When is the right time?

When do you let go? It’s a question best answered in hindsight because when you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to even know that you need to let go. The answer is, begin at the beginning and keep on going. When your child begins crawling, make your home safe, clear the decks and let him (or her) go. By the time he’s old enough to dress himself he knows the difference between hot and cold, so let him choose his own clothes. If he dresses inappropriately, then the next time round he will pay more attention to what he’s choosing. Teach him about crossing roads safely and begin by watching while he practices on small roads. It’s not one large letting go, but a series of them and each one should suit the right time and the right occasion.

In 2008 a mum called Lenore Skenazy wrote an article about letting go for the New York Sun that caused a stir with a bunch of other mums. I first read about her when she came to Australia in 2010 to sell her book, Free Range Kids. The book was a result of the 2008 experience. Ms Skenazy’s child had begged her to ‘leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own’, and she obliged.

Skenazy had allowed her then 9 year old son to travel the subway alone and make his own way home. ‘One sunny Sunday’ she left him at Bloomingdales armed with 20 dollars, a map, a subway ticket and her blessing. She scoffed at the idea that strangers were lurking nearby just waiting to ‘abduct’ her ‘adorable child.’ It was a strategy calculated to make her detractors feel silly. We must be neurotic is the inference, if we believe that until a child is old enough to protect himself from cunning predators it’s our duty to vigilant on their behalf. I wasn’t convinced by most of Skenazy’s flip justifications and contradictions. She trusted her son to negotiate his way home safely, but worried that he’d lose a cell phone if she provided him with one. It was his first excursion alone but she didn’t think it appropriate to ‘trail her son like a ‘mommy private eye’, New York was hardly ‘downtown Baghdad’ so by comparison NY must be safe. I don’t think Skenazy is a bad mother. I just see her as somebody at the other end of the parenting spectrum. There are the overprotective hovering mums at one end and those like Skenazy at the other. The rest of us are in-betweeners muddling along the best we can. We don’t pretend we know it all; it’s not possible given that we’re rank beginners when our first child arrives. Like any other worthwhile profession, there’s a learning curve involved to good parenting.

Three decades ago my five year old son had already ‘figured out’ how to get home on his own, ‘no problem’, he said, or something like it, I’m paraphrasing as I wasn’t listening at the time. Most young mums tend to zone out occasionally if they value their sanity. We had been walking to and from school all year. It was only a 20 minute walk, but there was a busy highway to negotiate. In hindsight (and ain’t that a grand thing) I should have taken more notice because halfway through the school year, David did walk home by himself.

I was only five minutes late, for heaven’s sake. I took the bus to catch up time and when I arrived, David had left. He had hiked his school bag higher on his shoulder and walked confidently out the front gate along with his peers and their parents.
I scoured the streets then made my way home. My neighbour came out of her house holding the hand of a safe but teary David. He’d been standing outside our front door crying so our neighbour had taken him in and plied him with milk and scones.
I was pretty teary myself and immensely relieved. I hugged David then shook him and asked what had possessed him. It was a spur of the moment decision that could have taken a scary direction, one that doesn’t bear considering. The only good thing that had come out of that event was a lesson learned that thankfully hadn’t proved disastrous.

Given a couple of extra years and David would have come home with friends and his younger brother for company, there’s safety in numbers. He would have a couple of years’ worth of life experience under his belt and the road rules down pat.
If you tell a five year old child not to talk to strangers, he will nod as if he understands, except that in his mind a stranger has fangs and claws. Even if you tell him that a stranger could be a smiling stranger who offers him sweets and ice cream a child is used to doing what he’s told to by adults. What hope would he have had if somebody had forced him into a car?

In January this year a man attempted to abduct a 10 year old boy from a car park in Melbourne’s south-east. This boy was waiting for his mother in the family car when he was approached by a man who offered him lollies. When the boy refused to come with him the man tried to pull the boy from the car. He was unsuccessful that time. But if this man had pulled harder or persisted it could have had a negative ending for that boy and his family.

Adults make hundreds of decisions every day based on life experience and even then they can’t count on getting it right every time. How can you expect it of a five or even a nine year old? Every parent has a responsibility to keep his or her children safe until they’re ready to do it on their own.

The Wheels on the Bus

I was on my way home longing to put my feet up and ready for a cuppa. Browsing at the local shopping complex really takes it out on me these days. Opposite me on the bus sat a woman and her two children. She was perched at the edge of her seat ready to spring into action like the proverbial jack-in-the-box. A two year old girl was in a pram and her brother who looked three or four, an energetic bundle, was busy making mischief. He grabbed his sister’s drink bottle and she shrieked till she got it back; he poked her, she shrieked some more, then he tried to free himself from his mother’s grasp so he could run down the other end of the bus. She threatened to take away privileges, he ignored her.

