The Unexpected Benefits of Parenting

I always felt awkward when I first became a mum if people asked me if I enjoy motherhood, because the honest answer is ‘no’.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but being a parent is hard. Really, really hard. And it is hard to love something that can at times be so grueling. But if you were to ask me about my kids, you’d see a big smile across my face and I would talk for five minutes about each of them, telling you how amazing, creative, sweet and gorgeous beings they are.

Loving parenthood is hard. Loving my kids is easy.

Every now and then though, I try to actively remind myself of some of the awesome things about parenthood. Here are eight benefits that no one ever told me about. They may surprise you, perhaps as much as they surprised me.

1.       Kids help to make you cooler

I have to qualify this by saying that when I was younger, coolness was determined by the kind of music you listened to. I grew up on musicals and country music, and in my teens my favourite bands were The Beatles and Queen. Since I was a teen in South Auckland in the 90s, my taste in music pretty much solidified my freakishness amongst my peers.

But now…I am so tuned in to what is new and hip! (I might have just defeated my argument by using the word ‘hip’).

My kids like songs by Katy Perry, Jessie J, Ed Sheeran, The Black Keys – and I know who all these people are. Even more impressive is that I like the songs as well.

I can’t tell you what a new and exciting experience it is to be modern.

2.       You learn that you can survive on very little sleep

This is not an excuse to moan, it really is a great thing about being a parent. I always hear that you need 7 or 8 hours sleep every night, and I strictly adhered to this pre-parenthood. To this day my mum reminds me of how early I would go to bed as a teenager, and I would bang on the walls if the TV was too loud.

So you can imagine how anxious I was about the sleepless nights coming my way when I had my first babies. But now I can honestly say that I have become accustomed to tiredness being my normal state of being – and I can now get so much more done!

3.       You get to watch kids’ movies

It is a blessing to watch the movies from your childhood and appreciate them again as your children get to watch and enjoy them for the first time. I am very proud of the fact that they love the musicals that I loved as a kid – Mary Poppins, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and there is nothing cuter than watching your kids in hysterics watching Donald O’Connor sing Make ‘Em Laugh in Singing in the Rain.

But even if you’re not a fan of the old classics, you can look a little more normal going to see the latest Pixar if you take someone who is in the age group the film is aimed at. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to see the latest Pixar?

4.       You’re allowed to play on playgrounds again

Recently I was in a playground with my little ones when a couple of teenagers decided to come and play. I felt myself tisk-tisking at them. How dare they come and play on the see-saw! I was thinking this when I was at the top of a slide. So what was the difference? I had a passport. And by passport, I mean children.

I remember dreading turning 10, because that was the age that you were no longer allowed to play on the McDonald’s playground. This was back when it was a real playground – not the colourful plastic cages they have now.

But now, as long as I have at least one of my passports with me, I’m allowed to play! My favourites are swings and slides. And now I have an excuse to play on them again! Yipeeeeee!

5.       The news becomes heartbreaking

Suddenly when I had kids a light went on and every hurt child in the world became my child. I know this doesn’t sound like a benefit, but it is a strangely wonderful and painful thing to find out how much you can care.

6.       You have an excuse for having a messy house

Let me tell you a secret – I always struggled to have a clean house even before I had kids. But when you have little kids, let alone four like me, people's expectations of your cleanliness can plummet very low.

There have been occasions when I have mentioned to someone that the house is messy, or I have so much cleaning to do and I usually hear something like “Don’t worry about it, you’ve got four kids!”

I get the impression that I could have the house covered with piles of washing, dishes and rubbish – the kind of thing that you would see on Hoarders and I’d still hear, “Don’t worry about it, you’ve got four kids!” Perhaps that is what people think my house is like and that is why I don’t get many visitors.

There have been rare occasions when someone has been daring enough to pay us a visit, and they have commented on how clean the house is. “How do you do it with four kids?” Well I’ll never share the secret behind the clean house, but if you do come to my house and there is a room with a door that seems to always stay closed, please do not open that door. Trust me.

7.       You and your partner always have something to talk about

I don’t know why it is insinuated that it is a bad thing for parents to talk so much about their kids when they are together. Perhaps that is true to a point, but it is also a great way to fill the silence. After 15 years of being together, that can be useful. There is also a wealth of subjects that you can cover – their education, the funny things they have done that day, who you want them to marry; the list goes on and on.

8.       More options for entertainment

What should I do tonight? Should I watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, or let the kids put on a performance of their favourite songs and dances of the moment for me? They could hide behind the living room curtain and introduce one another.

How about a puppet show? All you need is a few chairs with a blanket over it for the little puppeteers to hide behind. Of course there is also the great childhood favourite – building a fort! That is surely the real reason chairs, sheets and cushions were invented.

So that is my list of the surprising benefits I have discovered since I became a parent. As great as all these benefits are, nothing beats getting to know my little girls and boy, and seeing the amazing people they are becoming.

There are certainly more benefits I could add, and I am sure that there will be many more to come. Each one helps to get through the tough and tiring days. I’m sure there are many more of those to come too!

