Middle Kid loves sports. He’s never going to be an elite athlete but he’s generally able to pick up new skills easily and thus competently participate in most games/events.
Except when it comes to swimming. Swimming and Middle Kid just don’t mix. He’s never loved the water and despite having lessons since he was six months old, he’s never really mastered any of the strokes properly.
When it comes to “House” events, Middle Kid is usually the first to put up his hand, but when swimming carnival time comes around the only thing he ever volunteers for is the novelty kickboard event. This year our school has expanded. Sadly, to accomodate all the extra children, more “proper” events have been added to the program and the novelty events have been scrapped. (I’m not thrilled with this turn of events because I believe strongly that all children should have the opportunity to participate should they choose, however I do understand the school’s predicament.) So, Middle Kid had the choice between volunteering to swim 50m freestyle or staying back at school and participating in a modified program for the day. He chose to be a participator.
Last week, he was happy with that decision, but over the weekend doubts crept in. Practical Man decided to take him to the local outdoor pool so he could practise. This seemed like a great plan, until Middle Kid got in the water. 50 metres seemed like an awfully long way. He had a few tries but 35 m was the best he could do. He spent Sunday afternoon moping around the house, feeling worried about the upcoming event.
We talked about the carnival and why he had chosen to participate in the first place. He said he is part of a relay team and they needed a 4th swimmer. If he pulls out the team won’t be able to participate. I told him it was completely his choice, but that if he was going to pull out he had to tell me by this morning (Monday) so we could let the school know. I asked him what he was worried about.
Did he think he would drown? No. I can swim, plus there’s plenty of adults watching us and they would save me.
Would he be embarrassed if he didn’t make it all the way? A little.
Was he worried the other kids would tease him or be mad if he didn’t make it? No. They’re my friends.They would never tease me about stuff like that.
I asked him how he would feel if he did make the whole 5o metres without stopping. Very proud of myself.
I left him then to make his own decision. This morning when he was leaving for the bus I asked him for the verdict. “I’ll give it a go,” he said.
The carnival is on Friday. I’ll keep you posted!
A week ago, while doing the post-Christmas What-didn’t-I-get-that-I-desperately-need-that-might-now-be-on-sale foray to my nearest giant shopping centre with my eldest daughter, we found something unexpectedly useful.
I was in fact on the lookout for a cheap(er) copy of the last book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, which, after devouring the first two books in less than a week, I had to have IMMEDIATELY, when B.I.G. G.I.R.L. found a small book titled The Princess Bitchface Syndrome. I took one look at the title, and the cover image of the torso of a teenage girl with her arms crossed in defiance and I rolled my eyes. Not another sensationalist depiction of teenagers, I thought. But B.I.G. G.I.R.L. wasn’t quite so dismissive. She started leafing through the book while I scanned the shelves(that of course, aren’t alphabetised in the cheap, department store book section).
My search was fruitless, and I made to leave, but B.I.G. G.I.R.L. was still holding on to the Princess Bitchface book. So I had a closer look at it. I was surprised to find that it wasn’t another shameless marketing ploy to get desperate parents of wayward teenagers to fork out some money on the off-chance they might find a bit of well-placed advice. The first thing I noted was that the author was Michael Carr-Gregg, well known child-psychologist and author of other, excellent books on the subject of adolescence.
But what prompted me to buy the book was, more than my own interest in the subject, B.I.G. G.I.R.L’s fascination. At fifteen, she is hyper self-aware, and lured by anything that focuses on her and her kind – Teenagers. When we got home, she took the book up to her bedroom to read it in peace, but before she did that, the provocative title (Carr-Gregg has a funny story to go with that) succeeded in generating a lot of attention within the family.
Grasshopper picked up the book, and read selected, humorous (or so he thought) passages about the quirks of adolescent behaviour. They were quite funny, having experienced our own version, and B.I.G. G.I.R.L. was able to laugh at herself. Ratty, on the other hand, barely thirteen and still rather self-unaware in a lot of ways, was made very uncomfortable by her father’s teasing. She found Carr-Gregg’s observations more of a criticism than an actual statement of facts.
Which brings me to my point. It’s good for adolescents to receive information about themselves from people or sources other than their parents. Living together and dealing with the issues connected with adolescence on a day-to-day basis can be wearisome. Parents get sick of repeating themselves and teenagers get sick of hearing the same thing over and over.
However, if someone else is saying the same thing as mum or day, well, then…!
