Mary’s Omnibus

Hats

2012-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

My granddaughter told me that wearing a hat at high school is only an optional part of her uniform. She said it as if it was good news and from her perspective, I suppose it was. As Dezzy sees it, hats are just not stylish. There’s the straw hat, the floppy cloth hat, the cap and (shudder) the visor. Dezzy has developed into a young lady with a sense of self and of fashion. She believes that hats are just not cool. And feeling immortal as we all do at that age, I’m guessing that she brushes aside talks about skin cancer.

It seems like minutes ago when a five year old Dezzy posed proudly in her school uniform and broad brimmed hat with a draw string that kept it in place. She wore that hat in its various sizes all through primary school. Her family provided her with the out of hours hats. She never questioned our authority, but accepted that it was all part of a grownup’s rules that had to be followed. These days Dezzy keeps a floppy hat in her bag, folded up and ready, just in case I should insist she wear it. It’s a pity hat. I still have some influence but it is obviously waning fast.

If I look back far enough into my past (back to Fred Flintstone’s day, my sons used to say), I can empathise with Dezzy. Our uniform skirts were one inch below the knee but the moment we left at the end of the school day we untucked our shirts and rolled up our sleeves and rolled our skirts up at the waist. Hats were not mandatory, so of course we didn't wear them, but we didn’t know as much about sun damage in the Stone Age.
Perhaps if Dezzy had experienced the ‘Slip, Slap, Slop,’ campaign, initiated by the Cancer Council, and the jingle that went: ‘slip on a shirt, slop on the sunscreen, slap on a hat.’ That was almost two generations ago. I found it effective but I was an adult at the time. Giving lectures and pointing out the grisly details and consequences of ignoring us, even catchy jingles will only have a limited effect on people Dezzy’s age. What she and her friends need is an alternative option.

I recently followed Dezzy around our local shopping centre while she spent her birthday money on clothes. Dezzy went right past the handful of straw hats that were artistically placed here and there around the shop. No one was buying them, no one was wearing them. Even I thought that they were dull.

There was a time when wearing a hat was de rigueur. Like the American Express card, no one dreamt of leaving home without a hat. Ironically now that we know we should be wearing them, we don’t. Time for milliners to give the issue some serious thought and plug into what is essentially an untapped market. Hats for young teens could be cool if they played it right. Those fascinators look lovely on Melbourne Cup Day, why not extend that metaphor. A bit of ingenuity and imagination and a get together between manufacturers, models and actresses could turn the tide and widen the brim.

Simon says, and so do I

2012-01-23T18:35:00.000-08:00

Simon Whaley of http://simonwhaleytutor.blogspot.com/ says:
‘A blog is what you make of it. You can use it to talk to the world, or you can use it to record your own innermost thoughts, which only you can read. But if you want to get into the habit of writing regularly, a blog can be a great way of developing that habit.’

I knew that before I read it on Simon’s Blog, ‘Simon Says', but I’m slack, or slow, or both and I needed to hear somebody else say it. Or perhaps it’s that I feel that having begun this blog by posting completed or almost completed articles that it can only be done that way forever more. My articles are few and far between because of that slackness and slowness that I mentioned earlier. But I do want to develop that habit, and I do want to use my blog to talk to others.

So, from here on in, I’ll have something to say about children and grandchildren (because it’s that sort of blog) and I will talk about issues that relate to them. My opinions might take up half a dozen lines or half a dozen paragraphs. But this is my new year’s commitment. Once a week, I’ll give it a go.
Thanks, Simon.

Role Models

2011-12-31T14:39:00.000-08:00

Not so long ago, my grown up son told his grandmother that she was his role model. At one time or another Mark had given one family member or another that look of admiration that spoke volumes about things said or done that had amazed him. It was gran’s turn to bask in the glow of his love. She was chuffed, but all she did in her understated way was to give him her gentle smile and say, ‘that’s nice, darling.’

Both she and my dad, who is no longer with us, lent Mark an independent ear when he felt the need for one; gave him sanctuary when he was running away from his troubles and told Mark that they had faith in his abilities. While his grandparents gave him uncritical love and unquestioning support, they hadn’t actually known they were being role models. It would have made them nervous if they had realised such a huge responsibility had been placed on their shoulders. Mark’s grandparents saw themselves as family centred people who did what came naturally. That meant offering their services where it was needed, willingly, quietly and without the razzmatazz expected of role models these days. They would have left that issue to be fought over by footballers, singers and film stars.

A friend I was speaking to about it would have agreed with that assessment. She believes that family members can’t attain hero status in their own lifetime. We need to admire the prowess of today’s sports people, (or is it sports people who have the need for us to admire them?), and we need to take on the rose coloured patina that covers the legendary folk of the past. The stories of these larger than life people, she said, symbolised such attributes as courage, individuality and selflessness, qualities that we would wish our children to aspire to. If history debunks these people’s stories that’s still all right with my friend. They will be adults by the time they find their idols have feet of clay. She dismisses the thought of sports heroes disgracing themselves. It’s only a few that spoil it all for everybody. The important thing is children need heroes now and family members just can’t compete.

I thought that she missed the point. Mark’s parents had been his first port of call. They were his first teachers, disciplinarians and friends. If he was going to learn about selflessness and courage it would be from his parents and the aunties, uncles and the grandparents who expanded his little world. His family are a constant in his life. At any given time of day or night, Mark knows he can count on his them to be there for him. There will not be any radical changes in their behaviour, nor will they disgrace themselves and let him down. Rather, Mark’s family provide him with enduring lessons about life, love and family. Lessons he has taken with him into adulthood.

Mark is free to admire people for their skills while not confusing them with the personal attributes, ambitions or flaws of strangers. He is a stronger adult for it, sure of himself and his place in the world and he and understands that neither footballers nor film stars know or care anything about him, and, despite constant media scrutiny into their personal lives, he does not know or need to know about them.

Time Out

2011-11-25T23:25:00.000-08:00

My 2 ½ year old grandson slipped off the couch where he had been doing ‘time out’ and approached his father. Could he do it again, he asked? He had thought they were playing a fun game.

Eden’s dad had explained to him that that he shouldn't jump on the bed because he could hurt himself. Eden had only been doing what every child has at one time or another done, since the dawn of time. He had absorbed the words and repeated the mantra to the adults in his vicinity. Ten minutes later he was back on the bed and jumping.

What misleads us all is Eden’s decent vocabulary and his facility to repeat in context what he hears. I don’t think he understands the concepts or the consequences yet. Eden has been told that coffee is hot and thankfully he stays away from the stove, but what does the term hot actually mean to him? At around the same age, his cousin touched a hot grill and burned her hand. She understands hot now.

Not that long ago Eden was a placid baby who lay quietly in his cot waiting for someone to come in and pay him some attention. Ever since he has upsized to a big boy’s bed Eden has taken matters into his own hands. He slips out of his bed and visits his parents at five in the morning to greet them with a chirpy hello. No matter how many times he has been told, Eden doesn’t yet understand about sleep-ins. He only knows that he has had his beauty sleep and feels energised. His mother tells me that he marches up and down the corridor singing his favourite nursery rhymes and telling himself stories. Life is all about swimming lessons, going to the zoo, and playing with his friends. And of course, there’s turning the bed into a trampoline. Life is a happy game that begins at the crack of dawn and only improves as the day goes on. Improves for Eden, that is. His parents suspect him of being a terrible two. If that is the case, I suspect it of being a very mild form of it.

I wanted Eden to get back into his pram the other day, but we were at the local shopping Plaza and he was having too much fun running round and absorbing the sights, sounds and smells of his surroundings. Come back, Eden, I said. Time to go home, I explained. He stopped and looked back, giving me his best grin, one foot forward poised to take flight. Mum’s waiting to see us, I said to no avail. I tried several tactics including telling Eden goodbye and walking off. I hid behind a pillar and looked out to see what he was doing. Eden just stood his ground, grinning at the joke, daring me to back up my threat. I was finally forced to catch him, pick him up and place him in the pram. Reason hadn’t worked so I resorted to every parent’s alternative. It’s called the ‘me-Tarzan-you-Jane’ recourse.

There’s a bag of tricks available to parents that they dip into when a situation arises or an incident takes place. Some are generic and others are inspired ideas born of desperation and despair. Eden’s daddy tells him a story: There was a little boy called Eden who jumped on the bed. He fell and broke his arm. The doctor said he couldn’t play with his friends and he couldn’t go swimming (Eden’s favourite activity) for a very long time. Eden was bombarded with this story after each jump. It finally worked, which proves that (as St Thomas of Aquinas is reputed to have said) ‘Repetition is the mother (or father?) of all learning’ and that my children are superior models of the original.

Swearing

2011-08-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

This is a revised and shortened and re-submitted version of an article I wrote months ago.

My 6 year old son shot off a swear word at the dinner table. I had asked him how his day was and obliged. David had learned a new word at school. Not in the classroom of course, one of his peers had impressed him with it in the school yard, a place where children receive another education altogether. It wasn’t a shocking word, certainly not by today’s standards, but I knew that if I didn’t put a stop to it straight away there was going to be more to come.

I asked him if he knew what it meant and he said no. But it had made quite an impact with his friends so he wasn’t sure why I had suddenly put on my serious face. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word and that he would never hear his dad or I say it. I really didn’t want to hear him repeat it again. In fact, I said, only if he ever heard me utter a swear word in his presence he had my permission to do the same.
I didn’t swear a lot then or now but everyone does it at some time or another and I wasn’t the exception. If I had just missed a bus or bumped my not so funny bone or got a larger than expected electricity bill I could count on a naughty little word slipping out. After my conversation with David, I spent decades saying ‘shoot’ and ‘fruit’ and ‘pickle my grandmother.’ Hard to do at first but after a while it came naturally. So ingrained is the habit that I still say ‘shiver my timbers’ on occasion.

I’m not a prude and as I’ve said, swearing has its place, I just don’t like it replacing communication. I sometimes hear young adults talking among each other or even when addressing adults producing at least one swear word per sentence. They aren’t necessarily being rude, it’s just their way. It doesn’t offend me but I’m sad to think that it’s the only way they know and that they don’t understand (possibly wouldn’t be interested) that they are depriving themselves of the ability to communicate effectively in a society that values it.

Encouraging my children to talk to rather than swear at me while I still had influence was the way to go. I didn’t think that I’d cured David of swearing, I was sure that when he was at school and in the company of friends he reverted to rough and tumble little boy type. That’s okay. Everyone wants to fit in with their group, even adults. I just didn’t want him to bring it home with him. I wanted David to know what my expectations were and to understand about boundaries.

My mother tells this story about my brother who was in high school at the time. He had brought a friend home and introduced him to my mother, then they went off to his room. They were talking loudly as is the way with teenagers, about teachers and friends and what they had been up to that day. My brother’s friend suddenly swore and my mum heard my brother say, ‘don’t say that, my mother will hear you.’ That was the day, she said, my mother knew she was doing something right.

Join the club

2011-08-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

My youngest son who has a two year old son of his own admitted to me recently that although he loves spending time with his little boy, he feels a guilty sense of relief when he goes to work surrounded by his (adult) colleagues and the tools of his trade. ‘Join the club,’ I said. We’ve all been there. My daughter in law works part time and I’ve seen her hover over her child before she leaves for work. But ask her to discuss work related activities and her face lights up.

To work or not to work when your children are little is a topical issue that hasn’t been resolved yet. I think that it’s because there isn’t a one answer fits all solution to it. But those mothers of babies and toddlers who prefer the salt mines to parenting will tell you that although paid work isn’t as rewarding it is a fair bit more restful. A moment of peace is all a mother asks for, and a place to hide from the piping voices that demand your attention. I can tell you first hand that locking myself in the toilet with a copy of Cleo magazine isn’t necessarily a guarantee of privacy. My children would stand outside the door pounding with their little fists and pleading for admission.

Wanting time out isn’t an admission of failure just an acknowledgement of human frailty. Parenting is far more exhausting than we mums and dads anticipate BC (before child). Realising that we have committed every moment of our existence to our children for the next few decades comes as a shock. Our lives BC have suddenly and without notice become a thing of the past. We’ve all heard the stories, of course, but no amount of literature prepares us for the reality of the constant chattering. Oh, that chattering. Children will ask questions and won’t accept a grunt or a non-committal answer. While it is our job to answer questions, teach values and set parameters, we would do it with a greater will if we were only allowed a little bit of ‘me’ time.

Hordes of mothers found their way into the workforce in the 1970’s. Supermums, they called us. Thankfully we were the first and last generation of supermums to think we had to do it all. My generation made their own babysitting arrangements; some hauled their own mothers back into service, others hired minders. I had live in help. It was my job to be home in time to feed my children milk and Tic Toc biscuits. My school teacher husband took his turn at child rearing during the term breaks. If I felt bad about it at all, it was that not everyone was married to a school teacher.
Hooray! I found myself free to spend time in the adult world. My first visit was to the hairdresser. I asked for a short, short haircut to prepare me for my double role of mother and working stiff. A sympathetic hairdresser leaned me back against the basin and washed my hair while her assistant asked if I would like some coffee. I almost broke down on the spot and wept at the thought of someone doing something for me for a change.

I was readying myself for the adult world. I did away with the shabby, round the house garb and bought a wardrobe more in keeping with the professional world. I was looking forward to conversations that didn’t include repeating the daily mantra of don’t hit, don’t touch, do share.’ Even adult friends with children weren’t able to boost my delicate state of mind; these women were in the same situation as I was and all they wanted to do was to tell me about it. Misery might love company but I didn’t want a bar of it. I wanted to be in the thick of office politics and to discuss adult issues; I didn’t want to listen to what other people’s children did or didn’t do or to referee childish accusations of ‘he started it.’

I remember how tiring it was to come home and prepare the evening meal but still, I thought it was great. I gladly took off that work hat and exchanged it for my mummy apron. The trick was not to sit down because I knew I would never have been able to get up again. I took that morning’s washing off the line, handed out after school snacks then got started on the pre-prepared veggies. Even the chattering was welcome as an insight into my children’s daily routine. I loved it. The physical aspects of combining work with child rearing can’t be discounted, but for this mum at least, the drawbacks that parenting without a mental break presents is equally if not more important. I got to come home refreshed and ready to deal with my second job with gusto and kindly feelings towards my children, myself and the whole wonderful world.

Teaching Rachel

2011-07-05T04:41:00.001-07:00

My granddaughter Rachel and I have a history of cooking googie eggs. When she was four she stood on a chair to reach the kitchen bench, cracked eggs and stirred the mixture into the frypan with a wooden spoon. Now that she’s seven Rachel reaches the bench on her own and we have graduated to more sophisticated dishes like sponge cake and (very soon) pumpkin soup.

The recipes are my mum’s. I sat at her kitchen table and took notes. Now I am passing the decades’ worth of accumulated culinary wisdom on to Rachel who is the only person currently interested in cooking. Rachel and I pore over my collection of recipes and decide on one dish each time she visits. I teach her about the importance of pre-preparing the ingredients and the trick of clearing away as we go along. We discuss family gatherings and the vital role that sharing meals plays in keeping us all together.

We talk as we bake. We discuss what she’s reading right now (Enid Blyton’s The Far Away Tree). Rachel tells me about her school friends, her teachers and her favourite subject which seems to be maths. I admit that I was a dunce at that subject which she finds hilarious. Despite my showing her pictures of myself in better days, she can’t imagine her wrinkly old Nan ever being young and finds it extraordinary that an adult can’t do absolutely everything well. It’s a revelation. Despite it all she asks me to test her. I oblige but when the time comes I will send her to ask those maths wizards her uncle or her dad who I suspect are throwbacks.

I like to think that my job is to complement all the other resources in Rachel’s life. Today’s parents are time poor and often rely on the extended family to help out with what they once had had time to do in those leisurely days of dad at work, mum at home and everybody in their appointed places. Rachel can count on the uncles for maths, the great uncle knowledge of contemporary music is encyclopaedic, the great aunt provides support for all things literary and the grandfather gives piano and chess lessons. And in the twilight of her life Rachel’s grandma has been reactivated for service above and beyond the call of duty. This has given her a new lease on life.

As a mother of sons I missed out on all those girlie type activities. Don’t get me wrong, my sons and I have our own memories to draw on, but they were never interested in cissy stuff that entailed hanging around the kitchen for longer than it took to scoff down a meal (and under protest wash a dish). And you can’t paint a boy’s toe nails or go shopping with boys. They will pick a top and a pair of jeans in five minutes flat then want to move on to more important things.

This is why it has been a delight to discover a whole new world of sugar and spice and everything nice. Rachel and I are building on the foundations of our own tradition through cooking, giggling and deep and meaningful conversation. It is my hope that when she’s whipping up a chocolate torte in her own kitchen Rachel will look back at us the way we were (my) wrinkles and all and treasure the memories.

Time for an oil change

2011-06-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

Time for an oil change, I said to my grandson. It’s the family euphemism for a smelly nappy. Eden knew it and ran out of the room. He’s only two years old and still listens to his elders, but for some reason none of us can fathom he has a phobia about anybody except for his mother changing his nappy.

It’s a wonder he listens to us at all, really. We’re a bossy lot who feed him veggies instead of the chips he yearns for. We snatch him away from the swing and the seesaw just when he’s made a friend and enjoying himself and we put him to bed when he wants to keep on with story time.

So why does he do what he’s told? Right now it’s strictly speaking not necessary. Eden weighs not much more than a bag of potatoes so it’s easy for us adults to haul him off to bed whenever we please. I suspect that although we are the most benign of dictators it’s the fear factor coming into play. We’re so big and he’s so small, Eden senses that there’s always the chance that we might erupt and he’s not taking chances. Perhaps it’s the we-will-brook-no-disobedience tone of our voice that has him doing our bidding. I’m not sure what is going through his two year old mind but right now we have him thoroughly bamboozled. I’d like to pickle Eden in amber and keep him that way but as it’s not going to happen I think the second best option is to prepare us and him for his future.

As Eden gets older and goes to crèche, then kindergarten then school, force of habit and training will take over. One authority after another is going to tell him what to do and when to do it. But that sort of socialising process needs to begin with the adults in his family unit. That’s why I have been talking to Eden about the connexion between changing nappies and clean bottoms and telling him lovingly but firmly that he needs to keep still. He doesn’t like it but he’s getting the message that when he’s with me I’m in charge and that there’s a reason for what I’m doing.

That last is the trick. As he gets older he’s going to question our authority more often and we need to be steps ahead. Eden won’t want to go visit his grandma, or get dressed and ready for school, and he will want to play computer games before he’s done his homework. Tempting as it will be to bark out orders a better end result would be to combine parental authority with explanation. Don’t talk with your mouth full it’s bad manners, you have to do your homework if you’re going to get a good job and look after your parents in your old age.

Although my parents never did, their generation used to make a flat statement of ‘because I said so.’ It was supposed to put a full stop to all arguments and a stop to any alternate opinions. They just didn't want to hear it. I try to keep the lines of communication going, knowing that there is going to come a time when Eden will be taller than I am and won’t be told what to do. That’s I am going to want him to listen to reason.

Ask your Father

2011-06-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl parents used to say ‘ask your father’ or ‘ask your mother’ when they didn’t know the answer to a question, perhaps they still say it. The hope back then was that the other parent might know or at least take the brunt of a child’s disappointment if they didn’t. When it was my turn to be the authority on all things children I realised that if my parents had only got together and decided on a plan of action it would have been much easier on them when I reached my teens.

Because children are used to being told when to sleep, what to eat and how to behave, their logical conclusion is that we know everything there is to know. It’s hard to give that up, especially if you’ve heard your child tell a friend that mummy is clever. And the questions are quite easy at first: ‘where do babies come from, why is the sky blue, what happens if I mix blue and red’? It’s tempting to glow in the admiring light of your children eyes as you snap out the answers. But don’t do it, because when they are old enough to realise that we have fooled them, it’s too late for us to change tack. We have to wear their scorn and as the saying goes, or should go, there’s nothing a parent dreads more than a teenager who scorns. Quicker than you can say rampaging hormones, their peers have taken our place and we have become hopelessly dated and uninformed.

When my granddaughters want to know something that I don’t have the answer to, I admit it. I say that I will try and find out and I do. It’s much better for both of us that my grandchildren get to see me as a fallible adult. My hope is to ease them into the human condition and hope that later they will be kind to me.

Dezzy and Rachel’s dad deals with logistics and maths, and I help out with English and English related topics. Each adult in her life has a specialty the children can tap into. Anything in between gets the standard answer, ‘I don’t know, but I will find out for you.’ You do have to share some of the glory with teachers but that’s okay because teachers come and go, but parents and grandparents are a constant in their child’s life. That’s why it’s their job to get it right.

My grown up children still occasionally ask me what a word means. They once believed that I could spell any word and that I knew what each one meant. They were confident in getting an answer every time. When I could see where it was all heading, I taught them how to use the dictionary and a thesaurus.

Bullying

2011-03-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Bullying seems to be an impossible issue to resolve. I doubt that my article will do this, but I'd like to have a say at the very least. This is my first draft.

A high school boy recently lifted up a fellow student half his size and slammed him to the ground. Surprisingly the aggressor was also a victim. He had put up with bullies for three years and wasn’t about to take it any more. Victims worldwide and their families cheered. It was a cathartic moment for them. The media interviewed the boy who had ‘snapped’ his victim and the boy who filmed the event. It was the usual seven day wonder, but when the dust settled, nothing else did, nothing had changed.

The hero of the moment will probably get through high school without constant harassment, and his school will probably review its bullying policy but what about current and future victims? Nothing seems to have changed or will change for them. There’s anecdotal evidence that confronting a bully with his or her own medicine usually results in the bully backing down, but nobody with any common sense advocates violence as a way to resolve issues. It can result in tragedy for everybody, but what else is there?

Suspending students doesn’t seem to help, students don’t come back calmed down or contrite, rather the reverse. Mediation hasn’t proved to work and neither does walking away from a bully. However well-meaning schools are their anti-bullying policies are obviously inadequate. Cyber bullying has put things in a whole other realm, it’s all become overwhelming for everyone including teachers who haven’t got enough hours in the day to implement everything that’s asked of them and teach as well. I will say that I’m in favour of zero tolerance when it comes to bullies. Three strikes and you’re out. Find another school.

