Happy Slow Year!

Time rage comes from an insidious mix of ego (my desires and my needs) and the demands of time (I have to get an answer immediately or I need to get this piece of information ASAP). Just as it is on our roads with car rage and even cyclist rage — get in my way and you will pay!

Instant communication can have its real pluses: knowing where our partners, friends and children are can be very reassuring. But wanting to know where they are all the time may just be fuelling, rather than dampening, our anxieties. Did Marco Polo's mum fret because he didn't text every day?

Rob Moodie* "Time to usher out the fast and the furious"
in The Age, 1-2 Jan 2010

It's the first day of the new year and the new decade. (Is it the tensies? the teenies? the onesies?...there needs to be a UN think tank working on the label we will give this awkward period between the noughties and the twenties.)

The noughties are a decade synonymous with an explosion in personal connectivity. Mobile smart phones, wireless connection, Twitter, Facebook, My Space, messaging, personal GPS...the ways to keep track of ourselves and our colleagues, family and friends are endless.

Perhaps this new decade is a time to re-evaluate our obsession with this connectivity?

Rob Moodie's column in The Age this morning struck a chord with me. Go read the entire piece. I particularly liked the line about Marco Polo's mum.

Before our time, the ways of communicating with people not within our immediate vicinity were, if not limited, infinitely slower than they are today.

Handwritten letters took the slow boat to China. Costly long distance phone calls were booked in advance and connected via an operator. Copies of photos taken at family events were made by leaving the negatives at the local pharmacy and prints were collected days later and mailed to the intended recipients.

Nowadays, an email can be received and replied to on a mobile phone that is in a beach bag, while you sit on the sand. Phone calls can be made across the world and timezones at low cost via Skype or VOIP. Photos can be uploaded and emailed around the world practically while the event is still continuing. Family across the country can have a pic of junior blowing out the candles saved as a desktop background before the smoke has actually cleared.

But does all this connectivity make life simpler?

The times I log into Facebook, my head spins with the activities of all my 'friends'. I feel guilty if I haven't replied to message or a missed call on my mobile phone within a short time. My inbox overflows with emails I have flagged to respond to, or that contain something I have to add to my 'to-do' list.

As Rob Moodie says, "We are tyrannised by the to-do list, and also by the to-worry-about list and the to-feel-guilty-about list. As our inboxes overload and our lists expand, we get more irritable and more anxious".

And the most insidious aspect of all this connectivity is that it has blurred the distinction between leisure and work time. Never again will corporate workers be able to 'leave work' at the end of the day.

All of which means that home and family life is never 100 per cent the focus of most corporate workers. One ear or one eye is always on the Blackberry or the iPhone or the computer screen, even if only to skim over the cause of the latest ping and decide that it is not in fact urgent and can wait for a response until the following day, or after the holidays.

In order to slow our lives down and mentally de-clutter, we need to chose to physically turn off these devices; to adjust our expectations of others' response times; and to enjoy our experience of the present without being tuned in to a reality that exists elsewhere, whether it be the workplace or another geographic location.

But is that even possible? Or desirable? Tell us what you think.

Oh, and we wish you a happy, but slow, New Year!

*Professor Rob Moodie is chairman of global health at the University of Melbourne's Nossal Institute.

How full is your letterbox?

December heralds for this household a special time - it is the only time of the year that significant amounts of 'personal' mail fill our letterbox. For most of the year, it contains bills, marketing materials and 'official' letters. For a few short weeks a year, there are also handwritten items wishing us seasonal greetings.

But I've noticed a trend. There was once a time when we'd receive around 100 Christmas cards. This year, I reckon we'll be lucky to get 50. I don't think it's that we're less popular than we used to be....I think it's just that less people send cards nowadays.

Before our time, the sending of a handwritten card through the mail was the accepted way to convey greetings and best wishes to family and friends worldwide.

The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843. It was not an idea of totally altruistic origins however, as Cole had helped introduce the Penny Post three years earlier. Imagine the boost to the postal services Christmas cards must have provided over the years.

By the latter half of the 19th century, Australia and the United States had followed suit.

Nowadays however, there are many options for sending festive greetings: email, e-cards, text messages, a message on a blog or a Facebook wall. Phone calls are cheaper than they once were.

Some people don't even bother with any of the above.

I am a die-hard card sender, but mine don't always make it out before Christmas. I believe a card is as good in the New Year as it is in the week before Christmas.

