Day in the Life of a Sydney Stay at Home Mum

Even in winter we're at the beach

OK, so while I wait for the Institute of Teachers to approve my teacher status, I am wiling away the hours at home with my little one. It's a sweet reminder of what the first year of her life was like, and now that she's just turned two, a hell of a lot more fun. It's also a welcome reprieve from what was a hellish year of huge challenges and changes as I trained as a teacher. I am now done! And I have a long hot happy summer stretched out before me.

Peppermint Vagina

Cup of tea anyone? How would you like it served? In your vagina?

I don’t think I’ve ever Googled something so much or worried about my vagina so much as when I suffered a Bartholin cyst, a mysterious little, or big, swelling on the Bartholin glands. 

Overnight I became an expert on these little glands on both sides of my vagina.

Several weeks later I woke up in a pool of my own blood with a sore vagina after an operation on my infected cyst called marsupialisation.

I experienced a lot of pain and annoyance from this episode, as you'd expect from gynecological surgery, alleviated only mildly by a box of oxycontin from my doctor mum (thanks to my gyne for the box of Panadeine Forte but I think I'll take Endone instead.) The bottom line though, is a cure I want to share that I inadvertently discovered. 

Teabags.

Four months after the operation, I was still experiencing pain and regular eruptions of inflamed glands, probably due to the stress of work and study while parenting. They completely stopped and healed almost magically after I applied a hot, wet, plain old teabag.

Another several hours on Google bought up scores of cures, and this was first on my list, just before turmeric paste and milk soaked bread. It actually worked. I placed three teabags over a day inside the vagina, and by the next day the infected cysts had ejected the gunk inside and were soothed and normal looking. I couldn't believe it. This apparently also works for boils. If I had a boil I would apply disinfectant and boiling water, but I tired of doing this on my poor vagina. I'm so glad to have found a very easy and accessible cure.

So any of my readers who may suffer from blocked Bartholin's cysts - about 2-5 per cent of women - please do try teabags. Lady Grey is my natural choice, with high notes of bergamot and citrus, but ginger and lemon worked well as well. Just don’t add milk and honey.

Fifty Shades of Nothing

Where's a real bondage queen when you need one?

Besides the silliness of the plot and the shocking writing, this bestselling book is doing a great disservice to authentic BDSM communities, to bona fide Christians who would hate to meet someone like Ana, and to writers who can actually write erotica without resorting to cliche.

Why even bother? But yes I have to admit that before I slag it off, I have yet to read the most discarded book on earth. I will go to a hotel room to find a copy this week.

My daughter's child care worker has the full Anastasia meets Christian - (and-bites-her-lip-and-crosses-her-legs- and-wonders-if-her-hymen-may-tear-from-too-much-masturbation) set in her front room bookshelf and declared it the best thing she ever read. I think it may be the only thing she's ever read but that's not very nice of me to say.

Until I borrow it from her, the loveliest lady from a small village in Croatia, I am happy to make do with the slather of hilarious reviews on the book from amazon ("Did a teenager write this? 16,691 of 17,270 people found this helful"!! ha ha), and my favourite part of The Guardian, their digested read section. It really does save a lot of time and I do honestly doubt, from what I can surmise thus far, that I will be capable of reading more than a few pages before I toss the offensive item to the dust.

But who knows? Judgement shall be reserved as I do have a chequered literary past including, truth be told, trysts with Virginia Andrews, Marianna Keyes, The Sweet Valley High and Babysitters Club and other light chick lit. I may yet fall for some steamy clit lit, who knows? I'll keep you posted.

And the Zoe Williams of the Guardian, thank you:

That's what the pornographic slavering was about – not sex, but diamond bracelets, jet skis, hosiery, purest silks, smart day-to-night dresses, Power Macs and 19-bedroomed houses with glass walls. In the orgy of self-adornment that was meant to characterise her sexual discovery, along with the torrent of outlandish gift-giving that supposedly betokened the adoration in which she was held, Steele fixated on the stuff. Her only moral quandary was whether or not it made her a whore, or a "kept-woman", to accept an expensive gift. What a tangential, trivial consideration, set against the travesty of letting your sex drive be all but erased by your consumer impulses.

ps: Couldn't resist tearing a chuck off amazon for your amusement if you don't go to the link:

The main male character is a billionaire (not a millionaire but a billionaire) who speaks fluent French, is basically a concert level pianist, is a fully trained pilot, is athletic, drop dead gorgeous, tall, built perfectly with an enormous penis, and the best lover on the planet. In addition, he's not only self made but is using his money to combat world hunger. Oh yeah, and all of this at the ripe old age of 26! And on top of that, he's never working. Every second is spent having sex or texting and emailing the female character. His billions seem to have just come about by magic. It seriously feels like 2 teenage girls got together and decided to create their "dream man" and came up with Christian Grey.

Then come the sex scenes. The first one is tolerable but as she goes on, they become so unbelievable that it becomes more laughable than erotic. She orgasms at the drop of a hat. He says her name and she orgasms. He simply touches her and she orgasms. It seems that she's climaxing on every page.

Then there's the writing.

characters roll their eyes 41 times, Ana bites her lip 35 times, Christian's lips "quirk up" 16 times, Christian "cocks his head to one side" 17 times, characters "purse" their lips 15 times, and characters raise their eyebrows a whopping 50 times. Add to that 80 references to Ana's anthropomorphic "subconscious" (which also rolls its eyes and purses its lips, by the way), 58 references to Ana's "inner goddess," and 92 repetitions of Ana saying some form of "oh crap" 

the entire first-person narrative is filled with Britishisms. How many American college students do you know who talk about "prams," "ringing" someone on the phone, or choosing a "smart rucksack" to take "on holiday"? And the author's geography sounds like she put together a jigsaw puzzle of the Pacific Northwest while drunk and ended up with several pieces in the wrong place.

an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences "intense," "body-shattering," "delicious," "violent," "all-consuming," "turbulent," "agonizing" and "exhausting" orgasms on just about every page.

I am no literature snob. However, this book feels like it us on a 5th grade level made to seem better with a thesaurus. It's repetitive and just plain bad.

Next, the non-existent plot. Seriously, nothing happens. They meet, they have sex, they email each other, the have more sex, the bite lips, they have more sex, the end. Just plain boring.

Last, bad sex. "Down There?" are you kidding me? It's called a vagina. Grow up. This book most likely intrigues bored housewives and hormonal teenagers. If the author was aiming to give that demographic the tingles she most likely succeeded. However, a book that it 70% sex should at least be good sex.

While I was out...

Leopard print for the boy!!!!!!!

So I haven't posted anything for about two fat months but they have not been slow lazy sun and sex fuelled months, believe me.

