Sins of the father

When Ben was 4, we had a conversation about the differential workload between mothers and fathers, and how the situation was improving, but not yet equal. I explained that Ben's dad was a much better dad than his father was to him. He vowed then to be a better father again. As a mother trying to raise sons to challenge the patriarchy, there's not much more I could have asked for.

Ben's grandfather's name was Ross. He was an alcoholic who was frequently violent, especially when his family was young. And yet, he wanted to be a better father than his father had been. Ross told the story of seriously considering killing his father when he was 8 or 10 years old because of the violence in their house. He knew it was wrong. Nevertheless, he grew up to repeat it, if not quite as viciously as his father.

Crash, by contrast, has broken the cycle far more effectively. He isn't violent, but his language still includes violent rhetoric. The ghosts of fathers past still linger in his first reactions, despite his own force of will stopping him from acting on those impulses. Feminism gets some of the credit for this too. Ross knew the violence was wrong, but society as a whole didn't really back that up. He was brought up in Broken Hill, where women were decorations, not people. His conditioned responses had only his will standing against them, while Crash's have his will and that of a society that is finally beginning to condemn violence as a response to anger and frustration.

I feel a deep sadness for Ross. I don't know the history that precedes his father, or how many generations this legacy has affected. However, I have hope for the future. The sins of the father need not continue to be visited upon the sons. Understanding and compassion hold the key. Anger is necessary to recognise the problem, but it isn't enough to stop it repeating. Ross had every reason to be angry with his father, but without trying to understand him and identify why he did the things he did, Ross ended up repeating it. Crash still has habits of thinking that were influenced by the way he was raised. However, each time he gains more insight into his father, each little bit more he understands, he gains more power. Understanding doesn't excuse, but it's a hell of a lot easier to break habits whose origins make sense.

My kids have a massive advantage over the generations who preceded them. They are being raised by people who understand how our patriarchal society fucks with men, as well as women. I want them to be angry about what has gone before them, but I want them to direct the anger to the world that allowed and encouraged it. Another man in Ross's position might not have repeated his father's behaviour, but Ross in another time and place might not have either. We are social creatures, and our job is to create a society that makes it easy to break the cycle. We can never be responsible for another person's actions, but no person's actions take place in a vacuum. If we are to be an inclusive society, we have to be able to support the Rosses of this world, as well as those people who have been able to break the cycle on their own.

There is no argument I hate more than "I went through that, and I survived without ever doing X". As much as I admire the folks who can say that, it is completely unfair to those who a hellish childhood has broken. The problem is not that the kid failed to rise above the turmoil in their lives, the problem is that we failed to help them do so. As a society, we are damn lucky that many kids manage to do it themselves, but it doesn't excuse us for failing those who can't find the strength or the way.

The way forward is not through blame, but through understanding what went wrong. The only way to stop something happening again, is to understand why it happened the first time and what needs to be done differently to stop it happening again. You can tell a person not to lash out violently until you're blue in the face, but it you don't tell them what else to do, and how to control the emotions that drive it, no punishment or consequences will ever stop them.

What makes housework menial?

I hate housework. I spend a lot of time saying that I'd love not to have to do paid work, but then I interrupt myself and point out that this would necessitate more housework and day to day child care, and I'd go slightly peculiar if that was my main occupation.

But why? Why is housework less rewarding than the stuff I do for money? In truth, the routine work of both bore me to tears. In my paid work, it's the planning, problem solving, interacting with clients and suppliers and the basking in the glory of a successful job that I enjoy. But housework has none of that does it?

Well, yeah, it does. There are questions of organisation to minimise the requirement for mundane work. Problems of physical design to make spaces work sensibly - a constantly moving target as people's needs and possessions change. Questions of energy efficiency and evolving into a household with a smaller environmental impact. Management issues - encouraging children to do their jobs to the best of their ability along with training them to do so.

When I talk about paid work, I talk about the rewarding bits, but when I talk about household stuff, I mostly complain about the mundane stuff. While I might have good friends with whom I can boast about a particularly inventive solution to the Toy Storage Problem, I never feel self conscious discussing how I designed a portion of the infrastructure for commercial digital radio in this country. Or how I help bankers talk to one another reliably and cheaply. Why do the latter two give me kudos, while the former results the social equivalent of a pat on the head?

