Breathe, Lady!

What happened to me???

Back in November 2016 I moved away from Park View Retirement Village in Bethania. The managers mistreated me; I attempted suicide; I was illegally locked out when I got back from hospital; I spent a week homeless, sharing accommodation with my friends. Park View didn’t care. I spoke a little about all this in previous post on 1 January 2017, 21 March and 16 May, and wrote fully about it on 9 April.

I found a different unit, a garage turned into a 2 bedroomed unit. The small yard, fully securely fenced, was great for me and my 15-year-old BFF dog, Jordie. There were some problems throughout the unit, but not too much for me. I never wrote about any of these in my blog posts, so here… read on.

I got the unit from Paul Flynn Properties, and the owner was named on the lease. I moved in from 1 December 2016. At that time this unit wasn’t clean, so I cleaned it. I found a few problems – no covers over the front or back door so rain could come in (which did in the kitchen until I got that fixed); I didn’t really have a driveway, nor a carport; there was only one letterbox; the cupboard in the laundry wasn’t filled in and held a smaller cupboard which opened the opposite way; the curtains were too long on these doors (short ceiling?); the clothesline was sinking into the lawn and the concrete around it was breaking up due to the roots from the big tree; there were no hoses on my side of this property; there wasn’t a garden shed where I could have put my tools or anything else; movements upstairs had a very loud echo in my unit; the kitchen cupboards weren’t sealed – mice in there. And more stuff, but it didn’t seem too bad to me. Oh, I wrote to Paul Flynns a couple of times: most not fixed.

In April this year Harcourts took over the lease: same owner. I wrote to the property manager about much of what I had written to Paul Flynns, and had a builder in who fixed the laundry cupboard and looked at other stuff but didn’t do much else. I included the driveway which I didn’t have, up to the carpark I did have. She suggested I could contact Logan City Council. By this time I wasn’t thinking of a real driveway, just some yellow paint I could put on the roadside so people wouldn’t park in front of me. I wrote to LCC. I got a phone call shortly after I wrote to them, saying I couldn’t paint on the road. Oh well: I thought that was the end of it.

On Tuesday this week I got a phone call from a chap from LCC who said that he was not aware if my unit was legal. Say what?? It seems that the work inside this unit was not ever done through LCC. Illegal. How on earth am I getting into illegal stuff?? This was not my problem. 

Yesterday this chap and a workmate came to the unit to check it out. I also had the property manager from Harcourts at my place.  The unit certainly was illegal. The ceiling was too low – which was all they needed to tell me, but they’d write a report to the owner. He would have 20 days to answer. If he didn’t plan on fixing this ($100,000, they suggested, to lift it to legal height, fix the fire separation between the levels, ensure that everything else was legal) I couldn’t live here any more. 30 days, they said. The LCC chap gave the property manager a whole lot of plans for this property which she could give to her own manager and/or talk over those with the owner.

I felt sick. I had been in Bethania – with my dog on my lease for 4.5 months - before they mistreated me and Jordie. I’d moved to Eagleby 9 months ago – and it was a very good private area – before I found out yesterday that I’d been signed into an illegal property. 

What ever more??? 

Around 4.30pm I went to look at a unit advertised through Harcourts. It looks okay, but it’s not the best I’ve seen. I’ve got more time now. I looked through websites and found 6 units which I could go and look at – compare them against each other. Where do I want to live? Definitely closer to town, but I need the Mylestone CPL carer who is based in Beenleigh.  And I must be able to take my dog.

I contacted the Department Housing group in Woodridge where I’d been back in November 2016. They’d helped a lot back then, and organised a bond – which I frustratingly don’t think even relates to where I am now! I spoke to the Call Centre who gave me some info and suggested I get into Woodridge for the application for the Department of Housing Community Housing.

I rang RTA and asked what steps I should take. They said that I could go into QCAT and make an application for moving costs covered by the owner of this property. I had memories of the other organisations I had used and spoken to in November last year, predominantly YFS and QSTARs. This afternoon, on the way home from my choir rehearsal, I stopped at Woodridge and got the application forms and an application for yet another bond loan. 

What am I doing??? 

