Children

The Facebook ban on photographs of women breastfeeding their own children raises some important issues about freedom of choice and the role of social media in setting behavioural standards.

There is no valid reason for any social media network to ban legitimate pictures posted by women of themselves breastfeeding their own children.

Such pictures can help normalise breastfeeding and educate others about how breastfeeding is done in real life.

Continue reading "Facebook’s being a boob over breastfeeding pics" »

Anonymous says: Before I became a parent I thought this question was an absolute no brainer. A little smack here and there can’t hurt a child, I used to think. Especially if it’s going to help them learn to control certain behaviour and doing dangerous stuff, like crossing a road without looking.

Things are different now. My daughter is 18 months old and I couldn’t smack her for the life of me. The idea fills me with horror. Friends say that will change as she gets older, but I’m not convinced. There are other ways to teach your kids a lesson. This article in today’s Daily Telegraph advocates making smacking your kids illegal. But what do you think?

In Texas and in many other parts of the US, the government has hit upon a neat new approach to dealing with troublesome students in schools. Instead of old-fashioned methods like detention or sitting in the corner of the classroom, the State has employed a legion of armed police to patrol the state’s school corridors.

That means hundreds of students are finding themselves charged in the school grounds with offences such as ‘disrupting class’ and are being forced to appear in court. For many, the charges lead to prison terms, in what has been described as a ‘schools-to-prison’ pipeline.

These are not rare or extreme cases. This is not a nightmare vision conjured up in the pages of a George Orwell novel. In fact right now, hundreds of students are being charged daily with offences ranging from swearing in school, being late to school, playing up on the school bus, smoking cigarettes or wearing inappropriate clothing. In 2010 close to 300 000 tickets were issued to schoolchildren as young as six in schools - resulting in fines, community service and prison terms.

Continue reading "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Year Six." »

How would you feel if you found out that your mere existence is such a burden on your parents they want $10 million compensation?

It’s not clear whether 11-year-old Keeden, who has severe brain damage after a rare genetic condition caused a massive stroke, will ever understand what his parents are doing.

Debbie and Lawrence Waller are suing their IVF specialist for “wrongful birth”, claiming he breached his duty of care by failing to take proper care that Lawrence’s genetic blood clotting condition would not be passed on. They say they love Keeden, but wouldn’t have gone ahead with the birth if they’d known because of his suffering.

Continue reading "These parents think their son shouldn’t have been born" »

Max, a young and handsome American pit bull, sits on death row in Miami-Dade County’s Animal Services, a victim of possibly the world’s toughest breed-specific dog laws.

The paperwork on his cage labels him “aggressive”, but it’s more out of caution. He’s never bitten anyone.

Max has got 24 hours for a reprieve. His owner is a soldier on duty in Afghanistan who left the dog with his family. They became panicked that they would be fined for harbouring an outlawed breed and handed him to the Animal Services pound.

Continue reading "Dog ownership laws a load of total bullpit" »

Once upon a time, home births were the only option, and mothers and babies frequently died.

Things have changed dramatically since then. Home births are much safer, and much, much rarer. The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics show in 2009 just 0.3 per cent of women had a planned home birth – a total of 863 births. Two babies died.

But home births are still the source of simmering tension; the powerful Australian Medical Association is dead set against them, a very vocal lobby group is angry at recent changes that make them harder, and parents are left to choose between conflicting views and seemingly conflicting evidence.

Continue reading "Home births are prone to many complications" »

Imagine you are the harried working parent of a bustling four-year-old child - unless of course you’re actually in the zone right now, experiencing all those many wonders first hand.

Next year’s the big one. School, and potentially a 13-year stretch of study, social integration, with hopefully some fun and a few of life’s lessons in the mix.

As you’re dropping them off at the local pre-school before zooming off to work, it is time to wonder how much do they really need to learn right now.

Continue reading "Don’t worry, they’re taking good care of your children" »

When a boat goes down, should women and children be able to jump to the front of the lifeboat queue?

The death toll from the Costa Concordia tragedy has reached five, and more stories are emerging about the chaos inside the luxury cruise liner as it started to go down.

Melbourne mother Michelle Barraclough told the Herald Sun that she had to fight hysterical adults to hold on to her 12-year-old daughter, and that the men were the worst.

Continue reading "Women and children first, or every man for himself?" »

I’ve lost count of the number of media reports involving new studies about motherhood and child rearing. What’s right. What’s wrong.

Not to mention the endless proclamations from celebrities and high-profile know-it-alls passing judgement at the rest of the parenting world.

But instead of helping the parenting public, all these conflicting reports simply contribute to the compounding guilt, increasingly felt by parents, boht new and old.

Continue reading "Mummywars - how mothers are our own worst enemies" »

A storm of controversy has been brewing in the US. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say the storm has been dipped in oil and deep fried.  Twice.

At the centre of the controversy is a series of ads aimed at tackling the growing obesity crisis in American children.

In one of the ads (above) a young girl stares forlornly into the camera and says: “I don’t like going to school because all the other kids pick on me. It hurts my feelings.”

Another opens with the statistic that 75 per cent of parents of overweight children ignore the problem growing before their very eyes. It’s followed by a scene in which an obese boy sits facing his equally obese mother and asks, “Mum, why am I fat?”. The silence that follows his question is deafening.

Continue reading "Don’t sugarcoat it: If your child is obese, it’s your fault" »

She checks what the time is in their far-flung time zone and then looks into the distance. It is so long since they have been back in this city, back at home. What exotic locale are they exploring today? Who are they spending time with? Are they safe? 

These could well be the musings of a parent surveying a nest emptied of backpacking children. But they are in fact the reflections of a child, a middle-aged child left in the wake of the fastest growing class of traveller – The Silver Mobility.  The Silver Mobility are superannuated, silver-haired (underneath) and they’ve got very itchy feet.  It’s not only pneumonia that hits seniors hardest - wanderlust is just as bad. 

The Silver Mobility sweated it out for over 40 years. They sent more of us than ever to private schools, supported more of us than ever through tertiary education, funded unprecedented material comfort, and then they waited for us to move out. And then they waited some more for the ones that moved out, and then moved back, to move out again. But finally, we’re gone. Which means it’s time to dust off the suitcase, fill a few prescriptions for Brufen and Lipitor and get the hell out of there.

Continue reading "Grey Nomads choosing Bordeaux over Play-doh" »

If you’re a parent, you may think the seasonal requirement to buy your children stocking-loads of plastic crap has finally come to an end.

“Phew,” you may be saying (or perhaps flatulating if you consumed one too many prune-stuffed ham fists over Chrimbo).

“At last it will be possible to enter a shopping centre without being pressured to purchase a googolplex of anatomically unsound dolls, micro vehicles and cyber pets.”

Continue reading "Christmas is over but the brats need more bratz" »

So, at last, and hopefully once and for all, women in the workplace no longer have to regard being a mother as some kind of dirty little secret.

Thanks to the frankness of Tanya Plibersek and Julie Collins, the idea that working mothers need to somehow disguise or apologise for their maternal status has been blown to smithereens. I, for one, am rapt.

News of this welcome development came in simple form last week; a single-sentence intro on a plain old news story, but one that felt a whole lot like a turning point.

Continue reading "Don’t keep Mum about being a working parent" »

At the entrance to Sacred Heart Parish Primary School, on the corner of Lane and Sulphide Streets, Broken Hill, stands a life-size statue of Jesus Christ, his arms outstretched in front of him, palms turned upwards in welcome to all His children. Beneath his feet are inscribed the words: “Faith, Truth, Love”.

