GoldieBlox Breaks into Toys R Us

This ad popped up on my Facebook newsfeed today and it caused quite a diversity of reactions in the comments. There's something about it that makes me uneasy. Take a look…

When I was little, I played with Lego and racing cars and trains. I wasn't the kind of little girl that enjoyed dolls and tea sets much (actually there's a photo somewhere of me aged 2 standing on a table with a walking, talking, blinking, crying doll I'd been given for my birthday. I'm standing at the very edge of the table, looking petrified and for all the world as if I'd happily leap off the end to avoid that terrifying monstrosity).

When I had my own children, I consciously made the effort to ensure that they had a range of toys. They had balls and bats, skateboards and scooters, tea sets and dolls, cooking pots and action figures, hammers and saws and doctor's sets. They also had a wide range of toys that would spark their creative spirit - wooden blocks, paper and crayons, Lego, pillows for forts and stuffed animals. We read books and played with mud and shells and rocks. We had animals and played dress-ups. Nothing was really off limits unless it was unsafe or just too hard for their little hands to manipulate. They both loved dressing up as spiderman or angels (we had wings) and "cooking" mud for their plastic "families".

B2 still builds space ships and forts with the Lego blocks - minus any instructions (actually even if he gets a set with instructions, after he's built it, he takes it apart and builds something out of his imagination).

So I'm a little confused about two things; why there needs to be gender-specific toys and why this new toy is so exciting.

First to the gender-specific toys (and colours). Who determined that pink and purple were girly colours? Up until the early 20th century, pink had not been gender-assigned. Parents were just as likely to dress boys in pink as girls, and it was considered a "stronger" colour and therefore more suitable to boys. Purple was the colour of royalty and religion in England. Worn equally by kings, queens and bishops. It was definitely not gender-specific. And when did being a princess become an aspirational goal? Really, how exactly does one aspire to become born into a rigid heredity? That doesn't make sense to me. Or is it marriage to a Prince that girls should be aiming for? That didn't work out very well for Princess Diana or the Duchess of York. So clearly being married to a Prince isn't sufficient to guarantee happily ever after. And by the way, who said girls were the ones who had to stay home and cook and clean and take care of frighteningly real crying, feeding, weeing baby dolls (yeah ok, they still scare me)? So why do parents feel pressure to introduce their children to only gender-specific toys? It's really none of anyone else's damn business what toys your kid likes to play with. Let them play with what makes them happy. Childhood is such a very short time in our lives. Is it really necessary to imbue it with such extraordinarily weighty drama? Should it really be spent preparing children for adult roles they may or may not assume (which incidentally, is the reason the Baby Born was invented)? Shouldn't it be a time of fun, creativity, imagination and learning how to take calculated risks?

Now onto this particular gender-specific toy. I don't get the excitement. It seems like an avenue for one manufacturer to market to a specific target audience and make a pile of money - all those parents disenchanted with the new "girlie" Lego sets and fed up of having their daughters directed to anything princess or pink or frilly will be champing at the bit to spend their hard earned cash on this cleverly marketed toy. Perhaps I'm overly sceptical, but I don't see how (apart from clever marketing) this toy is markedly different from the myriad engineering toys that already exist. You don't want to buy your daughter a Lego model of the Death Star? Ok, don't. Go buy her a bunch of Lego bricks in different colours (or if you want her to be really creative, just one colour) and tell her to build whatever her heart desires. There's nothing gender-specific about a Lego brick. Or Kinex, or Duplo or any of the other engineering/building toys that exist. To be fair, the idea behind the toy is great. It's aimed at getting girls interested in engineering and building, and ultimately any play with engineering toys will improve girls' spatial skills (which do lag behind boys' when looking at large scale studies). However, the GoldiBlox are no more creative than the Lego sets. They do not encourage imagination or risk-taking any more than existing sets, and you can't yet buy GoldieBlox bricks separate to the kits. So girls who buy this set are restricted to "building along with Goldie" rather than inventing their own machines.

Maybe parents of girls have a different take on it? What are your thoughts?

