Category Archives: Children

It’s a boy…I can prove it!

In comments on the Bill Henson post, Deus Ex Macintosh said:
Pr*n is a definition of taste rather than fact (see my previous comment). Nowt wrong with naked kids and in the bath is fine, just don’t flash the ones with their legs wide open in public. Thanks to digital photography it’s now easy to delete [...]

The Left Hand of Darkness

The other day I was reading Ursula Le Guin’s novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. I hadn’t read it for 10 or so years; I had forgotten what an excellent book it was.
Shortly, the book involves a male human diplomat and explorer arriving in a world, Gethen, where the sentient inhabitants are humanoid androgynes. For [...]

Legal Eagle, Planet Slayer…

On the ABC children’s television website, there is a page for a show called Planet Slayer, involving a girl called Greena and her dog Schpinkee who save the world by defeating evil woodchippers, using “non-chemical cleaners” and being vegetarian. [I always wonder when something is billed as "non-chemical"...what IS it made of then? The space between electrons?]
Well, [...]

Belated Mother’s Day post

I don’t feel like the best mother today. My daughter was sick last week, and didn’t have to go to creche. I don’t think she had quite realised that she would have to go back this week now that she was better. She screamed “NO CRECHE, WANT TO STAY HOME WITH MUMMY!” and kicked the [...]

Expectant

Yes, it’s official now - I am expecting Baby No. 2. Well, most of you probably guessed from my post “Pregnancy is not an illness“.
This now explains why I had to quit Missing Link a few months back. I have been finding it very hard to operate normally with “morning” sickness and the debilitating tiredness that [...]

Teaching by example

A science teacher friend told me that “teaching by real life example” is all the rage these days. People have to run around the room pretending to be electrons, rather than learning about electrical current in the abstract. It’s supposed to make learning more “approachable” and easier. A creditable aim, but I am afraid that [...]

God’s law and the law of the State

What happens when you have a particular group in society who are not minded to follow the law of the State, but prefer to follow God’s law as they interpret it?
Recently this question has come up in relation to Sharia law, particularly after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that some aspects of sharia law would [...]

Pregnancy is not an illness…

…but sometimes it sure as hell feels like it. Boom tish!
When I was having my daughter, we had a trainee midwife attending us as one of her “case studies” for qualification. She had a sticker or something with the motto “Pregnancy is not an illness”. From this you could tell she was young, idealistic, totally [...]

Clowns sicken young patients

I’ve written posts before about my deep and abiding hatred of clowns. Once on a plane, that movie Patch Adams was showing, featuring Robin Williams as an unconventional doctor who wears a clown outfit. I tried to keep my eyes closed for most of it after I saw him wearing long shoes and a red [...]

Waxing lyrical

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I’ve never understood the appeal of the Brazilian wax. In fact, I’m a bit disturbed by the thought that there might be guys out there who prefer women to be hairless. Do these guys like to imagine that the woman is very young? Erk.
There is a piece in The Age today [...]