In the name of MY children.

December15th

Posted in: General, the googletubes

I have a rule that if a Facebook status or Tweet is too long, it should go on the blog, so here goes:

You know, I wish that politicians would stop using MY children, and their so-called protection, as an excuse for pandering to the religious right. You know what? My kids surf Youtube. Unsupervised. Because I have TAUGHT THEM to have a fucking brain and know how to use the internet responsibly.

It’s this little thing called parenting – you know, where you need to make HARD DECISIONS about morality. HARD DECISIONS about education. HARD DECISIONS about how to turn them into decent, sensible & functional human beings.

IT’S HARD.

That’s why it’s called parenting and not "sitting idly".

I am getting shitted off with this generation of parents – who paradoxically, on one hand, thrust their neurotically over-parented, micromanaged, over-extra-curricularised precocious little turds into society with no social skills, thinking that they are so much more important than other people, unable to do anything without it being part of a program, or a structured activity… where, these batshit crazy people have somehow become NORMAL in the name of "protecting the children".

These idiots purchase devices like wipe warmers, designer organic t-shirts for $200 and Mensa tests for their 2 year olds (who, by virtue of learning to sit up a whole month early, is the next Albert fucking Einstein)…

And then, on the other hand, also fail to do the basic stuff like, you know, teaching their kids manners, self respect and basic protective behaviours.

Because parenting is more than just veneers, gimmicks & products. It actually takes effort.

And our politicians have co-opted this idea in order to push through policies that pander to the smallest percentage of God bothering, anti-woman, anti-sex religious zealots whose immediate impulse is to kill anything they don’t understand, all the while slashing the real child protection funding and funding for domestic violence programs, you know the stuff where kids ACTUALLY GET RAPED & BEATEN ON A DAILY BASIS… putting greater and greater burdens on the teaching profession, the health department & the police force who deal with actual, real harm to children on a daily basis.

Ask any welfare worker how long their case queues are. In busy Department for Community centres, there are children that are at risk every day that have been queued for other children, who are at more immediate risk, because the Department can’t keep up with its caseload.

And then they use the protection of children as an argument for the filter? Are you fucking KIDDING me? I parent my children. I nurture my children. I love them. But you don’t trust me enough to make the right decisions for my children’s upbringing?

The internet filter is just more cotton wool for a generation of professional overparenting cunts, who use "for the children" as a catch-all excuse to police other people. It’s just another gadget, another smokescreen, to distract the dumb consumer yuppies from the real harm that this government does to children every day from it’s inaction and lack of funding.

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View Comments

Comment by Kim (Frogpondsrock) — December 15, 2009 @ 2:26 am

I am applauding,
Comment by Diary of a Mad Cow — December 15, 2009 @ 2:26 am

Here here!

Fuckers.
Comment by Veronica — December 15, 2009 @ 2:31 am

Fantastic.
Comment by Nomie — December 15, 2009 @ 2:32 am

THAT is EXACTLY how I feel. Here here.
Comment by kinou — December 15, 2009 @ 2:59 am

Yeah… like she said…!
Comment by Andrew Blanda — December 15, 2009 @ 3:17 am

There's a lot wrapped up in there but 100% correct…we're fast becoming a nanny country and it's going to hurt us in many many ways in the future. We need some visionaries to run this place!
Comment by MAC — December 15, 2009 @ 3:21 am

There's some stuff out there I don't want my little kids looking at. That's why I forked out fifty bucks for a good content filter for their pc. I didn't have to fuck the internet and waddaya know. It works perfectly.
Comment by Craig — December 15, 2009 @ 4:20 am

Brilliant post. Will definitely retweet. K Rudd and co. need to get a grip and fix the REAL issues in this country.
Comment by Jasmine Marosvary — December 15, 2009 @ 4:20 am

Here here! You tell them!
Comment by cofiem — December 15, 2009 @ 4:31 am

I have some nit-picks with the examples and expressions, but very agreeable to the overall idea.
Pingback by Do these people have no idea? — the folly of the Internet Filter | acidlabs — December 15, 2009 @ 2:32 am

[...] Téa Brennan, who makes an impassioned pleas for sense and proper parenting [...]
Comment by Téa Brennan — December 15, 2009 @ 4:43 am

Thanks everyone… it's one of those “off the cuff rants where it started in a long Facebook status and ended as a blog post” things.

Re-reading my stream of consciousness if weird and funny and I am glad you liked it! Thanks so much :)

@deveshm – nitpicking? on the internet? No way! hahahaha
Comment by Susan — December 15, 2009 @ 4:59 am

Thank You Tea Breenan, my 17 year old daughter just sent me this link. It made me cry. I have been quietly but resolutely resisting what has become the mainstream for many years. My daughter acknowledging that she is now 'different' in a good way is all the thanks I need. Peer pressure is rampant in the school yard. What is worse? Mother's groups at pick up playing one-up-man-ship with their kid's schedules or children bullying because someone doesn't fit in. It takes courage to walk away. Walk away and focus on your child. Do what THEY need. LISTEN TO THEM. HUG THEM. UNDERSTAND. AND ALWAYS LOVE THEM. That is all they need
Comment by thor saleswarlord — December 15, 2009 @ 5:03 am

Seriously Brennan,

I don't want this to come across the wrong way so I preface this by asking you to consider this as constructive.

