The handshake

Phew! Something smells funny in here - like a mixed metaphor.

Last night I joined a throng of parents at the Linder Auditorium for our sons’ speech day. I approach speech days with much the same sense of inevitable tedium I did at school. Ours took place on Saturdays under a marquee that smelt ghastly with an ambient temperature of hell. Nothing like as swanky as the Linder Auditorium.

We all duly queued in clasping our Blackberries, IPhones and IPads like comfort blankets. Some of the more experienced dads had a helpful hip flask. It was my first time. The dad I sat next too gave me some helpful pointers, like at which point to leave.

It started true to form with some rather nice speeches from the headmaster, the chairman and the graduating class of grade 7s. The keynote speaker was then introduced. I probably shouldn’t mention his name. He has a voice like melted chocolate and is obviously much in thrall to its melodic sounds.

If he had ended at the 20 minute mark we would have clapped loudly and said, “What a lovely speech with just the right mix of humour and wisdom.”  But he didn’t.

He led a round of applause for all the grade 7 boys who had their first kiss at the recent school social. That was a little odd, but we clapped. 

He went on to explain how these young teenagers will soon become enamoured by the subtle dips, curves and valleys of the female form. How the mysterious female will befuddle the brain and confuse the senses. 

And then...

How as more and more attention is given to the female of the species with no relief in sight, they will find themselves often “shaking the hand of the unemployed”.

I turned to my neighbour and asked, “Did he just say what I though he said?” 

Apparently he did.

The auditorium was silent expect for the mildly hysterical giggling of myself and my neighbour. 

The speaker carried on past the realm of slightly inappropriate into totally X-Rated.

The speaker’s son was in the audience as one of the graduating class. I shared my sympathy for him with my neighbour and we agreed that the poor chap should not come to school for the remainder of the term and maybe transfer somewhere else next year. No-one is likely to let him forget the day his dad stood in front the school and talked about masturbating.

Like our kids aren’t embarrassed enough by us already?

Once the horse was well and truly dead it was flogged a bit more and only when a small toddler finally began to yell, was the speech wrapped up with a bit of Rudyard Kipling. Can’t go wrong with Kipling.

My son also won an award. 

I was speechless. 

But, not as speechless as when he came out of the auditorium and asked me what “shaking the hand of the unemployed” meant.

Cleaning out the closet

“Don’t worry. My son is gay. Once you get over the gay thing it’s not so bad. Here, have another drink.”

In life as in music timing is everything. Arguably there is no perfect time to spring this on your parent, but some times are better than others. The night before your Matric finals, might not be one of them.

I know you think the world is all about you.

You can’t help it; you are an 18-year-old boy.

I forgive you.

I don’t know if your father will.

Here is the thing.

It is not that you are gay.

It is that you are having sex.

You know how you feel about your parents getting it on?

Multiply that by about 1 000 and you may have inkling of how they feel about you doing it like they do it on the Discovery Channel.

Let’s take the Matric finals first. Your father is terrified for you. He’d write those exams for you in an instant. He’s worried that you haven’t studied enough, that the education he gave you will fall short, that you won’t be able to achieve your dreams and so on. He also has to deal with the fact that in two months his baby boy will be moving out and going to Varsity. He knows what happens at Varsity and he is panicking – a lot.

Then you add into the mix that not only are you sexually active, but also have been active enough to make a decision on your orientation. Now he is remembering the Catholic Church trials in the States and wondering if you’ve been abused. Then he remembers all the times you’ve had a mate crash over in his house and he’s feeling a little freaky. 

Let’s put this in perspective. I’m not gay, but back in the murky depths of time, I was young once too. It unfolded like this…

Age 17

My father: “I’m going to the pharmacy, do you need anything?”

My mother: “No, but pick up your daughter’s pill while you’re there.”

He went to the pharmacy and was appalled to given a box of birth control. He was convinced it was a mistake. It wasn’t. Still, better safe than sorry he thought. She’s is just being careful and is taking it for medical reasons totally unassociated with sex.

Age 20

My father and my boyfriend pass each other in the hallway emerging from different showers.

We could just have been cuddling. Right?

Age 21

“Dad, I’m moving in with my boyfriend.”

Okay, he reasoned, two bedrooms in the house, everything is still okay.

