Parenting

So we’re at war. Mums everywhere, online, on the radio, in the sand pit. Judging each other for the choices we make as parents. Putting each other down to sooth our own insecurities. Driving ourselves to competitive distraction.

If you believe TIME, and the reaction to it, we’re in the trenches and the enemy is other mothers who do things differently.

Only, we’re not… Because behind the controversy whipped up by so-called parenting experts, the media commentators and the shock jocks, ordinary parents are just getting on with the job of parenting.

Continue reading "Despite the furore, no one really cares how you parent" »

The worship of ‘working families’ is a bipartisan affair – all sides of politics fall over themselves to appeal to this valuable voting pool.  It’s enough to make the childless feel like drones, labouring to feed the reproducing queens.

First there was Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s cash splash for parents of schoolkids. Then, in his Budget reply speech, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said: “My values are the product of an Australian life, a real life much like yours with Margie, raising three daughters in suburban Sydney, paying a mortgage, worrying about bills.”

Sorry, Mr Abbott, but that’s not a real life much like mine. Never mind living in suburban Sydney or having three daughters, even if I fell in love with a Margie I couldn’t marry her.

Continue reading "Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone" »

You’re the worst mother in the world,” she yelled, running to her bedroom. “Well, go find another one,” I yelled back, because I’m mature like that.

It had been an awful morning. The cereal was wrong, the rockmelon too hard, the floor too cold. And those were just my complaints.

In that horrible way where one person’s mood dictates the others’, I’d PMTed my family. The dagger-infused hormones may have been coursing through my body, but by 7.03am, I’d infected the lot of them. “Will someone feed the damn cat,” I yelled, because that sort of tone is guaranteed to prompt one to say to the other, “Hey sis, I know you have homework – leave it to me.”

Continue reading "PMT alert! Quick kids, retreat to your bedrooms!" »

Quite often, you hear a mother say “I can’t imagine life without my kids’‘, and I’m well and truly in that camp. I can’t imagine not having their blessed, sun-shiny presence, minute-to-minute, day by day.

As Mother’s Day rolls around again and women around the country prepare for their tea and toast in bed and get ready to beam when they open that candle, purple notebook or hand cream from the school stall, I find myself thinking about how motherhood has changed me - almost down to the DNA.

It has certainly made me a better person. And it has made me want to keep striving to be even ‘‘better’’ for my self, the kids and other people.

Continue reading "Motherhood has changed me down to the DNA" »

This is the latest TIME magazine cover which hit American news stands yesterday.

It’s a picture of 26 year old mum, Jamie Lynne Grumet of Los Angeles, breastfeeding her three year old son, Aram.

Grumet believes breastfeeding a child this old is “biologically normal” and has posted several pictures of herself breastfeeding Aram on her blog. 

It’s caused a storm in America and you can read all about that here.

And check out this news.com.au story - some experts say breastfeeding up to seven years is ‘natural’.

There’s plenty to say on this issue. One Puncher’s first reaction was concern for the child when he grows up and how much he’ll be teased at school.

What’s your gut reaction? Eeww, or whatever?

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Like every good feminist mother I said “no” when my five-year-old daughter demanded a Barbie. I said “no” and I said “no” and I said “no” again.

Then (like every other procreator who is a fatally flawed human rather than one of those superior, mechanised parental no-bots), I caved shortly after pester number googol.

“OK,” I said. “But just one. With brown hair. And the marginally thicker waist Mattel introduced after 1997. How about African American Boot Camp Barbie? Her functional khaki trousers and radically articulated limbs are on par with separatist lesbianism given the feet-bindingly narrow domain of the Barbie-verse, wouldn’t you say, Alice?”

Continue reading "I’m a Barbie Mum. How the hell did this happen?" »

Boys have done it forever. Often progressing through the decades from road trips as teens, to football trips in their twenties, to golf trips forever after. But any old banner will do to justify a boys’ trip. The institution is deeply rooted in our culture. It’s even got its own code. Most of which I’m not privy to, though the overarching dictate that, “What Happens On The Trip Stays On The Trip”, has spread into general society.

There are many trailblazing female trippers, but in terms of cultural centrality the girls’ trip has some way to go by comparison. One type of girls’ trip that is clearly on the ascendant though, is the mothers’ trip.

Continue reading "A bother of mothers hit the road" »

In the past week, how many times have you sat down together as a family and enjoyed a meal together? If you had to think about it, chances are it was far less than the recommended four times for optimal family functioning long term.

Long commutes, numerous after school activities coupled with relentless traffic tends to mean that family meals, during the week at least, are a thing of the past, with dinner often consumed at three or four different time intervals throughout the evening, with a range of different menu choices for the average busy, overcommitted family.

