Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect: Whee! Polyamory

[lilith]

"Even the prearranged playdates with other families usually afford us an hour or two leeway either side of the set time, as I rarely agree to being somewhere, anywhere at a certain time. We don’t have bed-times and don’t have waking times. We get up when we’re ready and drive away when it’s right. I really don’t want to add an unnecessary stress on our family by insisting we rush or stop doing something awesome because the clock hands are pointing in a certain direction!"

Well that's all very lovely for her, but if someone tried to arrange a play date with my kids but refused to give anything more than a vague window of time, like they're the fucking Telstra Man, I would be very annoyed and probably cancel said play date. My unenlightened family is still bound to clocks and calendars.

[lilith]

Also, she's trying to insert a hell of a lot of rules and requirements into a community that generally prides itself on welcoming all, specifically INCLUDING their chemically dependent brothers and sisters and tribe members animal companions.

I know that dogs shouldn't be in national parks and that substance use at a gathering that involves children is problematic, but she's a very new member of a very well established international community, and she's trying to change and regulate it.

"Dogs

Due to the potential of ecological harm caused by dogs, it’s unwise practice to take them into Australian bush.

Please don’t bring your dog to Rainbow Gatherings.

If you cannot leave your dog elsewhere, we understand and request your dog to remain at Gypsy Camp and not to go beyond the Welcome Gate.

See Pup 107.

Welcome gate

At the Welcome Gate, we will put up a sign that says: “By taking the next step, you agree:â€

All communal areas are free from smoking, drugs and alcohol.

The whole gathering is electronics-free, excepting flashlights/torches, lanterns and stoves. Please turn off phones and all electronic devices.

Discreet photography only by consent."

I would bet anything that dogs and drugs weren't the major issues for most of the group, just those that she personally pushed through.

I can't imagine a Rainbow Gathering without dope smoking - and you'll pry the joints and roll your own cigarettes from the cold dead hands of many older hippies. Likewise, many of these semi transient people would never dream of leaving their furry friends behind. I would guess that introducing rats to a national park isn't a great idea either, but Lauren will bring her undesexed rats along.

If she doesn't see Rainbow Gatherings as an appropriate place for her family, then she shouldn't go. I wouldn't take kids to one either. But she shouldn't try to change an established culture.

And the organisers practically begged her family to leave the gathering where Elijah was born when she was nine months pregnant and the access roads were about to flood and become impassable. She ignored them and stayed, forcing the remaining people, all but one of whom had never attended a birth, to support her in her freebirth.

[miffy]

"Even the prearranged playdates with other families usually afford us an hour or two leeway either side of the set time, as I rarely agree to being somewhere, anywhere at a certain time. We don’t have bed-times and don’t have waking times. We get up when we’re ready and drive away when it’s right. I really don’t want to add an unnecessary stress on our family by insisting we rush or stop doing something awesome because the clock hands are pointing in a certain direction!"

Well that's all very lovely for her, but if someone tried to arrange a play date with my kids but refused to give anything more than a vague window of time, like they're the fucking Telstra Man, I would be very annoyed and probably cancel said play date. My unenlightened family is still bound to clocks and calendars.

She mentioned taking her kettle drum to peoples houses, so along with the Telstra man timing possibly two of the worst things a guest could do! :lol:

I wonder how often she calls & says 'i'll be there between 1-4pm' & then never turns up?

[flubber]

"Even the prearranged playdates with other families usually afford us an hour or two leeway either side of the set time, as I rarely agree to being somewhere, anywhere at a certain time. We don’t have bed-times and don’t have waking times. We get up when we’re ready and drive away when it’s right. I really don’t want to add an unnecessary stress on our family by insisting we rush or stop doing something awesome because the clock hands are pointing in a certain direction!"

Well that's all very lovely for her, but if someone tried to arrange a play date with my kids but refused to give anything more than a vague window of time, like they're the fucking Telstra Man, I would be very annoyed and probably cancel said play date. My unenlightened family is still bound to clocks and calendars.

