Last night I had a dream that I was with River Phoenix on the last day of his life. I was me, from the present, so I knew that one of us would not make it to daybreak, and I spent the night with my first desperate crush, desperate to change events that I knew I could not.
We were in a theatre and he was set to perform, but barriers kept revealing themselves, blocking his way to the stage, threatening harm. People with knives, falling set pieces, and I kept thinking, One of these things will kill him before I wake up. And, Why can’t I save him? But even in my abstract, impressionistic dreamland I knew why I couldn’t save him.
We weren’t at The Viper Room, he wasn’t in a corner of the bathroom about to ingest a fatal dose of drugs, but I was lucid enough to know that he was doomed. I kept looking at his perfect face and felt not like a love-struck, pubescent preteen who had stared many hours at a poster on the wall, but like a mother. In my dream it was a maternal crush, an internal crush, of my organs churning against each other that I felt in the hollow of my belly. I could tell that morning was approaching and I turned to look behind me, knowing that my children, my two real beautiful children, would wake up soon, and that they would need me.
I put my hands on his face and whispered, I’m sorry I can’t save you.
I opened my eyes.
***
My friend just lost her father. Of all the moments of all the days that I have spent thinking about her recently, one thought flashes brighter and more painful than the rest. It is the thought, the moment, residing between the incredible, dizzying realization that the person you love is going to leave you, and the stone-like, definitive understanding that it has happened.
It is the disbelief that death has come and taken away the person you love. The simple, defiant mistrust in simple, horrible information that catapults you into the very centre of the universe and all of its absurdities.
Why should I believe you? Why should I believe that my father is dead just because you say he is?
When you have travelled into the centre of the universe, the surface no longer seems as scary.
***
They are no longer the youth. They have grown up, married, have had children. They do not set goals and chat dreamily about where and how and will but grit their teeth and in beleaguered whispers accuse when and why and why not?
They see needs wants fears love change and see the space between outreaching hands grow more distant each day. They say yes. They say no. No. No.
At the dissolution of several friends’ marriages, Chris and I cling tighter. We whisper to each other that we’re ok, that we’ve been through our tough years for now and that we are stronger, that we will make it, that we do not want to lose this.
And I tell him that he is stuck with me, because I still don’t really know my way around here without him.
Every child needs good education and all parents try to ensure that they are able to give their kids the best that they can, in the educational field. However, life is uncertain, to say the least, and you can never predict what will happen next. For this reason, in order to give your children the social skills and the confidence to interact with others, you need to enroll them in established schools and colleges where they will get to mingle with like-minded individuals. For this to happen, you should chart out some sound investment strategies that will help you manage such expenses. If you plan flexibly and indulge in several investment options, then your children will definitely achieve a valuable college degree. Here are some tips that are sure to help you save up and pave the way for your children's successful career. How To Go About A Plan The first thing that you should do is develop a financial plan in your mind. Estimating the costs that you will be furnishing for child education is important. After your estimate the costs, you will realise approximately how much you need to save up every month. Simultaneously, take a look at the many education planning options that banks offer, and study them, as they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Go for a full-fledged education saving plan that will payout when your kid enters college. Some plans provide protection advantages to the parent and the child. You can also add structured investments and unit trusts to the already existing investment plan. Set up a system that is automatic and makes you invest regularly. In fact, many unit trusts and investment plans offer options for monthly, quarterly, annual, and biannual contributions. It is important to review the different child education plans on a regular basis so that you can stay abreast of what's new in the field. Also, if there are some major changes in the education field, this practice will help you alter your savings for the plan accordingly. Being Prepared For Emergencies As and when your income increases or you get a bonus, increase the amount that you contribute for your child education plan. This activity will help you achieve your target earlier, or at least help you get closer to it. Emergencies don't always knock the door and enter, they just barge into your life. You should always be prepared for such instances, so that these emergencies do not tempt you to use your child's education fund money. To ensure that you do not dip into the funds in order to pay heed to an emergency, select a plan that locks the funds till your child enters college. This will save the money till the specified time frame. Now that you've read these tips, go ahead and save up as much as you can for your children's education and help them shape their future.
Last Friday night, me and the huz went to see Looper at our local movie theatre. We went to the early show (7:20) and I got popcorn. The theatre was crowded, this being Friday night and the showing of a big movie in a small town. Behind us sat a gaggle of tittering middle-aged women who I think hit the bar before the show, as they had a hard time adhering to even the most basic of polite theatre-going conduct, such as, turn off your phone and do not giggle at love scenes if you are over the age of 14.