There is no question that faith and love are here, but the truth is a little harder to come by. The school headmaster, Trevor Rynne, is locked in his office and won’t come out, directing all calls to a Catholic media liaison officer who dwells in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta, over 1,000 kilometers away. She’s not answering calls, either.

Last night, the story broke that the school had denied an education to a local girl on the grounds that her parents were lesbians. Though the parents, a private couple, aren’t talking to the media either, word around town today is that the matter has been resolved, the school offering the child a place in 2012 on the advice of Bishop Kevin Manning, who lords over the Broken Hill Parish and was “absolutely appalled” when the girl’s case was brought to his attention by the media yesterday.

Continue reading "The Hill ain’t broken, but the Catholics are cracked" »

Santa sucks.

It recently occurred to me that everyone eventually arrives at that same conclusion one way or the other.

I certainly did on Saturday, at precisely 12:36pm. Earlier that morning my wife and I packed up our two boys (one nearly 4 and the other 11 months) and headed off to our local shopping centre.

Continue reading "Can we get rid of this fat home intruder already?" »

Ever since mobile phones first popped up on shopping centre shelves equipped with tiny 2 megapixel cameras, we’ve been subjected to endless hysteria about how, gosh darnit, that new fangled Generation Y just can’t go a minute without MMSing pictures of their genitalia to each other.

Today Tonight and talkback radio have frightened the bejesus out of us with horror stories of teenagers’ naked pictures being spread around entire schools. Parents have chewed through fingernail after fingernail fretting: Just what sinister sexual secrets lie behind the PIN on my teenager’s phone? What’s happening to our daughters? Could somebody PLEASE think of the children?!

Newsflash, wowsers. Sexting is no big deal. It never really was.

Continue reading "Listen up you wowsers, sexting is no big deal" »

To be or not to be truthful about Santa? This, for many concerned, Christmas-ing parents, is the question.

I’m always amazed at the number of fully grown humans who insist that the Santa lie preserves the “magic” and “innocence” of Christmas for children.

Ah, yes: a strangely attired man who obscures his identity with facial hair (and has a lap fetish and a naughtiness obsession) is about to break into your home via your chimney. How magic is that.

Continue reading "Plastered parents: Santa’s not the only festive fib" »

Here’s something to ponder – how many Smarties would you have to eat to become morbidly obese? 1000? Maybe half a million? Or is the consumption of Smarties merely a deadly entrée to a grotesque world of other fattening treats, where we start nibbling away at a small handful of the tiny chocolate sweets and pretty soon are subsisting on a diet of Chiko rolls, McHappy Meals and deep-fried Mars bars?

In the grand scheme of culinary evil I always thought the innocuous Smartie was the least of our concerns. Apparently not, according to the no-fun folks at the Obesity Policy Coalition, who have launched an action against the Smartie-peddlers at Nestle – cue angry boos from the crowd – over an apparently sinister online colouring-in competition which gives kiddies aged three to 10 a chance to win one of 500 Smiggles stationery packs.

The Obesity Policy Coalition complained to the Advertising Standards Board arguing that the Nestle Smarties website breaches the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative, introduced in March of this year, to protect the tiny tots from wicked corporate ploys to stuff them full of junk food.

Continue reading "Mmm & mmm. The nanny state can’t have my Smarties" »

Birth is unpredictable - unless of course you have booked in for a caesarean and know exactly the when, where, why and how. Nowadays this is an acceptable form of giving birth, however at the other end of the spectrum there are women birthing at home with no medical intervention.

And then there is the majority that falls in between. Every day, all over the country women are birthing in hospitals with healthy babies. Some without any intervention while others have a full gamut of procedures. Some are elated by their experience and some are shattered.

When pregnant, hospitals encourage us to write a birth plan. It is a document that details what procedures you will and won’t accept and whom you want there. A lot of time and energy is spent creating them. It is our formal statement about how we want our bodies and babies to be treated by the hospital.

Continue reading "Birth trauma in hospital is driving women to homebirth" »

Last week on The Punch, conservative education writer Kevin Donnelly laid into a report proposing a new model of universal funding for public and private schools. Here, the report’s author, Jennifer Buckingham from the Centre for Independent Studies, sets the record straight.

School choice means different things to different people. In essence, it refers to the principle that parents should have the right and the means to choose their child’s school, and that this choice should be not be restricted to government schools.

To adhere to this principle, a school funding system must have several key features.

First, it must be child-centred. The amount of public funding provided for the education of each student must be based on their individual needs and circumstances. Second, the type of school attended, whether government or non-government, should not affect the level of funding. Third, students should be able to enrol at any school of their choice. And funding entitlements should follow students.

Continue reading "Whether public or private, our schools deserve a fair go" »

Given today’s national day of action being called by non-government school critics like the Australian Education Union, a recent publication on school funding by Sydney’s Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) merits close attention.

Especially as it’s not often that a free enterprise and free economy think tank like the CIS supports a cultural-left view of public policy.

Normally, one expects that while the left opposes market forces and favours increased government control, the other will advocate minimal government and freedom of choice. Not to so when it comes to debates about school funding.

Continue reading "Stop treating private schools like rich snooty cousins" »

It never looks quite right. On any sunny afternoon in Manhattan’s wealthy Upper West, there are swarms of black nannies pushing young white children in strollers.

At a glance, it’s a deep south plantation fantasy, minus the tobacco fields, bullwhips and chains. But we’re in the north of America. And the north beat the south because of slavery.

Is it a status symbol to possess a black nanny? Is there a modern mammy conspiracy?

Continue reading "Nannying in New York is a black and white issue" »

You have to hand it to the big multinationals. They know how to get us to eat more fatty food and drink more sugar, even when they claim to be committed to our health and well-being and no one has done it better recently than Coca Cola.

Their latest campaign, which encourages people to seek out a can of regular, full strength, eight teaspoons of sugar per 375ml of soft drink that has their name written on the label, is nothing short of brilliant.

And then, once you have your own can, you can also seek out cans that feature your best mate’s name, or your kids can find one with their name… the list goes on.

Continue reading "Fizzy evil sugar bombs from diabetes hell" »

Cradle snatcher. Toy boy. Cougar. Child bride. Teen bride. Paedophile.

How old is too old, how young too young? We may have a visceral revulsion when we witness a large age gap in a relationship, but when does it go from odd to deeply wrong, sick – when should it be illegal? And what can we do about it?

The Daily Telegraph reports that more than 200 17-year-old girls and hundreds of 18, 19 and 20-year-olds have been granted prospective spouse visas to marry older – in some cases much older – men here in Australia.

Continue reading "Culture and religion are no excuse for child brides" »

There are 17 strangers in a training room. Over the course of eight hours, they’re repeatedly divided up by gender to brainstorm. At one point, the trainer makes a joke about turning testicles into a purse. It gets a laugh.

This is a parenting class I attended recently. Eight couples with nothing in common except their pregnancy and an assumption that it’s apparently OK to joke about castration. 

Over at news.com.au, we’ve been looking at male identity in a post-GFC jobs market and a post-post-feminist household.  We have found traditional “male” jobs in decline and what one expert called a “sex-segregated workforce” taking its toll on Aussie men.

We have also found an increasing number of men seeking help through mental health services and therapy sessions. But in a way, that’s the good news – at least men are finally prepared to talk.

Continue reading "Learning to be a dad’s the same as learning to be a man" »

There is no ‘right’ to have a child. This seems a callous thing to say, but wrapping any conversation about children up in cuddly pink fleece-lined jumpsuits doesn’t help what has to be a serious policy debate.

