The Thank You Phenomenon

Feedback is something we underestimate in every area of our lives. It can be as simple as a “Thank you” or a “Well done” and can change the way we perceive ourselves and other people. It can help us be better, work harder and understand our strengths and weaknesses.

The trick is that feedback should always be empowering not designed to undermine. That’s the hard bit. The kind of feedback we need to do better tends to be delivered in a way that erodes our confidence not empowers us to do better. I suppose that’s why they call it constructive criticism.

As a parent I rely on feedback from teachers and the school in order to understand how I can better benefit my children. I need this loop in order for us all to work together in raising happy, confident people. Sometimes this breaks down as adult pride gets in the way and we struggle to understand the inner workings of a child. Putting our own needs aside can be incredibly challenging. It’s far easier to point fingers at each other.

The school psychologist is an amazing, gentle man who has managed to reach Small boys aged 6 and 9 where the rest of us have largely failed. I don’t know if it because he is a man and they feel more comfortable with him than with a woman. God knows I’m not comfortable discussing PMS with a man so it could be.

He called me this morning to give me detailed feedback on his sessions with both boys and outline a way forward. This gives me confidence as a mother and a great deal of relief knowing that someone is focussing on addressing their challenges in their school environment. I know the teachers do the best they can, but with 20 or 30 boys in a class they can’t focus on my children to the detriment of everyone else, so having a personal session makes a big difference.

Small boy aged 6 struggles to assert himself. Although he has confidence he tends to shelve it and forget that he can assert himself. He puts on funny voices and accents to help himself deal with difficult situations and topics of discussion. I usually get the Leprechaun voice. Together they have acted out different scenarios and situations using puppets and his confidence between the first session and the second has increased exponentially. He is now much happier to use his big voice.

Going forward I need to learn how to empower him with the understanding that his choice of actions can affect the outcome of a situation. When he tells me of a situation that was unpleasant at school I need to ask him how he could have acted differently and what the outcome might have been. I may have to offer different scenarios for him to choose from. Sometimes what we think as parents may be right isn’t, and if he there was a seminal work on perfect parenting it would be a best seller. Still we all have to muddle along doing the best we can.

Small boy aged 9 is a different prospect. He’s always been the type of person to stand back in a new situation or with a new person until he has got their measure before he will interact. Although he feels deeply, he struggles to communicate those emotions. As a result the relationship of trust between the psychologist and the Small boy has been slow to develop. Once gained nothing will break his loyalty though.

Small boy aged struggles with self-confidence and the belief that he can complete a task and perform. He is more aware of his weaknesses than his strengths and allows his fear of failure in the challenging areas to affect his performance in the ones he can excel in. We need to empower him to face new challenges and accept that there are some things he will do well in and others where he can learn to perform well by learning the skills to overcome his weaknesses.

No one is brilliant at everything, but some people seem to be. It’s only later we get to know them and realise they faced the same challenges we did. Nothing that looks effortless ever is. I had a friend at school who could swim like the man from Atlantis, while I stood on the side of the pool shaking in abject terror. Watching her cut through the water was a thing of beauty. But, it wasn’t through lack of punishing training. Every morning, every afternoon come rain or shine and regardless of the freezing temperature of the water, she’d be there at 5am training. That’s what it takes. When she got to med school she used the same focus to excel there as well.

Was she ever afraid? Did she ever doubt herself? Sure. She’s human. The most important I learnt from her is that the greatest rewards in life are worth working for and that the only person you are ever truly in competition with is yourself.

I wear my insecurities like a safety blanket. I know my own weaknesses better than anyone. The peculiar thing is that other people know my strengths better than I do. I doubt I’m alone in that. That’s why feedback is so important. That’s why little words like “Thank you” can make the world of difference.

Just a quick aside, we had a great meeting with a broker for VC capital today. I hope this will bear fruit. It is a very interesting process to go through this making something out of nothing. Terrifying and daunting, but oddly exhilarating. I find this whole preamble rather frustrating. I just want to do my thing.

Now thank the Lord above half term is starting today, I might even take some leave myself to regroup. By that I mean sleep. A lot.

The Fox and the Big Wooden Spoon

Yawn. I am so bored of gossip mongering busybodies with nothing better to do than troll through my blog for what they think are inflammatory comments. (Just an aside, perhaps they could turn their attention to JuJu’s blog, with all the furore they’ve caused about mine, perhaps they could do something about the things he says.) Basically it proves my point that while some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths, others are born with long wooden spoons in their hands.

So they find a remark they can latch on to then they tell someone else, who tells someone else. None of whom have read the bloody thing. Regardless of which, it’s a blog not the bloody gospel. I suppose all the religious zealots are going place me on their hit list now. I could delete it, but I won’t because I’m a bloody minded bitch when I feel like it.

All this snide sharing has achieved is to make a very nice lady, who I have great respect for and who takes the trauma out of my being a working mother, extremely upset. For absolutely nothing, but the fact I mentioned somewhere in this litany that I need to save money and I thought that aftercare was an area in which I could cut down as one of my sons hardly spends any time there anyway. So it was poor value for money to pay the full amount for a term’s aftercare when the child spends most of his time at sport. Really, was it necessary to embroider and exaggerate that to meet your own ends?

