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At some point, clearly when I wasn’t paying attention, Cinderella moved into our house. Moved in and sort of took over.  But what’s worse is that like a foster kid in Summer Bay, Miss C didn’t come alone. She brought her posse – Snow White, Belle and that mermaid chick with the red hair – with her.

Suddenly, these Disney princesses are everywhere I look in our house:  on placemats, cups, bowls, forks, spoons and knives. The toilet seat.  Like pink ninjas they’ve crept – stealth-like – onto our bookshelves, into our dress-up boxes, our colouring-in books and even my fridge. Snow White yoghurt, anyone? And while I’m prepared to take full blame for the yoghurt, all the other stuff has been given to us by family and friends. Family and friends who know that I will send them a thank you card sprinkled with anthrax if they so much as think about bringing a Bratz doll near my house.  So they’ve opted for the more modestly clad but delightfully insipid (yet perky! And always with a great singing voice!) Disney princesses instead.

And let me tell you, it irritates me no end.

But my daughter Ava is three.  Do I even need to say anymore?  So when she’s not pretending to be a stegosaurus or insisting on charging me outrageous prices at her fruit and vegetable shop ($50 for an apple? That’s highway robbery, lady.) – she’s dressing up as a fairy or a princess. She’s rockin’ the pink tulle. In a big way.

And I can encourage her all I want to pretend to be Dora the Explorer. But so far, no dice.  (Is it the bowl-haircut? Or is she just creeped out by the notion of having a backpack that talks … a bit like a stoned uni student).  Ava wants the dress. And the teary-ara on her head. And the right to make royal decrees. Ponies for everyone! (Maybe she’s not pretending to be a princess. Maybe she’s pretending to be Oprah…)

So do I actively try and stop the Princess obsession? Today it’s Cinderella.  What do I do if tomorrow Ava announces she wants to be the new Kate Middleton?  Or worse? Camilla.  Is it time to worry? According to best-selling feminist author Naomi Wolf, the answer is a resounding no.

In a recent New York Time piece entitled “Mommy I want to be a princess” Wolf explained why mothers needn’t fret about their daughter’s love affair with all things Princess.

 ”Little girls are obsessed with princesses for the same reason little boys are obsessed with action heroes. What other female role model can issue a sentence and have the world at her feet? What other female figure can command an army, break open a treasury, or even, as in images of Kate Middleton or of Diana Spencer, simply bestow, with her presence, a sense of magic, excitement and healing? Princesses are more benevolent than pop stars and less drugged out; they are more powerful than Hillary Rodham Clinton or Condoleezza Rice, and wear better frocks. They are less disposable than fashion models and at least appear to be less stressed than the girls’ own working mothers, even if those women are at the top of the professional hierarchy. What girl would not be drawn to such an archetype, given how few other female role models you can say that about in our popular culture?”

She has a point.

And as if on cue as I’m writing this column, my daughter has walked into the room wearing a paper crown (left over from a Christmas cracker) and with one of my long skirts wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak.

“I’m King Ava!”  She says this in a tone that is not unlike, oh, say, Idi Amin’s .  And I realise that I need to have more faith in my daughter. Or perhaps more faith in myself as a parent that her father and I are exposing her to a variety of games, experiences and people to spark her imagination.   This morning she was a princess. This afternoon she is a king.  Tomorrow she may be a doctor, a vet, a builder, a hairdresser or a chef.  The point is she’s trying on different roles. Exerting her power.  And making a market killing selling apples for $50 a pop.

www.rebeccasparrow.com 

The cast of Mad Men. Apparently...

As most of you know, I’m from Brisbane. What does that mean? It means that for pretty much my entire life I’ve spent Christmas Day in somebody’s swimming pool; I have a friend of a friend of a friend who knows the drummer in Powderfinger; and I’ve been obsessed with South-East Queensland introducing daylight saving for as long as I can remember.

For years YEARS I have whined and grumbled and bitched about the fact that Queensland is backwards for not offering it. Why did I want daylight saving so badly? I’m not entirely sure.  But having to wind my watch forward and back every time I visited my parents’ in Northern NSW was a factor. Work wise it was irritating being an hour behind Sydney and Melbourne for six months of every year.  And the idea of having an extra hour of daylight always sounded appealing.

