When did we take away our children’s responsibilities and blame everyone but them for their failures. And conversely why don’t we credit those very same people with children’s successes.

I think we’re doing our kids a massive disservice.

Actually in my vast experience in schools there are four general types of lunches for kids. Sometimes they overlap with each other, but most time the consistent four win out over the year.

1. The gourmet lunchbox filled with asparagus quiche made with wholemeal pastry, organic asparagus and lactose free milk, a . bowl of raspberries, etc, etc. Each of the food groups is covered. All food is in recyclable containers with name labels on the lids.  Mothers of the owners of these lunchboxes tend to become very irate when matching containers mysteriously go missing, spending a large amount of their time searching through lost property while all the time suspecting that someone really stole it. The owners of these lunchboxes spend a large amount of their time swapping out bits of quiche for fruit straps that reside in the lunchboxes of the third type.
2. The well-intentioned lunchbox.  On the first day it is filled with chicken sandwiches cut into the shape of stars that by the end of the week have evolved into vegemite sandwiches (with the crust left on). The plastic container of cut up oranges has been replaced with an apple.  It’s healthy, just not so pretty as the gourmet. Recyclable plastic containers have evolved into gladwrap and ziplock bags.
3. The supermarket convenience lunchbox.This type of lunchbox usually is made up of dip a bic, tins of tuna (do you know how hard these are for kids to open), cheese sticks, mini packets of barbeque shapes, fruit straps and popper juice.  The presence of these items in the lunchbox depends on what they’ve been able to nag their parents into buying during the weekly shopping.
4. The bag and bottle lunch in a shopping bag.  This is usually a bottle of coke, perhaps red bull (sugar is energy–right?). Usually this is accompanied by a family sized bag of cheezels (cheese is healthy) or chips (potato?).  These children are usually the envy of every child in the playground until they see how their food inspired sugar high/crash makes their teacher cranky. Some days these kids have no lunch at all. 

But in all my time I’ve never seen a bento box like this one in the picture.  Now that’s a lunchbox.  Image

The IV bit is from the couples love of the Roman numeral for four not for IV as in drip. Honestly I thought the child was named after a rehydrating product Blue IV. “Nurse, get me the blue IV, stat!”

Doesn’t matter though. She’s Beyonce’s and Jay-Z’s kid. She has coolness bred into her. She’ll survive the medical jokes.

In a tribute to American royalty (aka the Kardashian sisters), K names are all the rage in the US at the moment. Karis, Kay’lyn, Kristina, Kyren, Kalylah, and Khloe have all made the cut for baby names in 2012. Calling your child Kalylah is rather cruel and I predict that she will sue her idiot parents and the Kardashians at a later date. Heck all the K kids could implement a klass action (sorry). Image

This is my column from this week’s Savvy magazine, that appears in the Townsville Bulletin.

The letter box is full of junk mail, the shopping centre carparks are full and there’s the ubiquitous hum of Jingle Bells playing in the background. It can only mean one thing—time for the work Christmas party.

Now in the olden days, work Christmas parties were fun-filled affairs with the office junior donning the Santa suit and Betty, the office manager, dressing up like sexy Mrs Claus. The party operated a bit along the mantra that what goes on tour stays on tour.

However, Workplace Health and Safety have just delivered an edict to employers warning them that any injuries or incidents occurring as a result of the work Christmas party are the responsibility of the employer. That’s the quickest way I know of to put the kibosh on free grog. Who’s going to let their staff get tanked if they’re responsible for seeing them off safely? It will be Coke all the way for some staff, and I do mean the stuff you drink.

The Law Institute of Victoria has gone so far as to compile a list of guidelines for employers that will ensure a litigation-free party. Suggestions include putting start and finish times in writing, employers setting a good example by drinking in moderation (hmm, lawyers, always a good example of those who practise drinking in moderation), encouraging non-drinkers to be designated drivers (yep, you don’t get to drink AND you get to drive drunks home—fun, fun, fun) and discouraging inappropriate behaviour.

