Posts Tagged ‘role models’

 

Impressionable

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

After speaking with the mother of a friend of my child’s it seems my situation is not unique. One of many daughters; a father who couldn’t deal with weakness, and an intolerant mother. Add them all up and take away any other kind of parenting role models and you have an incredible journey of self discovery that you actually don’t even have a choice but to embark upon immediately when your child is born.

It’s a big enough change not being able to stay out all night, going away on a whim, having sex all over the house and being bound by routine. Not only is it about not being selfish anymore but about changing every single thing you do and think. And that’s besides giving up your perfect boobs, six-pack and smooth thighs.

The first time your child is rude to you and you raise a hand, you have to determine in an instant if that is the way you want to define your relationship. When your child calls for you in the night, are you going to be kind or grumpy? When he falls over and (according to you) over-reacts, are you going to be tolerant and understanding? Fit the mould or break it to pieces?

Of course no journey of self-discovery is a wasted ticket. But with all the learning still to do, I have to wonder why the hell I had a baby so damn late.

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Sibling lessons

Monday, July 27th, 2009

People place a tremendous amount of pressure on the unborn siblings of their children to teach them how to share, be sociable, play nicely and be well-balanced humans. They don’t seem to realise that these are skills that can only be learned from parents and role models and that siblings tend to teach the complete opposite … like how not to be any of the above.

I am one of four and I learned how to keep to myself and to hang on to my stuff as tightly as possible lest it be wrestled from me or taken in the dead of night. My siblings totally screwed me up. Norman Bates was not an only child … he just killed off his siblings before turning on his mother.

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Transient lives

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.

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Welcome to my Flower Chamber

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

There is a matriarchal tribe in China called the Masuo. They don’t believe in marriage and having babies in a relationship. They believe in flower chambers and love and desire. These women choose who gets invited to their flower chambers and who will give them their baby seed. They raise their children with the males in their immediate families and there is no need to either settle or settle down with anyone for any indefinite amount of time.

If I wasn’t before, I am now totally into cultural diversity. What a healthy outlook. Why limit yourself and stunt your spiritual growth by having to constantly work around the needs of another. Selfish, perhaps, but definitely healthy. Simple rules, simple pleasures and realistic expectations.

I have waited a long time for things in our relationship to get back to normal post baby. But, when normal has shifted, how long does one have to wait to find it again. When everything has changed, how does one ever go back to being the same?

Perhaps our individual priorities have shifted in such a way that we will never be the same individually and, therefore, never the same together.

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