Imagine though, if you could improve your family’s health simply by making the commitment to enjoy regular family meal times? A number of studies have now shown that regular family meals appear to be linked to a number of positive health outcomes for both children and teens, including weight control, better psychosocial functioning and improved interpersonal relationships.

Continue reading "Making a meal of your family’s relationships" »

If a clean house is a sign of a wasted life then Octomom’s filthy home shows… what, exactly?

Turns out Nadya Suleman, who famously gave birth to octuplets and depends on handouts to feed the 14 children she now has, has some difficulty keeping her home sparkling fresh.

Read here how she lets the kids wallow in a squalid pad while she forks out $520 on a haircut and see the pictures here at TMZ.

Continue reading "Octoslum: When a mum can’t keep up with her litter" »

You could call it the walk of shame - that stretch from the car to the school nurse’s office, when you’ve had the call. Your child has lice, and has been quarantined, until such time as you can remove them from campus, which can be anytime that suits within the next 15 minutes or so.

Problem is, while your offspring has been sequestered, you know it’s you who is the offender. And when you come to collect your pint-sized pariah, the only thing matching your displeasure is their pleasure at going home so early.

By the time you exit the gates though, your shame is already shifting to make way for resentment at the expense and labour in store. You have started brewing the loathing required to fuel war – man vs louse.

Continue reading "Nitpicking is the lousiest thing about parenthood" »

“Your daughter,” remarks a friend in the schoolyard, “reminds me of that girl in Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Really? The Andie MacDowell character? Or the one they called Duckface?

The one who wakes up late, screams f—k four times, then runs to the wedding, ripping her bridesmaid’s dress on the way. “You know,” she continues, “the crazy one with the sticking-up hair.”

She’s right. That’s our daughter, an imp of a girl who burst from the womb like a cartoon character, hair on end, legs akimbo, grinning madly despite the indignity of being yanked into the world with a pair of barbecue tongs.

Continue reading "If you’ve got a favourite child, you’re kidding yourself" »

A few weeks back we got the note home from school that every parent fears: “Please come in for a chat about your child’s behaviour in class.” Jack is a gorgeous eight-year-old: kind, funny, affectionate and busy.

He asks great questions like “Do ladies wake up pregnant, or do they get pregnant in the morning?” (Our answer for that one was “Both”.)

Problem is, he’s not really a natural scholar (takes after his Dad). And instead of doing his work this year, he’s been busily making a name for himself as the class clown. It was one of those all-too-frequent moments when you realise parenting should also be known as “muddling-through-with-absolutely-no-idea-what-you’re-doing”.

Continue reading "So, this parenting thing. Anyone mastered it yet?" »

When I gave birth to my second gorgeous son six weeks ago, the first question some asked when they heard our happy news was: “So are you going to try again for a girl?”

Umm, how about you give the epidural time to wear off and let me enjoy my beautiful, healthy baby boy before telling me that somehow my world is not complete because I have only produced babies featuring both an X and Y chromosome.

Admittedly I have only had two children of the same sex, not seven like Tumut couple Andrew and Jodi McMahon who appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday night documenting their desperate bid for a baby girl.

Continue reading "Choosing your baby’s sex is selfish beyond belief" »

Childcare should not be a battle ground. Parents need to be able to make a living for themselves and provide a future for their children. They should not be penalised by a system that makes going to work impractical or expensive.

Tony Abbott’s plan to ask the Productivity Commission to look at the best ways to provide childcare is a commitment to review the options and see how childcare can be changed to make life easier for mums and dads, and ensure access is available in the city and the country.

If in-home care turns out to be the common-sense option, we will pursue it, and it will be a great complement to the Coalition’s six-month paid parental leave scheme. The hysteria the Government has tried to create over this announcement by claiming child care assistance will be cut, or that this is welfare for the wealthy is nonsense. This is not about providing nannies for millionaires or cutting important help for low income working families.

Continue reading "Nanny plan about economics, not polishing the silver" »

In the latest in a series of ‘pro-family’ initiatives that begun with a new paid-parental scheme, Tony Abbott is now suggesting changes to the childcare rebate, wanting to extend it to nannies in order to allow more flexibility. Basically, Abbott wants more families to have subsidised access to childcare - sounds great!

And, specifics aside, it’s a great idea. Single-parent families and families where both parents work will have more childcare options under the scheme. Parents would no longer need to seek out certified childcare agencies to enrol their children into – agencies that are often expensive and too popular to actually satisfy demand. They can work with any nanny they are comfortable with, allowing them to go out and work.

A nanny gets paid, a job gets filled, two jobs are created and Aussie families don’t have to foot the bill. A recipe for a stronger economy. Not bad, Tony.

