I'm baaaack (again)

Life over the last year has been pretty fraught, but isn't it always? I feel like I just lurch from one crisis to the next. Not that these crises are always terrible, or necessarily negative at all, just times when life requires more than I thought I had to give.

There are tough times for a whole bunch of people - a dear friend had a rather serious breast cancer scare and another close friend's preschooler had open heart surgery and yet another one of my closest people has a horrible infection that is proving very difficult to treat. There are others having dramas in their personal relationships and tough times with their kids. I don't think I dwell on this stuff too much, but I'm conscious of all of it all the time, sending my love and good thoughts out to these people I love that are having difficult times.

I have also been the recipient of lots of love and good thoughts - as many people know Sanjay and I are in the process of divorcing. I'm not going to go into detail here and now, except to say it's been a long time coming, it hasn't been an easy decision for us to make and that our focus now is on the kids and making sure that we do what we have to do without too much negative impact on them.

This week I'm back at uni, which is great (structure to my weeks! learning is fun! closer to graduating!), but increases the stress level (assignments! classes, readings and self doubt!) and I received a challenge to write a bit more so I will be procrastiblogging a bit over the next few weeks. I want to write about nursing and bullying on prac, and how it relates to feminism and the performance of gender identity. I'm doing a mental health subject, one on the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I had a crappy time on my last placement and I have just finished Clementine Ford's 'Fight Like A Girl' so it's all swishing together in my head in some pretty interesting ways.

Feminism and the performance of femininity: at what cost?

Irony can be found anywhere. As I was shaving my legs this morning (!) I was thinking about something two things I saw and 'shared' on FB recently and how they both contradict and support each other in their desire to support feminists (as differentiated from feminism). The first was the ever-inspiring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the form of a letter to a friend on how to raise her daughter to be a feminist. Powerful stuff, beautifully written and in essence I agree with every word.

The second was sadder and more problematic. Less fire-up-the-imagination oratory, more back room strategy negotiation. Basically Sara Scheafer says that if you behave how your feminist self knows you should behave in order to fight the patriarchy there will be real life repercussions.

...And this is really hard to live with. It's HARD to know that if you live up to your ideals you will be vilified. Yeah, strong words, but the amount rage and abuse women who stand up loudly for feminism get you strong stuff. There are lots of stories about women being in effect forced off social media with the weight of abuse they cop. It's hard to know that if you teach your daughter to fight the patriarchy there are ways in which she will suffer for it. She will suffer in different ways without it. You are damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's why I posted it on FB, that and the harder part, I could have written most of that myself (except for the part as dressing up as a zit for halloween! That's hilarious!) I added my comment:

Read this and stop beating yourself up about those times when you feel like you aren't 'enough' - I was an awkward child who didn't learn femininity early and it made my life as a kid pretty difficult (there are quite a few FB friends who knew me in primary school and can attest to that).
So next time you, your female friend, or someone your read about doesn't become 'a badass girl-boss' when confronted with male privilege, offer that person compassion rather than condemnation (especially if it's you! that's the hardest!). Fighting the kyriarchy is a long game and it's OK to play to your strengths and disengage in unwinnable battles and conserve your energy for fights that you have some chance of winning.
Learn about oppression and keep your compassion and you are fighting the good fight my loves.

...and I started thinking. Thinking about my past, my childhood, the bullying, my depression and realising that one feminist reading of all that sad soup might be to do with me not 'learning femininity early'. People ask me why I was bullied, and I joke that it was the tattoo on my forehead that has since been removed. They want to hear there was a concrete reason - I had glasses perhaps, or a lisp? It wasn't anything so simple though; it was a combination of being smart, precocious, annoying, and not realising that the only way I was really allowed to be these things was quietly, not taking up too much space and not damaging too many male egos in the process. The boys who were similar me didn't really get a hard time. I never fit into the two stereotypes available for smart girl: I was too loud to be the quiet bookish type, too funny and irreverent to be one of the A+ students. I like this reading because it fits well with my schema and gives history and consistency to me as a mouthy 43 year old. 

I am now going to formally forgive myself for my adolescent assertions that although I was a feminist I preferred the company of men because women were too bitchy and vacuous (I said it, I believed it, I was wrong on every count. Except I still don't enjoy the company of people who habitually put other people down, and I find it very difficult to connect with people who only talk about things or other people). I need to forgive myself for not squaring up for a fight every time someone supports or maintains the kyriarchy (if you don't want to look it up you can use my working definition: patriarchy + white, western capitalist hegemony) and congratulate myself on my small but persistent efforts to dismantle my small corner of patriarchal dominance (let me give you a hint, it start with questioning yourself. Why did I make excuses for not cutting your 3-4 year old son's luscious curls when strangers asked if he was a boy or a girl)

The Homework Conundrum

I've been very me-centric here for a while, so let me just very quickly explain what has been happening with school homework here. The boys, year 1 and 4 (ages 7 and 10) have been complaining more and more about homework. They don't have very much to do but it has become a very big issue in our house, with far more time spent arguing and cajoling than actually working. I've done a little bit of reading (Louise Porter is my go-to on all things child development related. I find her approach makes a kind of visceral sense to me and works for family).

