Parenting:
“I know it’s a well-worn path, but parenting really is the most important thing you can do. It is also without adoubt the most rewarding. Let’s be honest, there are a lot of rewarding and important things out there, and life is all about balance. But if you are going to have children, or have them now, their childhood is your responsibility. Don’t f*** it up.
Children develop a capacity to experience magic at a very early stage. It is wondrous and infectious. For the lucky, it lasts a lifetime. It is a parent’s fortunate responsibility to foster the magic and the parent’s great fortune to be able to share the ride.
Sadly, some children are saddled with substandard parents. The vast majority of parents are substandard because they are too interested in moving their own lives on to the next stage. Too concerned with themselves. Too focused on speeding their children through childhood. They have no time, perhaps as a result of working for a future, at the expense of the present.
You see, far too many parents – the overwhelming majority – don’t understand one simple thing: These are the golden years. Now. Stop and experience the best of your children’s childhood.
Yes, you can be absent earning money, as I was for far too much time. Yes, the money is great, and if you’re successful it means you can spend it on your children.
But here is the problem: By the time you have lots of it, they’re not children anymore. They are always your children, but there is no going back. You can’t recreate the days when all they wanted was to stay out another hour with you.
You can’t tell that little girl another bedtime story because the little girl no longer exists. She is wondrous and still your little girl, but changed. A bit more of the magic has gone. Squeezed out by life lessons, like “Get in here and do your homework!” or “Stand in that queue for registrations!”
Good parenting is not about learning how to be a parent and following some prescribed wisdom. It is about fostering childhood and loving the golden years.
If you have one or more parenting books, throw them out now and let your children teach you how to be a parent. They are actually telling you how to do it with a signalling system you have been too busy to pick up on. If you love the s*** out of them and spend the time, nothing can go wrong.
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Test:
Next time your child says “Look!”, do. Stop, crouch down, and look. Let them tell you what they see. And then, rather than tell them what it is or how it works, see it through their eyes by asking them what they think it is and how it works.
Make it more colourful and fascinating than it already is to them and in doing so, share some of the magic. Don’t tell them what it is and move them on. That’s not parenting, that’s child-minding.
Lucy, Sophie and Bella had a magical childhood in Homebush, outside Masterton.
The best child is one who is loved and is loving. Secure and passionate about life and living. Wide of vision and bursting with enthusiasm and personality.
If you fail to be a great parent, you are a true failure – and you should be outraged at that. Don’t blame anyone or anything else. It’s down to you.
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Anecdote:
I was in Pak’nSave Albany, shopping as quickly as possible to avoid overexposure in the human contact department. Between “fresh produce” and the most important area – “wine” – I was passing through the personal hygiene aisle.
I noticed a mother and son shopping for a new toothbrush. The boy, about seven, was dwarfed by a mind-boggling array of options. He was almost hyperventilating with excitement.
Now here’s the thing. His mother noticed. She was in the moment with him and appreciated how wondrous this was. This was the magic of childhood happening, right now. This was more important than getting home on time or doing homework or having dinner ready for the family.
She stood back and gave him all the time in the world, and all the enthusiastic encouragement she could, as he excitedly and thoughtfully buzzed from shiny brush to brush.
After selecting my wine with similar enthusiasm, I broke with tradition and, rather than exit as fast as possible, walked via the wall of tooth care.
The seven-year-old boy was still there. He was standing with a big grin on his face, holding his selection proudly. His mother was smiling – she knew she was the best mum in the world.
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Supplementary anecdote:
Years ago, when my children were young, I knew of a family who were at a similar stage to mine. Three young children, all around 10-ish.
I was working spectacularly hard and successfully to create a great future for my family.
It would have been easy for me to be blind to the magic, but, as luck would have it for my children, I was a magician so all was not lost.
Anyway, this other family were not doing so well in the money stakes. All they seemed to want to do was have fun with their children. I resented how unsuccessful they were and yet how much I envied them.
One day I found out that they had sold their house, a sort of shambolic small holding, and had bought a steel sailing ship.
“What complete fools,” I enviously thought. The father had even quit his dead-end job.
I have completely lost contact with them and have no idea where they are now or what they are doing. However, I did hear a few years later that, by the time their children were in their early teens, they had seen the world together as a family.
Apparently, I was told, they were having the time of their lives and, although surely as poor as church mice financially, they were as rich as kings in every other way. How stupid were they? Wasting their time living the golden years!
Personal regret:
I quite often think about one moment in time. My three girls, Lucy, Sophie and Bella, were playing in a magic tree. The game was a very complicated scenario that I was never fully privy to.
We had a magical house with a large, magical garden, and the magic tree stood close to the bandstand and in sight of the fairies’ forest, a large deep hedgerow running the length of the front of the section.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this particular moment was, I think, the epicentre of the golden years. I needed them to come into the house to get ready for some unimportant thing that I had prioritised.
I remember standing and looking for far too short a time at three little girls completely immersed in a wonderland – and shutting it down. I snuffed it out with a line like, “You can do that later.” Not now they can’t!”
Extract reprinted with kind permission from Outraged by Paul Henry. (Random House, $39.99).
Main Photo: Emma watson • Inset of Paul & daughters: Michelle Hyslop
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