Parenting Tips By Crazy Bob
Without Prejudice
I have to say something before I begin this story. I don't hate him. I have never hated anyone in my life and I am not about to begin now.. He was my husband for 20 years and the Father to my 4 girls. And for that I am so very grateful as I adore my kids, warts and all. I am a pragmatic, mature and caring person and love when I love with all my heart. He and I went on an incredible journey of hard work and children together. We became rich and stuck it out through the good times, the bad times and the day by day ordeal of marriage.
We had the same vision to begin with, a good future for our girls and hard work and discipline and love. We had it all and then life dealt us the worst blow of all. We lost a child. Our beautiful baby girl aged 12 and we couldn't cope. Couldn't look at each other, hated each other. And we separated 5 months after she died.
We had built up a business together, a house, the only house the girls would remember and built a brand new factory. It was finished just a month or two before Lauren died in a senseless tragedy, she drowned. To say it devastated us all was the understatement of the century. It killed us. We were never to be the same people we were before. We would never laugh as easily, never be free of the feeling that life can change in a second. We rocked from the pain and tried to go on just as before. But we couldn't.
Bob walked through the factory weeks later and said he would give it all up if only Lauren was alive again. We couldn't change it, he couldn't make it better or make it all go away. He buried himself in work and I sat in the upstairs office, not working, listening to tapes on grief. Trying to find a path through the pain. Nothing mattered any more. Just her, and we knew what we had lost. It was beyond comprehension or understanding and we blamed each other.
Had we become too successful and the fates had delivered us the cruellest blow of all ? Had we somehow invited this tragedy into our lives ? We were in hell and staying there for a long time to come. Everything we had ever done or said to each other came back to hurt us. We were in a wasteland of pain and lashed out at each other in the cruellest ways. It was terrible on the girls. Absolutely shocking and they had no way of coping either.
Thats how we ended our marriage, our life that had gone before. We had to split up and start our own lives without the constant friendship and support we had given each other to get to where we were.
Bob had always been the head of the family. He ruled us in a way, controlled our day to day living, our income, our residence, our cars, everything material and he dominated our day to day life as he was loud and aggressive. He never lost the aggression and I was a softie, over sensitive. But I sure loved him and I was his Queen. He couldn't bear for me to be out of his sight for long. He tracked me down wherever I was, he bought my clothes, told me how to vote, told me how to behave and adored me. Ditto.
He was "Boss" and we were his adoring acolytes. He was generous to a fault and would buy us anything we wanted. He spoiled us, we knew it and gave him loyalty in return. He was darkly aggressive and we tried to understand why. We thought that somehow with enough love he would eventually not be aggressive but it was part of who he was and could not be changed, he was happy as he was and still is and I have no regrets.
I will always love him in a way and hate him in others as he will with me. I was not the wife that he wanted and he was not the man I wanted to grow old with. He wanted to grow old with me, he wanted us to be buried together and at times I must admit with all honesty I thought he meant right then and there. I was scared of him for years and when Lauren died I just wanted him gone. He wanted me gone too. We had said everything and done everything that had needed to be done. And we were done.
But in the beginning we were very much in love, just babies really, he was 22 and I was 16. I thought he was awful at first, too "black", black hair a black mono brow, mahogany tanned, skinny, flat abbed and a bit of a showoff. The first time I saw him he had his arm to the shoulder buried inside a cow in the dairy trying to turn a calf that was breech.
The smell in the cow shed was rank, fear from the cow and she was moaning softly. Raw milk smell from the vast refrigerated vat, blood, sweat, heat. My mother stood in front of me and whispered to me he was a bit of "alright" and I looked at him and thought ,
"How revolting!"
I didn't like him at all and avoided him like the plague as he was the eldest son of the household, he was loudly spoken and rough. Crude as well and I stuck my very English Grammar School girl nose in the air and ignored him. I was at my new Sister in Laws farm at Soldiers Road, Loch. "Mandalay". I was there to spend Easter with his Mum and Dad and was accompnaied by my siblings, Helen aged 2, George aged 18 and David aged 12.
We were there so mum could finally meet Merilyn's (My new Sister in law)'s Mother Gwen. Gwen and my Mother, Natalie having struck up a pen pal relationship as my older brother had stayed in Australia while we were in the UK for 4 years, and had married. They had married and had a baby, Andrew, while we were away.
George, my older brother and I were in a bit of trouble as we had run away from Wagga where Mum and Dad had settled. There was no work there and george was 18 and I was 16. We left at midnight after I had finished a casual job a a waitress at an RSL "do". We sped away from Wagga on a train and arrived at Ingleburn Army Camp the next day much to our older brother Ian's surprise. he and his wife Merilyn were making plans to go to Gippsland for Easter.
We were made to ring Mum and Dad tell them we were safe and that we were going with Ian and Merilyn to her parents dairy farm at Loch. We were told to call in at Wagga and we would pick up Mum, Helen and David. So eventually there was all of us crammed into a VW bug, heading down to Melbourne. Ian, wife, baby, Mum, George, David, Helen and I. Little bit squishy and we arrived in Melbourne about 3am. Ian knew of a hamburger place in Caulfield that was open all hours it seemed.
