Learning about life as a four year old

Dear Aunty Lola,

After saving her special birthday money in her treasure box for quite a long time, Ellie finally decided that the time had come to spend it.  So, we dressed up, grabbed our handbags and headed off to the shops.

First port of call was the ice cream shop where Ellie bought herself a single cone of rainbow ice cream. YUM.

After enjoying this immensely and, surprisingly, not getting herself in too much of a mess, we then made our way up to Big W.  Once inside, we made a small detour to the jewellery section as Ellie pondered buying some jewels, but then headed on over to the toy section.

Well, there was so much to choose from.  Mummy read out the prices of the things that Ellie could afford.  Ellie spent a sizable amount of time considering her options, but not really sure of anything.  Until…….she spotted the princess tiara.  There was no question then.  Ellie, who absolutely loves dressups, decided that this was the thing that she simply had to buy.

So After popping it on her head and taking a photo of her wearing it (to send to Evan), we decided to buy the crown.  On the way out we spotted some cheerleader pom poms that, luckily, Ellie still had enough money to buy.

It was with great delight that Ellie placed her items on the checkout and then searched in her handbag for her very own money to pay for it with.  And, not only that,she even got a little bit of change from the checkout lady!

This shopping experience was such a delight for Ellie, that she insisted that we had to go shopping again to spend her left over 70 cents.  Hmmmm, where could we go that you could buy something for only 70 cents?

The second hand shop! 

We looked at lots of things that were worth less than a dollar.  Dolls clothes, books, candles and nick nacks.  Again, Ellie just could not decide. 

But then, she spotted the must have item.  A box, shaped like a treasure box.  This she had to have.  Luckily, she had just the right amount of money.

We went up to see the store person and Ellie handed over her 70 cents.  All should have been happy smiles.  Ellie had a beautiful new box and she had got to buy it with her very own money.  But Ellie was NOT happy.  She was angry.  Something was not right with this process.

The shop keeper DID NOT GIVE HER ANY CHANGE!  In Ellie’s mind this was the way things were meant to work.  Fancy not getting any change.

Mummy then had to explain all about how you had to work to earn money to spend.  You couldn’t just have a magical endless supply.  Ellie was still not especially happy about these new facts of life that she was now learning.  Mummy tried to get Ellie to see that if she stayed angry she was not going to enjoy the lovely new thing that she had just purchased.

Eventually, Ellie calmed down and started to think.  Perhaps she would be able to do some jobs for mummy when she got home.  Then she could save up more money.  And what was even better, she now had a lovely new treasure box to put all of her hard earned money into.

So, that is what she did.  For every job that Ellie did, mummy gave her 5cents. When Ellie earned two 5 cents she could swap them for ten cents.  If she earned four 5 cents she could swap them for twenty cents.  Two Twenty cents and a ten cent could be swapped for 50 cents. And two 50 cents could be swapped for a fancy gold coin! Wow!

On Saturday, Ellie found a poor battered 20 cent piece on the drive way.  She happily scooped it up and added it to her growing fortune.

On Sunday, Ellie went to church and missed getting a “bless you” from the priest during communion because she was outside playing.  After Mass she asked the priest for her “bless you”.  She was holding a money box and the priest not only gave Ellie a blessing, but also gave her 50cents for her money box.

Ellie was finding that her money was growing and growing.  Soon she will have enough to go back to the shop and do some more shopping.

Who could have thought that one simple $20 gift could bring so much joy, so many experiences and so many life lessons to one little four year old.

Hope you are well and that you enjoyed reading about Ellie’s adventures.

Lots of love From Emma and Ellie.

You Tubing

Harry has started a You Tube channel called Tanki Pickle, and has had an enormous number of views and subscribers. He has now also just started a blog for his Tanki Pickle. I am quite impressed.  I told him to stop wasting so much time bumming around on the computer, it is time that he started to use it to earn him an income. If the creator of instagram can make 1.2billion by his twenty sixth birthday, I see no reason why Harry can't.  There needs to be some pay off for the massive amount of time that he devotes to technology on a daily basis.
Harry's Channel is just you tube videos of him playing various scenarios on the video game Tanki Online.  In my Opinion, BORING!  But there is a market for that sort of stuff.  Other online gamers seem to love watching other people play video games on You Tube.  If devoting endless hours playing isn't bad enough, they devote even more hours watching someone else play.