Continue reading "Abbott’s nanny plan isn’t supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" »

We were 15. Girls still, as this was another era. Our lives fused through Friday night sleepovers, caravanning holidays and shared tubes of Clearasil.

Saturday morning sport. Afternoons with the blow-dryer. Then off on our bikes in our pastel jeans – no hands, no helmets – squealing through the park as we pedalled to meet the boys.

Discos, where I’d kiss them and M wouldn’t because she was always cooler than me. Dancing to Depeche Mode – “I just can’t get enough, I just can’t get enough”. And we couldn’t. But it all changed that summer of 1982.

Continue reading "It’s better to be a patchwork person than a perfect one" »

How things have changed. When Jane Maas, a real life Mad Woman among the first wave of females to crack New York adland, started out in the ‘60s, women were were fired if they got pregnant and they were mainly secretaries – and if they did work on accounts it was only for domestic goods - and a client even once asked sympathetically of Maas: “Have you forgotten your steno (stenography/note-taking) pad, dear?’’ She was running the account at the time.

But that was the 1960s, and the women’s movement had yet to flex its typing-toned muscles. Today, it just seems ridiculous that they would be treated this way in the workplace.

Maas was one of the first working mothers in the industry, and despite the fact that its corridors of power were skirt-free zones she toughed it out and has written the tale Mad Women: The other side of Madison Avenue in the 1960s.

She made for fascinating listening on ABC radio recently when she confessed that in the wake of the outlandish hit series Mad Men, she is routinely asked “Were women really treated that badly? Were all those three-martini lunches real and was there all that sex in the office?’’ The answer to all three, she said, was ‘‘most definitely yes’‘.

Continue reading "Being a working mum is actually good for your health" »

Every week a newsletter is emailed from my five-year-old’s public school letting parents know which students have received merit certificates from the principal.

Recipients from kindergarten classes in recent weeks have included Plaitsy Bobsocking*, Pipsqueak Toothmissing and Willful Bumworder who have been recognised for, among other things, “improved listening”, “trying to complete their work on time” and “teaching the class about finger spaces”.

Students from older grades are acknowledged for citizenship, efforts in modern Greek, and – my personal favourite – exhibiting enthusiasm and maturity towards fractions and decimals.

Continue reading "This week’s award for not snarking over praising kids…" »

Mum once told me that a person should never cut their nails at night.

Although she never gave a specific reason, I still perform all nail-clipping activities before sunset.

Presumably, something terrifying happens, like an earthquake or the opening of a portal to the set of Two and a Half Men.

Continue reading "Things my mother taught me that still ring true" »

Her name was Honey and she came to live with my family for a few weeks in 1979. I was enchanted by her exotic name, the swing of silken hair down her back. She was the big sister I’d always wanted.

My brothers and I had plenty of add-on siblings over the years. Joanne, who stayed for several months; the three-week-old baby whose mother attempted suicide. Mum never explained why or how they came. Instead, she set to baking double batches of biscuits and reloading the washing machine. Taking in foster kids was our normal.

Years later, my mum still works as a special needs teacher. It’s seen her bitten, punched and a victim of theft. But she’s also been held, hugged and relied upon by families whose challenging days bleed into exhausting nights. Parents and former students stop her in the street, all bearing the legacy of her kindness.

Continue reading "Teaching your kids empathy is all about show, not tell" »

Psychotic. Mongoose. Saboteur. Liar. Traitor. Dysfunctional. Egotistical.

Childless.

In week of whirring insults, the claim that ex-PM ex-FM Kevin Rudd called Prime Minister Julia Gillard a “childless, atheist, ex-Communist” is a standout.

Mr Rudd’s office dismissed the story that he badmouthed Ms Gillard at an Adelaide pub a year ago as “lies”.  Maybe the witnesses were all mistaken. Maybe he said “guileless, earnest, optimist’. These things can happen in noisy bars.

Continue reading "You’re kidding if you think all women should be mothers" »

I sit watching the kids at dinner. Corin is eating his spaghetti with mind-numbing slowness. He has his book secreted on his lap and we are both pretending it isn’t there.

The girls are talking non-stop - our youngest has just started Prep and she’s full of it. There’s a red dot on the page, she explains, and you start at the top and follow the lines and today we did “S”, which is very tricky, Mama!

Then Scout, her older sister, takes up the story: Maddy was mean to Jenny, and Mia told Maddy she should say sorry, but Jenny had already gone off with Sophie. An ordinary family meal played out with some variation in millions of homes every night – except for one difference: sitting opposite me at the other end of the table is not my husband, but my female partner, Sarah.

Continue reading "My kids have two mums and they’re just fine, thank you" »

My freshly kindergarten-ed daughter has been learning all sorts of stuff at her new school.

