Rambling thoughts & opinions

My Scandinavian Daughters

/ rugbymother / 3 Comments

The contention that “blood is thicker than water”, originally proposed in an ancient German proverb, may well be true, in a rational, physical sense. But reality is that shared familial experiences can create and expand family ties and bonds well beyond those dictated simply by an accident of genetics.

A few years ago, my daughter Pip changed us all by inviting a succession of young women into our lives, and our family.  Initially ‘sold’ as a childcare solution, the au pair system allows kiwi parents to ’employ’ a young visitor from abroad, providing board and lodging, and a relatively modest fee in exchange for 40 hours a week of not just childcare, but love, discipline, entertainment and mind expanding learning experiences for their children.

The au pairs – generally young women aged 19-22, and a few young men – invest their own savings in what they no doubt hope will be a grand adventure.  The system should provide them with not just a small wages to fund their New Zealand adventure, but a loving, caring safe “home base”, from which they can venture out to explore the best of our wonderful country, while at the same time experiencing the reality of being part of a “real” kiwi family.

Of course, there is really no such thing.  The parenting styles that parents will no doubt exhibit when their own kids reach their late teenage years are quickly revealed when they find themselves “in charge” of young au pair, and often unprepared for the reality of having a young adult not just caring for their kids, but living in their home.

Sadly, over the past few years, our wonderful young women have brought home newfound friends, and tales of others, who are being treated as little more than servants, being subjected to crazy ‘rules’ and, the thing perhaps that upsets me most, not being given the family experience for which they saved so hard and paid so much.

The organisations that facilitate the matching are naturally predisposed to take the parents’ side in any conflict – after all, the parents represent “repeat business” paying a placement fee every 6-12 months for their new au pair, while the au pairs pay once, for a one-off experience, be it good, bad or downright ugly.

We’ve seen girls refused permission to entertain their friends at home, fired because they didn’t wash the windows well enough, forced to walk the children to school and kindy and after school activities in foul weather, despite having a drivers licence and there being a perfectly good and very ordinary car sitting idle in the garage!  We’ve transported girls denied the use of the spare car outside their working hours, seen one left at home with the baby for a week while the rest of the family go on holiday, another denied the option to take her leave in blocks of more than a few days at a time.  All of this, I put down simply to lack of employer experience on the part of the host parents, and a failure of the au pair organisation to fully brief them on their responsibilities as well as their rights.  These are not bad people.

But to paraphrase an old nursery rhyme, when it’s good, it’s very very good, and so it has been with us – at least from our side of the story.  Our first, the lovely Alexandra from Denmark, was embraced as a friend , a younger sister, a surrogate daughter, so much so that years on, she is currently back in our home, as a six-month-boarder for the summer, seeing a bit of the NZ that she missed the first time around.  Alex brought sanity to my daughter’s household, a competent nanny for baby Matthew and consistent guide for Isabel.

Next came Sarah from Sweden – completely different, but somehow just what the children needed at the time.  Quieter and more circumspect, she controlled Matthew’s impulses, providing Isabel with encouragement to venture out into the wider world.

Carly was Pip’s next choice, unusually from the USA, and a bundle of positive energy.  Sadly a medical condition intervened, giving us only a few short weeks to get to know her before she had to cut short her New Zealand adventure.  We continue to follow her quests to use her life to make a difference, with love and admiration… And treasure the brief moments during which we were all part of that.

Nina had a different approach to the experience; her mission was to experience New Zealand to the full, and that she did.  Her calming influence and firm hand with Matthew came at just the right time, and we loved having her here – of all our girls so far, she was the one who left most sure of her place in the world, most convinced that her homeland is where she truly belongs.  My sense (and my hope) is that being with us made her more certain of herself.

And so I get to Tea, the lovely Tea from Sweden (though as we keep reminding her, a part of Sweden that has more often been part of Denmark than of Sweden).  Seeing her and Alex converse in what we have come to call Dwedish surely confirms this to be so.  Tea has truly “been here, done that” packing more into her experience than any other.  She has gathered friends – not just other au pairs, but young kiwis, including nieces and nephews and their groups of friends.