I wonder if they’ll share the fact that Small boy aged 6 seems to have recovered his joie de vivre and seems to enjoying school like never before. He had another session with the shrink today and practised his BIG voice on me in the car. He’s beginning to say the words with some conviction. They played out bullying scenarios with puppets and he was told he has a fox inside him. He is very proud of his inner fox. Perhaps that is why the beagle likes to follow him around? It’s lovely that the psychologist reads Socrates, or of course he may have been paraphrasing Clem Sunter? Still, much rather a fox than a hedgehog.

Small boy aged 9 came back from an outing to the Lesedi Cultural Village, a place about which I have my white guilt reservations. He had a marvellous time, spat on a stone to speak to the ancestors and came home with a rather terrifying knobkerrie. He informed me quite proudly that he could bash a man’s head in with it. Small boys have a horrifying fascination for blood and gore. Apparently I just have to brush it off and it is not a sign of a potential serial killer or Charles Manson in my midst.

Had a meeting this morning with what we hoped was a potential investor for our Big Idea. I obviously couldn’t don the Jenni Button power suit again so soon, so I had to make do with killer heels, literally. I had some foresight and stowed a pair of flatties in the trunk, but as I alighted from the car when I finally got to work, my partner in crime took off with a sudden burst of speed leaving me standing forlorn with screaming arches.

It was very good meeting and I got a wonderful breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs out of it, sadly no money though. I suppose practice makes perfect, but it is still disheartening to pitch so passionately for so little gain. If you know of any media slash tech VC funds who want to invest a lot of money in a fabulous money making idea around the world send them my way. Please.

Drama on all fronts! I feel like the other infamous Charlie and have great empathy for Mr Sheen in his current predicament. Thank God half term is almost here, I need a break from all of this. Perhaps I should take up macrame? What is macramé anyway?

Image from: Fantastic Mr Fox

Jenni Button and Napoleon

I approached today with the strategy of a master general preparing for war. At least that’s what I always think on the Jenni Button suit days. Like each expensive layer is armour. The ritual of make-up and mascara as intricate as the way my forefathers painted their skins blue before battle. And the final touch. The killer heels. All of which was somewhat marred by a hacking cough and a runny nose. Still you can’t have everything and the way the weather was at Waterloo, I’m fairly sure old Bonaparte had a runny nose too. Of course he lost, but still.

This morning we met the headmistress of the pre-prep, the headmaster of the prep and the class teacher. And I might have well as worn jeans. Bugger. I don’t get enough reasons to wear the Jenni Button suit, but the damn thing has to be dry cleaned, so I’d like the occasion to have merited it. I am, however, very grateful it didn’t.

Walking in to the headmistress’s office I felt a strange time displacement brought about in large part thanks to the cough syrup and Med Lemon cocktail I had for breakfast. Anyhow, this Back to the Future phenomenon transported me almost twenty years into the past bringing back in technicolour brilliance the times I was called in for a “chat”. I shook it off with some difficulty.

The school has taken my increasingly impassioned pleas to heart and instituted an anti-bullying behaviour curriculum. The psychologist has spoken to Small boy aged 6, his counterpart and the class. They’ve acted out bullying behaviour and how to deal with it. Now, if only Small boy aged 6 can take those lessons out of the classroom.

After a lot of posturing – you can’t get around that – we’re all grown-ups who think we know best. We came to some conclusions.
First, perhaps we should ask the boys what is going on?
Second, Small boy aged 6 is coming out his shell, is this causing some tension?
Third, what is the root cause of this trauma?
Fourth, how are we making it worse and how are we helping?
Fifth, what must we do?

I’ll start at number five at work backwards. The psychologist will advise if we should keep the boys apart, or should try and see how they work outside of the school context together – like a play date. As an aside, I loathe them, but they are a necessary evil.

Instead of asking how Small boy’s day was and the highs and lows of it, I need to ask relevant targeted questions about his day at school and end with, is there anything else you’d like to tell me?

Now the first three questions are pretty much the same and I discovered the outcome on the drive home today.

Small boy aged 6 launched into his day without any prompting.
Small boy aged 6: “Mummy. Mummy. Normally, the headmaster spoke to both of us today.”
Mummy with some interest and trepidation: “Really, what did he say?”
Small boy aged 6: “He asked us if we wanted to be friends. And Mummy? Mummy? We both said yes!”

Now this is the bizarre part of the whole situation. I think they do want to be friends, they just seem to be going about it in a truly strange and destructive manner.

Small boy aged 6: “And then! And then, Mummy, the headmaster asked him who his friends were and he said, X and Y. Then he asked me and I said X and Y too!”

AHA! It was a light bulb moment. Thank God for headmasters who understand the intricate and convoluted workings of the male mind. Basic jealousy and posturing because they both have the same two friends. So, I guess it was a sort of an animalistic vying for alpha position or some other testosterone induced insanity. Do they even have testosterone at this age?

I think we all agreed that we’re on the same side at last and that we’re all trying to make sure the boys are okay. We chatted about diversity and perhaps incorporating some celebration of difference into the anti-bullying class. We hope that might help with the whole violin playing issue. I must admit, I do hope for the day when he trades it on for the drums. 6 year old violin playing is no joke on the adult eardrums. At least with the drums I can turn them into the next Jonas Brothers. A mother can dream, can’t she?

