They only hung me the right way up yesterday

I committed to the dread act of doing up a balancing statement for Annie Inc. And the prognosis is not good ,even if it was on the books at Anglo it couldn’t look good. Many people have the opinion that we have a generous social welfare system, I only availed of it when I returned to university, I have single mothers allowance for the first time since my son was 1 (he is now almost 14). When I returned to college I had part time work but that has dissolved into the ether that is Ireland post apocalypse last year and all efforts to find work since have been futile.

Incoming I have €225 per week, adding the children’s allowance I have a net of €1050 per month. Out of that comes my mortgage (€500)and loan(€200) ESB(€45) and phone (€50)which total €795, leaving me with a weekly disposable income of €65 euros. To feed and maintain me and my son.

I’ve just cancelled my phone contract so that will be nullified in the coming month, I really don’t know where else to cut a corner. I’ve sold everything I have that was worth anything, I really am seriously in need of ideas here. I cannot keep leaving the Turin shroud on my pillow at night.

Should I leave university, I have a 1:1 so far and really can see no hope in returning to growth this year unless I do. Doing a psychology degree means I have to go for a doctorate if I want to use my skills. I’ve been offered a research doctorate but that means 3 more years of borderline poverty and despite my hopes that I was tough and resourceful and clever, I cannot cut this cloth to fit the task. My grant will come in around the end of October or November, like the last two it will be swallowed whole by my overdraft and my mortgage arrears which have been stacking up for the last year month on month.

I have no more answers...perhaps you do?

The moment of truth

All relationships must have a fulcrum,a centre from which they ebb and flow but must always return, mine seems adrift. I love a man, but I don't know where and when things are going to get better, we seem to only be getting by.
While I did not grow up wanting to be a princess and live in a castle, I knew the struggles of my own parents through overheard conversations. My earliest nightmares were about running out of money, I could not count but I knew what being poor meant and it scared the life outta me.
So here I am looking at 35 this year and I'm broke, he's broke, we are always broke. Being broke will break a relationship, being broke means no nights out, no days out, no holidays. Despite my best efforts to compartmentalise those things into the 'frivolities' section of my brain, they give you something to look forward to. I cannot look forward to 5 years from now.
I am adrift, in the three years that we have built together never once has he had disposable income, working 40 hours in retail a week and never had enough to buy clothes, join gym or bring me out. Being honest, hardworking and nice really does seem to bring you in last. I sound deeply unliberated when I mention him taking me out, but handing over your money for your man to get you a drink at the bar is humiliating, for him.

Broke is not a fun place, broke is not charming or character building or noble, broke is breaking me.

New Families

For the last week we have been beaten with the two parents good: 1 parent bad rhetoric once again, albeit this time its not the lovely Ed Wlashe (who is trotted out to talk on single parents at every opportunity) but the catholic undertow that have been up in arms over gay parenting. The civil partnership bill is a welcome addition to the rights of couples who cannot yet marry. I look forward to full equality being afforded to them, for somethings cannot be changed by simply waiting for society to catch up. If we had waited for people to stop smoking voluntarily we would still be eating our meals in smoky restaurants. Legislation can and does change society.

I cannot ignore the constant rhetoric that children do better in two parent families, its not just an attack on gay fmailies its an attack on mine also. My sons father died when he was a year and a half old, for years I would tear up when watching men play with their children, it was strange how it could hit you out of the blue, an advert, a passing car, a story book, all reminders of what you were not providing. I was strong enough to see that most of the time I was providing more than two parents could, we talked, we shared sleep, we worked together,because there was no-one else, just me and him. I learnt that it was love and not gender that defines your relationship with a child. He has my brother and father and my friends as male influences, people who loved him and valued him. Everything a married couple have I have, or have given him, he has wanted for nothing.

