We made it. Our beautiful baby girl grew up despite us, and turned 18 this week. We decided to write her a list of all the things we wish we knew when we were her age, and I thought I'd share it with you.
1. You can only take one step at a time.
2. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, for no reason at all.
3. Don't wait to follow your dreams.
4. Be brave enough to be giving and forgiving.
5. Use white vinegar to get the smell out of anything (even under your arms!)
6. Appreciate your beautiful body, don't wish and waste it away.
7. Always wash and pee after sex.
8. Strive to be conscious of your decisions and choices – never do anything because 'everybody else' does it or it's what you were told.
9. There is always a choice. Always. Sometimes it's a very hard choice, but it's always there.
10. If you leave your socks in the boot of your car for long enough, they get clean again.
11. Money is important, even when you don't want it to be.
12. Resist oppression from the start. Don't wait and see.
13. Pain is nothing to be frightened of.
14. Buy your own condoms. Use them. Wrap them and throw them away, don't flush them.
15. You don't have to be anything, or do anything, just try – and keep trying until you find out what you love.
16. In a relationship, sex is like talking. Keep talking.
17. Like your job, love who you are with.
18. Cooking is both science and art. Apply your knowledge of both.
19. Don't let being afraid stop you from doing what you want.
20. Drink plenty of fluids every day. I know you hear this all the time, but listen this time. ;)
21. Never go to sleep or leave each other angry.
22. Remember how fiercely you are loved and keep that with you always.
23. You brought light and infinite love into our lives. We are better people because of you. Just by living, breathing, smiling, laughing, you changed the world to make it better. So whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever you become as an adult, know that you have already achieved as much as you have to. Anything wonderful that you do from now on counts as bonus points to the universe. Bearing that in mind, you are free to strive to do a tiny, wonderful thing every day. Maybe it'll be a phone call or a social media message to someone lonely; or a smile for someone who looks sad. Perhaps you'll make someone laugh, or create something beautiful, or make someone look pretty; maybe you'll introduce two soul mates, or future change agents, or the leaders of a movement that will affect the future of everything. Maybe you'll make history by refusing to give in to a tiny piece of oppression, like not moving on the bus; or perhaps you'll make history by beginning a revolution. You might invent something incredible, or give someone who needs it a hug. You could ask a question that begins an avalanche of social change; or one that helps one person understand their world a little better. Any one of these things has equal value in the grand scheme of things, because you can never, ever know how a tiny, wonderful thing will turn out. What is important is to do the tiny things, and try to recognise the tiny things that are done for you; and be thankful for both. Be thankful for what you can give; and be thankful for what you receive. This is the secret to happiness.
I'd love to hear whether you have anything to add (or take away?).
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Friday, 5 April 2013
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
On Parenting Teens
It's nearly midday, and you have to wake your teenager up. You are irritated, because there are promises they've made and broken and you are going to have to start their day off by telling them. Also, you are a teeny bit jealous. You want to sleep the day away, too. Well, a very small part of you does. Your parents never would have stood for this.
You open their bedroom door and stumble over piles of clothes, books, toiletries, cups and towels. You resist the urge to yank open the curtains and open the window to release the hormonal fug, because that's what your parent would have done. You step carefully over the detritus, not knowing what's precious and what's not. You reach the tangled bed.
And there – there with crazy limbs in twisted sheets, mussed up hair and soft, sleep-puffed lips – there is your baby.
That face curled and pressed into you right after birth, nudging you for love and sustenance.
That mouth smiled at you for the first time one crazy morning long ago, and your heart beat faster.
That nose bled out of the blue one day and the scarlet trickle shocked you for a second.
Those lips told their first joke one quiet afternoon, and it was so terrible you laughed.
That chin was grazed more times than you can count, falling off walls and trees and things with wheels.
Those eyelids closed on a secret shared, a bedtime story, a favourite song, a game of hide and seek.
You've kissed those cheeks a hundred times. A thousand. A million.
That's your baby lying there, in essence. Your own lips smile and sigh, but you wake the sleeper anyway, to begin the push and pull of parenting a teenager that you think might be the death of you before you're through.
I sometimes think that teenagers are exactly like toddlers, only bigger, and a helluva lot more knowledgeable. More knowledgeable than me, that's for sure.
They have the same exuberance as toddlers. They experience emotions in extremes, rocket-like excitement and searingly painful frustration. Their emotions overwhelm them and spill out at inappropriate times, frightening teachers and conservative party voters. Those supermarket tantrums have become street brawls and classroom riots.
