'Behind every great man, is a great woman'. How many times have we heard those words? But how often are they really true.
In this age of sexual revolution, where people are free to express their sexuality and not forced into a relationship that is unnatural for them, why do we still use this or a similar comment. Are we saying that someone who is gay can't be great? Or the single guy, raised by 2 gay dads, can't be great.
Here is a major newsflash. Not all women are great! Woman can be bad mothers, lovers, wives and friends. They can be bitchy, evil, vindictive and downright nasty. Now not all woman are like this, some are great woman. We don't say 'behind every great woman is a great man'. We don't say this because of the glass ceiling that women have had to fight through in years past.
I believe its time that our thoughts should change to reflect today's culture. We should applaud everyone for what they achieve, whether its with someone supportive behind them or because they had a knocker behind them.
The other subject I am going to brooch is the magazines that come out weekly. These should be labelled as works of fiction. If you head to a doctors surgery and read back issues, you find that most of what they wrote didn't happen. Such and such is getting a divorce, pregnant, married etc.
They will say that someone is a great parent and years later it will come out they abused their children. Or that someone who seemed above reproach, swindled a charity.
The sad thing is, that some people believe what is written and that they then 'know' these celebrities. It can consume their lives and this then leads to stalking. They themselves then tend to live in a fantasy world.
People forget this and get in and read about the real people in our society. Those that might be doing great things that aren't noticed. Those that don't have a publicity machine behind them, feeding the world what they want projected.
Let me tell you about my heroes. Most are people whose names no one has ever heard of. They go through each day making a difference in someone else's life.
As a parent, you will go to any lengths to protect your children. We have seen this with the Morcombes and with Zoe's Law. Its great that they have taken on what they have, but would they have done this if not for losing their children? Or would they have just kept living their lives they way they were? No one can say for certain.
Now the people I am talking about have taken on responsibilities that a lot of others would crumble under. These people are foster carers and more specifically those that foster severely disabled children.
Now as a parent of a child with a disability, I know that you get exhausted, frustrated, emotional and at times question 'why me'. I can at times, crave for the 'normal life' that friends have. Being able to go out when we want, do what we want and sleep when we want. And unless you have experienced this or full time caring for someone that you can't leave, you will not fully understand.
To me, people that take on this task voluntarily are saints or maybe just slightly insane lol. They are taking on children whose own parents found this type of life too hard to cope with. And where we have a say in how we raise our child, they don't. They have to live by department policy.
I had a friend who had 5 children of her own. They also fostered children with disabilities, having up to 3 at a time. One girl they had from when she was a few months old. When this girl was around 13 they asked to adopt her. Her mother refused to give up her rights, even though she had not seen her daughter since she gave her up and had no wish to. When she was 15 they thought she would not see the year out.
Now this girl had been with this family for 15 years. They loved her as one of their own. But due to the system, they could have no say in how and what her funeral could be like.
You will never read about these people or the many others that are like them. They go unnoticed by society to a large degree.
While not everyone can do what the above do, you can start to live. You can put yourself out there by volunteering in one of the many organizations that are there to help people. Even if you work, you can help. If you have an rdo, do something then, or at night or weekends. It doesn't have to be every week, if might be once a month.
Some of the things I have done for example, have been - school canteen, helping at little athletics, helping to grant wishes for Starlight Children's Foundation and helping in the Starlight room at the Mater Hospital. I have through Starlight taken Easter eggs to the children's ward at Ipswich hospital, done telephone counselling for lifeline, done the door-knock for cancer council, stood on street corners collecting for charities. There has been more but those are the main ones. Some were because my kids were there eg the school and little A's, but the others were my way of giving back to society.
And my last pearl for today that I read recently - To live you must go out of your comfort zone, otherwise you are just existing.
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