Call me old-fashioned, but I love to receive cards from friends and family. I especially love the year-in-review letters and/or photos some people include - there's nothing like catching up on a year's news in a couple of minutes.

It takes time, but the sending of a card sends more than a piece of paper. It tells the recipient that you are thinking of them, and that they are still a valued part of your life whether or not you have had much contact over the previous twelve months or so.

But then again, an email could also send that same message. In these technologically advanced times, are the traditional cards' days numbered?

To card or not to card? That is the question.

RSVP grumpiness

While we're on the subject of birthday parties (it's birthday party season in my household), let's talk about the etiquette of RSVPs.

My six year old is having a birthday party this weekend. Written invitations were mailed four weeks ago with a clearly marked RSVP date (one week prior to the party) and two options for RSVP (mobile phone or email).

Three days out from the party and four children were unaccounted for. So, I followed up with their parents. One is going away that weekend, another is coming to the party, the third has been off school ill and will let me know closer to the date (fair enough - although the party is tomorrow and I haven't heard so far), and the fourth I still haven't heard back from.

Then this morning a child who was one of the first to RSVP in the affirmative said to me at school drop off that she was sorry she can't come to the party as she is going to a friend's school fair. As her mother had RSVP'd so quickly and so definitely, this confused me and when I happened to see the mother in the school carpark on my way out, I asked her about her child telling me she's not coming (although I didn't mention the school fair bit).

"Ah, yes," she said. "She's been sick, so I'm just waiting to see if she's well enough to come to the party. I'll SMS you first thing tomorrow morning. She really wants to come if she can."

Okay then.

Call me old-fashioned, but I treat RSVP-ing seriously. When I say yes or no to something I do so before the date on the invitation and in the manner requested on the invitation. Both my girls have been taught that once something has been accepted you don't then change your mind if a better offer comes up. My oldest in particular has had a couple of occasions this year where she's missed good friend's parties or sleepovers because she was already committed elsewhere.

Before our time, a written invitation would have necessitated a written RSVP. Heck, even in my time, I can recall writing endless replies to friends' parents for invitations to 18th and 21st birthday parties.

Another school mum who has much older step-children tells me that organising 18th and 21st birthday parties nowadays is a nightmare, as no-one RSVPs in advance. Parents are left wondering how many exactly they are catering for, while the younger generation watch their mobile phones in case a better offer appears in their SMS in-box.

But then, perhaps they were the ones whose parents didn't RSVP to six year old birthday parties either.

Tell me, am I just grumpy and out of touch with the etiquette of today?

The party dilemma

“New York children grow up and have birthdays just as children do everywhere...but not quite. Forget Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Hide and Go Seek. Today’s most popular party game is Can You Top This? – with both parents and children as participating players. “Janie has a clown for her birthday, I want a clown that does magic tricks,” says one knowledgeable 4-year-old. Her mother complains, “The magician’s been done to death. We’ve got to find something new, something the children aren’t tired of, this year. This problem at age 4. And the parties get bigger, if not better than ever.”

Sound familiar? I've certainly heard parents saying similar things about parties here in Melbourne.

What may surprise you is that the above quote comes from an article written in 1969. (“The Party-Go-Round” by Claire Berman, New York magazine, 19 May 1969.)

While I imagined that the sixties were a time of pass-the-parcel and musical chairs at home, it seems (in New York at least) the party-go-round had already begun.

We recently celebrated my oldest daughter's 12th birthday at home with a group of 14 of her (girl) friends. By twelve, it seems they've done it all when it comes to parties - iceskating, theme parks, reptile shows, crazy hair, nail bars, fairy shops, even Gold Class movies...

So we fell-back on a bit of homegrown fun. We organised a 'reality team challenge' party - based on some of my daughter's favourite reality TV shows.

Four team challenges in four hours. Essentially, what they were doing was old-fashioned games and competition, just with an updated theme. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of preparation work.

And this, I think, is how the party-go-round began. With parents increasingly time-poor, there just aren't the hours in the day to prepare games, bake food, make party bags and clean up afterwards.

Outsourcing the party looks a very attractive option. But with a limited number of entertainers and options, it does become a case of 'what's the next big thing?"

My youngest daughter has been to three parties this year with the same reptile show. It was great the first time, but even five year olds start to tire of the same old snakes on their shoulders and frogs on their heads.

It's very easy to say that all kids want is a pass-the-parcel, some fairy bread and a balloon to take home, but even the simplest of parties takes a good deal of organisation and preparation and with many families struggling to fit everything into their lives already, that may be just a parcel and a balloon too much.

