To Home, With Love...

How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?

It isn’t easy but I’ll try.

 

When Lulu sang these words in To Sir With Love it was a dedication to the teacher who had guided her into adulthood. I would like to make a similar dedication – to a house. This week I say goodbye to the house that I grew up in. It has been a part of my life for all of my 32 years. 

 

Leading up to this week I had thought that the only thing I would be upset about is leaving my cat, Bobby, who is buried in the backyard. But something has changed this week and I have been shedding tears and losing sleep like a crazy person. Over a house! Over some land, wood, tiles, carpet, electrics and plumbing. It seems so ridiculous to me. So I have been questioning why this is affecting me so much. At first I wondered if it was because I am grieving the loss of my childhood. But I don’t think so because I have four kids, so I am reliving my childhood everyday – and it is even better the second time around!

 

Losing my family home feels like losing a family member. This house has aged with me, it has been damaged by me, and yet it has still been good to me by keeping me warm and sheltered.

 

I am losing the biggest comfort blanket I've ever had – and it has been with me for as long as I can remember.

 

When I lived in the UK and dreamed of coming home, I didn’t dream of just anywhere in New Zealand – I dreamed of that house, those rooms, that driveway.

 

I know that this is self-indulgent, but when I started writing this blog, it was so I could get all my thoughts and feelings out of me in a creative way. And at the moment I am over-flowing with the need to say goodbye and thank you to an old family friend.

 

Every inch of that house has a memory attached to it - a lot of them terrible, but many more are truly great. I want to take some time to give just a small glimpse into some of those memories. I would hope that anyone could relate to them. My home and my family is not more special or different than any other. So hopefully my self-indulgence will have moments of familiarity to you, Maybe it will even help you appreciate the comfort blankets that you have, while you still have them. 

 

My parents room

• Sneaking into bed with mum and dad
• Pretending that the bed was a boat and we took turns being sharks

 The bathroom

• Sharing so many baths with my sisters and brother
• Fainting when I had the flu (the only time in my life I have done so) and hitting my head on the bath

 The toilet

• For some reason I was the one brave enough to be on plumbing duty. Fun times in a family of six.

 The second bedroom

• Having a secret hiding place in the closet with my cousin, where she told me some things about Santa that frankly, I am still in denial about.
• Singing to the mirror using my brush as a microphone. (Anything from the Footloose soundtrack. Let's hear it for the boy! )

 The third bedroom

• Lying in bed and twisting the curtains, then letting them go and watching them spin.
• Trying to stay awake in bed till dad got home, so he could give me a hug, spin me around the room and say goodnight.
• Playing murder in the dark, charades, and building a fort!
• Throwing my sister's stereo across the room and smashing it against the wall. (Don't make a tween angry).

The ‘fourth bedroom’

• Originally a hall way, then a play room, then the smallest bedroom ever! (My bedroom for my teen years)
• Having no wall paper, so the walls got covered in messages from friends and family
• Waking up early to do the paper run
• Banging on the wall because the TV was too loud!
• Having my boyfriend (now husband) come to my window to say goodnight.
• The twin's nursery when we came back from the UK

The kitchen

• Mum's cooking! Chop suey, sweet and sour pork, pineapple cake...mmmmmmmm
• Failing at cooking rice because I didn't add water, and at cooking mashed potatoes because I didn't boil them. (I was not a clever child).

The conservatory

• Originally a balcony, it was used as a dance floor when first built.
• So many great parties!
• VHS, DVDs, spare bed, cane furniture - no room for parties anymore.
• So loud when it rained.

 The driveway

• Distributing the Auckland Star to the delivery boys and girls
• Washing the car, birthday parties, lolly scrambles, squirt with a hose on hot days
• Peeing on the doorstep after school because no one was home and I couldn't hold it. (TMI?)