So when Brad and I decided to  (temporarily) move to Adelaide, I was excited. Wine! Haigh’s Chocolates! Wine!  Wine!  Wine! Daylight Saving!  WOOT!  And then I moved here. And I finally got to wind my clocks forwards or was it back. Anyway, not the point. The point is I finally got to experience what I have wanted for so long. And now here’s the bit where things get awkward. I frickin’ hate daylight saving*. HATE. IT. I hate Daylight Saving the way Donald Trump hates a windy day. The way Channel Nine in South Australia hates to air any rugby league games (that’s a whoooole other column).

Hate is a strong word, of course and yet entirely appropriate in this instance.  I mean trying to put a toddler to bed at 7.30pm when it’s still bright enough outside to DRY WASHING is a special kind of hell, in my book.  My toddler Ava and I have this conversation about 34 times every night:

“Mummy is it night-time?”

“Yes darling”.

“Is that the sun?”

“Yes.”

“So is it daytime?”

By the fifth time, Mummy can’t answer because Mummy is under the table with a large bottle of scotch. Rocking. Back and forth. In the foetal position.

Of course, pro-daylight saving friends keep saying to me “But there’s so much more you can do with that extra hour of sunlight”.  Like …. What exactly?  A bbq? Tennis?  Swimming?  Um, I’m pretty sure you can do all those things at night just by, you know, turning a light on.

Anyway all this got me thinking about the range of other things I thought I’d love until I actually, well, you know TRIED THEM.  Things like:

• Mad Men (I watched one episode and found it depressing. I refuse to tune in until Larry Tate** does a cameo)
• Jazz Ballet for Adults (I did a class about ten years ago and nearly had my eye poked out from so many women doing jazz hands. Don’t judge me.)
• Lord of the Rings: the books, the movies, the Tupperware (Zzzzzzz)
• Sea Monkeys as advertised in Archie comics (All I’m going to say is THERE ARE NO CROWNS.)
• Sweetbreads (What the?   I don’t think PANCREAS should be called “sweetbreads” on a menu … it’s false advertising)
• Using a fit ball to sit on while at my desk (I liked the idea of this until I actually tried to sit on an ENORMOUS BALL WHILE AT MY DESK. I’m sorry, what?)
• Skinny jeans. (Enough said).
• Zumba (Enough said)
• Los Angeles (Enough said)
• Cheese in a jar (I never really thought I’d like it but I was prepared to give it a whirl. #fail)
• Pilates (Nobody actually likes Pilates. Think about it? Do any of those Pilates people look happy? No, no they don’t. They’re all grim faced and angry-sweaty)

As for me I’ll just have to get used to this Daylight Saving caper.  Maybe I’ll use that extra hour of daylight to read Lord of the Rings.  Or not.

** Darrin’s advertising boss in Bewitched. How could you not know that?

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Despite the fact that it was twenty-two years ago (good grief, I’m just going to pour myself a stiff drink and contemplate that for a moment) and my hair made me look like Jon Bon Jovi, I can still vividly recall how I felt during those last two months of high school. Excited, of course. But also terrified. Terrified at what did – or didn’t – lay ahead. Terrified at whether or not I would cope at university. That’s assuming I even got a high enough score to get into the course I wanted to do. (Guess what? I didn’t). I remember being terrified knowing the group of people I’d spent the past five years with were all heading off in different directions. And that I’d kinda taken it for granted that all those faces – some loved and some loathed – were no longer going to be a part of my daily life.

So yeah – I remember that last term. And I’m reminded of it now as I put the finishing touches on a book of advice I’m currently writing for year 12 students full of all the things I wish I’d known before I left high school and went out into the real world. Advice like “Never date a man who has Cher tunes on his iPod.”

Joking.

But think about it. What do you wish you’d known? For what it’s worth, here’s my number one lesson:

You will not be a success or a failure in life based on your year 12 final grades.

For senior students, it feels like their whole future is resting on these year 12 exams. But it’s not.  Let’s be really, really honest. Your final grade is just one little moment in time.  The truth is the people who live the big, exciting lives; the people who are living their dreams are not necessarily the people who got straight A’s or did fabulously well at the SACE at school. They are the people who are resilient. And persistent. They are the people who have faith in themselves and kept going.