Their bodies are learning new things, like toddlers' are. They learn how to dance and fight and have sex, a step up on how to walk, run, jump and push. They learn how to push, too though – just push in a slightly different way.
They have a desperate need to push you away. It's the equivalent of the toddler's 'No!' - the 'I can do this by myself, and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' You remember? It's the drive that children have to learn to walk, get dressed, feed themselves, only grown up. It's an 'I can do this life thing on my own' urge, 'and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' They push you away because they have to, not because they want to.
It's not a rejection. It's growing up.
And because it is nature that creates the push, it's nature that creates the pull, as well. We apparently live in a universe governed by rules, one of which is that where there is a push, there must be a pull.
You feel the pull on your heartstrings, don't you? Every time your teenager pushes you away to take a risk, learn something new, experience a new emotional extreme, your heart is pulled back towards them, snapping on the elastic of the familial dynamic.
That shit hurts.
You can physically restrain your toddler from running out into oncoming traffic, but the best you can do for your teenager is teach them about the perils of alcohol poisoning and buy them a pack of condoms.
It doesn't matter how much pain you are in as you watch them risk their hearts and souls in the maelstrom of society, you don't have a choice – you have to sit back and let them do it. Even if it nearly kills you. Or them.
Just because they push you away, though, doesn't mean they don't need you. All the time.
All the time.
They need to know you love them. That they are loveable. That when inexplicable words are pouring out of their mouths in torrents, you love them. That when their bodies crave things they don't understand and can barely control, you love them. That when they run out into the street in the face of oncoming traffic knowing it is an extraordinarily stupid thing to be doing, you love them.
They need to know that when you are at your wits end and you want them to go and live with a different parent for a while, it is because you feel as though you are failing them, not the other way around.
They need to know that when you say no (and sometimes you must say no), it's because you want them alive and safe and well, not because you want them to experience social death by embarrassment.
When you are hesitant about how they look, it's because you are wondering how other people will perceive the beautiful child in front of you, not because you judge them and find them wanting.
When they mess up an opportunity that you were desperate for them to take, your disappointment is for them, not in them.
When you punish them for not fulfilling a promise or an obligation, it's because you want them to learn from their mistakes, not because you don't believe in them.
You always believe in them.
All the time.
How could you not? That's your baby over there, learning to walk and talk and have a good time. Finding out what hurts, what burns and what feels really, really good. Discovering consequences and the cost of living dangerously.
While they are doing it, because they are doing it and as a result of them doing it, they must know that they are loveable – and loved.
All. The. Time.
You open their bedroom door and stumble over piles of clothes, books, toiletries, cups and towels. You resist the urge to yank open the curtains and open the window to release the hormonal fug, because that's what your parent would have done. You step carefully over the detritus, not knowing what's precious and what's not. You reach the tangled bed.
And there – there with crazy limbs in twisted sheets, mussed up hair and soft, sleep-puffed lips – there is your baby.
That face curled and pressed into you right after birth, nudging you for love and sustenance.
That mouth smiled at you for the first time one crazy morning long ago, and your heart beat faster.
That nose bled out of the blue one day and the scarlet trickle shocked you for a second.
Those lips told their first joke one quiet afternoon, and it was so terrible you laughed.
That chin was grazed more times than you can count, falling off walls and trees and things with wheels.
Those eyelids closed on a secret shared, a bedtime story, a favourite song, a game of hide and seek.
You've kissed those cheeks a hundred times. A thousand. A million.
That's your baby lying there, in essence. Your own lips smile and sigh, but you wake the sleeper anyway, to begin the push and pull of parenting a teenager that you think might be the death of you before you're through.
I sometimes think that teenagers are exactly like toddlers, only bigger, and a helluva lot more knowledgeable. More knowledgeable than me, that's for sure.
They have the same exuberance as toddlers. They experience emotions in extremes, rocket-like excitement and searingly painful frustration. Their emotions overwhelm them and spill out at inappropriate times, frightening teachers and conservative party voters. Those supermarket tantrums have become street brawls and classroom riots.
Their bodies are learning new things, like toddlers' are. They learn how to dance and fight and have sex, a step up on how to walk, run, jump and push. They learn how to push, too though – just push in a slightly different way.
They have a desperate need to push you away. It's the equivalent of the toddler's 'No!' - the 'I can do this by myself, and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' You remember? It's the drive that children have to learn to walk, get dressed, feed themselves, only grown up. It's an 'I can do this life thing on my own' urge, 'and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' They push you away because they have to, not because they want to.
It's not a rejection. It's growing up.
And because it is nature that creates the push, it's nature that creates the pull, as well. We apparently live in a universe governed by rules, one of which is that where there is a push, there must be a pull.
