How old is old in Hollywood? You don’t want to know.

May 30, 2019 by the sibyls Leave a Comment

by Kerry Cue

“I wish that other women would let other women age gracefully. Women take it as something personal that they are getting older. They think that they failed somehow by not staying 25. This is crazy to me because my belief is that it’s a privilege to get older – not everybody gets to get older’

……………………………..Cameron Diaz, actress, 41.

In the 1967 film, The Graduate, Anne Bancroft played Mrs Robinson, a bored-housewife living in a loveless marriage. When the 21-year-old Ben Braddock played by Dustin Hoffman visits the Robinsons, urged on by his parents (Mr Robinson is a partner in a legal firm with Ben’s father), he is seduced by the much older Mrs Robinson. Ben, however, falls in love with Elaine, the Robinson’s daughter, and in a climactic ending, the young couple run off together.

The Graduate 1967
Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman

At the time, Anne Bancroft was 36-years-old and, in fact, only 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman. So, historically, in Hollywood, you are branded ‘the older woman’ at 36 years of age.

Forty-five plus years on The Graduate highlights a more disturbing issue. In the film, Mrs. Robinson is a ‘formidable’ character. There is a word you do not hear any more. ‘Formidable’ applied to an older woman in a position of authority. The ‘formidable woman’ was matronly and someone to reckon with. She stood for definite principles. She didn’t tolerate fools and often held the position of Hospital Matron, Head Mistress or, even, the family Matriarch. When we were young girls many ‘formidable women’ – Reverend Mother, for starters – had our measure. Where are they today? These days, older women, who exercise authority are described as ‘ball breakers’, ‘old dragons’ or, in the case of the matriarch, ‘a Control Freak’. Is it the ‘management team’ and their spin that has replaced the ‘formidable woman in the workplace? Has the mass movement of women out of the home and into the workplace in the 1970s unthroned the matriarch? Curious, isn’t it?

Anne Bancroft, 70, 2001

At 70 years of age, Anne Bancroft (above) still looked impressive. She won an Oscar in 1962 for her role in The Miracle Worker. She was happily married to her second husband, Mel Brooks, for 45 years. They had one son. Sadly, she died in 2005.

Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019).

Photo Source: Film Promotion Pic and Salon.com

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Imagine this … toys for tots that don’t cost an arm and a leg

August 11, 2015 by the sibyls Leave a Comment

by Penny Cook

OK! I’m going to be blunt here….if you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, neighbour of a young child…never let toy companies con you into thinking they have something you don’t have in your cupboard. If you have pots’n’pans, plastic containers, jars, interesting cooking utensils, then you have a toyshop!!!

Children love exploring and they love it even more when they’re not presented with glitzy, plastic, brightly coloured so called educational toys. And you know why??? Cos all of those mass produced plastic toys do not…and I say…DO NOT….engage children’s imaginations.

Open the cupboard, let them explore, explore with them. Play with them…pretend with them. Cook the soup, stir the pot and have yet another cup of tea!! Find your old lids and mismatched containers. Let the 2 year old have a go at organising your plastics and drum on your saucepans. If you do that, you will be doing more for their intellectual development than presenting them with coloured ‘bangs and whistle’ toys that only do one thing…bang and whistle.

Great Start Website: Fab resource for parents and grandparents of pre-schoolers

Let’s honour and respect children’s imaginations and open the cupboards and drawers. Watch what they do. You will see mathematical and scientific thinkers and you will hear their thinking as they explore, wonder, try out (that’s called hypothesising in the big world, but children do it all the time), and come up with some amazing thoughts, questions and ideas.

How come there is a whole multinational toy industry? Oh!! It’s because it’s a multinational toy industry. Take the pressure off yourselves and find what engages kids minds and souls, and I can tell you, it won’t be pink or purple plastic. Let’s give the kids a go.

Last word…no plastic toy or even pots and pans will replace playing with the kids but pots ‘n pans are fun!!!

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Penny Cook has been an early childhood educator for over 30 years. She loves to travel – anywhere. Penny is a mother and ‘Nan Pen’, who is continuously fascinated and amazed by her two young grandchildren. She has always wanted to live in a tree house by the beach …..it’s never too late!!

…

Photo source: Great Start website, Dept of Education and Child Development, SA

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10 Things Kids Want in a Garden as Voted by Kids

July 16, 2015 by the sibyls 2 Comments

by Kerry Cue

According to the NY Times (Screen addition is taking its toll on children, Jane Brody, 6 July, 2015) screen time is eating away children’s lives. We, The Sibyls, are so concerned we have asked the question ‘How did childhood become a prison sentence’ and what can we, grandparents, do about it? One answer is, grandchildren need more time in the outdoors. But we also need to listen to the kids.

