Hats

My granddaughter told me that wearing a hat at high school is only an optional part of her uniform. She said it as if it was good news and from her perspective, I suppose it was. As Dezzy sees it, hats are just not stylish. There’s the straw hat, the floppy cloth hat, the cap and (shudder) the visor. Dezzy has developed into a young lady with a sense of self and of fashion. She believes that hats are just not cool. And feeling immortal as we all do at that age, I’m guessing that she brushes aside talks about skin cancer.

It seems like minutes ago when a five year old Dezzy posed proudly in her school uniform and broad brimmed hat with a draw string that kept it in place. She wore that hat in its various sizes all through primary school. Her family provided her with the out of hours hats. She never questioned our authority, but accepted that it was all part of a grownup’s rules that had to be followed. These days Dezzy keeps a floppy hat in her bag, folded up and ready, just in case I should insist she wear it. It’s a pity hat. I still have some influence but it is obviously waning fast.

If I look back far enough into my past (back to Fred Flintstone’s day, my sons used to say), I can empathise with Dezzy. Our uniform skirts were one inch below the knee but the moment we left at the end of the school day we untucked our shirts and rolled up our sleeves and rolled our skirts up at the waist. Hats were not mandatory, so of course we didn't wear them, but we didn’t know as much about sun damage in the Stone Age.
Perhaps if Dezzy had experienced the ‘Slip, Slap, Slop,’ campaign, initiated by the Cancer Council, and the jingle that went: ‘slip on a shirt, slop on the sunscreen, slap on a hat.’ That was almost two generations ago. I found it effective but I was an adult at the time. Giving lectures and pointing out the grisly details and consequences of ignoring us, even catchy jingles will only have a limited effect on people Dezzy’s age. What she and her friends need is an alternative option.

I recently followed Dezzy around our local shopping centre while she spent her birthday money on clothes. Dezzy went right past the handful of straw hats that were artistically placed here and there around the shop. No one was buying them, no one was wearing them. Even I thought that they were dull.

There was a time when wearing a hat was de rigueur. Like the American Express card, no one dreamt of leaving home without a hat. Ironically now that we know we should be wearing them, we don’t. Time for milliners to give the issue some serious thought and plug into what is essentially an untapped market. Hats for young teens could be cool if they played it right. Those fascinators look lovely on Melbourne Cup Day, why not extend that metaphor. A bit of ingenuity and imagination and a get together between manufacturers, models and actresses could turn the tide and widen the brim.

Simon says, and so do I

Simon Whaley of http://simonwhaleytutor.blogspot.com/ says:
‘A blog is what you make of it. You can use it to talk to the world, or you can use it to record your own innermost thoughts, which only you can read. But if you want to get into the habit of writing regularly, a blog can be a great way of developing that habit.’

I knew that before I read it on Simon’s Blog, ‘Simon Says', but I’m slack, or slow, or both and I needed to hear somebody else say it. Or perhaps it’s that I feel that having begun this blog by posting completed or almost completed articles that it can only be done that way forever more. My articles are few and far between because of that slackness and slowness that I mentioned earlier. But I do want to develop that habit, and I do want to use my blog to talk to others.

So, from here on in, I’ll have something to say about children and grandchildren (because it’s that sort of blog) and I will talk about issues that relate to them. My opinions might take up half a dozen lines or half a dozen paragraphs. But this is my new year’s commitment. Once a week, I’ll give it a go.
Thanks, Simon.

Role Models

Not so long ago, my grown up son told his grandmother that she was his role model. At one time or another Mark had given one family member or another that look of admiration that spoke volumes about things said or done that had amazed him. It was gran’s turn to bask in the glow of his love. She was chuffed, but all she did in her understated way was to give him her gentle smile and say, ‘that’s nice, darling.’

Both she and my dad, who is no longer with us, lent Mark an independent ear when he felt the need for one; gave him sanctuary when he was running away from his troubles and told Mark that they had faith in his abilities. While his grandparents gave him uncritical love and unquestioning support, they hadn’t actually known they were being role models. It would have made them nervous if they had realised such a huge responsibility had been placed on their shoulders. Mark’s grandparents saw themselves as family centred people who did what came naturally. That meant offering their services where it was needed, willingly, quietly and without the razzmatazz expected of role models these days. They would have left that issue to be fought over by footballers, singers and film stars.

