Idolising Children?

This cartoon forms an interesting framework for a discussion of historians roles in analysing and desconstructing violence in childhood. It appeared in the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth newsletter, Summer 2008. Please have a read - it is short - and we need to think about these things. Link below.

http://www.history.vt.edu/Jones/SHCY/Newsletter12/Pahl.html

Tags: childhood, violence, guns

Also, I should mention I am starting to upload some comics I’ve been doing for a while now. Of course it is all about parenting, or really little reflections about being a dad.

You can visit the site at - http://www.comicspace.com/whispersatbedtime/

Example below:

Tags: comic, children, fatherhood, whispersatbedtime

In the face of World Bank data such as this  - the luxury we have to explore the development and growth of our children in the way we do should never be taken for granted.

When for so many parents just finding enough food for their children is their biggest concern, you can’t help but think some of our concerns about our children could handle a little bit of perspective. Our idolising of childhood, compared to this reality, looks very trivial indeed.

Tags: children, poverty, childhood, development

I’ve always had an interest in the work-life balance debate because I think our attitudes to work and productivity impact significantly on our children and contribute to the reasons why we idolise and misplace what is actually best for them.

Mum hasd been feeding me a few newspaper articles that are starting to share the stories of over-worked duel income households who are getting fed up with the pace of it all. It is fine when they are child-less, but people with children can’t maintain the ethic of 14-16 hour days many industries now expect.

So, it was disappointing not to see greater disapproval with Kevin Rudd’s recent comments about the work ethic he expects of the public service - day and night I understand he said.

Thankfully, Andrew Hamilton of the continually great Eureka Street online journal holds our PM to account…strange no one asked Kevin what happened to the hard fought for 40 hour working week.

Read a great piece here - http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=7566

…there are hundreds of millions of rants being posted everyday. most of it is worth the small about of bytes it takes up in (cyber)space.

But, over at Fairfax, some clever person has convinced Martin Flanagan to blog.

The world wide web will be a better place becuase of it. Read here.