He has learnt that women are strong and capable, that we will use drills and rewire lights, that we change wheels and oil and build walls because there is no one that will do it for you. Single parents are forced to reevaluate gendered roles on a daily basis, we are mam AND dad.So when David Quinn makes statements to lessen my family structure as not in the best interests of the child I question his thinly veiled bigotry. My child deserves the best and he got it.

Smack or whack

The current poll of Irish adults overwhelmingly demonstrates our lack of consideration for children. Repeated efforts on children's rights seem entrenched in petty squabbles and lack of direction. A statement from TV3's Amanda Brunker notes "When the naughty step doesn't work,when the taking the toys away doesn't work I have smacked them hard enough to leave a visible mark. I don't do it often but at least I am honest. People try to be too PC." The smacking debate clearly demonstrates that what happens behind closed doors is not to be interfered with by government.
The Irish times poll indicates that 67% of its online readership consider smacking an acceptable part of raising a child. The comments are, for the most part in favour of smacking as an effective means of raising a child. A well adjusted and suitably chastised child who knows that love and not frustration is the well from which this practice springs.

Lets break down the argument
1: It didn't do me any harm.

Memory, its not as good a record as one imagines it were. It fades, it is notoriously open to interpretation, think back to any event in childhood and more than likely it has been 'polluted' by numerous intrusions, you have a vague recollection but not a crystal clear recall. I urge anyone to read Alice Isens' work on selective memory loss.What happens is that we remember large events but they tend to be 'fuzzy' they lack real clarity, objectiveness and in many cases any basis in reality. I have vivid memories of falling in a pond as a child because I was told about it, not because i remember it.
Think about the last time you fell over, the horrid feeling of loss of control and how frightening it was, you fell over a lot of times as a child but don't remember it so vividly, that is because our minds are designed to protect you from such feelings and they fade, we don't relive them time and time again because it is unpleasant and the nature of memory is use it or loose it. So when you say it did you no harm, it does not mean you remember the harm it did at the time, your just justifying it away.

2:It teaches them right from wrong

Bandura showed that social learning is a more powerful tool than Skinners stimulus:response mechanisms in the 1960's, research since then has proven that what you do is more powerful than what you say. Display it and its a normative behaviour that will be adopted by your children. And its the constant harking back to behaviourism that keeps this mentality alive, children will stop doing what you don't want them to if they associate that behaviour with a painful stimulus. And it has to induce some amount of pain...otherwise its not an effective stimulus, so justification on the basis that its only a 'gentle tap' not only demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of the facts and it shows that your probably lying, to yourself. Children learn more from what they are rewarded for than what they are rejected for, which leads nicely into -

3:I don't want my child to be wandering the streets, if only those kids had been shown some discipline.

Invariably the children wandering the streets were children where a smack and not a word or reward for good behaviour was ever dispensed. So the argument once again falls flat, if those children know that physical punishment will accompany bad behaviour and yet they continue to act in that way then surely the answers lie elsewhere as far as productive parenting.

4: I only do it when I'm calm

I would love to meet the parent who manages to put off punishment until such time as they are completely calm, the idea that one could feel completely in control of ones senses and lovingly smack a child is incomprehensible. When a friend or colleague acts in a way that displeases, you do you suppress all reactions until such a time as you are ready to apply a short sharp smack to their behinds? Why is OK to smack a child and not an adult. If its down to small children's inherent lack of understanding, then why do creche workers not have the 'right' to physically discipline children.?


Lastly I think we need to reassess the use of language, a smack is a hit, smack merely dresses the word up as something benign. Its a well known trick in court for defense council to refer to car crashes with terms like smack, graze and bump. This convinces people that the accident was not as dangerous, careless or serious as words like smash, crash and hit.

The only people that are convinced of carefree childhoods are the ones that have forgotten their own.

Why do Irish turkeys vote for Christmas

Lately Ive been pondering our peculiar and distinctive lack of collective action in opposition to events which unfold with increasing frequency, where some profit and others sink. Most social psychological research into political action focuses on the struggle between minority groups and authority to capture the hearts and minds of the silent majority. But Ireland currently presents with the opposite. The majority are angry, they are cheated, their belts are thrice wrapped round and yet they do nothing.

