When did we start becoming so nosey about how other people raise their kids?

Fit, healthy and subject to public judgement

A story on the front page of the Herald Sun  today shows a 10-year-old girl in a body-building competition who looks fit and normal for her age, but with her muscles tense to show off the results of her exercising

Despite the fact that the girl loves what she is doing and is doing it for fun, is keeping fit and is doing no harm to her body the Herald Sun has sought to ridicule her and demonise her parents with the line that she is somehow being exploited and damaged.

The paper wheeled out the usual suspects to subtly condemn the mother, including media-slut child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, who says this was sending the wrong message to image-conscious kids.

“What they should be saying to kids is they should be more valued more for what they do than how they look,” said the the rent-a-quote kiddy shrink.

Carr-Gregg, as usual, is full of shit. A sport like body building is a lot about doing. The girl is doing it to look good to judges, not to look better than her peers. It’s not like 10 year olds are being lines up compared on their looks against their will.

I would have thought this teaches children about self respect, nutrition and how to be active – does Carr-Gregg want her to be part of the mythical childhood obesity epidemic instead.

This is no different to junior dance competitions, which my daughters often take part in, where children are judged on technique and appearance. As for the physical demands of body-building on a child, check out the physical demands on kids who give dance and a real shot. According to her mother the girl does not use weights, just exercises, which are probably no more strenuous to the stretch classes that dancers endure.

It’s so unfair for the parents of this girl to be accused of somehow doing the wrong thing by her. This is a normal family who does not deserve to be on the front page of a newspaper and put at risk of public condemnation, by fucktards who follow this kind of bullshit like sheep.

Why can’t the self-rightious lot at the Herald Sun and Dr Carr-Gregg, concentrate on the 100 kids who needs emergency accommodation in Melbourne every night, or those children that are being found dead through neglect in their own homes on a far too regular basis.

And as readers it’s about fucking time we stopped passing judgement on people who are doing no wrong by their kids.

The baby bonus is an expensive indulgence

 

I don’t understand why, with the need to slash and burn the budget to bring inflation down, the Rudd Government has guaranteed the baby bonus at the bribe levels introduced by the Howard Government.

What started as a $3000 non-means tested bribe is now set to rise to $5000 for every child born, while at the same time charity organisations like Bonnie Babes, carers and pensioners are bracing themselves to see what the razor gang will take away from them.

While Rudd has said carers will be no worse off he hasn’t ruled out taking away the $1600 bonus they receive and channeling that money into their minuscule monthly payments. Yet everyone gets a few grand in their skyrocket just for having a baby.

After describing the baby bonus as an expensive flop in 2004 Labor are thinking politically, ahead of wisely, by retaining it at a cost of $1.16 billion a year and rising.

I think there should be some sort of payment made to new parents to help with out-of-pocket medical expenses and even to help buy baby things. But surely it should be means tested and reduced to $1500. The government could also give the mother a Healthcare Card regardless of her partner’s income and put money into more child care services.

This would see the money going where its needed and save hundreds of millions of dollars, avoiding the need to slash the few real social welfare services that the Howard Government didn’t destroy.

Mr Rudd described the baby bonus today as important in helping nudge the country’s birthrate - which is important in an increasingly ageing population. But why it is given to people who don’t need it, while people are missing out on other important welfare services and benefits, because their shitty part-time job puts them over a tax threshold that was low in 1995, is an absolutely fucked up state of affairs.

Finally, anyone who won’t have children because the government isn’t paying them to doesn’t deserve to be a parent.

Hi-5s for Charlie

 

One thing about being a parent, especially in the early years is having to sit with the little tackers through hours of kiddie TV shows. Because kids love things repeated you get to know these shows intimately so it helps if they’re watchable.

Alas there are slim pickings. The Wiggles are okay, but I find myself wanting to jump in the television to kick the shit out of Captain Feathersword. The Teletubbies are just fuckin’ idiots and that purple prick Barney is the one reason I’m glad dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the planet.

Hi-5 for all its mushy songs and all things nice was watchable not least because of the girls, especially Charli, and I mean this in the most respectful way. I always appreciated her charm, and her obvious like for kids. Charli has announced her retirement from the hit show, leaving just two original members. She’s a gorgeous woman and I pity anyone who has kids from this day forth and is forced to watch Hi-5 without her.

Parental guilt trip neglects the real offenders

 

We’ve become such a judgemental society that now the smallest thing blows up to become the biggest issue of the day. Party boy Corey is a case in point, where the reaction and subsequent publicity about a kid whos party got out of hand was way out of proprtion with the actual event.

This week’s fodder for the tabloid press, talback hacks and the swarmy bitch Anna Coren is a mother who dared put her toddler’s mishap at the hands of her pet dog as a boys-will-be-boys thing.

Alicia Cottier has become the most hated mum in Australia since, well since Corey’s mum pissed off to the Gold Coast leaving him to, if you believe the hype, destroy the entire City of Casey.

Why? Because when her two-year-old son Noah tugged at the mastiff-stafforshire cross’s ears and it lashed out and bit him on the face, she refused to have the dog destroyed saying that it as the boy’s fault and refused to have the dog taken away or put down.