 The front yard

• Handstands
• 'Salt, pepper or mustard'
• Gardening very early on a Saturday morning

 The back yard

• Kids pool, going down to the creek, lying out in the sun or the shade
• Trampoline - which was stolen after about a decade without us noticing for who knows how long (Hey, did you get rid of the tramp? No it's still there. No it's not. Who steals a tramp?)

 The lounge and dining room

• Where so much life happened - every topic has been discussed and every emotion has been experienced around that table.
• Finding out that we had lost grandpa, nana...friends, family...
• Awkward and awful family meetings
• Christmas! (Trying to take a peek into the lounge to see the presents when there was a wall separating the dining room - but not being allowed till we had eaten breakfast.)
• Creating dances and putting on shows for family (If only it had stayed in the family).
• Aunties and cousins laughing hysterically at the WWF
• So much laughter!
• So many games!
• Rugby World Cup 2011! (And every major, and even not-so-major, sporting event before then)
• My twin girls taking their first steps - hilarious!

 

The memories are not restricted to the house. That street was so great to grow up in. Perfect for riding your bike. My cousin and I had our own 'Bicycle Olympics' going at one point. (Yes - we were that cool). There is the park down the road, the bus stop where I would catch the bus to school, even the dairy where the owners still recognise me when I walk in.

 

It will be so hard to say goodbye, but I have not really lived in that house since I was 19, so I know that I carry it all with me. It reminds me to treasure the memories I am making with my own little family.

 

When my husband and I bought our first home it was only a five minute walk away from my parents. We our now in our second home, and my parents are moving a five minute walk away from us. Their new house is beautiful and I can see great times ahead for all of us.

But first, I have to say goodbye to my home.

 

Goodbye Heathberry Close. You were a wonderful home. Thank you for being so good to us. Sorry if we ever took you for granted. You will always be a blessing. I'll miss you. Love Gwen xo

Making a difference

Like most children , I went through a  phase when I really wanted to be famous. A big reason for that was because I loved to perform. I loved the idea of people looking up at me adoringly on a stage. But for a long time what was most appealing was the thought that even after I  was gone from this good earth – I would be remembered. I had a huge fear of death – but mostly I was afraid that my life would not matter.

The thought of roaming about the planet for 80 odd years and not being remembered terrified me – and the only answer to that in my eyes was fame. A song can last forever, well after you’re gone.

The flaw in this plan is that the pages of all the magazines in the world are filled with tell-alls of people who are not remembered fondly. I love reading history, biographies and autobiographies. Even a good E! True Hollywood Story has its own allure. But who wants to be remembered for some of the things that the “rich and famous” are remembered for?

Lady Diana was probably  the most famous and loved person of my generation, and yet she is still the topic of scandal,  gossip and rumour.

So as I got older I realised that there was a better way to be remembered, and that was by ‘making a difference’.

The problem with trying to make a difference is that it feels too big. I don’t feel special enough to be able to make a difference in the world, my country, or even my community. I’m not brave enough, smart enough or talented enough for it.

I’m not trying to be self-deprecating. I possess the right level of self-belief. I’m just being realistic.

Malala Yousafzai

I read about Malala Yousafzai, the Muslim girl from Pakistan who was shot by a Taliban gunman because she knew that she, and all Muslim girls have a right to an education, and she raised her voice accordingly. I am more than double her age and she is already braver than I could hope to be – and she was already an inspiration before she was shot.

We have many people in our midst who are heroes in their own way. People who see a need and a way to meet that need. Sam Johnson, the organiser of the Student Volunteer Army in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes, is just one great Kiwi example of this.

There is so much that needs to be done in my neighbourhood, especially for children. We all know by now that there are kids in New Zealand who are in desperate need of a hero. I’d love to think I could be that person  – but I wouldn’t know where to begin! Some days it is a struggle to be a hero for my own kids, let alone anyone else’s.

Mahatma Gandhi

One day I may have the opportunity to make a difference on the scale of Malala, Sam or the other great heroes of history. I am still open to that possibility. Afterall, you never know the impact that your words or actions may have. Something I say or do could help someone else to change the world – hopefully for the better. But the reality is that the majority of us won’t have that impact.

