Posts by Deborah
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That's an amazing playground indeed... huge and grassy (the grassy part is distinctly un-Sydney like, what's Adelaide like?) Is the fact that I can't see sun-shade because it's seldom required (joke)?
Adelaide playgrounds? Dull. Plenty of them, plenty of grass and shade, but the play equipment is just the usual metal climbing frames, and plastic twisty slides. Nothing approaching the mad joy of Kowhai Park. Having said that, there is a huge playground up at St Kilda, but we haven't made our way there yet - it's about 30 minutes drive away.
Sunshades on the wet west coast of the lower North Island? You've got to be joking!
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As for work-life balance, I have grappled with this too, and failed to come up with a viable solution.
A few years ago, when we were both working full time, and we had three pre-schoolers, I collapsed exhausted one evening when the children were finally in bed, turned to my husband and said, “We need a wife.”
We desperately needed someone to cook, clean, mend, garden, shop for food and clothes, and care for the children.
My husband thought about this for a while, and then said, “But who would sleep with her?”
End of that conversation.
I don't want my kids to spend longer in school - the school day is long enough as it is, and by the end of the week, and then the end of the term, they are very tired. They need more time out of school. Out of school care can be difficult to arrange and expensive, and even then, not very satisfactory, for parents or children. There don't seem to be any good options.
All of which constrains my career choices, considerably. I am riotously over qualified, but my masses of degrees are being used on housewifery these days, in order to support my husband as he gets going in a major new job. That's just a little galling, but the alternative, neglecting our beloved daughters, is not palatable at all.
As for Katherine Rich, whom I admire tremendously - I believe her when she says she's leaving parliament in order to be able to be a mother. It's a choice I have made too. But I wonder if the Nats realise just how many women will be looking sideways at them now, and wondering whether they have any idea about the lives of working mothers, and fathers, for that matter.
Okay, rant over, and link whoring over. It's just that I really have thought long and hard about this, for years, and I can't find a solution. You pressed all my buttons with that post, David.
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Homework - well, there are some things that some kids need to just practise, practise, practise to learn, like reading. My eldest daughter was a natural, but my younger daughters are struggling a bit. So with my eldest, I didn't really care if we didn't do the reading homework, but I am much more diligent about reading with, and to, my little girls.
But my older daughter's teacher gets the children to do a task card each week, for no reason other than that they should be doing some homework. WTF! All it does is eat into her much needed down time.
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D'oh! Must remember PA formatting. And that preview really is my friend.
Try again....
My brief experience with Australia, which only really consisted of Perth, indicated they they really knew how to playground over there.
There's a fantastic playground in Wanganui, of all places.
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My brief experience with Australia, which only really consisted of Perth, indicated they they really knew how to playground over there.
There's a <a href="http://inastrangeland.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/the-best-playground-in-the-world/">fantastic playground in Wanganui</a>, of all places.
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If you can play the guitar, perhaps we could get a gig
Can I play the guitar? I don't know - I've never tried.
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Yes, well, I'm for Clinton, but it's a margin call. I think I would like to take back that comment about Obama being an empty suit - that's at least a little unfair of me.
It hardly matters in any case. No vote... even though the eventual winner of the US election will happily declare herself to be the leader of the free world.
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Obama supports the complete repeal of DOMA. Clinton doesn't. I don't have a clue where she stands on 'don't ask, don't tell', because it seems to morph depending on the time of day and which fundraiser she's at.
I don't think you need to be a gay man to think there's a huge problem with the 'don't ask, don't tell' non-policy. Personally I think the state should get the hell out of the marriage game - it has no business there.
But if there's an empty suit in the room, it's the one filled by Obama. I have yet to hear anything from him that goes beyond a cloying platitude.
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Hillary vs. Obama?
This post says it all.
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And congratulations, Russell. That's fantastic news, and at last, it gives me an incentive to work out how to run TVNZ news clips on my Mac.