Left Out On A Playdate? The Woes of the Stroppy Sibling.

Caitlin had a friend over to play today and much fun was had by the two girls.  Ieuan, on the other hand, floated about like the spectre of death at a wedding.

I have to admit, attempts to get in touch with his friends haven't been that successful but, by and large, I haven't worried about it too much, figuring that time in the loving bosom of his family (cough) should suffice.    How wrong I was.

Now we are at the arsenic stage of the summer holidays when kids are really missing their school pals and the novelty of late nights, iPads and probably far too much junk TV is wearing thin.

Yes, yes, before you say it, I know we should have been up at dawn, covered in goose grease and ready to yomp up the Brecon Beacons, all gung-ho Bear Grylls stylee with the enthusiasm of an excited Louis Spence thrown in for good measure.  But we weren't.  The Husband is off doing something technical in London again and so it's my paltry attempts at single motherhood with all the good humour of Anne Hegarty on ITV's "The Chase".

Ieuan wandered around with his best 'devil child' pout.  "I want friends overrrrrrr.  I want to play with boys. They're leaving me out" (They weren't).

I offered him numerous forms of entertainment and items containing sugar but these found no favour.
He flounced, he stropped, he did some Rupert Everett style languishing.  All he needed was a silk dressing gown and a dry Martini (actually that'll be mine) and he'd have had the look off to a tee.

I have explained that Caitlin will want time to play with her friends as he would want time with his when they (hopefully!) arrive.

It's always difficult to know how much supervision is required on play-dates.  I avoid being Mary Poppins on Speed - you know the type, the crafting scissors are out before you've taken your shoes off - in favour of someone a little more relaxed (obviously I struggle) and willing to let the kids enjoy themselves without being stifled by someone with an unholy fear of them burning the house down.

By and large, I think I have the balance right.  But entertaining 'the spare' on a play date must be many a mother's challenge, particularly in the school holidays.

Eventually the situation was rectified by the early arrival of The Husband who took Grump Junior off for a hair-cut and a lolly.

But I think I'm going to need a better future strategy than that.

Otherwise, Ieuan's going to end up bald.

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Why is disciplining your kids so difficult?

Much as I love my two, I swear that as soon as their father goes off to work for a couple of days and the door closes behind him, they both hatch the latest plot entitled "let's you and me make mummy get mad and shout".

The basis of this game involves:-

*  pretending not to understand basic life skills such as applying toothpaste to a brush, remembering to flush the toilet or brush their hair

*  adopting "the voice" - a cross between a wheedle, a whine and a bleat.  It's like being accosted by melancholic sheep wherever you turn.

*  shouting for me at the top of their lungs like a machine gun "mum,mum,mum,mum".  This is always done outside for full effect.

* having to be told at least 5 (count 'em) times to do anything

* completely ignoring the last 5 instructions and, when confronted, smirking - smirking!!!  A red rag to a, er heffer, that one.

* developing weird physical symptoms and claiming to be in the throes of some odd fever or sickness.  This is usually announced by "my tummy feels weird" and then behaving like an auditionee for Holby.

* endlessly (and I mean endlessly) using all those words that make you wince (especially when announced in the library). These words are often helpfully strung together  - viz "bumfoofytodgetodgeboobiedoobiebum".  N.B. trying to pass this off as the New Zealand Haka rarely works.

*appearing approximately 90 minutes after being put to bed, still wide awake but claiming to have had a dream in which somebody somewhere in some guise or other was being something or other and had upset them.

* announcing that nobody in this house loves them and they are leaving home.  (So soon!)

* refusing to leave home before their bedtime milk and cuddle and then deciding to stay after all.

I know that they are testing the boundaries and that discipline (correctly applied - and no I'm not talking about physical discipline) should help them to feel loved, protected and safe but why does nobody tell you how awful it makes you feel?

After a day like today, I feel totally wrung out and like I've failed.  Again. All those helpful childcare tomes focus on the desired results of discipline on the child, but rarely do we receive advice about what to do when your kids make you feel like Mother Gothel in Disney's Rapunzel.

It is an endless battle which we parents never know if we're winning or not because as soon as you feel the little darlings are behaving or they have an exemplary day, you can bet it will all go pear-shaped the next day.

Sometimes I wonder what on earth I'm teaching them.  Do I actually believe the rules I'm setting are right, valid or effective? But then I remember that society needs us to bring our kids up right so that they are not screaming little banshees running amok in Tesco or irritating plane passengers. It's about encouraging individuality whilst ensuring our children fit in.  Because, make no mistake, a lot of success in life boils down to 'fitting in'.

If I stop and listen, of course, the voices I hear are those of my parents.  We're all just doing our best, aren't we?

Occasionally I wish I could be one of those chilled, macrobiotic types who operates entirely through the focus of mindfulness and universal love.

