Opinion/news pieces
Caroline Duncan
Journalist and photographer
Australia
Chief storyteller at Whats's the Story - a copywriting, public relations and social media consultancy. Photographer. Freelance writer. Bringer of life to stories.
Australia
Chief storyteller at Whats's the Story - a copywriting, public relations and social media consultancy. Photographer. Freelance writer. Bringer of life to stories.
Opinion/news pieces
It blindsides me every time it happens. I'll walk into a shop and hear Christmas music playing, or I'll drive past a house decorated with Christmas lights and the feeling comes from nowhere. It starts out as a sliver of panic, rising from my gut, before it catches and tightens in my chest.
Before I even knew her gender, upon learning I was expecting again, people would say to me "I bet you're hoping for a boy this time!" "I don't really care, so long as the baby is healthy." I would reply. Which sounds like a cliche. But it was true.
Not everyone shares this attitude, thankfully. But it is an attitude that prevails. A dad is a parent. He is a caregiver. A legal guardian. He shares in the decision making process with the mother, or makes them all alone if he has to.
For a few months, when I was 19, I worked on the reception desk in my then-boyfriend's father's business. I fit it in around my uni work and it was a good way for me to earn some dollars while he recruited to find someone new for the job.
For many, it might be a flippant thing they say, but for others, I'm sure they genuinely feel that way. My husband and I eloped, and I have never regretted the decision. First of all, for me, I never had an idea in my head about what I wanted my wedding day to look like, so I had no hopes and dreams to let go of in eloping.
You know the ones who are absolutely perfect martyrs, have never made a single mistake in their parenting, and they think everything you do is wrong. If you find yourself getting easily offended by the following, you're probably one of them.
My Facebook news feed is chockers with people banging on about State of Origin. It was all over the TV last night. I even heard it on the radio when I dropped the kids off at school this morning. It's only going to get worse before the game is played tonight.
The internet is good at losing its shit, lets face it. But the latest Outrage Du Jour has me rolling my eyeballs so far back into my head that I could actually see myself thinking. So if you haven't heard, Chrissy Teigen gave birth to a teensy weensy adorable little daughter named Lulu Simone.
My nine-year-old daughter was attacked by a boy at school yesterday. He hit her so hard in the arm with a large stick, leaving it badly bruised and swollen, she needed to be taken to hospital for an x-ray. Fortunately it was not broken. Her older sister last year wasn't so lucky.
Ladies, have you married a man with an ex-wife and children from a previous relationship? If you are one of the lucky ones who answers yes, I sincerely hope that you all enjoy a reasonable relationship, free from drama, vindictiveness and other abominable behaviour. If you do, I envy you.
What's the difference between a playground in a rural NSW primary school in the early 1980s and the Australian Senate in 2015? Not much. News that Senator Ian Macdonald told a fellow senator, Doug Cameron, to "learn to speak Australian" on Wednesday because of his Scottish accent took me right back to the torment in the playground in 1983 when my family relocated from Scotland to the southern tablelands of NSW.
A miscarriage is absolutely heartbreaking, and if you ask just about any woman who has had one, she wouldn't wish the experience on her worst enemy.
What would you do if you found out your 10-year-old son had been accessing hardcore pornography on his smartphone? Would you block his access to porn or would you give him permission to keep looking at it? The latter is what a writer at Debrief Daily claims to have done.
The early weeks of my third pregnancy were pretty much the same as I'd experienced in the first two. I felt sick, constantly. My boobs hurt. I was so very, very tired. Everything seemed routine. And then it wasn't. I have irregular menstrual cycles, so my doctor sent me for a dating scan to establish how far into pregnancy I was.
R U OK? Day is a great concept, but why don't we ask that question of those we know and care about on one of the other 364 days of the year? Depression is a silent, devastating menace that all too many people endure alone.
Parenting
I'd like to pretend it's for environmental reasons or something noble like that, but the fact is they drive me crazy on so many levels, and I just don't need that sh*t in my life.
I say might because some parents, schools and students are very sensible about NAPLAN and treat it like it is - a "snapshot" of where your child's school and your child are at this point in time compared to other schools and students at their grade level around the country.
And if your kids catch them, you'd better believe that you are going to waste so many precious hours dealing with the disgusting little critters as you fall down the rabbit hole of vermin eradication. I've got two primary school-aged daughters and one preschooler, all with long hair.
We’ve all heard of the term “helicopter parenting” where over-protective and overly invested parents hover like a helicopter over their kids to manage their every move in life. It’s one thing to do it when they are toddlers and little kids – but what happens if you do it all of their lives?
Whether you’re bottle feeding or breastfeeding, using cloth or disposable nappies, working or staying at home, there’s always something someone will try to make you feel guilty about as a new mum. Read more at: https://www.stayathomemum.com.au/my-kids/babies/are-you-guilty-of-brexting/ Here's a new one to add to the list: "brexting" - a brand new, made-up word to describe using your smartphone while you're breastfeeding your bub. Many new mums, feeding their babies around the clock, might...
The few hours between the finish of the school day and putting your kids to bed can be the most chaotic ones in the entire day. Whether you work and have them in after school care, or if you stay at home or work from home and pick them up, you'll know just how cramped the time can be.
New dads: I know that this gurgling, pooping, screaming new bub is very new territory for you, but spare a thought for the new mother in your life.
I'm over it. I am completely costumed out. Why do my kids have a school uniform if every other day they need to wear something else
Health/Fitness
Each year, about 53,000 Australian women are diagnosed with cancer. Breast, bowel, melanoma and lung cancers are the most common. One in four women will be diagnosed with cancer before they're 75.
