The Editor's Blog

This month I’m thinking about balance and wellbeing – and about the ways we strive to achieve them when we become parents.

It sometimes seems that 'balance', 'wellbeing' and 'parenting' are mutually exclusive concepts, what with the juggle of time, work, money, school, kids’ and parents’ social lives, sporting commitments, housework, grocery shopping…    Wow. Simply writing that list makes me wonder how any of us do it at all.

Hands up if, like me, you sometimes feel you’re just muddling from one obligation to the next? Running here and there with one eye on ‘now’ and the other on what needs to happen next?

When life gets like this our sense of balance can be lost.

But what is this elusive concept of ‘balance’? My own definition is that balance occurs when fulfilling tasks and activities - the things which make your heart sing and create a sense of joy - act as a counterweight to those less enjoyable things which simply must be done. All work and no play… is no work/life balance at all.

However, the things which make a heart sing vary from person to person, which is why we each need our own unique ‘balance formula’.

In recent times I have found that my own work-life equation has been out of whack. Part of this has been because I am incredibly fortunate in  that I do a job I adore. But, bizarrely, 'all work' can be the equivalent of 'all play' when you enjoy your job – it becomes easy to never want to clock off, such is the sense of fulfillment offered at work.

At the same time, being a writer is one of those pursuits which can be all consuming. I will wake with a blog post buzzing in my head; I’ll go to sleep with thoughts about an article I should pitch; I’ll read the paper or watch the news and feel the desire to compose a 140 character tweet to feed into the relentless stream of online information which has become a huge part of the media industry – something which I simultaneously revel in and rage against.

And, at the bottom of it all – as many writers know – is the desire to release that novel which is bunkering down inside me - the one which seems to be making increasingly disgruntled noises about escaping.

With this in mind, earlier this year I started my Masters in Creative Writing. At the same time I have been doing my thing here at Sunny Days – overseeing the production of our magazine and website. Factor in the incredible community of friends (what I like to call my ‘tribe’) that I have found through my work and networking activities, and you kind of have the makings of a perfect storm. There are simply not enough hours in the day to do all that I want to do, as well as all that I need to do.

And so for the last few months I have found myself snowed under in every area of my life, giving scattered attention to everything and everyone in the attempt to ‘have it all’. For myriad reasons – both personal and professional – I lost my balance.

This past weekend – as I tried desperately to switch off from the world at large – I came across a few articles dealing specifically with the very concept of balance that I have been struggling with. It seems I’m not alone. A survey of 10 000 Australians by the Australian Work Life Index has revealed that many of us do not feel we have the work/life balance right.


And my particular cohort – mums – struggle with the specific demands placed on them.

(And before anyone gets worked up, I know that dads struggle too – it’s just I’m a mum. It’s what I understand best. Disclaimer over. )

But why is it so important to be balanced?

What I have discovered is that when we lose our balance we lose with it a measure of our wellbeing. From there I started to wonder about this concept of wellbeing as I struggled to decide what had to go and what had to stay in my attempt to realign my life and my competing responsibilities and obligations.

Reaching out to my community I was given a fabulous definition from Naomi (whose lovely blog is here).

While this is intended as a wellbeing indicator for children I’m sure you will agree it applies equally to adults:

"Sound wellbeing results from the satisfaction of basic needs; the needs for tenderness and affection; security and clarity; social recognition; to feel competent; physical needs and for meaning in life (adapted from Laevers 1994). It includes happiness and satisfaction, effective social functioning and the dispositions of optimism, openness, curiosity and resilience."

(Belonging, Being & Becoming The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia)

Having this definition on hand helps me to remember what it is that I need, as well as the needs of those around me. So, while I need to work to help meet some of my family’s financial requirements and, while I also need to work to fulfill that part of me which is not fulfilled by any other role I play... at the same time I also need to be on hand to meet the needs of my children – their need for quality time with me so that they too can feel cherished and loved, secure and acknowledged.

And so I am downshifting just a tad. I’ve made a resolution to keep work to work hours and to say no when opportunities that might impact on that come my way. Like all good resolutions it will no doubt be hard to keep – I already find myself resisting the urge to log on at home – but I’m trying.

Reminding myself that life will still be there when my kids are grown and much less dependent on me is one way I cope. Delaying gratification, while a mature thing to do, does not come easily in the 2010 world with its 'now, now, now, me, me me' mantra.

