The one parenting “duty” you’ll never regret

Never stop cuddlingSnuggle together as long as possible

These six words recently won the “Sweetest” section in the the New York Times, Motherlode competition calling for The Best Parenting Advice in 6 Words.

It’s awesome parenting advice but I don’t think it’s given enough. Though you will read countless parenting books and listen to exhaustive expert talks, you will ask questions from the nurse when you hand over your blue book and you will discuss the topic of child rearing with every unknown on the internet, it’s easy to miss the the bits that telll you to just snuggle.

And as your children get older, though you will read fewer and fewer parenting books as you realise that you are really good at what you are doing, you will notice that in those books and those internet pieces you do come across, they often neglect to mention snuggling at all.

They forget to remind you to snuggle, and more importantly they forget the importance of snugggling for as long as possible. They miss the very most important bit, so I’m going to give you some advice of my own

  • Snuggle your children when they fall asleep – whatever anyone tells you to the contrary they will still learn to sleep by themselves. There is nothing like having someone who loves you there with you when you drift into sleep.
  • Snuggle them when they make mistakes so that they learn that it’s human to err. And nothing lasts forever.
  • Snuggle them when they come home from school, especially if they’ve had a bad or good day.
  • Snuggle them when you watch TV together.
  • Snuggle your kids when they fall and hurt themselves, show them that love and care will get them through even the painful bits.
  • Snuggle them while you are waiting in a queue, it beats boredom.
  • Snuggle when they are sad and they need a body to crawl into. Show them that sometimes human love and tenderness can heal non-physical wounds.
  • Snuggle them after they win or lose at sport.
  • Snuggle them for no good reason at all.
  • Keep on snuggling them when they grow up.
  • Snuggle them when they come home from a party and need to eat all the bread in the house.
  • Snuggle them when they have a bad day.
  • Try (carefully) snuggle them when they are hormonal and angry for no reason at all. Show them that you are trying to understand.

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It’s often only when the snuggle is less forthcoming that you realise how important it’s been. When you seem to need it more than they do.

One day you will look back and you will see they learned to sleep and eat, and all their teeth came through and they learned to read and write and all those worries and that time we invested in worrying about swaddling and dummies and after school sport and the right lunch box choices means very little compared to the fact that they learned to love and to show love in return.

You’ll never regret a snuggle. But you’ll regret the times you didn’t have one.

Broken

One of the things I remember most vividly about my childhood is being scared. I remember staring out at the playground in primary school and wondering how all these kids would survive a war. I recall lying in my bed at night being terrified, hearing the noise of big trucks and believing they were coming to get me to take me away. I remember being petrified my mother had been kidnapped by the Russians and replaced with a robot programmed to act like her. (Yes, the cold war propaganda got to me.)

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“I want this place looking like Disney on Ice”

I am that person you mock, the clean freak (with respect to vegetable growers and Michelle Bridges) who is checking over my shoulder as I open the front door to invite you in, the woman you never want to invite into your own home after you have seen me complaining about the mess in my (very neat) home.

I know it’s a problem for some, but I just can’t help being a bit fastidious about cleanliness.

I haven’t been for any form of therapy for my particularly tidy ways around the house (although I am keen to get to the bottom of why everyone doesn’t behave like I do) but I do know that my issue with cleanliness is based on having a sense of order around me. Ordered house, ordered head. Mr Pencil will be quick to point out that apparently I don’t need an ordered head to drive a car. Let’s just say the cleanliness obsession stops at the front door. [Read more…]

What makes people decide to have kids. Or not?

“If you have any friends over 40 who’re thinking of having children tell them not to do it” he said to me. His conviction was strong even though he was clearly over 40 and in the pram next to him was an adorable, cherub-faced baby boy who looked a little bit like heaven.

