daddy lessons

There's no hiding away from this. My Dad was a strict dad.

A 'you better get your tail back home on time' kinda Dad.

A sit down and listen to me lecture if you know what's good for you type of Dad.

A jokes that will make you groan Dad.

A never got my mates names right Dad.

There was the time he took to riding his motorbike during my athletic training runs because he couldn't keep up.

There were the times he told me to take down my Adam Ant / Madness / Duran Duran posters so often that when I left home, I blue-tacked wall-to-wall posters that it seemed I had a heaven of popstars watching over me like Greek Gods - Britpop style.

There were the Christmas Eves where he baked bread loaves in the shape of plaits and bread buns with our initials on, then left the kitchen looking like a flour hurricane had swept through. His work was done.

There were the nights I would sit on the stairs listening to him talk with his custom officer colleagues on their way to / back from a drug raid. For those tiny moments I was an extra on Juliet Bravo.

There was the year he turned 40 and I was the cassette DJ forced to play The Clash's 'I fought the Law' over and over again.

He was the Dad my mates' mums (and my PE teacher) fancied.

He was the Dad who tried so very hard to instill a sense of my ancestry in me.

He was the Dad who drove us the length and breadth of Britain so we would know our home country.

He was the Dad who  caught me reading my football magazine instead of revising for my Biology GCSE.

He was the Dad who bought me baby dummies for my 30th birthday as a gentle reminder of what he was waiting for.

He's the Dad who would make me tea and toast and sit for hours watching box sets of 24 when I was on my first maternity leave.

He's the Dad that will discuss politics, race, racism, parenting, aging, football and Doctor Who in just one phone call.

He's the Dad who climbs mountains, swims in oceans and still insists on jumping over walls even though he's passed the Beatles age-related hit song.

He's the Dad who is greeted by his grand-daughters, like Norm from Cheers, with a 'Grandpa!'

He's the Dad who isn't strict anymore.

He's the Dad who became the Grandpa who still tells jokes that make you groan.

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net:My Dad

evergreen

Growing up my perception of the family union was via Black American sitcoms, hip hop and soul songs or dramas and it was committed with utter perfection. Leaves of a family tree gravitating to a matriarch's kitchen table laden with food that would sustain ten armies. Generational branches momentarily re-twigging so aunts and uncles become brothers and sisters again, distant cousins break through the initial i-don't-know-you-but-i-know-we're-related ice to collectively roll their eyes at disco parents, and the elders get to reign supreme with a view of all that they have created and nurtured. 

My childhood experience amidst my Caribbean family certainly echoed with strains of what I was seeing on TV; add a little curry goat and lovers rock and you're there. I cherish memories of a beloved St Lucian aunt who would play the same reggae song about ten times in the course of a visit and would sing with glorious energy every single time and pull my awkward self to dance with her softness. Or another Grenadian aunt-cum-grandmother who would cook the Sunday dinners of all Sunday dinners then hold our mouth-watering attention whilst she prayed with us over the good part of an hour; but the food and the love of her was always worth the wait.

Two women who I wish my daughters could have known, two women who, through the prism of my young eyes, encapsulated warmth, love, joy, family. 

Life's demands can often fracture the ties that bind so I am now grateful that part of my clan have reclaimed and reconstructed our family union for nearly 8 years. Where I once stood as the child, cuddled and chided by grown ups, I now see the children of then having children of their own, the parents change their status to grandparents, the teenagers blossom into adulthood.

Our annual reunions which began as a necessary replanting of relationships, after a passing, have flourished into a happening that raises up the achievements and rites of passage amongst us, sustains the growth and collective need of an evolving family and cradles the sorrows within us. Our boughs reach from the newborn to the newcomers to the never-to-return; all life is within our roots.

And settling here on my branch, I will take time to cherish the view from here.

a question of time

The role of the parent is a powerful thing. Do we ever stop and think how much our behaviour, mindset, welfare, skills, religion and beliefs play a part in our child's life? This may all seem very obvious but when reconsidering an answer and a conversation about two things last week, I also realised how my answers shape the world my daughters see.

First. The Trump. When his last bit of stuff and nonsense entered our homes via the media and indeed the backlash from figures such as Michelle Obama, one evening's dinner was accompanied by question after question about why people are getting so angry about this guy. It would have been very easy for me to denounce this man as a tail-swinging, pitch-fork carrying member of the human race but I decided not to. A discussion ensued with the facts we could find - my favourite place for the girls being The Week news magazine for children - and I threw their questions back at them about why people might have positive or negative views about both American candidates. I didn't believe it was my place to dump my opinions about Trump or anyone else, for that matter, into the impressionable ears of my daughters.

And second, motherhood. Mid phone conversation I became aware of the many overheard comments highlighting the not-so-starry-eyed side of being a mum. You know, the locking yourself in the loo to drink a hot cup of coffee bit. Or those moments when you have scoured the recipe books to create a healthy, fun, colourful, tasty meal only to get three sets of curled lips of disgust in return. Or the moans and grumps about what they've done again and how I have to this, that, the other, save the world because I'm a mum and who the hell else will do it?  Whilst I will not shy away from the downsides of motherhood, I have to admit I may have forgotten to counteract it by talking openly about the good bits.  Is it fair for me to be so derisive of the role that they know they are directly responsible for? And may one day choose to take on?

There are things we may give high status to in our daily parenting: not breaking the law, not littering in the street, being respectful to people.  But I'm discovering that I may have to step back in other things, offer guidance and alternatives to my views when the questions come in.

it's the end of the world as we know it

Yes, you carry on in that field with your flowers just now - come see me when that baby arrives.

