Baby Bonus: Someone tell me why?

As the government is being asked to rethink the ‘Baby Bonus’ I find myself asking again why we have a Baby Bonus and not government-funded paid maternity/paternity leave in the first place.

I’ve asked myself and others this for a while and no one has really been able to tell me. Unfortunately the world is filled with a lot of dumb people, and if my sisters friends are anything to go by, a lot of teenagers have an unrealistic view of the cost of living. I’d hate to actually know how many people have had a baby because they want a new TV or car.

Paid parental leave on the other-hand, allows men and women to get the financial relief to spend time with their new born whilst simultaneously discouraging the idiots on welfare who can’t even afford to support themselves who think that having a baby to get 4 or 5 grand would be really great idea!

The Australian article I linked to above is the first mention I’ve come across of the reason why we don’t have paid maternity or paternity leave…

Social demographer Peter McDonald, from ANU’s Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, said it was a mistake to see the baby bonus as a fertility booster when its original purpose was as an alternative to a paid maternity leave regime being promoted by then sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward.

So the implication is that we don’t have paid maternity leave so as not to sexually discriminate? Ok that’s fine. How about ‘parental’ leave hey?

Thriving under restriction

Lately I’ve been struggling with the minimal progress I’ve been making on all the goals in my life. I get inspired by some artwork, a novel, an article and I feel ready to take on the world.

“Tonight I’m going to draw something amazing!”
“I’m going to go to gym every second day!”
“When I get home from work, I’m going to work on my portfolio”

But what I’ve been finding is that I’ve been getting home, changing my clothes and then jumping on the computer and playing world of warcraft. Or watching TV. Or picking up another book. Then later I lament.  

“I love drawing but I haven’t drawn in ages“
“My portfolio doesn’t portray the kind of work I can do”
“I’m so unfit!” 

2 days ago the penny dropped. I was reading this article by Violent Acres(a blog I read religiously). I have said before that my problem is I would like to do more things than what I can humanly do in one life time but I never realised how it was crippling me into not achieving anything. 

At my previous job at an advertising company, I had a project manager who handed me my jobs for the day with all the information I needed in order of which job needed completing first. It was great! I dove into my work with enthusiasm and felt accomplished at the end of the day. Now with my current job at any giving stage I am give a new job on top of the 15 or 16 or so that I have and each morning I blanch trying to decide which job is more important to accomplish and I hedge and go get a coffee from across the street or delete some emails I don’t need. 

This indecision on which is more important and deserves my time more is what is preventing me from drawing more, from going to the gym more, taking up Taekwondo again, from working on my portfolio. 

Not only that but I actually thrive on restrictions. As an amateur illustrator, all my life I’ve had people ask me to ‘draw them a picture’ and I will have absolutely no idea what to draw for them. ‘Can you draw me?’ I find even worse. Much less often I’ve had someone asked me to draw something specific and then watch me go as the red haired female ninja hiding in the night appears in a flash. But without that directive, with an infinite amount of options I hedge and procrastinate until both myself and the person who requested the drawing has forgotten all about it. 

In the future I’d like to try and restrict myself to less choices and see if that will improve the accomplishment of my goals 

Where to start….

Indeed. Where to start?

 I’m sleepy   -_- z Z z Z