Now don’t get me wrong – high grades are valuable.  The better your grades the greater the options when you leave school. And that’s what you want: options.  But in the long term, success in life is about your ability to bounce-back. So if you don’t do so well with these exams or if you don’t get the score you want – just remember that it’s not the end of the world.  If you REALLY want to study something, you’ll find a way to do it.  As my friend Pam always says, when one door closes, try squeezing through the cat flap.

And then there are life’s late bloomers. For a whole range of reasons some people just don’t do well in high school. Maybe because of stuff that’s going on at home. Maybe because they’re not a great fit for the school they attend. Maybe because their head just isn’t in the right place. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go on to great things.  A fabulous example is my friend (and fellow author) Kim Wilkins. On her blog recently, Kim wrote:

“I was a late bloomer in every sense of the word. I still played with my dollhouse in the first year of high school, until one of the other girls told me that it was lame. I was puzzled and sometimes horrified by the things my teenage peers talked about and did. I gained a reputation for being the biggest “dag” in my grade. I flunked almost everything at high school and spent a very long time working in fast food jobs and typing jobs.  In fact, I’d say that I didn’t really blossom until my mid-twenties. I went back to school and finished my senior, got into uni, started writing books, and haven’t looked back. “

Let me tell you, Kim’s being modest. Today she’s an internationally acclaimed author of twenty books. She’s a university lecturer.  She won a University Medal for pete’s sake.  She’s living the life of her dreams. And she flunked out at high school.

So to the graduating class of 2011, know this:  whatever happens over the coming months, have faith that you’ll be just fine. Because you can bounce back.

www.rebeccasparrow.com

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I learnt a major life lesson this past month. And it involved steak, mashed potato and a mariachi band. Sort of. In a way. Stay with me.

I’ve spent the last seven weeks on the road, travelling around the country doing a series of author-speaking engagements in regional shopping centres. I know. Look out J. K. Rowling, I’m coming for you. One food court at a time.  But the truth is the whole experience was terrific.

Hold the phone. What?

You’re thinking that spending hours in airport lounges, on planes, in taxi queues and in shopping centre food courts alone would be – what’s the word? – oh yes, horrible. I mean you can only kill time playing Angry Birds for so many hours before you become an Angry Bird yourself. But I wasn’t alone.  I was lucky enough to be travelling with another speaker; an inspiring, hilarious, clever woman I’ll call Sally.  So the whole criss-crossing the country experience was like a Girls Own Adventure.

And so it was that in between the laughter, the story-swapping and the quick-we’ve-got-five-minutes-to-spare-lets-go-look-in-Witchery, I ended up learning a major life lesson from Sally. And it was this: I need to start ordering off the menu.

Let me explain.

After our first long day of travelling, Sally and I arrived at our hotel in Far North Queensland exhausted. We each staggered to our room, pledging to meet up for breakfast. But as I turned the handle on my hotel room door, I was greeted with a mariachi band in my living room. At least it sounded like they were in my living room. They weren’t of course. My room (and Sally’s room too for that matter) happened to be directly across from a local park where an outdoor festival was in full swing.  It was late. I was bone tired. All I wanted to do was go to bed. But La Cucaracha was ringing in my ears. So what did I do? I muttered all kinds of horrible things about the hotel, put a pillow over my head and attempted to go to sleep. It took me a while.

The next morning having breakfast with Sally, I asked her how she managed to sleep with the band playing.  Her reply? Easily. She’d asked to change rooms.

She’d. Asked. To. Change. Rooms.

She may as well have told me she put on a ballet tutu and went on a date with Bob Katter.

And so it went.  When a cold coffee arrived, it was – in the politest possible way – sent back.  And when we went to a restaurant whose menu didn’t quite offer what she wanted – I watched Sally order off the menu. Nothing fancy. I’m talking a steak, mashed potato and steamed vegies not caviar and champagne.

Many of us – particularly women – live our lives not wanting to be seen as difficult. After all, better to eat a ho-hum meal, drink a cold coffee, put up with a mariachi band in our hotel room than have people think we’re a diva.

