List(s)

Okay so I write lists. Well, no, that's inaccurate. I don't write lists for everyday things like shopping. I just go to the supermarket and guess what I need and then get home and realise I've forgotten the chicken for this evening's chicken casserole. So I don't actually write useful lists. I write a single list, in many places. It's like my life to do list. I am not sure why I write it - what, in case I forget? Surely if something is so important to make my list of things I want in life, it isn't something I am going to forget. But give me a pen and a piece of paper and inevitably I will start writing out my list. Which goes something like this:

Finish my PhD

Travel

 - New York

 - France

 - Italy

 - Maldives

 - Vietnam

New job

 - Security

 - Flexibility

 - Autonomy

 - Good remuneration and other benefits (superannuation, parental leave, work from home etc) 

Buy home

 - sometimes I then go into detail about all of the things I want in my home: type of dining table chairs (I already have my table) , closed-plan, close to walking paths, colour scheme, kitchen appliances, style of artworks, flooring, front door, security, location etc ...)

Then sometimes I write in other things I want out of life. Like relationship goals, marriage and children. I often leave these out though, not because they aren't important, but because they're things which aren't totally within my control. And like everything else on the list, it's not as though I don't have very clear views which I am going to forget should I not write them down! It's just that writing down these goals, which I may not be able to fulfill, leaves me a little vulnerable to never being able to cross them off my to-do list. So these ones I keep close to the heart.

So in every notebook I own, there's this list, often several times over, reiterating what I want in life. Well, what I want in the next five years. I wonder if I do it in false belief that writing it down is going to make it happen now?

(I don't understand my logic either.) 

Why are women still changing their names?

Okay so I am in a hospital while my mother has neurosurgery. I’ve been here, alone, for seven and a half hours. I am very tired and emotional. Why am I telling you this? Because I need to preface what I am about to say with something that will make you compassionate towards me and hopefully make you forgive me for what I am about to admit to.

Five hours in, I was broken. I couldn’t summon the concentration to read my book – sick people everywhere, exhausted, terminally-ill mother in significant discomfort next to me – so I … entered a debate on a thread on a Facebook page.

Yes, I know. I know it’s stupid. It’s just like when people read the comments section at the end of online newspapers and get outraged. Why on earth would one read the comments?!  (Perhaps because they are in a hospital desperate for entertainment away from the misery?)

So let’s accept that this is what I have done and now allow me to vent about the experience here.

Women’s Health Australia asked, would you take your husband’s surname when you got married? If so, why? If not, why not?

Oh dear. There are so many stupid naive people in the world. Here are some of the highlights:

‘I am proud of my man’ was a very common sentiment. The inference here is that you demonstrate pride via change of name. The ironic logic of this is that he is not proud of you because he has not taken your surname. So the conclusion of this claim for name-change? You are proud of a man who is not proud of you.

Here is another gem:  ‘Yep! He is my man and I love him enough to become a part of his family and have a family of Smiths*’.  So if I take the surname of the person sitting opposite me in this shitty hospital cafeteria am I a part of his family? And if I married my partner and did not take his name, am I not part of his family? Further, he hasn’t taken my surname, so is he not a part of my family? Is it that he doesn’t love me enough to do that for me? (This section has so many questions because the logic of the reasoning left me thinking, 'WTF?')

Another very common comment was that ‘I am changing my name because I am old fashioned’. What exactly does ‘old fashioned’ mean? Because I think it’s the scapegoat for women not owning up to what changing their name is really about. You see, people tend to be very selective about what they are old fashioned about. This was best highlighted with this comment:  

‘I’m not married yet (but) I’m old fashioned in that you marry him, you have his name, and I’d like to have the (same) surname as our son’

That’s right, her son. She is old fashioned so she’ll take his name; but not so old fashioned as to have a child out of wedlock.

