Lawns and storms

Instead of launching into a long explanation of my absence from blogging and what I'd been waiting for to start again, I've decided to just start blogging again. I wrote this yesterday late afternoon as the rain pelted Melbourne:

I watch a Persian Fairy-floss cloud stream over me and note how incongruous it is compared to the heavy dark storm clouds crowding in from the west. Then I realise that wispy, shredded cloud is only the vanguard of more heavy rain clouds chasing it east.

I'm lying on my back on our freshly mown back lawn, resting from a hot afternoon's work mowing the back and front lawns and the extra long nature strip bordering our corner block. The day's heat and humidity had left me dripping with sweat throughout this bit of domestic heavy-lifting, where I again had the opportunity to reflect on the features and expectations of Australian masculinities that our moving to a larger house with a garden has necessitated. The lawn mowers in our neighbourhood start up like clockwork on Saturdays and Sundays – certainly with greater regularity that mine – and I'm still getting used to this new requirement (after having lived in a unit for nearly five years!)

Instead of retreating into the house once I'd locked the mower away into its metal shed, I lay on the grass to enjoy my handiwork, took off my boots to let my feet feel the grass, and let myself sink into the soft cushion of grass. I can't remember the last time I did this.

Watching the sky darken as the storm clouds roll over me, the thunder comes louder and stronger from the west. I want the raindrops to just fall on me.

The wind starts to pick up and birds dart around seeking shelter. I can't tell if the birds are flying fast or the wind is propelling them through the air. This elevating avian aviatics turns out to be a good sign of the storm closing in, as pretty soon the wind brings pelting rain.

Pretty soon, I decide the novely of lying on the grass and letting the rain fall on me has worn off as the stinging pellets drive me indoors. Not before being well and truly cooled off after my Saturday afternoon chores.

By all accounts, the day's storms brought traffic havoc to the city and lots of rain in a short time. Enough to reassure me that the fruiting orange tree, the prize feature of our backyard, got a good drink. And surely enough rain to get the freshly cut grass shooting up again. An excercise in futility.

Read more!

Time for a stronger climate change response

This evening, I wrote to Senator Penny Wong, Australia's Minister on Climate Change, urging her to resist the amendments being put forward by the Liberal opposition to water down the Rudd government's proposed greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS), and instead to strengthen Australia's greenhouse gas reduction strategy.

The email was prompted by Who on Earth Cares, the Australian Conservation Foundation's public climate change campaign. Personally, I find the Rudd government's ETS a whimpy, futile attempt at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming. The ALP government's targets for cutting emissions are pitiful – and certainly not based on what scientists say is needed to prevent dangerous climate change. However, the Turnbull Liberal opposition's attempts to weaken (let's not use mealy-mouthed 'water down', shall we?) the government's scheme and demand greater subsidies for carbon polluters to be worse!

The Who on Earth Cares/ACF online campaigning tool allowed me to send an email to Penny Wong (automatically generated), urging her to strengthen Australia's greenshouse gas reduction, not weaken it. It says:

Dear Minister Wong,

This week the Liberal Party has made it clear that it proposes to weaken the Government’s emissions trading scheme.

I ask you, as someone that is very concerned about climate change, not to cave in to their proposed amendments and weaken Australia’s response to climate change.

I ask you not to give more handouts to the big polluters. Doing so would take the scheme backwards, and impact greatly on Australian taxpayers.

Instead, I ask you to strengthen and pass the emissions trading scheme, and take real action on climate change ahead of the crucial climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

Australia has so much to lose from a climate change catastrophe, yet so much to gain in a clean, low carbon economy.

We have abundant renewable energy resources, and huge potential to grow jobs and investment by grabbing a fair share of the global boom in clean technologies.

You have the ability to strengthen the emissions trading scheme by:

• Improving the target for reducing greenhouse pollution. 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 is the minimum credible starting point for Australia; and scientists say we should be making a 40% reduction

• Decrease handouts of free permits to Australia’s biggest polluters – now that the economy is back on track we should be winding back corporate welfare, not increasing it

• Ramping up investment in clean energy jobs and industries that will ensure Australia remains prosperous in the 21st century

• Using funds raised by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to help bring developing countries and their people out of poverty through clean economic development, and to cope with climate impacts that are already hurting them.

Australia has a history of leading by example and punching above its weight. I ask you to help continue this tradition.

I added some text below that, in the bit meant for us to 'personalise' our emails and, I guess, prove we are real people rather than the digital version of the rent-a-mob governments so maligned a decade and more ago. I'm sharing it here as an open letter to Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change. Feel free to use it, or let it inspire your own emails or letters to the Minister. (Write to senator.wong@aph.gov.au)

To Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change

On a further note, Minister Wong, I would like to strongly urge you to strengthen Australia's greenhouse gas reduction strategy with an insight from Victoria.

I am seriously concerned that in Australia we do all that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent – not just slow down – dangerous climate change. If your government caves in to the demands of the Liberal Party and the carbon industry lobbyists, I strongly, strongly fear for the future of my children – my two boys, aged 9 and 3.

Last Saturday 17 October 2009, The Age reported that the huge aluminium smelters in Portland and Point Henry in south-western Victoria are costing Victorians more than $4.5 billion (by the time the contracts end in 2014 and 2016) in electricity subsidies for the smelters, and are likely to cost us more. Aluminium smelting is one of the most energy intensive – and greenhouse polluting – industries in the world, and it makes me angry that not only are we encouraging this industry, but we are actively subsidising it. Furthermore, these smelters are run on electricity generated from burning brown coal – one of the most carbon polluting forms of power generation there is!

If we instead subsidised and supported renewable energy such as solar power and wind turbines to anywhere the same amount, Australia would be in a much better position to tackle climate change!

Former Hamer and Kennett Liberal Victorian government minister Rob Maclellan, who was in the cabinet that decided to support and subsidise the smelters, was reported in that Age article as saying that decision was 'absolute madness' and a 'costly disaster' for our state. He clearly regrets those cabinet decisions! Please Minister, don't find yourself in a situation 10 years from now regretting any decisions you make to weaken Australia's greenhouse gas reduction strategy and throw greater subsidies at the carbon-polluting industries.

Victoria has already witnessed some of the most horrendous bushfires last summer, and I don't want my children living in a world where they have to fear every summer, rather than long for it and embrace the hope of its warmth and sunshine. This would be a horrendous future for us all. I want a carbon neutral future – and a brighter one – form my children. A future where my children will listen to Melbourne's weather report to figure out whether to take an umbrella or pack a jumper, or wear shorts and thongs – not whether to pack their belongings in a car and evacuate to a safe area to avoid a raging bushfire or a cyclonic storm.

Please – do the right thing. Strengthen Australia's greenhouse gas reduction strategy. Don't weaken it.

I welcome the opportunity to hear back from you about what you will do on this matter.

