Magnum Ireland at IMMA

I WROTE a piece on the Dublin Blog about our afternoon's visit to the Magnum Ireland exhibition at IMMA, you can check it out here.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Chernobyl magnum Magnum Ireland IMMA

The bedroom has been done and so have I

I wrote this column about three weeks ago and it was published on April 13 and followed this Tears and Tantrums post where I misguidedly thought the room was tidied, alas it was an optical illusion as you can read here.

The bedrooms been done and so have I

I wrote recently about the Young Wan and her silent defiance in not tidying her room. I have lost count of the days waste not doing it, well I haven’t really it was 17 days before she copped on and finally did it.

Or so I thought.

It all began nearly three weeks ago when she asked could her friend come to stay the night as she was already drafted into cleaning up her bedroom I decided right okay you want someone over well that room needs to be done.

The Young Wan performed the worst-ever cosmetic job on the room, you know the kind where things and mounds are shoved into every crevice she can find in the room. And it is amazing how much rubbish fits into the tiniest of places.

So by the time the pal left the room was worse than before.

And since then we have been in a tidying/not-tidying stalemate.

Each day she has been told to get in there and just do it. But she has dawdled, daydreamed, talked, just watched the end of Coronation Street and fluffed her way into doing anything other than the room.

Unless I was standing over her nothing at all was done.

This all came to a head last weekend when I went mad. I had a busy time at work and I practically pleaded for her support and would she just do the room and make me happy.

She didn’t, that’s when I went bananas.

After that in fairness to her she finally, after 17 days, got stuck in, well so I thought as I said earlier.

While it was far from clean – she had picked up lots, cleared lots away and for the first time in months daylight was streaming into the room.

I should also say that I found the missing dinner plate mentioned in this column a couple of weeks ago, not under the bed, not near the bed or by the bed but actually on the bed.

I looked at her and got the blank look back.

Now in fairness while she has a big high-rise bed, and it is bigger than mine, still and all how can you not know at all that there is a dinner plate on it?

At a quick glance I knew there would need to be a final cleansing finishing touch from me to her room, but I can well handle that. I didn’t and don’t expect the Young Wan to tidy to showroom standards but some level of tidiness would be fantastic.

Once I don’t have to mountain-trek across piles of clothes to move around the room, a few patches of mess were nothing and nothing that can’t be sorted out in five minutes anyway.

Oh she had hugs and kisses and jokes and thank yous and she lapped them all up. I promised her a new MP3 player if she pulled her weight up to next payday; the mummy-world was her oyster.

Then I went in this morning and found two bin bags of stuff that should have been put away. I found a so-called rubbish bag with things that shouldn’t be thrown out. My heart sank to be honest.

So it will be a busy night in our house tonight.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 13

Young Wan doesn't want Bebo page

I JUST gave the Young Wan the news that I had relented and would allow her to set up a Bebo page and can you believe it, she doesn't want one...

Was this down to my talk/s on it, reading my column, or some mad maturity spurt?

While I would like to think it was any of the above I think it has more to do with the fact that she has since discovered that half of her teachers are on Bebo.

She is happy enough to use the false 14-year-old pretend profile that I established just to check out her pals, and I'll let her while I am watching.

Young people are mad.

Oh and full marks to the Young Wan for scoring full marks in a French test, the only one to do so in her class. From having an awful start to the week with the Young Wan acting all bold, I am sitting here on a sunny Friday afternoon before a bank Holiday weekend delighted.

Tecnhorati tags:redmum Irishblogs Bebo

Uh-oh Bebo - Red Mum's U-turn

I GOT up this morning to find the Young Wan completely immersed in Bebo instead of getting ready for school. The day I feared has arrived - she has worked out that she is able to use my laptop.

We talked about Bebo again last night and I did try once again to stress the dangers of what people were doing by actually showing it on Bebo. While I may think I was informing her in a practical way, I think she may have just been acting interested but was actually more interested in checking out people's pages.

I will be changing my laptop password to ensure unsupervised internet access doesn't happen again, apart from anything I have no net nanny installed.

But I am also thinking of allowing her to set up her own Bebo page under my supervision. I figure if she has worked out the laptop, it won't be long before she susses that internet cafes work just as well, and better when Mummy doesn't know about it.

So that means I can keep an eye on it, keeping her safe while allowing her to do what the vast majority of her classmates are doing. I can help and advise her on a suitable name, ie not sexygirl, maybe the Young Wan, but I don't she will go for that.

