It feels like every week there is a call for us to email, write letters, sign petitions, and even compose submissions to politicians and Government committees to defend our basic married and parental rights and expectations.
Now we are being called to defend our right to be referred to as "married" in Australian legislation... simply because some people choose not to be in a married hetrosexual relationship. Does that make sense?
While the Government continues to pedal the extra provision of childcare and greater female participation in the workforce as exceptional achievements and the answers to the family budget problems, where does that leave those of us who prefer to be the primary care givers for our children?
And what is the effect of all this on our children? It's an experiment we haven't had to time to analyse yet. The trial has just begun and the results won't be in for a number of years - when those children are old enough to show the manifested consequences of their "outsourced" mothering.
An edited extract from "What's Happening To Our Girls?" by Maggie Hamilton, printed in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine on Sat 28 June proffered the following:
"...as single-parent and dual-income families become more common, more and more girls are home alone. Ofthen they eat their meals by themselves in front of the television. As most parents need to work, it's almost impossible for them to cover the hours immediately after school. Two critical questions we need to examine are: have we fallen into the trap of working to consume, and how much does the culture of consumption permeate the home, fragmenting family life and forcing girls to turn to peers for the nurture and company families used to provide?"Enough said. I have some important finger painting to attend to right now.