While I was finishing the practicum placement of my teaching degree in Sydney, which involves me teaching four grades of pimply but rather hilarious teenagers for 80 days full time, ten hours weekly commute, $500pw in childcare and fuel bills, no income, student fees and tiresome hard to communicate with lecturers...the media simply did not let up on mothers and mothers kept on bitching about other mothers!

I felt exhausted just thinking of all the problems mothers are responsible for, including that my daughter turned up to childcare wearing wispy Balinese sundresses in the middle of winter because my husband said she wanted it, and that Sue on Puberty Blues had developed a drinking problem and a nasty habit of teenage sex.

The media was busily keeping tabs on the mothers of the world while I was swotting away. August and September saw Jessica Simpson pilloried for not shedding her baby weight in under six months, Kendra defend her by saying she was focused on her baby and couldn't run due to her large tits anyway, some unfamous British personal trainer given a tongue lashing for telling new mums to get a grip and stop getting so fat, and my favourite Kardashian, Khloe, start fertility treatment. Snooki also happily birthed a baby boy and showed him off in a bassinet replete with leopard print blankets. Awww...a must have for every guido baby.

The shock event of the month was when X grade celebrity Charlotte Dawson tried unsuccessfully to top herself after being urged to do so by several 4chan members on Twitter. I mean, this is someone who makes a living being nasty to vulnerable people, which may explain her fragility of self. A feature quite apparent in her shaky psych ward 60 Minutes interview. If 4chan told me to put my head in an oven I'd chide them for putting me in the same literary league as Sylvia Plath.

And even while I was up to my teeth in lesson plans on medieval Europe, Mussolini, women's lib and federation Australia, I still had time to start yet another novel, this time a fan fiction inspired by yet another sex fuelled debut novel, book several flights, organise my daughter's 2nd birthday party (that's an overstatement as there's nothing to organise, just a box of booze, some fairy bread and turn up at Sydney's Palm Beach next week) and read several interesting books to undermine my cultural values including Sex at Dawn, The Sex Starved Marriage, and Mating in Captivity. Darned good reads I will review shortly.

I have nothing of value to add at this late hour in the day. I think the media sums it up best by saying to mums: "if you can't cope with your kids, why did you have them in the first place? YOU made the lifestyle choice, YOU deal with it!!"

On that note, remind me to write something soon on private school mothers, and on darling Khloe and her imminent baby with Lamar, what a treat that child will be, and so dearly awaited.

Don't Blame Mum

The last dress she ever wore

Another baby has died at the hands of her mother, the very person who is supposed to champion her rights above all else.

Why this keeps happening is anyone's guess, but it is an enduring feature of humankind, and our friends in the animal kingdom, that babies die, sometimes often, and often at the hands of their mum or dad.

The biggest cause in modern Australia is depression. The self loathing some mothers feel when they 'fail' to breastfeed or settle their babies is all consuming. The effects of sleep deprivation, a popular and very successful torture technique, combined with clinical depression can be toxic. I do not want to demonise mothers with depression or even try to imagine the horrific combination of factors that could push you over the edge.

What I want to do is mourn the loss of this little child's life, just a baby girl starting her life. Eighteen months is the most adorable age, when grandmothers come up to your little one in the street and say My Goodness, I just wish they'd stay like this forever! Their eyes sparkle with mischief, their little cheeks dimple and their fat rolls are irresistible as they skip ahead of you, tiny versions of their future selves.

This little eighteen month old was deliberately left by her mother to drown in the one place most toddlers adore, the bath. The image of her scrabbling for air, trying to get out, screaming and finally choking in the bathwater is deeply upsetting. She died alone in her own home. After her death, her little body was dressed in a christening gown and she lay next to her suicidal mother for two days before someone found them, or missed them.

It is this image that speaks to the core of what I am constantly concerned about: the isolation of mothers in our harried society and its lack of support for new mums. If they feel like there aren't a lot of options out there, it's because there honestly isn't.

Baby health centres, playgroups, local libraries, modern hospitals and highly regulated childcare centres are wonderful but many of them could be more accessible to mothers. For my baby's first six weeks, for example, I couldn't walk or drive to the shops so couldn't access my baby health nurse. She was also solidly booked weeks in advance. So I didn't find out my baby was losing weight steadily for two months until she ended up in emergency. Some of the reason she lost weight was my low milk supply, something I wasn't given information about because I did not have any lactation support. The complex list goes on.

Our one playgroup is 30 minutes away. There are no support groups, meals or anything to help a new mum without mobility, unlike the elderly. A lot of what is on offer is expensive. And many in our generation can forget about grandparents: our parents tend to be more interested in their next promotion or trip to Europe than their new grandchild.

It's not just lack of governmental and civic support for mums, it's also our cultural expectations on mums and our opinion that bearing children is a lifestyle choice, like being gay (ha ha ha), choosing solar or driving a BMW. We don't berate car accident victims that they shouldn't have bought a car. We don't even tell lung cancer victims they shouldn't have smoked, or diabetes sufferers they should lay off the sweets. So why we tell mothers they shouldn't have chosen to have children when they hit a rough patch is beyond me.

I think it's the old Women are to Blame acorn. Blame the ladies for men's collective inability to retain self control. Blame the rape victim's dress for the crime. Blame the mother who kills her baby for her isolation and untreated depression. "You chose to have kids, didn't you?" is the one thing most mothers really do not want to hear when they are in trouble.

Not to mention the glaring fact that about half of all babies are unplanned (for more, see contraception failure or heterosexual couples having spontaneous sex) so were not actually conscious decisions or choices. And of the babies that were planned, not all of their parents carefully planned on having a child with autism, with projectile vomiting that lasts for 3 months, who screams ten hours straight every day. No. Not many parents happily make a choice to sign up for that! It's a miracle more babies actually survive babyhood considering the raft of pressures on their new parents, and a glowing reflection on the stamina of parents that more are not relinquished to state care. 

So let's think carefully on what we're expecting of new parents and consider how we might as a society offer more support and relief to new parents and activities for young children.

Sex at Dawn in Australia

The myth of monogamy?
Try the myth of primary care!

Apologies to anyone who thought this post would be about pre-coffee coitus. It actually touches on the brilliant bestselling book Sex at Dawn which puts to rest once and for all the myth of monogamy, and how this premise fits in with the Australian cultural context...and its denigration of mothers who work.

So let us define our Australian cultural context. We have an increasingly matriarchal society, where women and men enjoy sex freely from puberty. Serial monogamy is still the standard, contrary to what Sex at Dawn explains is against our nature, but we have quite a few features of a matriarchal society.

Many individuals of both genders are free to pursue multiple partners without fear of legal consequences or social censure. When a couple, hetero or homo sexual, decide to live together they often move to the female's home. And women in Australia are generally strong, bossy and all too quick to put in their $6 worth. Most husbands in Australia will agree their wife has the final say.