Online gaming is becoming huge and there are calls to recognise it as a legitimate sport, like football or cricket. Evan, as well as playing League of Legends, happily inflicts severe sleep deprivation upon himself to watch full on league championship games.  These are played in a different time zone, so the middle of our night.  He sits up and watches the world's best League of Legend gamers battle it out for the championship, all expertly commentated and broadcast worldwide to legions of eager fans.  All of this adds up to massive amounts of screen time, and minimal sleep.

Evan hasn't displayed the slightest interest in blogging or producing any videos of his gaming, even though, I would estimate that he has far outstripped Harry's time at the screen just on this game alone.  He has sunk plenty of money into the game buying riot points and upgrading his heroes, and has nothing substantial to show for it.  I believe that he is reasonably successful in the game, but show me the money in real life.  Where's the pay off?

Now Harry has an eye for the entrepreneurial side of things.  A little whisper in his ear and he was straight into his You Tube account settings setting himself up to get paid for all of those views that he has been getting.  Good boy!

Now for me to attempt the creation of my own You Tube channel.  We have so much silly video footage, how to narrow it down and generate views will be the challenge.  I have Harry to compete with now, so somehow I need to beat all of those crazy gamers who have ridiculous amounts of time and energy to watch endless videos on his blog, and find an equally crazy demographic of my own to tap into.

GST on all imports

The argument that the Australian Government uses about imposing GST on all imports is obviously a put up job from the retailers.  Retailers stuck in a past century using outdated business models.

We are told that imposing GST on imports will level the playing field.  Local retailers have to pay GST so why not also charge GST on all products purchased from overseas too?  It sounds fair on the surface, that's if you don't scratch too far below that surface.

The fact that the act of collecting GST is going to outweigh the revenue it produces is a topic for another time.  It just shows how the retail lobby are able to use enough clout to cause the government to lose money on a bad tax.  In my view, a bad tax is one that doesn't efficiently raise revenue, or indeed requires compensation for it to be made fair across the board.  That's a topic for another time too.

Back to the initial argument about level playing fields.  Lets take a look at our playing field and see in just how many areas local retailers have it all over the importers.

The most obvious one is local presence.  They have prominence of their brand through advertising and physical presence in the community.

This physical presence allows shoppers to touch feel and try out goods.  This is pretty hard to do on line.  Unless you know and trust the product and the retailer very well, buying articles on line can be a bit of a leap of faith. Locally retailers have much more opportunity to build brand loyalty.

Customer service is something the locals have in spades over the on line experience.  I will get onto how retailers can use technology to enhance customer service in a moment.

Instant gratification is the big one for me.  To actually go out and decide that you want to buy something and be able to take it home with you that very day.  In the on line world of ordering from overseas you can easily wait two weeks or more.  Maybe for local retailers the focus has to move from mere marketing to logistics being just as, if not more important.  They all have a network of deliveries set up, why not utilise this to deliver goods to the customer in quick time, easily outstripping what the overseas supplier can do.

As an example, three weeks ago, after much umming and ahhing across a number of shops, my loving husband and I settled on a tall boy that we would like to buy for our bedroom.  We are not great at making decisions, so when we finally took the plunge and chose one we could both agree on, we happily trotted off to the sales assistant to buy it.  We fully expected to be walking out with it that day. And we could have if we elected to take the floor stock.  The floor stock model had a bit of a dickey drawer, so we instead opted to get a new one.  The sales assistant said sure, that will be two weeks, IF, there is any in stock in the warehouse.  Two weeks, from a local company, a large franchise represented around the country.  The owner of which has been one of the most vocal about imposing GST on imported goods.  Now remember, this was two weeks, IF it was in stock at the warehouse ( some 600km away).  Well it has now been three weeks and no sign of our tall boy, even though we have paid a large deposit on it.  This is appalling customer service and a dreadful system, that almost forces people to go on line.  If I am happy to wait two plus weeks I will search on line.  If I want it pretty much straight away the local retailer should win, hands down.  How can they stuff up this basic fundamental?  Competition should push them to improve their service, it doesn't seem to be happening.

After sales service is another area where the local retailer can triumph.  On line shopping, again requires you to take a leap of faith when dealing internationally.  We have consumer laws here that protect us, not so in the on line sphere when dealing with international sites.

Lets briefly look at some ways locals can enhance the customer service side of their business while utilising technology to its fullest.

 I have lost track of the number of times that I am in a shop and the sales assistant has sent me home to go on line and look up more of their product.. I get that they can't fit absolutely everything in their physical shop.  But it's sheer madness to send your customer away to navigate a website that is usually just pictures and minimal actual information.