Cooking up a Hot Mess with Paula Deen and Anne Rice

The recent allegations levelled at Paula Deen, self-proclaimed Queen of Southern cooking, have brought with them a slurry of debate on social media networks. The level of emotive commentary has highlighted just how far the world has yet to go in race relations (and I use the term "race" in its most socially understood form here). It seems that everybody has an opinion and nobody's scared to voice it.

Today, while meandering through my Facebook newsfeed, I spotted a new blogpost from a site I regularly read. The bulk of that post was on a young author who had scored herself a publishing deal at the tender age of 15. A wonderfully positive post about a clever young writer who is being recognised for her talent. Lurking at the bottom of the post, however, was a link to author Anne Rice's Facebook post, posing a question about the social vilification of Paula Deen.

Did I ignore the link? Did I allow my fingers to hover momentarily over the link then brush them quickly away to another page? No. I clicked the link. I read the initially apparently innocent question. Then I read the many many polarised responses to the question, to Paula Deen herself and to a plethora of other social issues, some of which appeared unrelated to the issue. People don't hold back on social media. Sometimes people loose all sense that they are a member of humanity and should perhaps exercise a little humanity in their responses to others. And having worked myself into a lather, shaking my head at the state of affairs, and losing heart in people's capacity to conduct a debate or even an argument without a rapid slide into vulgarity, accusations and name-calling, I decided to post my own response to both the question Ms Rice posed and to some of the responses it elicited.

It's an issue I feel quite strongly about, so … well, I got a little carried away. So here, in its 980 word entirety, is what I posted. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Completely agree with Sarah ^^ (this is a long post and I apologise in advance). Ms Deen is not in danger of losing her life. She's really not in any danger of losing even her livelihood (her empire spans more than just the one Food Network show, and they haven't cancelled either of her sons' shows). This isn't a "lynch mob" as you so colourfully put it (nothing like emotive language to whip up a mob). She's not being pursued with a noose or burning torches and pitchforks. Nobody here appears to be wearing white pointy hats. I think the scrutiny she's being subjected to is perfectly human, and frankly justifiable given her frequent claims to Southern manners. It's unfortunate for her that social media happens to be the church meeting or town gathering of our times and allows for the airing of many more opinions than would previously have been possible. It's also unfortunate that people use the relative anonymity of social media to express their views in a less than tactful or considerate way, but if we cut through the bluster and filibuster, it seems to me that there are three positions here. Firstly, there are those who are outraged by the revelations from the allegations (and let's remember that at this point they are still allegations - her tearful video admissions aside), there are those who are mindful that she has not yet been convicted of any wrong-doing other than in the court of public appeal (tearful video admissions aside again) and so should not be condemned on the basis of allegations, and finally there are those that seem to have missed the point of the debate. Paula Deen may well be a charming archetype of a Southern white lady, but that doesn't mean she has any right to racist views. Claiming a defence of "everyone's at least a little bit racist" serves only to detract from the significance of her utterances (and it appears she's a recidivist on this count) - she is a Southern white lady and all the history of subjugation that that entails. I agree that it is shocking to hear African Americans call each other the N-word in jest or affection. It appears like double standards. It doesn't sit well with me, but does confirm how entrenched the generations of discrimination and disenfranchisement are. There is a minor case to be made about the taking back of power by using the word, but I think that's a furphy - some words are just too vile. Calling for people to "move on from what happened in the past" is a position of luxury adopted often by those who have never been oppressed or had generations of their family oppressed by anyone, or by those who are apologists for such colonialism. We're not talking about a bit of name calling and a sticking out of tongues like you did at age 5. This is generations of being subjugated, having your futures determined for you by others purely because of the colour of your skin, this is being told who you can marry, where you can live, where you can shop, when you can go out on the streets, where or whether you can educate your children and for how long and in what courses, for generations. It is the assumption that one group of people is innately superior to another by virtue of a little less melanin. And it's the fact that there is still not equity (not talking about equality here - I'm not sure real equality is ever achievable) between African Americans, Native Americans and others (white, brown, brindle, whatever you choose to call the colour of your skin - and the same applies in other countries too, so don't feel you are being persecuted because you're from the US, it's not much different in Britain or in Australia). I'm not talking about an individual, case-by-case analysis. I'm talking about the entirety of African America or Native America compared to how everyone else fares in health, education and employment (severely under-represented) and the criminal justice system (severely over-represented). It's not that easy to "just get over it". This is generations of mental health issues, generations of general health issues (have you seen the diabetes and heart health statistics for African Americans and Native Americans compared to the rest of the population? Have you seen the morbidity rates?), generations of fighting overt and covert discrimination in education, workplaces and life in general. For many African Americans, waking up and deciding not to let the past determine how you react to the world can be stymied the very second they walk into a store and the clerk behind the counter ignores them in favour of the white lady who walked in after them. They may brush it off as one ignorant clerk being a jerk, leave the store and walk down the street, only to have a mother pull her child protectively out of the way. They go home, walk in the door, and notice a car speeding past, that slows in front of their house, just enough for the young teenager in the front to lean half-way out the window and scream, red-faced and ugly, the N-word before racing off again. Anne Rice, do you not think it's a valid response that people are still polarised by her words? Are you surprised? Do you truly believe she's in danger of having her front door bashed down in the middle of the night, of being dragged half naked and half asleep into the yard, and of being strung up from the nearest tree by people who don't even have the courage of their convictions to show their face? I understand that you were trying to draw an analogy with the comparative anonymity of social media, but your inflammatory language was perhaps a little ill-thought-out.