I'm not comfortable about this U-turn at all but at least this way she knows I am watching so will (hopefully) behave herself and I know she is safe and not sneaking behind my back with a Bebo profile I do not know about.

Sometimes you need to choose your battles. And I have a feeling that unless I grab this by the horns, it is probably inevitable that she will do it herself and I won't know about it. Oh I hope I don't regret this decision...

Tecnhorati tags:redmum Irishblogs Bebo

Another Bebo post; more (probably) to follow

I WAS going to start this post saying ‘one last post about Bebo’ but I realise I would telling porky pies because last week’s Red Mum Echo column concerned how parents can offer some internet nanny protection which emanated from my last Bebo post and is still to be posted yet so in those terms alone - it ain't over. Besides Bebo will run and run.

I got some great responses from the post which I felt I should draw attention to, firstly there is Irish Eyes’ all-round response listing pros and cons and concluding, I think, that if students are becoming addicted spending their time on the site instead of studying there is a problem.

I also liked his analogy of the toilet or potty-talk that is prevalent in the site amongst the Young Uns. I have found the way young people communicate with each other makes me very uncomfortable and maybe that’s a generation thing or maybe I just think looking through Bebo profiles and seeing 14-year-old girls describe themselves in terms that wouldn’t be out of synch with Lolita, and it frightens me.

A pal of the Young Wan is one of the many young girls who have called themselves sexy girl, it is just not appropriate. I can understand why they do it but it is dangerous.

We can see pictures of this young girl, we know where she likes to hang out, what she likes, the works.

Another point which was raised by Irisheyes concerns the fact that once it is on the internet it is on the internet and can be found – the google presence in this case can be damning to these kids for years to come.

If companies do searches on potential employees now, that could become the norm, so surely it could become the norm for colleges to do such internet researches on prospective students.

Since I wrote the last piece on Bebo here and the additional Echo column which I haven't put up here yet and signing up to Bebo as a 14-year-old I came across comments from other Beboers about the Young Wan who was actually mentioned by name.

The comments were made by a girl and they were not nice, so I made a phone call to the concerned parties and told them to remove the comments by that afternoon; thankfully they were removed.

(I make that sound calm and rational, but in fairness when I saw the comments I could have strung people up!)

Interestingly I also learned today of a school that has suspended pupils this week for things they said on Bebo. If bloggers have to be wary of libel then so do Beboers whether they are 14 or 40.

But I started this post to highlight some great points made by others to my original post, do check out Adam who did great investigative journalistic pieces that would put those who have commented on Bebo in the Irish media to shame, really, check them out.

He comments on my piece saying:

A while back I noticed the dangers of Bebo, specifically the way that contact details used to be displayed to friends. In theory that was fine but people were very lax in who they added as friends which is where I came in under the guise of an attractive woman. Over a period of a week I discovered that over 40% of the people who accepted my request for friendship had their contact details displayed!

I actually read this before the cult of Bebo hit our household and meant to comment because I was so impressed with how he viewed it all and how methodically he put substance to his gut feelings.

And I am also impressed with Padraic a 17-year-old who wrote a comment on the positives of Bebo and even shouted out support for the Young Wan. In fairness to him he argues sensibly about the positives of the site and I have to stress again I completely understand it’s appeals – I really do.

Padriac seems to be, dare I say, sensible, (sorry Padriac what young person wants to be called sensible?) and if I was his parent I would be reassured about his Bebo activity, he seems to have it sussed. Fair play.

He says:

"Not being a parent and only being seventeen would probably not put me in the best position to judge you, my own parents or anyone else's for the sheer concern they have for their children's welfare. but I still can't help feeling you've crossed the thin line between concern and paranoia.

Another response came from Paul and he says:

I’ve been a user of the internet almost since it began and I’ve learned a lot. But I’ve always stayed clear of the chat rooms and such.

My blog is my first foray into the idea of putting myself out there and I’m learning that even at the age of 32 and being fairly streetwise, when it comes to the internet I’m still occasionally naïve and make some mistakes. But better me now than my kids in the future.”

And of course Rick O’Shea linked to my original post and him being a Beboer I’m delighted to have his contribution, and as he says himself it is different, he has his safeguards up. Having a public persona, Bebo is a great tool for him but as a Daddy he recognises the implications.

“as a parent myself, looking at some of the 900 or so kids who've linked up with my page it terrifies me the amount of information available. Mates, places they'll be meeting up, photos, even phone numbers in some cases.....”