While it must be devastating for couples who, for whatever reason, are unable to conceive, there are limits to society’s obligations to help them. Like most controversial health decisions, this is a tale of clashing rights and finite resources.

Last year the Federal Government made changes to the Medicare Safety Net, effectively capping the amount they would pay out for assisted reproductive treatments.

Continue reading "I’m sorry, but society doesn’t owe you a child" »

Recently my husband and I went whitewater rafting. No lazy river for us, we love those rapids that dump you into icy water or spin you into rocks.

After a particularly perilous stretch, our guide mentioned that a woman had drowned after becoming trapped underwater between a rock and the raft. “Drowned, as in died?” I asked incredulously.

We always sign disclaimers but – rather stupidly, in hindsight – I’d forgotten these occasional adventures could actually kill us.

Continue reading "A life worth living isn’t wrapped in cotton wool" »

You have to admire those fine doctors working at the cutting edge to help people with fertility issues achieve their baby dreams. As well as putting themselves out there by pushing the boundaries of science, many brave even more shark-infested waters: Australian gender politics.

The latest professor to put his head up and get it half bitten off is the veteran Melbourne IVF specialist, Professor Gab Kovacs, a man who must have lost count decades back of how many thousand little Australians he has helped into the world.

Mr Kovacs dared to suggest that rather than banking on new technologies such as egg freezing, women should consider settling for Mr Not-Quite-Right and just get on with it. Without a trace of tone, the worldly Prof Kovacs suggested women should not consider frozen eggs a guarantee of a “family in the fridge’‘.

Continue reading "Mr Not-Quite-Right isn’t always wrong" »

Hello, my name is Emma Jane and I am A Very Bad Mother. Not because I neglect my four-year-old daughter – but apparently because I don’t neglect her enough.

If you have offspring, you’ll know that being called a “helicopter parent” is the insult du decade.

It implies that you hover over your kids like a whopping great Black Hawk, and has been blamed for everything from childhood obesity to weird new European balloon laws.

Continue reading "Neglect, not helicopter parenting, damages kids" »

ABC TV’s new series, The Slap, is getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so. It’s Australian drama that’s true to life, featuring all the stereotypical folk we see in backyard barbeques any weekend across suburban Australia, but featuring real-life dialogue. There’s the wog, the hippy, the slob, the cheater, and the cute young thing. But no backyard barbeque these days would be complete without a kid with autism.

So I’m calling it. Hugo’s family is one of the half a million Australian families who live with Autism or one of its variants – known as being “on the spectrum”. I’m no psych, but that’s not gonna stop me from flinging around my experience and attitude.

My ears pricked up in the opening scenes where the adorable looking kid with the mop of hair was banging around on the cupboards with wooden spoons. Kids on the spectrum often seek input by making their own noises, and ones that the rest of us find obnoxious, repetitive and annoying fit the bill (I know of a family who has to listen The Wiggles “Big Red Car” at Every. Single. Mealtime).

Continue reading "When children are off the spectrum of good behaviour" »

Not enough people are applying for the job of Local Shopping Centre Santa. People are un-applying in plague proportions. Turns out being urinated on for four weeks by other peoples’ greedy brats isn’t such a hot ticket after all.

It may be that the ratio of children to deep-voiced jolly men with robust thighs is off. It could be that those that are around and available are worried about the potentially awkward and litigious practice of having children sit on your lap and ask you for presents.

Or of course for any children reading, it could be that there’s only one Santa, and he’s busy making peanut-free toys for you all at the North Pole. Probably hanging out with Jesus or something, I don’t know.

Continue reading "Ho, ho, ho! It’s a Father Christmas shortage!" »

Should it be a crime to hit your child? Throw that question around at your next barbeque and see how people respond. Chances are you won’t be talking about the price of real estate, religion, sex or politics anymore. But prepare to be shocked, because few questions can divide people as much as this one.

You could also just switch on the television this Thursday night and watch the new ABC series, The Slap, for the same effect. The television adaptation of the 2008 book of the same name by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas follows the lives of a group of family and friends ripped apart after one of their number slaps a child that is not his own during a backyard barbeque in Melbourne. 

The series is expected to cause a stir. Faithful to the book, the TV script promises to mirror the incidents through the contrasting reflections of its characters - an “examination of the mores and morals of the middle class”, a “satanic version of Neighbours” and a “perfect social document of what Australia is today.”

Continue reading "Should hitting children be a crime?" »

This week, my daughter and I made a pompom. You know, one of those mad, multi-coloured things constructed with wool and cardboard that we all used to make before such quaint activities were usurped by the PS, the DS and the iStuff.

I groaned inwardly when she came home with a doughnut-shaped circle nearly the size of her head. As a child of the ’70s, I know the bigger the hole, the more wool winding. This wasn’t a pompom we were making; it was an RSI-inducing fluffy football (thanks, Ms F).

So, for a week, we wound and threaded and knotted and chatted, pausing only to dispatch her father for more wool supplies (don’t send a man to buy textiles unless you want variations on brown). This morning, as she trotted off to school, it was hard to tell who was more puffed up – my daughter or the massive woolly doughnut that, by day’s end, will be a pompom.

Continue reading "Time is the best gift you can give a child" »

On very rare occasions, having an incompetent rabble on the Treasury benches can be a blessing in disguise.

Those of you with long memories will recall that in the early days of the Rudd Government, the then Education Minister Julia Gillard promised that by 2011, Australia would have a national curriculum for Maths, Science, English and History.

Shortly thereafter it became obvious they weren’t going to make it and so the deadline was pushed back to 2012, then to 2013 and now it seems we’ll be lucky to see it before 2014.

Continue reading "History is not a political science" »

Earlier this week the Herald Sun reported that ‘the impact of over-protective parenting will be the focus of the VicHealth study, amid psychologists’ concerns of a “marshmallow generation”’. Well, I’m going in to bat for overprotective parents and their overzealous counterparts.

It’s the latest in a steady stream of studies and media reports finding that our kids are video game-addicted, latte-sipping fatties. Week after week we are presented with evidence of our parenting failures and the resulting demise of humankind. It’s no wonder parents are wrapping their kids in cotton wool in a misguided attempt to protect them.

But this culture of parental navel-gazing is indulgent, and it has to stop.

Continue reading "Overparenting? Some kids should be so lucky" »

According to world-renowned expert in child abuse Dr Freda Briggs, paedophile websites frequently recommend to their filthy readers that they target children with Down syndrome because they are “willing to please” and “easy to manipulate”.

I have a young son with Down syndrome.

He is a national treasure who won the 25 metre freestyle at the State Special Olympics Swimming carnival on Saturday. I know I don’t hold the trademark on parental love, but when I am with him, I’m confident that I could at least try to register it. He is loving, trusting, and has velvet soft skin.

No cigars for guessing my deepest fear.

Continue reading "Failing to protect our children from paedophiles" »

The murder of 10-year-old Zahra Baker was horrific. No surprises there. Homicides are rarely known for their rainbows, fluffy puppies and happy endings.

But there is one aspect of the killing that is especially shocking – not because it reflects a particularly perverse aspect of criminality but because it exemplifies a family problem that is so prevalent it’s rarely seen as a problem.

I’m speaking here of absent fathers.

Continue reading "Absent fathers and murderous mothers" »

Picture a psychologist’s office. Inside, there’s a 16-year-old girl. She’s sobbing. No, her parents haven’t divorced and her BF hasn’t unfriended her. She’s crying about the dress she wants to wear to her school formal. Her parents won’t buy it. Why? Because it costs $3000.