Remember the time? Surrounded by cooing friends as cute tiny outfits are brandished for the arrival of a tiny human being. A perfectly packed bag with a perfectly organised birth plan sit by the door. And all eyes are on the parents to be offering tales of joy for the precious days ahead gambolling happily with the newborn amidst fields of bluebells and happiness and daisy chains in their hair.

You know that noise an incorrect answer makes on Family Fortunes? Well, insert that here!

A disclaimer - babies, kids, children, bairns, offspring are all wonderful and I thank my lucky stars that our three are healthy and happy (most of the time) and they make me proud every day. 

Ok but now fast-forward, oh mothers out there, to the moments when you would let a passing stranger hold your child if it meant you could have a thirty minute sleep.  When you could shove the advice of others down their well meaning throats because whilst they are swanning about with their fully grown school kids you haven't showered for three days.  When you are almost paralysed with fear that your spotty /coughing / fevered / apoplectic with screaming baby will never become that beautiful bundle of bonny that you had dreamt about when you decided to get into the pregnant state that deluded monsters out there call 'natural'. 

Natural.

Now there's a word.  According to the 21st pretty much everything can acquire the natural status.

A well meaning dad once said to me that women used to give birth to their babies in the fields and carry on working.

Side eye.

Men - you might want to stop reading here but I urge you to continue.

I'd like to know what's so natural about waking up a mother and finding your insides feel like they're going to fall out of you if you so much as think about walking? And that you believe your baby has been celebrating a carnival inside you for 9 months that on leaving, it's like the Day of the Dead below the waist.

What's so natural about having a vice clamped onto your once hidden mammaries, that now seem to constantly be required to be pulled out and yanked for six to twelve months in a varying range of public places?  Obviously accompanied by either frowns of disapproval or prying eyes.

What's so natural about the copious amounts of poo (all the colours of the rainbow), sick (milky and with bits), snot, eye gunge, ear gunge, scalp peelings being projectiled and shed over you for the next few years?

And then there's the fear. Oh the gut-wrenching, night sweats fear that you will accidentally lose / smother / burn / forget / break your baby. No one ever tells you about the fear at those bloody baby showers do they?

I was at a fun baby shower once (no really it was and the chicken, rice and peas were to die for) and an elder told us teasing mums to stop frightening the newbie mummy with our tales of doom, gloom and what-we-would-like-to-call honesty. But no. I disagree, I think women work with the power of knowledge and information. I wish someone had told me about the bad stuff when I first got pregnant; about the stuff that will make me cry, that will shake and make my marriage, that will make me doubt that anyone should have let me have children in the first place.

I wish someone had told me about the failure I would feel after a miscarriage; why aren't the support agencies preparing parents for the difficulties that could be faced pro-actively because it's a very different set of faces you are thrust into if your baby is incredibly sick or worse, doesn't arrive or stay in this world for long.

Do we naively believe that regardless of eventualities that modern medicine can fix all ailings so that we don't consider the many paths after pregnancy? Is it tempting fate if we prepare ourselves for sadness instead of the gladness we should expect or does it allow mothers, fathers, families to be aware of the support they can access if needed?

So I'm now the self-designated mother with the truth message about the sugar and the salt of babies but not too overbearing now, after all, I went back and did it twice again didn't I?!

This post was written after attending a Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Baby Loss session at the Women of the World Festival , London, 2016

staying out for the summer

Should parents be fined for taking children out of school during term time?

There's part of me that understands why parents take their children out of school to go on holiday; mainly because the travel and tourism barons hike holiday prices up to extortionate levels and parents feel they are left with out choice of an affordable holiday. And I am sympathetic to the point that, as one mother on BBC Breakfast pointed out, there is little work going on in schools during the last week of the summer term.

However. 

Who said that holidays were a necessity? When did we start neglecting things that we need i.e. education for things that we want i.e. a holiday? Yes, holidays are great, they can be educational, open children up to the world and different cultures, learn new skills. But is it our right to go on holiday?

What if everyone did this? Okay some parents may sneak a couple of days at the end of term, but what happens when children are removed from school mid-November before the Christmas rush, and in April pre--Easter, what about a long weekend city break to blow winter cobwebs? What's the odd Friday and Monday here and there? How on earth will our teachers manage to keep track of who has completed what and when? I bet those same parents taking their kids out whilst they are at primary school won't be doing it during their GCSE's - well not all parents are this savvy. What happens then?

Now let's talk about the teachers. What amazed me about this whole argument is that no-one seemed to be talking about the teachers...who are parents! Would the parents taking their children out of school think it's ok that teachers went shimmying off to sunny sands before the end of term with their families to save money? Surely they are in the same boat(!)

When the GeordieLad met me he said goodbye to out of term holidays, and that was before we had kids. It's just the way it is.

With regard to the fines - from what I've heard most of the parents don't seem to care and quickly become repeat offenders. I'm not sure fining really works and I know that's sitting on the fence as I don't have an answer to the problem. News reports focus on parents who don't see the problem with a few days here and there at the start of the term, but consider the role of the school if they have to take each case individually - surely headteachers have more pressing issues to be working on.

Also there is a moral issue here; whether we like it or not these are the rules - we can't pick and choose the rules we want to adhere to. What message are we sending children if we break laws to suit our lifestyle?

                       This post is linked to Post40Bloggers #writingprompt