That only leaves parents. If you’re a great believer in nature and nurture, the bully has no chance. But even nature can be something if parents are supportive of their children and raise them to respect themselves and others. I don’t think that bullies like themselves.

Old Farts

2011-03-18T17:29:00.002-07:00

When I was a baby, or so I’m told, I was adorable. Doting parents hung on my every utterance, ‘was that dada? Did she say mamamama?’ I was a cute toddler and never short of admirers. I can’t imagine it now, but I used to be shy. But whenever I did have something to say, some adult was bound to turn to another and exclaim ‘did you hear that? However does she come up with those things.’ It was at the very least as if I had made some earth shattering rediscovery about the theory of relativity. ‘What a child.’

Same thing growing up. Rellos and family friends pinched my cheek and coyly enquired about boyfriends. (Euww). My friends and I had all the answers about life, love and the universe. Our youth and inexperience qualified us to pronounce on such issues. We felt sorry for our clueless parents and treated them kindly but firmly whenever they attempted to give us the benefit of their wisdom . When the tables were turned it was a shock to our collective system. Our children refused our hard won advice based on life experience; they’d already discussed it between each other.

The older and wiser I got, the less inclined people seemed to take notice of what I had to say. I had taken my youth for granted, I hadn’t realised it wasn’t going to last.

Now that I’m at the tail end of things, it seems that no one even looks at me. I’ve joined a grey army of invisible people plodding dispiritedly down that path of no return. Even within the family unit, when people do deign to notice I’m there, it seems that I have reverted to cute. Only they’re not hanging on my every utterance. My world views or political opinions are cute, my views on raising children are cute and my preference for old fashioned values is cute. All are code for old fashioned. When I walk down the street I’m just another old fart tottering past, just a bit of detritus in the way of the next generation’s aspirations.
Just as I was ready to stop fighting it and settle down to old-fartdom, an amazing thing happened. I was given a brand new chance to reinvent myself. I become a grandma.

Babies don’t know it yet that old and wrinkly means cute. They pay attention to the love. They hang believingly on every word you have to utter. They are fascinated with your out of tune version of Mary had a Little Lamb and ask you to repeat it as often as your voice holds out. And when I walk down the street, heads turn once more. I’m basking in the glow of my grandchild. People smile at us both. ‘Coochie coo, what a beautiful baby.’ We all beam. I become the baby’s agent. People ask questions and actually listen to the answers. It’s a brand new world composed of mothers and grandmothers having a confab at the park, pushing a swing and sitting on a see saw; at the library, choosing books, reading stories; on the bus singing songs to keep the babies and the other commuters entertained. If my mother and her grandchildren are anything to go by, grandmothers can expect to experience an ongoing relationship based on mutual love, respect and friendship. I’m only at the beginning of all that, but I hope I can make it.

You've come a long way baby

2011-03-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Australian Retailers Association has mounted a frantic campaign against plain packaging for cigarettes. It is fast running out of time because the Federal government will ban colourful cigarette packaging in 2012. I’m not sure who the Association’s audience is meant to be. Parents of young children won’t empathise, smokers don’t care and most non-smokers will be thrilled to have those cancer sticks in plain wrap and hidden well under the counter. Nobody cares, except perhaps civil rights groups, but I don’t think that when it comes to this particular issue they will have much influence.

The multiple radio advertisements I’ve been badgered with try to convince that plain packaging won’t work. That it won’t stop people from smoking. What the adverts and the Retailers Association fail to mention, for obvious reasons, is that plain packaging will crimp profits. When I smoked plain packaging and cigarettes under the counter would not have influenced me a bit. On the other hand colourful cigarette boxes work beautifully on beginners. When they get to the shop they will immediately know their preferred brand and they will be loyal to that brand to the bitter end.

Colourful packaging is the last hurrah as far as cigarette advertising goes. Now that accepting sponsorship from cigarette companies is on the nose and cigarette ads are banned, promoting cigarette boxes are all that’s left to the companies that produce them. If you’re a young person starting down that emphysema road, then cool is everything. If all packaging looks the same, where’s the allure?

I remember Virginia Slims. I loved them in the 1990s. They were long and elegant, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s lighting up at the end of very long cigarette holders. (So elegant is that image that I've seen it trying to sell chocolate products.) I would hold my Virginia Slims a certain way, taking deep breaths and exhaling with my head tilted sideways and up and my eyes half shut. I felt really stylish.

According to Wikipedia, the brand was introduced in 1968 and marketed to professional women using the slogan ‘You’ve come a long way baby’. Later campaigns used the slogan ‘It’s a woman thing’ and ‘Find your voice.’ Wikipedia also states that ‘media watch groups considered this campaign to be responsible for a rapid increase in smoking among teenage girls.’ It must have been a promoter’s dream.

I think don’t think the Australian Retailer’s Association advertisements are working or will work no matter how much money is thrown at them. The Association lives in a world as we all do where to abuse an old cliché, advertising is king. Get the right angle on a product is the wisdom of the day then throw enough money at it and it will usually work. But in this case no amount of money that will help; there’s no empathy and no interest. As I said before, nobody gives a damn.

Comics

2011-03-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

My mother encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, including, shock horror, comics. Brave of her since her contemporaries didn’t see them as worthy fare for budding minds. Mum believed that anything that got me reading and kept me interested was good for my budding mind. I enjoyed the adventures, that the good guys always won and the illustrations.

The good guys don’t always win these days the lines have become blurred, more’s the pity. I don’t care for anti-heroes and if I wanted real life I’d pick up a newspaper.
By the time I got to adult books, the print industry had introduced paperbacks. They were and still are badly pasted together and not meant to last.

Adult hard backs used to be illustrated, copper plates, etchings, watercolour sketches and wood engravings but when the print industry moved away from hard back books we were told that illustrations were for children. And except for Penguin who colour coded their books depending on the genre the wonderful covers, the illustrations are gone. Now that we have e-readers we can forget about illustration or etchings. Not even a book cover to capture our imagination. I predict that we can kiss the print industry goodbye.

Reading comics didn’t rot my brain, they stimulated my imagination and encouraged me to increase my interests.

The worst thing about today's stories are that they are either educational or an attempt to push a particular political barrow. Finally the politically correct have found a way to improve our budding minds.

The Bribe

2011-03-07T16:41:00.000-08:00

A child tugged at her mother harnessing all the strength available to her 2 ½ year old body. This droopy diapered tyrant had quite a grip on the mum’s index finger and a look in her eyes that did not bode well for the future. She was determined to have it all her way and her mother was equally determined to show her that there was somebody else to consider here. For some of us waiting for our tram to arrive, watching the two personalities at loggerheads was a mix of entertainment tinged with remembrance and empathy. Been there, done that was the misty eyed consensus.

This wasn’t a David and Goliath story we were watching; the tiny tot hadn’t a chance. But while the end result was predictable, at least for the next handful of years, it was the way her mother dealt with the situation that made it interesting to watch.
It was a stop and start affair and the mum held out as long as she could. Now and again she bent and whispered something in the little girl’s ear, but when it seemed obvious that her strategies weren’t working, the mum reached into her carryall and brought out the biscuit of last resort. The girl took it and the mum lifted the distracted tot up and trotted off into the distance.

I leaned back and reminisced about the good old days of high ideals. It hadn’t taken long for them to take a battering. I had come to realise that a good mother was code word for managing to get through my day without too many blunders and that it was only possible if I had a good baby, code word for placid and sleeps a lot. As my children weren’t good children, I did what we all do when we have that epiphany, I adjusted my standards. It was the first of many times for me.

Having long believed that a tiny morsel couldn’t possibly cause me too much trouble, when my child finally arrived I was forced to face reality. My life was not going to be business as usual. I could no longer drop everything and go haring off on some jaunt at a moment’s notice and cooking was no longer well thought out three course meals but a repertoire of quick and easy recipes. Keeping house, a high maintenance job that required constant mopping and dusting left no room for playing, so until they started four year old kinder, I forced myself to spend a minimum amount of time cleaning (not really a chore) and dedicated the majority of my time playing get to know you with my children.

When it came to the biscuit of last resort, or in my case the chocolate frog of last resort, I preferred small distractions, code word for bribes, to a tap on the bottom. Until my children were old enough to be impressed with the I-will-brook-no-disagreement tone of voice that was the line I took. Not that I stopped reasoning, but like that mum I used a mix of persuasion knowing that sooner or later my exhortations would take hold and the occasional chocolate frog.

I can live with that sort of bribe but I don’t believe everything has a price. I think that paying children to help out for example is wrong. Some people say it teaches children responsibility but I think it smells more like blackmail (you won’t get that dollar if you don’t clean your room) than a lesson. I think the lesson learned should be that mutual expectations and obligations are expected on both sides.

I recently offered my two year old grandson with a chocolate button. He snapped it up and asked for more. I was caring for him and Eden was crying for his mum. The chocolate did its job. It worked so well that the first thing out of those rosebud lips whenever we met was chocolate. I adjusted my standards yet again. Now Eden gets a dose of The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher and sometimes we watch The Wiggles. It’s a personal preference, but I have found that I would rather be known as ‘nanna wiggles’, than ‘nanna chocolate’.

If I had a dollar

2011-03-03T01:57:00.000-08:00

If I had had the foresight to save a dollar for every time somebody asked me how I was, well you know how the rest of that goes. Having absolutely no foresight, I just kept on keeping on with the traditional responses without giving them a second thought (and I’m broke).

It’s touching how every single soul I meet wants to know about my health; the butcher, the baker, the candle stick maker and even the stranger on the street asking directions is interested in my well-being. I’ll admit there was a bit of a lull when I broke my arm two years ago. People didn’t seem to be asking me how I feel as often as they used to, especially after the second or third time. But my arm is healed now, thank goodness and I’m back on track.

Telemarketers want to know how I feel. They call to congratulate me on being chosen for a chance to win a house. To be in the running I only need to attend a short seminar and listen to experts discuss how I can build up my wealth. It doesn’t seem to put them off when I tell them thanks but I’m not interested because I am already so independently wealthy. When I suggest they could offer their services to the needy, they try to convince me that I could never have enough and that as Michael Douglas once said,’ greed is good’. They sound so sincerely interested in my welfare that it’s with regret that I hang up.

My doctor always asks me how I am at the beginning of our sessions together. She’s warm and caring and there’s no doubt that she really wants to know, but she also knows that I tend to overdo it so she times me.

I don’t want you to think I have a monopoly on compassion. I listen to talk-back radio and no matter what the program or the host’s constant response is, to that question, each caller is anxious to hear the answer for himself or herself.

The French say comment ca va? the Italians ask come sta? I seem to have stumbled on the secret to world harmony if we could only harness it, and to a universal empathy that has spanned the globe and all cultures. There’s no doubt about it, it’s a wonderful world.

Idle hands

2011-02-22T22:48:00.000-08:00

I used to knit. Yards and yards of yarn. No begging rello that came to my door was ever knocked back; my children, other people’s children, nieces, nephews, all got a garment each winter. As a mum raising two boisterous boys, I didn’t mind so much, I had plenty of time on my hands. And as little old ladies were always reminding us, ‘the Devil finds work for idle hands’. Wool was cheaper then and apart from the satisfaction of creating something original it was a more practical option to make your own than to buy a more expensive mass produced, machine made garment.

I loved to drop in to my local wool shop and speak to the old dears behind the counter. (They’re probably the ones who coined that term about the Devil and idle hands.) They could always answer questions about flat seams and cables and how to change colours when doing an Aran knit. Then I’d browse through pattern books, feast on the colours and feel the textures.

The little old ladies have all gone to God now, as have most of the shops and there’s no one there to have crafty chats with. Most of the shops that are left have gone on line. They probably feel that it is much cheaper to put together a website. I can’t blame them, not enough off the street customers to pay for the rent. Can you imagine how useless that is to somebody like me? I mean, knitting is a hands-on occupation for us serious knitters. So is choosing your materials. I feel the same about the E-reader, but that’s another story.

The trouble is that we are a throwaway society. There’s no point spending hours on creating something when it’s likely to last as long as the next season. One by one those arts and crafts are dying. There’s nobody around to pass them on to the next generation. I mean who knows how to tat these days? There was a glimmer of hope a few years ago when some film star bimbo knitted herself a scarf. Every woman and her dog jumped on the bandwagon, (remember that fantasy wool? It looked fantastic but was hell to knit if you dropped a stitch). It was only a fad.

I don’t want to be an old stick in the mud about it…well actually I do. I have grandchildren now. Their parents expect me to get my knitting needles out of hock. I have commissions galore and need to talk to somebody about a Shaker Rib and reversible knitting stitches.

Coffee, Tea or Bonox

2011-02-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

'Coffee, tea or Bonox?' was an advertising slogan. Both the drink and the slogan originated in the US. We seem to have adopted the slogan in Australia (some time in my dim and distant past), but I don't think many of us took to the drink. I began my relationship with coffee at 16 and haven't stopped to take breath since.

The smell of coffee freshly brewed still brings back fond memories of my younger self. Summer or winter, I greeted each new day with a cig in one hand and a coffee in the other. Usually I’d be sharing it all with the birds and the bees out in the garden. What they thought of second hand smoke I’ll never know, but thankfully for me and luckily for them I’ve given up the former. But I’m still hooked on the latter. Those nearest and dearest to me stay well out of the way until I’ve had my caffeine fix. I still can’t function without that first hit.

Is coffee another habit I should kick? If so, then millions of people world-wide should be joining me. But neither I nor they intend to give it up. Coffee has become an integral part of our lives and until somebody offers us something to equal it, we’re sticking with the devil we know.

Coffee has become a generic term for drink. Even if your guests end up drinking herbal tea or milkshakes you will always automatically offer them coffee. Coffee breaks the ice in a variety of social settings and stimulates conversation. And paradoxically while it is said to be a stimulant coffee also relaxes those first date tensions and soothes down lovers’ tiffs.

Coffee smells like ambrosia should taste, but falls far short of that, what a shame. I do keep hoping and trying. Whenever I grind and plunge or mix blends and dripolate I anticipate and salivate at the thought that I may have got that particular blend right this time round. It’s my holy grail, a mission I intend to follow through to the bitter, smooth, bold and playful, organic and fair trade end.

When is the right time?

2010-12-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

When do you let go? It’s a question best answered in hindsight because when you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to even know that you need to let go. The answer is, begin at the beginning and keep on going. When your child begins crawling, make your home safe, clear the decks and let him (or her) go. By the time he’s old enough to dress himself he knows the difference between hot and cold, so let him choose his own clothes. If he dresses inappropriately, then the next time round he will pay more attention to what he’s choosing. Teach him about crossing roads safely and begin by watching while he practices on small roads. It’s not one large letting go, but a series of them and each one should suit the right time and the right occasion.

In 2008 a mum called Lenore Skenazy wrote an article about letting go for the New York Sun that caused a stir with a bunch of other mums. I first read about her when she came to Australia in 2010 to sell her book, Free Range Kids. The book was a result of the 2008 experience. Ms Skenazy’s child had begged her to ‘leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own’, and she obliged.

Skenazy had allowed her then 9 year old son to travel the subway alone and make his own way home. ‘One sunny Sunday’ she left him at Bloomingdales armed with 20 dollars, a map, a subway ticket and her blessing. She scoffed at the idea that strangers were lurking nearby just waiting to ‘abduct’ her ‘adorable child.’ It was a strategy calculated to make her detractors feel silly. We must be neurotic is the inference, if we believe that until a child is old enough to protect himself from cunning predators it’s our duty to vigilant on their behalf. I wasn’t convinced by most of Skenazy’s flip justifications and contradictions. She trusted her son to negotiate his way home safely, but worried that he’d lose a cell phone if she provided him with one. It was his first excursion alone but she didn’t think it appropriate to ‘trail her son like a ‘mommy private eye’, New York was hardly ‘downtown Baghdad’ so by comparison NY must be safe. I don’t think Skenazy is a bad mother. I just see her as somebody at the other end of the parenting spectrum. There are the overprotective hovering mums at one end and those like Skenazy at the other. The rest of us are in-betweeners muddling along the best we can. We don’t pretend we know it all; it’s not possible given that we’re rank beginners when our first child arrives. Like any other worthwhile profession, there’s a learning curve involved to good parenting.

Three decades ago my five year old son had already ‘figured out’ how to get home on his own, ‘no problem’, he said, or something like it, I’m paraphrasing as I wasn’t listening at the time. Most young mums tend to zone out occasionally if they value their sanity. We had been walking to and from school all year. It was only a 20 minute walk, but there was a busy highway to negotiate. In hindsight (and ain’t that a grand thing) I should have taken more notice because halfway through the school year, David did walk home by himself.

I was only five minutes late, for heaven’s sake. I took the bus to catch up time and when I arrived, David had left. He had hiked his school bag higher on his shoulder and walked confidently out the front gate along with his peers and their parents.
I scoured the streets then made my way home. My neighbour came out of her house holding the hand of a safe but teary David. He’d been standing outside our front door crying so our neighbour had taken him in and plied him with milk and scones.
I was pretty teary myself and immensely relieved. I hugged David then shook him and asked what had possessed him. It was a spur of the moment decision that could have taken a scary direction, one that doesn’t bear considering. The only good thing that had come out of that event was a lesson learned that thankfully hadn’t proved disastrous.

Given a couple of extra years and David would have come home with friends and his younger brother for company, there’s safety in numbers. He would have a couple of years’ worth of life experience under his belt and the road rules down pat.
If you tell a five year old child not to talk to strangers, he will nod as if he understands, except that in his mind a stranger has fangs and claws. Even if you tell him that a stranger could be a smiling stranger who offers him sweets and ice cream a child is used to doing what he’s told to by adults. What hope would he have had if somebody had forced him into a car?

In January this year a man attempted to abduct a 10 year old boy from a car park in Melbourne’s south-east. This boy was waiting for his mother in the family car when he was approached by a man who offered him lollies. When the boy refused to come with him the man tried to pull the boy from the car. He was unsuccessful that time. But if this man had pulled harder or persisted it could have had a negative ending for that boy and his family.

Adults make hundreds of decisions every day based on life experience and even then they can’t count on getting it right every time. How can you expect it of a five or even a nine year old? Every parent has a responsibility to keep his or her children safe until they’re ready to do it on their own.

The Wheels on the Bus

2010-12-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

I was on my way home longing to put my feet up and ready for a cuppa. Browsing at the local shopping complex really takes it out on me these days. Opposite me on the bus sat a woman and her two children. She was perched at the edge of her seat ready to spring into action like the proverbial jack-in-the-box. A two year old girl was in a pram and her brother who looked three or four, an energetic bundle, was busy making mischief. He grabbed his sister’s drink bottle and she shrieked till she got it back; he poked her, she shrieked some more, then he tried to free himself from his mother’s grasp so he could run down the other end of the bus. She threatened to take away privileges, he ignored her.

The two were stuck in that vicious cycle that mums who have more than one child under school age often find themselves. The little boy had misbehaved to get her attention and his frazzled mum gave it to him as he instinctively knew she would. The fact that it was the wrong kind of attention didn’t seem to matter to him. He’d had his mum all to himself for at least two years and now he was forced to share it with a puny, useless little thing who couldn’t talk, couldn’t play games and for some reason he wasn’t able to comprehend, got things her own way all the time. Unfair!

And threats were never going to work on him. At his age he couldn’t conceive as far ahead as the next day or even the same afternoon. ‘You’re going to your room as soon as we get home if you don’t behave’ got that mother nowhere.
An elderly woman sitting next to me implied that if it would all be different if she were in charge. ‘If I had you for two weeks, you’d know what’s what,’ she said. ‘I’m not known as the dragon lady for nothing.’ I visualised a large wooden spoon in this lady’s past and shuddered. The boy ignored her and the mother, at whom it seemed aimed, didn’t respond but I could tell that she felt shamed.
So, what should the mum have done? The answers, never simple, are sure to come to her thick and fast when the children are all grown up, or at least old enough to go to school and give her a break and a chance to think. I usually mind my own business but the poor mum looked so done in I wanted to help.

When my grandchildren and I are out and about I bring along some distractions: a favourite book, colouring book and pencils and the trusty notebook I always carry with me. The latter is used for playing hangman which, for those who haven’t experienced it in their youth, is a game that requires you to think and to know how to spell. Even before she could read, my granddaughter Rachel loved to play ‘I Spy.’ She was most enthusiastic about the game even if she usually got the words wrong. ‘Book doesn’t begin with ‘D’, it begins with ‘B’, Rachel, but good try.’ I made up stories that involved my granddaughters. They weren’t good stories but I don’t think they noticed, children love being the central characters whether in real life or in a story.

I whipped out my notebook book and a biro. ‘Would you like to draw something for mummy?’ I asked. The little boy stopped mid-rampage. I held the notebook out. He looked at his mother who nodded and he slowly took it from my hand. Peace reigned for the five minutes he was on the bus.

I don’t think my actions turned that little boy’s life around or his mother's for that matter. Dealing with the young and the boisterous is too complex a matter for simple solutions. It’s just that as I watched this young mum going under I was overcome with an intense a feeling of déjà-vu. I knew then that whether past, present or future, thousands of mothers have been, are, or will experience the same sort of distress. I imagined this mum sitting on a bus one future day; watching a similar scene playing itself out and nodding knowingly. Perhaps then, she will do as I did and be one mum offering another a lifeline.

Better to give than to receive?

2010-12-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve heard that it is better to give than to receive so I tested out that theory last New Year. I combined my New Year’s resolution with the inspirational truism and offered my excess weight to friends, fellow countrymen and friendly strangers but they were having none of it. It was post the festive season and people had plenty of their own to give away. The competition and I gathered on dark street corners, flipping open belted raincoats at the propitious moment. Please sir, was the plaintive plea, take a kilo home for the missus and the kids, they will thank you.

