The upside of the downturn

When the GFC first hit us, I panicked. Our collective income dropped. The bills piled up. Things looked grim. How do we support our family? What if we can’t make our mortgage payments? What do we do when the work dries up (because we run our own businesses and we can’t exactly pay ourselves redundancies).

I was spinning down faster and faster in a spiral of negativity, fueled by the media, friends losing their jobs, the talk on the street (or around the water coolers)…

Then I kicked myself in the butt. Hard to do, in more ways than one. I thought of all the people who don’t even know there’s a global recession, because they spend their lives living like it’s always one. And I figured, if they can do it, we can.

So we sold stuff we didn’t need, refinanced loans, stopped the retail therapy, focused on paying off credit cards, started living lean. And it was okay. It actually felt good.

But I didn’t even think about (or value) the other side of slowing down. The part where you’re not juggling  way too many projects and stressing over deadlines. The part where you have time to think, time to learn, time to connect with people again.

And I’ve realised, over the past few weeks, that there are other things about the GFC that are really, really good. We do more family stuff, and we eat out less and cook together more. We’ve shed lots of stuff that’s been weighing us down (even though we didn’t know it). We’ve thought about what’s important to us, and what we really want out of life, and we’re making moves towards it. 

Because when you step out of that whole rat race thing, there’s time to catch your breath. And so much more headspace! You learn stuff about yourself that was being obliterated by the busy-ness… and you get so much more creative.

So yeah, there’s still those clouds hanging around, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Not in my head anyway!

elle x

Pokemon addiction

WARNING – If you are a writer, do not pick up this game. EVER.

I have just wasted the best part of several hours (I won’t tell you how many – I’m too embarrassed) ‘evolving’ (I didn’t even know what that meant in relation to this game this morning) a giant bird creature for my five year old. The worst part was, I was supposed to be editing. The other worst part was, I kept telling myself I was doing it for the five year old. The next worst thing is, I know she’ll have forgotten she asked me to do it by this afternoon, won’t care that I have, and I will have done zilch editing.

Does it really matter if the giant bird creature evolves and gets his three pronged crown thingy? No. 

Readers… this has been a sad, sad day for the procrastinator I thought I’d managed to get rid of. 

Sash

oh baby baby – bringing up the next generation

My daughter’s school friend (we’re talking private skool gurls, dahling) got her first car recently. A VW convertible. New. For god’s sake, are these parents serious?

I can’t talk I suppose. My first car was a convertible too. A Mini Moke. It was a slightly battered little beast of a thing, handed down from my older brother, who’d bought some whopping, throbbing… motorbike.

That Moke took me from Sydney to Newcastle, Canberra, Brisbane, the Outback… I was always on the road to somewhere, mostly with a moke-load of mates. These were road trips to end all road trips… all done at what felt like a ripping pace thanks to the furiously flapping canvas cover. Except they took forever. The journey was the thing…

Yes, it was a bit dodgy in the rain. And parents these days would be horrified about their daughters taking such an insecure beast of a machine out at night, on long lonely roads, sometimes alone – and without a mobile phone.

But a VW convertible? Now there’s a high maintenance woman in the making. Why do we do it to our kids? How are they going to cope with the reality that they can’t – and usually don’t – get everything they want?

As parents, we need to learn the ‘no’ word. And use it. Often. Without backing down, without listening to the pleading and considering the poor darlings feelings about being the odd one out. That’s called character building.

My daughter had a bit of a whinge about the heap of junk her dad bought as a shared first car for her and his stepson. She said it would be so embarrassing turning up at school where all her friends had sports cars and convertibles.

My response: Oh well. It’s wheels and it’s free. Be graceful and accept the gift gratefully. Besides, it’s kinda retro (she said nostalgically).

Now she’s driven it a bit, she’s loving driving… And after she drove it to school, I noticed a slight change in attitude (I quite like the shape of it, mum. It goes really well, mum).

Apparently, her friends all admire her retro cool. Gee, who would’ve thought?

Elle x

But my mobile phone was out of credit…

I’m always amazed by those adorable, on-the-ball toddlers who save their critically ill parent by dialling 000 and telling the ambulance how to get to their house. Stories like those never fail to bring a tear to my eye. Mainly because none of those kids live in my house.

We’ve tried to teach our bunch emergency response plans over the years, but honestly… they can be stuck somewhere late at night, their mobile phone is out of credit, and they can’t call us. Apparently.

Try a public phone, I say. Or call us before you leave work so we can meet you somewhere.

Oh, we didn’t think of that.

Before you think I’m a parent with my head in the sand (she says, draining some gritty stuff out of her ears) I have to say our kids tell us way more than we need to know about their lives. You know that stuff about not wanting to know what your parents got up to? It works both ways.

This isn’t about covering their tracks so much as not knowing what to do when things don’t go to plan…

Which brings me back to mobile phones.

Our policy has always been that we won’t buy our kids a mobile phone – or credit. Even if other parents do it for their kids (which, of course, they regularly point out to us). Even if we want them to be able to call us when they really need to.

Even if they lose their $200 mobile phone a week after they buy it with their birthday money. We call that a cheap lesson (more about that another time).

I don’t question the fact that we all want our kids to be as safe as possible, and we see a mobile phone as one way to achieve that. What I do question is whether we’re fooling ourselves (or they’re fooling us) just a tiny bit.

 

The fact is, you can buy them all the credit you like, but the rate kids txt msg these days, they’d probably be out of credit when they need it most.

What did we do before mobile phones? How did we survive, get out of trouble, find our way home?

We had to do more planning before we went anywhere – like how were we getting home, did we need a lift, would there be buses, did we have change for a phone or money for a taxi?

All of us girls knew our killer heels were more than just a fashion item – and that a swift kick in the right spot could make a bloke crumple at the knees.

Maybe it’s time we let our kids know it’s a jungle out there and how to deal with it. After all, there isn’t always mobile phone reception.

Elle.