But the book had more to offer than advice on how to deal with problem behaviour. It actually supplied the scientific facts that account for the teenage behaviour everyone (except the teenagers) complains about. Physiological details such as still-developing myelin sheaths accounting for adolescents’ difficulty in thinking through consequences. B.I.G. G.I.R.L read it with growing horror as she recognised these facts from her Year 9 Science classes last year. ‘Oh, my god! Myelin sheaths are really important. That’s so bad!’
What I found reassuring was that Carr-Gregg’s position was in harmony with the views of another psychologist whose book I found to be an enlightening read: Robert Shaw’s, The Epidemic. For a couple of reviews of this book, click here and here.
Both Carr-Gregg and Shaw maintain that absentee parenting, or disconnected parenting, to be more exact, is what can lead adolescents into deep trouble. Parents need to be lovingly, but firmly involved in their adolescent children’s lives. Being there to help with difficult (or unpopular) decisions makes negotiating new territory for teenagers less overwhelming.
A tragic and distressing version of what can happen when parents are not aware of their adolescent children’s movements is Anna’s Story (click on books) by Bronwyn Donaghy. Anna Wood died at fifteen after taking an ecstasy tablet at a Sydney dance party. Her parents thought she was at a sleepover at a friend’s. Much of the book focuses on the dangers of drugs, but the question that confronts every parent is also this one: How do parents build and nurture the knowledge and confidence adolescents need to make wise choices in the face of peer group pressure?
Knowledge is power is an old saying, perhaps clichéd, but true. It’s not enough for parents to hoard the information for themselves and try to impart it on their kids. As children grow into adolescents, it’s important to give them the power they need to feel some control over their lives. They can’t do that without the necessary facts. A couple of years ago, when B.I.G. G.I.R.L. became a teenager, I bought her a copy of Andrew Matthews’ Being a Happy Teen. She looked sideways at it, before taking it reluctantly off my hands. Perhaps I was a tad too eager for her to absorb and adopt Matthews’ sensible, empowering strategies. My frequent questions about what she thought of the book were met with curt, ‘It’s good,’ replies. So I just shut up and let the matter rest. Two years later, and I notice the book is in still in the bookshelf in her room, which is reserved for books she wants to own. The time has now come for me to ask for the book back so that for the common good, it can be shared with the other teenager in the house.
Here we are in a brand new decade (if we’ve just left the “noughties” what will this one be called? The “teenies”?)
How did you fare over the festive season? My Christmas and New Year period was very relaxed. We spent Christmas Day with my brother and his family, staying the night with them at their beach place in Barwon Heads. It was a great day – beautiful food (crayfish and prawns), plenty of bubbly and lots of great company. The kids spent the day playing in the backyard with their cousins and running along the beach. All in all it was a perfect day.
The following day we picked up our caravan and headed west along the Great Ocean Road to Aireys Inlet. This was a great place for a holiday. Lots of lovely beaches but without the crowds of Torquay, Anglesea or Lorne. We very quickly settled into a pattern of beach in the morning, home for lunch, afternoon lazing around reading, with the occasional dip in the caravan park’s pool. In the evenings we wandered across the road to the “Top Shops” for delicious Thai food or walked a kilometre down the hill to the “Bottom Shops” to sit in the garden of the chilled out pizza place. Throw in a few fantastic coffees at the cafe across the road from the camping park, and one lovely afternoon spent in the beer garden of the very well positioned local pub and you have yourself a pretty fantastic holiday. Shame about the massive storm that drenched the annexe and cut our stay short by a day. Oh well, you can’t have everything I guess!
Needless to say I got a fair bit of reading done. I finished Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides, which Ligia recommended ages ago. I really enjoyed this book, it’s a compelling story, beautifully written. It does suffer slightly from a “sagging middle” and in my opinion could have done with some paring back, but it’s still a book well worth reading if you haven’t already.
My next novel was a light choice – Charlaine Harris’ Dead Until Dark. This is the first of the “Sookie Stackhouse” series, which has been made into the TV series True Blood (one of my fave TV shows.) Whilst the book is definitely no literary masterpiece, it kept me engaged until the end. Harris has a light, witty style and Sookie is a kick-ass heroine!
