... my 20-year school reunion

I'm in the heart of the Blue Mountains, Katoomba, home to the Three Sisters, the Skyway, the Scenic Railway and Katoomba High School. The gum trees are cloaked in cloud and rain tumbles in bucketfuls from a grey sky. I'm snuggled up indoors, in bed, with the Saturday papers.

It's my friend's home, an old friend I've known since I was five, and I am childless for the first time in five years. It's difficult to imagine life before kids, but I welcome the break and my friend's care, her home an affectionate embrace.

I think back to my teenage years lived a kilometre down the road; a rundown weatherboard house with a unkempt garden that I'm told my (ex-)stepfather did up after everyone left. I wouldn't know. I haven't returned since the day Mum left, 18 years ago.

Curious and wonderful how things change. As a teenager I never had that foresight. Everything was so intense, every moment consumed me. I would be attached to it as though there would never, could never be any other. Yes, I was invincible and this moment would last forever ...

... but, fortunately, not. I've returned for my 20-year school reunion and many, many moments have passed in between, things have changed, I'm more aware of my mortality and somewhere along the way I discovered I had choices, which begs the question: why would I choose to attend my high school reunion?

My man can't understand why I'd want to attend a high school reunion and teases me about it: "You just want to show the boys that you're still hot."

"Ha, ha ... yeah, right!" (Not just the boys.)

Courtesy of a bad bout of pneumonia I'd lost five kilograms two weeks before the reunion and a LBD I'd borrowed from a friend hugged my body. Not thin, but curvy, boobs, hips, butt and belly. I completed the look with fish net stockings and black ankle boots. Red lips and nails.

Beautiful illusion, which invited the comment "you haven't changed a bit" many times throughout the night. Of course, I had ... but I wasn't about to point out the changes, the boobs that hung somewhat lower than when I was 17, the untoned butt that could no longer get away with no exercise, the belly that pregnancy had laid to waste. My body had weathered well but it had certainly "changed a bit" over the years.

After a while I realised that the comment could not be taken literally, and instead I took it to mean "hey, I can still recognise you after 20 years". That made me feel less embarrassed, because I've never been comfortable with social untruths for the sake of polite conversation.

On the night of the reunion, an old school friend picked me up, and I was very happy to arrive with her because she had had a good reputation at school – at least that is my memory. Unlike my own reputation, which was somewhat less flattering.

"I was a bitch at school," I say to another old school friend on the night.

"Yep, you were," was the matter-of-fact reply, said smilingly.

I'm sure not everyone has that memory of me, but I certainly have that memory of myself. I remember an angry teenager, always on the defensive, ready to swoop if anyone should dare to scale my walls.

"You look like a constipated camel," an overweight English teacher who smelt of BO once said to me when I gave her one of my particularly nasty snarls. "And you look like a fat elephant," was my response, which saw me spend the rest of the class in the corridor. This only made me more angry and deepened my hatred of authority (not such a good thing I soon discovered, but that's a story for another day).

I had walls up that would rival the Great Wall of China. I used to get drunk a lot and I smoked lots of pot, which inevitably led to tears, punches or unprotected sexual encounters, few of which I can recall with any tenderness, preferring, in fact, not to recall them at all.

It's with this memory of myself sharpest in mind that I attend my 20-year school reunion.

*****

The reunion is held at Katoomba Golf Club, one of the hottest night spots in town when I was in my late teens. Well, one of the only night spots in town when I was in my late teens. I would go, I would drink, I would dance ... and perhaps end the night with a pash on the dance floor as the last, slow song played.

It's had a full makeover in the 20 years since, yet its charmless decor wasn't about to give away any secrets of the past. The bright lights in the bar area, however, certainly weren't about to hide any secrets when it came to the appearance of its present-day clientele. It was here where most of the party congregated (initially with the boys on one side of the room and the girls on the other) until the music picked up (or the alcohol kicked in), the DJ a relic of the late 80s with his collection of CDs, his Gen Y sidekick eager to please but befuddled about what to play ... give us some Acca Dacca was the only help I offered, not much interested in the music.

Too many people to catch up with about ... um ... nothing much at all. Each person a string of desultory comments before, whoosh, onto the next face.

