"Protesting" as a student

is perhaps a rite of passage. "Everyone does it" I am told. 

I thought back to my time in post-secondary education. Yes, we protested. It was the Vietnam war era. We opposed conscription as well as the war. 

My generation marched in protest. Some of them sprayed anti-war slogans. They set up camp and talked to people in the streets. Brother Cat was one of those who led a march on his motor bike. There is a photograph of him in the archives of this nation doing just that. We had a brick thrown through the front window of the house because someone took exception to our opposition to the war. We still went out and sang "Give peace a chance". The media reported all this - which is how the photograph happens to be in the ASIO archives as well as the newspaper morgue. 

We went on with our studies at the same time. Brother Cat and I were both training to be teachers and that meant we had to "sign on" for every lecture, every seminar, every tutorial. There were essays and other assignments which still had to be handed in.There was no choice about this. Students did as they were told. In all my time in post-secondary education I asked for one extension - an overnight extension. The reason for it had nothing to do with protesting. I had simply taken over my mother's class when she had three days of "compassionate" leave to go to the city to deal with the death of her mother. I was granted that extension grudgingly, indeed had to show that I had actually written the essay but not typed it. 

I was trying to explain this to one of the current student protestors. She is not "camping out" like many of her fellow students but she still appears to be passionate about the cause...except that she does not seem to be too clear about what the cause is. It would seem from her comments that a good many of her fellow protestors are not too clear either. I explained what we had been protesting about - when we had time. She was amazed that we continued to go on studying and that those teaching us had gone on teaching.  Oh yes, we had some radicals among the staff but there were still expectations which had to be met. 

We did not have social media of course. We did have newspapers and the radio. There were people who spoke at rallies too and they were sometimes well educated people who understood the issues - even if they sometimes espoused a point of view with which others disagreed. You stood there and listened - and nobody had a mobile phone. You discussed things over college canteen tea and instant coffee.

"I don't know how you ever got a message across," I was told, "You couldn't have been much good at it." 

Actually I think we were quite good at it. Many of us ended up as articulate and active adults who still take an interest in what is going on. The student generation now has easy access to vast amounts of information but I am not sure they are any better informed than we were.

Banning the young from social media

is not going to work.

For those of you in Elsewhere I need to explain that there is a discussion here about whether "the young" (those under fourteen or sixteen - take your pick) should be banned from using "social media". There is finally a realisation that overuse of it can be harmful. 

PIU or "Problem Internet Use" is apparently now a recognised mental health issue. Someone in the media has likened the psychological impact of social media on young people like "behavioural cocaine" as they seek more and more "likes". 

I doubt "banning" it, even if it is technically possible, will help. It is more likely to send the problem underground - with all the likely appalling consequences. That really would encourage those who misuse and abuse social media.

I use social media. I suppose it could be said that even writing a blog post is "using social media". I use Twitter (X) to keep abreast of the news and occasionally respond to something there. I also, along with a group of colleagues, use it for work. It is a very, very valuable tool for some of workers out in the field.  What Elon Musk and others have done for the world is not, as some would like to have us believe, entirely bad. 

I have a Facebook account too. It is a good way of keeping in touch with friends in far places. I have very few local friends with whom I am in touch on social media. There are usually very special reasons for this. (How else do you get pictures of one of your favourite cats?!) There was an email from my friend M... this morning - a suggestion that we get together for coffee tomorrow. It is something we have been trying to do for months - instead of making do with quick chats in the shopping centre. I am going to rearrange my morning so I can do it. I am happy to get a "social" email like that.

But I did not grow up using social media. We did not have it. If anyone had told us that those expensive timed phone calls from no more than 50km away would turn into a small monthly charge that allowed you to talk for as long as you liked anywhere in the country we would not have believed you. That it could be done from a hand held device smaller than a block of chocolate would have seemed ridiculous. We made friendships and lost them in other ways. There was still some bullying. There were still people who were isolates. Social media has made this more obvious - and harder to control.

But banning social media? I doubt it will work. What we need to change is something else - the desire to use it so often. Anyone who knows anything about psychology will know about "conditioning" behaviours. Perhaps we could begin by getting rid of the "like" buttons" - for everyone. It might not be as much fun but it might help.

  

This is "Mum's lap"

 or the seat just outside the door of the church my parents attended. The priest sent me this picture yesterday. He had just spent time cleaning it and re-oiling the timber. It looks new again.

That seat is just over twenty-two years old. It went into place a couple of years after my mother died. The Senior Cat loathed the idea of a headstone somewhere. He wanted something useful - and often sat on it himself.

Other people often sit on it too - and not just on Sundays. The seat gets used during the week when there are other activities at the church. Sometimes people just sit on it. Occasionally I hear about this. Some people actually refer to it as "Mum's lap". That always surprises me as my mother was not a particularly "motherly" sort of person. I cannot remember willingly sitting on her lap and neither can my siblings. I can remember sitting on the Senior Cat's lap.

I sometimes hear about it when someone tells me they have gone up there to "think". (They seem to go into the church if they want to pray.) It is a good place for thinking. Even if other people are around there seems to be an understanding that people sitting on the seat staring into the distance are not to be disturbed unless they choose to make contact.

The church is one of the oldest in the state and it has quite extensive grounds. There is an abundance of wild-life around it. Bird lovers are often to be found there. The various priests I have known over the years have always encouraged people to wander through the grounds. They are always open. You can go through the little car park or through the lych gate on the corner if you want to approach the church from the front. There is another quiet way in from the side street, through the hedge on either side.

