Down with the kids

Thanks a lot Jungle Girl!

I once saw an interview with Cate Blanchett in which she talked about herself and husband Andrew Upton sitting in front of a Wiggles dvd , discussing the production merits in detail while realising that they should get out more! It was an - “Aw see, they are just like us!”, moment! I suspect she was just being folksy - with invitations to all the glamorous events in town and the cost of babysitting unlikely to be an issue in the monthly budget I doubt she sits at home as much as the rest of us!

But I digress, the point is that kids tv is ubiquitous but we all have our personal thresholds. In our house we love Playschool (hooray!), despise High 5 (banned!), tolerate and are driven crazy by the Wiggles (regret not banning, but now too late!). But all bets are off now I have seen an episode of Jungle Girl.

For those who don’t know this is Bindi Irwin’s contribution to kids tv. I doubt there is anyone who doesn’t know that her dad, Steve Irwin, is dead but after watching the show, I wasn’t so sure. Bindi continually refers to - my dad, and we then see him wresting crocs and every other wild animal imaginable throughout each episode. At no time is he referred to in the past tense and his action is seamlessly part of the plot. It is the creepiest thing I’ve seen for a while and very confusing to our 7 year old friend who said somewhat perplexed - ” I thought he died?” Very convenient for a parent who is trying to explain the permanence of death. The only thing I can conclude is that Terri Irwin is seriously in denial about the death of her husband - but do we all have to become part of the charade?

My irritation with the show increased as I watched the (sadly) dead dad do lots of dangerous things. Things that Little Bro was watching with a wide mouth and a glint in his eye! For example, picking up a venomous snake (we do get them around our area in Summer) and running from a wild dog that was trying to attack him. I turned off the tv and explained to Little Bro that we never approach snakes and if we are scared of a dog we stay very still and never run. But I suspect the damage was done…thanks Bindi!

The other problem is that the show focuses on endangered species, to the point of obsession. Every animal is endangered, the words killed or dying are in Bindi’s every sentence (ironically excepting those that start with - my dad). Big Sis was quite concerned and started asking why all the animals were dying and why people were killing them. I think its a really bad idea to flood kids with this stuff, they get overwhelmed and end up not caring. Can’t we focus on kids enjoying nature, rather than continually and pessimistically focusing on problems? An appropriate balance would be to just raise the issue of endangerment once an episode for the young viewers and make some practical suggestions about what they can do so they can feel powerful and optimistic.

I discussed all this with Big Sis, and she seemed to agree. When we finished she sat silent for a moment and then said - “But mummy, I love her hair!” So thanks again Jungle Girl, probably your biggest crime of all - it will be crimped piggy tails all the way to Kinder next term!

Posted in Serious stuff, Daily post | 4 Comments »

Don’t read this if you love Bratz dolls

Every time one of my kids has a birthday I visit one of the major toy retailers and go through the same process. I wander the endless aisles becoming more and more confused and dazed. My feelings move from bewilderment, to frustration and finally to rage!

So much plastic, such high price tags! I end up leaving, purchasing nothing and find myself at our local educational toy shop - browsing beautifully crafted toys, designed to encourage a child’s imagination, and built to last.

I just returned from shopping for Big Sis’ birthday and it was no different! The word that kept springing to mind as I worked myself into a fury was “cynical”. Yes, the toys were cynical - like some kind of parody of childhood, put together with the cheapest materials and without care, in the cheapest labor markets available. I got as far as the Bratz shelf before I’d had enough.

I should state here, for the record, that I am not a Barbie hater. I preferred the Malibu Stacey designed by Lisa Simpson, but I don’t think it matters that much. Kids are far to smart to take their role model from one plastic doll. However, those Bratz dolls, those heinous little tarts, they are another story!

Gazing at the shelf I almost expected to see a tiny little cocaine mirror and purse, what’s next, a tiny pink Ferrari with a little police officers to arrest the party girl for DUI? An attorney dressed for court to bribe her out of prison? These dolls resemble the kinds of kids I don’t want Big Sis hanging out with in High School, so why give her the plastic versions to play with as a preschooler?

