Shitty attitudes to women

I’ve been talking with people more about the Matt Johns thing and I think I need to revisit my earlier comments of feeling sorry for him. Ultimately it comes down to society judging “was it rape or not” and we have no information to do that. It appears, however, that the woman in question reported rape to the police within a week after the event and was hushed up…there are some other curious things that suggest that all is not ok in the land of Johns and friends. And given the culture, this probably is of no surprise.
I STILL feel really bad for his wife and kids. I think that’s horrible. I also think Australia really needs to slap the sports culture hard – and not only that – but the general way men view and treat women in this country. SORRY but it’s true. Australia really is a dire hole for women. Tosspots are still driving around with crude and lewd bumper stickers on their utes that do nothing but treat women like cattle (maybe worse) and this is just one tiny highlighter to the culture that is in this country. As a young woman it’s a relief to walk around with a baby because the general idiots don’t offer me crass comments anymore . But I still get it on a different scale in other ways…like when I was ministering in a congregation and a dipshit suggested I wear a bikini leading worship because it would attract more church goers. How is that okay to say?
So the woman maybe took 2 guys into her room. And maybe 6 or 8 more showed up because “what goes on tour stays on tour”. She’s attempted suicide a number of times since then  and those guys can’t even come out in the media and say who they were…the silence makes them more guilty now I think.

I heard recently about a woman’s 15 y/o son telling her of parties where the girls are drunk and some of the boys try to drag them off while they are “out of it”. Other boys step in mostly he says. And all matter of factly, because he’s seen it a number of times. How is THIS ok?

I don’t know. I’m ranting really – I grew up in a family where men respect women so this stuff all still shocks me. I just wish I knew how this country might grow a culture of mutual respect – because I don’t know that I want any daughters of mine growing up in any cities here.

Breastfeeding

I need to mark the moment that  almost 17 months of breastfeeding has come to an end in this house and I’ve been quite sad about it

Hmm had a good cartoon here but realised it’s illegal and so now it’s not sorry! Cartoonstock has a cartoon of two men sitting on couches drinking from milk bottles saying “I hate change too…”

Things really do change so fast…

I think I’m changing

Well really I am so challenged I don’t know where to begin.  Dave gave me the gift of time off for a lovely bath with my book tonight, after him being away for a couple of days! So of course, I take “Unconditional Parenting” with me and now am plagued both with inspiration and and uncomfortable sense that I can do and should do and want to do better.

Firstly, Kohn talks about food which interests me. He speaks of many studies (all his work is grounded in one study or another!) that have shown that the more a parent exhibits controlling behaviour re a child’s food, the less the child will grow to have any self regulation when it comes to calorie intake. Now, I have heard this from a personal experience of a friend of mine before. But here it is. When a parent forces a child to eat because it’s meal time (even if they’re not hungry) or forces them to wait for meal time (even when they are) or uses food as rewards, the children stop trusting their own bodies’ cues and dare I say it, often ended up with weight problems. Interesting!

Secondly, Punishment. There’s no way around it other than to simply state “I am wanting you to suffer so that you learn what I have to teach you”. Does that make any sense? No. We know our jail system doesn’t work. Punishment serves no purpose but to say to a child “I only love you when you act like this…and when you don’t, I don’t love you”. And warning them in advance does not make it any better. It just communicates a message of distrust: “I don’t think you’ll do the right thing without the fear of punishment” (back to Alfie’s original point a few posts ago, of the nature of children being GOOD not bad). If we are truly interested in TEACHING our children, we will take them aside and teach them with love rather than control. Be in control, but not controlling.

Thirdly – time out. Kohn says time out is nothing but an emotional punishment rather than a physical one and still speaks the same thing to children.  Try this:

“Those giants who hold me and rock me and feed me and kiss away my tears sometimes go out of their way to take things away that I like, or make me feel unworthy, or hit me on the backside. They tell me they’re acting this way because of something or other that I did but all I know is now I’m not sure I can trust them or feel completely safe with them. I’d be pretty stupid to admit to them that I’m angry, or that I did something bad, because I’ve learned that I might be given a time-out or talked to in a voice that has all the love drained out of it or even smacked. I’d better keep my distance” (p 69)

i’m getting increasingly nervous about myself. Not from this book – probably I was this way already which is why I went on the hunt for some ‘zen’ from Buddhism for mothers. But there certainly is a reactiveness in me that again I realise, I don’t want as part of my parenting. There is also a judgement in me that I don’t want as part of any relationships. I easily can withold the love that Kohn talks about to convey distance to other people – and what I hadn’t realised is it is another method of controlling other people. Or attempting to!

