Tag Archives: Boys

On parent-counselling through the university application process

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This article also appears at www.uni-versed.com

Yesterday my son fired me. As his admissions counsellor, I am devastated—no one likes to lose a client. As his mother, I think he did the right thing. I had pushed too hard, tightened the grip a little too much. I think I may even have been rude.

Now, I can finally stop hounding him about how he is not doing enough to prepare for his application to the highly selective (or rejective) university of his choice and start being more of an emotional support in this very stressful phase of his life.

As his counsellor, I know he needn’t be stressed if he is putting in the work necessary to become the highly academic student his chosen university is looking for. I even told him exactly what he needs to be doing. As his mother, I know he will eventually find his path, regardless of his choices and his options. I know him like that. As his counsellor-mother, however, things got a little confusing. I made it a point to remind him daily that what he was doing was not enough, yet.

A few weeks ago I published an article about how to parent during this stressful application period. Over the years, and with two children already tucked at university, I had figured out how to parent through the process. What I hadn’t learnt was how to be mother-counsellor. It was my first time.

The role of a mother during the application process is to lend a non-judgmental ear, offer emotional support and make sure her child has their minimum food and security needs fulfilled in order to thrive. It is a role that is highly subjective and fraught with emotion. The role of a counsellor, on the other hand, is to be objective, offer the best of their knowledge and advice and guide the student and their parent through the process. You can see where the problem lies: I was emotionally invested in a process I am meant to be scientific about.

My experience had taught me to recognize when a student is not yet ready to apply to a high-achievement/high-expectations university such as that chosen by my son. As a mother, I never allowed myself to say it—I did not want to deflate my child’s confidence and kill his drive. As a counsellor, I would also never allow myself to tell a student they have no chance of making it. Firstly because I don’t know that for a fact, I am only intuiting, and secondly, I actually believe in aiming high—if you can handle the potential rejection—because aiming high allows you to put your best foot forward and give your application your best shot. I am a great believer in the shoot for the moon, land on the stars plan.

What I never ever did, until just before I got fired, was to blurt out: “You are never going to make it if you continue like this.” As I said, as mother-counsellor, things got a bit confusing. I like to believe that I am a good mother and my testimonials tell me that I am a good counsellor. But a mother-counsellor combination takes on a life of its own, a hybrid model bringing out the worst in both. So while I am devastated to have lost a client, I am delighted to regain my son. I wish him the best of luck, I believe in him and I know that he can do it, and I am by his side for whatever emotional and logistical support he needs. As for him, I think he’s just happy to have his mother back.

On making the journey to the other side

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We all come in shades of grey, but life comes in technicolor!

“Learn from the mistakes of others…You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” Truer words vindicating parenthood have never been spoken. So much so, that many people have taken credit for this quote whose source, I admit, remains a mystery to me. 

Still, after almost two years of absence, I am not here to dwell on my mistakes. Nor do they all fit in a blog post. Since I last wrote, I have achieved many things. I have moved countries, built a new home, set up an educational consulting business, managed to stay married, sent another son off to university and am eagerly awaiting the graduation of another. 

Looking back on these last two years, it feels as if I have covered some rough terrain. I made it to the other side. The men in my life have also made tremendous milestones. In the hope that they will one day share their learnings with me, I offer some of my own acquired knowledge that has helped me along my own journey.

Learning 1: We all need help. 

Accept it. Ask for it. Give it.

I grew up in a family and a society where asking for help was a sign of weakness. Asking for help meant you were not able enough to do it yourself. You were somehow lacking, not strong enough, not worthy of validation. Asking for help was, therefore, not a means of connection but a cause for shame. But just like you cannot do open heart surgery on yourself, or reach that one specific point in the middle of your back, sometimes there are things that we simply cannot do alone. Sometimes we need that extended hand to help us get up when we fall. When offered help, take it graciously. Whether it is a cousin chauffeuring your kid to school, or your mother-in-law cooking you a meal, or a cleaner coming to vacuum your house, or a coach, we all need crutches we can lean on in times of overwhelm. People are happy to help, accepting their offer when they do, and asking them when they don’t (remember that sometimes they are also overwhelmed) is a sign that you value a relationship with them. Offer your help when you can. Everyone suffers. It is not a weakness, it is human nature. Suffering is part of the growth process. We are all stronger together.

Learning 2: Strengthen your core. 

Literally and figuratively. 

