Parenting

July 24, 2006 · Filed Under Me, My son, Thoughts · 6 Comments

We have several friends who have young children, all only have one and are not really thinking about another. Now, while these people do love their little ones, they find the whole process of child rearing rather heavy, more so than they expected. The women, all of whom work, are not that fond of the whole process and it has generated more than a few conflicts within relationships. I have had to deal with a few conflicts too, many of which are down to my, somewhat limited, ideas about bringing up children, which all stem from being brought up in the UK and my other half’s ideas which come from her own Italian up bringing. We are not alone, I’ve heard of a number of English/Italian relationships actually ending as a result of kids coming along. Sad but true. Then again, I know of some Italian fathers who found the stress of fatherhood so strong that they left the home and decided to become fathers-at-a-distance. Not good. I know one should face up to one’s responsibilities and all that, but once you are set in your ways (ie over 35ish), a radical change such as having children can end up being a straw which breaks the camels back. An unstable work environment does not help either. This is all obviously bad news for the poor children involved.

In most of these situations it’s the women who quite literally end up being left ‘holding the baby’, but they are not overly happy about this, even when the father throws plenty of money at them. I think part of the problem is down to the fact that we have children much later than our parents. As a result the whole experience is much more traumatic than it may well have been had we decided to start a family when we were younger and more energetic. There is so much you can do in life nowadays that you end up feeling that you are losing more than you are gaining by having a child. We also seem to be rather unprepared for the whole thing, and when you are older, you have less energy, as I said before, and thus less patience, which is not always good when you have children. I’m not just talking about men either. Many women nowadays enjoy much more freedom than thay did twenty years ago and many are much more aware of the stress and work involved in bringing up a child.

Maybe we just have it all too easy, too convenient and so we find actually having to do some real work, really stressful. I remember what my mum told me when I announced the arrival of our little one; she said children are hard work, but worth it. My mum managed to bring up two boys, look after two dogs and run the house. However, she did have a little home help at the start and she did not work while we were both young. She did have a different attitude though: she sort of accepted that bringing up children was her job, although she did not have much option seeing as our dad worked late and, although he helped my mother out, he still tried to avoid spending that much time with us - and I know plenty of men today who find various ways to avoid being with their children - and that also includes me, I’m sorry to say. Oh, my little son is wonderful and all that, and he provides us with plenty of fun moments, but I still feel as though I’ve lost rather more freedom than I ever really wanted to lose, and a lot of the trials and tribulations of being a parent are just that: trials and tribulations. You tend to put up with things, but they do grind you down.

I shall tell my little one, when he is a bigger one, that he needs to give some careful thought to becoming a parent, although I do hope he turns out to be one of those lucky ‘natural parents’ like my brother.

I believe that some of us are born to be parents, whereas others are not, only it’s the chicken and egg situation in that you never really know until you try, which is OK to a point, but you still have to think of the little human you’ve created and how he or she is going to feel having an unenthusiastic parent on his or her hands.

Trouble is, nobody seems to give you any training on the subject of becoming a parent. Maybe part of our schooling should be devoted to the process. Might lead to fewer divorces and unhappy kids coming form broken homes.

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Tags: Italian

Italian websites

July 24, 2006 · Filed Under Italy, Work · Comment

While deciding how to promote my little website I’ve been visiting quite a few websites which deal with banner exchanges and all that stuff. I’ve not come away very impressed with the Italian web scene. Many of the sites I’ve been visiting look pretty awful and I would not really like to leave my e-mail address with them. The banner exchanges are a bit dubious too and would, I’ve concluded, detract from the image which I’d like to build. I suspect that if I did sign up for one of these exchanges I would end up with ads displaying pornographic images on my site. This is not something I really want.

Which way now? Well, I’ve been thinking about various alternatives, all of which will lead to my forking out cash. There seems to be no other easy way. However, without doing something, I’m going to get very little exposure here in Italy, which is my main market.

I do have a few competitors here in Italy, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand, which is something which gives me a little heart.

I even built a little ad banner today, it’s here for all the blogging world to see:

EiiBanner

It’s actually animated, but the animation does not work in the blog editor, maybe it will when I publish it (Edit: It did/does work!). I think it’s quite tasteful and looks a lot better, though I say it myself, than some of the efforts I seen on a few of the banner exchange sites.

I shall continue to think about my web marketing strategy.

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Syriana

July 24, 2006 · Filed Under Films · Comment

Syriana is a film. It stars George Clooney and Matt Damon and one or two other well know faces. It’s an intelligent film, a bit like ‘Lord of War’. Strangely enough it came out of the Hollywood stable. This is strange because it is not overtly entertaining, but it does do what a good film should, in my opinion, do, that is: it makes you think. One can also applaud people like Clooney and Damon for getting involved in this film because while it is not overtly anti-American, it does not show American big business in a wonderful light. Seeing as Hollywood could well be classified as ‘big business’, it is both odd and welcoming that at least some people from within this environment show they aware that these mega enterprises do not always have the World’s best interests at heart. Indeed, the film seems to illustrate that the World is not run by politicians, but by businesses and businessmen so powerful that they can command the CIA to, literally, eliminate the competition. Scary.

At least, it has to be said, America is free enough for such a film to actually get made, although I suspect that certain people may not have been too happy about it, but then again, it does not really rock any boats and I doubt those at whom this film jabs a finger will lose any sleep over the points it attempts to make. After all, they are far too powerful to worry about a little Hollywood film, aren’t they?

The film does proffer one or two interesting, if not original, little theories, such as implicating that big business moving and shaking created disgruntled employees; who also happen to be Muslim and thus become dragged into extremism and acts of terrorism. Then there is the faithful CIA agent who realises that his lords and masters do not necessarily have the country’s best interests at heart and upon revealing his opinion is dropped like a hot potato by bosses who realise that he has stopped blindly obeying orders. The theory here being that you are expected to be loyal to your country, but your country is not expected to be loyal to you, especially when you don’t fit in with their ‘business plan’.

Films of this genre attempt to explain why the world is such a topsy turvy place, but although they paint a certain picture, they do not really explain how or what should be done to restore the somewhat beleaguered portrait of the planet today.

Anyway, as you can see, Syriana provoked a few thoughts, and confirmed, yet again, that I’m not alone in thinking that the wonderful world is not all that wonderful. However, yours truly is not really doing much to change the order of things, aside from scribbling a few thoughts and observations down, that is.

As an aside, I wonder just where the good old USA manages to find all its funding for all these little wars it keeps getting involved in. Is the country so rich? Does it have a bottomless wallet? So it would seem.

Oh and just in case you think I’m anti-American, I’m not. I’ve known a few Americans and liked them very much. In fact, I would jump at the chance of going to live in the US of A.

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