Category Archives: having my say

A Gross Generalisation…

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Each Monday I receive my Wallbook Weekly from Chris Lloyd and the folks at What on Earth? I usually skim over it during the first train ride of my commute (there are three each way every day you know) but this week’s I flagged for a more detailed reading.

Why Children Fail.

It was the headline that caught my attention.

We have just emerged from another school year in the UK. One of supposedly higher than ever pass rates and higher still expectations that university should be the chosen path. For many, not offered a place at the instution of higher learning they aspire to, this may be a financial blessing in disguise as the inevitable outcry over increasing university fees – to be or not be – sallies forth once again.

So what will these bright young things do with themselves? And how will parents help them to navigate the uncharted waters of the fact that sometimes life isn’t fair and you can’t always get what you want?

It’s a provocative point Chris makes in his article suggesting that there is an unconscious expectation for the education system to be entirely responsible for educating while in fact the most deep-seated behavioural learnings for young children are acquired in the home.

“What we are witnessing are the catastrophic consequences of the misplaced impression, ubiquitous today, that teachers, schools and the state (with all its laborious examination regimes) are what really matter when it comes to the education of young people…as any adult who takes an active role in the upbringing of their offspring knows, the ultimate teachers for any youngster aged between 5 and 12 are their parents.“ 
Chris Lloyd, Wallbook Weekly, 12th September 2011

Yes absolutely, I think, casting my mind back to a childhood filled with chores to do, ‘best behaviour’ to master and honesty generally being the best policy – if I’m going to be found out (and I ALWAYS was) best to ‘fess up and get it over and done with.

Then I am reminded of a debate recently held over the lunch table at work, bemoaning firstly the ‘nanny state’ which does not ‘allow’ parents to discipline their children as they see fit and secondly, the vociferousness of the young in proclaiming their right to be heard/have opportunities/be paid for etc which does not extend to ‘washing the dishes’ and contributing as part of a (family) community.

And in catching up with a friend this week, we remarked what a sad indictment it was to have a colleague of his (who works with teens) comment on what a great job he and his wife had done – because his kids were not involved with drugs.

Of course this is a gross generalisation. Or is it? Shouldn’t we aspire to greater things than this – and I’m not referring to the ‘trappings’ either?

I’ve just finished re-reading Little Women and if I ignore the ‘God’ stuff (apologies if you are religiously minded but it just doesn’t do it for me), the lessons are all there – family, humility, honesty, pride in one’s work. The ‘just getting on with life’, the ‘picking yourself up’, the ‘try and try again until you succeed’. You know, those life lessons that, with not much ‘life’ under your belt, you need your parents to guide you (whether you like it or not). Chris Lloyd’s’ Ministry of Home might not be too far-fetched an idea.

So in the midst of this maelstrom, I must admit to feeling a little relieved. Is it wrong of me to say that my no-children policy seems to be the best decision I ever made?

What do you think?

What Was I Looking For?

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I have just been reading about our 21st century malaise. 

Flicking through The Saturday Times today, I found a guide (their words, not mine) to the latest and greatest of modern-day society’s afflictions. Being interested in social culture and all of that and having paid for my newspaper, I read on with mild interest, some skepticism and a little agreeable head-nodding.

(You on the other hand, would have to pay for all this – no more free news online from The Times – thanks to that Rupert chap.)

Anyway, I figured that if I just shared the list, a handful of links and a few of my choice-est views on the matter, you could decide for yourself whether you wanted to go to The Times website and fork out for more learned opinions on this subject than mine. So here goes.

First up it’s Decision Fatigue. Too many decisions make us tired and lower our performance levels. 

No sh*t Sherlock. I did not need The Times or Roy Baumeister to tell me this although I appreciate that nothing ever changes unless we label it and make it a big issue so kudos to the man for that. I think that for me, the issue may lie in something much smaller – listening to my actual choices, you know the ones I actually make. Like when I ask for tap water with no ice, don’t bring me tap water with ice in it and get annoyed when I send you away to get me what I asked for. Call me a pedant if you will but it’s the small things people, the small things.