And there are other responses too from Paul and In My Head, Emma C, and Omaniblog so go check them all out and always remember when on the internet ‘be careful out there!’, seriously do be careful.

Tecnhorati tags:redmum Irishblogs Bebo

Chernobyl Legacy Magnum photoessay

CHECK out Magnum photographer Paul Fusco's photo essay entitled Chernobyl Legacy. Really powerful stuff.

Which also reminds me that I HAVE to go see the Magnum exhibition at IMMA before it goes.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Chernobyl magnum Paul Fusco

More photographs from Spiddeal

I SAID in the last post that I would post more photographs from our visit to Spiddeal last week.

Considering I took approximately 1200 photographs with 100 already on Flickr (most of my pal’s beautiful babies so they are marked for family and friends only) and another 600 to go through tomorrow evening after work, I hope to have about 200ish which is good going. That’s one in six pictures I feel are worth keeping – whether anyone else does is another matter.

And that brings me to one of the most wonderful things about digital photography. You can snap away and there is no thinking about cost in the way you do about film. Though in fairness the amount of time to actually go through that amount of pics can be laborious but sure if beauty is pain, then art is a pain in the arse, and I love it.

I took this photograph on Friday night and the shot below is one I took of the same position in June last year. I would love sunsets like this more often.





My pal baking a birthday cake for her first-born.



On one of the beaches in Spiddeal.







Everyone is happy that Eyre Square is finally finished.





My pal bought this ball because she thought it was a great accurate globe, well until the doggie got it that is – evidence the world is flat.





And some gratuitous bird shots.









I wish I was still on holiday.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs spiddeal Ireland Flickr

Tóg go bog é - An Spiddeal

I TOOK time off work this week and the Young Wan, the doggie and I headed off to spend some time with an old and dear friend (well not old, she’s been a friend since we were at school) who now lives in Spiddeal, Galway.

I love Spiddeal and I love Connemara and I love spending time with my pal, her hubbie and their two gorgeous babies course it also gives the Young Wan a chance speak As Gaelige to people who live speaking it and me to show myself up.

Over the couple of days there was a birthday party, walks on the beach, wonderful dinners, mighty craic and hours of fun with the babies.

Friday had to be the warmest day of the year so far because it was fantastically scorchingly sunny and we were at the beach, bliss. We saw kids swimming (kids are mad and made of stern stuff, asbestos I think) and a bride and groom getting their wedding pics taken.

I also spent a large amount of time over the last number of days persuading, unsuccessfully I think, to turn my friend onto blogging either perusing or actually blogging. They are not currently on-line but plan to in the short term which I think will be great for them.

But I am completely knackered and happy to be home now with a day to chill before going back to work.

Jaysus two wee boys, ages two and one respectively, are hard work – great fun and outrageously adorable but hard work.

The Young Wan and I not to mention the doggie are all cream-crackered.

The dog got little sleep and was driven demented by the household cat, the kid’s footballs which were out of bounds cos the dog manages to burst them all, the neighbours’ dog, the country air, the noises, the smells, the lot.

She loved it but she was first at the door when we got back to Dublin with her two cute paws up at the door and her tail and bum wagging.

I’ve just included a couple of the absolute hundreds of pictures I took, God I love digital cameras, I will include more over the next week when I get a chance to go through them.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs spiddeal Ireland Flickr

Post your secret to Twenty

IF you haven't come across it already, check out Twenty's Postsecret post, very good indeed. There's lots of great secrets including this one.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Dublin Ireland Twenty Major Postsecret

Funny internet moments

I'VE had a couple of funny internet moments in the last 24 hours, one was a deja-vu moment courtesy of a conversation I had with the Young Wan five minutes before seeing this post by Bernie.

I had just been moaning that despite being up and about for two hours the Young Wan had ignored the pile of clean dishes waiting to be put away and added new dirty ones to the sink. My point was that at 14 I shouldn’t have to tell her to do these, she should see them and do them because they need done.

Then I read on Bernie’s post about what Young Wans should be able to do by particular ages and I laughed heartily. Even the Young Wan said ‘cook a meal, I couldn’t cook a meal if you paid me!’when she read it. And if I needed this hammered home anymore than that I just witnessed it when I had to talk her through toasting a bagel for lunch.