The Light Between Oceans, M. L. Stedman

My review of this novel follows...

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This debut novel by expat Australian M. L. Stedman introduces the intriguing moral dilemma facing lighthouse keeper Tom Sherbourne and wife Isabel who find a dead man and his live baby washed ashore on their very remote patch of land off the remote (yes that repetition was intentional…it was really remote) West Australian coast. Having experienced the pain and loss of miscarriage and still birth, Tom and Isabel need to make a decision about whether to report the find (not an easy or quick process), or say nothing and raise the child as their own (both emotionally and logistically appealing).

As an expat West Australian, who knows this part of the coast reasonably well, and who is missing home terribly, I was really excited to pick up this book (actually it was my recommendation for book club). Now that I've completed it, I've gone on to read some of the reviews floating around about it.

Let me begin by saying that in the main, I enjoyed the writing. The shifting tenses didn't trouble me and it seemed to me that Stedman employed this particular device to enhance the moral ambiguity within the plot. The language was mostly in keeping with the era (with a few exceptions of turn of phrase that were a little jarring) and the dialogue, while stilted, felt appropriate to the buttoned-up, tight-laced social milieu of 1920s, small-town, remote Western Australia.

I thought the characterisation of Tom Sherbourne was pretty much in keeping with men from Australia of that era. Actually his stoicism, devotion to his wife and moral ambivalence reminded me remarkably of my father-in-law (a West Australian, born at the end of WWII who grew up commuting between remote Western Australia and the city, and who spent time in the Defence forces). However, I found it immensely difficult to even empathise with the other characters in the novel and did at times become frustrated with Tom's spinelessness also.

While Tom's deep flaws could be explained by his back story (a troubled childhood full of secrets and lies, followed by unreconciled traumatic experiences through WWI and combined with the machismo expected of good, strong Australian men of the time), similar excuses could not be made for Isabel or some of the other characters. Isabel's poor luck with producing a child (something that would have been duly expected of a married woman of that time, and the lack of which would be viewed socially with a mix of pity and mistrust) clearly led to her becoming unhinged. This is the only way I can explain both her behaviours throughout the rest of the novel and Tom's acceptance of her behaviours. Much was made of the erratic and socially unacceptable behaviour of Hannah, the biological mother of the child, but nobody seemed to question Isabel's state of mind.

