11 Jun 2014
I’m in one of those Facebook groups called “XXXXXX mums” which I very recently joined because a heap of my friends were in it, and I never like to miss out.
It’s terrible. It’s car crash territory. You don’t want to look but you can’t help yourself. People discuss their mother-in-laws, cheating husbands, legal issues, books, sex, birthday party venues, illness, babies, parenting and then in their spare time bring down all manner of wrath on people that don’t do things THE RIGHT WAY.
I asked my girlfriends why they were on it and they replied basically that its better than what’s on TV and that it was kind of funny and occasionally fascinating.
Which is true.
And there are moments of encouragement and beauty. People sending positivity and love when somebody is having a bad time or doubting themselves. People who are sick or need to borrow something will be swamped with offers of food, goods, babysitting and other practical support. These are the moments when the real value of such groups shines through.
And then there is well meant outright lying. A woman was asking what a cervical sweep was as she her doctor had indicated they would do one to bring on labour. People answering her made it sound quite gentle and unobtrusive, one described it as like a pap smear – uncomfortable and quick.
If you’ve never had a cervical sweep let me help you – somebody who you have most likely never met – puts their arm, possibly both arms, inside you and then proceeds to invite all the members of the Village People to do the YMCA somewhere up your hoohar, all the time telling you to relax and breathe. If it’s like a pap smear, blowing your house up with dynamite to kill the spider is like stepping on a spider with your shoe.
You’ll be pleased to know I did not upload that answer. That woman has gone for her sweep in complete ignorance.
The thing that fascinates me about the group is that there are thousands of people in it. Most of whom you have never ever met. Sharing information about books or birthday party venues or details of an upcoming Wiggles gig is one thing, but asking for legal advice or talking about the possible sexual abuse of your child is a whole different level.
These are not anonymous forums. You’re not in there with made up names. You’re not talking about things with people you know you can trust. And I am fascinated by people’s eagerness to buy into a story and damn to hell all the alleged protagonists.
These forums exist in their purest form to support, to uplift and to provide an outlet for people that might feel isolated. There is a sense of community and it’s nice to have people outraged on your behalf or prepared to answer your questions. But people, think very carefully about what you share.
Once you put that information out there, it’s in the public domain. You have no control over who does what with it. Like the curtain twitchers of ye olden times, there are group twitchers – a question you asked in good faith goes viral and that information will be shared with authorities and possibly even that mother-in-law you’re bitching about.
True.
10 Jun 2014
So over the weekend this appeared on Kidspot’s Facebook page
and was promptly shared by about a billion people. (Stats are my thing, can you tell?)
And it’s true. Even when written in English-English or Australian-English and not in American-English.
But it pissed me off a little.
Because dads matter. Great kids are not the sole responsibility of mums. (Unless the child has two mums and no dads. In which case, as you were.)
And dads aren’t just responsible for teaching their sons to treat women well, or demonstrating to their daughters how they should expect to be treated by men as they grow older. These things are important yes, but they’re not the whole package.
Dads, just like mums, are modelling being a decent human being all day every day. Bar Doc McStuffins and Dora, there are no two people influencing our children on a day to day basis more than the two of us.
The two of us. Yes. Two. It’s not all about me.
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| House Husbands: All loving dads – without exception |
My daughters’ dad is a kind man. He is a quiet man. He is a man with a great sense of the ridiculous. He loves reading stories to the girls. He loves making up stories with the girls. He will play endless games of school, lego, baby, doctor, adventuring, and so on. He will cook them meals. He washes clothes.
He goes to work. He uses computers. He drives a car. He puts icepacks on bumps. He scolds. He laughs at them. He goes to the playground with them. He helps them draw. He puts them on the toilet. He strips beds after night time accidents. He cuddles them. He insists on manners. He talks through their disagreements. He carries them on his shoulders so they see the view. He agrees that “it’s NOT fair” but still makes them clean up their mess.
He yells sometimes. He dances with them. He will lie on the floor so they can pretend he is a surfboard. He kisses their mother. He mows the lawn. He rings his parents. He talks to his friends. He plays ball. He jumps on the trampoline. He is patient. He explains caterpillars, and rainbows, and cement mixers and how lecklicity works. He doesn’t cave to tantrums. He says sorry. He sings and is always told to stop the moment the girls hear him.
He says I love you to all of us. A lot.
I do all those things too. Except the surfboard thing. That’s just asking for trouble. There is not a dad way of parenting and a mum way of parenting. There are just two people parenting together and identifying ‘things that work’ and ‘things that do not work’ and ‘things you should not laugh at because the children will repeat them forever if you do’.
The thing is as parents we are jointly committed to bringing up our girls. We both worry that we stuff it up. But we can only do the small things conscious that for now these things are the big things in our little people’s lives. I have no more idea about how to parent then he does. I’m better at growing babies in utero that’s true but that’s biological. It in no way makes me an expert or more committed to the successful growing of active citizens and good, open hearted people.
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| “What assurances do I have that your parenting isn’t screwing me up?” |
And we are not exceptions. This is how parenting is done by everybody. Blindly.