But then again, I don’t think there has ever been a time when life was ‘easy’. Simply being human is a challenge and finding your own unique way to walk it is the only way through.

This month I hope to add balance and wellbeing to my survival kit. Wish me luck.

Comment (1)

I have long had an uncomfortable and complicated relationship with the concept of female beauty. But then, I guess, so do many of us.

On the one hand I rail against anyone being judged purely on a lottery draw of the genetic kind. On the other I reluctantly admit to spending (wasting?) time and money on a variety of ways and means to enhance my appearance.

I also reluctantly confess to having basked shamelessly in the ego-quenching glow of compliments about the way I look, and later felt guilty that they meant so much to me.

It pains me to admit some of these things. It’s also risky to admit them because opening up the debate – and being truthful about the conflicted way I feel – leaves me vulnerable to attack from those who see such discussions as indicative of my shallow, narcissistic nature.

I’d like to think it’s more complicated than that - remembering that the narrative of feminine beauty has a long history. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra anyone? 

But is this the unavoidable dichotomy of being a woman? The unwinnable battle we wage for most of our life - from that first moment as a little girl when someone tells us how cute/pretty/beautiful we are, and we know from their tone and the look in their eyes that this is somehow a good thing to be?

Is it something we carry with us as we negotiate the occasionally treacherous waters of relationships – not only with our love interest, but with other woman and even those who feature in our professional lives?

As we get older - perhaps become mothers to daughters - this relationship with beauty takes on an extra element. I thought my own beauty angst would dissipate with age. I ranted about it here a few months after my 40th birthday.

I especially love the quote in this piece from India Knight which asks, “Surely - surely? - you’re allowed to get to a point when you can just do what you like without having to worry about how hot you’re looking?” I think that plays in to what I see as the ‘Yummy Mummy’ syndrome.

Before I had kids I think I believed that by the time I became a mum all of my old concerns about my looks would be well and truly put to bed. My focus, I imagined, would be on my children, and frivolous pastimes such as shaving my legs or having my roots coloured would take a backseat. And they kind of did for a while. When my kids were toddlers there were many days when I didn’t get out of my dressing gown or brush my hair. But I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. A portion of my self-esteem was – right or wrong – inextricably tied to the way I looked.

But, as I’m learning, you don’t stop being a human when you become a parent. And so my long time quest to overcome my conflicted relationship with the way I look versus the general discourse surrounding female beauty didn’t stop when I gave birth. If anything it took on another element because now I had a daughter. What was I going to teach her about beauty?

While I believe there has long been pressure on women - and also mothers - to look attractive (after all, there must be some truth to the Betty Draper stereotype as depicted in Mad Men - the perfectly turned out wife who reapplied a fresh a slick of lipstick before hubby walked through the door each evening), the decade in which I became a mum simply added an extra element when it spawned the term ‘yummy mummy.’

To be honest, I bought the yummy mummy package when it first came out. I wanted to receive accolades for being a good mum and - playing into the baggage of my youth - I wanted people to think I was attractive as well. I didn’t want to be seen as ‘letting myself go’.

And I had role models galore. A cursory glance at the cover of any tabloid magazine in the supermarket would reveal the celebrity du jour who had just had ‘a life changing experience’ by giving birth and then miraculously regained her pre-baby body within weeks - usually due to the wonder of effortless breastfeeding which saw the weight ‘just fall off’ (not the nannies, personal trainers, chefs - yada yada we've heard it all before!).

Such romantic depictions of motherhood - while possibly containing some elements of truth - are, I feel, unhelpful. Or, perhaps more accurately, unhelpful when we are assaulted with them relentlessly, as is the way with modern media.

Of course most of us know now that the answer to such an assault is simply not to buy these publications. In this way we avoid buying into their seductive yet damaging message.

Unfortunately many women of my generation didn’t receive lessons about switching off and challenging media messages until we were grown-ups. And by then a lot of us had internalised the conflicting messages about what it means to be beautiful. For me that means I’m still arguing the point now.

What I do hope is that all of this ruminating about beauty will have a positive impact in other areas of my life. The first is in the way I raise my kids - especially my daughter. A little while ago I wrote about the issue here.

I also hope that a certain level of awareness will help me in my quest to call out instances where a woman’s appearance is invoked in an unnecessary or even harmful way - as was seen in recent news reports which paid unwarranted attention to a the ‘attractiveness’ of a woman at the centre of a high-profile sexual harassment case.