Life has a talent for throwing you curveballs. You will dodge some of them, but you won’t be able to dodge all of them. Sometimes you’re just going to have to take the hit. The stronger your core, the better you will be able to navigate troubled times. Get in touch with yourself, understand who you are and what you value. Figure out your principles and stand by them. Once you are anchored within yourself, you will better be able to get back on an even keel after a storm has rocked your boat. On the physical level, a strong core will keep you standing straight when the ground under your feet is shaking (best tested on a moving train) and keep your bones from bending (literally). 

Lesson 3: You make your own choices. 

Make them wisely. Then own them.

While it may sometimes feel counterintuitive, we always have a choice. Leaving our home, our friends and our loved ones is a choice to adopt a better life. Sometimes it is a safer life that we seek, or a life where we feel we will better thrive, or maybe just survive. By understanding our values and what matters to us, we are able to make better choices or perhaps more importantly, to stick by them. We have choices in what we think, as we have choices in what we see. In our relationships—with ourselves as with others—we may choose to see the good or the bad. Both of them are inherently present in all of us. Despite what the fairy tales tell us, there is no absolute good or evil, no black or white. We all come in varying—and perpetually evolving—shades of grey. We decide which shade we see.

Learning 4: Keep your dogs close and your creativity closer.

In the last few turbulent years (Oh! Did I mention the big M?), I have kept a few constants that have truly helped me. My dogs are a constant reminder of the very basics of a good life: love, food, sleep, warmth, outdoor walks, physical touch and play. Exercise has literally kept me moving and music has moved me, to tears and to laughter. It has kept me connected. But perhaps what I have valued the most has been my curiosity and my ensuing creativity: my constant desire to learn, to experiment, and to evolve. 

Pets, exercise, music and creativity. These four things will never leave you and will never disappoint you. Appreciate them, nurture them and indulge them. I know that in my case, they have kept me living with gratitude, and most importantly, they have kept me sane.

Open letter to my three boys

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Notwithstanding that you are a miracle from heaven and that there is nothing in this world I care about more than your health and safety and happiness, notwithstanding that I would rather die than see any of you in misery, I feel it is nevertheless necessary that I share with you these few tips that should make for smoother relations in the years to come.

Tip #1

You will not ask the same question twice. Ever. Listen to the answer the first time.

Tip #2

“But why Mom?” is now officially banned lexicon.

Tip #3

You will not, ever, complain about the food on the table. You may choose to eat it or to leave it, but you will not complain about it. You will not play with it either.

Tip #4

You will finish your homework, it is a favor to yourselves, not to me.

Tip #5

“In a sec” will, from now on, be replaced by “yes sure.” Preferably “yes ma’am.”

Tip #6

I have a face and it can make expressions, so please address all talk to me and not to your screen. It doesn’t love you as much as I do.

Tip #7

Trips abroad are a luxury and not a given. So is eating out.

Tip #8

Yes you will have to work, save up, and buy your own car.

Tip #9

You will stop using my plugs, wires, pens and everything else that belongs to me. Should you need something urgently, you will ask me. More importantly, you will put it back.

Tip #10

You will learn to rely on yourselves and take care of your own affairs so you can become able, confident, young men.

For the night is dark and full of terrors.

Tip #11

I will tend to your issue as soon as I possibly can. I am ignoring you only because I am trying to focus on something else right now.

Tip #12

I am able to carry two conversations, talk and listen to two people at the same time, but I choose not to.

Tip #13

You will go after what you want, you will not wait for it to come to you.

Tip #14

The answer to “Why Mom?” is “Because.” The answer to “But why Mom?” is still “Because.” But anyway if you go back to tip no.2 you will see that “but why mom?” is banned anyway.

With love,

Mom.

P.S. No I will not be writing a similar letter to the dog because the dog cannot read!

On raising dogs…and boys

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There are two kinds of people in this world: those who like dogs and those who don’t. Some would claim that they are indifferent, or ambivalent, but that is not true. They just haven’t bothered to really sort through their feelings on the subject yet. I used to think that I was indifferent to dogs until I had my own—not too different from my boys actually–and then I realized that I liked them. I like them a lot.

Then there is a small splinter group: those who say they like dogs in general, just not my dog. My dog, apparently, is too boisterous, too big, too brown, too friendly, too intrusive, too jumpy and too talkative. They would rather, they claim, that my dog kept a safe distance from them, better yet, ignore them.

I had even had the occasional claim that I let my dog, a female chocolate Labrador, get away with things I would never let my kids get away with. That is true. Naturally, I would rather my boys not chew bones, eat dead rats, rub themselves against slugs or sniff other people’s butts in greeting.

