Beauty & Brains

I really think you can judge a book by it's cover.......

Are hairdressing salons inherently vacuous places? Devoid of anything cerebral or intellectually stimulating? This is my question of the day.

I had my semi-regular hair appointment today, and had been looking forward to it for several days. As a stay at home mummy, getting several hours to myself is, well, bliss!

Being able to sit and read uninterrupted was the thing I was most looking forward to. But then it dawned on me. There would be nothing to read there that would interest me. Unfortunately trashy gossip magazines don't float my boat.

I'm really not the slightest bit interested in who Paris Hilton - the patron saint of vacuous - is sleeping with, or who is divorcing who. And for the love of God can someone please tell who on earth are the Kardashians??!!! Even worse is when, with no alternative I flick disinterestedly through these mags, and my hairdresser exclaims about a particular celebrity, making pronouncements about people with all the seriousness of one delivering a speech at the UN. She speaks with authority as if she knows the person. I find it incredibly strange.

Surely I'm not the only person who's not interested in reading about the dysfunctional lives of the rich and famous? Would it kill them to have a few issues of The Monthly, or Frankie or even The Australian Women's Weekly. These publications actually have articles in them, as opposed to full page spreads of celebrities with a few paragraphs at the bottom as a vehicle for the pictures.

Does caring about one's appearance and more specifically hair automatically mean said person is only interested in the banal, the ridiculous and the inane of celebrity culture?

What do you think? Am I being a snob? Or should salons cater to a wider reading audience?

Maybe I'll donate them a couple of back issues of The Monthly I have lying around......

Breast Politics

Unless you've been living under a rock this past week, it's unlikely you missed the controversial cover of Time magazine with a mother breastfeeding her almost four year old son. Check out the story at The Age here. The story was widely disseminated by news sites within hours and created the quite predictable media storm I imagine it was expressly created to do.

Before writing this post I was thinking that Grumet must be either astoundingly naive or strategically attention seeking and courting controversy. Further follow-up interviews with her suggest the latter.

I find this cover offensive, but not in the way you might immediately assume. I find it offensive because rather than promoting breastfeeding, it is creating controversy and strife. While I personally wouldn't breastfeed my child at three years old, I'm not against others doing so. It seems to me to be an overtly sexual image, and has been constructed to shock. Combined with it's confrontational headline, "Are You Mom Enough" the whole cover has quite an alarming effect on the reader. Let me explain further. In the context of magazines, and the visual language we understand in our western culture, we have come to expect highly sexual and sexualised images on magazine covers, particularly of women. All of these facts must be considered when 'reading' this image. Grumet is a young, slender attractive woman. She stands in a provocative way and stares into the camera wanting to be looked at. So far nothing unusual for a magazine cover. The child standing on a chair latched onto her breast is where it gets weird.

I think in the photographers mind he was perhaps trying to highlight the many facets of womanhood and the expectations on women. Women are supposed to be attractive, sexy, confident, slim, and at the same time feminine, demure, motherly, nurturing. Can we be both at the same time?

But ultimately I think this cover - and the story - pits women and mothers against each other, using breastfeeding as the weapon. And that's what I find most offensive about this cover. Using breastfeeding - which is so profound, challenging, and important - to tear each other down is wrong. It's cheap and base.

Here comes the rain again

Winter is almost upon us, and as the cold blows in, I feel like a fog has rolled over me, dulling everything.

I quite literally have a feeling of dread every time I think about winter. I try not to think about it, but in the back of my mind I know it's coming, and that sense of dread lurks. My mood seems to reflect the grey barren outlook of winter.

This week winter has come early in more than one way. We've been blasted with wintry conditions here in Melbourne, and my little family have all been battling an unpleasant cold.

Some people profess to prefer winter over summer. Such statements - if indeed true - render me confused and without any point of reference. Perhaps they don't feel the cold so much? Perhaps they don't feel depressed by bleak grey skies? Perhaps - although inconceivable to me - such people prefer being inside to being outside?

If I have learned anything about myself since becoming a mother, it's this - I'm an outdoors girl. Any sort of confinement leaves me anxious and stressed. Being cooped up inside for any length of time makes me feel like I can't breathe. Being outside and preferably near water or animals makes me feel like I can breathe again, I feel my stress seep away. Pre-mummy days I thumbed my nose at winter. I wore appropriate clothes and braved the wild and wooly weather. Walking the dog (by the sea - two birds with one stone you see) or feeding/riding horses, I found a way to be outside.

Since Miss E's arrival, winter means being inside more than I would have previously. And why I can only recall dreading winter in recent years! Of course we still get out in winter when we can. And it creates new adventures, as we look for indoor activities (I've never been to Melbourne Museum so regularly before!) that, if it wern't for inclement weather would be overlooked!

So winter is once again upon us. And I feel like I'm preparing to hold my breath for a really long time. But on the other hand there is hope. Summer will come again. The sun will shine and I will once again be re-aquainted with the great outdoors.

My annual Christmas post

Apparently it's been 6 months since I last posted. Either my life's so boring I have nothing to write about, or I'm so busy I never get a chance. I'm going with the latter...

I love Christmas time. Pretty much the whole of December is great. The excitement starts to build and the parties come thick and fast. There's the shopping - which I normally loathe, but have actually quite enjoyed this year. It's the feeling of knowing hot days are coming, and the Australian Open, and beach holidays spent in the sun are just around the corner.

Summer is magical to me. A week spent somewhere warm and by the sea can quite literally remedy all the stress accumulated from the year just gone.

