I skrivende stund sitter jeg i stua vår sammen med en småsjuk fireåring som ser på ”Biler” og bygger racerbiler av lego. Utenfor vinduet skinner vintersola på et nedsnødd bjørketre. Jeg har en varm kopp te med melk ved siden av pc-en og det brenner i ovnen. Idyllen er tilsynelatende total.

whenever I tuck my keffiyeh around my neck, I think
of all you taught me about
politics

In all the old familiar places

whenever I open my Saturday newspaper, I think
of all the cut-outs I’ve received in the mail with
a handwritten comment on them

That this heart of mine embraces

whenever I open a tin of tea, I think
of you, scolding me for keeping tea bags in
the carton they came in
letting the air ruin the flavour

All day through.

traces of your life are scattered
all over mine
your clothes in my wardrobe
your earrings in my ears
your books in my bookshelves

whenever I turn around, unaware

I’ll be seeing you

In the November edition of the British magazine “Red”, one of the cover stories is: “Parent Taboo - 'I was happier before I had children'”. After reading it, I realise how glad I am that I didn’t have too many ideas of what mothering would be like. I honestly did not expect my children to make me happier than I was. As I discussed the article with a childfree colleague, she commented that to expect parenthood to make us happy is a fairly hefty pressure to put upon someone. ‘Welcome to the world, little one. We won’t expect too much from you, only that you make Mum and Dad absolutely happy.’ That is a tall order indeed.

Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of fucking list!

 -Denis Leary

Om barnemordersken Marie Farrar
                
Marie Farrar, født i april
umyndig, pregløs, uten foresatte,
rakittisk, ustraffet, tiltalt for barnemord, vil
forklare hvordan hun har foretatt det:
Hun hevder at hun alt i annen måned
gikk til en kone i et kjellerrom.
Hun prøvde få det bort med noen sprøyter.
At det var smertefullt forteller hun oss om.
Dog ber jeg dere om ikke i vrede å falle
for alle kreaturer trenger hjelp fra alle.

Crafting is fun. I like crafting. But honestly, I tend to like thinking about crafting, reading about crafting, acquiring books about crafting and printing out .pdf patterns of stuff I could possibly craft just as much as I enjoy the crafting itself. Oh, and did I mention how much better I like to start projects than to finish them? Add to that the stereotypical squeezed schedule of a full-time working mother, and you get … Yeah, that’s right. You get a crafting desk that’s so cluttered that when I, once in a very blue moon, when the time and energy to craft coincides with me being at home and actually wanting to do it, I spend all my time trying to tidy a path to the sewing machine.

Had I been a knitter, I could knit on the train. Sewing and decoupage are little less transportable hobbies. So I downloaded GIMP and started crafting on the computer instead. There’s a commuter-friendly hobby if there ever was one. And since I’m pretty much doing this for me (even though this blog post betrays the fact that I want to show off my new-earned skills), I can be as goofy as I like. Enter my new relationship with Screencap Paradise. I’ve downloaded heaps of screencaps from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and I’ve had fun making wallpapers and signature banners. Fun is good. Fun while travelling to and from work is even more good.

Sometimes, I really wonder what a breeder was thinking. I mean, carpaccio? This is carpaccio. It makes me think that the breeder of this pretty chap didn't really believe he'd ever amount to much.

This morning was the morning after our general election, so of course I turned on the computer first thing in the morning to see the results. On my way to the elections pages, though, saw a little celebrity piece of news: Patrick Swayze dies at 57.

Born in the late seventies, “North and South” is the first adult tv-series I can recall watching, and when I was eleven when I saw Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing”. That made a lasting impression. At thirty-something I’m still one of the women who gets a little misty-eyed whenever we hear “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” on the radio. Even if I'd been aware that he was battling cancer, seeing that he'd died made me feel really mellow. Being a horseman and a lover of Arabians as well as the Orry Main of my childhood, I liked knowing that he was in the world. Now he isn't.

It’s not just where I’ve seen him that’s created my regard for Patrick Swayze. It’s where I haven't seen him. I haven’t seen him at the front of the gossip magazines. I haven’t seen him all over my tabloids. I haven’t seen him being at the centre of less-than-interesting sex scandals. Instead, he has been a part of one of the few Hollywood couples who are famous for staying together. Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi was married from before I was born until his dying day. That inspires me.

To round this off, I’d like to quote a forum friend. I loved what he wrote about the passing of this actor and horseman:

Patrick always seemed to be a true professional, giving his best in whatever role he was playing, which must not have been easy in the early days, considering some of those movies. As far as I know, he never complained when a riding accident effectively ended his rise to be a top star, and, when diagnosed with cancer, never seemed to be anything but optimistic and determined to beat it. He died as much of a fighter as Dalton, his character in "Road House," ever was. Hopefully, like his character in "Ghost," he was able to take the love with him on his final journey. The Bible says, in Revelations, that the final Army of the Apocalypse will descend from Heaven on horseback. If that is true, then hopefully Patrick Swayze will have eternity to enjoy the pasttime that he loved so well.

Happy trails, Mr Swayze. Rest well. You will be missed.
 