If you are serious about your customer and providing the best service you can, you want to keep them in your shop.  Why not do what banks and now centrelink are doing and have some actual on line terminals in your shop. User friendly, loaded with your products, and with real life staff on hand to assist and give technical information.
Recently, we were shopping for tiles for our bathroom. Tiles shops can pile in loads of product in their floor space, but are limited in showing practical examples of how to use the tiles in various bathroom design concepts.  Surely having an on line catalogue of design concepts using their tiles would be great for the customer.  By having it available in the shop, the customer would then have access to the expertise of the staff while negotiating the logistics of employing certain design ideas in their personal situation.
Go back to our furniture shop.  Imagine an on line terminal where the shopper could see many more products than the shop can physically carry in their floor stock. They could pick and choose from an endless variety of styles and designs.  They could see concepts of how it looks accessorised or in different furnishing patterns within houses.  They would have access to knowledgeable, trained staff to answer the trickier and more technical questions.  They could place an order and either take it home that day or have it delivered within the week.  Surely most places in Australia should be able to manage delivery within the week.  It is all about logistics and providing exemplary customer service.

I could go on, but in the interests of brevity I shall leave it with those two take home messages.  Use the advantage of physical presence to enhance shopper experience through technology and excellent sales assistants, and sort out your logistics so that consumers can get their goods in a cheap and timely manner.  Do that and you have a serious leg up over the companies offering overseas products.  All they have is price, local retailers have much more value they can add to the shopping experience, if only they would try, and none of this has anything to do with GST.

HSC HO HUMM

So here we are at the end of a lacklustre year where I decided that trying to understand the marking system of the HSC is like trying to understand some alien life force that bares no resemblance to anything we regard as real on this earth.

Ok, Lacklustre maybe over stating things, as family life is always busy and makes for a hectic ride at times.  We were all healthy and achieved well, but Steve's demotion did tend to put a dampener on the year.  Particularly when he was replaced in his position of ten years by a boss who is, shall we say, a little green, and Steve is widely expected to help out in the spirit of being a team player. As can well be imagined, he spends most of his time bemoaning this or that and generally feeling decidedly uncharitable in the 'still do most of your old job, just not get paid for it' stakes.

Sarah was our guinea pig in the coveted HSC stakes, and we placed all our money on her not only getting a place but blitzing the field. However an early mishap at the trials brought about by an absent teacher and a culpable lack of professionalism from said teacher to:
1. tell her she had plateaued in her abilities, and to
2. neglect to provide any feedback to students sitting their trials so that they may perform their best.
This meant that Sarah bombed in her Trial English paper and on the back of being told the teacher felt she had plateaued while the rest of the class where improving, all but destroyed all her confidence in herself and took the mojo out of her HSC prep.  A particularly cruel thing for a professional to do, particularly to possibly the best and brightest student she will ever have the fortune to teach in her career.

I maybe biased, I am her loving mother.  But come on, her entire school career has led me to this conclusion, I am not facing the world through distorted rose coloured glasses.
Every year she finished top of her class taking out the academic achievement award through Primary school.  For years 5 and 6 she attended an Opportunity Class where she was in a class of children with similarly high academic abilities.  None-the-less she came out top and was awarded DUX at the end of year 6.
Move onto High school and her stellar career continued. Unlike most clever students, instead of finishing first in one or two subjects she would finish first in all but one or two subjects, often being the only person to elicit spontaneous school wide applause during the obligatory 'hold your applause to the end' instruction.  She showed promise to all who knew her, teachers, parents, students and community people alike, and she held this esteem in good grace and with amazing humility.
So no, I am not deluded.  This girl has something special and her star is yet to finish rising.  So why, at the crux of her school career, the point where she is about to dive into the most defining part does a teacher so categorically set about to destroy her confidence and belief in herself? This girl who was always so positive and encouraging to her classmates and whose personal motto is "Only Anything is Possible".  She's a doer, involved in everything, never afraid to have a go, enjoys a challenge and would bend over backwards to learn and understand new concepts.  This girl has most definitely not peaked, nor plateaued.

