On the fly....

photo by Bombardier

Previously I put forward the argument for staying at home for your kids (at least for the bulk of the time) and putting your major focus and energy into being there for them. Whilst I certainly believe in the merit of this, I also see the possible dangers. One of them being – living for your kids / through your kids. And failure to let them do their own living.



As our kids get older we must keep in mind our number one goal… which should be something along the lines of “raising a happy, independent, functional person”. Key word in this discussion is independent. Independent of what makes us happy sometimes.


I know some lovely people who are great parents generally, but ho have fallen into the trap of being too attached to their children. Attached and unable to unattach when required as the child grows. It hurts when child reaches a certain age and suddenly doesn’t want to hold your hand to cross the road, feels uncomfortable hugging you (especially in public), wants to hang with mates or girlfriend / boyfriend instead of you most of the time. This is a normal response. Good parenting. Allow the feeling of hurt, and go with it. Don’t hang on and try to avoid this feeling. This feeling is a sign of success in your parenting. A sign of growth and independence in your child. Thwarting it, forcing the togetherness, stifling their need to stretch, only damages and undoes all the good work you’ve done.


Example: Independent thinking, ambitious, young 15 year old wants to go to a specialist school to follow her dreams. School is 4 hours away and she will have to live away from home in boarding house. Ouch!! And at the same time – congratulations !! Initially she rings you constantly, is homesick, comes home to visit as much as she can…. Then suddenly, she forgets to call, is too busy to come home this weekend, etc. DOUBLE OUCH !! and yay !! – she’s settling in and getting closer to her dreams. Time for mum to get a hobby or dream for herself.


TIPS for surviving the growth of your children…


1. Accept that parenting is a constantly changing role… be ready for that next stage. In some ways, it’s just a series of short term contract jobs. Getting more and more part-time along the way.

2. Don’t forget you ! If you don’t have time for your hobby or your work or your dreams, at least keep thinking about them and add them into your life as much as you can fit. Having a dream for yourself keeps you sane and keeps you from holding them back.

3. Look after your other relationships – your partner, friends, parents, nieces, nephews. Don’t need your child to “need” you in order to feel wanted. Don’t have other relationships ? – try community work, get involved in helping others. (It’s a great role model for your kids too).

4. Remember that you are some-one’s child too. They wanted the best for you as you grew up – just as you do for your children. So don’t give away your dreams anymore than you would like to see your own child do so. (Again –be a role model in this area).

5. Don’t take it personally. When they move their life away from you, its because that’s what healthy growing children do. And likely, they’ll come back eventually in a different sort of format.

“If you love something – set it free.

If it comes back its yours.

If it doesn’t, it never was. “

I LOVE... my new fridge

For quite a few years now, in fact, ever since I moved in with my now hubby, we’ve had a fairly small fridge / freezer. We eat a lot of fresh veg and we are not the sort of people that have a fridge with not much in it… so eventually, finally, we have moved onto something bigger and this time I’ve gone for all fridge. We have a small chest freezer in the garage – where we keep excess veg, bulk supplies of bread etc – so didn’t have the need for freezer access on a daily basis. But with limited space in which to put the new machine in, we had to do something different in order to get the volume size I wanted.


We finally got this one – a F & P 420litre, and I love it. A big part of why I love it is it’s great energy rating. It’s 5 star rated which means it is VERY energy efficient.

In fact, we’re told it will only cost about $60 a year to run!! Terrific. But even better, it will do less damage to our environment. In fact, about as minimal damage as we can do while having a fridge in the home.


I feel greener already!



 
 
 
 
 
pic by by Stephen Barnett

Becoming a veg head

At age 12 I chose to become vegetarian – what a blow to my parents. They were farming people. They raised me well on a meat & 3 veg kind of diet. I’d loved my chops & my sausages as any other kid does. They had no reason to expect this backlash of rebellion would come. But it did.


At first they tried to accept and laugh it off (“she’ll forget by dinner time”). Then after a few weeks it started to annoy them. Hardly surprising – it was almost a slap in the face with regard to the lifestyle they had raised me with and expected me to join. Mum started to serve me up a piece of meat with each meal, and demand that I sit there until it was eaten. Unfortunately for her, she had raised me to have a keen sense of my own self and I steadfastly refused.


After some months, they settled back into a disgruntled sense of acceptance, but they spent many years with a tinge of anger hovering over the subject, and even as a young adult I was treated to the occasional sarcastic barb about my “freakishness”. Their refusal to fully accept this part of me still had the power to hurt me well into my twenties.


Somehow, time has mellowed us both. They no longer see it as a personal statement against them, and mum can even sometimes see the merit in a veg diet for health reasons (although my reasons are ethical). Dad simply gets on with things and doesn’t mention it – in fact I don’t think he gives it much thought at all these days. On my part – I can finally see how it might have hurt them on a personal level – although it was a good many years before that even occurred to me.


Now I have raised my son as a vegetarian. It’s only normal that we raise our children in the lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves. Obviously we think it the best.


Will he choose to eat meat? Will it strike me in the heart as my choice struck my parents? Will I accept his choice and cope with it better than they did? I hope so. I hope we can learn from the mistakes of the generations before us… And in the name of a good relationship with my son, I hope I can avoid the trauma of trying to hang on to a dream or belief that might be mine, but may not be his.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by OakleyOriginals