And as editor of Sunny Days I hope it informs some of the decisions I make. I have made a conscious effort to remove celebrity parents from our pages. Not because they don’t have something interesting to say - which they sometimes do - but because I feel local readers would rather read about a fascinating parent from their region with a great story to tell. Not a carefully managed version of parenthood.

I have also banned the use of the term ‘yummy mummy’ from our pages - even in a light-hearted way. I think 'yummy mummy' has taken on an increasing amount of baggage as it has morphed in public forums. I don’t find it helpful or necessary.

So I’m trying. In my flawed, multi-layered and complicated way I am trying to work out where I sit with these concepts. I’m trying to work out why, on any given day, I can still get sucked into an advertisement which promises to reduce my fine lines and wrinkles by up to 70%, and then get cranky when I see a supermodel make the front page because she got engaged.

I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m trying.


Where do you stand on the issues of female beauty - especially as portryaed in the media. How do you teach your kids to navigate this issue?

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Is it *very* wrong to say I’m glad the kids are back at school?  Because that is exactly what I have been wondering this week - and, if I’m honest, the first week of every school term.

I was a stay-at-home mum for four years after Levi was born. I loved every moment of those idyllic baby days, at home with my two munchkins who were born just sixteen months apart. In fact I loved it so much I was 80% sold on the idea of home-schooling. I just didn’t know how I was going to hand my babies over to someone else.

But, with a variety of factors taken into consideration, it turned out that when our kids were of school age we decided they would, in fact, go to school. And, for us, it has been a wonderful decision. They both absolutely love everything about it, which is such a relief. I don’t think either of them has ever wanted a day off - excepting sickness of course. Sometimes,on the weekend my son even asks when it will be Monday again.

And yes, I know I am very lucky to have two kids who enjoy school.

What it has meant is that I have been able to take up my position here at Sunny Days with relative ease. Again, in that regard I am extraordinarily fortunate. I have a job I adore and flexible working hours which allow me to pick my kids up almost every afternoon - as well as keep up my regular canteen duty (to say nothing of taking my disabled mum shopping once a month).

But, when the school holidays come around it is a little more of a juggle. With monthly deadlines as well as this website to keep going it isn’t really always possible for me to take a big chunk of time off at the same time as the kids.

Like all parents we do what we have to. I am lucky to have in-laws who are unflinchingly accommodating - always ready to look after the kids at the drop of a hat. Such a blessing given that my mum, unfortunately, cannot do the same.

I also have a great network of friends - actually mums of my kids’ friends who have in fact become close friends of mine. That has been one of the most surprising benefits of having my kids at school - the amazingly supportive network I have been able to discover through my children.

In the holidays we generally arrange playdates where one mum has all the kids for a day, or drops them at a vacation activity. And then someone else returns the favour.  My kids have even been looked after by nans and pops of their friends.

On other days, my husband (who is self-employed) is able to take time off to be with the kids. Sometimes I am able to work from home. And sometimes the kids come into the office for a few hours - generally armed with colouring-in books, DS games (and possibly a junk food treat - it’s the holidays after all).

And so we muddle on through. But I must admit it does take a little more effort. It usually involves getting them up earlier (although if they go to nan and pops they can at least go in their jarmies) and ferrying them to the day’s location. Actually - speaking of locations - this past holidays they came with  me on our fabulous party cover shoot to Blackbutt Reserve. It was an early start so they were a little cross - and they *weren’t* cover models so they weren’t really involved in the fun part. But I do hope it will be an interesting school holiday memory for them as they grow up. (Keep your eyes out for our Behind-The-Scenes story of the May cover shoot on here soon.)

But the point I’m trying to make is that I find the holidays just a little more of a juggle than other times of the year. I worry that the kids are not enjoying themselves - maybe they wish I didn’t have to go to work. And they definitely mutter that immortal line “I’m bored” at regular intervals. And so, on the first day of term, I find I’m breathing a sigh of relief as we fall effortlessly back into our routine. Getting up at the same time each morning, me going about the business of ironing uniforms, making lunches, getting myself ready – all the while keeping an eye on the clock so that we can be out the door at our usual time. There’s comfort to be had in the familiarity of routine - and we all seem a whole lot calmer this week.

