Sarah Haynes, nobody’s school is perfect. But we already know that

Recently Sarah Haynes, the school captain of Ravenswood made news by telling it like she saw it at her farewell assembly. My first thought was that Ravenswood sounded like a house out of Harry Potter but my second and subsequent thoughts were much more considered.

Sarah is young, she is in a privileged position of leadership and I believe she should take that position seriously. It doesn’t matter whether the school is private, public or part of Hogwarts.

When you are an adult and you work for an organisation you tow the organisation’s line. Sometimes you don’t agree with it but there are other things that make you happy so you shut up and accept it. Sometimes it’s too much so you pack your bags and go. At the farewell party you smile graciously and then, if you want to burn all your bridges, you send a tirade by group email when you leave. Hint: It’s never a good idea to burn all your bridges. There are better way to handle things than the element of surprise bomb when your nearest and dearest are gathered together.

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Lego shoes and 7 other products you do NOT need

I have a confession. I bought my dog from a pet shop. It was 10 years ago and I didn’t know better, I also didn’t know anything about owning a puppy as can be evidenced by the fact that the bank phoned me the day after the purchase to ask why there was such a big amount on my credit card for a pet shop.

Which leads me to a second confession – I also bought everything the pet store told me I needed. Like the ridiculous nappy pads for toilet training, custom made bowls, the most expensive dog food in the world.

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The one parenting “duty” you’ll never regret

Never stop cuddlingSnuggle together as long as possible

These six words recently won the “Sweetest” section in the the New York Times, Motherlode competition calling for The Best Parenting Advice in 6 Words.

It’s awesome parenting advice but I don’t think it’s given enough. Though you will read countless parenting books and listen to exhaustive expert talks, you will ask questions from the nurse when you hand over your blue book and you will discuss the topic of child rearing with every unknown on the internet, it’s easy to miss the the bits that telll you to just snuggle.

And as your children get older, though you will read fewer and fewer parenting books as you realise that you are really good at what you are doing, you will notice that in those books and those internet pieces you do come across, they often neglect to mention snuggling at all.

They forget to remind you to snuggle, and more importantly they forget the importance of snugggling for as long as possible. They miss the very most important bit, so I’m going to give you some advice of my own

  • Snuggle your children when they fall asleep – whatever anyone tells you to the contrary they will still learn to sleep by themselves. There is nothing like having someone who loves you there with you when you drift into sleep.
  • Snuggle them when they make mistakes so that they learn that it’s human to err. And nothing lasts forever.
  • Snuggle them when they come home from school, especially if they’ve had a bad or good day.
  • Snuggle them when you watch TV together.
  • Snuggle your kids when they fall and hurt themselves, show them that love and care will get them through even the painful bits.
  • Snuggle them while you are waiting in a queue, it beats boredom.
  • Snuggle when they are sad and they need a body to crawl into. Show them that sometimes human love and tenderness can heal non-physical wounds.
  • Snuggle them after they win or lose at sport.
  • Snuggle them for no good reason at all.
  • Keep on snuggling them when they grow up.
  • Snuggle them when they come home from a party and need to eat all the bread in the house.
  • Snuggle them when they have a bad day.
  • Try (carefully) snuggle them when they are hormonal and angry for no reason at all. Show them that you are trying to understand.

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It’s often only when the snuggle is less forthcoming that you realise how important it’s been. When you seem to need it more than they do.

One day you will look back and you will see they learned to sleep and eat, and all their teeth came through and they learned to read and write and all those worries and that time we invested in worrying about swaddling and dummies and after school sport and the right lunch box choices means very little compared to the fact that they learned to love and to show love in return.

You’ll never regret a snuggle. But you’ll regret the times you didn’t have one.

What makes people decide to have kids. Or not?

“If you have any friends over 40 who’re thinking of having children tell them not to do it” he said to me. His conviction was strong even though he was clearly over 40 and in the pram next to him was an adorable, cherub-faced baby boy who looked a little bit like heaven.