Though it was in keeping with his character that Tom bore the brunt of the consequences of their decision with a stiff upper lip, it didn't make sense that he didn't stand up to Isabel more. He had ample opportunity to right the wrongs once he'd learned who the biological mother was, and that she was still alive. I had, in fact, expected him to return the child largely because of his own childhood experiences, and it baffled me that this man, who had seen the horrors of death and injury through the Great War, did not appear to have the moral fortitude to deny his wife her whim and support her through her grief.

Although the anomalies in the characters' behaviours excited and engaged me as a reader, I found the place names troubling. While Janus Rock exists, it's not off the coast of Western Australia, but I do understand why Stedman used the name - two faced Roman god Janus, god of beginnings and transitions, of doors, gates, passages, endings and time, looking both to the future and to the past, encapsulates the main theme of this novel. The descriptions of the lighthouse (which were lyrical and clearly well researched) felt like they were based on the lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin (though Cape Leeuwin lighthouse is on a headland and not a separate island). However, the tiny town on the coast named Partaguese doesn't sit well. While the descriptions of the town (probably based on Augusta), the claustrophobia of small communities, the bigotry and the community support are all well written, the name itself doesn't roll easily off the tongue. Again, Stedman's choice of name because of its linguistic significance (to share, to be divided into or to be divided between) took precedence over the ease of readability - really I found myself being distracted by exactly how to pronounce this cumbersome name, instead of it being a natural part of the story.

The postscript was a nice touch. It rounded off the story without making a judgement about the decisions made by the characters or their outcomes. And as far as the plot is concerned, there are stranger stories in my own and in my husband's family histories

This novel covered a lot of territory; moral ambiguities, small-town small-mindedness, racism and bigotry, the issues of childlessness and social expectations, motherhood and what makes a good mother, the complexity of marriages, the keeping of secrets, greed and the yawning chasm between wealth and poverty, the lack of psychological support for veterans of that war, isolation, loneliness, mental health and acceptance (I'm sure there are some I've missed). And they were all meaty, well-covered issues. They kept me turning the page and made what could easily have been a too-soppy, overly-emotional novel truly intriguing.

View all my reviews

Magic and Faerie Dust

Pirates and Princes

This week was punctuated with "Tell a Fairy Tale Day" and it had me reflecting on childhood memories, faery rings, magical creatures and a love for stories and reading. My love affair with stories began before my memories did. My father was an avid story teller. He told long, detailed tales of far away places and long distant times. He told stories of his own childhood, the adventures and the mischief. Tales of squirrels being captured and trained, tales of skipping school and snake temples, of paddy fields and stealing eggs. He wove worlds with his words and peopled them in my imagination. My fondest memories are of dragging mattresses out onto the verandah on a hot Summer's night, the whole family sandwiched together, laughing banter flying easily between us, a dark sky dotted with twinkling stars, the night air still and choking, and my father's sonorous voice intertwining threads to weave tales that played like movies inside our heads.

But my father's stories were not confined to only tales of his and his brothers' adventures. He told stories that appeared unbidden into his head. He retold stories he'd read or heard long ago. He remade stories from Shakespeare and Aesop to fit our lives, our world, our experience. Did you know Hamlet was an Indian prince? Or that Aesop's lion, king of his jungle, wore a turban and licked his paws after a meal? He conjured magical worlds like some verbose fakir, and sparked in me a love for narrative.

Cowboys and Indians

Once ignited, my imagination knew no bounds. Imaginary friends followed me everywhere. I talked to myself (if I were completely honest, I'd admit that I still do), creating scenes and singing songs. I was never lonely. My world was always peopled and too often, I would be lost in that world. I laugh now as I remember walking home from school, down dirt lanes, lost in my own world, singing or talking to myself, completely unaware of my surroundings. More than once I was caught mid-song or mid-story by strangers, who had the great good heartedness to simply smile and shake their heads as they walked by. More than once, I was caught unaware by dogs, who were more intrusive and would bale me up against rickety fences, barking and slavering till their owners arrived to rescue me. More than once, my daydreaming ended in someone shouting at, or for me.