But there is a difference between speaking up and being a pain in the butt.  You can ask for what you want, have a voice, without being a prima donna.  And this ‘be nice at all costs’ attitude has far more serious repercussions than a cold coffee. In his best-selling book, The Gift of Fear, world-renowned security expert Gavin de Becker talks about how a woman’s fear of being seen as rude or judgemental can make her vulnerable to attack.  Even if someone gives us the creeps or a bad vibe, women tend to let them into our personal space rather than appear rude.  Someone offers to carry our shopping to the car for us? Sure.  Wants to use our phone? Absolutely. Offers us a lift home from a work function? Of course. Every part of us is saying “no” but our fear of looking rude makes us say yes.

What women call “being a diva”, men call “getting on with things”. It’s called living your life. Being true to who you are.  It was a reminder to me to always send back the coffee. Or the creep.

www.rebeccasparrow.com

Look what a difference a beautiful dress made to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman ... (let's forget she was a hooker ...)

It was easier when I was younger.  Forget shops. Back then when I longed to get my hands on a fabulous frock all I had to do was head straight to mum’s wardrobe in the spare room. At the age of five I would regularly struggle into a dress I thought was the most glamorous thing I’d ever seen. It was a long, slinky, black number with a red sequin diamond on the front – very 1977.  Very Ginger Grant from Gilligan’s Island. Sure when I pulled the material over my head and smoothed it down I was swimming in black but I didn’t care. Instead I swished around in that dress, mum’s cork platforms on my feet, catching glimpses of myself in the mirror whilst pretending to mix martinis and make small talk with my dear friend Baby Alive. This dress-up ritual, which occurred whenever mum and dad were out or asleep or watching Bjorn Borg play tennis, lasted right up until my brother caught me. He somewhat harshly pointed out that in his opinion I looked like Klinger from MASH.

These days trying on a fabulous frock still leaves me swishing around in front of a mirror, pretend martini in hand. Be it a strappy sundress or a sultry cocktail shift there’s something about the power of a dress to transform how we feel about ourselves. With the pull of a zip we can instantly get a bit of va-va-va-voom back into our lives. After all, it’s a dress – not trousers, not skirts – that can give you your mojo back.

With the arrival of spring, colourful dresses hang playfully in every shop window enticing me towards them as much as my mum’s cocktail dress did more than 30 years ago.

Nobody knows about the power of a frock better than Australian designer Sacha Drake whom I met in person earlier this year. Drake’s specialty is designing beautiful dresses and her creations are all about transforming a woman’s sense of self.

Which is why the designer makes a habit of gathering up a selection of dresses and heading to a local women’s hostel – a safe haven for women who have experienced domestic violence, financial troubles, homelessness and who have just a scrape of self-worth left.  Many arrive at the hostel doorstep with just the clothes they are wearing.

And so, with this in mind, Drake carefully and lovingly dresses each woman in a beautiful dress. One they can keep.

“Their reactions are always very moving – both for me and for them,” says Drake. “Seeing themselves look beautiful helps these women feel they can be beautiful again.”

Yes, these women also need ‘sensible’ clothes: work clothes in particular to help them have the confidence to go to job interviews. To help them feel like they fit in. Look the part.  But a dress is a present. A treat. An extravagance that can change how we see ourselves. It speaks of possibility.

Now let’s be frank. Many of us have dozens of clothes we never wear. DOZENS.  What do they say? We wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. I don’t know if that’s true but it sounds right.  I have clothes hanging in my wardrobe with the tag still hanging on. Items I’ve never even worn.  This is because I seem to forget that just because that luscious fuchsia dress looks kicking on the size 6, big boobed, legs up to here store dummy, it’s not necessarily going to look as good on a size 12 woman with err, a chest that looks like two aspros on an ironing board.

So next time you’ve got an empty Saturday afternoon why not pick out those dresses you haven’t worn for years and pass them on? Take them to a Red Cross or Lifeline or Salvation Army Shop. Or to a women’s hostel or refuge. Give someone else the chance to be reminded that there is more to them than stained jeans and faded t-shirts. That there is potential there still to be fulfilled. That they too can get their mojo back. Pretend martini optional.