The un-condition. Unconditional love. It’s going to change me. It already is, I’m just not yet sure how it will play out…

Hmph

Alright, so I WOULD like to know how to get a little party boy to bed without damaging the chance of him having a balanced life.

What goes on in our backyard

Our border collie is still in love…

and Kaden, well,

…is it love? Or…is he hungry do you think…?

“Unconditional”

What an odd word. One of the things in the church that I find weird is the way the BULK of the church (i.e. everyone bar the minister) is called “LAY” and therefore defined by what they are not: Lay people = NOT ordained. It’s odd. Why aren’t the ministers defined as the “Un-lay” or the “Not lay” or the “other”.

Unconditional strikes me as a bit the same. Alfie Kohn talks about conditional parenting as witholding love – i.e. with time out and the like, it is actually punishment via withdrawal of parental love. This is part of conditional parenting – the children experience it as “I love you when you are good/do what I say/conform” or “I don’t love you/give cuddles/share affection when you don’t do what I say is right”.

Un-conditional therefore, is not that. But it’s not the way I would ever define “unconditional” although “without conditions” is true. Unconditional is always, ever present, unswerving (for another “un” word), complete, categorical. Unconditional parenting is parenting that parents consistently with love…even through mischeif .

In one of my uni books I read that we are supposed to have “unconditional positive regard” for clients and at the time I thought it was a load of rubbish – who can possibly attest to that? Jesus?

Clearly I don’t like people enough and if I found a family consistently abusing a small child it would be difficult to have unconditional positive regard for them. But…Alfie Kohn’s talk always makes me think theologically (though he doesn’t talk theologically) -

Unconditional parenting is based on the fundamental goodness of humans and the basic law of love. It’s probably why I relate to him so much. This must be the same for professional approaches. Hard, for sure – but aren’t we asked to show love to all people? Unconditional positive regard? Clearly I bomb out with that at times but it’s all making sense now and hearing it from 3 different angles of my life (faith, parenting, profession) makes me think I need to keep it in the front of my mind and practice practice practice as Buddhism says…

Autumn

This place is particularly beautiful…

So, the great book…

Here’s a great book for those parenting older kids – or youth working – or anything to do with children, or infact humanity actually! UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING by Alfie Kohn. Now, be warned – it’s pretty challenging to all that we do and all that we are in Western Society but hey, that’s what i LOVE about it. I couldn’t even get through the introduction without underlining half of it!

Let me give you a slight taste…

In a nutshell, Alfie Kohn works basically with education in the US (not parenting) helping to get OUT of the mode of ‘control’ and INto the mode of respect, understanding, relationships with kids. As you may have seen in a prior post of mine, Kohn is very much against traditional use of rewards and punishments – punishments, because they are pointless and serve to do nothing but isolate and victimise children rather than address the issues at hand, and rewards, because they are nothing but a means of control and teach children not to be nice because it’s nice to be nice, but to be nice because mummy will give me a biscuit. Studies have shown that in fact, rewards and praise like this, REDUCE the occurence of such “nice” behaviours rather than increase them…mainly because children do it to please you rather than do it because it’s the right thing.

One of the biggest things about Kohn is that he says to make sure you ask yourself whether what YOU are doing with children (in work or home life) is consistent with what you really want. Is the way you are responding teaching/growing your child into whom you want them to be long term? Or…is it a quick fix/reactive thing in the moment? If you child is being rude to you/throwing a wobbly in the supermarket, will what you say to him/her contribute in some small way to him/her becoming a happy, independent and balanced person? Or are you maybe handling the situation in a way that will make that less likely?