Still I ended the day decidedly more light-hearted about the education and psychological wellbeing of Small boy aged 6 then when I started. The only thing missing was a reward from the rather spectacular jar of sweets the headmaster keeps on his table. Perhaps the headmistress should get one too?

Image from: http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/People/napoleon.html

My mother and the old boyfriend

Love is a funny thing. We all remember our first love and they hold a place in our hearts throughout our lives. Somethimes we all feel we are too old for love. Too old even to remember what it felt like. And we are wrong. Love pops up in the strangest of places in the oddest of ways.

Lying in the bath tonight I was roused from my somnambulant state by a telephone call. Over a very crackly line I spoke to a man who fell in love with my mother when he was 20 years old and on holiday in Isipingo in Durban. He goes by the name of Louis, apparently because Elois is too hard to pronounce. He told me he has often thought about my mother through the years and has been trying to find her. He found my number online and thought he’d take a chance and call.

Unfortunately, he was calling from Holland and I am not sure I wrote down his email address correctly. It’s the drawback of a bad line, one person spelling in English and the other in Dutch. I wished my father-in-law was there to translate. He sounded very nice and rather shy about calling up my mum after all these years.

Of course, the very first thing I did was call my mother.
Me: “I’ve just been talking to your boyfriend!”
Mother: “What?”
Me: “Your boyfriend, Louis.”
Mother: “Louis, good God that was 45 years ago.”
Me: “I know. He fell in love with aged 20 on the beach in Isipingo Bay.”

It was funny to hear my mother at a loss for words. It doesn’t often happen to either of us. She remembers that he worked on the oil refinery and he came from a town in Germany that had wonderful waterfalls.

Now, I grew up with the story of my father called, “That greasy Iti”. My mother would protest vainly that he wasn’t Italian at all but Swiss or German and my father would huff and say, “Same bloody thing”. On a trip through Europe in the swinging sixties they wound they way to the picturesque little village that was home to the waterfalls my mother had heard about. As they were about to drive in to the town, my father realised where they were, turned around and sped off. Apparently he was damned if he was going in there.

I always thought it might have been a tad of an overreaction, but it seems that despite the passing of the years, Louis still holds a torch for my mum. Perhaps my dad was right in going as fast as he could in the opposite direction?

Stupid is as stupid does

Oh hell, the bully chronicles continue...

The school psychologist had a chat to Small boy aged 6 and taught him with some techniques to use. All we need to do is give him the confidence to actually use them. I really appreciate him taking the time to talk to my son. He seems to be one of those people who has the gift of being able to communicate with small boys on their level empowering them rather than condescending to them.

Sadly, his intervention was superseded by Small boy aged 6 being shoved to the ground as the bully came at him from the back. He seems careful to do it when there is no-one watching and Small boy aged 6 has no recourse.

He has also taken to sitting next my son at break time grabbing his lunchbox and helping himself. Today I gave Small boy aged 6 strict instructions to sit right next to the teacher on duty and let her know why he was sitting there. It seemed to work and Small boy managed to enjoy his snack bully free. The thing is he won’t be able to sustain this. Sooner or later the bully will get him on his own again, and then what?

Yes, my son is sensitive and empathetic. He loves learning to play the violin. When a bully taunts him with, “Where have you been? Playing your stupid violin?” it destroys something that he has every right to be proud in. It is not the violin that is stupid. It is the bully for believing that everything he cannot do must be less than worthy. But, you try and explain that to a weeping 6 year old.

I feel utterly powerless. The child’s parents have been spoken to, but the situation continues. I can’t protect him when he is at school and it makes me feel like a failure as a parent. This makes me take the offensive when it comes to dealing with the people I trust to safeguard my son during the day. It probably isn’t fair, but I am desperate.

I can’t bear to see the fragile confidence in my child destroyed on a daily basis. I hate that he has a tummy ache every morning when we get to school. I know that tummy ache. I used to get it too. It is pure undiluted fear.

So, teachers, if you’re still reading this blog, please do something. I beg you as a mother, please act in the best interests of my child. Whatever is plaguing the bully must be hard for him to act this way, but I cannot stand back and put my son at risk. When will it be enough? The next time he is pushed down the stairs? When he breaks a bone? When his self esteem is so crushed it will never rise again?

Tomorrow morning it is back to the school principal’s office. Funny, do you know I learnt to spell that? My teacher told me that the head of the school is your pal and that is how you know she is the principal not the principle.

The paramedic and the smelly sock

Everyday paramedics are on the road dealing with all manner of unspeakable things. Most of the times what they handle is pretty ghastly, but sometimes they also experience the bizarre and downright amusing.

I heard this story second hand and it made me laugh. Picture this, the Buccleuch interchange Monday night. A battered old Mazda pulls up on the side on the road. He waits a few minutes. In the rear-view mirror he sees the lights of a car coming up way way to fast. In a split second he decides to make a break for it and leaps out the door. Just in time. A few seconds later the car is a crumpled piece of metal and the paramedics are on their way.

The medics check out both drivers who are none the worse for wear. As they wander over the scene one medic leans down and picks a sock off the front of the Mazda. “Odd place to dry your socks,” he remarks to his partner. Curious they pry open the bonnet of the wreck. Right about now the driver of the car, the one who leapt to safety, begins to get highly agitato. He needs to go to hospital right away. He is dying, he can see the white light.

