Secret Women's Business

Good one Michael... I love this:  http://parentingideas.com.au/Blog/May-2013/Mother-s-Day-not-Parent-s-Day

We live in a society where 1 in 3 women will experience violence at the hands of a partner at some point in their life. Nearly every week, a woman loses her life to a partner or ex-partner in Australia. Violence against women and children cost an estimated 13.6 billion dollars to the Australian economy in 2009. Intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to ill-health and death in women under 45 in Victoria. Why are we experiencing such a truly horrible epidemic of violence? No doubt the causes are complex, as such things normally are. Alcohol, drugs, sexism, mental illness, dysfunctional families of origin... I expect all these things are in the mix. One of my suspicions (and the primary focus of this rant) is that hitting small children actually normalises violence for future perpetrators and future victims. Not everyone who has been smacked as a child becomes a perpetrator or victim of violence. However, I would think MOST perpetrators and victims were hit as chil...

The assignment itself looked innocuous enough... a sheet from school asking my son to bring a family heirloom to school (or a photo of one), tell about the history of the item, and describe world events in the era when the item was made. Quite a creative way to have students give oral reports about different time periods one would think. The problem with homework assignments is how often parents get coopted to participate. I thought an antique clock that has come down to me from my grandmother would be a nice item for Daniel's oral report. It's a lovely little item, that plays "The Blue Danube" when the alarm goes off, while an imitation "record" spins around, and the couple on the record spin around too... a very clever mechanical music box/clock combination. As it turns out, my mother doesn't remember (or know) how it came into the family, although she said it may have been a wedding present for her mother, who was married in 1915. This has sent me off...

My eldest son started secondary school yesterday. It hardly seems any time since a tiny (1.1 kg/2 1/2 pound) baby came into the world... now said "baby" is taller and heavier than me. When I tried to wake him yesterday morning, he was (in typical teenage fashion) very difficult to stir... so I indulged myself by holding him for a while as he slept. He's still young enough to look sweet in sleep, and I was reminded of the many hours I had held him in my arms when he was much younger. As I held him, I prayed for him and his first day of school... and sensed God's whisper in my heart "Hand him over to Me". This whisper reminded of one of M Scott Peck's reflection's about Abraham's sacrfice of Isaac. Peck views this seemingly bizarre account as something of an archetype of what every parent of an adolescent boy is called to do. We are called to "give up our son" to God. God is the one who saves the son, as we surrender our child's life...