Next there’s Erotic Capital. The Times calls this ‘monetising what the Good Lord gave you’.  Catherine Hakim calls it Honey Money and wrote a book about it.

I want to believe it’s bullsh*t. Because then what’s the point of employing all of those other things like charm, persuasiveness, intelligence, listening and just plain good manners?

Twitter Jitters is next. Apparently it relates to whether you are posting frequently enough. For what? I ask you. Is this a race? Is there a prize or something? And what about Twitter SPAM?  I am already managing this quite well thank you in my email-slash-blogging life. And quite frankly, sometimes what starts out as a delightful trickle of tweets disintegrates into retweet rubbish and I wonder what beautiful scenery I might have enjoyed by gazing soulfully out of the train window instead.

Next cab off the rank is Weekendvy. Yes, there’s another stupid word that dictionaries the world over can add to their erudite tomes in a year or so’s time. The point of this is that we lie to make our weekends seem more fun / glamorous / relaxing / exciting / virtuous / wholesome than they actually are.  (I sense a bit of Keeping Up With The Joneses here). 

And the dunderheads who actually commissioned this research and coined this phrase (according to The Times)? Travelodge. I rest my case.

Number five is Helicopter Parent Syndrome. There are words mentioned here like Child-bothering and Teacher-bullying. Ripe for provocation. Spoiling for a fight. 

But I.Am.Not.A.Parent. for a reason (many of them in fact). So no comment. Nada. Move along people – nothing to see here.

And last but not least there’s Internet Stupidity. Apparently our brains have atrophied and we spend many hours wilfing (from What was I Looking For?), wandering online from link to link to link. Although I should point out here that this is not a new phenomenon. I have been doing this from room to room in my not-large flat for many years now.

And the panacea to this malingering?  Well therein was the most sensible piece of advice in the whole article. Three little words. Right at the end. Read.A.Book.

So here endeth the rant from the Peanut Gallery.

Now where’s my Kindle?

Oh yeah…and what do you think? (WILF WILF)

Word of Mouth…

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I receive a lot of innovation-type newsletters in my inbox. I love being inspired by new ideas and clever things that other people are doing.  And this week ended with a real corker – Living Books.

A new public library in Surrey, Canada has come up with the brilliant idea of offering people ‘on loan’ – so you can book in for a coffee and a chat with a volunteer expert to bring your reading experiences to life.

Apparently this idea was born in Europe. Google, unusually, is being a little obtuse and I can’t find out exactly where but there’s a bit of talk about some ideas in the UK here and here. It has already been implemented in a couple of other libraries in Canada but I thought it was a great way of bringing interaction, connection and community spirit back to life in this overtly digital age.

One of my favourite movies is You’ve Got Mail. The Shop Around The Corner is just wonderful and I love the magic that Kathleen Kelly creates there in her enduring passion for books and reading.

Libraries are suffering as we, in this age of cheap consumerism, buy books and dispose of them at will, or even worse cannot maintain levels of concentration beyond a snippet in a newspaper or a piece of celebrity gossip in a magazine. On the other hand, I went to my local library about six months ago and was disappointed with the whole experience of both browsing and the reading ‘ambience’, which did not really encourage me to sit and read anything.

I think it’s inspiring to find public services that seek to create relevant experiences for current and future generations to engage in. I just hope the word spreads to encourage other libraries to think a little differently before public libraries are consigned to the realms of nostalgic rememberings.

Tall Poppies: The Art of Acknowledgement

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We all want to be noticed a little. A nod here, a pat on the back there. Recognised for our talents. Acknowledged for our achievements. So why is it so hard to ‘be’ with it all when this actually happens?