In fact, many of us will be forgotten in a generation. That is the thought that at one time terrified me, but does not scare me at all anymore. That changed for me on the day that I had my twins. It is hard to explain, but when they were born, I just started to feel that as long as I do right by them - nothing else matters. And if I do wrong by them, nothing could make up for it.

I have reconciled myself to the fact that I will screw my kids up in some way. They will blame me for some quirk in their behaviour – but I am also certain that the good that I am doing as their mum, is far outweighing the bad. I know I am biased but they are wonderful human beings.

I don’t see myself as being the type of person who has a made-for-TV movie made out of my life. So much good is achieved and lost in a lifetime anyway. The only positive change that could last longer than me, that I can see myself making, is through my kids.

So what if by some miracle later in life I end up winning an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) – or even better – Britain’s National Television Award. It will all mean nought if I have not actively shown love to those closest to me – my wonderful husband, my adorable children and my loving friends and family. The difference you make to those around you is what is important.


Nelson Mandela

I am reminded as a write this though that Jesus said, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.” 

This could be perceived as being comparable to the challenge to make a difference in the world – too much of an ask. But it doesn’t have to be. This might surprise you, but  I don’t have to travel half way around the world to find people who do not like me.  They are everywhere!

Don’t feel bad for me because I’m sure that the same goes for you.

What this means to me is that every day, I have the opportunity to love those who love me – which is easy. But I also have the opportunity to love those who don’t like me, perhaps even hate me – and who I wouldn’t mind avoiding like the plague either – which is extremely hard .

I’m not going to pretend that I am always able to do both. In fact most of the time I don’t even want to try. But the days where I can do both, are the days I know that I am making a better world in my own small way. Perhaps if we all focused on finding ways to love both groups of people – the ones who hate us and the ones who love us – we really would make a difference. Just a thought.

 

 

 

And in other news...

I like to keep myself informed of current events from my nation and around the world. However, over the past few years I have found myself drifting further and further away from the nightly television news report. I can only handle a certain amount of bad news, but that is not the only reason for this. It is also because the news is tending to make me more and more angry. Unfortunately this is not a righteous anger that is formed out of a disgust at the atrocities taking place around our world. Instead it is an anger at the standards of reporting, which at best leaves me with more questions than answers, and at worst spins me off into a rave.

The questions are often never-ending and for years I have felt like a dunce because I do not understand what on earth people are talking about. Only recently has it dawned on me that I am not a dunce – the journalists are. But perhaps that is too harsh. I am sure they are highly intelligent people who understand what they are reporting on, but it is not their job to educate – it is their job to get ratings and push their agenda.

Is that too cynical of me? The other alternative is that they are just plain lazy and expect that the news is the motivator for us to go out and find more information on our own.

 I do not know what the reason behind it is – all I know is that when I tune in at 6pm, I am not getting the news, but a buttoned-up version of Entertainment Tonight.

My most recent rave was on the day that the new social development reforms were passed. Since I do not rely on television for this information – I knew what most of these reforms were, but I was expecting to hear an overview of them. Actually I was looking forward to this as I was watching this with my husband and I knew he would not know anything about them so it would be great to have something else to talk about. (If you have read my earlier blog on The Unexpected Benefits of Parenting, you’ll understand why).

However I did not hear any mention on what the reforms actually were. Instead the majority of the report was spent on an administration error -  a letter was sent to someone by WINZ informing them that they had been overpaid by 1 cent, which had to be returned, otherwise they would need to repay 2 cents.

I knew exactly how this report was going to go. The minister in  opposition will complain that this is a waste of time and money. The social development minister will say this is obviously a mistake and measures will be put in place to ensure it doesn't happen again. End of.

I must be an oracle because that is exactly what happened. They did not mention the actual reforms and their impacts at all. This is the kind of reporting I loathe. And where in the news report was this story? You might think it was in the final ‘and in other news’ spot at the end of the show – where stories like this belong. But no – it was the second story of the night.