There was my best friend in year 7, who'd left school at 16 to have her first child. Her child was now a young woman, 21, and had accompanied her mum to the reunion.

There was the paleontologist who I'd seen in a doco a few years ago, on hands and knees in the Aussie outback on the look out for dinosaur bones. He told the story of a peer who was now in jail for murder ... his victim's body cut up and flung about the Aussie bush. I think that last bit is mythic embellishment. At least, I hope it is.

There was my good friend in year 10 who'd stopped speaking to me over 20 years ago because of something I'd said. I have no idea what I'd said, but a mutual friend told me a few years ago that I'd implied she was stupid. I could've apologised, I briefly thought about it, but then again I didn't think my high school reunion was the right place to enact Step 9 of Al Anon.

There was the short guy with a winsome smile who I couldn't remember. I don't think he remembered me either, but he was happy to tell me about his life as a cook, or was that a trainer?, to the rich and famous. He told the story with such precision it was as though he'd been practising the speech in the mirror for weeks beforehand.

There was the ghost of a friend past. All night I was asked, "Where is so-and-so?" I had to explain over and over again that after 30 years of friendship we'd had a falling out. One guy put forward the idea of a jelly wrestling fight to sort things out. Another guy told me to just call her and apologise. I'd been to enough New Age and spiritual development courses over the years to know that, yes, forgiveness can be a magical healer of wounds, and if I were more Christ- or Buddha-like I might have been able to forgive with a genuine heart, but I've yet to reach that state of grace. Instead, I've raised the drawbridge, happy to take refuge and comfort behind my solid walls.

There was the creepy man who resembled Uncle Fester, with the charm of Jabba the Hut. "What's your favourite sexual position?" he asked me. That was my cue to get another drink.

And there was the girl who fucked the boy who I had briefly pashed on the dance floor at the end of the night ...

... for a few moments I had become the adult playing at being a teenager. Long gone the days of the teenager attempting to play the adult.

And I knew which I preferred.

*****

When I left Katoomba two days later the rain was still falling, but as the train took me closer to home the rain stopped, the sun came out and a double rainbow painted the sky. The train passed under the rainbow and I smiled.

Thank goodness for the passage of time.

Social androgyny

"Oh, [insert man's name] is so wonderful. He is so in touch with his feminine side!"

The intimation, of course, is that the said man is a good communicator, more emotionally astute, more tender, more compassionate, more open to being vulnerable ...

Yet, what gets me is, why should these characteristics be the sole domain of the feminine, of woman. If a man expresses such characteristics, why can't they simply be accepted as an expression of masculinity? Why the need for such sharp distinctions between what it is to be masculine and what it is to be feminine?

Do we use these distinctions unthinkingly as a form of control? Women are expected to keep the home fires stoked and are therefore encouraged to be more compassionate, emotionally astute, gentle, and so on, while men are expected to hunt and fight, so are better suited to the more aggressive characteristics.

There seems to be one big problem with this: a lot of people don't fit the stereotypes. The human world is as diverse as the animal world. Imagine if we tried to taint every female animal with one set of characteristics and every male animal with another?

In the animal world, it’s the male peacock with the beautiful feathers. We wouldn’t dare say, “Oh, look at the peacock, it’s so feminine.” Would we?

Our society doesn’t seem to cope with ‘softer’ masculine qualities, and immediately labels them ‘feminine’. Similarly, society doesn’t cope with men who choose to wear dresses and make-up, and immediately labels them ‘women’. Or freaks.

Women, on the other hand, are not encouraged to embrace their ‘masculine’ side. Is this because feminism has freed us from the rigid expectations of what it is to be a woman? Over the decades women have demonstrated that they can, if willing, play in a man’s world (outside the home) and kick butt. Literally. Think Margaret Thatcher. Yikes!

I believe true equality between men and women can only happen if we can stop judging characteristics as masculine, of men, and feminine, of women, and simply accept them as human.

Is social androgyny possible?

The perfect gentle man

Grandad was 51 when I met him, his hair receding but not yet grey. I was the first grandchild; he recorded my every move on a selection of slides that I have not seen for many years. I remember only one. Me, about two years old, with my back to the camera and my hand flung out behind me, as if to say, "That's enough, Grandad. No more photos."

