Parenting and the Loss of Privacy

Parenting is the most wonderful adventure most of the time, but with the gaining of pride and joy, we lose one important thing – our privacy. Sometimes, this happens so slowly, we do not notice we got from giving up just some privacy to where we have very little of it left.

When I had my first child, I gave privacy up easily. Gal and I both wanted to spend all our time with Eden, but when she was 11 months old, we realized we did not really have a life and we could not blame anyone but ourselves. Every spare minute we had, we wanted to be with Eden, so she went to sleep at the same time we went to sleep. All our conversations were about her. At night, when we looked for a moment we could enjoy some privacy, I remember giggling and shushing each other, waiting for her to fall asleep, but by the time she was sound asleep, so were we…

When you have kids, privacy is not what it used to be anymore. Suddenly, intimate time is so rare and precious there is not a lot of opportunities to be spontaneous. Suddenly, you have to plan your private time together as a couple and the more time goes by, the more kids you have and the older they get, the harder it gets to find a private time to enjoy and love each other.

Luckily for us, we woke up when Eden was just 11 months old. We realized we needed to plan our time together if we wanted to enjoy each other’s company. We sat and thought of some things that would help us “keep the fire burning” between us and how to manage the loss of privacy that comes together with the joy of having kids. I recommend that every couple do these things, regardless of the age of their children. One important thing kids need is parents who stay together, so invest in your togetherness for the sake of your children too.

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Handy Family Tips: Make a Note

When I took a course in journalism, one of the tips in the course was to have a writing pad everywhere. Since I am a very good student, I did whatever they said. I had a writing pad in the car, in all my bags and even next to my bed. It is funny that only after you use a handy tip for a while, you realize how much you need it. Originally, this tip was meant to help me with my work, and it did, but I never thought it would be so beneficial for us as a family until I realized that the note pads I had put in so many places around the house were being used by all the members of my family.

With the very hectic and full lifestyle that we have today, remembering everything that needs to be done occupies a very important and limited space in our memory. If you ask parents to sit down and write the entire to-do list for the week, most of them could do it for 3 hours straight.

Of course, the more kids you have at home, the more memory space you need for your timetable and tasks. You need to remember the dates of rehearsals, what to bring to school, when to pay for the dance class, to call your sister, say happy birthday to your friend, coordinate an outing with your partner, get a babysitter, have enough money in your wallet/purse when you go to the market, to buy a gift for the party your daughter is invited to on the weekend, go over the spelling with your child before the exam, send the right uniform on the excursion day, change the pickup time, dentist appointment, add turmeric to the shopping list for the Moroccan dish planned for Friday and … the list is endless.

We have a good friend that says, “The opposite of forgetting is writing down”, but what happens when you need to remember something while you are driving or when you are in bed, ready to go to sleep?

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Parents Doing Business

I had my first business at the age of 25. I finished my Special Education studies and opened an Early Childhood Center that became a very successful business within a short time. I was a mother and a wife and had a mortgage, a car and a personal loan for my business.

If you hear parents tell you that kids are an obstacle for them, I can tell you that having kids is a bad excuse for not doing business. When the kids grow up and leave the house, they will be left with their excuses. So when they have to explain why they have never done what they have always wanted to do, they will start saying, “It’s too late now”, which is just another excuse.

If you are thinking of starting a business and will need to juggle business and family, it is a good idea to discover what you will have to do to succeed at it. Some people are not cut out to own and operate a business. Others do not know how to balance a home and a business. Managing your business, your home and your parenting well requires some skills and attitudes that will determine the success of your business, the quality of your family life and even your health.

Unlike people who do not have kids, business parents risk a lot more than their own time and money. They risk their relationships with their partners and with their kids, as well as the quality of preparation their kids get for life. You go into business because you want a better life for your kids, not to destroy your relationship with your kids, so do it right!

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Teenage Problems

I have heard a lot about angry teenagers (some even call them troubled teenagers). People talk about teenagers being angry as some natural phenomenon, but I often find there is nothing natural about it and teenage problems are caused by things that can be changed.

