I'm PUBLISHED!!

I am really proud to be a part of this wonderful project - Things They Didn't Tell You About Parenting - the eBook.

In a nutshell it is:

• heartfelt stories by 32 of Australia’s most eloquent parenting bloggers, (I do believe I am one of these 32)
• a foreword by Wendy Harmer, one of Australia’s best loved comedians,
• an incredibly good cause at its heart; Foundation 18, sustainably supporting orphaned and underprivileged children in Indonesia (Bali),
• the bargain price of AUD$4.99

When I was asked by Alison Tait late last year to be a part of this project I jumped at the opportunity.  Not only is it for a great cause, but this parenting gig is so very hard and at the same time so very precious.  The stories and anecdotes that fill this book will warm your heart, move you to tears and possibly have you cowering in the corner as you get a glimpse of the future as a parent!

Things They Didn't Tell You About Parenting is a must read for all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and those who are contemplating parenthood.    It is real, it is true and the stories are straight out of the homes and hearts of everyday people.

To be included in a book with these 31 parents and writers is beyond exciting for me.   It is an absolute honour.

For less than the price of coffee and cake in a cafe, you can buy this book, make yourself a cuppa and sit on the verandah or by the heater and read some amazing parenting stories.  You will also be helping 12 beautiful orphaned Indonesian girls enjoy some of things our children will never be without - food, shelter and education.  I couldn't think of anything nicer.

Am I mum enough? I dare you to judge me.

So much judgement in the air at the moment.  Aimed squarely at the jaws of parents.  Mothers in particular.  Breastfeeding or not?  How long is too long?  Smacking, not smacking?  Body image for children.  Schooling private or state?  Early learning or not?  Stay at home or working mum?  The list of things we can judge other mums on seems to be endless.  Will it ever end?

My boys are 20 and 18 and I couldn't be happier.  I don't think I could stand the criticism if they were little right now.  I would not stack up and I am almost certain I wouldn't be mum enough in the eyes of many.

I was not and am not a perfect parent.  I didn't give it my best shot at all times.  Sometimes life was too hard and I was too focussed on myself.  Sometimes I couldn't be bothered cooking dinner and I gave my kids weetbix.  Sometimes I couldn't be bothered getting them ready for school so we all had doona days.  Sometimes they wore dirty socks to school.  Sometimes I wrote notes to say they didn't do their homework because of a family emergency - I was just too tired.   When I left my husband it was hard work.  I only had them 50% of the time I totally underestimated how difficult that would be.  To even begin to explain the difficulties of this will take a whole other blog post.

I was judged for leaving a seemingly perfectly good marriage for my own selfish reasons.  Do I regret that?  No way.  Did it alter the course of my children's lives?  Absolutely.  For the better?  I hope so, but I can never be sure.   Does this make me less of a mum?  Not in my eyes, but I'm sure in the eyes of the judgers it does.

I breast fed both my boys.  They both stopped at 6 months.  Does this make me a good mum or a bad mum?  They both went straight to cows milk at 6 months.  I hear the purists screaming now.  My boys are okay.  They always have been.  Their stomachs are healthy.  If they didn't wean themselves at 6 months I may have fed them for as long as they wanted.  I don't know this.  It didn't happen to me.  Whether I breastfeed for 1 day, 1 month, 3 years or 5 years, does it really matter?  Does it make us bad mothers because we do what suits us, our children and our lives?

My youngest had a dummy until he was 3.  People looked and judged.  I didn't care.  Okay I did care, but I shouldn't have.  His dummy was his security, something he needed.  Something I needed to ensure he settled at night.  Could I have done it differently?  Maybe.  But I didn't.  Doesn't make me a bad mother.

My children didn't have regular 6 monthly dental appointments.  They only went 3 times during their growing up years.  I have a dentist phobia.  Friends and family are horrified when I tell them this.  As you are reading this you are probably horrified too.  I took my kids when they were quite young and they were never going to need braces.  I took them again when they became teenagers, their teeth were all good.  I took them again in their later teens.  The older one needed some fillings and the younger one didn't.  The older one doesn't clean his teeth.  He doesn't like toothpaste.  I don't make him clean his teeth.  He is 20.  This is his problem.  He always had a toothbrush and toothpaste to use. The fact he doesn't has nothing to do with whether I am mum enough.

My boys were not academic.  They are both extremely smart.  They could be anything they want.  For the most part they have just chosen to cruise along, not really trying too hard.   I never pushed them to be anything different.  Should I have?  Would it have made me a better mother?  Maybe, but when you only have your children 50% of the time it is very difficult to keep up any form of consistency.  They will hit their straps at some point.  They see their parents and step parents work hard.  They understand working hard and the rewards it brings.  I'm seeing my youngest start to hit his straps now, despite the fact he dropped out of school in grade 11.  In fact he just walked in from work at 7.30 pm and said "I'm psyched.  I'm loving work.  I'm excited."  He's not a doctor, he's not an engineer, he's a salesman and I couldn't be prouder.  Does this make me mum enough?