Outsourcing or home-grown? What do you think?

How many phone numbers do you remember?

In a recent article* about the impact of technology one technophobe declared she hardly used any of the functions on her mobile and doesn’t even put phone numbers in the electronic contact list. “I remember them all.  All I want to know about is the green ‘on’ button”.

Wow, yes, I remember keeping loads of phone numbers in my head.  I was good at it.  I topped my year in Geography once because I memorised all the essential facts about Australia such as circumference, area, distances and so forth as if they were telephone numbers.  Now I store telephone numbers in my electronic contact lists and in the case of a small number of close friends – on a post-it on my desk.

Phone numbers are always at hand so why bother to memorise them? I rarely even ask for a phone number because in most cases it comes up on my phone display and I can store the number from there.

Having an aid to remember phone numbers is not new.

The first Rolodexes appeared in the early 1930s

And I bet many of you had one of these, way back when.  Perhaps you still do...

When you use a Rolodex or Teledex you look at the number while you dial.   Do that enough and you’ll commit that number to memory, without even realising it.  Use your phone contact list or your speed dial and you miss that step.  You may never memorise numbers outside those you absolutely have to. 

Some research shows that our ability to remember things is decreasing as technology increasingly takes on that role.  With the vast increase in information available technology provides the means for us to sort and categorise the data and enables us to recall (electronically) than ever before. But then we lose our mobile, or our hard disk crashes and we feel empty, like our very life has been taken away.  Perhaps we wouldn’t feel that way if we were sure that the computer that stays with us 24/7, our brain, was able to recall everything that was important to us.

In my younger years I could remember the phone numbers of all my close friends, my extended family, the school, the doctor, the dentist, the beautician, the pizza joint in Nedlands and later the work numbers of many of my colleagues.  Today I couldn’t tell you my own work number.

I’m off to memorise a few phone numbers. How many can you remember?

 

*Australian Vogue (I know, of all the places!), November 2009 p. 146

High on Childbirth

“Heroin. The sedative for coughs” Bayer advertisement from the late 1800s

 

When I was pregnant with my first child I spent a lot of time considering the pain I was about to experience during childbirth.  I was determined to have a plan - just like the childbirth books told me I must have.  I was quite sure that with determination I would need no more than a TENS machine and positive thinking. Ha. Totally didn't work.

During one visit to my Obstetrician I explained that I had this well thought out plan.  He looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and said you know the best possible treatment for pain in childbirth is a dose of Heroin.

Excuse me?

Oh yes, he continued, after it was made illegal to produce Heroin for medicinal purposes in Australia we stockpiled it [at this hospital] and only ran out in the late 1980s. 

Apparently doctors in Britain can still prescribe Heroin (as the drug Diamorphine) in cases of extreme pain – usually patients experiencing trauma, cancer ... or childbirth.

Heroin, along with other drugs now classed as illegal narcotics such as cocoa leaf and marijuana, were common ingredients in many medicines  and ‘tonics’ at the turn of the 20th century, even those targeted at babies and toddlers.

We are a drug-taking society – be it coffee, nicotine, alcohol, prescribed drugs, illicit drugs or chocolate.  The artificial stimulation of the senses occupies a part of many of our days. Now I’m not about to call for the legalisation of cocaine-based teething solutions for babies or heroin-based cough mixture but it did make me wonder what drugs we freely take today that in fifty years time will be deemed illegal or, at least, shocking?

Don't you wish you had staff?

"The Housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day, was the sound which first roused Catherine...her fire was already burning."  from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Chapter VII.

While chatting last week it struck Alison and I that if we had lived in Jane Austen's England we wouldn't have to do the washing, or the ironing, or prepare any meals.  In fact it is likely that the most energetic task in our diaries for the day would be a brisk walk in the countryside, possibly accompanied by a large hunting dog.

Sure, we wouldn't have been able to inherit property but as I face a large pile of ironing, an ever-growing pile of laundry and decisions about what to cook for dinner I wonder how far we women have really come in the last 200 years.

Even Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in their straightened circumstances were able to afford a cook and a male servant when kicked out of the family home.

So where have we gone wrong? 

I'd be more than happy to put up with the hassle of having to 'dress' for dinner if only someone else would cook it for me.  And as for having to rise at eight to the sound of someone opening the shutters and the cackle of a newly lit fire ... I guess I could get used to it.