Bratz is not just designed to ignite the consumerist juices of the average 4 year old (though clever accessories and major marketing budget assure this), they themselves physically represent the little consumers the marketers hope our kids will grow into. Kids get to role play empty, meaningless, sad lives with lots of bling, lip gloss and clothes. So its double jeopardy, get your kids addicted to collecting all this plastic for ugly little dolls. The ugly little dolls themselves parodying the real behaviour of lots of ugly adults in our post modernist, consumerist world!

So what did I buy in the educational toy shop? An old fashioned flower press. Big Sis loves picking flowers and with Spring and the new baby just around the corner I have these mental fantasies of sitting on a large picnic rug, baby at my breast, Little Bro pottering nearby as Big Sis and I press flowers and discuss all that is natural and magical.

The truth is, educational toyshops fire my imagination! Then again, it could be the pregnancy hormones! But what’s wrong with that - Big Sis doesn’t know who Bratz is yet - and I’m not going to be the one to introduce them!

Posted in Serious stuff, Daily post | 11 Comments »

Optimism - the only way

Years ago when I was studying for exams 2 evangelists were unlucky enough to come to my door. I’m not sure what flavour they were, either Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists, but bored beyond words I welcomed them in for a cup of tea!

Their opening question was “Do you think the world is getting better or worse?”. They expected a universal response of “worse”, which would provide them a nice segue into the hot topics of Armageddon and salvation.

To their surprise I responded “better”. “What about all the wars?”, they countered. I reminded them that war and extreme brutality had always existed, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the ravages of the Roman armies.

“How about starvation and disease in Africa?”. Starvation and disease has always been around, what was the diet and life expectancy of the feudal peasant, how about the bubonic plague in Europe?

Don’t get me wrong, there is still massive injustice, particularly when you compare the first world to the third world, but when else in history have you had such awareness and concern about the issues?

Philanthropists of the scale of Bill Gates, a charitable industry that is growing by the year, artists like Bono and Bob Geldof devoting their power and influence to enormous humanitarian objectives? Sure there’s a long way to go, and it’s a bumpy road, but if I look back over human history am I crazy to think we are moving in the right direction?

There are some huge environmental threats facing the world at the moment, but I believe the tipping point has come, and when in history have there been so many so motivated to find solutions?

Rather than wallowing in a pessimistic view of the future, how about imagining a cleaner world where fossil fuels are all but replaced by renewable energy sources, where people have moved to a post consumerist consciousness and the excesses of last and early this century are matters of historic curiosity! Imagine - people once equated money with happiness! Is it possible that this new world order could, like the pop stars suggest, end starvation and disease in the third world?

Now, if we imagine all of this as possible then, harnessing this optimism we can work towards it. What is the logical outcome of pessimism in human endeavor? It is of course learned helplessness, self fulfilling prophecy and doom! If we feel that our actions can make a difference, that we are part of the solution and we need to be diligent and brave, then we can work hard towards the future.

Having a child is the most optimistic thing you can do. Holding Big Sis in my arms for the first time I suddenly realised how much the future mattered! My perspective on everything shifted forever. Bearing this in mind I refuse to be a peddler of pessimism to my children, to teach them to greet the future with fear and despair!

So here’s my plan. Turn off the tv, with all its bad news! Teach our kids to think about things carefully and for themselves, to stay true to their values and believing they can make a difference, act courageously and with conviction.

The internet is a great tool for optimism and change. People can share knowledge and problem solving has a synergy like never before experienced by human kind! The pessimists love to talk about Web 2.0 as a corruption of youth and a tool for evil but it can also inspire, and call to action groups of people for the greater and global good!

Here are a few sites I’ve come across all contributing their own bit to the solution. Before Web 2.0 how would I have found these people or been inspired by them?

Stephanie at Green SAHM shares the journey of greening a household as a mum.

Expatriate’s Kitchen is a site celebrating good food, eating local and family life.

Activist Mommy says it herself; Activist Mommy: saving the world right after nap time.