Begrudgery is a line that continues to pop into my head, and its begrudgery on a national scale that is quiet possibly keeping us in our place. A friend suggested a definition for begrudgery ‘its better that my neighbours horse dies than for me to have two horses’ which sums up some of the definitions I can find. But as I seek to understand this phenomenon in terms of our social selves I am drawn back to Tajfels minimal group studies of the 1970’s, where groups always seek to favour themselves over out-groups.

Consider how you would describe yourself to a stranger you begin with individual attributes then move to your group memberships, it defines part of who we are, and everyone wants those groups to be worthwhile. You are unlikely to associate strongly with groups that do not enhance your sence of self. We are inherently social animals activating various selves when placed in groups, the group norms and behaviours becoming activated depending on where and when you are, or who you identify with. As a supporter at a match its perfectly acceptable to shout at the referee but when the boss makes unwelcome decisions at work we don’t roar abuse at him (though we wish we could) the norms of different group behaviours become ‘active’ depending on the amount by which we immerse ourselves in the group. If you were dragged to the match, you are unlikely to shout because you do not identify with that group, and thus its norms.

Begrudgery seems to follow the Minimal group paradigm, whatever group you are in , you will always seek to maintain the sense that your group is distinct, better than or superior, usually at a cost to the outgroup. In numerous studies it has been proved that it’s not necessarily doing well, its doing better than the other group that matters. It’s all about what you have and more importantly its what the others don’t have. I hypothesise that our system of government based on clientlism and separate counties vying for what’s they see as rightfully theirs will keep us in this situation until such time as there is a complete overhaul of the political system. We protest for OUR hospital, OUR local school, OUR neighbourhood, we deeply identify with the locality and what politics can do for US, but we are impotent in the face of the great system.

When people from Clare or Sligo or Limerick or Carlow seeking to effect change in their neighbourhood know that it has to be brought about through protest at a national level. Perhaps then we will emerge from this young democracy where ‘not making a show of yourself’ might be a whisper and not a rule.

I’d very much like to hear YOUR version of begrudgery below, what do you think it is, please add to this debate.

Fried Eggs and spilt milk

An interesting article takes centre stage in talk radio today as (mostly men) decry the deputy editor Kathryn Blundells' (of Mother and Baby magazine) stance on breastfeeding. She outlines her case, centering on wanting to keep her body taut and her breasts for entertainment, while I believe she wanted it to come across as sassy it bricked harder than SATC 2. I know she was attempting to reach women who felt guilt for bottle feeding but the thin line between independent woman and mother is a difficult path to tread. I recall Gordon Ramsey stating that he never changed a nappy in his life and being lauded but Madonnas admission of same of leading to horrified reactions. Whats good for the goose is not for the gander.

I was lucky enough to breastfeed, I nursed my son until he was nearly three, which raises eyebrows to this day. I was 20 when I had him, young enough to appreciate the A to D size increase and also young enough to want to keep feeding for fear of returning to the land of fried eggs. I also returned to a size 8 within 2 months and never,ever had a sleepless night, I was so connected I would wake seconds before him and latch on, for you see I also committed the sin of sharing the bed with him. Motivations differ for everyone, my main motivator has always been somebody telling me I couldn’t do something.

I had to stay with my parents after he was born, they were horrified by my decision, I was forbidden to feed in front of anybody in the family, at one stage I remember my father coming into the room and saying that he would pay for the food, whatever food I wanted to give him, just stop the stupidity. I had countless bouts of mastitis in the first month and my public health nurse came around and recommended I put the baby on a bottle as soon as possible as I was too young for this (all this ‘advice’ circa 1997). I had support coming out of my ears.

