The Biggest Loser Principle

I've had coffee with many groups of mothers over the years and always heard similar conversations. Someone will raise a parenting issue that they are struggling with, and despite plenty of suggestions, none will really seem like the right solution to this problem. Having been a mother for over 11 years now, I know that more than our ideas, other mothers really just want our support. Because, to deal with most parenting problems, you have to face the fear of change before you're ready to actually make any change.

This topic came up with a colleague the other day, and I suggested that it's like The Biggest Loser. All of those people on the show, at some point realise that the way things are is much worse than the could be if they changed. As my friend put it, "The pain of change is less than the pain of remaining the same." I think this is a pretty good principle in life - the Biggest Loser Principle.

We can offer our friends, co-workers, family and clients all sorts of advice and support, but ultimately, people only change when the scales swing in favour of change and they find the inner strength to move towards that preferred outcome rather than stay in their comfort zone. That's when we need to be good friends and step in as their cheer squad when their motivation and enthusiasm fades. But, we can never get that ball rolling. Only they can. Just like on The Biggest Loser.

Mother Guilt

I had two children home sick yesterday, one of them very ill. Yet, I had a work commitment that I needed to fulfil. Have you ever been in that boat?

In the end I settled the very sick child into bed with the phone and ran out the door, fixing up my work matter in one hour, and returning home to find him still fast asleep. As I was driving back home, I had a real sense of not being a good mother. What mother does that - leaves a sick child at home for work?

I've discovered in the last decade of mothering, that these decisions pop up all too often. Should I go on that work trip or stay and see that special concert? Will my child cope if I don't see them win a ribbon at the sports carnival because I've got a client to see? Is feeding my children toasted sandwiches for dinner really that bad when I've got so much work to do?

I've decided that parenting is all about the 51%. It doesn't matter what you do 49% of the time, as long as 51% of the time, you get it right, and throw in a few peak moments in the year where they know without a doubt that you love them to bits.

An article in The Australian on the weekend (25-26 July, Inquirer 19) covered just this topic of "The Struggle to Juggle". It said that the most telling finding from the Australian Work and Life Index 2009 were that a large proportion of women "feel rushed or pressed for time". The researchers felt this was because generally, all workers work more than the want, but also because women carry the major burden of running households.

It just reminded me that life is all about balance, maintaining the spheres of work, caring for yourself and your family, maintaining your home and having fun in some sort of functional equilibrium. I'm not saying it's easy though!

Inoculatte

I've been reading the book 101 Things to Do Before You Diet, by Mimi Spencer. It's all about taking up a healthy lifestyle, rather than getting caught up in fad diets and wasting hours pondering how your body is going to ruin while you stuff your mouth with cake.

I've really been enjoying the book which is full of commonsense, plenty of research and bucketfuls of fun.

Today I stumbled across the concept of 'inoculatte'. It's a term dubbed by the Washington Post to the habit of "taking coffee intravenously when you're running late" and indicates a greater social problem with food - not having enough time to prepare healthy meals.

I work in an organisation where people consume heaps of coffee, and as a non-coffee drinker, it's easy to get sucked into the hot chocolates to match their high consumption. This paragraph today just reminded me how important it is to plan meals, no just run out the door and think about lunch at 12pm, which I've been getting into a habit of when I go into work.

Mimi talks about how life has always included food, and that there is so much more to food than the simple eating. We need to remember the social aspects of eating, like eating together around a table and enjoying a conversation, all the while slowing our meals down so we aid digestion as well as connection with others. She also talks about taking pleasure in our food, and not getting caught up on the guilt of particular foods and then gorging ourselves on those foods to deal with our guilt.

I know I've spent plenty of time thinking about eating healthier this week, and as a result, I've actually been enjoying my time in the kitchen, rather than dreading it. I can only hope that this continues!

State of Origin 3

Yesterday on my way to work I saw this intriguing scene at a house opposite Suncorp Stadium where the 3rd State Of Origin match was played.

The people who live in this house obviously didn't have tickets to the game, but spent the night enjoying a few drinks and soaking up the atmosphere of the game, from outside the stadium, not in it. They might not even have been watching the game on the TV, just following it by the rise and fall of the crowd's mood.

It got me thinking about how we can often forget to enjoy what we do have and make the most of the things around us, and just keep wanting what other people seem to get so effortlessly. If only we could all be content to enjoy the roar of the crowd and a few beers with friends, rather than chasing the action in the middle all the time.

It reminded me how important contentment is to a good life.

Appliances on the Blink

Have you heard that old saying, "Bad things come in3's."?

Our dishwasher stopped heating water before the last school holidays, so we've been washing up by hand ever since. It's only really started bugging me this week, so I've decided to finally pay someone to get it fixed. And of course, that bills going to be in the hundreds of dollars.