Motherwear Blog supports breastfeeding woman and comments on issues as they arise.

What if I am wrong? What if everything is getting unstoppably and bitterly worse, what if those evangelist at my door all those years ago were right?

I stand by my argument. Even then, looking at the worst case scenario, what is the point of pessimism? Fighting on with optimism and courage has to be the best way, regardless of the outcome?

Posted in Serious stuff | 12 Comments »

Mother’s milk - a dad’s perspective!

There are lots of great websites out there supporting breastfeeding, something I whole heartedly approve of! However, it wasn’t until I began reading a few that I realised how breastfeeding isn’t as accepted as it is in Australia in many parts of the world. It seems that it is not unusual for a mother to be harassed in public places for doing nothing more than feeding a hungry baby! I was particularly touched by this story!

When I read and get interested in an issue, DSO suffers! So, he was very obliging when I mentioned a breastfeeding carnival about dads and breastfeeding - he has penned the entry below. You can see why I love him. Enjoy!

DSO’s download:
Leisa keeps me up to date with the breast feeding “incidents” from around the world: mothers turned out of restaurants, hospitals, shopping centres, etc. most of such Incidents are reported from the USA in which some educated, middle class folk see public breastfeeding akin to urinating on a restaurant table. Perhaps they’re so notable because on many levels, the USA is one of the world’s most liberal nations; on another, a nation so conservative it borders on the dark ages (why did the USA adopt a decimal currency but reject the metric system?).

However, Australia has its share of Incidents though thankfully the ones I’ve heard of are at the pointy end of social taboos: such as an elected representative feeding her baby in the parliament while it is sitting. I have little doubt that some countries are more broadly progressive and others broadly regressive. At least Australia has, with few exceptions, moved on from a general disapproval of feeding your baby in a public space.

The mere label of Incident highlights the irony that, to my mind, there should be no issue to discuss – there is nothing offensive, disgusting, improper or vulgar about feeding a baby from the breast. And, if I can give a self-serving perspective (but not uniquely male) – it’s so convenient! There’s enough gear for a new parent to lug around without adding: bottles, formula, sterilisers, etc. If you can, and you want to, don’t let any social taboo stand in your way.

I suspect I’m preaching to the converted in this piece so I’ll spare us all a Socratic dialogue on the issue. My purpose of posting is, not to ask the question, but to maintain the mantra: why is this an issue? There is no issue. Breastfeeding is not an Incident. It’s not an ablution. It’s not public nudity. It’s not about anyone but mother and baby. However, if only to take steps towards changing the perception, we must normalise a mother’s election to nurse her baby so that it’s not an Incident. It’s a nutrient, an experience, a gift, a relationship, an expression of love and it’s just sooo convenient!

Posted in DSO's download, Serious stuff, Daily post | 12 Comments »

Help - the economy is eating our babies!

Watching the Federal Budget unfold I developed a visual image of the economy as a big poker machine, Peter Costello and John Howard sitting on high stools feeding it babies instead of coins!

I am so dreadfully tired of the rhetoric about “Australian families”. I feel like yelling in frustration - “Yeah, like you care? Well, how about a bit of policy? Isn’t that your job?”

What did Costello offer parents of young kids? A re-jig of the way existing rebates for child care expenses are paid. Although undoubtedly a better way to pay as far as parents are concerned, it doesn’t actually change the amount they receive, just the timing - so people feel richer before the next election!

Am I alone in finding this kind of cynicism insulting? The media commentators seem to think it’s “par for the course”, “it is an election year” - I believe the headline in The Age was, “Clever Carrots!” Yes, media pundits I am angry at you too, it’s not a game! Strategy isn’t the purpose of government, we as a nation deserve better than this! Covering politics like its a game of football doesn’t do us any favors.

What’s the government’s purpose behind it all? To get “married woman” back into the workforce! Have they thought about asking men and woman what they want? Many woman I know are desperate for ways to opt out of the workforce or at least scale back the work of one person in the partnership so, as a family, they can care for their young kids.