But by far, the quote of the day: ‘If you aren’t going to change your name, what’s the point of getting married?’. Now obviously there are endless lines of rebuttal here, but remember, you’re dealing with a simple mind, so instead of offering debate, I find it’s best to ask a counter question. One that came into my mind, ‘if you only want to change your name, what’s the point of getting married?’.

Now, to the heart of the issue.

The vast majority of commenters were in the ‘a real wife changes her name’ category.  The most frequently cited reason for changing one’s name was that ‘I want to have the same surname as my kids’. The selfless martyrs, doing it for the children. Now, I wanted to write a comment pointing out that changing your name is like being branded – you were previously owned by your father and now you belong to your husband. Well, for now you do. Because, let’s be realistic, 50% of you will end up divorced and facing the dilemma of what to do about the surname that you were oh so proud of. There were a couple of older and wiser women who commented about this. Most, even those who were still married, regretted changing their names and expressed the sentiment that they wished they had of been married in a time where it was optional. 

Let me go back to the children. Women are changing their name as they have got to have the same surname as their kids. Well, instead of me asking whether marriage was a partnership or a patriarchy, I suggested that women give their kids their own surname at birth and you’ve got it sorted – kids have the same name as you and you don’t have to change your name! Now, I was being rhetorical. I knew that the kids were an excuse.  One commenter retorted , ‘then you’d have the same issue with the man wanting the same name as his kids’. The infinite problem solver that I am, I suggested that the husband could take the wife’s  surname should this be the case – problem solved!

But no, this was never about the kids. The kids are an excuse.  Women know it’s embarrassing to admit that they are marrying a man who expects them to change their name and wouldn’t take theirs. Women know it’s not an equal partnership and are embarrassed to admit it so they use the, ‘I want the same name as my kids line’ which really makes no sense. Sure, in an equal world, half the population would have their dad’s surnames and half would have their mum’s. But, it’s not an equal world. So let’s wonder about a proportional world: many marriages will end. When they end, more often than not, the kids will spend most of their time with Mum. So, looking at these odds, I argue that there should be more kids taking mum’s surname given that Dad is more likely to become an absent figure whose name won’t be carrying much pride.

People think I am totally radical and man-hating when I tell them I am vehemently opposed to the idea of changing one’s surname. I don’t hate men, but I certainly don’t think that they are more special than women or that I should be proud of them and them not of me. I don’t think that I should do anything to demonstrate to any future daughter of mine that she is less of a person because she is female.  I don’t want to be seen to make up embarrassing excuses for what I contribute to perpetuating gender inequities. I won’t shift blame of my actions onto my children. Your children have the name you give them; you have the surname you choose to take. Fuck, why don’t you and your husband invent a surname and start from scratch?

So why do women change their names? Why don’t men? It’s not about the kids, it’s about power. It’s one of the last forms of patriarchal oppression that is still the accepted norm in modern society. And women are buying into it in droves. And they know it’s hard to reconcile professional careers, education, high-paying jobs, home-ownership  and other things with the old school gender inequity that is implicit in taking a man’s name. I give her my name. I have branded her. She is mine. My property. She is now somebody’s Mrs. FUCK THAT!

So quit saying that you’re changing your names for the children or because it shows that you’re proud of your man and start saying out aloud that you have changed your name because you want to contribute to a culture where women are less than men and where heteronormativity reigns supreme. 

*name changed

Research: it's all in the numbers

And I am not speaking about quantitative methods - the strength of the numbers there is obvious.

There's often debate in the social sciences - how many interviews is 'enough'? Should we aim for fewer, more in-depth interviews or many interviews which only scratch the surface? 'You will have too much data' is a common accusation that's thrown my way. And I will have too much data. But while a bit messy and difficult to manage, it's a far better predicament to be in that not having enough data.

So far I have done about 45 in in-depth interviews on a project exploring young people's pathways into problematic substance use. I am hoping to get to about 80. It's a life history approach and yes, there will be more data than I use for the thesis. But the thing is, the more interviews one does, the more one can grapple with the patterns which emerge.

