. Or maybe he’s a Buddhist. Nice chap either way.
And yes, Science is tops. I understand and value the burden of proof. I get that science is generally right. Even when it changes and takes away Pluto’s rightful position as a planet in the solar system. I don’t need to understand the Hadron Collider to get that people are really excited about particle acceleration and passionately committed to understanding it better.
I don’t need to understand everything to value it.
And that’s okay – 99.9% of people can’t explain how the internet works. But it does. And my lack of understanding doesn’t mean I can’t get great benefit out of it. There are things written on the internet which I can interpret in one of two ways and I am never going to choose the one which makes ‘stop the boats’ anything but xenophobic bullshit political spin. But you might see it differently. We’re probably reading the same thing.
No matter where we seek our truths there are always going to be things that are more than what we comprehend. I see those with a quiet but fierce faith and am quietly envious of their sense of surety. But yet, conversely and completely judgementally, I find that people who fiercely and quietly believe that waving crystals to the left of their ear will heal their vaginal thrush are on the ‘batshit crazy’ spectrum.
We are cheerfully, comfortably in Camp Agnostic these days. Which is like Band Camp – no matter how much you enjoy going there, it’s not very trendy. These days you need to believe in one or the other. There can be no grey. NO GREY AT ALL.
It’s like #TeamAniston and #TeamJolie all over again except you have to be #TeamReligion or #TeamScience. You can’t say you like both. You’re not allowed to sit on the fence getting the view of both sides. It’s NOT ALLOWED.
Basically, when it comes down to it at the moment – people using ‘absolutes’ on either topic generally fail the #dontbeadick test.
I am not anti-faith. Or anti-science. I just don’t know enough to want to put all my money on the one outcome. I don’t know a lot, and this is something kind of big that I don’t know. What I do know is that I am deeply cynical about, and very disillusioned with, evangelism and extremism of all kinds.
We have many friends with faith. And many friends with science. And many more with both. And they are all wonderfully, complex and beautiful people. Gorgeous every single one of them. And I can’t help but feel that’s the glory of Camp Agnostic – we can like everybody. All of the time. And we don’t even have to feel peskily superior either or sorry for people that think differently. Because we’re kind of comfortable with the fact that everybody does think differently and that ultimately, none of us are going to be certain we chose the right team until we’re dead.
Most importantly to me – this not knowing that we so freely profess to now, is that it gives the girls the gift of choice when it comes to deciding what to believe in. They can (hopefully) build up empathy, compassion and an abiding curiosity for the world based on their own experiences and interpretations. And perhaps even learn to trust themselves with a confidence that expresses itself through kindness and not extremism.
Or sure, we’re screwing it up for them entirely and they’ll grow up searching for a life more meaningful than the view they can see from the fence we’re perched on.
And if that means we have to stock up on colanders*, well then. That’ll learn us.
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
*Google “Pastafarianism”.
21 May 2015
Earlier this week I was lucky to spend almost two hours with somebody who regularly writes about ‘the feels’. Sometimes she writes so rawly, so openly and so emotively that I find it difficult to read. Not because the writing is bad – quite the opposite, it’s sublime. But there are a lot of feels in it. And I’m particularly susceptible to other peoples feels.
Always have been. I’m susceptible to my own too.
When cancer reared it’s head in our family, we talked about it non-stop. When it comes to talking about physical afflictions, we are unstoppable and with cast iron stomachs. We are happy to talk about tangibles. Yes, yes we are.
But we don’t talk about mental health or feelings. We ALL feel the feels. We even quite often can guess at the feels the others are feeling. Sometimes we have short sharp exchanges which dance around the edges of the feelings but then we return to not talking about the feelings.
And then when I thought about it. Few do.
We’re not the only family not talking about feelings. My husband’s family don’t talk feelings. My friends’ families don’t talk about feelings. My friends themselves, extended families, work colleagues, team mates, the guy you sit next to on the bus every single day that never says hello – there are a lot of people not talking about their feelings.
It’s not a judgement. Not even a little bit.
Everybody is feeling the feelings, nobody is talking about the feelings and then all of us are wondering why it is that people feel the feels so much they can’t go on.
I shared a post about the UK’s Mental Health Week just yesterday and a friend wrote to me and said she envied me the circle that allowed me to talk about my post natal depression, my PTSD and my ongoing ‘blues’ because she was really struggling at the moment and felt she couldn’t talk about it to anybody because she didn’t want to upset anybody.
I was pleased she could talk to me, and we did. I was happy to talk to her (as I would you OR YOU or… well you get it). But she is mistaken. My circle is not talking about my feelings. Or their feelings. We are not talking about PND, PTSD, depression or mental health. We do not talk about the feeling of feels.