Regards,
Mark Lawrence

From a (little) more innocent summer some 4 years ago, Jacob (now turning 9) building a sandcastle at Squeaky Beach in Wilsons Promontory. I say a little more innocent, or idyllic, as we were still amidst a terrible draught then, and the heatwave that Australia Day weekend was awful! Photo by me.

Read more!

Each day, a little further for fathers

The other day on the morning train to the city, I observed two men talking about their children. All right, I admit it – I was eavesdropping. But it wasn’t that difficult as they were not guarded in how they spoke with each other, and I sat close to where they stood by the train door.

They didn’t seem to be friends, but they struck me as having the casual familiarity of a couple of men who have met a few times, possibly at the train station where they got on together, and who easily find common ground for casual conversation to kill time while waiting on the platform and riding the train to work.

As they exchanged notes about their children, my attention was piqued as I’m always interested in how and where men find camaraderie over shared (or otherwise) experiences of fatherhood. They appeared to have two young children apiece, including a youngest around 3 years old each – the same as my youngest. When one asked the other if his children got along, the answer was, ‘Aah, yes and no.’ Not an unexpected situation with two young children. When asked in return, the original inquisitor had a different take on that old nutshell: his two young kids got along very well, and delighted in a ‘symbiotic misbehaviour’ – each working off or egging on the other as they got up to mischief together.

I covered a smile as I thought of my two boys – 8 and 3 years old – and their own ‘symbiotic misbehaviour’. That clever choice of words is what prompted me to get out my notebook and record the moment.

One father appeared to care for or spend a lot of time with his two kids for three days a week and talked of how he found that wearing sometimes, especially as one child could ‘talk and talk and talk.’ The other man could empathise with those sentiments, although his personal time with his kids seemed somewhat truncated by work and, besides weekends, his busy work-oriented life was punctuated by only a day or two of leave during the school holidays.

Despite the respective differences in the extent of their parenting, these men seemed to find a common bond in being fathers to young children, and their mutual experiences offered them something to not only pass the time with, but also a level of reflection and wonder at parenting and masculinity today. They enjoyed a fraternity of male parenting that I wondered whether was available to their fathers’ generation.

Women often laugh at men talking like this – surely three days with the kids, let alone weekends and occasional school holidays, are hardly ‘real’ cause enough to find parenting stressful! But for these men, and for many, many men in similar shoes (and I include myself in this shoe shop), the time spent with their children is both a time of joy and anxiety. Parenting is rewarding and stressful, enlightening and frustrating, heartbreaking and exhilarating, fun and downright annoying – for fathers as well as for mothers. And the more time men spend as active parents, the more we will encounter the frustrations and conflicts of child-rearing, as well as their joys and rewards. And the more we will learn from these experiences.

However limited or broad their parenting responsibilities, when men are able to whinge, swap notes, boast, let off steam, or get advice about or otherwise explore their experiences as fathers, their sense of being fathers is affirmed. And surely that is good for everyone – fathers, mothers and children.
________________

This year is the first that I've had to celebrate Father's Day without my dad. I don't think I'm used to it yet. No card or present to buy and send, no early morning phone call to him, no chance to tell him once again how much I love and appreciate him. But I still thought about him, and missed him.

It's spring again, and the tulips that my youngest and I planted in autumn are flowering. They are gorgeous. Flowering now so long after we planted the bulbs, they remind me of the fun I had with my son as we got our hands dirty mixing compost with potting mix and planting the bulbs. Spring bulbs are a lovely way to mark the passing of the seasons, and I'm really enjoying how the days are getting warmer and lighter, with the odd shower thrown in.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads reading this blog. I hope you had a great day.

Read more!

Autumn in my pocket

I've returned to writing in my writing notebook on the tram to work again, and this post begins from what I wrote there.

In my pocket is a light blue cotton handkerchief, the kind that is thick enough and large enough to wipe your face with without it scrunching into a ball, or blow your nose in without being sodden within three gusts – a handy feature for the impending cold-virus season. That's possibly because it is relatively new, and still has the fresh stiffness of new cotton. It has crisscrossing stripes of navy contrast along the edges that mark it as a man's handkerchief, and an upper-case 'P' embroidered in navy blue in one corner. It was my father's.

My father always had a handkerchief with him – every day, he'd put one in his left trouser pocket. (I've long long followed his habit.) Dad had quite a stock of them. My sister and I insisted that he have one just so for the funeral.

Each time I've been up to Brisbane lately, I return – on my mother's urging – with a small load of my father's clothes. This time, the load included a handful of these good handkerchiefs and a couple of pairs of new socks dad had not gotten around to wearing. They were still attached to their label.

Today, I'm wearing a light, grey cashmere jumper of dad's. Now I understand the love for cashmere – light, soft, almost luscious – and appreciate the premium put on them. I'd probably never afford cashmere myself. There was a time, some ten years ago, when my father could afford to buy them and appreciated their warmth and comfort in Melbourne's winter, however briefly he lived here. I found this jumper, along with another maroon cashmere and his chunky blue wool cardigan that I loved to see him in, stored in the bottom drawer of a dresser he hardly used. I wonder if he got to enjoy them much, considering how brief and relatively mild Brisbane's winters are. Though he'd been complaining of feeling the cold bitterly, especially in his hands and feet, in the last couple of years.

This morning in Melbourne, it is cool, grey and raining. It's probably closer to 14˚C than 21˚C in the range forecast for today. Autumn has announced itself dramaticaly, and I'm glad to be warm and snug in a fold of cashmere.

This morning, the online sponsorships and cash donations for my Shave for a Cure drive had past my $500 target! (As evident in the image of the fundraising meter.) Weighing up the pledges that have been made and the possibilities of another week of fundraising, I've decided to extend my goal by $200 – I'm now aiming to raise $700 for the Leukaemia Foundation by Friday 13 March.

I'd appreciate any help you can offer me to reach that goal, including spreading the word. And thank you to all of you who helped out, made donations, and spread the word.

In a week, I will have my hair shaved for Shave for a Cure. It will be a chilly affair, and I'm glad for my friend Lynn's offer to knit me a beanie to keep my head and ears warm! Thanks, Lynn! Meanwhile, keep warm. Or cool as your case may be.

Read more!

See me shave my head–support World's Greatest Shave

I'm taking part in the Leukaemia Foundation World's Greatest Shave this year.

Do you want to see me shave my head? On Friday 13 March, I'm shaving my hair off.

My target is to raise $500 in 3 weeks – for the Leukaemia Foundation.

If I can get 50 people to donate $10 each, I can make my target! Please get your friends to donate too, and that will help me reach my target! But any amount – however small – can help me reach my target and support the Leukemia Foundation.