Let’s be honest, some people love their work but many don’t, or not so much that they prefer to leave the care of their babies and really young kids to strangers. There are many people who would prefer to look after their babies themselves, rather than go to work answering phones or pushing pieces of paper around the offices of a corporation!

Shouldn’t our “10 years of unprecedented prosperity” provide us with this freedom? Shouldn’t it buy us time to invest in our relationships with our partners, children and friends? Clearly it doesn’t, rather than liberate us it demands more and more of our lives, pushing up housing prices and ensuring that people need 2 incomes to “survive”.

What’s Costello’s grand vision? The new ideal family arrive home (to a place that should more properly be called a dormitory), feeling exhausted and disconnected they eat some takeaway. They spend the rest of the night in front of the plasma tv that 10 years of unprecedented economic prosperity has provided them!

The faster we run, the faster the treadmill turns! Our government’s response is to socially engineer things so that people run faster and faster!

Let’s look at who is caring for our kids - surprise surprise, increasingly its big corporations through corporatised childcare centers. The government payments (up 10% in the budget) go directly into their coffers as they squeeze out every dollar through low staff wages and sticking to the letter of their minimum legal requirements! Meanwhile their marketing departments come up with glossy brochures to make us all think its a fab idea!

Why can’t we have a bigger focus on community based childcare? Why can’t there be tax breaks or subsidies for parents at home - this would allow many to opt out of the childcare system and people that really want to work and need the places can then access them? Why can’t there be some financial assistance provided for members of extended families that care for kids while their parents go to work?

Let’s make this whole thing revenue neutral - that way people will have real choice!

Every parent knows there is nothing more special than childhood, and how exactly are we going to explain the current state of affairs to our kids when they grow up? Sorry kid - we had no choice - we had to feed you to the economy! You enjoyed the plasma tv didn’t you?

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Big Brother and the Emperor’s New Clothes!

Big Brother has started again in Australia this week and I thought I would dedicate a post to setting out why I believe this show is a bad influence on our children and potentially damaging the fabric of our communities! I should state at this point that I have no qualifications in the area of psychology or sociology (or in fact any relevant discipline), but I don’t think I need qualifications to commentate on this stuff, it’s obvious. It’s a clear cut case of the the Emperors new Clothes!

In Australia Big Brother screens at 7pm. This assures it an audience of teenagers and tweenies. Even more disturbingly a number of early Primary School children and younger watch the show! I have heard preschool children recite who is left in the house, and who is up for eviction!

Bullying is a big issue. No one wants their kid to be bullied or be accused of being a bully themselves. Schools and other organisations spend lots of time, money and professional hours trying to eradicate or at least control this kind behavior. Almost all reality TV, and most definitely Big Brother use group aggression as part of the “entertainment”, most obviously this is through the eviction of individuals who are, for whatever reason, less popular.

So here we are telling our kids one thing, bullying is wrong and we have an obligation to stand up for kids weaker than ourselves, and then we sit them down in front of hours of footage of real people indulging in bullying behavior against each other, and not just anyone but the kind of people kids find compelling as role models, the young and attractive, and what’s more - cool!

This interaction isn’t censured by the grown ups, its glorified, it makes these kids on TV popular, and famous! The worst part is that the worth of these kids - whether they win, is based on how popular they are. Is this what we want our kids to emulate, popularity at all cost? What about doing the right thing, learning skills, making a real difference to the world? It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where Bart asks Homer how important it is to be popular and Homer replies along the lines of - “You’ve got to be kidding, it’s the only thing that matters!”

Big Brother turns all of us into voyeurs, observing the private moments of a group of people, watching their humiliations and savoring their failures. It then becomes “normal” to observe peoples real life, even when it includes bullying and humiliation. It’s acceptable to watch this stuff for entertainment, removed from any feelings of empathy or any obligation to involve yourself and assist someone in trouble.

Last year in Werribee (a suburb of Melbourne) a group of teenage boys were arrested after a dvd came to light which showed them allegedly sexually assaulting, taunting and humiliating a girl with a mild intellectual disability. The boys are awaiting trial. This dvd had done the rounds, apparently viewed by thousands of people on youtube, sold for $5 in a number of schools and even viewed by some of the perpetrators parents! The criminal, cruel and degenerate acts of the teenagers is one thing, but how about all the people that saw the footage and did nothing about it?

