6 Feb 2014
On Thankful Thursday I have decided to be thankful for my ability to ROAR! Which is also one of my three words of the year so I’m kind of pleased it’s kicking off so early.
I have roared in delight this week because all the pitching and talking for my new business is starting to pay off and my new business OFFICIALLY HAS CLIENTS. Woohoo!
Which not only makes me roar, but do fist bumps with myself and funny little happy dances in my home office environment. And then I roared because of those bloody Dora game pieces I mentioned in my last blog. (Mental note: must pick the buggers up)
I have roared this week with heartbreak, bewilderment and fury because of a staffing decision at my local childcare which is completely unfathomable to me and a number of other parents. Worse, it is being reported in seven different types of bureaucratese which just stonewalls the parents and gives us no understanding of a choice which has such a huge impact on the centre, that I, and others, are unable to believe it is a good decision or a right decision.
And I have roared with laughter this week because of my two zany, feisty and hilarious daughters who just take joy with them into every room they enter, and throw it around along with most of the contents of their toyboxes.
It is for them I must learn to roar the loudest and how easily they inspire with their good humour, their trust and their openness.
My final observation on roaring is if even the wildest of animals look a bit daft doing it, I am so pleased nobody can see me when I do the roaring, dancing and fistbumping. Lordy me but it must be a sight!
3 Feb 2014
The biggest challenge about working from home? Is well, working from home.
There are no people idly gossiping about television. When you read something that really gets you excited or pumped up, the only person you can tell is yourself. Nobody offers to get you a drink when they are popping out for a coffee. You frequently lose track of time. You go to get up from your work desk and step on a tiny Dora the explorer game piece and you can’t complain to OHS about workplace hazards. You work a whole lot harder because there are no distractions. When the computer goes bust you can’t just wander around to Tan’s desk and ask him to fix it for you even though he’s not the guy you’re supposed to ask.
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| Under the desk in my home office |
I do miss being surrounded by people. I’m a social being, I thrive on interaction with others and now I can go days where I don’t get to have idle conversation, or quick lunches with friends. I don’t know how people worked from home before social media. At least I’m able to check Facebook and find out who needs more coffee. It might not be the same as an animated conversation about the state of the world but it’s something.
There are definite positives. Mark Dapin is back on the internet and dabbling with communicating with people and he’s a funny bugger. I don’t have to get out of my pyjamas unless I’m doing the childcare drop off. I can play music as loud as I want to play it and it doesn’t even have to be socially acceptable music. I don’t have to share the toilet, lunches are much cheaper and there are no d(*&heads in my office space.
Well mostly. Even I have my moments.
See, I couldn’t share that joke with anybody. I had to laugh at it myself and just imagine you all rolling your eyes I’m worried I might lose my comic timing. Lost the dexterity in my sarcasm. I will have to catastrophise my possible demise WITH NO AUDIENCE.
Or I could blog. Sorted. Now back to that proposal I was writing.
31 Jan 2014
Do you know Martin Niemoller? He was a German pastor who during the 30s supported Hitler and who grew disillusioned with him not because of the erosions of freedoms accorded to others, but because eventually the new way of doing things, impacted on him and his ability to practice his faith freely. He spent the war in the Dachau concentration camp.
Stay with me. I’m cranky and I have a point.
Just after the war he said this:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Originally he said it a more complex manner giving examples of times when he and others had heard of harm being done to others in small ways – changes of policy, attacks on journalists, removal of documents not seen to fit with the new world order, and he spoke of it ‘being none of their business’. Until it was.
I am not claiming we are on the road to being the next Nazi Germany. So calm down.
What I am saying is that it is our business.
We live in a thriving economy. And for every bit of pro-Liberal anti-Labour propaganda you can quote me, I can find equal with the opposing view. So leave it.
This applies to all of us, all of the time.
It is what we are allowing to happen in our name because it does not directly affect us. The attacks on the ABC and SBS are frightening in that people who only read Murdoch presses feel very strongly that the ABC is too ‘depressing’. It is depressing. Because it’s the truth. Our country is going to hell in a hand basket and too many of us don’t give a shit because it doesn’t affect us on a personal level.