I am so much over this! This has happened since I had my brain surgery and stroke. I can't react the way I would have before that. Park View mistreated me, and I sure hope I will (finally) win the QCAT case next Tuesday, without it being postponed again. The owner of this present unit has now mistreated me, and my costs could be a lot higher as I try and get into a decent property which will support me and Jordie – who has to live with me until she dies! Those costs aren’t mine! The behaviour of property owners has gone down the drain, and, for my thinking, the cheaper properties aren’t the “best” for the “less” rent. I only found 6 properties for $250 or less – all of which are more expensive than I have been paying. Owners should think of people on a Centrelink benefit. They should think of how their properties are treated, and look after them.

And, most of all, they MUST think whether their properties are or are not legal. Because “legal” is essential.

Changing the world

In the last few years I’ve seen far too many anti climate change people raving about how this world has not changed, how climate has not gotten hotter, how we, the climate change supporters know nothing. Well, ACC people, I know about the climate. And I know about the World. How about you read this and find out what is happening. 

I am 60. The world population was less than half today’s population 60 years ago as they began again to repopulate the world which had been depopulated after WW1 and WW2. We had fresh air. We had a decent place to live - then. But, in the last 60 years, Vietnam, Middle East (Arab-Israeli), Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Argentina, Iran and Iraq and many other wars have gone on around the world. It seems there are no countries untouched. Except, maybe, Switzerland. Have a look in Wikipaedia for all the wars between 1957 and 2017. 60 years. Too much fighting.

Billions and trillions of money spent on war. The US is the highest spender at 37% globally. Even Australia has spent more than $15 billion on “overseas missions” since 1999 (and the budget for 2016-17 is $27.2 billion just for Defence!).

As the population grew, so did rubbish. 60 years. On earth – and in space. Not so far away. MRA Consulting says: “Waste generation rates are a function of population growth, the level of urbanisation and per capita income and Australians now produce about 50 million tonnes of waste each year, averaging over 2 tonnes per person. There are more of us and we generate more waste per person, each year.” The Atlantic identified 2.4 trillion pounds of garbage globally in 2012. And rubbish kills.

EPH wrote that “An estimated 100 000 marine mammals and turtles are killed by plastic litter every year around the world.”  And they said that “responsibility also lies with those people who do not realise or care that stormwater drains are not rubbish receptacles and that materials discarded into them, whether plastic litter or dumped oil, flows to the sea.”

 

About the landfills, the Balance said that “Normally, plastic items can take up to 1000 years to decompose in landfills.”

ABC’s program War on Waste looked at degrees of rubbish: how “fashion” can be bought cheap, maybe worn once then thrown away, how glass supposedly recycled are not recycled, how plastic bags are used far too much in supermarkets. 

The Guardian in October 2014 wrote an article based on what WWF told them, titled “Earth

has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF”. Why? Because there are so many people (the population) living in this world that they need (sic) anywhere to live. The article said “The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.” So bloody scary!

Climate change has happened in the last 100 years. While measured against the initial report in 1880, ABC reported that most of the increase – the fastest increase – has been since the 1950s – when this world has “recovered” from WW2, increased the population, and increased the rubbish. Wikipaedia repeats this information similarly. Earth Observatory said “The models predict that as the world consumes ever more fossil fuel, greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise, and Earth’s average surface temperature will rise with them. Based on a range of plausible emission scenarios, average surface temperatures could rise between 2°C and 6°C by the end of the 21st century.” 

Sky News noted that “Between 1910 and 1941 there were 28 days when the national average temperature was in the top extremes recorded. In 2013 alone there were 28 such days.” The Conversation looked at where the global climate change came from: “The carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere insulates the surface of the Earth. It’s like a warming blanket that holds in heat. This energy increases the Earth’s surface average temperature, heats the oceans and melts polar ice. As consequences, sea level rises and weather changes.” 

And where does carbon dioxide come from? What’s Your Impact identified human sources from “activities like cement production, deforestation as well as the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.” Burning coal has been happening for thousands of years, but in the last 60 years that has increased as the population grew. Now the global population digs up and burns far too much coal.