A car drives past, slows and then speeds away. Odd. Eventually they get around to opening the bonnet. Taped to every conceivable surface lining the chassis and the engine are bags filled with a range of pharmaceuticals to rival Sanofi-Aventis.

Turns out the driver, upon leaping from the vehicle, thought he should run like hell. He then remembered his stash and came running back. Once the excrement hit the proverbial fan, he tried desperately to fake life-threatening injuries to no avail.

I guess the outcome of this is that when stopped at a roadblock from now on they’ll probably search your engine as well. I’ve heard you can roast a chicken on your engine, I didn’t know you could cook up some crack. Live and learn, I guess. Live and learn.

Casper and the Devil

Children are like dominoes. When one falls the others soon follow. So projectile vomiting daughter has turned into projectile vomiting brothers. Apparently they started at school yesterday – God forbid anyone call me. I suppose they loathe me so much they couldn’t bear to. I suppose I can understand that. By the time I arrived to cart Small boy aged 6 to the chapel service, Small boy aged 9 was doing an Oscar winning impression of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Poor kid didn’t make it through the service and passed out about 15 minutes in.

The ghost metaphor continues into the wee hours of the morning with small boys taking in turns to wail and moan. All they needed was clanking chains and we could start a theme park. Needless to say I risked the wrath of the school and kept both boys home for the day. Small boy aged 9 has lapsed in and out of semi-consciousness all day and still looks utterly dreadful. He is insisting on a trip to the doctor, but if this is anything like his sister’s bout, it should clear up in a day or two.

There is something terribly fragile about a sick boy of any age. They seem to take it harder, like a personal insult that their strength should fail them. There can also be no moment when a mother feels so powerless then when her child is ill. You would do anything, but you can’t. All you can do is hold them and force evil tasting medicines down their throats (most of which re-emerge shortly thereafter even more evil than when they went down). Then karma kicks in and you get it too.

This parental karma thing seems to be a point of discussion today. Why do we punish children for testing boundaries when that is what they have to do? In fact the question was more along the lines of why do we do the same things to our kids that our parents did to us? That is the perverted karma of parenting or in Biblical terms, “the sins of the fathers” and so on.

Let’s take hell for example. Once upon a time my dad took me to Gilooley’s Farm ar dusk. I asked what the coals glowing in the grates were.
He replied, “That is where the devil roasts naughty little girls at midnight.” I’ve never been there again.
A few weeks later I broke a coffeepot of his and knocked on the door of the bathroom where my mother was enjoying a moment’s respite submerged in the bath.
Small girl: “Mummy, if I did something really bad would the devil come and take me to hell?”
Mummy: “Well, you’d better tell me what you did before I can answer that.”
Small girl: “I broke daddy’s coffeepot.”
Mummy: “Well then... I suppose you’d better go to room and start praying.”

You see, this is an example of how parents can have a good laugh at the children’s expense. These days I look at this story as a humorous interlude, back then I didn’t sleep for a week. I prayed like nobody’s business. You see, I knew where the devil would take me.

My father-in-law used to take tremendous pleasure in standing outside the window where his son and I had recently collapsed to bed in an hour before dawn. He’d get a piece of metal and the angle grinder and laugh. This was payback for the years when his son woke up with the birds and expected him to too.

My children are far too rational to fall for this type of psychological warfare. But I do have plans. Oh yes. I do. Here is one. Assuming skin mags are still existence, the first time I find one in one of son’s bedrooms I plan to purchase the next edition and quietly swap them. Then when he is older, maybe at his 21st, I’ll include the little anecdote in my speech. Perhaps I’ll save it for his wedding. Small boy currently aged 9 will also have to pay me R3 000 if he brings a girl home when he is 16. I’ve got that in writing.

As for the school saga, I am persona non grata. The class teacher will barely greet either of us beleaguered parents. I suppose I can’t blame her, but it doesn’t say much for “opening the channels of communication”. Most of the parents find it amusing that this little blog could have caused so much uproar. So do I. My dad gave me a good piece of advice though, “Don’t back down, but for God’s sake don’t lose your temper”. Peas in a pod he and I. Peas in a pod.

So what with a looming deadline and PMS I decided to give the headmistress meeting a skip for all our benefits. However, she did have a point I must concede, which is that she has not been offered a platform on which to respond. While a petulant part of me wants to say, “Well, get your own blog then”. The more intelligent part of me would like to invite the school to send me a response, which I shall duly post up here for all to see. It’s a very good school. I’m just a difficult client who expects horribly high standards.

It’s probably a relic from my short time in the States, that and a deep yearning for decent Mexican food. Oh and calling it the trunk and the glove compartment. I just can't get back into the boot and the cubby hole. It's a very pervasive culture that way.


Images from: http://karlaandbriansblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/welcome-quinn-and-evelyn.html and http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-35099014/stock-photo-horizontal-image-of-falling-dominoes-on-a-newspaper-stock-report.html

Dogs and Diapers

What is with women who dress their dogs up in clothes? Is it some perverted empty nest syndrome or just a horrible Paris Hilton parody? Should you wish, you can now purchase Wonder Woman, Superman, Spiderman and Batman costumes for your little lapdog not to mention the full array of rugby supporter gear.