So there’s the fun police version of what you should and shouldn’t do at the office party. However, in the interests of common sense, I have made a top ten list of things you might like to consider.

1. Beer goggles. Remember that you are wearing them after your third glass of wine. Your judgment is impaired, your vision is impaired and you are not in control. Stay away from the office assistants.
2. Photocopying your bum is not a good idea. A photocopied bum is not a thing of beauty. Do you want 100 copies of yours papering the office? Thought not.
3. Pole dancing should be for strip clubs and trendy exercise classes. Do not gyrate around the support columns in the office no matter how hot you think you will look.
4. Wear appropriate clothes, it’s a work party, not a singles bar. And do you really want your boss looking at your boobs?
5. Keep your clothes on. Please.
6. Don’t hit on anyone. Again it’s an office do, not a singles bar. Do you really want to deal with the repercussions of Kevin in acquisitions thinking you really, really, really like him?
7. Drink, but not too much. If you don’t drink you look like a wowser. If you drink too much you look like, well, a drunk. It’s a fine line. Good luck.
8. Don’t talk about work. Eek, kill me now. And add your children to that. Remember only you and their grandparents find them fascinating.
9. Don’t hog the food. This includes stalking the waitress with the canapé tray. Double dipping is a hangable offence.
10. Don’t be unsociable. Standing around looking like you are sucking a lemon makes you look like a snotty cow. Remove the stick from your behind and perhaps go and photocopy it.

Image

Addressing a group of young French mothers he described breastfeeding as “a kind of slavery”.

His wife Carla Bruni gave birth to their first child, Giulia, last month. He told the group that Bruni was “worried about not having enough milk”.
He went on to share his feelings on breastfeeding in general. Though it may be “a joy and a kind of slavery” for the woman, Sarkozy said, he was pleased that it let men off the hook: “It does free men of blame because we don’t have the problem of bottle-feeding. You don’t have to get up at night”.

He does however, “open one eye”.

Right then, I’m glad he got all that off his chest, though here’s a thought. Couldn’t he get up and get the baby and hand it to the breastfeeding slave and then put it back when the slave girl has finished? Just mentioning, mind you.

Anyway I’ve decided that there’s far too much thought put into this when you take into consideration the fact that most mothers breast feed because it’s good for the baby. And that’s what mothers do–stuff that is good for the baby.

I breastfed my child for nine months. Then she bit me.  Then I weaned her. I didn’t once however feel like a slave. I did it because I knew that breast feeding was the ideal nourishment for my baby. It was just a job that had to be done. And there were no bottles to sanitise and warm and formula to mix–that was handy.

So with no expectation of joyfulness and fulfilment to buoy me and no negativity borne from slave like tendencies, I just treated it like a job. See no overthinking. Easy. Image

This is my weekly column from the

Can you touch type? Kudos. Big merit to you. Well it would be a big merit if you were completing the 100 Point Behaviour Test for Teenagers formulated in 1953 by Dr George Crane.

I’ve always thought touch-typing to be a necessary skill. Not sure that it contributes to the worth of a 2011 teenager though. Actually I wish I had the skill of fast texting that all teenagers inherit at birth. The skill that lays dormant and festering through childhood and then manifests itself in a frenzy of thumb tapping to sent out at lightning speed searching messages like “wazzup” on their thirteenth birthday. Me, I use the keyboard on my phone to send the equally searching but beautifully punctuated “How are you?” Fortunately (for my street cred) I have abandoned the emicon. That was a very lame period of my life.

Anyway back to the meritorious behaviour of the 1953 teen. Regular church attendance will score you ten merits, but showing racist behaviour—well that gets you a big demerit of five points. But being a racist is nowhere as bad as “illicit sexual relations” which earns the horny teen a whopping twenty demerit points. Let this be a lesson in moderation to you young people.

