No world for old men

I need to explain to you why I asked you to leave my house last week.

I am continually challenged, upset and even puzzled about your attitude and behaviour.

I sent you back to Dad's after you exhibited a host of behaviours that are not ok in my household.

The continued poking at your sister, the critique of the food she had prepared,the continual talking over people and refusal to have a conversation but rather just talk louder so your voice is the only one being heard, and a refusal to wash dishes after your sister and I had prepped the meal runs the gamut from frustrating to totally unacceptable.

I think you are very confused about what love means. Love means a lot of boring shit a lot of the time. It's not sunshine and rainbows and holidays and expensive concerts.

Love has relational reciprocity. This does not mean it has conditions attached, but it does mean that I am more inclined to gift a concert ticket to someone who plans a birthday dinner or clears dishes without being asked than someone who tries to wear me down in negotiations over a basic instruction.

It's calling you out when you are being loud, so that your future partner isn't continually talked over.

It's rostering you to wash dishes, so that you will be a good guest when you visit friends and relatives.

It's trying to find the right combination of recreational screen time that doesn't invade time and space with family, so that you can practice your interpersonal and self management skills.

It's racing to parent teacher interviews even though you aren't there.

It's talking to social workers, counsellors, school leaders and lawyers about how I can nurture you through difficult emotions even when you refuse to come to my home.

Women my age are sick of men thinking we owe them something. We are sick of men talking over us. We are sick of men thinking they can discuss our appearance or ability as if we are not present.

Women my age do not want our sons to turn out like their fathers and their grandfathers.

And furthermore, we do not want our daughters being their victims.

You can bet your life that women my age are prepping their daughters for the battle of their lives. It was a battle we couldn't win, but we know the MO now, and our girls will be prepared.

So, if you would prefer to be on the right side of social change, I suggest you man up. And that doesn't mean man up to be the tough guy. It means man up and kick toxic masculinity to the curb.

Don't expect women to serve you.

Don't expect women to be ok with your loudness and constant commentary.
Don't expect women to exist to entertain you.

You are expected to participate in all parts of society, not wait for a woman to do the shit parts for you.

It's actually not much to ask.

As a woman of this age, I will always - always - love you. You might not believe it, but the love I have is the boring, timeless type. You don't have to do anything to deserve it, but nor do I have to do spectacular things to prove it. I just do boring shit and think about you every day.

You will always be loved and always be welcomed in my household. Even by women you have disrespected in the past. We all do better when we know better.

If you have no respect for me and that is going to spill over into your behaviour, know that that behaviour will not be welcome.

If you think that you get a hard time visiting a woman led household, then boy, you are in for a shock when you end up in a woman led world.

Just stop and listen and learn. You will find more peace that way.

Holding on and letting go

School finished the week before work did, which resulted in kids coming to the office with me for four out of my remaining five work days before Christmas. It’s a one hour trip each way in peak hour traffic. Most people roll their eyes and groan about the time such a commute takes, but I take full advantage of it, knowing that car rides can be a perfect chance for plenty of quality conversation.

As we rounded the corner of a street half way home, Miss 11 asked "Why are there pictures of snowmen everywhere at Christmas?" 

It’s a good question. 

from 'A Kiwi Night Before Christmas'
By Yvonne Morrison
Scholastic, 2013

As a child, I accepted without question the Northern Hemisphere imagery and stories that were a part of our summer Christmas. Before bed we'd read Clement Clarke Moore's classic poem 'The Night before Christmas' which was full of references to snow and keeping warm indoors. We put up stockings for Santa and decorated a fake pine tree. Even now my fake tree has a glass snowflake ornament adorning it. 

But increasingly, New Zealand has started to adopt more and more antipodean language and symbols into our Christmas. We have the pohutukawa  and Santa in jandals driving a tractor with sheep instead of reindeer as part of our modern Kiwi Christmas imagery. 

As our collective traditions change, so do our whanau ones.  

