by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
Last year I had the awesome experience of visiting some places from ancient Greek history (places like Troy and Rhodes). The accompanying talks were fascinating and I learned a lot about the history.
In one such talk the guide was telling details of a famous battle, including well known characters, real and mythological, who participated, what kind of weapons and armour they used, what helmets they wore, etc. He spoke for about 20 minutes and asked for questions and someone asked “who won the battle?”. He hesitated and then said he honestly didn’t know.
Thousands of human beings were killed and injured, and what for? History does not even record who “won”.
I was watching a You Tube video of German prisoners of war following World War II. I was looking into the faces of the captured soldiers. Many of them were just teenagers but they all had one thing in common: someone told them to go try to kill people who were strangers to them, and they obeyed. When people are hired by organized crime to do this sort of thing, we call them criminals. When people are hired by the government to do this sort of thing, we call them heroes.
In 2025 we still solve problems the same way we did in 2025 BC. We can ask Putin, or we can ask Israel. Can this ever change?
I believe it can, and I believe it can start with parenting. Maybe if we rethink who we represent to our children as “heroes”, and how we talk with them about history, they may start questioning the messages they get from the world. If changes occur in the hearts and minds of young people, on a large enough scale, the world can change.
Maybe by 4025 people won’t believe that human beings ever tried to resolve conflict by killing each other.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
When someone tells us we are being over sensitive, or that we are “overreacting”, who are they comparing us to? Some idea of how most people would react? How do they know, and what difference does it make? All that matters is how WE are reacting, and I would suggest that our feelings about things are perfect, simply because they are incomparable.
When someone tells you that your feelings are somehow “wrong”, it’s a big red flag. They want you to feel the way they wish you felt, or the way that is more comfortable for them, instead of dealing with the actual truth. It’s like someone telling you that you’re too hot or too cold, or that your favourite number is wrong. How do they know??
The truth is that your feelings are perfect…for you. If I am in a group of people and something happens, and someone asks “I wonder how Bob would or should react to that” all they need to do is see how I AM reacting and they have their answer.
You are the only being on this planet who experiences the world in the unique way that you experience it. Sometimes it might be how “most people” experience it, and sometimes you might be the only person on the planet who experiences it a certain way. We can make a rule to not let anyone judge our feelings, but the toughest critic is always us.
Traditional parenting tells us how we should and shouldn’t feel all the time (eg -“be nice”, “don’t be angry”, “go hug your Uncle Fred”) so of course we internalize this and judge ourselves. It’s exciting to give ourselves the unconditional love and acceptance we might not have gotten as children, and celebrate however we feel.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
In the Austin Powers movies, Dr. Evil would frequently get exasperated with his long lost son, Scott, because Scott failed to grasp the concept of “evil”. Dr. Evil would often say to Scott “you just don’t get it, do you?”
I have had the amazing opportunity to tour The Kimberley this week and be exposed to, among other spectacular things, Indigenous rock art paintings that go back 15,000 years and more.
I first came to Australia in 2002 and moved here 6 years later, so I am a relative newcomer. My general perspective is that, as a white person, I cannot completely understand the indigenous perspective. I do have the sense it is totally different to my “Euro” world view, and I respect and honour that reality.
We viewed some Gwion Gwion rock art the other day and I attended a lecture about the art. European anthropologists have divided the Gwion Gwion paintings into “categories”. When I heard this I kept thinking about Dr. Evil and wanted to say to white Europeans (of which, I accept, I am one): “you just don’t get it”.
As Euros always do, they/we have tried to reduce an ancient, organic and essentially unknowable culture into neat boxes. This “reductionist thinking” SO permeates European academic and professional thought. It is seen so clearly today in the “mental illness’ cottage industry, where we try to take something that is essentially unknowable (the human experience) and reduce it into categories and labels.
A way of experiencing life and connecting to country cannot be put into words, and certainly not into categories. And the effort to do so reflects a culture (European culture) that never seems to grasp that you cannot use a biased and narrow lens to understand something that is so fundamentally different. Once again in the analysis of the rock art, we see that “they just don’t get it”.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
Alexander the Great is reported to have said “I have met the enemy. It is I”.
I listen to a podcast series on wrongful convictions. It is hosted by three “do-gooder” lawyers who fight for social justice and freeing innocent prisoners. These podcasts highlight police and prosecutors using unethical and sometimes illegal means to get convictions. The series I just finished had a man convicted of a double murder on the testimony of a person who later admitted she was paid $12,000 by the prosecution to provide false evidence. The one I am listening to now is about a man who is on “death row” (this still exists in the 21st century in the U.S.!) based largely on the testimony of a man who was arrested for auto theft and who was told by the police they will pretend the car was found on the side of the road (not charge him) if he would lie.
As typically happens, I was outraged by the behaviour of these “bad actors”. I was listening to the do-gooder hosts’ talk about the intricacies of the American legal system and at one point, to explain why the wrongfully convicted man cannot appeal because his lawyer didn’t meet a deadline. The host said “that’s just the way the legal system works”.
At that moment I had an epiphany. It’s not the bad actors who perpetuate a corrupt system – it’s these “good guys” who validate it by working within it. If they were sufficiently outraged by a system that convicts people based on racism, coercion and lies, they wouldn’t be practicing within that system. And “good” people practicing within a system perpetuate it. It’s what keeps people from refusing to accept an inhumane system and revolting against it.
I was a “do-gooder” lawyer in the U.S. for the last three years before moving permanently to
Australia. So I know I practiced within this system and in the same way as the three podcast hosts, gave the system legitimacy by taking my place as a sort of “loyal opposition”.
Whether it’s a legal system run by corrupt racist judges and unscrupulous prosecutors and police, or a government run by a Hitler, or a Trump, or a Putin, it really isn’t the “bad actors” who are the enemy. They mean nothing in a vacuum. But when we work within it and say “this is just the way it is” we strengthen the system we criticize.
I feel I have definitely met the enemy.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
What is violence? Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation”.
If you read these reflections, you know I listen to lots of podcasts. I have been listening to a series that unfortunately includes LOTS of ads, mostly for other podcasts. One of these ads was a person speaking in a hushed, gentle, “storytelling” tone, and talking about a podcast where “everyone is welcome, and kindness is the default”. I thought these were beautiful words and found myself drawn to this idyllic world, and then she ended by encouraging listeners to get the podcast on “the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts”.
For some reason, this hit me like a punch in the gut. I don’t know how these apps are monetized, but obviously there is a commercial reason for wanting listeners to use iHeart or Apple (the third choice makes it obvious you can get the podcast anywhere). The person is talking about love and kindness and being gentle, and then wants to sell you something for a profit. It felt like violence (albeit a mild form) and I started thinking about expanding the definition of the word, or inventing a word to describe people trying to get you to do something for their benefit.
One idea would be to include “coercion” and “manipulation” the first part of the WHO definition. And then adding “emotional distress” in the list of possible harms at the end. So a proposed expanded definition might look something like: Violence is “the intentional use of physical force or power or coercion or manipulation, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, emotional distress, maldevelopment or deprivation”.
Of course, this would require people to be truthful in their marketing, and we can’t have that in a capitalist economy!
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