Throughout all of this, over the past 20 years, the hard times, the good times and all the times in between, we all loved each other and everyone had a soft place to land.

My boys have both been in trouble.  They have messed up.  They have made some big mistakes. I have despaired for their futures.  There were times I worried they were actually going to survive the teenage years.  They have, and so have I.

The point I am making is there is so much I could be judged poorly on as a mother.  I am not even close to the "perfect model mother".  I don't care about this.  My boys are healthy, loving, good people.  They know how to love.  They know what is right and what is wrong.  They know how to be compassionate and they have empathy for others. 

A month ago I asked my youngest if he liked his childhood.  He said "mum I had the best childhood ever. I miss it so much now that I'm an adult."    That right there is all the judgement I need.

So many parents out there don't have perfect lives - in fact most of us don't.  Our circumstances are not always conducive to playing happy families.  There are a million different variables.  How about we all stop judging each other and start accepting that this parenting gig is tough.   When we meet in mother's groups instead of boasting about how good little Jemima is and how she can count to ten before she can say daddy, why not ask the mum who looks tired and sad if she's okay?  Maybe tell her about something that you are finding difficult so she doesn't feel like she is failing and alone. .

As mums we are all doing the same thing, we all have the same fears, the same concerns and most of all we want the same outcome for our children.  We want them to grow up to be happy.  

It's time to start playing nice and stop judging.

Did I mention I'm a bit stabby right now?

I'm quite stabby at the moment.  I blame hormones.  You should agree with me.

Right, now we have that sorted, let's get on with this blog post.

You might have noticed my stabbyness?  Did I mention it was hormones?   I have two teenage boys, who, at any given time can add greatly to this stabbyness.  Especially in the mornings when they are getting "organised" to go to work.  Organised in the sense of they have no idea what the word means.  But they try.  Did I mention I'm a bit stabby right now?

The last couple of days have been quite the disaster in the mornings.  At the moment I'm not working full time and am "available" in the mornings.  In my mind I am unavailable, but to my teenagers, the mere fact I am present means I am available.  This adds to my stabbyness no end.

Two days ago, after I ironed a number of shirts, pants etc in a mammoth effort to find the "right" outfit.  For. My. 18. Year. Old. Son.   We eventually got out of the house.  Drove to the bottom of the street.  He forgot something.  I turn around.  Stabby factor rises.

We leave again and get to the bus stop.

Yes, I drive him to the bus stop because I am home and seemingly available.  If I wasn't there he would walk.  Yes I know.  You don't need to say it. 

Son:  "Mum, is your bag in the car"

Me:  "No, I'm only driving you to the bus stop.  I don't need a handbag for that!"

Son:  "Oh, um, you won't like this but I need some money for the bus".

Me:  "So you can't get to work unless I give you some money?"

Stabby factor rising significantly here.

Son:  "Um no.  Sorry mum."

Me, through gritted teeth:  "Get. Back. In. The. Car."

We go home, get my bag and head back to the bus stop.

Son:  "I'm going to be late now."

Me:   "And this is my problem because?"

Son:  "I didn't say it was your fault. I was just saying."

Me:  "Will it be a problem for you?"

Son:  "A bit."

Me:  "Fine I'll drive you then."

So we drive, into the city and over to Southbank.  At this stage my new car is still a novelty so driving is a good thing, otherwise there would have been many, many words said in anger during that trip.   Some were thought, but the pleasure of driving my car helped suppress them.

Next day arrives.  Mr 18 and I do the shirt/trousers/outfit dance.  Mr almost 20 comes downstairs.

Mr 20:  "Mum I forgot to tell you last night that I will need you to drive me to Samford this morning."

Me:    "Right."  Said icily.   Crank the stabby factor up to one thousand and fifty billion.

Mr 18:  "Mum I need some money."

Me:   *Insert whatever the hell you like here* - it wasn't pretty.

Fast forward to last night.  Mr 18 comes home from work at 8.30 pm (he works a really long day).  He tells me how he spent 2 hours consoling a young guy who he works with.  He told me about this boy's life and the traumatic things he's seen and his dysfunctional family life.  He told me how his mum yelled at him this morning telling him how she was sick of giving him money and couldn't wait until he left home and she didn't have to be responsible for him any more.  I felt so sad for that poor boy, just as my boy had.

Then my mind went back to that morning and believe I may have said words similar.  I felt instantly sick to the stomach.  I asked Mr 18 if he felt like he wasn't wanted and he assured me that wasn't the case.  I still felt bad.