I have had the kind of week that these dreams of notability are made of. Compliments have been forthcoming from all sorts of directions in every area of life – my work, my writing, how I look, how I act. And don’t get me wrong – it’s really amazing to be in the midst of all of this.  But at the same time, if I’m honest, I find sitting in front of someone waxing lyrical about me, however genuine, uncomfortable. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Trying to give others compliments is almost as difficult – not to give them per se but rather to see the recipient actually feel the ackowledgement and take in what you are saying about them.

Mum always taught me to be gracious when receiving compliments, saying that it takes courage to acknowledge something about someone else in a way that makes them stop and accept it. I try to live by this. But letting it actually sink in, moving me, delighting me, let alone repeating it to others seems vain and narcissistic.  And not at all in keeping with my laconic, self-effacing Aussie style. After all I am born of the culture that cultivates none other than The Tall Poppy Syndrome.

94c21-poppies

As children we do nothing BUT seek approval and recognition. It’s what defines us. But it’s also what we live in to – how we behave and interact shapes others’ opinions of and interactions with ourselves. So our individual worlds are increasingly shaped by what we are willing to acknowledge about ourselves as it is mirrored in other people.

So when does this self-appreciation society stop?  Is it when we feel that we disappoint others and don’t live up to expectations?  Perhaps when others don’t live up to our expectations and fall off the proverbial pedestal?  Is it knocked out of us by well-meaning grown ups who tell us it’s not ‘nice’ to brag, or to show off? Or maybe in the playground at school in our first games of one-up-man-ship, child to child (and absolutely no adults required).

Psychology somewhere probably has a multitude of answers for this and I don’t envy parents who navigate the maelstrom of opinions and advice available on the subject in an effort to raise healthy, happy, resilient children.

But on the other hand, maybe there are no answers. Just the human condition, the society that surrounds us and our best guess at charting our own watery depths.

So in light of all of this, I have decided to do my best to bask, from my position atop the pedestal, in this unexpected deluge of appreciation. I may even resort to a little exuberant wallowing in it…some joyful splashing about perhaps.

But just a little mind.

Apparently, no-one likes a show-off.

 

Forgive Me…I Need To Get This Off My Chest

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I had planned to post this week on some of my birthday exploits but I can’t get past the rioting that has been flaring up all over London so forgive me while I get this off my chest.

On Sunday morning I emerged sleepy-eyed to see a text from Mum asking if I was OK.  ‘OK?’ I thought. ‘What on earth is she talking about?’

Then I turned on my computer.  Rioting. Looting. In London. Specifically in Tottenham.  Was this right?  How could this be?  Ensconsed in my flat on the other side of London, it just didn’t seem real.

Since, like the rest of the world, I have woken each morning to the news of behaviour I can hardly believe.  Hackney. Enfield. Ealing. Clapham. Brixton. Bristol. Birmingham. Manchester.  Cars set alight. Shop windows smashed.  Items snatched from shelves and carried down the street aloft like trophies. 

Pictures on Twitter, in the papers, on the news – looking more like a war-zone (not that I know what this would really look like). 

Stories of looters bragging of ‘taking from the rich’, stealing hard-earned livings from strangers, swaggering with arrogance and disrespect and entitlement.

How did it come to this?  What did we do as a society (that’s all of us) to bring this on ourselves?

I have been in turn appalled, disbelieving, disgusted, angry and deeply shocked – but mostly I am sad.  Sad that hard work and building a life is dismissed in such a cavalier fashion by those who think that the rewards are owed and there to be demanded at will.  Sad that businesses must close to protect their staff, that people are frightened in their own homes, that schools must send our children – the ones who will shape our society in the future – home.  What an abysmal example to set – that behaving in such cowardly and criminal ways clears the path for getting what one wants.

And while I’m still reeling from this, I am also heartened by the way that local communities have banded together to support those affected (on Twitter you can check out @riotcleanup).

9th August 2011 – Clapham’s Broom Army
(Picture: @Lawcol888)
10th August 2011 – Peckham Poundland’s Post-It Wall
(Picture: Getty Images)

But in the end I just really wish it wasn’t necessary.

