Poetic Parenting: A mother's contribution...

In answer to my call, I have received this lovely poem from KJ, which I am reposting...

"My teen has recently moved in to the world, so mine is more on the journey from start to transition (quickly) and I'm more at peace than I realised so not much swearing either... But I tried..." (KJ)

In LA Rodney King had been beaten
Russia chose Yeltsin to rule
Schumacher appeared on the racetrack
And you had me covered in drool

My friends were all sneaking to pubs
Wishing 20 was their real age
I was at home with my baby
Social welfare was paying my wage

Each year I did what I thought best
Screwing up as all parents do
My reward was always amazing
When you said “Mum, I love you”

Then one day I opened your door
And fell to the floor in a fit
Your room was a tip, you looked a wreck
With a weird whiff of B.O and shit

Putin was now ruling Russia
Schumacher was world number one
The drool that I wore as a badge
Was ripe from disease of the gum

You were not there in the morning
‘Hooking up’ as you said on your ‘page’
I was at home with no baby
Fucked off with sadness and rage

Each day turned in to a struggle
With battle lines now set in stone
We both began with the countdown
When you at last would leave home

Then one day I opened your door
And fresh paint now filled the air
No more were you here, now out in the world
Just remember I love you my dear 





How fabulous to put your experience into words that capture the essence of you, your child/teen and the whole experience.   


Are there any more from other readers??

Poetic Parenting: releasing your literary genius

A reader, Nicole, left this comment on my post, "Go the F*** to sleep", and I had to repost it to share with all of you, as it is very clever  ...  I think Nicole and I are living parallel lives, as her words reflect some of the experiences of my last 48 hours: waiting up yet again last night until 1.45am;  falling asleep on the couch;  dragging myself to bed at 3am - which is a good time to restock the fire for the morning!  No cooking muffins though.  But no sign of the Real T1 until dinner time tonight,  lured home by the smell of a yummy Sunday night dinner, hot water and a warm home.

If anyone has any other four line verses in rhyming couplets... please send them to me,  and let's grow this parenting poem !!!

Ask your friend for contributions.  A number of you follow Nigel's FB site (maybe he's a poet too??!), so get it out there....  

Write it down, say it how it is, release the frustration, let loose your humour, pain, exhaustion... as well as your literary genius.... consult your journals for insight, sing it, say it, have fun with it,  have a wine or three and let the words flow:  I know you can do it!!!

Here's Nicole's start to our 2amClub parenting poem/rap track:

"I don't know where the fuck you are
I'm worried out o' my head
It would be nice if you'd come home
So I can go to bed

You're probably drinking with your mates
Or smoking something silly
Or maybe luring some poor girl
To do things to your willy

Last week you came back poorly dressed
With vomit down your shirt
An improvement from the week before -
You'd returned with lighter burns

But come home now so I can sleep
I'm knackered for the day
Just don't bring home another dame
And keep me wide awake! "







FB, Twitter... however you get it out there, enjoy the creativity and opportunity to share your fortitude, humour, wisdom and eloquence!!!

I celebrate the writing genius within each of you...

I am multitudes....

A little bit of self-affirming support popped into my post box this week : I  received a letter from one of the social services agencies, and I quote:

"... it is fantastic to hear that (Teen1) has been attending X X High School now for four weeks.  Because of this good school attendance and as T1 was not interested in the support our service could offer, I have now closed his file.


I want to acknowledge your perseverance and commitment towards T1's education and also to acknowledge the care and love that you have for T1.  It takes a strong woman to continue as you did and I hope things continue to improve for T1.


If you feel our service could be of benefit in the future....I would like to wish you and T1 all the best..."

Thanks Louise! I appreciated your support also.



The social agencies are there to help, but it was a lonely trip for me to walk in there and ask for help.  I knew I needed help, and I wanted to keep one step ahead if I could, but I also felt so ashamed (there, I've said it) at having to ask for help.  I am now so used to talking to them, that I regularly check in and let them know what is happening.  My circle of influence includes the local police, the central police station, the Youth Liaison Officers, Family Support agencies, independent Youth Trusts, counselling services, and a number of youth training and support agencies.