The only good thing about this report is that at least two sides of an argument were presented – as meaningless as it was. However, the next time you watch the news, count how many reports are given where only one side of the story is told, or the full picture is not given. Does anyone who is not a teacher know why charter schools are bad? I am a parent and I would love to know but the news isn't telling me. Does anyone who is not in Christchurch know why the government has to close so many schools? I care about what is happening in my nation, especially Christchurch, but all I see on the news is a lot of angry people and no one explaining why their demands are not being met. If you do know the answer to these questions – was it the nightly news that told you, or did you have to find out some other way?

I live in South Auckland and so I am used to hearing lots of bad news about the area I live in. I do not expect news stories about the great goings on in Manurewa. However, it does annoy me, even bore me that there seems to be only one story to tell. If the news were a soap opera, people would stop tuning in because you are constantly seeing the same thing happen over and over again, year after year. Just like the love triangle between Ridge, Brooke and Taylor in The Bold and the Beautiful – and that’s been cancelled in NZ.

There is so much going on in our nation and our world. Why do we have to keep hearing about the same things?  One thing that the Kony 2012 campaign by Invisible Children taught me is that people have the capacity to learn and care about so much more than what is currently presented to us. They just need to be presented with the unbiased facts – and rightly or wrongly most people rely on the nightly news to do this.

Thank goodness for Google.

In summary, here is a clip of someone who is much more intelligent, funny and cynical than me, giving his version of what we receive each evening at 6pm. Here’s the great Charlie Brooker…

How are you Facebook?

What would it be like if Facebook was an accurate representation of our lives? I look at some of my friends posts and I seriously think that they must be living the dream. Travel, love, success  - Facebook has become to my generation what Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was to my parents – except the stars of the show are not celebrities, they are my friends.

And when I say friends, I mean friends – I do not, and never will understand the people who  feel the need to become Facebook friends with every person they have ever met. The number of friends you have on Facebook or followers on Twitter is their definer of status. Or they are deluded in believing that because they met once, or were good friends 10 years ago, they are still friends now – thanks to Facebook.  

But why would you want to share with your neighbour’s friend’s, twice-removed cousin,  the joy you feel at the birth of your first child. And why would you care about the great time they had at their high school reunion?

Perhaps it’s because the picture of our lives that we paint on Facebook is the self-edited, airbrushed, PR-version that we are comfortable with the world viewing. It is not reality. We all know that life is not as great as we depict. It is not all parties and funny anecdotes  -it is the version of our lives that we allow to be seen.  So since it is not going away anytime soon, I want to ask -  is there really anything wrong with that?

After all, is it any different to how we are face to face. The typical greeting usually includes – “How are you?”  How honest are we when we answer that question? I suppose the difference between answering that question and updating our status is that we can change the response depending on who we are speaking with. The way I answer “How are you?” when my best friend asks, can be quite different to how I answer the person behind the check-out. Especially if things are not going so well.

In fact, that is how a lot of people treat Facebook – it is not a moment to connect with their friends, they are just saying how great everything is to the person behind the checkout – and they only answer when everything is great. Their silence is equivalent to saying “fine”.

There are also those awkward posts, which I would compare to being the person behind the check-out innocently asking “How are you”, and the response is “I am great. I am totally in love with my husband right now. He is my whole world and I can’t imagine life without him.”  Ok…That’s nice.

Although I am glad to know that my friends are in love, or really missing one another, I can’t help but feel like I am witnessing a reality TV show starring my friends, or peering through a window to view an intimate moment. Yet it is a moment that they have invited me into. But that just makes it even weirder. (What did people do to publically declare their love before Facebook?)

Asking “How are you?” is often weird in itself. Most of the time, you don’t really want to know how I am. You are just trying to segue between saying ‘hello’ and asking another question, or desperately trying to find something to talk about. You can tell when someone is doing this, and when they genuinely want to know how you are.

