When I was six I did my first Six Years and Under Baby Dance Solo. No, this is not Toddler’s and Tiaras...not far off though! My dance was called, “Putting Dolly to Bed.” In my beautiful broderie anglaise bloomers and nightdress, long black hair brushed perfectly and bright red lips, I got up on stage ready to perform. My parents had paid for weeks of private lessons to learn my solo. I took my first elegant, well rehearsed steps out on the stage, did my first couple of spring points (ballet geeks, you know what I’m talking about).......promptly forgot the next minute and a half, froze and ran off the stage crying.

And we have it on video.

I have never watched it. 26 years on and I still cannot watch it. I walked in on my sister watching it once and I nearly started crying on the spot.

Which is why, when I watched Romy on The Voice Kids this week, I have ended up with mixed feelings. For those non reality TV addicts in the audience who have no idea what I am talking about, Romy is 12, sang her little heart out (Adele of all artists…..aim high!) but none of the judges turned their chair. And the poor little poppet, who strongly sang right up until the last note, dissolved into tears as soon as she finished.

Many have had their opinions aired in print and online articles, on A Current Affair….even Karl put in his two bobs worth on the Today Show. And I have to say I have ebbed and flowed through many different feelings about the whole situation.

My first reaction was heartbreak. As a parent you can’t help but watch that show and beg the judges to turn around, purely because you can see the bare vulnerability that is oozing out of both the contestant and the anxious parents back in the green room. With tears in our eyes, both Miss 11 and I have been known to look at each other exclaiming, “Oh, the poor thing!”

Then, as the comments started flying on social media, blogs, TV shows etc, the tough love started to manifest. One of my biggest concerns with kids these days (Oh my, did I just say ‘kids these days’), is their lack of resilience. And I thought, it’s a competition. She went into it knowing that she might not get through. Her parents knew she might not get through. She’ll get over it. She’ll learn from it. It will make her a stronger person.

And there she was, not two nights later, on A Current Affair. Bubbly, smiley, carefree…all the things a 12 year old should be. ‘Wow’, I thought, ‘What a little trooper!’

But then, something Karl Stefanovic (Don’t judge me) said struck a chord.

He spoke about how this played out in front of millions of people and how at twelve years old, Romy could not have any concept of the enormity of her situation. And now, I tend to agree. I’m a bit of a fence sitter really. I’m the Switzerland of reality tv.

On the one hand, I do believe that this was a lesson in resilience, the very thing that I try to teach my kids and the kids in my classroom everyday. It was a lesson in how to cope with disappointment and on how to pick themselves back up. It was a real life lesson for that twelve year old and all the other twelve year old watching her, that rejection is real. That the journey to success is littered with hurdles, problems and often, rejection. Do we hide that from our kids or do we teach them how to overcome it?

However, the teacher (and six year old ballerina) in me, is still not completely convinced. And I struggle with that,  because lack of resilience is a big one for me.

I think back to the difficulty I have in watching the video (REAL video…you know VHS!) of my six year old self, forgetting my dance and running off the stage. And that was in front of maybe 100 people. I have the ONLY copy of that video. Within minutes, Romy’s 3 minute blind audition was on Youtube, being replayed on numerous breakfast TV shows, A Current Affair and will NEVER be completely forgotten. Kids can be cruel. Especially tween/teen girls. The poor girl may be coping beautifully with the fact that she didn’t get through to The Voice. She may have bounced back and be completely over it. But this is not a 26 year old VHS, that only she has a copy of. This is all over the net, ready to be replayed at the click of a button….by anyone. I think that is the enormity that Karl is talking about and I tend to agree with that side too.

I told you….Switzerland!

Is The Voice Kids a chance for young children to work hard at the chance of being that one child selected? Because only one will win. All but one will experience this high, exposed level of rejection and disappointment. Is it a good thing that they will learn these lessons?

Yes. But my niggling doubt is……

Is it a good thing that they will learn these lessons in front of millions and millions of people and over and over again?

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As one of the few people in Australia who have never ever played a sport in their life (it’s true, just ask my sister in law who is currently under the delusion that I am going to join her mixed touch football team…..HA!), I had no idea that Wimbledon was even on, let alone that an Aussie was playing the other night. And not just that...playing the world #1! I don’t feel overly guilty, as my husband hadn’t even mentioned it, which I assume means that the majority of the Australian population didn’t think it was worth watching as it was most than likely a foregone conclusion. I had never even heard of Nick Kyrgios, which I know, means little when you are as sports illiterate as I am. But I get the impression that most Aussies had written this poor (and might I add, extremely good looking ;) young lad off as Wimbledon road kill, and it made me ponder the whole concept of “judging a book by it’s cover,”or in this case it’s world tennis ranking.


