Posts Tagged ‘parenting’
Monday, November 9th, 2009
We fret so much about doing the right thing all the time … at the right time and in the right way. We’re terrified we’ll do something wrong and damage our children so much that they’ll end up hating us. But, you know what, when our children get to 13 or 14 (often even sooner), they are going to hate us anyway. It’s inevitable … like hormones.
Which makes me wonder if perhaps the best thing to do is bring them up in a way that will preserve our own sanity rather than theirs … and that way we will be better equipped to deal with the inevitable.
You may get lucky and have a child that doesn’t ever hate you. And what a bonus for that sanity of yours.
Tags: children, parenting, sanity, teenagers
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
I find myself breaking out in a sweat whenever the school topic comes up at dinner parties. I might actually be forced into home schooling as the very thought of trawling through school grounds and interviewing teachers who really couldn’t care one way or the other whether the child who is my prince attends his school or not makes me want to break the parenting deal that requires me to educate to the best of my ability.
My child is four. He is perfect in every way … like everyone’s child, of course. I wanted to give him away for the first two years of his life and am only really getting to know him now that he has wormed him way into my blood like a parasite I am now loathe to get rid of because I would die without it.
Now, when I watch him sleeping, I realise the significance of what has been entrusted to me and it is enough to make me feel suffocated with the pressure of being the perfect mother to this perfect human child.
He changes every day and it the most incredible human being I have ever met so the thought of leaving him in the care of an institution each day, terrifies me. I don’t have great memories of school – and the ones I do have are tainted by too much booze and Tippex thinners – so I need to know my child so much better before I can feel qualified to pick an appropriate schooling system. Of course, I am fully aware of the fact that he won’t get in anywhere now because most people pick the school for their child while they are in the act of procreation.
So, now what? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how to chose something so fundamentally important – something that will have such a huge impact on this person who is relying on me so heavily to do good by him.
Which brings me to the next post …
Tags: career, choices, home schooling, job, life choices, parenting, schooling, schools
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
I think I know why it is so difficult for woman to give up their careers to look after their children. I wasn’t aware of it until I visited where I used to have the same issues. Before I had a child, and even in the first years of having him, I was extremely critical of anyone who could just give up their life to stay at home with their child/ren. I thought it was a cop-out, the easy option and a weak choice. And now that I’m on the other side, I see more intensely the friction between working and non-working mums as I feel the contempt that comes with my perceived lifestyle of non-contribution and laziness. Sure, it’s not necessarily directed at me … but at people who have made the same choices as I have … Regardless, it’s a tough pill to swallow since I am now on the other side and I have the great perspective of having tried both options. Perspective counts for naught though when you can’t categorically state which is better.
It’s just got to be better for you and not just a better view for others.
Tags: career, choices, job, life choices, lifestyle, parenting, working mum
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
I crossed over into the life of my parallel dweller. It was temporary – 10 days – and it was fabulous. I booked to travel to Paris and London to run a race, visit friends and stroll the High Streets of my heyday. I counted down the weeks, days, hours and minutes to my departure, planning everything in minute detail so as to not miss out on anything I had been hankering for.
I have a friend who won’t leave her child for a night and I have friends who will leave happily for three weeks and I have friends who have varying levels of tolerance for staying away from their kids … somewhere between those two extremes. I don’t yet know where I fit.
Leaving my husband and child was filled with mixed feelings of ‘get me out of here’ and ‘I’m a terrible mother for wanting to leave so badly’. It was made worse by the call I got while going through passport control – my child was in a state because he was under the impression that I was leaving forever (perhaps he just knows me well enough to realise what a fine line I was traversing trying to connect with ‘the other side’).
I had pangs of wanting to take my child with me on my mini-adventure and a small amount of separation anxiety – a direct result of his having formed so much a part of my identity for so long now. But, once on that plane, I had shunned my mothering comfort zone and assumed my old identity – I was a free agent, meeting people as a confident, independent woman; a person I thought I had lost. The next ten days, as you can well imagine, were a whirlwind of plugging back into the grid of soul connections and lifestyle adjustments. I rode the rollercoaster of hating every minute and never wanting it to end. I was high on adrenalin and I almost valued my fix enough to call home and say I was staying. Instead … well, I’m back after tearful farewells and aching hellos … and it’s as though I haven’t quite left the fairground, but everyone’s packed up and gone home.
I feel now like I have an overloaded system of unprocessed information and things undone. I have launched myself into a state of limbo between lives; between choices; and I find myself pining again for what might have been. I have one foot in my parallel dweller’s life and it feels like she wants to keep it there – perhaps out of spite for what she sees I have … so much of what she will never have.
Tags: career, choices, job, life choices, parenting
Posted in best reads, bhalababy | No Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
In my latest therapy session we discussed all the many ways my life has changed. Could I say I regret having had a child or would it be more accurate to say that he has got me to where I am today and contributed to the person I am right now?
