Holiday happiness

We're off on holidays for two weeks, so I won't be blogging. Will I survive without it...?

See you soon. xxx

My mother is a gem

Here is a reason to be sick. Your mother may come to visit and clean your kitchen for you.

My mother has the gift of cleaning.

She finds dirt that I cannot see (or perhaps choose to ignore) and she removes it.

She reminds me to buy new, shiny dishcloths and more dishwashing liquid so that next time she comes she won't have to work with substandard equipment.

She rubs and scrubs until the entire kitchen shines. It is something I seem unable to achieve for myself, so I am very grateful when it happens for me via her capable hands.

There is an upside to feeling sick.

The girl who ate nothing but cake

I think my eight year old daughter may have inherited my 'gift' of anxious imagination (see previous post). Here is a story she wrote at school entitled 'The Girl Who Ate Nothing but Cake'.

Once there was a girl called Hattie. She ate nothing but CAKE!! One night she grew SO FAT. She couldn't fit in the car to go to school but she managed but she couldn't fit in the school room. So she did not have school work to her discugst but because she was still stuck so she died.

Hypochondria and death

I think about death almost every day. Not in a gruesome way, but in a "what would I do if...?" sort of way.

For example, husband might be ten minutes late. My mind goes straight into "It would be bad if he had a car accident. I hope he's ok. What if he died? How would they tell me? What would I say? Where would I live? What would we play at the funeral? How will I get on with the children on my own. I don't think I'd marry again..."

Or I hear a story about a child dying and think, "That would be awful. How would I cope? Would I have another baby? How would I tell the other kids? etc etc"

Or I feel slightly ill in the stomach and think, "Heavens - what if I have stomach cancer and I have a long prolonged drawn out death. How would I say goodbye to everyone? I'd have to write down instructions for husband about the children and make sure they were ok..."

As a child I frequently worried about mum and dad dying. It was good I knew that I'd be living with my aunty and uncle, although I was a little concerned that they'd have too many people to look after with three extra children and two of their own...

The good part about this habit is that I have made sure I have enough life insurance and super to survive should anything happen to my husband. The bad part about it is I think I am slightly hypochondriacal. Also, my husband rarely takes me seriously if I am concerned about an ongoing health problem.

"Oh, you just think you're going to die... don't worry about it!" (He says it in a nice way though.)

Is this a normal thing? Or am I the queen of panicky hypochondria?

PS. I do feel ill today. Woke with a throbbing headache. Read on the internet that waking up with a headache can be a sign of brain tumour.... here we go again.

Housework must go

I did a very interesting exercise the other day with a counsellor I see on and off.

In the middle of the table, she put down 30 little tokens. These tokens represented my available time and energy. Around the tokens I then put out different coloured pieces of paper. These represented different parts of my life such as being a wife, being a mother of my most difficult child, being a mother of the other two, social life, time for myself, my writing, church ministry and the housework.

I had to allocate tokens to each piece of paper to show how much time and energy I put into each area of life at the moment, and then how much I wanted to put into each area of life.

It was a very illuminating exercise to actually see where I put my efforts in a physical form.

A few things came up. I want to put more energy into writing and our marriage. But to do that means cutting down on something else. And hopefully it is the thing that eats up so much of my time... the dreaded housework.

I came away from the exercise trying to think creatively about how I can reduce or reorganise the housework (without getting a cleaner, which I can't afford), hopefully including all the rest of the members of the family so that we do it together.

We're about to have two weeks of holiday, so I'll use that to have a break from the current routine and then introduce some changes!

Vegies

Introducing my homegrown cauliflower, surrounded by its friends, coriander and cos lettuce.

I am currently enjoying it in the form of a rather tasty vegetable soup for lunch.

In the news

In the news today were three items of interest to me.

First was the announcement by Russell Crowe that in his football club (Souths - who my husband has supported through all the lean years) there will be no gambling poker machines when it reopens next year.

Kudos to Crowe and his business partner. The reason I generally avoid clubs is because of its heavy reliance on gambling income to prop up its business.

Some figures I heard today (and I cannot verify their correctness):
70-80% of club income comes from gambling
50% of that gambling money comes from people who have gambling addictions.

Also in the news, the terrible story of the young Chinese mother who was living in New Zealand with her husband. Her body was found today in her husband's car outside her home. She was most likely murdered by her husband, who then fled to Los Angeles via Melbourne, where he abandoned their three year old daughter 'Pumpkin' at a train station.

Domestic violence is real, horrible and tragic. It's not limited to one group of people or culture or socio-economic level. It is everywhere. We must expose it and condemn it.

Finally, I heard this story. A woman who is suing her doctor over a twin birth after more IVF embryos were implanted than she wanted. They want the doctor to pay the $400,000 or so it will cost to bring up the 'extra' child. I wonder if she has worked out which is the baby she wanted, and which is the one she doesn't want!