True story. It was relayed to me by one of Australia’s finest psychologists and, no, he didn’t counsel with, “Come on, Princess. Get a grip,” which would have been my response.

Sure, it’s more than 20 years since I went to my school formal in an approximation of Cyndi Lauper’s finest get-up (I may or may not have worn rags in my hair). And, yes, I appreciate that events have become a little more sophisticated than my big night, the highlight of which was sneaking out to drink wine pinched from the kitchen by a roadie from the band – ironically called The Snatch.

Continue reading "Cinderella syndrome is way out of hand" »

We have no TV. We’re not weird. We’re not above TV. We’re just victims of appliance violence. 

The guy who helped install the screen just a few weeks ago was called back. He couldn’t confirm whether the damage was from a projectile or a head butt.

All he could confirm was that I could use the warranty to wipe away my children’s tears. And with that our life post-television (PTV) began. 

Continue reading "Tossing the TV doesn’t turn kiddies into grouches" »

The lack of comprehension for the atrocity committed on September 11 is such that it has taken 10 full years for it even to begin to sink in. In many ways, this is the first anniversary of September 11.

One woman from the Red Cross, handing out water and tissues down at the Ground Zero memorial, was asked what was different about this anniversary to the others.

She said on the first anniversary, she saw so many women wheeling in babies. On this day, a decade on, as the families gathered at the memorial in lower Manhattan, there were no prams or strollers.

Continue reading "Like flickering candles, the 9/11 babies symbolise hope" »

Ten years ago to the day, Australians woke up to discover that the world had started to end overnight. At least, that’s how it felt.

No one had any idea of what was happening that morning, or why it was happening. Especially the kids.

In September 2001 I was 10 years old. That morning I remember rolling out of bed at around 7:30, nothing on my mind but the Milo I was about to have and the game of CrazyBones I was going to play at lunch.

Continue reading "Growing up in the Age of Terror" »

Some poncy academic has compiled a book of essays on the philosophy of Alice in Wonderland. It infuriates me when brainiacs do this.

I get it. They’re bored of fossicking around in their corduroy jackets, trying to restructure the periodic table or extract metaphysical themes from 17th century poetry, so they cast their brilliant minds over popular culture.

And so we get wordy polemics on satire in South Park, the didacticism of Lady Gaga and this beauty: Perspectivism and Tragedy: A Nietzschean Interpretation of Alice’s Adventure.

Continue reading "Alice belongs in Wonderland, not a thesis" »

As the 11-hour Parramatta siege was unfolding on Tuesday, with a 52-year-old man occupying a lawyer’s chambers with his 12-year-old daughter, allegedly claiming to have a bomb in his rucksack, a remarkable discussion was taking place in real time on social media sites among Australian men’s rights advocates.

Knowing nothing about the personal circumstances of the perpetrator, the consensus among these advocates was that the man who started the siege had to be regarded as the victim here. The victim of the Family Court, the victim of a system skewed against men, the victim of a feminist conspiracy.

Knowing nothing about how the siege would resolve itself, and indifferent to the risk of harm to the 12-year-old girl, police and office workers, there was even a sense among these men’s rights advocates that the man was something of a hero. Poor bloke, pushed to the brink, someone has to stand up to the system. Here’s some examples, with the names deleted:

Continue reading "Angry men have never met a thug who wasn’t innocent" »

OK, little guy. There’s no point sugar coating this so I’ll say it straight. You’re born on kind of an awkward day in history, a day which has come to symbolise a whole bunch of bad stuff. I wish it were otherwise, but that’s how it is.

You were due long before September 11, but like the stubborn little thing you are, you took your time. Your poor mother was so big she looked like she’d swallowed a wombat. Then finally, out you popped. A whopping, healthy, 4.9 kilo boy, born on the fifth anniversary of the world’s worst act of terrorism.

Son, there are some scary images I’m finding it tough to shield you from this week. Believe me, it’s the hardest thing in the world to explain why a bunch of guys flew those planes into those office towers and killed all those people.

Continue reading "A letter to my son who turns five this September 11" »

Forget about the 3 Rs. In schools these days it’s all about the 3Cs: Consumerism, Capitalism, and Coles.

Store managers are giving prizes to Sydney schoolkids for singing the “prices are down” jingle wearing company t-shirts, surrounded by advertising banners, at school assemblies.

What next? A scholarship to the McDonald’s University for writing a dissertation on how burgers qualify for the Heart Foundation tick?

Continue reading "Aisle be damned if I’ll cop this not so super marketing" »

In a patently cynical attempt to relive its past glory, the Gillard government this weekend used Fathers’ Day to announce that it will extend parental leave to dads.

Back on Mothers’ Day in 2009, the Rudd government won almost universal plaudits by announcing an 18 week paid parental leave scheme.  In the lead up to the 2010 election the policy was still seen as such a vote winner that Tony Abbott flagged his own extravagant six month scheme, reversing his previous conviction that parental leave would be introduced ‘over his dead body’. 

More than a year later, this latest addition of paternity leave - essentially feel-good middle class welfare in search of an evidence base - shows just how anxious to revive its flagging popularity the government has become. 

Continue reading "Paid leave for dads a useless, cynical waste of money" »

Drugs are bad! Drugs are bad for individuals and they are bad for societies. This seems to be the opinion of most, but it is very hard to get to the bottom of why so many people have this view. In the case of a street drug like heroin it is quite easy to see the high cost to an addict’s life and family, but there are countless other examples where the cost/benefit tradeoff is far more favourable.

Drug use falls into three main categories: 1. Medicine 2. Enhancement, and 3. Recreation. Medicinal use of drugs is not at issue here, as society already seems to be willing to engage in honest and open discussions about the risks, benefits and side effects of drugs for medicinal purposes.

Things get far trickier when it comes to the use of drugs for enhancement and recreation.  Drug companies around the world are spending billions of dollars trying to develop drugs that will reduce our need for sleep, bolster memory power and simply make us feel happier. Do we want to live in a society where such drugs are available for everyday use?

Continue reading "What if you could give your kids some really good drugs?" »

To smack or not to smack? There are few questions more hotly contested in the world of parenting. Nothing has the power to stop a barbecue in its tracks more than the casual admission that you give your kids the occasional clip behind the ear – or conversely, the solemn declaration that you would never lay a hand on your child, which brings with it the explosive suggestion that any parent who does so must be some kind of psychotic thug.

The conversation becomes even more heated when members of the older generation are present, and quickly descends into anecdotes about how they were thrashed repeatedly as kids and turned out OK, and how walking 10 miles to school and 12 miles home wasn’t child abuse but character-building.

In recent weeks we have seen a few events which have thrown light on the issues of child rearing and corporal punishment. I read several pieces which sheeted home the London riots on the fact that a whole generation of youngsters has avoided discipline, with the end result of this life without behavioural consequence being an unprecedented collective act of mass theft and vandalism by people with no political agenda.

Continue reading "Smacking a pointless act for frustrated parents" »

When you’re fourteen years old, chubbier than the rest of your friends and desperately unhappy about it, there’s nothing more precious than good self-esteem.

It gives you confidence, improves how you relate to others and boosts your overall sense of happiness. It makes you a better human.

Diets do not help build healthy self-esteem. Ergo, books about diets do not help engender healthy self-esteem. That’s probably why American author Paul Kramer has copped so much flak for his new but yet to be published book, Maggie Goes on A Diet.

Continue reading "Don’t judge this book by its cover" »

Passing the local park on one of my infrequent morning runs, I overheard a mother issuing an instruction to her child.

