source: Pixabay

I am constantly amazed how much my children learn when they are away from me. I’m more amazed by how much they learn when they are with me, but that’s a whole other story.

We spend a lot of time worrying about what we’re teaching our children. Are we doing a good job or a bad job? Should we expose them to the news or keep them sheltered? Should we teach them about this or what until they know more about that? Are they making good choices? Are they making good bad choices? Did they hear that word from me or from someone else?

It’s a minefield.

But then at night when they are telling you things to prolong sleepy-time, you realise they are out there soaking up stuff that you haven’t even thought to discuss with them. Some if true. Some of it not so true. And some, some very close to true.

And there ‘aint nothing you can do about it EXCEPT HOLD IN THE LAUGHS.

This year the girls have told me about the following:

1.  China’s no child policy – “You aren’t allowed to have babies in China so because Kate’s* parents wanted to have children they moved to Australia so they could have her and her sister. Which is lucky for us right? If they’d not been born we would never have met them. And I’m never going to be Chinese because I definitely want babies.”
2. ‘Originals’ – “Before white people came on a boat only the ‘originals’ lived in Australia.  They were doing just fine but we gave them the flu and stuff.”
3. Space – “The planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. And Pluto used to be a planet but isn’t anymore. They did tell me why but I didn’t really care”
4. Precious stones – “My friend Ruby is named after a precious stone. And so is her brother. And she taught me the names of lots of them – Jade, Amethyst, Turquoise, Sapphire, Diamond and lots more. She knows a lot about stones but nothing about pet rocks.”
   

   source: Pixabay

5. Volcanos – “Climbing up volcanos is a dumb idea because you’ll end up dead.”
6. Beach safety – “Don’t swim with sharks. If they bite your leg off your leggings won’t fit.”
7. Refugees – “John* said refugees lived in camps. I said he was wrong because camping was fun and you said that Australia isn’t very nice to refugees so they are definitely not in camps.”
8. The secret to a good life – “The reason you need maths is because of life. If you don’t know maths, life will be hard. If you do know maths, life will be easy. If you’re only okay at it, it’s probably best to marry somebody who is good at it.”
9. Cooking – “I’m going to be a chef Mum. I want to do really good cooking. Not like you and Dad.”
10. Soccer – “We played soccer today. And I REALLY don’t get why people want to play it on Saturdays.”

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Now I appreciate I’m no scientist and that for all I know dog poop could be full of sophisticated bacteria which will one day run the world, but I think you get my point.

And I still stand by it.

How clever my girls are is nothing to do with me – that’s nature. I can’t teach them to be smart. Nor can my husband. We can encourage a love of learning, we can support their teachers, we can teach them about discipline, help them access information – but ultimately, all we’re doing is giving them opportunities to achieve whatever potential is burbling away inside their brainbox already.

But the other two things – well they are much bigger and much harder.  We’re very much responsible for teaching our children to be emotionally intelligent. That kind of intelligence is based on what they see, what they hear, how they see emotions being processed, how we process events and information for them so it’s relevant contextually, how we relate to them, how we relate to each other, how we relate to others.

It’s huge.

And I entirely appreciate that worrying about my children’s emotional intelligence is something we can afford to do because we’ve got the basics (food, shelter, health, education) covered. That’s a privilege of which we are aware. Very aware.

I don’t want my children to be ‘nice’. I’m not a fan of ‘nice’. Being ‘nice’ is entirely subjective. It’s bland, it’s superficial. If the kindest thing you can ever think of to say about my children is that they are ‘nice’, we’ve failed.

We want them to be much more rounded individuals than ‘nice’. We want them to be kind. Kind is objective. Kind is actually understanding what is unkind, and why it’s unkind. Being kind is active thinking and proactive behaviour.

Kindness leads to confidence. Confidence is not arrogance. It’s an acceptance of oneself in all the complex, messy and contradictory glory that acknowledges that you are what you are, and that is perfectly okay. It is not to live without doubt, it is not to live without ambition, it is not to live without stuffing up sometimes.

Confidence is being able to live purposefully, talk about your feelings, acknowledge the negatives, have the courage to try new things, to fail and to try again, to not constantly compare or worry that you are not as worthy, not as good, as the next person. Confidence is knowing that you are loved for what you are, not how you do-or-don’t reflect on others.

Which is why I apologise to my daughters.

I don’t need to be perfect to my daughters. I don’t need to be better than them. I don’t need to be smarter than them.

I need to be honest with them. And by honest, I mean I need to admit that sometimes I’m an arse.

And that’s okay.

If I speak crossly or lack patience or behave badly, it’s not because of something they have done, it’s because as a human, I’ve been human.  And if I have hurt them by speaking crossly or upset them by being unkind, than it is my responsibility to acknowledge that fuck up and say sorry.

And mean it.

I can get my children to do what I want without being an arse. I know this because that’s mostly how it happens. Because, like all children, they are fundamentally good human beings just working it all out – little by little, day by day. Their default position is to do what they think is going to be the thing that makes you happy. If they’re getting that wrong regularly, chances are you may need to rethink your behaviour, not theirs.

I know not everybody agrees with me on this, including some of my friends. They think that discipline and boundaries are best defined more autocratically and they must be enforced no matter what.

My girls have discipline and boundaries, but fundamentally they are humans. They are going to make mistakes, push those boundaries, break the rules, be rude, misbehave, say bad words, do the wrong thing. For some adults, they do all those things just driving to work.