International Energy Agency laid out how coal supply has grown so much lately, saying that “Since the start of the 21^st century, coal production has been the fastest-growing global energy source.” Bill McKibben for The Monthly wrote an article titled How Australia Coal is Causing Global Damage in 2013. He said: “A recent report from the Climate Institute shows that if Australia builds up its coal exports as currently planned, it would produce 30% of the carbon needed to push global warming beyond two degrees. By 2020 the country’s coal burnt abroad will be producing three times as much CO₂ as all the country’s cars and factories and homes; by 2025, four times.” That is a very good article – I recommend that everyone reads it. 

In Britain in the 19th century the Industrial Revolution was fuelled by coal. In New Zealand where I was born coal mines were in Huntly area, halfway between Auckland and Hamilton. Coal mine disasters happened at Ralph mine in 1914 and Glen Afton mine in 1939 – 54 men died. The last Huntly East coal mine was closed in 2015, although Huntly’s large thermal power station uses gas and coal. 

Globally, petroleum overtook coal in the 1960s, but in the 1970s the oil shocks gave coal a boost. Geoscience Australia says: “The major use of black coal is for generating electricity in power stations, where it is pulverised and burnt to heat steam-generating boilers. Coal used for this process is called steaming coal. In 2008 77% of the electricity generated in Australia was produced by coal fired power stations (includes black and brown coals).” Today, it is “is the fifth largest producer and largest exporter of black coal.” 

Australia’s population increased from 7.5 million in 1950s to more than 24.5 million now. In 2015 the Sydney Morning Herald printed an article which said: “Coal is the major source of the greenhouse gasses that the world's scientists, and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, believe is causing dangerous climate change.” Really? Did he? SMH then said: “You can't tackle climate change while you are increasing the amount of coal that is being burned. Read that sentence again if you need to, it's really quite important.” So who knows that? I definitely recommend everyone reads this article. 

Don’t tell me, or anyone who is seriously concerned that a climate change IS happening, that we don’t know what we are saying. 

WE DO. I hope you all will!

When do you give up on yourself?

When do you give up on yourself? When do you finally give up listening to people who tell you to “stay strong”? I tried looking up articles or blogs on Google but far too many people think differently than I do.

Like the woman with dyspraxia whose blog is called Keep Being Strong. She believes she is not different than anyone else, with dyspraxia as her ‘quirk’ which adds to her rather than being her. I still feel I am very different from many people I know – my aphasia is me.

Or The Shy Speaker’s Guide to Success blog – I understand his feelings about his sick mother, but his thoughts aren’t mine. Some of them were close – he said “I’ve been learning to cope throughout this tumultuous journey. Mainly with the support and encouragement of my friends, relatives and mentor who have rightly told me to ‘be strong’” - but not enough.

Or the woman who wrote a post titled The Unbearable Heaviness of Being A Strong Woman. She said, early in it, that “We think that to be strong women, we must pour out endlessly, we must spend of ourselves, sometimes until nothing is left. But many of us continue to do so, long past when our reserves have run dry, because we think we have something to prove. Because we don’t see that our strength is in our skin and not our armor, in our love and not our fear.” I agreed with her and then had to disagree with her for my own beliefs.

Or the The Life Me Blog, saying “Somehow I developed the misconception that being strong and smart meant that I always had to feel and act strong and smart. I had this idea that I couldn’t let people see my greatest weaknesses or else they might question my strength.” I agreed with that! Yet she finished her blog saying that “Listen, you grab life by the balls and start fighting back with all you’ve got!”, when I even doubt what I still have!

Or the woman who said in her post that The Greatest Weakness of Strong Women can come from something different. “This was an incredible lesson for me. We strong women often feel we need to tough it out on our own. We forget to give others the gift of letting them help us.” She wrote about feelings at work. At work I used to feel the same as she had, and I would have learned from what she said. Now I don’t.

Jo Kirker, with whom I had contacted through LinkedIn and who helped me when I had an expressive depression at my previous ‘home’, has a blogspot on her website. The post that really got me is called What makes a woman strong? Jo had asked ‘what characterises a strong woman’ and got many answers. This one I understood: “I guess strength is only ever noticed or tested at tough times. When we are in a comfortable situation, it is hidden or dormant. Or is it another way of saying we are managing stress, coping etc. Is it something we only recognise by an absence of other external signs of stress?” 