We then we stll had a good hour and a half's travel before we reached Soldiers Road Loch. Merily'ns mum and Dad, Tiny and Gwen were just coming up from the milking when we arrived and we piled out of the bug, stiff and sore. Mum and Gwen had a great pen pal friendship since Ian and Merilyn had married while we as a family were over in the UK for almost 5 years. George, David and I had Yorkshire accents so thick you could cut them with a knife.
The dairy farm was lush with greenery, rolling hills and gentle valleys and the old farmhouse had been around for ever, being originally Tiny's Fathers place, a returned Soldier settlement. Tiny had bought it off his dad, Pop Hancock, a fierce man who had not long before died. He and his wife had given birth to 10 kids. Tiny, or Sydney being one of the youngest. He was small, wiry and funny. Gwen was tallish for a woman and also very engaging and they made us all welcome like good country people do.
How could I know then at 16 what was about to happen, where I would end up. I had no idea but Bob's younger siter who I had met earlier that year was working locally and longed to go the "Big Smoke" of Melbourne, so she asked me to stay on and we could both move to Melbourne and get jobs there.
I readily agreed as Wagga was not a place to be without work and I stayed at the farm till she worked her notice. Mum signed me a cheque for ten dollars and I was expected to pay it back within 2 weeks which I did. I helped her out once or twice at Peter Misale's grocery store and waited for life to alter. One day we were drying dishes and she said,
"Why have you put makeup on and done your hair"
I didn't answer straight away and she guessed,
"You like Bob"
He had been coming up every weekend for two weeks and teased me mercilessly about my "pommy" accent and shyness.
I still at first thought he was awful and wore his Sisters pale blue jeans as he was so skinny on the legs and hard muscled on top with big biceps and forearms. I denied liking him to his Sister which wasn't true and when he came up later that night said the boarding house in Caulfield where he lived had a room for rent for us two girls, if we were interested.
We were. It was $8 a week and included a shared bath and a kitchen to ourselves. We moved with haste and were on the bus in Melbourne the next morning setting off to Chadstone where we both got jobs at Myers, and started the next day. I was in Childrens, adult books and stationery and Bob's sister was in Childrens clothing. The boss who hired us could not have got the selection more right. I was a book lover and my sister in law was a fashion maven.
We worked five and a half days a week and would always go to the farm on Saturday afternoons with Bob and do our washing up there. Returning Sunday night. The trip made in his Xp Falcon Station Wagon with the plates JFM, which I believed were Janette For Me, what can I say I was only 16 and had never had a "proper" boyfriend before.
To be continued
Love Janette
I have to say something before I begin this story. I don't hate him. I have never hated anyone in my life and I am not about to begin now.. He was my husband for 20 years and the Father to my 4 girls. And for that I am so very grateful as I adore my kids, warts and all. I am a pragmatic, mature and caring person and love when I love with all my heart. He and I went on an incredible journey of hard work and children together. We became rich and stuck it out through the good times, the bad times and the day by day ordeal of marriage.
We had the same vision to begin with, a good future for our girls and hard work and discipline and love. We had it all and then life dealt us the worst blow of all. We lost a child. Our beautiful baby girl aged 12 and we couldn't cope. Couldn't look at each other, hated each other. And we separated 5 months after she died.
We had built up a business together, a house, the only house the girls would remember and built a brand new factory. It was finished just a month or two before Lauren died in a senseless tragedy, she drowned. To say it devastated us all was the understatement of the century. It killed us. We were never to be the same people we were before. We would never laugh as easily, never be free of the feeling that life can change in a second. We rocked from the pain and tried to go on just as before. But we couldn't.
Bob walked through the factory weeks later and said he would give it all up if only Lauren was alive again. We couldn't change it, he couldn't make it better or make it all go away. He buried himself in work and I sat in the upstairs office, not working, listening to tapes on grief. Trying to find a path through the pain. Nothing mattered any more. Just her, and we knew what we had lost. It was beyond comprehension or understanding and we blamed each other.
Had we become too successful and the fates had delivered us the cruellest blow of all ? Had we somehow invited this tragedy into our lives ? We were in hell and staying there for a long time to come. Everything we had ever done or said to each other came back to hurt us. We were in a wasteland of pain and lashed out at each other in the cruellest ways. It was terrible on the girls. Absolutely shocking and they had no way of coping either.
Thats how we ended our marriage, our life that had gone before. We had to split up and start our own lives without the constant friendship and support we had given each other to get to where we were.
Bob had always been the head of the family. He ruled us in a way, controlled our day to day living, our income, our residence, our cars, everything material and he dominated our day to day life as he was loud and aggressive. He never lost the aggression and I was a softie, over sensitive. But I sure loved him and I was his Queen. He couldn't bear for me to be out of his sight for long. He tracked me down wherever I was, he bought my clothes, told me how to vote, told me how to behave and adored me. Ditto.
He was "Boss" and we were his adoring acolytes. He was generous to a fault and would buy us anything we wanted. He spoiled us, we knew it and gave him loyalty in return. He was darkly aggressive and we tried to understand why. We thought that somehow with enough love he would eventually not be aggressive but it was part of who he was and could not be changed, he was happy as he was and still is and I have no regrets.
