“with great power comes great responsibility”.

Our little boy David is now just about eight weeks old. At such a young age, he has little to no control over his circumstances or his welfare. He is reliant on his parents to care for him, to protect him, and to ensure he can grow to an age where he can start taking some responsibility for himself.

As a parent, I have a duty to provide this level of care. Sometimes, that requires difficult, but necessary decisions, that are reflective of the great responsibility that has been bestowed upon me.

Other times, however, it presents the opportunity to have just a little fun. To focus a bit more on the power, and a little less on the responsibility.

I find there to be something oddly fantastic about babies wearing pants that have a ridiculously high waistband. In combination with an overly large butt created by wearing a nappy underneath, a pair of pants pulled up high hints at some small semblance of a maturity and wisdom far beyond the actual age of the baby. In the case of a boy, such as David, it is almost like transporting him 80 years into the future, to the time when he himself is a senior citizen.

I’m sure we have all seen the nice old men who wear their sensible dress pants high. This old man would normally also have a button up long sleeved shirt and possible a fedora. The old man you are imagining is endearing, right? Go ahead and try to deny it.

This leads to the question, why not bring that same endearing quality to the present? Why does he need to wait 80 years to benefit from that kind of goodwill? Why not combine the endearing nature of that old man you have imagined, with the undeniable cuteness of a new baby?

Much to Hannah’s chagrin, sometimes I simply can’t help myself. The opportunity to wield my power over the boy becomes too much for me to resist.

At times like that, those pants simply must ride high.

Last Friday I had the opportunity to speak at a Father’s Day function1 of The WA Club, regarding what fatherhood means to me. My role was to represent the ‘new father’, speaking alongside two others: John Goodlad as the experienced father, and former Governor of Western Australia, Ken Michael, who represented the role of the grandfather.

Of course, I only had five weeks of parenting experience to draw upon in preparing and presenting my talk. Given my lack of real-world experience, I chose to start by reminding the other parents in the room of some of the joys that come with a new baby. Examples I provided included their delicious soft skin, the feel of their body relaxing as they drift off to sleep in your arms, and or course, the celebration of poos and wees!2

Beyond those recollections, I also chose to speak about my vision for what I would like my fathering style, and the underlying philosophy that guides that style, to be.

This philosophy revolves around seeing fatherhood as stewardship. Stewardship may be defined as ‘the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving’.

It would be very easy, and almost desirable, to attempt to parent David in a way that would see him grow into a mini-me, mimicing my interests, passions and personality traits. Yet, taking a stewards’ view, it is more appropriate that I parent David in a way that allows him the freedom to make decisions that will allow him to become the person he wants to be.

Just as I have arrived where I am today as a result of the decisions and choices I made along the way, in parenting David I should provide him the freedom and opportunity to make choices that will allow him to follow his calling, and become the person he wants to be – not necessarily the person I want him to be.

Of course, this is not me abrograting my responsibilities as a parent. My very important job is to teach, provide and protect, in a way that will equip David with the ability to make sensible and appropriate decisions, understanding that each choice has ramifications and consequences.

Ultimately, I do not believe that I can adopt a command and control methodology to parenting. I need to be a Dad who is nurturing, guiding, and supporting. A true steward.

So much of what we consider important, probably isn’t. I am guilty of this – I get caught up in things that seem important or meaningful at the time, but really aren’t when I take a wider view of the world.

Taking this a step further, when I think about the trials and tribulations of my life compared to what they could be had I be born in a different time; in a different place; or to different parents – or a combination of these, I imagine I would have a very different view of what is important. I might value survival, or safety, or world domination, ahead of the priorities I hold now.

Now, however, I find that what is important to me in this life is changing. This is happening as so many things around me – and even me, undergo change.

It is apparent that I have to be flexible. There is no reason why that which I established as priorities in my first thirty years of life should remain priorities now and into the future. This is, in fact, a very liberating realisation. I can let go of things. I can start afresh. I can change and adapt, and that is okay and allowable. I shouldn’t let my past dictate my future.

We have the ability to adjust our values and priorities as we move through life. People are very unique in that regard. So, outside Maslow’s hierarchy, once we have satisfied our basic needs, we can allow our value sets to be defined and redefined as we see fit.

I think right now, I am moving through such a change. Things that have been important to me in the past, are not so important now. Things that did not hold value for me before, do now. This is a change that I am willing to embrace.

Anyway, I’ve given twosittingducks.com a fresh lick of paint, updated WordPress to the latest version (a program which, incidentally, has travelled leaps and bounds since it was first released and was a poor man’s Moveable Type), and have gone so far as writing this blog post.