That’s pretty much how I feel.

I was called ‘strong’ for many years. At school. After school. After rape. At work. In the Army. Pre-marriage. After marriage. Solo parenting. Pre-second-marriage. Moving to Aus. As WHS advisor. After-second-marriage. Pre brain aneurysm surgery. Those years ground to a stop on 22^nd April 2014 when I had the brain aneurysm surgery and the stroke during that. I had aphasia – and I didn’t even remember what ‘strong’ meant.

The 22^nd of the month isn’t good any more. I got the result from QIRC on 22^nd April 2016. I didn’t win. I met a Logan Council person about a possible job on 22^nd September 2016. It didn’t happen. I hit the bottom of depression when my previous home illegally kicked me out and I attempted suicide on 22^nd November 2016. I left my BFF dog, Jordie, with my daughter – I thought she would look after her and make whatever last decision Jordie needed. I didn’t die. My ex was due to come over here on 22^nd August to pay me off and finally (4 years too late!) get my divorce through. He cancelled. His excuse, my loss. That wasn’t ‘strong’ from me.

It’s too long with all that happening to me. 22^nd. After recovery from my attempted suicide I took the idiom ‘bit between my teeth’ and I fought the property manager. I still am.

22^nd. Why is this date working against me? I am no longer a ‘strong’ woman. I can’t win anything since my brain aneurysm surgery, since my stroke with aphasia. Yes, I know I can get over my depression. Yes, I know I love and look after my BFF dog. Yes, I know I love and need music and joined the Streetbeat and choir teams from SOHK. The comment I had found in Jo’s post had said being a ‘strong woman’ could be “another way of saying we are managing stress, coping”. Yet I can’t even do that these days. I shut myself away from people because I feel that, if they don’t know about me, I’m okay. 

I found a quote which was not acknowledged to whoever had said it: that’s in the pic at the start of this post and acknowledged by me as “Anonymous”, and it seems to be where I am. “Strength is nothing more than how well you hide the pain.” Some days I can’t hide my pain, my depression, my anguish. My contempt of the 22^nd of the month (why is that doing anything against me??).

Probably tomorrow I’ll get over this latest feeling. Maybe I’ll start to think positively about where I will be in the near future. Maybe I’ll have caught up on sleep. Maybe my cold will have gone.

Maybe I’ll be ‘strong’ again. One day.

Talkin' 'bout my generation

My parents were born in the 1930s. They were known as the Silent Generation, which was named because “many focused on their careers rather than on activism, and people in it were largely encouraged to conform with social norms”, according to the description in Wikipaedia. Mum and Dad, in their youth, swam socially, danced ballroom (and won) and eventually got engaged and married.

My brother and sisters were all classed as Baby Boomers, when we were born sometime between the mid-1940s and the end of 1964. None of us, way back then, knew what a “baby boomer” meant. We had a wonderful family life, a wonderful neighbourhood, and we didn’t grasp the growth globally from 3 billion in the 1960s to the now 7 billion. More than double in just under 60 years.

My son and daughter were born as Millennials, otherwise known as Gen Y (mid 1980s to end of 1999). Sometimes I think my son, born earlier in 1980s, is actually Gen X (mid 1960s to early 1980s) but some writers disagree with those dates so I’ll accept him as Millennial.

So what are any of these demographic cohorts mean to any of us today? Are we meant to blame the Baby Boomers for what is happening in this world?

The articles from the USA blame baby boomers. Matthew Primeau for the Thought Catalog said “…over the past five years or so, I’ve noticed that it’s become fashionable for Baby Boomers to write insulting and self-righteous articles complaining about how ‘pampered,’ ‘entitled,’ and even ‘narcissistic’ they perceive Millennials to be.” Bruce Cannon Gibney for the Boston Globe said “Interpersonal failures and unbridled hostility appeared in unusually high levels of divorce and crime from the 1970s to early 1990s. These problems expressed themselves at generationally unique levels in boomers, to a greater extent than in boomers’ parents or children at comparable ages.” Linda Bernstein for Forbes wrote: “This new boomer blame game represents a change in attitudes toward people born after the end of World World II in 1946 up until 1964.”