Chasing Rainbows: Where The Bright Women Are

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Today I came across a blog called Where The Bright Women Are. Their premise is this: what happened to all of the bright and brave young women readying themselves to rule the world and how did we end up so unrepresented at ‘the top’? (According to Grazia magazine, only 12.5% of women run FTSE 100 companies and WTBWA confirms only 3% of CEOs are women.)

I have found myself asking that very same question quite a lot of late.  Being at ‘the top’ just doesn’t hold the same appeal any more and the last year or so has had me speculating why.

In retrospect, moving to London in 2004 was not the greatest career move but I suspect I was disenfranchised before this and maybe upping sticks like I did was my way of throwing all the toys out of the pram at once to see which of them I yearned for most.  I have never wanted to get married and even less, to have children and that hasn’t changed.  And nowadays, I find myself ranking happiness, maybe even a little joy, and self expression most highly in both where I work and what I contribute. 

Self expression – maybe that’s the key.  Not moulding myself to fit someone’s ideal of what it takes but rather finding an environment that allows me to be the full force of ‘me’:  demanding, smart, brave, compassionate and eminently likable.  The creative thinker. The solution finder. The rapport builder. The one who loves to belong but needs her space.  The pragmatic soul who revels in chasing the occasional rainbow.

One of the great benefits of the online world is that it is an absolute treasure trove of learning opportunities, opinions, discussions and communities.  We may not meet others in the same way our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers did but the circle of women is still there – asking, sharing, offering advice and learning from each other.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not looking for Where The Bright Women Are to provide ‘the answer’.  But being amongst a group of like-minded women asking the same questions may provide some interesting signposts for me for the next stretch along my own path.

Part Of The Plan?

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I am reliably informed that today, aside from being Good Friday (and a good Friday it is here in the English sunshine), it is International Mother Earth Day.

Established in 2009 by the General Assembly, its aim is to:

“…promote[s] a view of the Earth as the entity that sustains all living things found in nature. Inclusiveness is at the heart of International Mother Earth Day; fostering shared responsibilities to rebuild our troubled relationship with nature…”  General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann

 …and it was this ‘troubled relationship with nature’ that I was thinking about on my commute home last night.

In the first four months of 2011, we have seen nature at her most fearsome – earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, tornados just to name a few – and many reports suggest that these events are random or at least illogical in nature.  We don’t expect them and particularly given the catalogue of tragic events during the first part of this year, we can’t understand how and why everything is happening ‘at once’. 
Is it really our impact on the environment, changing the climate, that unleashes nature’s fury?  Is Mother Nature really coming home to roost?
But, I thought, what if we turned this thinking around? What if this is all part of some greater scheme?  That Mother Nature is so much bigger and grander than we can ever contemplate and we, despite all of our blinkered self-absorption, are just tiny pieces of a much, much greater puzzle?

What if it’s really just all part of the plan?

Something to think about…

A Blogger’s Journey…

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I’ve been blogging now for a couple of years (in fact this is post 150 – hurrah!)  It was a slow start as I wondered what on earth to write about and would anybody read it anyway.  But under the guise of sharing everyday thoughts and moments with my family and friends across the other side of the world, I set off…

Along the way, I’ve checked out a whole lot of blogs. I’ve followed some. Some remain on the list. Others have fallen by the wayside as I learnt what I loved to dip into each day (during my commute) or each week (when I have more time to ponder a post’s particular point of view or wallow in it’s sheer wit/wisdom).  As a result of my last post, I’ve even learned about The Archers (thanks to matthew_in_ham).

I’ve had ‘were we separated at birth?’ moments with fellow expats bloggers (Marmite and Fluff’s Sarcasm for Sale produced one of these).  I think there’s an unerring poignancy and recognition between people who’ve chosen a life away from family and childhood friends and as a result, I feel like I have a small but growing fellowship of like-minded souls.

I’ve even been interviewed on expat blog Seen The Elephant. 