I don't know, I haven't done the studies, but I can't help having this niggling feeling that it just might have something to do with the fact that housework is women's work, and therefore mundane and uninteresting by definition. In my own little anecdata gathering exercise, I'll be looking more at housework as a job with, admittedly, a fairly high ratio of mundane work, but also with all the high order, glory-worthy responsibilities of a paid job. That counts for other people doing housework too, including my husband's.

A family Sunday

Yesterday, at the suggestion of my lovely Enjo seller, we took the kids to Petersham Bowling Club. As it happens, there is a bus that runs from the bottom of the hill we live on to the end of the street the PBC is on. Since Charlie is something of a public transport addict, we figured this was a win-win. On the way to the bus stop, the kids demonstrated the aspects of childrearing that allow children to make it to adulthood.

I swear this was not in any way staged. It followed on from Charlie and Elissa both telling me, spontaneously (OK, Elissa was copying, but still) that they were very excited.

Even the 10 minute wait for the bus didn't dampen spirits.

That is excited for Charlie.

The PBC itself was a great way to round out a weekend. The kids are allowed to run around (barefoot) on the unused bowling greens, and we sat outside, had a beer and watched them. I think it may become a regular event. Ben and Charlie both told me that they wanted to stay there for the rest of their lives.

Sydney Festival opener

Despite tummy bugs, toilet training (yes, in theory, it's still happening - not so much today) and the attack of Chicken Little*, we packed the kids up and took them into Hyde Park for the opening day of Sydney Festival. The really good stuff is on tonight, but as Responsible Parents, we are watching Iron Chef and Rockwiz instead of Al Green.

It was a fabulous afternoon. It was a little warm today in Sydney (probably still >30C outside now at 10pm), so the first thing that inspired all of us was this.

The kids embraced the opportunity to get wet with impunity.

Ben was in amongst it with the big kids in the raised part of the fountain within moments.

Charlie wasn't too keen to pose, but he loved the spouting water. A lot.

Elissa was just immensely happy to be wet. In any way at all really.

Of course, it ended in tears.

Ben hurt his finger and had a sulk. But I suspect it was worth it.

After we were all thoroughly soaked, we wandered around and found hula hoops for the taking.

That's St Mary's Cathedral in the background, and very probably Charlie's finger providing the smudge on the lens. It turns out that I can still whirl a hula hoop, but fortunately there is no photographic evidence.

There were snacks and strolls, and then we came across the wonderful bubble guy Mr Incredibubble, who Mim Tigtog previously blogged about, but I can't remember his name nor find her post** but I apparently can't remember anything. He mentioned he will have a website next week, so you may be able to check him out. ANYWAY, he makes huge bubbles, and if you throw a coin in the metaphorical hat, he will let your kids stick their heads in bubbles. They loved it. Squeals, smiles and giggles. Well worth the $5 I chucked in for the entertainment. I didn't take photos because I was too busy looking at the pretty bubbles.

Tram trip home, supermarket visit to buy hot dog makings for kids and meat & salad for ourselves, plus ice creams because a day like that should always end with ice creams.

There was happiness all round, significantly enhanced by the air conditioning we can turn on so as to pretend it isn't 30 degrees outside.

Further Updates (also courtesy of Mim): Apparently we were at the fountain at the same time as the SMH photographer. If you look hard in this photo, you can see Ben, Charlie and Me.

*Chicken Little is an employee of a client who has decided that small boxes being in an inconvenient spot might jeopardise a whole office relocation. I tried to be professional in my response, I really did. 

** Edited information provided entirely by Mim. I didn't even managed that bit.

Family fun times

On the weekend we went here:

That'd be the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains near Katoomba, for those not intimately acquainted with B-grade Australian landmarks.

We got that view from the Skyway. It has a glass floor which changes from opaque to clear during the trip (the need for which becomes apparent when you walk to the look out on the far side and look up). Elissa and Charlie were both pretty keen on it.

The next ride was the Scenic Railway - about which they were all rather excited.




Yes, that is Charlie looking excited.

This is what the railway track does:

Note the curve on those tracks - this is the steepest railway in the world. The kids loved it.

There is a very pleasant, accessible walk at the bottom through the sub tropical rainforest and past the old coal mines. It has lots of tree ferns. I like tree ferns.