There is a lot of love. Just none of that ‘talking about how we feel’ stuff. I pay an extremely excellent Clinical Psychiatrist to talk about my feelings with me. And how to manage them. We talk about ways of not dying. We talk about ways of sweeping out the black and rediscovering the light. We talk about the ways to find our way back up out of the overwhelming fog. We talk about how some days and weeks it actually takes an incredible amount of physical strength not to constantly weep while going about the business of living.
I’m not the only one that lives like this. For me it’s episodic. And still involves a healthy dose of denial (if I don’t think about it, it’ll go away right?) For others, it’s irregular. For others again, a constant. It is absolutely not the kind of conversation people are comfortable having. I don’t like talking about it. It makes me feel vulnerable. It discombobulates me. It makes me that in some way I’m doing the living thing wrong.
But even after all that excellent advice, all those lessons learned and shared, feeling the feels out loud does not come naturally. Changing my own habit of not talking about feelings turns out to be harder than quitting smoking.
My man and I, we both KNOW about the importance of communication, but even now after all these years together, we still don’t talk about our feelings enough, and then sometimes we feel the feels and then we bubble up and we FEEL ALL OVER THE BLOODY PLACE until we calm down again.
And the girls look at us oddly, feeling these every day feels from us because we, like so many others, are so practiced at not feeling the feels openly that they are surprised by us doing it. And I’ve had enough conversations with people to know that we are not alone in this.
I feel wretched that we’re not better at FEELING because these little people are learning from us how to feel, how to respond to feels, and yes, how to apologise when they feel the feels in such a way that they make other people feel badly.
Though they are luckily still young enough to feel with an openness and an honesty that is brilliant, but they will lose if they don’t see us modelling even half way okay ways of resolving of the feelings occasionally or even sometimes. Though they are still pretty ace at resolving things by themselves and I often think “I wish I could do that.”
And then I remember I am 40 and crawling up to my sibling and licking their arm until she started to smile again might be seen as incredibly weird.
So recently I started a self project where I try to be very articulate about feeling the feels around my girls (however unreasonable those feels are) so that they never feel that feeling the feels is wrong or inappropriate. Emotional constipation is just not working for the adults of the world as far as I can see. Not in the long run.
We have conversations like this some days. And other days we just feel the feels because I am human and I sometimes am just not in the mood to be the best version of myself.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you. I was in a bad mood and I took it out on you because I’m silly.”
“Am I cross at Daddy? Yes. Why? Because in my opinion he is being a bit of a muppet.”
“Yes, like the movie.”
“Why do Daddy and I argue? Because sometimes we forget we’re on the same side and other times it’s because he didn’t put the coffee away and I kind of feel that after almost 11 years together he should notice that kind of thing bothers the shit out of me.”
“Yes Daddy gets cross at me too. Sometimes I’m very annoying.”
“You’ve never noticed me be annoying – aww thanks sweetheart.”
“What? You’ve noticed me being annoying. Really? Me? Your favourite mama?”
“Absolutely it’s okay that you’re cross at me sweetheart. I would be cross too if I wanted finger bun for dinner and somebody gave me sausages and corn.”
“You can say your sister is annoying but you can not call her a poo-poo head. No, not even if she is being one.”
“Why are you mad at your sister? You don’t know? That’s okay, just remember to tell her that you’re sorry you’ve been such a grumpy arse when you’ve finished.”
And so far it’s working. We do a lot of hugging. And we, the so-called adults, try not to be prize dicks to each other too often. And I’m hoping that in our own small way we’re making a difference to the next generation. That they have the courage to feel their feelings. That they have the kindness to talk about other people’s feelings. And that they have the confidence to say “I need some help here people because quite frankly, life sucks arse right now.”
I try to do it myself. I’m not great at it. I like to think of it as a work in progress and of course, I am lucky enough to have a forum to write about it from time to time. And a partner who walks the walk with me, even when I don’t talk the talk.
But I’ve done so much thinking this week following that conversation with that gorgeous woman. And I really want to thank that feisty, complicated, feeling the feels redhead for making peace with the contents of her own head and identifying that her feels are valid, EVEN if they make others feel uncomfortable when she expresses them in all their raging complexity, with her exemplary vocabulary and generous use of profanity.
She’s given me some courage. To talk. And I bet you never knew I needed help to do that eh?
Feelings are never right or wrong. They are never too strong or too much. Feelings reflect our humanity.
And that my friends, is something we need to talk about.
So. Um. Well.
You first.
If you, or someone you know, is in crisis, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14
****
If you want to see more of what goes on when I’m not writing this blog
follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
And sign up HERE to become a Franklophile and get the newsletter