Highwaymen and Pirates

The magic didn't end in Australia though. Holiday trips to India were inevitably boring for me. This was the 70s and adults didn't care particularly if children weren't having an exciting time, and they certainly didn't feel responsible for entertaining them. The adults all went off into their own worlds, cousins were still at school and I was often left to my own devices. I was surrounded by readers and writers. A grandmother who read in many languages, uncles who were authors, aunts who loved to tell tales, even a great uncle who captured my romantic imagination at a very early age and taught me Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman.

Even the scary stories are fun

This magical wonderland was amplified by my sister. Eleven years older than me, and doing a degree in Literature at the time, she fed my hunger for poetry and prose. Witches, dragons, and rabbits and small girls in wondrous worlds were my regular bed time diet. I had vivid dreams and talked in my sleep. I wrote stories and poetry. I made up games to play by myself and with friends. I made up stories of my own and entertained my friends with them. So much so that I have wonderful friends who still remember the telling of those tales, more than 30 years on. It was easy. Telling stories was not effortful, it was second nature because I lived those stories in my head. They felt vivid and real to the listener because they were vivid and real for me. I told all kinds of stories and made up all kinds of games. Bunnies, spaceships and evil blue dolls all inhabited my world. I still remember, to my chagrin, the telling of one particular horror tale of vampires that caused my dear dear friend such torment that she wouldn't even let her mother kiss her goodnight for many weeks (in my story, the mother had suddenly and surprisingly turned into a vampire at that crucial moment when she was leaning in to kiss her daughter goodnight). Boy, did I get into trouble for that one! We all laugh at the story now, but I can only imagine how her mother felt at the time. Now that I have children of my own, I can imagine the shock and confusion. I'm sorry Aunty Janet!

Run run as fast as you can...

When I had children of my own, it was no surprise that they were fed on a steady diet of fairy tales and imaginary creatures. We went to great lengths to keep alive Santa and his elves, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Bilby (we're Australian after all) and other fantastical creatures. When the Tooth Fairy missed HIS rounds and forgot to leave money, his helper (me) would write long, detailed letters explaining the terrible wars against the ogres in the Fairy kingdom, detailing how he had been waylaid by invading forces, but that now, more than ever, each tooth would play an important part in rebuilding the realm. My own children have grown up sharing my fantastical world. And I'm grateful that my, to-all-appearances-straight-laced LomL has the heart and soul of a poet. This man, who is eminently practical and pragmatic, is the same one who proposed to me with poetry, wrote lyrical letters and still occasionally sketches when he thinks no-one is looking. Had it not been for his indulgence and encouragement, I suspect our world would have been a lot less colourful. To new parents, or to those who just like spending time with small people, making their world more exciting, my advice is to let go of your embarrassment and self-consciousness, indulge your inner child and live wondrous, fantastical worlds. Start by sharing a fairy tale. Go on. What are you waiting for?

A Homeschool Day

After our first training session with the swim team yesterday, this is what our Home School day looks like. What a shock to the boys' systems! Little to no activity for over a month, then WHAMMO, straight into training for an upcoming swim meet. They take their swimming very seriously here and the boys swam 4000 yards last night (that's nearly 3.7kms!). Not really a surprise that they're both shattered today.

Clicking my Ruby Slippers

Funny Go Home Welcome Mat (Photo credits: www.xpressmats.com)

Recently, I've read a few posts on home sickness and the malaise that seems to afflict more and more of us these days as we negotiate an increasingly smaller world and greater itinerancy. It seems serendipitous as I begin my own journey into new lands that these posts have popped up in such a timely fashion… but perhaps there was more design in their appearance than I'm allowing credit for. Or maybe it's like when you buy a new car - just before you buy it, you don't see a single one of the same make or model, but the second you drive your brand-spanking-new cool-mobile out of the dealership, the exact same make and model and colour are EVERYWHERE. Maybe seeing posts about home sickness and a sense of place/home has more to do with my own sensitivity to those feelings at the moment.

