Category: Parenting

My kids are older now and after a conversation with @Liparazzi on Twitter last night, it got me thinking about the things I said I’d never do as a parent, but actually ended up doing……

I do have to laugh at how naive I was, right up until quite recently.  I was determined that my kids wouldn’t do some of the things I’ve let them do over time.

1. I’ll never leave the house without make-up on or my hair done.

Oh how naive that was.  With three kids, none of whom want to get up on a school day any more, it doesn’t matter what time of day I get up – there never seems to be time for me to get ready.

Yes – there really are days that I do the school run with may hair not even brushed, let alone wearing make up and styled hair…..

2. My kids will never misbehave in public or in a restaurant.

Hahahahaha, who was I kidding.   As much as I’d like to have three poker straight, beautifully dictioned kids with respect for everyone, three ADHD kids sitting together is a recipe for disaster.

We’ve had screaming abdabs, full tantrums and not always in a shop either.  I did stick to my guns on the not buying them what they want as an excuse to keep the peace, but that did lead to some spectacular store incidents with other shoppers tut tutting into their sleeves.

3.  My kids won’t eat crap or fast food.

Hey, who am I to judge if crap or fast food gets the kids to behave in public.  There comes a point that I’ll do almost anything for a bit of peace and if a bar of chocolate means I get to do the big monthly shop with three quiet kids in tow, I’m not going to complain.

A bit of fast food did nobody any harm and I cringe now to see kids who NEVER get anything of a treat.  Watching the other kids in my boys years at school, I’ve learned that while they are little, kids might kow tow to it, they tend to break out and want it even more when they get older and are no longer under mum and dads beady eye.  I’m all for moderation now, but before my kids hit the near double figures in years, I was a sanctimonious witch.

4. My kids will do as they’re told, first time, or else.

Almost everyone with more than one kid will relate to this one being a complete load of codswallop.  The teen needs about a million and five tellings to get up in the morning, and there’s a full negotiation in force to decide what time they have to come in if they’ve been out playing.  Who knew that negotiation was a far better skill than just being browbeaten into submission pre kids?

 5.  My kids won’t watch TV.

In my naivety, I used to say this all the time as a young adult.  Now, I only wish I could get mine TO watch TV.  Mine have never done it and although I got my youthful wish and desire on this one, I also NEVER EVER got any free time during the time any of my kids were present.

Now, I’d say rock the TV, it makes a great babysitter so you can do housework if kids will watch it, and apparently almost everyone else’s kids do like it.

6. My kids won’t have a mobile phone till they’re about 12.

Oh my god, what a load of piffle this is.  It dawned on me quite early on that kids need freedom.  Who knew that they’d want to go out to play minus their parents, ever!!!  It got to the point that I couldn’t see the point in holding myself to this ridiculous rule after watching how parents of older children called it.    Their sometimes 5 – 12 year olds disappeared after school and were never to be seen for hours on end, while streams of mums walked, run or drove the streets hunting down their little cherubs for supper.

Come the magic age of 12, they suddenly have a mobile phone and have to check in or be at the end of the phone for every beck and call of mum and dad.  That’s just bonkers.

Nobody is saying kids must have a smartphone, but an old fashioned call maker is a good peace of mind bit of kit at any age when they’re out on their own.

7.  I will never shout at my kids.

I think I lasted two days on this one.  The two year old broke away from the buggy and headed towards a busy road.  I bawled at the top of my voice, hanging onto the buggy with one child still in it for dear life and reaching for the escaping bullet.

Enough said.  It’s impossible.

8.  My house will be immaculate and my kids will always be perfectly turned out.

From the outset, three kids under 4 and food money to be made scuppered this one almost instantly.  The nice tidy house looks permanently like a bomb has hit it, no matter how much it gets tidied and cleaned.

Middler with the special needs has a tendency to race around the house at top speed, gather bits and bobs to him like a magnet on fire, and drop them randomly around the house as he goes.