Early on in my interviews, there were some very distinct patterns - lots of child abuse and homelessness. Lots and lots of poverty. There was also a very striking finding among the young women I had interviewed. A pattern so consistent and articulated so similarly from to participant to participant that I knew that this was a story. This was a thesis chapter. The more interviews I did, the better I understood this pattern and how it came about. While there was evidence of a pattern very early on, lots of interviews gave me the story of what the pattern meant; how it was experienced.

There was not such a clear pattern among the boys. But this week, there was a breakthrough - the boys' story began to show itself. It was one of the light bulb moments you have as a researcher. It confirmed to me the benefits of collecting 'too much' data: it makes one really understand their data. So while I may not 'use' it all in the thesis - it has contributed to me understanding it all.

I could have, potentially, written a thesis with 20-30 interviews. But I wouldn't have been able to grasp the patterns, as you need them to emerge on their own. It's all in the numbers.

In fives

... that's what I have been doing. All of my usual tasks, in daily sets of five.

I've been missing from the blogosphere for a while. I'm busy. But then I got to that point of busy where you are too busy. I know when I have hit the too busy point not when I find myself working constantly; but when I am procrastinating constantly. Ironically, I know I am too busy when I find that I am not really doing anything. That's because I have gotten to the point where the to do list is too long and seems totally insurmountable and the accompanying anxiety prohibit me from doing anything productive.

Knowing that this can happen, I do try and prevent it, but it still sneaks up on me occasionally and before I know it I am in over my head with things to do; am making zero headway on any of them, and the anxiety that comes from wasting my days means that I can't sleep and then can't do anything the next day because I am too tired, which makes me more anxious and makes me not sleep again ... and well, before you know it I am a zombie.

So accepting that doing something is better than doing nothing, and that setting big goals is setting myself up for failure, I am currently doing things by fives.

Here's my list of daily things to do:

• Mark five essays
• Read five pages
• Write 500 words
• Iron five items of clothing
• Run five km's
• Transcribe five pages of interviews
• Reply to five emails

And it's not completely rigid, but a guide. So some days I do yoga or a dance class instead of running. And, well, I usually run at least 6kms, but I like to keep things consistent. And running more than five km's, or marking more than five papers makes me feel super-productive as I have surpassed my daily requirements.

Now of course I always read more than five pages, but I don't always read 50 pages, so best I stick with five as a minimum.

I haven't actually completed all of these things in any one day, but getting some of these things ticked off is getting things done AND subsiding some of my current out-of-control anxiety.

So why five?

Well, for a few reasons. My favourite number is four, and much of my life is based around four. For instance, the volume of the TV or car radio needs to be a number divisible by four. And 16 is preferable as its square root is four. I set my alarm to times that are evenly divisible by four (6:32, 7:04, 8:24 etc etc) and I stop the microwave not when the time is up, I don't like the beeping noise, but when there is four seconds remaining. When I purchase something I like to take the one fourth from the front and, well actually I am starting to sound  a little OCD so let's just leave it there, I am sure you get it ...

In any case, I didn't pick four. Because an odd number is easier. Once I get to the middle, I am more  than halfway and therefore, on the home straight. This tricks me into feeling close to the end of the task and gives me some motivation to plough through. Five is probably the highest number that still seems small and manageable. It's one hand of fingers, only a couple more than three, and it's the same as musical stave - five lines is the highest number that is clearly identifiable, more than that and it's confusing on the eye. So my friends, this is how I arrived at five.

So, well, I am back to it. By five.

What supervised injecting facilities will do to people who don't use them

Nothing.

But, you probably want  a more convincing argument because: a) you are convinced that a SIF will spread disease and addiction and encourage drug use; or b) you say that a SIF will benefit you as it will prevent you from being exposed to injecting drug users. (I am working from the assumption that if you don't care either way about SIFs then you probably won’t be reading this post - at the least, you're probably not going to be offended that I've excluded you.)