Sexual jealousy and male aggression similar to chimp societies are, however, so much a key feature of Australian culture that is would be folly to suggest Australians are becoming matriarchal. An examination of these aspects as well as our sordid recent past of female convicts, institutionalised rape and floating brothels, and our current reality of unfavourable rights for working women, expensive childcare and the persistent gender pay gap will render any claim to matriarchy null and void. Australia is far too diverse to impose one social context, so what I am really referring to is modern Sydney.

Here we see women flaunting their sexuality with abandon, free to pursue as many sexual trysts as desired. Just watch The Shire, visit a beach or peep into a nightclub and you'll see women of every age and persuasion available for free. And happy about it.

I would go as far to suggest that the myth of monogamy can be held up to another biting parallel: the myth of the primary caregiver. Women are forced to read study after study showing that children under three thrive under the care of only one primary caregiver. Try telling that to the billion of infants who thrived in the village!

The idea of being a primary caregiver, while flattering, is simply outdated. So How Not to F--k Them Up and all those other books can go back to their studies and start looking at incorporating some of the multiple realities of post modernism, one being that a father or mother may easily hand the baby over to a close relative or paid mercenary (this is my only option, thank you to my government subsidised day carer) and baby will NOT SUFFER.

Not only is this true, but this is how almost every generation have been raised: not by one person, typically an isolated female living in the burbs, but by a collective.We have plenty of modern, successful examples of happy infants in kindergarten and childcare in Scandinavia, in addition to millennia of farming and pre-agricultural gatherer communities raising children together, to prove that infants don't suffer if mummy works.

So let's just admit child rearing is about multiplicities and stop making rude comments (to me) at the shops or writing mean spirited newspaper articles that unless I stay home with my infant she will end up disabled. She's doing great and if she were to contract permanent emotional damage, it will be due to my emotional blackmail of her as a teenager, not her happy early days with her carer in the garden because mummy was working.

Ban The Burqua? Part 1

Friendly faces

After laughing my way through a new documentary “Dumb, Drunk andRacist” on what Indians really think about Australians (a topic for another day), I had to think.

Who really cares about the burqua, besides that slightly confused middle aged gentleman driving his “Ban The Burqua” van?

In just one week I have seen several hours of Australian TV dedicated to the issue of the burqua, including Channel 7’s “Sunday Night” current affairs program. I don’t know how they found these women. Muslims make up four per cent of Australians, and anyone wearing the burqua is far less than half of all women - in other words, well under one per cent of Australians.

I personally do not give a toss if someone wants to wear nothing at all, or a tablecloth on their head. Certain times in your life you feel vulnerable. When I was a teenager I was covered in acne scars so I wore a tea towel over my head. Or before major facial recontruction surgery, you might want to cover up.

Who cares, does the face really matter so much? The answer no, not if you don’t want to show it.

The burqua is not a security issue. If you need to show your face like everyone else to police or border control, show your face. This means removing your glasses, hoodie, helmet, scarves or balaclavas. If you don’t want to, don’t leave your house.

The only instance I could see myself caring about a burqua would be if I sent my child to school and her teacher wore a full face cover - I would wonder at my daughter’s language development given that forward facing prams and the poor Mr McLaren are being blamed for a plunge in language skills internationally! 

I do think kids of women who cover their face would suffer language impediments, although to be fair they see their mum at home uncovered so they must actually think, what is wrong with my mum's face that she covers it in public? I wonder really what their kids think. They probably don’t give it a passing thought, as long as dinner's on the table, the Nintendo console is loaded up and someone’s tucking them into bed.

There are clearly workplace policies and certain occupations that require a definite clear stance on the burqua. This is what the law defines as a “genuine occupational requirement”. I would suggest burquas are impractical for occupations where the face needs to be seen and where a huge cloth and lack of peripheral vision might cause a safety issues, such as teachers and some medical positions and trades.

To Be continued...

Ban the Burqua Part II: You Are Not The Poster Girl for Liberation

How liberated - not!

To be honest, I am yet to meet a burqua-wearing Australian, let alone a burqua-wearing Australian who actually works. All the Muslim women on TV are busy raising five children and really only wear their cloth when in public, to go to Woollies or a prenatal check-up.

What does irritate me is the way Muslim women try to portray wearing the burqua as liberating. While I can totally understand this, and agree not being a slave to fashion or other people’s perceptions could be a fresh way to live your life, I cannot stomach their trying to position the burqua in PR terms somewhere between drinking Coke and skimpy underwear, or as something a young modern woman is happy to partake in. 

If you want to walk around partially or fully covered, go ahead, but you are not a poster girl for female liberation. Tampons, education and the internet have given women a hell of a lot more freedom than a huge unwieldy sheet worn over the head. Showing just your eyes. No face equals no identity in Australia. 
I don’t care if you drive and wear a burqua. You are not free.

I don’t even care about why you wear a burqua. Don’t espouse the virtues of the burqua. Your religious dedication is shown by your actions, your community service, volunteer and charitable works, and by how you care for others, not by your choice of dress. Every time our neighbour and the largest Muslim state in the world Indonesia suffers an earthquake, I do not see a whole lot of Muslim aid pouring in. The Red Cross is far more involved than the Red Crescent. So maybe Muslims should try to focus on charity work rather than obsessing over what they wear.

By wearing a burqua you are also by default suggesting men are attracted to you. They are not. If you take your burqua off and walk around Lakemba Woollies in your tracksuit with your muffin top and five kids I promise you, not one man will look lasciviously at you. You’ve had five kids. I’m sorry, you may be a good mother, but you are not sexy.

Last time I walked around with just a scarf on my head, which I do in winter or when visiting Muslim regions, I didn’t suddenly feel liberated. Just a bit itchy. And last time I waled around uncovered in Morocco, Indonesia and Lakemba I did not cop one single sultry glance which was rather disappointing as I fancied my long blonde hair and bare skin may prove irresistible. But sadly, no. 

Many of the burqua wearing Australians grew up uncovered, with uncovered mothers, and suddenly they decide after S11 that they simply had to rush to the nearest burqua shop and buy a head to toe covering? I mean, really? It reeks of insincerity. And while Australians may be many bad things, one thing we really hate is insincerity and pretention.

Why not just move to the religious lands where you can be surrounded by Islam, the Koran on stereo sound and true believers 24-7? If I was devout, I would not want to be in Australia where any turn of the head will bring a yelling bogan or topless sheila.

Ladies, just chill out, take up camping and chuck the makeup and heels. And the burqua! Take advantage of being free and Australian. I went on a camping trip with some friends born in Syria and Lebanon who congratulated themselves on getting their hands dirty and doing things for themselves because it is not part of what they are taught culturally.