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting when I bumped into an old friend at the supermarket and asked him how the new baby was going. I could see bub was gorgeous and happy and I had no reason to think dad wouldn’t be smitten in love. But no, he said he didn’t feel that way at all. I am sure that on some level he was very much in love with his son and it was the lack of sleep that was talking, but maybe that’s just what I wanted to believe. Dad was adamant that this baby had been a mistake and it was one he regretted. He felt he was too old for the change to his routine, the crying, the nappy changes, the naps, the baby. [Read more…]

I can’t be trusted without an adult

I have tried to convince myself (and my son) that when my husband travels for work, it IS actually for work. I mean deep down in my heart I know that it’s not fun and it’s awful to be away from home, stressed, jet lagged and in meetings that go on for hours only to get back to an empty hotel room or worse (in my opinion) dinner with people who you wouldn’t ordinarliy eat dinner with. I know from my own fleeting work related trips that there is no fun element to rushing from airport to office and there’s hardly ever time to do anything else.

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We’d never want to believe a mother could be responsible for this

A couple of days ago I posted an update about a mum who has been accused of deliberately harming her daughter . The story appeared on the 7:30 report and has since been published in various media outlets both in Australia and globally.

It’s the kind of story that will always make people feel strongly. A child is allegedly being harmed and a mother has being charged with the offence. It sits comfortably with no one.

When I posted about the case I never named the mum nor tried or convicted her, but I did wonder about the wisdom of chronicling your child’s life for the rest of the world to read. I guess I need to accept that people do that although I will never understand why.

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Our time for parenting is not yet over

Someone once said something about raising children that I’ve found to be abundantly true. “You will always worry” she said. “When they sleep you’ll worry they are sleeping and when they wake up you’ll worry they aren’t sleeping.” I probably heralded this piece of advice because I am a natural born worrier.

I had lots to worry about, but because you aren’t my therapist let’s concentrate on just one thing at a time.

When my son was really young I worried he was shy. He was the behind-the-legs-hider kind of child, he was reticent to make himself seen or heard. I worried he’d be trodden on and his sensitive shy nature would mean making friends could be hard. I was scared. What happened if he got bullied?

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Is watching this little girl a bit of fun or is it an invasion of her privacy?

My maternal instinct is switched to overload which makes me a sucker for other people’s babies and toddlers (I‘m smart enough to know that it is easier to ooh and ahh over someone else’s kids who you just see in short spurts). In fact, I’ve  found recently, it’s even easier to get sentimental and mushy over kids in TV ads and YouTube videos, plus there is the added benefit of volume control and the off button.

And, as you will know, there is no shortage of jaw-achingly cute toddlers being made into viral YouTube wonders if a person wanted to deal with their maternal instinct online. Just yesterday this clip popped into my Facebook feed.

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Ever posted something on Facebook that you regret?

Just last week it was reported that Facebook had one billion active users in a day. One billion people logged onto a social media platform to catch up with family and friends, play Candy Crush or connect in some other way. It’s become so much a way of life that I’m guessing a high percentage of those people never even thought about the fact that they were on Facebook – they were merely online doing what they do.

Facebook has become the megaphone that allows us to share our thoughts. It’s no longer just the place you go to when you want to stalk your first boyfriend (maybe that was just my reason for joining). We’ve become so comfortable with talking online and with the way Facebook projects what we’re saying that sometime we forget to censor what we are thinking.

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This is not what happened when I went to school

electiveYesterday I went off to a school meeting with all the enthusiasm I could muster for doing anything which means leaving my bed,  that is – none at all. The meeting was to find out more about elective subject choices for Year 9 students and frankly I thought I would struggle to find a more boring basis for calling the parents together.

Turns out I was thinking about my subject choices when I was back at school in the olden days – a decade fondly referred to as the 80’s.

So as my my son dragged me off to listen to a man in a suit talk about elective geography I had my phone at the ready to check Twitter when he started to rattle off about mountain ranges and rock formations. I thought that when he got to cloud formations I might excuse myself for an urgent bathroom run. I was prepared*. Except I wasn’t.

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