In my blog yesterday, I talked about the fact we were toying with the idea of trying to help our big kids into their own real estate. The operative word there was toying, although one reader took this very seriously, and gently chided me about helping adult children too much. One other friend who has seen my parenting has called me a parenting guru. As always, the ying and yang preside. I’ve been working on a blog since 7 November 2011 about the parenting style we used in this family, as I felt this topic deserved its own space. The love I feel for my two sons is pure, unconditional, and never-ending. They bring joy and peace to my heart and have turned into two delightful young men I am extremely proud of. The parenting has been fraught with challenges, heartaches, but my parenting style, mostly learned from Maurice Balsons book Becoming Better Parents (4^th edition 1994, now only available through http://www.acer.edu.au), was not appreciated by many other parents in my time. It took a necessary manipulation even to get my husband on board! I had been exposed to this style of parenting when my first Godchild was about 6, and thought then her mother (my girlfriend) had been much too harsh. Some years later, I had my own child, and then added to the mix when he was about 5 came my stepson who was almost 6! Wooooah, was my girlfriend too harsh? I don’t think so!!! For me parenting was a tough job, and one I had to be very conscious about as my own experience had left me with a few scars and I didn’t want the same ones for my children. Purchasing and reading the book on becoming a better parent changed my life, and thankfully that of my children. However, getting my new husband on the same parenting page was another thing. We had met through our children, as they went to preschool together, and I had stayed on the mailing list of the preschool. As the Universe always does, it supported me again, and through this list I received a notice about Maurice Balson speaking in Adelaide. I asked my husband to come out with me one night, saying I’d even organise a child minder. Well, on the said night, as we were going out, he asked me where I was taking him. Of course, I had no idea he had placed this date into his diary with a heart around it, calling it a date with Kate! After reading the ticket I handed him, he became very silent, and by the time we arrived, was really quite cross. Anyway, I held his hand even though he didn’t hold mine, and he tolerated my manipulation, arms crossed, lips tight. Fair cop, I thought, I had been a bit sneaky! As Maurice Balson is male, listening to parenting tips seemed a bit easier for my husband to take in.  And then, the epiphany, the light bulb went on, and he was sitting forward, and really listening. We did go on out for our date afterwards, and he was then like an evangelist, but about this new style of parenting! Sometimes it seems we have to work our wheels with more grease than usual, and that night was one of them. Anyway, this has become rather a long story, and I have a lot to go, so I’d better get on with it.

After this night out, we started family meetings, with a book, a weekly agenda, and weekly meetings. They are a funny record of our family history, and allowed us to live with true decency together. In short, this parenting style required democracy, truth, respect, and personal responsibility – from us all. It allowed us to have gripes with each other that didn’t get out of perspective, as we could place any item we thought important onto the agenda for the following week. We took it in turns being Chair, minute taker and so on, and by the time the boys were 7, they could run meeting that would put most board directors to shame. They had to start making their own lunches after the first meeting. One took to this like a duck to water; the other took a little longer. Day 1 of packing their own lunches, one son happily went to work on it, adding in more food than I thought he would eat in a week. The other son packed a bottle of water! My biggest challenge then was to sit back and do nothing, and not take the usual yummy snacks in the car when I picked them up, just some healthy fruit. Day 2 of packing their own lunches, the water boy son still struggling, so that day he took 3 bottles of water. Day 3, water and a plain bagel; Day 4 water, bagel with filling and fruit; Day 5, the battle was won, and what’s more, the green vegetables seemed easier for everyone to eat that very first night, and got easier as the week progressed. It seemed the first big lesson on personal responsibility had been learned (by everyone). All I had to do was provide the appropriate food and tools, and make sure they knew how to use them and be safe in a kitchen. If they grew out of their clothing we replaced it. If they lost or trashed something at school, they had to pay off the replacement, yes, even 3 shirts and a pair of shoes one year. I still have no idea where those shoes ended up, or what happened to the shirt the day I picked up one son in his school shorts and singlet! Some things just have to stay secrets. Around those early meeting days, I had been reading a couple of simple happiness books to the boys, ones with big pictures, including some red circle symbols similar to the no- smoking ones. The next meeting included a topic on behaviour, written onto the agenda by one of the boys. It seemed, they wanted to vote in that our family becoming rational, that is, no saying Just because I said so (both parents), no sulking or ignoring (husband), no yelling or hysteria (me), and no other forms of unreasonable or illogical behaviour (all!)! We voted this in, unanimously, and they got to work drawing up big white posters with big red circles and red slashes through the things none of us were to ever do again!! By the end of the week, they realised they too could not fight, yell, hit, pinch, ignore, or anything else they had not only actively agreed to by voting for, but brought up. It was an interesting few moments of realisation for them both (we’d already had our bolts of lightning at the meeting!!).

