Chocolat

I have a little ritual I indulge in. Every morning, as I get up at stupid-o'clock to deal with a starving child, I reach into the fridge and have a little piece of chocolate. If I'm having a bad day, feel like things are getting on top of me or just crave a little me-time, I do the same thing. But not today. Nor any day until Easter.

Lent is the 40 days leading to Easter when we dedicate ourselves to re-evaluating our connection with God. It is traditionally a time of prayer, deep thinking and fasting, and for many Christians is a chance to take stock, to see how they've done this year and prepare for the next. Now, if I was spending the next 40 days in silent reflection I would be happy to fast, but as a working mum with an active life and two kids to wrangle this is just not going to happen. Just as well mind you, because I think I'd go stark raving mad. No, I have normally preferred to fast in spirit only, to 'give up' something less tangible, like saying mean things about people or sarcasm (that one was a struggle!). Even last year I could not understand the meaning or purpose behind giving up chocolate or wine or facebook for lent. "How does this make the world a better place?" I asked a priested friend. "Why do people do this? Is it habit? Is it lip service? I DON'T GET IT!".

Now I do. Or at least I am beginning to.

As with all faith, it is difficult to put into words something that goes so far beyond them.  But in coming to this decision, there are a few factors that come to mind.

Firstly, I am trying to create in myself a time of mindfulness. When I reach for the chocolate and remember I can't have it it reminds me that many of the things I take for granted, small luxuries and things I consider essential, are out of reach for many of God's children. I am reminded of all I have, and to give thanks always and everywhere.

Then I am prompted to examine what it is that is making me reach for the comfort of chocolate. Am I celebrating? Commiserating? Tired (probably)? Is there a better way, a more conscious way, of dealing with my emotions than the instant comfort that food brings? Again, I dedicate this time and space to God as I ask Her for support in my actions and thoughts.

Finally, I feel a deep visceral need to deny myself something as a sacrifice to God. This is not something I have explored before, and the words don't sit comfortably with me now. But it feels right that for a short time, I should feel some small, trivial part of the pain that Jesus suffered on account of human actions. And I'm not talking about the physical pain of the cross here either, but that of knowing that despite his best efforts, people where (and are) still hurting each other and themselves in the name of God.

It's early days now, and I've already opened the fridge twice. But I've also put a lot of though into my relationship with God and God's world. I will be interested to see what happens next.

15 facts about my kids

There's a trend in the blogosphere at the moment reminding us that most of us started blogging to keep a record of/for our kids. And because I am *trendy* (oh yeah!) I'm jumping on this bandwagon and sharing 15 things about my bubbas.

1) Abby has learned three letters so far - S, T and A. She loves finding words that have these letters in them and finding them on signs etc.

2) William thinks that if he pumps his legs or squeeeeeezes with his little hands the milk comes faster. Little baby claws pinching hurts.

3) Abby has stopped caring what she wears as long as it is long enough to cover her butt and tummy and is not too tight. This is a relief.

4) Everytime William comes with me to some kind of adult event (service, workshop, lecture etc) people afterwards ask me "Is he always this good?". Yes. Yes he is.

5) The one thing that would make Abby's life complete is a talking magic pony. I really really wish I could give her one.

6) The first thing William does in the car is look for his big sister.

7) Those people who maintain that kids will eat something that they have prepared have never met my daughter.

8) William loves water. He loves baths, swimming and watching the tap run. Today I put a cup of water on his high chair tray and it kept him amused for almost 30 minutes.

9) Abby asked the other day how God makes people alive. She asks good questions.

10) William has the most adorable dimples in his hands.

11) Abby has really long legs. She is so beautiful and unselfconscious in her movements.

12) William isn't as ticklish as Abby, but he does love having his hands and feet kissed.

13) Abby is not a risk taker. Sometimes this irritates me.

14) William is getting good at reaching out and grabbing things he's not meant to have.

15) My kids love each other so much. That is the greatest gift.

Abduction Alert!

A little girl (7 years old) was *almost* abducted from Walmart in the US this week. The clever little poppet screamed and kicked and got away unscathed. Brilliant! My initial reaction? What a great job that little girl's parents did, she knew just what to do! And she seems pretty chuffed with herself as well. Good for her! The 'world according to the internet' reaction? Well, on the websites I frequent, same thing. Elsewhere? The mother (only the mother for some reason, I'm not sure where the Dad comes into it) is being vilified for letting her 7 year old daughter out of her sight while at the shops. This is one of the comments left on a news site:

NEVER leave your child out of your sight in ANY store. NEVER be in one aisle and your child in another, NEVER leave your child in the car while you run in to pay for your gas, NEVER leave your grocery cart with your kid in it, always have at least one hand on the cart. It's very unfortunate, but you just can't be too careful these days, as this story so clearly shows. And yes, I have a kid. He is now 21 and still thinks I was paranoid, but as I said -- he reached the age of 21 and no, I never did leave him out of my sight when he was little.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2098608/Kidnap-attempt-Walmart-Girl-7-tells-moment-man-tried-abduct-her.html#ixzz1m3D8fJ5F

And another:

At this age I walked to the bus stop and home from school and many other places alone. Many kids still do, but they shouldn't. Crime against children is so rampant that we must revise our expectations of what they can or should do without supervision. This, however, is an amazingly blatant, brazen abduction attempt. Walmart is obviously rife with cameras inside and out. She should have been safe, but she wasn't. We are basically all sitting ducks for these creeps.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2098608/Kidnap-attempt-Walmart-Girl-7-tells-moment-man-tried-abduct-her.html#ixzz1m3Ddg8vG

Right. Shall we spoil this with some common sense, maybe even some facts? Shall we start with the obvious? If it was really so dangerous to let your primary school age child into a different aisle in the shops, why is the the first reported incidence of an abduction attempt? Given how much the media LOVES sensationalist stories, especially ones involving children, wouldn't we be hearing about it a whole heap more? Remember Daniel Morecombe? Of course you do. This was a truly tragic case and my heart goes out to his family. Do you remember the name of the little girl whose whole family was killed in a car accident, leaving her in state care? No, you don't. Mainly because I made that case up. But I can guarantee that little girl is out there, just one of the many tragic stories we don't hear because they aren't exciting or unusual enough to capture the media's attention.

It is really hard to find statistics on how many children are abducted in Australia by sexual predators. Most of the sites I come to have alarming stories about attempted abductions, Anywhere! Anytime! And it must be absolutely heart breaking for those people who do lose a child under any circumstances, most especially violence. But the thing is, most of these appear to be unsuccessful attempts. I did find some US sites that had some interesting information. Did you know that according to a national study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1,131,000 and 1,500,000 children went missing during 1999 (a rate of about 18.8 children per 1,000). Half of these youths were runaways or were forced out of their homes by a parent or guardian. The second largest group was made up of children who were missing for benign reasons, such as a communication mix-up with a caregiver. Fewer than 200,000 children were actually abducted, lost, or injured. (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy867). In 1999 117, 220 children were involved in familial abducation, and 33 000 victims on non family abduction. That is a tragic number, and worse is that 74% of these children were dead within three hours. HOWEVER, the rate of abduction is 0.47 per 1000 people. Cause for sadness? Yes. Cause for alarm? No. Not for me.

This is just one example of increasing misperceptions of crime in Australia (http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/381-400/tandi396.aspx). When something bad happens, even on the other side of the world, people tend to catastrophise, immediately imagining the worst case scenario and applying it to their own circumstances. This little girl was attacked! At the shops! I have a little girl! We go to the shops! I will never let her out of my sight again!

See how that goes?

We love our kids. We want the best for them. We want them to stay safe. But I am making a stand against fear mongering. Crime is less than it was 30 years ago, not more. You are FAR more likely to be abused by someone you know than by a stranger. And you are more likely to die in a car accident or from the effects of an inactive lifestyle than be abducted and killed by a stranger.

My daughter knows the rules. She knows that she can talk to or play with anyone she likes, but never go somewhere with them. She knows that if someone tries to take her away, she is to kick and scream and bite. She knows the world is a beautiful and mainly safe place, and she is not afraid. She will go to a different part of the shops without me. She will run ahead on the way home from school and turn the corner. She will (soon) stay at home BY HERSELF for 5 or 10 minutes while I go outside and count (baby steps). And if by some horrible chance someone does try to take her away from me, I will deal with whatever is left after she's done.

 

How come no one comments?

If I didn't want anyone to read it, I wouldn't have put it out there. So come on, give me some love (or not. Although, seeing as it's only family who read this I'm hoping for the love) here!

Bitch. Slut. Anything else?

I've been thinking a lot recently about gendered insults. The two that come to mind most immediately are bitch and slut. These are names used almost exclusively to describe women and in a way that minimises their personhood and gender. A bitch is, by definition, a female dog. By calling someone a bitch we are taking them to the level of an animal, denying them their humanity and by extension out own. Looking at this through my feminist lens, by calling someone a bitch/cow, we are saying that their very femaleness is the root of the problem. Sure, in some circles men are called 'bitch' as well. In some ways that is worse, because it is denying their maleness and 'cursing' them with femaleness. A double whammy there! And what exactly is it that would prompt us to use this descriptor? Generally, it would appear to be used when we think a woman isn't behaving with appropriate modesty, 'niceness' or when they have something we want ('lucky bitch'). Basically, if we don't like someone, she becomes something less than human. We are denying their humanity, and when we do that we move ourselves, not them, away from God. And heaven help any one who tries to do that to my daughter!