I went to a talk by Michelle Rayner,environmental educator and Vice Principal Patch Primary School, Victoria. Before the school developed a substantial part of their garden they asked not only what the kids wanted in a garden but they also asked the kids to design it. Here are the 10 things the kids wanted in a garden:

Water
Animals
Place to Build Stuff
Maze
A meeting place & stage
Pizza oven and garden
Artwork
Secluded spaces (hideyholes)
Edible plants
Play space

Here is a video of The Patch School’s kid-friendly, Eco-garden:The Learning Landscape

The garden now boasts a frog bog (water), ducks, chickens, rabbits and mice,

a construction area (Even 5 year olds use hammers),

a native grass maze, central meeting place and stage, pizza oven and garden (Michelle has cooked a hundred pizzas in one day!!!), student sculptures and other art works, a willow den (like below) , fruit trees and a veggie patch, and lots of play spaces.

Photo source: The Patch Website, screen grabs from above video, pinterest.

Link: Quote Top from A Passion for this Earth ,Valerie Andrews.

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What do you give grandchildren who have, well, everything?

December 5, 2014 by the sibyls Leave a Comment

by Penny Cook

And so it’s Christmas time …again. This is my 55^th. I’m struggling with what I can give my grandchildren when they have everything. It’s not how it used to be. And this is not about being nostalgic…it’s about living in a material world, as Madonna sang in not so recent times!! Years ago, material things were sought after and reserved for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas…they weren’t accessible every day.

When I look at my almost one year old grand daughter, I see her delighting in happening upon a toilet roll and tearing into it, leaving a trail of her perfect work along the hallway. I watch her upend the dog’s water bowl and place it in a planter box. I marvel at how engaged she is with a box of tea bags and how she empties it and carries some of the bags to the third step on the staircase and stores them there with other household items. Presents she has given herself. I listen to her 5 year old brother who has chosen a heart shaped rose quartz stone for her because ‘she loves rocks and now she will know that I will always love her’. How can I compete? What can I give her?

There is nothing….but me. I am her Nan. I will be there when she endures growing up…when tearing up toilet rolls doesn’t fix hurtful words or gathering rocks can’t explain others’ actions.

Sure, I will find a present for Christmas.. but Grandparents…we are a gift for life.

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Photo source: 1930s Tea Party Queensland Library Archives

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Do modern parenting styles create phobias in kids?

September 5, 2014 by the sibyls 1 Comment

by Kerry Cue

Yes and No. Parents with Social Phobia, for instance, may pass their fears on to their children. However, we, the Sibyls, know that children have vastly different personalities, coping styles and anxiety levels. And they grow up with many influences including dominating siblings, unstable family structures, economic pressures, school, the culture and the media.

Nevertheless, studies show that parents can help reduce anxiety levels in young children by encouraging:

Creative Play: In The Serious Need for Play (Scientific American Mind, 28 JAN 2009) Melinda Wenner cites studies that show ‘Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed.’

Risk Taking: “Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground,” said Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway. “I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.” (See: Can playgrounds be to safe? John Tierney, New York Times, 18 JUL 2011)

Research by Professor Sandseter supports the argument that children are born to take risks and this is how they learn to deal with such things as fear of heights. If a child does not tackle a fear of heights, say, then they can develop a phobia. Sometimes parents too need to be encouraged to take risks with their parenting. And these studies help start the conversation.

Does Helicopter Parenting harm children? You might want to read: Help My Bubble Wrap Kid Just Turned 40!

Photo Source: Reblogger blog.

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How did childhood become a prison sentence?

August 25, 2014 by the sibyls 1 Comment

by Kerry Cue

We are the generations, who roamed free. We rode our bikes unsupervised. Explored the neighbourhood. Played in the street. Our grandchildren live indoors. (See The Last Child in the Woods book review) This is cause for great concern. Sibyl Helen Elliott writes about the joys of taking grandchildren into nature. There is another side to this story. Childhood is diminished if children do not experience nature. Now the research confirms our fears.

Results from the Australian State of Play Report, 2012, comprising 8 – 12 year old children, their parents and grandparents published in Primary Focus, the SAPPA (South Australia Primary Principals) Magazine include:

*Indoors: 9 out of 10 kids spend more time playing inside than out.

*A lack of inspiration: 37% of kids run out of ideas for play.

*A lack of time: Afterschool activities limit the time children have to play outdoors.

*A lack of opportunity: 37% of kids report they don’t have anyone to play with outside as almost half the kids they might play with are indoors plugged into technology.

“A growing body of research shows us that outdoor play leads to better physical and mental health, has positive effects on cognitive function and learning, and reduces the incidence of behavioural problems.” Maria Zotti, Nature Play, SA.