So by all means, go ahead and enjoy your head cloths, but don’t misrepresent the reason you recently decided to cover your face. And please don’t tell me how liberated you are.

There are only 3 Sexual Positions

22 positions my arse

I really want everyone to stop thinking that Prince is the standard for normal sex. Not everyone has 22 positions in a one night stand.

In fact, if you're a boring married/monogamous person in a standard heterosexual or homosexual arrangement like me, you are probably looking at no more than three sexual positions.

And we all know what they are: person A on top, person B on top and person B from behind.

That's it folks.

OK, OK, there's side by side positions, but really, most middle aged people have issues such as small male appendages that do not bend around corners, tummy flab and no stomach muscles to speak of. So let's be realistic.

When I was a teenager and before I was sexually active, or shall I say before I had enjoyed intercourse, I imagined hundreds of fun positions. Positions were the core game. I read the kama sutra and flicked through books at adult stores showing many interesting looking positions.

After trying a few in my early days of sexual exploration I realised they mostly fit into the category of "yoga sex" positions. And if you are in the majority of people not on welfare, you get up at 6am, make breakfast for the kids, go to work, come home at around 7pm and have barely enough energy left to choose from

a) swim at the beach (summer)
b) watch telly (winter)
c) lie down (year round!)
d) play with the kids - before dinner and bed...at around 9pm.


You do the maths. There's about two hours somewhere in the evening where you can choose your own adventure but you also need to eat, shower and wind down. Yoga doesn't factor into it. Neither do yoga sex positions. Some monogamous people manage to fit sex somewhere in that schedule of activities, usually right before bed and often while half already asleep.


Yoga is for people who have time to raise their chakras, and brush their hair (not that I'm suggesting they do that in their spare time. I'm not sure what they do. Actually I know what they do. Yoga sex.)

So if any of you yoga devotees are slamming down your rice milk chais, I suggest you hit the organic rubber and take a reality check.Very very few people have sex upside down on their heads or balanced sideways off the edge of the bed.

I hope I have squashed the myth of sexual positions once and for all, and I really hope all those sexual position books stop peddling empty promises to hopeful teenagers. It would put Prince and his modern representative like Rhianna and Kanye out of business.

Why Intelligence is a Curse, or, You Can't Make Your Baby Smart

You don't have to be smart 

to succeed

I really don't understand our current preoccupation with intelligence.

Parents bend over backwards, plying their infants with breast milk, omega enhanced foods and anything else they think may make their kid grow up smart. They send them to lessons and enrichment activities like french and kindermusic, and fight to enrol them in $20,000 a year Montessori kindergartens.

I work in a top private high school and teachers struggle with the less gifted students who are usually so bored at being in class they disrupt everyone. Stupidity is the common evil, a shared enemy that galvanises the aspirational middle classes of any Western city from Sydney to San Diego.

But show me a learning disabled kid and I'll show you someone who will likely grow up happy, surrounded by friends, in a rewarded career such as sales, management, marketing or real estate. This child is more than likely to have a stable solid career, lasting relationships and affluence. Who cares that they never mastered addition, love watching footy, think Hitler is a fancy dish, and can't spell?

Show me a smart kid and I'll show you someone who may very well grow up a tortured academic, too intelligent to settle for a simple relationship or stable career, looking down the barrel of divorce, unsteady jobs, lower than average income and growing university debts from too much study and changing faculties too often.

The silliest girl in my school, let's call her Patty, was so dumb she never learnt to write a decent sentence and doesn't read. She grew up to work at McDonald's, became a manager by age 20 and is now at the upper management ranks of that corporation. Another very unintelligent girl worked in administration until she married a Spanish chef. Numerous other, mostly male, students who failed every subject at school are the wealthiest people I know working hard as plumbers, electricians and other generously remunerated tradespeople. They enjoy holidays snowboarding in Whistler and sun baking in Italy. They live in large houses with cleaners. And ironically, they send their kids to private schools.

Conversely, the intelligent kids are not faring quite so well, especially when you take into account the effort, time, lost income and money required to study at university. While their less able counterparts like Patty were working and training, earning money on the job and paying little or nothing for vocational qualifications, the smart kids were studying, racking up debts at universities around the world and unable to afford even basic food and accommodation. Scholarships barely covered fees and are few and far between.

A few years later, smart Katharine and silly Patty sit next to each other at a 25th birthday party. Patty works hard, but is richly compensated. She owns her beachside flat, drives a nice car and has a pretty good life filled with social engagements, friends, holidays and shopping trips.

Katharine completed uni several years ago and is still trying to find a job she finds satisfying. She worked in corporations but found it stultifying and went backpacking in Europe instead. She has been in the low or no income bracket most her life and is considering returning to university to do a PhD as there is nothing else she can find that suits her ability or desire for stimulation.

Just a quick illustration on why you shouldn't really care about intelligence.

IQ doesn't matter. You should probably just admit that even though being smart is desirable it is not even caused by ingesting omega. Intelligence is actually genetic! So relax and get back to that reality TV show and stop worrying about things you can't control in a society that celebrates stupidity.

Formula Feeding Does Not Kill Your Baby, or make them Fat or Dumb

Nuthin wrong with a little formula

Before I had a baby I knew everything. I knew I would get pregnant easily, try for a natural birth, scream for an epidural after about five minutes, and breastfeed.

 When a friend had a C-section and bottle fed, I remember thinking Gosh, she has really taken the easy road, hasn't she? I mean, why bother if you don't give birth naturally and breastfeed?? Why bother indeed because about 12 months later I found myself with a baby in one hand, bottle in the other and searing pain along the abdominal incision where said baby was pulled out. Eating my words.

I mostly bottle fed after five months of combining breast and bottle with mixed results. I even took 20 Motillum a day, fenugreek and milk thistle imported from the USA on express shipping in a desperate attempt to increase my milk supply. Baby ended up in emergency due to starvation. But who really cares HOW I fed my baby - what kid is going to remember whether they were bottle or breastfed, or even fed at all? I really appreciate one comment made on facebook by my friend "Bottle or breast, fed is best."

Where did I get my terrible attitude from in the first place, and why does everyone think it's just so easy to breastfeed, that it really is a choice for women? For so many the choice is not breast VS bottle.
The choice is a Catch 22: A or B -

A. Breast feed, and please everyone, and do "what's best for baby", even though I

• am in extreme pain when I breastfeed due to infected ducts, blisters and lacerations,
• do not have enough milk so my baby screams constantly in hunger;
• have too much milk so my baby drowns and chokes
• feel awful breastfeeding and can't stop crying
• have a psychological block to breastfeeding
• have any number of other problems common to mothers attempting breastfeeding.