Telstra Man :lol: :lol: :lol: Got it in one.

The rest of us have to deal with 'artificial calendars' coz ya know....we have to work/educate our kids. Love the post by the commenter who says they don't need to use one now either! Neither would any of us if we dropped out and embraced the new economy. Hasn't the "artificial calendar" been around in one form of another for...I don't know... centuries.

I read the 'drugs'... and thought that it seemed odd for a 'Rainbow' event. But then thought

...it is only excluded from communal areas (no hash cooking baking here), so they can just get stoned in there vans!

How is the sparkly one going to deal with 'discrete' photography. That reads to me like she put that in there for her own benefit.

[Cheetah]

"Even the prearranged playdates with other families usually afford us an hour or two leeway either side of the set time, as I rarely agree to being somewhere, anywhere at a certain time. We don’t have bed-times and don’t have waking times. We get up when we’re ready and drive away when it’s right. I really don’t want to add an unnecessary stress on our family by insisting we rush or stop doing something awesome because the clock hands are pointing in a certain direction!"

Well that's all very lovely for her, but if someone tried to arrange a play date with my kids but refused to give anything more than a vague window of time, like they're the fucking Telstra Man, I would be very annoyed and probably cancel said play date. My unenlightened family is still bound to clocks and calendars.

LOL on how you phrased that... I thought roughly the same thing when I read her post. I wonder how many of the people she visits are thinking "OMG I thought they'd never leave..." by the time they go?

[Cheetah]

but Lauren will bring her undesexed rats along.

.

I first read that as undersexed rats :-). And wondered how you knew that.

[AuntCloud]

She... really isn't that great at reading social cues, is the?

[Miggy]

I am imagining her organising a play date with someone exactly like her ... friend turns up when she feels like it, waits a while, leaves, Lauren turns up later when she feels like it, waits away, leaves, etc, etc, etc. They could have weeks of play dates and never actually see each other because they never feel inspired to turn up at the same time.

[thoughtful]

I am imagining her organising a play date with someone exactly like her ... friend turns up when she feels like it, waits a while, leaves, Lauren turns up later when she feels like it, waits away, leaves, etc, etc, etc. They could have weeks of play dates and never actually see each other because they never feel inspired to turn up at the same time.

For Lauren, that might be the best way to maintain a friendship.

[Lissa1481]

I was catching up on sparkly posts today, and noticed this in the rainbow gathering one

"The whole gathering is electronics-free, excepting flashlights/torches, lanterns and stoves. Please turn off phones and all electronic devices."

Will this include those kipis, or are the sparkly children exempt from the rules?

[lilith]

I first read that as undersexed rats :-). And wondered how you knew that.

The heartbeat of Mother Earth and the soul of Father Universe whispered it in my ear as I meditated upon the authenticity of my dreads. They also told me that to suppress the reproductive capabilities of rat or woman disturbed the vibrations of the cosmos and interfered with the karmic journeys of many souls awaiting their incarnations, be it as rats or Duggars or Sparkling Adventurers .

[lilith]

I was catching up on sparkly posts today, and noticed this in the rainbow gathering one

"The whole gathering is electronics-free, excepting flashlights/torches, lanterns and stoves. Please turn off phones and all electronic devices."

Will this include those kipis, or are the sparkly children exempt from the rules?

Well we can't interfere with her special sparkling snowflake's educations can we? And we certainly can't repress them by asking them to respect rules and conform to the wishes of others. How stifling!

[lilith]

Sorry to triple post, but I love how the other Aussies here instantly understood the Telstra reference.

[Miggy]

Sorry to triple post, but I love how the other Aussies here instantly understood the Telstra reference.

That's because there isn't a single Aussie who hasn't had at least one run in with the Telstra man!!! Aaarrgh. The word sends shivers down my spine!