The issues around the violations of the human rights of asylum seekers – we have been shown to be pro-actively violating 150 individual thingies and yet we don’t take the time to write and say ‘Oi, not in our name’ but we have plenty of time to write to our health insurer and complain about the rude lady on the counter
We send our Navy into international waters and yet more refugees arrive by plane than by boat and yet we keep regurgitating the same incorrect sound bites being spouted by the politicians without taking the time to research the facts. Yet we have time to research the 20 stupidest things said by celebrities.
People seeking asylum are coming from countries torn apart by war, governments which sought to silence dissenters and places our own government suggest you don’t visit as an international traveller because it’s really bloody unsafe. And yet we scream – “OOH, why didn’t they stop in Indonesia or Spain, why keep coming here?”
Ever think that perhaps they are prepared to risk everything to be as far away as possible from the places they feared for their lives? Ever think they read about our country and the liberties which we take for granted and think “Wow – how awesome would it be to call the Prime Minister an arse and not get shot for it. Or have my family killed so I shut up in the future”
Marriage equality. Mothers of a certain age would prefer their children to marry their partners and not just live with them, because marriage means something and yet they cry out “Why can’t them gays be happy with a civil union?”. Why does it matter to you? They’re not marrying you. But yet, while it doesn’t affect you, you want it not to happen because we are a “Christian country” and it’s unnatural.
Um, no. Firstly, countries can’t be religious. They are a land mass. Plus church and state should be separate. Makes sense since we don’t all believe the same thing and the law of the land should apply to all citizens not just the ones we deem acceptable to our own personal belief system.
Secondly or thirdly, whichever point I am to – unnatural? If you took advantage of the pretty decent education you got in this country irrespective of gender or religion you’d remember that very recent history says that marrying ‘people of colour’ was a bad idea. Who looks stupid now eh?
The dredging of the reef for financial gain, the denial of climate change, the eradication of any mention of Gonski on the website, politicians that defund services to society’s most vulnerable and yet give themselves pay rises. All these small things erode our democracy until we are living an illusionary freedom. Because it hasn’t yet affected us.
It’s none of our business.
It doesn’t affect ‘us’. It’s all those bloody lefty foreigner loving bleeding heart do-gooders.
Yes it does. And if you cant see that the insidious erosion of the very things that make us a humane and compassionate society IS your business, than please, know that you’re an idiot.
29 Jan 2014
So back on New Year’s Eve in 2000, a friend and I accepted an invitation by a member of the band Powderfinger to go to a party at the drummer’s house. We did. Forgot to be cool, drank too much and took ourselves off home just before midnight to ensure we left with some dignity having giggled our way through the evening attempting to imitate the on trend loucheness and bored stares of the consciously trendy. Achieved nothing but ‘drunk’.
To give some context – Powerfinger were at the height of the heights – the following year (2001), they would go on to win Album of the Year (Odyssey Number Five) and Single of the Year (My Happiness). I didn’t mind them but I still had more chance of knowing the lyrics to Meatloaf, Gilbert & Sullivan or That Mambo No 5 album.
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| The boys from Brisbane |
I never said I was cool back then.
However, I was being invited to parties by rock stars. The fact that I was briefly living next door is not the point. I. WAS. INVITED. TO. A. ROCK STAR’S. PARTY.
I was in my mid 20s, I had just ended a year of extensive travel, moved cities, was soon to be (unbeknownst to me) single and life stretched out ahead of me. Future unknown.
Fast Forward to the New Year’s Eve just gone and my lubbly jubbly husband and I are sitting on the hill at Woodford Folk Festival, our babies asleep beside us, listening to the 2013 ARIA Song of the Year winner, Matt Corby, belt out his song Resolution. Young girls swooned, thousands of voice sung along with him and it was a moment of pure contentment. My happiness in fact (see what I did there?)
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| One of his mother’s two favourite children |
So, I had made the decision to go and watch his performance that night not based on my own swooniness for the young man, but because I am friends with his aunt and his mother AND I REALLY LIKE THEM, so I wanted to make sure I had seen him and could say doting, meaningful things when I next saw them along the lines of “Sung well, appeared to have recently showered and was apparently sober, perhaps needs to shine his shoes.”*
There it was. The subtle shift. A life stage.
I’m not even 40 and I have moved from partying with rockstars to partying with their mothers and aunts. (Who aren’t old. They just had babies when they were babies themselves). And they know how to party.
I am aware that when my daughters’ become rock stars I’ll almost be able to get into the gig venues at a senior’s rates.