9.  I will protect my kids from the Internet.

Mwahahahahah.  Impossible.  Kids from the age of 8ish or more can get round any parental control you can think of setting if they really want to.  You might think they don’t watch those 18 movies, or play those killing games, but rest assured, that someone else’s mum will make sure that your cherub has access to more junk and violence than you can probably even imagine as an adult.

I’ve written about this a lot.  It will depend on the nature of the child as to what they decide to take on board or act out on, but they’ll all get access in some shape or form – whether we like it or not, so start the conversations at age appropriate levels early on.

10.  My kids will trust me and never lie or steal.

I was cuckoo, really I was.  Some kids might not, but I’ve learned over time that almost ALL kids lie, steal or manipulate at some point.  We might never know, or we might catch them and nip it in the bud, but it’s not the end of the world.

For most kids, it just needs a chat about why it’s wrong and then move on, but for others it can be a bigger problem.  As for lying, well we all do that, don’t we?  There surely can’t be a person alive who has told the truth about everything their whole lives.   It’s only natural for kids to try and work out what is an acceptable lie and what isn’t.

We’ve just moved on from a week in France, and although we chose a small town to visit, we’ve been impressed by the supermarkets here.

We drove down from Aberdeen, taking three days to get there for the 1100 mile journey and took the P & O ferry as it was so much cheaper during the night than it was during the day.  £38 as opposed to £150 was a deal maker.  Sadly though, the food courts were a bit disappointing and they charged the full kids meal price for this for one of my boys.  I’m glad there was a £10 onboard voucher for spending as it made up for the kids meals, but if I was paying full whack, I’d have felt cheated. The kids did prefer the ferry over the tunnel and it added a little more adventure to the holiday.

We popped along to a Yellow Village site – Les Pins.  They must have thought we were reserved stupid Brits as they tried to put us onto a pitch at the very front, right next to the open toilets.  Yes, it’d have been handy for the football pitch and the pub if you like going out every night, but the deal breaker was that it was completely shaded, 6 feet from the bank of recycling and refuse bins.   We’d have been looking at them all the time from the van, and sitting by them if we’d decided to sit outside at all.

I walked to the pitch before we drove in to pace it out and when I saw it, I said no.  The man, on the other hand had just driven the equivalent of 1100 miles and was in no mood to be placated.  He donned his best French outraged impression and said we’d move on if the pitch wasn’t changed.

In the end, we were put onto a pitch right in front of the water park which wouldn’t have been ideal for everyone but suited us down to the ground.  The pool was open from 10am to 7pm and my water babies could go in as much as they wanted.  The new pitch view was fab.

I’ve noticed that some French campsites (actually a fair few) seem to have kerbs up onto their pitches.   If we’d had our old twin axle caravan with us, we’d not have got onto our pitch, even with the help of a motor mover.  Another British motorhomer had pitched three down from us and then was basically trapped in from then on as the next pitch didn’t leave enough room for him to swing round and get out.

The road round the campsite wouldn’t have taken our old caravan either, so if you’re planning French sites with a twin axle caravan or high motorhome, I’d advise calling the site to find out about kerbs, road width and tree clearance heights.

There’s a snack bar at the side of the pool that’s adequate.  The prices are about what you’d pay at home.  Smoking is allowed almost everywhere and the snack bar is no exception.  Even dogs are allowed into it.

The shower and loo facilities at that part of the pitch are disgusting.  I wouldn’t wash my dog in there, but apparently people do.  The ladies and gents are in the same door although they are some signs that seem to show segregation of sorts.

To get to the ladies, you have to walk past the row of gents urinals and plenty men seemed to be using the ladies as it was a confusing layout.  Be smart, walk two minutes up the hill for a lovely clean toilet block among the statics that hardly anyone uses.

We’d a pleasant week here, but it’s nowhere near what I’d class a 4* campsite should be.

The food in the supermarkets was different from ours.  I couldn’t stomach the tanks with live crabs and lobsters trying to escape, but the fresh food / fruit & veg aisles were fabulous, although food was the same or more expensive for most basic items than it is at home.