I have learned from this experience not to define myself, or allow myself to be trapped or inhibited by the actions and behaviours of my teenager.  The only person whose judgement is important is my own!!  I got caught up in not wanting this one hard part of my life to inform who I am in the other parts of my life:


"... Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes..."  
~ Walt Whitman.


I am multitudes.  There's one part of me that will accept any positive reinforcement for the part of me that is the Parent and Mother.

The other parts of me - the friend, sister, worker, carer, professional, daughter... - must continue to grow and learn and share and not be inhibited by the choices of others.  This takes courage.

Wishing all mothers the courage to continue to celebrate their 'multitudes'...

 

Go the F*** to sleep

My friend Jo  read my last poetry post and she thinks that this link to a bedtime story will be appreciated by expletive using, exhausted parents...

Which led me to wonder, has anyone heard of a rap version of the book, but aimed at teenagers??: as in

" get the f**k home now,
get off the f**king streets;
don't get into deep sh*t
cos it ain't worth hangin' with the creeps..."

Sorry, I'm not so good at writing rhyming couplets, but if readers want to try a four line, or longer, attempt, I'll pull it all together and post it back!!

Wishing you good sleeps as always...

Poetic parenting advice

Don't read this if you get offended at expletives.  And if you do, or if you don't get offended,  then do read this.  (thanks to Jo for the link!)

The afore-mentioned article inspired me to pull out my most loved and cherished anthology of poetry to read the full, mordantly disturbing poem by Philip Larkin.  I have spontaneously decided to depart from my positive approach to my (also quite possibly, mordantly disturbing) blog, and share this poem with you.  And yes, you guessed it, being consistent throughout his poetry in his horror of family life, Larkin died single and childless.  (I wonder what he was like as a librarian, his life-long day job? I'd be too scared to ask him for a book in case he scorned me as vociferously as he does parents in this poem...).

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
   They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
   And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
   By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
   And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
   It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
   And don't have any kids yourself.


I've skimmed past this poem many times.  I'm oddly amused reading it again now to find that I really like it!

Other poems in this anthology, also about raising children but from quite different perspectives, move me to tears.  Or at least they did when my children were younger than 10.  Here's two such poems:

Beatrix is Three
Adrian Mitchell


At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand.  O.k.
She gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
A bunch of consolation.
We take our time
Down the steep carpetway
as I wish silently
That the stairs were endless.



A wish for my children
Evangeline Paterson


On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees.  May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors.  May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving.


The editor's footnote to this poem asks the reader, "As parents, how many of us are capable of looking forward to the day when our children no longer need us?".

A note back to the editor: actually, this last week, I have been utterly, unerringly, enthusiastically imagining a time when Teen1 will have left home.  So, I guess I am a feeling closer to 'Larkin' than to 'Mitchell' at present.


...a post in homage to the parent-child dichotomy in us all....






P.S.  just in case you haven't already seen Anita Renfroe's the Mommy Song set to the William Tell Overture.  And,  a final thought for the night, maybe there's a market for a New Zealand anthology of poems and writings charting the trajectory of teenager-hood?

Changin' times

He's moved out.  Figuratively, I mean.  The Pretender : he's gone.  I'm not sure if it is a holiday, or he's gone for good.

