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Angry woman in Santa hat Christmas
Angry woman in Santa hat Christmas

ParentsNovember 27, 2018

Santa is real, and she’s pissed off

Angry woman in Santa hat Christmas
Angry woman in Santa hat Christmas

Yes a woman can be Santa – just ask all the mothers out there, says Emily Writes.

A debate has erupted over the gender of Santa. “Can Santa be a woman?” ask many, many men who have never bought a Christmas present in their lives. Or if they have it was bought at a petrol station on their way home from work on December 24th because what woman doesn’t want some paua dolphin tourist earrings chucked inside a pie bag with a note that says “mum” on it?

These men think a man from the North Pole is racing around the world delivering presents – somehow oblivious to their wives, girlfriends, and mothers sweating and suffering for hours at night decorating, baking, and wrapping the presents they’ve painstakingly bought all year.

You know what all the women doing all the emotional labour at Christmas think about you insisting Santa is a man? Fucking nothing – they’re too busy searching TradeMe for the cheapest second-hand Paw Patrol set that looks new but isn’t new because a new one costs a week’s wages to think about why you’re spending so much energy talking about this when you could be PUTTING TOGETHER THE GOD DAMN BIKE Mum ordered online.

Mums are baking for the Christmas kindy sale, helping the kids make a gingerbread house, booking all the travel and accommodation for Christmas, packing for the day of driving knowing the kids will be miserable in the car (so don’t forget the iPad), making the spreadsheet that says who is going to bring the fucking beans for Christmas lunch while knowing everyone will bring beans and only one person will bring chicken.

They’re buying Christmas PJs for the kids and working on traditions.

They’re dealing with family micro-aggressions, like trying to explain travelling with a three-day-old baby is really hard, and also hosting 19 people with a three-day-old baby is really hard too. Trying to explain that nobody wants to drive six hours with six kids in the car. Trying to deal with relatives you haven’t seen in six years moaning about your kids being too excited at Christmas lunch. Dealing with tantrums and drunk uncles and your cousin who is almost certainly on drugs, and your aunty who is practicing the hypnosis she learned at a community class on your nephew.

Girlfriends are making sure there’s enough wine, but not too much wine, and there’s enough for vegans and did anybody bring a ham – OK, I’ll go to the shop at 9pm on Christmas Eve.

They are setting up the tree, fixing decorations, and maybe, if you’re lucky, your one job as a man will be to spend half an hour swearing at the Christmas lights and insisting they’ll eventually work before you leave them in the middle of the floor and say “You’ll have to buy some more I think”.

These are not my stories – these are the stories of mums that I start to be sent around this time of year. Mums who have so much pressure put on them at this time of year. Mums who are 41 weeks pregnant but are being asked by their husband if they can grab a Christmas present for their mother-in-law. Men who say “why don’t we do a Secret Santa this year to save you from having to get heaps of presents – you won’t be as stressed.” And then: “You can organise a Secret Santa, right?”

The mums are at the Christmas parade. The mums are organising photo calendars to fundraise for school, and so great aunt Ethel has a new picture of the kids. The mums are writing back to the kids from Santa. The mums are buying the advent calendars. The mums are hand-making Christmas cards to save money, making wrapping paper out of Children’s artwork, negotiating visitors – trying to find space for everyone, working out dietary requirements.

The mums are saying “Actually, we’re not travelling this year”, and getting an earful for that because that’s your job just do it mum.

The mums ARE Christmas.

They’re exhausted on Christmas Eve. And before the clock strikes midnight they’re sprinkling flour to make it look like Santa’s boot print in the snow. They’re taking a bite of the carrot on the bench and a sip of milk. Writing a thank you letter from Santa. Making sure the lights on the tree are sparkling as they place the final present underneath.

And they’re smiling now. It’s exhausting but they do it because who else will, but also because they just want everyone to have a good Christmas. They want everyone to know what Christmas is all about. They want happiness and peace and joy for everyone.

And probably, “Santa” will get thanks. The big guy will take the credit. And mum won’t complain.

But don’t forget your mum, your wife, your sister, your girlfriend, your nanna – they’re Santa.

So quit whining and if you’re so sure Santa is a dude get your list out and start checking it twice. You’ve got a shitload to do before December 25.

Emily Writes is the editor of The Spinoff Parents. Her books Rants in the Dark and Is it Bedtime Yet? are in stores now. Follow her on Facebook here.

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Horror movies feat

ParentsNovember 19, 2018

Stop letting your kids watch horror films

Horror movies feat

Trying to navigate what films and games your child consume can be difficult. But R18 means R18, says Emily Writes, who calls on other parents to monitor what their kids are watching – for the sake of all children.

When our son was two, we took him to an AC/DC concert. It was outside, at The Cake Tin, and he had special ear protectors on. When the show started, a video of a meteor hurtling to earth was shown. My son froze, I froze, my husband froze. We knew the footage would be scary to a child – they don’t know what is real and what isn’t. But as the clip ended and AC/DC launched into ‘Thunderstruck’ or ‘Back in Black’ or whatever it was our son began head-banging away.

