Category: Family Life

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We Let Them In: Is Privacy Dead?

Protecting oneself on the internet is something that I'm highly passionate about. There are so many ways to get into big trouble within our online interactions that I've made it a personal mission to understand the true nature of the dangers out there.

This is the world that my children have grown up in. They have never known a life when the internet didn't exist. Social media in its various forms has become a massive part of the way they're expected to interact with the world at large, and it's my job, as their mother, to ensure that they know how to navigate this internet-based world safely.

With the increase in internet dependency within our daily lives, there are certain questions that have started to leak to the surface of my consciousness. Almost everything that we do is now online, with very few exceptions.

Sure, you have social media, YouTube and blogs, and TV through the internet means that we can watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. However, you also have online banking, and you can buy your groceries online. I can pay for my car registration and file my taxes online. I order replacement gas bottles for the house through an app on my phone and I can report issues regarding water leaks or other hazards in my neighborhood using a different app.

My children were expected to submit their homework assignments online. They were even required to sit major exams using online tools. When they were still in high school, I got their report cards sent to me through an online website.

My husband gets his payslips online, and I get paid by overseas clients through online services. Even my royalty checks come in through online payments.

Everything about our world has shifted to online.

New Zealand, as a whole, has become a near cashless society, with EftPos found almost everywhere you go. Those payments go through the internet. Sure, I do have some cash in my wallet, but not much. Everything of importance is bought and paid for using online means.

Yes, this shift to an internet-based society has, for the most part, made our lives easier, but has it really made it safer?

How has this push to doing everything online affected our sense of privacy and security?

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The Strangers We Let See Facebook

For years, I've been writing about some of the hidden traps associated with working online, looking at writers can protect themselves. But I've also been having some fun playing the bad guy, highlighting how real bad guys might turn unsuspecting internet users into their prey.

Today, I want to look at some of the settings on Facebook, things that many of us never bothered to consider a risk.

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Sleep, Oh Precious Sleep…

Sleep, oh precious sleep, why for art thou eluding me? Why must you be so broken? Why must I sleep so lightly?

Oh yeah, that's right... I have children.

New mothers and women who are thinking about having children, listen up, and listen good. Accept it now. Sleep for you is over. You might get the odd night of deep slumber, but it won't last. This I can guarantee you. Trust me, having children is the worst thing that any woman can do for their sleep pattern. And it really doesn't matter that I happen to have two teenagers. They are STILL waking me up at all godly hours of the morning.

If you are a mother yourself, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. Sleep is something that disappears from your life before your children are even born.

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9/11: A view of life…

We've had another anniversary of the 9/11 disaster. For such a long time, I remained silent about my memories of that day, fearful that someone would get offended.

The events of that day had a global impact. So many things changed in an instant. The world was in chaos. No one knew what was going on and planes around the world were being grounded.

In the days that followed, the clean-up was almost unbearable. So many lives needlessly lost. And the reasons for the insanity still elude us.

For all those years, I remained silent about my memories of 9/11, because in truth, I didn't care about what was going on in New York. 9/11 in 2001 for me was a day of joy... because two days later, I gave birth to my son.

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My Mother at Butterfly Creek

Letter to my mother…

When my mother was still alive, there were times that I could guarantee that she felt under appreciated. And it was always worse come Mother's Day.

Let's face it. I rarely called, and when I did, the conversations were not something that I wanted to stay engaged for—not for hours on end. And I never visited. For many years, she lived in Auckland while I lived in Christchurch. She and dad did eventually move to the South Island, but even then, it was a 3-hour drive away. It took planning... and I sucked at it. (I still suck at that particular side of things with dad, rarely seeing him.) And I never sent presents or cards.

But I loved my mother dearly. She had such an influence on the way I see the world. One of her many sayings pops into my head on a daily basis. She was always in my thoughts, even if I don't tell her that.

This letter was my pathetic attempt to tell my mother how much she meant to me.

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