That tactic did not go down a treat, so I decided cold turkey was the go. If I wanted to lose the kilos I needed to give up eating altogether. That didn’t work any longer than it took to wolf down a chocolate croissant. I needed to nourish the brain cells while planning my strategies. The in between meals are even harder to give away than the fat. And pre dinner nibbles are my downfall. That’s why I love breakfast, there’s no thinking involved. It’s either cereal, or eggs on toast with the trimmings. It’s quick to make and easily scoffed down. Just talking about it gives me an urge for a Spanish omelette. I sat al fresco at my favourite greasy spoon munching at a Danish and slugging down a cappuccino and decided I had to give up on giving up food.

A really nice lady took me around my local gym and introduced me to the equipment. It was a vast, intimidating and confusing array of tortured metal. Each piece specialised in toning up different muscles I was told. The only two I recognised from a past life were the bike and the treadmill. I chose the latter thinking it couldn’t be too hard given that I’ve had a fair bit of practice in walking (although not recently). After five minutes of that I felt light headed. Perhaps I’d lost a kilo off my head. Did I want to try out the aerobics class, the nice lady asked? I checked out the taut bodies that had poured themselves into spandex and decided that I didn’t.

When I got home and weighed myself I discovered that I hadn’t even managed that one kilo. Should I try sensible eating and long walks? Maybe once I have been through all the diet literature

Sterilising Parents?

2010-10-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve always believed that parenting should be a privilege not a right. I believe that possessing the prerequisite organs to produce children or having access to invitro fertilisation should not give people automatic right to breed. That's my right in a democracy. Unfortunatel democracy works for everyone, even bad parents. Two women in France suffocated their new born babies (several between them). One of them was quoted to have said that two children was enough. Women in this country have dumped babies in cardboard boxes and left them to die. The sympathy is less for the babies and more for the state of mind of these women. Some men are violent to their children or violate them or throw them off bridges. Despite the myths and the emotive issues surrounding parenting, not everyone is suited to it.

That’s why I understood Norman Geschke’s outburst. Geschke is a former Victorian ombudsman who believes that parents who consistently abuse their children should be sterilised. He wrote ‘several scathing reports on child-protection services [or lack of them]. As this was between 1980 and 1994 I assume that he doesn't believe much has changed since that time. Greschke said that 'keeping children with abusive parents is "sentencing" vulnerable kids to a life without proper care.’ My first instinct when I read that he wanted absusive parents sterilised was to want to shout hooray from the rooftops. It was a wonderful fantasy for the two seconds that it lasted. Then I thought it through and I was forced, reluctantly, to disagree.

Love it or hate it, what you get in a Democracy is governments that you can toss out if they do the wrong thing by you and a powerful lobby group called people power. Whenever an issue comes up experts are hauled out to respond with quotes but seem to let it all sink into back into the subconscious once the furore is over. Victoria's Child Safety Commissioner Bernie Geary ‘savaged the concept [of sterilisation] as inhumane.' Stating what’s obvious to the rest of us is one thing, but the public expects more from a Child Safety Commissioner. How much more impressed I would have been had he followed up that statement with an idea for a workable solution on protecting children.

I know about Joe Tucci the Australian Childhood Foundation's chief executive. because he is not only constantly called out for an opinion, but because he is constantly proactively championing for children's rights and pushing for change whether asked for an opinion or not. Tucci doesn’t believe in sterilising abusive parents either, he believes in harsher rules for parents who have a history of abuse. And he wants the rules about terminating rights to be clearer than they currently are. Sounds simple doesn't it?

Here’s an idea. Instead of getting emotive about sterilisation, why don't the experts push for stronger laws that will not hesitate in taking vulnerable children from their abusive parents? No second chances, for heaven’s sake. We jail people who steal money but give abusive parents second chances. How inconsistent is that? Despite the neo-think and neo-babble coming from some quarters, children are not better off with such parents. I suspect part of the problem is that there's not much of an infrastructure in place for those children, which makes it even more reprehensible.

There is a 'paid' and voluntary system of sterilisation in the US, but our democratic rights don't allow for compulsory sterilisation. Sorry Mr Geschke, it’s not going to happen. So now that we have parents' rights all sorted out, why not focus on children. Immediate action without the usual pitty-pattying around political correctness. Surely that’s what most of us want. Why not push for hefty jail sentences? I’m sure the civil libertarians will be up in arms about it all, but let's give them a swift clip across the ears, they will be the first to tell you it didn’t hurt and just maybe it will jog their collective consciences and remind them that the vulnerable are also worthy of their attention.

As I said, it was a nice dream while it lasted, Mr Geschke, but sterilisation is barbaric, it's uncivilised. And for those who disagree, think of this – once you curtail one freedom there’s always going to be some power mad politician taking things a step further. That’s how things get changed, one little step at a time so you don’t realise the intended and or even indirect consequences till it’s too late. Pretty soon, just like Hitler’s Germany, nobody but the blue eyed blonds will be acceptable. And they had better watch out that they don’t get old and grey, because eugenics would be a bright idea waiting to happen just around the corner.

Letting go

2010-10-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

I have deleted the original and totally re-written 'When do you let go.' This the great thing about a blog. Once you send your piece off for somebody else to publish, it's no longer your call what happens to it or how it's edited. Hope you like this version better.

When do you let go? It’s a question every mother since the dawn of time has asked herself. As far as I know, no one has come up with the definitive answer yet. Neither had I one Monday morning many years ago. Or maybe it was a Tuesday. When one day merges into the other it’s hard to tell. Whatever the day, my routine was set in stone. I would have been busy counting, changing and soaking nappies. After that I’d feed my child, play with him, clean up after him and prepare his evening meal. The conclusion I came to when a stray thought interrupted my busy routine, was that it was no time to philosophise, there was a seemingly endless vista of years ahead of me, lots of time to work things out. I put off the question, till I could give it my full consideration.

No time to do that on my first child’s first day at kinder. I was too busy dealing with my stressed child. David cried and clutched my hand. I gently disengaged it with some soothing words about our meeting again soon. I did some weeping myself on the way home and wondered why I couldn’t take a leaf out of our cat’s book. We had found a home for her kittens. In only a matter of weeks Toffee had no trouble at all turning a disinterested back on her frolicking children. Given a couple of months more and she wouldn’t have known them had they had passed her in the street. I wiped away the tears and went home to clear up the chaos and get ready for the next round. I didn’t have time for self pity.

There was excitement at the local primary school on David’s first day. We were surrounded by mothers and by hyperactive children. Others, first timers, stood around quietly watching as the veterans gathered in little groups talking and their children who obviously also knew each other played chasey. Not knowing or caring that there was an etiquette to these things, David tried to extricate himself from my grip. He was raring to go and meet these children. He wanted to make friends, and he instinctively knew that hand holding wasn’t what a school boy did. Anyhow why was I keeping him from that big adventure that his dad and I had been preparing him for? I looked at the well scrubbed young man; his usually unruly curls were damped, his crisp white shirt already needed tucking in, grey shorts exposed two skinny little legs, a scabby knee and several bruises. It was obvious that David was ready for school, but was I?

I pushed that thought back into the subconscious void where all uncomfortable thoughts go. My husband and I thought we had prepared for it all, but we hadn’t counted on our own reactions when David came home chattering about the best little teacher in the world. From that time on it was, Miss Smith said, Mr Brown said all the way through primary school. David continued to consult us, but we became increasingly aware that we had competition. Our son’s horizons had expanded and a host of Miss Smiths were going to be vying for our boy’s attention.

Occasionally parents could still be useful, helping out with homework, ironing uniforms and moonlighting as chauffeurs. And what did I think of this or that girl, David wanted to know. He felt a bit awkward and unsure. I took it to mean that I had a mandate to express my thoughts and did it, constantly. But one day he stopped asking or listening. In fact he discouraged any sort of dialogue on the matter. David was making up his own mind about girls and life and the universe. It was devastating to be demoted from a proactive parent to a figurehead, devastating but not sudden. The indicators that my son had become independent of us had been there if I had chosen to take notice.

I'm much wiser after the event. I know now that parenting is a series of letting go. Children know it instinctively, but it’s such a slow process that it takes parents a lot longer to pick up on it. When you begin with vulnerable and reliant children and have committed you life to them for years or even decades, it's hard to notice when they have finally stopped needing us. When they finally distance themselves from us and our windmill arms it's only natural that we are left bereft. I know now that if we play our cards right and constantly remind ourselves that our children are on loan to us only, we could have a life after they have left us. Well, we could have a life till they haul us out of retirement for babysitting duties, but that’s another story.

Quitting

2010-09-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

I woke up one morning to find both nicotine and oxygen jockeying for first place in my affections and the nicotine was winning hands down. It wasn’t unexpected the indicators had been creeping up on me for years: coughing up phlegm, developing a gravelly voice and coughing fits when laughing, no laughing matter, but I had ignored them. That morning had been a scary one, I had finally reached what gamblers and alcoholics call ‘rock bottom.’ My lungs seemed to have packed it in and there was nowhere left for me to go. That was the day that I went cold turkey and stopped smoking for good.

I had tried every other trick in the book, that’s why I knew it had to be cold turkey. I slept in thinking that a later start would drive some of that nicotine out of my system. I sat in my arm chair and knitted or read or watched TV and kept myself distracted as long as possible. I once had an idea that if I took half the cigs out of my daily packet I could decrease my intake till I was down to none.

Those ideas were bound to fail. I hadn’t been able to make a move without those cigarettes for four decades. Whatever the occasion, I had to have something in my mouth. My pals and I, together, first thing in the morning out in the garden, last thing at night we were inseparable enjoying the sunset, and all those other occasions in between. From first puff to last gasp. There wasn’t a thought or an action without my constant companions along for company. Something more drastic than feeble ideas based on desperation was expected. I knew what I needed to do but I was in denial and not ready to do it.

There were no patches back then, but they wouldn’t have helped. Like gamblers and alcoholics and like overeaters, I had a compulsive personality and would just have got hooked on the patches. I was that good girl who cleaned her plate at dinner; I ate all the chips then worked my finger round the pack to find the crumbs and salt hiding down the bottom, I finished all that I started. It was impossible to leave a cigarette unsmoked, I had to suck up every leaf of tobacco and would have inhaled the butt if I could.

Even though not another cig has passed my lips in over a decade since that day I can’t say I was an overnight success. It took a forty year journey of stops and starts to get me to that place and two determined years before, to paraphrase other compulsives, I ‘let go’ of those cigs.

Fear for my life had stopped me cold and anger was what kept me going until all that nicotine was flushed out of my system. I used to hear what those chemicals were doing to me but this was the first time I was experiencing them first hand. It must be different for everyone because my mother stopped smoking and was cranky for a whole week, then it was over. She never looked back. It took me a couple of years. Getting rid of the nicotine was painful. My chest constricted, a cartload of spiky heels did their daily cha cha up and down my body. I was determined to eject that nicotine.

A recent Cancer Council advertisement tells people not to give up giving up. It's positive and encouraging. Each smoker has to reach the rock bottom stage and decide for him or herself what it will take to quit. There isn't a universal panacea but like the Cancer Council, I think that anyone can do it if they keep on keeping on.

A girl's worst friend

2010-08-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

Cooking and ironing are a girl’s worst friend. At least they were mid last century when we were bound to the indispensable ironing board and to quote an advert for kitchens the ‘focal point of much food preparation’. Thankfully today we are liberated mums making our mark in the workforce, carving out careers. No time to cook or to iron.

While it’s true that in more recent times we have been lured back into the kitchen the focus these days is more on nourishing our creative urges than a yearning for the return to the daily and thankless grind. I can’t see women giving ironing a second chance when they can give themselves some extra ‘me time’. Why should we when for the measly price of a salad roll and a cup of coffee somebody else can do it for us. I have taken a straw poll amongst friends and family and I am pleased to say that the only women who still speak fondly of those good old days are women of my mother’s generation. My theory is that their rosy coloured memories have more to do with remembering what it was like to feel useful than a love for manual labour. These wives and mothers not only juggled a routine that would fell an ox, but also managed to find time to iron hankies, bed sheets, pyjamas and shirts. In fact, any item that got in the way was grist to their ironing mill.

I’m not made of such stern stuff. I refused point blank to iron hankies. But I raised two sons and began ironing their cute little shirts when they were five. I kept it up till the shirts were adult size and not so cute. Imagine working your way through mountains of shorts and shirts each week and not being able to complain because everybody else was doing the same.

My partner in life still wears shirts; he hasn’t cottoned on to casual wear yet, but ten years ago I discovered that ironing was bad for my health. I was forced to give ironing up. Coincidentally it was around the same time that I had accidentally dropped my iron to the ground from a great height. Neither it nor I have been the same since. I went down the road to my local shopping centre and bought a bunch of polyester cotton shirts that could drip dry if they were hung the right way. I replaced my bed sheets and pillow slips and replaced cotton hankies with disposable Kleenex (much more hygienic). Everything else goes to the dry cleaners.

Every now and again a salesperson stops me in my tracks at my local department store and offers me a demonstration of her whiz bang iron, a snap at three hundred dollars. Granted that it’s shiny and streamlined with lots of mysterious buttons to press, but in the end it’s only a slicker version of my old one. My response to the sales pitch is to ask a pertinent question: will it iron without my assistance. Until the day I get an answer in the affirmative I intend to walk on by with a sneer on my face.

On Rejections

2010-08-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Every writer gets rejected at one time or another, even seasoned writers. They are the first to complain that being known is no protection from rejection. Admittedly they are less prone to it than those of us aspiring to success are but those are the vagaries of the publishing business. Once you send off that submission it’s a waiting game even for working writers. I have a friendly editor who knows my work but I still have to wait two to three months to hear whether or not my work has been accepted.

Even that friendly editor decided that a piece I wrote about my grandson wasn’t right for his magazine. That’s the thing – if you’re aiming for a particular publication you need to study your market. Ask for their guidelines, see what they say about who gets in and who doesn’t. Sometimes your piece is terrific but you’ve failed to check out the magazine you’re aiming your article at. Pick a magazine that has the sort of articles you yourself feel able to write, then go through it then buy several issues so you are familiar with the format and the issues.
Even once you’ve done all that you have to expect the occasional rejection. And you’ll have to work out for yourself why it’s been rejected. Editors are usually quite busy and don’t like to be asked. Also, they rightly feel that if they explain it leaves you a loophole for argument.

There are lots of reasons why, even though you have written something terrific, the piece has boomeranged. Of course sometimes it isn’t as terrific as you think it is which is why it’s a good thing to give yourself some distance from your article and get back to it at a later date. (Although with newspaper submissions that are current topic related there is only a 4 day window of opportunity.)
The thing not to do is to give up, either on faith in your writing or confidence in your pieces. Revisit a piece when you’ve had some time to cool off and re-write and re-send it to the same place. Be sure you know it’s a better product. If it’s more of the same then you will have lost the chance at having something else published by that magazine.

Sometimes it’s better to find another place for your piece. Once you have revised it to suit another market, or have decided it’s just fine as it is, send it off. When I wrote a piece about my grandson, Eden, my friendly editor, who usually doesn’t make comments said that if he accepted every article written by doting grandmothers he’d have no room for anything else. It’s a successful magazine, but I think that there’s no room for complacency. It could do with a grandma section. Needless to say, I didn’t jeopardise my relationship with this editor. What I did do, was find another market for Eden. And I’m pleased to report that his story is on a talking book now and giving much pleasure to blind people in Yorkshire.

The Sunday Roast

2010-07-21T01:00:00.001-07:00

I’d like to reinstate the tradition of the Sunday roast. For those who have never experienced the custom, it was a ritual passed down the generations from father to son. The father regaled his boys with past glories, of family get togethers and of roasted vegetables and chunks of meat smothered in gravy. His eyes glazed over as he talked about the best cook in the world. I spent hours in the kitchen trying to live up to the fable, peeling, cooking, basting and trying to keep the family tradition alive until my son's girlfriends and other people’s dinner tables saved me.

It’s been a couple of decades since I basted a leg and mashed my last parsnip, but after watching Jamie Oliver and Nigella I find myself, against all natural inclination, longing to do it all over again. Along with thousands of others, I’m yearning to deglaze a pan and smother some Kipfler potatoes in olive oil and garlic. And I want to casually create truffle tarts with raspberries for dessert or something equally decadent. In other words I want to exhaust myself on the altar of haute cuisine. It’s a sacrilegious thought I haven’t had since I cut the shackles that kept me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen several decades ago.

But I can't help myself. There’s been a resurgence of cooking shows and their spin off DVDs and cookbooks. I can’t walk past a kitchen shop without dropping in to lust after a Kyocera Ceramic knife or to finger a scanpan. It’s all I can do to resist a Mezzaluna or pestle and mortar to help me pound my herbs. I confessed my fantasy to a friend, who admitted she was also hooked.

She’s thinking of starting a campaign to have the kitchen replace the theatre room as the centre of the family home. Maybe she and her mob will have a family cook in.

I blame Jamie and Nigella for making it all look easy. Three course meals are completed in a half hour session. One minute they’re peeling a veggie, the next some complex dish is bubbling nicely on the stove. And no matter how many saucepans have gone into the preparation of one dish the bench is always spotless and not a squashed minty pea in sight. I want to know their secret.

We've been lured back into the kitchen, but it's not just the daily grind this time round and it's not just us. My sons handle a spatula with confidence and my son the vegetarian can whip up a gourmet meatless meal before you can say tofu doesn't cause greenhouse gases.

If I close my eyes the memories come thick and fast. I see us all as we were in those heady days. Dad at the head of the table, carving, the boys chattering like monkeys as they set the table, mum trotting in and out of the kitchen bringing on the minty peas and glazed carrots. Just the four of us, my partner and me and the two teenage boys getting stuck into the traditional lamb roast, veggies and conversation.

Pocket Money

2010-07-15T01:14:00.001-07:00

When I was ten, my dad gave me a shilling a week pocket money. That’s ten cents to those of you who aren’t familiar with pre-decimal currency. It wasn’t a fortune but given that a tram ride into the city cost three pence at the time (3 cents) it wasn’t too shabby either. You could get a lot of Lemon Drops with that money, Bulls Eyes, Bullets, Milk Bottles and a Choo Choo Bar, and I did. Then I ran out of funds and had to hang out for the next pay packet.

It wasn’t a very satisfactory situation, but given my inability to plan ahead the state of affairs remained the same until I was old enough to get casual work to afford my vices. By then I’d swapped sweets for books. I read all the classics I could get my hands on at one shilling and sixpence a pop (15 cents) and moved on to Science Fiction, three shillings (thirty cents). By the time my tastes had changed again, crime fiction, books were four and six pence, that’s forty five cents. They were still more affordable than they would be today for a child who tended to suck books up like they were bulls eyes; which was lucky for me, because I was no better about saving in my teens than I was when I got my first shilling.

So was there a lesson in there? I didn’t learn how to save (I don’t think it’s in my genes) and I didn’t learn to moderate my spending. But I enjoyed the self-determination that pocket money gave me. And I understood that if I wanted to buy more than my pocket money could provide, it was my responsibility to supply the shortfall and to do that I had to work. I liked working and enjoyed the freedom to buy what I wanted (within reason) without having to ask permission or begging for it. There is something demeaning about being beholden to someone for favours.

At the same time I was equally happy with the no strings attached pocket money situation at home. I wasn’t subtly or overtly blackmailed into earning my pay. It wasn’t a prid quo pro system at our place. (That’s Latin for something for something.) I just took it for granted that my parents did what they did and if children washed a dish or made a bed to help a family unit function then it was a family thing and not to be confused with what was expected of you in the outside world.

Some parents ask themselves and each other, what possible good pocket is money is if it can’t be used to control children. Others believe children should wait till they can get casual work and learn something about the real world. Should I? Shouldn’t I? How much? Every young parent agonises about it. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer; in the end every parent usually makes a decision that is based on his or her personal experience. What I think is that pocket money buys hair ties or lollies or those small toys beloved of little children that fit into tiny hands. While they are spending we can fit in a maths lesson about how much an item is worth, how much (if any) change they would get and how much money they need to save for the more expensive items they crave.

Our children live in an adult world where it is parents who set the ground rules about what to do or not do, what to touch, what to eat and when to sleep. Pocket money allows them some control. It’s up to the parents what sort of lesson they would like their children to learn, but whatever it is they need to bear in mind that their children will return the favour with interest, one day, when the tables are turned.

My son the vegetarian

2010-06-28T23:41:00.000-07:00

Feel free to write to me if you have a simple but tasty vegetarian recipe you'd like to share.

Throw a vegetarian in with a bunch of meat eaters and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s the lone vegetarian who needs to adjust to the needs of the many meat eaters. If you did think it, you would be wrong.

My son the card carrying vegetarian caused quite a commotion when he confessed that he had converted. One day he was tucking into the Sunday roast, the next he was talking earnestly about being kind to cows and ridding the world of their flatulence. I was ignorant about vegans at the time or it would have completely unnerved me. Vegans are even stricter about what they eat. My partner and I are unashamed meat eaters. Vegetarian boy’s child, his brother and his children are all meat eaters. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke is our family philosophy. Why fiddle around with beans and lentils when a slab of meat and a side of veggies will do the trick?

When I recovered from my panic, I remembered that my son no longer lived with me. I’d only have to consider his needs once a week when he came to dinner. Sensing there was more to it than serving up a batch of steamed broccoli I asked vegetarian boy (VB) for help. He thought he was being obliging when he assured me that he would eat whatever came his way as long as it wasn’t meat. But you can’t expect a hardened meat eater to slap together a meatless meal at a moment’s notice.

Heard of tofu? I had. I just didn’t know what it was, what it looked like or what it did. I had been quite happy in my ignorant bliss, now I was forced to take a crash course. There are two basic types – silken for dessert and firm for everything else. Tofu is the chameleon of the vegetarian world. It has no personality of its own so it absorbs the flavour of anything it comes into contact with. You can stir fry tofu, dip it in egg and bread crumbs to make a schnitzel alternative, crumble it and mix it with an egg, to add bulk. I tested the dishes out on my partner. He obliged for the sake of the VB but didn’t like the taste or the texture.