I will always love him in a way and hate him in others as he will with me. I was not the wife that he wanted and he was not the man I wanted to grow old with. He wanted to grow old with me, he wanted us to be buried together and at times I must admit with all honesty I thought he meant right then and there. I was scared of him for years and when Lauren died I just wanted him gone. He wanted me gone too. We had said everything and done everything that had needed to be done. And we were done.
But in the beginning we were very much in love, just babies really, he was 22 and I was 16. I thought he was awful at first, too "black", black hair a black mono brow, mahogany tanned, skinny, flat abbed and a bit of a showoff. The first time I saw him he had his arm to the shoulder buried inside a cow in the dairy trying to turn a calf that was breech.
The smell in the cow shed was rank, fear from the cow and she was moaning softly. Raw milk smell from the vast refrigerated vat, blood, sweat, heat. My mother stood in front of me and whispered to me he was a bit of "alright" and I looked at him and thought ,
"How revolting!"
I didn't like him at all and avoided him like the plague as he was the eldest son of the household, he was loudly spoken and rough. Crude as well and I stuck my very English Grammar School girl nose in the air and ignored him. I was at my new Sister in Laws farm at Soldiers Road, Loch. "Mandalay". I was there to spend Easter with his Mum and Dad and was accompnaied by my siblings, Helen aged 2, George aged 18 and David aged 12.
We were there so mum could finally meet Merilyn's (My new Sister in law)'s Mother Gwen. Gwen and my Mother, Natalie having struck up a pen pal relationship as my older brother had stayed in Australia while we were in the UK for 4 years, and had married. They had married and had a baby, Andrew, while we were away.
George, my older brother and I were in a bit of trouble as we had run away from Wagga where Mum and Dad had settled. There was no work there and george was 18 and I was 16. We left at midnight after I had finished a casual job a a waitress at an RSL "do". We sped away from Wagga on a train and arrived at Ingleburn Army Camp the next day much to our older brother Ian's surprise. he and his wife Merilyn were making plans to go to Gippsland for Easter.
We were made to ring Mum and Dad tell them we were safe and that we were going with Ian and Merilyn to her parents dairy farm at Loch. We were told to call in at Wagga and we would pick up Mum, Helen and David. So eventually there was all of us crammed into a VW bug, heading down to Melbourne. Ian, wife, baby, Mum, George, David, Helen and I. Little bit squishy and we arrived in Melbourne about 3am. Ian knew of a hamburger place in Caulfield that was open all hours it seemed.
We then we stll had a good hour and a half's travel before we reached Soldiers Road Loch. Merily'ns mum and Dad, Tiny and Gwen were just coming up from the milking when we arrived and we piled out of the bug, stiff and sore. Mum and Gwen had a great pen pal friendship since Ian and Merilyn had married while we as a family were over in the UK for almost 5 years. George, David and I had Yorkshire accents so thick you could cut them with a knife.
The dairy farm was lush with greenery, rolling hills and gentle valleys and the old farmhouse had been around for ever, being originally Tiny's Fathers place, a returned Soldier settlement. Tiny had bought it off his dad, Pop Hancock, a fierce man who had not long before died. He and his wife had given birth to 10 kids. Tiny, or Sydney being one of the youngest. He was small, wiry and funny. Gwen was tallish for a woman and also very engaging and they made us all welcome like good country people do.
How could I know then at 16 what was about to happen, where I would end up. I had no idea but Bob's younger siter who I had met earlier that year was working locally and longed to go the "Big Smoke" of Melbourne, so she asked me to stay on and we could both move to Melbourne and get jobs there.
I readily agreed as Wagga was not a place to be without work and I stayed at the farm till she worked her notice. Mum signed me a cheque for ten dollars and I was expected to pay it back within 2 weeks which I did. I helped her out once or twice at Peter Misale's grocery store and waited for life to alter. One day we were drying dishes and she said,
"Why have you put makeup on and done your hair"
I didn't answer straight away and she guessed,
"You like Bob"
He had been coming up every weekend for two weeks and teased me mercilessly about my "pommy" accent and shyness.
I still at first thought he was awful and wore his Sisters pale blue jeans as he was so skinny on the legs and hard muscled on top with big biceps and forearms. I denied liking him to his Sister which wasn't true and when he came up later that night said the boarding house in Caulfield where he lived had a room for rent for us two girls, if we were interested.
We were. It was $8 a week and included a shared bath and a kitchen to ourselves. We moved with haste and were on the bus in Melbourne the next morning setting off to Chadstone where we both got jobs at Myers, and started the next day. I was in Childrens, adult books and stationery and Bob's sister was in Childrens clothing. The boss who hired us could not have got the selection more right. I was a book lover and my sister in law was a fashion maven.
We worked five and a half days a week and would always go to the farm on Saturday afternoons with Bob and do our washing up there. Returning Sunday night. The trip made in his Xp Falcon Station Wagon with the plates JFM, which I believed were Janette For Me, what can I say I was only 16 and had never had a "proper" boyfriend before.
To be continued
Love Janette