Age 23

“I’m getting married!”

Perhaps it won’t be consummated.

Age 25

“I’m having a baby!”

This was when the proverbial penny dropped with a thundering crash.

My father looked across at my husband and in the face of incontrovertible proof had to accept that I was sexually active.

I don’t think he has ever quite got over it.

You see, no matter you old you are or how grown up you feel, your Dad will always see you as the tiny newborn baby he held in his arms, the little boy he taught to ride a bike and as his son.

Okay, a Victoria Secret underwear model might have been an easier sell than the captain of the rugby team, but hey, he’ll get over the “gay” thing, just not over the “my son having sex” thing. Ever.

Whether gay or straight, flinging your sexuality in your parents’ faces can lead to disastrous consequences – in my case, my father threatened to move to Saudi Arabia and put me in a burka.

They don’t flaunt their sex life in front of you, so show some respect and conduct yours with a little bit of discretion.

And by that I do not mean in the backseat of your dad’s BMW.

Black Tuesday

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy

There are times when silence is a virtue. 

Like when your wife asks if her bum looks big in this.

There are times when secrets are best kept. 

Like if you are a fan of Justin Bieber.

This is not one of those times.

Today is Black Tuesday. 

Weirdly enough that was also the name of the day that marked the start of the Great Depression. Regardless, I look like a large dissatisfied black bat of gloom today.

However, this Tuesday is so named because on the 19th October 1977, the Apartheid government banned a number of publications, people and organisations involved with black consciousness. It became known as Black Wednesday.

Today the South African parliament will vote on the Protection of State Information Bill or as it more popularly known, the Secrecy Bill. If passed it will effectively muzzle the media and hobble any attempt to expose the cancer of fraud, embezzlement and corruption that is at the heart of our government.

No government should ever be in control of the media, although they all try because for obvious reasons it is a very powerful tool to placate the masses. Desmond Tutu summed it up very well by calling it an insult to all South Africans.

History repeats itself. I just was not expecting it to repeat itself so soon. During the time Nelson Mandela was in prison, not a single photograph of him existed in South Africa. The first time most of us saw him, was the day he walked out of prison. His face was regarded as a threat to state security.

What state secrets do we have that are so vital to security that we need to hide them? In all honesty if we were in a time of war, perhaps this bill might have legs to stand on, but it is built on decidedly shaky ground right now. 

The ANC published this peculiar diatribe on their website today: 

http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2011/at44.htm#art1

Apparently, the bill is intended to crack down those pesky international spies that plague us. 

What on earth are they spying on? 

Our total ineptitude? 

“The foreign spies continue to steal our sensitive information in order to advantage their nations at the expense of advancement of South Africa and her people. However, you won't find foreign spies openly marching in the streets of Cape Town complaining that we are removing their easy access to our sensitive information.”

I quite like the idea of spies marching down the road actually – a sort of James Bond meets Austin Powers convention.

I hasten to suggest we have more of a problem from Nigerian drug lords gunning down PTA moms in the street, but that might get me sent to jail for some 25 years.  

If it were really intended to protect terribly important state secrets, it might have some credibility. But it isn’t. 

It’s designed to protect corrupt little backstabbers so they can carry on lying to the voting population who they view in much the same way as I view the ruling party – as a bunch of total idiots. 

Shouldn’t politicians, municipalities, tenderpreneurs and so on be held accountable? 

After all, it is my money they are spending on their big BMWs and mansions in Saxonwold. If some bint takes her family and friends to buy blood diamonds in Angola and I have to foot the bill for her chartered jet, do I not have the right to be a little miffed?

Of course back in the day they only had to worry about carrier pigeons, TV, radio and print journalists. These days you’ve got social networking, blogs, the Internet and virtual smoke signals. 

No doubt the next step will be following our new BFFs the Chinese into an Internet crackdown. 

After that we’ll probably start burning books. 

 

Here's what Nelson Mandela had to say on the topic in 1994:

"Criticism can only help us to grow, by calling attention of those of our actions and omissions, which do not measure up to our people's expectations and the democratic values to which we subscribe." 

Hey! That’s my mug!

 
What happens when a newbie uses the director's coffee mug?
Answer: All hell breaks loose.