I kept thinking how many terrible things we say to our kids in the heat of the moment, when we are stabby, and was about to begin beating myself up, like I usually do.  Then I thought beyond the words to the bigger picture. 

My boys have a stable home life.  They have a loving mother, mostly! They have a supportive step father. They have a safe place to come home to and they are always wanted, provided they don't make me too stabby.  Regardless of how stabby I am they do know that there is nothing I won't support them through and they know that I will be there no matter what.  I think this is the key. 

We can't be perfect parents all the time, in fact I don't believe we can ever be perfect parents.  What we can be is loving and supportive and accepting.  We can still be stabby and snarky and have bad days where we sound like a shrill fish wife.  Just like our kids can have meltdowns and say things that cut through our hearts like a knife.  We are all just venting.  We are behaving badly because we can.  We don't have to be on our best behaviour all the time at home.   We are only human.

Sometimes I say sorry for being stabby - particularly if I've been irrationally stabby.  But in the instances described above - there is not a sorry to be seen!  My boys still love me and still feel loved and at the end of it all that's all that matters.

As I always say, it's about the love.  There must always be love.  Though it doesn't hurt to throw in a bit of stabby to keep everyone on their toes!

The Metamorphisis of a Blank Blog Page

This post started out in my head being about my new car, then I changed my mind because I didn't want to write an advertorial for Mazda.  Then it morphed into a post about my mother in law who is responsible for my new car, but I couldn't get that to come out right.  I wanted to thank her for giving us the means to buy a new car and to say how much I missed her since she passed away.  I guess I've done that now and it didn't take a whole blog post to do it in.  I then thought I'd write about a place I used to visit on Mt Glorious where I would sit and think, way back when I was trying to work out who I was.  But, then I didn't really know what to say about that.  Who I thought I was or wanted to be thirteen years ago is really not that relevant to the right now. 

So here I am with a blank blog page, some random thoughts and still no idea.   I've been reading a lot of really moving blog posts lately about people going through some really tough times.  There's Tiff and Ivy at My Three Ring Circus and Kim and Oscar at All Consuming.  There is also the amazing Eden at Edenland who has recently been to the famine in Niger, Africa and is now going through a whole lot of realisations that will most likely change life as she currently knows it. 

As fate would have it, I was just directed to another blog post via Twitter written by Cate Bolt.  Generally I don't think Cate and I are particularly alike, she is far more philanthropic than I am.   However, today I felt like Cate was speaking for me.  I felt my words spilling onto her blog page.  I wanted to scoop those words up and throw them on this blank page. 

I too am adopted.  I too am not a fan of adoption.  I too struggle with who I am.  When I look back at my life I feel like I've always been trying to "find" myself.  Give myself a true identity.  There are specific times where I can pinpoint going through a "phase" of wanting to work out who I was.  I've recently been going through such a phase and I have come to the realisation that it is time to start being who I am right now, instead of pontificating over who I might be or might have been. 

I am who I am.  Just me.  Imperfect and perfect all rolled into one.  I get things right and I also make mistakes.  Sometimes I make monumental mistakes.  But throughout it all I am still me.   Over the years I change, I evolve, I grow, but I don't think this happens because I consciously sit and plan it.  Change happens because of circumstances ... life.  It is what it is.  I am who I am.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about belonging and put down my feeling of not belonging to being adopted.   So many people commented and emailed me saying they felt the same way and they weren't adopted.  It was enlightening for me to see that we all struggle with belonging, even if we always have belonged somewhere and with someone.

After I read Cate's post I also wanted to write that the reason I can't "find myself" is because I'm adopted.   Because being adopted meant I never was myself.  I don't know who I am.  But the funny thing was, as I started to write these words I realised this is not what I think anymore.  The words no longer rang true.  When I read Cate's blog I was nodding and saying "yes, yes, yes" in my head.  However, over the last little while I've come to the conclusion that this is not necessarily the case and as I wrote the words down it really hit home just how much.  

I've spent most of my life blaming the fact that I'm adopted on why I feel disconnected from people.   Why I've never belonged anywhere.  If I take a long honest look back over my life I have always belonged somewhere.  Not necessarily with my adoptive family, in fact mostly not with them.  Not with my birth mother, how could I belong to her when I was never really hers?   However I have still belonged.  I've always belonged somewhere.  There has always been a person or persons who have been there for me.  Someone who has my back.  A friend or a family to take me in as one of theirs.  Never, ever have I been totally alone. 

Yet, if you asked me about the time I left my husband I would tell you how totally alone I was.  No one cared.  I was an island.  It was just me.  The reality is, it wasn't like this at all.  I had a fabulous circle of friends who held my hand throughout that first awful year.  No matter what, they were there for me.  There was never a time I was totally alone.  Yet in my mind I was alone because I didn't have a family. 