“I’d like you to get off the slide now, Ben darling, because we need to get to the supermarket before we go for a play with Tom, and if we leave it too late, Isabel will miss her sleep and she’ll be grumpy all afternoon, which means we won’t be able to play with the new Lego you got for your birthday.”

I say “an instruction” but, really, it was a soliloquy. Of Shakespearean proportions. Because the only person this mum was talking to was herself. Ben, who I’m guessing was about three, heard only this: “I’d like blah, blah, blah, Ben, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Lego, blah, blah, blah.”

Continue reading "No, Jimmy you cannot have that Kit Kat. Full stop" »

Neuroscientists have found that over 80 per cent of calories that newborns ingest fuel their brains. The colossal statistic accounts for how rapidly the young brain grows and develops.

It paints us a new picture of malnutrition. It tells us that babies caught up in the developing famine in East Africa will almost certainly suffer starvation-induced damage that will have long-term developmental effects on their minds.

Babies are arriving in field hospitals in Dadaab, Kenya, too weak to cry. Many weigh a third of what they should.

Continue reading "Won’t someone, please, think of the African children" »

Child psychologists everywhere will hate me for what I am about to say but I hope they take a good long hard look at what’s going on in England and think about how they’re teaching modern parenting.

In light of the riots in England, stories about the evils of smacking are a load of bunkum.

I’m old fashioned when it comes to raising my child. I’ve smacked. I admit it.

Continue reading "A lack of smacks is behind the attacks" »

The mere thought of taking a small child to a supermarket makes me tense. I twist up like a pretzel. One is bad enough, passing through the turnstile with two or more is basically extreme sport.

I watch in awe when I see an adult with a veritable litter in and around their trolley. I try not to stare when the adult agrees to: a fistful of Wiggles toothbrushes; the laxatives that their two year old is convinced are a chocolate bar; and a Disney torch, just to keep the peace, just to keep moving.

Then, and only when the trolley is half full, the one year old has commenced imitating a car alarm and the two year old is opening the laxatives, I overhear the four year old make a most compelling and specific case for locating the bathroom instantly.

Continue reading "Don’t let your little darlings near the Kit Kat aisle" »

My kids ask me all sorts of questions, including the priceless, “If you did a handstand when you were pregnant, would I have come out your mouth?”

But the one that’s surprised me most was from my 11-year-old: “Mum, when did you lose your virginity?”

It’s not that I mind discussing this stuff. Eighteen is a respectable (some might say belated) age for deflowering. Rather, it’s the questions that follow: the inevitable who, what, when?

Continue reading "Hey mum, when did you lose your virginity?" »

A four year old kid’s party is the organisational equivalent of climbing Everest.

There are issues such as the theme, the venue and the cake. For the invitation alone thought must be given to colour, graphic, envelope size and font. And who to send the invitation to?

Organising D-Day could hardly have been more difficult.

Continue reading "Fairybread, lolly bags, tears and hysteria" »

In a wake-up-call for pushy parents around the world, Eden Wood, the world’s most famous beauty pageant contestant, announced her retirement last month. Well, her parents did; she’s six.

With 300 pageant wins under her tiara, she (her parents) reasoned that she’d got as much as she could out of the pageant scene. Time to move on to a recording career, touring and world domination. How do you compete with that?

It’s tough being a pushy parent these days. There was once a time when kids just wanted to drive fire trucks or space shuttles or run Macquarie Bank when they grew up. All parents had to do was send their kids to expensive schools, force them to study while their friends were out playing marbles and hope like hell their offspring had some degree of intellectual ability.

Continue reading "Being a pushy parent’s a tough gig" »

My local pub has seen its fair share of drunk and disorderly disasters. Over the years it has survived groggy onslaughts from stonkered labourers, juiced-up trivia contestants and spiflicated garage banders.

Pretty much the lot, really. But last Wednesday the crusty tranquility of my favourite beer garden was invaded by an undesirable element more riotous than any which had come before.

The barbarians invaded at exactly beer o’clock. Their eyes were wild, their garments were dishevelled and they ate and drank with Conan-strength abandon.

Continue reading "Should fine dining be child-free?" »

For 10 points, to which celebrities do these children belong: Colin, Elizabeth, Chester, Truman, Lily-Rose and Jack?

Any idea? Nope. That’s because their dads, despite being two of Hollywood’s top three highest earners, have never paraded their kids as accessories to their own fame. Congrats Mr Depp and Mr Hanks. In fact, double cheers to Tom who’s just become a grandad. I trust little Olivia Jane is doing well?

Compare them to Willow Smith, Suri Cruise, Lourdes Ciccone Leon and Romeo Beckham who, thanks to some pretty intense parental showcasing, are now being heralded as style icons. You heard right – we’re now supposed to admire the dress sense of a five-year-old.

Continue reading "Precocious pint-sized style icons on parade" »

My sister enrolled her son in primary school this week, and wrote ‘No’ on the enrolment form next to ‘Scripture’, boldly letting her share of the $165 million tax dollars used to fund the National School Chaplaincy Program gurgle godlessly down the plug’ole. Atheists are so wacky.

As nobody had volunteered to run non-religious ethics classes at this particular school, my sister was advised to perhaps just sign her son up for the general scripture classes, because “the little ones get upset when they’re pulled out of class”.

As opposed, of course, to how they feel when they’re being taught about eternal damnation, and the implication that Mummy and Daddy will spend it sipping sulphur in Hell’s hottest nite spot (which isn’t actually Minsky’s, very surprisingly).

Continue reading "School kids should walk the dog, not walk with God" »

Children as young as 10 are at risk of heart disease. Doctors are faced with obese toddlers, and teenagers that weigh up to 200kg. Kids are fat, and getting fatter, and it’s no surprise if they’re guzzling soft drinks and gobbling fast food.

Dr Matt Sabin, from the Royal Children’s Hospital weight management clinic, says: “We’re not talking about a little bit of extra weight, we’re talking about severely obese children”.

The United States and Australia are experiencing a lethal ‘fat crisis’ that is growing steadily worse.

Continue reading "First world problem: Death by fat" »

There are a couple of flippant faux-diagnostic accusations that get thrown about with abandon: “Clearly got Asperger’s” and “That’s child abuse”.

The first gets directed at anyone with a vague difficulty coping in social situations; the second to parents escorting children with issues ranging from mullet hairstyles to a clear case of childhood obesity.

Well, US doctors just upped the ante and suggested that in certain circumstances obese children should be removed from their parents’ calorie-laden care and into a foster family. Dr David Ludwig, from the Children’s Hospital in Boston, and his colleague Lindsey Murtagh from the Harvard School of Public Health, wrote a provocative letter to the American Medical Association journal.

Continue reading "How do you know if you’re abusing your child?" »

There’s only one thing more cool than having a celebrity baby. Choosing a celebrity godparent.

The Beckhams want Kate and Wills for baby Harper Seven. Elton John got Lady Gaga. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman share Rupert Murdoch’s two young daughters.  Michael Stipe and Drew Barrymore have Frances Bean Cobain. And Jake Gygenhall claims Matilda Ledger all to himself. 

Rarely a bastion of insight and wisdom when it comes to relationships, Hollywood’s take on godparents (rich, relatively famous, well-connected and good looking) don’t apply to many of us.  But what we do share is confusion about what the role means in modern day life. Just what is today’s godparent expected to do?