Finally, I read Geraldine Brooks’ Foreign Correspondence, which I totally loved. It’s a memoir of Brooks’ childhood, with a focus on the relationship she forged with several overseas penpals. Her descriptions of suburban Sydney in the 1960s and ’70s really resonated with me (obviously growing up in Melbourne wasn’t that different!) and I could really relate to her aspiration to discover the world outside of Australia. There’s lots of insight into Australian culture in this book and I would rate it as a “must read.” (OK, I admit a bias here, Brooks is my favourite Australian author, her Year of Wonders being my favourite work of fiction EVER!)
The kids have had a lot of time to read too. Big Kid is still working his way through John Marsden’s Tomorrow series. Next on his list is Sherryl Clark’s Bone Song. He’s also keen to start on the Sookie Stackhouse series but I’m mulling over whether the sexual content is too graphic for him at this stage. I think I’ll probably let him, but it’s still under consideration at the moment.
Middle Kid started off the summer with Paul Jenning’s Quirky Tales and has just finished Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Today he’s reading Michael Morpurgo’s The Butterfly Lion.
Little Kid got a copy of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are from Santa, so he has been enjoying that along with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. He’s just finished reading the latest in the Tashi series by Anna Fienberg. Santa also left a copy of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, so we’re sure to be hearing some of those soon.
So far my summer has been wonderful. I hope yours is going equally as well. Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you’ve been up to.
Christmas time seems to bring out the best and worst in many of us.
For some it’s an event to look forward to, a celebration (whether religious or not), a time to be with family and friends. For others Christmas is a time to be endured not enjoyed. Some of us struggle with financial pressure, emotional stress, loneliness or sheer frustration of having to “get everything done.”
I have to admit for the past few years I have fallen into the “endure” group. There are several reasons for this. The loss of my parents means that Christmas will never be the same for me and for the past few Yuletide Seasons I have grieved for the loss of my “ideal” Christmas Day. Also, some tenuous relationships between extended family members makes getting through the Christmas season without hurting any feelings challenging to say the least. Then there’s all the work involved with preparing the Christmas lunch, coupled with buying all the presents and attending to all the other important jobs that go along with the end of the year.
I have to confess to being a bit of an emotional “Scrooge” these past few Christmases, indulging in quite a bit of “Bah, humbug!” type of behaviour.
But not this year! Early on in the season I made a conscious decision to embrace Christmas this year. I bought two new Christmas Carol cds and dragged out all my decorations in the first week of December. The kids were happy to help with decorating the tree and the house, and for once I let them have free rein, even letting them put four different types of tinsel on the tree!*^ I got out the Christmas recipes and started baking, listening to carols while I worked. In the shops I was determined to be patient and not let the crowds bother me. I smiled at children wriggling on Santa’s knee and wished shop assistants a “Merry Christmas.” I bought beautiful Christmas cards and sent them to people I care about rather than to those I thought I should. Released from my sense of obligation, I actually enjoyed writing each card. Likewise, I took extra care in wrapping my gifts this year. Each present has been carefully chosen and wrapped with love before being placed under the tinsel-laden tree.
So far this festive season, I have enjoyed myself immensely. I have chosen to find the joy in the season, and not to dwell on any negative aspects. In reality nothing much has changed from the past few years. My parents are still gone. The awkward situation with certain relatives has not gone away. The difference is this year I decided not to worry about things I have no control over. I can’t change other people’s behaviour, but I can choose I how I respond to that.
I am fortunate this year to be spending Christmas Day with family that I love. I am looking forward to this immensely. When I have been stressed or busy with Christmas related tasks this year I have reminded myself of how lucky I am to have family to celebrate with and this has made all the little jobs seem less onerous.
Christmas doesn’t have to be about excess. I t doesn’t have to be about gorging ourselves or expensive presents. It doesn’t have to be a time to be “endured”. For most of us Christmas can be a happy time of year if we choose to embrace the season. Even those of us facing challenges at Christmas can decide to focus on the positives - the look on a child’s face as he discovers Santa’s presents under the tree, savouring the taste of homemade Christmas pudding, the beautiful voices of the choir at midnight mass, a quiet drink with good friends on Christmas Eve. It’s in these moments that the true spirit of Christmas can be found. If we choose to look we can find much to celebrate.
Merry Christmas to all of you, our lovely readers. I hope each and every one of you find some joyous moments this Christmas. Thank you so much for your support this year. We look forward to having your company again in the New Year.
Lisa 
PS. If you need a little help to get into the Christmas spirit, try clicking here.
*OK, I still have my “own” tree at the front of the house, decorated exclusively in red and gold baubles, but everywhere else I let the kids do as they please!