Anyway Bernie reports on Clare Paterson, who states:

By age 7, they should be able to make their sandwiches, set the table and wash up. By 10, change the bed and operate the dishwasher. By 13, cook a meal, change a fuse and bleed a radiator. By 14, use the washing machine, sew on a button, clean out the drain in a sink, change a lightbulb.

For me, I know the Young Wan is well capable, though to see our flat you would never realise that, particularly her room, my room, the whole bloody place.

This has more to do with absolute laziness though than competency. She will step over stuff in her doorway and it has become a leisure pursuit for me to watch and count to see how long these items remain. And I can tell you they never bother her at all, just me.

We just do too much for them. Even at times I think I expect too much, and then I realise that is a Mummy-guilt thing more than anything else. I had jobs to do growing up and so does she.

So when the dishes have been washed and are harbouring more germs and filth than before, I will go mad. I’ve said it before but when she first started washing dishes they were done to perfection, now the only thing done is me.

(Thanks Bernie I know what I'll be writing about this week for the column:).)

The other internet moment was last night when someone emailed me while I was on line asking if I had a pic. Maybe the wine dulled my senses but I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about thinking they had emailed from my flickr account.

No, that wasn’t it at all.

Turns out after some exchanges he stumbled across my blog and decided to chance his arm and email me. So I checked and saw that he had actually stumbled across my blog by searching for ‘Mums in bed’. For his efforts he found a pic of my doggie and daughter’s feet poking out the bottom of my bed.

So I emailed back laughing. He was more than gobsmacked that I had found this out. Needless to say I doubt any of this is what he expected.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Dublin Ireland teenagers Irish Typepad

Not an Easter egg to be had by 5.30pm

NOT an Easter egg to be had in Dublin. I'm such an awful Mummy.

I didn't get any during the week because of a 'bedroom' incident, well it is not an incident - more a saga, it hasn't been done since the 17 days post, so in a week of ArrrghhHHHHHHH the last thing I have been inclined to do was get eggs and now I have been left with the proverbial all over my face.

More on the room in a day or two, it is finally done and I am preparing to go in bleach in hand on Monday after a suitable respite to finish it off completely.

Back though to the eggs saga my local Tesco ran out much earlier today, about lunchtime apparently, some one came in and bought 200, can you believe that?

I feel for the Young Wan, she is at that age where people do not think of her as the child she still it, whilst being the young woman too, but she is 14 now and allegedly not into eggs anymore. So because I didn't manage to get her one, she probably won't get one now.

And I remember when I no longer got one of my grandparents' Quality Street eggs which were as much an annual event as selection boxes at Christmas.

So the bottom line is that I have no eggs, but I have a kinder surprise, my kinder will not be surprised. But I also have chocolate brownie cheese cake and a large fruit and nut bar. And I plan to paint eggs in the morning, I am hoping to paint a goth one just to wind up the Young Wan.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs easter easter eggs

The Irish Blogger interview

THOUGHTS about who is his favourite Travelling Wilbury keeps him awake at night, he’s a fellow Nordie and he is my choice for Damien’s Blogging Interviews.

Desolation Row is a blog that I have stumbled across every now and again and when I find myself back on the pages I keep meaning to bookmark him or add him to my Bloglines selection.

He is in Belfast and blogs on a wide range of culture, politics and other things besides, which explains the Travelling Wilburys post, it could only be George!!!!

Literary and musical references litter his posts and he has recently become a Flickrer too so check out the interview and check out Desolation Row if you haven’t already.

1. How would you describe your blog Desolation Row?

An iron fist gloved in a child’s mitten.

2. You've been blogging since September, why and how did you start?

I got tired of talking to the same old people about politics and art. As much as I love these people, I knew their viewpoint and I knew how they were going to retort. I wanted my rants to reach a larger audience. I also got tired of shouting at the monitor. I’ve been reading blogs for over a year now, very rarely contributed to them though. I just decided to start my own, not because I think my opinion is worth something, but because I simply got tired of criticising everyone else without giving them the opportunity to criticise me.

3. You seem to blog mainly about politics, the arts and music, are these your main passions?

Definitely. Politics is my main love; everything in life is affected in one way or other by politics. The arts as well, a world without the arts is a world not living in. That’s what scares me about the Celtic Tiger and the rise of professionalism in computers and other non creative industries in the north, creativity and the arts will fall the side in favour of profit. A friend of mine challenged me to think of the last great Irish artist (literary or otherwise) to emerge after the birth of the Celtic Tiger.. I can’t think of one. The only authors to emerge from Ireland nowdays are the profitable ones, the Cecilia aherns and Maeve Binchys, books that can be turned into films with self obsessed Americans playing the main role. Roles they won’t even give to local born talent.