I can’t guarantee that much more will happen here, but rest assured, I’m still on the interwebs somewhere.

It is interesting, though, how the original view of web publishing was to get away from “the man”. It offered the chance for everyone to be their own media mogul, with their own voice. But it would seem that the man is having the last laugh. The growth of the large community based sites, notably Facebook, has given the ability to blog and share information to everyone – at least within their walled garden. Not that I am really in a position to complain, since I have fallen for it as much as everybody else.

But at the very least I know that if it all goes pear shaped, I can always come back to my blog at twosittingducks.com. I don’t pay hosting fees for nothing!

His own experience in Bogota is just a Google search away, so I won’t rehash it other than to say he challenged public opinion and brought democracy through equality in terms of not providing high quality services for cars in favour of pedestrians and cyclists.

He presented some great thoughts and challenges for Perth, which is a city that was developed in the 1950′s and 1960′s as a city designed primarily for cars. Perth has fantastic wide roads, no tolls and long freeways. Yet all this infrastructure has still led to congestion. Yet building more roads will simply exacerbate the problem. We as a society need to find better ways of building our cities, ways that favour public and pedestrian transport over the car. As fuel supplies become more expensive, this need will become even more apparent.

We need to destroy the stigma that public transport is for the poor and lower class, and instead promote the fact that it is cheap, fast and convenient. Of course, Perth struggles with its car-based development which has led to urban sprawl in this regard. It is expensive and difficult to offer complete public transport in the hinterland. Accordingly, we need to be more willing to grow the density of our city.

Perth as a city for cars is unsustainable – we need to think of more clever ways to achieve quality of life. We need to work to becoming unwedded to our space-hogging vehicles. For example, why do cars get to enjoy the foreshore views along the Perth Esplanade and Cottesloe Beach? Shouldn’t they be places first and foremost for people?

All that is left for the poor customer is to take it up the arse.

Of course, the banks argue that this is simply a reflection of rises in the cost of borrowing following the US sub-prime situation. I contend that perhaps the banks shouldn’t be so desperate to preserve their extremely nice profit margins and try putting customers, not shareholders, number one for a change. Such a strategy would lead to happy customers, more customers, more profits and happy shareholders. But I guess long-term strategies are of no interest to rich board members simply looking to secure their next performance bonus from the shareholders.

The problem with the Australian economy now is that it is geared towards two income families. Anybody who is not in a position to benefit from two household income earners will struggle to make ends meet. I worry what this might mean for our society on a broader level? How will kids be brought up if their parents are both out all day, every day working to pay for the mortgage? How do pensioners continue to make ends meet? How do entrepreneurs who have taken a risk by sacrificing an income to build a business make ends meet?

I’m sick of hearing about the Australia’s economic prosperity, I’m sick of hearing about the boom. It is misleading, as this boom is actually the generation of a dual-stream economy, featuring the haves and the have-nots. All well and good for the haves, and I guess the have-nots just have to suffer and accept their fate.

Speech presented in the Australian Parliament, House of Representatives on 20 September, 2007.

(Please note that the file weighs in at around 30Mb…)

Congratulations on a fine career, Hon Kim Beazley MP.

A colleague and I were on the other side, organisation is key. My particular aim is to reach ‘inbox zero’ every day. I hate seeing a list of items sitting there, applying their silent pressure to my brain. I think that you should act on an email as soon as you get it. Sure, that decision might be as simple as tagging it for action at a later date, but at least the decision is made, the email is tagged and can be filed away. Of course, the best key to use when making filing decisions is the delete key, and I recommend that you don’t hold back in its use.

So what system do you use? Do you have a system? Is it a byzantine collosus of nested folders, or do you throw everything in a single archive? Or are you one of those scary people who just lives in the inbox?

Younger people are struggling to keep up financially, while those of the older generation (more typically Howard supporters) are doing just fine, thank you very much.

This has the potential to create a massive financial crisis in this country. If wealth isn’t equitably distributed we run the risk of creating a massive underclass of people that can’t afford to buy a home, can’t afford to save money, and live on credit and loans. That will benefit the banks and other credit providers (and of course their shareholders) and will also benefit people who own multiple properties and rent them out (whilst at the same time claiming tax benefits through negative gearing – a distortive tax system that should be scrapped, in my opinion). Of course, the shareholders and landlords are more likely to be the older generation, who have the cash to invest. So they make more money off the younger generation. The rich get richer…

So for all the talk of the economic boom that is occurring in Australia, and particularly Western Australia, it is crucial that we keep in mind that the boom is not being applied equitable. Many people continue to struggle. The last thing we need is for them to also give up hope of things ever improving. What this country needs is an economic framework and a vision for the future that offers hope to the next generation.