Last encounter = I took a day off to wait for him, cost $300 in lost wages and he didn't turn up. He came the next day when I was at work and charged me $395 in call out fees because I wasn't home. $695 total for a still broken phone. Sounds very like being Lauren's friend really.

[lilith]

That's because there isn't a single Aussie who hasn't had at least one run in with the Telstra man!!! Aaarrgh. The word sends shivers down my spine!

Last encounter = I took a day off to wait for him, cost $300 in lost wages and he didn't turn up. He came the next day when I was at work and charged me $395 in call out fees because I wasn't home. $695 total for a still broken phone. Sounds very like being Lauren's friend really.

Yep. They love turning up in the twenty minutes it takes me to pick the kids up from school, then refuse to come back for another month.

[Vex]

To be fair, I don't think it's an issue that Lauren is bringing her "undesexed rats" along into the bush for a few reasons:

1. They are going to be contained within her sparklemobile

2. In the bush, domesticated rats would not survive long before they were preyed upon by foxes, hawks, dingoes, wild cats and so forth. The average lifespan of a wild born rat is 6 months before they're wiped out by a predator. I imagine it would be considerably less for escaped pet rats in the harsh Australian bush.

3. In Australia the most prolific wild species is R. rattus. Domestic rats are R. norvegicus. Though the two species can mate and produce offspring no hybrids have ever lived more than a few moments past birth and almost all die in the womb.

So it's not really an ecological emergency if her rats escape. I live on the edge of a conservation park and there's a colony of R. rattus around here and it does little to nothing to impact on the native wildlife (koalas, echidnas, kangaroos ect).

Just to be clear, I'm not defending Lauren. I'm defending the babies (ie. rats). I do wish she'd get the rats desexed, but only because it helps lower instances of tumors in rats of both sexes. I highly doubt the rats will ever escape and procreate but it wouldn't be an issue if she desexed them for health reasons. The only reason my own rat isn't desexed is because his breathing issues mean surgery would be very risky.

I venture that the only thing worse than the Telstra man is the Foxtel man. I was once given an estimate... it was a two week timespan. Yeah.

[Miggy]

Rats impact on small natives such as antechinus (marsupial mouse) rather than large animals. I remember Dad having a massive campaign with other farmers to rid the area of rabbits, then rats & mice. Once the rabbits were gone there was massive explosion in the wallaby population. Eradication of rats & mice lead to a population explosion of antechinus. They got everywhere ... I remember Dad complaining that he couldn't call it a plague because they were natives but they did just as much damage. Terribly cute though.

[August]

I thought rules were evil. How can she stifle the souls of others by telling them to leave their electronics behind?

How are those rats going to survive summer? If dogs die in hot cars, how about rats? When they're camped they'll be able to leave them outside, but what about stopping to go to the supermarket while on the road?

[already hungover]

3. In Australia the most prolific wild species is R. rattus. Domestic rats are R. norvegicus. Though the two species can mate and produce offspring no hybrids have ever lived more than a few moments past birth and almost all die in the womb.

Fascinating! Do you know why the hybrids are incompatible with life?

[Vex]

Fascinating! Do you know why the hybrids are incompatible with life?

It seems to just be a case of hybrid inviability. Basically, with closely-related species mating one of three things can happen: they can be compatible and produce live offspring (though the offspring is usually sterile, such as when zebras and donkeys or horses and donkeys mate), there can be total incompatibility and no fertilisation can take place, or hybrid inviability can occur, where fertilisation takes place but the babies either die in utero or shortly after birth.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's been any research into why the hybrids are incompatible with life. R. rattus are notoriously poor breeders in captivity (which is why the domestication project in Britain ultimately failed), and the stories about hybrids I've heard are basically anecdotal with no necropsies or other procedures being done on the offspring.

The only case I know of that involved live birth occurred with three related R. rattus females who each bred with a single R. norvegicus male. All three produced live litters. Two of the litters were killed by the mother not long after the birth (which is basically a sure sign they were not healthy) and the third litter was completely ignored by the mother and died very quickly.

