::: WHAT BRAND IS YOUR CHILD? :::

Children are now being named after brands...

Chanel, Armani, Prada and Gucci to name a few! 

My child is named after a brand...what does that mean?!

Children are so brand saturated by the time they enter school it is ridiculous - is your child (niece, nephew, stepchild, godchild, friends child) a brand? What brand are they?

You are a constant model to children you spend time with in every way. Your actions speak far louder than words.

If you have children in your life what values are you passing onto them, they don't necessarily need to be your own children.

What are you demonstrating to them?

What do you value?

What values to you propose?

Do you demonstrate self worth and integrity in your decision making and lifestyle or are you impressing upon them the importance of branding and consumerism? Are you creating a misplaced emotional hunger falsely sated by shop shop shopping?

Do you tell them jewellery has value and status and then show the child's lack of value by not investing time with them?

Is your love expressed monetarily or organically?

This ain't no happy child.

Are you to busy to nurture any child even if not your own? Those children might require higher levels of attention as basic emotional needs are not being met. The child has instinctual needs, core needs at all stages of their life - into early adulthood too.

We all need to be listened to, nurtured, loved unconditionally and accepted particularly as a child/young adult. I believe many an unhappy teenager might just needs a little more time and love from the people around them - not things.

I have tried to raise my children and install in the many children around me human kindness, integrity, dignity and the love we all deserve... and it is free.

Some time and energy is all that is required and it comes back 10 fold, not a bad return for the outlay.

At the end of the day they will value a meaningful talk or hug, an silly moment, a belly laugh, the best meal, a kindness expressed. Not the amount of money or status - sure its all nice but if the rest is missing its worth nothing.

Children try and test us at every turn, but we are here to help them on their journey. We have had our turn as children and while I may have been lucky enough to have grown up without need or want, the toys, jewellery or holidays are not the things I recall with warmth - the brands and expense hold no value now.

I recall so many simple things warmly that did not cost a cent. I don't want to install brand loyalty, pretentiousness and preciousness.

I want and hope to raise and affect the children around me in a way that lets them know that I love them for who they are for what they naturally are unconditionally not what they commercially consume or what brand name they may sport or wear.

My sons.

I want them to understand they alone are enough and are priceless as individuals and human beings.

Confirming Your Reality

I have been thinking...



you gather people around you to confirm your version of reality.

Some people I know chose their family to do this with - they surround themselves with family as their vision and values are aligned with their own. Their reference points and perspective are similar enough to breed healthy relationships within those parameters.

Then there are friends and associates we may chose to mesh with and they can exist on may levels these days. Online, work colleague, someone you might follow - their career or work, what ever it may be the viewpoint they have may correspond more closely to your own than your god given associates.

Growing up in a place that doesn't offer you enough is a challenge, you can make it work, you can get past it but it takes resilience and true resourcefulness. You pull it up from your insides. You create it.

I have two children I have given birth to and it still truly astounds me that with some help I made the bones, hair, teeth, skin tissue, the gums and eyes they have. Seriously its perplexing.

Surviving a place or mindset where you cannot thrive takes a more spiritual intellectual version of that. I do believe some elements are the same, you manifest matter and hope from the aether, internal development happens despite the baron array.  Character is forged most of it unseen. 

So...

as I said,

you gather people around you to confirm your version of reality.

Or put another way is 'Show me your friends and I will show you who you are'

My friends and the people I chose to affiliate myself with are perhaps reflections of me, they are people I admire, be they flawed or not, be they popular or not, be they perceived as the norm or not.

I have few friends, I truly love my friends - and my family I might say.

My family confirms what created me.

My kind beautiful optimistic helpful divine friends, my slightly dysfunctional very human lovable friends, my serious and light hearted, my impossibly talented, funny, clever friends, my spiritual and grounded, my old and my new friends, my close and my far.

They confirm my version of reality.

My friends my family I love them all,

and I continue on...

and look for more reality to confirm.

A Comment from the incredible Architect Frank Gehry.

PARENTING AND BEING A CHILD 1970's STYLE

In the 70's being a child was an all together different experience than it is today.

Most families remained in the one family home their entire lives and we knew all the people in our street. Shops streets and neighborhoods quietly remained the same. It was a great comfort and to this day I am still assured by the few remaining details in my old neighbor hood that have been left unchanged.

Parents were different too...

Men's pants were unashamedly tight and high at was all at brow height as a small child and just too much to take in. It was unavoidable teachers rocked these pants too!

An innocent visit to the local super market or worse still your friends house was met with the unbridled breasts of your best friends Mum. Thin t shirts and areola were swirling about our innocent heads like looming balloons. It was all wrong.

Even Sesame Street wasn't safe.

Barbecues involved children playing with fire eating carcinogenic blackened meat, parents inhaling Viscount Cigarettes and swilling copious amounts of alcohol.

All this followed by bundling the gang into the family vehicle safety restraint free and if you were really lucky Dad was drunk and made the drive like a visit to Luna Park - flying over railway lines and ditches the car becoming semi airborne was a thrilling treat, Mums near naked boobs slamming you in the temple. You would go home to no air conditioning in summer sleep in the back yard on a divan and smother yourselves in a spray on insect repellent - who knows what that had in it?

No one had food allergies or their child diagnosed with mental issues or challenges, no one had dyslexia, hair straighteners, braces or things like moles removed from their faces - you had what you had and dealt with it. This made for some pretty fascinating school photos its like a shop of horrors or an ugly meet. There were obese children - they got called fat. There were 'slow' kids and smart kids and that was it. Teachers did not implement 'Rock and Water' self esteem building policies if they didn't like what you did they got to hit you with their hand or a wooden rod.

So there was danger sex and violence back then too - it was just all at school.

How did our parents survive with out mobile devices? They made plans and stuck to them. Anticipated and planned them...it didn't matter if we dreaded them we had to go there was no getting out of it besides Dad might drive drunk over the railway tracks so it was always worth it.

Parents and children experienced real ANTICIPATION! Such sweet delight. As a child you would wait all year to perhaps receive your most wanted toy and the parent had the power to either deliver or restrain from giving the object of joy. The parents had the power. Half the joy as a child in the 70's was the agony of the wait, watching the TV commercials all year. Your little heart would race each time you got to drink the visuals in. And meanwhile you went out into the street to play and dodged all the drunk drivers in tight pants and ladies with their boobs out.

You behaved at home and at school or got hit and parents were more than happy to thank the teachers for the great work they were doing.

 I have very fond memories of my childhood and wouldn't change it even if I could.

1970s Food Trends

Thats me on the right.