My point is this: a person is a person and a dog is a dog. It would be better and easier for both species if hey were not equated. Yet if you were to read Karen Pryor’s excellent book Reaching the Animal Mind, you would understand that there are many similarities when it comes to communicating with animals and people.

And yet so many people still do not know how to communicate or interact with dogs. They either fear them, causing their heart rates to rise and the dog to run to them in aid, which further raises their heart rate, or they run away from them, prompting the dog into a much-loved game of tag. Or they keep looking at the dog and telling it to go away, engaging the dog in conversation—dogs, as you know, cannot talk. They bark.

One thing that people, in my environment at least, do not seem to understand is that you simply have to ignore the dog—not engage with it in any way. Keep going about your business and it will understand. Believe me.

Because when dogs are communicated to properly, they understand. They understand faster than people do. They certainly understand faster than my kids do! For over ten years now I have been trying to teach my boys to say please when they want something, to eat properly and to raise the toilet seat when they need to pee and lower it back down again of course. Ten years and they still have not learned these basic skills. My dog, on the other hand, who is only three, knew from the age of six months to sit for her food. She slurps her whole plate clean without making a mess and knows not to pee except in certain places!

But there is another secret to dogs. Dogs have no shame, no pride and no ego. That makes dealing with then a lot easier than dealing with people. And most of the time they are more fun.

The problem my dog seems to have is that she is too friendly. She believes that everyone she meets either wants to be her friend or they need rescuing because they are in distress. Her only fault, it seems, is that she is being herself. An ideal that, according, to Caroline McHugh, founder and CEO of IDology, a movement dedicated to helping individuals and organizations be fully deployed, original versions of themselves, we should all be striving for. You can watch Caroline’s excellent TED talk here.

My dog, it seems, is not as well trained as my kids. Therefore she has not yet learned to think, and judge, and be critical and cynical. She is still primitive, asking for, and giving in return, love, companionship and comfort. My dog lets me be (except when I’m on my home trainer, in which case she runs to help!), accepts me for who I am and I, indeed, plan on returning the favor.

Although I will concede that her habit of snatching scarves and jackets is very annoying. We are working on that.

Of boys and noise

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When I was a young girl, I used to be partially deaf in one ear. I didn’t know that of course, but everyone else did.

My siblings knew because they would whisper to me when I wasn’t looking and see how long it took to get my attention. Finally, my mother, having given up on my siblings’ rudimentary way of testing, confirmed the diagnosis in a dim and humid doctor’s clinic. I was ten years old.

My mother at the time, bless her, had no idea that I would eventually end up living with four boys and that being partially deaf in one ear may actually be a good thing.

Because living with boys as anyone will tell you, is noisy. Doors don’t close, they bang. They don’t unlock, they’re wrenched open. Conversations are not had, they’re shouted across rooms and corridors. My boys are teenagers now, so they’re quite hormonal and so there’s a lot of shouting and screaming going on.

Then there are the musical instruments of course. The piano, played only with the foot constantly to the pedal, and the bass. And the drums. The drums played without the silencing pads.

And the music that stays on long after the premises have been vacated. Music is always in the background.

Boys also like to watch noisy things: a football match with all the cacophony of the stadium, action movies with long car chases and noisy exhausts, war movies. All with the volume pitched high.

And then there’s Big Boy Number One, of course. My husband loves to watch replays of football matches he’s already seen a couple of times already. If his favored team had actually won, I get treated to replays and commentary on television, tablet, phone…Location doesn’t matter either: bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, living room…it all works. This doesn’t bother me, I have to admit, except when I’m trying to read or I’m concentrating on something else, happily and quietly in my bed, in which case the commentary becomes quite a distraction.

Especially if it’s in German.

(Neither my husband nor I speak or understand German.)

And here’s an observation I made the other day. Boys don’t notice when a sound is too high, only when it’s too low. My eldest son recently joined the school choir and we were, naturally, invited to watch his first concert. It was really great to go and watch his lips move.

“How did you like it?” he asked me hopefully at the end.

“I liked it a lot though I would have liked it even more if I had heard you,” I replied, “your father was complaining that he couldn’t hear you at all! You sing louder than that when you sing alone at home,” I tried, wanting to offer one positive-sounding comment at least.

“Yes well, we were asked to keep it soft and melodious,” he explained.

“Well maybe that’s the problem,” I said. “Next time keep it loud…and try singing in German.”