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I haven’t seen a movie this year.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.  Yesterday I curled up on the couch and watched that cinematic sartorial masterpiece Pretty in Pink (is it just me or did James Spader looked 38 even when he was 18?).  And just last week Brad convinced me to watch a made-for-TV adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which taught me two things:  1. Oscar Wilde clearly took a lot of drugs and 2. No, that’s about it. Oscar Wilde clearly took a lot of drugs.

But the thing is, I haven’t seen a movie this year at the cinema.  I haven’t gotten dressed up (“dressed up” being code for wearing something other than trackie-daks) and left the house and bought some popcorn and paid an exorbitant amount of money for an adult ticket and sat in a cinema and been glued to the previews and watched a movie on the big screen.

And you know what? I miss it. I miss the going-to-the-movies experience. And I have to say, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I think my life is all the poorer for it.

Sure we can download and upload and rent and record and watch movies at our own convenience in our own homes.  We can wear our jimjams and pause when we need to dash to the loo and hit rewind when we have no clue what the actor just said (yes, Casey Affleck I’m talking to you). And that’s all great – it is. But it’s not the same.

Hilarious, tragic, delightful, unforgettable moments don’t tend to unfold in your lounge room while you’re in your pjs. Well, unless you’re a Kardashian. But for the rest of us? Not so much.

Think about it.  There are memories you have that are inextricably linked to the cinema.

Take my friend Elizabeth. She remembers the time her Nanna took her to see Spaceballs as a child only to hear her Nanna murmur in horror, “This is nothing like Mary Poppins!” after the first few minutes.

Anthony, an old uni buddy, recalls a particularly excruciating teenage date when he went to see Footrot Flats The Movie – only to be stood up by the girl he adored (while her teenage friends watched and laughed). Ouch.

Meanwhile my friend Em recalls the first movie she was ever allowed to see alone (Return of the Jedi when she was 12) and thinking how hilarious it was that some teenage boys were throwing Maltesers through the air to look like comets!   Then it was hilarious. Now? Well, it just looks like a huge waste of chocolate.

As for me, I remember being so in love with Tom Cruise when I was fourteen that I saw Cocktail nine times at the cinema.  NINE TIMES.  Not even Tom Cruise’s mother sees his films that much.  I remember my school friends and I melting when Baby practised leaping into Johnny’s arms in lake in Dirty Dancing.  I remember the first time I saw a movie by myself (The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Sydney, 1996) and trying to pretend that I was a film reviewer so I didn’t feel so pathetic.  (Because, you know, me pretending to scribble notes down every few minutes fooled EVERYBODY.)

But it’s just not about our personal experiences. There’s something about being part of an anonymous group. In the dark.  Someone sneezes and a smart-alec voice calls out “Ebola!” and the entire cinema laughs. It’s the communal gasp at the final scene of  Inception. Or Boys Don’t Cry.  Or The Sixth Sense.  The cinema groaning during Russell Crowe’s love scene with Meg Ryan in Proof of Life.   It’s the moment the whole cinema starts singing “Twist and Shout” during Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  The feeling of Aussie pride we felt at the end of Muriel’s Wedding, knowing that’d we’d just experienced something special.  And I will never forget how the cinema erupted into spontaneous applause at the end of The King’s Speech when I saw it last year.

So what the hell have I been doing sitting at home watching My Big Fat Gyspy Wedding? Readers, I make this pledge to you: by the time I write my next column I will have a seen a movie. At the cinema. And thrown a Malteser or two for old time’s sake.

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This week I had one of those awkward realisations. You know the ones. Those moments when you clearly see something about yourself that is rather shocking. Uncomfortable. Lame.  It could be that moment it dawns on you that you look completely out of place shopping at Sportsgirl because you look – what’s the word? – oh yes, old.  Maybe it’s when you see a photo of yourself and realise that yes – wearing that poncho and with that fringe you do actually look like your Uncle Frank. Excellent.  Or maybe it’s when it occurs to you that you are the only person left in the world still watching Desperate Housewives. And so it was this week, when trawling through some recent emails, I realised I’d become someone I despised. It appears that I’ve started using emoticons.

Oh yes, yes I have.