No matter what you dress your tea cup poodle up in, it will still be nothing more that a Scooby snack for my Staffie. No dog can be an alpha in a pack when wearing a ballet tutu. They just can’t. When other dogs bark at them what they are saying is, “You’re ugly and your Momma dresses you funny.” Can you honestly stand in the park and shout out, “Come to Mommy, Snookie – wookie – poochie – poo” without blushing. No bloody wonder you can’t let the poor dog walk.

I must admit I have deep aversion to small yappy dogs and poodles of all sizes. I think they are an embarrassment to the canine world. I think women who carry them around as though their stunted little legs can’t carry them are beyond the pale. If you want a dollie go to Toys R Us. And perhaps if you’re spending more on your pooch’s attire than your own, you should consider psychiatric treatment for you and the psychological damage you’ve inflicted on your poor dog.

It is a fact. Dogs are dogs not people. People are people not dogs. People often forget this, which is why their dogs rule them and not the other way around. Dogs are not children. They don’t need to wear diapers. Yes, you can in fact buy diapers for dogs. Who knew?

PS: Google Images type in "unhappy dog in dress" click large images only. That poor girl.

Image from: http://www.insidesocal.com/bargain/2008/10/halloween-rebates-for-online-s.html

The blonde that wasn't and the avocado that was

I need a holiday and a good friend once said that a trip to the hairdresser or the spa was as good as. My bank account sadly lacks the wherewithal for a holiday, a hair appointment or the spa. These days I have to contend with school fees, doctor’s bills and builders. All of which take their toll on the old piggy bank.

Last weekend I tried the home hair treatment. I thought that I find out if blondes have more fun. Fortunately, or not as the case may be, it didn’t work. My hair is several shades lighter but still determinedly not really brown and not really red but certainly not blonde. And it didn’t feel like a holiday at all, unless it was somewhere very smelly.

This weekend I decided the home spa experience might be worth a try. I usually regard these with my usual cynicism, after all if it were that easy, why does it cost a arm and a leg for some fancy French stuff at the spa. They must know something I don’t. Right? These days I’m not so sure.

In a last minute rush to buy the Father’s Day gift Small boy aged 9 had set his heart on, I wandered about Melrose Arch and into some very expensive smelly shop promising me skin 10 years younger. I was duly shown through a phalanx of creams and serums and miracle ingredients all of which contained essential oils, Rooibos and honey. Well I’ve got those at home don’t I? I managed to extricate myself without having to swipe the beleaguered card and went home to Google.

A few hours later I have just enjoyed a deep bubble bath and a moisturizing face mask courtesy of me. One squishy avocado and half a cup of honey and ten minutes later skin like a baby’s bottom. Actually that is a terrible metaphor. I’ve had babies. They get nappy rash on their bottoms. So, scratch that. Skin like I’ve sat through an hour of snooty spa posturing and a wallet not screaming in agony from the price of the treatment plus whatever ooze I’ve been terrified into buying by some white coated zombie.

All in all it was a success. My children think I am insane. My husband was banned from the bathroom due his inability to stop gurgling hysterically with laughter and inappropriate suggestions about miracle ingredients. But, I don’t feel like some ancient old crone about to hit middle age. When your birthday is fast approaching it is surprising what you’ll do to delay it.

Fathers and Daughters

Little girls love their fathers. In fact for most little girls their dad ranks above God in terms of seniority, faith and love. The first trick to dealing with dad’s and daughters is to understand that no-one is allowed to say a bad word about the dad to the daughter or about the daughter to the dad. Each is beyond reproach to the other. Oh, yes they may have words together, but neither will ever tolerate hearing them from another.

Why do I adore my dad?
He is the only man who has never failed to give me a Valentine.
He brought me home sharp HB pencils and pink rabbit erasers the smell of which still make me feel comforted.
He’d skip with me through the mall on a Saturday morning.
He’d treat me to breakfast at Stephanies if I was sick and buy me barley sugar candy to suck on.
He’d bring me clandestine and banned Archie comics in the middle of the night and read with me.
He’d always share his midnight snack.
He showed me the world and everything in it.
He supported me in whatever crazy venture took my fancy.
He fought in my corner and still always has my back.
He gave me the gift of great poetry and the solace to be found in a book.
He gave me the best education money could buy and never mentions that I could have done more with it.
No matter how many times I fall from the pedestal he always helps me get back up.
He taught me to write and gave me the power of words.
He makes me laugh, think, question and learn.
He taught me to pick my battles to win the war, a lesson I still struggle with.
He taught me that simple words hold the most power.
He may be far away in miles, but never far from my heart.
To him I will always be the most beautiful, talented, cleverest and brilliant woman in the world.
To me he will always be my friend, my guide, my mentor and my hero, but most of all, my father, the best one I could ever have.

Happy Father’s Day Daddy. I love you.

Gaping Void - No-one says it better except Scott Harrison

Because he is brilliant and makes me chuckle.

Madiba and the doo-wap girls

Nelson Mandela The Musical in three parts. Good heavens, can we trivialise the life of this great man any more than by turning it into a singing, dancing extravaganza? I don’t think its much of a tribute, I think it is a farce. You wouldn’t turn the persecution of the Jews into a musical would you? No, because that would be insensitive and inappropriate, but we can do it to Nelson Mandela.

I also seem to be one of the few utterly disgusted by the obsession with his death. It seems the media and most of South Africa is waiting for him to die so they eulogise him. The fact that he is still alive and kicking seems almost to irritate them; after all they have so much planned for when he dies. Yes, he is very old. Yes, he is closer to the grave than the cradle, but go carry on harping about it is at best insensitive and at worst utterly macabre.