IVF and in fact, all reproduction, is not an exact science. You can't just 'make babies' on demand. They come, and they don't come, and sometimes you just don't know what you're getting, or when you're getting it. Assuming we have control over conceptions and births is kind of sad.

Time with children

Do we have enough time for our children?

Many parents complain about the press of daily life and the rushing around that we all seem to do. "Work-life balance" is the catchcry of our times.

There are a few simple ways to ensure we spend enough quantity and quality time with our children.

First is just doing normal everyday 'stuff' together. Unpacking the dishwasher, hanging out the washing, sweeping the patio, cleaning the pool - these are all opportunities we have to spend time with our children.

Little ones love to help and if we give them tasks that are appropriate for their abilities, they will feel competent and enjoy themselves.

Second is talking around the dinner table. This is such an important part of family interaction that it is regularly used in studies to assess the quality of the home environments for young children.

Third is chatting in the car on our way to wherever we are going! Let's not be tempted to always tune out and put on the radio. There are plenty of opportunities to talk to our children in the back seat.

Memory

My first memory comes from when I was 19 months old. My little brother had just been born, and my grandma was taking me and my older brother to the hospital to see him.

We were in a corridor and I was trying to reach up to see through the window into the baby nursery, but I was too little. My big brother tried to boost me up to see, but in the end grandma picked me up on her hip.

I have other memories following after this time - a favourite red dress, having a photograph taken with my cousin, playing in a willow tree.

Many of my memories are from before the age of 3, so I was very interested to read in Awakening Children's Minds that the large majority of people have no memory of themselves before this age. It is a phenomenon called 'infantile amnesia'.

Some researchers believe that in order to build an autobiographical memory, a children must have a well-formed sense of self - as a person who remains the same on the inside over time. Such a psychological self is not usually in place until the age of 3 or 4.

In addition, this kind of memory relies on the ability to organise personal information into a narrative form so that they become part of a life story.

I'll be interested to see what my children can remember as they grow older.

Child development

I'm reading a book entitled Awakening Children's Minds by Laura E. Berk. It draws a middle line between the old nature vs nurture debate on who or what really influences a child.

"At very young ages, when children are just beginning to acquire culturally valued skills, they depend almost entirely upon interactions with more expert cultural members to make sense of their experiences.

For example, when researchers tested 3 year olds to find out what they remembered about a visit to a museum, the children recalled only information they had talked about with their mothers; everything else had been forgotten."

"Development... cannot take place without parents and teachers as thoughtful and committed participants in children's lives. Parents and teachers are leaders in awakening children's minds and fostering their development."

Back on my book

Today's blog is the introduction to chapter 3 of my new book on friendship. I've been working on it tonight and don't have time for anything else fresh!

Relating in the public space

I’m a little bit embarrassed to say that I love reality TV. I especially like what I call the ‘fish out of water’ shows. Whether it’s the mums of two different families swapping houses for a fortnight, or an Aussie family going to spend a month with an African tribe, I like the idea of seeing how people react when they don’t belong.

Comedy films are sometimes based around this basic premise. Think of the oldie ‘Crocodile Dundee’, where Mick Dundee, a bushie from the Northern Territory gets transplanted to New York City. He’s never seen so many people in his life, he can hardly understand the accent and he doesn’t know why people look at him oddly when he says hello to everyone he sees on the street.

Then there’s Legally Blonde which dumps Elle Woods, a pink-loving Californian ditzy blonde and her pet chihuahua Bruiser with matching accessories into the middle of the serious, cynical, academic world of Harvard Law School.

The laughs in these shows come from watching the people who are the ‘fishes out of water’ learn the rules and find their place and some sort of acceptance in their new environment. We cringe as we watch them flounder and we cheer when they finally find their footing.

All of these shows are dealing with the idea of public belonging. In other words, they look at how people relate in the public space. In a previous series on belonging and friendship (check out the links to the right if you're reading this on my blogsite) we saw how public belonging occurs when people connect through an outside influence.

Mick Dundee was connected to his Aussie mates through his love of the bush and his pursuit of crocodiles. He expressed his belonging by the way he looked, the things he said and the cultural rules he followed.

Elle Woods belonged to the Californian sorority scene and clearly didn’t fit into Harvard Law. Just the way she walked down the corridor and tilted her head in class told everyone around her, “I’m new here and I don’t understand the rules.”

I Love You Rituals

I was lent a wonderful book entitled "I Love You Rituals" by Becky A Bailey.It's full of little finger games and rhymes to play with a young child.

Even better, though, she has some great advice on helping your child to learn, to stay calm and focused and to yes, behave!

Something I found helpful were her words on noticing and giving feedback. Any parent knows that the words "look at me mum and dad" can go on forever.

