Open Writing

Autumn is sputnik bombing season for the birds of Sydney. As the crinkly, brown leaves cascade off the Liquidambar trees in great swirls they expose the spiky, circular seed pods which resemble miniature versions of Russian satellites. Call me paranoid, but I swear that the cockatoos, lorikeets and galahs take delight in targeting passing pedestrians, deliberately tweaking the missiles off at the precise moment when someone passes underneath. It seems to be a much anticipated, annual sport in the parrot world.

Dealing with the pavements full of copious leaves is, however, a problem for the humans beneath. It used to be that the common old garden rake was the only weapon in the battle against abundant, falling leaves, accompanied by all the back bending effort which scooping up the leaves and putting them in the vegetation bin involved. Then an inventive person came up with the leaf blower, so now you have the option of blowing your leaves into the middle of the road and abandoning them until either the wind, or the opposite neighbour, with his supercharged leaf blower, blows them back.

Whilst watching this farcical toing and froing, where nobody actually picks up the leaves and takes responsibility for them, it occurred to me that I'd come across quite a few children in my child minding days who had been raised with somewhat of a leaf blower mentality. These unfortunate children had been abandoned along the way as they'd been shunted between adults, with no single person ever taking full responsibility for their well being.

Amelia used to arrive with head lice. Week in and week out she'd be scratching and in danger of infecting the other children. Her problem was never completely tackled because her parents were divorced and she spent alternate weeks with her father who could not be bothered to trouble himself with the fuss of searching and shampooing for nits. That is, until the day I refused to take her anymore and turned her away at the door. Only once her father was inconvenienced did he take the necessary action.

Thomas was only eighteen months old when he started giving unsuspecting strangers in the park the Hopoate finger. (John Hopoate is an Australian rugby league player who is infamous for giving an opposing player a brown eye gouge, and I don't mean the eye on his face.) This abnormal behaviour was most disturbing, both to me and to Thomas's victims, as it could only have meant that someone was doing it to him. His father, who was physically abusive towards his mother, was my main suspect.

Sam Howard's parents both worked so late that I used to have to bath him and have him in his pyjamas by the time they collected him each night. After a year of minding him, I took a short holiday and on my return Sam complained of a sore and encrusted bottom. I popped him into a bath and while he was playing in the bubbles the truth came out. He had not been bathed for a week. As I gently patted him dry and gave him some soothing ointment to put on, I reassured him that things should improve from there on in. "Oh thank goodness that is all it is," he sighed with relief. "I thought that I had been struck with the Howard curse." After some subtle enquiries I discovered exactly what the curse was - both his father and grandfather suffered from dreadful haemorrhoids.

The most emotionally neglected child of all was sad eyed Henry whose parents were extremely wealthy. When he was very young he used to arrive on a Monday morning still heavily sedated from the weekend. It was inconvenient for his party loving parents to have him bouncing around so they often resorted to the Phenergan bottle. One day, when he was almost six, we dropped him off at his mansion and the he invited us inside.

"Cool!" my son exclaimed when he saw Henry's bedroom. "You have an en suite and a harbour view."

"Yes," came the despondent reply, "but YOU have a mum who plays with you."

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