And the great thing is - just when I’m wondering if really I *am* a bad mother for being so stoked that the holidays are over, I run into mums up at the school. Our nodding heads and sighs of relief - coupled with our excitable offspring running gleefully towards one another to share holiday tales - tell the real story. It’s all okay.

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Sometimes parenting feels like a contact sport. Seriously. You are expected to ‘consider’ every decision, encouraged to second guess yourself more often than is probably psychologically healthy and always live with the overarching shadow named ‘parental guilt’.  Perhaps it’s the burden of the information age, but at times, I must confess, it kind of does my head in.

Against this backdrop I went to a talk last week by Maggie Hamilton, author of What’s Happening To Our Girls?  As the mum of a nine-year-old girl I have a personal interest, as well as a professional one, in discussions such as this.

Sunny Days received a review copy of this title and I admit I only had a chance to skim over it before I passed it on to our reviewer (you can read Jodie McEwen’s review here). But the talk itself left me with an unsettled feeling that I found hard to pin down.

I know that to make people listen you need to grab their attention, and Maggie did this in spades with her research and statistics gathered after two years of interviews with girls, health care workers, teachers and relevant others.

What she presented at the talk was shocking: advertising which targets six-month-old babies and the ‘cradle-to-grave’ marketing phenomenon; a performance culture where risky behaviour is cool and dysfunctional behaviour is normalised; the loss of imagination in our kids due to too much screentime; body image issues; baby stilettos; Bratz dolls; Lady Gaga; self-harm; narcissism, anxiety and mental health issues for kids; pro-anorexia and bulimia websites and of course technology and the surrounding issues such as cyberbullying, sexting, online predators …

You get the idea. It was all pretty frightening.

And I don’t want to diminish the work Maggie is doing, because nurturing and caring for our kids is - both as individuals and as a society - one of our most important goals. But it’s the alarmism that concerns me. When rhetoric is used – even though you could  say its use is valid for the purpose here -  it’s sometimes possible that we focus on only one aspect of the bigger picture.

My other concern is that when we become frightened we feel disempowered, and disempowerment for a mum or dad is dangerous because it makes us question our ability to parent our own children. I spoke with a friend after the talk and he said, “When we amp the fear to eleven, it cripples meaningful debate and prevents compromise.” I must say I agree.

Granted, the talk probably did not allow enough time for a detailed exploration of the solutions and suggestions for dealing with the issues presented. I voiced my concerns to the organisers - the Hunter Alliance for Childhood - and, having heard similar comments from other parents they have arranged a follow-up discussion on Wednesday 7th April (Wallsend South Community Hall, bookings essential p: 49544717 or hunterac@live.com) which I shall be attending.

This meeting should be a chance to look towards solutions and suggestions, to put our emotional reponses aside in order to further open up this debate. Issues I’m interested in chatting about include:

• The idealisation of childhood past. Presenting a golden-era - the good old days - is unhelpful and unrealistic. Ask Frank McCourt how good it was to be a kid in the olden days; ask kids who were beaten or otherwise abused by their parents back in the day; ask a child of a single mother in the 60’s how good things were. Not everyone had an idyllic childhood. Harking to a golden era does little more than create a false sense of nostalgic guilt. Far better to try to find concrete examples of things which worked in the past than to talk generally about how good things once were.

• Parenting is hard and always has been. Some parents do a good job, some don’t. It’s not a modern phenomenon. Making a choice about the kind of job you do as a parent is, and always has been, an option.

• By viewing some of the issues of modern teenagers as ‘new’ and therefore fearful I think we run the risk of alienating ourselves from the younger generation. Haven’t kids always wanted to belong? Isn’t that simply human nature? Just because the landscape has changed and the culture may be unrecognisable, doesn’t mean the inherent movements beneath it are different, and therefore scarier or more dangerous. Fetishising youth culture and the generation gap to the point that in becomes uncrossable means we lose touch with our kids. Certain rites of passage - shocking adults, making bad decisions, rejecting traditional values - are an integral part of growth and the move towards maturity.

• Advertising. Anything is only buyable if you buy it. Raising awareness is definitely a part of dealing with the issues which surround the media and marketing - and this is no doubt Maggie’s’ intention. However, the issues of living in a capitalist, consumerist society are not managed by being frightened of the foundations of our economy, or guilty for your own role within it. Learn how it works and how you can work within it. Which leads to:

• Education: for my money teaching digital literacy (see Sunny Days feature My Space/Your Space about learning to negotiate technology with your kids ) and media (including advertising) literacy is essential. Know how the structures work and how you and your kids can work safely within them. I think this needs to be taught to kids but, perhaps more importantly, also to parents.

