14th year house bound

yes he died when i was 19, i spent 3 years feeding him, washing him and taking him out for his cigaretts, we managed to have some fun times, but it was sad seeing his muscles deteriorate. when he died he was 40kg or their abouts.

no he was born 2 years after the war, they were very poor, my grandmother was forced to work in the coal mines in berlin, up to the day before she gave birth, then had to return to work 2 days after. yes my granmother and dad had both lived in berlin (or what was left of it) after the war.

from what i see lately multiculturism is not working, i don't think it has ever been successful, to many different cultures, too many differences and history between humans in general. i do believe the earth is severly over populated, maybe that is where all the tention is comming from. i had better stop here, i have very strong views on it, maybe upsetting for others.

yes it is interesting how things have to be a certain way, mens rolls and womes rolls, i was lucky mum and dad worked together, dad cooked, cleaned, washed whatever was required, whoever was free at the time did what was needed to be done. mum and dad never did things because their gender specified it. they never fought either, it was a very peaceful household.

yes it is amazing what we are capable of, the things i have had to learn over the past 14 years is iincredable, electrical work, plumbing, building, repairing & mechanical, so much because we did not have the money to get other people to do it. a steep learning curve. sometimes i am glad i lived in poverty for a decade.

yes, some doctors can be strange, my doctor has retired last year, so i just go to anyone now to get my meds.

wow. What a story.about your Grandparents.

it reminds me of that book.....'the Book Thief,' i think its by Marcus Zuclas Zucavlos or something like that.

yes families can be very complicated, my family is so complicated it is scary, but i don't have any contact so it does not bother me too much, just stick to myself and mind my own business.

P.S. Love the font

I bet you would make a lovely man for someone. You dont have to breed if you dont want to.

You are so patient with the models and your dad @Jacques

Muscle wasting is pretty confronting. They get so frail.

My parents did not fight that much either. (They just went on a sad walkabout while in psychotic frame of mind.) Regardless, I grew up with much more peace despite all the poverty than my kids did with all the wealthy expectations, which by the way, I did try to meet.

I just got a phone call from my ex inviting me to his new house in the country. @PeppiPatty would be so proud of me. It will be a nice drive.

If my parents had been a bit reasonable in the number of kids they had instead of listening to the pope, things might have worked out better., and I would not have the years of calming down my violent brother, which happened as an adult. Mother said she fell in love with my father just before she died. She was glossing over a bit .. but some of it was true.

Ahh the strong view problem .. I will try not to get you in trouble.

Hi @Appleblossom

yes maybe, it will never happen though, you can't meet people locked in your house, i am not deserving of anyone, but i like to dream of having a significant other to go on walks with and have someone to enjoy gardening outings, etc. i know it is only a dream, nothing more.

yes i wish i would have done more to help mum when dad was sick, i was doing year 11-12 at the time, took a lot of time off school to look after him, still passed the year 12 certificate, just.

i am so sorry you grew up like that, it must have been a tough life emotionally, not having support, you sound like you have had too much pain in your life, loss of siblings etc....

good for you, it is good to see you still have a relationship with your ex, so many people get nasty when they split. that was so nice of him to invite you to his new home, the country air will do you good. hope you have a great time.

Yes my mothers family split not long after they turned into adults, always looked after by nannies, they had a very unpleasent upbringing, well looked after financially but emotionally distroyed.

well here goes, moderators if this is too much delete it...

i don't think multiculturalism will ever work because their is too much divide between different countries, social, cultural, economic, religious, sexual and political problems. humans seem to have an inbuilt need to harm each other, maybe it goes back to the cave man days, i am not sure, but seeing the devistation around the world recent and historical, i can't see how the damage will ever be rectified, let alone everyone getting along.

I think one problem is the need to have the world divided up into countries it creates a physical border to divide people, something to fight for, you can see the results ie Israel & Palistine, etc...

I think everyone is racist in some way or another, it is part of our genetics for survival as a species, you can see from Australia's history, different ethnic groups stick together, greeks, italians, germans, etc... people seem to feel safe with their own ethnic groups. i am not saying it is right or wrong, it is just what i see from the history of Australia.

we live in a sad world, with the population growing i can't see how it will get any better, divisions are gettign bigger and bigger, i just can't see a solution.....

well i hope i have not gone too far with my thoughts. sorry to anyone i have offended, it was not my intention, just how i see the world

Hi Jacques,

As the moderator that hit the 'approve' button, I thought I would be the first to respond.

I would love members to share examples of where multiculturalism is working. My experience is that the world is getting smaller and barriers are coming down. It takes time, but I see at school with my kids, friends with all kinds of back grounds just being friends. There are always extremes and I think there always will be. I also see it on building sites, in hospitals and in workplaces.

I would also ask people where they get their beliefs from? I have relatives who fought in wars in Europe or who migrated here after the war and that had an impact on their beliefs that are different to mine.

Lets all be better students and seek to be educated about what makes us the same instead of looking for differences.

Take care,

Durango.

I have had several friends over the years who were from different cultural backgrounds to me. Especially when I lived in multi-cultural Melbourne for a long time, I witnessed endless day to day examples of cultural background not being any issue in people's ability to work, play and just be human together. I've had problems with fear of people all my life but it's not been about cultural background. Mostly I just try to hold onto hope for peace and goodwill between humans, even though fear and cynicism sometimes get in the way.

I worked alongside of a teacher from India. She was a great girl to work with and our two classes benefited so much from how she shared her culture and a range of different perspectives. It was also interesting for me as I had never been around a person from India before that and I learnt a huge amount about her culture and religion, even sharing in her prepararations for her arranged marriage (which was quite a difficulty for me to accept to start with!!).

The last school I worked at was in a country area and over the last 5 years we had a lot of chinese students begin to arrive where we'd had a fairly monocultural environment before. The kids all just got on with being kids and it was great to see that language was no barrier to play, especially iwth the kindy and junior primary ages for newly arrived children. Now no one at the school even bats an eyelid as there are more and more children coming in from the Phillipines, Thailand, Cambodia, Afghanistan, as well as China. Its caused some ups and downs in the community and there are some 'born and bred' Australians who havent been so welcoming in town, but others who have embraced the changing nature of the community. The council did a lot as well with having a Harmony week celebration each year to get people to come together and join in and share ideas and develop new ties within the community as a whole. Its not without its problems of course, but over all i consider it to be good. If you look at even the strongest of families there are always disputes and fractures between some members, i think larger communities and what not are a bit like that... maybe... or im just rambling nonsense probably!

LJ