Then we got the cable car back up the hill (which is the accessible method of going both up and down). The kids were still thoroughly rapt.

We did all of this with my aunt, who we haven't seen in so long that she didn't know Charlie's name. After the excitement, we headed back to her place and spent a relaxing weekend catching up with her and her hubby. It was a lovely weekend.

There was only one down side - this was the weekend we should have been Christmassing the house. Therefore I started this afternoon after school. At about this point:

I discovered that the second string of lights for the tree had inadvertently been put up outside, so Crash went out to retrieve them. (The very blurry photo is what happens when you are a tad annoyed and not bothering to look at the result.)

We got the second string of lights in, completed tree construction, but then the kids wanted to help decorate. By the time they had finished, it looked like this:

There are a whole lot of pretty ordinary decorations in the bottom right hand corner of the tree. I now need to move them all into the depths and put all the other decorations on. I was a little deflated and slightly feverish, so I figured I'd blog instead.

And with that little whinge, I have completed NaBloPoMo!

I'm a little stunned I did it, although I may have served up even more drivel than usual. There may be less posting for the next little while...

Anniversaries

Today marks two anniversaries.

It's 12 years since my father died, on Oaks Day, 1997. I'm sure I'm not alone in missing him all the time, but it's a strange mixed feeling to say so because my mother is now in a new relationship which has brought a new family into ours. To say I wish Dad was still here is in some way to say that I wish they weren't - which I really don't. David and his family are our family now too, and I wouldn't trade that. So I have to compartmentalise the two things, and I find it extremely hard to make my brain accept a logical inconsistency. It will just have to deal though, because it's not like I need to confront the problem of what I would choose if I could undo the past, so I'll leave that well alone and wish them all in my life.

Today is also Elissa's second birthday. She's celebrating it with a black eye and a bandage as a result of falling onto the coffee table last night. We're not actually celebrating it until Sunday anyway, except for the mandatory goodies for day care (which I rather resent, actually). At 2 she's still a pretty wonderful kid. She's funny, chatty, cuddly, bold, loud and worships her brothers. She's also getting increasingly stubborn, belligerent and defiant. If you tell her something she doesn't want to hear, she will either shhhh you or swat at you (the latter very clearly done in the knowledge that it's unacceptable). So you know, she's 2.

Family

The youngest brother of my grandmother died this week, and the funeral was on Friday in Taree. My extended family is pretty large - my grandmother was one of 8 and my grandfather was one of... 11? I haven't been to most of the funerals of that generation, and really can't keep track of my father's cousins. (Except for the one that is the father of the brothers in Tumbleweed, who I am happy to claim association with since they are in a band.)

I decided to go to this funeral because I haven't made it to the last few gatherings. The logistics were fun - Mum was coming up with me, and we both had commitments on Thursday night. (OK, my commitment was to spend a thoroughly enjoyable evening with Mim and Wildly Parenthetical, but I was genuinely committed.) So in our infinite wisdom we decided to take Elissa and drive up on the day. This meant a 5am start for a 5:25am (5mins ahead of schedule!) departure.

There was a comedy of errors, involving failing to take shoes or a stroller for Elissa, grabbing shoes from Vinnies and then having them create inch long blisters all before afternoon tea, but mostly it all went smoothly.

There was a huge turn-out for a man who was 78 when he died. It's lovely to see so many family and friends remembering a long life. My uncle hosted a barbecue in the evening and all but one of my father's siblings was there, along with two of his cousins (not ones I had previously managed to keep track of). At these gatherings, I always hear one story I haven't heard before - possibly because the stories change and get made up as time goes by - and this time I heard a wee bit more about my grandfather's experience at the Fall of Singapore. There were more stories from childhood, as well as updates on everyone's lives now. There was some discussion of genetics and the discovery of a cancer-causing gene in my grandmother's family.

Apart from just enjoying the company of my family, all of these things have affected how I got to where I am, how I'm raising my kids and how the rest of my life might play out. You can't grow up listening to the universal horror stories of Catholic school experienced by my father's generation and not feel some instinctive bias against them, no matter how much you know academically that things have changed. You can't be in a place where generations of your family have lived without feeling a connection to it, even if you know there is no way you could live there again. I couldn't take the boys with me because of the short notice and the fact that it was a weekday, but they'll be at the next gathering.

