Perspective

Tomorrow the smalls come home after 10 days on the big island.  I was desperate for them to go and get loved up by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins along with old friends from my hometown.

I couldn't wait for the break, the things I would do, the peace I would feel, the tasks I would achieve would be colossal and transform me back into the superwoman I knew I could be.  The hero cape wasn't flying so high lately and I decided a break from day to day practical parenting responsibilities would fix it.

I'm fairly sure I already knew this but I love my kids to bits.  I don't want to spend lots of time away from them.  I forgot and was confused by bearing the weight of too many titles that I wear as CEO of this small family.  Provider, mother, father, grandparents, mentor, housekeeper, cook and cleaner.

I want to be the kind of mama that is full of love, patience, wisdom, sacrifice but often I'm just not.

Often I want to escape to work, to friends, to activities, to books and stories of others lives.  I want rest from the responsibilities of solo parenting and the daunting task of shaping and guiding three lives.  This is a tough one when I don't get my own part right all the time.

I am in an isolated position of being given parenting feedback by only three people.  The children. As most parents would know, the negative feedback comes often and is most usually a complaint about the unfairness or meanness and often the food quality.

Their is no one else on your team or a coach to give you a pep talk at half time.  The job is simply mine.  But there is where it can be a great thing as well.  I get to do things my way all the time.  I don't need a democratic process in terms of leading the family which can be quite good.  The highs of parenting are mine alone and I can be proud of the job I'm doing when things go well.

Here comes the catch.  The thing I realized that I was really wanting was not to escape the kids, but to share them.  I wanted someone else who loves them to enjoy, understand and delight in them with me.  Often the highs are bittersweet as they can be the loneliest of times for a solo parent.

I can work, earn a living, provide social opportunities, sports, recreation and basic necessities for them pretty well.  I have kind of nailed the practical aspects for my tribe and am thankful I have the resourcefulness to bounce back and think outside the square with what they need.

I see that they have stacks of people to enjoy and appreciate them.  My lack is not their own, it's mine alone.  I see so clearly that I need to make peace with this to fully enjoy what is right in front of me.

Their measure is not the same as mine.  They don't see it through my lens of growing up with stacks of extended family around.  They don't see that lack.  They have never known a family with two parents.

It takes a village to raise a child and I look around and whilst ours is not traditional, it's solid and diverse and ever changing.  It's more than enough.

Home Town Blues

For whatever reason the topic of my hometown has come up an awful lot this past few weeks.  I always feel pretty emotional when I think about memories from home.  Especially in recent years when I find myself in the solo waters of raising a family and creating a home for them.

You see I always imagined subconsciously that my children would be surrounded by extended family.  I assumed that our shared values and traditions would be based on the simplicity of good living, honest dealings and generosity of  ones talents and abilities.

I made judgments that they would become fine young people based on the influences that I hold dear of my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

I grew up alongside of a large extended family who 'did life' together.  I admire and respect so much the times I shared with them.  Nothing sweeter that the smell of a BBQ on a summer night, running wild as children in the luscious gardens of my family home, or the scent of dust, grass and cotton on a hot night whilst running in and out of the conversations and laughter of the parents present at a farm party.

We shared as freely with our dear cousins as we did our siblings and endured the endless tennis tournament weekends our parents took or trips out west to visit friends on sheep grazing properties. Looking back, those Queensland bush tennis courts, weekends with friends and summer time BBQ's are held with such fond memories and innocent forced friendships that form the soul of who I am today.

I appreciate so much those simplicities now that my parents gave me, when now faced with the torment and arguments that prelude a trip to the local football match.

I won't ever give these up as I know I am forming memories for my children to cherish later on.  What I would give now for one of those long, drawn, out boring days.  So sweet now seem the fact that we were thrown together on those days.

I see that Australian Story is now about to broadcast a story about someone from our hometown next month and I feel so sad to be away from home.

Why I blog

Who you are when no one is looking

I've been thinking a little bit about my post title of 'who you are when no one is looking' which is one of the phrases that has been deeply etched in my soul from many years ago when I read Bill Hybel's book by the same title.

He talked about the fact that the world and it's people were suffering from an epidemic of endangered character qualities.  Delayed gratification, discipline, courage, integrity, endurance to name a few.

It's a little phrase I remind myself of when I have a choice between good and bad or in a simple way, the easy road or the harder yet more rewarding path.

It has dawned on me recently that I have held other's to account by this list of admirable character traits yet somehow my own accountability had faded into the distance.  In the place of the beautiful striving for character growth was a darkened and skewed expectation that these were demands and expectations of everyone but me.

I feel so grateful for the opportunity to re-set, take stock and move my perspective to the only place it should be, my own pursuit of these eternal qualities.

I am going to give myself a personal challenge to re-ignite the quest for character evaluation, growth, refining and perhaps dig out that dusty copy of Bill's book.

One final thought is a reflection on the definition of one of my favourite of the above mentioned traits.

Integrity is a personal choice, an uncompromising and predictably consistent commitment to honour moral, ethical, spiritual and artistic values and principles.

In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy,

 in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

Now there's something to think about and embrace in the hope it can be shared with the other three lives that are so heavily influenced by me.