This might be a question for parents. If asking for a friend were walking my dog and let’s say there was flooding, If I saw your children unsupervised by their parents. That would be you, not me. You they who had these children. What if said children were out in said flooding areas and I want to know would it be up to me to rescue your children if they were at risk of drowning?
Or at what point would it be acceptable if I yelled at them to deter them from potential mishaps? Keeping in mind, I got the version of child I could manage, and my recent new addition now a full year old and officially no longer a kitten, has taught me I would have been a yelling parent. The kids I didn’t have are so lucky because while Freddie doesn’t pay attention, I’m good at yelling.
I remember, asking for a friend. I was discussing this scenario earlier with someone who was in the above potential scenario. We all know the moral and ethical answer. However, nobody wants to get in trouble for yelling at somebody else’s child. So, feel free to comment and provide feedback.
In the early days of having hellonwheels, I was fangin’ it through a park in Clifton Hill on Hoddle Street when I saw two young kids playing on piles of bark chips. I stopped to talk to them. I quietly told them I knew it was fun but maybe they should try not to spread it all over the grass and keep it to the designated garden bed. From out of nowhere, grandma hung up her phone to and stormed over to ask me what was wrong? I told her nothing was wrong and repeated the above to her and she took her two young grandchildren away. Which had not been my intent.
So Happy Mother’s Day, this should go for Fur-Mothers Too. As it seems I forgot to have kids, or did I? To be continued.
As Single Barren Spinster we know the last thing parents of actual little humans is unsolicited advice from someone who has not spawned a baby. However please read this whole post to get the context to this brilliant parenting advice.
Last Monday I had an adventure to a shopping complex my carers and I call The Bad Lands/Knife Land. After a few purchases I visited the bathroom near a food court. Upon exiting to leave I could hear a screaming child. Immediately making my ovaries dry up. My eyes wild I searched for my carer to communicate to her to get me the hell away from that screaming child. Then we encountered said child and I felt awful. Said child and mum were sitting on the floor. The Mum trying to console her three or four year old daughter. She had run headfirst into a glass door then slid over. Probably in her own blood. I would guess this family, including the father standing nearby not knowing how to help were Indian. Another Indian woman was behind the mum on the floor looking on assessing the situation. I pegged her as staff of the shopping complex. She looked to be assessing if they should call an ambulance. She was looking to the Mum to make the decision. I made eye contact with the staff member hoping she read my non-verbal communication, as “Call an Ambulance!” Here’s the unsolicited advice? “If there are inconsolable tears and blood? Call an ambulance!” It’s not wrong though, is it?
I imagine the Mum had big plans that day and probably didn’t have the time to be waiting in a hospital emergency. But that little girl needed glue. They don’t do stitches these days and I suggest this because guess whose birthday it was that day? WORST BIRTHDAY EVER! She was going to have a scar from that memory.
Now, before you judge me for jumping the gun, take this into consideration. My father’s passing bought family from New South Wales and Queensland I either don’t see very often or haven’t seen since I was 18. Nice work Dad. My youngest cousin has a sixteen month old and her fiancé was sitting next to me at a catch up dinner around Boxing Day. He outsourced babysitting to another young second cousin, I would guess twelve. This was so he could eat dinner and so could his wife to be. The second five minutes of outsourcing babysitting the toddler was returned with a confession, “She had fallen over and hit her head!” Dad was brilliantly dismissive, with a “Don’t worry about it! Is she crying or bleeding?” I complimented him for this and I was informed “Ain’t my first rodeo!” (He has older children) I’m just saying they breed them tough in Queensland.
Lastly, I may not have had children, so people generally dismiss any advice I offer but people forget or don’t know I’ve been the older sibling to two younger sisters, the first of which was born on my 8th birthday. I used to bath her and do nappy duty. My second youngest sister I was studying full time, working part-time and still doing serious babysitting duties. I was then 16, it’s not only actual birth mothers that do the heavy lifting.
This is my fur-baby, Mika! She is desperate not to be a Lap Cat. She is very close on the back of the couch.
Ironically, a few years ago I was at a market in a neighbouring suburb and after a purchase from a regular store I’ve frequented for about fifteen years, the woman said goodbye, by wishing me a happy Mother’s Day. I was a little startled and told her I wasn’t a mother, she had said it the same way people might finish a sale by saying “Merry Christmas” or such. She was very, “Oh, that’s OK” about wishing me (not a mother) a happy Mother’s Day.
In reality, I’ve had two younger sisters, one now twenty-eight. Whose nappies I’ve changed and baths I’ve given, but I’ve never had children and certain me having is not going to happen. For a few years I also took on the role of step-mum, but that also wasn’t a scenario I was given any credit for and Mother’s Day has just come and gone and I’ve found I’ve been influencing a younger generation in the last ten years, since my disability, with the young carers I’ve had. I haven’t had many young carers, but at the moment I’ve two carers who are half my age.
HALF!
And I’m finding myself doing a cross between parenting and mentoring. That’s my weird term Pentoring, I’ve matched together for it.
One chick, is one of sixteen children and her mother is present and a good mum, however this young lady has the bratty behaviour of a child who has not much reason for discipline and hasn’t been taught to ask for things, she just helped herself. I’ve had to implement the rule “Helen’s house! Helen’s rules!” when I’ve hit a brick wall having her to do things in my home and don’t worry. I turn my back and she goes and does things exactly how she wants to do it.
The other young carer I have right now is finding her way and I have many, many suggestions and much wisdom to share. She has had a very different situation growing up and while I can offer her these things, I can’t enable her by doing it for her.
I confess to say PUBLIC ATTITUDE towards people with disabilities has always annoyed me. Even before I had my disability.
I’ve been with a carer shopping at a local market. Said carer at the time was desperately in need of a hip replacement so I helped her lift my shopping from the shopping trolley to her car boot.
A guy walked past with his two young impressionable children, his other half trailing behind and he decided to share his opinion that we did not look disabled and should not have been in a disabled car park. I pointed out to him we had the correct signage to allow us to park there and that it was approved by council in which I lived and my application supported by my doctors, you know the actual people with the appropriate credentials to make such decisions.
Ironically, he was a parent who had taken his kids to the local pub close by before midday and no one thought to work out if he was qualified to be a parent.