I used to think that pulses were what throbbed in your neck when you were angry. They turned out to be a fibre fix and an alternative source of protein. I cooked up a storm and served up chick pea stew, fennel and beans and cabbage soup minus the ham hocks and streaky bacon. My partner ate it all then tucked the napkin tighter round his neck and waited patiently for the meat course.

There was no meat course. And there seemed no obvious way to please everyone, so most of us adjusted to the weekly routine. Once a week VB gets the soup and lentils, the casseroles, the stir fries, my partner and I and all who share our table get to shred meat into our personal bowls. It has been a couple of years and I have collected a neat little repertoire of recipes. Along the way I have learned to like pulses and enjoy the occasional tofu burger but no amount of cajoling will convince me to toss a soy sausage on the barbie.

Thumb sucking

2010-05-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

Every little edge counts when you're busy raising children. Only it becomes a two edged sword if your child sucks his thumb. It seems a blessing at first. But try separating a child from his / her thumb and see how far you get.

Twelve might be the witching hour for some people but for me it was time to haul out of a warm bed and take off to the hospital. I was about to give birth to my second child. This time round I had a pit stop to make. I had to deliver a toddler to his grandparents before I could deliver myself of his brother. I went through a mental check list ending with one child, a giant bag of jelly beans and a well sucked thumb. Luckily the latter was firmly planted in my son’s mouth. I was grateful for that thumb. If it had been a favourite pacifier Murphy’s Law would have dictated I would have had trouble finding it.

It was David’s first ever sleepover and both the jelly beans and the thumb were going to ensure the experience was a success. The jelly beans were a onetime treat, but David’s thumb was his constant companion. He communicated around it, soothed himself to sleep with it and if it fell out of his mouth he would shove it right back without the need of an intermediary. I didn’t have to sterilise David’s thumb or pick it up off the floor and suck it clean. And I didn’t have to frantically backtrack through my day to find his favourite well gummed soother.

It seemed like a great break to a harried young mum until four year old David put his thumb to one side like a hitchhiker so that the portrait photographer could capture the moment. It hit me then that his pacifier sucking contemporaries had kicked their habit cold turkey two years earlier. One day David’s friends were drawing on their soothers as if their lives depended on it and the next it was conveniently lost. My child was sucking on unchecked. Try confiscating a thumb.

I tried. I pulled at it. It came out with a resounding pop then found its way back. I straightened the arm and smoothed it down by his side then watched it moving slowly back into place like the creaking hinge of a closing door. The more I tried, the less I succeeded. My son was going to be a sissy-boy on the first day at school. I knew it. His reputation would follow him through high school and university. He would never rid himself of the label. First impressions are lasting impressions. I panicked.

Friends and family handed out well meaning advice: nail polish the offending digit, sprinkle it with pepper or band aid it.

If he had been younger I might have considered it. But I thought that I’d have a better chance of succeeding with a four year old if I took the path of reason and distraction. I gave David the ‘big boys don’t’ speech; he took the thumb out for a while. It hovered nearby in case of an emergency and was back in place once I’d finished my speech.

While David watched Sesame Street, I peeled an apple, sliced it and placed a plate in his hand. We constructed brick towers and put together countless puzzles. Keeping things positive, I tried to tread the fine line between praise and discourse, between distraction and bribe. I’m all for bribes in small doses and in a good cause. A trip to Luna Park, Dave, if you can keep your thumb dry for the afternoon. An extra scoop of ice cream, Dave, with sprinkles on top? Sometimes it worked, sometimes it almost worked. By the time the school year loomed we had almost got it down to the evenings.

On the morning of the day David began school he had lapsed. I didn’t think a last minute lecture was going to be helpful. I said nothing.

When I came to pick David up from school he had a best friend and I’m thankful to report that it wasn’t the thumb. After that first day, it was an on again off again affair for a few months, but only at home and usually when he was tired.

My mother says that the first child is like a guinea pig. The first time mum is on a learning curve. She makes and learns from her mistakes hoping that they aren’t going to be irreversible. I hadn’t yet understood the danger that a thumb represented. Had I done so I would have gladly inserted a pacifier between my second child’s pink gums the moment his thumb started twitching. Had it twitched. Luckily for both of us a soothing tone and a gentle pat on the back did the trick every time, then as now, making the agony of separation unnecessary.

Giving up modern convieniences? Not on your life!

2010-04-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

Is progress necessarily a good thing? Well, yes, I can't do without my mod cons. But do we pay a price for it? Yes again. Here's my fourth draft. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet so am giving myself time to digest.

My computer broke down recently, which sent me into a spin. My laptop has taken a fair few mutations to get it to the sleek laid back little black number that gives me so much pleasure. I turn it on before my morning coffee and tuck it in last thing at night. It sends me my mail and teleports me anywhere I want to go. We travel the information superhighway together. But most importantly it has a word processor function. I wouldn’t exactly go as far as to say that it’s my muse, but I couldn’t have written this article alone. Did I mention it has a thesaurus? Progress, I guess you’d call it. I love progress, but have come to realise that there’s a price to be paid for it.

On the day before the breakdown I had been taking a walk and as is usually the case when you’re inhaling large quantities of fresh air and thinking of nothing in particular, some idea that had been germinating in the subconscious found its way to the fore. I sat down immediately on the nearest brick fence, whipped my pen and notebook out of my capacious handbag and captured the thought. That’s as far as the grey cells were willing to take me till I could find time to settle down at my desk, place my fingers on the home keys of the computer and tap out the first draft.

What had I done before computers? I managed, because I didn’t know any better. I checked the snail mail letter box did my research wherever I could find it, including the local library and sacrificed many biros, note pads and trees in the interests of communicating my thoughts with anyone who cared. If I have lost the knack it’s because I have let myself be lured by the ‘undo’ and cut and paste keys. I’ve lost that special connection between thought and pen that I once had and now I let my fingers do the talking.

At some time or another we have all dumped the old in favour of the shiny and new. But we are discovering that progress is a two-edged sword. As a global village we can communicate via a bunch of media in an instant but many of us are not capable of sustaining face to face dialogue. We’ve come a long way since the Wright brothers but flying produces the emission of gases that contribute to global warming. We have refined our foods in the name of convenience and wonder why we are unhealthy and out of shape.

Knowing all that I do, do I want to give up any of my mod cons? Not on your life! I don’t and neither does anybody else on the planet. Even those people who can quote statistics chapter and verse that confirm how much each convenience to us is damaging to the planet are guilty of straying from the straight and narrow. If they’re not living in caves they watch television like the rest of us do. They drive cars and they buy pre-packaged food. I would wager that most of them are not vegetarians.
The New Scientist (December 2006) says ‘the livestock industry is degrading land, contributing to the greenhouse effect, polluting water resources, and destroying biodiversity.’ I’ll go as far as admitting to my feelings of guilt, but I refuse to give up meat, I like meat. I won’t wear plastic shoes, either. They make my feet sweat. And although I resisted for the longest time I’ve got used to the mobile phone. Mine is only a discard that my son gave me when he upgraded several phones ago, but it’s become a handy tool. Despite stories linking radiation to mobile phones there are more than 4.3 billion people worldwide using them.

I don’t think it’s in us to go back to the good old days when television ended at four in the afternoon and telephones were fixed to the wall. So what’s the answer? Well, it’s obvious that if I knew, I’d be running the country at the very least. But I think that instead of overwhelming us with shiny gadgets, scientists and inventors should either find a way to make the gadgets we have safe for us and for the planet or else create viable alternatives. It’s more than obvious that we are only going to give up our mod cons if there’s something to replace them. Teleportation as an alternative to flying would be acceptable. Electric cars seem to be on the horizon, and then maybe we can stop using up what’s left of our fossil fuels.

I have a terrible secret to impart. I love the undo and cut and paste keys. I’m not sure that I want to give them up. But I have discovered that I don’t like the feeling of being totally reliant on computers to do my thinking for me. I have decided a happy medium would be to take some time out from my electronic friend and sit for an hour each day, away from temptation, with a pen and notebook in my hand, writing and re-writing my articles.

Empty Nest Syndrome

2010-04-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

Here's another piece on a topic that is dear to my heart. It describes how I felt when my children left home and I found myself with nothing much to occupy those brain cells. The reason you're getting it minus the million or so usual drafts is that I wrote it five years ago. I don't think the topic has dated so hope you will be able to relate to my experience.

Thirty odd years ago, an elderly woman collared me in the street and ‘coochie-cooed’ my toddler son and baby boy. ‘Enjoy them while you can, dear,’ she said. ‘They’re all grown up before you know it.’

If I’d had a decent brain cell left that wasn’t sleep deprived I would have responded with a tart, ‘Can’t come around too soon for me, lady”. Leaky breasts and children who squealed like whistling kettles in the night did not gel with my experience of other people's well-fed, smiling children.

By the time I was knee-deep in nappies and anklebiters, it was clear to me that motherhood was like belonging to the mafia. You can never leave it. It may leave you - in fact it usually does after a couple of decades – but you can never ditch the job description. Children give you sleepless nights, the terrible twos, and the importuning thirty-twos...when they give you more sleepless nights, heartburn and a chance to give up your Saturday nights all over again.

American psychologist Marie Hartwell-Walker says that leaving home isn’t an event, but rather a process of them growing up and us letting go. She doesn’t know the half of it. What about us growing up when they let go? We’ve done our duty. We’ve loved our children unconditionally, protected them in their innocence and taught them our values by example. If we’ve done a good job we’ve produced a marked improvement on the earlier model; we’ve prepared them for life after us. But where do we go next?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I see that now. That woman was right. Before you can say Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS), you have a spare room or two to fill.

I had this fantasy in those long-ago days crouched on the toilet seat, with a copy of Cleo and a pair of earmuffs to block out the entreaties from the other side of the door. Like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, all I wanted was ‘a room somewhere’. I wanted a child-free den of my own, a rocking chair and an antique writing desk. I wanted a room lined with books where I could sit, read and eat chocolates all day long. The thing about fantasies is that once you can have them they lose their potency.

My whole house was a den. What I wanted post-ENS was a life of my own. But ENS found me unprepared. I’d been given the glad hand and a box of chocolates for work well done. I was free as a bird with nothing to do with my time. Free as a bird in its empty nest. We just love to borrow avian analogies, but no self-respecting bird lets its children hang around for decades the way that we dumb humans do. The chicks get tossed out at what mum perceives to be the most appropriate moment and then she gets on with life.

Go forth old woman and start afresh. That was my idea. Do some brain-cell aerobics and take on a writing course. It was great. I enjoyed the stimulation of learning something that wasn’t child related and even contributed opinions to class discussions that didn’t begin with, ‘You’ll never guess what the children did yesterday’. I only wish I’d done it earlier.

Childbirth was a lark – a breeze compared to emerging from the child-rearing decades rusting away in suburbia. I was a mature age student. My classmates had the confidence, I had the wrinkles. I had the advantage of life experience, they had the benefit of time. Sounds equitable, but they could always get the life experience whereas time was running out for me.

If I’d had to do it again, I’d have prepared for the ENS two minutes after saying ‘I do’.

Feminist Gloria Steinem said, ‘There is no such thing as integrating women equally into the economy as it exists...Not until the men are as equal inside the house as women are outside it.’ With those words ringing in their ears, women have trained their sons so that women can reap the benefits. So take advantage. There are a growing number of fathers who are brilliant at parenting. You see them everywhere on the weekends, confidently feeding their toddlers babycinos, riding their helmeted brood through sub urban streets and guiding their children’s reading material at the local library.

TAFE courses are still affordable. Some tertiary institutions have child care centres tailored to cater to the mature-aged student so you and your children can simultaneously encounter social and educational experiences. Do a university subject to see how you like it. You’ve got two decades. By the time you’re free you will have several degrees under your belt and a new career.

Take up bungee jumping, learn conversational French or the gentle art of flower arranging. Be a good role model for your children. They will thank you for it someday. Whatever you want to be when your children grow up, do whatever it takes to prepare for it so that middle age doesn’t find you wandering the streets with nothing better to do than to accost parents strolling innocently along with their children.

Children behaving badly in supermarkets

2010-04-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

I recently experienced a toddler tantrum happening in the middle of a supermarket line up. Thankfully it wasn't a personal experience. But it did bring back old memories.

There was a toddler having a tantrum in my local supermarket. He gulped and he sobbed. He took deep hiccoughing breaths and he shrieked. You would have thought he’d just been told he was an orphan. The shrieks became howls of rage. Cheeks were puffed and tears flowed. Tiny fists pummelled at the mother’s thigh. I watched her hovering over the child and felt for her. Should she ignore the child? Should she smack? Would a sharp retort of ‘stop it this instance’ have any effect or even be heard above the rising rage.

It’s hard to think of a course of action in the middle of a tantrum. The child isn’t listening, a bunch of strangers are judging you and there are constant reminders of the child’s desire on display. All are getting in the way of a quick or reasonable resolution. Everybody warns you about it but no one knows what to do. They roll their eyes and tell you that it’s just a phase that we have to put up with. And you secretly believe that when your time comes you will know what to do. But you are wrong. Your children may look like Uncle Harold before he had that nose job or even have their mother’s raucous laugh, but your children’s thought processes are alien, you will never comprehend them.

I remembered a three year old toddler with lively brown eyes whose hair was curly and (as the song goes) whose teeth were pearly. He was dressed in a cunning little denim outfit and looked like an angel. Or at least that’s what the grandmotherly types who stopped me in the supermarket aisle and chucked him under the chin thought. They asked coyly which shelf I’d taken him off. Where could they get one just like him? That was usually at the beginning of our shopping adventure. ‘Take him’ I thought as the angel’s chubby little hands reached for a colourful packet of super refined junk food. Take him now before the ruckus starts. But they just smiled, coochie cooed and moved on.

David and I worked our way up and down each aisle stopping only to grab a product off the shelf and to tick it off my list. Whenever I turned my head for an instant, then back again a foreign object had magically found its way into my trolley. Two steps forward and one step back and an ever increasing tension happening on both sides. David was thinking that it wasn’t fair. Here he was, in goodie heaven but not allowed even one thing for himself. What was one bag of lollies in the scheme of things when mummy got to fill all her stuff into the trolley? I was thinking, ‘why me?’ Each week I was hopeful of a quick entry and exit and a tantrum free experience. Each week I was disappointed.

‘Wahhh!’ Well, almost. The lip trembled but he was going to give me one more chance. ‘Mummy, can I have some Coco Pops. Please, please, please, please, mummy?’ When I had a bit of energy I let the pleas wash over me but I kept forgetting the checkout where they saved the best for last. The granny types who’d been so admiring earlier were looking at David with sympathy, the poor little lamb, it’s not his fault he’s got a bad mummy, and shooting daggers in my direction. It was all too much for me. I did the only thing open to me; I capitulated. I am a bad mummy, I agreed. I can’t control my own child.

There’s a second school of thought that believes that parenting is a hard gig and mothers of tantrum children deserve our sympathy. I’m with them.
The disapproving lot will tell you that if you give in to a tantrum at the supermarket you are providing some sort of blueprint for the child or setting a precedent. They are right. Once you say yes to a child the lesson is learned: ask and you shall receive and if you don’t get what you want a tanty on the floor will do the trick. On the other hand who can blame him (or her). I mean if you’d discovered a successful formula wouldn’t you work it for all it was worth?

An idea born of sheer desperation came to me one day. It wasn’t a new idea, I did what parents since the dawn of time have done once they’ve run out of options. I bribed my child. ‘How would you like a chocolate frog, David?’ David would like nothing better. I put one in his hand and told him to hold on to it till we got to the counter. ‘Now don’t lose it, will you?’ The heat had turned it to mush by the time he got to eat it. But it was the best chocolate frog he’d ever tasted. And peace reigned.

When the desire for a chocolate frog waned, and the eyes started roaming again I filled up a large jar with lollies, chocolate bars and wafer biscuits and told David he could choose one when we got home from the shopping. At first David would spend large chunks of time each day contemplating this treasure and anticipating the treat. On the appointed day a chubby arm would dip into the jar and pick something out. After a while familiarity lost it its glamour it and became a natural part of David’s weekly routine. This happened just in time because before David and I knew it, our family had extended by one. David made it his mission to introduce his baby brother into the family tradition.

How to get your children to listen to you

2010-03-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

Hooray! It's done. Hope you like it.

My husband is a primary school teacher who uses a piano accordion (a creature lives and breathes in this big grey box, can you guess what it is?) and three monkeys to capture his students’ attention. Even the rough and tumble grade six boys aren’t ashamed to stop him in the school ground and ask what Nerk, Nerkette and Cousin Nokki have been up to on the weekend, and why does Nerk have a bandaged head they want to know? (Nerk is the naughty and troublesome one and therefore everyone’s favourite.) Once he has their interest, my husband says, they are his for the rest of the year, ready to learn to listen and most importantly ready to take instruction. At the beginning of each year there’s a bit of getting to know you happening, so they’re still a bit wary and he tries to balance a friendly persona with a teacher’s authority. The monkeys have done half his job for him and by the time the children realise that they have the power to disrupt, they’re in high school.

If you are a teacher, you work in a controlled environment. If you are parent and don’t like to smack to reinforce obedience what do you do? My husband is the first to admit that having seen him at his best and worst he will never be a mystery to his children. They found his stuffed toys and exotic stories entertaining but not enough to keep them entranced longer than it took to tell the tale. He says that by the time the class gets to know him and wise up to his methods, they move on to the next grade where they have to get used to a different set of rules. At home children tend to hang around for a couple of decades till you’re forced to turf them out. By that time they know all there is to know about you and it had better be good.

There’s a short term solution, but it is only effective as long as your children are shorter and weaker than you are. If you can pick them up, tuck them under one arm and haul them off into their bedrooms for time-out you’re in charge. The moment they can reciprocate you’re in trouble because the hormones have kicked in and you haven’t built up a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

The (open) secret to success is to use brains over brawn. My husband and I acted as a team to foil our offsprings’ attempts to play us off against each other. We agreed that no matter what the request we would not be influenced by ‘but dad (or mum) said yes’, there had to be a parental consensus. No snacks were allowed before dinner and homework came before television. Sleepovers were only for school holidays and pleas of why can’t I have an expensive electronic gizmo like my friend James, got a response of I’m not James’ mother / father.

Our children’s gripes often seemed trivial but we recognised that they were as important to them as ours were to us, so we paid them attention. Such important issues as why the older child got to stay up an extra hour before going to bed were resolved by discussion and negotiation. The older brother had more homework so an extra hour of leisure time was his privilege. The younger brother didn’t exactly like the end result, but knew that his turn would come and that he could expect the same fair outcome when he was in the right. On the other hand, being three years behind his brother in everything did have its frustrations.

Our children were not immune to loud sounds, just those that came from us. Speaking quietly forced them to stop their crash and burn games and listen. As repeating an instruction ends in a sore throat and a headache, and asking ‘how many times have I told you to put your toys away?’ only gets a shrug, we finally bought a box with a lock and put their favourite toys in it. Being deprived of their Mario Brothers hand held game for even one day seemed like forever but did wonders for their hearing and taught them about consequences. It also hardened us to pleas for mercy. We thought it was a good result all round.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep and keep your promise whether it’s in your favour to do so or not. If you take them to the dentist and say it won’t hurt, it had better not hurt. There’s something in the old saying about preferring the devil you know. In the end, being afraid of the unknown is a lot worse than knowing what to expect. If they have been absolute stinkers and you’ve previously promised to take them to the park keep your word. My children had squabbled all morning and into the afternoon. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to take them. Words of reproach and justification were trembling on my lips, but I had heard that although elephants never forget children are even better about remembering and using it against you. My sins were going to come back to bite me if I had reneged, I knew it. And they knew it.

I’d like to say that we turned out perfect children. But how can imperfect parents who are constantly learning on the job do anything but their best, then cross fingers and hope it all turns out? Even now that we are empty nesters we’re surprising ourselves about how much we still have to learn. I will admit that our boys have turned into perfectly nice adults who are good to their parents and each other. And at the risk of sounding like one of those advertisements you see in the local paper for lovelorn singles seeking each other out, my children drink in moderation, don’t smoke and they don’t go out looking for trouble. They are respectable citizens raising the next generation in the family tradition of discipline, exotic stories about naughty monkeys and mysterious creatures that live in grey boxes.

Ethical considerations

2010-03-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

I really wanted this site to be a positive one, but I couldn't pass this awful issue by. To paraphrase Trevor Hotten, artists ‘often do things that depict the very sad part of ... society.' So do writers. I think that Hotten's submission for the Archibald Prize is a sad indictment on what society will accept these days in the name of freedom of expression.

The Archibald Prize is Australia’s most important portraiture competition. No wonder; there is fifty thousand dollars in it for the artist and the tremendous kudos of the win. The Archibald is popular with the masses because they usually know the subject so are focusing more on how they feel about him or her rather than the art.

Right now the masses aren’t too happy about one particular submission. An artist called Trevor Hotten has submitted a portrait of Dennis Ferguson, a paedophile and repeat offender who had spent 14 years in prison and Brett Collins a Coordinator for Justice Action and a spokesperson for the Prisoners Action Group.

The spirit of the competition is to submit a painting of ‘some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics.’ It may have sometimes strayed from the original intent, but this portrait is about as far away from the aim as you can get. That portrait will link the two subjects inextricably together forever. I doubt it will win, but the controversy about this year's competition will leave a bad taste in my mouth until next year.

Protecting prisoners' rights is reasonable. Somebody has to advocate for them. But it needs to be balanced out with the rights of victims and that's something I rarely hear happening. Advocating for Ferguson harms the rights of victims and their families, and makes things intolerable for those who have young children to protect. People want to feel that they have a right to be safe from harm.

Hotten defends his submission with the usual mantra of ‘artists... [having] the right to express themselves without censorship.’ Since the dawn of time that has been the mantra of every artist who offers us something unpleasant to look at or to think about. The great thing is that that sort of art isn't likely to last into the future. Artists seem to believe they are beyond the humdrum of the rest of the community and needn't bother about ethical considerations. I think it's time somebody shamed them into it.