It came to a point where I re-read Louise Porter on homework and decided we had to change something for everyone's sanity. I talked to other parents and realised that I have too much going on in my life to take this up with the department of education or the school, but I could address it individually for my kids with the teachers. I don't like singling my kids out - part of the reason they go to school is to learn to be herd animals - but this was causing significant disharmony, so first I spoke to the kids about what parts of homework they thought were valuable (spelling words and writing - reading doesn't count because it's one of our leisure activities) and talked to them about the idea of 'opting them out' of homework. We agreed it would be a good plan. At this stage they have the option to do any homework they want to do and need to do the big annual projects. They don't get out of spelling tests or any other regular classwork. The other big change is they need to help more around the house. More home work less homework and it is now their responsibility to cook dinner on Monday night. It has started well, and although they require lots of help they are getting the hang of the idea, and that cooking dinner includes planning, shopping and cleaning up, which makes my heart sing.

I spoke to their teachers, who were surprised but supportive and I followed it up with an email. I'm going to include the email here (names etc redacted) in case I can inspire others to have a full and frank discussion about homework in lower primary school and potentially provide a template for them to opt out too, if homework is causing trouble. Significant thanks to my dear friend Tanya for her copy editing genius!

Dear Jxxx and Txxx
Thanks for meeting with me - this is just a follow up to that conversation. Firstly, let me thank you both for working with our kids this year. Axxx and Kxxx have been extremely happy with their classes and they both have great respect for you, their teachers. I feel like you’ve really heard our concerns that at present, homework is detrimental to their learning and causing distress for both boys at home. Both Sxxx and I feel strongly about this, and he’s asked me to make it clear that this email comes from us both.
Accordingly, we’ve discussed homework with the children and the two things they feel are valuable are reading and spelling words. They will also be expected to continue with any tests and work done by the other kids. They will also participate in big projects ('all about me', dioramas etc). As a family, we’ve decided to make any other homework optional and focus on more holistic learning opportunities at home instead. For example, they will need to cook dinner one night per week. My hope is that this can help them with maths (shopping, measuring ingredients), literacy (reading recipes, interpreting recipe information), science (heat/oxidation reactions, physics of liquids etc, biology, ecology), PHPE (nutrition, self-efficacy and fine motor skills improvement).
We want to decrease our family conflict around homework, leave space in all our lives for other pursuits, including letting kids be kids and leaving them outside to play freely as well as relieve you both of one set of homework-marking.
Thanks so much for reading this. I'd very much like this to be the start of a conversation about homework, and I'm more than happy to work with you to ensure there is minimal disruption to your classroom.
Warm regards,

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings - when I was googling trying to find information on some of MY mental health diagnoses I found a surprising amount of bullshit about how people with mental illness are awful, un-compassionate and destructive. Not good stuff to come across when you are having a mental health crisis. Trust me on this, it's pretty horrible having your worst suspicions about yourself confirmed by random strangers on the internet, people with no evidence of having any actual education on mental health issues. This post is from a blog that I have followed on-and-off for over a decade and this post obviously resonated with me.

Indigenous voices in literature and the arts

I just read this column in the SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/answers-dont-roll-easily-off-the-tongue-20110923-1kos3.html) and I thought that it might be interesting to discuss. As part of my undergrad bachelor of science degree I have a major in "Aboriginal studies" (probably now called "Indigenous Australian studies") and I remember doing a subject where we spent our time talking about appropriation and authenticity in Aboriginal art. We were mostly talking about visual arts, but it's the same kind of situation with writing and, to my mind, a similar conversation can be had about pop culture and mass media representation. Read the article and ask yourself these questions: 

• Is it ever OK for someone to speak 'for' Indigenous Australians?
• In your art making would you ever use traditional Aboriginal motifs?
• In your writing would you ever try to get inside the head of an Indigenous Australian? What about a (let's say) recent migrant? Is it different if the migrant is from a place you have some connection to?
•  What about speaking for people/getting in the head of people with a different gender identity or sexuality? Why is it more OK (in my mind) for me to write as a man than, for instance, my lovely brother Michael to write as a woman? 

I think this whole vexed question is wildly interesting because I look at my own reactions and can only see wild inconsistencies. I would never presume to speak for Indigenous Australians in pretty much any context (except to remind people that 'they' are not any more a homogeneous unit than 'us') and I freak out a bit when I hear of other people doing it. And yet I support Michael going to Q&A/Insight/whatever as part of their 'Aboriginal' audience - he is, however loosely, a very peripheral part of an Aboriginal community. So no, it's generally not OK for anyone to speak unbidden for others, but I guess it is sometimes OK.