A friend I was speaking to about it would have agreed with that assessment. She believes that family members can’t attain hero status in their own lifetime. We need to admire the prowess of today’s sports people, (or is it sports people who have the need for us to admire them?), and we need to take on the rose coloured patina that covers the legendary folk of the past. The stories of these larger than life people, she said, symbolised such attributes as courage, individuality and selflessness, qualities that we would wish our children to aspire to. If history debunks these people’s stories that’s still all right with my friend. They will be adults by the time they find their idols have feet of clay. She dismisses the thought of sports heroes disgracing themselves. It’s only a few that spoil it all for everybody. The important thing is children need heroes now and family members just can’t compete.

I thought that she missed the point. Mark’s parents had been his first port of call. They were his first teachers, disciplinarians and friends. If he was going to learn about selflessness and courage it would be from his parents and the aunties, uncles and the grandparents who expanded his little world. His family are a constant in his life. At any given time of day or night, Mark knows he can count on his them to be there for him. There will not be any radical changes in their behaviour, nor will they disgrace themselves and let him down. Rather, Mark’s family provide him with enduring lessons about life, love and family. Lessons he has taken with him into adulthood.

Mark is free to admire people for their skills while not confusing them with the personal attributes, ambitions or flaws of strangers. He is a stronger adult for it, sure of himself and his place in the world and he and understands that neither footballers nor film stars know or care anything about him, and, despite constant media scrutiny into their personal lives, he does not know or need to know about them.

Time Out

My 2 ½ year old grandson slipped off the couch where he had been doing ‘time out’ and approached his father. Could he do it again, he asked? He had thought they were playing a fun game.

Eden’s dad had explained to him that that he shouldn't jump on the bed because he could hurt himself. Eden had only been doing what every child has at one time or another done, since the dawn of time. He had absorbed the words and repeated the mantra to the adults in his vicinity. Ten minutes later he was back on the bed and jumping.

What misleads us all is Eden’s decent vocabulary and his facility to repeat in context what he hears. I don’t think he understands the concepts or the consequences yet. Eden has been told that coffee is hot and thankfully he stays away from the stove, but what does the term hot actually mean to him? At around the same age, his cousin touched a hot grill and burned her hand. She understands hot now.

Not that long ago Eden was a placid baby who lay quietly in his cot waiting for someone to come in and pay him some attention. Ever since he has upsized to a big boy’s bed Eden has taken matters into his own hands. He slips out of his bed and visits his parents at five in the morning to greet them with a chirpy hello. No matter how many times he has been told, Eden doesn’t yet understand about sleep-ins. He only knows that he has had his beauty sleep and feels energised. His mother tells me that he marches up and down the corridor singing his favourite nursery rhymes and telling himself stories. Life is all about swimming lessons, going to the zoo, and playing with his friends. And of course, there’s turning the bed into a trampoline. Life is a happy game that begins at the crack of dawn and only improves as the day goes on. Improves for Eden, that is. His parents suspect him of being a terrible two. If that is the case, I suspect it of being a very mild form of it.

I wanted Eden to get back into his pram the other day, but we were at the local shopping Plaza and he was having too much fun running round and absorbing the sights, sounds and smells of his surroundings. Come back, Eden, I said. Time to go home, I explained. He stopped and looked back, giving me his best grin, one foot forward poised to take flight. Mum’s waiting to see us, I said to no avail. I tried several tactics including telling Eden goodbye and walking off. I hid behind a pillar and looked out to see what he was doing. Eden just stood his ground, grinning at the joke, daring me to back up my threat. I was finally forced to catch him, pick him up and place him in the pram. Reason hadn’t worked so I resorted to every parent’s alternative. It’s called the ‘me-Tarzan-you-Jane’ recourse.

There’s a bag of tricks available to parents that they dip into when a situation arises or an incident takes place. Some are generic and others are inspired ideas born of desperation and despair. Eden’s daddy tells him a story: There was a little boy called Eden who jumped on the bed. He fell and broke his arm. The doctor said he couldn’t play with his friends and he couldn’t go swimming (Eden’s favourite activity) for a very long time. Eden was bombarded with this story after each jump. It finally worked, which proves that (as St Thomas of Aquinas is reputed to have said) ‘Repetition is the mother (or father?) of all learning’ and that my children are superior models of the original.