B. Bottle feed even in the face of criticism and midwives claiming it's poison.The baby health nurse at my local Sydney baby clinic actually said formula is poison.

Where did she get the idea that a life saving powder made up of fats, sugars and vitamins is bad? And what gave her licence to misinform an entire generation of new mothers? When did we get so nuts as a society?

Looking at those born in the 60s and 70s, or in France and China, where about 90 per cent of babies were/are bottle fed I really don't see any major plunge in their intelligence, spark in their obesity rates or any other major problems apparently caused by the dreaded formula. Mothers today are told that they should only formula feed if they want a fat dumb baby.

Last I checked an awful lot of Australians were fat and dumb and it had little to do with their food intake in those first six months.

I like how Tina Fey said in her Bossypants book "every woman has a magical number when it comes to breastfeeding, from 3 months to eight years. For me and my baby, that perfect number was about 72 hours." She was one of those mothers who pumped breast milk to bottle feed her baby, again illuminating how fraught and complex the issue of feeding a tiny newborn really is: some women cannot or don't want to do the latch nipple thing, but have enough milk and facilities to pump so do not have to buy formula.

I really like how Mia Freedman questioned midwives' stranglehold on the whole issue. Why is being BFHI friendly hospital so important in Australia? Why is what the WHO recommends even relevant here when we have clean water, expert medical advice in every suburb and good quality formula?

I just wish my prenatal classes had prepared me for the problem of low milk supply, and advised me to at least consider the possibility I would need to recover from major surgery, housebound AND have some bottles and formula at home in preparation for the hungry screaming newborn I was about to bring into the world.

The First Time

Do First Steps really matter?

My colleague was upset yesterday because he missed his three month old first rolling over for the first time. I know everyone approaches this parenting thing differently but I can't help feeling annoyed at first time parents who see their baby's milestones as major achievements or Kodak moments.

We've all had to put up with the insufferable, never ending litany of stories from parents in close office quarters or facebook.

"Jack is onto solids!!!"

"Mia is almost walking!!"

"Cooper is constipated!"

I know you're proud, because I was proud when my kid starting walking a few months ago. But did I need to rave at length about it to colleagues, friends and strangers? No. It's not an achievement, just a natural first step to her becoming an independent adult which is my ultimate goal.

I honestly know what it's like to look at your little growing baby with wonder and marvel at how quickly they are growing up, or feel teary that you can't remember their babyhood. Actually I don't know what that last thing feels like, because not only do I remember very well, but I also took about 100 photos a day to 'record the moment'.

A friend cried when Grandma gave her one year old her first haircut. Really? Aren't there more important things in the world to get upset over? If you are actually sad because you'd rather be next to your little one's side 24-7 to hold her, walk with her and see all her firsts, I can guarantee you would not only possibly start feeling a little desperate and bored, but your family would miss out on the confidence and income you enjoy from working. Is it really a huge sacrifice to see a few firsts the second time round?

Many parents miss the first steps. My little one was walking before her first birthday - or more accurately had taken her first steps but didn't feel like repeating the trick - but I never saw her walk because her carer didn't tell me, and that's fine - since she's with her three days a week it's quite likely she'll be seeing a lot of her firsts.

Do I feel sad about this or like I'm missing out? No, because I see this as one of the more illogical aspects of keeping linear time. I don't share a cultural obsession with being the first, or seeing the first. The second is fine. Or the third time. And if you think it's the first but it's the 10th, what does it matter?

Why Revenge is Changing the Way Women in TV Operate Forever

Emily and Victoria...

The hit TV drama series of 2012 Revenge is breaking all the rules.

Its two female protagonists, Victoria Grayson and Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke are carving a place for themselves in history as the first women to showcase both an abundance of talent and roles which snap the female mold in half. And it has proved so popular it is likely more TV dramas will go down the path of Revenge. Women will be finally allowed to kick, bite, fight, be slovenly and slatternly, be covetous and violent, take multiple lovers. Gays will get roles with real integrity and substance, not just as sexual vessels or playful accessories for pure comic relief.

Both Victoria and Emily have two love interests, both male. Victoria's two men are not her husband, the third man in her life. It is a coup for polyamorists everywhere and more audience friendly than Big Love. Even Victoria's affair and the resulting child, her only daughter, is no big deal for this taboo littered drama.

Emily is not only in love with two men simultaneously, she is shown in a bipolar existence, with two names and two very different personas: Emily, the belle of every Hampton ball; graceful, elegant and at the height of etiquette. Amanda on the other hand is the violent bad mannered juvie who beats up men. But so does Emily, when she has to 'defend the nest'.

It is a conflicted and fantastic departure from when television viewers have been fed for decades. These women are not just smart and feisty. They are bad. And the more bad they are, the more glamorous they are. It's a winning formula.

We see women behaving like animals in the wild, unrestrained, with multiple lovers and highly complicated desires. Their scheming sees them win over men every time and the sheer number of tools at their disposal makes them indomitable foes.

We see young Charlotte, the product of her mother's affair with falsely accused terrorist and Emily/ Amanda's father, David Clarke, getting addicted to Oxycontin and start kissing several men. As she falls into bed with her dealer, she follows the path of her mother Victoria and her half sister Emily/Amanda in getting active with more than one man.

It is just so refreshing to see women behaving badly, or naturally, on television and such a welcome departure from the tripe of the tired, sometimes slightly misogynistic dramas we get fed.

And like the rest of the world, I'm hooked.

Why Kim and Kanye are a Perfect Match

Our new king+queen of popular kultcha

The KnK publicity factory may be gearing up for another wedding season, or at the very least a baby announcement in about 3 months. And I think this is fantastic news.

Why? Because I know both sides of this KnK lurve story. I have been a huge fan of both Kanye and Kim and their families for years - and it's clear they are a great couple. It's also obvious they have been flirting for years but that for those funny forces behind love to work they had to engage with others before they could see their perfect partner right in front of them - wearing matching leather pants to boot.

Yeah I admit it, both are narcissists, both are in love with themselves and their image. But to dismiss this new king and queen of pop culture on that basis is to ignore the immense power they wield as a couple and to deny their respective family and cultural backgrounds which sees them perfectly matched.

They have a lot in common. Success in work and life, working ethic, material wealth, spiritual beliefs and strong family values. Both have lost their same sex parent - Kanye his mother and Kim her father. They have both been very deeply influenced by this loss, and supportive and protective of their remaining parent.

Both have had a long hard 15 year slug on the love front, including at least one failed marriage each under their Vuitton belts. Or as I prefer to call a marriage that didn't pan out, a 'relationship education' rather than a failure.