He was having a fantastic time, but a few songs in we decided to take him home. Despite being surrounded by families, there were a lot of drunk people around.

Afterward we agreed it wasn’t our finest parenting hour.

Our son had loved it, and talked about it for another year at least, but that didn’t change how we felt. It was not the most responsible parenting on our part. Sure, nothing bad had happened, but we realised our choice to take him had been about us, not him. We wanted him to like AC/DC and we wanted him to enjoy the concert. We were just lucky he did.

A few years later, our favourite band Iron Maiden, the band we named our boy after, came to Auckland. We were sent tickets for Eddie to meet his namesake. He was desperately excited. He made a poster saying “I Love Big Eddie”. We drove to Auckland and saw the Iron Maiden plane “Ed Force One” and we went to Vector Arena with Eddie to see the show. Eddie wore his little leather jacket with Iron Maiden patches on it, and his black jeans, and his Iron Maiden t-shirt. Everywhere he went he pulled the horns at other Iron Maiden fans and got hi-fives from other Maiden kids and families. It was beautiful.

We felt so proud and happy – our little bogan family!

We sat down in our amazing front row seats, seats we would never have been able to get, and prepared to see our absolute favourite band. There was a short video of “Big Eddie” smashing a plane and then flames and the band.

It was loud. It was amazing. It was absolutely terrifying for a four-year-old. We left within two songs, heartbroken.

In the car Eddie perked up and asked for us to play Katy Perry’s awful song ‘Roar’. “Sing it Dad!” he yelled into the front. My husband mumbled the words as enthusiastically as he could, given that we had been mere metres from our heroes and had to give it up.

But we learned a valuable lesson. One we thought we had learned earlier, but clearly hadn’t sunk in.

Sometimes what you think your kid wants, or enjoys, is more about what you as a parent want and enjoy. We wanted to see Iron Maiden, so worries about whether or not our son might be scared of the imagery were brushed away. We thought ‘we play it at home, he’s seen some age appropriate videos, he’ll love it’.

We were wrong.

I’m saying this because I want to let you know that it’s OK that we are wrong as parents sometimes. And it’s not too late to admit you made the wrong choice and change things.

I try my very best not to be prescriptive with my fellow parents, given that we all make mistakes and all have different circumstances and situations. But I feel really strongly about this, so I feel I have to go beyond the “you do you” mantra. So, deep breath, here it is:

Parents have just got to stop showing their young kids horror movies and letting them play scary games.

You just have to stop it.

Having your six-year-old watch Saw with you, or Alien, or It? That is not responsible parenting. Your child cannot process it (no matter how advanced you think they are, they’re not – they cannot process it, it’s that simple.) It’s unfair to put that pressure on them to watch something that they actually, in their heart, don’t want to watch, just because you want to watch it.

It’s also unfair on other children because your child then brings that violent imagery and misogynistic and violent language to school. Where all the other children are. And all these kids have parents who are trying their best to navigate what media is safe for their kids and what isn’t.

A few weeks ago my son stopped being able to go to sleep easily at night. He needed a night light. He needed me to lie with him, sometimes for up to two hours, as he jumped at every noise. He became afraid to go to the toilet at night. He stopped walking the dog because he’d have to walk past sewer drains. Eventually, things got so bad his dad started sleeping next to him to calm him when he woke screaming. School drop offs became a nightmare.

Finally, he told another parent what his recurring nightmare was. He said he couldn’t tell me, because he didn’t want to upset me.

He had dreamed that he was being made to cut me, his mum, up.

When we asked him he began sobbing. “I don’t want to cut you!” he said.

We explained to him that his brain wasn’t making him think that, that there wasn’t something wrong with him, that it wasn’t his fault. We eventually got some more info out of him – it was about some confusing character called a Jigsaw man.

We googled it.

It’s from a movie called Saw.

A character forces someone to cut up their parent. Why any adult is watching this is confusing to me, but why they would put it on for their child to watch is just astonishing to me. Maybe an older child was watching it? Maybe it was a babysitter? I don’t know.

All I know is a child saw a film he should never have ever seen. And now my child is dealing with that fear. And it is spreading among the other kids. And we as a family are exhausted from lack of sleep, trying to navigate through some other parent’s decision to allow them to let a six-year-old see an R18 film.

There’s nothing schools and teachers can do about this. Nothing parents can do to stop other parents letting their kids see these films, or not adequately supervising them so that they know older siblings aren’t showing them these films.

We can all only say this: it has consequences.

You’re stealing childhoods, both my child’s and yours. You’re making other children afraid of your child because they scare them. You’re making my child not want to go to school. Children should not be laying in bed thinking about the horrors introduced to them by their parents or the parents of other children.

We all make mistakes. We all think sometimes our children can handle things that they can’t. It’s OK to make a mistake as long as you make sure you learn from it.

Put your ego to the side and say, My kid comes before my interests. Watch horror films with them when they’re 18.

I’ll be taking my kids to concerts when they’re older and know what they’re getting into.

Until then, it’s our job to protect not just our kids, but other kids.

We are the adults. We will of course make mistakes. But it’s never too late to grow up.

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