We all start out trying to be the very best parents we can. “They f**k you up your mum and dad, they don’t mean to but they do.” – Phillip Larkin Jane Caro writes about such ‘research’ scaring parents into believing they don’t really know what they’re doing. Everything in it was worthless (I am not a diamonds and pearls kind of girl) except to me.Earlier today, The Australian published an article titled ‘Angry parents at fault for troubled kids’. Once they opened it, I am sure they just threw it away. Our house was broken into a few years ago and the thief snatched my jewellery box off my dressing table. I grievously miss (and suspect I always will) the loss of 30 years’ worth of collected earrings. I’m cheating a bit here, because it’s many items. I expect to have one with me – maybe on the bedside table in hospital or at home (if I am lucky) – when I die. One of the five or so I have owned so far has variously been with me on planes, trains, camels, treks, climbs, bush walks, boats, ferries and a helicopter. The point of the bag is that it is small, just big enough to carry my glasses, phone, credit cards, lipstick and now a mask.

I am often attracted to male accessories (I have bought many a man’s scarf) because I am allergic to the frilly embellishments and wishy-washy colours that so many designers believe suitable for women’s clothing. It was a small, faux-snakeskin envelope-style bag suspended from a long, dullish-gold chain. I used it daily until its chain corroded and became useless. The first one I had, however, was designed for men and I bought it in Bali. Currently it is a rounded brown leather version. Wherever I go, one thing always comes with me – some might call it an accessory. My older daughter’s expression is more mischievous, perhaps, but she too stares at the viewer as if daring them to dismiss her as a mere child. Morden’s children are not cute or sweet they are furiously, mulishly themselves – especially my younger daughter.ĭenise’s painting captures an expression of sullen obstinacy that I remember vividly. The children stare unsmilingly from the canvas, challenging us with their uncompromising gaze. ‘Utterly unsentimental’: the portraits of Jane Caro’s daughters that she’d save in a fireĭenise’s paintings of children – she has two of her own – are utterly unsentimental.

The F Word by Jane Caro