I have always been aware of that sassy chick in my parallel universe who has a great job earning a great salary that allows her to buy the things she wants and enables her to travel to Japan and Brazil on a whim. She is confident because her clothes aren’t always in a state, she can still wear heels and her stomach muscles are still as taut as when she was thirteen.
There’s no doubt I am still aware of her but I now look at her with admiration, not envy. She possesses a lifestyle of different choices and though some may seem so much better from where I’m standing, I am certain my choices show a lifestyle just as enviable to someone on her side.
Tags: career, choices, job, life choices, parenting
Posted in best reads, bhalababy | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
It must have a certain amount of something to do with vanity when you hear your own words come out of your child’s mouth and think how wonderful he is for saying such clever things.
This is until your sweet curly-haired and blue-eyed four-year-old instructs you to tell the cranky neighbour to just f*** off. I’d love to blame those hippy parents of his school friends for not bringing up their children properly … I’d love to but I can’t really, can I …
All I could do was tell him what a rude word it was and that it would be best if he didn’t use it in public. Now he just whispers the word in my ear when he thinks the situation we are in may warrant its use.
Tags: children, foul language, manners, parenting, swearing, up bringing
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Monday, September 28th, 2009
I’m six. I am sitting in the dentist’s chair and I am that child again who hid in the waiting room, jaws firmly clenching shut, face numb. The dentist has already given me five injections and has only one left to administer before he can extract the tooth … but nothing was getting me back into that chair. My mother called in friends of mine, friends of my older siblings, adults, and even bribed with all my favourite sweets and desserts. But she eventually sighed deeply and dragged me home. That was the beginning of my bad encounters with dentists and I still have a phobia.
… or maybe I am just stubborn. I look at my child and shudder at the thought that he might turn out like me and put me through this kind of hell. And then I realise that perhaps he already is. Could I have made him like that in the short time I have had with him, or is it feasible that I had nothing to do with it apart from the genetic perspective?
Most relevant right now, it seems, is the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had it since I can remember. I never knew what it was but I remember seeing it come up in all my aptitude tests and I trusted my parents to discuss with me anything that I might need more information on so as to better manage who I am. They never did. I see the same characteristics so clearly in my son and I blame myself for his being like that anyway because, whether it was nature or nurture, he is like that because of me.
One can never tell what really is nature or nurture because you can’t experiment with both simultaneously.
Tags: children, parenting
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
How do you teach your child about modesty? Yeah, yeah, I know he’s only three … but I’m obsessive compulsive and therefore have to feel great pain over trivial things on a daily basis. My need to be the perfect mother … or is that my need to have the perfect child? Whatever! My need is getting in the way of a happy marriage … according to the other person who is the target of my obsession. Or perhaps it’s because he is not enough of a target anymore now that there is a child to dilute my anal perfectionism. But, since that has absolutely nothing to do with the title, more to the point now.
I have noticed that everything my child has is better than anything any other child has … according to him only, that is. I blame myself … of course (see opening paragraph!) … mainly, I suppose, because I try and teach him to be proud of what he has. And somewhere along the line, the boundaries got blurred. Combine the pride and the blurred boundaries with his confidence and here is a child who will approach anyone and tell them about all the things he has. And, I have to admit, there is a certain smugness there.
Precocious was a swear word when I was growing up … not that I have any problem with swear words or anything, but I feel the need to use this particular one now when referring to my child. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be now that children can actually be both heard as well as seen. But that still leaves me with a gap where the modesty lesson should follow.
Tags: parenting, perfectionist, precocious, pride
Posted in best reads, bhalababy | No Comments »
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
I know now why all those ex friends and acquaintances kept encouraging me to do the child thing … they just wanted to be able to be my friend again. I used to find it shallow that they couldn’t be friends because I hadn’t given birth … like they were part of some secret club and I didn’t know the password. But I have found myself guilty of a similar thing lately – I have been befriending people I haven’t seen in years because they have since had a child. Once you have had the identity crisis that having a baby brings, it is just so much less intimidating being around people who just may be on the same wavelength as you are.
I find myself trying to play it safe, play down the parent thing, when out with childless couples. I feel boring talking about my child and wonder why it is any less boring than a friend talking about their job … but that’s how it is; it’s my new reality.
The biggest problem … and this is quite huge … is when you don’t like your friends’ children or your friends don’t like yours! There’s also that thing when people become their children. I’m guilty of it … as is every parent I know … you have to get through the invisible shield that holds all the child-related angst and bullterrier-like protectiveness before you can get to and engage with the real me.
Tags: babies, children, friends, parenting
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
It takes diligence and discipline and it’s boring as hell to implement, but if you keep at it relentlessly, it eventually becomes a part of them.
