The search for inner peace. And quiet.
Posted
May 1, 2008 at
6:03 am by
Trish
I would like to be able to tell you that I am one of those perpetually peaceful people who seem to radiate a slightly smug contentedness from deep within their soul. I would like to be able to tell you that I write in a gratitude diary every day, right after my 6am Yogalates session and bowl of organic muesli. I would like to be able to tell you that I am able to handle anything my children throw at me – figuratively speaking – because I am inherently calm and happy and balanced. I would like to be able to tell you I’m like that because I would like to be like that but the thing is, I’m not. Maybe in a parallel universe, but not this one. I’m just not good at relaxing. During the birth of my second daughter, I tried very hard to breathe deeply through the contractions, to focus my energies inward and breathe the pain out. My husband later told me that I sounded like a horse.
In this universe, I’m just your average, garden-variety ineffective parent whose favourite method for calming down involves a large glass of shiraz and an even larger block of chocolate, and whose body would simply snap in half if made to do the downward dog.
When my mother was a stay-at-home-mother of four she went to yoga classes once a week – we used to say she was going to Yoghurt Classes – and she once told me that yoga saved her sanity in those days. So one day I went to a yoga class for new mothers and stretched for about 50 minutes before being told to lie down and listen to the lovely music and breathe deeply and just as I felt the tension melt away and the thoughts leave my troubled mind and just as I reached that state of blissful contentment… I fell asleep. I might have snored. Well, at least I didn’t neigh.
I really love the idea of meditation, but although I have tried I just can’t do it without the snoring. So, like all good mothers, I am living the life of a calm and contented human being vicariously through my children. My kids are learning to meditate. In our house, every day ends with reading from a book called The Wishing Star: Meditations for Children by Marneta Viegas. There’s a good reason why this is a good thing.
(more…)
Sunday morning soap-box
Posted
April 12, 2008 at
9:13 pm by
Trish
My younger daughter, Ella, is seven years old. A few weeks ago she spent the night at a friend’s house and stayed up late and ate junk food and did all that stuff that usually happens at a sleep-over that makes you sigh and shake your head and tuck her into bed a little earlier the next night. But she also got to watch a movie that was rated suitable for mature audiences, and I have to tell you that’s the bit that worried me the most.
The mother of the friend is a good friend of mine, which complicates things a little. I like that we are all friends, and that our daughters play happily together in the backyard while we gossip on the back porch (sometimes, shhh, we have a glass of wine). On the one hand, we’re good enough friends that I could tell her that I don’t want Ella watching M-rated movies and she’ll be fine with that. But on the other, I don’t want her thinking that I’m questioning her judgment and that this somehow means I’m questioning everything about her. I know how much I worry when someone gives me some slightly negative feedback - I immediately start making a mental list of the zillion other things they must hate about me too.
Perhaps I would not have worried so much about the movie if Ella hadn’t had a nightmare. She told me that she was having a bad dream about the movie she saw, and we (her Dad and I) told her not to be silly, it wasn’t a scary movie, you’re just making excuses to stay up late. In the end she was so over-tired and overwrought that we banished her from the room she shares with her sister and made her sleep in the spare room. But just to reassure ourselves, we checked parentsinmind.com to see what the classification police had to say about the movie. Oh, dear. References to humans having sex with animals. A man kicks a young woman’s head off. A man whips himself on the back and we see bloody slashes.
Yes, we punished her for having a nightmare after she watched an M-rated movie. That has to count as one of our least proud, most imperfect, parenting moments.
In the end I decided not to say anything to my friend about it - what’s done is done - but if Ella is invited to stay over again I’m going to put on my Serious Concerned Mother face and just ask that she limit the viewing choices to the bottom shelf - the one with all the Disney cartoons.
The movie classifications are there for a reason, telling us very clearly that some smart people in a government office somewhere have given the whole matter a great deal of thought and no, this film shouldn’t be seen by seven year olds. Why question it? Why take the chance that our kids might find references to humans having sex with animals a little upsetting instead of hilariously funny?
Tags: childrens movies, Entertainment, family, movie classifications, Parenting, responsible parenting, sleep overs, Social Issues Remember when? Nah, me neither.
Posted
March 27, 2008 at
8:13 pm by
Trish
I have had 36 birthdays but I can’t remember more than a few of the gifts my parents gave to me each year to celebrate the milestone. Perhaps if you’d asked me to remember these things BEFORE I had children I may have been able to reel them all off. But as every mother knows, with parenthood comes amnesia.
They gave me a alarm clock radio when I was about 12. I woke up as they were sneaking it into my bedroom sometime around midnight, and I remember having to pretend to be asleep, and to keep my excitement quietly to myself after they’d left. I really, really wanted a alarm clock radio that year, and when I finally fell asleep it was with a big grin on my face.
I remember my 18th - that was the year Dad bought me my first Swiss Army Knife. The year after I got a Gortex Jacket, you know, for going hiking. Dad is very outdoorsey. After that, Mum took over the gift purchasing responsibilities. For my 21st I received a gorgeous gold locket. And for my 30th, they gave me a Wedgewood vase, and in the card Mum wrote something along the lines of “you’re old enough to have one of these now.” So naturally I’m wondering what I’ll get for my 40th. I just know I’ll be old enough for Tiffany.