Parenting. Not Mum-ing. Not Dad-ing. By sharing these little memes, or running competitions which are only open to ‘Mums’ or running adverts that imply Dads can’t do basic household chores and so on on, we reinforce stereotypes and belittle the role of fathers and the ferocity with which they love their children.
And that’s what pisses me off.
Dads love their children with the same kind of intensity and wonder that Mums do. They are just as committed to the parenting lark.
Because all kids are great kids. Mainly because they live with love. And the ability to love somebody with everything you have aint about gender.
Ever.
Word.
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9 Jun 2014
Today in Australia we are celebrating the Queen’s birthday. Yes, we know her birthday is in April and I’m sure in the story somewhere is a bonafide reason we chose June to celebrate it. I’m an ardent republican in the Australian sense and I’m still happy to enjoy this holiday courtesy of the monarchy.
Should we succeed in becoming a republic, throwing off the shackles of our colonial past and having no more reason to follow Kate Middleton’s fashion choices than America, we need not abandon the day. I mean, since the choice of date is fairly arbitrary we could just recalibrate and focus on the many things to celebrate about Queens more generally.
1. Queens of the drag variety
Dame Edna. ’nuff said.
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2. Queen
I mean whats not to love about this iconic rock band. And it means the day would come with it’s own soundtrack which automatically makes it appealing to everybody from the young to the old and burn some sausages. Scaramush, scaramush will you do the fandango?
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3. Princess (one day to be Queen) Mary
She met a guy called Fred in a pub. After a sporting event. She’s basically living the Saturday night dream for most Australians. Reason enough for a holiday at the very least. The fact that she can make tweed and turtleneck look awesome is double the reason.
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4. Queen Latifah
This woman rocks at so many levels it’s hard to choose just one reason to celebrate her. But she’s the complete package – sassy, talented, interesting and funnier than Cork. And there’s a lot of favours that she’s prepared to do, do one for Mama, and she’ll do one for you. Holiday gold!
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5. Queensland
Because I was born there and despite what Campbell is doing to it, it is still a gorgeous part of the world. It’ll do. I’m happy to have national public holidays for all the states and territories to be honest.
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Happy to go with my reasons or do you have other queen related reasons can you think of to make sure the holiday lasts despite the inevitable absence of a monarchy in Australia?
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6 Jun 2014
There are two types of people in the world.
Those that say “Let’s do it”
and those that say “What if it doesn’t work out?”
Let’s call them Group A and Group B. It makes the whole post seem more scientific don’t you think?
Group A consists of people that do things because they want to do them and they’ll never know unless they try.
Group A says things like “What’s the worst that could happen?” and “Every day is a school day” and “You can sleep when you’re dead” and “I’ll send a postcard” and “It’ll be dandy” and “Ah shit, that wasn’t supposed to do that (ha ha)”.
Group B consists of people that never get around to doing things because… well… “what if it doesn’t work out”.
Group B is also heavily populated with people that say things like “What will people think?” and “What about my long service leave?” and “At your age” and “But what if we don’t like it?” and “But who will we get to babysit if we move away?” or “What if our credit cards get stolen” and “You never can trust a foreigner/queenslander/person that likes cats”
My cousin told me the following when I was dithering about whether to go to London or do something sensible. I call it “Rob’s Bee Dick Disaster Theory”.
He said “Look Al, if you come within a bee’s dick of disaster and it all works out, well then!! And if you smash into the windscreen, lesson learned.”
I always loved the “Well then!” part of his theory. All exclamation points and no substance but IT WORKS!
Group B will never know the exhilaration of following an idea on nought but a whim and prayer hoping like crazy that its all going to work out just fine despite your lack of preparation for any kind of eventuality be it good or bad.
Occasionally you smack into that windscreen and slide, battered and bloody to the bottom where, when the conditions are right, you’ll get flicked back up into the air by the windscreen wiper to fight another day. Sometimes, right when you’re about to hit that windscreen, you get a gust of wind blow you off in another direction which turns out to be exactly the right thing for you.
Every thing we do has a purpose. Everything has an outcome. Everything has a lesson, a photograph or a memory. Everything but everything tells us something even if sometimes it speaks in a voice that sounds suspiciously like your mother saying “I told you so”.
So basically, there is no such thing as “It didn’t work out” only “lesson learned”.
I’ll thank Rob for you all. No problem.
Disclaimer: “Rob’s Bee Dick Disaster Theory” should never be used for high risk activities such as skydiving or base jumping.
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3 Jun 2014
Please note: I’m passionately pro-vaccination and if that is likely to offend you – please don’t continue reading – I’m not going to argue with people on this one, it is an opinion piece.
See, the subject of immunisation is a bit thorny in my circle and for that reason I don’t talk about it much. But recent coverage of some anti-vaxxer bollocks has me fired up about it all again.
Fourteen years ago I was privileged enough to personally engage with women from a number of third world countries in the Asia-Pacific region who were doing things like getting their fathers to donate their dowries to vaccinate their villages, even if it meant ending up ‘on the shelf’ because they were so passionate about improving their lives of their communities. They were also seeking to prevent honour killings, eliminate child marriage, have education for all children mandatory and other ‘small things’ like that, but we can discuss those topics another day.