Last weekend, for instance, she missed a ping pong shot and chucked a McEnroe-esque hissy fit while bawling “oh s—t”. (Lesson from school number one: swearing gets results.)

When I launched into my umpteenth Why Profanity Really Isn’t Such a Great Idea for Five Year Olds lecture, Alice asked a bunch of questions along the lines of “what does s—t even mean?”,  “don’t YOU sometimes say s—t? and “does it count if I just say s—t quietly on my own?”

Continue reading "Kindergarten philosophy" »

I didn’t get enough time with my father. However, I know I am incredibly fortunate to have as much as I did.

ABC TV recently announced they were making a documentary about him (airing tonight, February 23 at 8pm). It would cover his early years, his business life and what has happened since he died. I wasn’t the least bit interested in the extra coverage of the family post his death, and I hope there is very little of me in it.

However, I recognise that the producers wanted to study the impact of his life - which of course didn’t stop when his heart did. So I agreed I agreed to participate. I am doing this because I believe that the best way for me to honour my father is to help others understand him. So, with greatest respect to my father, (Michael) Robert Hamilton Holmes a Court, 1937-1990, I share some of the things he taught me.

Continue reading "The sometimes unintentional lessons my father taught me" »

You’ve all heard of the helicopter parent and the tiger mum, right? One hovers, the other roars. Most probably do both. Turns out, there are 12 different styles of parenting, which is handy for fickle Fannys like me – one for every month of the year.

There are the obvious A types: attachment, positive, unconditional, authoritative; the esoteric Bs: spiritual, permissive, slow (me with maths homework); the Cs: authoritarian, narcissistic, the aforementioned helicopter; and the Ds: toxic, uninvolved – aka the downright useless, whose failure to use a naughty step has bred a generation of stoners.

The problem with categorising is that it presumes some consistency. All credit to you if you are, but I’m not. One day I’m do-re-mi-ing around the place à la Julie Andrews. The next, I’m a witch. “Don’t come within a metre of me,” I ordered the sprogs recently. “That’s 100cm.” Am I the only woman who has PMT three times a week?

Continue reading "French small fries are a chip off the good parenting block" »

Parenting. It’s the new oneupmanship. Ah, how quaint the days now seem when parents could raise their spawn in whatever manner they deemed fit, so long as it didn’t include whips and chains. Or not ones with barbs, anyway.

So. Today we present a dual dilemma, one for parents of girls, the other for parents of boys. There’s a little sexist stereotyping at play here, for which we don’t really apologise at all. The first dilemma involves the clip above.

Have you ever wondered what The Punch team does when we’re not writing stories or preparing the site for the following day? We often wonder ourselves. Apparently, a fair chunk of time is swallowed up watching videos of primadonna brats. Or should that be pre-Madonna?

Continue reading "Friday Dilemma: child cruelty or harmless fun?" »

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?

This column is the first of a monthly series we’ll be running on what’s happening in China from a political, social, environmental, music and arts perspective. If you’d like to contribute to the series, know of some great links, websites, magazines, contacts or just harbor a passion for China, feel free to drop me a line: lucy@thepunch.com.au.

Today in China there are approximately 123,509,752 children under 14 years of age. By the end of this year, 20 million others will be born.

Thanks to the one-child policy, 70 per cent of these children will go through life without a sibling. The average Chinese parent will spend up to two-fifths of their yearly income to educate them.

By 2040, this generation will form part of a minority: the workforce of a country that has grown old before reaching its full economic potential. Here’s how they’re growing up.

Continue reading "ChinaWatch: Growing up in a brewing social disaster" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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?" »

At 16 I was a high school drop-out.

I finished Year 10 desperate to get out into the real world because I wanted to earn my way into independence. I paid for driving lessons out of my own pocket, had a stable job with a great career in sight, and couldn’t wait to get my driver’s licence so I could go out and explore the world.

By the time I hit 17, all I wanted to do was party with my friends and live life. Boys and my own sexuality weren’t important. Fast forward 10 years and girls at that age are nothing like my generation. It’s incredibly scary.

Continue reading "Sex industry not to blame for child sexualisation" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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 statistics are shocking. One in four Aussie teenagers between the ages of 16-24 suffers from a mental or behavioural disorder; 6500 children are using anti-depressants. And that’s just a snapshot of the For Kids’ Sake study. 

But the study, commissioned by The Australian Christian Lobby and led by Professor Parkinson of University of Sydney, is wrong to blame the modern family.

The research that was unveiled yesterday was fully funded by the Vos Foundation, a Tasmanian construction company that says it’s “committed to biblical values”. It makes some significant and simplistic assumptions about modern society and the explanations for its so-called “breakdown”.

