I've been thinking about this way too much

I don’t typically write that much about having kids because I like a peaceful life however I have to get this off my chest.

For context, I’m a content designer. That means my job is to make customer journeys seamless. For example, if you’re Australian and you have the misfortune of having to engage with Centrelink, as a content designer I wouldn’t ask for your personal reference number and then refer to it as a customer ID number later in the sequence. Because that would be confusing and annoying, wouldn’t it Centrelink?*

One of the occupational hazards of this job is that I notice content everywhere. Usually I find it funny, like the takeaway shop that had ‘homos’ on the menu. Classic.

However I cannot abide the deliberate misspelling of children’s spaces. Kids Korner. Kids Klub. Kidz Zone. Krazy Kids.

Children who frequent these spaces are often learning to read, and ‘korner’ is not a word. If they flip the ‘k’ around and make it look like a kindergartener wrote it, so help me I will flip a table. Someone needs to be the fun police for the sake of literacy in this country. What about people who speak English as a second language? It’s confusing enough learning the intricacies of this language without us giving them a bum steer like this. Is this something businesses do in other languages? Deliberately misspell things under the presumed guise of cuteness?

Kids Corner. Kids Club. Kids Zone. Not Crazy Kids because I believe we refrain from saying ‘crazy’ these days but maybe Chaos Kids. I don't know, just make it actual words.

And look, I’m being facetious here, it’s not that big a deal just on a fundamental level I believe we can target children without belittling them. It feels sort of mean spirited in a way.

This newsletter is frequently riddled with spelling errors and mistakes because it’s not a business and I’m busy. I would 10/10 run my bricks-and-mortar signage through a spell checker before it went to print.

Do you agree? Or am I an old lady shouting at a cloud?

* This happened about 7 years ago so if you’re the new content designer at Centrelink and you’ve fixed this, thank you. If you haven’t… could you?

Reading

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I’ve been meaning to re-read this since the show came out and only just got around to it but it’s phenomenal. Almost impossible to believe it was written in the early 80s. Read it. The sequel is next on my list. My three year old was very taken with this book and kept stealing it to take to bed or in the car. Weird but cute.

I also grabbed The Wife Upstairs off the new release shelf at the library and it was fab. If you’re going on holiday soon, take this with you.

Watching

Bugonia. It wasn’t a total slam dunk for me but very enjoyable, bold and fun. Same director as The Favourite and Poor Things and it’s very much of that ilk. On that note does the Poor Things costume design for Emma Stone live rent free in your head? It does in mine.

Listening

Jazz in the car. I literally say ‘Hey Siri play jazz music’ and a delightful jazz station just starts playing. For some reason it totally zones my kids out and they actually stop talking for 5 minutes. Bliss.

Wearing

These Cos pants twice over the weekend. Once for the Easter festival in our town and to march with the kids’ school in the parade and again to the pub for beer garden for snacks and wine. Left outfit is Alpha 60 top, Cos pants, Tevas (the goat of summer footwear) and right is Boody body suit, Cos pants, Frank and Dolly’s duster and Dr Martens.

That’s it this week! Netball is on a break for the holidays and I’m focussing on upping my fitness. I’ve been stalking netball influencers (yep that’s a thing!) and I put together this netball agility workout and then I realised it’s just a HIIT session. Doofus. So I’m adding 2 x HIIT sessions a week to increase… plyometrics? Or something. Will let you know how I go.

Have a good one yeah?

Love

Carly

xxx