Honestly. Hrrmmmpphhh. Why do we need a Children's Day and why do we need talking heads like Murray Edridge to inveigle us to spend time with our children and remember how much they mean to us? It's not the touchy-feeliness oozing out. I can suffer that. It is the arrogance that assumes we don't think about how much they mean to us unless he reminds us to.
I remember 2 or 3 days after Robert was born, standing at the kitchen sink weeping. In hindsight it was probably just hormonal. But trying to rationalise my tears at the time, I felt it was because it had suddenly dawned on me that I was in love with this new entity and I would remain so all my life and if anything ever happened to him the pain would be unbearable. Did you know that mothers actually experience a physical reaction when they see their child hurt? Or if he stepped too close to the edge of the wharf for instance I would get this zing, something like hitting a funny bone. Anatomically I think it was in the region of the ovaries (I just had to check with Sam where the ovaries are - at 11 she knows much more about human reproduction than I do). It happens when you see a wound on your child.
My children are always around me. Physically - alot and spiritually - alot. Yesterday Sam and I spent time playing Connect Four and then Mastermind, which is a fantastic game for developing powers of deduction. How to solve using a hypothesis. Later we watched American Idol together. We searched for new music for her to sing going through a pile of sheet music we brought home from the library Friday after she, Robert and I had all been to the hairdressers together. Yes we all share the same hairdresser. A very entertaining hairdresser he is too. I listened while Robert practised his latest piano piece and cursed at him for cursing at the piano. We sit side by side at our computers on and off during the day, pouring scorn on the reaction to the child making a couple of air traffic control transmissions at JFK, obviously supervised by a doting father now suspended. I am closer to my children than my parents were to me. That isn't a criticism of them. They both worked full-time, there were four children and times were just different. Funnily they are closer to their grandchildren than they were their own at the same age. The generational divide isn't there. We all seem to be more grown up somehow.
I worry about what life will be like when they flee the nest. There will be an emptiness but I know I will fill it because there is always so much to do. So much to do that sometimes I feel perhaps I neglect them a tad. But then they are always doing as well. We often tend to be doing alongside each other more than together. That's fine too.
It doesn't need a Children's Day to make me appreciate or agonise over them. That is a daily business. I really don't need to be told how to think and act. So all you do-good dipsticks, keep your sticky beaks in your own business and butt out of mine.
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8 comments:
And what lefties don't understand is that social workers, PC police, and all the apparatus of the state can never feel like this about kids
What's even worse is that when the mum is on the DBP, or dad on the Dole they don't feel this way about kids either
Despite your desire to cling to them and have them to you let them go and the more likely they will return to you after flying the nest. Our's spent twenty years on the other side of the world and now has returned.
I think it is an arrogant assumption based on ignorance that Anon 11.29 makes. 'lefties' love and cherish their children the same or more so than self-rightious 'righties'. And self-rightious 'lefties' for that matter too.
Anon, Take care there. Being on the DPB or dole does not mean people love their children less.
I am sure there are people on the DPB who will argue they are there because they have put their children's interests first. That is why I don't have a problem with short term assistance.
I could agree that those people not providing their children with adequate care are more likely to be on welfare as per the research I quoted earlier this week.
. 'lefties' love and cherish their children the same or more so than self-rightious 'righties'.
Simply and demonstrably not true.
Being on the DPB or dole does not mean people love their children less.
Of course it does! If you love your kids you won't be on a benefit - you'll be in a job. Your kids won't be in state schools, they'll be getting an actual education in private schools. When they fall ill, you won't take them to a MRSA ridden A&E dept, you'll have fully private cover. If you are injured, you won't rely on ACC but you'll have your own private insurance. You won't belong to a money-grubbing union and you won't be voting Labour or Green!
people not providing their children with adequate care are more likely to be on welfare
precisely - but that's just one end of the spectrum.
Righties are married, have jobs, have money, and ensure their kids get the best, whether it's education, healthcare, or something as simple as transporting the kids around in a new Volvo or BMW rather than a second or third had rust bucked Toyota or Nia. Becuase Righties kids are loved, they'll grow up listening to Brahms and Bach not hate-mongering rappers, racist reggae, or mind-alterning Techno. That's why lawyers, doctors, and most of all businessmen are righties, entrepreneurs, the people who create wealth and value for themselves and their families.
And why lefties hate their kids.
Anon, You make me look thoroughly reasonable instead of the radical tag National give me. Thanks.
Good grief Anon! Political leanings aren't an indicator of parental ability.
A lot of us don't live near private hospitals and some children's health services are only available in the public system.
You don't have to be leftwing to send your child to a state school -many of which are as good as some private ones.
Lindsay, "anonymous" on this thread also posts elsewhere as Sinner, and also plagues No Minister with his idiocy. For a while we were thinking he must be a lefty out to make right-wingers look deranged, but have eventually come to the conclusion that no, he's a genuine nutbar.
I think that the people who need to be reminded about how much their kids should mean to them are the very ones who will never be reached by the 'message' of Children's Day anyway. It is a pointless exercise.
I spent Sat and Sunday with my 14 year old boy who had a home leave from school. Wife and daughter were away in Wellington for the weekend. The boy and I talked, watched TV, played with the pup, did some shooting, practised his driving around the paddocks (those trees got awfully close at times) and moved several tons of firewood from one side of the property to the woodshed. And enjoyed a beer together on the deck after an afternoon of hard work. One of the best weekends I ever had.
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