And I have a desire to create a pictorial family tree, so that I can work out who all these people are, and also so that my kids can. There are some practical issues with this - not least that I don't have an artistic bone in my body and can't work out how to do it - but I might make some attempt nonetheless.

From DINK to Family of Five

Aztec-rose has asked for "post-birth" stories - stories about how becoming a parent affected you, both personally and with respect to work.

I'm writing it here so that I can spend enough time to make it worth the effort.

When we had our first child, we were both earning substantial incomes. We were making enough money to renovate our house to make it big enough for kids, which we did at the end of the pregnancy. We moved back into our house when Ben was about 8 weeks old.

Like Aztec-rose, I lost all interest in work when I was pregnant. I pretty much lost all interest in anything that didn't involve the couch. It took me quite a while to work out that it was the pregnancy, and not just uncontrolled laziness. Then again, maybe it was both. There was a fair bit of self doubt happening.

Then the kid actually arrived. Nasty but uneventful delivery, but he looked like a purple octopus when he was born, which might have horrified me if I hadn't been so busy thinking he was dead. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to look at the midwife and obs and decided that they wouldn't look so bored if the baby was dead. He needed a bit of oxygen, but not for long and he was fine.

I know this is supposed to be "post-birth" but the fact that it was a less than rosy birth experience just played into my innate dislike of babies. The fact that I find breastfeeding painful and Ben was a grumpy, grumpy baby just piled it on. I wasn't disappointed, just reinforced.

On the plus side, our ridiculous pre-baby devotion to work left us with a lot of leave. Crash took 6 weeks when Ben was born, which made a massive difference to my sanity. I used up all my annual leave at half pay for my 6 months of maternity leave. I was happy to go back to work at 6 months. I went back full time, but I was much less inclined to work indefinite hours. My sister was looking after Ben, so I didn't feel he was abandoned. And I was in a much better state to deal with him when I was home.

At 10 months he walked, and he turned into a whole new baby. It was about then I was actually prepared to consider another child - despite always wanting two kids the whole concept had given me the willies me up until then.

I had a miscarriage when Ben was about 18 months old. Work was fantastic about it - told me to stay at home until I was ready to come back in, and I had about 2 weeks off (time between ultrasound and D&C). However, it did start to change my focus. As work got more stressful, I made the decision that my health and that of the family were more important than the income. When I was pregnant with Charlie, I quit and started my own business. As a result, I had no maternity leave at all with Charlie (did a big install 2 hours away when he was 2 weeks old - he came with me). However, I did get to arrange my time so that I spent time with them.

This day to day balance definitely contributed to my decision to have a 3rd baby. That and the fact that Charlie was an angel baby and gave me hope that I might not have another 6 months like Ben's first. Crash eventually made the same sanity decision as me, and we now work together in our business. Maternity leave was also non-existent with Elissa - I took her to a work site at 7 days, with Crash to look after her between feeds.

Income is much lower, but, most of the time, we can get to the really big events. We can spend time with them all. The trade-off is that we virtually never get a block of time (like a week or more) away from work. Hopefully this will not be forever. Even the work punctuated week we took in January was great therapy for the whole family. I want to be able to take more family holidays, especially as they get older.

Looking at it from the other side, my work life has absolutely had a massive impact on my parenting. I had no idea how to be a parent. I had to ask the midwife to show me how to change a nappy. However, since I had always worked outside my comfort zone, I just naturally approached parenting the same way I had all the other projects I was way out of my depth with.

I read up on the theory, with a healthy amount of skepticism that still wasn't enough to stop me believing some awful rot (exactly the same as at work). I read Up the Duff, Baby Love, Kid Wrangling and Babies!. Then I started the bootstrap process - assume what I know is right, see if it works, if not, ask people who know (friends and family) and look for other expert advice (Tanya Byron was and is a guiding light for me) from people who actually do this stuff in practice. Then try another approach as gleaned from others, always assuming that there will be holes in the conventional wisdom, and that there is always the possibility of another approach that might work better for me. This is a process that has stood me in good stead at work before and after kids. I never assume that I am incapable of anything, I just don't have enough information (or in some cases, inclination). So parenting was much the same. This isn't working? OK, try another approach. I am capable but not psychic. It's been a blessing to have this experience at work, because while I am constantly appraising my techniques, I don't question myself as a parent.