This photo made Grandad laugh and he liked to tell me about it. Grandad laughed easily but talked little when I was child. He left most of the talking to Grandma, who would ask the same questions again and again or repeat the same story, rather than sit through the suffocation of a silent moment.

Where Grandma was an anxious wreck, often glancing out the lounge room window whenever someone walked past the house (who were they? what did they want? where were they going?), Grandad was the image of calm, the ocean on a warm spring day with a subtle breeze, as he read the paper, pottered in the garden or worked in his garage. I'd often follow him to the garage and watch as he built things – cupboards for his kitchen, desks for his office, windows for his house – or repaired things – fences, furniture...*

In Grandad's garage, I'd listen to the tumbler machine that polished stones. Pet rocks, with googly black eyes and spindy legs, featured in my grandparents' house for a while. I even think a few came home with us. Maybe Grandma made some. I'm certain Grandad didn't. He loved rocks** but I don't think he wanted them as pets...he just liked the feel and look of them when they were polished. For years he kept them in a bowl on the coffee table in the lounge room.^

Grandad was a no fuss man. He could fix or make anything but there wouldn't be any unnecessary flourishes, no bells or whistles. A cupboard was a cupboard...a few pieces of wood stuck together. No ornate embellishments. He once helped me move an old wardrobe that was beautifully ornate with superbly carved detail; a friend had inherited it from an old rich aunt and had generously loaned it to me. After Grandad had moved it, the delicately carved detail was chipped and cracked, and hung from the wardrobe like a false eyelash after a wild night on the town.

"Ah, that doesn't matter," Grandad laughed. "You can still use it to hang up your clothes."

Grandad had the same matter-of-fact approach to death. Death happens. And it's no big deal. He had a near death experience when he was in his early 70s. I asked him at the time what the experience was like.

"There's nothing there," he said with an offhanded certainty.

Grandad's optimistic, black and white approach to life contrasted with Grandma's pessimism, and created a counterbalance that I imagine helped to relieve Grandma of her anxiety. Untouched by psychoanalysis or notions of the individuated self, Grandad was Grandma's perfect other half.

Yet, where Grandma was dependent and needy, a child, Grandad was independent and even-tempered, though still deeply attached to Grandma and willingly compliant to her demands and wishes. Not that he ever played the martyr or in any way felt put upon. Grandad genuinely loved Grandma and was devoted to her until her death, six months before his own.

"She took my breath away the night she walked into the ballroom at the Palais Royale in Katoomba," he told me. She was sixteen years old.

Grandad lovingly tended to Grandma for the last seven years of her life, as she slowly sunk into a deep depression and lost her spirit for life, introverted and tortured. Lack of movement resulted in a brittle body and dizzy spells resulted in numerous falls and broken bones. Grandma seemed unwilling or unable to face what was before her – death – and would obsess about it, peering into a vanity mirror for hours, fearful her sun spots might be cancer.

When she finally did die, Grandad felt relief and, he told me, excitement. "We came home from the hospital after she died and we sat around the kitchen table and talked. No one could sleep...we were too excited."

Unlike Grandma, Grandad bluntly accepted life's inevitable conclusion and told me that a blood disorder he'd contracted after his near death experience 16 years earlier would kill him one day.

During the last years of his life he had to have blood transfusions regularly, once every few months, then once every month, then once a fortnight. A week before he died, he was admitted to hospital with yet another infection. His doctor said he'd have to start getting the transfusions once every week.

"No more treatments," he told the doctor. Grandad was tired of being old. I remember he would joke with Grandma about old age and how you wouldn't wish it upon your worst enemy. He was happy to welcome death and his family was called to his bedside to say goodbye.

Tears splashed down my cheeks as I walked away from Grandad's bedside for the last time. I didn't want to let him go – this incredibly precious man who had blessed and graced my life for 37 years – but I had wisdom enough to know it wasn't about me, it was about Grandad. It was his time. And he died as he lived, with humility, grace and humour. Dignity. Fearless.

Grandad was one of life's biggest and most generous gifts to me. I loved Grandma very much, too, and the beautiful legacy they left of a healthy and happy 67-year marriage. Growing up, it was at my grandparents' place that I found warmth, love and nurturance. Big hugs and delicious food from Grandad, who always cooked, and special treats and the time to play games from Grandma.