4. What are your top Irishblogs and non-Irishblogs?

Slugger O’Toole, Disillusioned Lefty, Politics.ie, A Tangled Web (just for the comic value of it all), Irish Election.Com.

5. Is there a blog that you stop by everyday or often?

I would stop by Slugger O’Toole about four or five times a day. Although I would very rarely click on the comment section as this is sometimes nothing more than an incoherent and unintelligent shouting match between people who are unprepared to compromise and do what Atticus Finch said: “Climb into other people’s skin and walk around in it.”. Slugger is a fantastic source of information from bucket loads of newspapers from around the globe and other sites. So I use Slugger primarily as a first stop before going onto something else and just to find out what’s going on in the world. The core team of contributors are excellent as well, just a shame on some of the readership.

6. How many blogs do you estimate that you would stop by when you get the chance?

Between 5 and 10 on a daily to weekly basis.

7. How much time do you spend blogging

Not enough. I aim to do between 5 – 10 posts a week although it’s quite hard. There is plenty to write about, I am an opinionated bugger, but I have to be selective in what I comment on. But at least 3 hours a week I think is sufficient. I once missed a deadline because I was blogging and not working.

8. You recently joined Flickr, have you become hooked yet?

I have, although I have to get into the habit of carrying a camera with me at all times. I have a thing for graffiti not the picture kind but words. I saw some bizarre stuff last night and didn’t have my camera, so I’ll have to go back before it’s washed off.

9. Do you plan to do more with Flickr and your blog?

I will as soon as I figure out how to put a slide show on. I don’t likeblogs to be crowded with advertisements and photographs. I go to a blog primarily to read not to be bombarded with advertisements and pictures of the pet. But once I figure out how to add the odd photo from Flickr onto myblog I will, but not all the time. I like the minimalist approach to blogging layout.

10. You wrote at one point about disciplinary action in work, would you be worried about blogging and its potential impact on work?

Not really. Only 4 people I know are aware that I blog and none of them work with me. I haven’t named my place of work, nor have I named any of the customers. I remember that guy in Edinburgh who blogged about his boss and got sacked. I respect the unwritten rule of barman/bar customer confidentiality clause.

11. There was a recent debate in the Irish Bogosphere about hard and soft 'fluffy' blogging, where do you see Desolation Row on the hard to soft blogging spectrum.

Again, an iron fist in a child’s mitten.. Or a big robot in a mink fur coat. I don’t like the idea of hard blogging and fluffy blogging. Excuse the imagery and the language, but I have an erection for the written word and sometimes I want to escape all the political discourse and social commentary in favour of reading about a wife threatening to smother her husband in his sleep because he can’t wipe his arse properly and made a skid mark on her freshly cleaned sheets.

Or even reading about some guy who is jubilant because Spring is here because he suffers from Seasonal Affection Disorder. That is fluffy blogging to some people, but it’s just lovely and refreshing to hear and read things like that. Blogging is about feelings and emotions, some people like me get angry because of a political party’s policy document, I would rather get angry because my child (if I had any) didn’t do their best in a school exam.

I get the same pleasure reading about someone’s life as I do reading an analysis of recently passed legislature.

12. Have you regretted any post?

I have.. Unfortunately, I have. I received hate mail from the friends of someone I blogged about. I don’t regret the post but I regret the way I phrased it. Sometimes I suffer from foot in mouth disease and think I should have phrased it in a less harsh way. Other times, I think well f*** you, I don’t care what you think and say it anyway. But I normally blog either exhausted or with a bottle of merlot, so I sometimes come across as an inarticulate simpleton with terrible spelling punctuation and grammar.

13. Has there been a post that got away?

Yeah, people have made the same post with the same view point as I was going to make then it looks like I am a plagiarist. It’s a bugger but you can’t sit at your computer 24 hours a day.

14. Is there anything that you will not blog about?

Probably child abuse. It challenges everything I believe in. I cannot understand or comprehend paedophiles and child abusers. I don’t support the death penalty or life in prison and I try to forgive people who wrong me. But I do not know if I could show such restraint if it was my child or a cousin or nephew or niece. However, I cannot understand how people can wrong children and it would be wrong of me to give opinions on something I cannot comprehend. I can understand political militancy and suicide bombers to a certain extent but I cannot understand paedophilia.