My childhood Christmas was a heteronormative, nuclear family affair. Mum, Dad and two kids (one boy and one girl – seriously) My grandparents (happily married for a gazillion years, of course) would come along. In the morning my brother and I would unpack the stocking of goodies Santa had brought. Later my grandparents would arrive. My Dad would give Grandpa a tour of his vege garden and Mum would cook a traditional Christmas meal – turkey, ham, trifle, salad, new potatoes. We'd pull crackers, wear silly hats, and the meal would be a sit down event with the best dinnerset and the weekend cutlery. The fancy china teaset would have its annual outing later in the day, with Christmas cake served in the lounge. We would then have a relatively sedate present opening session, with each person taking a turn at opening something under the tree. 

I have fond memories of these rituals, so when I had my own children, I was keen to replicate them. I was perhaps too assertive about it. The Christmas after Mum and Dad died, my then husband and I hosted what we called an 'Orphan's Christmas.' My sister-in-law had also lost her husband that year, so holding on to traditions and family time seemed more important than ever. 

But after Mum died, I also started questioning everything. Holding to tradition worked for a season, but thereafter I started to ask 'why?' Of so many things. 

The first year after I left my marriage, I had limited funds, but I wanted to maintain normalcy. We bought $2 Shop crap and confectionery. They went into manky old socks hung on a TV cabinet next to a tiny 4ft tree. In fact I think that first year, Nyah bankrolled Christmas, because my income was just so low I couldn't. We sat down to a fancy breakfast and still have photographic evidence that we wore the silly hats from the crackers. 

As time went by, I shook things up. Nyah's large family, with many children who also spend time in two homes, meant Christmas wasn't a sit down meal, but a wonderful cacophony of children and food and comings and goings. Presents were no longer sedately handed out and opened, but neither did each individual get one. A growing awareness of overconsumption and its deleterious effects on the planet and our wellbeing means that Christmas has become increasingly less materially oriented. My first Christmas with Nyah meant an experience of exchanging family Secret Santa gifts that were secondhand or handmade. This year we were in receipt of a fruit bowl sourced in an op shop, and we couldn't be happier. 

As time has gone on, we have to make a constant assessment about what traditions we hold on to, and what ones we need to let go. What is the value in the tradition? Maybe the bigger question amongst all of this is whether or not the tradition enhances relationships? Buying things just because it’s a particular time of year is distasteful. We did buy gifts this year. In fact we bought all our families the same gift. Not because we are lazy, but because it was something that would work across the age range (3 to 53) it would make us think, it was something to start conversations, it was something that contained a little bit of all our stories.  

My Christmas yesterday was so far removed from my childhood experience I would not have believed it. A large family sitting under a shelter in the yard while children ran and played with water balloons. Lunch was served on mismatched, op shop sourced china. There was quinoa and coriander and pomegranate and the hostess was not responsible for it all. The eldest woman in the group was not in service to everyone else. Children came and went as they moved between homes. 

And I still reassess. Children with two homes often split the day between families. Does this really work? Do we need to have children with us on Christmas day just because its considered 'the done thing,' or would it be better to spread Christmas over a few days?  

The day after Christmas we had breakfast with my brother and his family, and it was just as festive and delightful on the 26th as it would have been on the 25th. Why subject children to the stress of the moving between homes on one day when it would clearly be easier on everyone for them to stay where they are? So many conversations I have heard or seen have contained the phrase "I will have <child> for X time until Y time" - using language as if they were an inanimate object. (And that is not a criticism, as I am as likely as anyone to use this language) 

If only we were all brave enough to make that call. Social rules are strong. 

For my family, it seems important that the best traditions are ones that enhance connection, communication and relationships. Not everything was perfect over our Christmas. There was the odd harsh word, and the frustration of teenagers who refuse to engage. But nothing ever is perfect, and things that are alive rarely are.  

But we are alive. That is key. We can move. We can change.  

We can hold onto snow and holly, or we can change them to sand and pohutukawa. We can hold on for dear life to something that needs to go. And we can let go and live for today. When we keep people at the centre, then we will know what to do. 

A mother's love

My eight year old son sleeps in the top bunk in a bedroom that he shares with his brothers. They only share it for a couple of nights a month, but its big enough to hold three beds and one or other or all of them is occupied for sixteen nights a month. 

I climb up on the first step of my smallest son's bunk ladder and give him a big hug and kiss before I turn the light out and wish him a good nights sleep, along with a 'Love you' and a kiss blown from the door.