It's true that I'm struggling this week. The last few weeks haven't been as bad because there have been other distractions. Initially, we had just arrived and the shiny-newness of everything was charming. We approached everything with wide-eyed wonder and childish awe. LomL had leave and we traipsed about in a fog of jet-lag, insulated by a cloak of holiday-ness (that's the one you only wear on special occasions, the one that lets you feel like you can completely relax and let your guard down). We did holiday things, went to holiday places and LomL was excited about showing us all the attractions. Then he went back to work, and the boys and I were still in holiday mode. We didn't stress about school work, or even getting into a school, we didn't fight the fact that there was no routine, no plan for the day, we hadn't yet begun to flounder.

Towards the end of last week, it finally hit. That empty feeling in the pit of your stomach. The feeling that you're hovering, suspended, in limbo. You can't go back, and forward doesn't seem to have a clearly visible path.

Now you have to remember that I grew up in a migrant community in Australia. My parents arrived in Australia in their 40s and it was their fourth "permanent home". They'd spent the majority of their early years in India (yes, my mother was born in Burma and spent her early childhood there, but for the most part, she was in India and it's the place she still holds in her heart as home). They'd married in India, then set up house and had children in Singapore. Then there was the big move to Brunei, where they'd stayed for 15 years, where I was born, where they'd seen my siblings off to boarding school. That really had been the place, I think, that they'd settled in. I've never asked them, but I suspect that Brunei had been the place they had come to believe they would always stay. They had spent so many years making a home and a community there, they had become involved in community life and had strong friendships. So the move to Australia, after being so well established, to start home, hearth and community again in their 40s, was not easy. I lived that life in full Technicolour, Dolby Digital surround sound. Their sense of never fully settling permeating everything. Their longing for "home" but never really knowing where that might be, seeping into every aspect of our daily lives. I still maintain that's what gave me the itchy feet, the longing to travel that I have to this day.

The only time I ever saw them completely relaxed, completely "at home" was when they were in their own mothers' homes or their siblings' homes. There, when everyone reverted to the roles they had established in childhood, my parents became themselves. My father was the eldest brother, waited on by his sisters, teasing and laughing with his brothers. My mother, the respected sister-in-law in my father's family, was quickly dragged into the kitchen or asked for advice. In my maternal grandmother's home, the roles were similar. My mother reverted to the child she had been and I caught glimpses of her as a teenage girl, giggling and sharing secrets with her sister, adoring her mother. My father in that house, became the man of the house. He was the one my grandmother insisted be consulted over every decision, usually to the exasperation of my Aunt, who was the primary bread-winner of the household and was used to making all the decisions during the remainder of the year. Her nose would get regularly out of joint when my father arrived on holidays. It must have been so frustrating and demeaning for her. She earned the money to keep the house running, she made all the decisions when we weren't there, she had to deal with all the things that went wrong on a daily basis, yet my father would sweep in and my grandmother would turn to him for advice. He didn't do it purposefully or to slight her. It was just the way those relationships worked. They could all have been more graceful and gracious in hindsight. But hindsight is blindingly clear and free of emotions that plague the moment being lived.

So having experienced a childhood in a migrant community, where all around me were adults coming to terms with their feelings of displacement, their changing worlds, you'd think it would be easier for me as I go through a similar transition. I suppose the one advantage I have is that I know with unwavering certainty that the "home" I long for no longer exists. It has changed. Even in this short time, it has become a different landscape. I saw it with my parents. They would travel annually to India, expecting the idealised place of their childhoods, expecting that people would be the same, have the same reactions, speak in the same ways, offer the same respect. They would be annually disappointed, and strangely, a little surprised. They would return to Australia, griping about the changes, the way people spoke, the way the young dressed, the changes they couldn't reconcile, but still feeling out-of-place in Perth.