Continue reading "Godparents wanted: Messy, poor or ugly needn’t apply" »

Yesterday I was reminded of one of the most amazing and moving moments I have ever experienced. It was in 2006 and I was listening to the national anthems being sung at the Lone Pine memorial service on Anzac day. Surprisingly, what moved me was not the roar of over 10,000 Australians singing our own national anthem, but hearing the thousands of Kiwi pilgrims belting out theirs.

I wasn’t moved at the thought of God defending our mates over the ditch (as the anthem goes), rather it was the first ever time I had heard New Zealanders sing the first Maori verse of their anthem, and it was sung with such gusto and pride.

I was astonished not only that they had been taught the Maori words, but that they were proud enough to sing it so loudly and passionately.  I was jealous of their historic and cultural pride that day.

Continue reading "Advance Australia Fair & Anangula a tjutala" »

When 14 year old Philip attempted to commit suicide with a drug overdose, it was not a surprise to some teachers and students, but it was still a shock to most.

He’d been rather quiet and serious of late, but was a bit like that anyway. One teacher said later that he had thought, after one particularly sullen period, of suggesting a talk with someone but never found a chance.

Suzie’s distress was more obvious. She had been seen crying with her friends on several occasions, but still seemed to be keeping up with work and participating. No one was aware that at home her mother was seriously ill with cancer.

Continue reading "Most school chaplains are dangerously unqualified" »

Of the many challenging aspects of parenting, one of the greatest is the pressure to restrict or ban your kids from watching or listening to entertainers who push the boundaries of decency. The seamier parts of popular culture are so pervasive that it often seems impossible to shield your children from what the classification people like to call “adult concepts”.

Consider the program Masterchef. It’s terrific family entertainment - fun, civilised, educational. Masterchef has Katy Perry’s “Hot and Cold” as its theme song. After watching it a few times the kids love this catchy tune and ask you to download it from iTunes. Next thing you know you’re playing it in the car and your five-year-old son is singing along with the offensively incomprehensible line “And you PMS like a bitch that I know.” Terrific stuff.

Should you step in and play the censor, you risk drawing their attention to something they either don’t understand, or hadn’t even noticed anyway. And if you go fully down the path of banning them from a certain performer, you also risk turning that person into such a mysteriously illicit figure that your kids are much more interested in them than they were in the first place.

Continue reading "Miley Madness and society’s irreversible moral decline" »

Recently, I went back to school for a maths lesson. It was sold as an opportunity to understand the new methods on the curriculum – and wine was promised. But, really, it was detention for those of us guilty of confusing our kids with vertical algorithms.

If you still think the way to work out 81 x 26 is to stick one above the other, draw a line underneath, then multiply, well, sorry, it’s a big red cross for you. Because in this modern era of mental computation (fancy Gen Z term for guessing), it’s all “the jump method”, “the split method” and something called “counting on”.

Anyway, emboldened with my new maths and a couple of glasses of Shiraz (technically, three, if you’re applying the stumble, I mean, jump method), I came home and tried to solve my own equation.

Continue reading "The 80-20 rule for happy parents" »

Beware of Miley Cyrus. She might look oh-so-sweet with those dewy kewpie doll eyes blinking as she tries to come off as just another all-American girl - but don’t be fooled. She might only be 18 years old, but Miley represents a threat.

In only a couple of years, Cyrus has gone from Disney star and global tween phenomenon to wannabe adult strumpet. It’s been an uncomfortable ride. She has clumsily whipped out every cliché in the starlet playbook: the muscle-bound boyfriend, a handful of tatts, the occasional bout of cage-dancing and the odd photo scandal, while much of the world politely averted its eyes.

She has crudely tried to shape a grown-up persona that involves barely-there pants, all the while mimicking the strutting and thrusting and occasional girl-pashing of the Britneys and Christinas of this world.

Continue reading "Miley Cyrus: Beware the smiley siren" »

The US Navy Seals who conducted the deadly raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound worked under dangerous conditions. Hazardous stealth helicoptering, firefights and the wrangling of a feisty military canine called Cairo were all involved.

One peril, however, loomed above all the others and remains oddly under-discussed. I speak, of course, of the treacherous tangle of children’s mess that covered the Abbottabad compound floors.

Plastic pistols, a doll’s house, a red pedal car… The graininess of the post-assassination footage and the laconic inclinations of the Pentagon means it’s difficult to put together a precise inventory. But, given the bevy of bin Laden children living at the compound, it’s no surprise the domestic booby traps were numerous.

Continue reading "Lego and other weapons of mass destruction" »

My name is Sandy and I am a fiancée, mother, friend, and primary school teacher.

My gorgeous fiancée of two years, Louise, is an ex-nurse who now works as a medical equipment consultant to hospitals. We have two beautiful boys from my previous marriage – aged 11 and 9.

We are a loving and close family, just like any other. Except in one way: my partner and I are both women so under Australian law, cannot marry. Many people do not regard us as a family.

Continue reading "When I go to dinner with the Prime Minister…" »

We all know kids can be a handful sometimes, but what happens when your friend’s child is turning into a little terror? Can you say something? ‘Gladys’ writes:

My friend and I had our children at around the same time. We try and get them to play together but her son tends to break things or rip books - invariably these are gifts that my daughter has received from other people - and I have to repair them or get rid of them. In one instance, he broke a maraca and I found it in the bottom of the toy box later that week. I think she put it in there so I wouldn’t find it while she was there.

I realise he’s just a little baby (boy now), but she never urges him to be gentle or to respect other people’s things. First question: Can I tell a young visitor, under the supervision of his mother, to be gentle and not to break things? Second question: am I being silly thinking she should offer to fix or replace the things he breaks?

Continue reading "Friday’s Dilemma: Can I discipline my friend’s child?" »

The Coalition loves to play up its family credentials with Christian voters.  But both the Coalition and pro-life groups talk big and do little to support women to have kids. This is the unspoken hypocrisy of the pro-life movement.

Under Howard, promoting family values became dogma, as a belief that American-style conservative campaigning - pro-life, anti-gay - would deliver dividends electorally.

Although the rise and fall of Family First suggests that the conservative Christian vote is overstated in Australia, pro-life lobbies have benefitted from an increase in influence on the Coalition (and at times Labor) as a consequence.

Continue reading "Family values and the hypocrisy of the pro-lifers" »

In ten years’ time, when Jason Jr is pointing at a 3D LED Beyblade Generator and screeching like the ungrateful little brat he is, I won’t be able to use the “back in my day” line.

True, growing up, I didn’t have an iPhone 4, a Nintendo 3DS, or a hideously expensive tablet computer – none of which, of course, I needed – but I did have a fine assortment of Lego, a Han Solo figurine and Duck Hunt. My childhood, like that of many my age, was relatively easy.

My parents were always big on the “we made our own toys” thing. They would often tell my brother and I how their toy boxes contained such treasures as: “an empty can and a stick”, “a piece of rope with teeth marks in it” and “five rusty nails”. In between making hula hoops out of tyres and shouting “get your own damn nails” at other kids, my folks were busy playing Cowboys and Indians, selling fresh lemonade and generally having a great ol’ time.

Continue reading "What I’ll tell my future kids" »

As a parent of a gay man and National Spokesperson for Parents with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons (PFLAG), I am encouraged by the most recent Galaxy Poll taken showing that 75 per cent of Australians “believe marriage for same sex couples is inevitable”.

This poll agrees with another Galaxy Poll taken a few months ago that showed 62 per cent are in favour of allowing same-sex marriages, and a NewsPoll that showed 65 per cent don’t have a problem with it.