^ and yes, I know I am a wee bit anal!
Lately, I’ve been spending some time in the shops. You guessed it, Christmas shopping. Not that it stresses me the way it used to, mind you. Christmas and I are now in a good place, and it’s totally due to a few changes I made some years ago.
But first, let’s set the scene. There is much to enjoy and love about Christmas, and the tradition of giving gifts is meant to symbolise love for others, selflessness and sharing, right? So how did this tradition degenerate into a free-for-all, spending orgy that has sometimes little to do with love for your fellow man?
In last week’s Good Weekend magazine, Stephanie Dowrick wrote about Christmas being about more than just the giving and receiving of gifts. In the article, she counsels against ‘generic gift-giving’ and lists ways to focus on the spirit of the day through simple, personal offerings that are light on the budget. When I wander through my local shopping centre, I too, am tempted to buy too much, prompted by the knowledge of what my children, husband, parents, and friends adore. Then I look around me and recognise how I’m being manipulated. Sequin-laden reindeer and snowflakes flash ostentatiously from every shop and thoroughfare, along with sale signs advertising large reductions; symbols of sensory overload and consumerist excess at an obscene level. It’s then that I regain my common sense and try to stick to my shopping list (not always successfully, mind you).
But Christmas isn’t really about presents, and it’s a good idea to think about that when we’re going about our Christmas shopping.
Several years ago, after one particularly opulent Christmas lunch, my sister-in-law and I came up with a plan. We decided to ditch giving every child in the family an individual present, instead opting for different gifts, or a special experience that would be shared. This was prompted by the sea of opened (and mostly discarded/broken) plastic toys that lay on the ground after the ritual, post-lunch, gift-giving. Our children were still very little, and as they tore open present after present, we were dismayed about keeping track of the gift-givers (so they could be adequately thanked) as well as what present belonged to which child (so we would know what to take home – most probably straight into the bin!).
That was Christmas 2001, when the recent events of 9/11 had prompted the US to attack Afghanistan. As we sat around stuffing our faces, I was saddened by thoughts of what was happening around the world, and the injustice of some people being lucky enough to live in a society like ours while others were fearing for – or losing – their own and their children’s lives. Of course, that is not to say I had to look to the other side of the world for Christmas day contradictions. There are many people living in our own communities who can’t afford to give their children the kind of Christmas they see advertised on telly, and who must wander the shops feeling inadequate, depressed, and wretched.
So Sister-in-law and I hatched a plan. I took the easy option, resorting to Oxfam or World Vision gift cards for friends’ and relatives’ families. She took the harder option of providing a family ‘Baking Day’ for all the cousins. Every year since that Christmas she has hosted up to ten children in her home for one day in December, when they all bake gingerbread slabs that they then fashion into houses decorated with icing and sweets. The result is that each family gets to take home one gingerbread house, and that the cousins have a fantastic day re-connecting with each other and having fun, while parents get a child-free day to spend however they wish. Everyone’s a winner.
That same Christmas, I also informed the family that I would only take part in the adult’s Kris Kringle lottery if it was made known that whoever drew my name was to donate $50 to their favourite charity. The adults’ Kris Kringle didn’t last longer than a couple of years after that. I think everyone had long tired of it but hadn’t made their feelings known for fear of offending others.
Christmas giving, honestly, should only be for children, and then in moderation. Once I’ve received one gift from my husband, I’m more than happy. Though my parents insist on giving me something, I really wish they wouldn’t. The day is not about that, and they are in the twilight of their lives. It’s the younger generations’ turn to lavish the gift of company and love upon them.
As much as possible for friends and extended family, I try to purchase modest, consumable presents of food or toiletries that won’t go to waste. These purchases are easy to find, easy on the budget, and never, ever become an onerous task like some Christmas shopping can be at times. Depending on the recipient, I’m sure in my knowledge that chocolate, alcohol or soap will never go astray.
But what I adore most about Christmas is the ritual of getting the tree (and nativity, with its array of little figurines) ready, in anticipation for the big day. We enjoy the visual feast these decorations provide for several weeks, and enhance the mood by playing an eclectic mix of our favourite Christmas tunes; Elvis, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin and The Wiggles, just to name a few. On Christmas day, what is wonderful is watching our kids open their presents in the morning – and honestly, they get enough presents then not to need one other present from anybody else – and then spending time with our much-loved extended family over lunch. Nanna is 89, and still makes us giggle with her no-frills approach to life – she has much to offer any sullen teenager, let me tell you!