They became a cornerstone of their migrant community in Perth, more displaced people looking for a sense of belonging, a sense of family and community. This community I grew up in left me confused about identity. I didn't feel the same sense of displacement as they did. I didn't feel the same loyalties to India or an idealised life there, as they did (I suspect no-one of my generation felt that either). But equally, I didn't feel truly Australian either. I just felt different. Different to the first generation migrants I was surrounded by, and different to my Australian friends. I believe that nobody feels that sense of national identity in the core of their being until they have left the country. I know that the times when I have felt most Australian, most like I belonged, are the times when I have been away from Australia, on holidays, or now in establishing a new home. Those are the times when I have reverted to familiar stereotypes of Australian-ness, my accent growing stronger, my use of idioms growing more frequent.

But knowing that everything has changed in the place I once called home, doesn't make it easier to separate myself from it. It does spur me on to create a new sense of home here and that's a promising start. In the interim, however, it's still a matter of dealing with feelings of being adrift, harbourless and a little tossed about on unfamiliar waters, no land in sight yet, forging forward, heart in mouth and resolve firmly in hand.

Weighing In to the Gun Debate

So let me start with a disclaimer: this is a portion of what I think and feel. It is by no means the entirety of my thoughts nor have I come to any firm conclusions about gun control and my mind remains open to being convinced by sensible, reasonable and reasoned arguments.

English: A man holding a blunderbuss. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've tried not to enter the fray when it comes to the debate on gun laws in the US. As a new resident and a foreigner, I am keenly aware that my perspective is skewed and largely uninformed. Today, I came across this particular snippet of news and it has been the catalyst that has motivated me to break my silence on this issue.

Firstly, let me say that I have grown up in Australia. A land colonised in the name of a reigning monarch, where tracts of land were claimed and the indigenous population were fought in the name of the King (of England and Australia - King George III was the reigning monarch of the day in 1788). It was colonised in the same way as many other nations at the time. Indigenous people were considered no differently to local fauna (in fact in Australia, Indigenous people weren't even recognised officially in the constitution as a people until 1967 - a disgraceful and shameful fact). However, the point of difference with the colonisation of the US, is that the first colonisers to land in Australia were not fleeing the motherland. Rather, they were expelled. Australia was initially a penal colony and later took the overflow from the rapidly growing population subsequent to the Industrial Revolutions in England.

America was not the same. The founders of this nation were not expelled from England. They escaped. They escaped religious persecution from a reforming church that saw no place for their particular brand of orthodox and conservative religious practice. This nation was not claimed in the name of a reigning monarch. It was claimed as a sanctuary, a refuge - and yes that does make me think of a boat load of hunchbacks of Notre Dame sailing into Plymouth harbour.

Forays were made into the interior of this nation by colonists claiming portions of land for themselves and their families, not for King and country. This is obvious when you look at the names of states, counties, cities and towns in the US. They're generally not named after kings and queens of England as they are in other nations. Here, places are named after the individuals that claimed the land - Crockett, Texas is actually named after the infamous Davy Crockett (those of you who grew up in the 1970s can probably still remember the theme song for the TV show…sing with me now, King of the wild frontier). States and towns are named after local indigenous groups depending on their ability to stave off invading colonisers - Texas for example comes from the Caddo Indian word tehas (meaning "friend" and applied to the coalition of Caddo tribes that lived around the Nacogdoches region, the word was later adopted by the Spanish [spelt tejas in Spanish] and used to refer to both the Indians and to the region in which they lived). I think this shows the ferocity and independence of the Indians who lived here. This land was not easily acquired, and in a very macho fashion, respect for the Indigenous population was won on the basis of their warrior-like nature.

But I digress. My point here is that the difference in the basis of colonisation has led to a difference in attitudes towards land and how to defend it. Remember, in Australia the land was claimed in the name of the King of England. It was largely defended by soldiers and militia and was quickly governed locally by a proxy for the trusted King. In America, land was claimed by individuals, defended by individuals for themselves and their families and largely governed locally for individual and family needs because of a lack of trust in a government's ability to treat individuals fairly. Heck, the US constitution begins "We the people". Not "we the government", but "we the people"

They have elected sheriffs here. Let me just say that again. Elected sheriffs. So the local constabulary is elected by the people in the community in which they live. In Australia (as in many other nations), the local constabulary is appointed and administered by a centralised government (usually a State government) and is a public service. So here, they chose who they wanted to defend the town, or city, or state, but they didn't leave them on their own (largely because they don't entirely trust any level of government ). Here, the attitude was always that it was an individual responsibility to defend the home and family, and that sheriffs defending a local population were supported by an armed populace - think about all those cheesy westerns we've all watched, where the sheriff deputised members of the local population who all had guns.

