This photo was taken almost 40 years ago! And when looking for a suitable photo for today’s blog on Mindful Parenting I came across it and thought it illustrates perfectly what I want to say today. The older child, is me.. almost 40 years ago! When I turned 21 my Dad said from now on you’ll find time goes so much faster. He was right. This parenting caper we think will never end when they’re toddlers and primary school kids, goes at lightning speed once they hit the teen years. For my parents they don’t just wonder where the 18 years of our childhoods went, but where that last 40 years went! And as our own kids near their teen years or enter them we begin to think have I taught them all they need to know, there’s still so much more they need to learn for the real world, have I prepared them enough.
In Australia we have 25% of our population living in poverty! (Oh wow this blog took a hard core turn! Did not see that coming!). The Poverty In Australia Report (2016) states that 17.4% of all children (under 18) were living in poverty in Australia in 2013-2014. For single parent homes that rose to 40%! And that was an increase from the 2003 to 2004 period!
“More than 730,000 children live in poverty
(one child in six). In single-parent families,
four children in ten now live in poverty.
After 25 years of uninterrupted economic
growth, we can do better than this!”
David Morawetz, Australian Communities Foundation (Social Justice Fund)
One major way this stops and corrects itself is to break the cycle (you may have seen me use #breakthecycle a fair bit, it’s so close to my heart). And how do we do that?
It starts at home. It starts with making different choices for ourselves and our kids. We can blame the education system all we like but the harsh truth is real life lessons should be learnt and taught at home. Sadly, many adults do not know how to get themselves out of poverty or are unable to and therefore are unable to role model and teach this to their own kids. (Obviously I”m not talking about people with significant disabilities (mental or physical)).
Mindful parenting is the idea of raising your kids in a purposeful way. On top of all the extra curricular activities and being a ‘kid’, it’s about implementing things in the home that teach them life skills and more importantly money skills and strategies that will help them stay out of poverty.
Your kids only get one childhood. it goes by so fast. My parents look at the above photo from almost 40 years ago and wonder where the years have gone, let alone the 18 or so we had as our childhoods. Parents, we’re all doing our best to make them memorable, but we also need to focus on making our kids childhoods and teen years purposeful and ready for real life so they can not just survive, but thrive. THIS is how we break the cycle, together.
Of course I can’t let the opportunity go without plugging my book “Beyond School: Practical Tips for Teens” which may have some great information for parents too who perhaps had parents themselves who couldn’t pass a lot of real life skills and knowledge on to you. Sixteen chapters of guidance, advice and tips on succeeding in the real world. Only $10. If you know someone who’d benefit why not buy a copy and gift it to them, maybe even anonymously if you’re worried how they’ll react. TOGETHER we CAN break the cycle!
You may have also noticed a name change from Mentor Mumma to Parenting Australia. I felt the latter was more encompassing. If you haven’t joined our online group yet please do so HERE
Happy New Year. I have such a great feeling about 2018. Let’s make it fun and full of adventure for our kidlets and ourselves but most of all, let’s make it purposeful for them, and ourselves – we all deserve it. Together, we WILL break the cycle!
Love
Jo
Where are all the mums? I see photo after photo of family outtings, kid’s achievements, school excursions/discos/sports days/fun runs/dress ups, family adventures, husband and partners, sunsets and bush scenes, food omg sooo many food snaps, and yet there are very few mums turning up in photos, still. I know someone wrote an article on this topic a few years ago and yet mum’s you are still not putting yourselves in the picture.
This photo above had us in stitches. Led to sooo many family jokes and hysterical laughter outbursts as we named our chins, worked out who had the most, worked out who had the best arms for selfies, discussed if nose hair or chins were more embarrassing and all agreed, both together would! Yep, we are crazy at times but geez it’s fun. The point is, kids don’t care what YOU look like, it’s fun for them for you to be in them, and should be important to you to be in them for your kids future selves.
Memories of course. And social media. But whose memories? Not just ours but our kids as well. There will come a day, hopefully in another 60 years or so when we parents will no longer walk this earth and all our kids, grandkids and great grandkids will have are their memories, and these are embelished by ………. yep you guessed it, photos. (I’m sure technology will create something else in the future but for the past 100 years and even now, photos are still the main thing). So put yourself back in the picture, as often as you can. How about for every three photos of the kids you put yourself in the fourth? And if you are putting yourselves in heaps of family pics, yayyyyyy #soproud #gogirl #awesome
Can I let you in on a little secret? Your kids don’t care that you are X amount of Kilograms under or overweight. They don’t care that your hair is ‘too curly, too straight, too dry, too oily, too … ‘, they don’t care if you’re short, tall, in a wheelchair, on crutches, fat, skinny, old, young, got a pimple, having a bad hair day, etc etc. Or that you take a family selfie showing your three chins.. okay maybe they care about that because they can do it sooooo much better, apparently 😉 They love you unconditionally! #mindblown and when you hand them their childhood photos and they’re looking at them when you’ve moved on in life or they’ve moved away from home and are missing you and their childhood, or any number of reasons we find ourselves looking at old photo albums, or online albums or whatever, they will ask “Where’s Mum?” “Why is she not in any or many of these photos? Teach them about self love by loving yourself enough to put yourself in the picture. Do it for your kids, put yourself in the picture.
You might THINK it’s all about them, but really it’s about your journey too, and for them, their journey WITH you.
Put yourself in the picture, for THEM.
My kids laugh at my inability to take a decent selfie. It’s become a family joke, so often we’ll take a really crappy mum family selfie then the kids with longer arms will do the ‘decent’ family selfie but guess which one we bond more over, laugh more over and usually choose as our social media or canvas (for the wall) photos? Yep, mum’s crazy family selfie that has us ALL in it.
Get creating memories you can all look back on and enjoy together, laugh at together.
Now, I have to work out how on earth I’m going to manage my 283gb of photos I have stored on Dropbox and about another 70gb on my hard drive. Any suggestions?
Have you joined our Facebook group? If not, come on over and join likeminded parents HERE
Have a great week and start putting yourself in the picture more, for you and for your kids.
Love,
Jo