Who says you can’t domesticate an old donkey? This afternoon I’ve prepared two dishes to last the family the week. I can’t promise they will taste nice, but at least they will be fed.

I’m not really into great eulogies, describing the Queen as the only constant in the lives of our generation through turbulent times. That’s the role of grannies generally. Perhaps, in that respect, she was the nation’s grannie. Yes, but a very privileged grannie, whose moderately small family received hundreds of millions of pounds of state benefits — sorry, grants — annually for seventy years.

Continue reading “Grannies” →

Our poor kids… the first thing they say on their return home: “It’s tiny!”

“What’s happened to the stairs?” exclaims our daughter, “They’ve shrunk!”

Our lad charges up them to his room. “What on earth have you done?” he cries, rediscovering his box room, even smaller than he remembers it.

“I built you a nice big house in Turkey,” I laugh. “Maybe now you’ll be grateful.”

“I want to go back!” he sobs.

How do multigenerational households survive the lack of personal space? I struggle to comprehend the challenges for those newly married couples forced to move in to the family home, to subsist amongst parents-in-law, brothers-in-law (also married) and sisters-in-law, and occasionally even grandparents.

Continue reading “Personal space” →

I am not sure that what we write in ignorance remains valid once experience shows it to be flawed. To read back to myself what I once wrote before we had children, for example: how easy to castigate a man for running away when faced with raising severely disabled children, speaking of great ideals about what constitutes a real man.

Continue reading “With experience” →

The hard part of parenting teenagers is that they’re entering that period of life that was the worst part of mine — and they often have the tendency to behave no less obnoxiously than many I encountered then.

Continue reading “Reverberations” →

It’s funny… I always thought we were running late starting a family… but it turns out many of us are on the same timetable… and some contemporaries I’d imagined would be grandparents by now have never even married… while others still are starting all over again, raising little ones anew. Everything in its time.

“You’re so angry these days,” cries our daughter, shaking her head. I admit, I raised my voice on the third attempt at asking her to sort out the washing while I cooked dinner. “What’s wrong with you?” she puffs, thumping through in a mood.

Continue reading “This anger” →

Some things we forget. Actually, my parents did recognise that something wasn’t right about the anxiety which afflicted me in the run up to my A-Levels. I was increasingly having panic attacks even in only moderately stressful situations, which would either cause me to throw-up or my entire body to become numb with paresthesia until I could barely breathe.

Continue reading “Good enough” →

An outside observer might legitimately ask how it’s possible that I never discussed such a significant diagnosis with my wider family, but that would be to make assumptions about my ability to articulate my feelings about anything. In truth, I’ve barely spoken about any of the events in my life to anyone.

Continue reading “Significant diagnosis” →

All the theory of teaching boys to be respectful of girls and girls to behave with kindness are tested daily. There are no easy fixes. It’s just a message we must reinforce daily, sometimes hourly. Our lad must be reminded constantly to respect boundaries. First, those of his sister, and then of all girls. And his sister: she has to be reminded constantly to respond appropriately and proportionally. All we can hope is that eventually, with repetition and reinforcement, they will just get it.

Talk to your children, if you can. Encourage them to open up about their feelings, and listen to them.

Continue reading “Talk it over” →

Have we failed these kids? The question that occurred to me, driving through Berkhamsted this morning, watching smart kids from the local independent school arriving for their end-of-term prize day.

Continue reading “Have we failed?” →

Yes, I really should be more generous to my parents. In a period of eight years, they had four of us. When I was born, my two older brothers were five and three. When I was three, my sister was born. That’s a lot of parenting to contend with — an unending stream of need. For eight years, the constant stresses raising and nurturing infants.

Continue reading “Parenthood” →

My beloved returned from collecting the kids from school yesterday — an act of mercy due to a sweltering heatwave — in floods of tears. On the way, she had decided to treat them to ice cream. Of course, on a day as hot as this, she wasn’t alone in that mission, and found that the local corner shop had completely sold out of everything.

Continue reading “A mother’s tears” →

“Dad,” our lad barks at me, “I never taught you to shout!”

Here I smile. “Well, actually you did,” I tell him.

“That’s true,” agrees my beloved, “he never used to raise his voice at anyone until we had two teenagers in the house!”

Ealing will always hold a special place in our hearts. Not just because it’s where we met, married and made our first home, but also because without that local authority, we would never have been able to raise these children.

Continue reading “Shared destinies” →

I am reminded that I am now nearly the age my parents were when I was our daughter’s age. Reflecting on my own shortcomings in relation to our children, it occurs to me that I should be more forgiving of moments back then, thirty years ago. My two older brothers were away at university, at the two extremes of the country; one on the far south west coast of England, the other on the far north east coast of Scotland.

Continue reading “Our generation” →

Out walking this evening, our lad turned to me and said, “What’s happened to you? You used to be such a calm man. Suddenly you’re… you’re so… cross… angry!”

Continue reading “Uncalm” →

The day my middle brother learned from me that I was a Muslim, he quipped, “I look forward to meeting your four wives.” Hilarious. But I preferred my beloved’s take on that joke three years later, when she insisted on marrying me four times.

Continue reading “Four weddings” →

I suppose that raising kids of our own can help us become more generous both to our youthful selves and those we interacted with when we were young.

Continue reading “To be kids” →

Faced with the perpetual bickering of a brother and sister so close in age, I really have to marvel at my parents who raised four of us. How on earth did they manage?

Continue reading “Altercations” →

Living far away from extended family has both its advantages and drawbacks. When I hear tales of the interference of in-laws in the lives of many couples, I feel blessed that my in-laws live three thousand miles away and speak a different language.

Continue reading “Extended families” →

I feel terrible. My son was messing about just now, having a little fun, just playing. But one thing he did was a trigger, stirring a memory inside me, and I blew my top. Poor lad: he’s more sensitive than I am and got really upset. Naturally, I feel awful now. No not just awful, but completely daft. I blew up at him over something that happened years ago. What a fool. No, a total tool. Talk about unresolved. What a jerk (I am).

This is the first period of my life since my early childhood that I have been happy with my face. When I was little, I was quite cute, but through my teens and early twenties I became a skeleton.

Continue reading “My face” →

Walking to town, our kids took it upon themselves to tell me off and give me a dressing down. Twenty-first century kids are more confident that we were. I was afraid of my parents. Even at my most rebellious, I’m sure I would never have spoken to them the way they speak to us.

Continue reading “Bad dad” →

It is such a blessing to have a good woman at your side. I don’t know what I’d do without mine. She counsels me when I’m feeling down, offering different perspectives and fresh insights. She is my companion on the path, forever calling me back to the One. Hers is contentment, reminding me of the unending stream of blessings bestowed on us from above. Hers the cloak of righteousness, calling me back to what is greater than us. Yes, that woman who twenty-one years ago chose to be my wife, to walk with me, through thick and thin, upon this path back towards our source. God bless the woman.

Last night I had a major meltdown. The trigger was relatively minor, but I blew my top. The morning-after is worse than a hangover. In truth, I’ve probably been carrying anxiety around with me for a year or more.

Continue reading “The panic attack” →

The tides of time. How the years pass us by. Some of those I knew at university have already seen their own children graduate. Some then were already married and had started a family when we were in our first year of studies; those children now all grown up, with children of their own. Some I once knew are now grandparents.

Continue reading “The cycle of life” →