The two were stuck in that vicious cycle that mums who have more than one child under school age often find themselves. The little boy had misbehaved to get her attention and his frazzled mum gave it to him as he instinctively knew she would. The fact that it was the wrong kind of attention didn’t seem to matter to him. He’d had his mum all to himself for at least two years and now he was forced to share it with a puny, useless little thing who couldn’t talk, couldn’t play games and for some reason he wasn’t able to comprehend, got things her own way all the time. Unfair!

And threats were never going to work on him. At his age he couldn’t conceive as far ahead as the next day or even the same afternoon. ‘You’re going to your room as soon as we get home if you don’t behave’ got that mother nowhere.
An elderly woman sitting next to me implied that if it would all be different if she were in charge. ‘If I had you for two weeks, you’d know what’s what,’ she said. ‘I’m not known as the dragon lady for nothing.’ I visualised a large wooden spoon in this lady’s past and shuddered. The boy ignored her and the mother, at whom it seemed aimed, didn’t respond but I could tell that she felt shamed.
So, what should the mum have done? The answers, never simple, are sure to come to her thick and fast when the children are all grown up, or at least old enough to go to school and give her a break and a chance to think. I usually mind my own business but the poor mum looked so done in I wanted to help.

When my grandchildren and I are out and about I bring along some distractions: a favourite book, colouring book and pencils and the trusty notebook I always carry with me. The latter is used for playing hangman which, for those who haven’t experienced it in their youth, is a game that requires you to think and to know how to spell. Even before she could read, my granddaughter Rachel loved to play ‘I Spy.’ She was most enthusiastic about the game even if she usually got the words wrong. ‘Book doesn’t begin with ‘D’, it begins with ‘B’, Rachel, but good try.’ I made up stories that involved my granddaughters. They weren’t good stories but I don’t think they noticed, children love being the central characters whether in real life or in a story.

I whipped out my notebook book and a biro. ‘Would you like to draw something for mummy?’ I asked. The little boy stopped mid-rampage. I held the notebook out. He looked at his mother who nodded and he slowly took it from my hand. Peace reigned for the five minutes he was on the bus.

I don’t think my actions turned that little boy’s life around or his mother's for that matter. Dealing with the young and the boisterous is too complex a matter for simple solutions. It’s just that as I watched this young mum going under I was overcome with an intense a feeling of déjà-vu. I knew then that whether past, present or future, thousands of mothers have been, are, or will experience the same sort of distress. I imagined this mum sitting on a bus one future day; watching a similar scene playing itself out and nodding knowingly. Perhaps then, she will do as I did and be one mum offering another a lifeline.

Better to give than to receive?

I’ve heard that it is better to give than to receive so I tested out that theory last New Year. I combined my New Year’s resolution with the inspirational truism and offered my excess weight to friends, fellow countrymen and friendly strangers but they were having none of it. It was post the festive season and people had plenty of their own to give away. The competition and I gathered on dark street corners, flipping open belted raincoats at the propitious moment. Please sir, was the plaintive plea, take a kilo home for the missus and the kids, they will thank you.

That tactic did not go down a treat, so I decided cold turkey was the go. If I wanted to lose the kilos I needed to give up eating altogether. That didn’t work any longer than it took to wolf down a chocolate croissant. I needed to nourish the brain cells while planning my strategies. The in between meals are even harder to give away than the fat. And pre dinner nibbles are my downfall. That’s why I love breakfast, there’s no thinking involved. It’s either cereal, or eggs on toast with the trimmings. It’s quick to make and easily scoffed down. Just talking about it gives me an urge for a Spanish omelette. I sat al fresco at my favourite greasy spoon munching at a Danish and slugging down a cappuccino and decided I had to give up on giving up food.

A really nice lady took me around my local gym and introduced me to the equipment. It was a vast, intimidating and confusing array of tortured metal. Each piece specialised in toning up different muscles I was told. The only two I recognised from a past life were the bike and the treadmill. I chose the latter thinking it couldn’t be too hard given that I’ve had a fair bit of practice in walking (although not recently). After five minutes of that I felt light headed. Perhaps I’d lost a kilo off my head. Did I want to try out the aerobics class, the nice lady asked? I checked out the taut bodies that had poured themselves into spandex and decided that I didn’t.

When I got home and weighed myself I discovered that I hadn’t even managed that one kilo. Should I try sensible eating and long walks? Maybe once I have been through all the diet literature