 
My friend, let's call him Bill for the purposes of this story, recently started a new job. Unaware of office etiquette surrounding personal mugs and in dire need of caffeine, he reached in to the cupboard and took the closest mug on offer. Unfortunately for him the mug turned out to belong to a senior director, let's call her Meg. Her fictional namesake is Meg the Hen from my son's reading books and it seems to fit the profile. Meg is a little OCD. This use of her mug was regarded as an assault upon her person and her office. To say she was livid it no exaggeration.

 
Bill is a man. Obviously, who knows any women called Bill? Anyway, Bill being a man could not fathom how anyone could possible over react so monstrously to the use of a piece of crockery, it was not as though he has started wearing her underwear after all. At most in this situation you would expect the conversation to go as follow:

 
"You are using my mug!"
"Oh, I am so sorry, I didn't realise, I won't do it again."
"Thank you, see that you don't."

 
And that would be the end of that.
Only in this case it wasn't.

 
Meg, decided to escalate her displeasure at the abuse of her mug by one of the great unwashed (aka anyone else). She laid an official complaint with the powers that be of theft, misuse of personal property and a variety of other charges stemming from some deep insecurity that no-one respects her. It appears her fears have some roots. Some of other charges included being humiliated, having her authority questioned and so on. Bill was called in to explain his actions.

 
"I didn't know it was her mug. It was my first day and I wanted some coffee. I said I was sorry."

 
Shortly after this Ted appeared on the scene. Bill and Ted form a partnership much like that of their movie namesakes. Meg took one look at Ted and burst into tears blithering on about a conspiracy against her. She and Ted have a "history". The relationship deteriorated further. Every day she laid another charge against the duo until it became more than a farce than at its inception.

 
Of course it was inevitable that Bill was going to strike back. This leads to an insight about the sexes. Women will rush in where angels fear to tread, whereas men prefer to strategise their assault. Bill began by making a cup of coffee in the mug each day and taking a picture of himself drinking from it. These make up quite a nice collage on his desk.

 
Then one bright and sunny morning Bill had had enough. He laid a charge of sexual harassment against Meg for stalking him, staring at his crotch and generally regarding him a sex object making him feel extremely uncomfortable. Now labour law takes these quite seriously and so Meg was called in to answer to these charges.

 
The following day while the office was gathered together in the cozy communal workspace, Bill left his zipper down. It didn't reveal anything untoward, but a nice pair of natty Calvin Kleins. It is a fact universally acknowledged that no-one can help but stare at a zipper that is down. Women particularly as they wonder how to inform the person that their zipper is down while remaining innocent of staring at the offending body part.

 
Bill waited until Meg's gaze was draw inexorably down, before exclaiming loudly to the office, "Look! This is what I mean. She's doing it again! She's staring at my crotch!" He followed up with a lovely metrosexual emotionally laden sniff and vacated the room. There was a moment of silence before laughter erupted led by the powers that be and a large round of applause.

 
The moral of the story is don't go running to your boss to solve your petty coffee mug squabbles and never ever underestimate office politics. Also, if you think people don't like you you're probably right. Get over it. No everyone has to like you. God knows you probably don't like everyone either.

Laughing through the tears

Sometimes laughter is the only option short of weeping hysterically.

If my better half had only listened to my words of wisdom he would've driven straight to Tara and checked me in . I'm sure the shuddering, oxygen depriving laughter would have been cause enough for a strait jacket and a menu of multi-coloured pharmaceuticals. Instead he did as better halves often do and ignored me completely.

The cause of this meltdown? On Friday afternoon Small boy aged 9 informed me that he was not going home with me but with his friend instead. I capitulated on the understanding that the mother would call me to confirm and send me the address.

Later on Friday afternoon we sat in gridlocked traffic and a torrential downpour on the way to Small girl aged 5's nativity play (in which she is the star of wonder, star of light). It was only as we pulled up to the school that we discovered the play was postponed due to the aforementioned torrential downpour.

Not to worry, because the school was on the way to the address provided by the school for Small boy aged 9's friend. I popped in the Garmap app on my BB and off we went. My husband regards the Garmap as a challenge and persists in ignoring the directions utterly in an attempt to prove it wrong. Eventually we pulled  up to a large block of flats somewhere in Bedfordview.