But still MPs are hesitant to take the step. When I meet with them in Canberra and ask “why?” so often the answer is “fear of the religious minority and possible loss of votes at the next election.” At least they are honest. But is this a good reason to keep discriminatory legislation in place? I don’t think so.

Continue reading "Government out of step with people on gay marriage" »

“Mummy,” my daughter said recently, in much the tone of Violet Beauregarde, the grasping spoilt brat in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “I want a blog.”

I thought she said she wanted a dog – an oft-repeated plea that’s resulted in many weekends babysitting puppies from our local pet shop. But, no, she wanted a blog. “Why?” I asked. “What would you write about?”

She did that withering tongue-click thing that’s become so prevalent among seven-year-olds, it has me wondering if a little Botox in the soft palate might help.

Continue reading "In cyberspace, no one can hear your kid scream" »

Vitriolic claims that private schools are elitist ignore the fact that public schools can be even more exclusive.

The Wheeler Centre, the Melbourne-based cultural body established to promote debate and literary dialogue, held a public debate last week on the topic ‘Public funding of private schools in unconscionable’.  I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers for the negative, along with the ex-Howard Government minister Amanda Vanstone and a Year 12 student from Scotch College, Andrew Elder.

During the debate the issues raised received a fair hearing and the standard of argument was balanced and objective.  There was one exception; the Australian crime novelist Shane Maloney who used the occasion, once again, to gratuitously vilify and stereotype Catholic and independent schools.

Continue reading "Exclusive public schools vs. egalitarian private schools" »

Babies have a nasty habit of getting in the way of your career. Just ask Shelley Craft.

The host of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show admitted in a weekend newspaper interview that she went back to work just two weeks after giving birth.

“There was no maternity leave,” she told the Sunday Telegraph. “Either I came back to work or someone else filled in for me.”

Continue reading "Modern mums are racing back to work too soon" »

One day the Government may need to stage an intervention in Sydney’s plushest suburbs, Byron Bay’s glorious expanse, and the genteel landscape of the Adelaide Hills.

These are the places where some children’s lives are at risk because parents have entirely lost trust in governments, and are turning to some dodgy alternative sources of health information.

Studies by the Federal health department, CSIRO and the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance have shown that while overall Australia’s uptake of vaccination is good – mostly around 90 per cent for children - in certain regions the levels of conscientious objectors have soared, resulting in clusters of deadly diseases.

Continue reading "Deadly parenting choices in the vaccination debate" »

When my daughter told me she felt stressed one Saturday morning, I did a double take. She’s 10. She sleeps with a stuffed bear and has drumsticks and dirty socks strewn across her bedroom floor.

In my eyes, she’s still a child. Yet here she was, “stressed”. I asked her what it felt like (“Like I can’t really enjoy myself”) and why (“Because I have to write a speech and then do all this maths homework”).

I wrapped my arms around her and declared it a homework-free day. Instead, we went to the park. Later, we baked her favourite cake and read The Encyclopaedia of Immaturity together, in which we learnt how to make vegie-proof tongue covers and take photos that look as if your head’s fallen off.

Continue reading "Childhood isn’t preparation for life, it is life" »

In the 2006 census, almost 14 million Australians said that they had some sort of religious affiliation - more than double those who chose not to answer combined with those who answered no religion.

Despite the numbers, there’s a push to kick religious education out of public schools.

And why not? I mean it has been over two centuries since the French Revolution established the principle of the separation of church and state. It can’t possibly make any sense for children educated by state institutions to be influenced in any way by the church.

Continue reading "Religious education is not mindless indoctrination" »

A Canadian couple is deliberately raising a ‘genderless’ baby, so it can be free of society’s expectations. The first question on everyone’s lips is, of course: “What would Amy Chua say?”.

Now the fabulously strict ‘Tiger Mother’ and law professor Amy Chua is a busy woman over the other side of the world. But thankfully she put all her parenting know-how into her tidy little book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

So I decided it would be entirely appropriate to use the book as an Oracle from which one can glean wisdom on the topic at hand by randomly picking quotes.

Continue reading "A Tiger Mother’s take on raising a ‘genderless’ baby" »

The exact time and date of the beginning of the end of civilisation is said to be recorded on the birth certificate of an Israeli baby.

Arriving suspiciously close to last week’s planetary alignment, Like Adler wasn’t fooling anyone.

While reportedly exceptionally cute and a source of profound joy to her parents - Lior and Vardit - many believe she is also a harbinger of society’s downfall.

Continue reading "Like, I totally give this name the thumbs up" »

Before we had children, my husband and I had dual careers. We both jumped on planes at a moment’s notice, saw each other when we could and, in rare, quiet times, pinched ourselves because we had jobs we loved.

Then I became pregnant. My husband bought baby clothes. Lots of them. Being the literary tragic I am, I daydreamed about a daughter with a Shakespearean name: Cordelia, Ophelia, Perdita. As if.

What we didn’t think about, because neither of us are planners, was how we’d share looking after said baby. I was determined to be a mother, first and foremost, but I was also young, freelancing and the first of my friends to have a baby. Wouldn’t it just fit in?

Continue reading "Having babies is a choice and a sacrifice" »

In the pantheon of lame annual days of celebration, Mother’s Day is right alongside Father’s Day, Festivus, Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Love Day (which was made famous by The Simpsons). 

Let’s face it, if it weren’t for the marketing departments of Hallmark, the Chrysanthemum Growers Association, Breville and whoever puts together Human Nature’s Mother’s Day albums, Mother’s Day would never have gotten off the ground.

That is my firm an unwavering view. Or, it was my firm and unwavering view up until I became a mother.

Continue reading "Mother’s Day: Ignore anything she said before giving birth" »

Child health experts told a Sydney conference last week that children as young as six are displaying inappropriate sexual behaviour – and that violent and sexually explicit images in advertising and popular culture were to blame.

Why wasn’t this front page news?

Most disturbingly, over the past decade there has been a 20-fold increase in the number of children being referred to the Australian Childhood Foundation with these serious problems. We’re talking about sexual assaults on other children by children, and sexualised play.  (Ed’s note: See the news story on Sophie Mirabella’s call for tougher advertising restrictions here.

Continue reading "Our kids are getting adult content instead of fairytales" »

As a parent, there is always that one question from your child that you struggle to answer. I never would have predicted the one that finally stumped me when it was asked by my 4-year-old son.

With both of his Italian grandparents in the car, he asked me innocently and loudly - “Dad, how do you make your sex last longer?”.

I fumbled the answer, mumbling: “We will talk about it when you are older”. The conversation moved on quickly. The embarrassment for me lasted a little longer.

Continue reading "Dad, how do you make sex last longer?" »

It just doesn’t sound right – a church that wants to stop incentives to breed.

But that’s exactly what’s happening with the Anglicans. They want to get rid of “any policy that provides an incentive specifically and primarily to increase Australia’s population, notably the baby bonus”.

Even stranger, despite an inbuilt desire to disagree with any religious views on reproduction, I reckon they’re right.

Continue reading "Breeding dissent: Time to scrap the baby bonus?" »

Generally, I like being a woman. The conversations are great; breasts are both useful and attractive, if I do say so myself; plus, we get to wear more interesting stuff than jeans and variations on the blue shirt. But, recently, I’ve been hankering for a gender opt-out. I’d like a day – actually, make that a week – of being a man.

From the outside, I’m sure it looks as if Girl World is all book clubs and mutual support, and long phone calls and caring, sharing emails. Which it is. Mostly. But while we weren’t watching, a serpent must have slithered into the Garden of Eve because, right now, us girls are in danger of critiquing ourselves to death.