My son aged 6 believes that Madiba is always happy. The only time he is not is when a small child is hurt. Death and SARS. They come for us all, but neither are things we like to dwell on in much detail. My mother is a pensioner. Yesterday she took my offspring to the Montecasino Bird Park, a place that holds them in thrall for hours.

At the entrance Small boy aged 9 reads the sign and says to the ticket seller, “1 adult and 3 children, please.”
Grandmother: “No, darling, I am not an adult, I am a pensioner, over here” she says pointing to the sign.
Small boy aged 9 reads it carefully and says loudly, “Sorry, 3 children and one prisoner then.”
The queue erupted into laughter and one elderly man turned to her and commiserated, “Not much difference is there really between being a pensioner or a prisoner?”
I suppose not, in some way or another we’re all waiting for parole.

The mermaid and the missionary

The wind is whistling through the cracks in the office windows much like a demented banshee. The ambient temperature is 16 degrees in here and falling. I had an amusing chat to a Swede in Stockholm (where else?) yesterday. Swedes are very polite and he began the conversation by asking me about the weather. I thought about it and then replied: “Well, I think it’s bloody freezing, but you’d probably think it was a nice summer day.” He laughed. Turned out it was two degrees colder in Sweden and it was a nice summer day. Africa is just not geared to the cold. You try and ask for double-glazing here, people laugh at you, or central heating, central air conditioning maybe. I’m taking refuge inside my Sharks XXXL hoodie, I look like a mix between a gangsta rapper and a tortoise, but at least the shivers are abating.

Yesterday marked not only Youth Day, (which apparently was marked by mayhem), but also my 11th wedding anniversary. We played hookie and went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D. What could be better way to spend a chilly morning then with Johnny Depp in 3D glory? Don’t answer that, a myriad better things just popped into my head and all of them definitely not PG rated. It was a fabulous movie although the drippy mermaid and the insipid missionary seemed a bit superfluous. Although, I must say if more missionaries had bodies like that, a lot more nubile young wenches would convert. It could be the saviour of organised religion. Of course we disagreed on the ending when the mermaid swims off with the missionary. Does she kill and eat him? Do they live happily ever after? And was old Blackbeard really Columbo? He must be ancient.

Now, Keith Richards as the father of Captain Jack Sparrow inspired me to finally try and read his autobiography, Life. I bought it when I went into hospital, but the morphine made it hard to keep the words on the page and it lay abandoned until yesterday. Now I can’t put it down. It’s a wonderful flow of unedited truth, unsullied by political correctness and unnecessary adjectives. I keep reading parts of it out loud to the aspiring young guitarist in the family. Apparently young Keith went for an interview at the great J Walter Thompson in London and when asked if he could make tea said, “Yes, but not for you.” He then stalked (I can’t imagine him ever doing something so banal as just walking) downstairs and threw his portie into the bin. For all of you who work in the fickle world of advertising that thought probably invokes a gut clenching nausea. Our porties are the one thing we’d save in fire, forget the dog and baby pictures. Even cynical old hacks like me are obsessively attached to the career trajectory of our precious portie. Hell, I know people who will buried with it in case they need some affirmation in the after life. Perhaps God will care they once worked on a Coca Cola campaign. Hell, maybe God for advertising people is David Ogilvy.

All in all it was a very nice anniversary, marred only by the snot-gobbling chef at the Chinese Restaurant and Supermarket at the Morningside Wedge. I don’t seem to have much luck at Chinese eateries. During my noteworthy 48 hours at Fiat, the Chinese restaurant I tried to get lunch from, was shut down by the Health and Safety Directorate while making my spring rolls. I took it as a sign and went running back to the safety of a chaotic creative studio.

Of course, the high point of the day was the breakfast cooked by Small people aged 9, 6 and 5. Scrambled egg, Bovril toast and tea. That’s love for you.

Image from: http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2011/5/19/fearless-forecast-move-over-thor-jack-sparrow-has-arrived.html

The Man and the Mist

Each day I travel through a magical vista of fairytales and mystery. It clings to the river and forms a wall of ethereal lace. It hides the trash and the stench that breeds in the water and creates something so far outside of reality that if you were to step inside it I am certain you would find yourself trapped in the fairy realm.

Such flights of fancy are par for the course for me, but to say I was shocked speechless (okay, I’m never speechless, but still) when the father of my children waxed lyrical this morning, would be an understatement.

Small girl aged 5: “Daddy, easily, what is that white stuff?”
Daddy: “It’s the breath of all the fairies and water nymphs.”
Small girl aged 5: “There must be an awful lot of them?”
Daddy: “Oh yes, and dragons too.”

Who knew, lurking under that taciturn, atheist exterior was a fairytale romantic?

Image from: http://s976.photobucket.com/albums/ae241/Nolan_1337/Dragons/?action=view¤t=Mist-Dragon.jpg¤ttag=Dragon

June 16 - Lest we forget.

"It was cold and overcast as pupils gathered at schools across Soweto on 16 June. At an agreed time, they set off for Orlando West Secondary School in Vilakazi Street, with thousands streaming in from all directions. The planned to march from the school to the Orlando Stadium.