It was the wrong address. A Chinese family lived there, but not the right one.
I called the number also kindly provided by the school. It belonged to a nice Chinese gentleman, but not the right one.
I sat in catatonic silence.

"No worries!" chirped the father, like some Australian sheep farmer in the face of disaster. He called the aftercare administrator from the school who kindly provided another number. It was now dark and the rain was still pouring down.

It was the right number. The only thing is we lacked the necessary cultural skills to interpret the conversation. We seized on a single word, Redham, in much the same matter as a drowning man will seize a piece of driftwood in the  middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

And so we sat, in the dark, in the rain, with two cellular devices both which returned a "this application is not currently available" message. There are times when a good old fashioned book of maps beats high tech electronics hands down.

This about when the giggling started.

We found Redham. Now what? The other directions included something that sounded like "Sourpa".
"Look!" said my husband, "There's a complex called Sovereign Park. It must be that." I just giggled.

We drove up to the rather imposing front gate and were met by a large burly Afrikaans man. "Where are youse going?" he asked. I giggled in response.

Shooting a dirty look at me my husband explained we were looking for number 9, 19 or possible 90. "Ah," ejaculated the guard, "Chinese, ja?" At this point I was a goner. I laughed until tears ran down my face, until my stomach hurt, until I could hardly draw breath. Eventually, we found our missing child, who informed us he was staying until Sunday.

Halfway home, I had composed myself and turned to my husband to say, "Please tell me there is enough petrol in the car to get us home? If we ran out of gas now I think I will need medical intervention." Not to worry, I was told, there was plenty of petrol.

And then... THUNK! Thunkety, thunkety, thunk.

"What was that?" a startled husband asked.
"That," replied a mother on the brink of total breakdown, "Was the sound of a flat tyre."

And so it was. 

Homeless Babe of the Month

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, Homeless Babe of the Month doesn't sit right with me.

Admittedly, it works. I bought a Homeless Talk for the first time in years. The publication's positioning line is "Helping the poor help themselves". It is a very noble sentiment. 

I just can't see how getting homeless women to pose suggestively is helping them at all, except to open up a new and more lucrative sidewalk revenue stream then a cardboard sign and a rent-a-baby.

Parenting 101

Parenting 101

 

I’ve pushed three pink squirming babies into the world. It hurt like hell. I thought nothing could be worse. I was wrong.

Parenting is the most painful experience in the world and one that we are woefully under-prepared for. There’s a reason why psychologists all over the world have couches filled with people blaming their mothers for all their problems. That’s because we are to blame.

Parenting is like putting on a blindfold, been spun around hundred times and then made to (still blindfolded) walk across a tightrope below which yaws an endless abyss. If you pass that, you then have to traverse a million miles of eggshells without crushing a single one in 4-inch stilettos. 

If you manage that, you still have to get across a minefield, kill some dragons without singeing your hair or chipping a nail, make lunch, read a bedtime story, do long bloody division and find out what x equals and why.

Forget Navy Seals training. You want hard-core? Try being a mother.

The South African education system is a write-off. You can send your child to a government school and sentence him or her to a lifetime of semi-illiteracy, and a career path that peaks somewhere around nail technician, or you can send them to a private school in the hope that one day they will make enough money as the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company to put you up in a nice old-aged home.

We’d like to laud the success stories of the new South Africa, but when it some to education there aren’t any. Education is for the elite. It’s not racist anymore. It’s just about money. Either you have it or you don’t, and if you don’t you may as well bugger off. The private schools may be non-profit, but they are still businesses and the bottom line is that if your child is not making the grade, they have 70 others waiting for his place.

Alright, they didn’t say it quite like that, but it’s the overall feeling I got. My son is not making the grade.

Yesterday we went in for a group session. My head was pounding, my palms were sweaty and I wanted to be ill. Actually, the first thing I did when it was over was give thanks to my doctor and down half a Xanax. Teachers scare the living daylights out of me. They have ever since my Grade 2 teacher said she could turn into dragon and burn me to a cinder.

Small boy aged 7 lacks the foundation skills necessary for Grade 2. It sounds simple, but it isn’t, because they use buzzwords and phrases that mean nothing to me. Ask me about marketing strategies, social networking and ROI, and I’m your girl, but start using educational terms and you may as well be talking Greek. I know what phonological awareness is as a concept, but I have no idea what it actually means in reality. What is he supposed to be able to do that he can’t?

