When I grow up...

So…what do you want to be when you grow up? Really, you say,
would somebody actually ask that…at your age? My immediate
response, sad but true, was “Been there, done that, not going there
again”…oops!

Now of course since the question was asked by a smooth-talking,
confident, legally trained and politically minded, Italian male I might
have immediately suspected – it was a pick-up line, that he just
always wanted to say that to someone or he was angling to get me
on board with some or other agenda… or all three. So you see, my
reflex defence mechanism is in place for good reason…we are both
politicians after all and I mean that in the nicest way! When you
know what you’re dealing with you expect nothing more and nothing
less and you are unlikely to be disappointed...that’s my philosophy
anyway!

Getting back to the “been there…”comment for a minute…because
actually, that was not just me thinking I was clever or a quick
defensive quip…I really meant it. Maybe, because I, am doing life
backwards! I think…I was born ‘grown-up’, feeling responsible for
everyone and everything around me… and just when I give myself
permission to not take myself so seriously I do not want to hear
about ‘growing up’.

If that sounds confusing then you may like this advice - it works
for me: “you don’t have to understand something or someone
to enjoy them!” I may be quoting myself here…or did I read it
somewhere…then again…does it even matter?

In “The Road Less Travelled”, a book I found interesting, M Scott
Peck talks about understanding and growth in this way:

“Seek greater understanding, but do not expect greater detail.
There are many who, by virtue of their passivity, dependency, fear
and laziness, seek to be shown every inch of the way and have it
demonstrated to them that each step will be safe and worth their
while. This cannot be done. For the journey of spiritual growth
requires courage and initiative and independence of thought
and action…no teacher can carry you there. There are no pre-
set formulas. Rituals are only learning aids, they are not the
learning…no words can be said, no teaching can be taught that will
relieve spiritual travellers from the necessity of picking their own
ways, working out with effort and anxiety their own paths through
the unique circumstances of their own lives toward the identification
of their individual selves with God.”

Lots of words often mean lots of error but much of this has
challenged me in the last few years and I am grateful I got to read
them. I feel better too, about not wanting to be ‘shown every inch
of the way’…I like the idea of just needing courage and initiative’ for
one day at a time.

I do remember choking a bit on the ‘lazy’ part but it is so true – we
may not be lazy in every area of our lives but where the wheels come
off I have started to see the connection. I had never considered
before the concept of being lazy in certain relationships or people
being lazy in thinking for themselves…it explains a lot!

OK…maybe I will think about growing up…and even consider the
possibility of life after parliament…but only think about it…ok!

I am a girl!

I am a girl!  Yes... an odd thing to say I know...perhaps I mention it because while we know it to be obvious so many of us simply forget to be...the girl we were born to be...I know I did.  I am also a Member of the National Assembly in the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa...for just over 13 years now.

Well this girl and MP, is also a mother of four amazing children...I may not have been quite as amazing as a mother but all four of my children know they were and are my greatest achievements.  My three sons – Marc, John-Paul and Matthew Peter are more or less 10 years apart in age – 38, 28 and 18 – and my daughter Christy is 31 at her next birthday. 

I am also a granny to two gorgeous little boys – Zac Gabriel is 22 months old and Caleb Marc was one month old on my 59^th birthday (8 September, 2012).  Just when you think life couldn’t get busier...it does...but in the nicest way!

Life has been an incredible journey for me...I seem to have been born with a clock ticking and an urgency to do all I could as soon as I reasonably could. Reasonable for me...not necessarily for others! I have a tendency to do a lot of reasoning, weighing, considering and assessing. I find people and life fascinating and enjoy studying both...in my own way, of course!

I love to ‘have coffee’...with people I know and people I want to get to know and with myself...I can be quite good company I have discovered! There have been times in my life where I have been terrible company, sadly, because I really did not appreciate‘me’.

The problem with being someone who ‘does’ things when they occur to me, I tend to run out of dreams...I think it is important to have a dream. Although I may appear to some to be a ‘risk taker’ – and I am - it is always ‘calculated risk’.

On that note, I remember, this girl is also a wife...being married is really life at its most ‘out there’ but so worth the scary and amazing adventure. Demi, my husband, is incredible - he is what I call a ‘centre-stage’ kind of guy but most importantly... he is my guy and I am his girl!

Above all I am my Dad’s girl! Not a Dad in the ordinary sense...in fact He is a Dad in a most extra-ordinary sense...and I keep my hand in His as I step out each day, as fearlessly as I know how, into what may be unknown to me but not unknown to God.

I'm often asked...

I am often asked if I am as depressed about our situation in South Africa and about the failures of government as everyone else appear’s to be and if I, like them, believe things are getting worse and worse to the point of no return.   As often as I am asked, I never seem to be any less amazed by the question, which is so far from what I actually think that in the moment it seems quite absurd!

I think we South Africans, are very hard on ourselves and don’t give ourselves the credit we deserve.  Now, the fact that we are perfectionists and we don’t want some success, we want total success is good...it drives us in a way, to achieve what we do.  It is good that we are not satisfied with a better life for some and we want a better life for all...but we could lighten up along the way and make the journey less tedious and painful!  Would it be a sin for us to at least recognise our achievements even if we don’t want to celebrate them while some people are still hurting and struggling?

Let me start with service delivery – a thorny issue!  Even as I write I hear a chorus of voices shouting failure, failure, failure...so let’s look at these failures through the eyes of a little research.

Data published by the South African Institute of Race Relations shows that between 1996 and 2010:

The number of households living in formal houses increased from 5.8 million to 11 million or by 89.9%. Over the same period the proportion of all households living in a formal house increased from 64% to 76%.

The number of households with access to electricity increased from 5.2 million to 11.9 million or by 127.9%. The proportion of all households with access to electricity increased from 58% to 83%.

The number of households with access to piped water increased from 7.2 million to 12.7 million or by 76.6%. The proportion with access to piped water increased from 80% to 89%.

Increases similar to these are as real for all 15 service delivery indicators tracked by the Institute. These improvements are corroborated by Living Standard Measure improvements which show equally dramatic improvements in the number and proportion of people in higher living standard brackets.

Social welfare, now reaches over 15 million people and the proportion of South Africans living on less than $2/day has declined from 12% in 1994, and a peak of 17% in 2002, to just 5% today.

It can’t be true you say – why – because the newspaper says things are worse – they of course do have an agenda – or because the official opposition says things are worse – well they have an agenda too! 

Now I am not saying that what does go wrong is not wrong...it is...and it must be fixed – but exaggeration and generalising helps no-one.

What about the protests that are now commonplace around the country you say?  Could it be that these protests are not entirely about non-delivery but also about raised expectations that cannot reasonably be met at this point in time...just saying!

OK...now it may be possible that if our school system and the labour market were to deliver, we would be in a better mood to look on the bright side a little...yes I think education and the labour market will have to be my next blogging experiment!