I’ve only seen the portrait in the newspapers and it may be that it’s lost something in the translation but it seems to me both flat and lackluster; it lacks dimension. Whatever it is that Hotten means to be expressing, the painting gives no indication to me of what it can be. He’s been quoted as having said that artists ‘often do things that depict the very sad part of ... society or even what people find vile. But it's important [they] visually capture these things.’ Unless his painting has something more to say than that he has captured a likeness I don’t see the point. We’re living in a digital world, after all. On the other hand, once you’ve left a painting's presence you’re meant to be moved by more than an exact image captured on canvas. I’m yet to be convinced that I would be moved that I would be moved by it if I ever bothered to be in its presence.

Olá and Buon giorno to you

2010-03-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

I've been cooking and experimenting a lot with Asian dishes in the past decade, we love that sort of food in this house. I will no doubt come back to doing that again one day but for the moment I am all cooked out and would like to try my hand at something new. I am wondering if anybody out there has a couple of traditional Portuguese and Italian dishes to share with me. (Not pizza by the way, I've made it for my granddaughters. That is, I rolled out the store bought dough and they put on the toppings. But if there's any easy non-yeast way to go about it, I wouldn't mind knowing.)

The recipes can't have exotic ingredients which I am not likley to find unless I get on a plane and visit (wish I could afford to). Something simple for a beginner, but delicious. I admit my ignorance, I know some few things about Italian food, and nothing about Portuguese food. The nearest I've come to Portuguese is Nandos but I suspect that there's a lot more to it than Peri Peri sauce, delicious though that is. One of my children is a vegetarian, so if there are such things as Italian or Portuguese vegetarian dishes I would appreciate it.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2010-03-05T15:36:00.001-08:00

Sometime in the late ‘seventies, experts wanted girls to play with trucks, and boys to be given access to the kindergarten corner reserved for pots and pans. The wisdom of the day was that offering boistrous boys dolls would socialise and calm them; it was also thought that the genders would learn to understand each other at an age when they were the most easily influenced and it would help do away with stereotypes.

We have a female Deputy Prime Minister, now, whose partner is a hairdresser so the latter wasn’t such a bad idea as far as it went. But while the experiment of the genders moving beyond the stereotypical boundaries has been relatively successful, turning ‘slugs and snails and puppy dog tails’ into ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ and vice versa is a harder ask and not necessarily desirable. Each gender has its own attributes and failings and as parents it’s our job to appreciate the former and work on the latter.

Girls tend to be less distracted than boys are. They hear you when you speak; they listen; which is why they express themselves better than boys do. My granddaughters draw, paste, paint and sit patiently for large chunks of time rearranging figurines and dolls house furniture. Their dolls have names and a back history; and Dezzy and Rachel have opinions on how the rooms should be arranged. They love the playground park and will see saw and swing with the best of them, but they will happily get back to something sedate once they get back home.

Belinda Neall, author of About our Boys: A practical guide to bringing out the best in boys, believes that it is ‘essential that boys be allowed to be physical and do activities that use up their energy...even those boys who don’t like sport or aren’t very active usually have active minds that are drawn to action and adventure in their imaginary play’ or in what they read or what movies they watch or video games they play. Boys run when they can walk, they shout when they can talk and they flip back their Superman capes and chase after real or imaginary objects. Stick a doll in a little boy’s hand and he will most likely turn it into an aeroplane and run around the house making zoom, zoom noises. Then he will pull the doll apart to see what it is made of. No amount of role reversal is going to change that for long. You can sit boys down for craft activities and they will even enjoy it in small doses, but after a very short while, just like a steaming kettle, if you plug the opening they will either find another outlet or burst in the attempt.

I had no luck distracting my boys from kicking a ball around the back yard or getting them off the monkey bars long enough to consider role playing with Barbie or one of her sisters. There was a tree in our back yard that was taller again by half than our house. One fine day, when things were quieter than I was used to, I looked out the kitchen window and caught sight of five year old David two thirds of the way up that tree; his younger brother stood nearby, looking on in admiration. My hair stood on end, as it generally does when terror and adrenalin kick in. The conversation went something like this:

‘Hurry down David.

No, no, take your time. But be quick

Be careful! Hurry up, won’t you? Be careful, darling.

There you go, nearly there. It’s all right. It’s all right.

You naughty boy! You naughty boy! What on earth got into you?!’

The answer was a tearful shrug. Had he been more articulate, Dave might, like George Mallory the English mountaineer, have responded with ‘because it is there’. Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on their way up Mt Everest in 1924; Mallory’s body wasn’t found for 75 years. And that’s it in a nutshell. Some men and most boys just can’t help themselves. When they are attracted to danger and adventure, personal cost becomes irrelevant. Girls are cautious and too imaginative about the consequences to themselves, to risk doing something like that.

But if nature can’t be tamed, we can at least tweak it a bit. Thankfully it is not all pre-determined. Boys will be boys, as the saying goes, except if it’s relating to something that isn’t good for their health. In that case feel free to stick your oar in. In their late teens, my sons accused me of raising them to believe that it’s better to talk yourself out of a fight than to use your fists. Apparently they had lacked the belligerence required of the post-pubescent male to survive in the school environment; I had put them at a distinct disadvantage, they said, all the way through high school. Now they’ve come full circle and are grateful. And they no longer have a problem expressing themselves. Sooner or later most boys will grow out of leaping before they look, and hopefully some girls will have the self confidence to take a bit of a chance occasionally and leap. It’s all a matter of balance and of giving things a helping hand.

Girls are easier to raise because their primary carers are usually women and have some personal insight into the various phases that they go though; women identify a lot more closely with girls than with their male progeny. Unless there are experiences of brothers or male cousins to draw on, we see boys as strange entities to be dealt like ticking time bombs; gingerly and at a distance. They pick their nose and scrape their knees and neither they nor their hair is capable of staying down for too long.

My idea, of a good time, once upon a time, was to lie stomach down on the carpeted lounge room floor and work my way through all the fairy stories there were; the Grimm(er) the better. My boys wouldn’t leave me alone, for five minutes at a time; ‘hey mum, look at me, I’m doing a handstand’ or ‘mum can we keep this lizard / stray dog / bird with a broken wing?’ It’s necessary to encourage that wonder and to not crush their spirits when adding nurture to the mix. It’s important to keep their minds engaged and their bodies occupied.
Channel a boy’s energies into constructive activities like trampolining, bike riding and boy scouts and, as Belinda Neall, puts it ‘they won’t be lighting fires or throwing stones or take drugs to satisfy their sense of adventure.’ Encourage boys to climb monkey bars, and even trees if your ticker can take it. Get involved; play video games together and play board games. My brother banged his chest with his fists, tapped on doors and walls and drummed on our mum’s pots and pans with wooden spoons until our parents bought him his first set of drums. It didn’t do too much for their nervous system, but it kept my energetic brother occupied and all that practicing turned him into a first rate musician.

If you can exhaust your male children physically first, there’s always a chance that you can appeal to their cerebral side later. But there’s no use offering boys The Saddle Club or Ballerina Princess. They need a bit of J K Rowling magic, or Robert Muchamore’s child secret agents to stir their imaginations. Sue Bursztynski, school librarian and author of such nonfiction books as Your cat could be a Spy, and Crime time: Australians behaving badly, says that ‘ordinary boys as opposed to really good readers like information books ... about what they enjoy, whether it's cars or planes or sport or monsters. They love over-the-top information, which is why [borrowing] the Guinness Book of Records [at her library] is so popular. And when they do read fiction, it's often wacky fiction like Paul Jennings and Andy Griffiths. Or sports fiction - Specky McGee is very popular. But mostly, they like it true.’

My boys appreciated the energy consuming exercises of drama theatre. I welcomed their improved powers of concentration, their enhanced imagination and their self discipline. Young Mark wanted to skateboard. I offered to let him if he earned the money to buy it himself. It was a cunning ruse to buy me some time; if Mark was serious about earning a skateboard he would also appreciate and take care of it, and hopefully take care of himself. It gave me a chance to educate him in the dangers as well as the pleasures of skateboarding.

David took a child care course before he had children. His mostly female class cheered and whistled when he and fellow male graduates courageously mounted the podium and accepted their diplomas. I don’t think they had got the point yet that they’d ‘come a long way, baby’. Mark is capable of being his own man without sacrificing his tender (not his feminine) side. I’m still working on my granddaughters, but I hope I’ve succeeded in teaching my children to appreciate and respect it that although we are the one species there are two separate genders and both the genders and their differences deserve acknowledgement and respect.

I didn't do it!!

2010-02-15T23:13:00.000-08:00

On another matter, can I just mention that a father's group has asked if it could publish my piece: On a Mission from Melbourne. As soon as they have done so I will publish a link to the site.

I didn't do it is a universal cry coming from from the lips of little children wherever in the world they live. Certainly any child that I have either raised or had some experience with said it to me some time or another. Here is my second draft.

‘I didn’t do it’ said my granddaughter. It wasn’t a lie as much as an attempt to avoid punishment. Rachel was four years old at the time so she already understood what the consequences of being naughty might mean to her. But she wasn’t always sure what constituted naughty; it depended on the mood of the adults in her life. Safer to deny everything.

Rachel had done it of course, she had hurried from the dinner table to get to the front door and knocked over her water glass. There was water, water everywhere, including a liberal dose of it on a now sopping Rachel. Her favourite uncle had arrived and Rachel wanted to be among the first to greet him. Now she was stopped in her tracks watching anxiously for my reaction; getting into trouble was an occupational hazard. I could be a benign nanna or an angry giant. Which was I going to be?

I could have shouted and said ‘now look what you’ve done’. It’s the obvious and most automatic response that comes to the fore when disaster strikes. Possibly it’s because in any house where toddlers live calamity strikes and strikes often; it can be tiring for an already exhausted adult. Rachel is not an exception to the toddler rule; she slips, trips and sometimes breaks things. Rachel touches things she shouldn’t (once it was a hot plate). As my granddaughter sees it, there aren’t enough hours in the day to have fun and she is not about to miss a minute of it. Why walk when you can run, is Rachel’s philosophy? Why check first if you can rush in where Angels fear to tread? At four there’s a lot of exuberance and energy involved but not much life experience to draw on. Behaviour is a learned thing.

‘Why don’t you change your clothes; then you can help me clean up,’ I said. The response she had dreaded wasn’t going to eventuate. A reprieve! The colour came back to her cheeks and she tripped off happily to the bedroom. I watched her go, and remembered her father. He hadn’t done it either. David hadn’t knocked down my best china coffee pot playing ball in the house; it wasn’t his fault that his brother’s favourite toy was broken. The toy was a fragile bit of plastic, so he’d had a point there, but I seem to remember that David hadn’t had asked his brother could he play with it. Most of my waking hours had been spent juggling responsibilities and two boisterous boys so I wasn’t always capable of calm but I did sometimes succeed. I explained that playing ball in the house when he’d been told not to, required a consequence; and asked what did he think would fit the bill?

‘It wasn’t me, mum’ echoed down the corridors of time to arrive at this de ja vu moment. I am more rested, alert and a lot more composed these days and able to draw on experience. As a grandparent I get to revise some of the things I may have got wrong the first time round. Rachel sponged down the table and I mopped the floor. We talked as we worked.

‘Did you do it on purpose, Rachel? Or was it an accident?’ We had distanced ourselves from the disastrous moment. I wanted Rachel to take ownership of the situation and I felt I would get a more considered answer now. Rachel needed to take ownership of the situation and to understand the consequences.

‘It was an accident, nanna.’ I had witnessed the incident but even if I hadn’t I think it’s more a positive way to deal with things if you give children the benefit of the doubt until they prove you wrong. ‘Well, that’s okay then,’ I said and explained that it might be better next time to put her water glass in front of her instead of to the side. It was another experience in Rachel’s repertoire that I knew that she would not repeat.

The word consequence has two meanings. There was the consequence of the hotplate incident for instance. Rachel is a lot more cautious around heat now. The second meaning depends on adults dealing with each situation on its merits. Do we shout? I sometimes did when I was tired or if I had allowed outside pressures to influence me. If a toddler senses that consequences are fair, they learn from their mistakes. And although there are plenty more mistakes to be made, chances are they won't repeat them. Rachel learned that she needed to focus on her present actions and let the future take care of itself; I bought a plastic table cloth the very next day. Now that Rachel is a mature aged 6 year old she has left childish things behind. She's experiencing a brand new set of mistakes and consequences at school.

The Tooth Fairy

2010-02-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Fourth Draft.
Thanks to my regulars who keep on visiting. I haven't given up this site, or given up writing. It's just that a number of outside influences have conspired to get in my way and have slowed things down for me. (Slower than usual, that is.) I will revive!

'Will the Tooth Fairy find me in Melbourne, Nanna?

Rachel is a Sydney girl who pays regular visits to her Melbourne grandparents. Her questions come thick and fast the moment she steps off the tarmac at Melbourne Airport and are usually more demanding; they can range from how do aeroplanes stay up in the air to how many lollies can you fit in your mouth? Rachel’s front tooth was hanging by a thread and was causing her a fair bit of mental agony. I could see the mental cogs whirring and the questions forming. Thankfully the tooth fairy and I had done business before so were well acquainted. This time round I had all the answers to Rachel’s questions. I breathed a sigh of relief and got on with the necessary explanations.

‘Sure she will find you, honey.’ I said. ‘Tooth Fairies have antennas.’ They are like little divining rods that lead them to wherever the teeth are. And not only was there a Melbourne Tooth Fairy, I explained, there were hordes of them plying their trade worldwide and hauling their stash to their corner of Fairyland each night.

When we got home, I gave her the traditional apple to help things along. I mused that growing those teeth had taken up a third of Rachel’s life and caused many sleepless nights for all concerned, now she was happy to shed them without a backward glance. She munched and then we spent an exciting afternoon checking out the unattractive object of the Tooth Fairy’s desire.

‘Why do they want my tooth, Nanna?’

In typical Rachel fashion she was not going to be satisfied until everything was known to her on the topic, especially as there was a whole dollar involved in this transaction. More questions were asked and answered. Fairies grind the teeth and sprinkle it on their cereal for calcium and they dust their wings with it to give them more staying power on those long journeys to and from Fairyland. (When her daddy had asked that question tooth power included fuelled dump trucks and locomotives.)

And where was Fairyland? For those of you not in the know, Fairyland is up Enid Blyton’s Far Away Tree. If you are lucky enough to find that tree it is right up the top, where a different and ever more exotic country lands each day.

Rachel and I spent a pleasant afternoon discussing the most effective place to put her tooth. We checked out and rejected several locations, including under the pillow: too easily lost and the mantelpiece in the lounge room. How would the Tooth Fairy know who it belonged to? We finally settled on dropping it into a glass of water and putting it on Rachel’s bedside table.

Ten year old Dezzy, Rachel’s sister, was at the other end of the room during this discussion, busying herself with something arty-crafty. She had her head bent low throughout it all but I could tell she was listening. She had long since extracted the last dollar from the tooth fairy, but being the nice child that she is, she wasn't about to spoil it for her sister. Dezzy just smiled and kept her counsel.

‘Tooth Fairies are shy, Rachel, yours won’t turn up until you’re asleep.’ It had been an interesting and exhausting afternoon, but Rachel wasn’t quite done yet. She clutched her tooth to her, Rachel had a request.

We added a letter to be placed under the glass. ‘Dear Tooth Fairy,’ Rachel dictated, ‘this is me, Rachel. You can have my tooth for your breakfast cereal. Could I have an extra fifty cents so I can buy a chocolate ice cream with sprinkles? Do Tooth Fairies have teeth?' Love, Rachel.’

Our responsibilities

2010-01-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

Second draft.

Roman Polanski is a brilliant film director who also happens (in 1977) to have raped a 13 year old girl. I need not go much more into that as all the sordid details have been available for decades and in the news recently. Polanski was on his way to the Zurich Film Festival in 2009 to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award and was arrested. His friends and many of his colleagues were outraged. As they saw it, Polanski has been a model citizen and a productive one, since that one lapse. It seemed only reasonable to them that someone who had such an illustrious career should be excused.

It does sound reasonable put that way until you consider that the type of rape that took place was not done (inexcusable as it would have been) in the heat of the moment but was coldly calculated. Polanski gave this girl alcohol and a relaxant type of drug to make her compliant.

Polanski has charmed his colleagues and friends and even his film going audience, but the fact remains that there’s a darker side to Polanski. And that’s the one who has to pay for the crime, no matter how rehabilitated he seems or how brilliant his directing work. He doesn’t want to do it. Polanski allows his friends and colleagues and even his wife to justify him. Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s wife, blames his actions on the ‘crazy age of sexual permissiveness’. I would have thought that even in the ‘70’s sexual permissiveness related to two consensual adults, not between a grown up and an unwilling child.

Polanski stole a young girl’s innocence and wrecked any trust that she would have had for adults. I can’t help thinking of that as I watch my young granddaughters move slowly away from their childhood. In a handful of years we’re going to have less control over their ever expanding world. Stranger danger is easy when they are five or six, how do you go about preparing children on the threshold of puberty. When I started going out to teenage parties my mother told me not to drink anything that I hadn’t poured for myself, as my drinks might be spiked. I thought that was hilarious at the time.

Last year there was an uproar about a photographer who made a living by taking photographs of young girls in sensual poses (with the permission of the girls' parents.) The community in general thought it was despicable but his artistic friends hotly defended him.

Times change as do fads and fashions, but what sort of society is it that finds preying on young innocents acceptable?

We have a responsibility to our vulnerable children to keep them safe from predators who come in all sorts of shapes and sometimes pleasing guises. If we can't push past the seemingly plausible rhetoric and recognise these people for what they are, what hope have our children got? It’s up to us to make sure our children are left to develop at their own pace and be allowed to keep their innocence as long as they need it. Rape is never acceptable in however it is disguised or presented, neither is artistic licence when it has to do with young innocents.

Model Parents

2010-01-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

Draft five. Expect many more. The lead in is much too long and the piece is too repetitive. I’ll be giving it a rest for a couple of days and let my subconscious work on it for a bit.

Whenever the subject of role models comes up, it has been a major irritant to me that the same people come up with the same complaints about airbrushed photos and beautiful models making it hard for young girls to aspire or live up to. I agree, unrealistic images and natural beauties make it impossible for the rest of us. We shouldn’t objectify these people we're told, I agree with that too. But I believe that neither should they have the responsibility thrust on them for how we feel about ourselves.

We chastise erring footballers for not living up to the image that young boys have of them; the same goes for swimmers, songwriters and actors. We can't even judge what we think of a song until we've seen the accompanying music clip of beautiful people prancing around singing indecipherable lyrics. Forget that most of us can’t sing or dance or prance worth a damn, we want to be just like them. And if these high profile types let us down, excepting politicians, they get a serve from the rest of us, (We know immediately what to expect from politicians so can’t be disappointed.)

The reason for my diatribe is Jennifer Hawkins. Hawkins is a lingerie model who recently posed nude for an Australian magazine, Marie Claire. The resultant furore wasn’t about the model disrobing. It had to do with the magazine’s claim that the beautiful and flawless (and un-airbrushed) Hawkins represented the rest of the less than perfect female population and was a desirable role model for young girls.

Had Marie Claire offered someone like the older and more shop worn Elle McPherson as an ideal to aspire to, the magazine might have got away with it. Elle is 46 years old and a mother of two children. Nature has been kinder to ‘The Body’ as she is known, than to the rest of us in the same situation. But the occasional picture that slips past the editor’s desk proves that life and gravity have also paid McPherson a visit. Having said that, even an un-airbrushed and tired looking McPherson is somebody we couldn’t possibly aspire to be like. How can we be? Her parents aren't ours. And let’s face it she is a stranger to us all. Where do we get off expecting her flaws to give us comfort about our own?

If we can learn anything at all from Elle, Jennifer and others like them, it’s that they do their best with what nature gave them; they work hard to maintain their health and their figures. If they were musicians, they would be practicing several hours each day to perfect their skills. I’m sure that models or former models do no different when it comes to tuning up their bodies. They work at being the best they can be and we can learn something from that. But I don’t think on the whole that society today is interested in that; society wants a quick fix; society wants somebody else to make sure it doesn't feel bad about itself.

Mention 1940’s actress Veronica Lake to older people and they will tell you she was famous for having a wave of hair covering her left eye. Thousands of women paid to have their hair styled and dyed exactly the same way. Great for hairdressers but the followers looked ridiculous. So did Veronica, but she was beautiful and could pull it off. As the saying goes, ‘imitation is the greatest form of flattery’. That's okay, but making high profile outsiders responsible for how we feel about ourselves places a heavy burden on them.

Doesn’t the role model status belong to parents? Some of us only have to look at our parents to know that the local Orthodontist can expect a visit from us when we hit our teens. It’s in the genes, stupid. If we have a sense of humour it’s because our parents do, or their parents did; if we have a sense of self and integrity we can thank our parents for raising us to believe in ourselves and to respect others.

My parents are dark haired and of average size. Being a pragmatic kind of child, like my dad, I knew almost straight away I was never going to be tall and blonde (hair dye and high heels don't count). They wear prescription glasses; I wear prescription glasses. My dad has a facility for languages, sings well and is a great dancer; something to aspire to even if I have two left feet and only speak one language. Both have a way of telling a tale that I think I have inherited, so when I check out my ugly, aging mug, I comfort myself that even though beauty has faded, I still have the gift of words that they gave me.

My parents have always loved me unconditionally and uncritically choosing to focus on my best features rather than point out what was wrong with me. I grew up on a diet of fan magazines featuring beautiful actors. I’d look forward to getting a new one each week and ogling them and reading about their fictional lives. I enjoyed myself immensely but thanks to the way my parents raised me, I never let it diminish me, and never felt the need to compete. Great role models, my parents.

Multi-tasking Mammas

2009-12-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

My son and daughter in law recently celebrated the arrival of their first born child. Eden’s parents were rank beginners ten months ago but are catching on pretty quickly because Eden who is my third grandchild, is a happy baby, thriving on his solids and passing all his milestones, so I’m told.