And the last couple of weeks the washing machine's been making a horribly loud (and suspicious) whooshing noise when it spins. Sometimes I feel like it's almost cheaper to throw the machine out and just buy a new one, and with two appliances on the blink, the costs are mounting. Could I have another appliance about to die too?

I don't really believe in coincidences, any more than I believe in horoscopes. I think you can create a coincidence out of just about any circumstance, and most of the time, I put things down to God's timing rather than some random alignment of the stars.

But is there any truth in that old saying?

I think it's more likely that we're so busy looking for 3 things to go wrong, that we create problems for ourselves. It's the old idea of having a 'glass half full' view on life. I hope that's how it is, because with the repair bills for both appliances due this week, if anything else breaks down, we'll be doing without it for quite some time!

Getting Childhood Right

I've been reading a book called, Toxic Childhood, by Sue Palmer. It looks at how modern life is damaging children and what steps parents (and others) can take to deal with it.

There's a chapter on play that I found very interesting. It talks about the importance of kids having access to spaces and time to 'just play'. To think of their own games and activities to entertain themselves. It also talks about the importance of letting kids take risks and learn about the environment outside their front gates. This isn't really anything new to me - I know of quite a few families who actively try to counteract the overprotective parenting model that is rewarded these days.

Something I did find interesting was a part where she described what some of the lower income estates in London look like. She explained that many children simply can't play outside because of the young gangs and drug problems. Sue then made the statement "In my experience, it takes about ten years to turn human children into impulsive, unempathetic animals, so desperately antisocial that they destroy their own habitat. And the best way to do that is to rear them in captivity, malnourish them on junk and expoxe them to all the other aspects of toxic childhood".

Ten years isn't actually that long. And already in Australia, you can see some communities that have been sliding towards greater antisocial behaviour in their children. I think it's aweful that someone's child is described as "an impulsive, unempathetic animal". I would never want my child to wear that description. Elsewhere in the book, when talking about schooling, Sue describes a child who is "bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and up to speed in reading, writing and basic maths by the end of their primary years, they should be able to take full advantage of their secondary education and hopefully go on to be successful, hard-working adults." Now that's a description I wouldn't mind my children having.

The most difficult thing about parenting is doing the right thing, because that's usually the hardest route to take. It's difficult to watch your child work out how to get their ball off the roof without going in and getting it down for them. It's hard to say no when they want another piece of cake and they're throwing a tantrum on the floor. It's painful to watch your child wince through the clean up when they've had a major crash on their bike riding down the hill. But life is about learning, and kids need to learn in the context of life, not from the TV or from us telling them.

The greatest gift we can give our kids is to give them a chance to learn what it means to be a human being, who lives in community with other human beings.

Modern Life

Everyone talks about how busy modern life is. With the invention of the microwave, dishwasher and mobile phone, life only seems to have gotten busier. Why is that?

But along with that busy-ness, seems to be a constant change. People change jobs more frequently, roles within jobs, expectations, working conditions and hours seem to be constantly changing too. I feel that you can't really make long term plans anymore, because you can't really imagine what life will be like in 2, 5 or 10 years.

Five years ago my husband and I moved our family across the city for a number of reasons:

1. To be closer to his work, cutting down an 1.5hr commute to a matter of minutes each day, allowing him to spend more time with me and the kids.
2. To live in a community where our children could more safely enjoy some of the things we took for granted as children ourselves.
3. To give ourselves a choice of a number of high schools which would equip our children for their adult lives.
4. To live closer to friends to be able to enjoy the journey of life alongside.

In the time that has passed, so much has changed that we really have to dig deep to cling to those reasons. While my husband still only takes minutes to get to work, he works much longer hours when he is there, so we cling to the knowledge that he's able to drop in to see that race at the sports carnival or come home early now and again to watch a school concert.

Our community is really no different to any other community now and we're constantly struggling to allow our children to be independent without putting them at undue risk.

Our choice of high schools has significantly lowered with the closure of some and others adopting strict boundaries. Who would have thought that we now only have one choice, like we did before?

Our friends have moved away or have busy lives also, and as our children have grown, it's become quite difficult to have the social life we once had. In fact, most of our friends now are the parents of our children's friends. Friends we've made at the school gate and soccer sideline.

Modern life is all about change. Modern living is all about embracing change and being willing to make the best decision at the time based on what you think the future will be like. Most of all I think you have to adopt a 'no looking back' philosophy. You can have no regrets in modern life, because you just couldn't have known how life would turn out today.

Today, I'm thankful that modern life has enabled me to work from home using the internet, and not tied me to a desk in an office. I'm thankful that modern life has enabled me to free up some time to watch my son play school soccer tomorrow. I'm thankful that modern life had enabled my husband to take the kids for a ride this morning while I prepared bacon and eggs for a traditional family breakfast. Yes, modern life is all about change, but that doesn't mean the things that worked in the past can't be held onto into the future.