Of Boys and Temporospatial Difficulties

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When it comes to any kind of time or space assessment, boys suck. The passage of time and distance between two places is totally arbitrary and changes according to the movement of the earth and the moon, circumstances, hormones, weather…who knows?
Two of the most blatant examples of temporospatial difficulty that boys exhibit are when they shout “Mooooooooommmmmmm” across three rooms, or when they decide to have an important conversation with you, from behind the shower door, even though you have explained, on numerous prior occasions that you cannot hear anything above the noise of the water (this might signal a comprehension problem that we will deal with later, alternatively you can refer to my post on hearing and listening.

Recently, I attended an exercise class where the trainer, a very sweet big boy, had particular difficulties with space and time assessment. He had arranged a circuit where we are supposed to spend a minute at each station and complete two circuits before we got to rest for two minutes and then doing the same thing again with another circuit. As we were 6, that would mean a total of 12 minutes for the first circuit, 12 minutes for the second and a 2-minute break, so a total of 26 minutes of intense exercise that would be accompanied by a 5-minute warm-up and a 5-minute cool down. A total 36 minutes to fit within a 1-hour session.

He didn’t manage. The whole session was an awkward 63 minutes long. Most of us participants completed 1.3 to 1.7 of the first circuit and 2.2 to 2.5 of the second circuit, spending 38 seconds at one station, 75 seconds on another…the whole thing was a total mishmash of time and space interwoven with shouts of “Go!”, “Stop!”, “Rest”, “Again”, intermittently. We came out sweaty, but we were not exactly sure what we did. Or why.
Another example of a space/time problem that I know my boys struggle with is messaging. My husband and I sent our boys to camp recently and had set up a family chat for that purpose. I don’t think I need to say much more than what is below.

Home, 9:36 PM: “How’s everybody doing?”
Home, 9:55 PM: “Hello?”

Camp, 11:06 PM: “Hello””We were not free”

Home, 11:06 PM: “OK, everything going well?”

Silence…s…s…s…s…s…s…s

But the best illustration has to be:
11:03 PM, 4,823km away: “Mom, can you tell Nik [his brother] and his friends to stop bothering me?”

Boys, you’ve got to love them. Because if you don’t, no one else will.

Of Boys and Ocarinas

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An ocarina is an ancient wind musical instrument that sounds like a flute but isn’t. And that is exactly what happened with the ocarina that my eldest son, Big Boy Number Two, ordered. It sort of arrived but didn’t.

I’ll explain. But not too much as it gets confusing because there are too many foreign-sounding names like Zelda and Ocarina of time and Nintendo and Koji Kondo…In any case, suffice it to know that Zelda is quite the cult figure in the world of YouTuber musicians and any musician worth his clout should have an ocarina it seems.

When my son came to me and mentioned that he would like to buy an ocarina, at first I thought he was interested in breeding baby killer whales, but it turns out he just wanted to try another musical instrument. At first I was delighted because it meant I wouldn’t have to hear every single version of every single Zelda song (believe me there are many) on the piano anymore as the ocarina seemed small enough to fit in his room.

This having been said, having just bought a bass guitar complete with amplifier and lessons, I suggested maybe we share the cost of this particularly new contraption (I am also trying to teach certain money management skills and failing miserably but more on that later.)

Unhappy with the fact that he had to pay, he turned to his father, my husband, Big Boy Number One.

And the ocarina got lost in transit.

Now, the great thing about living with boys is that when something goes wrong, you, the woman become the most important person in their lives. And so it was that my son came to me and asked me to track and trace his lost ocarina.

I was busy at that particular moment and suggested to him that he go on the relevant website and type in the tracking number given to him by the seller. He looked at me blankly. I repeated, a little more slowly, but that didn’t seem to help much. I reiterated, getting a little more agitated by now. My agitation must have rubbed on him because he finally started jumping in his seat:
“I can’t do it, I can’t do it! I don’t know how! What are you saying?! Can’t you please just do it for me?!”

And he knew, at that point I think, what he had just done and his blank look suddenly turned to comprehension. His eyes pleaded with me but it was too late, mentally I was already composing my post. Still, I explained.

“You realize I am so blogging about this, right?”

In my defense, and in compensation for material, I did find the ocarina and it is now safely on its way home. Big Boy Number One is traveling and was not available for comment at the time of writing.

On living with 10-year olds

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If you have a 10-year old go hug him now. If you don’t know where he is, go find him and hug him. If he’s not at home wait for him by the door and when he walks in hug him. If he’s sleeping go wake him up and hug him.

Hug him like your life depends on it.

Because it does.

Your 10-year old will never show you his love like he does now, will never want to play Monopoly with you like he does now, will never seek your approval like he does now, will never ask for your attention like he does now, will never cry when you travel like he does now, will never ask to sleep with you when he’s scared like he does now.

