This is a bit off the topic of this blog but I really feel it would be remiss of me not to make some kind of comment on the state of my country at the moment. On Friday we had a change of our prime minister. The guy, Peter, who challenged the PM for leadership is actually a MP in my city and he is a big advocate for putting refugees who try to get to Australia by boat into off-shore detention. It's an unfathomably cruel practice which sadly everyone turns a blind eye to. Coincidentally, these last few weeks children in those same detention centres have been self harming and hunger striking. Fortunately, in the end Peter didn't win the challenge. Some other guy, called Scott did get voted to lead by his party... Scott... who, by the way, no one in the general public until this point even knew of or cared about. But he's now our Prime minister. Oh and just another note, there was a woman in the group of 4, Julie, who was a potential for leadership. She was actually, in my opinion, the best candidate of the 4. But of course her party, which only has a representation of 22% women, immediately eliminated her as a possibility. Look, I have to say, I usually do not care one bit about politics, and I suppose that the rest of Australia are similarly apathetic. But I'm starting to wonder if our general public need to become a bit more angry, accountable and start doing something, I don't know what, to get our supposed leaders doing a bit more than throwing tantrums about who's the boss.
It seems to me that the happy-ending story that is so often "out there" about infertility is this: "Here is a couple who struggled and struggled to have kids, and then, finally, they had a baby. The end"... I think something about this story feels like a lack of honouring of the losses felt along the way for infertile couples. I know life goes on, and I know it does no one any good at all to get stuck in grief or pain. But surely there is some kind of transition for people to adjust from infertility to parenthood? Maybe there is a certain loss that is always felt? Transitioning to parenthood seems like it would be a hard process following infertility battles, and different somehow from a "normal fertility" transition to parenthood which I am sure would be hard enough (and I think is spoken about a lot). Something about the "...and then they had a baby" part of the story seems a bit dismissive about the infertility dramas, or gives a message of-...
Watching from across the Tasman. We've had our moments, here, of course too. It was a bizarre situation, that Peter started it all, Malcolm got dumped, and Scott came through. Politics is pretty weird everywhere right now. I think it is easy for us all to be too apathetic. Good for you to be calling for a bit more involvement. Make those politicians accountable!
ReplyDeleteYes I bet you guys are watching it all from a rather smug position over there in NZ, what with your legend of a PM... it's a pretty special wee place you are from!
DeleteI also heard about another New Zealand MP who rode her bicycle to hospital to have her baby?? I'm not actually sure exactly how I feel about that!! There is definitely a part of me that admires that dedication to eco-friendly transportation though another part that's thinking - -- maybe taking it a bit too far? haha.