I’d like to bring my kids up so that if a dvd like that was being circulated they would have the sense and moral integrity to say, hang on a minute, this is vile, and illegal and someone needs to stand up for that victim. I’d hope they’d tell me, or a teacher - or someone! I know what I’d do - I’d go straight to the cops!

So the parents and adults that saw this stuff on youtube or through dvds their kids had in hand - what were they thinking? Does it not matter if its not your little girl being assaulted and degraded? Are we so inured to watching peoples “reality” in gory detail on TV that this is just an extension?

The people selected for the house are young, generally physically attractive and ready to expose all and become engaged in sexual liaisons as part of the “game”. The message this is giving to kids at really impressionable ages of their sexual development frightens me. It’s suggesting that sex is a game with winners and losers, something to be played and manipulated. Worse still its a voyeuristic spectator sport for others. I have heard kids under 10 speculating on who someone would “get with” now someone else had been evicted from the house!

Last season when there was an incredible badly (could I suggest deliberately?) mishandled issue involving an alleged sexual assault. The press for this coincided with the Diane Brimble’s Coronial Inquest. For those readers not from Australia, or not familiar with the story, Diane Brimble was a woman who, while on a cruise ship, died of an overdose of a date rape drug. While she lay dyeing on the floor of the cabin of a group of men she was sexually assaulted, ridiculed and photographed.

The portrait of the men present at the time of her death was grim. One in particular was described as being heavily involved in the party scene, where he didn’t so much date women as find vulnerable woman and “chalk them up”. I wondered where this kind of mentality could come from? I need only look to the coverage of Big Brother in the very same newspapers. Here we have a 7pm show, aimed at our impressionable kids that promote sex in exactly the same way - a spectator sport, something to be manipulated for your own gain!

What do we want our kids to grow up believing about their bodies, other peoples bodies and sex? Personally I want my kids to understand that sex is about mutual attraction and mutual pleasure, and hopefully even love! Even casual sex should be about having a great time with someone you fancy. It’s not about “beating people”, it’s not about status, and its most certainly not about taking advantage, humiliating or degrading people weaker than yourself! I believe Big Brother promotes a very ugly face of sexuality and does so to a very impressionable audience.

How does all this differ from Soap Operas and all sorts of drama that kids watch in similar time-slots? I believe there is something fundamentally different between watching real people, allegedly “being themselves”, and watching a scripted and acted drama. For a start fiction will have consequences that are played out - the cool bully always comes a cropper!

I also find it laughable that the same guidelines that would apply to a fictionalised show are applied to reality TV. They edit out the language and put a stripe across the bums and its OK for the community to be subjected to the rest of it? A scripted scene between actors as part of a drama has some purpose and even the littlest kids know is pretend.  It has quite a different impact.

So what would the little boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes do if he had been raised on Big Brother? I doubt he’d speak up, why would he - he might get voted off next week, and after all, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson “that’s the only thing that matters”!

Posted in Serious stuff | 2 Comments »

Musicality

Try as we might, none of us come to parenthood without baggage and nowhere is it more obvious than the activities we choose for our kids. Music is one of those things for me. I have always been incredibly envious of anyone who can sing - I have kept all contributions to lip syncing since one particular moment in late Primary School when it became clear that I couldn’t, while others could, so to speak. My parents spent years sending me to piano lessons and I never quite mastered it, the theory was ok, it was just like maths - but my ear was terrible and I was never able to play a single piece from memory!

The lessons were torture, I never practiced and for some reason I never shared this with my family - who merrily sent me off for years on end! The only person more miserable in the scenario was, I suspect, my music teacher who was a middle aged man of Eastern European background of not insignificant talent. He used to sigh audibly as I arrived and treat me with thinly veiled contempt - occasionally shrieking at me “Can’t you hear it?” - which of course I couldn’t because I was, I believe, tone deaf!