"By 10.30am, over 5 000 students had gathered on Vilakazi Street and more were arriving every minute," say Bonner and Segal. In total, "over 15 000 uniformed students between the ages of 10 and 20 [were] marching that day"."

Read more at: http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/soweto-150606.htm

Tomorrow marks the 1976 Soweto uprising by students and scholars. The image above has as much relevance today as it did in the week before I was born. The youth today is more empowered in some ways and less in others. Our education standards instead of being raised have been dropped. These days every child in a government school gets Bantu Education. We've educated to the lowest common denominator and then the ANCYL complains that the elite of private schools get all the jobs. It shouldn't be surprising.

The youth still bear the brunt of violence and disempowerment. They lack textbooks, teachers, classrooms and shoes. Yet we still build stadiums. Stadiums which a year later stand empty and falling into disrepair. Many of our scholars aren't just kids, they head up households, where they care for younger siblings trying to go to school and bring in enough money to feed and clothe others. This is the legacy of HIV/AIDS. This is what threatens our youth today. Yet we still avoid it, duck our heads and make like an ostrich.

If every public sector employee and every government minister had to send their children to a public school and use public clinics and healthcare, how quickly do you think things would change? The fact is the elite now may be black, but they stand as far away from the common man as their white predecessors, behind their suburban 6 foot walls and their Discovery medical aids and their private schools. Really, just proof that under the skin, men are all the same.

The Apartheid government recognised that by keeping the populace uneducated, they could hold on to power. When you're fighting for your next meal, you really don't care about macro-economic policy. So what's different now? Really. Nothing. Educated people ask questions. They demand answers. They force change. They have power and recourse that the poor may have in word, but not in reality. How can a poor man challenge something in the Constitutional Court? He can't. Only the rich can. So is it a Court of the people?

My husband, a one time law student, used to point out to me that the law, right and wrong, truth and justice are mutually exclusive. An ordinary man has no rights. You only have rights when they are called into question. This is why a criminal has more rights that their victim.

We like to think things have changed. That organisations like the ANC Youth League look after the interests of the youth. They don't. They look after their own interests and their friends and you can't blame them for it. Youth to them seems very flexible. I don't think a 30 year old can be regarded as a youth anymore. By 30 I think you should have grown up into a man. Unless we are talking about mental age instead, in which case they are spot on with Mr Malema.

Image from: http://www.soundprint.org/getImage/ID/15/soweto.jpg

God, the carpet and the orca

And on the seventh day there was… carpeting. Small girl aged 5 filled me on the story of creation yesterday. It was illuminating.

Small girl aged 5: “Easily, Mummy, easily, did you know that in the olden days when God made the world there wasn’t anything?”
Me: “Hmmm?”
Small girl aged 5: “Easily, there wasn’t. There weren’t any toys, or beds or anything. Our whole house was just empty.”
Me: “What about lights?”
Small girl aged 5: “No lights. Nothing. Just carpets.”
Me: “Carpets?”
Small girl aged 5: “Yes, easily, God made us carpets so we could sleep on something soft on the floor.”
Me: “Oh, I hope they were deep shag pile.”
Small girl aged 5: “And bugs.”
Me: “Bugs?”
Small girl aged 5: “Yes, easily, God makes new bugs every day but only at wakey time.”

This was when I submerged myself under the bubbles and pretended to be an orca. Sometimes, it’s all you can do.

Image from: www.faithdoubt.com

The high horse and the fall

Honestly, small children confuse the hell out of me. After all this to-ing and fro-ing and toy throwing they've gone and made friends. Really? Now? Like now would be a good time? How about last week? That would've been better.

It seems the headmistress's little chat with all of them must have struck a chord, for which I will be eternally grateful. I honestly think that when children this young start bullying others it is symptomatic of a deeper problem. It still needs to be addressed and ensured it never reoccurs.

But do I feel like a righteous idiot right now?
Unequivocally, yes.

It is not a pleasant feeling. Not unlike the jolt from falling off a very very high horse. But there you go, I can always remount tomorrow.

Image from: www.chinadaily.com.cn

The Great School Ambush Part 2

The Great School Ambush is still on tomorrow. All my moaning and complaining has paid off and resolution is on the horison. The sense of relief is palpable, although of course I still have the meeting about the Problem to attend to.

The scary thing about this is that it wasn't my husband's off-hand comment about my blog that led to the headmaster reading it.

Ah ha. The plot thickens. A mystery is afoot.

I have the crazy urge to laugh hysterically.

A word of advice from a woman to men married to one

No matter how bizarre a woman may act. No matter how irrational. No matter how illogical. A man must never ever use the words “premenstrual”, “hormonal” or “time” “of” “the” and “month”. This will turn a highly agitato woman into a two legged, fanged and clawed beast of fire spitting pure bloody murder.

It is a fact and all men should take care to acknowledge its truth. I am not of those women who mark my diary with little red dots on the pertinent dates. However, I advise men to do just that for the women in their lives. This will mean in the preceding week they can deftly sidestep any inflammatory commentary.

My poor husband caught the brunt of it this morning. Over a tea cup. He accused me of taking it to work and losing it. I didn’t. I haven’t seen said green thermal cup for over a week and assumed he had it with him. Apparently not. I might have mentioned that I wouldn’t use it if it were the last cup on earth due to its tendency to drip all over your chest.