Swearing

This is a revised and shortened and re-submitted version of an article I wrote months ago.


My 6 year old son shot off a swear word at the dinner table. I had asked him how his day was and obliged. David had learned a new word at school. Not in the classroom of course, one of his peers had impressed him with it in the school yard, a place where children receive another education altogether. It wasn’t a shocking word, certainly not by today’s standards, but I knew that if I didn’t put a stop to it straight away there was going to be more to come.

I asked him if he knew what it meant and he said no. But it had made quite an impact with his friends so he wasn’t sure why I had suddenly put on my serious face. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word and that he would never hear his dad or I say it. I really didn’t want to hear him repeat it again. In fact, I said, only if he ever heard me utter a swear word in his presence he had my permission to do the same.
I didn’t swear a lot then or now but everyone does it at some time or another and I wasn’t the exception. If I had just missed a bus or bumped my not so funny bone or got a larger than expected electricity bill I could count on a naughty little word slipping out. After my conversation with David, I spent decades saying ‘shoot’ and ‘fruit’ and ‘pickle my grandmother.’ Hard to do at first but after a while it came naturally. So ingrained is the habit that I still say ‘shiver my timbers’ on occasion.

I’m not a prude and as I’ve said, swearing has its place, I just don’t like it replacing communication. I sometimes hear young adults talking among each other or even when addressing adults producing at least one swear word per sentence. They aren’t necessarily being rude, it’s just their way. It doesn’t offend me but I’m sad to think that it’s the only way they know and that they don’t understand (possibly wouldn’t be interested) that they are depriving themselves of the ability to communicate effectively in a society that values it.

Encouraging my children to talk to rather than swear at me while I still had influence was the way to go. I didn’t think that I’d cured David of swearing, I was sure that when he was at school and in the company of friends he reverted to rough and tumble little boy type. That’s okay. Everyone wants to fit in with their group, even adults. I just didn’t want him to bring it home with him. I wanted David to know what my expectations were and to understand about boundaries.

My mother tells this story about my brother who was in high school at the time. He had brought a friend home and introduced him to my mother, then they went off to his room. They were talking loudly as is the way with teenagers, about teachers and friends and what they had been up to that day. My brother’s friend suddenly swore and my mum heard my brother say, ‘don’t say that, my mother will hear you.’ That was the day, she said, my mother knew she was doing something right.

Join the club

My youngest son who has a two year old son of his own admitted to me recently that although he loves spending time with his little boy, he feels a guilty sense of relief when he goes to work surrounded by his (adult) colleagues and the tools of his trade. ‘Join the club,’ I said. We’ve all been there. My daughter in law works part time and I’ve seen her hover over her child before she leaves for work. But ask her to discuss work related activities and her face lights up.

To work or not to work when your children are little is a topical issue that hasn’t been resolved yet. I think that it’s because there isn’t a one answer fits all solution to it. But those mothers of babies and toddlers who prefer the salt mines to parenting will tell you that although paid work isn’t as rewarding it is a fair bit more restful. A moment of peace is all a mother asks for, and a place to hide from the piping voices that demand your attention. I can tell you first hand that locking myself in the toilet with a copy of Cleo magazine isn’t necessarily a guarantee of privacy. My children would stand outside the door pounding with their little fists and pleading for admission.

Wanting time out isn’t an admission of failure just an acknowledgement of human frailty. Parenting is far more exhausting than we mums and dads anticipate BC (before child). Realising that we have committed every moment of our existence to our children for the next few decades comes as a shock. Our lives BC have suddenly and without notice become a thing of the past. We’ve all heard the stories, of course, but no amount of literature prepares us for the reality of the constant chattering. Oh, that chattering. Children will ask questions and won’t accept a grunt or a non-committal answer. While it is our job to answer questions, teach values and set parameters, we would do it with a greater will if we were only allowed a little bit of ‘me’ time.