As a young mum (We were 21 year old uni students when we had our gorgeous but complete surprise package little girl), I have experienced first hand this cliche in full swing. So sit back, with your cup of tea (or wine…...it is only 1pm, but whatever floats your boat), and I will tell you the highly entertaining and disgustingly judgemental story!


As I said, hubby (then boyfriend) and I were 21 and at university when our life took an unexpected, yet as it turns out completely meant to be, left turn and we went from party hard, campus dwelling uni kids to two grown ups with a bub. Anyway, that is a whole blog article in itself and as its a huge part of what has made me the woman I am, I’m sure it will come up again regularly in my posts. What I am leading to is that when Miss11 was about 6 months old I was going through the checkout at Big W, when the middle aged checkout chick leans over to me and says, (and I kid you not) “You should take your sister back to your mum or people might think that you are one of those young mums.” I wish, with everything inside me, that I had been confident enough, witty enough and self assured enough to come back with some highly intelligent, yet equally insulting come back. But I wasn’t and I smiled politely as if I completely agreed with what she had said and went on my way. The anger that seethed inside me was beyond words, although hubby would argue that I found very strong words when relaying the incident to him! In this woman’s mind I had been too well dressed (in my polo shirt…...I did mention I was a Canberra uni student, didn’t I?) to actually be a young mum. I know she wasn’t thinking badly of me but the fact that she believed so strongly in this negative stereotype made me so angry.  I hated the fact that, according to her I couldn’t possibly be a young mum because I didn’t fit her narrow minded, boxed in view of what a young mum was.

Looking back now, I am more understanding. We all do it. We constantly judge people by what they look like. We make ill informed assumptions about people we don’t even know. And in Nick Kyrgios’ case, write him off because we have already judged him. Its never going to happen. None of us are ever going to be able to completely eradicate that human nature to categorise and judge people, both negatively and positively. But perhaps if we are all that bit more aware...well who knows! So good on you Hot Nick for teaching us all that not only should we not judge books by their covers, but also that horribly permed, over made up middle aged check-out chicks should keep their uneducated, ill informed opinions to themselves.

This is my son, about to head out. That’s right, leaving the house dressed head to toe as Spiderman.

I will admit that first time around with Miss 11, we never had this predicament. She was a very level headed little thing, who spent her toddler days with her nose in a book and writing us pretend letters. She was the 3 year old version of an academic. She would play pretend, but it would be pretending real things. She would serve me a “cup of tea” in her cafe, or “teach” me in her school. She blew us away with her ability to converse with adults and we were often told what an ‘old soul’ she was.

Well, Mr 5 is a completely different kettle of fish! He creates worlds, loves anything to do with magic or wizards and spends most of his spare time talking to himself, making up stories or pretending he is someone or something else! When we are at the shops, you will often find him in the middle of the rack of clothes pretending it is his secret cave, although he has also been found pretending to be one of the mannequins in the window of Portmans as well! Once I had calmed down from the two minutes of frantic panic when I couldn’t find him and saw the group of Asian tourists laughing at him through the window, I too could see the funny side. This child has been known to sleep with a soup ladle in hand because “you never know what you will want to eat when you get hungry in your dreams!”


Don’t you wish you were still a kid? The lack of inhibitions, the unlimited creativity. I sit in awe a lot of the time and just think, “What is going on in that little head?!”


When I was little, I always wanted to be an adult. I couldn’t wait to be able to do all the things adults did and have complete control over my life. Ha! Who was I kidding?! If I could do one thing now, it would be to reclaim some of that childhood essence. To not constantly be thinking about whether or not something is a good decision and to just do it! To not be worrying about how everything looks to the outside world. I have gotten better at this as I’ve gotten older. I think my 30’s is going to be the decade of finding that true comfort in who I am, but I would love to be able to really go back to that spontaneity, of feeling like doing something and so then just doing it, and not thinking about what people will think. Sure, I’m not going to go posing as a Portman’s mannequin, but would love to be so comfortable in who I am that if I wanted to, I would!