There were two distinct approaches to the intervention.

The school: Keep him back in Grade 1 for another year

The parents: Put him forward and help us build the skills he needs

Diametrically opposed points of view. Neither party vaguely resembled the bamboo of Eastern philosophy. Two hours of talking in circles later we got nowhere. 

I think we all need to bend a bit. I hate confrontation, so in sitting there in the headmistress’s office my anxiety gets the better of me. Sitting in his classroom, my son’s anxiety gets the better of him.

The thing is that what one person finds totally stress free can move another to tears. Supermarkets are not stressful for most people. For me, supermarkets are a full on nervous breakdown and end with me sobbing in the frozen food aisle. The lovely sunny library at school is a wonderful place for most of the boys, but is a place of terror for my son. His anxiety levels are hindering him from learning.

Perhaps it is time to make a list. Lists are good.

Staying back in Grade 1

Pros	Cons
·        More time to solidify his skills base ·        More time to mature emotionally and developmentally ·        Less stress with learning as he will have already done it ·        An environment he is already comfortable in ·        An easy solution	·        When the “switch” flicks he’ll get bored ·        Anxiety based on having his peers advance while he stays back ·        Future stigma attached to “failing” ·        Doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity ·        Should perhaps do this at a new school and the logistical implications at year end mean it is nigh impossible to find him a new school

Going to Grade 2

Pros	Cons
·        Remains with his social peer group ·        A new teacher and new environment may break his behaviour cycle ·        New skills might excite him ·        The “switch” flicking will motivate him to achieve	·        His lack of basic skills makes the gap widen more and more between him and his peers ·        His confidence fails more as he fails to achieve raising his anxiety levels more

I am sure there are others, but these are the basics.

What about the one thing we are all missing. My son. What does he want to do? He wants everyone around him to be happy to his own detriment. He’ll give me whatever answer he thinks I want to hear. The school psychologist is now going to take two play therapy sessions with him to find out where his head is at.

If he wants to go up a grade I’ll move heaven and earth to help him.

If he wants to stay back and re-enforce his skills, I’ll move heaven and earth to help him

I’m making a decision here that will impact the rest of his life.

There are consequences and risks whatever we choose to do. It is terrifying.

My husband has been scouring research reports. Something like 69% of American high-school drop-outs have been kept back a year at some point in their schooling. There is no quantifiable proof that keeping a child back helps his development and academic achievement in any way in the long term. Short-term there is a great improvement in marks, the next year they are average and the third year they are behind again. 

Where to from here?

All of us need to make what the Chinese call “concessions”

My ideal is this:

Let him go to Grade 2 for the first term.

If he copes fantastic first prize.

If he doesn’t we can move him in Term 2 and it gives us the time to find a school that can accommodate him.

Or we can move him down back to Grade 1.

We could let him stay in Grade 1 for the first term and if he exceeds expectations and the “switch” flicks he is moved to Grade 2 in the second term.

 

Either way, right now I don’t need a full scale IEP (independent curriculum). What I ask is that for the remainder of the term he gets a little less work in class than everyone else so he can complete the task without panicking about time.

The important thing I ask is the hardest to give. Put your pre-conceived notions about my child away. When he achieves something don’t say, “Well, will he remember them tomorrow?”

I love my son. However, I also know him better than just about anyone. He is the middle child. His siblings are louder, more extrovert and run roughshod over him. How does he get attention? He opens those big blue eyes and plays the helpless one. Everyone rushes to comfort him.

He is manipulating the classroom environment to get the most attention possible and it is working.

Why should he read the question when the teacher will read it for him?

Why should he do the work, when the teacher will give him the right answer?

He doesn’t need to be babied. He needs direction, limits and boundaries. I don’t let him away with emotional manipulation at home, so don’t let him do it at school. Be firm. Be strict. Be understanding of his challenges, but empower him to find the answers, don’t give them to him. Praise his successes so he knows that is where he’ll get attention. Right now he gets more attention for his failures than his successes. That’s backwards.

 

He has a mother. Me. I am not a teacher.