Hordes of mothers found their way into the workforce in the 1970’s. Supermums, they called us. Thankfully we were the first and last generation of supermums to think we had to do it all. My generation made their own babysitting arrangements; some hauled their own mothers back into service, others hired minders. I had live in help. It was my job to be home in time to feed my children milk and Tic Toc biscuits. My school teacher husband took his turn at child rearing during the term breaks. If I felt bad about it at all, it was that not everyone was married to a school teacher.
Hooray! I found myself free to spend time in the adult world. My first visit was to the hairdresser. I asked for a short, short haircut to prepare me for my double role of mother and working stiff. A sympathetic hairdresser leaned me back against the basin and washed my hair while her assistant asked if I would like some coffee. I almost broke down on the spot and wept at the thought of someone doing something for me for a change.

I was readying myself for the adult world. I did away with the shabby, round the house garb and bought a wardrobe more in keeping with the professional world. I was looking forward to conversations that didn’t include repeating the daily mantra of don’t hit, don’t touch, do share.’ Even adult friends with children weren’t able to boost my delicate state of mind; these women were in the same situation as I was and all they wanted to do was to tell me about it. Misery might love company but I didn’t want a bar of it. I wanted to be in the thick of office politics and to discuss adult issues; I didn’t want to listen to what other people’s children did or didn’t do or to referee childish accusations of ‘he started it.’

I remember how tiring it was to come home and prepare the evening meal but still, I thought it was great. I gladly took off that work hat and exchanged it for my mummy apron. The trick was not to sit down because I knew I would never have been able to get up again. I took that morning’s washing off the line, handed out after school snacks then got started on the pre-prepared veggies. Even the chattering was welcome as an insight into my children’s daily routine. I loved it. The physical aspects of combining work with child rearing can’t be discounted, but for this mum at least, the drawbacks that parenting without a mental break presents is equally if not more important. I got to come home refreshed and ready to deal with my second job with gusto and kindly feelings towards my children, myself and the whole wonderful world.

Teaching Rachel

My granddaughter Rachel and I have a history of cooking googie eggs. When she was four she stood on a chair to reach the kitchen bench, cracked eggs and stirred the mixture into the frypan with a wooden spoon. Now that she’s seven Rachel reaches the bench on her own and we have graduated to more sophisticated dishes like sponge cake and (very soon) pumpkin soup.

The recipes are my mum’s. I sat at her kitchen table and took notes. Now I am passing the decades’ worth of accumulated culinary wisdom on to Rachel who is the only person currently interested in cooking. Rachel and I pore over my collection of recipes and decide on one dish each time she visits. I teach her about the importance of pre-preparing the ingredients and the trick of clearing away as we go along. We discuss family gatherings and the vital role that sharing meals plays in keeping us all together.

We talk as we bake. We discuss what she’s reading right now (Enid Blyton’s The Far Away Tree). Rachel tells me about her school friends, her teachers and her favourite subject which seems to be maths. I admit that I was a dunce at that subject which she finds hilarious. Despite my showing her pictures of myself in better days, she can’t imagine her wrinkly old Nan ever being young and finds it extraordinary that an adult can’t do absolutely everything well. It’s a revelation. Despite it all she asks me to test her. I oblige but when the time comes I will send her to ask those maths wizards her uncle or her dad who I suspect are throwbacks.

I like to think that my job is to complement all the other resources in Rachel’s life. Today’s parents are time poor and often rely on the extended family to help out with what they once had had time to do in those leisurely days of dad at work, mum at home and everybody in their appointed places. Rachel can count on the uncles for maths, the great uncle knowledge of contemporary music is encyclopaedic, the great aunt provides support for all things literary and the grandfather gives piano and chess lessons. And in the twilight of her life Rachel’s grandma has been reactivated for service above and beyond the call of duty. This has given her a new lease on life.

As a mother of sons I missed out on all those girlie type activities. Don’t get me wrong, my sons and I have our own memories to draw on, but they were never interested in cissy stuff that entailed hanging around the kitchen for longer than it took to scoff down a meal (and under protest wash a dish). And you can’t paint a boy’s toe nails or go shopping with boys. They will pick a top and a pair of jeans in five minutes flat then want to move on to more important things.

This is why it has been a delight to discover a whole new world of sugar and spice and everything nice. Rachel and I are building on the foundations of our own tradition through cooking, giggling and deep and meaningful conversation. It is my hope that when she’s whipping up a chocolate torte in her own kitchen Rachel will look back at us the way we were (my) wrinkles and all and treasure the memories.