Primo Levi committed suicide because he couldn’t understand the Holocaust. I can’t understand why a 30 year old would rape a child. It frightens me even thinking about it.

15. Do you have any blogging rules?

None that I know off, I was tempted to remove a comment made by some guy on my blog about Rachel Corrie the peace activist who urged and supported passive resistance and stood in front of an Israeli Bulldozer as it was destroying Palestinian homes, he refered to her as Pancake Corrie, which I think is sick. But I let the post remain, not because I support it, but because I want people who read my blog to see how cruel and insensitive some people are in this world. I may not like certain people in this world, but I do not wish death on anyone nor would I celebrate anybody’s death.

Well thats it, I hope you enjoyed the insight provided by Jimmy Porter of Desolation Row. Do stop by and say hello. RM

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs irishblogs interview

Lazy blogging

I HAVE been a lazy-blogger recently, well that isn't really fair, things have been so busy I haven't been able to keep up here at all, hence the sheer amount of Red Mum columns in a row. Things have been so busy I haven't had time to post something I have already written.

Anyway hopefully things are starting to quieten down now and I can get back to blogging business as usual.

I also committed myself some weeks ago to take part in the Damien's blogger interview but I have been a dreadful procrastinator and up to now haven't followed through on it.
Paige has put me to shame with her fantastic and indepth interview with That Girl and following a gentle nudge from Damien, I have someone in mind, they have kindly agreed and have the questions (I am not going to try to match Paige's excellent contribution and instead introduce you to someone you might not know already) so hopefully I'll have that up over the next day or two.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs

Me No to Bebo - RM column April 7

YOU would be hard pushed to have missed Bebo recently. It is the latest internet craze that allows members to interact in an on-line community and it is been one of the media’s topics over the last couple of weeks.

From radio DJs such as RTEs Rick O’Shea to secondary school children have all signed up to the service and the Young Wan’s pals are no different. After all it is estimated that 500,000 people in Ireland have signed up to Bebo with so many thousand coming on line each day.

So it is not surprising that the Young Wan wants to join up too. But before I would allow that I decided that I would check it out for myself.

While there are some people who you can read about, such as Rick O’Shea, to comment you need to sign on. If you wish to view secondary school details you have to sign on first and join a school.

So I did as a 14-year-old schoolgirl, no bother at all. All you need is an email.

I was able to check out the kids’ profiles, their pictures, their blogs, who their friends are, who considers themselves as their ‘groupies’ and I was disturbed.

Most of these young people have signed up in their own names and the information about themselves they are freely giving away is more than scary. Even though the terms and conditions of Bebo state that you shouldn’t use your own name, the kids are.

Being a blogger myself, where I keep a sort-of internet journal, I love the internet, I love what I can do there, from storing my photographs to contributing to a Dublin Blog.

And I can certainly understand wholeheartedly the fascination and appeal of something like Bebo and the other services like it such as MSN’s MySpace.

And even though I keep my own online journal I have tried to some degree to maintain a certain level of anonymity. There are just too many nutters out there.

Those nutters are sure to love Bebo.

Talking to the Young Wan about this and the dangers of it, particularly going online using your own name and giving away details of your life as well as posting pictures.

But I realise that the Young Wan’s head is almost exclusively full of the fun aspects of the site and how so many of her pals are members.

When talking to her about it I said: “Look how easy it was for me to sign up pretending to be something I am not, what if you are talking to someone only you do not know that they are 45 years old…..”

And that’s as far as I got before she interrupted saying ‘well I might talk to them but I wouldn’t meet them and I wouldn’t keep talking to them’.

What I was about to say was “45 years old and a paedophile?”

She was just not listening to me at all, she’d gone off on some Bebo daydream. And I think she is under the ridiculous notion that she could spot danger, when it is perfectly clear this isn’t the case.

If my mind wasn’t made up before hand, it is now.

While she might start off only talking to those she actually knows, this will change and do not think it wouldn’t. Part of the service is that you can link to other students in other school and on and on.

The scenario where a nutter or whatever can pretend to be a cute teenage boy is all too real. So if some cute boy gets in contact with a teenage girl, do not tell me that they won’t be flattered and intrigued. Of course they would, that’s also the appeal of Bebo.

And let’s imagine this ‘cute boy’ corresponds over time, only in reality they are not a ‘cute boy’ at all, they are the 45-year-old man I was talking about earlier.