Soon we hope to add the Senior Cat's name to that seat. It has taken a while but these things always do, especially when mending the church roof takes priority. It doesn't bother me or Brother Cat or Middle Cat in the least. We are just content to know that there will continue to be a place for people to sit and "think", a place which is respected in that way. Such places of contemplation are rare in busy lives.

Taking a knife to school

and threatening to kill your fellow students when you are only eight years old is surely cause for alarm? This is surely especially so when the child in question has already shown serious behavioural problems?

This is not normal child behaviour and I the school in question does not  believe it is. The school has been trying to cope with this and apparently says the child in question has "complex" needs. Parents are now beginning to ask, "Why is this child in this school?"

No doubt the school will have to go on trying to cope with the child and other children are going to have to go on fearing this child and his behaviour. There is nowhere else for the child to go. There are no schools for "disturbed" children in this state. There are not even special classes where these children can be given the help they need while keeping other children safe. I feel very sorry for all involved.

I thought of this as I read through the conditions being imposed on a man who is being released into the community after many, many years in prison. This man did not actually murder anyone but he was involved in covering up some of the most horrific murders imaginable. There is, perhaps rightly, great concern about his release into the community even with very strict conditions. The conditions are actually so strict he is going to have great difficulty in keeping to them. He will always be supervised - and I do not envy the parole officers their job. He is 65 years of age and will not find employment but he will need things to do, ways to structure his days or have them structured for him. "Volunteering" is almost certainly out of the question as police checks are needed for almost everything now.

I wondered what this man was like at school. I wondered what level of literacy he reached. There have been hints that he performed very poorly at school, that he was not given the help he needed then. If that is so would he have been different if he had been given more help? Are we setting the current eight year old child on the same sort of path? Is sending him to the same school as his peer group so that it can be said he is being "included" really the best thing for him - and everyone else? 

There are many people who believe the man just released should remain in prison for the rest of his life. I am all too well aware that he may go back there because he is unable to cope with life "outside". That may well be the most likely outcome - and the most expensive. Those complaining, as the writer of the article in today's paper has, that he can now get Centrelink benefits fails to recognise that it would cost more to keep him in prison.

Those who tried to reduce the cost of educating those with special needs by putting them in "mainstream" classrooms have failed to recognise the same thing. Spending money on educating a severely disturbed child in a specialised setting may well save money in the future. It may also lead to a safer, happier community for everyone - one which is actually also more "inclusive".  

"They don't have time to read"

I was told yesterday.

I had suggested to a local mother that I might loan a book to one of her children and that was the response I received. Her children "don't have time to read". 

Her three children are involved in eleven different sporting activities between them. They also have music lessons and Scouts, chess and their church youth group. Their lives seem to be one hectic rush from school to one activity after another.  During school holidays their grandparents also seem to be taking them to "cricket school" or "football school" or on some "educational" venture or other. At the end of such times both grandparents and children look exhausted and ready to go back to school. 

No, they probably do not have "time to read". They are nice, polite and well mannered children - but they are also rather dull. They don't have that "spark" about them. It shows. They do well enough at all their activities but they don't excel at any of them. The idea of "Jack of all trades and master of none" comes to mind. 

"We want them to experience as much as possible," their mother once told me, "They love it of course or we wouldn't do it."

Really? These are children who are growing up with no idea of how to entertain themselves. Their lives are so fully organised for them they do not need to think about what happens next or how they might do something for themselves. They are still being taken to and from school and the fourteen year old is old enough to do that himself. 

I am waiting for one of them to rebel.

The idea that children don't have time to read however seems to be even more widely spread. It is a relief to me when T... turns up at the door with the books he has borrowed and helps himself to more. His parents have restricted out of school activities.  It may be partly to do with the fact that they have no available grandparents to provide the taxi service but it is also because their mother, a paediatrician, believes they need "time to play, time to be themselves and develop those skills they need for the rest of their lives".  Ah, thank you!

I had occasion to look for something in the children's section of the library yesterday. Despite my complaints I must admit the section is well used but the books in there have changed from my childhood. Am I really mistaken in remembering lengthy books - often hard covers in blue library binding? They seem to have been replaced with thin, insubstantial paperbacks which are even "marketed" as "quick reads".  

I suppose a "quick read" is better than "no read" but I would still like to hear the mother of those boys say, "They love to read. Thank goodness they have time to do it." 

The "power bill relief" in

the latest Budget is actually not relief at all. In this state the people who need it most are actually going to be paying more. We already pay the highest electricity bills in the country and it is set to go even higher.

Interestingly it is also claimed we have more "renewables" than anywhere else in the country. This is touted as a "good thing". Really?

I am getting more and more confused by all this. I am not an economist or an environmental scientist. 

I studied "economic history" as an extra subject at what was then "Leaving" level (old "O" level in England) but it has not been any help in understanding what the present Treasurer here in Downunder is talking about. I am not sure he knows himself. He isn't actually an economist and I sometimes suspect he doesn't understand what people like the Governor of the Reserve Bank tell him. All I understand is that if your spend more than you have then you are in debt. 

Environmental science puzzles me even more. We keep being told about "global warming" and it seems every natural disaster is now being blamed on "global warming". Why? Have all natural disasters throughout history been attributed to global warming? I don't remember this. Perhaps my memory is failing? Am I mistaken when I remember alarm over something they said was a coming "ice-age"? How much of the weather can we control and what effect does it have on the climate? Not much I suspect. That said, we have one small planet to live on and we should be taking much greater care of it. (Also, anyone who knows me knows I believe we should be planting far more of the right sort of trees in the right places than we do.)

