Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
Stay at home, Senator, and raise your children
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Of course you can’t bring a baby into the Senate. And, what in the name of the Westminster System were you doing reproducing in time for your term, Sarah? This isn’t rational feminism. It’s macrobiotic baby sick on a functioning democracy. That’s it. The Greens have done their dash. I can only suppose I was yoked to my hormones in November, 2007. Either that or absolutely blunted. It could’ve only been pot or a prelude to The Change that persuaded a vote to the Greens in the Senate. Still. One million other Australians acted likewise that day. And not all of them could have been stoned, perimenopausal or effing registered Holistic Osteopaths. This swing to the Greens may have had something to do with the diminution of civil liberties, real debate and water reserves. We had an excuse, alright? Last election, Bob Brown was to Kevin Rudd as, say, Malcolm Gladwell is to Kyle Sandilands. This is to say, each of them is a singularly smug populist with desperate need of better advice on hair. But, in a moral smackdown, Gladwell seems more altruistic than his chubby opponent. And a lot less likely to be found in the company of exotic dancers. But, Brown, just like Gladwell, tends to say some stupid naïve sh-t. The fucking stupidest and most naïve of which was uttered just last night. Debating a bill on food advertising during C Time television broadcast, a division was required for a vote. At the time, South Australian Greens Senator Hanson-Young was holding her toddler, whom we’ll call Sundance Rosa Parks Engels, when President John Hogg asked for it and its biodegradable diaper to be removed from the house. Fair cop, really. Apparently the thing was crying. Then, Brown bangs on about the “archaic” attitude of parliamentarians to family life. After some snipes about the Upper House’s “horse-and-buggy” attitude to childcare, he said, “I don’t think we should see parents separated from their infants in the way it happened in the Senate this afternoon.” Well, I don’t think that the primary care-givers of children should be parliamentarians. Briefly overlook (a) the alarming stench of an infant raised entirely on ancient-grains and rice milk and (b) the alarming sound of an infant whose first experience of the world was a patchouli infused Jacuzzi, and really think about what significant devotion to children does to a policy maker. Unless you’ve ready access to pharmaceutical grade amphetamine salts, you simply can’t effectively legislate and mother. The experience of parenting does not make you a better representative. If you’re up nights and, significantly, moderating the guilt you feel in abandoning Little Sundance to the degree you need to drag her to work, clearly your faculties as a Senator are diminished. I don’t care, Sarah, how much you understand the anguish of Working Families. And I don’t care for the junk science that insists that women are Better Multitaskers. Don’t vote with a baby on your lap. In some industry and at some levels of professional responsibility, there is a little sense in fusing the public and private realms for parents. The practise probably works very well in call centres. It has no place in federal politics. Little Sundance does not have the right to literally crap all over a critical institution. And nor do you. Stay at home and raise your children. Or, do your fucking job. Do children have a place in our Parliamentary chambers? Have you say here. |
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31 Comments
oh Helen, you were always a kind of vacuous crude loudmouth in your triple j days, nothing seems to have changed.
Hear hear Stephen … Crikey could do without these inane, self-serving, circular arguments. Put your energies somewhere else, but don’t inflict your rants on Crikey readers…this is forum for (hopefully) more informed and intelligent debate and opinion. This article comes across as Andrew Boltesque at its most fluent. Yuk.
This is the second day in a row I have questioned my Crikey subscription. I’d prefer thoughtful opinion and analysis, regardless of whether or not I agree with the author.
Damo, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Razor’s work is typically crass and full of cheap shots, but Crikey is a broad church and if she wants to make a fool of herself so what.
Why so angry, Helen?
Helen please keep up the good work, your article brightened up my day.
The rest of you should get a life.
Jesus Razor, that’s got to be the stupidest shit you have ever posted. Generally love your work, but today you had your idiot hat on.
I have liked Helen’s sense of humour since I was a J baby. Still never sure if the tongue is in the cheek or not.
Is the senator like those people who move near pubs and complain of the noise? Yes the parliament is a workplace that is not child friendly, neither is a construction site. Is it discriminatory for other non tradionally child friendly work places to ban kids?
Construction sites, churches,(as marriage permits) cinemas, libraries. Freedom for the rude to impose their choices on everybody else at the expense of everybody else. Hooray
Oh Helen, what a load of garbage. Your rant didn’t even make interesting or challenging reading. As with some of your ramblings in the Oz a few years back, I had to re-read some pars of your Crikey piece to figure out where the hell you were taking us.
I agree with the earlier reader who says that, yes, Crikey is a broad church for opinion and witty debate. However, generally the pieces are of a much higher quality than the bilge you just served up.
Andrew Thomas
Posted Friday, 19 June 2009 at 3:06 pm | Permalink
Helen please keep up the good work, your article brightened up my day.
The rest of you should get a life.
Andrew - are you implying that because the majority of the people posting here have an opinion that contracticts your own, that they are dead? And they should get a life? I have never understood that stupid phrase - it smacks of someone who has used up all of their own opinions so they trot out a well worn, meaningless, and foolish phrase.
I think it was intended to be satire. It seems, that like Ben Pobjie over at New Matilda, that you need to spell this out in 15 point bold.
And this satire added what to the debate?