This whole episode has left me wondering, is the HSC in its present format fair?  A quick internet search reveals, apart from this 2013 article, that most commentators do indeed believe it is fair.  However I do notice that the vocal commentators do tend to be representatives from the selective or private schools in predominately metropolitan areas.  Nothing is heard from the smaller disadvantaged rural school.  Why?  Could it be that a system, that to me, appears to favour larger schools with a concentration of the 'more able students' versus smaller schools who also may have a small concentration of more able students but are also more likely to have a corresponding concentration of less able students that must then factor into any moderation.
Let me explain, because two factors I believe fed into the apparent unfairness of Sarah's final results. I should explain that she did do very well and we are pleased with and proud of her 85.3 ATAR score.  It enables her to get into the Uni subject that she desires, so a higher mark was not necessary.  As Sarah said, I am happy to let the 90's go to the people who needed those marks to get into their courses. Ever gracious.  For me I want to understand the system because I believed she would, based on her standing in relation to the rest of her class in her entire school career, achieve over 90, possibly even high 90's.  Sarah is our first, first hand experience of the NSW HSC.  Steve and I did our year 12 certificate in the ACT where we had 100% of our mark based on continuous assessment.  We knew all along how we were going and could adjust subject choice term by term as we progressed in order to tweek our final outcome based on our demonstrated strengths and weaknesses.

Firstly, with the NSW HSC it appears that it is vitally important who comes first in the assessment component of the course.  First place getter has the honour of applying the highest HSC exam score to their own assessment mark...........What?  It does my head in, but apparently this is some convoluted way of moderating the schools against each other, and a better explanation about how this works can probably be found elsewhere on the web.  But to me it seems that you are not being assessed solely on you and how you individually do, you are tied to your cohort in a quite twisted way.
Let's run a little scenario: A group of higher achieving students, lets say three or four in the class are performing well above their peers.  As the person who comes first in the course is determined by the teacher through their assessments it is feasible that a favoured student could be deliberately elevated to first position.  Then they are guaranteed the best test score to be applied to their assessment mark regardless of whether they earned it.  Second, third and fourth, even if they decided to study their hardest and try and make up for their lower assessment mark will have to take the lower test score as their assessment mark.  Student A is liked and promoted by the teacher to first in class and scores 90. Students B,C and D also doing very well but only score 88,85 and 84 respectively.  Come HSC test time, Student A already knows he is set and decides to party instead of study particularly hard. Students B,C and D are really keen to do their best and study extremely hard to try and make up ground.  At the test Student A scores 70, Student B scores 98, Student C scores 90 and student D scores 87.  The assessment marks get moderated and Student A walks away with top mark even though he only scored top for 50% of the course.

Secondly, lets look at the socio economic position of the school.  A small regional or rural school with a wide spread of abilities versus a large metropolitan school with a lesser spread of abilities.  At our school, from the example above, take a situation where you have not one outlier, but three or four. In a small cohort of say 30 pupils, the statistical model will allow for one outlier, but not four, so the three that didn't rank first will be dragged down by their cohort.  For the outliers at the bottom, apart from the very last position, this system would pull the remaining outliers back up.  So this is a good look for disadvantaged schools as it doesn't make their scores look quite so bad, but by doing this they sacrifice the top outliers.
If those same top outliers were in a much larger school, say of 200 pupils, the statistical spread would allow for them to be much closer to the top and their actual score.  With (probably) less likelihood of the bottom outliers being quite as low as the small rural school, when the moderation process occurs the ones who didn't finish first would not be dragged as low, infact there would be very little adjustment to their raw score. Imagine the difference between stretching a piece of elastic of 30cm length over a distance of 70cm, versus concentinaing a 200cm piece over a distance of 40cm.  If each cm  mark represents a student and the distance stretched or concertinaed is the range of HSC scores. Obviously small disadvantaged and rural schools will struggle with this system. Yet their hands are tied to speak out about this because to admit you are disadvantaged by attending these schools for HSC is to further chase away the more able students and further hamper your ability to ever score well as a school.
Added to this situation is the the notion that certain schools like to be seen as marking hard so that when their pupils do better than expected in the HSC exam, they can gain a benefit in being moderated up.  In playing this game and trying to play the system, students and the overall integrity of the system are compromised.  A student can end up with the triple whammy of, being deliberately marked hard in the assessment component, failing to make first place in the cohort, yet still very bright in the scheme of things, and have the remaining cohort of a relatively small number under perform and drag down her weighting.
Whilst trying to devise a convoluted system that is supposedly fair to everyone it turns out to be just another system open to manipulation and designed to make certain sectors look good.  That is raise the bottom cohort of disadvantaged schools as that is politically expedient and maintain the status quo of the better performing larger schools of mainly middle and upper class backgrounds.  What makes the system even worse is that IT IS NOT TRANSPARENT.