Other than that, I have no memories at all of the gifts I received. Isn’t that terrible? I suppose at the time all my parents hoped for was that I would be happy with their choice (and grateful!). I don’t know if they asked themselves, when they picked out my eighth birthday present, whether or not I’d remember that particular gift for the rest of my life. Needless to say I didn’t. But I’m sure it was lovely, and I’m sure I would have said thank you.
Madeleine turns ten tomorrow. It’s the first of those milestones that I remember wondering about in the days after she was born. Wow, imagine what she’ll be like in a year? In ten years? When she’s off to college? Ten years. Crikey.
Just in case she forgets what she got for this birthday, we’ve got the present opening caught on video camera. And there’ll be an extra reminder from this year, a little birthday souvenir - we bought her a ticket to tomorrow night’s Harry Connick Jnr concert, and I got hold of a tour poster, and then I bought her a nice pen, and when we cash in the backstage passes his Manager bestowed upon us, she’ll (hopefully) get an autograph and maybe a “Happy 10th Birthday Madeleine, love Harry xxx.” And yes, since you’re asking, she is a fan in her own right. I put him on her iPod, but she’s the one that put him into her Favourites playlist.
So this should be a birthday to remember. But if she ever forgets, I’ll happily remind her, because I’m planning to enjoy this concert at least as much as she is and I’ll remember every single detail. I’ll wait until she’s a little bit older, though, before I tell her how cute Harry’s butt is when you see it up close.
Parents’ Worst Nightmare #453: What if your child is a World Class Athlete?
Posted
March 11, 2008 at
8:26 am by
Trish
When we got married I don’t remember any discussion about a pre-nup. Maybe Australian lawyers were yet to discover that such a thing existed. We may have had some system where the bride and groom agreed beforehand on who would get to keep the family heirloom convict ball and chain but other than that we just said “I do” and got on with things, albeit with our fingers crossed. So you might think I’m joking when I say there’s a clause in our pre-nup that says if any of our kids inherit my husband’s athletic prowess then he’s the one who gets to drive them to early morning training.
My husband was a slightly hyper-active five year old and during the summer of 1977 his mother decided to enroll him in swimming lessons in an effort to get him to burn off some of that energy. There was a coach on the pool deck who noticed PJ had a good strong kick and suggested to his mother that he might have some natural talent. By the time he was eight years old he was competing in local races. I met him at high school in year eight (junior year) but already knew him as that guy who won all the events at the school swimming carnival by half a length. Of the pool. I’m not just bragging, he was really good. At the pinnacle of his career he was ranked in the top ten in our country for three different events, was all set to compete in the Olympic Trials, and was considering an offer of a swimming scholarship to a college in North America. OK I’m bragging, but it’s all true. The story doesn’t have a happy ending, unfortunately. He developed tendonitis in his shoulder and at the age of 18 he had to give it all away. If only…
His father was a champion sprinter in his heyday in England, his mother an accomplished horse-rider, so there’s something in the genes on his side of the family that make them good at sports. We have been watching both our daughters closely to see if they’re going to be champion sprinters or Olympic swimmers but up until a couple of years ago neither seemed all that excited about either. Which is fine, of course. I was a very content but fairly ordinary netball player and cross-country runner when I was at school. I was a mediocre saxophonist and a lousy bagpiper. But that’s another story.
At the end of Ella’s first year of school we started to notice that she had quite extraordinary muscle definition for a child of six. Her arms looked like they had been sculpted and her back muscles positively rippled as she struggled with getting her school uniform on over her head in the morning. We couldn’t figure out how she had developed such a physique until one day I watched her on the jungle-gym in the playground at school. She was swinging from one end of the frame to the other, pausing every so often in a chin-up to let the other kids past. Then she would jump off and run across to the fireman’s pole and scale it in half a second flat. And suddenly I realised - this kid is actually a monkey. You know how some parents will say “Jimmy, go get your violin and play a little Chopin for the nice visitors”? Well, we’d say “Hey, Ella, show everyone your biceps!” and she would roll up her sleeves and do an Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One year later and we signed both the kids up for the local swim club, a very informal Friday night/Sunday morning commitment that included one session of training and one session of just-for-fun racing. The junior kids’ coach greeted Ella with a hearty “Well hello there, Muscles!” and that’s when I knew she definitely was a bit of a freak. She leapt into the water and proceeded to splash around and to her best impression of a Japanese tourist caught in a rip at Bondi Beach. It was enthusiastic, but it wasn’t pretty. She might have had the physique but she lacked the coordination.
This summer we enrolled the girls again at swim club. Madeleine took to it with characteristic determination and has developed a lovely freestyle technique. She can certainly swim further than me. Ella reluctantly joined the little kids’ group. If you asked her she’d probably tell you that the only reason she’s doing swimming at all is because the parents cook pancakes for the kids after the Sunday morning lesson. But this year something seems to have switched on in her head. A couple of Sundays ago I took a break from flipping pancakes to watch her in the pool.
