On parent bashing...

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a good week. I've just spent a wonderful weekend winter camping and caving with my children.

Me and my son :)

I love spending time with my children with no internet/tv/media/shopping distractions. I love exploring our world together and learning basic survival skills. During the weekend, my children and I re-learned the importance of teamwork, depending and working with others. I am so proud of my children. I feel truly privileged to be their parent.

Which brings me to something that has been in my mind for awhile. In my efforts to raise my own awareness on how consumption affects me and my children, I come across many many articles depicting "bad" parents.

They seem to be everywhere - they are the parents who buy highly sexualised or inappropriate items for their children. They are the parents who buy convenience fast food over cooking wholesome meals. They are the parents who buy their children too many things to make up for the lack of time they spend with their kids.

...but you know what? I've been that parent and no doubt there will be times that I will be that parent again. I've bought videos/electronic games so that my children will be quiet while I get some extra work done. There have been weeks when I've bought a lot of fast food due to lack planning, or hell even just lack of energy to cook after too many days of juggling a career and sole parenting. I can not even count the number of times when I catch myself overcompensating my lack of time or inattention by buying my children too many things.

Now I know what most of you will say - "its not like you do this every day!" But you know what? It may not be everyday, but it IS still a part of my overall parenting. Just as how caving, camping, cooking wholesome food and conscious consumption is also part of my overall parenting. Yes, bad parenting choices are part of my world too.

But this post is not (despite appearances) about me flogging myself. What I'm trying to get across is that I can not parent in a bubble. Many of us parents have to cope with parenting in a highly commercialised world where over-consumption, or consumption as a replacement is normal and even encouraged.

Just like everyone else, I am susceptible to the constant advertising and marketing aimed at my children and myself. Companies invest billions of dollars on consumer research, advertising and marketing. Collectively, they form a complex, sophisticated system aimed at encouraging and normalising the consumption of goods and services that my family and I may not need.

What this means for me is that I am constantly having to navigate my way through a society where highly sexualised images, goods and services are depicted from anything as "desirable", "funny", or even as symbol that one has now attained "adulthood". (Anyone else note how Miley Cyrus has now publicly dumped her "Hannah" persona and has adopted a "bondage" look?).

While companies have seemingly endless resources for finding out ways to influence my children, I have only one thing. My intuition for what is right for my children. ...and sometimes that intuition is wrong... or just plain worn out from the constant bombardment of conflicting priorities and messages.

There are times when I find myself feeling so torn between giving free rein to my children's natural desire to be part of their community or banning certain things at the risk of them feeling isolated from that community. There are times when I also find myself buying things only to realise later that perhaps those things should not be a part of our lives.

So on the subject of the (sometimes subtle) parent bashing in these articles... I ask that we acknowledge the difficult world us parents are living in. What we need is more support and awareness of the issues. Parent bashing just does not help.

I wish you all well.

(For those who want to read more about the issue of consumption and children, I encourage you to visit: http://www.globalissues.org/article/237/children-as-consumers).

On my mind...

Today, I received a lovely surprise from my workmates

Hello everyone!

Today's post is part of Rhonda's Down To Earth "On My Mind" Friday Feature.

Today, I've got the day off 'cause I'm a little sick. Don't worry, its nothing serious and I should be back to 100% in a few days.

Its nice being home. I count myself so lucky that I find my home a restful and healing place. Its my sanctuary.

Having said that, I received a lovely surprise today from my workmates. These gorgeous flowers with a sweet card wishing me to get well soon.

And I am reminded that outside of my home, I am surrounded by people who wish me well. They remind me that sanctuaries are everywhere.

So today, I thought I'd post and take my time to appreciate this little truth:

Happiness is a by-product of living my life according to my values.

I am reminded that happiness is something one can not pursue but something that happens when one lives their life well.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend ahead.

Hooray! (a budgeting high)

Hello everyone!

See this??! I have gotten my kitchen and laundry in my new house renovated!

One of the coolest things about finally having a kitchen and laundry that I like is that I managed to get these rooms done (including having cupboards professionally installed) without having to borrow money.

I often get asked "How do I do it?" How do I manage to save so much despite having a mortgage and being on a single income?

I have blogged here before about menu planning, buying second-hand and not over-consuming in the first place. While all those things have certainly helped me, perhaps the biggest thing that motivates me to save are having clear goals.

For me, financial goals like "being rich" or even "being secure" are too vague. My financial goals have to be concrete - like "get a new kitchen and laundry". I can visualise goals like these and the clearer I can "see" it in my head, then the easier it is for me to save for it. For me visualising has always been an effective way to budget. By visualising my goals, I am able to stick to spending mindfully and carefully.

Now that I have finished this goals, my next big goal is to start building an investment portfolio. Trying to visualise that but can't quite see it yet. Still, I have faith that things on that front will soon become clearer for me.

What about you? What is your budgeting "trick"? Do you save? What motivates you to save?

I hope you have had a good weekend and wish you well for the coming week.

Sinking in...what I've learned ($2 a day challenge)

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all having a good weekend. As usual, mine is very busy juggling all the things that come with sole parenting two very active children.

Me and my children

Despite my busyness, I have to admit that my mind keeps returning to what I experienced during my live below the line challenge. I have mentioned some of it before in passing but I thought I'd elaborate on what has sunk in for me.

When stressed and under pressure, I made bad nutritional choices. This tells me that I am not immune to media/advertising that tell me that non-nutritious food is "fun" and offered an "escape" from the stress. I never realised that I could succumb to emotional eating but there you go.

As a result of my bad nutritional choices, I felt soooo tired all the time. Littlest things like getting dinner done, getting to work in time, organising my children's everyday school needs became an effort.

That despite my bad nutritional choices, there was no joy in my eating during those 5 days. It was a very strange combination of being hungry but not looking forward to eating. Food was just a means to stop hunger pangs. I certainly did not want to eat more of the same!

Without joy in my eating, and without the ability to eat what everyone around me ate, I felt isolated. I was surrounded by friends and family and I ate my own food while they ate theirs...and I felt disconnected. This highlighted for me the importance of the little things we do together to connect and without it, one's entire world becomes different.

I also realised during my $2 a day week, that if this was for real, I probably can not consume according to my values... and that my values would drastically change. And if my values would drastically change, then I would make choices using a value system that would be completely foreign to the way I am now.

And I guess this highlights for me how vastly poverty can affect a person. I wonder, if I was living on the poverty line, would I be emotionally and physically capable to get my kids to school? Would I be able get a job? Would I be able to function and make choices in a way that is socially acceptable? Would I still be "me"? And I suspect that the answer to all of this would be "no". I probably would not.

And this makes me admire even more, those who work with people in poverty - dealing with people who are vastly different from them. And I admire even more those very few people who have experienced extreme poverty and have come out on the other side.

I wish you all well.