Surely any assessment system must have at its core transparency.  Students never ever find out what their exam marks were. In English they will never know if they excelled or bombed in creative writing, was it the essay writing that gave them the bulk of their score or the short answer.  In art was the major work a defining factor or was it the essay in their final mark.  How can a person get to the end of their thirteen years of schooling, and be assessed in the biggest and most comprehensive exam of their life, and not find out in what areas they excelled and what areas they did less well? In short, they finish school not truly knowing where their strengths lie.  Now that's crazy, because it is their comparison with the rest of the students across the state, not just those in their school class cohort that will give them a true indication of how well they really did.

So why do I care?  The HSC is over and it's greater relevance on later life is practically zip once you make it into Uni.  Even now there are many paths into Uni so the ATAR mark, which is correlated from the HSC score is meaning less and less.  Well as I wrote earlier, Sarah is our guinea pig in  a system that prior to this we have had very little experience of.  Next up, starting year 11 next year is Evan, and he wants to score as highly as possible - well that's the point isn't it?  So how do we learn from Sarah's experience?  I certainly don't want to face a situation where he gets his confidence shattered, like Sarah had hers, but more importantly I want to understand how he can achieve true to his abilities and not be unduly penalised by attending that same small regional or rural school that Sarah did.

So yeah a relatively lacklustre year all things considered, but we're still here kicking and fighting, and of course, all things can only be up from here for 2015....can't they. But then again we still have that Federal mob in power and with their insistence on dismantling the family tax benefit system, household finances are going to stretch even tighter. A child at Uni, a pay cut and a winding back of benefits, I guess the belt is going to get tighter so that we become lifters instead of leaners, or maybe we'll just become even leaner.

For now let's say farewell  to 2014 with a bang and a smile.  Another year over, Christmas round the corner and a fabulous family hanging out and spending time together, when all is said and done, at the end of the day, it doesn't actually get much better than that.

The next blog

I Started to write about my traumatic time in Darwin and promised to get straight on to the other major upheaval that was happening in my life at the same time.  It has taken me a couple of months to get my head space together to get around to writing about what else was going on.

As I wrote in my last blog I miscarried my baby, and although it was relatively early in the pregnancy, I was devastated.  I had never miscarried before and after three very healthy pregnancies I had no reason to believe that the fourth would not follow the same suit.  I already had my head around baby number 4 and had emotionally welcomed it into my life and family.  So yes it was extremely painful to lose (him or her).

Meanwhile, someone else very close to me was also dying.  My Father who had been diagnosed around six months earlier with inoperative pancreatic cancer was rapidly going down hill.  He was given two years of good quality life expectancy, but it was becoming evidently clearer that that was not going to be the case.

30 May 2007
Diary Entry....
...Library again - sent email to everyone.
Dad not well, need to contact Lezah or Murray. Will wait until my emotions have settled.

Had a lovely night out at Stokes Wharf. Lots of tables over looking the working Harbour. Heaps of food shops to choose from and live music for atmosphere.
All happy/sad mixed together.

On top of this a major family feud was in the making as well.  A feud that would demand that family members take sides.  It was the emotion of the time, dealing with a dying father, who needed a lot of care, a mother who was increasingly surcoming to the ravages of dementia and the opinions of five siblings who all thought they knew what was the best course of treatment.  It was definitely the ingredients for a lot of drama.
I was caught in the middle of the situation, trapped in Darwin, so geographically challenged as to being able to do anything.  Dad and the rest of the family were in Canberra.  I was miscarrying my baby and emotionally wrought. Then came the phone calls from both sides of the family.  Telling me about the dire state of dad's health and how I just had to fly home straight away.  Some said I should stay, some said I should go, I felt tugged and pulled in all directions when all I wanted to do was curl up into a small ball and cry and cry and cry.  But life marches on and it doesn't let you do that.


My mother was an angel at this time and I will never forget the support that she offered me over the phone.  She was facing the prospect of losing her true love and life long partner, but still had enough beauty and courage within her to offer her daughter some love, sympathy and support.  I am so touched by how she could do that totally selfless act and will forever be indebted to her.  What an incredible woman!  She understood perfectly my difficulty in travelling at this time and offered me unconditional acceptance of whatever decision I came to.  (I have tears rolling down my cheeks as I write this).

In the end I waited till I had the Doctor's all clear to travel and I left my own family in Darwin and travelled to Canberra on what they call the redeye flight.  It leaves Darwin at midnight.  Unfortunately I just missed seeing dad as he died just before I could get a flight.  I did however get to Canberra in time to take part in the funeral preparations and experience first hand the sibling feud that was flaring up between my brother Gary and sister Lezah.