I find it annoying to have to say “fine” if things are not fine,  but I know the person does not really want to know how I am. If you are going to ask how I am, shouldn’t you be prepared for the possibility of me saying, “Terribly actually – I had a fight with my husband last night, took it out on the kids this morning and I just want to cry in my pillow right now. But don’t worry about that, now on to last quarter’s KPIs.”

So why can’t we be honest? If I suddenly have a cramp in the nether regions the moment you ask how I am –  can’t I tell you that? And if telling you that is not acceptable, why are you forcing me to lie by asking a question when you do not really want to know the answer?

The answer to that question is obvious – at some level, we all know when asking “how are you” is genuine and when it isn’t. If we have a reasonable amount of social-awareness, we know when it is acceptable to be honest and when we should be token in our responses.  We know the people, circumstances and subjects we can be honest with and when it is best to draw a veil.

In the same way, I am pretty sure we all know that life is not full of the perfect family outings that our friends post, but we are still learning the appropriate times to draw the veil on Facebook.

Stop ruining good debate with bad arguments

I have not always been a fan of debate. When I was younger I had the mistaken belief that if you disagree with me, then you don’t like me. This meant that any healthy debate was seen as an unhealthy quarrel in my naive eyes.

I think I was healed of this by the family that I married in to. When I first started dating The Huz, he and the Huz-in-law would constantly debate about religion, sport, politics, everything! At first I thought they must have a really bad relationship. But slowly by watching and listening, I learnt to appreciate the beauty of a healthy argument.

Having said that, there are some arguments that should no longer see the light of day.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that a debate over any of these issues should be put to rest, just some of the rationale people use to try to win that debate.

Here is a list of arguments that are anything from weak to idiotic, and they can either annoy me or enrage me. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which.

“I didn’t have it when I was young so neither can you”

I have to confess that I have said this to my kids a few times, but I realised that it was a weak argument when it was used in my presence once.

Two shop assistants were having a conversation close to me. One said to the other that she always parks in parent and baby carparks because she didn’t have them when she had her kids, so why should parents today have them.

I wisely took a deep breath, refrained from hitting her with my pram and left the store to avoid making a scene. How does the fact that she didn’t have parent and baby carparks when she had kids make it ok for her to deny me of them?

How far do you go with that argument?

Do you think it would be ok for my mum to give her grandkids a balloon each for Christmas just because that’s all she ever got? Of course not, because that would make her rather self-involved and selfish, which is how you come across when you use the ‘I didn’t have it so neither can you’ line.

“If you like them so much, then why don’t you live there”

This is as effective as saying ‘If you love it why don’t you marry it’.

I heard Murray Deaker say this about someone who wanted Ireland to win in the second test against the All Blacks recently. This is disappointing, even by Deaker standards. Think it through Murray! Just because I prefer a team to win a sports match, doesn’t mean I’m willing to uproot my life.

I have to point out that Mr Deaker is not the sole reason for this needing to be put to rest. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. In fact I hear it a lot on American news channels when they talk about what is done well in other countries. Americans are so patriotic that in some circles it is an insult to say that England has a better education system, or Germany has better health care.

Can we all just admit it is possible to like something about another country and still love our own? Even if we did hate our own country, or city for that matter, sometimes uprooting your whole life just isn’t practical. There are the implications for family, friends, work, and also the underlying feeling that perhaps it’s just the old ‘grass is greener’ complex.

Eventually you realise you’re better off staying where you are. It’s why I, and I’m sure thousands of others have been in Auckland so long.

“Gay marriage is wrong because marriage is sacred”

Ok, now I’m in controversial territory and might be a bit out of my depth, which kind of scares me but give me grace and bear with me for a while.

I am no theologian, but I am so uncomfortable with this argument when that is all that is said. Marriage is sacred. End of.