Continue reading "For kids’ sake don’t blame the modern family" »

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" »

Were the recent British riots caused primarily by children who were placed in forward-facing strollers?

Another dilemma for mothers – as if they didn’t have enough on their plates – is the forward/rearward-facing stroller/carrier controversy raised by Cathrine Fowler, Professor of Child and Family Health Nursing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

I am acquainted with Cathrine as a professional colleague and respect her work; in many areas we would be to total agreement. I’m sure she has sound reasons for her thoughts on strollers and carriers. Nevertheless, I see it differently.

Continue reading "Moving forward, it doesn’t matter which way babies face" »

I’ve been dwelling a lot on parenting this week – not least because my eight-year-old son walked around with a badly broken arm for two days before I got him X-rayed.

In my defence, I was advised to delay the X-ray by nurses at a regional emergency department. But at the very least I could have refrained from suggesting he was the boy who cried wolf.

It was in this sort of mood that I heard the news about federal Finance Minister Penny Wong and her partner Sophie Allouache expecting a baby through IVF. The child’s father is known to the couple and will also be known to the child.

Continue reading "Great parents set boundaries" »

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?" »

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" »

Pregnancy is a lovely thing. Lovely, obviously, because it usually produces a baby, but also because it keeps you warm, excuses cake consumption and ensures you score a seat on the bus.

It also makes everyone smile and ask pleasant questions, which is doubly nice when you’ve had your head down the loo half the morning.

But, for some, the sight of an expectant mum is torture. They may enthuse with the rest of us, but behind the plastered smile, they’re splintering into a million unspilt tears. Because there’s no keener reminder of what you don’t have than someone else’s swollen belly.

Continue reading "Spare a thought for those who can’t have kids" »

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?" »

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" »

How can a new, first-time parent feel any sort of confidence?  Seriously, after being told time and time again that exclusive breastfeeding until six months of age is the best thing for our babies’ health, we now hear that maybe those recommendations are putting children at risk of other health worries. Just maybe.  If you’ve recently had a baby, you know the pressure to breastfeed.

The stress placed on new mums to get their babies on the boob, and keep them there until they are at least six months of age, can be pretty overwhelming in those first few months.  Especially if breastfeeding is not going so well for you. In fact, the pressure is so great that most new mums either persevere, or give up and are wracked with guilt.

So when stories like these are released questioning the advice we are given in those early weeks of parenthood, we’re left wondering who and what are we meant to listen to? Especially when the official government response is they will review the national breastfeeding guidelines later this year. Great! What if your baby is past that stage by then? What if you have a seemingly hungry four-month-old baby now, and want to know what to do?

Continue reading "The best authority on breastfeeding is you" »

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" »

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" »

“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" »

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" »

It hasn’t been a good week for disaffected fathers. Most weeks aren’t. Since Mick Fox disrupted half of Sydney to protest his custodial battle, we’ve seen the shocking case of Paul Rogers, who fatally gassed himself and his daughter Kyla, while the awful case of Ramazan Acar goes through the courts. Read the gruesome details if you dare.

As we all know, custodial battles over children are the common thread in these and many similar cases. But why do men snap? At what point does frustration boil over into mass scale public nuisance… or even to murder?

Let’s take a small picture view and a big picture view. The small picture, with a focus on the ass that is family law, comes from Barry Williams, president of the Lone Fathers Association. The wide view comes from social analyst Richard Eckersley, who regularly measures Australia’s pulse through a thing called the Wellbeing Index.

Continue reading "When good dads go bad, and bad dads turn murderous" »

Same-sex parents are no different than other parents in wanting the very best for their children.

We know that removing legislative inequality is a very significant step in lessening the discrimination and social exclusion experienced by these parents and their children. All children, irrespective of the family units into which they are born or live, deserve the full protection of the law.

That’s why I’m proud to have chaired a year-long Social Development Committee Inquiry into same sex parenting for the South Australian Parliament, and why I’m prouder still of the wide-ranging reforms aimed at providing greater legal protection for children of same-sex parents recommended to Parliament yesterday.

Continue reading "Kids with two Mums are Weet-Bix kids too" »

We parents do it tough these days. Seems there’s no aspect of child rearing which doesn’t attract a “tssk tssk” from some know-it-all with a bunch of letters after their name. But we’re about to have the last laugh, thanks to a brilliant new book.

Go the F—k to Sleep hasn’t even been released yet, but has soared to number one on Amazon based purely on pre-orders. It’s no biggie why. The book taps into the belief that our children are mollycoddled to death – something many of us feel, but dare not speaketh lest we break the delicate eggshell of acceptable modern parenting.