I am not even going to try and dissect that issue as it is deep seated and terribly complex.  I may one day attempt it, but this blog is not the time or the place.  But it did cause an awful lot of tension and nastiness to erupt between us all.  I didn't have a support network to help me cope with the double situation of my father's death and the sibling nastiness.  I was already in a very fragile state from my miscarriage.  It was all a recipe for a later emotional break down on my part.  But that was not to occur for another six months, this was just the planting of the seeds.  Add a few more issues and a tummy bug and I was a basket case, but that a subject for another blog also.

I'll get onto the Canberra bit in later blog too.  For now however we continued our sight seeing around Darwin while I got regular updates from the family about how dad was progressing.  None of the news sounded good.

On the first of June we went to Fanny Bay goal.  I found it freaky looking at all of the cells. Afterwards we went to a swanky cafe in Cullen Bay.  They had a toilet which had situated its urinal to look out through a window at the rest of the cafe.  It was a one way window, so they could look out but the cafe patrons couldn't look in.  What a funny experience to have to perform in front of all the patrons.  It was a nice place but probably a bit swanky for us.  We left before paying and didn't realise until it was too late.  OOps.  Steve tried to ring to organise to pay by credit card over the phone, but they wanted us to travel all the way back in to pay in person. We declined.

More about Darwin next time.....

Budget mess

I never liked budgeting, I always saw it in the same realm as dieting.  Too controlled and controlling.  It's the sort of thing that may have to happen in an emergency, but if you could avoid it, all well and good.
Joe Hockey's budget of 2014, the one that will go down in history as an attack on the modern family.  The one that will unwind all the family friendly conditions that their own party brought into being the last time that they were in Government.  I wonder what John Howard thinks of his successors.
Back before Labor's bungled attempts at being a coherent Government we had the Howard and Costello years.  They managed to eventually do their dash with the Australian public and got voted out for being mean and tricky.  Their mean and trickiness pales into insignificance next to the Abbott and Hockey brand of Liberal.  At least the last crop of Liberals believed in the value of having a primary caregiver at home while the kids were growing up.  They supported the stay at home care giver with a series generous family tax payments.  The unfortunate thing about this was that it wasn't long before it started to be labelled as middle class welfare, and the Capitalists set their sights on tearing the whole thing down.  These are Capitalists mind you who enjoy their very own range of tax breaks, but their form of Government support is not labelled derogatorily as 'welfare'.
When I was growing up my mother received a very small sum of money called Child Endowment. It was paid on a per child basis, and I don't believe that it was means tested.  So the more children that you had the greater the sum of money you received.  Granted, it was a pittance, but it was not regarded as welfare, it was regarded as a civilised society supporting those who are doing an extremely important job, that of bringing up the next generation.  The next generation who will fill the jobs that need filling, provide the services for future society and be the the future tax payers who will fund the budget in years to come.  A redistribution of wealth, if you will.  Give a little now, gain a lot back later.  Support families, the back bone of our society, create a better society and hopefully a crop of fully functioning educated individuals who can then take their place in society and contribute back when they have grown up.

I also remember that my father received a tax rebate for his dependents through the tax system.  A rebate is not a deduction, it's better than a deduction because it actually pays you back the tax that you have paid. For example, if you were taxed $10000 and you were entitled to a $3000 you would get the full $3000 effectively only paying $7000 in tax.  A deduction merely reduces your taxable income, so if you qualified for a $3000 deduction, for example, you would only benefit by the percentage tax rate you are on.  So if you are on a 30% tax rate your deduction is worth 30% of $3000, or $900.  Not so good, eh?
Now this tax rebate was not seen as welfare either.  It was a legitimate tax break recognising the importance and the expense of raising a family. An individual tax payer on $100000 is ALOT better off financially than another tax payer on $100000 with six mouths to feed.
There were a few problems with this system, it wasn't means tested, so the rich were entiltled to the same as the needy.  The bulk of the money went predominantly to the male, where as it was generally the female who was incurring the day to day living expenses of raising children.  In some family situations this money was not always passed on and well it all just felt a little bit too embarrassingly sexist.
Enter the bright sparks of Government to over haul the system.  The first advantage to the government of the new shiny social security system was that they could rip the money out of the tax system and use all of that lovely rebate money to buy votes.  When you are getting a tidy sum delivered regularly into your bank account care of the government, there is lots of potential here for pre-election promises and vote buying of the middle class.  It also enabled means testing so that the money could be directed to the ones most at need.  The problem with this is that it turned it into welfare and gave the ones who missed out a stick to bash the recipients with.  Suddenly instead of being justly recognised and in a very small way supported during the most expensive years of life, which is bringing up a family, we became middle class welfare trash.  It was only going to be a matter of time before the heavies would insist on rolling it back arguing that we can't afford middle class welfare without recognising the historical reason why a small amount of monetary support for families is essential and indeed highly desirable in a civilised society.

