Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect: Vive La France

[lilith]

Shit that's a lot of money for scratching your arse and showing your kid how to use the internet each fortnight. No wonder she can afford breakdown fuelled beauty sessions.

Cost of living is high in Australia - but she's not paying rent (which, as you can see, consumed nearly half my payment), petrol is more expensive here than in the US but less expensive than in Europe.

So while its a lot of money for someone with one kid and no bills, it's really the minimum that a parent living in a rented house in a city and sending kids to school can get by on.

[Annasopinion]

Yeah, but she isn't living in a rented house OR sending her kid to school. I can feel a 'well deserved' holiday coming up, to help her recover from her fundi babysitting birthday hump.

[samithemage]

When in doubt of ones authenticity, one should always get dreads and have them professionally tuned up regularly to keep oneself in sync with the heartbeat of the universe and to ensure that you are projecting exactly the right amount of disdain for outward appearances and conformity.

Hmm...should I also randomly pick a color to always wear? Also, I don't have children to dress in rags and allow to run feral. How will authentic people know how super authentic I am if I don't have children to neglect in the name of being the sparkliest me I can be?

[lilith]

Hmm...should I also randomly pick a color to always wear? Also, I don't have children to dress in rags and allow to run feral. How will authentic people know how super authentic I am if I don't have children to neglect in the name of being the sparkliest me I can be?

Simple - if you project your membership of the rainbow tribe with sufficiently maintained dreads and a one colour outfit exactly matching the vibrations of your chakras not only will random indigenous Australians recognise you as their spiritual sister but other earth mothers will surely share their blessings with you so that you can give them a break from unparenting by taking on their unparenting obligations. Any period, from a night alone in the bush to two and a half weeks on a property without running water or electricity (obviously you can handle appalling living conditions, look how your indigenous soul brothers are forced to live in the outback) to unparenting until the Goddess tells you to move on, at which point the child must be passed on to another dreaded, mono coloured, super authentic earth mother. And don't you worry about the costs of all that unparenting - the universe and the alternative economy will provide, especially when your children are malnourished, in rags, and begging for a bath.

Sparkle on!

[lilith]

Yeah, but she isn't living in a rented house OR sending her kid to school. I can feel a 'well deserved' holiday coming up, to help her recover from her fundi babysitting birthday hump.

Oh I know, and I don't know how she's maximised her payment that much. Just pointing out that while the sum may seem astronomical to people who live in areas with lower costs of living, especially lower housing costs, it's still about half of the average wage here.

[Ms Jess]

Alice mentioned somewhere on her blog that she gets about $1200 per fortnight in parenting payments. She has maximised her payments, and I'm not sure how. She must at least be claiming rent assistance even though she's not paying rent. Perhaps she's also getting child support that she's not declaring to Centrelink and adding that to her fortnightly income.

When I was on a Sole Parent Parenting Payment ( up to three years ago) I was receiving just over $1200 a fortnight for myself and three kids, and that included $180 per fortnight in rent assistance to assist me in paying the $250 a week private rent I was paying for a very run down old flat. Payments may have gone up since then, but it seems like she's getting a lot for a mother with one child.

Damn. I'm in the US and I know cost if living is different and dollar values are different but $1200 is almost what I get per paycheck and that's every two weeks for me, too. With that, I feed, house, clothe and transport myself and my three children. If I didn't have rent to pay, we'd be filthy rich on that. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

[happy atheist]

Simple - if you project your membership of the rainbow tribe with sufficiently maintained dreads and a one colour outfit exactly matching the vibrations of your chakras not only will random indigenous Australians recognise you as their spiritual sister but other earth mothers will surely share their blessings with you so that you can give them a break from unparenting by taking on their unparenting obligations. Any period, from a night alone in the bush to two and a half weeks on a property without running water or electricity (obviously you can handle appalling living conditions, look how your indigenous soul brothers are forced to live in the outback) to unparenting until the Goddess tells you to move on, at which point the child must be passed on to another dreaded, mono coloured, super authentic earth mother. And don't you worry about the costs of all that unparenting - the universe and the alternative economy will provide, especially when your children are malnourished, in rags, and begging for a bath.

Sparkle on!

It's easier than that. You just have to stop wearing shoes.

[lilith]

Damn. I'm in the US and I know cost if living is different and dollar values are different but $1200 is almost what I get per paycheck and that's every two weeks for me, too. With that, I feed, house, clothe and transport myself and my three children. If I didn't have rent to pay, we'd be filthy rich on that. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Our welfare benefits are definitely enough to live on, although just barely if privately renting in a city, especially in NSW, Victoria or Western Australia, but they are by no means extravagant - they are enough to keep single parents and their children treading water until children are older and parents can return to work. Benefits here aren't punitive like they seem to be in the States but they aren't exceptionally generous either, and they are calculated on the assumption that the recipient will be living in subsidised public housing, which isn't an option for many, especially shorter term recipients - it can take five years to get public housing in some communities- so recipients paying private rent often end up spending half to two thirds of their payment on rent.