In addition, as somebody who has travelled a bit, including to a number of third world countries, I have seen the effects on individuals and communities of vaccine-preventable diseases.
So the continued scaremongering of (publicly named and shamed) anti-vaxxers when pretty much every theory opposing immunisation has been systematically destroyed by every single proper scientific investigation into it right across the world is frustrating. This
article last week had me almost inarticulate with rage that people still peddle bullshit to people seeking to understand how vaccines work.
And I am dumbfounded by the ‘natural health’ communities that continue to endorse the bullshit by inviting these people to speak at their conferences and forums.
Here is my view. Choosing not to vaccinate your children is a first world arrogance which is only afforded to you as an option because mostly everybody else does it in your safe, first world community. Thus, by and large, affording you and your family herd immunity.
You have this luxury because everybody has been immunising their children for many years and we have eradicated a number of diseases which crippled and killed an enormous amount of people only two to three generations ago and which continues to cripple and kill children and adults across the world right now.
Those that can not afford vaccines re generally surrounded by other people that can not afford vaccines and thus are not afforded the luxury of herd immunity. And so they die. Or they live with the impact of the disease once it has savaged them and their communities. Which is why the likes of Bill Gates is busy paying for people to be immunised, because he has lots of money and it is not actually very expensive.
Living in Australia and other well protected, well immunised first world communities, does not make any of your google based research right and the scientific and medical professionals wrong. There are isolated cases where immunisation hasn’t worked out so well, and for those families I feel immense sorrow.
However, if I was to use the ‘my child might die or be injured if….’ as a reason not to do something I would not use seat-belts in the car because occasionally children are strangled during accidents by the very equipment that is in the car to protect them; I would not allow them to eat food because occasionally children choke even with their parents right there in the room with them; I would not allow them play in playgrounds because occasionally children end up injured falling from equipment. With me?
If we were able to prevent these diseases through the use of herbs and following Meryl’s advice, we would be. There is no big-pharma-money-making-at-the-expense-of- lives conspiracy on this one people – not every bit of progress results in an Erin Brockovich type tale. The fact is vaccines at the very least prevent disability and infertility, and at the very most save lives.
And where are deaths of vaccine-preventable diseases on the rise in Australia? Where are children too young to be immunised most likely to be exposed to these diseases? Pockets of suburbs full of well educated, wealthy, pre-dominantly white families who reckon ‘natural’ is better. True.
Here’s a friendly little fact about immunisation for you. Vaccines are completely synthetic now meaning nobody has to use ‘natural’ strains of the disease in the making of them thus reducing the likelihood of individual reactions even further. There is natural and then there is natural.
To those that want to know about the pros and cons of immunisations or individual vaccines – speak to qualified health professionals. Lots of them if you want to make extra sure. But for the love of Fatty Arbuckle, do not get your facts from the internet or anybody that is NOT qualified to give you facts.
And that includes pretty much anybody in your parents group, your school pick up circle, your tennis team, your trivia circle or a Facebook group called ‘XXXX XXXX mums’.
Please.
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1 Jun 2014
This weekend I attended a celebratory function labelled as a ‘first birthday party’. Now we all know that first birthday parties are just a polite way of showing off that you managed to keep your kid alive for a year and I am not dissing that – we threw big parties both times because we were so freakin’ impressed with ourselves.
And we’re always happy to eat fairy bread.
There was lots of chit chat going on as there often is a social function when I found out that a friend of a friend’s marriage was ending. And I did utter this statement – “This is why women think men are fucked in the head” – pretty much verbatim when I heard what he articulated as a key reason why their marriage could not work.
And yes, before we proceed, I recognise my statement was a generalisation. And I’m sorry to the men that are not.
But of all the daftness I’ve ever heard regarding a partner’s lack of suitability this takes the cake. The absolute cake.
Because his complaint about his wife is that she is ‘too agreeable’.
He cited several examples of how she was really easy going and supportive of him as he climbed the corporate ladder and she worked part time doing something she loves and raising their children.
Let me repeat…. too agreeable. We’re not talking walk over door mat agreeable. We’re talking nice person agreeable.
When you think of all the reasons women are hard to live with, and let’s be honest, collectively as one half of a species – we generally don’t make it easy for our partners, which (going off on another tangent) is the main reason I’m not gay – dating somebody with regularly fluctuating hormones has got to be a nightmare, so (and now back to my point) when you think of all the reason women are hard to live with – being agreeable is not normally on the chart.
In all the disagreements my husband and I have had since we started dating ten years ago, he has never ONCE accused me of being ‘too agreeable’. Believe me, that is something I would have remembered.
I can not think of one of my girlfriends – and I know a LOT of amazing women who are REALLY lovely, – there is not one I would ‘accuse’ of being too agreeable to their partners. Not one.
And I am going to put it out there that today we think of that one woman in the world, this ONE WOMAN people, and we send her a whole lot of love. Like bucket loads.
Because seriously, if that ONE WOMAN has her relationship break down the rest of us are absolutely screwed.
Big love from me to that woman too – may the universe be much kinder to you next time round. And may he accidentally get Deep Heat on his testicles. Regularly.
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