And yes, it is true, they both adore designer brands and probably spend an hour looking at themselves in the mirror before going out. But more interestingly, both dictate culture and start and finish trends. Both are style icons, both have their own multiple fashion labels, both are business experts, and both are publicity royalty. KnK are not only trendsetters, they are cultural signifiers, the ones we look to for messages about this uber fluid post modernist multiple reality culture we are living in.

And this is why I am so excited about their new sexual and commercial partnership and this is why I hope it blooms into a family empire, creating a new generation of babies: little girls dressed in Prada rapping to dad's Gorgeous, little boys playing with cousin Mason and helping stock the family's retail empire.

Both the West and Kardashian families have the same values. Success, hard work and self promotion play big roles. But the central player is family and this is synonymous with business values: loyalty, self confidence, support and love. Big love. For years we have seen Kanye popping into Kim' New York Dash store, helping with colour choices and attending drinks. Kim flirting with him. But it took Kim's attempt at marriage with a white boy who was so poorly suited to her for the two of them to finally get it together.

One more comment before I post again in a month to congratulate them on their impending parenthood. How did I know Kim's um, second husband Kris was glaringly unsuited to both Kim and the extended Kardashian klan? It wasn't just that his name was the same as her mothers, or actions and attitude, which did say a lot - especially his disgust when Kim cried over a lost diamond earring in Tahiti. It wasn't only that Khloe disapproved, which Kim should have paid attention to as she is an impeccable judge of character. (Khloe BTW wholly approves of this new partnership).

It was husband #2 Kris's comment to the Kardashian men during a male bonding golf game shortly before The Wedding. He expressed his disdain for their subjugation to their females, or less politely, his being unimpressed they were pussy whipped. I wish Kim had been there at the time, but probably she would have ignored it, like all the other warning signs, because she had a big wedding in her sights, and a baby, two things on her upcoming agenda she had made a space for mentally. Just not emotionally.

So I wish the new couple, who I already knew would get together years ago, much happiness. They clearly bring out the best in each other and Kanye reportedly makes Kim less boring, which is fantastic! And I can't wait for the baby news in a short while...

Time Magazine's 4yo breastfeeding cover

Care factor?

Judging from the reaction to the latest Time magazine's May cover of a young mum breastfeeding her kid, it's apparent we don't like the look of a kid on the breast. But really, are they hurting anyone? And why does the feature title read Are You Mom Enough: a deliberately antagonistic and confronting question? As if the desire to connect child's mouth with nipple proves you are, or are not, a good mum. How ridiculous.

Why should you care if another mother is still breastfeeding, or not breastfeeding, or enjoys sleeping in bed with her child, or carries the kids in a sling until age 10? Who cares, really?

Last time I checked, the term mother covered quite a variety of women, roughly from ages 10-60 plus of every race, religion and persuasion. The only thing many mothers have in common is they conceived a child, which is possibly the most universal act on earth apart from copulation and digestion. So why do we have such strong expectations and opinions about how mothers are supposed to raise their young?

Why does the image of a nipple in someone's mouth provoke such strong feelings? No one seems to really care when it comes to who is involving who in oral sex or nipple play, as long as everyone is a consenting adult. I guess that's where the problems start: we think children are asexual. But they are not. Does anyone not remember being a child? As Belle Du Jour's - sorry Dr Brooke Magnanti's - new book, The Sex Myth explains, childhood is a time of sexual exploration. Not an opinion, but as evidenced by extensive research.

And most mothers know this. They either ignore or temper their young child's sexual behaviour.

Is it because we know that children are sexual that we don't want them going near a woman's nipple - women's nipples should be reserved for sexual pleasure, but not for children, and only for a strictly short time for babies as a source of food. I mean, who really cares what a woman does with her nipples? We don't stand around discussing the ins and outs of which mothers are engaging in nipple play with their lovers, why do we care so much about her giving breast milk via the nipple to her child?

Like many mothers I had multiple problems with breastfeeding and one of them was the cultural struggle to see my own nipple as a source of food, comfort and pleasure for a little creature who was not my sexual partner. I was also a little jealous of mothers who found breastfeeding so easy they could feed baby on the go, while I had to mess around with sterilised bottles, cooled boiled water and carefully measured powders.

After I finished breastfeeding I was a much freer person, able to leave my baby for more than three hours and venture back into the city and other adult only venues. I met another mother who was still breastfeeding her four year old and when I laughed in surprise she explained she had had to train her daughter to only ask for the boob at home, not in public. The image of a four year old girl in scruffy shoes reaching up to have a suck on her mum's nipple was strange to me, just as the Time magazine cover is deliberately confronting. But I didn't really care. Why would I? This is not a child rights issue.

Breastfeeding is, however, a human rights issue. That is, a mother's right to breastfeed and not be thrown out of cafes or off the bus because she is feeding her infant, something that still happens in Australia today. But when I trained companies on this issue and how to implement a lactation friendly workplace, the issue of child's age never came up.

I asked if the legislation would stipulate a cutoff age, so that we would not have a mother of an eleven year old asking for her right to breastfeeding breaks, but legislators apparently did not see this as an issue, despite the increasing awareness of breastfeeding older children raised by Little Britain's skit of a grown man breastfeeding.

In Australia we had the fantastically misogynistic but uncomfortably realistic peek into parenthood via the award winning novel The Slap and its fabulously produced ABC TV miniseries. This novel, bought to us by single gay childless author Christos Tsiolkas, explored modern parenting matters via central character Rosie. Rosie was characterised as the ultimate victim loser by her attachment parenting methods, including the continued breastfeeding of her three year old Hugo who happened to be a little demon. The Slap of the title occurs when Hugo's behaviour slides into the unacceptable and an adult belts him. Is Rosie abusing this child's rights by breastfeeding him? No. Is slapping a child a child rights issue? Um, yes.

We can talk nipple until we're blue in the face but really we should stop demonising, as The Slap does, or martyring, as Time does, women who breastfeed. And focus on more engaging and practical parenting topics such as what activities you can do with your toddler lying down.

Who's Afraid of the Cervix?

Inside the Cervix...

Before I became pregnant there were many things I did not know.

Many of the things I was didn’t know about were inside me.  Isn’t that always the way? I’ve lived in Italy, Vietnam and Thailand and travelled widely, but the secrets waiting to be discovered were not in ancient ruins or modern temples. They were locked in the uterine vault that would later create another human, inside me.

Take my cervix. In my culture, the cervix is an invisible player. No one talks about it. No one values it. The speculum, a duck shaped medical instrument used to gain access to and a decent view of the cervix, is not discussed in popular culture.

Except perhaps by Annie Sprinkle.

Not so my Indian friends, who chat about the cervix and how they’re hoping for a good dilation over the baby shower gulab jamon. But in my anglo environment, no one is aware that the cervix may be impotent, that it opens and closes, or how it works, except women who are mothers, and a tiny minority who apparently use it to engage in BDSM. Not really something I even want to think about, as I am endowed with a very potent but very sensitive cervix.