So in this nation of fiercely independent individuals, mistrusting of the government of England (and any other government) who essentially made them pariahs, who have generations of a cultural milieu that supports gun ownership by the populace (men, women and children), it should be no surprise that gun ownership is considered an inalienable right. So what happens when this nation is then forced by events to confront some of the ugly consequences of gun ownership? A debate ensues. A hotly contested, often polarised debate.

As a foreigner parachuting into the middle of this, I've tried very hard to not form an opinion based on my own prejudices. I've tried very hard to see as many perspectives as possible and to exercise a little cultural relativism. I've tried very hard to rationalise some of the inflammatory public statements put out by the NRA and understand the membership that they represent. I've tried very hard to listen with intelligence to the equally inflammatory arguments of those demanding gun restrictions. But this latest video advertisement by the NRA has tipped the scales for me. I no longer feel the responsibility to make sense of the thinking behind this "need" to own automatic or semi-automatic weaponry. I no longer care to hear the arguments against strict gun controls, mental health tests or regulation of guns. I will admit that gun deaths in states where there is an open gun culture, appear to be fewer and I think there needs to be more investigation of why this is so. I await with bated breath and a hopeful heart the cessation of these highly emotive arguments and a more reasoned debate. And in the meantime, I hope ardently for every person in this nation to be able to walk this land, to be able to send their kids to school, to be able to go to midnight screenings of movies, without feeling fear for their lives.

Just Another Brick (in the) Wall

Old school books (Photo credit: justmakeit)

So, we've been in Houston now for one month and life is slowly starting to take shape. The house thing seems to be working out and stars are pleasantly aligning. The school thing is slightly more problematic and I'm going to have to bite the bullet soon and make a commitment to home schooling. So what's my resistance? For B1, it's chemistry. Seems like a small thing huh? Nothing too dramatic, something that could be easily negotiated. But it's my sticking-point. How do I go about accessing chemicals? How do I set up a functioning lab? How do I break him into a local school for chemistry classes? And the worst part is that I'm suffering a migraine today, so it's all just that little bit too hard, little bit overwhelming.

But that's not the only thing holding me back. In the state of Texas, home schooling is an interesting adventure. There is no registration and no accreditation. Home schooling is considered in the same vein (legally) as private schooling, and in Texas that means you can pretty well do anything you like, including nothing at all. There is no monitoring, no moderating and no registration of home schoolers. If I wanted to fill the school days with making balloon animals, that would be ok by the state. Now I know what you're shouting: but you would never do that! You'd have a riot on your hands from the kids! Both you and the boys would be bored senseless in seconds!! Yes. You're right on all counts, but here's my point, that's the home school community I'm working in; unregulated, unmonitored and in the most part unqualified. The majority of people in Texas who are home schooling are doing so for religious reasons - because the school system isn't providing enough (or orthodox enough) Christian education for their children. That's not our primary reason for home schooling. It's not even waaaaaayyyy down the bottom of our list of reasons. It doesn't even make the list.

 So? I hear you ask. Well, it raises the issue of who my children would socialise with. I don't want to isolate them here. That defeats the purpose of bringing them all the way here. I want them to make friends and build a community. But if the community of other home schoolers has almost nothing in common with us, how do I effect those friendships?

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic at the moment. Perhaps that's a reflection of my own lack of community here. It's hard to make bold moves like home schooling when you have no social support systems, no clue of curriculum and little idea of where to obtain resources… and you have an impatient personality. I have always been the kind of person who has an idea and wants to effect it IMMEDIATELY. The notion of slowing the pace down is an anathema.

For now, we wait to hear … and my nails get chewed to the quick… and my migraine gets worse...