Huh, I actually effectively practise "criticise the action, not the person" on myself as a parent. I hope I do it as well with the kids!

If you are inclined, tell your story to Aztec-rose. She's doing a PhD on this stuff, which I think is an excellent thing.

Milestones a-go-go

Family holidays can be a little intense (the one last year with 3 families was more relaxing), but there are some up sides.

Elissa said her first word yesterday, and it was "ball". At least it wasn't "car" which was both her brother's first words. This is the first word which really means the same thing to us as her. She says "mama", and has done for a couple of months, but it means "I need attention - NOW!" and doesn't refer to me specifically. She also said it over and over, making it convincing - unlike when she said the same word, in reference to an actual ball only once or twice a couple of months ago.

Ben learned to swim. Actual swimming with strokes, rather than the "failing to drown" technique he used to employ. That technique was actually very efficient, which is why he took so long to learn to swim properly, but he is now doing a believable, if slow, freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke.

And Charlie finally decided that going to the toilet unaccompanied, at least for a wee, is a Good Thing. His mother thinks it is nothing short of a Bloody Miracle.

Scenes from a family holiday

This holiday marks the day when Elissa was finally walking well enough to wear a dress and real shoes comfortably.
I've really been hanging out for this. I love dresses, I love wearing them and they are just so cute on little kids. They are the best way to handle the heat - no tight bits around the middle, all free and breezy! They also don't present the same co-ordination problems that tops and bottoms do - especially for Dad.


Watching Star Wars turns out to be the only way to handle a disaster like discovering a poo in the pool. (No, we have no idea what happened, apparently this is a first for the place, and thank the gods our children were in no way involved!) The situation was resolved later in the day.

By the end of a day of holidays, the kids are all a bit frazzled. They all have different ways to handle the stress.
Sometimes a small girl doesn't need her pyjamas, just a few critical comfort items - dummy, rabbit and bum cream.


Of course, being the sophisticated 6 year old that he is, Ben is good to just chill out in the spa.


But for a 3 year old boy, the only option is to put your pants on your head.

Rest and relaxation

Since I am a Bad Mother, I hadn't organised a family holiday for January until December. My requirements were fairly simple:

Within 4 hours' drive

Less than $1500 for the accommodation

Access to a swimming pool

Access to a beach as well would have been a bonus, just because we have spent very little time at the beach with our kids. However, with a 14 month old, the world wasn't going to end if I couldn't manage that.

Of course, anyone who has kids older than mine is smirking knowingly at this point. "She wanted to organise a family holiday for January in December? Yeah right, that needs to be done by March! Not to mention that ridiculous budget - maybe a weekend in January!"

Everything I looked at was around the $2k for a week mark, and none of it was available anyway. I was just starting to think that we would never have another holiday for less than $5000 now that we are restricted to school holidays, when I figured I'd look at the pricing for a 2 bedroom cottage in the Hunter Valley. I had been hoping for a more kid friendly destination, but we had fun last year - so why not at least look.

Thank the gods wine regions are not family friendly - $750 for 5 nights, with an indoor pool, putt putt golf, tennis court and 9 hole golf course on site. Breakfast hamper supplied so we didn't have to do much shopping the first day.

So here we are. The boys are all in the pool for the 3rd time since we arrived yesterday afternoon. A second round of putt putt golf with follow. We've been to 2 wineries; an old favourite and one we've never been to before. The latter offered to take the kids into the vines to taste grapes that are nearly reading for harvest if we want to come back on Friday morning. All being well, I think we'll take them up on that offer.

The only downer is that McDonalds is the only Internet access - and they block all port 25, so I have to reconfigure my mail server to accept SSL or suffer with webmail. I ran out of battery before I could do that today, so I will sort it out tomorrow (when this will get itself posted). When I run the world, all accommodation will have access to the Interwebs.

The little holiday

We went to Nelligan near Batemans Bay for the weekend to see my uncle and his wife. He is my father's elder brother, and I've seen very little of him since he moved down the coast. The kids don't know him and Crash didn't even remember who he was until he saw him again. That makes me rather sad. I like my father's family, and I want my kids to know them - especially since they never got to meet Dad.