As a result of these changes to our Christmas tradition, our children have come to understand and value donations of charity as significant contributions in the community here and overseas. They are happy to accept less knowing they are part of a bigger picture of local and global caring.
Hopefully, they will carry these values and improve on them as they get older. I have no doubt the younger generation is moving towards more sustainable, less wasteful solutions than their Baby Boomer and Gen Y antecedents in all kinds of arenas. Christmas will be no exception.
As most of you are well aware by now, I am participating in the Oxfam Melbourne Trailwalker in April next year.
Part of my team’s challenge is to raise $5000. On Saturday we are having a fundraising Monster Garage Sale in Mitcham (click on the link for all the details!) If you live near Mitcham, pop in and see me. I might even have time for a chat!
Please pass this information on to anyone you think may be interested. It’s for a great cause!
Big Kid will be 14 in less than a month. Overall he’s a pretty good kid, but as is the case with most teenagers he’s trying to work out his place in the world. He’s learning how to become a person in his own right, and as part of this process he’s pushing the boundaries just a little.
I am very happy for him to assert his independence, after all that’s what success as a parent is all about to me – raising independent, self reliant human beings. However there are rules in this house for everyone to live by and at times Big Kid either disputes or ignores these.
We are working through this stage without too many full on dramas, but at times there has been tension between us. Some days I have felt like the only interactions between us have been negative.
Practical Man has had his own issues with Big Kid, but they have a couple of shared passions that help to keep the lines of communication open between them. When things are getting a bit tense in their realtionship, Practical Man throws the surfboards on the car’s roofracks and he and Big Kid head for the beach. Whatever problems they are having can be washed away in the surf. Other times they reconnect over a game of golf.
For me it has been harder to find a way to keep “in touch” with Big Kid. We do like to run together, which is great, but doesn’t give us much opportunity to talk. And, to be honest, running is my only real “alone” time so I’m not keen to have him come along more than once a week. Other than running we have no shared interests, or at least we didn’t have.
Enter Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I first fell in love with this series in the 90s, in fact it was when I was up late breastfeeding Big Kid that the show first came to my attention. Practical Man and I watched every episode and then went out and bought the series on video (remember video?) Of course these days we don’t even own a video player, so it’s been a long time since I’ve watched the show. Recently I suggested to Practical Man that we get the series on dvd. Big Kid expressed an interest in watching the show with us and so, in the last school holidays, I went out and bought the first season for him.
To my great delight, Big Kid loved the show as much as I did. Every night, when the little kids went to bed, he and I would settle ourselves in front of the TV for our nightly fix. We had soon charged through the first season and so the second was purchased. We finished watching season two on Friday night. Season three has been placed on Big Kid’s birthday list and I have a strong feeling he won’t be disappointed.
I have enjoyed watching all my favourite episodes again, and I have taken great pleasure in watching my son’s enjoyment of the show. It has been fantastic to spend an hour or so at the end of the day engaging in a harmonious activity together, one that doesn’t involve a battle of wills. But the best thing about watching Buffy together has been the opportunity for us to be on the same side once again. We can laugh about our favourite bits together and talk about what may happen in future episodes. We can slip “slayer speak” into our daily dialogue and that gives us a special way to connect. An added bonus is the content of the show: there are many issues about being a teen that come up throughout the series. The show has been a great launching pad for discussion about teenage life.
I have to say that since the slayer came into our lives our relationship has vastly improved.
It just goes to show that our kids really do still want to be connected to us, even when they are pushing us away.
Years ago, when my children were still little, my father-in-law expressed a view that parents should aim to make their children as independent as possible, as soon as possible. ‘When parents can tell that their children are able to lead independent lives,’ he added, ‘they will know their job is done.’
I must admit that the concept he introduced was a novel one. At the time, I was focused on baby-and-toddler-specific matters such as dealing with mountains of nappies, choosing kindergartens and the importance of immunisation. Thinking ahead to my babies being independent seemed something too far away to consider. There was also the matter of my own upbringing; very Italian, in the sense that my parents would have welcomed me staying home until I was a grey-haired spinster (their term, not mine) rather than face the disgrace of having an unmarried daughter leave home. I had grown up with the notion that good parents never encourage their children to leave home, just as good sons and daughters look after their elderly parents and must never, ever, put them in a nursing home.
So it’s easy to see that from my standpoint, my father-in-law’s idea seemed radical, outrageous. Almost sinful.