Talking this over with a friend the other day she asked, 'but what if she is one?'. I guess that depends on what you think the definition of a bitch is. Me, I live with one. Her name is Buffy. Otherwise, I hope that I can think of a more appropriate descriptor. Like, 'overfull of her own importance'. Or 'bitter about life and nasty to boot'. Or Abby's favourite, 'a meanie'.

Moving on to another old favourite, the completely demeaning and with no redeeming definition 'slut'. Ooooh, even thinking about it gets me worked up! Tell me, what exactly is a 'slut'? It's certainly a woman, no label exists that has the same connotations for men. Is it someone who enjoys sex? Has a certain number of partners? How many? 5? 10? 100? Over how long a period? Is it someone who dresses provocatively? In whose opinion? Can you be a slut without actually having sex? Who gets to decide?

A quick scan over my sources (google) shows that a slut is defined as someone with 'loose morals'. Hmm. once again I am forced to ask, in whose opinion? I'm sure that many people would see me as having 'loose morals', sexually or otherwise. I lived with my husband before we were married, I take contraceptives, I am LBTQI friendly and will be bringing my children up the same. Does that make me a slut?

Once again it is about denying someone their essential humanity, the same humanity which binds us all. I suspect we will find that when we call someone a slut it is because we are uncomfortable with their choices, for whatever reason, and rather than examining this we retreat into putting a barrier between 'us' and 'them'.

So I guess my name calling is going to have to get a lot more creative now.

Australia Day - not posted because the interwebs went down

I'm not sure how I feel about Australia Day. I love our country, I think we are tremendously lucky to live in the freedom and prosperity that most of us enjoy, but when you get right down to it we ARE celebrating a day when Europeans came and started the deliberate and systematic destruction of an indigenous culture. I don't know what the answer is, but I do think it needs to be acknowledged. So I told Abby a little bit about how we remember this stuff on Australia Day, and Abby looked at me and said, "I don't remember". Well, no. She didn't want to talk about that anymore (and fair enough to) so we started talking about the great animals Australia has. We were talking about Kangaroos (of course) and Abby asked, "Mummy, have you ever seen a dead kangaroo on the road?". Right. So we talked a bit about what a dead kangaroo on the road looked like (flat) and missy asks if it was a baby kangaroo or a grown up one. When assured it was a grown up one she told me very solemnly that if kangaroos don't want to get run over they need to look both ways and hold hands, so kangaroos should never try and cross the road by themselves. So I have this lovely image of two kangaroos holding paws as they carefully peer onto the road. I can't wait for her to tell me about zebra crossings!

We went to the Jordan's for lunch today, which was nice. They really do have a great house for entertaining, and two (mostly) lovely girls. They also had some friends from their old church. This includes another little prep girl so Abby had a lovely time playing...stuff. However, I'm afraid I wasn't the best guest!

At one point Mrs Friend (yes, definitely Mrs not Ms) was asking Faye what she knew about what she called 'gender confusion disorder'. Apparently she had a friend with twins she hadn't seen for 6 or so years. When she saw them as infants there was a boy and a girl, and now at six years there were two girls! She was appalled that the parents were trying to get the child's gender changed on the birth certificate, and added that they were seeing a psychiatrist and everything! By this point I was getting a little... heated? and said that although I was no professional this was a topic I had read quite a bit about and that I was uncomfortable calling it a disorder because that implied that it was wrong and should be treated, whereas I believed it was just something that happened sometimes for whatever reason and we should just accept people as whatever gender they identified with.

Whoops.

But wait, it gets better! Apparently, there is talk that this disorder... sorry, issue (cue pointed look at me) was 'caused' by PND in mothers, that when they didn't bond properly their children got 'confused' or something. Well, of course I couldn't let that go, so I pointed out that I was suffering from post natal depression and had experienced trouble bonding with William but that I wasn't terribly worried about his gender identification!

So Mrs Friend decided that it would be fun to talk about the child who has been brought up gender neutral. Now that I was talking I figured I may as well continue -- I said that although I may not entirely agree with the method I completely understood what they were doing. "What, experimenting?" huffs Mrs Friend. No, I said, trying to allow their child to grow up without being influenced by what society thinks they should be rather than what they are. Well, this was never going to end well so I asked Stephanie to show me her room. Did you know that there is no sexism in Australia today? No, me neither.

Do you think I'll be invited back?