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting when I bumped into an old friend at the supermarket and asked him how the new baby was going. I could see bub was gorgeous and happy and I had no reason to think dad wouldn’t be smitten in love. But no, he said he didn’t feel that way at all. I am sure that on some level he was very much in love with his son and it was the lack of sleep that was talking, but maybe that’s just what I wanted to believe. Dad was adamant that this baby had been a mistake and it was one he regretted. He felt he was too old for the change to his routine, the crying, the nappy changes, the naps, the baby. [Read more…]

The sky is falling in. Otherwise known as “bacon causes cancer”

If you’ve been on any social media platform today you’ve probably heard people ranting about bacon. Not in the traditional “I love bacon” kind of way but in the more frenzied “help the sky is falling in” kind of way. Processed meats are the new food to hate. The New York Times reports

“An international panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization concluded Monday that eating processed meat like hot dogs, ham and bacon raises the risk of colon cancer and that consuming other red meats “probably” raises the risk as well. But the increase in risk is so slight that experts said most people should not be overly worried about it.

The panel did not offer specific guidelines on red meat consumption. But its conclusions add support to recommendations made by other scientific groups like the federal government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee, which has long discouraged the consumption of red and processed meat.”

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Why is the instructor telling us to breathe? Has someone forgotten to breathe?

For about 30 years now I have been thinking about going to yoga. I have given it 30 years thought because I don’t like to rush into things. Okay that’s not true – I just don’t like to rush into yoga. Actually I was a little afraid of it. I thought it would be boring and that I would either fall asleep or walk out because I have the attention span of a tiny little gnat with attention deficit disorder.

But I had to try it, I don’t have another 30 years to think about it. This point was made clear to me when I recently subscribed to Lena Dunham’s new newsletter Lenny and read an article entitled “Why You Should Start Exercising in Your 20’s”.  Trace Anderson, who wrote the article  even said “waiting to exercise later in life, when our metabolism slows down and being fit requires more work, is no longer an option”. Clearly I am in the wrong demographic for this newsletter but still… I  can’t say it didn’t spur me on.

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I can’t be trusted without an adult

I have tried to convince myself (and my son) that when my husband travels for work, it IS actually for work. I mean deep down in my heart I know that it’s not fun and it’s awful to be away from home, stressed, jet lagged and in meetings that go on for hours only to get back to an empty hotel room or worse (in my opinion) dinner with people who you wouldn’t ordinarliy eat dinner with. I know from my own fleeting work related trips that there is no fun element to rushing from airport to office and there’s hardly ever time to do anything else.

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Our time for parenting is not yet over

Someone once said something about raising children that I’ve found to be abundantly true. “You will always worry” she said. “When they sleep you’ll worry they are sleeping and when they wake up you’ll worry they aren’t sleeping.” I probably heralded this piece of advice because I am a natural born worrier.

I had lots to worry about, but because you aren’t my therapist let’s concentrate on just one thing at a time.

When my son was really young I worried he was shy. He was the behind-the-legs-hider kind of child, he was reticent to make himself seen or heard. I worried he’d be trodden on and his sensitive shy nature would mean making friends could be hard. I was scared. What happened if he got bullied?

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Cate Blanchett and I do not understand the selfie

no selfieAs I approach my 198th year I spend a lot more time wondering why people behave the way they do. I like to think I’m a late blooming quasi-anthropologist whereas, in reality, I’m just becoming more crotchety and intolerant.

I’m fairly chill with the “youth of the today”. I don’t have issue with people younger than me because I can remember what it felt like to want to rebel/be different/take drugs. Plus there is an inherent understanding that their experiences are vastly different to mine and so I cannot expect to get them 100% but I accept them.

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From the waters of Waikiki to the offices of Kingsford Smith

Last week I was bobbing around the Pacific Ocean in the most perfect azure waters you can imagine. There were no waves, just perfect swells in the ocean that passed under me and carried me gently from one perfect spot to another. When I looked out to the side I caught sight of my husband and son, sun dappled and happy, laughing as they played some game they had just made up. If I cared to look down into the crystal clear sea I would have spotted turtles swimming beneath me. A more perfect scene you could not imagine.

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