I'm hoping to make more trips down there. Better armed.

It was very pleasant. The weather was lovely and the spot is amazingly beautiful. It was great to catch up with them and we had some great arguments discussions about everything from John Howard to Gaza to the NRMA.

However, there were some lessons to be learned. It's about a 4 hour drive from our place, without stops. 3 kids can't make a 4 hour drive without stops, so it takes 5 hours. I failed to pack the dummy inside the car, which caused more pain than was strictly necessary. We also discovered that Ben gets car sick on windy roads. We didn't get to puking, but we did get to screaming and moaning for 20 minutes before we got to a town we could stop and eat at. Elissa, inevitably, went out in sympathy, although it is fair to say it was hard to tell over Ben's foghorn voice.

On the way home we had plain chips, the window wound all the way down and less sun on him, and there was only a wee bit of whinging for about 15 minutes.

When we got home, we discovered the 763 bites each one had sustained, all red and swollen and horrible. Apparently they have a different brand of mozzie down there, because our local ones make neat little red dots.

All in all, next time we go down Friday night, leaving immediately after dinner, with chips, dummies and cuddly toys all in the car. We come back on Sunday after lunch, without a huge week starting the next day. And we take a lot of Aeroguard.

Juggling work and family

Aztec-rose has asked a bunch of questions about how people juggle work and family, so I thought I'd answer them here.

1. What are your main work, life, family balance issues?

Hubby and I work for ourselves, and we don't really work full time, so it is hard to justify (or pay for) full time care. Unfortunately, we don't work to any particular timetable either, so we regularly end up look after kids and working, and that isn't much fun for anyone. Except maybe the baby, who doesn't care much either way.

2. Why is work life family balance such a difficult issue to resolve?

I think because largely we don't know what we want. We know we want cash. We know we want happy kids. Exactly what goes on to achieve those ends is a bit of a mystery. We are told that work is adult and fulfilling and part of our obligation to society. We are also told that kids need to bond and need time with their parents. Pretty much any choice you make is wrong somewhere.

3. Have work life balance issues affected your fertility decisions?

No.

4. Why do women, and mothers still take on the bulk of domestic unpaid work, despite juggle jobs and children?

Because the previous generation did, so we are better at it, and we are terrified that the world will come to an end if the kid forgets their library bag. And lots of other related things. Men still earn more, so it makes financial sense that women take the time off. It's catch 22, and unless we are prepared to make mistakes and leap into the unknown, the next generation will do the same. Mamas don't let your sons grow up to be breadwinners.

5. Why do married women do more housework than women in de facto relationships?

Because married women include the more conservative end of the female spectrum? If you control for general views on feminism, is that still true?

6. Does part-time work give mothers greater flexiblity and balance?

In my case it does. It means I can be involved in the school to the level I choose (somewhat less than the school encourages!), I can move stuff around to accommodate important events. But then I have much greater control over my hours than the average part time employee. And still not enough, since I do have to oblige those pesky customers.

7. Does part-time work free mothers up to do more unpaid work?

Yes. Someone has to do it. Having time to get the unpaid work done can lead to sanity. The real question is does part-time work free fathers up to do more unpaid work? And in our family, the answer is yes, although it has been a slightly rocky road, between his blindness to housework and my control freakery. But we are moving in the right direction.

8. Is part-time work for both co-habiting couples with children a way to more equally share child care and domestic work?

Seems to be. Although sexism in the work place makes this a much more difficult option for men. Also, as a company owner and former manager, I don't know exactly how you handle part time management jobs. There has to be an answer, but until there is a good one, it sets one hell of a ceiling on the careers of part time workers.

9. Do fathers feel they can take up family-friendly options at work?

Not in general. Mostly they have to go elsewhere, although I think "family friendly" is becoming a bit like "green". Companies want to be it. They don't really want to have to change much or spend anything, but if marketplace pressure keeps up, they may have to. More power to the companies that use it as an advertising gimmick. As long as it is backed up at least a little, it creates a market in family friendliness, and that seems to be the only thing that the corporate world recognises.

10. Do fathers still feel the pressure to be primary breadwinners?

My other half does. Definitely. In fact, I think it is still a part of the self definition of many men. See my answer to #4.