I argue that calling it welfare is demeaning, degrading and insulting.  It is primarily an attack on women (as they are predominately the primary care giver) and also an attack on families and the kind of decent society that we want to live in. Once women had very little choice, they had to stay at home once they got married.  We had a revolution and changed the way women were perceived in society and opened up choices and opportunities for them.  The whole point was to break down barriers and allow women to choose work or motherhood, or a combination, or whatever.  Just when we looked like we were getting somewhere, more female representation in higher positions, including a female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard's misogynists have seized power.  Now women are a new instrument of the state, they are productive units that must get back to work under the yoke of the industrial machine. Pop out them babies, whack 'em into institutionalised care, and get back into the workforce.  We need you there to bolster the numbers of workers braying for those lower paid jobs so that we can lower the minimum wage and reduce workers conditions for everyone.  It wont do to have employers competing for the best people for the job, they may have to offer better wages and conditions.  No we need the working poor so that we have plenty of fodder to choose from to run the capitalist industrial machine. God, I am starting to sound like a Communist.
Ideological ranting aside, it is the children that I feel sorry for.  Some families have both parents working and it's great for them.  I have friends who truly believe that they are a better mother when they work.  Staying at home was not for them.  That's fine, that's their choice and I applaud it.  Equally, there are mothers who know they do a better job as a parent being at home and attending to the day to day tasks, such as  ensuring that the kids actually get to school each morning on time, dressed and slightly sane.  A stay at home parent who can be there when the kids get home from school and need some time with a parent to discuss their day.  A parent who can get things done while everyone is out of the house, the cleaning the shopping the cooking, the family finances, and the multitude of other tasks that the household requires to run efficiently.  There are the volunteer roles and the school concerts that lose out when everyone is at work and can't get time off. Weekends are suddenly not rest and recreation times, but catch up with household chores.  Quality time is lost.  Some sacrifice this for extra money that comes into the family as a result of having two wage earners.  If the wage earners earn enough they may compensate by having a big overseas family holiday.  Others, like me and many many more prefer life to be a bit more gentle on the kids.  I want to be there when they need me, not have to sacrifice quality family time on the weekends just to catch up on what I didn't get done during the working week.
I believe in my families case that the kids grow up much less stressed and far more well adjusted when there is less focus on how much household income we have and more focus on spending time together.  I love the relationship that I have been able to build and foster with my children.  I believe it makes for a better and happier society.  We risk losing this by forcing mums back in to the workforce as soon as their youngest turns 6. Children no matter what age they are still need their parents. They need to be the ones that come first, not an employer who has the ability to withdraw your livelihood.

.
This Government needs to recognise the profound importance of the primary caregiver and not trash the family assistance scheme.  It is not welfare, it is the just recognition of the value of well cared for, strong functioning families for the good of society.  You achieve this through giving women choice, not taking it away. By offering a small amount of compensation that acknowledges the expense of feeding a family it allows families to make up their own minds and make their own choices about how best to structure work and family life. It also offers them dignity. Each family will have its own unique solution that will work for them.  Wake up Libs, you need a society first, an economy second, not the other way around.

Happy Mothers' Day

There is no greater thing in the world than to love and be loved.  This is the joy of being a mother.
Mothers' Day is the perfect opportunity to take stock of just how great it is to be a part of a family and to remember just why relationships are so much more important than material goods. Why giving up the chance to be rich and famous and hugely successful for being the mother of 4 excellent children is just so worth it.

On Friday at school the P+C ran the annual Mothers' Day stall.  As P+C President I had a big role in bringing it to fruition. We bought a bunch of gifts, laid them out on tables and allowed the children to buy them for $5 each.  Watching how much fun the kids had deciding on what to buy mum, and the thought and deliberation that went into their decisions was gratifying.  The children really did seem to reflect quite seriously on what gift would most suit their mother/ grandmother.  Allowing the children this opportunity was an important part of them growing up and becoming responsible, caring and empathetic citizens.  It also taught them about value and how to make discerning choices with their money.

