Fathers & Daughters

So, I was chatting with my bro (in the normal, non-NZ sense) today, who is recently the father of a baby girl, and has a son a fair bit older. We were watching my daughter play, and I was talking about the relative lack of weight of expectation on father/ daughter relationships. When I'd raised the same theme at other times - prior to his daughters birth - it didn't seem to ring any bells for him - but today it did.

Of the four parent/ child combos, it really is the one least dwelt on by popular culture, psychology, home spun theory and general folk wisdom of the ages. And in my experience, that's been the great thing about it. Makes it a lot easier.

Of course, it's a relationship that can be majorly screwed up, like any other, sometimes in utterly horrific ways - but aside from those awful cases, there aren't a lot of negative stereotypes attached to it. 'Daddy's girl', for example, is fairly neutral where 'Mummy's boy' most certainly isn't. Then there's the inherent role-modelling pressure of of father-son, mother-daughter relationships; so frequently subject to the 'individualise-via-conflict' vibe, sooner or later. And no offence, Mums, but in my experience there's virtually no limit to the matters affecting a boy's life that his mother won't feel absolutely entitled to dip her oar in the water about. Even well into his 30s*. Bless 'em.

Whereas there's just no point even asking Dad about tricky girl-to-woman stuff. He won't have a clue. And most importantly: that's understood - by both parties.

Nothing to offer but love.

I hope no one gets offended by the above. But I write here in defence of father-daughter relationship. Against its broad cultural neglect. It rules.

* There is a some possibility the author generalises unduly from personal experience here.

Can't think of a new post...

...cos I blew all my good material on facebook. But in the most lame-ass of comedic traditions, let us now ask "so....what's with that??".

I guess its a bit like fast-food, or 20-20 cricket. An instant gratification pigout that leaves you belching, bloated, yet ultimately dissatisfied. Not that blogging is exactly the French slow-food movement - but I do find that ideas I might previously have turned into blog posts (and thus subjected to a more sustained reflection in blog comments) now get frittered away on a quick farcebook update.

Which incidentally, I now refer to as 'Slide Night'. My theory is that farcebook is - in effect - a high-tech socially acceptable version of boring your friends senseless with pics of what you did on yer holidays. Except that they don't HAVE to look at them. In that sense, it fits neatly with shallow neo-liberal consumerist notions of 'choice' and 'liberty': it's all complete rubbish, but you get to choose which sandwich de merde is pret-a-porter.

Or am I reading too much into it? I've never Twittered. I can only imagine that's worse.

CO2 Counter

So, I added a CO2 counter to the sidebar, which measure parts per million. Just to depress myself on a daily basis. Apparently 350ppm is considered the upper level of sane by most scientists. Oh look, its already 386. Naturally, we in Ostraya are basing current policy settings on a putative global aim of restricting it to 450ppm, which is totally effing visionary etc, except that it more or less guarantees disastrous climate change.

I need some good news on climate folks. Give me hope!