Meski, I think the problem is that it isn’t satire, it’s just poor writing. Some of the comments in this and the other Crikey page on this issue for and against having children in Parliament make far better work in addressing what the core questions are, namely should children be allowed in a workplace, if so are there particular workplaces where they definitely shouldn’t (e.g. construction sites), when common sense should prevail, if a working day is 17 hours long does that give provide cause to bend the rules, can a person do a job if their family life is present, etc. etc. Helen Razor’s article is just an anti-feminist tirade. I think most of us, if given the job of arguing the ‘con’ case, could embed some valid counter-arguments in our witty diatribe, rather than resorting to ‘greens are hippies’, ‘mothers are exhausted and unable to do any other job well’ and using a scatalogical metaphor as a ‘smart’ closer.
Based on Anna’s well worded contribution, I would like to withdraw the word “shit”, and substitute it with “extremely silly”.
But I would like to point out that Ms Razor used the word “fucking”, which is a little strong. Even for supposed satire.
I tend to agree, Anna, that as satire, it wasn’t terribly funny. Perhaps Helen’s looking for a job scriptwriting for The Chaser?
Who are you “Helen Razer”? The child was apparently not crying until wrenched from her mother. Her mother does not appear to be her ” primary care giver “as the little girl was leaving to go back to Adelaide with her - perhaps she is her joint carer - what business is it of yours anyway!
How dare you speak about someone’s child and what their name might/mightnot be in such an arrogant manner. It seems your vitriole is misinformed and probably reflects on personal issues you may have with parenting in your own life - as the level of emotion displayed by you is quite fundamentalist!
Regardless of if it’s satire or not, it’s not funny. I think the senator has performed well since her election. She is intelligent and considered which is more than I can say about this article by the aforementioned contributor.
I haven’t heard anyone suggesting the Senate should become a kindergarten, and it is ugly that the presence of a child (ever so briefly) causes such a furore and outpouring of bile.
Many things that happen in the Senate are unacceptable and outrageous, a mother holding her 2 yr olds hand in exceptional circumstances is not one of them!
Construction sites are not suitable for children even breifly, because of the physical danger.
Look it’s really simple.
This is not a debate of the issue.
Ms Razor is trying to be funny.
She isn’t.
Never has been.
Probably, never will be.
“the thing”.
Now that’s what I call projection.
Well Paul I don’t think she’s just “trying to be funny”. I think she believes what she wrote. More concerning is she represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to narrow minded reaction from across the media and community
Won’t someone please think of the children! Imagine the bad habits they could pick up from being exposed to the Senate. :^)
Is Helen being acerbic or sarcastic? I don’t care - more of this sort of commentary would make the drivel out there palatable.
More Razer please!
I’m not sure of Razor’s point but you’ve got to laugh at the responses.
Isn’t it Crikey’s brief to take the piss out of lazy,dopey politicians.
Poor Sarah said she had never been so humiliated ? All the speaker did was to politely ask her to remove her whining child from a situation the child obviously did not want to be in.
And you silly buggers want to defend her? Even the mother loving Pru Goward thinks she was a goose not to make alternative arrangements.
Toughen up you fools.
“It”; “the thing”. Hmm.
Either this is a clumsy attempt at Swiftean satire as in “A Modest Proposal” or it’s just plain nasty.
Trouble is, I can’t tell which. My problem or Ms Razer’s? Not sure.
In the meantime, let kids come into their parents’ workplaces, for democracy’s sake.
This is also the first time I have questioned my subscription to Crikey - not for Helen’s comments but for the replies. You’re not in the real world people! we have obviously bred a generation of public servants and victim conscience that really do believe the people we pay to make decisions on our nation and future can work outside the domain of the rest of the real world. This is the first blog have read today that actually has people thinking what she did was right.
The venom against mothers and children here is interesting … I don’t think we have a hope of equality in the workplace if mothers are expected to be either nanny-users or hausfraus. Why the hell shouldn’t she have her child with her? Why the hell isn’t there a creche in Parliament? Why the hell are mothers so discriminated against?
The Senator has a contribution to make. She happens to have a small child and happens to bring her into her workplace. Stop worrying about it. All this bile against women with children says a lot about the poverty of our expectations.
Go Helen Go. Hanson-Young should know the rules about strangers on the floor & if she doesn’t like the rules get another job. Giving birth doesn’t give a woman the right to expect her workplace to change to suit her. Checkout chicks, women in the military, and the majority of jobs don’t have the privilege of having their kids in the workplace. Why does Hanson-Young think she should be above the law when it’s her job to uphold it?
Other parliamentarians have been allowed to keep their children with them in the past. This is a storm in a tea cup. Of course she should have been allowed to keep her child with her. And those who are so hostile to that, I feel certain, are more hostile to the fact that is was a Greens senator. If it has been a Liberal, I wonder who would be saying what?
The only political stunt we saw yesterday was Barnaby Joyce getting a cheap shot at the Greens over the incident. Since then anyone who likes to criticise the Greens is also having a go. But face facts: you would not be bothering to write if it was someone from your favourite party. Or worse: you would be saying the complete opposite!
poor helen, how is it possible to spend 20 years being a try hard??
Like child-bearing, the window of opportunity to take up parliamentary responsibilities can be limited. Sometimes they will coincide. This is surely hard for everybody.
The vitriolic comments against children is due to the overwhelming number of them forced on us in every possible way in current society- there is no longer any escape from badly behaved spoilt brats and their indulgent one eyed parents. How is it that our parents could easily love children and teach good behaviour in public at any age and this generation of parents are so inept at it- that is why children are now so activley disliked.