I 'manned' the jewellery section of the stall and when my own child, Harry came up to purchase his two gifts, one for me and one for Ninny, I saw him pick a gift for Ninny.  He chose a necklace with a crown pendant, because Ninny is like a Queen.  How sweet.  (Although, I suspect it had something to do with her age and that she is almost as old as the actual Queen, but we wont dwell too much on that.)  I didn't notice Harry choose anything for me so guessed that he had picked another item from elsewhere on the stall.

He didn't.

He very stealthily ( I love that word) chose me a piece of jewellery too.  He presented it to me this morning.  A gorgeous Tinkerbell fairy pendant.

Sarah left me a package that I found on the kitchen bench this morning.  She wrote me a beautiful note which I shall reproduce here:
The front of the envelope said......
To Mum (please feel free to open this envelope as soon as you see it) [although you might like to stare in wonderment at the purple wrapped thing on the bench awhile]
Inside the envelope it said.....
Dear Mum,
Although I may not be up yet I would still love to wish you a fantastic mothers day (!) because you are amazing. I would love to thank you on behalf of myself, who has grown up to a grateful adult under your generous care, and for little Ellie who I can see adores you as much as I do and you will never lose our endless love.
Enjoy those breakfast croissants,
Love Sarah xxx ooo

It brings a tear to the eye.  How beautiful is that?

It reminds me of a conversation I was having with Steve earlier in the week.  I was discussing with him how we vary the way we parent each child depending upon their personalities, and also how little they realise why because they can't see the full picture of who they really are. I was postulating with him that do any of us really know who we are.  We know who we think we are or who we'd like to think we are, but others see us differently, and those who know us the best are the ones who, no doubt know us better than we know ourselves.
Evan is a good example of this.  He told me the other day that he can't wait until he has kids of his own.  He would be very tough on them and not let them get away with anything (Evan thinks we are too lenient on Harry). At first I was worried about his poor future children (my grandchildren) then I remembered what I was like at sixteen and the world views I had then are totally different to what I have now. I wasn't even going to have children at all when I was sixteen, I thought kids were annoying little messy things. Now look at me, I am head over heels in love with my four kids and adore them beyond compare. (Yes they can on occasion be messy and annoying, but they are an absolute blessing and I can't even begin to imagine how empty my life would be without them).
So here is Evan at sixteen, confident and assertive and very articulate.  He is aware of his righteousness and his ability to express it. How did he get like this? Was it in any way our parenting?  With a different style of parenting could he have grown up to be introverted and depressed?  Quite possibly.
I heard a story the other day about a teenage boy who had written a suicide note.  He sounded like a very sensitive child born into a family where he wasn't accepted for who he was.  His parents had an expectation that he would more fit the model of a boy's boy, motor bike riding, rough and tumble type.  Instead he just wants gentle love, not the tough love he is being given.  How sad for him.
It's so true that many many boys need more gentle love.  I am not the first mother to notice that her sons are far more delicate and emotional than her daughters.  I remember reprimanding Sarah over a certain misdemeanour (say drawing on the wall) and she would just look at me like it was nothing.  I would lay it on a bit thicker really telling her about what she did was completely inappropriate and how she'd now have to clean it, or lose her textas, etc etc, and she would blank faced take it like it was water off a duck's back.   I wasn't sure that I was getting through to her at all.  Then along came Evan.  I wouldn't get two words into a ticking off and he'd collapse into a ball and be totally devastated.  Steve and I learnt very quickly that we had to way back off the discipline with him, he was far more sensitive than Sarah.
That's just one example of how we adjusted our parenting to suit the personality of the child.  All through their lives there are many more examples.  Certainly dealing with teenagers requires a tailored situation, no one size fits all there.  But I do believe that Evan is confident today because we didn't crush his spirit, or make him 'man up' when he was growing up.  He is also loving and affectionate and very comfortable with who he is.  But he wont necessarily see or appreciate that his upbringing had anything to do with who he is today.  In fact if anything he (like we all did) will focus on his parent's shortcomings. Ah it can be a thankless job sometimes, lol.
No not quite thankless, just very very hard, but also rewarding 1000 fold. There's nothing I would rather be doing. So thank you, my gorgeous children, for the necklace from Harry, the tea and mug from Sarah, the foot massager from Evan and the Love that you all share with me.  I love you all so very very much.