Normally, I’d get annoyed with such antics from the crowd, but I was so happy to be out with Chris, eating popcorn and about to watch a movie that wasn’t animated, that I gave the women little more than a cursory snarl. It was going to be a great night!
And then in walked a man, accompanied by a small child.
Hmm, I thought, this isn’t supposed to be a kids’ movie. And then I thought, Oh hey, I know that kid, he goes to the same school as my girls. He’s in grade one.
Grade one. At most, the kid is six years old. And he’s here to see Looper.
Maybe they made a mistake, I thought. I mean, the theatre was also showing Frankenweenie and Hotel Transylvania, two movies that are, y’know, kids’ movies. Maybe they walked into the wrong theatre.
They sat down, two rows directly in front of me. Maybe they’ll figure out that they’re in the wrong theatre once they look around and realize that there are no other people sitting in booster seats, I thought.
I pointed the kid out to Chris and wondered aloud why he would be in this theatre. Chris asked if I knew the adult. I did not. I had not seen him before and immediately I decided (whether this was the case or not) that this man was his dad, that he had the kid for the weekend, and that he wanted to see Looper and figured he’d take the kid with him.
The lights went down. Maybe they’ll figure out that they’re in the wrong theatre once the previews start, I hoped.
Except, this was the first preview.
I had to look away, totally scared and freaked out by what I was seeing, but the man and the little boy stayed put.
When I was six or seven years old, a babysitter let us watch Children of The Corn. I had nightmares because of that movie for years. In fact, I consider our move out here to the cornfield, immersion therapy. And I still can’t watch that movie.
If I were this child’s guardian, I would have run out of the theatre before the preview was over, child under my arm, football style. We would have hightailed it to the toy store where I would have wrapped my kid in fluffy stuffed animals and bright balls and all manner of appropriate childhood artefact to try and erase the previous 145 seconds from his little memory.
Am I projecting? Perhaps. But was this (and the next several previews) a clue that Looper, despite an AA 14, and therefore unrestricted, rating might not be appropriate for small children?
Definitely.
And then the movie began with a stark and unemotional assassination that set the tone for the following two hours.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt does Bruce Willis even better than Bruce Willis does Bruce Willis, and it did take me a while to get used to his Dick Tracy prosthesis. What I never got used to was the fact that there was a kid two rows ahead of me, watching things on screen that he simply shouldn’t have been watching.
There is sexualized nudity.
There is drug use.
There is profane language.
There is violence.
There is a desolate, post-apocalyptic environment.
There is murder. Lots of murder.
There are deaths of mothers, implied and realized.
And there is a cold-blooded, fully intentional murder of a five-year-old boy.
The tone of the movie was Inception meets Bladerunner. Would you sit down and watch either of those movies with your six year old? Undoubtedly, they would not understand the nuances, or maybe even the basic plotlines of either of those movies, as I’m sure this child did not understand Looper. But left without understanding or context, the movie was simply a series of disturbing images.
I was angry at this man for bringing this child into this theatre.
We all have a different level of comfort when it comes to exposing our children to pop culture and media. I sometimes think I’m lucky that my kids still like the innocent stuff, but mostly I think that they are kids, and there is plenty of time to be exposed to the not so innocent stuff.
And our children each have a different level of tolerance and interest when it comes to the more ‘grown up’ media that we expose them to. I’m not into showing my kids Star Wars, and my kids have never expressed interest in seeing it. But I know other 7 year olds that have, and when watching with a parent that was weaned on this stuff, it can be a nice rite of passage.
One night my 7 year old couldn’t sleep, and came to lay on the couch with me while I was watching Into the Wild. She watched a scene that featured a topless woman and I was ok with that, because the nudity was not sexualized at all, and my kids are being raised to be comfortable with and respectful of the human body.
As parents, we measure these things with our own yardsticks, plus a mix of understanding our child and our responsibilities to them.
Children are sometimes exposed to situations we would ideally not expose them to. Sometimes, it is inevitable. As parents, we have to guide them through these situations as best we can, and then hope that we have guided them clearly enough that the impact it has on our child is, in the end, a positive one. Or at least, not a harmful one. Sometimes we have no choice in the matter.
But a six year old being brought to a movie theatre at night to see Looper is a choice.
Legal, yes, but completely misguided. That the child was brought to see this movie was a mistake. That the man did not take the child and leave when it was apparent that this movie was not going to get any gentler, was an abuse of his power as guardian over his child.
And unlike in the movie, it is a mistake that he cannot travel back through time to undo.