As the book’s title alludes, sometimes enough is enough. When the bed has been tucked, bedtime stories read and lullabies sung, it’s over. It’s time to go the f—k to sleep and give mummy and daddy some mummy and daddy time. And there’s plenty more mummy and daddy would like to say too…

Continue reading "“Go the f—k to sleep”. What parents really want to say…" »

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" »

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?" »

Apparently one in four teenagers experiment with drugs.  Though you’ve got to wonder whether the real hellraisers are dutifully completing questionnaires or participating in whatever research it is from which these statistics are derived.

For young people involved in the advertising industry the figure increases from one in four to three in four. Of course that second figure is bollocks – or more precisely, I made it up and have no evidence for it. 

In any event, in the vast majority of cases, the one in four have their fun, push their boundaries and get away with it. Now they’re grown up: They’ve got mortgages, business cards, ABNS, golf clubs, lawnmowers, children.  And their bongs, pills or powders are safely consigned to the annals of history.

Continue reading "Will you tell your kids you experimented with drugs?" »

A few years ago, my wife suggested that we get a pet dog for the kids. The arguments were assembled: it is good for children to learn how to treat animals properly, it will get them outdoors and off the computer, they will get exercise by taking it around the block etc.

By the time we got the cute little thing air freighted to Sydney from the breeding kennel interstate, we had signed for it three times. Once when placing the order for the dog, once when booking it to be sent to Sydney and one more time when I picked it up at the airport. No signature, no puppy. Not once, but three times.

And the point of this story? Well at the moment the Tasmanian Parliament is debating a bill dealing with surrogacy. The bill in its current form permits two men, two women, a single man and even a heterosexual couple to enter into a surrogacy arrangement with a female person, to be known as the “birth mother”, who will seek to become pregnant and give birth to a child.

Continue reading "Tasmania’s surrogacy bill is a real dog’s breakfast" »

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" »

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?" »

Dear Jackie O, what a bugger of a week!

Did you have time to read the Sunday newspaper between changing nappies, feeding your baby, changing another nappy, washing up bottles, having a shower, changing another nappy, eating some Weetbix, getting ready for work and cutting your baby’s fingernails?

I hope you did. The message was clear. Most women want you to know – you’re a good mother.

Continue reading "O, what a feeding frenzy over nothing" »

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?" »

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" »

We don’t mind if you can’t sew. Just wear underwear.

According to a survey, the vast majority of Generation Y females are losing their womanly ways.

Traditional female skills such as sewing, ironing, cooking, homemaking and other ‘womanly’ traits are on the decline and instead women are driving automatic cars and contributing to a growing incidence of consumerism.

Continue reading "SHE SAYS: just don’t forget your undies" »

We’ve had free-range parenting, helicopter parenting, attachment parenting and now we have ``tiger mums’‘.

In case you missed the shitstorm, Yale University Professor Amy Chua has penned a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she says that the recipe for successful child raising involves:

• Never going to sleepovers or playdates.
• Never watching television, playing computer games or choosing their own extracurricular activities.
• Never not being the number one student in every subject except gym or drama, and never playing any instrument other than the piano or violin.

Continue reading "Are today’s parents toothless tigers?" »

So Miranda Kerr & Orlando Bloom have named their first born Flynn. Flynn? A normal name and spelt correctly?

I must admit I breathed a sigh of relief for the genetically blessed cherub. With two world-famous parents I was expecting baby Bloom to be saddled with a weird, made-up name that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Something like Apple, Dweezil or Heavenly Hirrani Tiger Lily.

Continue reading "Moon Unit! Tell Apple to leave Peaches alone!" »

I remember reading sometime late last century that the Chinese were producing a generation of Little Emperors.

The only child of two loving parents was indulged by four grandparents, who directed all their love and spare cash to their only grandson.

Perhaps even competing against each other a bit and seeing who could take their grandson to McDonalds first or most or give him the most expensive gadget.

Continue reading "How many kids is the right number of kids?" »

One surefire way of knowing you’ve officially become an old man is when you catch yourself coming out with a “kids these days…” rant. Well I’ve recently discovered that I am now among that special group of people with unending old school wisdom.

I’m mourning the demise of what I call the “respect your elders” values of kids today. But I don’t blame them. I blame a new generation of mamby-pamby (not sure that’s a real term but you know what I mean) parents who want to be a child’s friend rather than a parent.

I’ve had these concerns for a while, but they’ve been brought to a head by a couple of recent incidents.

Continue reading "Ratbag kids aren’t teaching themselves how to act up" »

Don’t you just hate it when you forget to reinforce your beachfront apartment with barb-wire fencing?

Yep, it’s that time of the year again when “well-to-do” grown ups quietly mutter under their breaths that every 16-year-old in Surfers Paradise should be tasered in the face. Cars explode and cinder blocks are thrown through Harvey Norman windows as teenagers in leather jackets have sex on the street while homeless guys wave “end is nigh” signs around.