Of course it’s often the easier option to just do everything for them but, in baby steps, you can keep reminding them to do things like go to the toilet first thing in the morning, blow their noses instead of using their sleeves, greet people they meet and say please and thank you. It eventually becomes second nature and they do it all for themselves. Granted there are parents who don’t want their children too independent because they feel less needed (see post, ‘Procreating out of boredom’) but, like Sasha said, they should just get a puppy.
The most important part of constantly reminding them to say please and thank you – especially to you – is that, if they don’t say please and thank you to the person who does almost everything for them (you!), then they will end up thinking there is no need and will, therefore, start taking you for granted.
Tags: discipline, parenting
Posted in bhalababy | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 6th, 2009
A friend has left. He has emigrated. He reached a stage of his life … call it the mid-life drama thing … that has forced him to confront priorities in his life. Or maybe he has been stuck for so long thinking he has time to change/shake things up a bit and he now feels he is running out of time. It’s the right decision … except for all those he is leaving behind.
This world is changing so quickly that we have to keep redefining ourselves. This is often tricky as we can, as a result, fall out of synch with those around us, so we have to move fast when the urge takes us. It’s hard to take the path less travelled; it’s hard to have to justify certain decisions to all those around you … so we end up making these decisions – possibly years too late – when we can blame them on something like a mid-life crisis.
I’m going to miss him and his wife and will live with the thought that I probably took them for granted … believing they would always be around: around when we all came out of the early childminding fug; around to pick up where we left off pre being too damn busy to make enough effort; around to be the role model for my child. I didn’t quite grasp the impact his leaving would have until my child ran up to him to say goodbye and hugged him so tightly that I wondered if he would ever let go.
Tags: emigrating, family, friends, mid-life crisis, parenting, role models
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
I have a friend who believes in this concept – amazingly, just the one. There are those who get really uptight if you so much as reprimand their kids for such indiscretions as smacking, kicking or even biting your own precious offspring. And then there are those who believe that bringing up baby all on your own is a lark and if not for the input from all around, your child would not be quite as balanced as one would wish. Perhaps all the breeding for more and more kids has a lot to do with parents trying to create their own mini-village … who knows. I certainly don’t have a clue what it’s all about and I could spend this lifetime and the next trying to figure it out.
Like any crisis that happens en mass, people tend not to individualise in order to better contain it. This seems to be what happens with parenthood – it happens to everyone who has a child so parents are grouped together into one collective and a rule of generalisation is applied to everyone in the collective. But, behind the scenes, there are people screaming in pain at the stress of it. Broken marriages, non-existent sex lives, grey hair and emotionally screwed up children.
It is not easier being part of the collective … ‘the collective’ is not the same as ‘the village’.
Tags: children, collective, family, friends, new parent, parenting, village life
Posted in best reads, bhalababy | No Comments »
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
Just when you think you have the motherhood thing waxed – and you can’t remember when you lasted chanted ‘this too will pass’ while your child wailed in his time-out corner of the bathroom – another challenge rears its head and dares you to become complacent.
The school concert!
My child, when asked what he would like to be in the school concert, has chosen to be a teapot. This would be fine – he, after all, knows the little teapot song and dance – if it weren’t for the (for me) massive hurdle preparing a convincing costume for his act.
Bring on drug counselling and sex education … they’ve got to be easier than this.
Tags: drug counselling, parenting, school concert, sex education
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Possibly the two most important things I have taught my son: the one is that he has every right to stand up to me when I am angry with him and he feels he is being judged unfairly and the other is that no matter how angry I get with him that I still think he is the most awesome human being and I love him more than anything.
He gives me a hug and a kiss and asks me if I am happy. This is after telling me not to shout and reassuring me that he knows that I love him even though I am cross.
Tags: balance, children, love, parenting, respect
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
I challenge anyone to prove to me that smacking your child shows more control that not.
The reason I don’t smack my child because I was beaten as a child … so perhaps I can’t be totally rational about this. This is, it was my parents’ attempt at gaining an element of control when they thought all was lost. They used this as their way of showing that they had the control. I believe not. I believe that the point a parent crosses that line is a point where all control is lost – by the parent – as well as a fair amount of trust and respect by the child. Parents think (well, mine did) that using the wooden spoon, leather slipper and cane remove them from the pain inflicted and thereby absolves them of their guilt.
Having said that though, I can’t help but wonder whether, in holding back that anger that produces the lashing, the anger finds a less resistant route and finds a way to hurt in even deeper ways.
Something to ponder. But in the meantime I cannot slide that slippery slope. I cannot bear to lose my child’s trust and most of all, I cannot even comprehend hurting that perfect being no matter how much abuse he throws at me. How do they learn so quickly, not only where all the buttons are but how and when to push them to maximum effect?
Tags: choices, control, discipline, parenting, patterns, smacking, trust
Posted in bhalababy | No Comments »