Both Tea and Alex, I think, are testing out the idea that one day they too could be “kiwis by choice”.  They have embraced not just the immediate host family, Pip, Howard and the kids, but become part of our wider rambling and enormous whanau, comfortably navigating the grandparents and great grandparents, the aunties, uncles and cousins, with all the vagaries, quirks and family weirdness.

For more than any, Alex and Tea have become my Scandanadian daughters, the younger sisters that Pip hasn’t had till now.  Recent visits from both their mothers have cemented our relationships even more – every mother wants to know that her daughter has a mothering influence in her life, when she cannot be there in person.

And so we build our family – and so we build a private, personal diaspora of international family; a world wide net of more-than-friends for Matthew and Isabel to visit, and to enjoy one day when they head out into the wider world.

Wouldn’t it be great if Izzy could one day have her own au pair adventure, caring for the children of one of our Scandinavian daughters?  Meanwhile, I take joy, and pride, in the way these young women, all of them, have become part of our family, and allowed us to become part of their present and hopefully future lives.

The internet made me do it – not!

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Shopping in real shops, like talking to real people, is on the way out.  The internet told me so!

According to this analysis, almost all smartphone users – 96% of us – plan to “showroom” for our future purchases, taking advantage of the physical stores to test out, try on, touch and feel the wares, and perhaps even tap into the expertise of the staff, before buying online, from whoever gives us the best price.

TER12052 Aprimo_Infographic_7F

 

Yes, that’s me – a savvy shopper, I hear myself say.

But take heart, all you retailers, and retail staff out there – if you lose me, it won’t be because the internet made me do it.  It will be because you drove me to it!

While there are, no doubt, people who can’t afford to pay the real price, and people who are offended by the massive mark-ups they perceive local retailers to be taking on products they can buy offshore for literally half the price, I believe that most shoppers genuinely do want to support our local retailers…  but sometimes you just make it so very hard to love you.

But this is not a story about poor service, or lack of range.  Quite the opposite.

This week, I bought a camera.  Not a run-of-the-mill, point and click, instant camera, but a serious camera to replace my trusty, long-serving Nikon D100, one of the very first, ultimate digital SLR models that cost an arm and a leg way back when.  After nearly 30 years, replacing this camera was not done lightly…  months of research, bemusement at the vast array of options, amazement at how much prices have reduced, all led to one conclusion.

You need to go to a shop and have a look at the actual cameras.  Will my lenses transfer, how much can I reduce the weight, what does half this stuff mean?  No, I am not a ‘professional’ photographer, just one that has been incredibly spoilt by having great equipment in the past.

And so, on an otherwise uneventful Monday, I ended up in Camera & Camera on Queen Street – the place I associate with buying camera gear.  There, I met the lovely Keith.  He was patient, informative, knowledgeable without being condescending, encouraging me to consider my options, assuring me I actually only needed a camera body, but also showing me how far lens technology has come.  On the side, some great advice on a slide scanner for my husband, who has another project in mind.

Now, I knew (and he probably knew too) that a quick look at any of the best buys site would mean I could just head off down the road, and order camera from a highly-reviewed online retailer, with certain savings.  And I’m pretty sure he thought that’s what was happening when I suggested to my husband we go for a quick coffee and a chat before making a decision.

But you know what?  I couldn’t do it.  A quick coffee later, and we were back – thanks Keith!  You proved that great retail experiences are worth paying for (although others may think you just proved that I’m a gullible consumer, with too much money to spend).  I got a great camera, for a price I was willing to pay, with the reassurance that if anything goes wrong (or even if I just need help), I can just head on back to my local camera store, talk to the trusty Keith who’s been there for years, and he’ll be there for me.  I bought from a real store – after doing all my research online, and checking the prices online, that real person made me do it!

 

 

Credit where credit is due – how not to breed the next generation of terrorists

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Twitter is, alternately, my great frustration and my great delight.  I make it a policy to follow a collection of people who are in no way like-minded with the views that I hold dear and true – in part, because I like to be challenged, and perhaps in small part because I feel the need to keep an eye on the crazies that I might be up against, at least philosophically.