Perhaps that "power bill relief" which is no relief at all is a good thing. If we all manage to use less power then we spend less money and save the environment from this global warming issue... the problem is that I don't like cold cereal in winter.   

"Let's sing!"

No, I will not be singing over the Budget. It was much as I expected. Almost everyone I know will be pulling their belts a notch tighter. 

But there is an article in today's paper about singing in school...or rather, the lack of it. Apparently you don't sing in school any more. I don't know where the class singing and the choirs and school assembly songs have gone. There must surely be some of it? 

I thought back to my kittenhood. I remember music back then. I hated, loathed and detested my experience of "kindergarten" but I do remember sitting on the floor and singing songs about rabbits, spiders, lambs, mice, spiders and kookaburras...and more.  An adult played the piano and we sang.  I don't think we were actually taught these songs. We knew them. We "picked them up" as we went along. 

We sang some of the same songs in school and we were taught others. We had regular music lessons. We learned "tonic sulfur" as we called it and the beginnings of reading music. There were "song books" and other songs were added to them. School assembly was a weekly event where we sang the national anthem and more. (We also saluted the flag and vowed to be good citizens.)

In the later years of primary school we listened to a weekly broadcast out in the bush and Mum (the only other teacher in the school) taught children to play descant recorders. The noise was not good but at least children were learning something about music. A few children had piano or other lessons. Mum was the one who started my siblings off on that path.

When I reached the first year of secondary school music became a real "thing" in school. We had a maths teacher who was very musical and very able. Television was only a few years old in our part of the world and Mr M.... appeared on there at regular intervals playing his guitar and singing. People would laugh now. It was black and white television of course. The cameras were still cameras and the back drop was nothing more than a plain curtain. Nevertheless it was our Mr M... who was appearing. 

J... as I later called him went on to teach at one of the major choir schools in Upover. (We took on his cat and I still use the base of the bed he left behind.) He taught us to sing, really sing.

We had a school song book. He put it together with the Senior Cat and input from other members of staff. I spent a week of the summer holidays before my first year of secondary school turning the handle of the old Gestetner printer producing copies for everyone. In it there was everything from German folk songs (sung in both languages thank you) to campfire songs like "The Quartermaster's Store".  We learned "Gaudeamus Igitur" along with the school anthem and Christmas carols.  

The kittens in this street know none of those things. I know they do not sing at school. They are active out door children at home. That's a good thing too but they are surely missing something?

My old campfire book, from my Guiding days, is something I have kept. I have a friend from that time, my only friend from the time we sat around the campfire at the old camps for disabled children. O... would get out her guitar and say, "Let's sing!" We sang. It was so much fun. They can't do that any more. 

There will be some creative accounting

in "the Budget" today. This always interests me.

Money will be taken from some places and put into other places. We will be told that certain cuts are "necessary" and that others are because the government is being "responsible". Then money will apparently be spent on "helping the battlers" - I say "apparently" because much of it is never spent at all. It is simply policy that never gets implemented.

This year the government is already telling us that "everyone who pays tax is getting a tax cut". The only problem with this is that it is not true. It may look that way but my brother and my brother-in-law have done their homework and neither of them is getting an actual cut in the amount of tax they pay. They will both be paying more for other things which are taxed. The "tax cuts" are supposed to help with these things. Both of them will be "tightening their belts".

I once knew a woman, now sadly deceased, of whom it was said at her funeral, "B...could make something from nothing".  It isn't actually physically possible to do that of course but she could (and often did) feed six or more extra people, people in need. She taught people how to budget. Her early life had been lived in what many people would have considered "poverty". She left school as soon as she was able and worked physically hard on the farm her father also laboured on. He was paid almost nothing and much of what he was paid was "paid in kind". B... learned how to budget when her mother died and she had to manage as best she could. 

B...went on to marry, to have children and to become even better at managing a household budget. She taught many others how to budget by her example. It was hard work. Not until a stroke stopped her in the last year of her life did she stop cleaning, cooking, gardening, sewing, knitting, tending the sick and more. With all that she and her husband still managed holidays in their caravan (but mostly parking in remote areas where they did not need to pay caravan park fees). They owned their own home and made sure their children had the opportunity to continue the education they had not had.

It was all done through hard work, very hard work. B... had no time for government "budgets". She would read through the analysis in the paper the following day and her daughter would tell me, "Mum pointed out..." and B... would have found the weak spots, the attempts to hide the manipulations.

There will be manipulations today. I am expecting some very creative accounting this time. Two economists often approached for comment have already said that the government cannot meet the targets they claim they can meet. My economist neighbour who works for the Tax Office has already laughed about the "tax cuts". There won't be any. 

Take your dog to work?

I have just observed a workman at the end of the street taking his dog into the front garden of the house he is working on. I wonder what will happen when the owner finds out. The owner does not like dogs. It is very unlikely that the workman has requested permission.

It seems to be a bit of a trend lately. I went past the house of the male couple I know a couple of days ago. They are having their fence partially replaced. Their own dogs were, naturally, shut away safely in their back garden. The workmen had a small dachshund tied to one of the fence posts. 

The dachshund barked and tried to chase me as I went past. On the way back it was just lying there until it saw me. Then it tried the same thing again. Someone had crossed the street twice to avoid it and muttered, "B.....dogs."

I felt sorry for the dog. It did not look happy.