Over the last little while, I’ve been been exploring this whole blogging community thing and have linked my blog to Networked Blogs on Facebook and a site called Expat Blogs.  It’s opened up a whole world of other topics to have my say about.

My most recent discovery is a site called Seeded Buzz and I’ve just been dipping my first tentative toe into the water.  And I found a great post ‘What has blogging taught you?’ that inspired this one…

So what has blogging taught me?

…that the world is a big place…

…that there’s something for everyone in it…

…that everyone loves an audience…

And that I love it!

So thanks to all of you who, through your fan-dom/ follower status/ comments/ secretly-reading-and-resisting-any-public-declaration-of-this, make up the Gidday from the UK peanut gallery and give me an audience. 

7 Sleeps To Go…Delusions of Grandeur

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Oil on canvasImage via Wikipedia

I was flicking through a free magazine – one of those you get inside one of the daily newspapers over here – on my bus ride home on Friday night when an article called Star Syndrome caught my eye.  

The line under the heading read:

‘Big rewards for minimum effort and the endless self-obsession encouraged by Facebook have left the younger generation at the mercy of their own egos’.

Hmmm I thought.  I quite like Facebook…it fills the long bus trip home (besides reading blogs of course) and the games are cute/addict-able…my curiosity piqued, I read on.

‘it is ironic that young people are suffering from delusions of grandeur when graduates are finding it almost impossible to get jobs.’

So Facebook has become the harbinger of doom and the cause of rising unemployment amongst those poor, poor youngsters? Is this for real, I thought…but apparently this ‘syndrome’ has a name – Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD for those that love an acronym).  And the next quote I read was the kicker:

‘Will the new generation of NPD children eventually fall on their faces or will the world simply continue to keep the truth from them?’

So I say this… quaking a little at the response I might get and cloaked in that self-doubt unique to those of us who have children in our lives by association rather than as parents…I think they might have a point!

I think you will probably agree with me that you can’t ‘teach’ resilience and it’s only through life’s lessons that any of us develop our own coping mechanisms and inner ‘toughness’. 

So then how on earth do parents, or society at large for that matter, prepare children for the hardest lesson of all?  Life doesn’t always feel good – and it’s how we bounce back and deal with life’s ‘stuff’ that’s important rather than railing against the world’s unfairness in not recognising what we are truly entitled to.

What do you think?  Just how much self-esteem is too much?
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ps…there are only 7 sleeps to go ’til the Big Birthday Plus 1. I’m sure that must entitle me to something…after all, one of the ‘signs’ of the Narcissism is having one’s own blog…

The Same Cup…

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I was checking out the blogs I follow earlier today and was stopped in my tracks by  adbroad’s latest post.  Whilst the post actually pays homage to paper-cup salesman, Leslie Buck (you can click on the link and read the article yourself if you want), it wasn’t the story but rather the headline that grabbed my attention.

Before grande there was regular and everyone drank from the same cup

It reminded me of those ‘simpler’ times when we ‘had what we had’ and got on with the business of life rather than moaned about the whys and wherefores of what we have or haven’t got or achieved or experienced compared with everyone else.

It also made me smile at the ‘I want it just so’ attitude that we’ve developed. A mere paper cup would simply never do when life should actually dish it all out on a big silver platter especially designed for each of us. 

But in the end it’s not really about the cup is it…more about how we see the cup (personally I am a half full kinda gal) and what we do with it.  And in wondering what to do with a paper cup, I googled and came across this list of 101 Uses For A Paper Cup.  They’ve only got to 58 so far but here are the three I thought were the most ingenious:

16  A floating thing for a switch on a bilge pump
…because it sounds like the way I would describe something DIY-ish

22  Harley Davidson racing air filter covers in the rain.
…because I don’t know what this is but it sounds clever
 
30  Beach Toilet
…because I’ve been there!
 
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At this point you may be wondering about the random nature of this blog post…and yes, you would be absolutely correct in assuming that I am simply avoiding doing the stuff I really should be doing…so I’ll be off then, before my cup really does runneth over!