Yesterday I learnt that our government has excised all of Australia from the migration zone. This means that noone who arrives in Australia via boat without a Visa is entitled to apply for protection under the Hague treaty. It gives Australian authorities the right to remove anyone, including children, to a detention center for processing where they are not allowed legal representation. The media ban on access to detention centers has also been upheld.

I cried…am crying.

I am ashamed, so deeply ashamed that this beautiful country, my home, could have made a decision so ungenerous and inhumane.

A couple of years go members of the local and national Australian community came together through this blog to raise funds and goods for people in detention. Last week Bliss' school did one of their regular collections for the Asylum Seeker Refugee Council and next week our church will do its monthly collection for the same center.

Almost everyone I know abhors the way our government and the one before it treated asylum seekers. Almost everyone I know would love to help, to see change. But where can we even begin in the face of an issue so big?

Removing the emotion from the equation, how a Labour government could have made this decision, taking even further the actions of John Howard is…confusing. Why do they perpetuate the lies, the fearmongering when they have a chance to do the opposite, to truly lead.

Have they forgotten who their voters are? Who they represent?

I am but one person and all I have is this one little blog…but I'll be damned it I don't use it.

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Last month I sent my little girl off to school camp for two nights.

As a mother, I found it full on. I missed her, I was worried she would miss us and two nights feels like a really long time when they are little.

But my anxiety was unfounded, she returned having LOVED it and so full of confidence. It made me feel so proud, and also so glad that I hadn’t let my fears and my anxiety impact her experience…or even let it stop her from having the experience all together.

While she was away I shared my anxiety on social media and in doing so was met with a lot of surprise that a child of her age would be off on school camp. What really shocked me was the stories that were shared about parents who don’t let their children attend school camps even at the older ages of 8 and 9. Children who miss out on being with their peers and of learning the inner satisfaction of growing up and into some independence.

Education choices are very personal and I definitely realise that a 5year old going on school camp is outside of the norm in Australia but I can tell you that it was an entirely positive experience for Bliss and for all the other kids. I think it was probably also good for me and my journey as a parent.

I can also say that the one reason I was willing to send her to camp was because I do trust her school.

It’s the issue of trust that stood out to me as I heard the stories of children not being allowed to attend camp. If you can’t trust your school to send your child on camp with them isn’t there a much bigger issue at play and a much more terrifying situation for our children?

Or am I misunderstanding this situation….??

I sat down on the weekend and opened the Daily Life magazine to find myself looking at an article called “Drastic Meseaure: If she’s hungry, she can have some salad” which chronicles the journey of a mother who, at the advice of a paediatrician, needs to help her 7 year old daughter lose 7 kilos.

It’s something of a strange title because you don’t have to read far into it to realise that for this mother it’s a case of “if she’s hungry, she shouldn’t be and no she can’t have any salad.”

If you haven’t read it but have a vague interest in what I am going to say here then I’d suggest taking a few moments to acquaint yourself with the article – to paraphrase it here would not do it justice.

I tried to read this journey with an open mind. The idea of teaching children about choices is great, the idea that even at a birthday party you shouldn’t gorge yourself on everything is fine too, good even. The thing I struggled with the most was the language Weiss used about food when talking to her daughter about the issue, and the overwhelming sense I had that this mother was so consumed by her own food issues that she couldn’t find a way to respond that didn’t pass those issues on to her child. She betrays herself by speaking heavily of the “health” related side of this weight loss journey, likening it to a “disease” but concluding the experience by asking her daughter if she “likes the way she looks now”.

No matter what we say about this, no matter how strong our opinion we best not forget that there is a young child involved, a child who has been placed on very public stage about something that most of us would prefer to keep private.

Near the end of the article, Weiss makes a comment that astounds me. She says…

Food was not a fraught issue in my household growing up, yet I developed problems with it. There are some issues that kids are just born with. I didn’t make Bea obese. I don’t blame sugary drinks, processed foods, trans fats or gargantuan portion sizes. She didn’t become overweight because she gorged on junk food or played video games all day. She was simply and indisputably born with the unfortunate tendency to overeat and a congenital preference for foods that are conducive to weight gain.

I don’t want to be a smart arse about it but I do have to ask, isn’t this is a “condition” the whole world is born with?

I support a parent who wants to do the best they can by their child and who, having identified an issue such as this early on, is willing to take some hard lines to help their child get healthy. What I have serious questions about is the undue burden placed on a 7 year old who is told “your problem is that you are overweight.” (I can’t imagine a way that I would be able to say that to my child, or indeed anyone, that didn’t involve me being a total bitch.) I’d like to think there is a way for a parent to take responsibility, because surely when you are 7 years old involved it is the responsibility of a parent to oversee things like diet, without burdening the child. And while I think Weiss’s desire to give her child the language to talk about something that most of us are uncomfortable to talk about is admirable, I fear that it is too big an ask for a seven year old.

It seems to me that at the heart of this issue is “shame” and the way it is (wrongly) inextricably linked to the notion of being “overweight” or perhaps it’s the other way around… Weiss perhaps protests to much that she is primarily concerned with the health of her child – isn’t this the argument that gets trotted out whenever the topic of weight comes up?? We aren’t comfortable with it so we try to sanitise it and hey, making it a health issue makes it waaaay more palatable. Weiss’ daughter now understands this connection in a way that I don’t think a 7 year old should. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

The issue of food and body image is fraught. I regularly think about how I speak of these things in front of Bliss, how I speak about myself and what kind of example I am to her. If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen me share updates about my own post-baby weight loss journey. I speak of it there in small measure because it does not consume me. I no longer agonise about my appearance and weight and if I can find away to impart this ability into my own child’s life well before her 30th birthday then I will be utterly thrilled. I highly doubt that this process will ever involve me uttering the words “your problem is that you’re overweight.”

