Insight

Tweenagers. They are a new market of 6 - 12 year olds that have become a growing target market for advertisers, retailers and product companies. To me girls and boys this age are children, not tweenagers. "Tweenagers" seems to be a new word invented by advertising companies to desribe a new market that they can promote products to.

Despite my thoughts on this, the label tweenagers and tweens are well used terms these days.

I have had a concern for a while, when I have stood in the queue at the supermarket and seen magazines with fully made up young girls on the cover, aimed at young girls. I have also been shocked to see bras, g-strings and bikini's, and other revealing clothing marketed towards young girls. The reason for my concern is that I am not sure that young girls should be exposed to the kinds of imagery and promotional materials that encourage them to seek products that make them appear older, or even s*xualise them. How is this all affecting young girls, the way they view themselves, their bodies, and the way they act. Come to think of it, how does this affect the way that young boys may react to young girls, and women in their future?

It may sound like I have an extreme response to this, you may think that it is solely a parents job to limit what their children are exposed to, and I do agree. I was limited from watching, buying and being exposed to things that my parents deemed inappropriate for my age. Even though at the time I didn't appreciate these limitations, I thank them now for allowing me to enjoy my childhood.

My worry is that a parents limitations and rules, may one day not be able to stand up to the strength of multi-million dollar advertising campaigns. Even now, I am sure that there are many parents who find it difficult to enforce rules and limitations with the constant barrage of persuasive marketing campaigns.

I am not in the advertising industry per say, but I am part of the design industry. I have been lucky not have to work on projects that oppose my morals, and I am not sure what I would do if I was faced with the choice. There are many that I would never touch, there are other less extreme projects that I may consider. It is scary though to think that decisions that I make, affect decisions that other people may make about a company or a product, that could then go on to affect the way that they live their lives.

I am glad that I watched Insight this evening, which covered this issue from varying viewpoints, including those of children, parents, phsychologists, doctors, media and advertising representatives. The transcript should be later this evening of tomorrow. Check it out if you have time.

"I want your chicken dinner!"

"I want your chicken dinner!" This was one of the first things that I heard when we returned from our whirlwind tour of Perth this weekend. Yelled from a passing car outside out apartment, a little random.

We just came back from a whirlwind tour of Perth, for my sister in laws engagement party. It was an absolute ball, totally exciting, totally exhausting and full of many emotions (all good ones of course!).

It all began with a very early morning on Friday, where at 5am outside our apartment, awaiting a taxi, I was mistaken for a pr*stitute. Oh yes, I am serious. A stylish woman, wearing a trench and designer glasses was mistaken for a prossie and her husband holding their suitcase was mistaken for her p*mp. I suppose in our area the only people really out on the street at that time of the morning fulfill these certain "job description".

Our flight was delayed a bit, and we both sat in the airport thinking the obvious, "we could have had 40 extra minutes of sleep". The delay wasn't to bad though, we enjoyed some lovely juice, coffee and raspberry and pear bread, and the inexcusable sound of Japanese business men hocking up their phlegm into the airport bins. Charming!

Our flight over was...well...not good. We were on a small plane, in old uncomfortable chairs, hence we had no sleep, and endured a flight that seemed to go on forever. Happiness was restored when we landed, and were met by my husbands family. It was so great to see them again, and I was honoured by the request to be the maid of honour for my sister in law.

It only got better from there, we had a great lunch with her fiancee, his brother, all the bridesmaids and my mother in law. Then wedding dress shopping with all the gals. Then I had the pleasure of sneaking up on both my parents, my brothers, and my circle of girlfriends throughout the weekend. I was also able to meet the most beautiful baby in the world, one of my very dear friends daughter. When I saw her I felt an incredible warmth inside me. She was a little angel, and I couldn't keep my eyes or my hands off her the whole time I was visiting. Her Mamma is so beautiful and I have never seen her as happy as she was holding her beautiful daughter. It was a dream come true to see them and a huge highlight of the weekend, along with the big engagement bash on Saturday night. it was the usual huge family crowd, and it was great to catch up with all of them, and hear one of my father in laws great speeches.

We headed home this morning, leaving Perth at 11:30am, saying goodbye to the family all over again, and all my girlfriends earlier in the weekend. It was tough to do it all again, but at least this time we knew we had a home to go to where we were comfortable and happy. I already miss them all, but I know that we have made a good decision coming here, I just feel like it's where we belong.

Porridge

I have been making a lot of porridge lately. Dad has always made us kids porridge, for as far back as I can remember. He makes the best porridge, with lots of muesli! It's so much better with muesli as well as oats.

