A Spoonful of Sugar. Liz Fraser

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СКАЧАТЬ yes, of course they do. You have to teach that to a child, by disciplining them when they’re naughty. It’s not cruel, as some people say now. It’s part of what parenting is about.’

       Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom

      Rules give a child’s world boundaries and allow them to feel safe. If you can’t get the rules straight and clear in your child’s mind and teach them that their actions have consequences when they are very young, you really set yourself up, and the people around you, for a tough time ahead.

      Granny has a few last thoughts on the importance of childhood and I start taking notes, lest my befuddled, knackered parent’s brain has trouble retaining all of this valuable stuff.

Letting kids be kids

      Granny takes a good slug of coffee and settles back in her chair.

      ‘You asked what has gone wrong with the way children are raised today – well, I think lots of you are doing a very good job, actually.’

      Oh, well, thank you very much. Time for a communal pat on the back methinks … Oh, hang on – hold the patting, there’s a ‘but’, …

      ‘But one of the main things that’s happened is that you have stopped treating children as they need to be treated.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Well, as so many of you seem to have forgotten somewhere along the very busy line, childhood is the time before adulthood. That may sound obvious, but it doesn’t seem to be the case any more.’

      It doesn’t?

       Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom

      Childhood is the time to be a child, to be treated as a child and not to be treated as equals with adults.

      Ah yes. The old ‘treating kids as equals’ habit. This worrying trend is one I have noticed increasingly in the last decade, and it disturbs me. Kids often seem to be put on a level with their parents now: they’re asked what Madam would like for dinner, what time Sir would like to go to bed, what her Ladyship would like to wear, what Mummy can do to make her offspring’s lives absolutely perfect in every way, in fact.

      Talking to some of my mum friends and just listening to conversations around me in the street I observe the same concerns, but it seems few people feel safe to say that they don’t want to treat kids as equals. That they feel there should be a ‘place’ for children, and another for adults. Perhaps there’s a fear that they’ll be seen as unkind, or cruel or even – Heaven forbid! – Bad Parents.

      But hang on, give the self-flagellation a break: is asking what your child wants for dinner really treating him like a mini adult, or are we just trying to give kids a voice, and to listen to their opinions? That’s surely not a bad thing. I mean, they may poo their pants for several years and everything, and make your hair fall out, but they have feelings and we can listen to them!

      Granny thinks it’s more to do with role clarity.

      ‘I think that in many ways the line between childhood and adulthood has become so blurred and this is causing a lot of problems, because you lose your authority.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘Well, where to start? The clothing that’s made for little children that looks like it’s fallen out of a seventeen-year-old pop star’s dressing room, the fact that parents cannot discipline children for fear of being told off themselves, the number of tiny tots who are dragged out to cafés every weekend to have a cappuccino with their parents – that’s no place for a small child! They want to play, and muck about, not sit in cafés while Mummy and Daddy read the newspaper.’

      Now hold on – I happen to agree that there are far too many kids being hoiked off to Starbucks several times a week and are all but ignored while they’re there or given gargantuan muffins and pastries to keep them quiet. It’s very depressing actually. But we do it from time to time, and I consider it valuable – no, essential – grown-up time, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a nice sit down over a latte while my kids read a book, or draw a picture. Or, as we do most of the time, actually talk to one another without emptying the dishwasher, hanging out the laundry or picking up thousands of bits of Bionicles from the kitchen floor. Going to cafés means having unadulterated family time, and that’s a good thing.

      But Granny doesn’t mean only this. She sees it as one example of the many ways children have crept into an adult world. Being given the same responsibilities and choices as we have.

       Granny’s Pearl of Wisdom

      The way children are reasoned with is also quite extraordinary to me – why can’t you just say to a child ‘this is how it is, I would like you to do this now, please’ and not have to explain your reasons why?

      Granny is surely not saying it’s better to ignore children’s feelings and opinions? Even she wouldn’t go that far!

      ‘No, but sometimes it’s absolutely fine to tell a child that they just have to do as they are asked. They are children, and you are adults. Period. You don’t have to treat children as though they are about to fall apart – or as though they are your best friend. Sometimes life is tough, and unfair, and understanding this is part of childhood too.’

      Oh, how many of us have fallen foul of that wonderfully tempting business of treating our children as our best friends? They’re cute; they like shopping; they don’t bitch about you behind your back (much) and they love staying up late having a good chat. What’s not best friendly about all that?

      We are to touch on this sticky issue again in a few months but for now it’s very handy that it crops up here. I’m not sure if it’s a totally modern phenomenon – for all I know Roman mothers used to hang out in the Grandus Shoppingus Mallus with little Julius and Athena – but wanting to be ‘bezzy mates’ with our children, particularly mothers with their daughters, is something that seems to have taken over families of late and it’s not an entirely good thing. Mothers out on shopping trips with their five year olds, having girly lunches with their ten year olds, getting their hair done together – even having facials together when their child could be off reading a good book or inventing something involving toilet rolls and Sellotape. (Interestingly, this is still what many little boys seem to like doing …) All this adult-like behaviour is … well, it’s kind of weird, no?

      Sometimes I desperately want to feel like a best friend to my children, but let’s be perfectly honest here: the reason many of us do this is either because we didn’t have the relationship with our own parents we would have liked and so we want to create this pally-ness with our kids, or because we’re desperately trying to recreate a good relationship enjoyed with our parents. Both are dangerous games to play. In many ways I actually do feel like a best friend to my children because they will always come to me to talk about things that are troubling them, to tell me something funny or to cry. But I feel it’s also essential to maintain some kind of authority, and for me to feel and behave as though I am their mother, their parent and therefore in some way responsible for them and in charge of them.

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