So here's why neither of these schools of thought have much nous.

Supervised injecting facilities encourage drug use

Premier Baillieu said in parliament today, 'I don't want to be in the business of sending messages to kids … that it's okay to dabble in drugs'. Baillieu is opposed to SIF 'based on observation and a detailed look at all of these issues'. Now, I'm not sure what he's had a detailed look at but it isn't the evidence. Or even today's news (see here ).

I'm not going to regurgitate all of the statistics which show that SIFs are good on pretty much every measure. Because if after all of the years of these figures being made public you still have such an absurd view, you obviously don't respond too well to evidence. So I'll tell you a story, an example.

Supervised injecting facilities look like this:

 (picture from Peter Rae at Nationaltimes.com.au)

Do you think this environment looks attractive to kids? Do you think that they would look at this and think, 'Hey, I wanna go shoot some smack?'. No, I didn't think so. And this is when the place is empty! Imagine it with  five or so smelly, homeless, sad-faced individuals sitting on those chairs - do you think it would become more or less appealing? Do you think that this image glamorises injecting drug use?

But not all injecting drug users are homeless and smelly you say. I KNOW. But the ones who aren't homeless are really unlikely to stroll down to the supervised injecting facility to hang out in this clinical environment when they can shoot in the comfort of their own home. That's the point - the people who access SIFs aren't just drug users, they're typically homeless individuals with nowhere else to use. So why use at all? Well, as one welfare worker I've interviewed put it, '... I would far rather be sleeping on the streets stoned than sleeping on the streets straight'. 

And while we're on this point, think about the smacked-out homeless people  you've seen in your time - do they glamorise injecting drug use? Do you think young kids see them and think 'that's what I want to do when I grow up?'. I doubt it. But you know what, even if you think that this is what happens - that kids see drug users and are influenced to become a drug user - irrespective of the failure in your logic, it's another reason why you should support supervised injecting facilities - it keeps the drug use behind closed doors.

And here's some other points - most people are scared of needles. The idea of injecting anything is not appealing.  Facilities like that shown above won't change that. And there's that other issue - people who don't use the facility are unlikely to know what it is, or where it is, or why it is.

And really Baillieu, you don't want to send off the message to kids that it's okay to dabble in drugs? Then make all government events alcohol-free and ban alcohol sponsoring and advertising.

Then there's those of you who support SIF and really push the it improves the community point.

Well, yeah. But, er, no.

Yes, certainly, it's better people use in supervised facilities than in public  toilets, and it's certainly good to prevent the public from stumbling upon the body of a person who has overdosed in such circumstance. But, given how infrequent it is that a member of the public stumbles upon a body it's probably not the best selling point, it's not an experience most members of the electorate can relate to.

But I don't think a SIF needs to have benefits given that it poses no harms.  I also don’t think that we need to see people reducing their drug use to measure the success of SIFs. We can't expect a reduction in drug use while we are not addressing the issues that have lead to the drug use. The role of the SIF is first and foremost to provide a space, with medical supervision, where injecting drug users can avoid death, overdose and blood borne viruses.

I also don't think that SIFs will eliminate public drug use entirely, but I think it will reduce the number of people using alone in public. And given that accidental overdose is far more likely to happen when one is alone, this is a good thing. But, it may not benefit you. For instance, a group of people who hang out in a public housing estate on weekends and sneak behind the cars to use before returning to the communal area to friends are probably going to keep on using like that. You see, they feel safe. They have friends there to monitor for overdose and  keep an eye out for police, so they don't have to go anywhere. So, if you're a tenant in those flats who feels uncomfortable walking through this area, that's unlikely to change. On the upside, these people are very conscientious about safe disposal so you needn't worry about standing on dirty syringes. And given that there's a group of them, you won't be left to find a dead body.

