Saving Our Children

Our middle daughter

I have been reading the Voluntary Simplicity + Building Community = Saving Our Children post. These are the things I took away from it and could relate to. Earlier I had mentioned that I was building community by sending my kids to ballet. Our ballet is a very much a community event.

"I think about my beautiful cousins on both sides of this country, I think about the young children of my good friends, I think about my sister in 65 years, when she is 98 years old like my grandfather is now... and I feel responsible for their future. I fear we are destroying their future. I think we may be devastating our planet with our way of life..."

"I've created more time in my life, by not watching television, by having some of our produce delivered from local farms, by living in a neighborhood where I don't have to commute, by working from home or near home, and by many other smaller changes. (For more ideas about saving time, read Julie's post here.)

This has given me time to volunteer. Time to write. Time to learn more and think more, and time to talk with others who are thinking about similar things..."

This is a post that I wrote a long time ago (25th August) called Remote Seachange & Children's Activities.

One of the surprising things about living in a remote area is in the area of children's activities. There are a lot of activities, and when you get to the bottom of it, I think this is because of the funding from the State Health Services. So if you have had any dealings with the State before with children you may find this a little disconcerting at least at first.

The Youth worker takes the youth to the snow. They also hold gym classes. I think some of the older children get paid to teach under the adult teachers.

My feeling after living in another area with children, is that there seem to be activities evenly spread through out the year. It is a little like a party atmosphere I think. Some activities if you are a spectator require the old-fashioned lap blanket in the hall, just like in the old days.

The activities are excellent, the only thing that has been a recent lack of is piano teachers, but this is not something the Government is involved in, because it doesn't relate to fitness. Maybe someone should make a case for it for mental health reasons. I know I would love for the two little girls to learn piano. They do have excellent music lessons in others areas though, just not piano, as there are no places left at the moment.

The most exciting thing is the annual Snow Day. I have heard that some older children use this day off to go deer hunting which is very exciting. All schools in Victoria get a day for Melbourne Cup. We live a long way from Melbourne so we have our own version called Snow Day. Though this year we had both.

There are at least two churches that run activities as well. There is Spotlight on Christmas and also there have been other holiday activities. One small thing is that often the organisers assume that you know the assumed knowledge of how to find things etc.

There are still very involved school plays of the same standard as a larger school you may have seen in the 70s. The school even though small still does everything like it was big and everyone goes to a lot of trouble. There are a lot of excursions. There are ballet excursions as well.

How does this relate to the Saving Our Children post?

I was thinking about Back To Basics and building community. I mentioned Spotlight on Christmas that my little girl attended this week. The reason it was building community is that there were people there that I don't know. The organisers, I don't recognise from my usual daily life. Also some of the Mum's I don't usually see or haven't seen for a couple of years. One Mum mentioned she doesn't see me around, and I should have asked what kind of events she expects to see me at. I wonder if it means the restaurants etc. I wish I knew.

Ballet is also a community builder. I saw my daughter sitting on the floor thoroughly enjoying the company of a girl from school. Another time she was sitting with her group with one of the girl's Mum and they they were all chewing the fat together, it was lovely to be a part of. She is one lucky Mum. It reminds me so much of my country childhood. Different again to ballet in the medium sized town, our hometown that we did ballet in originally.

Here are some of the other things we do in our small community.

circus
show
pony club
flower show
op-shop
fete
tip
netball
internet at the library
library activities
classes during the holidays like beading
floats in festivals
youth group bonfire
dressing up for festival
pool
the creek