I’m not sure how I got here.

I used to be anti-emoticon.  When others used them in text messages and emails, I scoffed, I eye-rolled, I thought a teeny, tiny little bit less of them.  I mean emoticons were on my list of reasons to not date a guy. Uses emoticons. Drinks citrus fruit-flavoured girlie drinks with tropical holiday label.  Lives with his mother. Watches Two and a Half Men.  Thinks Two and a Half Men is funny. Plays any type of computer game involving “quests” and “wizards”.

And yet somehow in the past six months I have morphed into that Pollyanna person who adds an inane goofy, grinning face to the end of her emails.  And not just smiling faces.  Sad faces!  Tongue pokes!  A kind of slanty mouthed one that looks a little bit like someone who voted for Labour at the last federal election. :/ And winks? Don’t get me started on winks. I don’t even wink in real life. But on email and Twitter? I’m like Shane Warne at your cousin Sharon’s wedding.  In cyber-space I’m winking at everybody. It’s like I have a nervous tick.

Emoticons are so not me. I’m edgy. (Okay clearly I’m not edgy, that’s a lie. I’m not sure why I said that).  But I didn’t think I was lame. Well, not this lame.

In my defence (watch me do that little dance called “justification”) I like to think my new emoticon usage is related to the fact I spend a rather large amount of time on Twitter and email.  And I’m scared of the trolls. After all, email and Twitter are toneless and we all know how easy it is to be “mis-mooded”.  So my chirpy little smiley face says, “See? Happy tone!” My wink says, “See? Cheeky joke!”  The tongue poke says, “See? I think you’re a deeply offensive nutjob but I’m scared you’re an Internet troll so I’m pretending not to be offended by you!”  The sad face says … actually I don’t know what the sad face says. I think maybe it says, “I’m 39 and yet need emotional flashcards”.

Of course, emoticons have their own problems. As my friend Thalia pointed out to me, they are universally loved by the passive/aggressive.  That text message that says, “Don’t forget to do the dishes “ is code for “If I have to ask you one more time about the &%#% dishes I am going to take a hammer to your West Wing DVD collection. ”

A number of my friends have held strong in their refusal to use emoticons. And I respect them deeply for that. That said, they’ve still admitted to accidentally adopting activities they previously mocked.  My friend Kate has found herself actually contemplating how useful it would be to have her reading glasses on a chain. Rick routinely lectures twenty-year-olds on the dangers of driving tired and being distracted by rowdy friends. He’s 24. Emma recently realized she spent all her time in the car listening to an AM station.   And then there’s my friend Kim who turned down tickets to a very, very cool outdoor music festival because she hates portaloos.

Talk about lame.

Mostly because in some ways it defeats the reason  – or one of the reasons – why Brad, Ava and I moved here, to Adelaide, in the first place. Why we packed up our belongings in January and redirected our mail and moved across the country leaving behind all our family and friends in Brisbane to come here where we knew no one. Or, more specifically, where nobody knew us.

Of course Brad’s job and the wineries and the restaurants and the festivals and the markets and the Adelaide Hills were all big drawcards. (And frankly the Roasted Berkshire Pork Belly with green apple, wombok & dill salad at The Pot on King William Road should really be part of your tourism campaign.) But mostly Adelaide represented a fresh start. A chance to have some breathing space.  The City of Churches, we decided, would give us some time to heal as a family of three.

And it has. We have. Alone in this windy city for the past five months, we’ve blazed our own trail; discovering for ourselves favourite playgrounds and parks. Cafes and cake shops. We’ve worn a path to the Adelaide Zoo. And, err, our local Tavern, if we’re going to be completely honest.  We’ve relished the chance to rug up in coats and scarves and watched Mother Nature put on an autumn show with the trees and leaves that rivals anything on the Las Vegas strip.  And we’ve happily bunkered down on many a cold evening in front of the telly trying to work out what the hell AFL is all about.

But there comes a time in the healing process, at least according to my mother, when a cut or a scratch or a graze needs to be exposed. When the bandaid must come off and the wound left open to fresh air and sunshine. To life.  Does it feel vulnerable to the elements at first?  Of course.  But that cut, my mother would always say, needs to be allowed to breathe.