I couldn't help comparing the different parenting styles of the two mums who are raising my three grandchildren. One copes with the parenting chaos by sticking strictly to routines, the other is laid back about sleep times and feeding schedules. My parenting style was a mix of both depending on the occasion and the day. I suspect that our goals are the same; we want our children to be more successful than their parents. I thought of all the mums I've known and realised that the more things change the more they stay the same. We all have a bit of the psychologist in us, a well developed bull dust detector and the skills necessary to kiss 'boo-boos' better. As that song goes, 'we are one but we are many.'

There’s Story Telling Mum (STM). She likes nothing better than to read the same story several times a day for weeks on end. She will often stop at every other word to answer multiple questions directly or indirectly relating to the story. STM rereads the favoured tale of the moment with enthusiasm, keeping to the tone and to the spirit of the story, making sure not to deviate by even one word from the original text. STM’s children have their own library cards and book bags, and although she hates dusting with a passion, she and they also make a regular pilgrimage to the local bookshop to add more dust collectors to their ever increasing stash.

When not reading tall tales and true to her brood, STM, mutates into GPM, a Game Playing Mum who drops whatever she is doing to make herself available for I Spy or Monopoly. She always knows the rules of the game, but rarely manages to win one. She has discovered that game playing promotes the sort of conversation that direct questioning never does, so that ‘I Spy a car just like Mikey’s’, reveals that Mikey had hit GPMs child over the head with his toy car. His lower lip trembles with the injustice of it all; after the ensuing tussle he had been made to sit in the time-out corner.

GPM sheds her mild mannered persona to become Fix It Mum. FIM wants to dash straight down to the school or kinder to sort things out with the teacher but is having a tussle with Adviser Mum who believes it’s important to formulate strategies for her children so that they can learn to deal with their own issues. Generally and after embarrassing her children with their peers a couple of times, it’s the latter mum who wins out.

There is a time in every mother’s life when things get a bit confused and she wears the wrong mothering hat (Monster Mum) and makes a wrong call (Raging Bull Mum). Or possibly it’s because she made them eat their greens that her children declare that they hate her and are running away from home. When this happens, it’s the job of Suitcase Packing Mamma to facilitate a smooth escape with a minimum of fuss; she helps with the packing and drives her children to see GMM (grandmother mum). SPM also makes herself available for the return trips at no extra charge.

Listener Mum takes short naps to store up the sort of energy necessary to listen and respond appropriately. At the tail end of an entertaining TV program or a vital news item she has been waiting to hear, there is bound to be the inevitable, ‘mummy, where do babies come from?’ This is where hopefully the question answerer mother takes over, tailoring the answer to suit the age.

The question answerer mum encourages questions (although she dreads the above), but finds herself struggling with the follow-ups.
‘Why does aunt Prunella have wrinkles?’
‘Because she’s old, honey.’
But why is she old, mummy?’
‘We all get old, sooner or later.’
‘But why…?’
As each explanation followed by the ‘but why’ response finally defeats her, question answerer mum finds herself echoing her own mother’s ‘because I said so’. Words she promised herself faithfully (before she had children of her own) that she would never use. At around this time she gets flash-backs to her own past and can’t help but admire her own mother’s forbearance.
Interpreter Mum plays a vital role in her children’s lives. In the early years, she explains their precious utterings to the world, translating what sounds like gibberish to us into toddler gold. IM owes a great deal to the lessons she learned as Answerer Mum. When the children reach their post pubescent phase she translates with ease the language of grunts and shrugs, finding a wealth of meaning in a raised eyebrow or a snort.

‘How was school?’
‘Urgh.’
‘Any homework?’
‘Ergh.’ (fill in your own blanks here)

This is a short phase that thankfully disappears at the end of the teen years. I’ll leave it to you to discover what comes next. Suffice it to say, prepare yourself for empty nest mum / swinging door mum, casserole baking and laundry cleaning mum and finally there is the mother-in-law mum. The latter is a story meant to be experienced rather than described.

No matter what day or time of day the Rubber Pot Mum (mine) is prepared without notice to provide food for the hordes. To that end, there is a pot of soup constantly bubbling on the stove. Rubber pot mum hangs round the house waiting for the chance to host her children’s friends. She remembers their names, who is a vegetarian and who is allergic to pumpkin. Once fed, she beats a silent but hasty retreat.

Chauffeur mum delights in being on call for her children. Although the term communication is a misnomer (communication being only one way), sophisticated devices like iPhone have proved to be a blessing to her. Day or night, CM keeps her trusty phone handy and her car fuelled up and waiting in the garage. She prefers the night-time calls as insomnia tends to keep her up on date nights.

Nobody speaks about DM, Demoted Mum if they can help it, unless it's in hushed whispers. Demoted Mums dispense their old fashioned advice long after the use by date. It's a depressing but mercifully a short lived phase. It's only a matter of time before DMs re-brand and turn into born-again GMMs, Grand Mother mums. GMMs get to claim a brand new and much more receptive audience. They get to do it all over again but this time round it is with all the care and none of the responsibility. GMMs tell the stories, play the games, and answer the questions. It's true that they have to rest a lot more often between sessions, and they do sometimes envy the youth and energy of young mums, but mostly, Grandmother Mums are content to find a useful niche for themslves once more.

Can you learn how to write?

2009-12-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

Can you learn how to write? Lots of people have made a mint writing books saying that you can. I’ve read some of them myself and found them interesting and informative. I also learned a lot from a writing course I took a few years ago. When I came back to study as an adult I thought I would come out of it with a qualification to do the thing I had studied for: writing. It's not that I had aimed for it; but I was looking for something constructive to do now that my children were old enough to raise themselves. I'd read the syllabus and found it interesting and thought what the heck! I'll enjoy myself studying something interesting and be a writer into the bargain.

I was really impressed that most of my classmates had brought a manuscript along with them to the course. I felt right out of it. All I had with me was a notebook, a pen and a yearning to have a novel of my own. I did churn out several chapters when studying Novel Writing, but they weren't worthy of being recycled into door stops let alone being published. By the end of the first year I learned that I was never going to be a novel writer.

I don’t know how many of my friends published after they left, but I did learn that it wasn’t so easy even if you had something worthwhile to offer. Most publishers don’t take unsolicited manuscripts. Offerings go to what is called in the industry a ‘slush pile’. If you ever hear back from the publishers it’s months later, after you’ve inquired a couple of times (not too often to bug them) and usually it’s a standard form letter to tell you they don’t want it. If you’re thinking you might want to spread your wings and send your manuscript to a few publishers at a time – don’t. Publishers don’t like it.

If you want to be off the slush pile and have your manuscript seriously considered (although not necessarily accepted) you need an agent. But their books are often full and most won’t take you anyhow unless you’ve published.

And even if you get your manuscript accepted, the advance isn’t much to speak of and given our small population in Australia, neither will the royalties be, but you need to pay back for the advance before the royalties are yours.

A blockbuster is what you need. Most of our top notch writers like Bryce Courteney or Colleen McCulloch, have the market sewn up, and the rest of us get what’s left over. They began with blockbusters and have kept the momentum going ever since. But even you could luck it like lucky Nicholas Evans did. He was a first time author who wrote the Horse Whisperer. It sold 15 million copies worldwide, and to quote the Amazon blurb: ‘the film option was snapped up by aging heartthrob Robert Redford for 3 million smackers.’ His ‘How To’ book if he wrote one would be worth reading, but in the end it’s how he did it, not how we would go about doing it.

Once I’d accepted that novel writing wasn’t for me, I settled down and enjoyed my course. There was a journalism type subject, short story, novel writing, writing for radio to name just a few. And each subject linked into the other. Even if you’re writing an article, you need to know how to grab a reader’s interest. When you write fiction, you still need to keep to the integrity of background information. There’s nothing more annoying than to have the historical context: dress, attitudes of the time and even the style of dialogue, wrong.

You can learn to write and taking a writing course will enhance what skills you already have, but I’m not sure that you can learn to be a writer in the same way you can take a course and come out a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher. Unsurprisingly not everyone has a novel in them. But people who are attracted to writing courses generally discover what skills they do have and their niche, whether it’s in advertising, or article writing or even setting up blogs of their own. Whether or not you become a 'real writer', I don’t think anything you learn is ever wasted.

On Revising and Real Writers

2009-12-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

Although I have not dipped into my ideas box for a while I’m giving up all pretense of not writing anything at all till next year. If for no other reason than keeping my typing fingers and brain cells limber, I’ll keep on going with ‘On’ series for a bit. (Ooh, the ‘On’ series! How grand to have a blog of your very own and not worry about how dopy that sounds)

I’m told that there’s a filter between brain and tongue that allows you to revise everything you say before you say it. I can think of a variety of situations I’ve found myself in where it would have been handy to own one. My tendency is to speak and then pay for the consequences. It gets me into more trouble more often than my granddaughters who can at least be excused as they are still growing and developing that brake on their tongue.

Revising the written word, is another matter altogether; that’s where I excel. I have restructured and revised the above paragraph at least five times (six times as of this morning) and before I’m done with this piece, I am sure I will revisit and restructure once more.

Someone once wrote that if you find yourself modifying a short note excusing your child from gym practice, you know you’re a writer. I think it was Danny Katz. Although I most definitely don’t put myself in his league, I’m a great admirer. He is an Australian writer who writes witty pieces for newspapers and magazines, but he’s right about the note. For those of you who haven’t grown up learning the art of letter writing, it is a handwritten form of e-mail done on hard copy and sent by, gasp, snail mail where it takes at least one day to arrive at its destination. I write up my e-mails in a Word document before cutting and pasting into the e-mail window. Then I give it a once-over, just in case, before sending.

The above could prove that I am a real writer, but my need to revisit every line that I write could also have to do with the fact that I have a compulsive personality. I need to eat each packet of chips down to the last few crumbs, then use a finger to coax the salt out where it’s lurking in the corner of the packet. When I smoked I couldn’t have a few puffs and stop; I’d have smoked the butts if it was possible. Thank goodness it wasn’t possible. Given my tendency to compulsion, I knew that the only way I was going to stop was to go what we call ‘cold turkey’. It was a painful process but it worked for me. No crutches like nicotine tablets or patches; I just knew someone like me would only transfer the addiction from the cigarettes to the cure.

Does it make you a writer if you revise sms text messages? I don’t do that too often as I have an old fashioned type of mobile that requires much thumb pressing. But I do refuse to make things easier on myself by abbreviating the words. I can’t get myself to limit communication to a bunch of letters and numbers: no C U 4 lunch, 4 me.

My son and I have arguments about lyrics versus music. Guess which side of that debate I’m on. Today’s lyrics are indecipherable. Strain as I do, I can’t make them out. My son assures me that this is desirable. Young people don’t want to be burdened with words. It’s all about sound and video clips. I’m not sure whether or not preferring to hear a story even if it’s in rhyme makes me a real writer. Possibly that’s why I’m stuck in the sixties with Simon and Garfunkle and Dylan. Possibly not in my lifetime, but I’m sure the pendulum will swing back some day soon.

On Ideas

2009-12-15T04:39:00.000-08:00

Even if I did say goodbye a couple of posts ago (till next year), I seem to be finding the energy to do just one more. It’s 11pm here and I have the house and the computer all to myself, a rare occurrence in this household, at this moment, as I’m outnumbered by grandchildren keen to surf the Net.

It’s marvellous isn’t it? One granddaughter has only just started school and already has the hang of it all. Pretty soon we’re going to set up an email account and slap a keyboard or an iphone into a newborn baby’s hands and let their fingers do the walking.
I’d like to tell you where my ideas come from, but I don’t really know. My guess is that my subconscious picks up on something and chews it over for a bit before offering it up to me as a fully blown idea.

You’ll have noticed that my ideas on this blog come from the same source: my grandchildren. But as I’ve mentioned before, the ideas aren’t any good without the rest of it. That’s the bit that takes a lot of hard work. I occasionally look out for ideas for a particular market or just to get myself started on the next project, sometimes an idea can foist itself on you when you’re not looking.

I’ve had this idea for a short story for years and it’s still tucked into the back of an old notebook. (Don’t you steal my idea.) I call it ‘Mistresses Galore.’ I noticed a truck pass me by one day that said: Mattresses Galore but I had misread it. I jotted it down in the notebook that I keep in my pocket for such occasions. Then I tried out different scenarios in my mind, one of them being that on the way to visit a woman in hospital, a man sees the van and misreads it. It was a Freudian slip. This man is on his way to visit one of his elderly mistresses. She was beautiful once, and exciting, now she’s old and sick and has become quite cantankerous. As he walks along, he remembers how each woman came into his life and how it was great until it all went wrong and how now he is stuck with a bunch of elderly, needy lovers. I’ve let this idea stew in the sub-conscious for years and am still waiting for inspiration to push itself to the forefront Another variation on it, is that these elderly, long gone lovers are in the van waiting for him to join them.

Talk to you next year. No, really. No more repeat performances. Really.

On Editors

2009-12-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t going to write any more till late January at least, but it’s past midnight and I can’t sleep. It isn’t late in the scheme of things if you’re an insomniac or if you are young but I don’t fit into either category. I find myself up and about tonight when everyone else is sensibly refreshing those little grey cells.

I’m sure that I’ll pay for it tomorrow because it’s going to be hectic, but I thought that a quick session between my computer and myself might help settle me down.

Even though I’ve said in my previous post that you need to have an angle for a piece or else you’re wasting your time and your words, I’ve decided to indulge myself this once and see where it takes me. Possibly not far, but the beauty of it is that as I’m both writer and editor of this journal I can please myself; at least for the time being, till my compulsive need to revisit and revise takes over.

When I have a piece professionally published and paid for, it’s usually the end of that particular journey. Once I’ve worked and reworked a piece it’s out of my hands. I have to hope that the person who reads my peace will be sensitive to it. If you have published in the same place more than once, you get to know the editor and at least get to know what to expect.

The thing is, if you want to be published you have to accept that once someone has bought your baby, you lose control. Someone else gets to edit it and decide what to keep and what to leave out. That’s not always a negative thing. Sometimes I’m too close to be objective and what ends up in print makes it better not only for the publication but for me. A good editor takes away what’s necessary without disturbing the essence of the piece.

The thing is, that if it turns out badly, then the reader usually blames the writer for it. As in any other profession, editors will come in all shapes and sizes. There are the good ones, the bad ones and the ‘what the hell have you done to my piece’ types. Sometimes they will cut your precious words down so they can fit it in an advertisement or another piece on the page. I had an awful experience (just once) where every reference that would have made my piece meaningful was cut out, as evidenced by the fact that the illustrator understood what I meant when he read the piece and the editor did not when he cut things down. (They had obviously not consulted one another.) You can decide to complain, in which case you might not have a chance again at that particular market, or you might decide to never submit there again which limits your choices, or you might hope that that editor moves on to some other publication and butcher somebody else’s work.

A good editor needs to know a lot more than just about tone and grammar and structure; a good editor is like a good GP and knows a little bit about a lot of topics.
Even though I get paid for it, once that piece is in print I will happily forget it and move on to writing something else.

I hope people have liked the child I’ve produced and put on display but strangely it’s not the child but the audience that’s my main consideration. Here I am, my own electronic market, and enjoying pleasing myself, but I do often wonder what sort of people they are who drop in (some of them regulars) from different parts of the globe, and read my work. And what is it that they find they like that makes them regulars.

I find the thought fascinating that they must relate to some of the things I’ve had to say here; because even though the French say vive le difference and I’m all about celebrating our differences, at the core of things and where it counts, I’m sure we’re the same.

On Writing

2009-12-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Even when it's a piece about writing, I seem to have to revise. This is my second and hopefully last revision.

‘On Writing’ sounds grand, doesn’t it? I don’t pretend to know much, but I’m happy to share what I do know – about my own style of writing.

It’s not that I think that I can offer anything to any budding writers out there that more established ones haven't already done but as I’m working it out for myself, I thought I might as well put it down in my electronic notebook and share it with whoever is interested; I have read some advice given by more established writers. When I’ve liked it, it has been because it wasn’t pretentious, but straight forward and sounded sensible.

But what works for those writers doesn’t necessarily always work for me. Perhaps that's why they are published more often than I am. But I think that if I end up getting it right, it's because I have been true to myself and found my own path.

I had to find my own voice, such as it was. And that had to do with a lot of writing. I call it brain aerobics. As with the physical type, you need to use it or expect to lose it.

While I can confirm that the more mental aerobics you do the easier it becomes, it’s still a slow process for me. I must admit that since having gone public I’ve gone from one idea developed over a period of several months to getting it together in two or three weeks.

I keep on wanting to revise my pieces. I don't think I'm alone there, I've heard of other people who do that. Even after I submit them I wish I could have them back and change some glaring error that I’ve picked up.

Like everybody else who wants to write, I also have a notebook on me wherever I am and will jot down an idea when it comes to me. Sometimes I’ll sit at a cafe and write descriptions of people that are around me. I’ll detail their features, their dress and what they are doing at the time and then I will make an imaginary character analysis. I will also take detailed notes of my surrounds and the atmosphere. Whether or not you use it later, I think it’s not only a good writing exercise, but also a chance to notice what you’re looking at through a writer's eyes. Somebody once told me that when on holidays, the way she had seen and noted things around her as a tourist was different to when she started writing. It wasn't a conscious effort, she'd just discovered a different way of looking at what was there.

There are two things that I think are universal to all people who write. Everybody says that writing is a lonely business. That’s true. Some people can collaborate on their work (I can’t) but mostly it’s a one on one experience, between you and your notebook or computer. You can ask your family how they like your piece but even when they’re being highly positive and effusive about it, you can’t help wondering if it’s bias talking. Some writers get together to workshop and that can be helplful when you're beginning, but in the end you have to decide for yourself if a piece is good, then once you’ve polished it out of all existence you have to let go of it and let an editor decide. Submit!

Everyone agrees that it’s one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. You come up with a good idea and jot it all down in your note book. Later, when it comes to actually putting it together, you stare and stare, trying to get an angle that will start you off on your (my) painful journey. My angle seems to mutate as I go, but I need to have it first. If I start without one, I tend to ramble aimlessly. A waste of time and energy.

I admire newspaper journalists or magazine writers who have been given a commission to write. Now there's mental aerobics for you, especially in the case of the Newspaper journos. They are constantly and consistently putting articles together to a deadline. Others, myself for example, begin with the inspiration and write in a red hot heat for a bit then I pace myself through the perspiration part. I think that’s why I moved from having this blog as some sort of electronic journal to opening it up to public view. I’m finding it inspiring that people who read my pieces might expect more of me than one every few months.

Assuming I have anything more to say about writing, I will add more to these musings (rants) as they come to me.

On a non-writing note, two of my grandchildren, the ones I can’t stop writing about, are coming to stay with me for the next few weeks. I find I can’t focus as well while they are here taking up my energies. There’s a different type of mindset happening when they are here. So, things are likely to be a lot slower till they leave. If I don’t get back to visit till late January, then Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and my best wishes to you all.

A recipe!

2009-12-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

Someone pointed out to me that it’s the food blogs that are most popular. They have recipes. I have a collection of food blogs myself. People are so generous about sharing what they know with the world. Any time I want to know how to go about making a Curry or a Paella or a Pizza, there are hundreds of thousands of people willing to share with me. I don’t have enough space to house cook books and in any case I used to buy a book for one or two recipes that attracted my attention and never tried out the rest. I like the idea of typing up a key word and choosing the best on offer, then printing up a page – one page. If the recipe is a success, I will keep the page, if not, it gets tossed without too much angst about having spent a fortune on a book and feeling obliged to keep it.

As I am obviously not a food blog, I thought it might be more fitting to give out a playdough recipe. It’s not mine, and I can’t attribute because I don’t remember where I got it. But it’s better than a previous one I had because there’s less oil. That means you don’t get greasy bench tops. My granddaughters aren’t in the habit of putting things in their mouth but the combination of ingredients making up this recipe aren’t toxic. I mean, I wouldn’t encourage anybody to drink the food colouring, but I don’t think that a drop in a huge pot of dough can’t do any harm. And the rest are obviously okay.
If you keep it in a tightly covered container, it practically keeps forever. (Naturally throw away the bits and pieces that have dropped to the floor or are dirty.)

So here is my first and final offering. Hope you can make some use of it :)

Playdough
3 cups flour
1 ½ cups salt
6 teaspoons cream of tartar
3 cups water
3 tablespoons oil
Several drops of food colouring added to the water

Mix all ingredients in large saucepan or skillet over medium – low heat, stirring constantly. Keep stirring till mixture cleans bowl. Remove from heat.. Cool slightly. Knead dough until pliable. Store in plastic bag or airtight container.

Darn!

2009-12-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

All done. Thanks for the patience.

‘Shit!’ I bumped my not so funny, funny bone and called out an uncharacteristic swear word. It was a painful knock and caught me off guard or I would have said the usual ‘shiver my timbers’. For over two decades I had trained myself to use such euphemisms, as bulldust and fudge but the swear word just slipped out. Mild by comparison to some others that I know, but I was rusty.

My sons who were the reason for my disciplined approach were well out of their teens by the time I had said that word in their presence. I’d grown so good at hiding my first rate command of curse words that when this small one found its way into the ether it proved a shock to their system. But they didn’t hold it against me for long because by that time I had achieved two rational beings with a great vocabulary, capable of communication, negotiation and reason.

It all began when primary school David came home from school one day brandishing a swear word at the dinner table. I asked him if he knew what it meant and David admitted that he didn’t. ‘Well if you don’t know, why say it?’ I asked. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word and I’d rather he didn’t use it. But that if he ever heard me say anything he considered dodgy, he had my permission to do the same. I put a clamp on my tongue after that and made darned sure I darned well did not swear in front my children. Dashed hard work at first but I got the hang of it after a while.

I would have had to be living on Mars (or Venus) not to realise that outside the house, David and his brother were exchanging impolite words both with each other and their peers. When your children leave the home environment they leave behind the people who are the first and most powerful influence on them. From crèche on you can expect your children to have experiences without your being around to explain or to moderate them. Children don’t live in a vacuum, so they are likely to develop a broader perspective on life outside our sphere of influence. I just made sure that my children had a chance to learn about family values before they got to that point. I answered all their questions as often as they asked them and as openly as clearly their age allowed, even if the questions sometimes proved awkward. (Mum, how old are you?)