Rubber bullets zoom through the air and Wicked vans are rolled as the Prime Minister is taken by Blackhawk to an underground security facility at Alice Springs. I’m talking (of course) about Schoolies.

Continue reading "Schoolies is approaching: time to PANIC!" »

I have always been a great communicator. Sometimes excessively so.

My first report card – in kindy - said “Josie talks too much.” I am known to like a good chat.

I even studied “Communications” at uni and my job demands constant interaction with people.

Continue reading "Communication shutdown to promote understanding" »

Today we would be shocked if cigarette and alcohol companies targeted their advertising to children.

We would be shocked because the evidence is there to support such outrage. We know that tobacco kills and that alcohol consumption can have grave short-term and long-term health consequences.

So shouldn’t we be equally shocked when our children are targeted for junk food marketing? The evidence is there.

Continue reading "Keep junk food away from our kids" »

New York journalist Lenore Skenzay let her 9-year-old son Izzy ride the subway by himself. The result was nothing short of hysterical. The syndicated columnist and her travelling tot suddenly found themselves at the centre of a media storm that saw Skenazy tarred as a Bad Mother for audiences from Chile to China and even Malta.

If there had been a handy pond nearby I’m sure there would have been at least one conservative commentator willing to find out whether she floated.

Skenazy is the author of “Free Range Kids”: her thesis being that we should untangle parenting from irrational fear and bring a certain rationality to the business of kid raising.

Continue reading "A slightly sozzled toast to bad mothers everywhere" »

With official interest rates set to rise and the costly festive season looming large on the horizon there’s no doubt Australian’s budgeting skills will be put to the test over the next few months.

Financial skills are incredibly valuable but it’s often not until you get older that you begin to appreciate the small lessons about saving and spending your parents may have taught you when you were a kid.

Growing up on a farm meant my Mum and Dad generally made the most of having me and my two siblings around during school holidays to do the jobs that needed to be done. Often we were given the opportunity to make some cash carting hay or working in the wool sheds.

Continue reading "Giving kids an early start in learning to make ends meet" »

So people are forking out up to $50,000 so that the likes of Matt Moran, Neil Perry and Peter Gilmore can come over to their house and knock up dinner.

I’d like to see them try it at my place. If Peter Gilmore can find a way of turning a six-pack of Boags Draught, a couple of bananas, some bacon rashers and a jar of jalapenos into a snow egg, he’s welcome to the entire contents of my bank account.

Presumably the deal is that the chefs bring their own food with them, and all your fancy friends get to ooh and ahh as it is assembled. It’s all the go now among Sydney’s charity set, where the richest people in town bid obscene amounts of cash for what the marketing department likes to call “money-can’t-buy” opportunities.

Continue reading "Power parenting turning our food experience sour" »

What is it about the fanaticism of the breastfeeding lobby? Why do they fixate so intently on this tiny aspect of childrearing?

Wouldn’t they do better to divert some of their energy to shouting about child protection? Housing for kids in low-income families? Water safety, perhaps?

Aren’t there dozens more pressing children’s issues where they could better channel their blusterings?

Continue reading "There’s nothing unhealthy about being bottle fed" »

The camel is broken, I’ve lost the plot and, quite frankly, it’s been absolutely liberating. 

\

Queue sharp intake of breath…. I went to my children’s school this morning clad only in my purple dressing gown, accessorised with sunglasses, polka dot gumboots, and carrying my undergarments in my pocket.  Granted, I didn’t alight from the car, so for all those peering through the windows of my highly utilitarian people mover, I could have been wearing a very fluffy hoody, but it was the stand I was taking for all us working, stay at home, full time carers, students, mothers, nurses of elderly parents and juggling women that mattered most to me. 

I “took one” for my diverse sisterhood, and it’s the best thing I’ve done for myself for quite a while. 

Continue reading "The plot is lost, I’ve happily gone mad in suburbia" »

I was deep in conversation recently with a very successful retiree about his experiences as a father. The banter was light until it was time to part ways at which point he grabbed my arm and hastened me to listen carefully.

“Be sure that you love your children equally!” he said with an unsettling eeriness in his voice not unlike a line spoken in a disaster movie moments before all hell breaks lose.

“I have two sons”, he continued, “One of them has always been motivated, successful and talented and has never relied on my wealth to survive, while the other has always been lazy, unsuccessful and forever in trouble. Instead of rewarding my successful son for all that he’s achieved, I’ve spent my life chasing after the other son, bailing him out time and time again. I hardly know my boys now. The son that I’ve always protected only talks to me when he needs something and because throughout his life he’s needed so much attention, I never had time to get to know my other boy. I’ve been left virtually with nothing!”