You can see my Profile Page on the World's Greatest Shave and donate online by making a secure online donation using your credit card. [note: the link to my profile/sponsorship page has been updated - see the update note below]

I'm doing this to honour my Dad's memory – before he died suddenly last December, Dad used to do the Leukemia Foundation door-knock appeal to help raise money. It was part of his way of dealing with his continuing grief at losing my older brother, Jeremy, to leukemia over 20 years ago (and his way to help out). Jeremy died after battling leukemia for nearly 18 months, aged 16. I was 11.

I've been meaning to do 'the Shave' for years now, but never got around to it. Now, my dad's example is spurring me on. This is also to honour Jeremy's memory.

See this all taken off!

On 13 February, my boss is going to shave my hair at work – I'm going to post a video of it online, so you can watch it here!

According to the Leukemia Foundation:

• Every hour of every day, at least one person in Australia is diagnosed with leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma.
• Every two hours, someone loses their life to blood cancer.

Please help me raise as much as I can for the Leukaemia Foundation. Their vital work provides patients with practical support during their long and tough treatment, as well as funding important research.

Come on, we can help! We can help find a cure, support those living with this disease, and support their families.

I will be providing updates on this blog, via Twitter, and on my Profile Page. You're also welcome to drop me a comment here on a message on my Profile Page at World's Greatest Shave to show your support. Thanks for your support!

PS: Would anyone like to knit/crochet me a beanie for the cold weather?

UPDATE: There's been a technical glitch in the site for my sponsorship page/profile this week, but the very helpful people at World's Greatest Shave have fixed it up by setting me up a new page. I've updated the link abve, so you can find me online an sponsor me and raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. [updated 2.20pm Thursday 12 March 2009]

UPDATE 2: A big thank you to Lynn who has knitted me a gorgeous beanie/hat to keep me warm after I shave my hair on Friday 13 March 2009! [updated 2.25pm Thursday 12 March 2009]

Read more!

Up to Brisbane again

Not quite on the road, but I'm flying up to Brisbane again tomorrow afternoon to see my mother. My dad would have turned 70 on Wednesday, and instead of having a celebration, we'll be having a Catholic mass at Mum and Dad's home in his memory.

I'll be there the rest of this week, so without internet access at Mum's place I seriously doubt there will be much blog action here until Australia/Survival Day or after. Unless something especially strikes me and I try to post from my mobile phone. We'll see, you never know.

Until then, I particularly recommend Ampersand Duck's post on reading and traveling – in this case bushwalking – at Sarsaparilla. I'm printing it off as it will make some great reading while I'm flying. I really want to do more long walks and walking travels this next year and more, and &D's post in another inspiration for that.

In a similar vein, I'm also truly enjoying Tony Kevin's Walking the Camino: a modern pilgrimage to Santiago, which I gave my father for Father's Day last year in honour of his (then) upcoming September holiday in Portugal and Spain with Mum. When they returned, he told me he really enjoyed it, and we speculated on walking the Camino together in a few years when I'd saved the money. Mum recently told me he took me seriously, and that he'd read the book twice. I can see why.

What was a flippant comment in conversation with my father has now taken a new meaning. I'm aiming to do that walking pilgrimage when I'm 45, if not earlier. It's like my dad's holding me to it. And I'm holding myself to it.

Read more!

The best laid plans

After this time and distance, it's been hard to come back to this blog – for many reasons. I've been away from Melbourne and the internet for nearly a month, I haven't really felt like writing much for an audience, and I would have to explain – to put into words – why I've been away for so long. But I will anyway, because to do otherwise is to pretend nothing has happened.

A couple of days ago, I emailed some friends to explain what happened, so I'd found the words to explain the events, but not quite the words to express how I feel or what it means to me. I think that will come later. So I've decided to post here an edited version of what I wrote my friends.

A lot happened in the last weeks of 2008 - particularly something very shocking and sad. My Dad passed away from a sudden heart attack on Saturday the 13th of December, and I rushed up to Brisbane that evening.

My partner Shelley, our boys and I were meant to go for a holiday at the Sunshine Coast on the 16th for three nights, and then we were going to spend Christmas and New Year with Mum and Dad, and celebrate their 70th birthdays together. Mum's birthday is on 27 December, and Dad's nearly a month later. I was suggesting a joint party while we were up there.

Of course, all the best made plans are tossed in the air by cruel chance.

Shelley and the boys joined me in Brisbane that week, but Shelley had worked wonders to change our travel and accommodation arrangements so we could delay our coastal break to the end of our stay up north.

My sister and her family were in Europe on the tail end of their extended holiday and they rushed back from Rome as quickly as they could when they got the news. They were wrecked.

***

Peter J. Lawrence
1939–2008

My Dad was so well, so we thought, and showed no sign at all of having anything at all wrong with his heart or health besides the usual things associated with ageing and high cholesterol. What we didn't know is that he had serious heart disease - his coronary arteries were severely blocked, and had been for many, many years, leading ultimately to the sudden heart attack.

I was pretty much in a state of shock for a while when I got the initial pathologist's findings from the Queensland Coroner's office a few days after the death. It was a very, very heavy sense of dismay, incredulity and pain that this had been building up so long with no sign at all that we could interpret to indicate heart disease.

Cruel, cruel chance. I think you could imagine the anger, frustration and deep sadness I feel at not being able to see my dad again. I don't know about these different stages' of grief – I seem to be feeling them all at once, and at various times. In the previous two weeks, I was more numb than anything.

We held the funeral on Friday 19 December, the day my Dad was intending to drive up to Noosa to pick up my family and I to bring us back to Brisbane. This would have been the first time I'd seen him since he and Mum came down to Melbourne in November 2007. I gave one of the three eulogies (and a poem reciting) at the funeral, a blistering hot day in the sweltering Catholic parish church my parents had been very active in since they retired to Brisbane some 12 years ago. Three Catholic priests officiated at the Mass. That doesn't happen very often. My parents' co-parishioners were wonderful, sharing our grief and truly supportive of my mother. They really love my both my parents, and miss my father terribly. But not as much as we do.

***

Shelley, the kids and I spent 3 nights in Noosa after the New Year, and the break and rest has done me much good. We go back to Melbourne last Friday, and I've been back at work since Monday. Thankfully, it's pretty quiet and still a bit cruisey, so I can get lost in the background and mope for a little longer.

I'm still worried about my Mum, of course, as this is very, very hard for her. She has a large and close group of friends up in Brissie, through her parish, and many close relatives there, and my sister and her family are there, but it is not the same when you've lost the person you've loved for nearly 50 years, and been married to for 45!

But I'll see Mum again soon - next week, in time for Dad's birthday on the 21st. And I'll be going up again on 28 February when we hold the commitment of Dad's ashes into the Columnbarium at the parish church he and mum went to.

I haven't yet decided whether I will publish my eulogy for Dad online, although I'm inspired by other examples to do so. It's a bit long for this blog, so if I decide to upload it somewhere, I'll post the link here. What I can say for now is that my Dad was a great man, and a good man, and we loved him very, very much.

