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Well hello there strangers, it’s been about 18 months since I’ve written a Setting Up Generations blog post! For anyone new here I used to write regularly for a newspaper column and a radio station website. Not coincidentally, I had an ‘incident’ that started around 18 months ago and spent a lot of last year doing EMDR therapy at Master’s Psychology with like PTSD. Super, highly recommend their services by the way. I stopped writing my blog and felt quite a bit out character but I’m okay now and starting to feel like myself again for the first time since that incident and it feels really, really, really good.

Mother’s Day 2020 I was booked to play at Joondalup Resort but thanks to Covid I had the day off and went hiking with my kiddies :)

Anyway, the blog theme Setting Up Generations, is about my dream to raise the next generation with a childhood they don’t spend their entire life recovering from. It’s not about controlling my child to act a certain way on the outside so it reflects positively on me. It’s not about perfection or judgement, it’s more about being mindful that my parenting decisions I make today will impact future generations.

Attempting to take a ‘nice’ family photo…

I regularly get these childhood flashbacks as I’m parenting. For example, if my child forgets their lunch for school, I will have a vivid flashback of my experience of forgetting my lunch as a child, and how the people around me reacted or responded. Then I ask myself what flashback I would want to be in my child’s memory if they are a parent one day, if their child (my grandchild omg!) forgets their lunch. And I act on it.

My daughter Ash singing with me at my #BFFme album launch where we raised $5K for Minderoo Foundation’s Walk Free Initiative! Click on the pic to listen and download :)

And their child will then remember what my child did and so on. This is what Setting Up Generations is about, being mindful of that generational impact we have. Still with me? Ha! Almost like a family heirloom recipe book, that you pass on but it’s recipes of the best ways to live and the book is their memories and they can substitute parts they didn’t like so much and add new, good things in to pass on to the next generation after them. There’s not really too much else in life that has such a generational impact so it’s kind of a big deal to me. My aim is for most of their memories to be positive ones, because no one is perfect after all.

Rehearsing with Jussy Roberts who is launching her album at The Ellington on 27 Oct 2020 and I will also be playing that night with my band! Click on the pic for more info and to buy tickets.

Anyway, back to lunch, I’d want them to remember a parent who was gracious in that situation because we’re all human and forget things. My kids rarely forget lunch but I remember once when one of them did forget and got lunch on credit from the canteen. We don’t do lunch orders except for special occasions. Anyway my child felt like they should pay me back with their own money. I said they could pay me back by showing the same grace to their child one day if their child forgets their lunch. Of course they proclaimed they were never having children ha!

Habits by Tove Lo cover with the family band. Click on the pic to see Elijah’s epic dance moves!

But also the art of balancing grace with responsibility so they are set up to succeed but don’t end up feeling entitled. So my kids make dough every weekend for school lunches. One makes gluten free bread dough, one makes gluten free pizza dough, once makes wheat bread dough and the other makes wheat pizza dough. I’ve got four bread makers! I don’t feel it’s my job to do things for them, rather show them how to do things for themselves, so by the time they are 10 they are completely in charge of their own washing, for example. By the time they’re 18 I hope I’ve done enough to equip them for adult-ing!

Kiddies made me this guitar cake for my birthday!

On a different ‘note’ (see what I did there?) I’m also making new music! My family visited Teen Challenge drug rehab five years ago as my husband used to work there. I wrote a song called Rehab (Stay) while I was there for the parents who were away from their kids while they were recovering. One of the people in the audience loved the song and contacted me recently, five years later, and commissioned me to record it in a studio! I sort of forgot about the song over the years, and I guess it just reminded me not to underestimate how much of an impact your art can have on another’s life and you may never know it.

My daughter Jewel selling lip balm while I played at a bushfire appeal fundraiser. She raised $700 for Red Cross and WIRES charities!

I recorded it last week with James Newhouse, from Real2Reel Studio in Bunbury who came highly recommended from my muso friends. Had a great experience and John Butler even dropped in to the studio while I was there to pick up a guitar, which was used in my track. I also recorded a song called Well Groomed and it’s actually a predator rap ha! Never done anything like it before and I wasn’t sure if I was going to record it. It just flowed out on to a piece of paper last year and I performed it at some local original music gigs. People came up to me afterward and said that my predator rap really moved them and some said they got goosebumps. Someone even booked me for a wedding after I performed it haha! I don’t quite understand that, but anyways, I took is all as a sign that I should record it. Watch this space.

Recording at Reel2Real studio with James Newhouse! Highly recommended, I wouldn’t go anywhere else :)

As many know it’s a tough juggling gig to parent mindfully, have a career and manage the curveballs life throws your way. Overwhelming at times. So I guess this blog is just about my journey with that and I hope it can inspire others. No one’s perfect, we’re all just doing our best at this mess called life. Just want to say I’m so grateful for my husband Dan and his unwavering commitment to myself and our family. Also so grateful for friends and colleagues that have supported me through my mess.  No one is perfect, no parent is perfect, no child is perfect, no couple is perfect, no family is perfect. We’re all just human. Nice to be back! Til next time :)