Continue reading "How to be a good parent at 100 miles an hour" »

For centuries, marriage has provided order, stability and nurture for both adults and children. Indeed, the status of our marriages influences our well-being at least as much as the state of our finances.

Decades of research has clearly established the positive links between marriage and well-being. As Professor Bill Doherty summarized the evidence, “for adults, a stable, happy marriage is the best protector against illness and premature death, and for children, such a marriage is the best source of emotional stability and good physical health.” The benefits extend to educational, financial and vocational outcomes.

This is not to denigrate many single parents who are doing an admirable job in raising children, often in difficult circumstances. However, most people still aspire to a life-long marriage and society benefits from this.

Continue reading "A health check on marriage" »

After years of being scrutinised for her inability to keep a man, Jennifer Aniston has hit back. The 41 year old actress has told People magazine that women should remember they don’t need men to be good mums.

“Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long,” she said.

Continue reading "Sperm donation - it’s not always a Hollywood ending" »

It’s great that Julia Gillard has no children. If she did she wouldn’t be able to do her job – not effectively anyway, to the standard that is required of the highest elected office in the nation.

Political leadership requires undivided, 24/7 devotion, a clearness of mind, an ability to focus uninterrupted.  A Leader must ‘live, eat and breath’ their role. If Julia were a mother of a child or children under the age of 18, she simply could not do the job. I know that statement will offend some people.

But it’s the truth. For Julia to ‘have it all’ something would have to give; either the job or the children would suffer a level of neglect. If Julia Gillard had children she wouldn’t get my vote.

Continue reading "Prime Minister, I’m glad you don’t have kids" »

“It’s just like feeding your baby McDonald’s.’’ This was the blunt, uncaring and highly inappropriate comment made by a breastfeeding advocate to a friend who dared to confess she was considering giving her baby a bottle of formula.

The new mum had been through weeks of torture, suffering several bouts of mastitis and dealing with a son whose gummy bite was more brutal than Jaws and whose insatiable hunger was not dissimilar to the killer shark.

She had given breastfeeding her very best shot, but it was not working and, after six weeks, she and her son spent most of their days, and nights, in tears.

Continue reading "Gisele’s being a boob with her breastfeeding zealotry" »

Update 11.30am: Julia Gillard has been tinkering again. Read about it here.

Back in June 2004 I interviewed the director of obstetrics at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred hospital, who said women due to have labor induced in the last week of June for medical reasons were begging their doctors to delay until at least July 1.

It’s a weird thing to do, but the tantalising prospect of the then-$3000 Baby Bonus stood on the other side of the end of the month. John Howard might have announced the Baby Bonus in the May Budget, but instead of starting it that day delayed until the beginning of the financial year, turning it into a biological lottery.

“We would always suggest that the baby comes first,” Dr Andrew Child warned prospective mothers. “It is not worth $3000 to put your baby’s whole life at risk.’’ Thus started a run of uncertainty, competitiveness and anxiety for women and their partners planning a family, as successive leaders have played financial politics with their reproductive systems. There’s no end in sight.

Continue reading "How women of child-bearing age became political footballs" »

The health and welfare of our young people has been at the centre of many policy announcements made so far this election.

Childcare centres and chubby babies provide popular photo opportunities for campaigning politicians, and both parties are arguing over who’s paid parental leave scheme is best.

Focusing on our young people is important: they are the future of our nation, the next pillars of our community; but is it the role of government to tell us how to raise our children?

Continue reading "What indigenous society has to teach about raising kids" »

My daughter Violet celebrated her first birthday last week so naturally we bought her a yacht. 

Not just any yacht, either. It’s a 10 metre Sparkman and Stephens 34 kitted out with satellite navigation system, along with a re-furbished galley and bathroom that wouldn’t look out of place in a modern city apartment. To top it all, we had it painted pink.
There’s also an on-board computer so she can document the around the world solo voyage that she’ll be embarking on in 6 months time. (She would have gone immediately, but we figured she’d get her sea legs more quickly if she could stand unaided.)

Continue reading "10m yacht the perfect gift for the baby girl with everything" »

Newborn babies are hands down the best thing on the planet. Never had one myself, but I’ve never met one that didn’t make me gush.

It’s no surprise that new mum Josie Gagliano is partial to a bit of gushing when it comes to her twins.

Josie says: “So now I am a mum, I’d love the whole world to experience the joy of motherhood, particularly the women who are having difficulty falling pregnant. That’s why I am so supportive of IVF.” She goes further, defending the right of parents to select their baby’s gender, if that’s what they really want.

Continue reading "Choosing sex, the next great leap in selfish parenting" »