It was my grandparents who celebrated with me when I graduated from uni with my Masters degree.

I have such gratitude for what they gave me. And the legacy my Grandad has left me with is particularly striking.

Here was a wonderful man who lived a simple yet happy life, full of love. In the last few years of his life, he'd often tell me tales of his exploits and say, "I was blessed."

Grandad lived through the depression, yet when I asked him what this was like, his reply was, "We were blessed. My father's hardware store burnt down and we received an insurance payout that saw us happily through the worst of it."

Grandad lived through World War II, yet when I asked him what this was like, his reply was, "I was blessed. I didn't have to fight at the front line. I was in the right place at the right time. A cook was needed to feed a group of hungry men and I was there to do the job."

It wasn't as if Grandad didn't have his share of human suffering. He clearly had a very strained relationship with his parents ("I didn't shed a tear at either of their funerals"), and he lost a daughter to asthma when she was only 10.

These experiences, however, didn't make Grandad a bitter or resentful man. Not even the response of his sister, 11 years older, to his daughter's death darkened his heart: "You're not the only one who has lost a child!"

In all the years I spent with Grandad, he never raised his voice or scolded me. I never saw him angry. He was never mean spirited. He was never nasty or hurtful.

He had an incredibly gentle and contented spirit. He was also amazingly patient and accommodating. Evident by the fact that he never raised his voice or scolded me even though there were a few times I probably deserved it, like the time Grandma caught me walking away from a bottle shop when I was 15 years old, bottles stuck up my jumper. I was staying with them and when I arrived home he just looked at me knowingly and said, "Glad you're home on time." He then gave me a big cuddle and kiss and sent me off to bed.

During the last few years of his life Grandad often shared his wisdom with me, and it was now me who was blessed to be able to receive this wisdom from someone who had experienced life's political and economic cycles many times over, as well as his own life cycle from birth to old age.

Grandad wasn't a great man to the many, he received only a small obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald.^^ Yet he was an extraordinary man to the few who were lucky enough to pass through his life. And I've quickly discovered how terribly difficult it is to let go of someone who cherished and loved me throughout my life with the warmest and most open heart.

I can't bring myself to delete Grandad's number from my phone yet, and cry every time I recall the words he always greeted me with when I rang, "Hello, young Rachel!" With no one of that generation left to think me 'young', I am left with the stark reality of older age, of middle age on the horizon.

Yet, with Grandad's legacy of love and optimism I can face this and so much more throughout the remainder of my life.

* Grandad was a handyman extraordinaire, a legacy from his days as a timber merchant for Goldsmith Bros, a hardware/timber yard established by his father, George Goldsmith, in Katoomba, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, in 1908. I never knew him when he worked at Goldsmith Bros. By the time I'd arrived in the world, he'd done his dash with hardware and had set up his own accountancy business, which he ran until he was well into his 80s.

** Grandad would collect rocks from the Coxs River in the Blue Mountains. We'd pack a picnic lunch and drive down to the river when I was a child. After a meal of BBQ'd sausages, potato salad, tossed salad and bread rolls, I'd follow Grandad around as he picked up rocks and told me what they were: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. I didn't hold the same fascination for rocks, but I loved hangin' with my grandad and my love for everything grandad may have been the reason I subconsciously chose a geology student as my first boyfriend, even though our passions were terribly mismatched.

^ Now my mum has a bowl full of polished rocks on her coffee table in the lounge room. I wonder if her bowl of rocks was inspired by Grandad?

^^ "Goldsmith, Errol Leslie. June 4, 2009. Late of Kularoo Gardens, Forster. Formerly of Katoomba. Beloved husband of Joyce (deceased). Dearly loved father and father-in-law of Diana and Graham, Lesley and Olwyn (deceased). Much loved grandad of Rachel and Brett, Kael, Cerrise and Ben, and Shannon. Loved great-grandad of Josh, Griffin, Morgan, Maddie and Ayla. Aged 88 years. A gentleman who was loved by all."

The job I wouldn't quit for quids

My new, full-time job has surprised me with its intensity. Who'd have thought choosing to be a stay-at-home mum would leave me a withered wreck at day's end with hardly two brain cells left to rub together? Then sleep before the whole relentless cycle begins again the following day.

