February 8th, 2010
I find my child very brainy – very advanced – so I am the same as every parent I suppose. He watches, instead of Cartoon Network, the David Attenborough and Michael Palin DVDs as well as the BBC productions about space. I also recently bought him a book on the human body.
Driving in the car yesterday, he was tired and when he’s tired he asks questions … and lots of them. Questions about the formation of the planet and sky and gravity were followed by questions about the way a human body is designed compared to that of other mammals. I, revelling in his intelligence, answered in detail to the best of my intellectual ability. But while explaining to him the process of digestion my child, with a pensive look, asked, “Mum, why does superman wear his underpants over his trousers?”
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February 5th, 2010
My husband has been diagnosed as being a ‘good boy’, a man who does things to please others regardless of how these things impact on his own life. It took years of conditioning by his mother and needless to say we don’t discuss any of this at family dinners.
Anyway … having broken the cycle of my own dysfunctional family after 20 years of hard graft, I have unwittingly picked up the dysfunction of my husband’s kin. I have single-handedly and systematically been turning my child into a ‘good boy’.
The realisation came at cricket coaching when I noticed he was watching me to gage my reactions to every ball he bowled or hit. It was because I was in a bad mood and he was trying to cheer me up. Sweet, yes. But he took it on as his responsibility, which is way beyond what a four-year-old should be thinking about when engrossed in his passion for sport.
It’s not the first time he has done it but it is the first time I have identified it for what it is and the first time I am totally aware of its dangers and my need to change it (me) as soon as possible.
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February 3rd, 2010
My little noonoo has a French girlfriend. He will state in the same sentence that he hates girls and can Nao sleep over. After a recent playdate with her he came home practising a few French words like bonjour and au revoir and then asked me what the French word for lovely is. Now that I’ve Googled it I know the right answer but at the time all I could come up with was bon.
It didn’t matter because he instantly threw his arms around me and gave me a tender hug and kiss and said, ‘Mummy, you are wonderful, you are bon.’
I need to cling to that moment next time he calls me farty face.
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January 29th, 2010
While working in London, indulging in the fruits from the capitalist tree, there was always a deep feeling that there was more; that I was meant to be doing something more meaningful. I vowed to juice my capitalist fruit, chop down the tree and plant a new kind of seed one day.
That day never came. What did come was a seed that I didn’t want planted – a child that threw my life upside down and several years of believing my dreams were over because my life was no longer in my control.
A friend of mine – and great tart maker – has adapted the term coined by SARK, the author of Prosperity Pie
http://www.planetsark.com/eshop_products_books_feat_01.htm
She makes a list of what she wants at the beginning of each new year and tucks it away somewhere, only revisiting it at what she terms her personal AGM mid year and year end. And she rarely sees a year through without achieving at least 90% of her listed items.
Like trusting the process, this method is meant to free your mind to recognising the immediate opportunities without always focussing on whether they will achieve your ultimate goals.
It’s never been my strong point.
But, having said that, while fighting the process and trying to open all the doors to what I have wanted, I inadvertently left a window wide open and my child climbed in. And with him came everything I ultimately ever wanted. The child I never wanted saved me from the person I wanted to be and made me into the person I am meant to be.
Trust the process and you can have your prosperity pie and eat it too.
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January 28th, 2010
In true Gemini fashion, I change my mind, my outlook and my opinions on a seemingly daily basis and often when I read over some of the material I have posted, I am shocked to discover that it is 100% original material and it came out of the recesses of my dark and cavernous mind.
Something that keeps coming up amongst my peers is the decision to work full time or not. I know what it feels like on the inside – believe me I have been there, desperate to have more of everything good, terrified of giving up anything in case I need it later and paranoid about not being able to provide for the future. But, looking in now from the outside, I have so much faith in the process of a holistic lifestyle. I can’t consume what I don’t have and can’t waste what I don’t have. My choices are more limited but my enjoyment of life totally unrestricted. There is a calmness as though life is slower, more meaningful and less inhibited than before. It seems the more one has, the higher and nearer we place the boundaries … and when you have less, there is no end to the potential you can achieve.
I was chatting to a friend (you know, the ones we non-working mums meet up with for play dates) about ambition and success. Her father-in-law had a simple life and a regular 9-5 job, put all his children through tertiary education and was a respected and loved man. Compared to a man in a powerful executive job who hardly saw his children, apart from annual family holidays, we were weighing up the benchmarks of success. I’m sure if there were a vote the outcome would be more or less equal based on the perspective of the person voting. As for my vote … it’s pretty obvious what it would be – success means nothing unless it has a positive impact on the significant people in that person’s life. What’s the point otherwise? If the choice boils down to a simple education thing, is it better to be able to afford to put your child through ’varsity or is it better to see him and help nurture him before then so he is better able to put himself through ’varsity? My child is still little so I choose to see him – I might, however, change my mind when he becomes a teenager J I see so many parents torn between their need to see their children and their neurosis about their nest egg and recently a lot of people have lost their nest egg despite their choice to grown that instead of their children. Obviously there are people who don’t have the choice and have to be a double-income family. But if no one’s going to die if things are downscaled, then surely the choice is a simple one. This isn’t a judgement of people who want more as I totally get it – I get ambition and the freedom money can buy – I just need to make the point that all choices come with compromise and it’s best to be certain you can live with whatever that compromise may be.
Sure it’s always going to be scary – what important choice is ever not scary? – but it’s a matter of going to the edge and taking the leap of faith to see if flight is possible. There would be no reason to live if it weren’t for the challenges in life – after all, it is the challenges that make life what it is in the first place.
I don’t know anyone so far who hasn’t jumped first and then made the choice to fly.
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