This was not as bad as the dog I saw tied into the back of what we Downunderites call a "ute" - an open tray vehicle beloved of workmen. It was barking furiously at everyone and everything which went past. The workmen also had their radio going and seemed to be ignoring the dog completely. I avoided that dog by pedalling across the road and then back again. I did not trust the look of it. The bark was not a friendly one.

I mentioned this to someone I know and she took her children "the long way around" because they are wary of dogs. She also told me, "Did you know that H....(her next door neighbour) takes his dog to work? It goes to the office with him every day."

Really? I suppose H... can do that. He owns the business. I do wonder though what his staff think. Perhaps they are all mad keen dog lovers? 

I like dogs but not enough to ever want to own one. Nevertheless I will talk to dogs I meet. They seem to respond. Yes, I always ask permission if it is a dog I have not met before but some of the local dogs know me well enough that their owners know they need to stop so the dog can, in its own way, say "hello".  There are some very nice dogs among them.

But there is only one of those dogs I would think of taking to work. It is a "service" dog. It belongs to a woman with extreme anxiety issues. The dog takes her for a walk along the same route at the same time every day. It does not matter what the weather is like they do the same thing.  I said "the dog takes her for a walk" and this is just what happens. The dog appears to be very, very aware of her needs. He watches her constantly, ready to move on or wait as needed. The woman does not go to work but the dog has been trained to go everywhere with her. It could "go to work" if needed just as a guide dog will go to work. They are working dogs.

But most dogs are not working dogs and tying them up in the belief that they might be happier "going to work" with their owners is not something that makes me feel comfortable. This is the problem with owning a dog. They are not self-sufficient like cats.  

So it is Mother's Day?

There was a large display of flowers for sale in the shopping centre on Friday. Presumably it was there yesterday as well. It was obviously intended that people should buy these for "Mother's Day"...and people were. 

The flowers were not cheap, indeed some were expensive. I know the staff pretty well as they are part of the greengrocer in the centre. Two of them have spoken to me about how good the display looked - and it did - but they were also wondering at what some people were spending.

I also saw other "gifts" in the chemist and the bookshop. The clothing stores were advertising discounts and one of the eateries had a "bargain" along with the cinema.  

"Show how much you love her" they proclaimed. Really? 

We were never allowed to do it. We did try once. I was in my early teens. We put our limited pocket money together and bought Mum a book we knew she really wanted to read. Mum told us never to do anything like that again. She did not approve of Mother's Day or Mothering Sunday. They were commercial events and we should let her know we loved her all year round, not just on one day. I suppose we should have known better. Mum was like that. (She really did not like birthdays or Christmas or any other sort of fuss.)

It became a bit more awkward when Middle Cat married and her partner's family did make a bit of a fuss of their mother. It was nothing extravagant, a bunch of flowers and the girls would cook up a special meal. Mum was expected to be part of this and she was but I knew she did not enjoy it. She participated because she did not want to upset the other relationships. Once home she would say something like, "Thank goodness' that's over for another year."

 Middle Cat and her sisters-in-law may get flowers today but their children tend to be constantly in touch. The love is obvious. The same will be true of my brother's partner. His first wife is deceased. His two and their children have no hesitation in showing their love for R.... 

I am not a mother. I have been "in-loco-parentis" but it is not the same. What is the same is that I was given flowers, flowers grown by the child herself. The flowers were nice to have, very nice, but what was much better was the love and effort which went into growing them and putting them together and giving them to me. That was immensely special. I just regret there are no photographs of those flowers.  

It is easy to just buy flowers at the florist or the greengrocer. It doesn't require any particular effort. I wonder sometimes what Mum would have done if we had grown flowers and given them to her. I suspect it might still not have worked for her because of her dislike of any fuss but it might work for many mothers. Perhaps we should learn to grow more flowers? 

Learning to read is not

something I can remember doing. I cannot remember that magic moment when those strange black squiggles on a page actually meant something.  In this I believe I am extraordinarily fortunate. 

I know how I learned to read. My earliest memories are of sitting on the Senior Cat's bony knee. He has one arm around me. He is using the hand on that arm to point to each word in the book he holds in the other hand. It is cold enough to have the oven door of the old wood burning stove open. This is the way the kitchen is being heated now that my mother has finished using the stove for other purposes.

I must have been about seventeen months old when this first happened. It happened more than once. The Senior Cat was the one who read bed time stories to me and this is where we read them. I must have made the connection between the marks on the page and the sounds at about that time. It was a short jump from there to wanting to know what the marks meant when I saw them in other places.

By the end of that year - summer here in Downunder - I could recognise some words. My mother, another teacher, had begun to label everything for me. I remember the house as having paper strips in her "infant school print" all over the place.  She would sigh and print the word and put it on an object for me. There were probably not that many words there but it seems like many in my memory. 

The Senior Cat went on reading bed time stories to me. He went on putting his finger under each word. "Watch and you will learn to read the story all by yourself."

And I did. The following year, just before my third birthday, I was given a "train toy set" as a Christmas and birthday present. I don't know why it was a "train toy" and not "toy train" set but it was something I was very, very pleased to get. My paternal grandparents gave it to me. Grandpa was the person who bought it. He knew exactly what I wanted. There was the little green engine, the little carriages and the track that could be an oval or looped. I was thrilled. I spent Christmas morning under the dining room table trying to get the pieces of track together so the train could run along the tracks. My limited manual dexterity skills meant I failed over and and over again. The Senior Cat joined me under the dining room table and said something like "tell me what to do and I will help". He must have known of course but I looked at the instructions and read them to him. 