I can't imagine a situation where I would include traditional Aboriginal motifs in any art-making that I do, however, worry that blanket statements are generally a bad idea when we talk about art. No one can argue that child porn is a good thing, but to prohibit any images of naked children would decimate my photo albums, eliminate huge quantities of religious art (naked baby Jesus anyone?) as well as harass artists like Bill Henson and there is no reason to suppose it would stop child pornography. How do we find the right balance? How can we support the rights of people to speak for themselves without prohibition?

Historical fiction is plentiful - why is it uncontroversial for, for instance, Kate Grenville to write from the perspective of a fictional white male from history but not OK for her to speak for fictional historical Indigenous Australians? I really like her answer in the article: "we had stolen enough from them already, we shouldn't also steal their stories" and I agree wholeheartedly. But how do we move on from that point to creating a shared Australian history and identity? I read recently (on the SMH I think - I can't find a reference though) that stories by Patricia Wrightson like The Nargun and the Stars that I loved as a child are now thought by some to be cultural appropriation. I don't want to claim Dreamtime stories as my own, but I want to acknowledge that they are part of this country, that the history of Aboriginal Australia is part of my history.

It's easier for me to speak (and think) about the similar issues that feminism has brought up. Easier because I'm a woman, and I know I can't speak for all women, but I can speak for me. I find men that speak 'for' woman pretty painful, but I'm sometimes not sure if it's just in situations where I don't agree with what they are saying. I find Alexander McCall-Smith speaking in an African woman's voice grating, and I'm not sure whether it is because it is a man speaking as a woman, or because it's a white European speaking with the voice of a black African.

How do *you* put your thoughts around these issues into practice in *your* writing or art-making? Do you avoid the problem by avoiding reference to Indigenous Australians? I confess that that's what I tend to do, because the alternative is so damn difficult. Unfortunately that isn't the way to create an Australia as a place for Indigenous people, those with colonial heritage and also more recent migrants. Let's start a conversation about the way forward...

Yes, I did choose to vaccinate my kids actually...

I know I rarely blog at the moment, but this has been boiling away for weeks now. I've always been pro-vaccinating, but it's an issue that keeps rearing it's ugly head for me. A few weeks ago when I was putting Kiz on the waitlist for childcare and the woman told me I'd need to verify that he'd been vaccinated. That's fine, it's what they need to do to protect us all, but when I said that he was fully vaccinated she almost looked surprised. The next week I took him in for his 18 month 'well baby check' at the Early Childhood Health Centre and when the nurse looked at his records she said that she was very pleased to see him fully vaccinated. Again, there was some level of surprise there.

Here comes the ranty part: I'm guessing that parents who refuse to vaccinate have never watched their tiny baby struggling to breathe, drowning in their own thick secretions despite hourly suctioning, from a disease that is routinely vaccinated against. I'm willing to bet good money that those non-vaccinating parents have never watched their baby go blue and limp as he stops breathing, only being rubbed back to life by hospital staff. I'm pretty sure they haven't had to press the red emergency call button or scream to the nurses' desk for help.

I've been there, done that and I'm thankful every day that I got to bring my tiny baby home with me, and that he's growing up into a funny, determined, clever, loving toddler. Pertussis, or Whooping Cough, makes older kids and adults sick. It makes us cough and cough (another name for the illness is 'The Hundred Day Cough' and it's no exaggeration) but after that generally healthy adults get well. Unfortunately it's not quite so simple for babies and small children. Babies die of this illness.

Wakefield's harmful hoax on the link between autism and vaccines was disproven about 10 years ago, and one well designed study after another continues confirms that there is no link but parents are still refusing to vaccinate their kids.

I'm quietly confident that the majority of parents who don't vaccinate their kids don't know anyone who has died or been left crippled by polio either but yet they feel that the potential harm to their child from the vaccine is higher than the risk to their child of contracting one of the diseases we vaccinate against. These people (and I know one or two) are sensible. The people I know are well educated and responsible parents, they buy cars based on their safety ratings, they do a full reference check before they let anyone babysit their kids (I read somewhere that it's middle class, university educated, parents where vaccination rates are dropping, I'll try to find a reference) but they clearly don't have a basic grasp of statistics. I am having difficulty finding the numbers on side effects and adverse reactions, however vaccines are many times safer than the diseases they prevent.

And really, this is the key point. It really is safer to vaccinate your kids than not. We all love our kids and want the best for them. We don't think twice about popping them in the car and driving somewhere, many of us have or visit backyard pools/ponds, almost all of us drink hot beverages and do at least some cooking but statistically all of these are far more likely to injure or kill our kids than giving them their shots.