 

An Introduction to Grinching

When you hear the word ‘Grinch’ you probably think of a character from an average movie, good cartoon, and excellent book by Dr. Seuss. The Grinch tries to steal Christmas from all the Whos in Whoville. He is a mash-up of Scrooge, Alf and The Hulk. As wonderful as the character and the story of The Grinch is, I am about to introduce you to a completely different ‘grinch’.

While I was reflecting on the topic of this blog, it occurred to me that those close to me already know what this word means in my world. Therefore, if you are reading this and you know what it means to ‘grinch’ something, congratulations – you and I are true friends. If you don’t know the meaning of this term, you either don’t know me at all (Hi there! I’m Gwen, it’s a pleasure to meet you.), or you don’t know me as well as you thought you did. Either way, it doesn’t really matter because you are about to learn and then find yourself naturally using this word with ease. The reason for this is 'grinch' fills a void that no other word currently fills, which is the key to it catching on. (Just ask the inventors of LOL.)

Firstly, here is the story behind the word that swept through my circle of close friends and is no doubt about to sweep the nation, nay the world! (Optimistic for someone whose blog has been read by 43 people, but hey, six of those were in Russia so who knows!)

It was December, more than 10 years ago and The Huz and I were looking for a nice Christmassy movie to watch, hopefully one that we had not seen before. Somehow, we got our hands on a DVD of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ starring Jim Carrey. A very close friend of ours had done all he could to prevent us from watching this movie because of how terrible he thought it was. “Cringe-worthy” “Boring” One of the worst Christmas movies ever”.  In spite of his scathing review, we decided to give it a go. To our surprise, we liked it. For some reason we found it quite charming and felt the need to defend it to our friend the movie critic.  However, we were astute enough to realise that even though we didn’t think it was the worst Christmas movie ever, we knew that it wasn’t great.

Yet why did we like a movie that we could see had the ability to irritate? Some may even call it gag-worthy. After much discussion, we concluded that our friend the movie critic had inadvertently made us expect the absolute worst. However, when that didn’t happen, we were more than pleased with what we had seen. One of us during this discussion referred to this phenomenon by saying that the movie critic ‘grinched the Grinch.’ Before long, we were introducing this idea of ‘grinching’ to friends and family. It’s surprising how often this word is the best one to use to explain the need to manage ones expectations appropriately, so it was being used in everyday conversation. And that is the story of the birth of the ‘grinch’ (little ‘g’).

The great thing about this word is it can be used to express when you have been set up for success or failure. Here are some examples of when it should be used:

1. “I loved the movie because I grinched it.” = Someone said the movie was awful so you had low expectations. Therefore, you were pleasantly surprised by the actual quality and entertainment value of the film. (e.g. Titanic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, etc.)
2. “I hated the movie because I didn’t grinch it.” = Someone said the movie was excellent, so you had very high expectations but ended up being disappointed with the shite that was presented to you and wishing you could get those three hours of your life back. (e.g. Titanic, Meet Joe Black – How do Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins get it so very wrong?)
3. “I loved the movie because I didn’t realise that I had grinched it.” = This is the reverse-grinch, which occurs when people build up a movie so much that you believe it must be all hype and you won’t enjoy it. But then you do watch it and because of your low expectations, which were created by other people’s attempts to create high expectations, you end up enjoying the experience. (e.g. Titanic, Whale Rider, etc.)

No other word succinctly describes what ‘grinch’ represents. If it were added to Webster’s Dictionary, it would go something like this:

Grinch-Verb To manage ones expectations in order to avoid disappointment. The movie is ok, but I would grinch it if I were you.

*Note: Use of the word ‘grinch’ is not restricted to expectations of movies.

By now, you might be thinking why I’m sharing this with you. Firstly, this is a blog. I could share about my favourite coloured toilet paper if I wanted to. But mainly, as I mentioned earlier, the use of ‘grinch’ started 10 years ago. After more than a decade, it is still in use amongst friends and family, and it’s spreading. I have actually met friends of friends who have used the word in front of me, not knowing that The Huz and I were the creators.

Language is an amazing gift, and I do feel that I have been involved in adding to that gift. Where would we be without LOL? Or ‘whatever’? Or even ‘sweet as’?

I am not suggesting that ‘grinching’ can reach the dizzying heights that those words have, but I guarantee that you will find a use for it.

Please don’t think that this will be a vehicle for introducing a new ‘Gwen’ language. I’m sure that we all have words and phrases that are only used by close friends or family, from nicknames to mis-spoken sentences.

For example, my family nickname is Bam. However, I will not be sharing the reason for this, nor will I be encouraging you to call me by this name.

Another example happened when my BFF and I were having a conversation and thought we were disagreeing. However, we realised we actually had the same opinion but were using different words to express it. My BFF then said, “Different language make same thing.” A very perceptive statement, if you were Tarzan. We still use this statement when required, but I do not invite you to use it as well. It is the epitome of an in-joke.

Perhaps your familial words and phrases are in-jokes as well. I have hundreds more of them. As I contemplate this, I realise that the people I have the most in-joke words and phrases with are my closest friends and family. Perhaps creating your own language is the ultimate sign of true friendship.

That’s the great thing about language. It is continuously evolving and it does not ‘belong’ to anyone. With nothing but common sense as your guide, your language is yours to use as you wish. Now go forth and grinch…