Peter Dunstan, Principal Kilkenny PS, SA, writes in Primary Focus that outdoor play fosters “wonderment, independence and freedom” as well as “social skills, imagination, creativity and problem solving”.

So concerned are the South Australian Primary School Principals they have combined with Nature Play, SA (A NFP organisation) to promote outdoor play. Nature Play, SA has produced this poster: 51 Things to Do before you’re 12. Pass it on!!!!!!!

Photo: Unsourced

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Frogs, Thornbills, Crimson Leaves and Cycla-Men: The Many Enchantments of the Natural World

August 22, 2014 by the sibyls 1 Comment

By Helen Elliott

Easter was sublime here in the country. It was cold at night and the days remained crisp. The family were staying for a few days and because there were babies and toddlers the house needed to be kept warm, mostly by the open fire that astonished the children. They all live in centrally heated houses.

Outside the garden was modestly, quietly preparing itself for winter. The golden ash no longer dazzled along the drive but it’s leaves made a russet eiderdown for the bright shoots of bulbs beneath. The huge maple by the creek still flies banners of crimson and orange and the children gasp at the size of the leaves. And the shapes. They hold them out against the palms of their hands and make us look. They have seen leaves in books but not like this, scattered across the grass, tumbling in the water.

Two of the children are old enough for an Easter egg hunt, and on Easter Sunday with the mist still blooming above the tallest gums, bundled into their coats, their crazy pink gumboots and cherry- red hats they waited by the kitchen door holding their new buckets. Their parents each hold a swaddled, rosy-checked baby and everyone is wondering where a rabbit might leave eggs. Had I glimpsed him that very morning? Fat? Silver fur? Tall brown ears and a great puff of a tail? I had a few suggestions about where he might have been.

I was right. Over by the fence where the climbing rose is finishing the season with a few tawny buds amongst the crowd of rosehips two perfect golden eggs are lying. The little girl’s joyful screams pierce the morning air startling two birds out of hedge. They flap vertically into the sky. Where else would that rabbit go, the children wonder? Under the Irish strawberry? Or maybe if they bent down and lifted the tips of the branches of the Chinese elm where it sweeps the earth and crept into that glade they’d find something? Again their screams of delight, again their sparkling faces.

Olivia rushed to the first of the jelly bushes, certain that the rabbit would have been there. She was enraptured by the jelly bushes because when you shook them, or polished them they wobbled like jelly! To us they are common English box bushes but they’re shaped like small urns and are just the right height for a three year old to shake. Alas, not one golden egg wobbled from the deep green urns.

And nothing was found in the old fountain except an upturned pot. Nothing? Well, there was a tiny striped frog. Half lime and half olive. The girls wondered if he had a name. And shouldn’t he live in the pond? Continue reading article here: Frogs, Thornbills, Crimson Leaves and Cycla-Men- The Many Enchantments of the Natural World

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Helen Elliott is a thoughtful and analytical reader, informed and soulful writer and unyielding literary critic for many Australian newspapers. She is also a dedicated gardener. After down downsizing the family home and moving into an apartment Helen longed for her garden. You will find her insightful thoughts on this experience here.

Photo Source: Stairs marksinthemargin blog.

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How old is old in Hollywood? You don’t want to know.

April 28, 2014 by the sibyls Leave a Comment

……………………………..Cameron Diaz, actress, 41.

The Graduate 1967
Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman

At the time, Anne Bancroft was 36-years-old and, in fact, only 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman. So, historically, in Hollywood you are branded ‘the older woman’ at 36 years of age.

Forty-five plus years on The Graduate highlights a more disturbing issue. In the film, Mrs Robinson is a ‘formidable’ character. There is a word you do not hear any more. ‘Formidable’ applied to an older woman in a position of authority. The ‘formidable woman’ was matronly and someone to reckon with. She stood for definite principles. She didn’t tolerate fools and often held the position of Hospital Matron, Head Mistress or, even, the family Matriarch. When we were young girls many ‘formidable women’ – Reverend Mother, for starters – had our measure. Where are they today? These days, older women, who exercise authority are described as ‘ball breakers’, ‘old dragons’ or, in the case of the matriarch, ‘a Control Freak’. Is it the ‘management team’ and their spin that has replaced the ‘formidable woman in the workplace? Has the mass movement of women out of the home and into the workplace in the 1970s unthroned the matriarch? Curious, isn’t it?

Anne Bancroft, 70, 2001

At 70 years of age Anne Bancroft (above) still looked impressive. She won an Oscar in 1962 for her role in The Miracle Worker. She was happily married to her second husband, Mel Brooks, for 45 years. They had one son. Sadly, she died in 2005.

Photo Source: Film Promotion Pic and Salon.com

by Kerry Cue

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