Another reason that we will keep on seeing 'drug users' on the street is that, as I've pointed out, the minority of injecting drug users who would access a SIF are those people who are homeless. So while their drug use may be moved indoors - they are not. Homeless people will still be homeless and you will still have to reconcile how we live in a country that is so inequitable (oh, you don't think that when you see homeless people? Cold hearted person you are.).

****

So while I am not here telling you how you will personally benefit from supervised injecting facilities, here's the facts:

They won't harm you either

They won't encourage drug use

They save other people lives

They prevent police telling a mother that her's child's dead body was found in a public toilet

They prevent the spread of disease through provision of clean equipment and advice on safer using

Ambulances are limited. Less ambulances attending street overdoses means more ambulances able to respond to you.

If they don't affect you, but they might help someone else, why not support them?

From here on in

I caught up with an old friend today. We spoke about depression. Not in the clinical sense, but in the, life's-a-bit-hard-at-the-moment-but-I-really-have-to-get-out-of-bed-each-day-to-prevent-it-getting-worse kind of depression -- an extended period of feeling pretty ordinary I guess.

I've been really anxious about lots of things lately. Getting old, my PhD, publications falling through - do I still know how to write? Conference presentations lacking preparation, my mother's ill health, missing my brother, teaching, marking, house refurbishments, washing, shoes in the wrong size, being late to dinner, not helping my international students enough, getting fat, getting thin, dying my hair, what to cook for dinner, not being a downer around my boyfriend, cleaning the house, exercising enough, not being stressed at home - yeah, you get it ... generalised anxiety.

 

 

So, I think the self-pity and helplessness is passing and so I am beginning to be slightly more productive. I've spent much time trying to figure out whether or not I will be able to finish my doctorate. Not the 'I am not good enough' crisis that will probably come later; but the 'how can I afford to' crisis that comes with running a house and mortgage on the minimum wage that a PhD scholarship affords you. Now, I am not here to discuss either of these dilemmas. Instead, talk about some recent motivations that I hope will see me through.

The first goes to the questions of, what gives your life meaning when you are left alone?

My family has always been Mum, my brother and I. My brother died a couple of years ago, and since then Mum and I are closer than ever – she’s my best friend. But now she’s dying and I am facing the prospect of being alone. Now, I know that if one is to be orphaned it’s much better at age 26 than at 16, but I am still going to miss her terribly. Really miss her. That heart wrenching missing that I know will take me a long time to recover from but which I cannot prevent.

One thing I have learnt through various life tragedies is that no friendship can parallel with family – and no other place is home but where your family is. So if I’m to be soon without family, and no place to go ‘home’ to – how will I cope?

When we found out about Mum’s health, the first phase – after the sadness and the anger – was, what’s the point of writing a bloody doctorate? I’ve previously argued that one should prioritise relationships with family, husbands, wives and children over their PhD as it those people you would want to celebrate finishing your PhD with. After all, it’s your family you go to in times of need – not a pompous degree that has little significance to anyone but you. But the problem with this argument is that if I am to be left to finish this PhD with no one at the end to celebrate it with – is there much point in struggling so much to finish the damn thing? I’ve been juggling this question for some months. But on the weekend, I realised that I have to. You see, I have no control over the fact that I will be alone; so I better make sure that I can do it, life that is, on my own.

So I thought about this some more – what do I want out of life? What do I want in the next five years? The next ten? I asked my partner, 'do you have a five year plan?', 'To be content' he replied. I thought to myself, how can one best position themselves for contentment? And so, in my usual style, I made a list. Not necessarily my dream list, but a feasible list – a list that I can achieve on my own. What I think was significant about making this list was realising how rapidly the next decade will pass. I’d not made a five year plan. I’d positioned myself in a way that I didn’t need to make plans. I didn’t like definite plans. It was a form of commitment and committing to anything is something I’ve traditionally approached with much caution.

