Family Matters

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If there is one thing I used to worry about often, it was making the wrong decision. As you may know from previous posts, there is no such thing as a wrong decision. At any given time, we make the best choice available to us. It is only in hindsight that we can say whether the decision was right or wrong, good or bad. More importantly, indecision is often what holds us back, because not deciding is the same as choosing to keep things as they are.

So what we need to do is to “just keep swimming”. We need to make a decision and follow wherever the path may lead us. Along the way, we can adjust, alter, shift, and change, but doing nothing can be worse than picking the “wrong” path.

There is a perfect quote about this:

When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us
- Alexander Graham Bell

My brother Tsoof is going into his final year of high school this year and needs to pick a direction for next year. This is a tough topic and often times when we cannot seem to choose, we do nothing. A friend of mine is also experiencing something similar and even I have a story of my own, so I want to share these with you. This is something that has taken me a little while to grasp and now, the knowledge has served me well. Maybe you will glean some insight and be able to pass it on to your kids too.

At university this year, I started studying a “second” language. In actual fact, this is my third language, because I already speak two – one at home and one with everyone else.

The language I chose to study is Spanish. The reason I picked it was probably that when I was in primary school, I studied with a wonderful teacher we called “Señor Carlos”, who made it so much fun that I will forever associate Spanish with fun times. One day, I am determined to visit Spain or some Latin American country so I can show off my amazing Spanish skills.

Actually, the more I study, the more I realize there are quite a few languages I would like to learn, none of which are anything like any of the languages I already speak. I am particularly captivated by Arabic and Russian and my latest addition is AUSLAN (AUstralian Sign LANguage).

What I want to talk to you about is the benefit of speaking a second and even a third language. Being the devil’s advocate that I am, I want to share with you a few things that may not be so great. Then, I want you to tell me what you think. If you spoke (or if you already speak) a different language (other than English, that is), would you teach it to your kids?

I am a very busy person. I plan every day ahead. I know exactly how long it takes me to get from one place to another and I know how much time I am going to spend in any one place – at work, at university, at home, with friends, at dinner and on the bus. It is not because I need to feel a sense of control (maybe just a tiny bit), but in order for me to be able to squeeze in all of the things I want to achieve in a day, I need to be well organized.

I love being with friends and can accommodate almost any arrangement given enough time. I am always happy to rearrange my schedule to meet friends and spend some quality time. I also live at home with my parents and it is only fair that I share my plans with them so they can plan accordingly.

My timetable is pretty full almost four weeks in advance, so in order for me to make plans with friends, I need to know when and where we are meeting at least a few days beforehand. It helps me with my own sense of organization and allows me to be able to plan my time.

In the last couple of years, I have added more things to my schedule and my need for concrete plans seems to have become greater. A few of my friends have even commented on it, saying I needed to “live a little” or “be in the moment” or plain “don’t be so needy” when I have insisted on a definite time.

This got me thinking that maybe I was taking my time management a little bit too far. Maybe I need to be a little less uptight. Not everyone is as busy as I am and not everyone needs to be as organized as me, so I decided to cut everyone some slack.

When it first came out, I read Dad’s post While You Were Sleeping and it really struck a chord in me. I have read it about 7 times now and it still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy in the amazing knowledge that “my daddy loves me”. I decided then that I was going to write something that he could read and maybe see that this little bear cub feels his love and his good intentions, even while I sleep. And maybe if I could convince reader parents that we kids feel your love and we love you back, I will have done my good deed for today.

I am the oldest of the children in my family and I have learnt through time and experience that my parents are not all knowing or all able. I know that they are sometimes sad, angry, frustrated or disappointed. I know that they work hard sometimes, that they need help or they are a bit stressed. But although I know they are not invincible, they are still my cocoon. No matter how old I get (and I seem to be getting older every year), I still go to them for support. I go to them for advice, for help and most of all, for comfort. They are still my pillars of strength and my source of love.

