An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.
…………………….Charles Darwin, Brainyquote
Photo Source: Collage from IFLS Facebook Page.
Help! My Bubble Wrap Kid Just turned 40
by Kerry Cue
‘My eldest daughter is 32 this year. So this is the one raised in the early 80s when Penelope Leach was the guru. Anyway, excuse me!
Bloody Penelope Leach where you had to be breast-feeding continually and everything was baby centered and child focused and you always had to stimulate the baby and raise their self-esteem.’
………………………..Virginia, NSW, RN, Life Matters, ABC Talkback,28 MAR 2014
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Does Helicopter Parenting Harm Kids?
Once parents felt their role was to feed and clothe their children, and wash behind their ears (for some reason). In the 1970s, however, a Parenting Revolution emerged. Suddenly, every stage of a child’s development (when they goo, poo, smile, sit etc) demanded parental supervision and emotional support. The new era of Helicopter Parenting had begun. UK psychologist, Penelope Leach, was a flag bearer of this revolution.
Her book, Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five (1977), became the child-rearing bible for many parents, myself included. She provided useful information about snivels and rashes, but constantly boosting a child’s self esteem demands extreme vigilance. Children will fall over. They will come second in a race. They will get B in a test. So a parent had to stay vigilant and always cheer their child’s efforts (even the most lame pasta art effort).
Now it is time to ask: Does Helicopter Parenting Harm Kids? It can. In his book, How Not to Talk to Your Kids (2007), American journalist Po Bronson warned that constantly praising kids means ‘they never learn strategies to deal with failure’. Bubble Warp kids can become ‘risk adverse’ simply because they can’t deal with the emotional impact of failing.
We Sibyls were the first, if fairly moderate, Helicopter Parents. Our children are now adults so we can comment on some of the long-term outcomes as we observe the first ‘Bubble Wrap kids’ as they turn 40.
Bubble Wrap kids never have to share, never have to wait and never hear the word ‘No’. What would that look like when those kids are 40 years old. Ugly! Very ugly. Who would want to live with a Me-centric 40 year old who won’t share, wait, doesn’t take ‘No’ for an answer yet also needs constant emotional support? This isn’t just narcissism, it is needy, clingy narcissism. They will suck the emotional life out of any partner or mother (See Why are Feminist Daughters Angry with their Mothers.)
And one more thing. Will Bubble Wrap kids want to have children of their own? Maybe not. Firstly, children raised Helicopter-style have seen their parents hovering first hand. It looks like hard work.
And, secondly, having children involves risk. For ‘Bubble Wrap Kids’ the idea is terrifying. What if something goes wrong? What if the child is hideous? What if I can’t handle being a parent? Why do it? Having children is way, way too risky!
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Photo Source: Klein Letter Archives
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Some Grandmas really are Wild Things!
by Honey Clarke
You can retire from a job, but don’t ever retire from making extremely meaningful contributions in life.
…………………………………………………………..Stephen Covey, Author
Illustration by Honey Clarke from her book ‘My grandma is a Wild Thing’
Australia has been perpetuating ridiculous stereotypes ever since Chips Rafferty came to the screen. His nasal drawl and odd sayings use to make our skin crawl. “We’re nothing like that!” we’d scream. Yet in any movie about Australia, he’d ride on in. Despite what we know to be true, Australians still willingly go with the stereotypes offered. Don’t think so? Just watch how quickly you can become invisible in the workplace, now you’re a woman of “a certain age”.
Grandma Swims by HOney Clarke
Lately Politicians are hinting that an ageing population is “becoming a significant issue” like Lyssavirus or finding you’d grown a third eye. The Bureau of Statistics gives projections of data pregnant with doom. What none acknowledge is the contribution the ageing give to our country.
This theme has been a thread in my own work. My friend Marn breaks all the stereotypes and helped inspire my book “My Grandma is a Wild Thing” because she played drums, rode a motorbike and swung from a jungle gym to pose for my drawings. What’s more Marn speaks “Kid” in all its forms – eloquently and with love. She’s a dynamic part of work and family. Yet stereotypes of aging persist.
The Chooks
by Honey Clarke
I hatched “The Chook* Book of Wisdom” when a farmer friend was about to go home and dispose of his chooks. The problem? They’d stopped laying. Was he crazy? They were just menopausal – they had heaps of good years. He thought it a hoot. The chooks were saved. Let’s hope we are too.