But I’ve been put into a situation, in circumstances somewhat beyond my control, where I have serious commitments. A mortgage, a PhD, and the realisation that everyone around me has grown up. So I made this list. And suddenly, I was sitting on a plane with the next decade written down in front of me and I didn’t know how I was going to get this stuff done. And what was more frightening was that this decade, that was now sketched out before me was going to pass so quickly and at the end of it I was going to be closer to 40 than 30. And oh my, I better get my shit together! But more importantly, I think I can do this coping on my own business.

Don’t get me wrong, the prospect of finishing my PhD without Mum there brings me to tears. I always thought it would be something to celebrate but now it’s something that will be bittersweet. Similarly, my ideas about marriage went from ‘celebrating marriage with a wedding is a lovely thing’ to ‘Mum wants to see me marry more than anyone else so how could I ever do it without her?’ (Which I recognise sits really uncomfortably next to my recent post about not living with people before you get married - so I didn’t map out any of this. Mostly because it’s stuff that is beyond my control, but also because I couldn’t find a logical solution to my conflicting positions and figure there’s not much point spending time theorising hypotheticals.)

But I have to finish my PhD – because it will help me in this world alone and because it would make my mum so proud.

I also know that while I am busy now, the five years straight after finishing my PhD will be the busiest years of my career. All senior academics iterate that life as an early-career researcher is much more exhausting, and the workload much more significant, than that of the PhD student. So while I am busy now, I do know that this will only get more so over the next decade. So, recognising this, I have a lot of work to do!  

I made a list of things I want out of life; things I want to possess; things I want to experience; and things I want to do. I didn’t put down children because while creating a family is the one thing I want most, I didn’t want to include things that I couldn’t make happen and I also didn’t want to start listing ages at which I need to reproduce (although, I am very mindful that the 7 years between now and finishing PhD and establishing career do take me into the late window of fertility, sigh – but focus on things you can control, Kathryn!)

So, the list: I have to finish my doctorate and I want a home. I can’t keep my Mum alive to call her place ‘home’ so I really want to create my own. It has to be secure and it has to have a garden. I want to be part of the community and I want it to be warm. I want it to be bright but closed-plan and I want to fill it with books and clean linen and fresh air. The lounge room won’t have a TV, but instead couches, a coffee table and lots of books. There will be pictures of my mother and my brother and their favourite things. My home will be my solace, my escape, my comfort. It will be a space that I create, and nurture, and can go home to.

 

 

I’ve also got plans for a career post-PhD. Things I need in a job, the non-negotiables and the ideals. I’ve thought about the pros and cons of consultancy, the compromises I’d make if I worked for the state, the absence of frontline work that happens in academia. But I am more interested in job security, maternity leave provisions and flexibility. I listed what things I must have and what things I’d like.

I also want to travel. Not the live-overseas type of travel, but there’s places that I really want to go to and I want to do this while I am still young and fit and childless.

I made some career plans: international conferences, publications – all things to do as soon as the PhD is done. All while working enough to make sure I am always financially secure. If there’s one key thing being raised by single mother has taught me is that I never want to struggle like that.

So there’s been some obstacles and I am still trying to balance paid work with full-time study and major financial commitments, but I need to remind myself – yes I will be alone, so I must be able to make it on my own. And as my supervisor tells me - finishing the PhD will be a major achievement that nobody can take off of me.

Best I get to work and revisit this post on days I feel blue.

**Sorry about the self-indulgence, I find documenting this stuff helpful. I will get back to posting more substantively soon.

Why I should finish my PhD

These are the following arguments my thesis supervisor has put forward for why I must complete my doctorate:

"You need to be able to look after yourself. You need to make sure that you never need a man"

"Nobody can take a doctorate away from you. No matter what path you take in life, it's a safety net that you can always fall back on"

"You would be a terrible housewife, can't do a trade and would hate admin. You need to stay in academia for a lack of other options."