I’m beginning to suspect that emotional wounds are no different. Eventually we need to uncover them to truly let them heal. You can’t, or at least I can’t, hide out forever hoping hoping hoping – please God hoping – the hairdresser won’t casually ask how many children you have while she washes your hair. That the friendly mum you’ve started chatting to at the park won’t innocently question if Ava is your only child.  That the childcare assistant who works at the crèche at your gym won’t want to know if your toddler has a sibling.

Because what will happen – what always happens – when you are asked how many children you have is that you will give one answer but silently think another. And it will be that way for the rest of your life.

Our daughter Georgie was stillborn last September. Ava’s much-wanted little sister unexpectedly died just 10 days before she was due to be delivered. That was nine months ago. And not a day goes by that we don’t miss her.

Next Friday 24 June, is Red Nose Day, a day we all associate with the pivotal role SIDS and Kids has played in reducing the occurrences of Sudden and Unexplained Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

But what many people don’t know is that SIDS and Kids fund medical research and provide a range of bereavement support services to anyone who has suffered the sudden and unexpected death of a baby or child under the age of six, regardless of cause. Miscarriage. Stillbirth. Cot death. Accident or illness.

There are thousands of parents silently grieving lost pregnancies, babies, children. Please buy a red nose this week or give generously at www.sidsandkids.org   If you have lost a baby or a child and would like to talk to someone, SIDS and Kids operate a 24-hour Bereavement Support line.  Call (08) 8369 0155.

www.rebeccasparrow.com

So back to my whole “me no speaky small talk” dilemma.  So how can I prefer speaking to 1000 people over having a tete a tete with one?  Easy. Public speaking is really just a one-sided conversation. Nobody is actually talking back. This, according to my husband Brad, works well for me. Like when it’s just me – at home – talking at him.  Or his back.  Or at, say, the space where he was sitting until he moved to the bedroom to get away. From me.  I also tend to leave ridiculously long phone messages for my girlfriends. Messages which are so long that Brad has been known to assume my friend was actually home, on the other end of the phone, you know, listening or something.  I give good monologue.

Then there’s the fact I struggle from STPA (small talk performance anxiety).  My general knowledge is a bit crap, really. It’s not that I don’t read the papers. I do. I’m on news websites all day. And I’m clickety-clicking on stories other than the ones about Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging his pork sword (too much? How about pecker?) around. I just seem to have difficulty retaining the information.  This is possibly because I have dedicated all my brain space to remembering things like the words to every 1980s sitcom theme song.  And quotes from The West Wing (“Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce …”). See? That quote takes up the space that really should be filled with climate change info. Or, maybe, I don’t know algebra. Or something.

For a long time my small talk strategy was to go with the standard, “So how do you know Dave?” line of questioning.  A conversation that lasts all of thirty seconds.  At which time I excuse myself to get a drink and end up hiding in our car and texting Brad from the back seat of our Subaru to say (a) can we go home now? And (b) could he bring me a dim sim on his way out?

This strategy clearly doesn’t always work. Sometimes we get a cab. This is why I decided to approach some worldly friends of mine (the type who like to leave the house) to give me tips on how to fake my way through different conversations when you have absolutely no clue what to say.  At an art gallery? Queensland artist Brett Lethbridge tells me the trick is mastering the “intellectual gaze”. He says, those really in-the-know never talk about the art but rather stare at the piece for at least 45 seconds longer than one would think appropriate, give a little snort through the nostrils indicating a vague sign of impressed indifference and then move on to the next painting for another prolonged stare. A bit like wine tasting.

Politics? Former political media advisor Rick Morton reckons all you need to do is say you celebrate ‘fiscal conservatism’ even if you don’t really know what that means. Even better, just say the word ‘fiscal’ a whole bunch of times in the space of five minutes.

As for books, my friend and fellow author Nick Earls says that if you’re trying to survive a conversation about literary tomes, just hone in on adverbs. Apparently adverbs are out. (Who knew?). So when the name of a book comes up in conversation make a harrumphing noise and follow it with, ‘Sure, but what was with all those adverbs?’

Of course where to take the conversation from there is anyone’s guess. My advice? Grab a dim sim and run.

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