I must say, it was just lovely having The Pretender to stay.  Several friends supportively applauded, some asking what I did to bring about Teen1's return to school and his apparent turning of the corner.  It did not take much thought for me to dispense these three (now redundant) observations (feel free though to give them a go!):

1. Tenacity: firstly, I refused to give up what I felt was best for my son, in this case to get him back to school, in a new environment in the hope that he would experience a clean start and fresh options. Despite being in touch with numerous community groups and support people, there are things I had to do and cope with and decide and fight for alone, according to my own unique set of beliefs.  It was lonely and hard.  But this was one important objective I would not let go of.   Secondly, I faced off with one of the Focker families: rightly or wrongly entering someone's home and emphatically telling them to back off, it had an impact.  It shut the door on T1 having a place to hang out all day.  (That and the fact that his mate had been arrested and was on a legally imposed curfew... kind of helped too).  Thirdly, I had a vision: a strong, powerful image of my father, who passed on many years ago.  It reminded me to stay firm, stay resolved, focus on my values, my positive vision, my belief in my son's ability and inherent goodness.  Believe me, this last comment is not 'rose tinted glasses' stuff:  it's just, I SEE him, and I think he'll be ok, one day.  In other words, "tenacity".


2.  Teach them well.  Be the change you want to see in the world.  It is from the parents they learn.  (Which means therapy for years for most of us... ).  But essentially, I have to hope that what they've learned from me will stick to the intsy bintsy part of their brain that is still functioning during their teens, and will help them to get through.  If not, and my boys don't make it, I hope someone reminds me of how I tried.

3.  Luck.  Prayer.  Faith.  The unknown.  Was it #1 and #2 above that brought about a short-lived change?  Or something beyond us all.  Definitely worth meditating on.


Unfortunately, the Pretender's moving out was taking place as I wrote my last post.  Not wanting to hope too much, or anticipate too soon that perhaps things were changing for the better, I waited four weeks until I could see and feel and witness change in Teen1, and felt confident enough to commit it to words on a public page.  A change that permeated the whole house and home.  A change that was commented on by T3, age 11, who unexpectedly said quietly to me, "you know Mum, I really think he's better and he's not so bad anymore."

Alas.  Ironically, within the hour of posting my last missive, there was a call from the school reporting his absence, and later in the night, a very stoned boy entered the house.  Being stoned is the lesser of the evils to deal with.  It is always the drug lows in the days after that are worse.  It's been one long spiral down for the last ten days.

I wonder if Bob is on the other side of these lyrics now, along with those of us who sang and swayed along to this song, shaking our heads that our parents just did not get it.  

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'



In support of all parents who are having to cope with these tenuous, unpredictable, sometimes crushingly painful times of parenting our teenagers.   

Where has he gone?

I lost my teenage boy last year, and it seems he has gone again.  Which might be described as considerably careless of me.  In writing this, I recall Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” in which Lady Bracknell tells Jack Worthing: “To lose one parent Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both  looks like carelessness”.

I know my Teen1 is gone because of the following factors:

1.     There’s a pretender teenager staying here who has been going to school every day now for almost FOUR weeks.

2.     This rather tall, Teen1 lookalike boy says things like:

a.     “Will you wake me up in the morning”

b.     “Can you make me some sandwiches for lunch”

c.      “Can I get a lift in to school tomorrow with you”

3.     This 15 year old boy is here for dinner every evening during the week, and eats the food.

4.     The pretender has put out the rubbish.  Twice.

5.     The pretender’s room is cleaned out every week without being asked to do so.

6.     The pretender did the dishes for the first time in months.

7.     The pretender SMILED at me.

8.     I haven’t had anyone, least of all the Pretender, call me a f***ing b**** for about four weeks now.

9.     The pretender asked if he could go to the rugby on a Friday night, suggested himself he’d be back at 10.30pm, and said ‘thanks so much’ when I gave him a few dollars to spend at the game.   (The pretender came back home drunk, but it was just before the 10.30pm agreed time, so hey, I wasn’t going to take him on..)

10. I’ve resumed my business practice at my home office because there’s not a feral teenager around between the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm: my home has reverted to being a warm, calm space during the day through which I wander and wonder… ‘how can this be?’

This Pretender looks like and sounds like Teen1.  But he doesn’t ACT like Teen1.

What have I done???

PS: yes!  This is a happy post!!! At last….  I don’t want to over-analyse too soon, as it is just one day at a time for me at present.  Wishing continuing glimmers of happy-teens for all parents reading this today….