I'm not a single parent – God bless those who are!, but my partner's job requires him to be away a lot, which leaves me at home minding our two young children: Morgan, nearly five and at preschool three days a week, and Ayla, nearly two, entirely in my care.

When I first decided to take on my new job, I imagined a more relaxed life after the hectic juggle of work and childcare I undertook last year, which left me a stressed out freak with a twitch in my right eye. Yet, when my partner went on a two-and-a-half-week tour recently, it surprised me when I broke down in tears on the phone as he raced back to Sydney from Melbourne. I promised myself I wouldn't do it – he'd be home soon enough, but when I saw a missed call from him on my mobile phone, I called back, and it poured forth.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"The kids are soooo intense," I cried. 

It'd been one of those weeks with children when everything implodes: my daughter decided she didn't want to take her daily nap; my son whinged and cried every time I asked him to do something; then we all got sick with a 24-hour gastro thingy. 

Mostly, though, it was my naivety that was my true downfall. I foolishly thought I could look after two children with no help at all, which meant no time for me to do those things I need to do to recharge, refresh, renew and revive: yoga, write, contemplate, meditate... and groom (I need all the help I can get nowadays as the wrinkles start to show and the body starts to sag).

The only thing I did do was get onto Facebook most nights and see what my 'friends' were up to, and have the occasional chat. Not the most intellectually stimulating, but perfect for a mushy brain that has played and argued with kids the day through. 

The juggle of work and childcare over the past three years was stressful, but it kept my brain active and stimulated. I wouldn't say looking after children is boring, but it requires a different set of 'intellectual' skills: the enthusiasm to read kids books over and over again to my daughter, the patience to play kids games over and over again with my son, and, of course, the endurance to keep up with the constant demands, when what I really want to do is sloth on the lounge and read the paper.

It's little surprise that women fought to get out of the home and into the workforce, and it didn't take long for the economy to take advantage of this, with it virtually impossible today to pay off a mortgage on only one income. Lucky, it seems, I don't have one. (A mortgage, that is.)

A stay-at-home parent in our modern age is unusual, in many instances impossible (that darn mortgage to pay – or at least a damn good excuse not to return to the home on a full-time basis!), so I feel lucky to have been allowed the opportunity. Like any job, it has its many pleasures – in fact, no job has given me greater pleasure – and its frustrations, mostly when I am hankering for some time out, or I'm trying to do something with the kids shouting in the background, my nerves starting to frazzle. I become a snappy, snarky nag. Yet, I've worked out a way to get some more 'me' time and have just begun to put it into practice. 

I've started to connect with other stay-at-home mums and we do a 'swap'. I've already gone to yoga, and I plan to use the beauty voucher I received for my birthday soon. Might even go for a massage or do a meditation class. It can only ever be random moments stolen every now and again, yet each second that is my own I promise to cherish. I shall inhale the calm and take time to give thanks for a life that is blessed with two divine cherubs. 

Now is just a word, it has no power

Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now has sold millions around the world, has appeared on The New York Time's prominent bestseller list in top spot, and has been translated into 30 languages. I was given the book years ago but I've never read it. The good news is, now that I have young children I won't have to. 

On a walk through the streets of Bondi with my 22-month-old daughter, it takes 30 minutes to take a trip that I usually do in five. My daughter's fascination with and exploration of dirt, sticks, stairs, pebbles, brick fences (she has to walk along every one) and any other bit of debris that catches her eyes, keeps her immersed in everything but the task at hand – to get up the street to do Mummy's chores!   

I plead with her: "This way, beautiful", "No, not up there", "C'mon, honey, let's go". But for her there is only one moment and that's the one she's in.

My four-year-old son also likes to dawdle and pick up bits of garbage off the street, or big sticks. Like the three-metre stick he found today and tried to drag up the road; a young man side-stepped around him, fearful he may be castrated.

"No, you can't take that with you. Put it down. Now!"

Like my daughter, my son is immersed in the moment, until I drag him out of his moment into my own. They might be immersed in the 'now', but I have an appointment with a projected future. 