We all ate much more healthily, but I hope the kids will eat fruit and veg so easily when we get home.

Calais at night is actually very pretty and in the past we’ve avoided it, but I think we’ll spend some more time there next time we come through.  We’ve had glorious weather, sunburn and the kids have swum themselves tired daily.  We’ve not seen much of France apart from the motorways, so lots more to do on future road trips.

Who really stops and thinks when they’re passwording their Internet and thinking they’re being clever by saying their kids can’t get access to anything untoward in our homes?  I remember duly locking down my kids Facebook, our browsers and the Apple gadgets, only to be faced with an afternoon of gyrating by way of our TV music channels.

The idea amongst our Film and Music video producers seems to be focussed on selling sex to our minors as a way of enticing them to spend money and time on their music.   Watching the videos and children gyrating in time to the beat in discos and kids parties is sometimes enough to make me gag and feel like throwing up my dinner.

The artists demean themselves by promoting junk while they pretend their music is not for anyone under a certain age.  Why then, can I turn on the music channel any time of day and be confronted by scantily clad women and men pouting and birling to the tune of suggestive content?  Most of these artists made their name from the kids who they now profess not to be singing for, and wouldn’t be far short of being thrown off the top shelf in a newsagents.

In 2011, the Guardian reported that music videos faced a “crackdown over sexualised content with a Government report into sexualisation of childhood set to propose tougher regulations on retail, advertising and video industry.”   Rhianna was reported to allegedly be “unrepentant for filming a music video in which she shoots someone who raped her.”

How on earth do you explain the likes of her S&M Video to kids who have no idea that grown ups even have a sex life?  I remember a friend running from my kitchen to the family room like a demented banshee when she heard the opening bars to Sexy and I Know It coming on to the TV early on a Sunday afternoon.  It’s not one of the worst videos I’ve seen, but no parent should have to feel like that when it was the kids who bought that music in their droves.

While there may be some inroads into the regulations and ratings for music videos, I’m not fully aware of how far these have gone, and I still feel uncomfortable watching the world of usually female artists plying their wares and looking for sales on the back of the sexualised content of their videos.

As a child, I don’t remember any of this type of thing, and music channels and videos were usually restricted to Top of the Pops and not much else.

Turn on music channels now and we’re likely to be faced with as much content that would have gone on behind closed doors and been tagged as adult content a few years ago.  How do we explain the coverage of 50 Shades of Grey and what S&M is to our kids when they’re not that long out of nappies?

It’s not like kids even have a choice.  They might like a tune, and they might want to listen to an artist without having sex rammed down their throats.  Do artists and their publicists not realise that kids shouldn’t be exposed to pornographic content over their marshmallows and cake pops?

It’s all for money, but our artists really are selling themselves short.   In a fad for Rhianna and Eminem, the explicit versions were downloaded by more than a handful of kids at my boys schools, yet these are the same kids that keep their wallets fat and their platinum albums spinning on their precarious tops.

It’s done deliberately.  Why else would Madonna still be gyrating to music and wearing clothes fit for teens, while she’s old enough to be the grandmother of most of the people buying her music?

I don’t let my kids buy anything with explicit content, but their friends will let them see it anyway.

Aren’t we meant to be the adults?

Aren’t the adults meant to be the ones protecting our young and keeping them safe, comfortable and protected?

If we stop buying the music from artists who seem to be promoting gratuitous porn, maybe our kids will be more protected with videos that are more suitable for both granny and child to watch in comfort.  I want to choose what my kids watch, and not have it rammed down their throats by the music industry, whichever dentist surgery has MTV on while my kids sit in their chair, or the shop in town bumping out the tunes to show how great the clarity of the new HD TV’s are.

Our music industry certainly seems chained to values that are designed to maximise profit, but is it too much to ask for our kids to just be kids, and for parents to know that our kids aren’t watching things they shouldn’t at young ages?