Since my first pap smear, I have been aware of my cervix. I asked to see it with a mirror during my first smear, so I know it looks like a pink donut. Well, a healthy one looks like a big pink donut, and changes in appearance and texture during the menstrual cycle and during pregnancy.

After the whole labour ordeal, I have a new awareness of the cervix’s potential and limitations. I enjoyed three days in hospital being plied with tablets inserted by medical staff into the back of my cervix. They were up to their elbows inside me and my naughty cervix remained closed despite the best in modern medicine (prostaglandin pessaries by the dozen) and ancient traditions (uploading semen onto the cervix regularly as well as digesting papaya, pineapple and raspberry leaf tea).

I indulged in large amounts of gas to alleviate the pain this process caused. Other women experience no such pain. Those are the women who “feel a little discomfort and pressure” then birth a baby an hour later to not much fuss. Often in the car or on the side of the road. They were born with hardy tough cervixes. Obedient cervixes.

Some facts about the cervix I didn’t know include:

• It can go from 0 to 10cm dilation in seconds - and vice versa
• It typically takes hours, days or weeks to dilate for birth, but all women are different
• The dilation is accompanied by effacement which is a thinning out of the donut
• Touching the cervix is generally uncomfortable and opening or closing the cervix can be extremely painful. A stretch and sweep is performed on overdue pregnant women, where the midwife actually tries to insert something long and sharp into the cervix for the stretch, and to sweep the membranes of the baby's amniotic sac...no comment required.
• According to doctor friends, when a women births a baby vaginally, the cervix pops out of the body, then is sucked back up and into place within minutes.
• If you have cancer of the cervix it gets really messy. It’s a great idea to prevent cancer spread by having regular pap smears, as early detection and treatment will usually prevent cancer spread.
• The cervix is called the neck of the uterus, and is usually 1mm open, which is my gynaecologists joke about their job being like wallpapering a dining room through the letterbox
• Women may have trouble conceiving if their cervix is at an unusual angle

My cervix was correctly noted in my medical notes as being UNCOOPERATIVE. Not unlike the rest of me. In the end, my own birth story concluded with a Csection as the front door was closed for business.

I encourage you to celebrate this silent player and essential component of the continuation of the human race by having a good look at your own or a friend’s cervix, and checking out these beautiful photos of a cervix here at The Beautiful Cervix Project.

Women's Work is Not Really Work

I'm sitting this morning with my family day carer "Shazza". She takes care of my 18 month old daughter four days a week while I work and study.

A father dropping his daughter off sighs delightedly as the picture of domesticity presented by Shazza sitting in her lounge room surrounded by small kidlets.

"The women stay home while us men go out to earn the money, hey," he comments. Shazza's husband laughs as the men groan about working out in the rain. And admittedly, I don't know any woman that would put up with working in the rain all day.
But I also don't know any man who would be pleased to stay home, stuck, changing over 30 nappies a day for five under fives, all day every day.

I also don't know any man that would be pleased his partner thought she was earning the money while he provided a support role. Because I know this family, and I know that Shazza's income is their bread and butter. Raking in over $1000 a week, their family relies on her childcare work which involves not just childcare but after hours cleaning, meal preparation, planning, activities, education, client relations and paperwork.

So Shazza, who barely has time to change into her tracksuit every morning before her first little charges run through her door and into her arms, merely laughs graciously at this misinformed comment. But I seethe, throwing the father a dirty look and wonder if we'll ever get to a point where childcare is understood to be one of the most important, or even just the most taxing, jobs in the world.

Here is more reading on how misogyny has become an effortless part of our everyday lexicon.

OK so I'm signing off now because tonight I am completing packing for an extended family wedding in Bali. I have spent the past 10 days caring for a very ill child with hand-foot-mouth disease covered in blisters and waking around the clock. After my husband returned last night from Thailand, I then spent the next hours preparing meals and packing for my daughter so she will be fed and clothed while I'm gone. Husband is staying behind with her as we agreed taking her on another international trip is a touch too close to insanity. And we're not willing to go there again.

More posts from The Nanny's Dead when I return. Hopefully I'll procure a nanny in Bali while I'm there. Actually that's an excellent idea.

Pregnant In Heels

Rosie Pope, WTF?

I watch a lot of television. This only started happening about 18m + 9m ago, when I became less mobile with a placenta and foetus inside me, swollen legs, and climaxing blood pressure making me feel like I weighed over 100 kilos. Oh wait, I did. Then, as is usually the case during a uncomplicated pregnancy, the huge belly transformed ineluctably into an alien baby.

Contrary to my hopes and desires, I became even less mobile, with obesity and major surgery recovery, and a four kilo baby to lug around. Add breastfeeding to the pile and I became a TV addict.

I turned to TV as my lifeline and my connection to the outside world. And baby, did she deliver. I ploughed through the entire 1st, 2nd and 3rd series of Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, getting parenting tips and pitfalls from Farrah and Amber, learning how to deflect child service investigators and how to recover from breast enlargement surgery with a two year old. the extra expert support from Dr Drew was invaluable.

I was right there with Bentley's toilet training, Leah's parental separation confusion and Caitlin's "Woops I gave my baby away to a complete stranger and now I'll never see her again". I even got right into the second series featuring the hipster Chelsea, off her face Jenelle, workaholic Kailyn and southern belle of disabled twins Leah before getting a serious case of indigestion.

I then consumed entire series of old faves Californication, Dexter, the new Homeland, Revenge (patriotic to Rabbit Proof Phillip Noyce to the end) and Covert Affairs and ending up with half unfinished True Blood and Pregnant in Heels (PIH).

Pregnant in Heels stopped me in my obese tracks.

WTF is a Maternity Concierge? Who are these women? And where on earth did Rosie Pope, God bless her, pick up that bizarre bastardised accent?

And why does every chick show require a gay, preferably black, trickster?

Before exposure to PIH I thought women who had never cleaned, women who insisted on two nannies per baby and women who swore they would never change their new baby's nappy were urban myths. Or, fantasies. My fantasy, to be precise.

Then, lo and behold, I discover entire neighbourhoods in a small, anthropologically distinct island in the Atlantic are packed with women who never smell or even see their own baby's shit. You should have heard my whining. My husband was ready to pack me off to the meat packers district or Noho in an abattoir refuse box.

We watch reality TV to sneak into other people's lives. But watching PIH I was blasted into several truly bizarre scenarios every episode that made Jersey Shore and Real Housewives look like the nightly news. Or a mild case of chlamydia compared to the major herpes outbreak that was PIH.

Suffice to say, it had me on the edge of my seat and I'd give PIH a rating of 9/10 for pure madness. Only in America? I hope not! Give me two nannies any day!