Most of us have had a conversation like this:

Kid: (twirling around) "Look at this Mum"

Mum: (reading) "Oh, great. Mm hmm."

Kid: (two seconds later) "Mum, look at me. Look what I'm doing."

Mum: (looking down at book and in monotone) "Yep, I'm watching. You're fantastic."

Yeah right. I'm not watching at all!

Bailey says that research shows that children's brains need constant feedback in order to grow and develop. Giving feedback that is specific and tailormade to the occasion is far more useful in the long run than pretending to look and approve or even giving praise.

So the conversation above would ideally sound like this:

Kid: (twirling around) "Look at this Mum"

Mum: (watching) "You're twirling around. Your head is going around and around."

Kid: "I'm going around and around."

Mum: "You're still doing it. Your feet are working hard. You must be getting dizzy."

Watch out if you're on my Christmas list and you've got little children - you now know what you'll be getting!

Good and bad

Good list
House is clean and tidy
Dinner was good (lamb curry)
My vegie patch cauliflower is growing
A nap in the middle of the day
Husband had a day off
Got all my autism therapy videoing done and processed.
I'm feeling better.

Bad list
The kids today are called 'Poo-boy' (two diarrhoea explosions), 'Banshee' (incredibly clingy and teary) and 'Mumpo' (yes, we think she might have mumps). Enough said.
I've lost a book someone lent me, as well as a toy from the toy library.
I feel fat.

She gets it from me

My brain loves to organise and get things done, even if my body doesn't always follow suit. If I see a problem, my first thought to solve it is to make a chart, draw up a list or create a system.

My eight year old daughter seems to have inherited this tendency. Yesterday she ruled up and wrote out a weekly roster with her toys' names on it.

"It's so that I'll play with them all and not leave them out," she explained.

Domestic violence series

What are the things that stop a woman from leaving an abusive relationship?

Here's a quick list, taken from Horley's book Power and Control.

- The power of a charming man who creates an emotional dependency between the two of them.
- Emotional entrapment, saying sorry and pleading on the man's part
- Love that still exists
- Pure fear that if she gets away, he will come after her and the children
- Fear of being alone after being convinced that they are worthless and unable to cope
- Feelings of guilt and shame that she is somehow to blame for the abuse
- Hope that everything might just get better
- Stigma of divorce and being publicly known as a 'battered wife'
- Belief that parents should stay together no matter what
- No one to turn to, after being isolated from friends and family for a long time
- Financial dependence
- Nowhere to actually go - few shelters and public housing that is unsuitable
- Having to move children around is unsettling for them
- Belief that police reactions will be unsympathetic

"Ending any relationship is a painful and complex process for anyone. There will be ambivalent feelings, attempted reconciliations, hopes that things will improve, feelings of guilt at leaving, anxieties at facing a new life. But for an abused woman, the trauma is doubled. It's easy to say glibly, "Women have a choice - why don't they leave if it's that bad?" But do they really have a choice? " ~ Horley

Domestic violence series

Here's an edited excerpt from the book Power and Control - Why Charming Men Can Make Dangerous Lovers by Sandra Horley.

'Why does she stay with him?' is invariably the first question everyone asks when they hear that a woman is being abused by her partner.

It's a question that always irritates me because I find it irrelevent. My whole thesis is that a woman does not cause her husband to be abusive. Why a woman stays with an abusive man is not the point. The real issue is: Why do men abuse women in the first place, and how can we prevent it from happening?

Whenever I hear someone say, "Why does she stay?" I tell them they should turn the question around and ask, "What stops her from leaving?"

"Why does she stay?" implies that there is something wrong with an abused woman, that she is somehow different from other women, that she is somehow responsible for ending the abuse. That of course is a myth: a woman can unwittingly find herself in a relationship with an abusive man. And once she is caught up in the Charm Syndrome, it can be very hard indeed to get out.

"Why does she stay?" also suggests that a woman has control over her own life - but it is Charm Syndrome Man who has all the real control.

It is important to understand the enormous odds a woman is up against, in order to see that the real point is not why she stays, but what a triumph it is when she is able to leave. Indeed it is a miracle that she can cope with her predicament at all, at the same time as looking after her children, holding a job, maintaining her sanity and so on.

Teenager Again

I am trying to come to grips with the Facebook phenomenon.

For those of you who are unaware of Facebook, it's an internet network where you can enter your profile and information about yourself plus photographs, and then connect up with people you know or have known in the past. It seems to be exploding - there are more and more people signing up every day.

I have made connections with lots of people I knew from high school days. On one level, it's really fun to see what they look like now (20 years later) and read about what they are doing.

On another level, it is bringing up all sorts of odd feelings for me. I almost feel like a teenager again when I look at my 'friends' pages and read their messages.