The other night I said - for no particular reason, and in a contemplative fashion - "You know...my Mum never ever told me she loved me. But I always knew she did." "Really?" he said, incredulously. "Really," I said. "People say they love you in lots of ways. With things like cooking you dinner or making sure your clothes get washed." He smiled.

When I left my marriage I was totally burned out by parenting. All the social messages I received about mothering were about constant attentiveness, always being actively engaged, always listening. But contrary to this, I found myself withdrawing more and feeling resentful and restless.

Over the last few years, I have found my parenting style challenged by other people. Sometimes directly, sometimes just by observing their actions and seeing what the outcome was. 

I have also done a lot of reading. I have uncovered that my cohort of parents (and by that I'll clarify that this is Pakeha, 'middle class' parents) seem to be under an enormous amount of pressure to be all things to all people. Amazing career (or, given the current market, even just working in a job with sufficient remuneration to ensure a roof over your head) attendance at all school events, an Instagram worthy house, swimming/soccer/gymnastics/cheerleading/piano lessons/dancing/athletics/art lessons for the children. What there doesn't appear to be time or permission for is time for ourselves. To be denying time to ourselves is the ultimate sacrifice. Because, after all, that's what we are supposed to do. But what my reading is also revealing is that my cohort of parents are producing a generation of children who have an inflated sense of entitlement and self absorption.

I contrast this way of life with some of the wonderful women I have worked with. On minimum wage, they are sole parents. They live and work in their community, and are loved by all. They have lovely children who are smart and kind. They make sure their kids have food on the table, that they have their school uniforms, and that they can get to school. Beyond that, the kids take responsibility for themselves. Want to play netball? Catch the bus there. Want to go to the movies? Get a job and pay for it yourself. Smart, kind, respectful kids. They are the kind of kids we want in our lives.

A while ago I negotiated some different contact time for my two older boys. I was trying to gain some precious one-on-one time with teenagers I saw infrequently through no choice of my own, and said that this was a good opportunity for relationship building. I was told that if I wanted to 'build relationships' I should go to all their football games, because that's what they want.

Is that what love is? Just doing what someone wants? Watching someone perform?

My experience in the last few years has been that love is often holding space. Its listening. Its sharing a meal. Its a discussion about politics. Its participating together in events in our community. It also can be standing your ground. Solving problems. Saying no. Creating boundaries. Sticking to your values.

When I was 16 years old, I entered a beauty pageant. My mother refused to come, standing by her principals that beauty pageants are objectifying to women. She dropped me off and came back later to pick me up.

I had no need for her to see me perform. I still never doubted her love for me. And many years later I've given more thought to the values she stood for and I'm glad she didn't put them aside for my vanity.

When I was older, I used to visit my Mum and sit on a barstool at the breakfast bar, drinking tea and talking about what was going on in the world. We've had some vigorous discussions about things we've disagreed on and she was always available to ask questions of and listen to me.

I don't need anyone else to define what my relationships should look like. I have the skills and the knowledge to define relationships for myself. 

I am learning not to let servitude replace love. I have learned to tell the difference. Sometimes service is an act of love, but the danger is when it replaces it.

I don't want my children to be entitled performers who think everything revolves around them. I want them to think about other people, think about why the world is how it is, think about solutions to problems. I want the relationships they see to be about mutual respect. I want the relationship I have with them to be about communication - listening, thinking and responding. I want them to learn how to be adults and do things for themselves and others, not have everything done for them.

Love might be shown by cooking a meal or doing the washing...or going to watch the odd football game. But its all the more powerful when the ones you love learn to make their own meal, do their own washing, or play football just because they love it, not because someone is watching. 

That is the gift of life.

War...what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.



You know...I've been angry. So angry. But anger stops me focusing on what's really important.

My ever-sensible and sensitive partner pointed out that while anger is a perfectly legitimate emotion to feel, that when it leads to destructive action, its probably time to take a step back. A grown up time-out. Think about whether the action that anger led me to was wise. Will it result in enhanced relationships? Will it help us all move forward?

So, as much as one can on the internet, I take it back.

Raging and pushing against the waves just wears you out.

Sometimes its best to just float along with the current. Maybe it will take you to the shore.