How would you make a difference in an Australian child’s life? Not your own child, clearly… (you are already doing that!)

Full on question hey?

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that this is something I have thought about a bit…but not done anything about. Before kids I used to think that when I became a Mum I’d go and visit old folks homes and spend time working with charities and the like. None of that has eventuated and though we do give financially to different charities, it never quite feels like enough.

As you might know, the team from Colgate Australia partnered with The Smith Family this year to raise money for children from less priviledged families around Australia. (By the by, you can help them donate $1 by uploading a smiling photo to their FB page). Turns out helping other kids is pretty simple stuff, with just the click of a mouse people are changing lives every. day.

Colgate are giving 20 Australians the chance to find out first hand how they can practically help other Aussies in need via their “Smile for Change” competition. The winners of the comp, and there will be 20 of them, will be able to sponsor a child through The Smith Family at no cost to themselves – Colgate will foot the bill and you will get the chance to see, first hand, both the challenges faced by Australian families and the way this amazing charity works to make life better for them.

You enter via the Colgate Australia Facebook Page. Entries close on August 28th. All you need to do to enter is make sure you have liked the page and then in 50-150 words share why you want to become the sponsor of a disadvantaged child.

I wasn’t paid to write this post, but I was sponsored by Colgate Australia to attend Blog World in New York in June this year.

The other night a very interesting conversation took place on FreeRange Mum’s Facebook page about whether or not parents felt comfortable getting their babies ears pierced.

What interested me was the number of responses from Mums who said that no they wouldn’t do it to their baby but would wait until the child was old enough – the age deemed old enough being, for most, about 5-6 years old (with a couple of 3-4 year olds mentioned too).

I was really surprised.

To me, earrings are a beauty thing – I love earrings and happily wear mine but I wouldn’t even consider letting Bliss get her ears pierced until she was in/entering high school. My gut reaction is to ask why would I encourage a child of aged 5 or 6 to think about their appearance in that way?

BUT, clearly there are a lot of parents out there who feel that at age 5 or 6 children are not only capable of making that decision but are old enough to start to accessorise in that way. And so, what I would love to know today is what do you think?

Incoming search terms:

• earrings for 10 year olds
• ear piercing in the 1960s
• pretty pierced ears

I think that you will all have seen the incredibly moving YouTube video by the organisation Invisible Children over the past couple of days. If not, you can find it here below and I do suggest you spend the next 27minutes watching it. The issue of child soldiers in Africa is absolutely horrifying and can easily leave you feeling entirely helpless. What the #KONY2012 project aims to do is raise awareness about the leader of the LDA (the Lord’s Resistance Army) which is a resistance movement in Uganda who, as part of their regime, abduct children from their homes and turn them into child soldiers, often forcing them to kill their own family and to continue to mutilate and murder. Horrifying is an understatement.

Not long after I shared the video on my Facebook page this morning, I was made aware of a few articles floating around criticising the #KONY2012 movement. The main criticisms are the amount of money that has been allocated directly the cause (only one third) and the lack of transparency around the organisations finances generally. There are also concerns about the financing of the Ugandan military, themselves not immune to criticism about how they operate.

This morning when I first watched this is had almost 1million views, at the point I am posting this it has over 21million views.

Some of the points criticising the movement have just been plain pathetic (sorry, but this one just irked me A LOT): Jezebel, Think Twice Before Donating To Kony12, others have been much more reasonable. If you would like to read some of these more reasonable and informed posts that talk about some of the very legitimate questions that any reasonable person should ask before committing to a charity then I suggest: We Got Trouble and Reflections on KONY12

Upon reading the actual arguments and concerns about #KONY2012 movement this is my response:

- Many organisations spend significant portions of their income on awareness campaigns. The sole purpose of this campaign is to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, in their words to “make him famous” so that governments face ongoing pressure to support Ugandan authorities in their pursuit of him.
- The organisers have stated that this is a social media campaign based on Facebook – it will therefore naturally look different to other campaigns as will the way that it’s run. The organisers are not bureaucrats – they are passionate individuals.
- To the people who critices the movement for making out that Joseph Kony is uniquely evil – seriously?! The guy is amoral, whether he is the most amoral person who has ever lived hardly seems something worth arguing about.
- To the people who say the campaign focuses too heavily on emotion – it’s a social media campaign. Of course it does.

Yes, there are problems with the campaign, as the “Reflections on KONY2012″ post says, this campaign feeds into a narrative of white supremacy where as if “we” become aware then “we” can solve a problem that a poor, black nation can’t. Yes, the video doesn’t exhaust the facts about the situation in Uganda at this current time and yes, I would prefer that at least one of the action points at the end of the video wasn’t about donating money.

If you would like to read how the Invisible Children organisation have responded to some of these issues I suggest you read this statement: Critiques

But Joseph Kony is an horrendous war criminal and our “white” nations have the means to support poorer nations in their efforts to bring this man to justice. The goal of this campaign is to “MAKE KONY FAMOUS” and that seems like a pretty good goal to me.

At this time I would however like to urge you to make a donation to another charity who is working in war-torn nations, day in and out, without the support of a viral YouTube campaign.

What do you think? Are you supporting this movement or do you feel skeptical?