I have a family now.  I have my two boys and a wonderful husband.  I have two beautiful step daughters.  I even have a dog.  I have extended family.  I belong somewhere, yet up until recently, I have still felt the need to "find" myself.  I've always blamed this need on being adopted.

I do believe there is a certain disconnect from being adopted that others can never understand.  I personally don't understand the love children have for their parents as I've never had this type of love.  Of course I feel it in reverse for my boys so I have a better understanding than I used to.  I sometimes feel cheated that I don't have the bond that many of my friends have with their parents, but I know many people who were brought up by their biological parents who don't have a close relationship with them either. 

What I have learned in recent times is the disconnect I feel doesn't give me an excuse to feel sorry for myself and it doesn't mean I've been cheated of love and belonging.  It just means I'm different.  We are all different. There is no longer a standard "normal".  

Getting older doesn't just mean grey hair and incontinence pads ... it means getting comfortable in our own skin.  It means blaming our circumstances and other people less and taking full responsibility for our own happiness.  A life well lived doesn't depend on where we originally came from, it depends on where we've been and who we've shared it with. 

I want to crave you ...

Just like more than 2 million other viewers each night I've been keenly tuned into The Voice.  Yes it is another reality TV show and yes it is another singing one, but it is fresh and different and capturing the nation.   But, is it really?

I have been swept up with everyone else, tweeting like a maniac, crying at the talent, getting goosebumps during the first battle rounds, all with rose coloured glasses planted firmly on my nose.

But like all good rose coloured glasses, they eventually slip down the bridge of the nose and let some "real" light in.  I think mine may have slipped last night.

I still love the show.  I love the judges.  I love the judges.  I love the judges.  Oh, did I say that already?  Well aside from loving the judges I think the format is fresh and new and works well.   Those battle rounds are amazing and really force the contestants to put their all into the song.  It is superb to watch.

Picture Credit

What doesn't work for me, and I hazard a guess to say I'm not the only one, is the way in which the show is drawn out.  It is far too long.   The average person doesn't have a spare two hours plus each night to sit and watch television.   We have lives, kids, work and it is a school night!  I would have thought the television networks would have worked this out by now.   Channel 9, in particular, are showing back to back reality television - this is over three hours each night.

I find these shows always seem start up with a frenzy of new and excited viewers, hoping for something different and then they serve up the same old, same old just dressed in a different sauce.  A chop is a chop is a chop, no matter whether you crumb, fry or stew it!

I know television stations need to make money, hence commercials.  But I also know commercial television stations need viewers, hence ratings.  Sadly it feels like television stations care more about the money than the viewer.  Which shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone.

With all that in mind, I write the following open letter to Commercial Television Stations.

Dear Station Owner, Manager and Program Director

I am sure I speak for 99% of Australians in this letter.   If you want Australian audiences to embrace your new reality television shows, some which are quite good and entertaining, we would appreciate you keeping the following in mind:

• We don't want, nor like, extended ad breaks.  We don't watch them.  Your advertising clients don't get any more value for the inflated amount they pay to advertise during these shows. In fact they probably get less.  Because the show is so long, we are busy trying to catch up with other things, and tend to leave the room during ad breaks.
• Have you heard of the concept of "always leave people wanting more"?  No, I didn't think so.  Let me explain.  It is human nature to crave something we can't have right now.   For example, think about that chocolate brownie you saw yesterday at the shop.  You didn't buy it and now you can't get it out of your mind.  Had you bought it and eaten it, chances are you wouldn't be obsessing over it today.  Same with television shows.  Stop the show before we've had enough.  Don't let us get to the point where we just want it to be over so we can go to bed.  This happened to me last night.  Tonight - meh - I'm not that interested in watching The Voice.  Had you stopped the show after 1 hour, I'd be dying for it to be on tonight because I wouldn't have quite had enough of it last night.  An hour is not nearly enough time to watch the judges, er I mean, contestants.  Leave us craving more.
• We all know all about hooks.  You need to build it up before the break, give a summary, give a preview, get the hook in to hold the viewers over through the break to watch the next segment.  Then, just in case you have picked up some new viewers, you need to recap what they have missed.  I get this, and believe most of us do.  For a compromise, perhaps you could cut this down to a few seconds rather than a good portion of that segment.  I can watch a 90 minute reality television show in half an hour if I've pre recorded it.  That's a lot of advertising and hooks and not a lot of actual content.

Your audiences are smart and discerning people, please treat us this way.  Commercial television is no longer the only option we have, but many of us want to like it.  We want to support locally produced entertainment, but gee you make it so hard for us.

Make us crave you.  Not loathe you.

Yours faithfully

Your Australian Television Audience.

What do you think?  Is commercial television losing us?