Alice and Lauren, of course, don't pay rent, although Alice must be claiming to to receive the amount she does with only one kid, and Lauren must be claiming to live in her home, cause otherwise it would be assessed as an asset and dramatically cut her payments. I think that's also why she claims not to receive any rent - any income earned will cut your payment a fair bit - I was losing 75 cents in benefits for every dollar I earned while doing freelance book keeping while on the Sole Parents Payment.

I would like to know what these women plan to do when their youngest turns eight and job search and training requirements are applied to their payments.

[lilith]

It's easier than that. You just have to stop wearing shoes.

No amount of barefootedness will ever make you as authentic as the dreadlocked elite!

[happy atheist]

No amount of barefootedness will ever make you as authentic as the dreadlocked elite!

Well obviously the two go together. Your querier said she had no moppets of her own to neglect, so I was merely suggesting that she neglect her feet instead.

[lilith]

Well obviously the two go together. Your querier said she had no moppets of her own to neglect, so I was merely suggesting that she neglect her feet instead.

Hmmmm..... Well I guess so long as she has dreads as well as manky feet she is probably sufficiently non conformist to belong to the group of free spirited earth mothers.

[ohnomoe]

Alice has another post up about the circus festival where she seems to be back to gushing over Lauren.

Also interesting that Lauren isn't mentioned without an "and Marcus". He has been hanging around for a while now and it seems more and more like he is a companion and less like he was just hitching a ride from west to east.

[lilith]

Alice has another post up about the circus festival where she seems to be back to gushing over Lauren.

Also interesting that Lauren isn't mentioned without an "and Marcus". He has been hanging around for a while now and it seems more and more like he is a companion and less like he was just hitching a ride from west to east.

I see a switch to all blue clothes coming up for Alice....... and I feel personally violated by it! I put dibs on being crazy blue hippy lady last year when we first discovered Lauren and found out that mono coloured dreadlocked unparenting was a thing, and just because the universe has thus far failed to manifest me a van and the desire to wander aimlessly and allow my children to grow like flowers, free from education and schedules and food and showers and basic social graces does NOT mean that Alice gets to usurp my special sparkling identity. There can't be two crazy nomadic ladies in all blue, cause then how could we be ultra authentic non conformists? We'd just look like grown women playing dressups and abdicating all responsibilities. I must demand that Alice sparkle in another colour until the day comes that the universe and the alternative economy allow me to fly free from the shallow suburban mother shell that I currently inhabit!

And yes, it does seem that Marcus has become a permanent fixture. Should we start a book on when the next blessing will be announced and the un prenatal care period will commence?

Also, as someone who has attended many alternative festivals on the NSW north coast, I find the thought of Satria wandering round seeking his mother among the crowds and noise at night disturbing. Yes, it is a generally caring and harmless group of people, but it's still a group made up mainly of strangers, and people with ill intentions are found in even the most seemingly unlikely of places. And even if all the people he encountered were benign, waking up and finding that your super bonded attachment parenting mother who you usually share a bed with was gone and having to wander through busy, noisy crowds in search of her would be scary for any 6 year old.

[haras1972]

Alice is a funny one - I'd be freaking out too if I was turning 40 with absolutely nothing to my name - no house, no car, no job, no savings and now no family heirlooms. From her FB all the Wenzels she's connected to went to Scotch and Loreto - these are seriously expensive private schools in Melbourne, and her parents have a house at Cape Schanck, a very nice place to have a holiday house etc. It appears she's from an upper middle class family, and has had all the opportunity to make something of herself, and yet at 40 she's living out of a campervan with a misbehaving 6yo as her 24/7 companion.

At least Lauren has a house and some professional skills as her safety net, to fall back on.

[formergothardite]

Magic Faerie(or however you spell her name) seems to have it a little more together than these two. I never did understand her relationship with Little Tree's father Purple(wasn't he Purple?). But she has a house and seems to put more effort into caring for her child. It seems like Lauren and Alice are trying to copy her and doing a bad job of it.

[August]

I wish I didn't have to have a shower, make lunches, load the dishwasher and take my kids to school, then I could read all the genius wit this thread has thrown out overnight. If only I were an uncomformist who lived on a bus, wore only orange, had dreads, went barefoot and unschooled!