Interestingly, even hybrid offspring of R. rattus and R. r. frugivorous (a subspecies of R.rattus that is more closely related than R. norvegicus) are incompatible. A study in Italy showed that (and I'll quote it so it makes sense) 'The chromosomal differences between R. r. rattus x R. r. frugivorous suggest that they may be classified as different species because hybrids would produce 50% unbalanced gametes.'

I know that rats can have an impact on the environment, what I am saying is that four female R. norvegicus that are highly domesticated are not going to last long enough to produce offspring in the outback, even in the unlikely event they ran into R. norvegicus males rather than R. rattus. The reason R. rattus is the dominant species here is because they deal better with dry, hot environments and live in trees. R. norvegicus prefers cold, damp places and lives underground. They're not well suited to the outback, and if there were a pre-existing colony of R. rattus out there (which is unlikely unless there's a permanent human population nearby) they wouldn't be able to compete well enough to sustain a population.

Rats colonies are a danger to some of our wildlife. Four rogue domestic females are just prey items.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe rats have any place in our ecosystem and if there were a way to humanely remove them from the environment as pests I would be supportive of it. There's just a lot of misinformation about rats out there, and the majority of people still see them as disease-ridden, dirty predators who destroy every environment they enter and that's simply not fair or true.

I just want to challenge the stereotype and maybe teach people some things they didn't know before about rats. So while I'm not disputing that rats are pets and destructive to our ecosystem to a certain degree, I also think it's unnecessary to worry about 4 restrained female domestic rats escaping into an extremely hostile environment they have almost zero chance of making an impact upon for the numerous reasons I have outlined.

My biggest concern with those rats is that it is getting to be extremely hot. The van has no air conditioning and those rats are going to bake inside.

[Freed]

I came across this on my newsfeed and immediately thought of the Sparkling One! :lol:

[happy atheist]

Yikes.

[godlytomatosoup]

I used to have rats and hung out on Australian rat forums, and not desexing your rats if they're all one sex and live in a cage was very common and not necessarily irresponsible at all. There are advantages to desexing, but they need to be weighed against the risks of general anaesthetic - both because rats are so much smaller than cats and dogs, but also because vets often don't know/remember really basic things about rat medical care (things like "don't withhold food before surgery, they're not physically able to vomit and the lack of calories will affect their recovery.")

Which isn't to say that I think Lauren's a responsible rat owner. I doubt she's getting them vet care at all, a good rat vet or otherwise. I doubt she's looked into the major diseases that affect pet rats in Australia, and what to watch for. They don't seem to have a cage. I haven't been following her blog closely, so I don't know what she feeds them, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess it's not a balanced rat diet.

[flubber]

I used to have rats and hung out on Australian rat forums, and not desexing your rats if they're all one sex and live in a cage was very common and not necessarily irresponsible at all. There are advantages to desexing, but they need to be weighed against the risks of general anaesthetic - both because rats are so much smaller than cats and dogs, but also because vets often don't know/remember really basic things about rat medical care (things like "don't withhold food before surgery, they're not physically able to vomit and the lack of calories will affect their recovery.")

Which isn't to say that I think Lauren's a responsible rat owner. I doubt she's getting them vet care at all, a good rat vet or otherwise. I doubt she's looked into the major diseases that affect pet rats in Australia, and what to watch for. They don't seem to have a cage. I haven't been following her blog closely, so I don't know what she feeds them, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess it's not a balanced rat diet.

They have a cage sparklingadventures.com/?q=runaway . But it looks to me more like a prison cell. No soft bedding, anywhere to hide. Depressing. Definitely not sparkling.

Edited to break link

[mausi]

They have a cage sparklingadventures.com/?q=runaway . But it looks to me more like a prison cell. No soft bedding, anywhere to hide. Depressing. Definitely not sparkling.

Edited to break link

The same holds true for her daughters, so no surprise there.