Romance: Letter to my son and daughter

She's right.

Dear son, dear daughter,

Romance, awwww people love it! Think Valentine's day! Couples' holiday packages! Romantic reality TV! I mean, what could be more heartwarming than these things?

Yet as you'll know from the experience of cohabiting with me and your dad, he and I just don't buy it. We show all outward signs of being happy and in love, and yet we spurn Valentine's Day! He doesn't give me flowers! We aren't even married, fer Chrissake!

So in the interests of explaining your dear weird ol' mum and dad to you a bit more, I've written this blog post. Read on if you dare. I promise I won't mention us "doing it" eeeuuuw gross hey?! Haha got ya!!

You may have gathered that your dad and I aren't big believers in "romance" as it's currently flogged to the punters in our society.

In order to help you to "get inside my head" a little- and better understand my views on romance- let's do a visualisation. I'd like you to summon an image in your mind of "Romance" as a great pus-filled heap of festering dogshit encased in a sugar crust and wrapped up like a bon-bon.

"Surely you are joking, Mum?!" you say. 

No.

Romance it is that tells girls- both little and big- that they must be "special" and "chosen". They must be objects of desire so that men will pick them. After they're picked, pregnancy and babies follow like night follows day, unless something's wrong with you, in which case we all get to speculate about what the problem might be. Note: make sure you remain gorgeous and desirable throughout the pregnancy and early motherhood, ladies, or otherwise the special man in your life may un-pick you! And who can blame him?!

Romance it is that tells little and big boys that a man must be strong and pursue what he wants. It tells them that women "belong" to their special man. It tells them that he should expect that a woman be beautiful, desirable and also "pure", otherwise she's not special. If he's won his woman and she doesn't follow this script, he has every reason to be miffed about that, right? Right?

Romance tells all of us loads of other utter crap too, but I have to stop typing now while I retch a little.

OK I'm back! But surely, since we're smart, and our society is modern, we have nothing to be concerned about?! Modern romance is about equality, awesomeness and freedom, right?!

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about, even in our very modern, equal Australian society of 2015: 
* "Women's" magazines- every headline and article about who's gained weight, hooked up with a man, gotten pregnant, broken up with a man, gone out of their house without makeup on, worn a dress to a party, "stolen" another woman's man, had a disagreement (often charmingly referred to as a "catfight") with another woman, and so on.
* The media in general- please bear in mind that this is where most people get most of their ideas from. 
* Every fairytale you've ever heard, even in this day and age, which involves a princess and a prince. 
* Many modern movies (Twilight sagas spring to mind) and most old ones. 
* While we're on the topic of film- Do me a favour and Google "Bechdel test". 
* Marriage ceremonies (do some googling about why traditionally the bride wears white and gets led up the aisle by her dad). 
* Common terms for women who fail the purity test, like "slut" and "ho" (is there a male equivalent? No.).
* Many many others. Look for them. Be aware of them.

There's your insight kids, this is why romance can go jump in your Mum's humble opinion.

Be kind if you meet people- including prospective partners- who want to do romantic things with you. Participate fully and wholeheartedly, if that makes you and them happy. Consider this point of view and reject it, if that's what you want to do. Maybe it doesn't apply to your life, who knows? Only you.

Just please take note- and think about what you see out there. 

I love you :-) <3
Mum

Fear

Mummy's lecturing me about fear again

Fear is a huge thing in my life, the more I notice it, the clearer it becomes to me just how big an effect it has on my thoughts and actions- if I let it. 

From a Buddhist perspective we're driven by attachment (greed), aversion (fear) and ignorance and as usual I can say the Buddhist take on things is accurate in my observation of my own inner & outer life.

I guess that's why I'm a Buddhist.

It's hard to watch my kids experiencing fear, anxiety, shame (by which I mean fear of social exclusion) and it's hard not to project my own feelings on to them- to try to "save" them from experiencing these negative feelings. Of course my job as their mum is to stand back and offer them support and love as they meet with life and find their own way. And I must trust and respect them as fellow human beings who are entirely up to the challenges of living. Sometimes this is hard when my own fearful thoughts are jumping around in my head like mad chattering monkeys.

It helps me to remind myself and them that their minds are hardwired to be fearful, and that's OK. Here's what I mean:

We all come from an unbroken line of life, millions of generations stretching back into time, in which every single individual in that chain of life survived long enough to reach maturity and create offspring.

I don't know about you but I find this fact absolutely mind-blowing. And in my opinion, fear would have played an absolutely critical role in making this happen. 200 generations back in time, Og decided not to jump over that crevice in order to pursue the escaping deer. That's good, because the crevice was deep and wide and Og was right to be frightened of falling instead of reaching the other side. He went home that night without meat for the family but he clearly felt so bad about it that kindly Uga gave him some berries and then they made sweet sweet love under the stars because what else is there to do when there's no TV or internet?!

If you look at it in that way, then I don't know about you, but I feel that fear is put in a context, and in fact... I feel some kind of gratitude for this ever-vigilant fear in my mind.

So yep... feel the fear and do it anyway. Unless "it" is something really stupid or dangerous to yourself or others, in which case thank the fear and decide not to do it after all.