User Comments

di November 13, 2021

@simple simon 

I agree with you on this.
   This is such a personal thing. Women have a right to choose what they want to do with bodies and how.
It’s important to be fully informed and aware of all risks etc. Australian government health websites recommend that implants are changed every 10 years. 
     My concern with cosmetic surgery is that it reinforces the idea that you have to look a certain way in order to feel ok with yourself..
        The author here felt out of proportion and wanted breasts that naturally suited her shape. Naturally according to who?
Proportionate to what? The idea of a proportionate body or face is very much a made up concept relating to certain periods of history’s aesthetic standards .
  How much of the author’s dissatisfaction with her shape ,growing up , is due to her environment and messaging about small breasts?
    This is such a hard topic. If something about your appearance makes you unhappy then the right to decide to change itis an entirely personal thing. The question to ask is why does it make you unhappy in the first place ?

di November 11, 2021

The bar was sitting on the kitchen floor this morning… both my kids had cinnamon doughnuts for breakfast .

My daughter asked me why I let her have doughnuts for brekky to which I replied , “ they’re very similar to muffins but have no fruit”… ( thinking loudly, or  no nutritional value … doughnuts exist purely to taste good)..

di November 9, 2021

No. Never . Ever.  

di November 6, 2021

This. We’ll said! 

di October 24, 2021

Good luck with that.

Any parent who has had kids in Nicu knows how stressful, difficult  and heartbreaking it can be.
    As for their boys being home after a few weeks?  Um no.
Also, while I’m being a party poopatrix,
has everyone forgotten what an abusive arsehole  Bryce was? It was not ok and no amount of editing bias could isolate Melissa the way he did.
“ Everyone could see how loyal and supportive Melissa was” … yeah mate to your needs, on your time,for your agenda . 
Yes ,it is a reality show, yes , editing creates characters and by all accounts MAFS producers, psychologists paid no heed to the vulnerability of some of the cast members. Cos , you know, it makes for good Tele . 

I do genuinely hope that support is forthcoming and the babies  do well .

di October 24, 2021

Great list .

Roots by Alex Hayley and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith are two books I hold dear.
I love Marian Keys. Have to say it annoys  me no end when her books are marketed as ‘ chick lit’. If  a male author wrote this they would’ve viewed completely differently.

di October 19, 2021

This 

di September 2, 2021

Love love love this.    Everyone in my family still does stockings at Christmas ( for everyone including the dog)… I’m 46.

Easter egg hunts too and our dog, Milo, gives everyone a birthday pressie and card  which he signs with a paw print ( honestly it’s him that does it)

di August 23, 2021

Hmmmm… virtually martial law is an interesting thing to say. Because it’s not. Nor nowhere near it.

Also talking about Covid lockdowns and the treatment of asylum seekers in the same breath is also really quite incomparable.
       I would like to hope that lockdowns have made Australians aware of the plight of asylum seekers and refugees here more empathetic. 9 weeks in lockdown( although traumatic in it’s own right for many) is not the same as years in camps and of an uncertain future. Let alone the trauma and struggle many have come from and experienced. 
    Personal freedom and liberty rhetoric hasn’t really been working for the US or UK 
has it?  Most of my family is overseas. I haven’t seen my sister or Mum or dad for 2.5 years. It sucks. Being in lockdown sucks.
The fact that my disabled child can’t get a vaccine sucks. ScoMo sucks.
   But we live in a democracy not an anarchic state. Part of our social contract is that we agree to follow the rules in society in order for us to function and enjoy the freedom we have.
     Society needs to change to incorporate those who are discriminated against whether it be race, gender, sex, orientation or ability. We need dissident voices to procure those changes.
    At the moment we are in the middle of a global pandemic that has killed millions of people. Tho not unprecedented. It has taken many people by surprise and generations of Australians who have lived with freedom are finding it difficult. ( Tho many generations of Indigenous Australians are used to lousy, criminal treatment at the hands of successive. governments). Let’s not even start on constitutional reform.
       Disparity in wealth distribution has been greatly highlighted all over the world by the pandemic. Mental health services, lack of  funding for hospitals, staff and medical infrastructure  highlighted. How we treat people who are on Centrelink and what they’re expected to live on, aged and disabled people and the resources available to them . 
     There are many many people who have treated callously by Australian governments before the Covid pandemic.
What about their rights as citizens?
What Australia needs is a caring, empathetic approach with money spent on support and infrastructure for those in disadvantaged circumstances . Now more than ever during a pandemic.
        Everyone , of course, is entitled to their opinion and this pandemic has made everyone very opinionated ( me included).
It is a bit difficult tho reading someone in New York talking about rolling Police States.            ( have you ever experienced a police state or martial law for that matter ?)  over their beers with friends.
   I’m angry at the government too. Because so many people who have been treated like shit for years are really suffering right now.
What the government needs is coherent policy in a time of crisis that is maintained after  all of this passes. And it will pass. Even though it doesn’t feel like it right now.
      What we don’t need is  angry men protesting because they don’t want a vaccine or to be in lockdown. Thus spreading Covid and extending the lockdown .
 What has become apparent to me over the last 18 months is that a lot of people are quite happy living their lives , supporting governments with dodgy policy making decisions, funding decisions  and crap treatment of marginalised groups.
However when asked to give away  a bit of their individual pursuit for the good of all they are up in arms and start being sovereign citizens . At best these people are scared and want it to go away  and at worse it reeks of entitlement.
     Yet there has been an enormous amount of kindness , compassion and I like to think that the majority of people in Australia will look out for each and support their fellow people in a very difficult time.
   National identity is not a ‘ fluffy’ concept and Australia not a brand to be sold.
We live in a country that the has the oldest continuous culture in the world. This land is ancient  and has seen the world unfold.