Meanwhile, I just want to say a big thank you to all my good friends and family who have been a big help and support to me and my family at this time. You're wonderful and I love you.

I certainly intend to make the most of each moment we share together.

Read more!

Tearing open the heart

I'm having trouble coming to terms with the enormity of the tragedy of the drowning death of the father and his two sons in Tathra, New South Wales. They were burried today in Bega, NSW.

Each time I hear or read the news of the event, I feel terribly troubled – almost in pain – to the extent that I don't allow myself to dwell too long on it, and the excruciating pain that must stem from such a tragedy. Today I'm facing it, otherwise it may haunt me.

I'm a very visual person, and I tend to visualise situations and events, particularly imagining how they may have unfolded. It's what I do, and it somehow meshes with the 'worse-case scenario' type of thinking I'm prone to.

From the reports, I understand that the father drowned after he jumped off the wharf to rescue his two young sons (four and 18 months) who had fallen in the water. The two boys also drowned. From an early report, police were investigating whether the older boy was playing with the pram his baby brother was in the minutes prior to their falling in. The three had gone for a walk on the wharf at Tathra, a popular holiday spot in New South Wales.

Part of my tendency to visualise and imagine the worst is that I also can't help but wonder how this could happen to my two boys and I. It could so easily have happened to any one of us. Kids fool around, big brothers (and sisters) often want a turn pushing their younger sibling in the pram. You take your eyes off them for a second to ask the fisherman on the wharf if the fish are biting. You hear shout or a splash, you panic, the terror rises up. You jump in. I would have, even though I cannot swim very well.

No, I don't feel any better having written this. I've imagined it yet again, and it hurts. But I've also been reminded that constant vigilance is a price for the joys of raising children and being parents. And this is in no way a suggestion that the dad at Tathra had not been vigilant. Not at all. I know exactly how quickly, and terribly easily, it could all come crashing down. That imagination feeds my paranoia when the kids are mucking about in places or situations I don't feel safe in or about.

I know that my feeling troubled at these events pales in comparison to the trauma and deep grief the family, especially the mother of the boys, and the wider community in Bega and Tathra are feeling. And will feel for a long time. The grief of losing a child, let alone two, and your lover, can tear open your heart. Especially when your memory of your partner is coloured by what happened to your children.

I know many, many people live with grief each and every day, and I've had my share of grief from death in the family, so I know that time will heal.

Honestly, though, if I had not been able to find them in the water, I don't know if I could have come back up to surface to face the enormity of the pain of it.

Vale, Shane, Riley and Travis. May you rest in peace.

[Image of the wharf at Tathra, NSW, by sophiec]

Read more!

6 minutes isn't even enough time to help my youngest go to the toilet

'One Minute Aussie Dads', the headlines screamed when I spotted it on the tram going home from my night class on Monday. Well, it was something like that, because I didn't pay very much attention. If it hadn't been on the front of the free, waste of old-growth forest glorified shopping catalogue distributed free on Melbourne's public transport that I saw from across the aisle, I may have paid a bit more attention to it – beyond wondering what beat-up about dead-beat dads it was beating up.

I'd been in work training in the city all that day, so no internet, no email and no blogs, and hadn't heard the news. But there it was again the next day when I did get on the net at work.

There was a whole bunch of news items reporting the research findings of social researcher Lyn Craig from the University of New South Wales that Australian fathers on average spend as little as one minute a day alone with their children – on weekdays. Or, on average, six minutes alone with their kids from Monday to Friday.

I'm not sure who these fathers are, or how these averages are calculated, but it doesn't sound anything like any of the fathers I know well enough. It certainly doesn't reflect my experience.

6 minutes didn't even cover the time it took me to help my second go to the toilet to do a poo this evening. Or to wash his hands.

(He's two and a half, and he started toilet training a week and a half ago, and he has been going wonderfully well this last week, with accidents getting fewer and further between. He has even moved on to doing a poo on the toilet this last couple of days, which is a great accomplishment, and which required my sitting in the hallway outside the loo keeping him company this evening before dinner, and more… Hmm, I bet that was probably a bit more information than you really wanted, isn't it?)

Then there's the bit of time before the loo thing that I spent with my two boys in the front yard playing cricket. And I didn't come home from work and yoga yesterday to immediately blog on these reports because I was putting the boys to sleep. And I bet you know (or can guess) how long it can take to get two boys to go to sleep.

I'm not trying to talk myself up, or request a round of applause. I guess I am saying that the research findings came as a bit of a surprise to me. Perhaps that is the shortcoming of assuming that many - if not most - other people are like yourself or the people you know.

But even where I consider the many the differences in socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds and attitudes amongst the people around me, I find many who apparently share some traits with me – fathers who care about spending time with their kids and being directly and intimately involved in their care, and mothers who expect, encourage and enable this participation.

A lot of the reporting on the research was that fathers spend time with their children alongside the mothers of the children, and spend more time alone with their children on weekends. Another finding was that many fathers believed that the care for children was the responsibility of mothers, while for fathers it was a hobby.

It is probably true that many, many in Australia still hold such attitudes, and many for whom time with the kids is time as a family, rather than one-on-one or without mum around. And there are a lot of men who are struggling to balance work demands with their desires to spend more time with their families at all, let alone time alone with their kids.

But there are also lots of fathers who spend a great deal of time alone with their children, and relish it. And it's not just time spent playing sport and other 'blokey' things. This can be shuttling kids to and from school, or helping them with their homework, reading to them, drawing with them, putting them to bed, or just hanging out. And enjoying it.

By all means, do still take them to the footy. At least you've got that.

If we don't talk about the fact we are doing this, and why, then the kinds of attitudes identified in the research, and the dearth of time fathers spend with their children without the mediation of mothers, will continue.

Read more!

Happy Father's Day

I've had a good sleep in, unwrapped the lovely toiletries and bath salts my son (eight years next month!) has given me (is he trying to say something?), read the cards from both the boys, and read bits of the Sunday paper.

The late breakfast things have been cleared (raisin toast, coffee and a delicious lightly toasted muesli with with nuts, and soy milk, low-fat yoghurt, frozen blueberries, banana and sultanas – I'm on a cholesterol-busting diet), and I've showered off the crumbs.

And I've called to wish my dad Happy Father's Day – he lives in Brisbane so I can't with he in person, but I do know the presents I posted him earlier last week arrived in good time And hopefully he will enjoy them.

So I'm taking a quick few minutes to send my best wishes for the day to all the fathers out there in blogland, especially those who read this blog and whose blog I regularly enjoy – Steven, Tim, Mike, Phil, and Matt, to name a few. And also to David Tiley, who once told me to enjoy the simple, lovely moments with my kids while they're young, because before I know it they'll be all grown-up and raiding the fridge. This morning, I did.