Everytime I stand infront of the stove and make our porridge, I think of my Dad, and how he taught me to make it just right. With the right balance of each of the ingredients, spooned into the saucepan. Then after it's served, adding a raw or brown sugar sprinkling to the top of it. Mmm yummy.

At the time you learn these things, you don't realise how special those moments are. When your parents teach you something, that becomes a tradition through out your life. Treasure the moments.

Reflective

I have been feeling very reflective in the last few of days, to allow my brain to catch up with our new life, and all of its new challenges. My poor old brain and heart have taken a beating over the last year really, not necessarily a beating in a bad way, perhaps a description would be ‘a workout’. Yes, ‘a workout’ is definitely what I have experience in the heart and the head department in the past year.

This time a year ago I was working for a design studio, and since then I have:

• Left my job
• Dealt with various family crisis (sad face)
• Started my own business from scratch
• Got married (happy face)
• Moved into a shared office, where I learnt heaps and had heaps of fun.
• Moved out of a shared office (sad face)
• Moved across country, which resulted in losing all physical contact with my best friends, family and newly discovered design guru’s.
• Realised that perhaps I wasn’t as profitable in my business as I wished (fair go though, it’s only been 9 months since I started it)
• Realised that without work face-to-face contact and separation from loved ones, I have in fact become…a loner…oh yes.

Mmm, yes. I know what you are thinking, “poor little brain, poor little heart”. I know that I have my husband here with me in this new town, and believe me he really is my best friend in the whole world. But…each of us need other things/people in our lives other than each other. Unfortunately we have long ago left behind that completely amateur idea/reality of a relationship where all you want to do, is spend time with your partner 24/7. I know, and he knows that this is not healthy for a person’s brain, and heart. We can support and look after each other without being permanently attached at the hip.

So…do I have a plan. Oh yes! I have a plan! I am setting the wheels in motion…perhaps when the time is right I will share the details.

Pike'in It Up

http://www.joshpyke.com/

Check this guy out, awesome tunes! The Middle of the Hill reminds me of when I was a kid, such a great collection of childhood memories, you can watch the video at this link. :)

Retraction

Just after my birthday I received a lovely birthday card, which I wrote about on this site. The card was from my Dad. In the card my Dad mentioned that I was entering into my 25th year. After I saw the 25, my initial reaction was to jump to the conclusion that he thought I was 25, after re-reading the card at a later date I realised that this wasn’t the case at all. Just that I was entering my 25th year, which actually is CORRECT!

Initially I didn’t bother writing a retraction about the 25 hoo haa, as no one in my family was reading my site. Until I foolishly thought that I could trust my 16 year old brothers. (*Note to Self: you love your brothers but they are not yet capable of keeping all of the secrets you might like them to) I just had a panicked call from my good ole Dad, saying that he was so sorry that I thought, that he thought that I was 25! He thought that I was offended because my Bro’s told him I had written about it on this site, which I had, but hadn’t corrected myself, until now.

So I stand corrected:
My Dad does not think I am 25
My brothers aren’t capable of keeping secrets just yet, but that is only natural for 16-year-old boys who get excited when they are telling stories!

And:
Many more people now know about my website than I had initially anticipated, but I suppose that I am comfortable with that. After all, one of the reasons I started writing was so that people would read, why else would you publish written works on the Internet!

Welcome to the era of the public blog, these are exciting times! Like Dooce and many who have come before me, I have managed to upset someone close to me, my good ole Dad, who is a fantastic card writer, Volvo driver and loving and concerned parent.

Sorry Dad, love you Dad and loved your card.

Something Horrible

So what do you do when something horrible happens to someone close to you, something that you can't express. Something that you have to pretend hasn't happened? I am a talker you see, when I have a problem, I like to discuss it with my fiancee, with my girlfriends and sometimes with my family, but now I can't talk about anything. It's killing me.

Anyway, Christmas has just been and it was nice, not as exciting as when I was a kid, but still nice. I suppose the best bit about Xmas now is spending time with family, not the excitement of Santa and the Xmas Tree and the presents.

My guy and I were discussing how Christmas is effectivley about, and for kids.

When you are a kid you find Xmas so exciting and the world just seems better for that one day a year, and then you grow up and you just don't look forward to it anymore. It's just one of those days that comes round, where you have to prepare with the spending of copious amounts of money, baking and chopping of fruit and pastries. We were discussing that when we eventually have kids that Xmas will probably be fun again! Because then you have someone so important to prepare all that fun and joy for.

So Merry Xmas :)