One of my clients had an angry teenager at home until recently. Olivia was only 12 years old and very, very, very angry. Her mom, Nancy, who was trapped by the “teenage problems” belief, did nothing for a while. All her friends said it was normal (“You know, teens these days…”), so she just waited for the teenage years to pass and prepared herself for when her two younger kids would go through it too.

But then Nancy met another client of mine who told her, “It doesn’t have to be like that. You should go and see Ronit”. So she came to one of my parenting workshops. After the workshop, she had some hope that maybe it was not normal for “teenagers these days” to be so angry and that maybe she could help her daughter relax.

Shortly after, Nancy told me, “There was something you said to me during the parenting workshop that made a huge shift with my daughter. I was convinced all teenagers were the same, but I realized that I could help my daughter if I only changed some of the things I was doing myself. It really worked!”

Olivia had been seeing a psychologist for a while, trying to make a big decision, but without any results. After the parenting workshop, Nancy went to the psychologist and asked her to try one of my strategies. It took only one session for Olivia to make her mind up and Nancy came to see me, hoping she could make more changes in her teen daughter’s attitude and life.

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Success is Showing Up

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.

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Handy Family Tip: Early is on time

Last week, I wrote how important it is not to confuse being on time with doing things at the last minute and how you can lose opportunities by doing things at the last minute (“on time”) without taking spares or considering unplanned events, mistakes and accidents.

This second chapter will give you ideas of how to change it.

How to win in the game of life
Here is a story I tell my life coaching clients:

Every week for 20 years, an old man goes to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and puts a note in the cracks of the wall asking God the same thing, “God, please let me win the lottery”. Thousands of people come every day to pray to God and put notes with wishes for God. The tradition says that every night, God sends his angel Gabriel to bring him the notes. This old man put the same request every week, but nothing happened.

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STOP! For Your Kids’ Sake

As parents, we often claim that whatever we do, we do for our kids and, as far as our awareness goes, that is true. But parents are human, which means our decision-making involves mostly emotional reasoning and subconscious values, beliefs and needs, which our mind cleverly re-dresses as calculated choices.

Sometimes, life hands us a rare opportunity to become aware of our choices of lifestyle. These are typically unpleasant, but they still get the job done. Ronit and I have written before about our own baby losses and about our friend’s near-death experience.

I want to share with you a talk given by Scott Stratten at TEDx.

In his post 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me, one of the most important things on the list is “My girlfriend and son were in a car accident December ’07 while I was at my Nanny’s (aka Grandmother) funeral. He walked away unscathed, she lives in constant pain and has partial brain damage and it kills me every day that I can’t fix it or I can’t go punch the woman in the mouth who ran the red light”.

I have been following him for a while and find him inspiring in many respects, but this video really hit a spot for me and I hope it will for you too. My son and I watched the video together and it made us choke.

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Handy Family Tips: On time is late

Many times, the concept of “on time” is translated to “at the last minute”. Running a family is very similar. When your “on time” means “at the last minute”, you are going to have lots of problems, stress and heartache, not to mention raising kids with that philosophy who grow up to miss opportunities and fail in situations that otherwise could be very successful.

My son Tsoof is studying composition at Griffith University’s Young Conservatorium with Ralph Hultgren, who is a very inspiring person. Ralph is a very talented musician, composer and probably an excellent teacher, because he has managed to build one of the best music schools for young people in Australia.

One expression Ralph has used with his students and stuck with Tsoof was:

“On time is late and early is on time”

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Five Minutes Past the End of Your Nose

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.

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Do it NOW

My son Tsoof (bless his soul) is a really great kid. For a teenager, someone who generally listens, does well at school and cares for his family is rare and I definitely consider myself lucky to have him for a son.

But sometimes, he can leave things for the last minute.

From time to time, it is time to go to bed and all seems quiet, and then we hear this, “Oh, $^%&, I need to do X for tomorrow!”

“When did you get this?”

“A couple of weeks ago”.

“Why haven’t you done it until today?”

“I was going to, but then I forgot”.

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