You feel the pull on your heartstrings, don't you? Every time your teenager pushes you away to take a risk, learn something new, experience a new emotional extreme, your heart is pulled back towards them, snapping on the elastic of the familial dynamic.
That shit hurts.
You can physically restrain your toddler from running out into oncoming traffic, but the best you can do for your teenager is teach them about the perils of alcohol poisoning and buy them a pack of condoms.
It doesn't matter how much pain you are in as you watch them risk their hearts and souls in the maelstrom of society, you don't have a choice – you have to sit back and let them do it. Even if it nearly kills you. Or them.
Just because they push you away, though, doesn't mean they don't need you. All the time.
All the time.
They need to know you love them. That they are loveable. That when inexplicable words are pouring out of their mouths in torrents, you love them. That when their bodies crave things they don't understand and can barely control, you love them. That when they run out into the street in the face of oncoming traffic knowing it is an extraordinarily stupid thing to be doing, you love them.
They need to know that when you are at your wits end and you want them to go and live with a different parent for a while, it is because you feel as though you are failing them, not the other way around.
They need to know that when you say no (and sometimes you must say no), it's because you want them alive and safe and well, not because you want them to experience social death by embarrassment.
When you are hesitant about how they look, it's because you are wondering how other people will perceive the beautiful child in front of you, not because you judge them and find them wanting.
When they mess up an opportunity that you were desperate for them to take, your disappointment is for them, not in them.
When you punish them for not fulfilling a promise or an obligation, it's because you want them to learn from their mistakes, not because you don't believe in them.
You always believe in them.
All the time.
How could you not? That's your baby over there, learning to walk and talk and have a good time. Finding out what hurts, what burns and what feels really, really good. Discovering consequences and the cost of living dangerously.
While they are doing it, because they are doing it and as a result of them doing it, they must know that they are loveable – and loved.
All. The. Time.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Primal Parenting
We sat in the school room that looked nothing like a school room, and the pain and desperation of the parents in the air was a living, breathing, wounded animal. It was palpable. Our children had suffered, and there had been nothing we could do to stop them suffering. Then, we had been given something good, that worked for them in the way that no other education or social enterprise had, and now they were taking it away from us.
This could be the opening paragraph of a dramatic fiction, but it isn't, it is the opening paragraph of a description of a real life event. Our real lives. We are the painfully real result of a social policy that has arisen because of a dozen or so egos, a few decisions that have gained momentum, and a refusal to go back.
We were well brought-up parents. We listened as politely as we were physically able to, as they rained their philosophy and politics on us like blows. We challenged, reigning our anger and fear and desperation in as far as we could, but it slipped through in every word. We all understood that the people sitting in front of us absorbing our response were only part of a whole. They weren't going to stop the wheel of policy change rumbling over us any more than we were. We just wanted to understand their justification for it.
The truth is, there was no justification. There are no reasons. They can close a centre of excellence that has been of unmeasurable benefit to our children for no better reason than that they don't have it in Fenland; they need to get out of the building; 'we' think children are always better off in school.
Do they really, truly believe that children are always better off in school? Surely that is not a belief that an intelligent, thinking, functioning human being can actually hold?
Schools are brutal. Even the very best – and by what measure we define the very best requires a long debate of its own – brutalise children in some way, in order to have them conform. That's okay. For most children, a brutal training ground for the adult world is more beneficial than not. We might not like it, but we understand it, and so we allow it. Parents are protective of their young, but they are pragmatic, too.
Some children, though, through no fault except of fate and nature, are made to suffer inordinately. It might be through physical illness, like us; mental illness – no less painful; or circumstance. Life can hurt, and it can hurt our young before they are ready to take the pain. The idea of taking children who have suffered beyond others, and forcing them into the storm of a huge, statutory institution - an institution with not only the potential of making them suffer more, but the experience of having already made them suffer more - to their parents, at least, is anathema.
And to have had something good – something soothing and stretching and challenging and gentle, an imperfect gift, but a gift nonetheless – to have that withdrawn, for no good reason – that hurts.
There are good parents and bad parents. Mostly, there are parents who do right and wrong by their children every day. We respond to the circumstances of our bewildering lives as best as we can, and sometimes we get it right. In that painful, anguished meeting, we did do something right.
It is important that our children see us fight for them, even if we don't win. They need the lesson that the smallest of us can effect change; and it is more important to show our love by standing up to the juggernaut of social policy than to actually achieve our ends. If the only change we manage to make is an understanding of why something is wrong, we have done something good.