I'm not going to get into herd immunity here (check out this animation for a good explanation), but every parent who exercises their choice to not vaccinate makes it more dangerous for those who can't be immunised for some medical reason and for the people whose response to the vaccination does not give them total immunity. If we can learn anything from the lessons in places like Haiti, with it's cholera epidemic, we are really only one natural disaster, one sick person, away from an epidemic. So yes, I know that vaccines aren't perfect, but I want to give my kids the best possible chance to stay healthy throughout their lives, so I choose to vaccinate my kids.

Kiran, 5.5 weeks old

Earth Hour

I'm all for events that raise the public consciousness about environmental issues and I'm all for being more frugal with electricity generally, particularly with turning off brightly lit advertising, however there's something about Earth Hour that doesn't quite sit right with me. Earth Hour was apparently dreamt up with the idea that turning off the lights for one hour will deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

I think the questions on Lee's Blog (which I recently discovered) are very pertinent - are the power companies on board with this, understanding that there will be a dramatic decrease, then a surge, in demand? The Earth Hour FAQ says that coal fired (and gas and hydro) power stations respond to the power demand and therefore "it is very likely Earth Hour will cause a reduction in fossil energy power generation" which doesn't really sound that promising in terms of actually decreasing fossil fuel consumption to me.

What do people do while they have their lights off? Apart from spending some quality time together in their bedrooms (!) almost every activity needs some light. I don't think you are really in the spirit of the thing if you watch TV or surf on the 'net (no live blogging!) and since Asher will be asleep we can't take a stroll around the neighborhood. So what to do for light? Candles? The battery powered lantern that Eithne took camping that we now have? Ah, candles....

The Earth Hour FAQ gives all the usual safety warnings about candles and says:

If you plan on burning candles during Earth Hour, make sure you use 100% beeswax
candles which are gentler on our planet – smoke free, non-toxic and
non-allergenic. They are also made of natural products, not petroleum-based
materials, so they are effectively carbon neutral (the CO2 they emit has already
been taken from the atmosphere to produce the wax).

Now, apart from the fact that people should use whatever candles they already have at home so as not to increase candle production I tend to agree that they should use beeswax candles. However, I have a major problem with the idea that because they were produced with CO2 from the atmosphere and will release their CO2 back into the atmosphere, they are carbon neutral. Coal was once a plant material that got it's CO2 from the atmosphere so burning it is 'carbon neutral'? I don't think so. Light bulbs, particularly the modern long-life low-wattage bulbs are pretty efficient at creating light, much more efficient than candles. How much CO2 does an average candle emit when burnt? Letters to the SMH claim between 15g and 220g (although I suspect that the last estimate requires all the wax to be burnt, which it wouldn't be with a beeswax candle).

So, despite my cynicism, I will turn the lights off for Earth Hour, in fact I'll turn pretty much everything off. Just like last year, Sanjay and I will play Scrabble by candle-light and hope that as we all unplug we think of ways to keep things turned off for longer - read, talk, make music or play games instead of using computers and the TV and leave things turned off at the wall so they don't consume power while on standby, drive less, consume less, recycle their aluminium foil as well as their cans, lobby to have advertising signs turned off late at night, take our own bags and, as we do these things, I hope we feel productive and content.

Clare is back!

The lovely Clare (or "CLA!" to Asher) is back, and while I realise I haven't mentioned here that she was going having her back is so exciting I need to post! Asher grinned and flailed his arms and legs about when he saw her, so he was obviously happy to see her too. She got back from the Students of Sustainability conference in Perth in the early hours of yesterday morning. Because I locked myself out of the house (again) she came over with spare keys to let me in and she is bubbling over with enthusiasm and ideas. This was her first big trip away without family - a group of Sydney students drove a bus over to Perth for the conference and camped the whole time, not bathing for the entire trip. Clare says they are all really great people and really inclusive, but I think the need for complete consensus for all decisions would get to me before we even got half-way across the Nullabor.

She was at a protest that got pretty full-on, with cops in riot gear using their truncheons and capsicum spray and arresting some of her chilled out hippy mates. She was careful enough not to get arrested, but hearing her stories brought back memories of when I used to do stuff like that. Her current obsessions are with the mining on indigenous land and sexual violence - I think. I'm really glad she's back safely and is going to come with us when we go to Canberra in early August (and I can't wait for the photos! She promised to put some up on Flickr).

In other news, Asher is now completely over his mystery illness and once more our happy boy and he cut his seventh tooth yesterday. He is still being fussy about food though - am I a bad mother for feeding him a slightly stale prawn cracker and half a banana for dinner? He wouldn't eat any of the vegetable pasta I prepared (or the other half of the banana)....