I remember this because I remember what followed. The Senior Cat put the track together. He showed me how far to turn the little key to wind the engine and we set off on an adventure. In all the time I was the proud possessor of that engine I never over wound it...and I can still not quite forgive my mother for simply bundling it up and passing it on when we moved to yet another place some years later. At the end of play time under the table though there was Christmas lunch and, before it started, the Senior Cat put the instructions on the table and pointed to various words. He asked me to read them again and I did it. The adults seemed surprised and pleased. I was more interested in eating lunch so I could get back to the train tracks.

I thought of all this yesterday when a young friend, M..., who has been at school for two years was reading his book to me. He is not interested in reading or school. He wants to be out on his bike or his scooter or kicking a ball. His mother tries to make time to read a bed time story to him but admits that she does not always manage to find the time. "And anyway he can always hear one on his i-pad." 

No, that is not the same. It makes me realise how very, very fortunate I was in not having any sort of electronic device but rather real people who cared enough to see I could read as soon as possible. 

After that my paternal grandparents gave me books and they went everywhere with me. We went on the little green Hornby clockwork engine...and I still miss it. 

I do not understand the attraction of Bali

or why people want to go on holiday there. It is particularly so at present when there are reports of yet another person being detained in the hell hole of a Bali prison because of drugs. 

In this case the person has admitted that drugs were posted to him...and apparently that he has accessed more during his stay. He is apparently an "addict". He is also a father of two - and newly wed to a second partner. 

I wonder though why he went to Bali. He must have been aware of the strict laws with respect to drugs. Is anyone not aware of "the Bali nine"? Some of them lost their lives and others are still languishing in prison. 

The Senior Cat's brother went to Bali nine times. Every time he went we worried. It was not because he was likely to do anything wrong but because other people might attempt to use him as an unwitting courier or harm him in some other way. He told us that the tourist areas were places to be avoided. He went to work with some potters in a village well away from all that. He did not speak their language but some of them spoke a little English and he gave them English lessons in return for learning more about their pottery skills. It was an exchange of skills and he enjoyed it - but we still worried. 

My nephews went but they went with a local they had been to school with and not to the tourist area. He took them to a remote area where the surf was good but a few days was long enough and they left Bali early. They have no desire to go back. We worried while they were there. My nephews don't smoke and they drink so rarely they might almost be considered teetotal. It wasn't their behaviour we were worried about, rather what other people might do to two young men. 

Add to that the weather - always hot and often humid - and the sort of "entertainment" on offer and I hope I never have to go. I have never been to a night club and have no desire to go to one. The clubs there are not in any way traditional Balinese entertainment.  They are there to make money for outsiders who have set up business there not for the local people.

I am sure the local Balinese people are just as my uncle described them. They would be kind, friendly, interested, willing to share their culture and learn about ours. The problem is that most people get no further than the tourist areas, areas which have been taken over by Indonesians from other places. I feel sorry for the many local Balinese whose island has been turned into a sort of tourist theme park.  

Too young to be pregnant?

There is a rather odd story in today's paper about a woman who is, so she says, being criticised for being pregnant at the age of twenty-four. It is curious this should have come up because the day before I was talking to someone who mentioned his wife was the niece of someone younger than herself. I also know someone who is the uncle to someone older than he is. It happens.

My mother first became pregnant (with me) at twenty-six. It was considered quite old back then. Middle Cat was older than that but still not thirty. Now thirty or more seems to be considered "normal" - except that it surely isn't?

Once upon a time as they say it was considered "normal" for girls in their teens to be married and even have more than one child. There was the gradual realisation that (most) girls of fourteen and fifteen were not mature enough to marry and have children. Death in childbirth was alarmingly common. The law eventually did what needed to be done. 

Now there seems to be an idea that "I can wait to have children. I can start my career first. We can go the IVF route if there are problems." Really? I suppose it must work because a lot of people seem to do it.

But I wonder if it is really fair on the child? The Senior Cat had a cousin who adopted a child when he was over fifty. (How he did this is a mystery but he did it.) His wife was much younger and they thought there would be no children. As is sometimes the way they then had two more because she did manage to conceive. I remember talking to the middle child and she remarked, "The problem with the boys is that they have a grandfather, not a father...and Mum was old to have us."  I spent quite a number of Sundays with them when I was a student in the same city. They were very kind to me but I remember F....'s comment because she was right. At that time the children's parents were at least ten years older than most of those around them. 

It is not uncommon for parents to tell me they are "tired" and even "exhausted". I can understand that. Even looking after children for just a few hours is enough at times. The idea that you can be that little bit older, go to work full time and bring up children is perhaps just a bit too much? Is this another reason why some parents appear to be so anxious to hand over as much of the parenting responsibilities as possible to others? Is it why children are handed over to grandparents and why they are pushed into all sorts of "out-of-school" activities? How often do we hear someone say, "X.... is at their A.... lesson and I need to get the shopping done" or something similar.

Would it be a good thing to be a little younger to become a parent...or have all the demands to have a career and the mortgage under control become more important?

Boredom and fear?

Apparently "boredom and fear" are, along with "helicopter parenting", the reasons for "protesting". Really?

It is an interesting idea. It seems that many children do expect to be constantly entertained now. 