Foreldre, både de som venter, de nybakte og de som har hatt barn ei stund overøses med velmente råd om søvn. Både dagspressen, foreldremagasinene, tv og radio er fulle av helsepersonell og pedagoger som har satt søvn i småbarnsfamiliene på dagsordenen. Felles for autoritetene som kommer til orde er at de uttaler seg svært tydelig om det de oppfatter som det sunne og normale. Mange tilbyr metoder som, hvis de følges etter boka, skal gi rolige kvelder, harmoniske barn og tilfredse foreldre. Og det er dette jeg protesterer på. Jeg tror dette intense fokuset på normalitet og metoder skaper engstelse heller enn å berolige oss. Vi sammenlikner oss for mye med familiene rundt oss og informasjonen vi har tilgjengelig, og ser problemer selv i sunne situasjoner. Kanskje hadde det vært bedre for totusentallsforeldrene om flere av ekspertene fokuserte på hvor store variasjoner vi ser innenfor det normale?

I was baffled when Proposition 8 ("Eliminates Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.") passed in California a few months after the new Marriage Act had passed in Norway. Forgetting the old adage about when to count chickens, I was smugly confident that the battle of same-sex marriage was settled here. We, I thought, would not see such a commitment towards removing a right already granted. I was wrong. During this summer’s campaign towards the general election, one notable political party has promised to try and overturn the gender neutral Marriage Act that came into effect last year, whereas two other parties are fairly woolly when they are speaking about “protecting the status marriage has in our society. Last, but not the least: The philosopher Nina Karin Monsen, who earlier this year received a significant Norwegian freedom-of-speech prize, has stated that she will take the matter through the courts to see of what she perceives as lack of correct procedure in the preparations can have the law overturned.

I just don’t get this commitment against other people’s marriages. If you don’t want to marry someone of the same sex, then don’t. Fine. You are free to marry whomever you want. Now extend that same goodwill to others, will you?

Last weekend Norway hosted the FEI European & Open Para-Equestrian Championship. I had the pleasure of being there for some of the weekend, and got to observe some amazing athletes in the arena, in the warm-up ring and at leisure. The working ethics, the devotion and the sheer joy these riders represent are nothing short of amazing.

As I was planning to write this blog post, an old favourite among the horsy tunes started to hum in my head; the theme from the nineties tv-series about the black stallion.

You hear it calling,
You can't deny,
Cause when it calls,
You know you're gonna fly.
It's all around you,
It fills your wings,
You and I, we know the wind.

for det andre: min personlige mening er at man ammer en unge mens den er baby. etter fylte ett år er ikke ungen en baby lenger. å amme barnet lenger enn dette opplever jeg som ganske ekkelt, og det er så visst ikke noe jeg har lyst til å se offentlig
(…)
og en annen ting. hvordan funker ting i sexlivet deres? først skal du fungere som matfat for ungen, og så er det mannens tur? eller er puppene off limit for ham i de årene du velger å amme? tanken på at en voksen mann ligger og nyter brystmelk som en del av sexen er ihvertfall for meg ganske ubehagelig.
(signert Anti-amming jenta)

Joda. Jeg visste allerede før jeg stilte opp til Magasinet-saken "For store til å bli ammet?" at langtidsamming er et tildels kontroversielt tema. Likevel har jeg latt meg overraske av karakteristikkene enkelte internettdebattanter har slengt ut av seg i dagene som har gått etter at artikkelen sto på trykk.

Harper Valley PTA

(Tom T. Hall)

Simen Tveitereid har åpenbart pløyd igjennom svært mye fagstoff før han skrev ”Hva skal vi med barn?” og viser til mye spennende forskning både innen biologien, psykologien og sosiologien. Han lufter også mange tanker om barns plass i samfunnet i dag som er vel verd både tid og refleksjon. Med så mye interessant stoff er det synd at boka skjemmes av en gjennomgående nedlatende tone. ”Høyt hevet over folket,” skriver han om seg selv, ”snart like ufyselig som Steinar Lem.” Egentlig er det kanskje overflødig å skrive så mye mer om boka. Jeg kan jo bare bekrefte at det er slik jeg opplever den. 

 

”– Den kjønnsnøytrale ekteskapsloven er et voldsomt overgrep fra Statens side. Jeg frykter en skilsmissebølge vil følge i kjølvannet, fordi folk ikke vil være gift under den, sier filosof Nina Karin Monsen”.

Et og et halvt år er gått siden dette utsagnet ble lagt ut på ”I dag”. Et halvår er gått siden den nye ekteskapsloven trådde i kraft. Foreløpig likner skilsmissebølgen hun spådde mistenkelig på en storm i et vannglass.

Det er som Piet Hein for lengst har gjort kjent vanskelig å spå – især om fremtiden.

Flere aktører i samfunnsdebatten ser ut til å ha klare svar på dette spørsmålet alle foreldre spør seg i blant når vi legger puslespillet som skaper hverdagen: Hva er best for ungene?. Noen synes det er å være hjemme med mor lengst mulig, noen er opptatt av at ungene skal få lov til å gå i barnehage og andre igjen er opptatt av hva som er for mange, for få eller akkurat passe mange organiserte fritidsaktiviteter i løpet av ei uke, en måned eller ei ungdomstid. Fellesnevneren for mange er at de er overraskende skråsikre. De har lest en rapport eller to, gjort seg noen erfaringer med egne unger og titta litt på naboenes slabbedasker og prakteksemplarer, og deretter har de trukket sine bastante konklusjoner.