Yet, the notion of parents aiming to make their children independent sooner rather than later was a powerful one, and as powerful notions tend to do, it stayed with me. Since that day, I have often returned to explore it, and have brought it up with friends or other education professionals. Over the years, I’ve come to see the wisdom in the words of that long-ago day.
Though the notion of making kids independent seems irrelevant when our children are babies, it’s actually extremely pertinent, and forms the basis of a life-long philosophy for raising kids to be ready and functioning adults. Let’s not forget children become adults at 18, but how many of us still regard them as being vulnerable and at risk until well into their twenties? Too many, I’d hazard to guess.
I wonder, then, in the face of a growing number of children who delay leaving home until it seems they never will, whether parenting, like housework, has become one of those jobs that is never done.
Recently, I’ve been prompted to return to my father-in-law’s views on parenting by a couple of items in the media. The first was an article in The Age’s Good Weekend magazine (31st Oct 2009). The author was Jonathan Biggins, who has just published a book called, The 700 Habits of Highly Ineffective Parents. Click here for a fantastic radio interview with Biggins on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program. Biggins has views pretty much identical to my own on many matters surrounding parenting in our current, far too child-centred climate. I had quite a chuckle while listening in to Biggins’ views on talented and gifted children, participation certificates, homework in primary school, discipline and catering for child-spaces (the whole house, basically) in the home, and much, much more. Fifteen minutes well spent, trust me. It may change your whole parenting philosophy, and for the better.
In Parental as Anything, Biggins details how parents are stuck in a trap of doing everything for their kids, and too easily fall into a competitive race to give their children an ‘edge’ over other children by overdosing them on a frenetic chain of after-school activities. The illustration for the article shows a demonic-faced baby perched in a high chair, high above his kow-towing parents, who are grovelling at his feet like servants. It would be funny if I didn’t see so many examples of this in my everyday life – some of them in my own home.
Then yesterday, while still half asleep, I caught the end of a talk-back sequence on the morning radio program we wake up to. A listener had called to ask opinions on how to get her daughter – who had just finished VCE – out of bed early enough to eat a mum-prepared breakfast before she went off to her job. Some of the callers urged the mother to leave the poor child alone – a job so soon after completing her exams?, or to encourage her to take a gap year to ‘recover’ from the rigours of VCE.
One listener rang in with a very simple, yet chilling message for the harried parent. Without beating about the bush, he said, ‘If you still need to get your seventeen year old daughter out of bed, you haven’t done your job.’ There it was. Straight down the line. Simple. True.
By helping, supporting, and being there for our children, we sometimes do them an enormous disservice. Just as leaving training wheels on a bike longer than necessary restricts manoeuvrability and hampers the development of safety skills, doing too much for our children limits their ability to do for themselves.
Recently, this fact has most aptly been demonstrated in our house. The area in question is making the children’s lunches. When our last baby was born, I gleefully handballed the odious job to Grasshopper, who’s quite handy with food preparation. Utilising an old trick of my mother’s, once he was in the habit of doing the job, I relinquished it forever. So for the last almost ten years, making the lunches for the children has been Grasshopper’s assigned job. Except that now, he doesn’t do it anymore, because the girls make their own lunches. Even Ocean Eyes, at nine, will organise a pretty spot-on, nutritious lunch for herself, sometimes nicking out to the corner milk bar before school for hommus dip to spread on her sandwich, or to eat with carrot sticks.
See, if I had continued to make lunches back ten years ago, I’d still be making them today, because though my lunches are uninspiring and repetitive, they’re steadfast. In the kitchen, whatever I may lack in virtuosity, I make up in dependability. What has encouraged the girls to do for themselves is that Grasshopper is sometimes – bless his heart – unreliable. To speak plainly, let’s just say that occasionally, he’s crap at the job. There were days when everyone was running late, Grasshopper had already left for work, and it was discovered the lunches weren’t made. Frantic lunch production would follow, which sometimes included hasty raiding of drawers, purses and favourite loose-change-hidey-spots to come up with enough money for a lunch order. Though Grasshopper’s product quality was always above par, his sustained effort rating was, at best, variable.
I don’t know of one other household where the children all make their own lunches. I hear everywhere of parents with adult kids who continue to pack lunchboxes as though their children were still in prep. I’m not saying we’re remarkable. Food preparation is just one area where our kids are on the way to becoming independent. There are other households that have other focuses, with equally impressive results, and I have much to learn from their techniques.