[Artemis]

The thing is, August, according to these women you would be a better person if you did. . . . Making the choice to live on a bus, wear one colour, have dreads, go barefoot and not school your children isnt just a choice, it's the only morally acceptable and praiseworthy choice. They're just as bigoted as Christian fundamentalists.

My way is the only way? Check.

My way is the RIGHT way? Check.

Believe in my gospel? Check.

Follow my path? Check.

You're an evil person if you don't believe in . . .? Check.

If you criticise my choice you're persecuting me? Check.

If you criticise me it's because you haven't seen the light? Check.

There is no real difference between any variety of extremists - they all make the same noises.

Lauren is an extremist, a fanatic. As with other extremists and fanatics, the children suffer.

It would of course be interesting if EVERYONE made the same choices as Lauren, because a) whose tax dollars would be left to support her? and b) suddenly it wouldn't be cool any more because she wouldn't stand out.

Also, count me in with the people who are pretty convinced that Marcus is the next selected babydaddy, so she can continue to freeload. And a further prediction? Sadly, that if she sprogs again, she again suffers from PND (no shame in that 'cos lots do, but she won't go for help or listen to anyone who tries to give her any advice that conflicts with her own worldview), the blog goes dark, the children's suffering gets worse, she continues to fail to cope - because, let's face it, she's not coping now - and the next thing any of us hear is some sad little headline in a newspaper . . .

[lilith]

I wish I didn't have to have a shower, make lunches, load the dishwasher and take my kids to school, then I could read all the genius wit this thread has thrown out overnight. If only I were an uncomformist who lived on a bus, wore only orange, had dreads, went barefoot and unschooled!

You mean your children require actual parenting? If they were righteous and authentic enough they would be independent and simply require you to "be present".

[happy atheist]

I called dibs on all black clothes ages ago in this thread. Everyone has to respect that. It is my unique choice, and anyone else who does it is just copying me.

[formergothardite]

Doesn't Angelina Jolie wear all black?

I can't remember what color I called, but it was really authentic and unique.

[DarkAnts]

I call dibs on chartreuse. Nothing is as authentic as that.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I think I am just going to invent my own colour*, which would be even more authentic.

*Actually tried this when I was about six, all I did was mix all my paints together to make a muddy browny colour and discovered nothing new.

[julie paradox]

(jumping back a bit, I know)

Could the person who described us as saying really dreadful things about the children have been confused by the statement "the little one looks PISSED"?

I know I still have to translate it in my head (it's Pissed Off. Pissed means drunk) and if she doesn't have much US exposure she may not have realised.

(and MY colour is octarine)

[August]

Damn. I'm in the US and I know cost if living is different and dollar values are different but $1200 is almost what I get per paycheck and that's every two weeks for me, too. With that, I feed, house, clothe and transport myself and my three children. If I didn't have rent to pay, we'd be filthy rich on that. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Obviously my slavery to suburban conformity isn't so time consuming I don't have hours to spend dredging the internet for information....

Minimu wage in Australia is $15.50 an hour. In the US it's $7.50. Her $620 is equivalent to your $300. But, the crucial difference is that Australians have decided that for someone to work full time for minimum wage and then pay childcare on top of that could lead to hardship for the children, so it's preferable to pay a smaller amount in total and avoid subpar childcare plus hunger plus unstable living conditions in order to ensure that they don't end up with an underclass like the US has. There's lots of proof that poor care in early life leads to bad outcomes later in life. So while it might feel nice to get revenge on people who have children and are poor, it's self-defeating in the long run.

I couldn't figure out childcare subsidies, but it's pretty much a wash, isn't it? If she were working full time the govt would be paying for the childcare, which is probably $300 a week for the non-school aged kids?

[lilith]

Obviously my slavery to suburban conformity isn't so time consuming I don't have hours to spend dredging the internet for information....

Minimu wage in Australia is $15.50 an hour. In the US it's $7.50. Her $620 is equivalent to your $300. But, the crucial difference is that Australians have decided that for someone to work full time for minimum wage and then pay childcare on top of that could lead to hardship for the children, so it's preferable to pay a smaller amount in total and avoid subpar childcare plus hunger plus unstable living conditions in order to ensure that they don't end up with an underclass like the US has. There's lots of proof that poor care in early life leads to bad outcomes later in life. So while it might feel nice to get revenge on people who have children and are poor, it's self-defeating in the long run.

I couldn't figure out childcare subsidies, but it's pretty much a wash, isn't it? If she were working full time the govt would be paying for the childcare, which is probably $300 a week for the non-school aged kids?

The government refunds 50% of childcare costs, but childcare is very expensive, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. When I had three kids under 5 childcare would have cost more than I could possibly have made, and I wouldn't have been working minimum wage.