I am possibly going to be like the mother at last night’s Arcade Fire concert who BOUGHT A BOOK TO READ in the first row of seats. WITH A BOOK LIGHT. While the young things she was supervising danced like the demented poppets they were.
This week I won the prize for guessing who was going to win Triple J’s Hottest 100. Which makes me mainstream yoof!
And yet, I am old enough to deliberately wear Converse shoes to see gigs because THEY ARE COMFORTABLE.
I say things to my children like “Manners are free”, and yet I haven’t stopped yelling profanities at the newspaper whenever it reports something new and even stupider that Abbott or Morrison has said.
It’s like I’m morphing into an adult. A real live grown up. And I’m really not ready. Not ready at all.
Hold me.
*Matt Corby if you EVER read this please note I did not really report like this back to your Aunt and Mum. I couldn’t see your shoes from where I was on the hill.
26 Jan 2014
My gorgeous sister-in-law has just abandoned solo living to move into a house with a friend in east London. My beautiful man and I have been terribly remiss in sending a housewarming gift so I thought I’d start with my refresher course for ‘living with people’.
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| Don’t dress the same. That’s weird. |
All these examples are all from real events, but I wasn’t always the sinner, sometimes the sinned against. The last of my points, writ first, is the old adage that to ASSUME makes an ASS of U and ME. But mostly you.
Okay….
1. Always change the toilet roll, put the milk back in the fridge and pay your rent on time. This negates any accusations of bad house-mating for pretty much forever. Unless you sleep with your house-mate’s partner.
2. Never sleep with your house-mate’s partner. Not even accidentally. Not even being a regular toilet roll changer will get you out of this one and I (whoops they) will ask you to move out.
3. Never date your house-mate. Ever. It will only ever end in marriage. And then you’ll end up in Australia with two kids and none of your friends visiting because they have read too many stories about the spiders.
4. When your house-mate is wrong, never tell them. Well unless there is an audience and you can do it in a faux friendly extremely bitchy stress relieving manner.
5. Take the time to work out what toiletries they use, what booze they drink and buy the same stuff. It works out for everybody if you’re not having to spend time drawing lines on shampoo bottles or the cheap champagne.
6. If on the first day you live with your house-mate you catch them wearing your clothes and shoes, kick them out. Do not wait until they steal your fundraising money and the cash from their job that day and the police come to visit. Trust your instinct.
7. Have a date night each fortnight which includes takeaway, wine and a DVD. Quality time isn’t only for romantic couples. Since you have the same DVD taste as your brother, let them choose.
8. House-mates love baked goods. Own that kitchen woman. You bake gooooooood.
9. If they leave their clothes on the drying line too long, take it off and fold it. It doesn’t look like a passive aggressive act when you do it that way and you win brownie points for being lovely. They can’t see inside your seething, revenge concocting mind.
10. If they do not shower enough – mention it. If they refuse to shower more, buy some Febreeze and use it whenever they walk in the same room as you.
11. If your house-mate’s mum and sister come to visit, smoke too much and ply them with wine. That makes that moment a month later when you’ve started dating your house-mate and have to meet their family and make a good impression that little bit more awkward.
12. Remember their birthdays, their anniversaries and the name of the guy at work that they hate. Forgetting these things make it look like you don’t listen. Hard to come back from even if you genuinely don’t give a shit.
13. Pay for the TV licence. Split it obviously but just remember to pay it. It’s a stupid law but it’s the law in the UK and they actually send men out in a van if you don’t do it.
14. If on Valentine’s Day the police turn up to raid your house for drugs based on a tip off, you can be pretty confident it’s out of date and they are looking for previous tenants. Do not assume your house-mates have any knowledge of it. It makes you look more paranoid than is cool.
15. Remember, becoming a woman that lives with cats rather than people is not an option. If people don’t like living with you, it’s just be cruel to inflict yourself on cats, who don’t really have a right of reply.
Love you long time girlfriend. Enjoy the new digs and okay, FINE, we’ll send a present. x
24 Jan 2014
Childcare.
It you’re worried about it. You are doing it wrong.
The most often discussed aspect of childcare is that it is not cheap. My question is why would you expect it to be cheap? You are entrusting the most precious and beloved people in your life to the behemoth that is ‘the childcare industry’.