11. Are dad’s getting their preferred amount of time with their children?

How long is a piece of string? I think they have even less options. I think that social conditioning makes it even harder for them to know what their preferred amount of time is. And the fact that they are pretty much told incessantly (often by their own partners, something of which I am guilty) that they aren't as good at raising kids as mums makes it even more complicated.

12. Do we value caring work enough?

No, not across the board. Not for kids, or others who need care. We are suspicious of people wanting financial support for it. I don't know what we do about it without making everything just more expensive. Maybe we should go back to only counting one income for mortgage applications (although not requiring that it be the man's!). That was largely what created the requirement for such a greater proportion of the population to work and made caring such a massive issue.

13. What’s the meaning of life? (just kidding) that’s probably enough for now…

42, obviously.

I just have one thing to add. It seems to me that somewhere in this debate, people's lives became looking after children and working. Good mothers (or fathers) dedicate their lives to raising their children. Good employees dedicate their lives to their jobs. Well balanced people juggle the two. Having a life that doesn't involve kids or work doesn't rate a mention, and I think it has serious long term consequences for work and kids. Perhaps that is a subject for another post.

The Day That Was

It was a quintessentially family day. Ben threw up in prodigious style, encompassing stairs and walls. Thanks to Toni for passing on the tummy bug. Because clearly Ben caught it from her email, and not from the other kids at school that have been telling me all about their hurling exploits.

Elissa learned to pull herself up to sitting, so I had to move the cot mattress down. I came in to get her up from her morning sleep to find her sitting with her head gently knocking against the mobile animals. She is also probably a week from real crawling, but today she truly mastered her soldier crawl, and she is getting about with much greater speed. Gates for the stairs loom large in our future.

Charlie and Ben played together, it was lovely. Charlie laid down on the floor and played with Elissa. It was gratifying. And now I am hoping that the croup Elissa had last night doesn't return tonight, so that I can have a night that is a little less family-centric.

A good day

Today started well. I got up on time. Lunches were made and breakfasts eaten. I even made a coffee. And actually drank it - HOT!

Then I broke one of my absolute, unbreakable rules. I made a threat that I couldn't possibly carry out. When Charlie decided to back up his "I'm not going to Nessa's house" chant by pulling his shoes off, I told him if he didn't sit down and have them put on again, I would take Elissa and Ben and leave him at home by himself. He went inside and said "I'm staying here." It is fair to say I was starting to panic. I told him if he stayed at home there would be no morning tea, no lunch and no-one to look after him. Apparently that was the king hit. He crumbled. I said a silent thanks to whatever gods were listening and got them all in the car.

We were on time, everyone got where they were going and I got heaps of work and housework done. I even got a cup of tea before I had to collect them all again.

Charlie got through the evening with only 3 timeouts. (We are learning about anger management, and it is hard for a 3yr old to control his temper. Unfortunately his impulse is to hit, hence many timeouts.) We finished another Captain Underpants and now I am blogging and watching Bra Boys. It was a good day.

Dropping like flies

Ben is finally recovering today. He had to go to school yesterday because he was going to his friends place to play in the afternoon. It nearly did him in. When I went to pick him up he could no longer speak and was only just able to drag himself up the hill home. He still sounds pretty croaky.

Charlie has a cough and sounds very chesty, but has so far stubbornly refused to become croupy. Of course. Now I am prepared, he starts getting different illnesses.

Crash has a stomach bug that had laid him out all day.

Thank the gods Elissa has so far stayed well. UPDATE: Not so much, she's got a cold now...

I have been feeling nauseous, which I am denying by eating as much as is humanly possible. I feel like I've lived everyone else's illnesses, I don't need one of my own.

No Pina Coladas, though

I have decided that I really want to make sure that Ben walks at least 5 of the 10 trips to and from school each week. The rain last week meant we only managed 4, so I am aiming for 6 this week. We walked both ways yesterday, but other commitments required a lift this morning. So this afternoon I decided that the rain would hold off long enough. Not so much. It started to bucket down about 5 minutes before the bell rang. It stopped about 5 minutes after we got home. Every part of both of us was saturated. I can assure you that breastfeeding pads really are super absorbent.

We actually had a lot of fun walking home. We splashed in puddles, we compared soggy bits and when we got home there were warm showers all round. I'm not sure the beagle appreciated the moment though.