Lessons from the experienced...

My downstairs neighbour has a dog that she walks three times a day, so I happen to run into her either when I'm on my way in or out, well at least a few times a week. She's retired and well I don't know how old she is, but she's had the same white hair for as long as I can remember. And when I say white hair, I mean she litterally doesn't have a single black, brown, red, blonde or grey hair on her head. This woman's always fascinated me growing up, because I never saw her without makeup on -and still don't! Her hair is always put in a fancy curly updo, she's wearing fun shades of glittery eyeshadow (e.g. green or blue are probably er favourites) and her nails are almost always polished in different colours, one chistmas she painted them golden. I think you might be getting the picture by now so I'll move on. Meeting her always starts the same, she asks how things are going and by that ofcourse she means how are the kids doing. You see after having children you're an extention of them, not vice-versa ;) So I start by saying "oh fine" and then ponder that question and change it to "well you know up and down I guess, he's two so what can you expect" or tell her of any given incident that occurred between our meetings. Her reply always has to do with how I can make things easier for myself, 'cause parenthood isn't all that difficult you see; I'd like to share some of the lessons she amuses me with on somewhat of a daily basis, most of the times she just repeats the first three:

"all I had to do was to give my son one good spanking and after that he knew when he was treading dangerous grounds.... oh yes! He knew I had no tolerance for children"

"once I beat him so severely I thought I'd killed him"

"it's just horrible how parents arent allowed to discipline their children nowadays, what's it all coming to"

On getting more sleep as a parent, this was her recommendation:

"putting up the sides to my sons bed and putting some toys in a bag and hanging it on the outside of his bed" apparently it worked like a charm on her son, who merely played with his toys in bed and didn't disturb his sleeping parents until they decided it was morning and got out of bed themselves...

So basically her mantra is beat your child and be happy! I love listening to advice given by people who have raised children and whose children are now well into adulthood. The way they recall a life with small children, what their own children were like, what all children need and require, not to mention what their fundemental rights are... well, lets just say that their memory's been tampered with and for some reason I'm not sure the UN are about to incorporate their ideas into their childrens convention. You make up your own mind... My mum has her own oppinion on how children should be raised, we see eye to eye on many things regarding bringing up children, but in her oppinion, my children - like all children born into this world - have a God given right to be dressed up properly. This doesn't entail wearing warm, soft or adequate clothing, errrr... no! She means that their outfits should be colour coordinated, ironed and looking pretty ;)
My husbands grandmother lives far away from us and we don't get to see her much, but whenever we do visit, she spends every single minute making sure we're either stuffing ourselves with something or are about to. The entire time we're there all she does is make sure she's gathered sufficient amout of food to please us and our stomachs and that's almost all that we talk about while we're there. Everytime we visit, I'm sure one of us is either going to develop anorexia or bulimia, obviously depending on our temperaments hahaha! We've now decided to get her out of her comfortzone and let her come visit us instead, so she won't feel she has to feed us. In her mind grandchildren - and great grandchildren even more so - have the right to everything and anything that's eatable.
Grandparents, bless them, have time to just fill their hearts with love and care like it's nobody's business, and this is the perfect recipe for irrational behaviour and demands. Now tell me, how can this not amuse you?! xoxo AQ