I think you need to be more nurturing of your inner voice.

I get the impression you toned this down because you were shy about expressing yourself, if you try and really make an effort to work on expressing yourself more clearly, you will make a really inspiring writer one day.

There is no point stifling your personality just because this is a public forum.

:P

Love you man.

PS

Does it say scary things about me that most of this makes sense?
Comment by Jo Exley — December 15, 2009 @ 5:53 am

Fuck to the Yes. Get your morality off MY kids, leave that stuff to ME.

I'd sooner teach my young-and-impressionables the best and bloodiest way to slay sacrificial goat than step aside to let the Rite Wang raise MY children.
Comment by Peter Fletcher — December 15, 2009 @ 5:57 am

Gold. Of course this isn't the only place we're legislators attempt to distance individuals from the consequences of their actions. Laws that require people to wear bike helmets, adhere to inane road rules and not take drugs are all laden with restrictions that serve little purpose other than to give work to politicians and their public service minions. Well said Ms Brennan.
Comment by Mandi — December 15, 2009 @ 6:20 am

Best thing I've read all day.
Comment by anthony — December 15, 2009 @ 7:07 am

Actually Peter, bike helmets have a demonstrated effectiveness to a demonstrated problem in a public space so don't go mixing them up with this hunk of shit legislation.
Comment by bestpam — December 16, 2009 @ 3:54 am

Brilliant
Well said!
Comment by glenndavy — December 16, 2009 @ 4:14 pm

Thats fantastic… beautifully said, mind if i print it out and mail to my local member?
Comment by Kiwi Nick — December 16, 2009 @ 6:08 pm

You forgot about the 4WD crowd. When my wife started walking the children to school 4 years ago, she got funny looks. But not now that petrol prices have caught up.

Brilliant post.

BTW, if you want good filtering, try Squid (preferably on Linux, it's opensource). You can pre-populate it with a list of about 100,000 known bad websites, then tailor to your heart's content (although the regular expressions may take a little learning).
Pingback by TONGUE OF THE DAY « SMELLY TONGUES — December 16, 2009 @ 4:10 pm

[...] OF THE DAY The righteous wrath of pissed off parent Tèa Brennan [...]
Comment by Kiwi Nick — December 16, 2009 @ 6:25 pm

Oh crap, we all forgot one thing: the filter won't work.
It only works against http URLs, but most of the bad stuff is bit-torrented everywhere. And there's https, darknet, entropy, tor, and of course, an ssh tunnel to a server outside the country.
Comment by Kiwi Nick — December 16, 2009 @ 7:01 pm

I'd be very careful about some of these – laws are justified based on how many other people you take down with you (eg road rules, weapons), or the effort to look after you after you come a cropper without a helmet.
But the internet filter doesn't fit into any of that category, so is not justified.
Comment by Matthew — December 16, 2009 @ 9:24 pm

Actually Anthony, they don't.

If you don't believe me, check for yourself what the standards require of bike helmets – AS 2063, and the incidence of severe head injury and death per cyclist vs per pedestrian, both before and after mandatory helmet use. You might be in for a surprise!
Pingback by I can’t believe there’s so much stuff on the internet about this. (For now, anyway.) « An Onymous Lefty — December 16, 2009 @ 11:23 pm

[...] sick of fundamentalists and their representatives in Canberra justifying their power grabs in the name of her children. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Now Remind Me Again Why I Had A Baby?Forgive me, [...]
Comment by wilful — December 20, 2009 @ 11:03 pm

Of course, you're hating that a politician would generalise, and there you go, generalising about “this generation” of parents – who I've heard a lot about, but very rarely met…

of course, overall, I agree with your general argument.
Comment by Téa Brennan — December 21, 2009 @ 2:02 am

errr… I *am* in this generation of parents and I witness it every day. But you know, it was a moment-in-time humourous rant that got a wider audience than expected… I'd have structured it a bit better if I had known so many would read it.
Comment by wilful — December 21, 2009 @ 6:03 am

Of course, you're hating that a politician would generalise, and there you go, generalising about “this generation” of parents – who I've heard a lot about, but very rarely met…

of course, overall, I agree with your general argument.
Comment by Téa Brennan — December 21, 2009 @ 9:02 am

errr… I *am* in this generation of parents and I witness it every day. But you know, it was a moment-in-time humourous rant that got a wider audience than expected… I'd have structured it a bit better if I had known so many would read it.