So this week, I surprised even myself at the joy I felt on reading a tweet from @tameiti, self proclaimed “Activist, Artist, Terrorist and Cyclist. Living in the heart of the Tuhoe Nation.”

Tame Iti Tweet 27Jul14

Having grown up in a different place, where parts of our beloved country were carved off into ‘sovereign states’ in the name of ‘self-determination’ for the tangata whenua (though we didn’t call them that), I have viewed with disdain the apparent desire of the Tuhoe Nation to declare the Ureweras their own sovereign state, reclaiming their rangitiratanga.  And I have to say that my views on the 2007 police raids in the Ureweras were entirely true to my conservative, capitalist some might say ‘Tory’ mindset.

So I was truly moved – in part, moved the fact that I was actually moved – by this gesture of reconciliation.  In a world where the consequences of inter-generational hurt and wrongs are so visibly played out nightly on our TV screens in news from Gaza, I couldn’t help but feel a huge wave of admiration for Tame Iti’s acceptance of Police Commissioner Mike Bush’s willingness to front up and listen.  Listen to the hurt that was real (whether or not the action was justified).

I have spent a lifetime in marketing trying to persuade businesses that perception is reality.  That if a consumer believes this about your brand, product or service, then it is true for them – whether or not it is true for you.

How much more important is it then, that we as a nation understand that the hurt felt by the Tuhoe people, at the 2007 raids, and at the no doubt mulitple perceived injustices of the past, is real.  Real to them, irrespective of whether or not we believe they are justified in feeling that way.

And so we should and in fact, must, all admire the fact that at least some of them – most notably their high profile leader, are willing to express acceptance of an apology, and importantly of the listening that went with that apology.  In some small way, this should give us all hope for the future – a future in which the sins of the fathers are not, inevitably, passed on to the sons.  A future where the next generation is encourage to look past the frailty of human nature that led to past wrongs, look beyond the past to build a better future.

Because the alternative – all too visible internationally – is simply not an option.  Irrespective of who is right, and who is wrong, the continued bombardment of Gaza by Israel is unquestionably breeding the next generation of terrorists, freedom fighters or whatever you wish to call them.

So hat’s off to Tame Iti (and to Mike Bush too).  Conflicts can escalate all too easily in the festering abyss of hard-feelings and past wrongs.  In every conflict, resolution is only made possible by one or other side taking the role of rational adult – we are indeed fortunate that in this case, there appear to have been adults on both sides.

Bare faced cheek!

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This morning as I sat on the bus – the ‘loser-cruiser’ in words of a good friend’s son – wearing my flat shoes and my bare-faced cheek(s), I pondered the morning news item about the ‘equal pay’ awards, apparently won by Westpac this year, with Sky City and BNZ – all huge employers – amongst the runners up.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all in favour of equality – but I can’t help thinking that the need to award equal pay is part of the problem, rather than a solution (or a celebration, for that matter).  Looking around me at the women on the bus – for that is whom this equal pay stuff is all about – I was struck by their lack of ‘equal’ behaviour.

And I wondered how it came about that make-up was clearly part of the female corporate dress,  but not the male?  My bare cheeks were certainly in the minority – and no doubt, a sign to some that I simply didn’t care enough to make the effort to paint my face, let alone the palpable need to paint my grey, grey hair.   Not one single man was wearing make-up – despite the fact that many would have benefited from a touch of Thin Lizzy, or more!

While celebrities and their make-up-free selfies become a fundraising phenomenon;  while women feel the need to don a mask for work;  while we consider equal pay worthy of celebration – we are not only perpetuating, but validating the fact that women themselves are not behaving as equals, and therefore perhaps might not deserve to be treated as such.

My father drummed into me that “what you accept, you will get”…  maybe it’s time to just stop accepting that which we rail against.  Fortunately my first job was in the very heart of chauvinistic, bigotted discrimination – the South African mining industry – and fortunately, it taught me that the way to be treated as an equal is to behave as an equal, flat shoes (steel capped, of course), bare-faced cheeks and all.