I've often wondered about Eckhart's book, The Power of Now. Or the title at least. What's so powerful about 'now'? And why do so many people hanker for its supposed 'power'? I've read in many New Age treatises that 'now' is the only moment we have because the past is gone and the future is not yet here, but as far as I can see, the past and the future inform the 'now' – always. Take the above example. The 'now' was informed by my projected future... I had things to do and places to go, and my kids were on that journey with me.

Sure, on same days, I have the time to look at the world through the eyes of my children, marvelling at the many small things that they find pleasurable and fun: crabs in the rock pool at the beach, daddy long leg spiders in the bathroom, the contents of Mummy's wallet and many other such wonderful things that they find new and delightful.

Yet, even my 22-month-old daughter has started to recognise the power of the past. Without it, how would she ever learn how to walk or talk? Past experience informs her present moment, her 'now', whenever she goes to the bookshelf and gets out her favourite nursery rhyme book. She wants to read it again and again and again because through past experience she knows that she enjoys it, and every time we read it, she picks up and repeats new words. 

Habits inform much of human behaviour, old ones die, new ones arise as we age, but I challenge anyone to show me a moment lived that hasn't been informed by the past... or the future.

My daughter is still a little hazy on the future, but my son's got it down. Where would I be if I didn't have the future to play with? One of my favourite sayings as a parent of young children is: "No, you can't have that [insert object of desire to use as bribe here, ie. piece of chocolate, ice cream, new scooter, latest computer game] now, you have to wait until you [insert end result you want to achieve here, ie. clean up your toys, get dressed, eat your vegetables, do your homework]."

So, please don't give me any of that "yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why we call it the present" shit. At times, I don't feel as though I can make it through 'now'; it's the power of the past and the promise of the future that gets me through. Like the other day when my daughter had a tantrum on a bus, full of people. I wanted to be anywhere else but in that moment. Yet, past experience assured me that I would get through the moment, that it would indeed pass, and the promise of the future buoyed me. My daughter would soon be in bed for her afternoon nap and I could sit down and enjoy a hot cup of tea and a few moments to myself... 

... and that's exactly what I did. 

Selfless, selfish love

I didn't grow up in a family that said 'I love you' often. It may have been said to me on the odd occasion, but I have no memory of it. The first time I heard someone say 'I love you' was my first serious boyfriend when I was 19, and what a debacle that was!

We may have looked deep into each other's eyes, cocooned in the warm glow of togetherness, and mumbled those three teeny words at times, but the love didn't extend much further than that. It was three years of jealous tantrums (yes, me!), hysteria (yes, me!), infidelity (yes, me!) and pot addiction (we both indulged there). Nor was the sex great.

The relationship was clearly doomed, yet I clung on like a cat stuck on the highest, most flimsy branch of a tree, paralysed. 

After a particularly nasty fight while holidaying in Byron Bay, I looked up to the heavens, desperate perhaps for a sign, guidance, something to save me from the hell I'd created for myself in the guise of 'love'. 

What greeted me was a blanket of stars so thick, so vast, so exquisite, I let myself fall into its immensity and wrap me up, like the warm embrace of a new lover. It was time to turn my back on the old. 

                                              ******************* 

My first relationship didn't teach me much about what love is, but it did teach me a lot about what love isn't.  

Love isn't jealous outbursts. 

Love isn't deceitful. 

Love isn't violent.

And love never attacks, demeans or abuses.

Fifteen years have passed since then, and I feel I have learned something of love in that time. Well, one thing, and that's a start.

I've learned that love is selfless. Always.

But don't misinterpret me: I do not advocate the doormat principle. Unless you're Jesus, the Buddha or some other great spiritual master who can truly take no offence to someone else's bad behaviour, it's not something I would counsel.

Life is too short to let anyone treat you poorly, unlovingly. 

For me, love is something I have to practise every moment of every day, and it's much easier to practise in some moments than others. 

It's easy for me to love when I feel uplifted by life's joys, happy and peaceful; much more difficult when I feel weighed down by life's perceived pressures, stressed and depressed. 

Also, it's clearly much easier – and seemingly more natural – to love some people more than others. The most profound and easy love I have ever felt is for my children. It's hardly an effort to show my love for them in every moment, even when they've drawn on the walls in a permanent black marker, discovered my jewellery box and destroyed every piece in it, or totally disregarded the time and effort I've put in to ensure they've been fed healthy, good food every day (mostly); have a clean and comfortable home to live in; and have a balanced entertainment schedule.