The problem with this is I would not call a lot of marriages today sacred at all. There is abuse, violence, adultery, divorce, lies, loneliness…so many problems can exist within heterosexual marriage. Just because a man and woman get married, there is no guarantee that that marriage will be sacred.

Look at people who can get married. Elizabeth Taylor married eight times. Even Hitler got married. It seems that as long as they are consenting, unrelated heterosexuals it is fine.  And yet a gay couple, who want to commit their lives to each other, perhaps even before God, are denied.

This is why I am uncomfortable with the shallowness of the ‘marriage is sacred’ argument within this debate.

Some people may say that what has happened to marriage just proves that it needs to be protected. Perhaps that’s true, but I still feel that if you are going to use the ‘marriage is sacred’ argument as your reason for being against gay marriage, you need to back it up with consistency and depth that addresses the fact that there are probably more heterosexuals in our society destroying the sanctity of marriage than there are homosexuals.

“You are pushing your beliefs on me”

Can someone please tell me, how one goes about pushing one’s beliefs on to another person? One would imagine that a poor innocent atheist has been tied up in a sound proof room and muzzled while the gospels are played at the highest possible decibel. Or they may be held down, while the original stone tablets that the Ten Commandments were written on are being smashed onto their head, giving the true meaning to the phrase Bible-bashing.

But no, most of the time, actually you would hope all of the time, these are not the actions that are taking place to evoke the ‘Your pushing your beliefs on me’ response.

There are two scenarios where I have heard this used recently. The first was in the always rage inspiring ‘What’s Your View?’ section of the TV Guide, where some sad person wrote in to complain about the TV Guide’s  Easter crossword because it had too many references to Christianity.

Are you kidding me here? It was Easter. It was only a crossword. But apparently this person thought that by having a crossword with questions about Christ was offensive as it might naturally cause him to become a Christian against his will. (I didn’t know that the TV Guide was edited by Gideons International.)

The other story was from a friend of mine who was stencilling on a traffic island. (That’s a nice way of saying he was doing graffiti in the middle of the road.) The picture he was creating was of Jesus as a football goal keeper with the words ‘Jesus Saves’. A passer-by disapproved of this but she didn’t say, ‘My council rates will be paying to clean that up you know’, or ‘This is my community can you please not draw on it’. Instead she rebuked him for ‘pushing his beliefs on her’.

I’m sorry whoever you are lady. You may be a very intelligent, wonderful person – but that is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard! Anyone would have thought he painted the words on your face. Actually, even painting it on would not be sufficient because you can wash paint off. If he held you down and tattooed it across your hands so that every time you look at them you will be slowly brainwashed into knowing that Jesus Saves – then you may have had an argument.

But he didn’t do that did he? I suppose you think that the people who put up theTui billboards are trying to brainwash us all to say ‘Yeah Right’. They are pushing their belief in their beer and their catchphrase on to you aren’t they? Let me give you a tip – don’t go to New York and stand in Times Square because you will be surrounded by signs pushing their belief in musicals on to you – and then who knows what might happen. You might end up singing and dancing all the way home!

In case you hadn’t noticed – I really think this argument is particularly stupid.

“Evolution proves there is no God”

People who spout this argument forget about faith, which is all about believing in things unseen. People of faith are not looking for proof, so straight away by saying that anything proves there is no God, only proves that someone does not understand the creation story as told in The Book of Genesis, or the faith of the person they are debating with. It is basically a lazy argument.

David Attenborough says that a he does not feel that evolution is against a belief in God, but he does have more meaningful reasoning that we can learn from:

“My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'”

Some people look at the worm and say there is no God, while others look at the hummingbird and say there is a God.

Many people of faith I know believe in evolution and also believe that we live in a fallen world, and actually God may have had little to nothing to do with creating the worm or the hummingbird.

Evolution and the discoveries of science are further proof to those who don’t believe in God that there is no God, while at the same time it proves to people who believe in God, what an amazing God He is.

I fear that these two sides, as often happens in debates, will just have to agree to disagree.

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…