Happy Father's Day!

Read more!

Men balancing work with caring for children

Are you a father who finds it difficult to juggle the demands of your work with your desire to play an active part in raising your children? Well, according to another new report on the difficulties of the 'work/life balance', you are not alone.

The latest research by Barbara Pocock, a South Australian academic and leading researcher on work-life balance, and her co-author, Natalie Skinner, found that over half those surveyed "felt that work sometimes, often or almost always interfered with activities outside work."

By "activities outside work", I think you can take a fair chunk of that includes raising children and having a relationship with your partner (if you have one), or even visiting your parents or siblings, and the rest of it could include other things like taking out the rubbish, doing the dishes, cooking meals, reading the odd book or two, catching up with friends, and fitting in a trip to the museum or the footy.

The researchers also found that men working long hours are suffering from the pressures of balancing work and life, but that women working the same hours are suffering more.

Again, that is no surprise because women are still expected – by far too many men – to take the lioness's share of caring for children and keeping the household from turning into an avalanche of sludge.

But I'm sure you don't need another research report to tell you that it's a struggle to balance the demands of work with the needs and desires of raising children and keeping family life on track. But the key thing that I'm picking up from this research, and the teetering tower of research that has gone before it, is that men are finding it a crunch.

Yes, this means that people are generally finding work pressures are getting worse, including the pressure to work longer and harder. But what is noticeable is that men are noticing how the crunch is affecting their family lives – because they want to have a family life in the first place.

I'm sure we cannot say that a majority of men are up doing this yet, but I know that there is a growing number of men who take an active role in the raising their children – because they want to.

By this I mean more than just playing with our children on weekends and perhaps reading to them at bedtime, but also being involved in their school issues and homework, sharing in ferrying them to and from school or child care, playing with them, taking turns to cook meals for the family and do the household chores, and more importantly taking and active part in supporting and caring for our children's developing inner, emotional life.

Fathers are not just appendixes. We are part of the crucial anatomy of family life and raising children.

But there is no denying that it is hard to juggle all the demands of life - especially the often competing demands of work and family life. But all is not doom and gloom. Many men are choosing to scale down their work demands, including working part time, forgoing promotions, or choosing to work in organisations that don't put as much pressure on th workers to put in long hours at the expense of personal and family life. And, admittedly, this often comes at the expense of financial security and ease.

I highly recommend Cast Iron Balcony's fantastic post responding to the same research. Drawing on her observations from her workplace, Helen writes of the changing situation of men taking on the responsibilities of caring for children and notes that it is not just possible, but quite plausible to cite family responsibilities as reasons to leave work early, arrive late, or take time off so that fathers can pick up their kids, care for them or just take and active part of the family.

Mark Bahnisch at Lavartus Prodeo has also posted briefly on the new research on Work/Life balance. One of the commenters at the Lav post points out that the SMH's coverage of the story focuses on a high-achiever, a woman who manages a large staff, as a case study. Interestingly, The Age's treatment of the story in its Insight Saturday supplement (26 July – sorry, I can't find the story online) focuses its coverage on the case study of a high-powered male lawyer who went part time – 3.5 days – in order to stay home and care for his young children on his non-work days, which also allows his wife/partner to pursue study.

But, it is worth remembering, because is helps put this story into perspective, that this is something that has been discussed and covered in the media for a long time, been long advocated for by the union movement, and frequently been something of a political hot topic for opportunists on both sides of parliament.

However, many of us aren't just waiting for the media, government, policy-heads or other people to keep cycling through this conversation. We're doing it – now.

Would you like to share how you are juggling the work-life balance?

[Men at W.o.r.k. image gratefully pinched (sorry, borrowed. Yeah, I'll give it back, promise.) from Helen at Cast Iron Balcony. Can't keep a good idea down.]

Read more!

"We've come home, now"

Today was Sorry Day – the tenth anniversary of the first Sorry Day, in fact. Part of Melbourne Aboriginal community's commemorations this day was observing this anniversary and reminder of what they have been through.

It also served as a reminder to the non-Indigenous community that despite the federal government's national apology to the Stolen Generations, there is much that needs to be done to address Indigenous disadvantage in this country – not the least of which is financial compensation for members of the Stolen Generations, as part of the full reparations to them recommended by the Bringing Them Home report.

Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, with their band, performed at Federation Square in the late afternoon as part of the commemorations, and as usual their performance was powerful.

When Archie started to sing 'Took the children away', all those present went up to the foot of the stage to place a white flower on the wreath that was placed there to commemorate all those who had suffered the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families – those stolen passed and present, and their families who suffered unbearable loss. It was powerful moment. And not one I wanted to spoil by taking photos of.

Archie also spoke about how important being a father and being part of a family is to him now, particularly in light of his experience of being a member of the Stolen Generation. I'm uncertain if the lyrics were in the original version of his song, but Archie now finishes the song by singing "We've come home, now", from which the title of this post is taken. The roar of approval and applause from the crowd sent a chill down my spine.

Read more!

Men and the myths of mid-life accomplishment

This is an edited version of an early form of an essay I'm currently working on tackling men about to or entering their forties, and the social expectations and myths about male achievement. Part of this project involves a photo essay, but more on that later. I'd appreciate any feedback you have to share.

As I start the quickening slide toward 40, I can't help but look at the images and expectations of men in their forties all around me and wonder how my own life looks nothing like this picturebook story. This has sparked a lot of reflection and even doubt on my part in figuring out what it is I should have accomplished, if anything, by the time I reach my mid-life.

If your thirties are meant to be the age of tribulation in your life, then your forties, the received social wisdom suggests, are meant to be the moment you ‘arrive’ – where you reap the hard work of your sowing, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. For men, this is supposed to mean the well-paid job and career advancement, a lovely wife, a house and mortgage, a great car (maybe two), private school kids, annual holidays, great clothes and a whole lot of grown-up’s toys that your job affords you.

Of course that assumes that you’ve been able to survive the tumult of a busy life – if your marriage has braved any threat of separation or divorce, you didn’t stuff things up by having an affair with your colleague over those late nights you were ‘finishing’ that all-important, promotion-guranteeing project, your kids haven’t forgotten who you are because you’ve spent all your time at work or at golf, and you haven’t stuffed your knees, or back, at the gym fighting off the specter of your father’s heart disease and those greasy steak sandwiches you rammed down your gullet over those hurried lunch breaks.

And there you have it, the two great clichés of mid-life masculinity. On the one hand, you so reek of accomplishment and success that you’re the new pin-up for a Johnny Walker advertisement – no, not Red Label, that’s for Mr 30-something-no kids, but Black label, the sign of good taste, maturity, success, refinement and the credit card bill to match. On the other hand, you are sifting through the wreckage wondering how your life ended up like that other great cliché of mid-life masculinity – the Raymond Carver story, with a nameless man and woman yelling at each other one night over a half-packed suitcase, you can cut the dread and resentment with a knife, and the man has no idea how he got there.

