My youngest has growth and developmental delays that mean he ages at a rate of approx 2mths per year. He is beautiful, cheeky and healthy so I am reminded regularly to be grateful, and mostly I am.. until I hear that it is a season. It is not. It is groundhog day and accepting that has been so much more helpful than waiting/wishing for a season to pass.

My youngest has growth and developmental delays that mean he ages at a rate of approx 2mths per year. He is beautiful, cheeky and medically healthy so I am reminded regularly to be grateful, and mostly I am.. until I hear that it is a season. It is not. It is groundhog day and accepting that has been so much more helpful than waiting/wishing for a season to pass.

Hope they plan on covering the cost to small businesses if this goes through. 

It is great you have this experience but as a 38yo only child myself, I feel very differently. My parents love me unconditionally but that didn’t make up for the loneliness I have felt so often over the years. Especially during the hard times such as their divorce and as they age, with me their only care giver. I do see a self involvement in me that I don’t see in my friends and a real need to over share with friends as there is no sibling around who just “gets it”. My kids have no cousins and the smallness of our family is so noticeable at Christmas, birthdays etc. 

I would love to see a follow up article or amendment to this one now all charges have been dropped. With overwhelming video evidence showing this was fabricated, this result should receive the same attention as his arrest. If we want real victims to be heard, we need to also acknowledge when someone has been falsely accused. 

If they were really committed to people not sending their kids, they would cover the gap fee we are still charged despite keeping kids home. Of course services are not going to waive that gap when they aren’t getting any other govt financial support so its up to the govt to pay it like they did last year. Parents who can consider keeping their kid at home would be less inclined to send them if they weren’t still being charged for it. Our gap is $50 a day so we will have spent close to $2000 by end of lockdown for not sending our son to childcare and have those days taken out of our allowed absences so that if he is sick when it all reopens, we will have to pay full rate! 

Wow Taurus really doesn’t take lockdowns into account!

I am so sorry you are having to watch your son fall into this vortex. My brother in law and sister in law (both educated, well off, privileged people in their late 30s) have become deep conspiracy theorists during this time and it has put such a strain of their relationships with everyone, which of course pushes them more that way. This is such a confusing time for even the most stable adults so I do see how some, especially our youth, are desperately searching for answers and something they can believe in. I have no advice for you, just compassion. I truly hope you get your boy back soon. 

I needed this today. Crying with you for most of these reasons. Let it out. Xx 

Love this mindset flip. 

Thank you so much for this article. I started reading it for an insight into my son who was diagnosed last week but very quickly have realised you have just described my own life. Time to get tested myself! Thank you! 

I relinquish you of any guilt about family dinner. I grew up sitting at a table with my parents every night so also thought I had to do the same with my family. But once I realised that the logistics of this were more stressful than bonding, I let it go and guess what - we all still love each other and my kids still confide in me (usually in the car). Last night it meant that when my baby went down, my partner and I played four rounds of mario kart with our 8yo and I guarantee the laughs we shared after long days all round did us more good than a forced dinner. Sometimes we sit together, sometimes it just doesn’t play out that way. 

I would love to join a mothers group but sadly they aren’t being run during Covid. Second article this week Mamamia has run saying how important they are, which I agree with but not really time appropriate when they aren’t an option :( 

I would be interested in seeing what the lunch boxes look like at the end of the day as well

He is worth 10 million pounds.. I am guessing there is paid help somewhere in this picture. Potentially also an arrangement between a couple (not uncommon) that Laura may prefer to do the home load if he earns the money. Of course without context his words are unhelpful to those not in similar situations.

Whilst you raise good points, the author is not a millenial. She often speaks about nearing 50 so was not only born but in her late teens when Anita Cobby was murdered, so she is hardly viewing this through a millenial lens. Yes the details of that murder would have helped raise the rage & level of prosecution, but there was also no online news or social media back then. What people may have heard on the radio, seen in a newspaper or as a bit on the nightly news, then discussed face to face with their social circle, is now instead used as click bait by online media who change the headline every few hours anytime the slightest bit if information is discovered (or often none of all). As such this story gets devoured multiple times a day, often in an isolated manner, possibly in the middle of the night when anxieties are already high about the state if the world. When Anita was attacked it shone a light on the risks facing an emerginly independent womanhood.. that light has been shining bright for almost 33 years since. We know every type of monster out there. Reading every last detail of this sweet womand final day, over and over, to effectively generate revenue for the media outlet is not going to make us any more aware. You can’t get more aware than now. All this being said.. if people didn’t click, then it wouldn’t be made into entertainment. Hopefully you are right and one day this fascination people show at the finer details leads to some form of wider change. But until then I hope we get to a point where someone being murdered is enough to enlight our rage & motivate action without every horrific detail needing to be devoured.. over and over again.

Completely agree!

Thank you for sharing this. My heart goes out to you and your family. There is nothing I can say to minimise your grief but as a stranger who you are unlikely to ever meet, I can promise you this: whilst I will no doubt continue to have many times where I get caught up in the exhaustion of parenting, I will be saving this article to read each time it seems 'too much to bear' and I will think of your little Archer before holding my own little boy tight & thanking him for being here for me to love & get overwhelmed by. Your story will not be forgotten, and neither will Archer.