UK thinks the same thing. Antonia Hoyle for the Daily Mail wrote what a person she interviewed had said: “I have graduate friends whose parents will let them be homeless rather than be a 'strain' on their own comfortable lives. They could release equity from their homes to provide for us, but all they care about is being better off.” Shiv Malik and Caelainn Barr wrote for the Guardian a report which would look at why “a combination of debt, joblessness, globalisation, demographics and rising house prices is depressing the incomes and prospects of millions of young people across the developed world, resulting in unprecedented inequality between generations.” And Linette Lopez for the Business Insider said “It was the Baby Boomer generation that voted overwhelmingly for Britain to leave the European Union in a bid for a return to isolationism, proving themselves all-too susceptible to the seduction of self-serving promises that leaders … could never keep.”

Aus, as we know, blames Baby Boomers. Rohan Smith, writing for News.com.au in June 2015 said “As younger Australians struggle with rising house prices and HECS debts, Chris Sidoti, who headed the commission under John Howard between 1995-2000, once famously labelled the generation born between 1946-1961 ‘the most selfish generation in history’.”

So hold up, all you global people who blame Baby Boomers! This is how I see it!

I looked through a BBC “primary history” (which I know the whole world wouldn’t accept, but I do). It’s a simple reading for information. World War 2 hit the world between 1939 and 1945, with soldiers fighting for the West from USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, India, the Soviet Union and China. They fought the Axis powers: Germany, Japan and Italy. This page says that “In 1937 Japan attacked China. In 1939 Germany invaded Poland. This is how World War 2 began.” The USA didn’t actually join in until 1941 when the Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbour. This is something that all of you should know. Read on.

The war in Europe was finished by May 1945. The Pacific war continued until later 1945 when the USA dropped A-bombs (atomic) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Japan surrendered: “Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of ‘a new and most cruel bomb.’ ”

The end of WW2 , after the globe lost more than 60 million people – around 3% of the total 1940’s population of 2.3 billion – caused the Baby Boomers to be born. Why? Well, have a look at today’s population: 7.5 billion globally. 7.5 billion. That is more than 3 times the population from the 1940s, 70 years ago – less the people killed during WW2. Who allowed that to happen? Try looking at GI Generation – the one before the Silent Generation. GI Generation was named because so many people born during that fought through WW2. Silent Generation people were described by Barbara E Freisner for the (USA) National Association of Baby Boomer Women (NABBW), who wrote: “The Silent generation grew up to be strong and self-sufficient yet they tended to stay out of the spotlight – preferring to work behind the scenes. For example, Silents didn’t become the star – they became the stage managers. They didn’t become the president – they became the president’s chief of staff. It was particularly difficult for the Silent generation women. They were expected to conform with social norms ….” They began to reproduce, after WW2, to readdress the population loss.

So who is the largest generation? According to a Pew Research Centre in USA, Millennials (in USA) are now larger than the Baby Boomer generation – 75.4 million has overtaken 74.9 million. According to Catalyst, Millennials will be one in third adults by 2020. Pew Research Centre listed what gadgets are used and liked by different generations:

• Cellphones are liked by most adults under the age of 65
• Desktop PCs are most favourable with Gen X – 69% of GenX, 65% of Baby Boomers and 57 % of Millennials own a PC
• Millennials are the most likely to own a laptop – 70% of them do
• 74% of Millennials own an MP3 player, usually an iPod

While 9% of all the adults don’t own any of the above devices, 43% of people over the age of 75 don’t

Where do Millennials get educated about any of those devices? In 2006 Lauren Pressley wrote a library instruction about teaching millennials. She said, in her introduction, that “research and antidotes supporting that, more than former generations, Millennials work while they are students, see themselves as consumers of education, want customization in all aspects of their lives, have a positive view of technology, are confident in their abilities, are visual learners, multitask, and get bored easily.” Concordia University (USA) had a conference two years ago which looked at technology and how the Millennials should be taught. Sara DeBrueil said that : “[a]dapting to change... allows teachers to design courses suited to today’s technologically savvy students.” Tim Conneally, for Forbes, said that “[t]he way in which educational video is delivered has changed significantly. Where there used to be VCRs rolled into classrooms, there is now a computer.”