But it is no secret that life rarely, if ever, follows the path that social expectations and stereotypes dictate. Most men closely approaching forty or chipping tentative toeholds into that new age of middle-life, are in fact wedging ourselves somewhere in between the myths and expectations of our society.

Looking around me at the men who are my age or in their early forties, I know that the story of accomplishment for men in their forties is a highly embellished one, and that, if anything, the paths of our lives are far more torturous, twisted and unpredictable than we are asked to believe.

For some of us, the road into our forties is a lot less smooth than we are led to believe, or achieve, with various unexpected changes in career, often with resulting loss in income or sacrifices in financial security, where we make job and careers choices out of personal satisfaction or necessity.

Sometimes, the reasons behind some of our choices are clear, deliberate, albeit unconventional. Other times, they are partially thought out combinations of gut instinct, sheer desperation and that certainty that if you'd kept going the way you were, you'd lose your health, or your marriage, and never see your kids growing up. And no amount of career accomplishment is worth that.

Read more!

Fanning the fire

It is enlightening to see where the ACT government's priorities truly lie. Compare this quote (in The Age):

"The most important thing is the flame was never in danger, from start to finish, and that's an enormous credit to our federal police," [ACT government spokesman] Mr Lasek told Sky News.

With this (from the same news report):

"This gang of thugs rolled right through us and we had kids with us. My daughter was still shaking an hour later and is very quiet even now.

"I don't normally get angry but I am so angry right now."

I don't normally subscribe to the tendency to call protesters 'thugs' or like the media beat-up of any protest where altercations or scuffles occur, let alone where young children get harassed, but I can clearly understand where this father is coming from.

As the commotion grows over the behaviour of pro-China supporters rallying in support of the Olympic torch relay, and the inevitable comparisons are made with Tibetan and pro-Tibet rights protesters, I just want to point out that the ACT government and the Federal and ACT police apparently made their priority the safety of the Olympic flame, rather than the people who attended the relay, or who protested against China's human rights record in Tibet and in the Peoples Republic, or who came to rally in support of China's prestige and honour.

Apparently, as reported in that same news item,

A "relieved but elated" ACT government spokesman Jeremy Lasek said despite the arrests, the relay had been a "raging success".

I cannot accept a law-an-order approach that puts a higher priority on a bloody flame – however imbued with symbolism and spun with a web of political propaganda as it is – over people.

As far as I'm concerned, no fire is more sacred than the fire in children. I'd like to think that some of those in our state, territory and federal governments would appreciate that.

Oh, by the way, another observation. Just as not all Chinese protesters behaved like this, and not all people in China are like this, not all Tibetans are the Dalai Lama (just as not all Catholics are the Pope, surprisingly). Some Tibetans (and their supporters) want to take action, including direct action, to highlight and protest the injustices in their homeland, such as stand in the path of an Olympic torch bearer, heckle, protest loudly, or stand silently carrying a protest banner.

The father in the incident said that he just wanted to show his daughter 'the meaning of peaceful demonstration'.

"We were just a small group of people basically exercising our right, our responsibility to say 'We don't think this is correct'," he said.

Read more!

Adventure and play

I took the boys to St Kilda Adventure Playground on Monday. We went with two of Jacob's friends from school and their respective dads and siblings (no mums!). We had a great time!

We had been there once before as a family, when Jamie was still an infant and Jacob was just short of turning six. That meant he couldn't ride on the flying fox yet. This time he could, and loved it!

Jacob also had many turns sliding on the half pipe with his friends (on cushions or free-form only – no skateboards). I found it unnerving watching them clamber up that slippery steel slope and then go hurtling down again.

But then, it is one of those requisite risk-taking aspects of children's play. I think it helped that Jacob showed so much confidence moving around the space and playing with his friends – and not taking unnecessary risks – that I managed to let go and not stress over him.

The St Kilda Adventure Playground is one of those rare public places where children can play, exercise their imaginations, be active and just be loud outdoors – without the burden of commercialism on their parents. It isn't one of those indoor private, cost-based enterprises where the grimy, plastic and steel play equipment reflects the children's cartoons and licensed products they're bombarded with on television.

Instead, children range freely through wooden constructions, tunnels, mazes, cubbies, tepees, trampolines, ropes, and a wonderful old 'deconstructed' sail boat! Pirates ahoy! There were lots of trees, shelters and shade sails for shade, and natural and recycled (or rather re-used) materials for kids to play with. It is well staffed, there's a kitchen where parents and kids can help themselves to a cuppa, water, or food (for a donation), and there are clean, well-maintained toilets. And there wasn't a single arcade/computer game in sight.

Owned and run by the City of Port Phillip – rather than a private enterprise or contractor – it is living proof of what can be done through publicly owned, community centred – and run – spaces. Unfortunately, of the few adventure playgrounds built in the '80s and early '90s – with the express purpose of giving urban children, especially those living in housing commission flats or without backyards, the opportunity for outdoor adventure play – only a few Victorian ones survived the Kennett-era funding cuts and only St Kilda and the one in South Melbourne appear to still have a thriving funding base, community involvement and support from the council.

I had to spend a lot of time looking after (and playing with) Jamie, who tried to keep up with the big kids (he was the youngest of the seven kids in our group). Luckily, the Adventure Playground had a sand pit and other activities that better suits younger kids.

All the same, when his big brother heard that Jamie was asking for him to play with, it was lovely to see Jacob take him in hand and lead him around the fantastic wooden castle maze – up and down ramps, steps, and through little holes and cubbies – with his friends in tow.

I also enjoyed taking the kids out with other dads. It's not just the different dynamic of being there with other families that I liked. It was the rapport with other men, Cisco and Leith, fathers who care for their children and like doing things with them. I enjoyed the quiet conversations, the laughs, and being able to take turns to watch each others' kids while you make a cuppa or duck to the loo.

We had fun, and when it was time to go home the irrepressible tide of three men walking out the gates and refusing to take any prolonged nonsense – and the fact that your friends were leaving at the same time – foreshortened the usual arguments about not wanting to go home yet. That was the best thing!

The Playground is located off Neptune Street, St Kilda, so the street only parking is very limited. I suggest car-pooling, as we did. It also made the long journey from our homes in the northern suburbs more manageable.

Opening times vary between school terms (after school hours only) and holidays (from 10am to 5pm). Check out the council's website for details, and bring a picnic.

Read more!

Wait till your father gets home

I couldn't help notice some cynicism in reactions to Steve Bracks's news that he was resigning as Victoria's Premier because he wanted to spend more time with his family. It was almost as if punters couldn't believe that after his success in politics that he would go so quietly and 'gracefully' for such a mundane reason as wanting to be a more attentive and present husband and father.