Is Having a Baby a Good Investment?

Good value or waste of money?

Since we live in economic times, I thought I should do what money minded women all over Australia are doing: an economic analysis on the potential Return on Investment of Children.

Because we are basically the first generation to carefully control our reproduction. Women from 1970 - 2000 do not count as they, the Gen X-er's, basically forgot to have kids. In other words, women up to 1970 did not have access to reliable contraception so had to deal with any pregnancies as and when they came. Abortion in Australia only became accessible in the late 60s, so it has been a very short time indeed that women have had any control over if they have children.

Women who took up the Pill enthusiastically post invention regarded it with, understandably, such open admiration and gratitude that they forgot to stop taking it and suddenly, woops, 40th birthday and bye bye baby.

These Xers regarded babies with open suspicion, and were too chuffed with their corporate and career success to stop and smell the roses. Their next Beemer and Dior suit were more tantalising than screaming babies. What WERE they thinking?

So I am in the vanguard of Women Actually Choosing To Breed, Just For The Hell Of It. And FYI, I'm a Gen X / Y "straddler" - born in 1978. Being a straddler is quite fun.

While we, who actually chose to have a baby rather than having it thrust upon us, don't (yet) have an army of nannies to do the job for us, there are still plenty of resources in our toolkit.

Television is the first and most obvious. There are kids my age who grew up on Sesame Street, and this gave them a world class education complemented by expert skills in reading texts and critical thought. Most of them, unsurprisingly, work in high level media positions and their factory-working mums and dads are breathing sighs of relief that not being around for their kids' early years didn't seem to harm them.

Today we have not only the traditional TV shows like Sesame Street and Playschool, we have CeeBeebies on all day with delights such as In The Night Garden, and we have unlimited shows to download. Dora and The Wiggles get the most airplay at our house.

Dora has taught my daughter Spanish words and how to share. When my four year old niece met kids on holiday in Spain she understood that not only did they not speak English, but she could have a basic conversation in Spanish - thanks to Dora. Dora has better language lessons than Sesame Street according to a recent Harvard study - challenging my old-school mum in her assumptions that modern animations are a load of junk (her words not mine).

I credit the excellent Brainy Baby series with teaching my daughter the alphabet before 18 months, and saving me many trips to playgroup, because she's surrounded by friends and animals all day (when she's not at daycare). Our big screen TV makes it look like the kids are life size, so that saves mummy an awful lot of time and expense in silly excursions she'll never remember.

Before I wax lyrical too much about TV, I will point out there are other great tools for raising your kids cheaply by other people - the park, the beach and childcare are also excellent options.

We'll revisit this topic further down the track because it deserves an extensive and thorough analysis. I just wanted to introduce the concept by pointing out that while babies seem a terrible investment at face value, you can easily increase their ROI by using TV to raise them and training them to work from an early age.

Like a Thief in the Night

Rihanna is the only girl this sexy.

Isn't this all any woman wants? Like Rhianna asks, to be entered like a "thief in the night"?
Or, as her next line goes, does the modern woman want to be "Held Like A Pillow"?
Are these two desires mutually opposing, or happily complementary? Isn't this all anyone really wants? To feel like "the only girl in the world" and for you to "last all night"?

And where on earth are they living for Drake to suggest he can do things to her in 20 minutes while waiting for the traffic: where on earth does the city traffic take 20 minutes to clear? Hobart? They clearly aren't in Sydney where the traffic takes 2 hours to clear and the radio would not be considered appropriate foreplay, not with Kyle Sandilands at large.

On a darker note, according to pop culturalist Dr Carr-Gregg, watching film clips by that "skank" Rihanna or the Pussycat dolls will lower a girl's self esteem markedly. This is shocking to me, because when i watch Rihanna, usually at the gym, I feel extremely joyful and proud. I see a strong powerful woman. I see a woman in charge of her own sexuality. I mean, no one was out there says how dangerous Borat was to young bois sense of self esteem, were they? 

Or more seriously, noone says the sexiness of Kanye and Neyo in film clips is causing an crises in Our Young Men. No. Noone said that. Because it's patently untrue. I'm sure if boys look up and see Kanye cavorting around with his gals they probably think good on him, and I hope I get to be like that one day. Or more likely, what a wanker.
It's the same for girls. When I see Rhianna performing a lap dance for a fan I think wow, she's fantastic, what a great dancer. And her voice is out of this world. I actually think she's the most talented female vocalist of our era. Maybe I also think "it would be nice to be that girl she's dancing with". But does my self esteem take a shot? No. No, it does not.

I am a grown woman, and these film clips are meant for me. Not for ten year olds and I admit they are rather pornographic. I guess it would be a bit exciting to see Rhianna give a lap dance if you were only 12. But upsetting? Confidence shattering? Causing you to start starving yourself? I hope not! I'll be using clips as a tool for teaching my daughter how to dance, or how to make a short film, as they should be used.

Dr Carr-Gregg believes increases in eating disorders, anxiety and depression in teenage girls are linked to raunch culture. I'd say it's linked to growing up in a cultural vacuum like the northern beaches of Sydney, but that's just me...

Let Me Stop Right Here

I don't know why men bother with local girls when they can get everything they ever wished for and more abroad. And there are just so many men in Australia with a heart of gold. So many I married a Canadian. To be fair, she's an excellent writer with evocative descriptions, and with hobbies including collecting photos of herself, life could never be boring! Enjoy:
How are you doing and how is your day going? I am Kay Muna, Am looking for a trustworthy man who believes in true love,I am single never been married before,I am looking for a mature man who can understand life with me .I am 28Years old,5.8ft tall. and 58kg.Blond hair,Blue eye and milky white skin and big natural breasts,I don't smoke and i don't drink alcoholic.I don't have kids. 

I am a happy single lady looking for a wonderful man out there .I am looking to relocate someday.I really need someone to make me believe in the right way of life .I am into music and i do lots of coordinating job with a charity firm down here .

I love doing my best .I am looking forward to meet someone with a heart of gold.I am the open-heated girl who likes to take everything that life can offer but to give in return as well! I am active and enthusiastic, I am cheerful and I treat people just I want them to treat me. I 
am attentive and caring, I need to love and to be loved, to bring my future man happiness and joy. 

I am the open-heated girl who likes to take everything that life can offer but to give in return as well! I am active and enthusiastic, I am cheerful and I treat people just I want them to treat me. I am attentive and caring, I need to love and to be loved, to bring my future man happiness and 
joy. I don't like to sit on one place and I am dreaming of strong and friendly family.I love nature very much and I think that to live surrounded by nature is something wonderful. I enjoy music and dancing. I love to take photos of myself which I collect, let me stop right here.