Australia has to get over the idea that passive earners don’t contribute. Let’s show our currency. Dare to be different. Grasp every opportunity to contribute to the quality of our own lives and in so doing, contribute to the quality of others too.
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Honey Clarke
Honey Clarke lives on the side of a mountain in an extinct crater lake with her partner, the Rock Doctor. She’s an artist, writer and teacher who encapsulates the essence of life in the quick strokes of paint or pen. Honey has two grown up kids and seven grandchildren. She is part-owner in a bamboo farm. She would like to say her hobbies are kite-surfing and abseiling but that would be a lie. Instead she reads, swims, travels, paints and blogs as much as possible. Honey’s blog is Honeyclarkeart. To inquire about Honey Clarke’s art, books or illustraoins contact her at: honeyclarkeartATgmail.com
Gemma Sisia has a big dream to fight poverty through education.
The charity that she and the Rock Doctor champion is St Judes in Tanzania, a brilliant school educating kids out of poverty.
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Photo Source: Honey Clarke’s Blog and St Jude’s Website.
*Chook is an Aussie colloquialism for a chicken.
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On a Happy Hormone High or, Oops! Where did I put the baby?
It ain’t over until The Fat Lady SCREAMS
ff………….t-shirt
Photo source: Social History Archives, 1953
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The Sibyls Salute: Mary Beard
By Kerry Cue
I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public.
Mary Beard, The Public Voice of Women, LRB, 20 MAR 2014, p11.
Mary Beard is the Professor of Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, the Classics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and contributor to the London Review of Books. Beard recently spoke out about the silencing of women’s voices in public in lectures at the British Museum and in the LRB article (above).
Beard quotes the ‘wet-behind the ears’ Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey silencing his mother, the savvy middle-aged Penelope: ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff … speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this household.’
We talk of online trolls viciously attacking any women with an opinion today on Twitter, say, but Beard points out that ‘silencing women’ has been ingrained in Western Culture since it’s conception. Following an appearance on television, Beard became the target of such trolls, who compared her genitalia to rotting vegetables. When she Tweeted that she found these comments ‘gob-smacking’, one commentator in a leading British magazine reported Beard’s Tweet with the following words: ‘The misogyny is truly “gob-smacking”, she whined.’
‘It’s not what you say that prompts it’ explains Beard, ‘it’s the fact you’re saying it.’ Women, apparently, whine, bleat, whinnie and yap. This is the language used to described women’s voices over two millennia.
The viciousness of the online attacks cannot be overstated. ‘Shut up you bitch’ is a fairly common refrain’ said Beard. ‘I’m going to cut off your head and rape it’ was one tweet I got.’
Beard wants us to look at our culture and the tradition of silencing women in public. If women are not allowed a voice of authority in public, we have no voice at all..
And ‘We need to work that out before we figure out how we modern Penelopes might answer back to our own Telemachuses …’
We the Sibyls salute Mary Beard.
Photos: Mary Beard Website
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The Secret of a Happy Marriage
The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
………………………….Henny Youngman, American Comedian...
Photo Source: Huffington Post
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The Twelfth Raven: A memoir of stroke, love and recovery
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into stories.
……………………………Isak Dinesen, Author, Out of Africa quoted in The Twelfth Raven
REVIEW by Kerry Cue
The Twelfth Raven:
A memoir of stroke, love and recovery
Doris Brett
UWA Publishing (2014)
The Twelfth Raven, according to an old English rhyme, brings joy for tomorrow. Sometimes, I wish poets wrote news headlines then, instead of the ‘Syrian Bloodbath’ headline, you might read something like ‘Trickster God’s Toy with Us Again’. The Trickster God’s certainly overthrew all that defines normality in Doris Brett’s life. Firstly, Brett’s husband Martin suffered, at 59, a stroke followed by a superbug, heart valve failure and open-heart surgery. Then Brett needed a radical mastectomy.
Read this book if you want to learn how to defend yourself against the Healthcare system. But Brett is a poet. The language is lyrical. Dreams untangle knots in reality to reveal some profound truths. Read this book, if you want to gain some insight into the inner journey of an insightful writer in a family crisis. Brett is ruthlessly honest and very generous in this regard.
A recommended read.
We, THE SIBYLS, declare Doris Brett an Honorary Sibyl for her ruthless honesty, her unflinching endurance and her ability to provide insights into life’s hardships by weaving her brand of lyrical magic.
sibylesque 