Between your kids, the housework, your job, your relationship, family and friends, there never seems to be enough hours in the day, and devoting a little time to staying fit seems out of reach sometimes. My hubby is a case in point.
In fact, if you are hanging on to beauty products long after their expiry date and still using them, you might be gooping microbes and bacteria onto yourself and causing the skin problems that you are trying to get rid of!
Budgeting and finance
You don't need to have a tight budget to be frugal though... every dollar you save is a dollar you can put away for a rainy day. There are probably lots of ways you could make some changes to save a few dollars at a time.
Do you still find yourself running to the shops again because you've forgotten something or run out of something, spending even more of your hard-earned dollars than you anticipated? When you add it all up, the weekly shop and any other trips back to the supermarket could be costing you $250-$400 a week if you're not careful.
When I was on maternity leave with my youngest, I needed to find ways to cut back on our household spending. I took a long, hard look at all the ways I was wasting money at the supermarket and discovered I should have been taking advantage of bulk buying.
re you looking to save money but find it hard to stick to a plan? It might help if you make a game of it and challenge yourself. Read more at: https://www.stayathomemum.com.au/my-money/money-saving-tips/7-ways-to-challenge-yourself-to-save-money/
From the second you step into the supermarket, everything is geared to get you to spend as much money as possible. From the placement of products to the way things are priced, here’s a guide to the psychology of supermarket shopping.
Relationships
Some of these things are minor and you can compromise, but other times it can be something huge.. like whether or not to have children. Ideally you will know if you share the same life goals as someone else before you commit to them in a long-term relationship.
You can shop online for just about anything, browse vast libraries of information, watch a lecture from a world-class university, keep in touch easily with family and friends from all over the globe and... get hundreds of unwanted dick pics sent to you from strangers.
You might be a victim of "gaslighting" - a term coined to describe a particular type of emotional abuse that leaves its victims feeling minimised, crushed, smothered and second-guessing themselves. The victim will be left questioning their own feelings and instincts. Sometimes, they can even feel as though they are going crazy.
Some people have toxic behaviour, even though they might be otherwise nice. Conversely, some people are just bad news. Toxic behaviours can leave you feeling overwhelmed, drained, frightened, anxious or depressed if you are constantly on the receiving end of them.
In fact, many people don't have a relationship with their mother AT ALL. There are many reasons for it and it can be heartbreaking for someone who is in this situation. Everywhere you go, society has expectations of what mother/daughter relationships will be like.
If you answered yes, is the reason for this because you do it for them? Girlfriend, you need to get some better boundaries going on. People do things for their partners out of love. We want them to feel looked after, cherished, nurtured, safe and loved.
Kids, working long hours, fatigue, stress, worries about finances, running on little sleep, erectile dysfunction, hormonal imbalances killing off libidos - these are all the usual culprits we hear about when couples find they aren't getting it on as much as they would like.
Everyone has their limits and it is important to know where to draw the line. It's called setting boundaries. Some people are naturally much better at doing this than others and never have a problem. Others are constantly being taken advantage of and treated like crap by their families, friends and colleagues.
I've been a stepmother for more than a decade, and in that time, I have also been involved in a support group for people in stepfamily situations.
While many serial killers are sociopaths, not all sociopaths are killers - in fact they are usually people leading fairly ordinary lives. You might think you don't know one, but the reality is you probably do. It might be a family member, a friend or a colleague.
For many people, this is the ultimate deal-breaker in a relationship and it will end. But for others, it is an issue that they try to overcome, instead choosing to work on the relationship and heal together. It can be a long road to recovery, especially as trust has been damaged severely with the infidelity.
Whether things became hostile at the end of the relationship or took a turn for the worst during the divorce itself, sometimes the couple will never see eye to eye on anything, ever, again. In situations where there are kids involved and co-parenting is required, this can be a hell of a doozy.
Then there's emotional and psychological abuse. But the type that doesn't get discussed a lot, that is just as damaging as the other types, is financial abuse. Financial abuse is when one partner withholds money, controls all the household spending and refuses to included the other partner in major financial decisions.
This is the idea that it is better to stay together with someone who makes you miserable so you don't put the children through the trauma of a divorce. There are numerous financial reasons why it might make sense to keep one household until the children have left home.
That statistic is huge. Around 60% of men and 45% of women in one survey were willing to report that an affair has taken place sometime in their marriage. The aftermath of infidelity can range from ongoing trust issues to full out divorce, depending on the situation and how the couple involved feel about it.
Sometimes if you're in a really bad relationship, you can't quite see the forest for the trees. You might find yourself putting up with things that you never would have dreamt you'd put up with. Maybe even things that you'd tell your girlfriends to run from!
Copy writing for clients
Newsletter copy for business-to-business audience.
When you think about decorating with neutral colour schemes your initial thought may be of them being drab, lifeless and boring. But with the right styling, a neutral room can be anything but. Neutral hues are very much on-trend in home décor at the moment, lending themselves to be used well with a sleek, chic, minimalist style that reflects nature.
The kitchen is the hub of the home. It's not just all about cooking, it's where our entertaining happens, where we spend time with our families and friends. With open-plan being a feature of so many homes, the kitchen can be the centrepiece of the house. Lighting your kitchen well is important.
Photography (not writing) used in publications
Photography by Caroline Duncan
Photography by Caroline Duncan
Drought picture by Caroline Duncan illustrating this article.
Weir photo by Caroline Duncan illustrating this article.
Canola photo by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article.
Photography by Caroline Duncan.
Photo by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article.
Drought photography by Caroline Duncan included in slideshow
Photography by Caroline Duncan
Photograph by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article.
Photograph by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article.
Photography by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article
Canola photo by Caroline DUncan, accompanying article
Photograph by Caroline Duncan, accompanying article