So why would I constantly hold the two most precious people in my world to a standard that I don’t constantly uphold?

There is not one person in the world that is the best version of themselves all of the time. Not one.

Not even Justin Trudeau.  Even in this picture.

So yes, I apologise to my daughters. I say sorry for yelling or being cranky or when I take my adult moods and responsibilities out on them, or even just plain get it wrong. Yes, I pick my battles. Yes, I let them make choices that I wouldn’t necessarily make for them. Yes, I let them run wild sometimes. Yes, I discipline them. Yes, I say no to them. Yes, I give them boundaries. Yes, I cuddle them even when their behaviour has been nothing short of contraceptive. I tell them I love them when they are being horrid, not just when they’re being super.

I don’t expect them to just know that I love them. I don’t assume it. I show them. I tell them. And then I tell them again. And then once more just to be sure.

For the only way I can make sure that my daughters grow up with the kindness and confidence that I so fiercely want for them, is for them to know that they are loved. All the time. Unconditionally.

And I’m not at all sorry for that. Not one little bit.

     

Top blokes and feminists

For the purposes of this post let us take Wikipedia’s definition of Feminism:

“Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, personal, and social rights for women.”

Wikipedia also notes that

More feminists and all around top peeps

All the Indian women I know personally are ridiculously clever, focussed and accomplished. In fact, if I had to stereotype Indian born Australian women I’d probably say they were ridiculously clever, focussed and accomplished. 

Last week I was in the field with World Vision Australia as a guest of World Vision India.

I am sharing stories about the humans I met.

This is done with their full permission.

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In Pudokkattai in Tamil Nadu in India, there are about 1, 618, 345 people. More then half this population is female which is slightly different from the overall population and like all of India, it’s a splendid and (at times) incomprehensible mix of cultural and religious norms paired with progressive thinking.

I could give you some more statistics about the area – because I do like a statistic but I’d like to tell you a story about a small village which will remain nameless. Partly because that’s best practice, but to be honest, I don’t know that I know.

In this rural village there live about 120 families. Like all country towns – there is a clearly defined pecking order, a lot of motorbikes and a stack of children with dusty feet and cheeky grins.  There’s the guy that makes everybody laugh, children on bicycles arriving back from school and a cross faced women scolding small people into submission when they step out of line.

It could be anywhere. It is familiar and it is strange. It is a village where the average income comes to about ten dollars per week if work is available and where almost half the families are affected by alcoholic fathers.

And yes people, I know. Women can drink too. But not here. Not in this village. Gender inequality does have the strangest of silver linings sometimes.

Many of these men have been drinking since they were children. Child labourers who sought refuge in alcohol or used it to keep themselves awake during long nights, became Daily Wage Labourers who got paid when they worked, and didn’t get paid when they didn’t work. They married, had families and still they drank. Sometimes they would drink for days, sleeping at the grog shop and other times they would just collect their pays and then drink it away, leaving nothing for their families.

Domestic violence is rife. Families argue. Wives go hungry. Children go hungry. The health of the men is failing. It’s not a new story. It’s global. It’s local.

But it impacts families here in a way that it doesn’t back home. There is no safety net. None at all.

If there is no money, they starve.

Malnourishment affects developing brains. By the age of 5, the damage is irreparable. These children living in poverty, affected by their father’s addiction, will have no chance to change anything later on. The moment will be lost.

World Vision asked the families what they needed. Was it money? Was it food? What would change it?

“Stop Papa from drinking”

“Stop my husband from drinking”

“Help me stop drinking”

And so they are. They’ve developed an intensive rehabilitation program which lasts for ten days. Ten days in-house. And then a two year follow up program. The follow up program includes medication which makes them vomit if they drink alcohol. But like all medication, if you don’t take it, it doesn’t work. They take it. They want it to work.

First one family, then two. Overall in the 12-18 months since they implemented the program, 54 men have participated. Only 4 have ‘fallen of the wagon’.  In this village alone, 10 men have undertaken the rehab program. More are going.

We got to meet with these families.  They speak candidly. Much more candidly then I was expecting or even comfortable to begin with.  The men talk of their addiction, how it affected their lives. Their wives speak of fighting and beatings and hunger and children who have never spoken. Children speak of how their fathers were embarrassing, beat them and were unlikeable.

And then they talked about how they support each, how much happier family life is. They talk of their pride in the children and how they were inspired to change their habits so the cycle was broken. The children tease their fathers, speak of how proud they are of what they have achieved. Their wives talk about no fighting, eating often, being able to leave money in plain sight.

These men were all in their 30s and 40s. These life time addictions were not the grandiose tales of rocks stars or bored executives with big pay packets and other options. They were the honest stories of people who relied on each other to build their communities back up. They talked of getting their brothers and friends into rehab. And how thankful they were to World Vision for giving them the opportunity to get back on track.

They weren’t thanking World Vision for fixing the problem. They were thanking them for the opportunity to change their own lives.  There is a difference. And it’s a crucial one.

And do you know what this transformative program costs per person? Around $150 per person.

World Vision wasn’t working with these guys just to get them into rehab.  They were working with the community to effect decisive and long term change for the children.  It was pretty empowering.

We still deem addiction in our society to be the responsibility of the addict. We put the onus on them to reform themselves and make our support conditional upon their ‘success’.  We label them as surely as if we tattoo their foreheads.  These guys are surrounded by a community that see their sobriety as a return to their real selves. They aren’t ‘former addicts’ or ‘former alcoholics’.

They are Papa. Husband. Brother. Friend.