• Troubled kids often find trouble. Nurturing our kids in the real world is a way to protect them. And that’s the key I think. How do we nurture our kids without suffocating, frightening or rejecting their culture of choice? - all of which I believe make kids look elsewhere for a sense of freedom and acceptance. This is possibly the biggest challenge of parenting. And probably too big for this blog. But I’d love to hear what you think.

Are girls more troubled now than ever before? How can we nurture our kids in the 21st Century?

Links: I appeared on ABC Newcastle with Carol Duncan to chat about Maggie’s talk. Listen to the interview (with fellow Sunny Days writers meredith Flynn and Susan Whelan) here.

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I am a recent convert to the wonders of technology. As the editor of Sunny Days it’s important that I keep up to date with news and events – especially those which pertain to parents. One of the best ways to do this is by scouring the internet for information and trends that I can follow up on for our readers.


Part of my job is also helping to maintain this website, as well as flying the Sunny Days flag whenever I can so that as many parents as possible in our region will know that they have this free resource at their fingertips. I use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote what we are doing and to maintain a direct line to our readers. I’m proud of Sunny Days and reader feedback is one of the highlights of my job.


In my personal life I am an avid film and television buff. On high rotation at our place at the moment are episodes of the brilliant US TV drama Mad Men. I also recently sat down to watch a much darker film which captures a similar point in time: Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet. I love what these visual stories tell us about the lives of men and women – and especially their lives as parents – in the not-too-distant past.


But my point in all of this is that my passion for the 'screen world' – and it is a passion – makes it very hard when it comes to leading my children towards a life in which screentime is a balanced part of their day. I’m not a particular fan of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ form of parenting and try to avoid it if I can. But, while I spend a minimum of seven hours a day in front of a screen - some of it in the presence of my children, I have found that I need to restrict my kids when it comes to their own viewing and gaming habits.


As members of the ‘i-generation’ my kids use screen technologies as easily as I used my roller skates at the same age. But it wasn’t always that way. When I first became a mum I had some very particular views about viewing habits for my little ones. The TV would never be a babysitter; my children would only watch educational or enriching programs, and the time spent watching them would be extremely limited. At that stage I didn’t know how to send email so I hadn’t even factored in computer usage. And Playstation and Nintendo devices would cross our threshold over my dead body.


Oh, how far I have tumbled. I don’t know how it started. Possibly having two babies 16 months apart had something to do with it. There were days when I was home alone with two toddlers when I really, really needed a half hour relief from the relentlessness of their demands.


At first it was just ABC Kids. But, when we relinquish our principals we seem to do it incrementally – which is far kinder than suddenly catapulting from your high horse at breakneck speed. And so here I am today with a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old who are ardent admirers of a whole range of visual entertainments delivered via screens large and small.


One of the first stages in my (and their) journey to TV Land was when I acquiesced to my husband’s view that watching Spiderman would not hurt our son. After researching the issue for my first ever contribution to Sunny Days and finding that my long held views regarding hero narratives were not as black and white as I first imagined, I found that I was much more willing to loosen my hold on my kids.


And the discovery of social commentator and academic, Catherine Lumby, sealed the deal. In 2006, Lumby (with Duncan Fine) wrote a book called Why TV Is Good For Kids which suggested that, "TV, pop culture, toys and technology will not make your children a) fat, b) violent, or c) stupid". Being a fan of popular culture myself, it was an argument that resonated with me immediately. I stopped worrying about the kids and TV and pretty much gave them carte blanche over the remote. (Which, I might add, is not exactly what Ms Lumby recommends).

I tried to stay strong in my decision to allow my children to partake of pop culture. I staved off possible guilt by teaching them about the function of advertising and capitalist consumer culture; I coached them in ways to be savvy in the face of a mass media onslaught and I tried, as much as I could, not to give in to pester power or to peer influences which lead them to thinking that they constantly need the Next Big Thing.

Oh how clever I was, laughing in the face of common sense and extensive research which suggests that responsible parents limit their kids' TV viewing to a maximum of an hour a day. But recently, whenever I have happened across such research I have tried to ignore my maternal red flag, my guilty little secret. I knew that my children’s viewing exceeded this recommended limit, but I was always too scared to crunch the numbers and find out by exactly how much.