I sometimes pass two day-care places where the children are at "free play" outside.  I have stopped pedalling on occasion to watch. Yes, there are some children who appear to know how to play. They are busy with their cars and lorries and cement mixers. There are many more though who are just aimlessly sending their little vehicles around tracks made by adults. There are some children apparently playing other games, more just wandering around.  And there are always one or two who are just standing at the fence staring out.

Play has changed since I was a kitten. We were sent outside to play. What we did there was largely our own affair. We played at being "Cowboys and Indians", "Doctors and Nurses", "Teachers", "Pilots", "Postmen" and much more. We built "wurlies" and "cubbies" and "tree houses" as we grew older. We played "cricket" and "footy" in the back streets and put on "plays" for the adults. We read books and taught ourselves craft skills when we wanted to make something.

Apparently you don't do that sort of thing now. I had to teach the children in the street how to play "Policeman" and stop and start their "traffic". Now they think it is a great idea. I will go out and be their policeman if there is no other adult to watch for the traffic but they will be the policeman if they are playing alone. They argue about whose turn it is and they are learning to negotiate as they do so. Their parents think "it's more like the way we played". Good. It should be.

These apparently "old" ways of doing something are not really "old" at all. They can teach children essential skills. It is why I give all the children "activity" packs instead of toys or books at Christmastime. It is why I was delighted when one of them came over to me the other day and asked if I had any green cardboard because he was making something for his teacher at school. I handed over the required A4 sheet with a sense of relief. Here was a child making something. Hopefully he is going to grow up into an adult who makes things and will not be bored or afraid.

If we want to protest we should not be doing it out of boredom or fear. We should be doing it because we have researched an issue and really know what it is about, why we object and what the possible solutions are.

There is an awful lot of time and energy wasted on mindless "protesting". It would be so good if it was used in a positive way.  

Names matter and titles

do too. It might surprise our Attorney-General but there is a distinct difference between KC and SC - even if their work and the pay they can command appears to be the same.

Our Attorney-General has a piece of "trivial" legislation he plans to put in front of parliament to "modernise" the judiciary in which he plans to be rid of "KC" (King's Counsel) and just have SC (Senior Counsel). Sounds simple doesn't it?

There is a slight problem with all this. The legal profession was not consulted - and there is still a separation of powers in this country - and there is another form of SC (Special Counsel) as well. It is also being seen as yet another step towards a "republic by stealth". There may well be people who support the idea of a "republic" but they do not appreciate the idea of getting one by underhand means. 

The legislation will almost certainly pass but it is not "trivial". Names matter. I have been thinking back to names from my childhood. Adults then were "Mr" and "Mrs" or "Miss". The doctor was "Doctor" and male people in authority were "Sir". A sign you were growing up was to be invited to call someone by their given name or Christian name. Even when I was at university the staff were Mr, Mrs, Miss, Doctor, Professor....  It was not until I was a "mature age" student I called any member of staff by their given name at law school - and I only did it when other students were not present. I have been in and out of court on a number of occasions and things there are still very formal too. 

This is as it should be. There needs to be a separation between those responsible for administering the law and the law itself. The Attorney-General has failed to understand this because, even within the courts themselves, there is a hierarchy - Magistrates, District, Supreme - and among the people who work there.  Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that before we get to the point where the courts are no longer a place for the administration of justice. Somehow I do not fancy calling a judge by their given name. 

Memory boxes can take

many forms and serve many purposes. I have seen many - everything from a matchbox to a packing case and an old "tea chest". The first held a tooth from the owner's first dog and the last the owner's toys from early childhood - all carefully preserved by a parent.

There are other memory boxes though and they serve a special purpose. We have a special category in the Handicrafts section of the state's show for "Handicrafts for others". There are two classes - one is for soft, cuddly toys which go to the Women and Children's Hospital to be given (not sold) to children in need. The "need" in this case may be anything. The toy might be given to a child who has lost everything and needs a comfort toy or a child in a special environment who needs something clean and new or a child who needs a distraction toy when facing a major medical procedure. 

And the other class is for "memory boxes". These are given to mothers who have lost a child. There are never enough of these donated. The hospital could use many more. There are never enough donated because most people are unaware of how hard a miscarriage can be. They do not know how much a mother can grieve when they lose a child. Being told to "get over it" is not the answer. It was never the answer and it will never be the answer.

My paternal grandmother lost seven children - almost certainly all of them to a problem which would have allowed some of them at least to be saved. She bore two boys successfully but she also bore the loss of seven children in almost silence. It was not until I was in my late teens and we were changing the sheets on the big bed one morning when she mentioned it. Her eyes filled with tears even then when she was a woman in her late eighties. I felt awful for her but I still did not understand. It had not (and has not) happened to me. 

I still remember that morning though and I hope I know the importance of the memory boxes which are made to be passed on to the women who have lost something so irreplaceable. We don't put anything in them. We simply pass them on. I don't know who gets them but one of the volunteers has said the recipients are carefully chosen - and that they always need more than they have. I am hoping we might get more than usual this year. It would help.

We had a particularly lovely one last year. There was a great deal of work in it. I met the woman who had made it. She did not say anything. She did not need to say anything. She had the same look in her eyes as my grandmother had all those years ago. The memory might be painful but she was passing on her understanding as well.

 

I cannot comprehend the pain

of parents who lose a child to violence - or indeed lose a child at all. 

I am not a parent. I have lost a child I was very, very close to but I was not her father. It is not the same and I know it is not the same thing. Even when, as happens some days, I suddenly feel overwhelmed by the loss of the Senior Cat I know it is not like a parent losing a child.