That said, nobody likes a daily fee that goes up. Nobody. But that’s the business side of childcare, the management, the boards, the council, the tick-tocky bit of childcare.
Childcare is ultimately about the carers.
Let me tell you the regard in which we hold the carers that have minded our girls since Tully was 4 months old and Cass was 6 months old – Basically, if we decided to pack up and go live in a yurt in the southern fringe of a Brazilian forest AND NEVER COME BACK – we would choose a child care day. Because we’d be leaving them somewhere they love to be and we know that while they might be pissed at us, they would not abandon the girls until they had sorted something out that worked best for the girls.
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| I think you can see why we’ll never leave them for life in a yurt |
Our girls would be with people they trust, people that care for them, and people that know them. They would be with the people that can be in a room full of crying babies and frantic toddlers and magically transform that into an oasis of small people happiness while individual parents dash off to work feeling guilty but grateful that they never chose to be a childcarer. Because we see it all the time and we know that shit is hard. We struggle to calm two some days, and the carers, they are performing magic on crowds of the little buggers.
But if we went to that yurt, our girls would be with people that have cuddled them, soothed their bumps, coaxed them into eating vegetables, taught them songs, laughed at their jokes, nurtured their friendships, wiped their bottoms, cuddled their woes away. They would be with people that have listened endlessly to the latest obsessions, taught them songs in Spanish, let them dance like they’ve been electrocuted, soothed wounded egos and the inexplicable sads that small people get when they don’t get to have the red jigsaw.
People that have made gifts for tired and harried parents that demonstrate their children’s talents, that incorporate what you want for your child into an already crowded curriculum in such a way that you always feel that your child is not only the cleverest child they have ever seen, but probably the favourite.
If you bump into these amazing people outside of childcare, they greet your child as if they were royalty. They tell you nothing of their own trials and tribulations, they listen to your anxieties and dreams as if you were the first person to hope that their children would grow up to be rockstars so you could go to pubs, rather than swimmers which seems to involve early mornings.
They are friendly no matter what goes on in their own lives. They are beautiful to your children, no matter what is going on with the management or staffing. They are people your children list when they talk about friends, they are the people that feature in so many of the stories that your children tell to other people and they are the people that you know will tell you the things you don’t want to hear on occasion when your child forgets to be perfect.
They are the people that are endlessly patient with your slapdash approach to bag packing and that make your child’s toilet training sound like more of an achievement than their own degrees. They feed them, cuddle them and nuture them.
We couldn’t leave our girls anywhere where we didn’t trust the individuals involved in their care totally. Sure there have been the odd dud for us, but dud in that it was evident that they didn’t want to be there, rather than dud as inefficient. Even the casual staff are ridiculously lovely and totally ‘on brand’.
We don’t have grandparents on hand that can mind them so ‘free babysitting’ is not one of our ‘lifestyle choices’ as I recently heard it described. We use babysitters and abuse our friend’s generosity when we need to do something after hours. In those after hours, we always leave them with people that will love them even if they don’t get them to sleep. And we are incredibly blessed with people that love our girls enough to look after them.
But none of our friends love our children enough to give up their jobs and babysit them for free. I’m not judging. Just noting.
So we use childcare. Like the other bazillion people across Australia.
That kind of awesome doesn’t come free. And we should value them.
And we should all remember that we started off as small people. And that if we don’t want our small people to grow up as total tossers, we need to surround them with positive role models when they are young. So that they learn to be kind, compassionate and empathetic. So that they are surrounded by people that espouse the values you aspire to for your child. Even when you are not there. And that doesn’t come for free as my friends have demonstrated. (That was a joke people) (But true)
And we’ve got that. And we would not leave our children, EVER, anywhere we didn’t get the right vibe, feel the right trust, or see the right things.
These are our beautiful children. Our perfect, perfect girls. And when we pay for childcare, we pay for them to be surrounded by goodness, by positivity – yes. BUT also by fully structured, accredited, accountable care.
And if we don’t feel that they are getting that, then the responsibility rests with us. For it is up to us to be so closely acquainted with our children that we know the people they are surrounded by, that they are being influenced by and that they are learning from.
Us. The adults. The parents.
The parents.
Because even when we use childcare we are parents.
Loving ones.
And so very appreciative of the childcarers that allow us to be parents and all the other stuff too.
