A Spoonful of Sugar. Liz Fraser
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had more freedom elsewhere. Having talked to many adults about this, it’s pretty clear to me that a significant majority of us had plenty of opportunity to get away from it all and be kids: to run about unsupervised and loosen our knots out properly, in the fresh air, and in relative freedom from the Adult World. These days it happens far less as children are contained, controlled and generally smothered and squashed from every direction.
Or, of course, they seek refuge in the wonderful, though equally worrying for reasons we’ll come to later, two-dimensional world of the internet.
So am I right to want to get some of this sense of mental and emotional freedom back for my children? Certainly the way things are doesn’t feel quite right to me – and I know it’s not what many other parents I chat with on a daily basis want for their kids either. Perhaps by putting some of what Granny suggests into practice we can make things better for our pressurised children, and so far Granny’s thoughts have given me plenty of ideas of how to do this. Wonder what else she has up her sleeve …
A small child I think I recognise comes to the door pasted in a brown, slimy substance and looking very pleased with himself.
‘Charlie!’ I exclaim, dreadful thoughts of which drain/ditch/bog/dead animal this slime could possibly have come from flying through my head. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’
Granny, meanwhile, is chuckling away happily.
‘Oh, just look at you! I think someone’s been having a very good time – haven’t you, young man?’
Vigorous, proud nodding is then accompanied by, ‘Mummy, Mummy, I’ve made a pond! Do you want to come and see?!’
Before I have a chance to reply, the bog baby disappears happily behind the huge spruce tree again. Granny, meanwhile, has another tip for me about childhood.
‘I think something you young parents would do well to bear in mind is what you think you are trying to achieve.’
‘What we’re trying to achieve?’ If you must know, what I’m mainly trying to achieve is not drowning in the whirlpool that is my daily life, and if I could stop these bloody crow’s feet from spreading across my entire face that’d be a bonus as far as I’m concerned. I wisely choose to keep these musings to myself.
‘It seems to me that a lot of parents today spend a huge amount of time ferrying their children from piano lesson to cricket club to I don’t know what else, and they think they are doing their kids a favour.’
‘Well, they sort of are, aren’t they? Learning to play music, and dance and do sport is all part of their education, and it’s fun.’
‘Oh yes, some of it is fantastic. But it’s the scale of the thing now. When your child is so tired she can’t stay awake at the table for all the activities she has crammed into her day – and because her parents won’t enforce a decent, early bedtime, but that’s another matter – isn’t it time to let a few things go? You have to think of the child and what she is actually getting out of it all.’
Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom
If you fill every waking moment with clubs and
lessons and activities, where is all the time for
childhood – for free, creative, imaginative play?
It’s a vital point, and I’m interested in why this intense activity-cramming is happening.
Why are all we meddling, fussing parents so frightened if our kids can’t speak eight languages and compose symphonies by the time their milk teeth fall out? Who are we trying to impress? And who are we doing it all for – the kids themselves? I’m not so convinced.
I’ve known children in the Reception class at school who are only given toys if they learn their times tables. Aged four!! Of course it’s a great idea to teach basic maths and literacy as part of their everyday lives, and we do it all the time – adding up the peas on the plate, learning how to write ‘sausages’ and so on, but why teach it in such a pressurised, results-driven way? It’s rather unnecessary, I think. But there are many kids under this kind of low-level, constant pressure these days, as so many parents worry about giving their children ‘the best chance’.
And there’s the nub of the issue. What is the best chance? I put the inescapably meagre case for the defence to Granny.
‘I think what’s happened is that we’ve lost confidence in ourselves, and we’ve got confused about what the “best” is for our children,’ I venture.
‘Oh, then let me help you out. ‘Best’ doesn’t mean sent to the most classes. “Best” doesn’t mean getting the biggest prize. The best thing you can do for your child is be there. And that’s where much of this pushing and shoving comes from.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, so many parents aren’t there, looking after their children as we used to be. So you feel guilty, understandably, and you try to make up for it by creating some “wonder child” who has everything – including extra French lessons and Tai Kwon Do. It’s supposed to show what a good parent you are, I suppose, when really you just need to be at home more.’
Aha, a masterful play of the guilt card. And, though I feel it’s unjustly aimed mainly at the womb-bearing half of the species, it’s still a winning one.
‘There seems to be a belief,’ she continues, ‘that if you put them into enough classes and courses and get them all the grades, achievements and skills, that will in some way make up for your absence and give them the ticket to a good life.’
Granny has raised an important point about guilt and making up for our absence, but I think she’s missed an even greater one raised by two mothers below:
“I just can’t believe how many extra activities some kids do – and yes, I do feel under pressure to not let mine fall behind. But at the same time, I want my kids to have more time at home to do what they want, and not have to do cello practice or Spanish verbs. They are at primary school, and it doesn’t seem right to me to take so much of their play time away.”
Helen, mother of Suzanne and Tom
“We were expected to be bored sometimes when I was a child. Now, we stimulate our kids all the time. I over-plan like mad!! Sometimes I can’t arrange a play date for my daughter and her friends for months because they’re all so busy. With all the alpha mummies or alpha daddies there comes a lot of ‘Oh, is she in Japanese class yet?’ We don’t have to raise our kids this way: a six year old doesn’t need a PA!”
Linda, mother of Jessica, six
The pressure from other parents not to ‘fall behind’, and to ‘keep up’ is immense. A lot of our manic ‘activity-doing’ with our kids is not to alleviate guilt, but because many parents feel under unspoken pressure to keep up with everyone else. And I know from my own kids that much of it also comes from the children themselves: if their best mates are playing the piano, they want to play the piano too!
Between the three of them, my own children do four ballet classes a week, plus violin, cello, football, chess and choir. And they’re all at primary school. So am I a pushy mum?
Well no, I don’t think I am, because they want to do all of this. If any of them wanted to stop, they could at any time. They have asked to do all of these things, and they absolutely love them. In fact, they have asked to do a good deal more