But my comeuppance has been a long time in the making – heralded as it was the day my son said to me, "Mum would you like a piece of gum? Now with a bonus free tattoo." Oops. That can’t be good.


And there were other warning signs. I was finding that my children, particularly my son, were having emotional outbursts when asked to stop watching TV or playing on the computer which would sometimes last long enough for me to lose my temper and generally upset the harmony in our home. One of my online friends explained how visual media stimulate the frontal lobe and may be responsible for my son’s emotional outbursts when he has overdone his viewing for the day. In our house we don’t need scientific research to prove that fact – we can see it for ourselves.


My instinct told me that I would need to implement something more than the ad hoc approach we had going. So, with the kids and their dad, we decided we would make a list of Screentime Rules.


I hadn’t counted on the list becoming quite so convoluted with clauses and sub-clauses and special conditions for sick days and holidays and weekends, and the confiscation of hand-held gaming devices (or the more common threat of ‘smashing them to a thousand pieces’) or trade-offs where an hour of outside play can earn 15 minutes of screentime or discussions about what chores around the house are non-transferrable for screentime… Man, it was complicated.


But it’s working.


In its most basic form the kids are allowed a half hour on school days which may be used on any screen they like.


They can have an hour each weekend day, although this is flexible. After all, if we want to watch a movie together as a family that’s usually an hour and a half.


Oh, and I have also made an allowance for extra time on SingStar. Well, that’s music and that’s different.


Wondering where other mums and dads stood when it came to screentime I had a chat with some of the parents in my online communities. I found that lots of parents have very strong and definite views on screentime for their kids. Lots of kids are watching just a couple of hours per week. One mum even told me that her family does not have a television at all. I am intrigued by this choice and sometimes wish I had tried it with my family.


Some parents (like me) admitted that restricting screentime was a battle, especially as the kids got older.


But, while many of us differed in our approach or our final choices, we are all mindful of what our children are watching or engaging with, and how much time they spend doing it. And, as I often say, intentional parenting - being a mum or dad who takes time to consider the choices made with regard to our kids - is my favourite kind.


As a fan of visual entertainment as well as technology and the online world, I don’t think we will ever be a screen-free family. And, as a friend reminded me, it’s important to stay flexible – especially when it comes to “rainy days, sick days and heatwaves.” Oh indeed!


But these days I am feeling much more in control of my children and their viewing habits. And I love watching them reconnect with other childhood joys now that they have all this new free time. Lego is big for us right now. Long discarded books are getting a rerun. The backyard has regained its appeal. Monopoly, card-games – yep, we’re becoming one for those families. And I kinda like it.


Do you limit your kids' TV viewing? How do you implement restricted screentime at your place?



Some links on the topic that you might like:


http://www.smh.com.au/national/its-time-to-tune-into-big-screen-dilemma-20091114-ifj5.html

http://sunnymummyaus.blogspot.com/2010/02/tv-free.html

http://www.youngmedia.org.au/

Comment (4)

So, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered that there is a new 'witching hour' for mums of school-aged children. Well I couldn't agree with them more. In fact, I wrote about it on my Web Child blog eight months ago.

Now, I know it's a few days until most of our kids return to school so I don't want to thrust any of our readers into a premature nightmare, but perhaps my cautionary tale will actually help you to be a little more organised once that first day arrives. I know I'm going to try my darnedest to have the uniforms ironed the night before. Wish me luck.

Double, Double Toil And Trouble

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I’m just back from my summer holiday - the necessary punctuation mark at the end of a busy year - my first full one as editor of Sunny Days.

This is a job I love. I love the community which we are gradually building together. I love preparing our pages each month (right now we’re getting our February Back To School issue ready - and it’s looking good) and I love immersing myself in the puzzling, exasperating and thrilling world of parenting.

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It's that time of year again. The time when, in the aftermath of an indulgent silly season, we make ridiculous promises about the changes we are going to make to our daily lives. But for parents, pie-in-the-sky idealism is never a once-a-year proposition. Sometimes we need the promise of better times ahead just to get us through -whether through the crying-baby sleepless nights, the toddler tantrum days, the newly-discovered moods of our usually sweet-natured pre-teen or simply through the times when we know we have not reached the parenting bar we have set for ourselves.