What the parents of the two young men murdered in Mexico are feeling is something I cannot begin to comprehend. The parents of their mate must also be going through the same hell. The same is true of all parents in places like Gaza and Ukraine and wherever else there is violence. Knowing your child is dead and never coming back to you must be like being told you have been given a life sentence with no chance of parole.

I have known people who have lost a child to violence. Two of them were the parents of one of the victims of the infamous "Truro" murders. The mother was, among other things, a writer. I knew her through a writing group before the appalling event in her life. The father was someone with whom I later worked. The mother disappeared out of our lives for a time. She was unable to face the group. I left too and went to live elsewhere. We didn't see one another for over a decade and then she came to a university workshop for drama students. She had written a play and they were going to perform it. I had stayed on over the break for other reasons and this woman was staying in the same hall of residence. We saw one another first in the area outside the dining room. I had been told she was coming. One of the staff from her husband's university had contacted me and told me. She was concerned at how this woman would cope.

For me it was the most natural thing in the world to hug her. We hugged long and hard. "Thank you Cat," she told me. She was struggling to be there at all. It was the first time she had been away from her husband in all that time. 

"If you need a cup of tea at any time...." I told her. I thought she would be fine during the day when there would be work going on. I knew she would not want to join the others at the student bar on campus. Would she come? I didn't know. 

She took some long walks alone, the tough walks up the mountain behind the university grounds. I saw her going. There were no knocks at the door and I hoped she was coping. Then, late one afternoon, she did knock. "No, don't put the kettle on," she told me, "Let's go out. You don't have to be in tonight do you?" 

I had work to do but I went. I am glad I went. We went to a small, cheap place which served Thai food - which she loved - and we had a simple meal. We chatted about her play and how it was going and what I was doing at the university, the plans for International Literacy Year and other things.  It all seemed unremarkable enough but it was another first for her. She had not been out to a meal in all that time.

I hugged her again just before she left for the airport and her flight home. All she said was "Thanks Cat." She went and I thought, and still think, I had no idea how hard all of that was for her. All I could do was listen. I think of her when I feel overwhelmed by loss but I know it is not the same and that it is not the same as it will be for those parents everywhere.

Later I worked with her husband. He was one of the nicest and kindest of my many colleagues. He would sometimes wander in to my office and say, "Are you free at lunch time Cat?" We would go and eat our sandwiches outside, away from the noise of the communal eating areas. Occasionally we would chat about work but sometimes we were silent. He would just smile at me as we went back to our respective offices. It was all we needed to "say" to each other. 

They are both dead now. She succumbed to cancer a year or so after I saw her. He had a heart attack. Neither was that old. Stress was almost certainly a contributing factor. They had been through what no parent should have to endure. Their marriage was strong enough to survive but that is a rare thing too.

Go and hug someone you love today - please! It's important.   

A mobile phone won't save you

but it might be very useful if you are attempting to leave an abusive situation. At least, it might be useful if there is no tracking device on it.

This morning there is actually a piece in the paper which talks about that. I wonder how many "committees" and "meetings" they had to have before they came up with the idea of actually providing mobile phones to some women? 

There was an extra mobile phone here for a short time. I passed it on to someone I know who needed one. Yes, she had a mobile phone but she knew it was being tracked. She borrowed this one long enough to get out the situation she was in and then offered it back to me "but if you don't want it then I'll pass it on to someone else here who needs one". I told her to pass it on. The woman I knew had enough money and ability to do things for herself. She was only in a a place of shelter for three nights before she was on her way elsewhere. It is one of those rare success stories we do not normally hear about.

At the time though getting a second mobile phone would have been difficult, if not impossible. As it was I worried her very controlling partner at the time might realise she had it. The piece in the paper this morning is only going to make abusive partners search for those phones.

I remember another incident some years ago. I was in the supermarket when the woman ahead of me asked to pay for some batteries separately. She was dressed in the way that a certain religious group here dresses. The women in it are very subservient to the men. There were (and I presume still are) strict rules about no television, no radios, DVD or CD players. I have never seen one of the women dressed like that using a mobile phone. The batteries were the sort you might put into a small transistor radio which was common at the time.

The check out girl did as was asked and I bought my items and followed the other woman out. She was someone I knew by sight and she knew that I knew other women in the group.

"You won't say anything will you?" she asked me anxiously.

"Of course not," I told her as I realised she was buying the batteries for a radio. She must have had one hidden somewhere. It would have been taken from her and she would have been "shut up" if it was found. Later I discovered she had left the cult like situation she was in. Her husband was apparently a very, very controlling man. Where the money for the radio or the batteries had come from I do not know. He checked every docket so that he knew precisely what she was buying and how much she had spent. 

The mobile phone idea will also have to consider that. Someone else is going to have to set them up and make sure calls can be made. I must suppose that this will be done but I often wonder whether the other woman kept her radio or whether the discovery of it led to another step towards leaving.   

Why is a "proof of age" card

not considered to be the equivalent of a licence to drive? They are both identity documents which have a photograph. The former also requires a "100 points of ID". The latter does not.

Let me begin at the beginning? I went to the bank with Middle Cat yesterday. I had to transfer some money from my account into my BIL's account - at a different bank.  For that purpose my passport was sufficient ID.

Middle Cat and I then went on to the police station to get our affidavits dealt with - signatures by us witnessed by a rather nice police officer - thank you. Yes, he needed to see my passport because this is a Supreme Court (Civil) matter we are dealing with.

I was fine with both those things. The bank actually accepted my passport as 100 points of ID. The policeman accepted my passport as me being me.