This is why, as soon they opened those baby blues, communicated. Children may not understand your words at first, but the sound of your voice washing over them will be soothing. Soon they will associate that inner voice called a conscience, with yours. And if you talk to them now, they’ll talk to you later. As they get older they will spend increasingly more time with their friends and teachers and co-workers and less with us, but they will keep that voice with them. Keep up the communication and they will bring home the various views they’ve absorbed. That’s when you get the chance to discuss and debate them and sort out the facts from the unsubstantiated opinions. It’s called strength through communication and not a swear word in sight.

I did such a good job of it that when Mark turned 14 he turned the table on his neurotic mum. He wanted a skate board. I didn’t want him to have one. Visions of broken bones and knocked out teeth got in the way. Mark offered to work to buy the board, and buy knee and elbow pads. He spoke convincingly of concepts like all care and even more responsibility and before I could say, hoist by my own petard I was (reluctantly) agreeing. A year later, he got his skate board. It didn’t stop me from worrying, but I was sure that I could trust him to take care.

I don’t find swearing offensive; I’ve just never seen it as a substitute for reasoned debate. In the misty dark ages we were expected to read and analyse the issues of the day. And we took turns to debate the different sides of each one. It taught us that there is more than one way to look at the world, and that there are many ways to convince people about your point of view. A word or two and a finger judiciously applied these days seems to have replaced reason. There’s nothing more effective (how can you argue with it) than a crude statement of intent to stop you in your tracks.

I feel sorry that today’s parents have to contend with word contracting, text messaging children. Computers used to be glorified typewriters with monitors and fishermen used nets to haul fish out of the ocean. Now our children are surfing it. Our slick communication gizmos are great tools but they haven’t brought humanity closer. C U, FU, I heart U. What does it mean? I watched somebody buy a ticket from a machine recently. This young man went past the ticket box, where a human being waited to serve him, in order to do so. We used to send our children out into the world; today the world comes to them. I find the exponential growth of technology frightening it discourages communication and doesn’t leave parents much time for that head start I once had. I suggest that the old fashioned way of communicating.

I have this little grandson

2009-12-03T19:58:00.001-08:00

Third time is the charm; here is my third and final version of this piece.

I have this little grandson called Eden. He used to give us earnest looks that said he was checking us over and getting a hang on his new surroundings. He wasn’t being judgemental or anything, just curious, as you are when you’re brand new to a place. It took seven weeks of surveillance but Eden must have approved of his little world; he smiles. And Eden communicates, including his whole family in the conversation: na da, ma da, and giggle giggle; and he bounces when you hold him upright. What a child!

Eden was born with a shock of black hair and has what we used to call piano fingers long and fine and supple; an indicator to both his paternal and maternal grandfathers who are very musical themselves that it’s a sign of harmonious things to come. Family and friends sat around the hospital bed checking out the new born arrival and there were a lot of comparisons happening: the grandfather’s expression, the mother’s eyes and what long legs for a baby, he’s going to be tall like his daddy. Certain favourable comparisons were made regarding receding hairlines. Everyone was satisfied to find a bit of themselves in Eden.

Eden turned his smile on in his seventh week (or according to his daddy, and he has the photos to back him up, on the third day) and he hasn’t stopped since. Actually I would call it more of a grin than a smile. And Eden is not selective about the recipients of his benevolence; old, young, beautiful, ugly; everyone and everything in his line of sight gets a big dose. I often wonder what he could be thinking that produces such a radiant grin. My theory is that he’s expressing his approval of us and the world around him.

Eden is my third grandchild and people ask if I’m feeling blasé about it all. I say I’m just as excited this time round. Children are like the poppies I used to bring home each Spring and put in a vase. Every morning one or two buds would slowly open and reveal their colours to me. It gave me more pleasure than that first vital caffeine fix in the morning.

Children will do things or say things that seem to come out of left field that (unsurprisingly) can surprise. This is because they are a mix of their maternal and paternal genes; a combination of parents and extended family. Sometimes a long distant childhood memory allows us to decode something our children or grandchildren do or say, but sometimes not. Granddaughter Dezzy is developing an artistic flair; I haven’t gone past drawing stick figures. In the past couple of months Eden’s hair has gone from black to a lovely reddish hue that he gets from his dad.

It’s exciting now that I have the time and the energy, to watch my darling buds slowly opening to reveal their colours. Rachel has turned six. She has her daddy’s curly hair and loving personality. She also has a stubborn streak that I can’t trace to anyone, perhaps a throwback somewhere in time. The good thing is that if we appeal to her reason or ask for understanding she shows a kind heart. Dezzy is fiercely loyal to all things family and loving like her dad. We’re watching her heading towards those teenage years faster than you can say watch out, early bloomer on the horizon. I am counting on her strength of character to allow her to pass through that phase unscathed.

I love being a grandma it’s a job that suits me like no other, the only profession where old age is actually a requirement. I will never be a matriarch like a friend who has four children and three grandchildren already and more anticipated. But I’m doing all right. I have found my niche. Grandchildren think that wrinkles equate with wisdom and the good thing is that given a good dictionary and the capacity to love unconditionally there’s not much you can do wrong to disillusion them.

It’s a freeing experience to finally leave the responsibilities behind and have fun anticipating without the discomfort of the pregnancy, the exhausting late nights and the constant worries about what kinder and which school and how to afford them. Nice to know that old age has some perks.

We used to say Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief. I’m hoping that it’s not going to be the last two. (You can be happy and honourable and still be poor.)

I have this little grandson called Eden. I don’t know what he will make of the world or what the world will make of him. I can only say that I will still love him, no matter what.

About smacking

2009-11-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

To smack or not to smack? That’s the hot topic that comes up at least five times a year. Someone has killed a child or maimed a child or starved a child to death. Then it’s on for young and old. Everyone has an opinion. There are the experts, many of whom disagree with smacking and the parents who come in all shapes and sizes as they do.

There are as many opinions as there are parents and parent types (single, married, divorced, and gay). They aren’t ever going to do to their children what their parents did to them; they used to get the strap at school and it never hurt them, in fact it turned them into solid citizens; a little smack on the bottom never hurt anyone and it teaches them a lesson.
Earlier this year a woman hit her child with a wooden spoon. She was quoted as saying that she only uses a spoon when her child is being naughty. That she talks it through with her child first and gives her a ‘fair chance to rectify the situation.’ On the surface of it, it sounds reasonable, but why the spoon? Why not a slap with an open hand to the bottom? Surely it hurts less than the spoon but still gives the child a message. Either way, the message is that violence is not acceptable to resolve issues unless it comes from a parent.

In a democracy the government has no power to call the shots when it comes to when to have children or how many to have or who should be allowed to have them. When things go wrong it can only work indirectly through government agencies. But time and again these agencies have proven ineffectual because neither the money nor the laws are enough back up the overworked and embattled representatives.
Smack seems an innocuous word. It’s used far too often to describe something that’s a lot more violent. If an adult is in control of his or her temper then the occasional smack administered as a last resort and in extraordinary circumstance might work. But if a child breaks something precious or breaks that final straw at the end of a long day can that adult remain cool? I saw a man slap his daughter’s face the last week. She’d let go of his hand when crossing the road. You could see the adrenalin pumping. He reacted through fear. But I could tell that he didn’t make a habit of it. The little girl, she couldn’t have been much older than 8, sobbed and said over and over again, ‘you hurt my feelings, daddy.’

In the real world we tell our children that violence is wrong. That you don't bully and if you yourself are being picked on try sorting things out with your tormentor. We teach that negotiation is the way. We don’t smack our neighbours, even if they irritate us beyond belief, we don’t get stuck into them if we’re tired or have had a bad hair day. We believe that we are far too civilized to take it out on our neighbours. And of course if we are tempted they would slap us back with a writ.

People often say my child, my decision. I think we need to do for smacking what we did for smoking. It was in the too hard basket until people campaigned to have the laws changed and enforced.

Leaving the Hundred Acre Woods

2009-11-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

Published in a Children's Magazine in 2009.

Rachel knocked her knee the other day and I offered to kiss her ‘boo boo’. She politely declined. In fact, the exact response that issued from those rosebud lips was: ‘No thank you, nanna, I can make it better.’ The look in her eyes said it all; Rachel has come to understand about the charade that adults play and wasn’t having any of it. I’ve been through this phase with her daddy, her uncle and her sister and have come to dread it.

It’s called the letting go stage; they let go and if you’re doing your job properly, you encourage it. As the king said to the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’ The thing with parents (and grandparents who spend a fair bit of time in their grandchildren’s company), it’s hard to know where to stop or where to begin. You’re so tempted to keep on cutting up their fish fingers for them for ever more, but there comes a time when it becomes necessary to put a fork and (blunt) knife in their little hands, avert your eyes, and let them mangle their food till they get it right. Rachel is a quick study and it didn’t take her long at all.

I encourage Rachel to brush her own hair; expect her to clear the table when she is done eating and have taught her how to make vegemite sandwiches. As her sister Dezzy once did, Rachel stands on a kitchen stool mixing an egg; I’m the sous chef who provides her with the salt, the pepper and the spatula. Chef Rachel stirs and I hold the frypan handle. She takes her plate and cutlery to the table and eats with a hearty appetite. Rachel has learned to make her first dish.
I give my grandchildren a chance to voice an opinion on issues that affect them and follow it through. Knowing that I can do it better or faster makes it the hardest thing to let go of.

When they visit us for the holidays, Dezzy checks out the weather online and chooses what she will wear. She’s become very good at it in the past four years but even on the odd occasion when I haven’t liked her selection I remind myself that it’s her choice that counts. Dezzy knocks on her grandparents’ bedroom door before coming in and expects the same sort of courtesy from us. As she’s the eldest of the two, I went through this necessary process with her first. It wasn’t as heartbreaking then because Rachel was still toddling around clutching her constant companion, Woof Woof, and calling out for my attention.

You prepare yourself for the time when you are permanently retired from active duty. Every little thing you teach children goes towards making them independent of you. You do whatever you can to ensure that the children in your lives develop into being the best and most self-sufficient human beings ever.
As I’ve said, Rachel is going through the Nanna / Daddy / Mummy can’t fix it any more stage and we have come to accept that the days of heartrending sobs on our collective shoulders for such tragic reasons as not being allowed dessert before finishing a main meal are over. I have seen her through her first word (it was nanna), the terrible twos and the reasoning threes. Now she is five and her world is expanding once more. The family members in her life will no longer be the final authority on all things. Rachel’s teacher is already wiser and her new friends cooler. One day there will be boyfriends, but I refuse to think about that. All I know now is that my darling who began school this year has one foot firmly planted outside the Hundred Acre Woods and there is no turning back.

And I can only be glad about that. I wouldn’t keep her from leaving even if I could do it. As an adult, I can appreciate the sweet innocence of Christopher Robin, Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eyore. They are what we remember fondly about the most carefree and the too fleeting time of our lives. But Christopher Robin and his friends have a lesson to teach us. They have remained the same lovable, unthinking innocents, since A. A. Milne gave birth to them 89 years ago. They have never grazed a knee or won a debate based on informed reason. And they will never experience that first kiss or know true love.

Rachel still loves fairy wings and wands; she adores gossamer dresses and princess crowns; life is lovely for her and she’s even learned to wait for dessert. I hope that life stays lovely, but when she and her sisters reach the rough patches that life generally throws at you I hope we have helped them to be strong enough to manage and learn from them. When Rachel finally leaves those childish things behind her I hope what remains will be the family values, the self reliance and the inner strength that I sense both Rachel and her sister possess; I hope what they learn along the way will keep them in good stead on their long journey through life.

On a Mission from Melbourne

2009-11-26T17:09:00.000-08:00

I've agonised about whether or not this piece belongs here, but I've decided that it's a valid part of parenting and what happens to children, to parents and to the extended family when things go wrong.

Within walking distance of Bondi Beachhouse YHA, is Bondi Beach. Lush plants and tree lined streets surround us and refreshing sea breezes make it an idyllic holiday spot for my son David and me. But we’re not in holiday mode; we are on a mission from Melbourne. For several weekends each year it’s our little world; David’s, his children, Dezzy and Rachel, and mine. Our home away from home is comfortable, has spectacular views and most vital for somebody whose creaky old bones prefer the comfort of an indoor loo to stumbling down the passageway in the middle of the night, it has en suites. We’ve had the same room since we arrived on the YHA doorstep four years ago. We snooze on our separate bunk beds (I’m told I snore), keep our drinks cold in the bar fridge and make cups of soup or coffee using the room’s kettle. Last but very much not least, there is the very necessary bathroom. It’s home.

But it isn’t the building or its surrounds that matters, or even the free surfboards and snorkelling gear on offer that counts; it’s the constant that the place represents. Lilla works behind the check-in counter and gives our Pearlie girls access to computer games. David sets up some boppy music on his mobile phone, and when she’s not kayaking or leading a fun run, Sam the day manager joins Dave and the Pearlies for a twirl around the foyer. Yuki, when she’s not swimming with sharks or dolphins makes the place shine. Corrinne, who is Yuki’s colleague, says ‘bonjour’ to the girls and sometimes joins them at the common room table to have a chat. Steve the handyman keeps the place going; he’s friendly and staunchly loyal to the place. Steve takes the girls’ questions seriously and responds in kind. Once upon a time there was James, but he went back to England; Brad has gone off to Ireland with his girl Orla, and Andrew the travel bug comes and goes depending on his finances. It’s people who have made our place a home.
When our girls and their mother shifted back to her home town, the Melbourne mob got together for a brainstorming session. The options open to David as we saw it, was that he either communicates with his children long-distance or takes the more expensive option and travels to Sydney every fortnight. David chose both. I said that in that case I would come along at least once a month and we all discussed finances and the practicality of renting a unit for the weekend or a hotel room that would take the four of us. My sister who has been a bit of a traveller in her time suggested a Youth Hostel. As its name implies, Youth Hostels are marketed to young travellers with firm, tanned bodies and an optimistic outlook on life, but Sue assured me that the YHA will also take in worn-out old cynics as long as they don’t influence the young optimists.

The Friday night before each visit, Dave and I pack a couple of t-shirts each, spare trousers or jeans and a change of underwear. That takes up a tiny corner of each of the two suitcases we bring along. We fill the spaces up with board games, toys and books. I’ve been known to bring along an electric hand mixer to bake birthday cakes. Last year I baked Dezzy’s cake on the hostel’s commercial oven two days before her birthday. Sam always has little gifts for the girls and makes sure they feel special; and last year, Corrinne, conducted dozens of visitors in a cheery happy birthday sing-song for Dezzy.

Dave and I set our alarms for quarter past four. I haul my aching bones out of bed at three thirty and make some coffee; Dave bounces out of his room looking perkier than he has a right to at 4.15 am; he’s fully dressed and ready, lugging his suitcase behind him. We head for the car and Melbourne airport; chatting quietly, talking strategies and anticipating the fun time ahead. In Sydney we hire a car for the weekend, pick the girls up then do the weekend shop for one breakfast, two packed lunches and two dinners. We have a routine. It’s not exciting but it gives the impression of normalcy which is the aim. David brings the girls down from their upstairs flat. Their faces glow. We hurtle towards each other, arms outstretched and hug; words spill out on both sides as we try for a month’s worth of catch-up. They look different each time. It’s not only that they’ve grown a bit since the last time I saw them that makes me sad, but also that something indefinable I see in their faces that speaks of life experiences we’ve not been involved with.
On Saturday afternoon Dave and I lie on our bunks, chatting with the girls in a desultory way; I’ve cooked, they’ve played and we’re all exhausted. Then we get our second wind and all go back to the common room for dinner. Afterwards, Dezzy and I play ‘Hangman’ or ‘I Spy’, and Rachel who hasn’t learned to read yet, participates in her own inimitable way. It’s been a long day. On Sunday we’ll go for a drive, or see a movie or do some browsing.

Before we know it we’re back at the airport waiting for our flight home; as usual it’s all gone faster than we’ve expected, faster than we’ve wanted it to. Dave and I don’t talk much; we’re deeply into our own thoughts about the visit; storing away little images to take out and treasure late at night. But mostly what I’m doing is thinking how thankful I am that David is part of a supportive family network. The girls visit us in the school holidays; we come and see them regularly. We talk; we never stop communicating. I’m grateful that we have between us all managed to normalise an abnormal situation as far as it’s possible to do so. What I’m thinking is that it’s a miracle.

I can pick a separated dad out a mile off these days. He and his children are usually at McDonald’s; it’s family friendly there and neutral territory. The children and the dad face each other across a table littered with chip and burger wrappers. The dad has that haunted look of somebody on a blind date; the formal and stilted conversations probably run along the same lines. The kids look as if they’d rather be elsewhere, but they gamely hang in there. He is their weekend dad.

Terrible Twos

2009-11-26T17:06:00.001-08:00

Published in a children’s magazine some time in 2007. I’m not naming names because some of it was edited and I have gone back to the original version.

My two year old granddaughter slapped a perfect stranger at the play park. All the poor kid wanted was a turn at the slide, but as Rachel saw it, she was protecting her territory. ‘Mine’, she said, and slapped his cheek. ‘Make nice, Rachel’ I responded. I took her unwilling hand and got it to stroke the victim’s now rosy cheek. He was a sweet little boy who was surprisingly bemused by the whole situation. He stood quietly for an instant, letting Rachel do her thing then tottered off to see his mother.

It turns out that she was keeping a watchful eye just behind me. ‘Terrible twos’? she asked. I smiled and nodded but knew for certain that her vision of that phase and mine were necessarily different. I was well rested and filled with memories and hindsight. She was in the middle of a personal parenting nightmare full of sleepless nights and harried days. Two year olds are what is colloquially known as ‘in your face’ day and night. It’s an intense but mercifully short gig. The daily mantra from the moment parents haul themselves out of bed to the second they tuck their little ones into theirs for the night is ‘don’t touch, do share, don’t smack.’

‘We don’t smack, Rachel.’ I explained it for the four hundred and fiftieth time since her arrival on my doorstep. I wasn’t talking in the third person and didn’t mean it in the ‘royal we’ context. I wanted her to know about our family tradition. My parents did not smack me, I did not smack her dad and her dad does not smack his children. This meant nothing to Rachel, of course. The very next thing, she did was to try and depose her long suffering but doting six year old sister Dezzy from her swing. Rachel hasn’t got the hang of civilised behaviour yet, but I’m persisting. ‘Share,’ I said. ‘Wait for your turn, Rachel,’ but ‘mine’ is a concept more easily learned than ‘share’ when you are two. I once heard Lauren Bacall talk about herself at 19. She said it was the age when you learned about life and people. I think learning about life begins with the Terrible Twos (TTs). They are alert and aware and raring to go. We are the ones who are alarmed because they’re so energetic about it. The good news is that two is the phase where rudimentary reason takes shape. The bad news is that applying it to the budding mind can give you RSI of the throat.

As I’ve said, hindsight counts for a lot. I’m not Rachel’s full time carer, just a well rested grandma on a two week baby sitting stint. I was therefore capable of some coherent thought, a luxury not afforded to me the first time round. And what I’ve noticed is that Rachel herself isn’t so terrible it’s the situation that’s become untenable for her carers. Rachel, a recent graduate from the horizontal crawl has taken the worst possible time to blossom. Having conserved her energy for months and having fooled us into believing that this sedate phase would last forever, she is now spending her energy in the most shameless way. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, you see her here, there and everywhere else you don’t want her to be.

Rachel has this facility for pressing the right buttons just like her dad the computer programmer. She checks out what’s on TV, fiddles with the oven knobs, then turns the computer on and off. You might call her a terrible two. I see her as an energetic and adventurous two year four month old using sight, touch, movement and a heightened sense of awareness to get a handle on her environment.

When she’s not training as a computer programmer, Rachel points non stop: ‘what’s this, what’s that?’ And it’s not the big issues she’s asking about, like ‘where do babies come from?’ She’ll probably spring that on me in a couple of years when I’m least expecting it. Right now, Rachel is anxious to start up a dialogue with the adults in her life and is going about it the best way she knows how. Even in the two weeks she’s spent with us, her vocabulary expands at the rate of knots and she’s putting longer and longer sentences together. I can’t wait for the next morning just to see what she’ll come up with. Rachel is very fond of the word spatula and has unaccountably taken to the implement. It has a place of honour next to ‘woof, woof’ and ‘blankie’. She picks up items and examines them up close. She wants to take them apart to see what they’re made of. Rachel makes sure that I’m watching, then puts a counter in her mouth and grins, daring me to challenge her. I explain that she can choke and I hold my throat and make realistic sounds. She seems impressed and lets me take the now sticky item out of her mouth.

One thing that she will never get the chance to do is to rip the spine off my gold-edged, Moroccan leather bound collection of Shakespeare’s work because her father got there before her. Like the character in Hazel Edward’s book, ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on my roof eating cake,’ I had placed my ‘best book’ in my son’s way. Edwards’ story is about a little girl and her invisible friend. It’s well worth the many reprints that it has had over the last 25 years, but when I re-read it recently a couple of lines positively leapt out at me. It was ‘I drew in daddy’s best book. Daddy gave me a smack.’ She follows it up by saying that no one smacks the hippopotamus because, ‘he’s too big.’. The offending line has since been politically corrected to ‘daddy growled’ but growling or smacking aside, two things are obvious to me: if you’re big nobody smacks you and nowhere in this story is there any mention of malicious intent. If the dad in that story had left his treasure lying around within easy reach, surely the fault and the consequences were his to deal with.

What we need is a sort of 21st Century version of the 19th Century book ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything.’ If today’s experts weren’t busy contradicting each other on vital issues like breastfeeding versus bottle feeding they could get together and work something out. It took Samuel Johnson nine years to put the first English dictionary together; before 1755 everybody suited themselves when it came to spelling. It might have been a hard ask, but how glad are we now that he persevered?

And if the experts can get together, maybe the federal government can do the same. At the moment it’s each state to decide for itself. Parents today can ‘reasonably chastise’ their children in most states. (A soft sounding word with harsh connotations meaning ‘to punish, usually severely’.) In NSW the Crimes Act has been amended to say that ‘lawful correction’ is considered unreasonable if it’s too severe or if it’s going to last ‘more than a short period.’ Tasmania politicians have been considering reform for the last three years, which is why nothing has yet been done about it.