It's something I didn’t bargain for in my pre-parent days - the number of resolutions I would make. I’m talking daily resolutions; promises to myself every night as I go to sleep that I will try to do things differently the next day. So there’s nothing new about the following list. But I guess now is as good a time as any to put into writing the areas in which I aim to do better this year.

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well around our place, at least, it’s beginning to look a lot like our own particular ramshackle brand of festive frivolity. And, I’m telling you, it aint nothin’ like a department store catalogue!

I have always hankered after a Christmas which resembles one of those gorgeous glossy delights which fill the letterbox at this time of year. I’m talking about the deluxe edition – the stapled catalogue, with the wide format pages and the premium models of a happy family. You know the ones. Visions splendid of outrageously relaxed looking mums and dads in casual but classy white outfits accompanied by elegant silver-haired grandparents who smile indulgently at gorgeous grandkids happily playing with a colour co-ordinated pile of gifts. It’s already sounding ridiculous isn’t it? But I love this image of Christmas. I go bananas for pictures of fabulously indulgent table settings resplendent with artfully arranged place mats, stylishly quirky centrepieces and glistening silverware. I want it all. But I know I’m not getting it – not this year anyway.

And please, don’t tell me it’s because this is an unrealistic version of Christmas - my best friend has one every year. Sharon is incredibly stylish with an impeccable sense of taste and originality. Her gifts are always picture book perfect and her decorations immaculate. She puts a lot of planning into the aesthetic appeal of the holiday season. She thought of a fuchsia and orange theme before the major retailers. She understands why blue and silver works so much better than red and gold. She knows how to offset a beautiful bon bon with a potted Poinsettia. And she ties a ribbon like a pro. She’s amazing.

I always thought my problem was that I didn’t have the budget for expensive decorations. When we were first married we had a wonky hand-me-down tree which came from my mum. I threw a bit of tinsel over it and called it Christmas. But, in the sales a couple of years ago I bought a fancy-pants, expensive tree. Unfortunately it is this exact tree which has made me realise that it’s not my budget which is the problem but my total lack of style.

Two weeks ago was our tree decorating day. Indy and Levi were so excited. “Whose turn is it to put the angel on the top?” they both wanted to know. Each year I promise myself that I will remember but I never do. So we had tears before the box was even opened. But, on seeing the glittery bounty they both settled down. There was so much stuff one angel didn’t matter. They threw themselves into the task with festive abandon. There were silver shoe ornaments from my Manolo Blahnik phase, red butterflies from my Mariah Carey moment, traditional golden balls from the year I thought I would try retro and all manner of weird and wonderful documents of Christmases past - including the grotesque nativity scene I bought from a discount store when Indy was a baby and we were in our new (for us) but humble little home. I think I was feeling a pretty strong kinship with Jesus’ mum that year.

And, yes, I know I’m supposed to say that the best ones are the little cardboard bells, santas and reindeer – messily cut out and painted by my two, long-gone toddlers who are now growing so big. And yes, I’d like to write something poignant about the nostalgic significance of this Christmas time capsule that sits on top of my wardrobe for most of the year. But I can’t help feeling that, if my best friend and I weren’t so insanely busy I’d turf the lot of it and ask her to do me a Christmas Makeover.

Or would I?

What does your Christmas look like?

Sunny Days Magazine would like to wish a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our readers. We hope you have a restful and energising holiday season and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2010.

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As way of sharing some smiles this holiday season I simply must pass on something which I grabbed from my Twitter feed this morning.

There are lots of great mums and dads in my Twitter community and it's here that we share the minutiae of our parenting life. Maybe it's the funny thing our little one said, or the tantrum they threw or the small achievements they make. Sometimes we talk about how tired we are, what we're having for dinner, how the whole family has the 'flu, how the parent/teacher interview wasn't half as bad as we thought. It might sound mundane when it's written down like that but aren't these little things the threads which make the fabric out of which we create our lives? And aren't these the exact things that we talk about in real life anyway. I know I chat with the parents in my real-life circle about how cheeky the kids are getting, how my husband always leaves just one unwashed item when he does the dishes and how hard it is to get white school shirts really white - no matter how much Napisan soaking you do.

What I have found through Twitter is that parenting and kids are amazing equalisers. I don't know the life circumstances of many of my 'tweeps" (Twitter friends) but when we chat about our experiences as a parent, most differences don't seem to matter. And it looks as if some filmakers have hit on the exact same idea with a film due for release soon. You can see the trailer for Babies here (which came to me via @An_Idle_Dad).

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