Now the Young Wan is a smart child/young adult to whom I have exhaustedly talked to over the years about being safe. Yet despite all that in theory, in reality she obviously doesn’t realise the full implications or how a young person can be manipulated.

And this is all aside from the fact that many teens are now immersing themselves in Bebo spending hours and hours online. As I said while I love the internet, reality is reality and something has to give with this amount of online time.

So it is me no to Bebo.



Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 7 Bebo

RM March 30 - banned from town

TWO in a row today, I've found it hard in recent weeks to blog, never mind catch up on others' blogs, never mind post something that is already done and dusted like The Echo Red Mum column, so here is last week's on being grounded. I'll post this week's effort on Sunday about Bebo.



Banned from town

That’s the last time ever. No more trips to town for the Young Wan.

Despite being grounded for the recent phone bill which some of you may remember, I allowed the Young Wan’s pal to come down from county Meath and stay for the night.

She’s had a recent falling out with some pals, a pretty horrible one even for teen standards with lots of added teen-drama for added umph and I decided that she was in need of a lovely night with a lovely friend.

To add injury (as you will understand by the end of this piece) to my magnanimousness I also said they should go into town, hang out, have fun and here’s 20 euro, buy yourself something great.

However this all pinned on the room being done. Yeah yeah I am back to the bastion of filth that is her room.

Although in fairness to me I have recently taken to just shutting her room door and attempt to ignore it’s calls of ‘you should see the state of me’ cue manic laughing ‘OH YEAH you should see the state of me’.

My biggest problem with the room is that I do not think it has been tidy once in months and months and months. You might think that’s an exaggeration but it really isn’t.

Anyway I told the Young Wan that there was no way someone would come to stay in her room the state it was in so it had to be done.

She also had to tidy my bedroom as being a small flat it is unfortunately another room for her to hurricane through. And she did hurricane through it on Sunday getting ready to go into town for the afternoon.

The finishing touches to her outfit were provided by me, ‘No you cannot wear my long black velvet coat to go out in, try this one’. On my lovely wee jacket went and if I say so myself she looked beautiful.

Though the two of them looked gorgeous the flat was looking the worse for wear to say the least.

Of course the girls left the music on LOUD in the Young Wan’s bedroom so I went in prepared to see a half-done room but even that drop in what was actually asked for would be disappointed; the only word to describe the room was mayhem. Complete and utter mayhem.

But I took a deep breath, turned off the music and left the room shutting the door behind me. That would be something to be done either during or after her pal went home, but it would be done before school.

They were due to be back by 6pm and from 5.50pm I watched for buses and at 6.02pm off they hopped with the Young Wan looking decidedly different to how she looked going into town.

While her pal looked the same, the Young Wan came back looking like an extra from a Marilyn Manson/Cure video.

She was sporting a new Kurt Kobain t-shirt, long and black, a very pale face and black lipstick smeared all over her face.

I don’t think the smearing was meant to be part of the look but this is the child with food down the front of most jumpers so it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

She came in laughing and having a ball saying ‘this girl was giving me funny looks on the bus’.

I’m sure she was.

Then I went ‘where’s my jacket?’

Young Wan: “Ehhhhmm, I was trying something on in Penny’s and I ehm well I left it there. We went back and it was gone.”

So not only did she come home looking like an eejit knowing that I would not be happy about that but she was so bloody blasé about losing my coat.

I hit the roof and I haven’t gone down yet. So there will be no more trips to town and I am now courting a very (un)fetching Kurt Kobain t-shirt. 20 euro and its yours!

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Redmum column March 23

I COGGED together a post which I wrote recently for the next Red Mum column so I won't reproduce it, you can read it here if you'd like to. This account is slightly altered but no real changes were made.



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Red Mum - blogging for one year

WOW. Not that long ago, way back in October according to Boliath, I did this how much is your blog worth. And I got the nicest surprise cos I have leapt from nothing to this…

My blog is worth $35,566.02.
How much is your blog worth?

That’s a nice surprise for my blogging birthday, a year old today… And has the year flown in or what and I have really enjoyed this blogging milarky. So for those of you who are interested here's a link to my first-ever post 'In disgrace again'.



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I should have said

In my last column posted below I lamented the loss of a dinner plate and blank looks. The column was written three-odd weeks ago and the plate has since turned up.

