Being a Parent (Through the eyes of an adult child)

I lost my Dad a week today and I guess I am doing what every member of my family is doing, I am reflecting upon every aspect of our lives together.  Possibly, in an attempt to redefine my sense of self and purpose.

I am single and without children, so what gives me the right to explore parenthood and its meaning?  On the other hand, why not?  My sense of detachment may help me to discover why it is still important for some couples to produce offspring, progeny for future generations.

When I think back to my childhood, I reflect upon the trouble I periodically caused for my parents, the fights with my sister and occasionally, illness.  This is the same in most families.  There are good days and bad days.  So I selfishly return to the question, why do some couples choose to have children?

I have seen positive models of parenthood.  Those couples happily in love who choose to have children to extend their family life and additionally their happiness.  Interestingly, these couples are not always married, so I think that the institution of marriage should no longer be considered as a prerequisite for long term happiness.  It can be but should not be seen as necessary.  The children consequently grow up to mirror the parents and are perhaps, more inclined to have children in the future.  These children are likely to uphold the values of their parents.

Conversely, I have seen extremely negative models of parenthood.  Although, bear in mind, these are simply value judgements on my part based on sporadic incidents.  These include and are not limited to, parents who place their children on a pedestal and give them everything to satisfy the avaricious tendency of some children (but to be fair to the children, they are normally simply mirroring the tendencies of the parents.  Conspicuous consumption is rife in Western societies).  Also those parents who hit their children because they 'cannot control them'.  Sadly, this phrase is still used.  My conception of decent parenting does not involve acting like a puppeteer, manoeuvring each limb and informing every decision made by the child.  It's about helping to instill values and allowing a degree of freedom to learn what is acceptable and what will have repercussions.

The ideal parent is like any human being capable of making mistakes but is available to help the child when needed.  A support, a friend, a teacher and most of all, a force for good.  I feel through experience that single parent families are as encouraging and nurturing as families with two parents.

I want to salute all parents for their strengths and weaknesses.  Will I ever become a parent?  Who knows, but I want to thank my parents for making me what I am.  I will learn who I am one day too.  They have helped to inform that aspect of my personality too.

                                                                              Barry Watt - 10th January 2015.    

The Magenta Manifesto - Learning to Cope with the Myth of the New

You know how it is every year around the start of December, pondering what to do on New Year's Eve?  You don't, good for you!

I dislike New Year with a passion.  It's like the flamboyant partner of Christmas with its glitzy dress and disheveled make-up.  Religion is left outside the pub with a glass of lemonade and a coloring book.

My primary objection to New Year is the societal push to do something with both the evening before it and the 365 days which succeed it.  It's not new.  It is a continuation. Change can happen at any point, not just at the cuddly stroke of midnight with the crashing of ceremonial fireworks, so intrinsically tied up with Guy Fawkes and his failed attempt at prematurely closing Parliament within the UK culture, that it's difficult to foresee anything positive in the act of igniting small explosions.

I have been suckered in the past into trying to make resolutions.  The notion of resolutions imply an end goal and just a general sense of finality.  But our lives are not that straightforward.  Curbing natural desires or indeed, throwing out the big concepts in the hope that somehow they may be realised, is just a futile endeavor.  You can't find true love simply by wishing for it.  You can't stop drinking or smoking through the dainty act of writing down the request, as though it were a mantra.

Each New Year becomes for many a period of introspection and reflection.  This can be both positive and negative.  Considering what has been lost and gained may provide the necessary impetus to pick yourself up and 'start again' or more accurately, drop what is holding you back and move in a different direction.

As I lay here now reflecting on the last year, I have experienced the loss of two friends, prematurely through illness and a growing realisation of how much people mean to me.

In 2015, I can only advise myself and others to regard it not as some wonderful solution, but instead as part of a cycle.  Artificial time marked by equinoxes.  You can't control everything, yet neither can everything be ascribed to fate or some other divinity depending upon your beliefs.

My challenge to you all and only you can answer this honestly, is to determine how much you have achieved in the previous year.  Have you been as good a human being as you wished?  Can you contemplate things getting better either through individual effort or with assistance?  Will 2015 become the year when you value yourself as much as others value you?

If you get nothing else from my diatribe, please remember that whatever happens this year, logical or not, the bungee rope ain't broken yet.

                                                               Barry Watt - Wednesday 31st December 2014.