Yes, the cup runneth over with love for my children... can I extend such love to every other person who touches my life? I attempt to.

Which brings me to another insight. 

Love is selfish.

My desire (and attempt) to share and experience love every day in every moment doesn't extend from some wishy washy ideal of world peace and harmony (as if!). Rather, it extends from a selfish wish to keep my heart light, open and at peace.

I don't know of any better drug.

Child's play

[I wrote the following blog for a blogging job I applied for on a parenting website. I didn't get the job, which was a bloody shame because I would've loved to have written a weekly blog post about my number one occupation, parenting. Never have I known such joy, never have I experienced such prolonged sleep deprivation.]

My four-year-old son has an attitude at times that would rival the most surly teenager's, I'm sure of it. (I can feel my friends with teenagers smile.) Yet, I'm curious: from where did this at-ti-tood arise?

"Can you please put your plate in the kitchen?" I asked him today.

"Why do I have to do everything around here?" he replied.

Huh! Where'd he pick that up from? My first instinct is to rummage through my mind to see if that's the sort of thing I'd say. It could well be.

On particularly stressful days, when the alarm of my 20-month-old daughter shrills at 5.30am – "Mum, Mum, Mum..." – I look down the tunnel of the day and already feel exhausted. I know I won't get a real break until they are in bed that evening.

It'll be one chore after the next until day's end: feed the kids, do the dishes, put the wash on, pay the bills, feed the kids, check in on what needs to be done on the work front, hang out the wash, feed the kids, take the kids to the park, buy something for dinner, feed the kids, take the wash in, do the dishes, answer phone calls for work, feed the kids, do the dishes, bath the kids, read books to the kids, put the kids to bed, respond to emails. Phew! It's 9.30pm and I still haven't had a full cup of tea.

Yep, on days like that, you could very well hear me scream, "Why do I have to do everything around here?"

Then, again, maybe it's not me who's planted these ideas into my son's head, but the shows he watches on TV. I figure they're just cartoons, innocent enough, but when I saw a PG advertisement on one of the Foxtel cartoon channels he watches the other day – parental guidance recommended for children under 15 – I started to question my reliance on TV as a babysitter.

Not that I rely on it too much, I don't think. I try to limit it to two hours a day. But I have to be honest. On some days that two hours can become three as I work to fit in one more chore, one more thing to be done, or even a little 'me' time.

However, it's often after he's watched TV that I notice a shift in attitude. He's no longer my delightful and curious four-year-old son with an incredible imagination, who likes to tell his mother the way life is. 

As soon as I turn off the TV he becomes whiny, moody, cheeky and annoying. 

"I was watching that!" he cries as I unceremoniously turn off the TV and shut it behind closed doors.

"I don't care, you've watched enough today," I reply.

"I haven't watched hardly any shows," he moans.

"You've just watched two hours of TV. That's enough."

"It's NOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!"

After the initial outburst, it's usually another hour of whiny behaviour before he finally awakens to life and finds interest in other things, like a room full of toys!, and I see that curious four-year-old imagination take him to unexplored places once again.

TV has certainly become a tool I've used to keep my son entertained while I get on with things that need to be done, or to simple get an hour or two of 'me' time, but I'd like to think there's other things my son can do to entertain himself. I know there's the whole outside world to explore, but we live in a small flat, so that's not an option, unless I'm with him.

I think it's important that children learn to be with themselves without the stimulus of TV or computer games, or having to be constantly entertained by Mum and Dad, but I wonder what are the best ways to encourage this?

I have since found out! For the past two weeks, I've only let my son watch cartoons on Saturday mornings. After breakfast, instead of lying back zonked out in front of the TV, my son has headed to his room and discovered his toys. He's found Lego, Mr Potato Head and friends, a collection of cars and trucks, Thomas the Tank Engine train set, sticker books, even his stuffed toys have featured in elaborate plays. 

The bonus? My 21-month-old daughter doesn't like TV and when it's on and big brother is distracted, she insists I sit down and read her every single nursery rhyme book in the house – five times over! However, when big brother plays, she loves to play with him, and I can happily get on with the things that need to be done... like reading the morning paper.