It was on her bed, not by her bed or under her bed or indeed near her bed but actually on it. I found it after demanding the sheets from her bed to no avail forcing me to cross the boundaries of human decency and enter her room.

Though in fairness to the awol plate her bed is the size of a large country. I bought it thinking a double was a good idea, afterall in my head we are going to get out of this flat as soon as humanly possible. So while her room is longer than it is wide, the high-rise double bed for a new place sounded great.

And then I assembled it and Jaysus not only is her bed bigger than mine but it is the size of a small country. There have also been many banged heads. So as surprising as it may sound but the idea that a plate could be exiled at the bottom of the bed for a couple of weeks.

Ah teenagers!

redmum Irishblogs Dublin Ireland teenagers untidy bedrooms

The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon RM Column March 16

I HAVE had a really busy couple of weeks so much so that I have not been able to post this before now, so here you go.

The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

You would think that nursery rhymes would be a distant memory for a mother who’s baby was last a baby 14 years ago but no.

They have a habit of sometimes in the most unlikely of scenarios popping into your head.

Before you have a child, you may be of the opinion that you do not remember nursery rhymes but when you have a child, they all come back.

I think I had a rhyme or a song for nearly everything. And I have to say I would be hard-pushed to remember them all now.

We would sing ‘hit the road Jack’ when going out, ‘the sun has got his hat on, hip-hip-hip hooray’ when it was sunny, ‘rain, rain go away’ when it was rainy, ‘get up, get up, get out of your lazy bed’ in the morning, though in fairness it was normally herself waking me up.

She could sing all the versus of ‘I’ll tell my ma’ when she was no age, say ‘Iwouvyou’ from under a year old, she was/is so smart.

However over the years these lovely and endearing family habits have been replaced with loud and constant music.

As I write this Kurt Cobain is warbling away, over and over and over again, on the repeat button.

Though in fairness in her much younger music days, it was Boyzone so that is one phase I do not miss at all.

In the midst of this teeny-bop phase she also had her very cool moments, she loved The Prodigy’s Firestarter and Lou Reed’s Perfect Day among others.

It is wonderful, puzzling at times granted, to see her develop her own musical tastes.

While I try not to shout about music, this has become increasingly difficult.

I have succumbed and on more than one occasion to yelling ‘turn that music DOWN’ or ‘if I hear ‘a denial on the Bible’ one more time…’

When you can’t hear the television there is seriously something wrong, never mind there are actually people living all around us who must at times feel like coming up and screaming themselves.

Thankfully that hasn’t happened and part of me reckons it is only a matter of time. I would swear at times that you can hear the music all the way down the road.

And this music is becoming the backdrop of her life at the minute, it’s on all the time, when she goes to bed, gets up, has a shower, whatever the music is blasting.

In addition to the annoyance of listening to some awful white-noise under the guise of music, my own CDs have started to disappear one by one.

They’ll turn up cracked, scratched or they never turn up at all.

And CDs are not the only thing to disappear in our household, spoons are another.

Why is that? What is it about spoons particularly teaspoons that makes them disappear.

Like my wandering CDs sometimes these turn up and sometimes they do not.

If they do turn up, it is likely I have found them under the settee, behind the cooker, on my dresser (nothing to do with me) or more likely and incriminatedly in the Young Wan’s bedroom due to her habit of eating yoghurts on-the-go.

Glasses disappear however the award for most bizarre is the loss of one of my dinnerplates.

I asked her where it was having already asked a number of times and she looked at me blankly with the standard response of ‘dunno’.

Yeah yeah, so the bloody dish apparently ran away with the spoon.



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Tears and tantrums

THERE’S been tears, tantrums (the first ever really and I wasn’t around to see it thank God) but finally for the first time ever in this blog’s life but the room is in a state I can live with, okay live-ish with.

But she made a huge effort after trying and succeeding to defiantly NOT do it for God I have stopped counting how many days now but it is more than two weeks.

Over that time there has been doing anything but tidying, sulks, strops, earnest pleadings of ‘I WILL do it, really! and a mini-tantrum/hurricane in my room over the tidying/life/teenage angst and the like.

And today we have crossed the hurdle of the largest pile of sh*te in the world, it really was, tourists were taking pictures of it and everything.

Now in fairness there’s still a bit to be done and I will probably do that with the help of herself. But she has done a cracking job and I am delighted. My Mothers’ Day present is just over a week late, but better late than never.

When the room is completed I may just post a picture for you all to coo over to give her lots of pats on the back.

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