But.....I came home to an email from the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society. This year they have decided that everyone working there has to have a "Working with children check". It is something new. Because I am volunteering there the certificate won't cost me anything but the paperwork to get one is the reason I have, to date, avoided getting one. Whether I really need one at the showground is dubious. I work in an open area, surrounded by other adults. Children in that area are required to be under the control of their "responsible adult" at all times. I have occasionally spoken to a child but never to a child on their own. It is the same for all the volunteers in the area. The RAHS however has decided that this has to happen. I need to comply.

So there I am filling in pages of paper work to get the job done before I am overwhelmed with other things. I go through accessing the site, getting an application number and creating another password. I fill in all the usual details and answer the seemingly endless questions about where I have lived in the last five years (one place of residence) and whether I have ever been convicted of an offence (no). 

Then I get to the need for 100 points of ID. My passport is not enough. Now it is only worth 70 points. Mmm...what else can I use? A licence to drive is worth 40 points but I do not have a licence to drive. My "proof of age" card? It also has a photograph. It is issued by the same department. It requires a 100 points of ID to obtain one. No, it won't do. 

For some strange reason that card, which requires the same level of identification to obtain, is only worth 25 points. I am five points short. I need a third piece of acceptable ID. I look at the list of documents acceptable. Yes, I can do it. Of course I can do it but the ridiculous thing is that things like rates bills (in my name) are considered acceptable for a further 25 points. There is no photograph on a rates bill or a "Seniors Card" or any other document considered acceptable. 

Would someone please explain to this puzzled puss why a document with a photograph on it is worth less than a similar document with a photograph on it? Why is a document with my paw print on it worth the same as a bill without my paw print on it? It makes no sense to me.  

The issue of domestic violence was

the subject of a special "national cabinet" meeting yesterday. This morning there are several articles in the paper about the "outcomes" as well. 

There is one headlines stating "it starts with teens". Really? I thought the issue starts with small children. It starts from the time they are able to know right from wrong doesn't it? 

Apparently not. Instead there are efforts to blame social media and other issues. This is surely the easy way out?  I am not suggesting social media is not a problem. It clearly is a problem but it seems to me it is more than that. 

We need to teach small children that violence is not acceptable and some would say we do but we need to teach it at home, not just in the day care centre where the child is apparently "cared" for while both parents go to work. Day care centres may claim to teach all sorts of things but the reality is that they have an agenda which does not align with respect for women in adulthood. That agenda is continued on into school years and by the time students reach high school ideas about sexuality, racism, equality, the oppression of some groups and not others is firmly fixed. The idea of "respect for others" is taught in accordance with those ideas. It is not taught as "respect for all" or "do unto others" even while there are claims to the contrary. 

The first school my goddaughter attended had a firm contract with parents. The children were not permitted to watch television. If a child was heard talking about television programs the parents were given a warning. On the third strike the child had to be removed from the school. It was an extraordinary policy but, twenty something years ago, it worked. Parents chose that school and they chose that policy. The students were known for, among other things, good manners. The boys were actually taught to open doors for girls, make sure the girls were seated and even to walk on the outside of the footpaths. The students would raise their hand to ask a question in class and they called their teachers "Mr", "Mrs" and "Miss" (not Ms). I do not think it would work now but recently I was talking to someone whose daughter and both sons attended the same school. Those former students she knows still show respect for each other "but of course as parents we supported all that". 

And there perhaps is part of the problem. Too many parents have handed over the teaching of too much. The have handed it over to people they believe are teaching their children what is right from what is wrong. I suspect many teachers do try but without parental backing it may not succeed. Teachers also have to try and teach those things while also teaching ideas about "equality" and "oppression" - ideas which sometimes run counter to respect.

 

I had a letter from a lawyer

yesterday. It was passed on to me as part of some wider legal proceedings. Other relevant messages were attached.

"It will make better sense if you read it from the bottom up," I was told. 

I read the letter first and thought, "Yes, I understand what is being said there." It was even possible for me to guess what had brought that particular letter into being. Then I went back and read "from the bottom up". 

Yes, there was the flow I expected. Brother Cat phoned me at that point and asked if I had seen the letter. He was not impressed. "Why do they write such gobbledegook? Why can't they just say things outright?"

I sympathised with him because I could have said exactly the same thing in three short sentences. This had been said in eleven long sentences.The problem is that this would not have been acceptable in a court of law. It would not have hedged around all the possibilities and more. It would just have started "this is the problem" and "this is what usually happens" and "this is what we are doing". 

The Senior Cat wrote letters but never enjoyed doing it. He preferred to phone Brother Cat and, out of a sense of duty, would phone the Black Cat. When I was away I would get a letter around exam time - hoping I would do as as well as I deserved to do. (He always thought I deserved to do well.) Later he would write letters only if he needed to write them. Then he would come to me and say something like, "Is this right? I know you will probably think it is too wordy." This would come from the man with a degree in Latin and English Literature and a real ability to tell a story.

I would read it through and then I would sigh and say, "Have you got a pen? Right...." Then I would dictate a new letter to him. It would always be much shorter.

"I don't know how you do it," he would tell me. I do but I never told him. (It was simply because the physical effort of writing things down has made me able to find ways to say some things in as few words as possible. It is not true of meanderings here!)

I sent a quick required response back to the solicitor who had sent the earlier missive, "Read and understood."

It was all I needed to say.  I know why "legalese" can be so "wordy" but Plain English makes more sense.