Even though our children will remain subjected to anxiety beyond their reasonable capacity, shifts in understanding will make a difference. Tiny changes in attitude and motivation, even at this stage, will affect the actions of policy makers and policy activators. Determination to control our lives, though control is an illusion, will motivate us to take our own steps to put alternative measures in place.
As parents, we are in a better place to protect our young than we were before we went in to that room; even though it doesn't feel that way at all.
Following on from this meeting, we met with the Head and management of the local school that is going to take responsibility for educating our daughter back. The Head, with no conscious instinct for survival, felt compelled – driven, almost – to make us listen to his political and philosophical reasons for wanting to provide an education for our daughter.
I have never in my life come so close to physically attacking a relative stranger.
Social policy can, and frequently does, come between good parents and their children. It is the world we have to live in. There are too many of us for it to be any different.
Those who wield social power would do well, though, to remember that the bond between parent and child is primal. You have read my words, you can acknowledge the breadth and depth of my understanding; you know I am no fool.
But if you want to hurt my child - even though you think your reasons for doing so are justified by beautifully constructed and morally sound philosophical and political motivations - you have to get through me first.
And I know that you, for all your standing in society, would do the same for yours.
This could be the opening paragraph of a dramatic fiction, but it isn't, it is the opening paragraph of a description of a real life event. Our real lives. We are the painfully real result of a social policy that has arisen because of a dozen or so egos, a few decisions that have gained momentum, and a refusal to go back.
We were well brought-up parents. We listened as politely as we were physically able to, as they rained their philosophy and politics on us like blows. We challenged, reigning our anger and fear and desperation in as far as we could, but it slipped through in every word. We all understood that the people sitting in front of us absorbing our response were only part of a whole. They weren't going to stop the wheel of policy change rumbling over us any more than we were. We just wanted to understand their justification for it.
The truth is, there was no justification. There are no reasons. They can close a centre of excellence that has been of unmeasurable benefit to our children for no better reason than that they don't have it in Fenland; they need to get out of the building; 'we' think children are always better off in school.
Do they really, truly believe that children are always better off in school? Surely that is not a belief that an intelligent, thinking, functioning human being can actually hold?
Schools are brutal. Even the very best – and by what measure we define the very best requires a long debate of its own – brutalise children in some way, in order to have them conform. That's okay. For most children, a brutal training ground for the adult world is more beneficial than not. We might not like it, but we understand it, and so we allow it. Parents are protective of their young, but they are pragmatic, too.
Some children, though, through no fault except of fate and nature, are made to suffer inordinately. It might be through physical illness, like us; mental illness – no less painful; or circumstance. Life can hurt, and it can hurt our young before they are ready to take the pain. The idea of taking children who have suffered beyond others, and forcing them into the storm of a huge, statutory institution - an institution with not only the potential of making them suffer more, but the experience of having already made them suffer more - to their parents, at least, is anathema.
And to have had something good – something soothing and stretching and challenging and gentle, an imperfect gift, but a gift nonetheless – to have that withdrawn, for no good reason – that hurts.
There are good parents and bad parents. Mostly, there are parents who do right and wrong by their children every day. We respond to the circumstances of our bewildering lives as best as we can, and sometimes we get it right. In that painful, anguished meeting, we did do something right.
It is important that our children see us fight for them, even if we don't win. They need the lesson that the smallest of us can effect change; and it is more important to show our love by standing up to the juggernaut of social policy than to actually achieve our ends. If the only change we manage to make is an understanding of why something is wrong, we have done something good.
Even though our children will remain subjected to anxiety beyond their reasonable capacity, shifts in understanding will make a difference. Tiny changes in attitude and motivation, even at this stage, will affect the actions of policy makers and policy activators. Determination to control our lives, though control is an illusion, will motivate us to take our own steps to put alternative measures in place.
As parents, we are in a better place to protect our young than we were before we went in to that room; even though it doesn't feel that way at all.
Following on from this meeting, we met with the Head and management of the local school that is going to take responsibility for educating our daughter back. The Head, with no conscious instinct for survival, felt compelled – driven, almost – to make us listen to his political and philosophical reasons for wanting to provide an education for our daughter.
I have never in my life come so close to physically attacking a relative stranger.
Social policy can, and frequently does, come between good parents and their children. It is the world we have to live in. There are too many of us for it to be any different.
Those who wield social power would do well, though, to remember that the bond between parent and child is primal. You have read my words, you can acknowledge the breadth and depth of my understanding; you know I am no fool.
But if you want to hurt my child - even though you think your reasons for doing so are justified by beautifully constructed and morally sound philosophical and political motivations - you have to get through me first.
And I know that you, for all your standing in society, would do the same for yours.
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