Waffle On

Smallsteps and I dropped her mum to some dance class with friends and then had an hour and a half to kill. On the recommendation of a local (since we were in a different part of the region), we ended up at a café that had gluten-free waffles, so whiled away the time together eating and chatting. She has been asking some more complex questions lately and one of them took me by surprise, as she asked how my siblings reacted when I got very ill as a teen. I wasn't expecting that and it came out of nowhere, so I guess she has been thinking about it.

I assume that most parents have in-depth chats about these kinds of things with their kids, but at the same time, I am pretty unsure also. Some of the parents I know don't necessarily seem the heart to heart kind of people and take parenting as more the "roof over the head and food in the stomach" approach, but it is impossible to really know for sure. At least in my case, I am glad that Smallsteps feels comfortable talking about a lot of different topics with me, and then she talks other things with her mother too. Sometimes, I try to plant some uncomfortable conversations that she can have with her mother, just for the fun of it.

Not that I mind uncomfortable conversations.

I don't know if she will remember having these conversations, but I don't remember having them with my parents, especially my mother, until I was much older. I think my parents were just too busy with their own things to spend the kind of time Smallsteps and I spend together, and it was also a different time culturally, where parents didn't spend that much time with their kids anyway. I used to have some good conversations with my dad once I was an adult, but even those were few and far between.

Raising kids has changed a lot over the years, and I don't think all of it is for the better. I reckon kids these days are feel more entitled without having to earn access, and they don't have a lot of respect for the world at large. Just the other day I was walking with a friend and he was commenting on all the trash that he sees kids drop out of car windows and the like. That was not a thing when he and I were a kid, it was always in a bin - because you know, the environment. I feel a lot of young people today believe something about themselves because they have been told it, but their behaviours do not live up to that expectation.

My daughter however might be too conscientious if that makes sense, as she is unwilling to break any rules, even when we as parents say it is okay. For instance today whilst we were walking the dog, we passed a new house being built which only has the first part of the foundations in, and I wanted to show her what it looks like. So I walked into the property (about five meters) to the concrete, and she wouldn't follow me. She stood there at the driveway, even though I said it was alright. After a couple minute discussion of me assuring her it was fine, she finally came in and had a look.

Rules are for losers.

Every parent wants their kids to follow rules and there is definitely a time and place, but in my view, the most important part of rules is knowing when to break them, because without breaking the accepted paradigm, we keep supporting the status quo. The status quo is leading us down a terrible path with an inevitable end - rules need to be broken. Currently, the only ones breaking rules are those in power who are doing so to cement more power for themselves, but it is us who have to break the rules, and stop supporting the status quo beneficiaries.

I am hoping that in time my daughter will live more like jazz music, where the rules create structure and a foundation, but it is in how they are broken that brings the music to life. Hopefully she will find ways to be able to break the rules, and make a rich and colourful life for herself that gives her experiences she will cherish and appreciate, rather than take for granted.

For now though, I am just happy talking over waffles and enjoying her offering me some before she even starts, so I can turn them down. Though at this point I know, she isn't going to finish it and I will get the leftovers anyway.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]

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