Past prime minister Paul Keating spoke recently of the enormous influence both his mother, but particularly his grandmother, had on his attitude to life.
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He attributes his strong sense of self-worth and confidence to the love he was surrounded with by these two strong women in his life.
I could absolutely say ‘hear hear’ to that.
When I was a child I grew up with my adored Irish grandmother living with us, and my other much loved grandmother just down the road.
They both cherished my brothers and me. Relatives lived and stayed close to home. That is no longer the norm today.
When we encouraged our children to experience life away from home territory they took us at our word. The chances of them returning home immediately retreated.
We have to be lucky they no longer live overseas so we haven’t lost them permanently to an overseas country, which some of my friends are experiencing.
I am in awe of the way my children manage their lives, as they are isolated by that tyranny of distance from us.
I, too, was a long way from my family when I had small children. We tapped in to strong friendship groups which are how they manage today if family is too far away to help.
Dinner parties are a thing of the past. Now families gather for an evening with their children included, and everyone is home in bed by 10 pm.
How different is that to those wild, noisy, argumentative dinner parties of our generation, when we left the children with the baby-sitter and set off to enjoy a long, wine-filled evening of fiery discussion and too much food and drink, arguing late into the night.
Dads are equally involved in sharing family responsibilities today. Golf clubs are closing or amalgamating. No surprise there.
The young men in our family take off for a two hour bike ride instead of an all day golf tournament. Lycra has replaced the golf jacket, highly engineered bikes have replaced the golf set and buggy, and the boys are home well before lunch, having completed a gruelling 80 plus kilometres early in the morning.
Today’s dads are home with the children, sharing household tasks and participating in children’s sports, music and their many other activities.
Today, dads are encouraged to take a few weeks of parental leave to bond with their child in the months after the baby’s birth. What a great experience that is for the dads.
Men haven’t been receiving a good press lately. I know that family violence is a presence in our communities and it is a disgrace that it is so prevalent today.
However, let’s not lose sight of the reality that most men are good men who love, care and cherish their families, who are not violent and wouldn’t dream of raising their hand to a child or their wife.
Within workplaces today it’s good to see men being encouraged to take the lead and speak out about respecting women both at home and socially, and speaking up at their social outlets when they see or hear of violent events within a family.
They can encourage their workmates to seek counselling to change their behaviours. They can do it.
The children of our generation have become great parents. Older generations still manage to cautiously pass on wise advice. At least some of the time they might listen to us!