"If you end up as a single mum it's a flexible and well paying career"

"Because I said so."

... he keeps me entertained. And probably keeps my partner a little insecure.

Relationship status

A friend of mine has recently started dating a new man. She's been on the single scene for a while and before that has had two relationships that I'd say qualify as significant. She's got plenty going for her and has never been in want of male attention. Given all this, it's probably not surprising that she's also not the sort of girl to settle. She isn't one of those people who need to be in a relationship solely to avoid being alone. She's more than happy to entertain herself and enjoy the dating and casual sex on offer to an attractive, professional female in her 20s.

But now she's met someone she's sticking with. I found this out when she recently uploaded pictures of her recent holiday and there was this man in all of the photos. Then when I reactivated my Facebook account after taking a break, it told me that she was in a relationship. I suddenly felt anxious for her.

The changing of relationship status and corresponding couple photo as your display picture is a big and public move which makes official the union. It's not just the big and the public parts that make me anxious; but the official union part too. We all know the risk of declaring your relationship open: one day, you may have to declare it officially closed in an equally big and public manoeuvre when you don't feel very big nor like being very public.

I've never been listed as 'In a relationship' on Facebook for several reasons: I like to hedge my bets and prevent the public break-up announcement; I've not ever dated anyone who has wanted a public relationship status (hmm, what should I make of that?); but mostly, it's because I've not ever been married. Marriage, perhaps engagement also, is the only time I'd feel confident that the relationship's real enough, and serious enough, for a public status.  

Before you label me a cynic, it's not entirely because I am sceptical about relationships; but because of the meaning I accord marriage. I don't feel that a serious long-term relationship and marriage are the same thing, and my sense of security about a relationship differs accordingly. Now I'm not saying that this is the one right way to view relationships. Mostly because I am acutely aware of my hetero privilege and I do not seek to further exclude same-sex relationships by diminishing their significance. Nor do I seek to undermine defacto relationships or any other kind of relationship you are in. I am saying that, to me, marriage is a relationship status in which I'd feel part of a union; serious relationships are dating, in a serious, committed and monogamous way but I don't see them as unified. (I should further add that I don't seek to undermine serious relationships either - for marriage to carry the significance I accord it, couples mustn't rush into it and the serious relationship comes first!)

I would view a husband differently to a boyfriend. I would live with a husband; depend on them in times of crisis; and I would aspire to start a family with them - I wouldn't do any of these things with a boyfriend. While certainly, there is divorce, I think that couples should go into marriage assuming, preventing, and doing everything possible to avoid this ever occurring. Given this, once married you don't need to pre-empt the 'who keeps this if we break up' questions when buying household items, you don't ever have to go through the horrific experience of moving out of a shared home, or being left in the shared home that's no longer shared.

When you are married, you have a partner in life who you depend on without ever feeling like a burden, and you have someone who you know will always be there, no matter how awful your fights are. Marriage is when the two of you go through a tough time and separating is not a possible solution to your dilemmas - you have to sort it out. You have to stick with it.

Given my desire for my children to have both parents in a strong, stable and loving relationship, I want to do as much as possible to ensure a sturdy foundation - only then would I contemplate the prospect of raising a child with someone. For me, strong and sturdy is inextricably linked with marriage.

So yes, in a time where the popular thing to say is that marriage is 'nothing more than a piece of paper', it is probably a bit old fashioned to see marriage as something more than formalising an existing union - but I do see it as something more. And given that so many people still go through this whole business of getting that piece of paper; it seems to me appropriate that I give it such consideration. I know that lots of people have babies out of wedlock or as single parents and it works out grand. And while not many of my married friends have done it, I know that many a couple live together before they ever discuss an engagement - we all walk different paths. The thing is, I'm just not sure people contemplate walking the rocky path so publicly when they put their relationship status on Facebook, one month into their meeting when they're all loved up and feeling on top of the world. Call me cautious.