But I can't bear mess on the carpet, wet towels on beds and why in God's name does nobody EVER replace the toilet roll.

All is peaceful at the moment.  There is a lull in hostilities while they snooze and I sit on the sofa and reflect how much I love them.  The little buggers.

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My Sunday Photo - 09/08/2015

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Why are we so afraid to let our kids experience boredom?

We're half way through the summer holidays and the guides to helping your kids deal with boredom are starting to appear.  Ah, boredom, the terrible malaise which strikes when the iPad charger is lost and there's nothing on TV (which seems to be the general state of affairs these days anyway).

Reading a book can take them to another world

Why are we so afraid to let our kids experience boredom?

For those of us who grew up in the 70's, boredom came with the territory. The summer school holidays seemed truly endless. I'm sure we all irritated our parents beyond measure with the constant, buzzing drone of "but what can we do now?".  The response I used to get was, generally, "go and read a book".

We were in Waterstones in Worcester the other day and it was a revelation for Caitlin who, already an excellent reader, is beginning to discover that reading a good book is far more enjoyable than playing with the acreage of over-priced plastic attached to the front of children's 'magazines' or the latest toy-du-jour which often barely survives the first 24 hours with my two's rigorous style of play.

I bet there are thousands of kids who could quote from all of the Harry Potter films but who have never picked up the actual books.  This may be because their parents do not read to them of course, and with today's hectic work schedules for many, the bedtime story is an unfortunate casualty.

When I studied English Literature at University of Wales Swansea in the 80's (yes, that long ago), I remember we were told that you had to read a book at least 4 times before you could really start to understand its themes, its political and social context, the breadth and depth of its imagery.  Novelists leave within their works a tantilising glimpse into the politics, history and psychology of the day.  

When we read a novel we create the characters and interpret the events that happen to them in a way that has meaning for us.  When we see the film, these decisions have largely been taken out of our hands.  We miss the chance to process what has happened in our own lives against the backdrop of the story.

A book can change us in the way that a film can't.

That's why initiatives like World Book Day are so important.  It is also why I hope that our bookshops survive.  I suspect that many will pick up the book to see what it's like but then purchase from Amazon to save a few pounds.  Sometimes though, the book you pick up is so compelling that you buy it there and then. It's an old fashioned sentiment possibly but much though I love my Kindle, there is nothing like a proper, crisp, hard-copy book.

It is also the reason why we lose our public libraries at our peril.  They are fantastic free resources for cash- and patience-strapped parents where kids can spend hours colouring, reading, enjoying reading schemes and craft activities and hanging out with their friends.

Our kids today lurch from one form of stimulation to another - I should probably call it iStimulation. And yes, with no small degree of irony can we say that some of them are turning positively android.

Of course, dealing with bored children is one of the key tests of our parenting abilities, but it is surely impossible to spend every waking moment with an activity schedule, a list of local attractions and a bottomless purse.

You cannot force fun.  You can create family togetherness.  You can forge stronger bonds through shared experience but each of us needs that time to discover who we are, no matter what our age.

Let's redefine boredom.  Let's call it "a chance to think unencumbered by unnecessary stimuli".  A chance, in fact, to have your own thoughts and time to learn how to marshal them.

And one of the best ways to learn about life within a secure and comforting space is within the pages of a book.

What better gift to give your kids?

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Family Values? They're All Relative.

I love a bit of nostalgia.  I love home-made and vintage.  Tea-cup candles scented with hyacinth, retro postcards and photographs from the '30s and '40s.  I love the traditional image of family - the Sunday lunch with its roasted chicken and apple pie goodness.  Ah, memories laced with brown sugar and cinnamon and lashings of custard.

My family is small and, I suppose, quite traditional.  My parents met and married in their twenties. My mum had me when she was 25 and my sister at 28.  My father was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and my mum worked in the local library - a job which she gave up to be a stay at home mum.  

Step forward 50 years and that concept of a family as 2.4 children, a working father and a stay at home mum is antiquated - a cliché straight out of 1970's sit-coms.  I think, if we're honest, there are many who miss the kind of stability this seemed to offer society.  I can remember once discussing divorce with my mother (not my divorce, I hasten to add!).  Her response was "in those days people just didn't.  This was a world where most people still went to church on Sundays and the 7th day was acknowledged, respected and offered a 24 hour haven of peace from the rigours of life.

Of course, the black side of this was the denial of all those who didn't fit into the heterosexual mould and the iron-clad insistence that there was only one definition of marriage and only one construction for a family.

Today anything goes.  Marriage, relationships, family units - are no longer hampered by any religious or gender considerations.  Marriage has in many ways just become an announcement of who we love most at any given time.  I personally regard it as more than that, having been raised in the Church of Wales but I know that, these days, I'm in the minority.