And who chose what they do now?

It isn’t Baby Boomers. Most people born in Baby Boomers generation are retired. And guess what? Not many Baby Boomers are too rich. In a SMH article in 2011 Jo Chandler wrote “However reluctantly, the boomers are positioning to redefine old age, just as they have recast every other category of the demographic continuum on the push through. From the generation that invented teenage-hood, embraced the sexual revolution, fought the gender war, manufactured consumer culture, wrestled the work-life balance, fractured traditional family and rode the wave of prosperity until it crashed around their ears in the global financial crisis - now comes The New Old Age.”

What surprised me from the blame thrown at “Baby Boomers” was that virtually no blame is given to GenX or Gen Y and certainly not Millennials. So how are Baby Boomers coping?

We set the definition of our generation.
We were part of large families after WW2.
We built rock ‘n’ roll.
We were hippies.
We wore much shorter skirts or much looser summer wear.
We tested many drugs, including marijuana, LSD and heroin.
We drove cheap cars and – back then – most women knew how to change a tyre.
Feminism grew.

Yet now, after most of us working for 40-50 years, we are retiring but not all of us have our own retirement funds. Yes, many saved that, but who were they saving for? Their children? Or is it selfish to save for themselves? There are a lot of reasons why old people – Baby Boomers - are on Centrelink benefits. They are very rarely on unemployment, but many retired people have health issues, either generation-linked or from injuries. Many women live alone after their divorce – and they weren’t the only generation who did that! Some of those Baby Boomer people can’t afford to go on a holiday these days, yet their own kids can.

Australia is one of the worst globally for the price of housing, but who owns many rental properties? The Conversation article in September 2013 laid out some declining Baby Boomer ownership: “Housing equity through ownership has provided an important nest egg for older Australians, with baby boomers the main winners in the housing market. Not only did they buy when prices were far more affordable, but family homes barely affect eligibility for the aged pension. If some retirees might over-invest in their castle, others are using super to pay off their home loan… But although older Australians generally live in their own homes, home ownership among the over-55s has fallen too. This reflects changing household circumstances. Divorce is one of the flashpoints for falling out of home ownership, especially for women, and many are unable to climb back on the ladder. Older, lone person households are more likely to be in private rental than couples, and their financial future seems grim.”

Nicola Powell from Domain wrote that “Gen Y may have a tougher journey to purchasing but Baby Boomers have other weighty financial commitments. They often have responsibilities for grandchildren, frail parents (who are living longer), their Gen Y kids staying at home (to save a deposit) and a working life that is forever pushing longer. They are playing a more supportive role than their own parents did of them. Baby Boomers have adapted, life has changed – and continues to change.” Gen Y need to understand this.

Most Baby Boomers have never chucked them out of home, but as Australia falls backward on the GDP we take our kids back into our own home if they need help. Personally, I think how the country is dealing with their GDP is not “because of” Baby Boomers, it is because of the stock market. That was “invented” hundreds of years ago, and pretty much set up in Wall Street in USA. It wasn’t dominated by Baby Boomers, but a few generations before them.

Baby Boomers had precedence in the population because we increased the population after WW2. We followed with the Gen X and Gen Y. We had jobs, many without university education, and we had our own lives (see what I wrote earlier). We had houses available under $100,000. If we could, we would hold onto what we built or bought. We didn’t change the house price – have a look at so many articles which tell who bought. But many of us also suffer, not from Baby Boomers but from many other societal issues.

I feel very sorry for Millennials and Gen X or Y people who are unemployed, can’t buy their own home, can’t buy what we used to be able to, but hey, you now have so much more than our parents did, so much more than we ever bought, so much more that you demand. Please, Gen X or Y and Millennials, please stop blaming Baby Boomers. What is happening in this country is not us. Blame the political party, blame people who have arrived here from elsewhere, blame yourself.

But please don’t blame us!

Note: From the Wikipaedia: "My Generation" is a song by the English rock band The Who. The song, released as a single on 29 October 1965, has been said to have ‘encapsulated the angst of being a teenager,’ and has been characterized as a ‘nod to the mod counterculture’. People try to put us down… This might have been from our own parents: now it’s coming from our children.