OK, I know you’re just dying to know other ways that the 1953 teen could redeem themselves. So here’s an incomplete list: play a musical instrument, sing in a choir (I’m sensing a theme), has operated a newspaper route , teach a Sunday school class, asks to be excused when leaving the table early, depends on the alarm clock to get up instead of mamma, knows how to swim and wipes toothpaste specks from the mirror. That’s a diverse list of requirements.

The list of demerits is equally varied. The errant teen: flirts while on a date or is a “two timer”, cheats at school, fails to clean the comb after using it, is grumpy or caustic in the morning and accepts foolish dares to please others (planking on railings anyone?).

Anyway in the interests of recapturing my lost youth, and the absence of any willing teenagers prepared to tell me the truth, I conducted the test on myself. I’ll tell you now I fell down on all the church and prayer stuff and the profanity bit and that whole thing about drinking alcoholic beverages and gambling. I also failed on all the musical merits. I did try singing in a choir, once, and I was so bad that they asked me to do the big smile and mouth the words. This suggestion has been repeated when I sing karaoke.

I did excel at the household chores though. I regularly take the garbage out without nagging, I can prepare an entire meal on my own and I know how to swim. I never stick gum under the table and have stayed away from home for a week. Whew—at least I got some in the positive column.

Anyway I’ve totted up my score and let’s just say I failed. Apparently I have the emotional intelligence of a kindergartner. The children of 1953 must have been very virtuous, or maybe this test is a crock.

Does Guitar Hero count as playing a musical instrument? Image

This is my from my weekly Gen X Girl column in the Townsville Bulletin’s Savvy magazine.

Have you noticed that children, especially babies, are the new black? They’re everywhere. Once upon a time celebrities used to accessorise their outfits with gigantic handbags and saucer-sized sunnies but now they just casually sling their offspring across their shoulder and away they go.

Take the newest Beckham progeny, Harper. Posh Beckham has carted that one to every fashion event since it was born two months ago. I naively assumed that was because the baby was a girl and Victoria was trying to imprint fashion on it’s brain, but I think it may have been more about saying “see this is why I was fat. I can produce my own baby so nah nah to the rest of you who take the easy way out and adopt from Zanzibar”. But maybe I’m being judgmental. Victoria went through a lot for that baby. Slipped a disc, had to wear flats for a day. Poor pet.

Anyway Harper was really taken with New York Fashion Week. It’s true, Mrs B said so. “We went to Prada yesterday and she love it. It was as if she was saying, ‘Mummy, I’m home’.” It was probably just wind.

See I’m thinking it’s not the female offspring thing that is part of it. Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe drags her poor infant son to the opening of an envelope. There is he is, poor little Skylar (promise I did not make that up), dolled up in his Cartier blankie sitting in the front row of London Fashion Week. So who’s going to grow up with a very pronounced lisp?

Suri Cruise, Tom’s little angel, has a wardrobe worth more than the GDP of the USA. This five year old has handbags from Gucci, high heels from Prada and discreet Burberry lining in all her coats. I this OK for a child? I think not. She wears red lipstick, blush and a surly demeanour. I feel like pushing her in a sandpit, but she wouldn’t know what to do.

How about Tavi, Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s new bestie? Tavi—that sounds exotic doesn’t it—all Russian with attitude. Well the attitude’s there, but that’s probably because she’s a teenager. Yes, one the of the most influential fashion bloggers in cyberspace is a 15 year old with four years of experience on board. Yep, she started when she was 11.

It’s not only the fashion world where children are making their mark because celeb offspring are big in the world of entertainment. And they don’t come much bigger than Willow Smith, the most annoying child on the planet. Not only is Willow an irritating person, but she is responsible for the world’s most annoying song I Whip My Hair Back and Forth. Actually I’m cranky at myself for mentioning that song because now I will spend the rest of the week singing the stupid thing.

Willow’s happy with the song’s success though saying she’s pleased all that hard work has paid off. Oh sweetie, you’re 11. You don’t know what hard work is you obnoxious brat. Go back to school and learn your algebra.

Another thing:  Check out Suri Cruise’s burn book.  Sort of seems wrong to laugh at a child but it’s very, very funny. Image