I was not lucky enough to plan and want a baby, but when I got him I made damn sure I gave him everything I could, he didn’t have a €900 buggy but he had me. I carried him and fed him for 9 months, why stop then?. While I’ve learnt a lot over the years on genetics and temperament and I know all too well the dangers of anecdotal evidence, I still attribute much of my little mans, kindness, sociability and empathy to being so close during those first years. People have always commented on him, so I guess there must be something in the nurture half. There are other benefits, the lack of bottles and sterilising, the weight loss and grab and go baby packing. I empathise with women who for whatever reason cannot feed, I remember feeding through nipples that looked like they had been sanded off and rubbed down with salt, the teething phase and I still tingle there when I hear a crying infant. Perhaps if my parents had been more supportive I would have given up. I’ve never really been any good at doing what they told me to do.

What really creeped me out about Kathryn Blundells’ article is her comment on the creepiness of looking down at a baby latched onto a nipple where previously there has only been a lover. Does she get sexually stimulated at a smear test?

Feminists need to hulk out....

Somebody asked Lady Gaga if she was a feminist lately..she replied, 'No, I don't hate men'. Somewhere along the line being a feminist has lost its mojo and meaning, its like saying you vote for Fianna Fail...So a new generation of little girls can grow up knowing its whats on the outside that counts...again.
I have so far resisted open comment on Claire Tully,Ive attempted to admire her tenacity, her ability to spell, her shameless self promotion all features that have been made possible by the rise of feminism in Ireland. 40 years ago women had to cover their heads in church now Clare can get her kit off and still get work in mainstream media. Today's piece by her has finally irked me into action..after tolerating previous articles by this woman I feel a short rant coming on.

Clare Tully is one of the big draws on Joe.ie Ireland's first men's website, dedicated to manly, manly stuff like sports and cars and sports and women. Women who have tits, who like to get them out, and agree with them, and laugh at their jokes. Men, real men, men who shave and like men's stuff, because theres only one way to be a man...
Clare is employed to get her tits out and churn out sex advice, as of course being a woman with a degree from trinity in Immunology she is vastly experienced in and qualified to offer advice on sex...... I'm not going to draw a parallel there between being sexually promiscuous and being a soft porn model; I would not do that to another woman. Which brings me back to the point, having a degree in microbiology does not a psychologist make, undeterred, Claire notes another string in her bow; social commentary. Claire is a woman with opinions, and shes not afraid to buck stereotypes!..well so says her website! This usually ends in Claire succumbing to lads views, at one stage in this piece she mentions her balls shriveling up...if only she had them....

Today Claire (with the maverick, maverikness of Sarah Palin flowing full and free in her lions) bravely challenged women who cry rape! Oh, what daring, what bravado, giving a shout out loud and clear that Claire and her ilk have no time for lying and liars and the lies they tell!

Clare illustrates this point by quoting American statistics for false reports of rape, and as we all know, Ireland is closer to Boston than Berlin! So any more we can just quote American Statistics and use them to make Irish points, for instance
Did you know that 1/3 of Irish people do not believe in evolution, and 13% of us think the President is really the Antichrist, our population in Ireland can be of course be broken down into white 77.1%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1.5%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.3%, other (The Hawaiian contingent being banished to Achill in the mid 90's)

So Claire, when you decide to side with the people who think most rapes are just a girl looking for attention or being vindictive you forfeit your right to be tolerated. American Statistics do not reflect Irish life and should not be used to illustrate your opinion as facts. Rape is happening every day in this country, and its not just women who are victims, by furthering the belief in lies you side with the community in Listowel who shook hands with Danny Foley after he was convicted of raping a young women. Or the Italian judge who ruled that it was impossible for a young woman to be raped wearing tight jeans.

Its why I despair of Joe.ie with its manly manly stance...I know lots of men who are sensitive, considerate, caring, fathers, parents, lovers... and not just some impulse lead morons that wont read anything without a pair of tits or an arse dangled before him. Grow up Joe and cop on Claire.