Is Ageing Mind Over Matter?

Time moves too damn quick.  What brought it home to me is that today my 14 year old Chicken worked her first shift at McDonald's.

The reason this is so momentous to me is that I feel that once a person starts working for a wage, they have started to move away from their childhood and are almost a full-on adult.  Scary stuff when it's your daughter taking orders and being responsible when YOU still feel about 16 most of the time.  Does this mean I'm all grown up now?  Nah!  I'll act the part when I need to but most of the time I feel exactly the same as I did when I was a teenager.  Except for the times I look in a mirror, see a photograph of myself or try to do anything physical of course.

There is a little method in my madness - if I feel young in my head, maybe my body (or mind for that matter) won't get old.  And isn't it more fun to act like a 16 year old than a 47 year old?

I would have loved to have known what age my mother was feeling as she neared the end of her life, but unfortunately her dementia prevented that.  Did she still feel like a teenager in her head while sitting in a nursing home looking at those elderly people around her?  She certainly had a young attitude when she was well, in fact so much of a party girl that the start of her downfall was breaking her hip at age 65 on the dance floor at the local club's Rocky Horror Picture Show tribute!

So did she just want to escape the bed and go out dancing again or did she feel like the woman in the news this week that thought she'd had enough and it was time to depart with a bit of dignity. I think if she was anything like me there would be no way that she wanted to go out without fighting tooth and nail to the end and throwing a big party with lots of dancing.  Just don't play the Time Warp.

Joining up with the rhythmic Essentially Jess for IBOT!

Don’t-do-as-I-do, do-as-I-say Parenting

I don’t think I’m the only one who parents by instruction much more frequently than by example. Meaning I TELL my kids how they should behave a hell of a lot more than I SHOW them. I’m great with advice on how they should conduct themselves in public but I don’t tell them of my past exploits and shady behaviour “when I was young” (OK there was that girls weekend last month, but what happens on tour stays on tour!).

We all want our children to become the perfect people we could never be and take advantage of the opportunities we work hard to have available to them.

For example, my husband spends a fair amount of his time watching his son play soccer and will take him to any training or any game anywhere at anytime – he LOVES it! He has told me there is nothing he would rather do than watch his little man do his magic on the field – yes I get a little miffed that hubby would rather do that than stare adoringly into my eyes but it’s better than drinking with mates in the pub, eh? He even took up soccer so he could practice with the little Nugget (and I won’t even mention the MANY injuries his old, untrained body endured since).

Some of this dedication is due to the fact that his parents never watched him play rugby league, even when he was playing state rep games. Nugget has sometimes brought us undone when he asks if Nanny and Poppy can come watch – we cover for them and tell him white lies so he doesn’t think badly of them, but what grandparent would not want to watch their 8 year old grandson bend it like Beckham on Saturdays??? Even I love watching both my children play on a freezing morning and I don’t even like sport (what's with all the whistles in netball??)!

My point is, what we lack in our childhood, we try to make up with our kids, whether its a secure home, good education, good food or great opportunities to experience in life (yes, my childhood pretty much lacked these things, but that’s another story/post). And we make sure we never never never tell them what we did as a teenager.

So what have you made up for with your kids that you never had as a child?