Although many people were sympathetic to his desire to be a family man who could be home and available more, some radio talk-balk callers and commentators speculated over what other motivations he may have – was he perhaps trying to avoid an impending scandal that was about to break, or a political shit-fight he no longer had the stomach for?

Can we blame him? Barista said in response to the news:

I think high political office in this day and age is a bit like being a jetty in a storm. The waves just keep coming at you until something breaks inside. Then you go or buckle. If you don’t, you wake up one morning to discover you are old, sun-bleached and covered in barnacles.

Perhaps because Bracks was so honest about his reasons – including citing the fact that his son's drink-driving incident tipped the decision for him, and admitting that he could no longer put '100 per cent' into the job and so thought he should go – that he won most most people over. In fact, it struck many as a typically endearing Bracks quality that he should leave for his family. In the end, the more common reactions were positive, compared to the hurtful disbelief that another Labor leader, Mark Latham, copped when he announced he was leaving politics because he couldn't stand to be away from his wife and children.

Unfortunately, it descended into a schmaltz that kind of defused some of the very valid criticisms of Bracks's time in power in Victoria. But not all got the wool pulled over their eyes. As Barista said:

The Bracks government is said to be boring, staid and conservative. I am no supporter of its attitude to the S11 demonstrations, or its policies on old growth forests, or its inability to articulate a long term policy about water.

But my partner Susie was in the The Alfred Hospital today for some physio, and she says the staff were shocked and despondent. One staff member said it was as if someone had died. That reminds me that the Bracks government has been about the slow, unspectacular provision of decent services to Victorians.

As Susie said - she stood in the new wing of The Alfred and thought “This is not a casino.”

Barista's post and the conversation there got me thinking – aloud, and I thought I'd repeated it here. The statement “This is not a casino,” pretty much sums it up for me, and people I know have said good things about the redeveloped Austin in the Northern suburbs too. But, we’ve had money woes in the Women’s, which spilled into the Children’s, and hospital waiting lists are still too long.

And while we didn’t see the grand splurging on a central casino under Bracks, nearly every corner pub, RSL and bowls club in some suburbs is a casino, with no signs of the state govt taking its finger out of the pie.

This is indeed a government of contradictions – how do you measure up the brilliance of establishing marine parks with the ongoing channel deepening fiasco, or the strong measures to encourage households to save water but the poor commitment to long-term water policy?

How do you puzzle through the bastardry where they promised us, at the last election, recylced grey-water for industry use and lambasted the Liberal’s desalination push, but now turn around and push desalination onto us?

And we still can't get around the fact that the public transport system in Victoria, especially railways, is still heaving under pressure that many put down to ageing infrastructure – something the government was still responsible for under the Kennett created privatised system.

Phil of Veni Vidi Blogi suggested that Bracks 'seemed preferable in most ways to our local man for all seasons, Peter Beattie', but I wasn't convinced.

If the bright side to Bracks compared to Beattie is that he hasn’t foistered a dam onto us, or spun pipedreams out of pumping water from the tropical north to the scorched south, I could agree with you.

But many a times I wonder…

Lavartus Prodeo also has a good roundup of the achievements and failures of the Bracks era.

[Image from the ABC's 2006 Victorian election blog]

Read more!

A reflection on bravery and heroes

Melbourne is still reeling from the news of Monday morning's events where a man was shot dead when he went to help a woman being attacked by another man. A number of city buildings were 'locked down' as police made an intensive search of surrounding city blocks for the attacker. The news has been full of the details of the incident, as well as the background of most of the people involved, but I thought it worth while to repeat the reported details of what happened to set the context for this post and for the benefit of non-Melbourne readers.

Brendan Keilar, a 43-year-old city solicitor, was shot dead when he and another man (a 25-year-old Dutch backpacker) tried to intervene when they saw the woman being being dragged by her hair by a young man at the busy city intersection of William Street and Flinders Lane. It was about 8.20 am, pretty much peak hour traffic in the city.

According to reports, when the two men approached the man allegedly attacking the woman, he pulled out a gun and shot all three of them – point-blank. Brendan Keilar died at the scene – though paramedics tried to save his life, (as this eyewitness blog account attests). The 24-year-old woman, who was shot in the abdomen, is in hospital in a 'serious but stable condition', while the young man had been shot in the upper body and has apparently regained consciousness after being in a 'critical' condition.

Police now allege that the man who attacked the woman and shot all three, and had seriously attacked another woman some minutes earlier, is a 29-year-old member of the Hells Angel bikie gang. Both women were known to the man. Police hunted for him until he reportedly surrendered himself to police yesterday afternoon. He has been remanded in custody.

Much media attention has gone to the person who allegedly did the shootings. Some attention has gone to what kind of man Brendan Keilar was, that he should have gone to the help of someone and put his life at risk. It is the later that has really got me thinking the last three days.

The media pretty immediately hailed Keilar as a hero, with Melbourne's daily tabloid now inviting its readers to send their 'messages of support' to the heroes – and presumably Keilar's family.

I have no desire to be disrespectful to Brendan Keilar or his family, who are going through a deep, deep grief. Three children have lost their father and a woman her husband. I am wondering though – and this is pure speculation on my part – that for however much it may be comforting to think that their father/husband lost his life as a hero, that they may, deep inside, wish that he hadn't been one, that he hadn't gone to help that woman, that he had just dialled '000' from a safe distance, for he is now lost to them forever.

Why? Why did Brendan Keilar risk so much, risk ever seeing his children again, to go to the aid of a total stranger? Of course, one comment that kept emerging when the news broke – especially from bystanders – was that when people woke up that Monday morning and went to work, they certainly didn't expect to face this situation. There was that overwhelming, harrowing sense of pure chance – who would have expected such a thing to happen in Melbourne, of all places, and for it to end that way?

If this were New York, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Cape Town or Rio de Janeiro, I believe people's responses to such an incident would be markedly different – locals of those cities would probably immediately assume that an attacker would have a gun in the first place. Not so Melbourne.

Many, many people do brave things – some of them stupid things. Many take calculated risks in their responses to situations that call on them to act altruistically. They assess situations well beforehand, understand the risks involved, train to deal with them or avoid them, and go into situations with a clear sense of purpose. Foremost in my mind are the volunteer firefighters (CFA) who bravely fought Victoria's raging bush fires last summer – for no remuneration. Others include metro firefighters, paramedics, rescue workers, emergency and relief workers, the police and military.

In my mind, the CFA volunteers are truly heroic because while they understand the risks, they also know what's at stake if they don't act. Many of them probably wouldn't agree they're 'heroes', and think they're just doing the right thing.

I wonder if Keilar thought very much about what he was getting himself into before he stepped forward to intervene. Perhaps, if his background were criminal law, he thought he had enough understanding of and experience dealing with violent people to be able to defuse the situation until help arrived – an approach many others may share. Perhaps he was spurred by a strong sense of injustice to see a young woman being attacked – after all, for the last two generations men have been asked to not look away from other men's violence against women. Refusing to be silent is now expected of any commonly decent person.