Every child needs good education and all parents try to ensure that they are able to give their kids the best that they can, in the educational field. However, life is uncertain, to say the least, and you can never predict what will happen next. For this reason, in order to give your children the social skills and the confidence to interact with others, you need to enroll them in established schools and colleges where they will get to mingle with like-minded individuals. For this to happen, you should chart out some sound investment strategies that will help you manage such expenses. If you plan flexibly and indulge in several investment options, then your children will definitely achieve a valuable college degree. Here are some tips that are sure to help you save up and pave the way for your children's successful career. How To Go About A Plan The first thing that you should do is develop a financial plan in your mind. Estimating the costs that you will be furnishing for child education is important. After your estimate the costs, you will realise approximately how much you need to save up every month. Simultaneously, take a look at the many education planning options that banks offer, and study them, as they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Go for a full-fledged education saving plan that will payout when your kid enters college. Some plans provide protection advantages to the parent and the child. You can also add structured investments and unit trusts to the already existing investment plan. Set up a system that is automatic and makes you invest regularly. In fact, many unit trusts and investment plans offer options for monthly, quarterly, annual, and biannual contributions. It is important to review the different child education plans on a regular basis so that you can stay abreast of what's new in the field. Also, if there are some major changes in the education field, this practice will help you alter your savings for the plan accordingly. Being Prepared For Emergencies As and when your income increases or you get a bonus, increase the amount that you contribute for your child education plan. This activity will help you achieve your target earlier, or at least help you get closer to it. Emergencies don't always knock the door and enter, they just barge into your life. You should always be prepared for such instances, so that these emergencies do not tempt you to use your child's education fund money. To ensure that you do not dip into the funds in order to pay heed to an emergency, select a plan that locks the funds till your child enters college. This will save the money till the specified time frame. Now that you've read these tips, go ahead and save up as much as you can for your children's education and help them shape their future.
Understanding how to get custody of your child is the first step in this long and protracted fight. The whole procedure is excruciatingly unpleasant and immensely depressing, but if it must be done; it has to be done. Parents occasionally tend to get rid of their feeling of reason which under the circumstances is perfectly understandable. They'll say and do whatever they have to, merely to try and get custody of the children.
To compound matters, you always come across parents who just don't know how to raise children. They choose to live on their own terms. Their terms may work for them, but they are not conducive for children. All children need a healthy environment to grow up in. One also comes across parents who want to avenge themselves by hurting the other parent. They may not really want to get custody of the children, but will nonetheless fight the other, just to even the score.
Sometimes the judge may decide to gauge for himself which parent is more suited to get custody of their children. He may order them to undergo a Child Custody Assessment - a process through which parents can evaluated on their parenting skills. The parent who gets a better grade is naturally the better choice for getting custody.
A neutral party who can be detached and objective is usually asked to conduct this evaluation process. More often than not this party is a trained psychologist and hence is more sensitive and can offer some valuable thoughts and insights.
The aspects that are observed keenly during the child custody assessment are listed below:
To start with, the evaluator will try and get the child's point of view. The evaluator has to be skillful enough in earning the child's trust; the child has to be comfortable with confiding in him. For this, the child will be interviewed delicately and gently. It is after all the child's well-being that is of utmost importance and that is at stake here.
Financial worthiness of each parent will be studied as well. Can the parent afford to give the child a comfortable lifestyle? The parent with the bigger bank balance does stand a better chance at winning custody of the children; however, just to be absolutely clear - money is not the deciding factor. But money is important and its significance cannot be undermined.
Parents interest in education. Even in the day and age we live in, some parents do not have a high enough regard for education and might neglect to provide for the same. If either parent comes across as being indifferent towards schooling and tutoring, the other parent could very well get custody of the children. This could be a critical factor in deciding who will get custody of the children.
Child abuse - a nebulous phrase of extreme relevance! The scope and scale of child abuse is more widespread than we would like to admit. Parents per se may not be abusive, but they could inadvertently be exposing their children to the same. Child custody evaluators will most probably interview other people in the parents' immediate circle - like neighbors, colleagues, relatives and friends. Their perception on each parent will also go a long way in determining which parent gets custody of the children.
We acknowledge that this whole process can be intrusive as well as troubling. However we can't lose sight of the fact that a child/children lives are going totally topsy-turvy. Everything must be done to safeguard the interests of young innocent lives, first and foremost!
p.s. This post was such a pain in the ass to put together and looks so amateur that it motivated me to finally get my new site going! Details very soon.