There’s barely an issue that doesn’t polarise us: breast vs bottle, caesarean vs natural birth, tramp vs virgin, tiger mother vs western mother, Botox vs wrinkles, skinny vs fat, airbrushing vs real. And on it goes.

Continue reading "No winners when women turn on women" »

So the government is moving to “protect” errant toddlers in the suburbs from the naughty corner and spare them from harmful Easter Egg hunts.

Like a hovering, obsessive parent they’re imposing a new raft of regulations on childcare workers ostensibly aimed at the welfare of the child.

The implications for the childcare industry are huge – and it’s not just the politically correct psychobabble that’s a cultural and social threat. 

Continue reading "Child protection - a tale of two Australias" »

A cheeseburger, small fries and a triple-thick shake constitutes a McDonald’s Happy Meal in the US and clocks up 1,090 calories, although reassuringly the small plastic toy that’s included in the meal is usually inedible and thus calorie-free.

Leroy Comrie, a Councilman from Queens in New York, blames his portly size of 152kg on scoffing Happy Meals as a child and wants the city to follow in San Francisco’s footsteps by outlawing the toys, in an effort to promote healthier eating habits.

There are undoubtedly many problems with the toys included in Happy Meals - their plastic toxins can’t be great for the environment and they contribute to landfill, plus when Macca’s run out of a certain toy it can lead to a sibling war. But the toys themselves are not responsible for fat kids.

Continue reading "Keep the happy but lose the crappy in happy meals" »

In the wake of this week’s public parenting spats, here’s a timely word of advice to those who feel the urgent need to pass judgement on others’ parenting skills: Pull your head in. Seriously, just back off. No one cares what you think. Especially us parents.

See, here’s the thing. Unless a kid is subjected to an unimaginably cruel form of care worthy of Community Services’ attention – like being forced upon the toddler beauty contest circuit, or made to watch Elmo’s World – then the rest of the world should butt out.

If you’ve been asleep all week, here’s what went down. First, some radio lady with a single letter surname bottle fed her baby while she crossed the road. Like that was somehow worse than half the tasteless stunts she pulls on radio.

Continue reading "Let’s all just keep Mum on parenting, eh?" »

He’s been billed as New Zealand’s answer to the Super Nanny and his program The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show, which advocates punishing children by padlocking them in their rooms, will be screening in Australia later this year.

Nigel Latta says that reasoning with toddlers is “like trying to explain bad behaviour to drunken rugby hoons with the language skills of a chimpanzee” and that the only way to bring the little buggers into line and save your own sanity is to lock them away for a while.

Latta, who it should be stressed doesn’t support smacking, is entitled to his view. It’s clearly a harsh view, and the theatrical addition of a padlock to the traditional time-out is obviously there to drive ratings. But there would be plenty of frazzled parents out there who would agree that from time to time the only solution to a crazed tantrum-throwing two-year-old is a dose of isolation, to let them cool down and regroup shortly after. Ideally without resorting to a padlock.

Continue reading "Say yes to Easter eggs but no to naughty corners" »

Are you 32 years of age or over? Are you having trouble sleeping and starting to worry more? Are your grocery bills getting bigger? Do you find yourself tuning into to daytime soaps with alarming regularity? Or turning in early so you’re fresh for the morning? Are you scolding people around you for leaving socks on the floor? Do you write thank you notes? 

Don’t panic. You are not losing your mind. You’re just entering the stage of life Hallmark calls “mum-metamorphosis.” 

By definition: an “inescapable stage of life” starting at 32 years of age where people are most likely to start inheriting maternal mannerisms, behaviour and in many cases, repeating their mum’s most favourite spoken lines.

Continue reading "The mum-metamorphosis. It will happen to you too." »

When I was a kid, I loved watching all the old movies.

I can remember precisely the day that I asked my mother for a pair of black and white wing-tip shoes so that I could learn to dance like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

Turns out those shoes, even at that time, were very much out of fashion and hard to find, so I never got them.

Continue reading "Kids need encouragement to play to their strengths" »

In Victoria alone, almost 500 single women and lesbians have used IVF and other fertility treatments since a law change in January last year made it easier. Some see this rise in fatherless parenting as a violation of children’s rights. Others say kids can cope without dads - although they still need male role models. Susie O’Brien’s story is in the Herald Sun today and she will be blogging live.

Do we really need dads?

Absolutely. In an ideal world all children would grow up with both male and female adults to care for them.

But in the absence of a father, a father figure who might be a close male relative or family friend can do the job just as well. It just takes time, love and commitment.

Continue reading "Do we really need dads?" »

A funny thing – actually, make that a frilly thing – happened on the way to the feminist revolution.

Just as women started to get a better deal at home, at school and in the boardroom, our girl children have been hijacked by a foe more flouncy than any which has come before.

It is the colour pink and it is being worn – probably in frothing tutu form – by a micro-Cinderella near you.

Continue reading "That old pink stereotype just won’t fade to black" »

There’ll be no more excuses for under-performing children now their parents can get them tested for sporting prowess.

A US company is selling DNA home testing kits – just swab the little darling and post it off, and they’ll let you know whether you’re nurturing the next Usain Bolt.

Just what competitive parents need in the race to have the best child in the world. Now they can hang around the school gate boasting that not only did little precious learn to align a Rubik’s Cube at two months, he also has the genes of a champion.

Continue reading "Competitive parenting’s latest weapon" »

If the internet is to be believed — and I see no good reason why we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the internet — Facebook has become essential to staging a revolution. As the Web 2.0 (or are we up to 3.0?) commentators keep telling us, if you’re planning on toppling a dictatorial regime, then best first spruce up your Facebook profile.

But we in the West who already inhabit the sunny uplands of democracy haven’t been slouches when it comes to using Facebook to effect large scale social change. A case in point: I recently came across a Facebook group set up to fight the good fight against noisy children in restaurants.

I hadn’t previously noticed this scourge, but apparently restaurants across the nation have been overrun by parents. Even worse, these parents, many of whom would have you believe are responsible and upstanding members of society, have been thoughtlessly taking their children along with them.

Continue reading "Families have dined out on the public long enough" »

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

I know, it’s actually the “principle of state neutrality” but let’s not split hairs right now.

Our schools are even more tainted than those in your country – the U S of A – where the teaching of creationism as science in public schools is deemed unconstitutional.

Continue reading "Dear God: Get the hell out of our schools!" »

‘Delighted when hubby hung his first load of washing on the line,’ noted a Facebook friend. ‘Less delighted when I realised he didn’t use pegs.’ 

A domino run of comments followed, with women chortling over the guy who didn’t turn the iron on but flattened a shirt with it anyway, and the time a friend bet someone a bottle of Moet her partner wouldn’t notice if she didn’t wash his clothes for ten days.

As far as short cuts resulting in more work go, the non-use of pegs is right up there with the least thought-through of ideas.  My 12-year-old did the same thing with her sister’s Pumpkin Patch bikini recently (last seen in the dog’s mouth, as he belted gleefully behind the pittosporum hedge).

Continue reading "Fathers: Officially not as crap as Mothers say" »

Abused kids deserve better than spin.

As the Federal Convenor of Parliamentarians Against Child Abuse and Neglect, I applaud the Baillieu Coalition Government for making the welfare of all Victorian children a priority in 2011. 

The announcement last week of an inquiry into the systemic problems in Victoria’s child protection system is overdue and welcome.  Such an inquiry is much needed not only for all those who work in the child protection system but more importantly, for those who are living with abuse. 

Continue reading "Throwing money at child abuse won’t make it go away" »