Why aren’t we generally expecting more from our capable, older children, than we would of paying guests in a hotel? Who suddenly cast parents in the role of live-in servants? Oh, I know the change hasn’t been that sudden. It’s been creeping in over the last few decades, but sometimes when I stop to reflect, I am truly shocked at how pampered kids in Western societies have become.
When we, as parents, don’t step back from doing for our kids, is it really because we want to help them? Do we free them of household chores, of other responsibilities like setting their own homework schedule or remembering the days and times of after school activities because we want them to focus on their education, to have down-time, to be happy?
Perhaps the truth is in that last word. Happy. We want our children to be happy, and that wish is so fervent that we fear the opposite happening with a terrible vehemence. When we don’t demand and expect of our kids, are we really acting in their best interest? I suspect that not only fear is at play here, but guilt. When I watch Ocean Eyes going about her lunch preparation so capably, my feelings are mixed. Part of me is proud, but there is another part that is guilty. If I was a good mother, wouldn’t I still be making her lunch?
The important thing is to take a step back, reflect on what the long-term outcomes of our actions are likely to be, and then change our ingrained patterns. If we want happiness for our children, we should set some long-term goals. The clichés abound here. Short term pain for long term gain, or something to that effect. Keeping it food-related, I’ll make my own analogy: No point indulging in sweets when we know cavities lie ahead.
Parents who do too much for their children are doing them no favours in the long term.
I must apologise for my absence around here lately. I have had a post in draft form for about two weeks, but am yet to finish it. (Soon, I promise!!!)
Trailwalker has taken up a lot of my time lately. There’s all the training involved, both with the team and on my own, and a whole lot of fundraising to be done as well. Over the past few days I’ve run a couple of fundraising events at home – A Girls’ Night In and a Trailwalker Morning Tea – both of which were enormous fun, but also involved quite a bit of work on my part.
The kids have had a lot on lately too: school concerts, choir performances, musicals, spelling bees and various other “special” events – all of which have required extra effort and participation from me. Middle Kid recently starred in his Grade’s Musical In A Day. This event had been postponed a couple of times and was finally staged last Friday (at the end of a very busy week!) I to confess that my sole contribution to this event was turning up on the day. Practical Man and Middle Kid spent some time on the weekend cobbling together a costume, as I was away on a Footsloggers’ Training Weekend. Middle Kid was thrilled with the result (see photo above).
Christmas shopping has taken up a bit of time too recently. My kids finish school on the 10th of December, so I would like to be all organised before then. I’ve got most of the kids’ pressies out of the way, but I still have lots of little things to pick up – teachers’ gifts, Kris Kringle things, a little ’something’ for my aunty, etc, etc. Not mention all the food shopping (haven’t even thought about that yet!) I’m contemplating NOT writing Christmas cards this year, but in reality I know I will send them out in the first week of December as always!
Some of my “busy-ness” (in fact quite a lot of it!) has been of the fun variety. A couple of weeks ago Practical Man and I took the kids camping in the Grampians (see photos below). We tried out our new (old!) camper trailer and had ourselves a lot of fun! Since then we’ve traded the camper trailer for a full on caravan (Jayco Expanda) and this weekend we are headed to Port Fairy to try it out.
Anyway, enough excuses! I promise a “proper” post soon!!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem at all with Halloween as a significant event on a country’s cultural calendar. If that country is the US or Canada.
I just don’t think it belongs here in Australia. When I was a teen, the only experience we had of Halloween was from the TV, and mostly from the steady afternoon viewing diet of shows like My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, The Beverly Hillbillies, and others in that genre. The concept of Halloween as an American cultural celebration was something I and my generation understood well, and I gained pleasure from that understanding as it gave me a social context in which to frame the workings of other countries.
But Halloween just wasn’t something we would do. It would seem preposterous to copy another country’s cultural heritage for no apparent reason.
In the last few years, an inexplicable interest in Halloween has become more and more prevalent, so much so that children look forward to it with a great degree of excitement – not that this is very surprising, considering lollies and chocolate are involved. Children are so easily bought.
The first time trick-or-treaters knocked on my door was when my last child was still only a baby, and had just been put down for her evening sleep. I opened the door and grumpily whispered that it wasn’t a good time. The poor kids got it and moved on to the next house where they probably hoped a more agreeable person would answer the door. A few days later, I met the mother of one of those children, and she apologetically referred to her child bothering me on Halloween night. I replied that it was no bother (though in reality it was), and then I told her that I had a philosophical opposition to Halloween, since it was a cultural festival that had no place in Australia. She listened politely, but I don’t think she shared my views.