Maybe Keilar did exactly what he would want any other man to do if they saw his own daughters, son, or wife being hurt. That can be a very strong driver for action.

Sometimes, doing the decent thing may not have been the best thing to do at the time. I'm not even sure that it is the right thing to do. But it is a compelling motivation for many people.

Some people don't think about it too much when they act bravely. Perhaps it seemed the natural thing to do. I've heard a man who rushed into a burning house to save children trapped in it tell reporters, on his being awarded a bravery medal, that he didn't think about it. He just did it because he was there. And that he would do it again if necessary. Perhaps not knowing everything that could go wrong helps that.

On the radio this morning I heard that a media outlet's poll of its readers, asking whether they would go to the aid of strangers after what happened on Monday, showed that over 70% of the few hundred or so respondents said they would. Many people want to do the decent thing, and hope that other people will act decently.

But I think many of us really wonder, when we hear of such incidents as Monday's, whether we would act the same way: step up to the plate and do what's necessary. It is something that we really want to believe about ourselves, but when we start thinking about it too much we wonder if we would. Or could.

I think that's why people like Brendan Keilar are our heroes. Because they could. And did.

So, with respect, I think Tina Turner is wrong after all.

Read more!

Happy International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, so I would like to wish all the women in my life and the women who read this blog Happy International Women's Day!

This is post is a bit later in the day than I'd hoped, so I hope you've had a lovely day and had the chance to do something to mark it.

I was planning to write a post about how things aren't getting better for working women, or unemployed women, or women who stay at home. I was going to point to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's (HREOC's) recent concerns at how women's pay has actually dropped compared to men's:

average full time working woman currently earns 83.6 cents in the male dollar compared with 85 cents in February 2005.

And heartily agree with them that:

This pay inequality also limits choices for men to undertake a greater role in the home because families cannot afford to lose the larger part of a double income.

To create real choices for men and women we need to put more effort into progressing pay equity. We need to make it easier for families to manage their paid work and family responsibilities.

And I would have argued cogently that we all need to do something about this deplorable situation. But, the Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard beat me to it!

So, I'm offering up this modest suggestion: if you're a bloke, I would urge you to do something nice for the women in your life today, and the rest of the week. No. Actually, make that something helpful. Like do the dishes today. And cook dinner, make the tea and put the kids to bed (if you have them), or failing that, read to them.

I'm sure that many of you already do all these things and more, and may think that such suggestions are a bit naff in dealing with the underlying disadvantage that exists. But considering the significance of what the HREOC is calling a "shared work - valued care" approach to striking the balance between work and family, then perhaps it's a great start.

And it may just help make some woman's day.

[The image is by jeangenie (cc), who is a Brisbane based flickr member]

Read more!

Fathers and the pain of labour

There was a nice conversations recently about men and their involvement in their babies' lives over at Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony, inspired by Armagnac's pain at having to leave his recent-born babe at home to go to work:

The pain is like having an oxy-torch going inside your intestines. The smiling moments are like snowballs made from white chocolate ice cream.

It's a wonderful thing, is this blogging thing. I read Armanganc's original post a little while ago, and found many nodding along to him (myself included). Then, I find another conversation at another blog (Cast Iron Balcony) sparked by what he said. And the conversation keeps flowing.

Yes, we do want time out from work to spend with our children (though we may not all agree on how long), helping to raise them equally with our partners (or the children's other parents, if the case may be). For some of us, time spent at work is not necessarily the most fulfilling things in our lives – usually just a necessity. Especially when it is time spent away from our children. The trick is finding the balance.

This topic does resonate with lots of people – more and more men what to spend more time actively involved with their children. I wonder when the conversation will turn into a roar that will be heard down the corridors of parliament?

Read more!

Labor proposes two year break from work to care for your child

ABC News Online reports that the "The Federal Opposition is considering a new policy to allow parents to ask for two years of leave after the birth of a child."

Currently, most workers can request up to 12 months of unpaid leave – whether their employers grant them that much time is another thing, but most do get the full 12 months – on top of the 12 or so weeks of paid maternity leave that they may be eligible for.

My partner is currently on 12 months unpaid leave from her job, as she stays at home to be the primary care giver to our second child, who turned 8 months at the start of this month. I know that given the option, she would take two years. As it is now, she has to consider resigning from her job if she believes that our baby is too young to be placed in child care five days a week – or if she feels that she's not ready to leave him to return to work.

The ABC also reports that "Labor is also considering allowing parents to ask for part-time employment when they return to work." Personally, think that is a good idea too. Labor's policy coordinator Lindsay Tanner insists that the policy is still in its early stages, saying:

"This, along with everything else that's in the raw draft of our platform proposal, is yet to go through a variety of consultation processes, including with the party leadership and senior shadow ministers".

"So we don't know what the outcome of this will be, but I think this proposition will drive the debate forward."

What this probably indicates is that some in the ALP that think this is a very good idea, while others are afraid they will be painted as anti-business because of this. Positioning this as a policy 'idea' or plan in development allows them to backpeddle later if the flack gets too much.

As it is, the conservative Howard government is already claiming the proposal will 'cripple' small businesss! Not unexpected from a government that prefers mothers just stay out of the workplace, and stay home to look after the kids – thus helping it to wash its hands of the crisis in child care availability and affordability! (In typical scaremongering, the government is also trying to link this policy with the threat of increasing unemployment and rising interest rates! sheesh!)

Alternatively, Labor could push it harder if the policy resonates with their core constituency: working families who are concerned with the 'work-balance' and how their working lives may hurt their family lives. Perhaps increase its popularity with working women/mothers who've abandoned the ALP for the Greens.

I think the key to making this policy gain traction with the community is to not just focus on how this will alleviate the child care crisis, or resolve the quandaries faced by parents who feel they aren't ready to return to work or that their babies aren't ready for them to do so, but to focus on how this will allow all people to better balance their working lives with their parental responsibilities – and importantly to ensure this issue or policy isn't seen as just a women's issue but is acknowledged as one concerning men too.

I know there are many men – including friends of mine whom I've spoken with at length about this – who enjoy the time they take off from work to help raise their children – to the extent of becoming the primary care giver for their young child while their partner returns to work. Some take a year off, others decide to make it a permanent change, others return to work part time so they can continue actively raising their kids – each often feels it the best thing (though still the hardest or most challenging) they've done with their lives.

Let's have these men's stories come out in this debate, and let's make this a conversation about how each of us (whether male or female parents) can take the opportunity to raise our children more directly and continuously by taking time off from work to be with them – or at least know the option was there if we wanted to do it. And let's push it further: we should ask to be paid to do it!

[Image: famiglia, by spaceodissey]

Read more!