So, how do I respond to these traumatic memories now I’m a parent? I am of course desperate for them to try, enjoy and succeed at music! Big Sis is showing signs of having a bit of a flair for it. She sings very tunefully and has recognised lots of tunes and songs from an early age. People who know about singing have noticed her ability to join in with harmonies and she is obsessed with her grandma’s piano. Her and her grandma sing and play songs together for hours!

The first question I had was how much of this stuff is learned and how much are you born with? Is there a music gene that dictates whether someone has a talent for music? The answer appears to be ‘probably’, although no one has isolated it yet. Some scientist speculate that such a gene will be isolated in our lifetime. I found this really interesting research project being run at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne which is investigating a genetic link to amusia (what I glibly refer to as tone deafness). Check out the site and do the test - it gives you a sense of where you sit in the general population as far as hearing music! I wont discuss my scores here!

There are also a number of articles around that point to the development of music in prehistoric societies as an indicator for a biological basis. So, if there is a gene Big Sis may have it, she has her grandmother’s eyes so why not her singing prowess and musical talent?

My own speculation suggests that the gene isn’t enough, you probably also need an environment to trigger it, this folds into the incredibly interesting area of epigenetics, which suggests that genes need an environmental exposure to trigger them. So, if the gene is something like a particular mental illness then as a parent you want your kid to avoid environmental triggers, if the gene is an aptitude for music then we want to expose our kids to them!

The experts suggest that a child should always be exposed to a music rich environment. So you should try and play lots of different kinds of music around the house and in the car. Any activities that let kids play around with different sounds or instruments and encourages singing or dancing to music should be fostered.

But, the real question that every parent wonders about is when to start formal music lessons? In order for kids to learn to read music they should probably be at the stage where they are learning to read words, this also corresponds with a time that many kids learn to work or concentrate alone on quiet work as well as a developing cognitive ability to interpret symbols. So the earliest is probably 5 or 6 years.

Having said that there are some other systems that teach music without teaching kids to read it, they learn to play ‘by ear’. The most famous of these is the Suzuki Method, kids can start these classes as early as 3 years. Old school musical establishment say that teaching kids to play without teaching them to read music is not ideal as it limits their ability to participate in aspects of the music world later on. Although there are many examples of popular musicians who have never learned to read music!

The big caveat to all of this is the personality and interest level of your child. Kids have to be self motivated to learn by any method, so you need to wait until they have the gross and fine motor skills required for the instrument, are interested in learning and are prepared to sit alone and explore/practice. Most articles point out the risk of starting the kid too early and turning them off music for life!

Another interesting fact is that, until the age of about 10 or 11 years, the only instruments open to kids are piano and violin. This is because you can buy scaled down versions of the violin; all other instruments are only available in the adult size.

So what are we going to do? I’m concentrating hard on providing a musical environment for my kids. I make sure we listen to lots of different kinds of music and encourage Big Sis to play the piano and sing with grandma. I’ve enrolled Big Sis in a creative dance class called Lieto which a professional singer down the road told me has the most beautiful music and allows the kids to explore it creatively. She sends her kids along.

When Big Sis gets closer to 6 years we will get some kind of keyboard or piano and give her a try at formal lessons. I probably wont try the Suzuki route, once again part of my baggage! I was a victim of the 1970’s education system that didn’t teach us grammar. They thought (incorrectly as it turned out!) that the rules of grammar didn’t matter as long as we learnt to read and write! Anyway, because of this I’m a big believer in teaching kids the basic tools and will err on the side of giving them a chance with sheet music.

Having said that, if the kids didn’t respond formal music lessons, I’d probably try guitar lessons a bit later and see if we could get them hooked with a bit more of a group sing along casual thing as they approach the teenage years.

The question you have to ask yourself as a parent is: why am I doing this? I think I can honestly say that I want them to have a chance to enjoy music at whatever level and in whatever way they are capable. It is a friend that they can have forever, life enriching and nourishing for the soul, or at least that’s what those musical members of the community tell me!

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