I had children in my 40s because I wanted to create my own family.  I wanted something that would outlive me (what Richard Dawkins calls the "selfish gene"), to mark my existence.  I have read legions of self-help / law of attraction / NLP books and always wince when the 'recipe' for self actualisation gets to the inevitable bit about "contribution".

Being cynical, I always think that when you are living in a castle and flying about in a helicopter from seminar to seminar, the opportunity to  'contribute' must be huge.  For those of us down on the ground, our contribution must, out of necessity, be smaller - random acts of kindness, charitable donations where we can and putting others' needs before our own.

Isn't this what a family is for?  Isn't this what families do?  Yes I know there are dysfunctional families but I prefer to believe that in our daily life with our relatives we mark our passage through life by caring for one another and sharing the good things in life.

Those who no longer have a family or who are isolated for any other reason are not barred from finding this kind of emotional support,  Today, as the local becomes ever-more global, as the internet links us across continents, we are able to communicate and form friendships as never before.

A new type of family is being born. "Find your tribe" we are encouraged - those people who understand you, with whom you belong.  Mothers, in particular, are finding that they need each other more than ever before. And this despite working mothers being pitted against stay-at-home mothers with monotonous regularity.  Many mothers are sinking under the weight of guilt as they try to redefine their new family structure.

As a late baby boomer (born in 1964) I was raised to have a career.  I was never pushed to get married and have children (although I am always honest about the fact that I wish I had had my children earlier in life).

So now that I am, rather belatedly, here, it feels as though the rug has been pulled from under my feet.  The mums I talk to on Facebook and Social Media in general are questioning who they are and how they should raise their kids without losing the person they have worked so hard to be.

The type of family unit I grew up in feels like something from an Agatha Christie novel, all gin & tonic after work for dad and afternoons baking and listening to the radio for mum.

Much as I miss it, I have to acknowledge that the families created by women, whether mothers or not, offer a love and support that is often far more powerful.

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Pondering Change And Loss in Great Malvern

It is a sunny afternoon in Great Malvern.  I am sat a stones' throw from the Great  Malvern Priory sipping coffee in blissful isolation whilst the Husband has taken the kids swimming in the Malvern Splash pool.

Great Malvern Priory

Clouds are scudding across the blue sky, casting shadows on the slumbering occupants of the Priory's graveyard.  I am reading the bestselling book by psychoanalyst, Dr Stephen Grosz called "The Examined Life - How We Lose And Find Ourselves".  It is a collection of stories based on the the sessions Grosz had with patients over many years' private practice.

His contention is that we are better equipped to change ourselves, and consequently our lives, when we understand that all change involves some form of loss.

It is only when we embrace this loss and accept it that we can move forward.

For example, when we marry, we lose our single self.  As women, when we have children we may lose our figures, our freedom, our confidence. And yet, we rarely stop to think of the losses that almost always accompany a change in direction.  We may take the road less travelled without always thinking of what we leave behind.

There is no better place to read Dr Grosz' stories, it strikes me, than close to the bones of those who loved and lost, hoped and dreamed hundreds of years ago.

There is always something poignant and touching about graveyards.  It's that mix of the reminder of our own mortality with the realisation that, beneath our feet are those who probably thought they, too, might be lucky enough to escape that last throw of the 'die'.  The pathos of the sheer banality of life sometimes adds almost an unbearable weight of meaning to the daily minutiae we repeat almost without thinking.

I ponder that I am quite hopeless at being on holiday.  I am also reminded of the truth that "wherever we go, there we are".  We can travel mile after mile but there is no escaping our essential selves.

I always like to believe that each holiday contains the kernel of an enormous life change.  That new experiences will weave a kind of psychological magic - making us better, happier, calmer, greater. Travel broadens the mind, they say but minds are pretty elastic I think.  Stretch them so far and then ping, back to normal we go.

I wish I could relax more.  Be calmer.  Less neurotic.  People rarely appreciate that, for the neurotic soul, not only is there the burden of the worry but also the weight of guilt in the suspicion that we should not allow ourselves to acknowledge these feelings.  Giving ourselves permission to wallow for a while is almost a luxury.

For mothers, the chance to think and ponder in quiet introspection is, for many of us, a luxury.  But to acknowledge our own hopes and fears safely out of the way of our children is a necessity. We all need to take the time to recoup our strength and to remember that many have trodden our path before us - and will do so long after we're gone.

I finish my coffee and amble back to meet the family on the steps of the exhibition centre where, in the rare and brilliant sunshine a band is playing rock 'n' roll classics in the open air and families mill happily about.

Time goes on in the shadow of the Priory.

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Blog Break Time

I'm taking a little break from blogging to spend some time with the hubby and kids, so normal service will be resumed shortly.

If you need to get in touch, I will be picking up emails at lindahobbis38@hotmail.co.uk.  Or you can tweet me at @lindahobbis.

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