The kid has a hell of a kick. She absolutely powers through the water, and I have to walk at a reasonable pace as I follow her alongside on the pool deck. I’m not just bragging. OK, yes I am. But there’s no denying that Ella is the one who has inherited the necessary genetic makeup to possibly excel at swimming and so PJ and I have been discussing the logistics of getting her to training at 5am, six mornings a week.
PJ’s mother took him to training every morning for ten years. She got up, drove him to the pool, came home and went back to sleep for a while, then went back to the pool to pick him up, then came home and got herself ready for work. Can you imagine? It was dark when they left, and during winter at least it was still dark when they got back. It’s quite a commitment, being the parent of an elite athlete. Getting the kids to school every morning is hard enough without factoring in training sessions that start well before the crack of dawn. Add to this the fact that we are about to realise our dream of moving out of the city and onto a rural acreage - forty minutes from the nearest swimming club - and we’re wondering if we, let alone she, has what it takes to be a serious swimmer.
She is only seven years old. I’m getting ahead of myself. She might not want to do it. She might be happy just swingin’ from the jungle gym. But what if she discovers a natural talent for something like this, something that requires a lot of hard work? I’m all for encouraging my kids to try their hand at anything. At the moment they do karate and horse-riding, and swimming will give way to winter sports (netball for Madeleine, soccer for Ella) and I’ll keep driving them to their classes as long as they’re happy to go (which they are, in case you were wondering that I might be one of those scary Stage Mother types). But if Ella takes to swimming the way her Dad did, or Madeleine develops on obsession for dressage and show-jumping like her grandmother, do I have the energy and time and commitment to keep up?
I hope so. I think so. Yeah, of course I do. I might need to start getting into training myself though. And by ‘training’ I mean setting the alarm for 4am and practicing operating my espresso machine whilst my eyes are still firmly shut.
Tags: athletes, athletics, children, Olympics, sports, swimming, training Ineffective, now with added Imperfection!
Posted
March 5, 2008 at
10:13 pm by
Trish
Back in 2003 I optimistically signed up for Parent Effectiveness Training. My first born daughter had been one of those ‘good babies’ that you sometimes hear about, the kind that grow into adorable two year olds and sweet little three year olds, with barely a tantrum to speak of. I was riding the wave of smug parenthood when my second daughter came along and introduced me to the fine art of the Supermarket Special. It was right there, in the cereal aisle, watching my daughter throw her little body to the ground in dramatic, dying-swan fashion, that I realised I had been kidding myself. I actually didn’t have a clue what I was doing after all. My attempts to calm her down, to entice her back into the pram, to gather her up in my loving arms and show her that I loved her in spite of the violence of her tantrum, were all in vain. I stood and watched her writhing about on the floor and wondered if I could be any less effective.
So when a friend told me about Parent Effectiveness Training, I eagerly enrolled. The course promised techniques and methods to tame the most ferocious toddler-beast. At the very first class I met a dozen other bewildered, haggard, ineffective parents, all keen to regain the upper hand. Our instructor was a sweet and softly-spoken woman who didn’t seem to possess the vocal range required for yelling at children. I wondered what magical powers she possessed that made it possible for her to maintain decorum in her house full of toddlers without needing to raise her voice. The Ineffective Parents in the room leaned forward to listen to her wise counsel. She spoke about patience, about negotiation, of discussing alternatives but not compromising on boundaries. She said it worked wonderfully well in her house, and she was sure we could all learn from her experiences. We looked at her incredulously and wondered if she even had children.
Some parents might find the PET model works well for their families and I am not here to argue the merits of one theory over another. But what I will say is that there are few places more validating and supportive than a Community Centre room full of parents at the end of their collective rope. When our softly-spoken instructor invited comments from the floor, well, you might as well have tried to hold back the tide. Everyone had a story about their own special brand of ineffectiveness, and everyone was grateful for the opportunity to tell it like it was. We all attempted to out-do one another with stories of how spectacularly we had failed in our efforts to be Effective Parents. We shared our stories and offered up pure unadulterated empathy. We were there to learn how to be effective, but the most valuable lesson we learned was that we were not alone in our ineffectiveness, and that there was always some poor bastard who had it worse.
And so it is with great joy and gratitude that I join the ranks of the Imperfect Parent. I know that I am among friends here, and that my stories will elicit nods of recognition, virtual hugs of understanding and perhaps the occasional softly-spoken disapproval. Australians are known for their laid-back approach to life, their she’ll-be-right attitude and their penchant for questioning authority and taking well-intentioned advice with a large grain of salt. As a parent this attitude has possibly landed me in a nappy-bucket (diaper pail!) full of hot water on several occasions but it has also given me a sense of humour that frankly I couldn’t have survived without. Thank you for joining me on this journey, thank you for overlooking the extra vowel in humor and the ’s’ in realized, and thank you to the editors of The Imperfect Parent for allowing me to embrace my ineffectiveness and my imperfections. It’s going to be therapeutic.
Tags: australian, family, parent effectiveness training, Parenting, parenting style, parenting techniques, tantrum
Entire Blog