Submitted by tim on
How lucky is The Lucky Country to be nurtured by not one but two mother figures, both named Hanson?
Our Mother Sarah and Our Mum Pauline, elected to bear crosses on our behalf, the one to point out our manifold sins, the other to encourage them, surely make Australia not, as some say, a nanny state, but a mummy state?
Mother Sarah: our handwringing, long-suffering, Goody Two Shoes Mater.
Mum Pauline: our feisty, flag-clad Ranga-Bogan Ur-Mother.
In the spirit of correctness, signalling that she views men as equals, Our Mother Sarah openly shares her Hansonism with Youngism. Whilst Our Mum Pauline, although born a Seccombe, identifies as a Hanson, which in the spirit of inclusive diversity is all that is required to be a Hanson.
Perennially beleaguered, prone to shed tears at our copious transgressions, Our Mother Sarah simply cannot fathom why her well-suckled offspring – us – continue daily to misbehave , giving Mother Sarah habitually to utter deep sighs of exasperation, muster gravely disapproving looks – and more particularly to ask, despairingly, why we horrid little ingrates do not unceasingly wish to play with poor little gender-fluid and/or migrant kiddies?
Sleepless on cold Canberra nights, Mother Sarah worries: do I over-suckle my children? Why are they so ungrateful? Don’t I give them everything? OMG! What is the appropriate behaviour if they start playing with that awful Pauline’s children? OMG! OMG!! Why don’t their spineless, white-privileged, sperm donors do more?
Perennially #Not Me, I don’t like it, Our Mum Pauline prefers not to fathom, but rather to stay on positive message, in the belief that if she continues saying the same thing over and over, we, her southern-cross-tattooed, ute-driving, “Such Is Life” post-mulleted sprogs, will eventually wake up, Australia!, and learn to stand on our own two feet before the nation is overswarmed.
Thrashing about on hot Canberra nights, Mum Pauline frets: am I under-parenting? Why are my kids so docile? So wet? So PC? Am I not making myself clear? OK, is this clear enough? If youse southern-cross-tattooed, ute-driving, “Such Is Life” post-mulleted sprogs don’t stand up for yourselves, you’ll be overswarmed! Why can’t all Australians just be like Australians?
Our Mum Pauline has no worries about her children playing with Our Mother Sarah’s, as Mum Pauline is confident her children will beat Mother Sarah’s children to a pulp if they give any trouble. Mum Pauline has heard, however, that some of Mother Sarah’s children may be unvaccinated, surely an argument for offshore detention, if not deportation, in a leaky boat, as far away as possible.
Our Mother Sarah enjoys the support of several short, sensitive new age gentlemanly factotums (factoti?) who can be trusted to behave appropriately in all situations, such that when Mother Sarah becomes emotionally overwrought, they are, if not completely equal to Mother Sarah’s moral sensitivity, at least capable of stepping in and administering a dose of corrective – verbal, no smacking, criticise the behaviour, not the child – to errant little Australians whilst Mother Sarah recovers composure.
Contrastingly, Our Mum Pauline has routinely found domestic help difficult to retain in her employ, as, in Mum Pauline’s experience, sooner or later, usually sooner, they get too big for their boots, start having ideas above their station, think they can run the show, forget whose name is at the top of the leaflet, and all that. As a consequence, in today’s troubled times, Mum Pauline is firmly intent on single-parenting the nation unassisted.
Now, to a difficult issue. The call of truth demands we unpack the farrago of gossip and innuendo, speculation and factoid, that befogs the true relationship between Australia’s twin Janus-like mothers.
So, stay with me.
Recent research within the dark realm of digital whisper elicits a tantalising question: could Australia’s Janus-mothers be blood related? Our Mum Pauline’s claim to have been born Seccombe has proven no obstacle to surmise and pursuant forensic investigation, as documents can be, and usually are, in Canberra, forged. One particularly virulent capital city canard has it that The Hansons could prove to be sisters! Unbeknownst to themselves. Or – still more intriguingly – beknownst! Even twin sisters? Separated at birth? Accidentally, or cruelly, depending on who you talk to? As a result, depending on who you talk to, of a significantly underfunded hospital system? Or, depending on who you talk to, of trusting in the unwashed, unqualified hands of an unAustralian fake medical practitioner on an overstayed visa? If indeed, depending on who you talk to, the miscreant ethnic obstetrician had a visa in the first place?
There is surely more clarity yet to be had from filtration and distillation of the Hanson genealogical murk. Watch this space.