Somewhat bemused he asked for a lift to work before the school run. I took this as my cue to go ballistic. I grabbed this fairly innocuous ball and ran for it. I might have scored a touchdown too, but then he tackled me with an apology. Of course I tried to rebut it and continue my crazed descent into madness, but his terse, “Don’t argue” cut that in the bud.

All the time I was raging and going on about the sheer selfishness of wanting to go work early (I mean have you ever! Go to work early! What is the world coming to?”), there was a small sane part of me wondering what on earth was going on. The thing is that when in full hormonal rage logic just does not feature. Just don’t actually make the mistake of telling me that.

The last big blowout of these proportions took place over socks of all things. He couldn’t find any. I went crazy.

Sometimes I wonder how he has survived 11 years of matrimony, but as my mother says, at least someone is prepared to put up with me. Let's see how he handles a teenage daughter going through puberty and a wife going through menopause together. We'll have to wait ten years and see.


Image from: chrisscalf.com

The tsunami and the teacup

Image from ilove2cgw.blogspot.com


Oh my! Oh my! I have caused a tsunami in a teacup. Who knew I had it me? Stand back or you might get wet.

The Great School Ambush turns out to have nothing to do with the bullying of my son and how we are going to resolve the issue. Instead it turns out that my blog is a Problem.

If I were a different sort of person I might apologise to those I have offended and promise never to do it again. But, I’m not. I am the daughter of a journalist and I grew up succoured on the unassailable rights of freedom of expression, speech and the media. I suppose the apple never falls far from the tree and I have certainly lived up to this pat little adage.

The power of social media and networking is a multi-headed hydra allowing the general public (like me) a public forum in which to exercise Freedom of Expression. I doubt anyone when drafting the constitution imagined how far it would extend. I seriously doubt I am the only parent with a blog and I’d bet a good amount of cash that there are more than a few students with blogs, Twitter accounts and MySpace pages. I am the one to whom the powers-that-be have drawn their attention to.

And how did that come about? It’s interesting really. Unless you’re a friend on Facebook or I’ve personally given you the address it’s a bit like searching for a needle in haystack. There are about 400 of us on Facebook with same name. The blog is not associated with me except for appearing on my profile. So somebody had a very busy morning indeed. The true culprit turns out to be closer to home.

Husband to headmistress: “She’s sitting there all quiet now, but if you want to know what she really thinks you should read her blog!”

Gee, thanks.

The initial shock of being called to the principal’s office has abated somewhat. After all, I did think those days were past. Then again my headmistress wrote me a very politely worded letter of reference on my matriculation. I could never show it to anyone, because reading between the lines she said I tended towards outspoken opinions and blowing at windmills.

I wasn’t supposed to know that I have become a Problem, but on the school run this morning the father of the offspring ran into the Principal of the Prep school. The father thought it was hysterical and called me struggling to breathe in between great gales of laughter. Ha. Ha. Ha. Nonetheless, despite my dodgy spelling, the Principal in principle has no problem with the blog as such. I knew I liked him.

Nonetheless I don’t think the institution has really considered the implication of social networking and Twitter. In the past parents and scholars had few avenues open to them. The school’s marketing and PR department handled any media issues.

I must digress here to an example that happened when I was school. A newspaper published an article about teenage smoking and interviewed a number of schools throughout the country. Turns out they also interviewed our headmistress. She stated unequivocally that her girls did not smoke. We had a good chuckle over that having spent a few hours in detention for that very reason. Still the reputation of the school remained intact even if the journalist writing the story expressed his disbelief. If we’d had Twitter then…

These days it’s all very different. Companies, businesses, service providers and individuals have to live up to and exceed their service level promises rather than papering over the cracks. I think it is quite refreshing, although my priority would be providing a resolution to the bullying problem rather than getting all worked up over a blog. Even better resolve it and I’ll blog about how brilliant the intervention was and how happy I am that it is all sorted out. Just saying.

Just to recap the Freedom of Expression as per our constitution:



Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes:¬
• freedom of the press and other media
• freedom to receive or impart information or ideas
• freedom of artistic creativity
• academic freedom and freedom of scientific research

The right in subsection (1) does not extend to: ¬
• propaganda for war
• incitement of imminent violence
• advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm

I don't think I've incited anyone to outright war. And I may be somewhat disparaging at times towards my beloved husband, but so much as to be accused of hate speech? Okay, he may disagree. But that is his right.

After some research I have discovered that although not a card-carrying member of the Fourth Estate I am protected by the same laws. The writer of an opinion piece whether published in a personal blog or paid for by a syndicated publication is protected. Funnily enough South Africa even has a Coalition for Freedom of Speech founded during the whole debacle here about press freedom and the infamous Information Bill. I never thought it would apply to me, but there you go.

I don’t think my experience is any different to that at any school, in fact I am sure they all face myriad challenges of far graver severity than mine. My mother’s dog walking friend has two boys in high school at a very well regarded public school who are both struggling with crippling drug addiction. Apparently, it’s nothing special, all the boys do it.

I suppose I should call my father before he finds out from my mother - now that is social networking for you. They have some sort of psychic parental link. I wasn't born with a silver spoon, rather a very big wooden one. It's genetic.

Oh well, I feel like Zapiro, slightly bemused that something so small could have caused such a huge reaction. I usually imagine my friends having a good giggle over my posts, but it seems I am now writing to a captivated audience. How very odd.