Nowadays, I am faced with deadlines almost on a daily basis for my university studies and at my job. This brings on considerations such as what to do first and when to get started. I also have many opportunities to go out and forget about all the things I have to do. There are great things on TV, lots of friends to chat to, parties to attend and books to read. I could really forget about assignments and deadlines and just go out. Going on from Dad’s earlier post Do it NOW, I want to chat to you about the value of planning ahead, of thinking five minutes down the track and the importance of this for children (and teens and young adults).

There was a wonderful saying in the classic 60s movie Mary Poppins. It goes something like this:

“Sometimes a person, through no fault of his own, can’t see past the end of his nose”

Of course, Mary Poppins was referring to the fact that people sometimes don’t accept things that aren’t part of their world. But this saying is always associated in my mind with the fact that sometimes children can’t fathom that while they get what they want right now, there are consequences to their decision.

Now that I am of what is considered ‘adult’ age, many of my friends have started talking about leaving home. Some of my high school buddies moved out long ago and have even started families. This is obviously a stage in life that everyone experiences sooner or later.

One of the most common reasons my age-mates have suggested is that they clash very strongly with one (or both) of their parents. They are sick of being bossed around and they just need space and freedom. When this happens, I find they don’t always make the best decisions. They are so intent on running as far away as they can that they don’t realize where they are going.

Sometimes they make off with some would-be drug dealer or with a complete idiot, because “anything is better than home”. Like many people out there, when they hit 40, they realize they made a terrible mistake.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

When I was quite young (maybe 4 or 5 years old), my mom told me that one day I would have a family of my own and live in a house of my own. And I said to her, “Mom, don’t be silly, I’m always going to live at home with you and Dad”.

At my current job, I work with a lovely group of ladies, each at a different stage in life. Two of the ladies in the office this week were discussing how their teens seem to question their actions constantly – why they had to buy new boots, where they were going so late at night, etc.

Monica said she came home from a meeting in time to organize dinner for the family and then rush out again to another meeting. She told her girls that all they needed was to wash up afterwards. While she was on her way out, her eldest teen said, “Why do we have to do it? What have you been doing all day? You’re just going out to be with your friends”.

Of course, I have no children of my own just yet, but I have heard this before. Back in the day, it even came out of my own mouth once or twice…

Janet said her eldest was constantly questioning her actions too and that her standard reply was that she did not need to justify herself or her actions.

I beg to differ.

A few weeks ago, we attended a musical competition where my brother and his school band played. It occurred to me that every player in the band had a brother or sister in the crowd, some of whom were very resentful of their sibling up there on the stage. After all, it is hard to be that person in the crowd who misses out on all the attention.

When I was in high school, it was very common to hear stories about brothers and sisters who fought with each other constantly. I heard things like “My brother is so stupid. He’s always in the way” or “My sister is such a terror she never listens”.

Now that I am at university with students who are a little older, they are much more aware of the reasons behind it all, but they still seem to fight and argue a lot with their siblings. When I ask if they get along with their siblings, they reply, “Sure don’t. He hates my guts” or “No way! I can’t stand her”. One of my friends was on such bad terms with her sister she would wish on an almost weekly basis that her sister would hurry up and move out.

It is said that sibling rivalry is influenced by things like parental treatment, birth order, personality and experiences. Apparently, sibling rivalry is particularly strong when one child is gifted.

This week was the first week of tutorials at my university and we got to meet our tutor. You will be glad to know that my tutor is a bright young man in his mid 20′s with quite a bit of knowledge. From his introductory spiel, I gathered he had finished his honors year and is now in the process of applying for a PhD. As you may have noticed, he seems to have skipped some years, which should have been dedicated to his Master’s degree, but it seems this young man is quite smart.

As the tutor went through his slides, he kept putting himself down. He was using these slides to let us know we should criticize him if we discovered he was wrong, because that would be “his fault” and we should call him up if we do not understand, because sometimes “he” is unclear, and other quite harsh comments about his lack of knowledge being due to his nature and his inabilities. This was a bit of a shock for me, because he seemed quite nice and knowledgeable and he really had not taught us anything which could possibly have been wrong.

If the tutor was simply being humble about being smart or being nice or knowledgeable, I think that would have been OK. But there is a point at which this self criticism becomes a little bit more internal and that is where problems start.