At any given time of day, Rachel knows what to expect from me and she is slowly learning what I want from her. The short answer is respect. My philosophy is, if I deserve it then so does she. I like to teach by example and Rachel is at the age that mimics. So far she has learned that her limited life experience won’t get her into trouble with me. I will not suddenly swoop down and shout at her or smack her (another soft word for a harsh action). If Rachel wants to go through my cupboards or tries to rummage through my drawers I give her a drawer of her own that she can put her little treasures into and take out of twenty times a day. I cover my lounge suite with a throw rug so that I don’t have to worry about sticky fingers. And her tantrums don’t faze me. I don’t care about being judged by outsiders. My focus is on Rachel. I give her a minute and a half because neither of us can take any more, then pick her up and give her a cuddle. She’s ready, now, to hear why she can’t have what she wants and we move on. The great thing about TTs is that they don’t carry a grudge.

If I haven’t much mentioned Rachel’s sister, it’s because like Big Foot, Dezzy is the mythical good child we all talk about in hushed whispers but never meet. We know someone who knows someone who has sighted a Dezzy child somewhere. Dezzy slept through most nights and gave her parents a break, she grew a full set of teeth but no-one noticed their arrival, and Dezzy tiptoed through the terrible twos with hardly an incident. This paragon is also a tolerant and loving older sister who lets herself be bossed around by her little sister. It’s obvious to those who know her that Dezzy’s blood is worth bottling but I’ve got the patent on that, so the rest of you will have to make your own arrangements.

I think the trick is that if you and your child are going to survive the TTs intact then you need the occasional break from each other’s company. A bit of a holiday. Parenting is like studying for the VCE only parenting is non stop. Even VCE students know that to function properly they need the occasional break. They need it and so do you. Bring a bit of sanity back into your life. Find a nice crèche to take over once a week then tuck yourself and a good book into bed for the day. Go for a walk. Drive to the beach and watch the waves ebb and flow, it’s hypnotic and very therapeutic. Swap roles with your partner once in a while and let him answer some questions. Give yourselves a break; you need to conserve your energy for puberty.

Not yet independent!

2008-01-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

In August last year, I had a broken arm in a cast and thought I could just keep going as normal with a bit of minor inconvenience to get in my way. That’s me, I’m a funny mixture of cynicism and optimism. The truth is, that I’m still doing bending and stretching arm exercises. I can pick up a cup of coffee now and light my own stove, but there’s still a fair way to go before I get back to normal. Post op, my doctor said I could lose 20 percent of my arm extension, but that optimism I have is pushing me through. Or maybe it's determination not to give in till I have to. I’m not sure if anybody is bothering to read my posts, but if you are, patience is the trick. It takes months to heal. And hard work.

Independence Day

2007-08-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Mhh! I’m typing this single handed, I broke my left elbow. It’s not a big deal to some, but I’m a touch typist who needs 8 fingers to type and the thumbs for the space bar, shift and caps. It’s murder.

And backslabs are hell! That’s what the medical types call a half cast. It weighs a ton. A half cast is meant to keep me immobilised till I can be recast with the real thing. I'm immobilised all right. I need a crane to lift up my arm before the rest of me can follow.

I can't have coffee and speak on the phone at the same time, butter bread or chop up veggies for cooking, or eating, for that matter.

As the pain eases up, I intend to focus on positives and take on new challenges. This morning I made my own coffee and cooked porridge. I wedged the matches where they could be stable and lit the stove. Independence here I come.

This week, I got the boy to light the oven and I roasted chicken and veggies. I cleaned the stove and washed the dishes -all except the baking pan; it needs two hands and a bit of (excuse me) elbow grease. I finally got the hang of the sling.

Tar Very Much

2007-07-31T02:01:00.000-07:00

I can't remember what I called this article when I first wrote it in 2001, but 'Tar Very Much' is what The Big Issue called it when they published it in September of that year, so I'll stick to that till I remember what the original title was.

I'm hunting up all my old pieces and posting them as I have the time to do so. I'm giving the published a new lease on life and the unpublished a chance to shift out of the filing cabinet and on to the e-waves.

I’ve been hacking and hawking the foulest stuff, all shades and textures, from my lungs. They’re heaving a sigh of relief before getting down to the business of healing. But I’m not thinking about it too much, just focussing on the quitting part, working my way through cartons of gum and kilos of barley sugar. The jaws are getting tired but it’s important to keep them moving. It stops me from thinking about lighting up – just one more smoke, just one more time, for old times’ sake. Eight weeks on and I’m the original can’t-say-no girl, rejecting her favourite activity.

The upside is that I’ve saved myself at least 7000 inhalations so far – more if you consider that as a nervous smoker I’d take four puffs to other people’s one. And two days after I quit the cigs, I could run for the bus without wanting to collapse in agony at the driver’s feet.

My husband thinks it’s a definite downer that my husky pack-a-day hacker voice has gone but he’ll have to do without. What counts is that I can now sing ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’ to my granddaughter without scaring her too much.

I’d like to turn it into a virtue, say that I quit because of the graphic television ads, but the remote control can whisk you away from unpalatable truths in an instant. And it wasn’t the thought of saving heaps of money, either; addicts are only interested in the next fix. No, it’s about my waking one morning and finding both nicotine and oxygen jockeying for first place in my affections and the nicotine was winning hands down.

It’s a shame, because I’ve had a cig chopsticked in my fingers or dangling from my lower lip since I was 16 and there’s nothing like a smoke. From first puff to last gasp we’ve been pals, the cigs and I, sharing countless sunrises and sunsets. There’s nothing like the garden first thing in the morning; just the birds, the caffeine, a nicotine fix and me – spread out on a chaise lounge. I’ve tried a carrot stick as an after dinner stimulant but believe me, carotene and conversation loses something in the translation.

The party’s over, I said to my packet of Alpine ultras before tenderly tossing them into the council bin. But it hasn’t been an amicable separation. The cigs haven’t been good sports, and withdrawal isn’t a convenient bank transaction.

Once the pall of smoke had cleared, a generation’s worth of squatters were screaming for custody of the body the nicotine mafia tramped through my bloodstream in high heals, cha cha’d o my chest and reminded me who was boss. I’d just take deep breaths and say things like, ‘you’re fired, you’re history you bastards, give me my life back!’ I won the skirmish and they went off to regroup. Eight weeks later, their best effort is the occasional poke in the ribs, but I’ve learned to call out ‘nyah, nyah!’ and give the mafia the finger.

There’s a little more waddle in my gait now, but there’s going to be nothing more ominous than a piece of carrot cake and a scoop of low fat ice cream to deal with after this. And If I’m thinking of lapsing, JM Barry, Peter Pan’s literary dad and a fellow quitter is my role model. More than a hundred years ago, he said, ‘No blind beggar was more abjectly led by his dog, or more loath to cut the string.’ (My Lady Nicotine, 1890). Which only proves that there were the same sorts of idiots then as there are now.
We used to smoke behind the girls’ shelter shed. We were the smokers’ club, practising for the distant day we’d come out from behind the shed right onto street corners. We were bad, we were cool, now we’re just plain cold and old and wondering what price the piper is going to ask of us, wondering if we’ve left it too late.

The glory days of smokPing – on planes, trains and in hospital foyers – are dead. Long live the Surgeon General’s report and the ubiquitous anti-smoking lobby. They’ve turned a glamorous lifestyle into a filthy habit in less than three decades. There was an idea, then, whose time had come. And like all good ideas, once born into the world there’s no going back. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before we can all give Sir Walter Raleigh the finger and finally have some closure.

Pubished in The Big Issue, September - October 2001

Orthopaedic Shoes and Lamingtons

2007-07-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

I seem to have made a career of writing about my granddaughters. I'm trying to expand my literary horizons but here's a fourth post that should have been first. It's over seven years old and I wrote it about my very first grandchild, Dezeree. She made me what I am.

Six months ago, I had an inexplicable urge to dye my hair in pastel shades of pink, buy orthopaedic shoes and bake lamingtons. I don’t care for lamingtons, so I was relieved to discover that it was all about the birds and the bees; my son explained it to me when he phoned to tell me the news. I have notched up another credit to my long list of credentials: daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and now grandmother. I am a long distance Melbourne grandmother to a Sydney granddaughter: Dezeree, Jacqueline. This news was a preferable alternative to visions of jackets that tie n the back and nursing homes for the cerebrally distressed.

I rushed into the street and accosted two elderly ladies on their way to Bingo. The amused and bemused pair shook hands and gravely congratulated me. I tried to tell it to the golden Labrador crossing the road and narrowly missed being concussed by a Volvo. The grand aunts, the cousins, the grand uncle, the great grandma were thrilled, chuffed and overjoyed, but great grandfather was confused because he thought he was already great.

We had a heated debate about my title. I hadn’t realised there were so many ways to say mother of child of my child that were both exotic and familiar: Nanny, Nan, Granny, Gran, Nona, Grossmutte, and Savtah are just a few of the choices that I had. As mother to the mother of the child, the other granny has first dibs on a name; this is the protocol I’ve been told. She has chosen Anyu, a Hungarian title, which left the field open to me. But there were still weighty decisions to make. I could be dignified in pearls and twin-set or a homey milk and cookies gran. But pearls don’t do much for a five foot two inch dumpling and milk and cookies don’t travel well, so I’ve settled for nanna. It has style and doesn’t make me feel too old. Because a two and a half kilo morsel has brought my mortality home to me in a way that arthritic kneecaps and failing eyesight has failed to. I’ve learned to adjust to my slowly disintegrating body, by ignoring it. The secret to feeling twenty-one when you are fifty-something is to ignore Newton’s law of gravity, and the mirror. Now I find myself checking out sagging chins and crows’ feet. It’s all downhill and across the New South Wales border from here on in.

Geographic restrictions have also put me at a disadvantage. My geriatric friends knit and chuckle over Jamie’s reaction to the zoo, Celia’s introduction to the hairdresser and the joy of Brendan’s first trip to the potty. I talk about Dezzy’s sunset smile, her winning ways and her nappy rash, as told to me by my son. Then in an unguarded moment I whip out my portfolio of Dezzy photographs, courtesy of the Internet. Timing is the key to being a successful long-distance grandma.

The brag book and the wallet are passé. Dezzy’s face, her biography – such as it is – and her cackles can be found on (web) site. Her doting and besotted father has created one especially for his porky princess. Photos are printed and placed in a manila folder for each family member and every stranger’s delectation.

With apologies to Malcolm Fraser and Kermit the frog, it’s not easy being a long distance grandma. Dezeree’s there in Sydney and I’m here in Melbourne calculating how much luggage I will need in order to take that trip and how often I can get away. With luck I can time visits for her first tooth, her first word and her graduation, by which time the luggage will include a walking frame and an embarrassment of pharmaceuticals.

I need to cram in the maximum in auditory and tactile experiences, to replay when I get home. The first visit is for her naming: she lies quiescent, bedecked and beribboned in her mother’s arms. At home, Dezzy dozes, eats then sleeps some more.
The second trip is on fast-forward and Dezzy is much more interesting. She already smiles and chuckles. She rolls over on her stomach and I’m the first to see it. I feed her milk and mush, which she generously shares with my blouse, my pants and my forearm. It’s all coming back to me. And Dezzy speaks. She says, mmh, mmh and mwa mway – a highly articulate child.
She’s a tender little tidbit. Several older types (at least nine or ten months old) have put their names down for that first date just on the strength of her brown eyes and pouty mouth. But they’ll have her daddy to contend with. Her daddy plans to gently guide Dezzy through her puberty and teens. The tennis lessons, the swimming lessons, the art galleries and classical music have been pre-planned. The kinder, the school., the university have already been vetted. Dezzy’s pre and post-pubescent years have been efficiently programmed.

But I have the Melbourne bridegroom lined up.

Close the Larder Door

2007-06-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

My friend Trixie says that if you want to lose weight close the larder door and go for a walk. That’s a simple solution that has the ring of a complex truth about it; like that time an advertising campaign tried to convince us unreformed smokers that we were stronger than cigarettes. I couldn’t see it; whenever I tried to give up the cigs, the addictive drugs contaminating my bloodstream did a Cha Cha through my system in spiked heels. I did overcome the chemically induced pain in the end, but rage had a lot to do with it and zero tolerance. If only I could do the same with food, I’d be home and hosed. I say that with feeling because I’m the sort of person who lives to eat. Some people I know can get so absorbed in dinner party conversation that they can forget for minutes at a time that they’re holding a fork laden down with bits of lamb and roast potato. Not me. I’m not capable of keeping up an impersonal relationship with lamb and roast potatoes. Especially if there’s gravy involved.

When I quit the cigs there was a compulsive personality lurking in the wings, waiting to take their place. What that meant was that while my mouth was still constantly on the move, it was now munching, crunching and masticating. I would only have to think food to want it. To see a packet of chips was to finish it, down to the very last crisp. Then, if there were any crumbs left in the pack I’d chase after every one with the tip of my middle finger, before declaring myself all done. Like the good nineteen fifties child I used to be, I cleaned my plate; I still do, but I’m a lot more careful now about what I put on it. Nothing fried, if you’re interested; I steam or gently poach my meat and veggies now and I add herbs for punch, or a bit of white wine. I’ve discovered that my next best alternative to giving food up altogether is to be more creative about how I prepare it.

My heart goes out to young mums. Children can get in their way when it comes to sticking to a routine. There are the working mums bringing home the bacon, or working mums ordering in pizza, or mums who will come home from chauffeuring their kids to the thousand and one activities essential to personal growth. Once their kids are done they pick at the congealing mess of leftovers and wonder what they can have for dinner.

My granddaughters come to stay every term break. They eat fruit and they like salad but that’s where our taste buds part company. Dezzy and Rachel eat creamy mashed potatoes and don’t mind fish when it’s battered; they will tolerate chicken when it’s fried and both love getting stuck into what Rachel calls ‘bazanya’. If it’s food that will harden the arteries, my darlings are all for it. I did well that last visit because I gave myself permission to lapse without the guilt that goes with it. I accepted that it was human to be ‘bad’ and moved on. I eat my meals first, now, and I draw the line when it comes to leftovers. Tucking into unidentifiable goo doesn’t do much for your waist or your self-respect; I let my granddaughters clean their own plates.

The trouble is that we have too much on offer to tempt us these days. There are the supermarkets and delicatessens; there’s al fresco dining and boutique bakeries on every corner. Trixie is eighty plus; her influences and experiences are vastly different to ours. ‘We would close the larder door if we could, Trix,’ I’d say, ‘but there are much yummier things in it than when you were a girl;’ and our lifestyle is more complex. But she refuses to understand about us foodies.

Trixie and her contemporaries grew up within cooee of the Depression years and experienced World War II rations; we worship at the altar of nouvelle cuisine. They ate their meat and three veg without too much fanfare and discussed how 4 lamb chops could fit into five people; we have dedicated a whole TV channel to food and speak of nothing else. My heart does a bit of a tap dance when I see those chefs shovel quantities of salt and pour generous amounts of oil, cream or butter onto every dish as if there were no tomorrow and for those of us who are inspired to do the same there probably isn’t.

Our food is refined; and I don’t mean well bred. Science has found a way to suck all the nourishment out of a product, replace it with chemicals and food colouring, then pump some vitamins and minerals right back. There’s diet lite to confuse us, extra light, salt reduced, no added salt, virgin, extra virgin; it’s enough to make your head spin. The supermarket has brought the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker under the one roof. Convenience is the name of the game and trekking down the ever lengthening aisles is as close as we busy types will ever get to the daily workout.

Things are so stacked against us; what hope have we modern girls got? But some of us persist. If we can afford the fees we lug our exhausted bodies across to the gym fondly believing that we can make a regular feature of it. We might know that three brisk walks in the hand are worth more than a dozen diet books in the bush but can’t help preferring the quick fix of the glossy magazines that tell us in twenty-four point bold type that we can eat what we want and still lose ten kilos.

There’s this symbiotic relationship we have with the diet industry. It feeds off our unrealistic dreams of immediate success and we eagerly eat up its latest miracles on offer. Want to look like Oprah? Follow her diet or hire her chef. Want to have flat abs like the models who demonstrate it? Buy this machine or an upgraded version of the previous machine. We have a gym’s worth of gadgets at home. We believe in them in the same way we were once sure that the right underarm deodorant would do fabulous things for our social life. Every other day there’s a new guru to follow, a food replacement shake that will do the trick or an exercise machine that’s an improvement on the last one that we bought; but how many machines can we fit under the bed?

There’s no one diet fits all, that’s what I discovered for myself. But as Pandora won’t go back into her box I’ve learned to use her to my advantage. I’ve begun by accepting my flaws and limitations and working around them. I’ve dusted off a manual treadmill for the times I can’t go for a walk and have given the rest of the stuff away to needy friends. Like actress Kirsty Ally, I’m ‘a work in progress.’ I make my own cups of soup and TV dinners and freeze them against the day that my granddaughters will once again grace me with their presence. And I’ve cleared out my larder.

I’m a hard core compulsive who needs to overcome my psychological bent and I need to work out my addiction one day at a time. I don’t say that I’m stronger than the lamb roast, just that I’ve found a way to distance myself from the gravy.

Motherhood and the Mafia

2007-06-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

Thirty odd years ago, some old fart collard me in the street and coochie cooed my toddler son and baby boy.

‘Enjoy them while you can, dear,’ she said. ‘They’re all grown up before you know it.’
If I’d had a decent braincell left that wasn’t sleep deprived, I would have responded with a tart, ‘Can’t come too soon for me, lady.’ Children who squealed like steam kettles in the night, did not jibe with my experience of other people’s well-fed, smiling children. No one had told me there’d be days like this, not until the stork had well and truly departed for more fertile fields.

By the time I was knee deep in nappies and ankle biters, it was clear to me that motherhood was like belonging to the Mafia. You can never ever leave it. It may leave you, in fact it usually does after a couple of decades, but you can never ditch that job description. Children give you sleepless nights, the terrible twos, and the importuning thirty-twos. Then they give you more sleepless nights, heartburn and a chance to give up your Saturday nights all over again. Marie Hartwell-Walker, an American psychologist says that ‘leaving home isn’t an event, it’s a process’ of them growing up and us letting go. She doesn’t know the half of it. What about us growing up when they let go?

We’ve done our duty. We’ve loved our children unconditionally, protected them in their innocence and taught them our values by example. If we’ve done a good job we have produced a marked improvement on the earlier model. If we’ve done a good job we’ve prepared them for life after us. But where do we go next?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I see that now. That woman was right. Before you can say Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS) you have a spare room or two to fill. I had a fantasy in those long ago days.

Like Audrey Hepburn in ‘My Fair Lady, all I wanted was ‘a room somewhere’. I wanted a child-free den of my very own; a rocking chair and an antique writing desk. I wanted a room lined with books where I could sit, read and like Audrey eat chocolates all day long. The thing about fantasies is that once you can have them they lose their potency. My whole house was a den, what I wanted post-ENS was a life of my very own.

But ENS found me unprepared. I’d been given the glad hand and a box of chocolates for work well done. I was free as a bird with nothing to do with my time. Free as a bird in its empty nest. We just love to borrow from avian analogies, but no self-respecting bird lets its children hang around for decades the way that we dumb humans do. The chicks get tossed out at what mum perceives the most appropriate moment has arrived then she gets on with life.

Go forth old woman and start afresh. That was my idea. Do a bit of no pain, no gain, braincell aerobics and take on a writing course. It was great. I enjoyed the stimulation of learning something that wasn’t child related and even contributed opinions to class discussions that didn’t begin with, ‘you’ll never guess what the children did yesterday,’ I only wish I’d done it earlier.

Childbirth was a lark, a breeze compared to pushing out of the child-rearing envelope after a couple of decades of rusting away in suburbia. I was a mature age student, rahh, rahh. My classmates had the confidence, I had the wrinkles. I had the advantage of life experience they had the benefit of time. Sounds equitable, but they could always get the life experience while time was running out for me.

If I’d had it to do again, I’d have prepared for the ENS two minutes after saying ‘I do.’
If I had it to do again, I’d do it now. Feminist author Gloria Steinem said: 'There is no such thing as integrating women equally into the economy as it exists.... Not until the men are as equal inside the house as women are outside it.’ With those words ringing in their ears women have trained up their sons so that you could reap the benefit. Take advantage. There are a growing number of men who are brilliant at ‘mothering’. You see them everywhere on the weekends, confidently feeding their toddlers babychinos, riding their helmeted brood through suburban streets and guiding their children’s reading material at the local library. Use your partner.

At around nine hundred dollars a diploma, TAFE courses are still affordable. Do the whole shebang in one go. Some of the tertiary institutions have child care centres tailored to cater to the mature age student. You and your children can simultaneously encounter the social and educational experience. Do a Uni subject to see how you like it. You’ve got two decades. By the time you’re free, you’ll have several degrees under your belt and a new career.

The Australian Institute of Family studies says that today’s grandmas are a great resource. We’ve had fewer children than the generation before us and have more time to spend with our grandchildren. For a CAE short course your best bet is your mother in law. (Same beast, different hat). She doesn’t ask for much, just a crumb or two from your table. Mothers in law were mothers once, before they fell into bad ways. You could do much to redeem the species and do yourself some good at the same time. Take up archeology explained in ten easy lessons or musical appreciation for the tone deaf. If the poor fool genuinely believes that fruit does not roll up and juice does not come out of a bottle, why disillusion her? If she wants to waste time pottering round the kitchen, let her. You might even find dinner cooked when you get home and the furniture polished. How much damage can she do in an hour or two a week, even if she is behind the child rearing times?

Take up bungee jumping, learn conversational French or the gentle art of flower arranging. Be a good role model for your children. They will thank you for it some day. Whatever you want to be when your children grow up, do whatever it takes so that middle age doesn’t find you wandering the streets with nothing better to do than to accost parents strolling innocently along the street with their children.

Published in a children's magazine 2006