The following year, I put a sign on our gate that said, No Trick-Or-Treaters. Rather humbug of me, I know, but I really do feel this strongly about it. That year, nobody came. But there have been times when children dressed as ghouls and ghosts, monsters and witches have knocked on our door, and I’ve had to turn them away in the most diplomatic way possible. Quite simply, I do not wish to give sweets of any kind to children I don’t know. I realise most or all of these children would have their parents’ permission to go trick-or-treating, but I have no way of being sure. As a result, I am not willing to risk the ramifications of a child being in trouble for accepting food from strangers, or eating too many lollies. What if the child is a diabetic and has snuck out without permission? It’s not an outlandish idea that there would be children dragged along on Halloween walks without their parents’ knowledge if they were sleeping at a friend’s house that night. God forbid there should be a child with a severe nut allergy who eats one of my chocolate bars that has been contaminated with traces of nuts from a conveyor belt in the factory where it was packaged.
I also feel extremely uncomfortable about children knocking on random doors without knowing the residents. I’m not going to be a panic merchant now, and say that it’s potentially dangerous because they could, say, inadvertently meet with a pedophile. The likelihood of that is remote, and as kids are generally moving about their own neighbourhood, and in groups, there is little opportunity for a predator of that kind to harm them then and there. Still, I’m just not okay about children knocking on strangers’ doors uninvited and unannounced. It’s different if the purpose of the visit is to spread the word about a missing pet, or to retrieve a ball. Knocking on doors asking for sweets with the threat of tricks if the treats aren’t delivered is, on my radar, just not good manners.
So when my children started asking if they could join their friends in the annual Halloween knock and grab, I voiced my objections, explaining the reasons for my philosophical opposition to the practice. They listened with looks of despair on their faces, and – of course – continued in their quest to be allowed to participate. Gradually, year by year, they have worn me down. When they were younger, I made a rule that they could go as long as there was a parent or responsible teenage sibling supervising the excursion. This meant that some invitations had to be declined. I know it might seem hypocritical of me to allow my children to participate (the oldest, at fifteen, is over it, thankfully) without being at the ready in my own home to dispense sweets. But I simply cannot take part.
Now, if I lived in the US, I’m sure I would have a vastly different view of Halloween. I would indulge in the festivities, encouraging my children to dress up and take part with their friends. I would still have serious misgivings about my role as the giver of sweets, and of my children as knockers, but I would work out ways to get around it with sensible supervision. We do, after all, indulge in all sorts of mildly politically incorrect practices for the sake of social cohesion and cultural identity. Take Christmas, for example: Those who can afford to, sit around gorging themselves on rich food and throwing away lots of money on presents nobody needs or wants while there are so many who have so little in their own communities…but that’s another story.
We engage with Christmas if it’s part of our cultural heritage, and because there are many wonderful aspects of this festivity. Increasingly, there are members of Australian communities who do not celebrate Christmas. They observe other festivities, tied to their cultural heritage. These festivities – Ramadan and Chinese New Year to name a couple – are incredibly significant in the lives of large numbers of Australians. What has always puzzled me is that often, we don’t embrace these religious and cultural festivals and share the celebrations in our communities. At school, children often speak of these celebrations, sharing stories of the traditions and gifts, and it’s wonderful to see how fascinating these accounts are to children from different cultural backgrounds.
So my point is, if we are going to widen our experience of cultural celebrations, why choose one that has no relevance in Australia? Do we have a significant number of American residents here? Not to my knowledge, and if we did, I would have no objection to them organising some Halloween fun to share with the rest of us. But I have a big problem with Australians actively taking part in Halloween and ignoring or shunning the religious and cultural festivals of fellow Australians.
Schools are getting behind Halloween, too, with little opposition from parents. If the local school were to have a Ramadan Day, I think there would be more than a few parents who would complain about the Muslims taking over the country. Why are we so eager to welcome in American culture when it has no relevance to our modern Australian reality? Being Australian no longer means being White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (if it ever did). And what of our Indigenous Australians? How much do we know of their heritage? This is the knowledge our children should have. The modern Australian melting pot of cultures is what our children need to experience. Where, in all this, is the relevance of Halloween?
Lisa
Ligia