He has a teacher. You. You are not his mother.

We are a team, but we have different roles and responsibilities.

Don’t let him play symphonies on your heartstrings.

He’s a veritable Mozart when it comes to that.

Somebody to love

I am a theatrical philistine. My beloved mother has branded me such and I own it with pride. My name is Victoria and I am a theatrical philistine.

I wasn’t always so. It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that my Cro-Magnon attitude was discovered at a performance of Somebody to Love – a dance tribute to the music of Queen. The write-up is quite glowing. Either the writer knows the group personally or is tone deaf and blind.

I believe that all art, theatre and so on should be accessible across social barriers, language and time - like Shakespeare. 

Interpretative modern dance is the antipathy of accessible.  

It’s like rectal-realism in art. It serves no purpose but to befuddle the brain, shock the sensibilities and steal valuable seconds of a diminishing life span.

 

The soprano opera singer screeched like a Valkyrie, rendering Freddie’s beloved tunes into something quite unrecognisable. She was also quite the most terrifying person on stage. A young man and another female singer made up for not quite reaching the notes by singing them so loudly the luminescent chandelier almost shattered.

I quite like Queen. I find old Freddie quite upbeat and fun to sing along to. Somehow this lot managed to choose the most utterly depressing selection of tunes ever to come out of that Mercurial genius. If I hadn’t been laughing so hard, I might have slit my throat in misery.

The curtain went up and a group of dancers in tighty whities and nighties pranced on stage. The men were tiny little boy-child types – hairless and as camp as Freddie – camper actually – Freddie had some uber-masculine campness these chaps lacked.

The women ranged from a six-foot black Amazon version of Angelina Jolie to a tiny little mini person about 4 feet high. She tore a tendon or something at the end of the first number limped off-stage and we never saw her again.

I watched the first song in bemused wonder. The second in silent disbelief. My entry into the philistine hall of fame came in number three. On the stage was a teeny tiny little sofa. A man and a woman (who towered over him) simulated sex on the sofa until the woman stalked off stage left.

At this point I muttered to my mother that if someone tried to have their way with me on a sofa that small, I’d leave too. Also if the person concerned was more interested in the opposite sex, it might have the same result. Around here I my suspension of disbelief evaporated into a fit of giggles.

As “Somebody to love” began a skinny little chap minced around waving a red rose while another cavorted with a female dancer unconvincingly. I was managing to stifle the giggles until I saw the shaking shoulders of the woman in front me. That was it. I was gone.

The laughter bubbled up like a shaken bottle of Moet Chandon and erupted like Vesuvius. This set off the man behind me and the man behind him until most of the audience was shuddering and weeping along with me. Thank God I wasn’t wearing mascara or I would have walked out looking like a panda.

I think my favourite was “I want it all”. I’ve always liked that song as a sort of upbeat anthem for the youth. I had not seen it as a gay orgy. I do now and no matter what, every time I hear that song I am now going to collapse in hysterical laughter.

A close runner up was the domestic violence scene where a scarily tall woman beat the living daylights out of a cowering little man in his boxers.

I almost forgot the gay sex scenes that probably made more sense than any other part of the performance. However watching these terrible earnest young men dry hump each other on the floor was not remotely erotic.

The dancers were obviously very fit with great classical experience. They were just ill-fitted to each other and no matter how hard they tried, they only managed to make the choreography seem even more peculiar.

The women all danced with massive aggressive male gestures while the men minced around looking even more effeminate than Perez Hilton. Periodically they would make these strange “Let your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages” gestures while flinging themselves prostate on the floor.

When the lights came up, my mother’s theatre group turned to me and asked me what I thought. Did I find it brilliant? Inspiring? 

I looked desperately at my mother for guidance knowing I couldn’t lie or she’d start to laugh. I settled for, “It was very entertaining.” I don’t think they’ll be inviting me along again soon.

It was up there with the last interpretative modern dance fiasco I saw, which I thought was about pond life, but turned out to be about gargoyles on French cathedrals.

I shall never hear Freddy’s great music in the same way again and to quote my friend to whom I relayed the experience, “Ah well, that’s two hours of your life you won’t get back.”

Amen.

PS: I am looking forward to seeing the Nutcracker on Ice – at least I know the story.