The next really significant topic they brought up around the ages of 7 was they thought it was unfair my husband and I both worked full-time, yet I was the only one doing the housework, washing, ironing, and cooking. I saw this written onto the agenda, and rejoiced!! Naturally, at our democratic and forthright next family meeting, my husband and I also declared it was unfair as part of our family unit, that they weren’t involved in these chores. From that day on, they have not only learnt to do these things, but they have done them with good will, and also how they would manage them. They chose one would do the entire share of the household jobs one week, and have the next week off while the other did them all. How clever is that? The last 10 hour trip they had on the bus to visit my parents during a school holiday period, they sent my parents to the neighbours for coffee on the last day. They not only changed the linen on their beds, washed their sheets and towels, remade the beds, they scrubbed Nana and Pa’s house clean. It took them over 3 hours, after which they went to collect my parents for their surprise. Some days, they still annoy me, or I worry about them, but underneath, they have good strong foundations.

My two boys are everything I have dreamed of, not perfect, not always happy or tolerant, but always willing to listen and learn. They have not been to university yet, and that is ok by me. For some it seems, that is a failure, something we should feel upset about. For me though, I just want for them to be happy, independent and well. They are the same as normal siblings, very different, and being step brothers is not the reason why. But being friends before we met, and becoming step brothers has been good for them, and it is lovely that they are still friends. As my life has been rather complicated with some serious health issues, they have had the added burden of growing up before their time. Not only have they had to cope with parents divorcing, becoming teenagers, getting through their senior years at school (which is much more stressful than it was in  my time), whilst finding out who they are (do we ever really do this?), they have had to cope with a sick mum. They have had to bear things that most of their peers have not. They have coped magnificently, in spite of us. And if before I die, or I hit the twilight zone for dementia, I want to, and can find a way to help them into real estate, then why not? The next quote is part of a speech my youngest son wrote in about Year 9 or 10, the year after my brain surgery and numerous other health battles: I walked into ICU after her surgery, looking at her completely helpless in bed, her pillow covered in blood, and listening to her ask who we were, her family. This terrifies me the most about having dementia. He wrote this 4 page speech as the student rector for a religious retreat, attending as a student volunteer as he had attended the year before and got a lot out of it. The whole speech is truly profound, and one day I will ask his permission to share it here, but for now, that part of it is relevant. My kids are not the only ones in the world who have had to struggle and face up to things they don’t like, but I think having to have shared the burden of my poor health has not been dissimilar to being dropped off a long way from home, to find their own way. Yesterday I was also reminded in a beautiful way to be more tolerant of people, in particular other people’s children, especially on airplanes or in public places. Who knows if those children running up and down an aisle may not have been made to sit quietly watching on as a parent died earlier in the day; Or that grumpy adult shop assistant too, by the way. This friend often gently makes me wonder if my way is a little harsh, and unwittingly forces me to look at things in new ways. I hope today’s stories in some small way help you too, but most of all today, I would like to thank my adult kids for being who they are, and for arriving early most nights to cook the meal I am meant to be cooking for those family nights together, but 9 times out 10 have forgotten to even start, and my husband for really listening to Maurice Balson!

“If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man [person] who wrote it.” Tennessee Williams