I guess that would be fine, except that I didn't find being a teenager particularly wonderful. High school was reasonably hard in terms of relating to people in our small fishbowl type boarding school. In the 20 years that have elapsed I have grown and matured and become much happier being me.

So it's bizarre to take up again with some of the people I struggled so much with in those years.

I'm not sure that I'm happy with Facebook. I want to ignore it and never look at it again, and put all of that teenage angst behind me. On the other hand I have a bit of an obsessive fascination with seeing all the people from the past.

TV

I absolutely never ever watch TV during the day. I feel positively evil, vile and lazy if the TV is on when there's a perfectly good day outside and loads of things to do.

So it was almost a crisis of conscience to be feeling still sick enough today and decide to stay in and watch not one video, but two in a row.

I thought it was probably the only way I would actually rest. Normally I walk around the house thinking, "I'll just sit down now... oops, no, the washing needs sorting... oh, look, the table needs a wipe down.... oh hang on, the kids forgot to make their beds... gee, I feel rotten..."

So I had the delightful company of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde I and II this morning. Amusing, light and fun. The weather outside was suitably grey so it was a very good day for convalescing.

Missionaries in the family

Tomorrow our family says a temporary 'farewell' to my brother, sister in law, and cute little neice and nephew as they head off overseas on missionary service for a few years.

They are heading to an undisclosed country (but you can all guess where it is) in South Asia to take up a ministry in engineering for a Christian company.

And yes, it is a ministry in a country where corruption rules and shonky buildings are the norm because of kick-backs and skimming off the top. In a recent earthquake in the region, the Christian-built hospital was the only building that stayed up. It was the centre of help and ministry to thousands of people who lost everything.

I wish them well and I'll be praying for them!

What am I here for?

When I was lying on the floor the other night, thinking "hmmm, this is what it would feel like if I collapsed and was about to die", my reasons for sticking around became very clear.

Of course I wouldn't want to leave my husband and family and friends, but they are all adults and they would cope, although I hope they might be a bit sad.

However, I still have a lot to do with my children before I'm ready to leave them, especially little Bright Eyes. They are my ongoing work in progress.

I also thought of another young person who I would have trouble leaving because I feel very involved in her life and I want to make sure she's alright in the future.

Interestingly, though, I also thought, "I can't go - I haven't written my books yet." None of my other career aspirations came to mind (and there have been a number over the years) so the writing is obviously a strong push. I told my husband this and he said, "Well, you'd better get on and write them then, hadn't you!"

I'm not dead yet...

... but I had a little scare.

It was an adventurous Sunday night. I was perfectly fine up until I woke at 3am feeling quite ill and thinking, "I need to get to the toilet". I made it, but the next thing I knew, my husband was shaking my face, pouring sugared water down my throat and saying, "Are you ok? Can you hear me?"

I had passed out onto the floor and couldn't move and could hardly speak. It felt like I was standing off to the side, wanting to answer and thinking, "I'm fine", but the body just wasn't working.

After 10 or 15 minutes I thought I wouldn't make it back to bed and asked to go to the hospital, so my dear husband called 000 and the ambulance came to collect me.

I spent the next eight hours in hospital on a drip, having my (low) blood pressure taken and was discharged later that morning.

The cause? Unknown really. Probably just a virus says the doctor today. I've slept for the majority of the last two days and I'm feeling steadily a little better, but don't worry Mum, I'm planning to TAKE IT EASY for the next week or so.

In fact, I'm petering out now, so will stop typing....

(Thanks for your good wishes and the offers of help and the delicious quiche dropped around... yum yum. At least I'm hungry.)

Power and Control

I'm back to depressing topics and am still interested in finding out more about domestic violence and abuse. This week's reading has included a book entitled Power and Control - Why Charming Men Can Make Dangerous Lovers* by Sandra Horley (2002, Vermilion).

The book deals particularly with abused wives or female partners in a domestic relationship. Horley makes the point that she prefers the term 'Woman Abuse' to 'domestic violence' or 'relationship abuse' because the abuse is one-way, not two-way.

Because the abused women do not invite violence, or incite it, or deserve it, and because nothing they can do will stop the abuse, you cannot fall back on the old principle of 'it takes two to tango'.

Woman Abuse happens because the male partner has a need to control. He sees his wife or partner as his property and he has a strong need to call all the shots. He chooses violence or emotional abuse as the means of control. The abused woman can do nothing to stop it, short of leave.

According to Horley, the words 'domestic' and 'relationship' help perpetuate the idea that the woman is partly to blame for what is happening to her.

She presents a strong case for a different type of wording. I might be more specific about how I term this problem in future posts. Look out for more on the pattern of charm and control, myths about woman abuse and some of the reasons it happens.


* Just would like to state for the record that my husband is charming, and not dangerous.