       
         

di August 18, 2021

Just sent this to my ex husband. Our kids our 13 and 10. My daughter has cp.

When we split people ( I  left him) said ‘how will you cope?’. A lot better because that level of expectation from a partnership was gone ( a reasonable workable expectation).
I was 

He is not a bad person, he loves his kids .
He thought I could cope even when I told him I couldn’t . Found this out in counseling.

    When you are a new parent you hit the ground running  and it can be bewildering. For most people all they need to know is that they have someone in their corner. A kind word from their partner, a cup of tea, a hug on a bad day. This goes both ways.
It’s not about being superhuman and being perfectly balanced it’s about support and kindness. It’s knowing you will have shitty arguments at 2 in the morning ( whispered shitty arguments) and that is totally normal.
Ask for what you need, get a cleaner ( if you can afford one), take up all offers of help, food, community. Talk to each other .


di August 6, 2021

@di My comment was meant for another article

about lockdown by the Stephens’.. Yes, I have had a technical brain fart🤪. And why the 
comment makes no sense…

Well done on stopping drinking  .It can be really hard.  It’s brilliant that you shared your story.

di August 6, 2021

Best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is that everything you are feeling right now is a completely normal reaction to an abnormal situation.

       Having perspective is great on the days when you feel ok but don’t ever trivialise how you are feeling. Allow yourself to feel how you feel. Acknowledging that you feel stressed, shit, anxious, depressed, angry, surreal or whatevs can be sometimes be enough.
       My darling twin is in the Uk and I’ve had this conversation with her many a time. She feels she doesn’t have a right to be fed up
because at least she has her job, was on furlough etc etc.  she’s scared that if she lets it go it will overwhelm her and she’ll crumble.  It hasn’t and she won’t.  She just has days where it all feels too much  and giving herself the right to how she feels has really helped. Having someone else say that must be really fucking hard for you , of course you feel anxious, fatigued and over it helps too. Allows her to reset .
    So have a big virtual hug from a random stranger. You are doing as well as you can at the moment and that is enough.

di August 5, 2021

Totally agree with this post.

It’s great for all involved moving forward, esp kids. Everyone deserves a chance for change and redemption ( well most people).
But what did his daughter’s mother(s)go through raising those girls with active addiction & recovery?
A little acknowledgment goes a long way.

di April 29, 2021

Ugh... very very tired of reading this stuff, tired of stupid grubby men, tired of the Andrew Lamings, the Trumps , the Christian Porters and this guy( who is this guy?).

  Tired of the crazy ex girlfriend rhetoric, tired of ‘ just joking, don’t you have sense of humour? Tired of abusers & rapists  getting away with hideous behaviours and whistleblowers facing life in jail.
Bored beyond belief that it is 2021  and this is still going on ( as you so succinctly pointed out).
The only ray of hope in this sea of misogynistic crap is articles like this. Calling it out every time.

di February 15, 2021

Abusers often get involved with empathetic people. Sia saying “I feel like I’m always gonna love him cos he’s such a sick puppy’ ultimately negates any responsibility this man has for his behaviour.

 There are a lot of people out who have had horrific experiences who do not become abusers ... just at “ alcohol does not make a man abuse a woman though it is often used as an excuse”.
Too often we are fed this dialogue. That’s why abusers choose us empathetic women because we will find any excuse for their behaviour because ultimately isn’t there good in everyone? He’s sick, traumatised, alcoholic.
   Until excuses stop being made and true help is sought these abusers will just keep abusing.

di December 26, 2020

It’s not shameful to feel this way.

My daughter is physically disabled and I have  had all sorts of comments. 
   I think at lot of people don’t know what to say and are trying  to be helpful . Trying being the operative word.
Such as  “ god wouldn’t give you more than you can handle”... really?!
 Thankyou for this article.     You’ve perfectly summed up life in a different perspective “you can still love them to pieces ...while recognising your situation is hard”.