Idolising Children?

Over at Eureka Street they have gone daily, and no longer are subscriber based - like New Matilda.

Their first daily offering are two beautiful poems from P.S.Cottier - a poet of whom I know nothing about and a ‘google’ search produces very little.

You can read my favourite “Progress” - here.

It resonates - because I’m definitely still following through as well…

Simon Castles had a great piece in the Sunday Age. He manages (where others have failed) to begin to express a concern about the impact our obsession with “seeking to protect our children from pedophiles” is having on men’s ability to relate and interect with children.

It reminds me of when I was doing childcare work and a young boy came up to me when I was doing a days casual work at a centre I am not usually at and asked me, “When are you going to work?”

When I told him I was working at the childcare centre for the day he was so rapt, he and many other boys spent the whole day following me around and hanging on every word I said.

More men in childcare…when that happens we will really know we are beginning to do the right thing by children. That is one key indicator of our success.

Thanks Simon - great piece.

Funky columnist at The Oz and new mum, Emma Tom has a piece today that describes really well the ongoing challenges for parent’s traversing the wide range of parenting dogma. You can read it here.

What Emma concludes with is the most sensible advice…we just hear it too infrequently.

Like Barker, I wouldn’t recommend control crying for everyone. It’s hard and heartbreaking and doesn’t always work. But I would urge other sleep-deprived parents to ignore the preposterous extremes prescribed by some of the pundits and try more nuanced approaches in the long search for that slightly sweeter-smelling bucket.

Acknowledging the fact that it will be different for all children and all parents, and to avoid dogma is advice worth listening too.

We move to where we live for a reason. That reason is becoming clearer everyday.

Respecting children inherently means respecting the future. Climate change, along with wealth distribution will grow to become the issues of our times. Ultimately, it is our children who will be left to live with the consequences of our actions.

Hats off to my local community. You make me very proud.

The Human Rights and Equal Opprtunity Commission are gaining soem more traction on the issue of maternity leave. It is good to see the call for paid maternity leave has not gone away.

What has gone away was the calls from a couple of years ago by HREOC for a partnerhsip movement. Pru Goward was a fan of this concept. She said:

Men and women are the two faces on the coin of humanity; to pit them against each other is to damage both.

A partnership movement would be different - in tone, in approach. Inevitably it’s going to be more complicated and less spectacular than the glory and spoils of war, but it might be the only real choice if we are to resolve these issues.

A refocus not simply on what women deserve, but opn what men should also be doing and deserve is needed. Otherwise the debate will continue to be out of step. Men need to be given the chance to work less and contribute more domestically. Goward used to run the line that while women statsitically have increased their workforce participation, men have not increased their participation in domestic life.

Real balance is about having a suite of options. It might be that Labor’s policy has a better chance of meeting the needs of the contemporary family who want a range of different arrangements at different stages of their life. I’d argue that it still needs some work…but it does need a greater commitment to maternity leave…along with flexibility.

My call…women must have paid maternity leave - but even when they do men still need to help cook dinner, do the dishes and look after the baby!