So many of us just react with kids. Look at the church with teenagers – we’re totally hopeless. We want to control control control and offer very little back. We don’t nurture their creativity or independence, we just try to keep a lid on it which actually is not serving to grow them into who we would like them to be as adults. I’m sure parents who use Controlled Crying and the like want the best for their kids long term too, but don’t realise the long term impact of what they may be teaching their kids in that short-term-sleep-solution of the moment. Lesson 1: Look long term.

It doesn’t have to be all bad that your children may be rude at times. In fact, I’d rather one that spoke their mind (and as an adult can look after themselves!) than one who I had turned into a “yes sir” person. Whilst that “looks” good in children, it does not serve as much benefit for the rest of their lives. Take this example:

“From the time he was young, he dressed the way you told him to dress; he acted the way you told him to act; he said the things you told him to say. He’s been  listening to somebody else tell him what to do…He hasn’t changed. He is still listening to somebody else tell him what to do. The problem is, it isn’t you anymore; it’s his peers” (p 7)

I’ve learnt something in my short time of reading this book – it’s an understanding of who we are theologically – as people. Part of why this parenting philosophy is so important to me is because theologically speaking, I believe all people are inherently good with a capacity for bad. Kohn’s philosophy trusts children to be good BECAUSE THEY ARE, and addresses the incidents that need to be addressed. This is at odds with the general response of assuming that kids are bad or manipulative or able to take advantage of every situation so as to cause trouble. It’s just not so. Believe the good in people and you will see it!

Finland

Well…first of all, noting that I know little-to-nothing about Finland, what I have heard recently wonders why Australia coins itself  “the lucky country” and not Finland. I want to live there.

Recently I heard that nutrition and parenting is such an important part of Finnish culture and understandings of child-hmmm….- “issues” for want of a better word, that when a child mucks up at school, rather than jumping into punitive responses, the school contacts the parents with questions such as “what did your child have to eat yesterday?” and “Did your child get to bed in time for a good night’s sleep?”.

Ha! I love it.

The other thing I heard is that the Finnish people are taxed 55% which sounds extraordinarily high – except that what they get in return is a fully functioning society. Transport, education, health care…you name it. It works.

So these are good rumours…now I’m going to investigate Finnland before we move there Because it turns out, they’re looking for skilled foreigners to move on in!

(PS Unfortunately for you blog readers (or fortunately, if you’re into my parenting/youth/children ravings) I am reading yet another FANTASTIC book. This one is by Alfie Kohn, so stand by – I’m so enthused, he’s reorienting not only my parenting life but also my general understandings about humanity and how I relate altogether! It’s so simple, I can’t believe I had to read his book to finally “get it”! Maybe tomorrow…)

Life changes…

Life can change remarkably quickly can’t it.  Single people suddenly find love, married people suddenly find themselves single…not to mention trauma, death, world recessions and wars and…

Not sure why I’m feeling so philosophical this morning.

I’ve been interested in the story of Matt Johns. Obviously I don’t condone the general group-sex-cheating-on-his-wife factor but I feel sorry for him. This is something that happened seven years ago, it was looked into legally back then and he was found to not be at any legal fault, his wife got over it…and here they are, in the midst of international scandal over it because the chick decided to do media interviews and land him in the crap again after all this time. I feel for his wife and his kids. They would be copping it in the school yard, and who wants to have the conversation about “Daddy had group sex” with their kids?

*sigh* The media in this country is just appalling.

Onto other life changes…I applied for a job and booked Kaden 2 mornings a week into child care in the same week (although not in that order). It seemed so perfect at the time, and yet…though I haven’t heard back yet about the job, I don’t sense that it is mine and Kaden is hating the separation at child care. It’s been a tough transition.
So…I’m not leaving him there screaming for hours so we’re just going to have to go very slowly with him. If I need to visit with him every day until he feels safe there I will… it’s just not as straight forward as I thought it might be.
Neither is the job factor. Somehow I left the interview feeling remarkably young and inexperienced despite the fact that I am at an age many professionals are (in other fields!) and I have reasonable experience and extensive training.
HOW is it that the church has taught me that I am less valuable until I am of the age of having grown up children? Dave is pretty sure it is church-instilled. We are often looked at with the raised eyebrows and told “Gee you’re young” rather than “Excellent! We’re so glad to have a vibrant young person here”.

I’m musing on this today.