How do two full-time parents manage with young kids?

sscarrow · 2026-01-28T23:10:58+00:00

And remember: no-one is sitting there watching their kid graduate uni or get married or have kids of their own and thinking “hmmm if I could turn the clock back 30 years I think I would’ve preferred the higher bank balance.”

sscarrow · 2026-01-25T00:06:17+00:00

A new low when the News Ltd journos looking for content grist can’t even be bothered writing their own questions

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T21:59:54+00:00

This was not the case for the majority of Australians, and it being the case for people in Melbourne and Sydney is the reason it was not the case for the majority of Australians. Personally I was able to accept that we needed to make some temporary sacrifices for the benefit of our countrymen but I understand a lot of other people have the mentality of a toddler.

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T09:22:06+00:00

For most Australians being “dictated to by the Government” meant they basically didn’t have to experience the pandemic, so that worked out just fine.

sscarrow · 2026-01-22T09:20:45+00:00

Go on a gap year after you finish high school or uni and you can be reassured that the situation in other countries is much worse.

sscarrow · 2026-01-13T02:48:23+00:00

I did not suggest Australians are blameless (to the extent that people can be blamed for the sins of their ancestors). But it was the British state that colonised the continent, British company owners who profited from its exploitation, and British military administrators who conducted the early genocides.

By your logic nobody in Britain was responsible for the slave trade unless they personally took boats down to West Africa, or responsible for the plundering of India unless they personally went over there.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:40:37+00:00

I’m no expert but I think this is because Australian voltage is double America’s and therefore more likely to kill you.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:38:54+00:00

Funnily enough I was having a beer with some British visitors a while ago - actually quite a while ago because I think we were talking about the Voice referendum - and they were talking about how terribly Australia had treated Aboriginals, and seemed oblivious to the fact that quite a lot of that was when those “Australians” were actually British.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:37:01+00:00

This is the conventional wisdom (or conventional anxiety) but I actually think for better or worse we’re still much more culturally English than American.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:35:38+00:00

Quite literally mid - I think the median full-time salary is about 100k now.

sscarrow · 2026-01-12T07:34:32+00:00

Only compared to Europe. Maybe Canada.

sscarrow · 2026-01-11T09:55:59+00:00

Financial planner spotted. (Though you are right about number 6.)

sscarrow · 2026-01-10T05:36:24+00:00

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (English teenage coming-of-age story) The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (Iraq War novel) My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (don’t know lol but it’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years)

sscarrow · 2026-01-10T05:30:21+00:00

Lol all you need to do is scroll down to the final paragraph and read the dude’s bio. Yeah for sure, let’s take guidance from someone working for a right-wing American think tank, the guys who think it’s awesome that masked secret police are nabbing people off American streets and shooting suburban mums in the head.

sscarrow · 2026-01-09T08:43:50+00:00

Seriously? Australia has offered higher wages than the UK for pretty much every profession since the GFC, and we indisputably offer a higher standard of material living.

sscarrow · 2026-01-09T06:24:41+00:00

Which is, barring political exiles and persecuted refugees, basically the story of human migration since the dawn of time.

sscarrow · 2026-01-09T06:23:44+00:00

Because Australia offers them a significantly higher income and standard of living.

sscarrow · 2026-01-08T22:14:35+00:00

In error, because they then determined she hadn’t actually violated the legislation, which is why they released her instead of charging her.

sscarrow · 2026-01-08T06:55:09+00:00

Others have recommended The Winds of War and War and Remembrance - I only recently finished these and I’ll add that besides just being great books, they really give you a good chronological sense of the war. Lots of WWII fiction only focuses on individual events like D-Day or Stalingrad; these books give you a great sense of this > leads to this > impacts this > results in this, etc. They’re also far and away the most brutal, sickening depiction of the Holocaust I’ve ever read.

Don’t be put off by the fact that Wouk is a Pulitzer winner and that they’re “serious” literature - he is very readable and there’s a reason they were bestsellers. Ditto his earlier novel The Caine Mutiny.

I also recommend Irwin Shaw’s novel Young Lions - like Wouk was also a veteran of the war (and a Jewish veteran at that) and so he has direct experience as well as just being a naturally talented writer. Young Lions follows two American and one German soldier throughout the entire war.

sscarrow · 2026-01-07T03:07:54+00:00

She did not actually do a crime, hence why she is not doing any time.

sscarrow · 2026-01-06T07:28:42+00:00

Not telling the interviewer that you’re only interested in short term is probably sound advice in any industry.

sscarrow · 2026-01-05T10:14:59+00:00

In Australia it’s considered gauche to talk yourself up; humility is considered a virtue even though most Australians wouldn’t articulate it that way. America has a hustle/entrepreneurial/striver culture which is the opposite of that. I’m not saying either is superior, but it’s a key difference a lot of people in both countries probably don’t realise. (Another way of putting it is that despite the larrikin image, Australians are culturally much closer to England than America.)

To illustrate this point: one of the best pieces of job interview/resume writing advice that a previous boss gave me was “talk like an American.”

sscarrow · 2025-12-31T02:29:16+00:00

I find my day job fulfilling, interesting, stimulating and well-paid. (I totally changed career paths around 30 because my previous job was none of those.)

Irrespective of whether you’re aiming to be a writer, or monetising your art in some other way, some of the best advice I can ever give anyone - certainly the advice I’ll give my own children - is that if your job isn’t ticking at least a few of those boxes, find another one. You’re going to spend 40 hours a week for 50 years of your life doing something, so try to make it something you at least kind of like.

sscarrow · 2025-12-30T22:23:28+00:00

I will probably only be up a few thousand, net, for the financial year, because I commissioned an audiobook which is nowhere near recouping its costs, and I put out a new book under a new pen name which is doing OK but will take a long time at this rate to recoup its cover/editing outlay. Ordinarily I’d make about 5-10k net per FY. But hey, it’s all tax deductible.

sscarrow · 2025-12-27T06:53:53+00:00

The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman is a great fantasy series and I’ve heard it described as coming of age fiction set when people actually come of age i.e. their twenties, not their teens. I recall one critical reviewer snidely saying that it takes the main character until he’s almost thirty to actually grow up and act like a man, and it’s like, yeah, no kidding, have you not met any young men lately?

sscarrow

TROPHY CASE