This year we are forgoing our usual coastal oasis and are instead travelling north for a family wedding. While I'm delighted to be going somewhere warmer and to be able to lay by the pool, a part of me is sad we won't be going to our usual. It is my favourite place in the world, a place that enables me to be the most relaxed and happy I can be.

And Mr S and Mrs B have done their bit to make this summer especially exciting as they await the arrival of their first bundle of joy. A baby is always exciting. But becoming an aunty for the first time is very special. I'm also excited for Miss E who has been telling everyone she's going to have a cousin.

Christmas day is rapidly approaching. I'm pretty stoked actually that we get two Christmas day's this year - one on christmas eve with Mr D's family and Christmas day with mine. Double the fun, (and the drama, calories, hangovers, and presents!!)

Then, when the glow of summer begins to fade, real life begins again.

Reflections on Motherhood

Tomorrow is Mothers Day, and as I have been reflecting on motherhood recently, I thought it an appropriate time to write about it.

Before becoming a mother, when people said things like, 'you don't understand, because you're not a mother' I thought they were just being smug, or superior. Turns out they weren't. Here are some of the things I now know;

1. Being a mother makes you so vulnerable. In every way. Emotionally. Physically. Financially. From the moment you discover there is a precious life growing inside you, you feel that urge to protect, nurture, love. But so much of it is out of your hands. It brings a whole new meaning to vulnerable.

2.If emotions can be described as colour, then for me pre-motherhood was black and white and motherhood brought about amazing techni-colour vividness. Every emotion is experienced ten fold in strength and fervour, and is no longer easily containable and restrained. Instead, they sit just under the surface, refusing to be tamed. Rogue tears often appear at the most horrifying moments.

3.The constantness of motherhood is mind-boggling and incomprehensible until experienced. Pre-motherhood I understood the concept in a cerebral sense. But the experience of it is another matter entirely. Come rain or sun, colds or gastro, late nights or hangovers; The motherhood show must go on!

4.A friend of mine with adult children said to me not long after the birth of my daughter, 'Once you have kids, you understand how the world works,'. And what she means is the love. The epic, epic love that you feel for your child. And along with that comes the knowledge that every person has a parent who feels that way about their child, and therefore where their heart lies. It helps you understand how precious and important each person is because you understand it about your own child.

And so, here I am almost two years into this motherhood gig, and despite vulnerability, and constantness and the emotional rollercoaster that is the permanent state I now find myself in, I want to do it again. It's because amongst the mundane is the profound. Being a mother is so ordinary, yet at the same time extraordinary.

The year that was...

2010 was a big year. It was the year I finished my degree. The year my daughter turned one, and the year I realised I couldn't do everything and needed to let someone new take over something I had been doing for almost a decade.

Full time motherhood combined with full time tertiary study was only possible with one extraordinary and very committed husband and father.

I'm pretty sure, in fact I know, that the pressure I put on myself to complete my studies and do well, as well as be a good/engaged/involved/committed/loving/not-so-tired-my-eyes-are-rolling-in-my-head mother, directly affected said husband, who bore it with patience and immense grace.

In the midst of an intense year, I feel I was so focussed on my goals and getting through everything (and consequently became somewhat of a stresshead), that I lost some perspective.

While holidaying on the coast and spending some time with a friend and her family, it gave me the (terribly cliche) opportunity to relax and reflect. It made me see my life from a different perspective, and enabled me to appreciate what I have in a new way. God is good.

So 2011 is here, and now it's my husbands turn to shine - and shine he will, as always - and for me to be the supportive one (please God let me do it well!!!!).

When nature is not nature...

My little family and I recently rugged ourselves up and braved a wintry Melbourne day to visit the Melbourne Museum, where the main attraction is currently the Titanic exhibition. But before we walked through the Titanic exhibit - which, incidentally, was great, and worth being packed in like sardines for - we thought we could walk through the Rainforest Secrets permanent exhibit. It's quite amazing, and is in the centre of the museum. It effectively brings the outdoors inside, as there is no roof. But as we entered the glass sliding doors to walk up the pathway, a sign had been put up blocking our entrance saying, 'Due to high winds and wild weather, this exhibit is temporarily closed for safety reasons'. So, we wandered off to another area and meandered around until we were ready for the Titanic - which is a timed exhibit, where you 'board'.

After exiting the Titanic, we walked past the rainforest again and saw it had been re-opened. Clearly the dangerous winds had subsided enough to stop the managers worrying about law suits....But it got me thinking. We had all braved the so called 'dangerous winds' to get there, and if the tree's in the exhibit are affected by the winds, well isn't that part of nature? But clearly this is an artificial nature. One that is manipulated, managed and tightly controlled for customer's/visitor's.
Paying to 'experience' nature, in a controlled environment means we are not really experiencing nature at all - it negates the whole point. It made me feel that the whole orchestrated process was contrived and a little absurd. This was further illustrated to me when a young boy turned excitedly to his mother and asked, 'Can we keep going so we can see more of the nature?' Real nature exists, and it isn't found indoors, or in a museum. Real nature can't be contained, is largely uncontrollable and is innately beautiful.

As we were leaving the 'nature' exhibit, I felt overwhelmed by how strongly I felt about experiencing real nature, and what a formative and positive effect spending time in the Australian bush had on my childhood.
I recently heard an interesting segment on Radio National about how important it is for kids to spend time in nature. Richard Louv, the main interviewee, claims that paediatricians in the US rarely see broken bones these days, and that they are increasingly seeing repetitive strain injuries from computer games. Ironically, repetitive strain injuries have longer and more serious complications than broken bones apparently. So kids, put down that PlayStation console and go climb a tree!