Very soon your 10-year old will no longer be 10.

His voice will break and his hair will grow. His shoulders will widen and so will his feet. His laughter will soon lose its innocence and so will he. He will always love you, but he will never love you like he loves you today.

So if you have a 10-year old, go hug him now. Hug him like your life depends on it because it does.

Hug him tight because your 10-year old will never be 10 again.

And if you have a girl you can hug her too. Hug her and pray her feet don’t grow too wide!

 

On boys and sailboats…and jealousy

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A great thing about living with boys is that, should you choose to be, you can be invisible. My husband and I spend most of our time communicating via WhatsApp and messaging. We love each other dearly, we send each other articles we’ve read and that we’ve liked, podcasts, images…we love each other through our screens.

My older boys, similarly, are on screens either conducting their own on-screen love affairs or playing games. Sometimes, conveniently, we forget that we are under the same roof, each enjoying our own on-screen time in our own chosen room.

I have to say the only one who still really loves me is my 10 year-old. He’s the only one who still looks at me and wants my attention and every now and again I have to give him a screen so he can lay off the questions and I can get my thoughts down. I know I’ll regret it one day, but I may not even live to one day so I’ll deal with it when I get there.

For now, we all live in a state of mutual love and disregard.

Which is probably how my husband, Big Boy number one, imagined the conversation would go one morning a few years back when he was telling me about a new acquaintance he had met on one of his recent trip abroad, while I was checking my e-mail, on-screen.

“He’s a great guy,” he said, “really bright, you’ll like him. I’ll arrange for you to meet him.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, with little enthusiasm. I had enough boys in my life, I figured I could do without one more.

“He works for…I’ve got to reply to this e-mail now…very competent…did I arrange for boy number two to get picked up…a graduate of…”

“Uh-huh.” I’ve got to order my groceries.

“He’s planning a trip in the Mediterranean,” uh-huh, “on his sailboat.”

We are more like our dogs than we think.

My ears perked up.

At that time, probably after reading one self-help book or another, I had decided that I will try everything that remotely interested me and promptly took up sailing. I loved it, bought the requisite books and fancied myself a sailor despite my having only sailed a Laser 4, slowly. A mildly competent windsurfer would have beaten me at any race. Still, I had a certificate and I sailed boats, albeit small ones. Anyone with a sailboat was my friend.

I think it was my sudden enthusiasm that threw him off-guard.

“Oh wow!” I exclaimed. “This guy sounds amazing! I’ve got to meet him! You’ve got to introduce me!

Mike, I continued, this guy has to become our friend!”

Somehow I wasn’t so invisible anymore.

“Well,” said my husband, “he’s not that great.”

“What do you mean he’s not that great? Just a second ago he was a brilliant, interesting,  bright guy, a sailor no less, and now that he’s caught my interest he’s not that great?”

“Well, he’s a bit of a geek.”

I reminded him that our eldest son was a bit of a geek and yet we still loved him.

“He’s not that kind of geek.”

“Well what kind of geek is he? Is there more than one kind?”

The answer was not forthcoming. The subject was promptly closed and I was never introduced to my would-be best friend. His subject would never come up again.

I asked my husband about him a couple of times since that conversation, but it was too late, I had become invisible again.

 

On living with boys…and a dog

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Farts, fights, burps, hours in the toilet and clothes on the floor, what’s not to like?

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the mother or the resident dog but my husband says he wants that role. So I am the head culinary director, chief transportation manager, headmistress, chief hygiene officer, personal shopper and party planner. In my spare time I work.

I think my husband’s right, better to be the dog.

This is now of course. ‘Tis was not always thus. I remember once having a fight with my husband when our kids were still babies and toddlers, during which he expressed his displeasure at feeling as if he were not a husband and a father but “sometimes I feel like I’m just the dog in this house.”

That was before we got the dog.

In February 2014, Molly Gru (as in Despicable Me-best movie ever made) landed in our midst. Well, more like arrived in a box. I was immediately smitten. Here was the girl I never had! so what if she stood on four legs? MG was cute, small, furry and adored me. And I adored her back, much to everyone’s consternation. Plus she barked at anyone who upset me. What more could a girl ask for? Finally the attention I craved in a house of navel-gazers.

Two and a half years post Molly Gru entering our lives and still in mutual adoration, I reminded my husband of that conversation some years back.

“Now that you see how I treat the dog,” I said, “don’t you wish you had actually been the dog?” He was quiet. He was sad. With a wistful smile I saw him turn around and grab a tissue. I’m pretty sure he was shedding a tear or two.