Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Motherhood Page 16 of 18

Unconditional Acceptance? Is What You Make Of It

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On June 8, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

If clouds were hunks of cheese and you’d take the biggest one, grate it and spread the shredded bits all over the sky, you’d get a milky-white cupola cradling early morning light like one does in a white tent.

That’s the sky this morning. It smells of roses and the noises from far away are dimmed down to a light buzz.

The street I walk on has old fences, shy cats, and garlands of head-heavy roses, bowing to the morning light. I like it. Two blocks more then I switch streets.

This one has been touched by inner city life more than I care to accept. Graffiti is not artsy but offensive. Dirty. Is offensive sprouting from artsy instincts? Creativity is a beast of many shades but is this one?

Cigarette butts and a few empty beer bottles guard the outside of a restaurant that has an intriguing sign in the parking lot. ‘The most amazing show on Earth.’ What, where? Is it a live show? Why not say more. I’ll leave it to remaining a mystery for now.

My walk to the library is complete. I drop the books into the slot (already two days late,) then I head back. The streets are still empty.

It is early Saturday morning. The boys were still asleep when I left the house. I like that. It is like they are left sleeping in a cocoon; they know some early mornings are for running or some quick errand and they usually wait in bed, reading. I like that too.

Today they are just about waking up; warm faces and fuzzy hair, trying to remember yet another dream forgotten in between the place between asleep and awake, the repository of lost dreams.

Since the first sleep after they were born, I’ve loved to watch them sleep and then wake up. The fluttering of eyelids, the first glimpse into the world they’ve missed a bit of during sleep. The smile that follows, an offering of their most inner being. I take it all, I am greedy that way. I like those moments of full acceptance. Arms wide open, eyes lazily hugging my face, slow paced sweet human beings returning from a world of their own and stepping into mine.

The day unfolds. They’ll move from sweet beings to wild, loud, mischievous, unkind and they’ll challenge me to bits. Again. I know they will.

Acceptance will wane during the day and I will logically remind myself of it. It is a trap, I know it is, and it is everyday learning… to accept my boys not when they shine in all that they do, not just when they’re sweet and surrendering to hugs, but when they simply are.

If I don’t accept them whole, how will they ever accept themselves?

I learn to do it every day, sometimes I fail, and then I try again.

As parents, we are stopped frozen in our tracks by memories of conditional acceptance. So did our parents. It is a bad spell that needs to be broken, yet there are no instructions. How to then?

We become more every day, and our children do too, all sides showing. We yearn for acceptance, in all that we are. Gracious, ungracious, sparkling, dull. If we’re loved, all sides show. And we become better.

A giant yellow swallowtail butterfly flutters around the front yard, a dance I perceive both indecisive and fascinating. Latter is accurate, and I will never know about the first. Assumptions can be traps sometimes. Still, I’d like to stop the butterfly. Beauty is captivating in a most primal way. That part of us never grows up, never becomes bored with seeing.

‘Mom, a wasp is eating the pollen off the daisy I gave you!’

Oh, let it. Little boy is not convinced. In his world, wasps are enemies, reputable ones.

‘No, it’s yours. I’ll chase it away.’

Don’t, look at it… The daisy is mine as much as it is the wasp’s. Or less? Wait, it is not pollen. I see legs. Do you see them?

‘Eww! Now I should chase it away?’

No. Let’s not. Daisies come with pollen and tiny spiders and sometimes wasps that eat them. It’s all that could be, and it’s real. Chase the part we don’t like away and then what?

Can we do that all the time? Chase the unwanted, the ugly, the scary, the parts we don’t understand or accept?

Life is unkind, ungracious, ugly at times, but fascinating in how it expands minds and souls. Real is all we get, if we’re ready to accept it. Real is what we grow from. Selecting but the good parts will never give you the full measure of what life is…

Half the sky has cleared up and it is blue. We sit on the porch steps, holding the glass with the one daisy, with many tiny spiders, with a wasp, with a chunk of life explaining itself, no shortcuts.

‘Mom, can you please make some pancakes? It’s Saturday.’

It is indeed. We always have pancakes on Saturday.

 

The Gardens That Grow

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On June 6, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

Will it rain? Who knows. It’s all a guessing game, though if you were to ask my dad he’d tell you it’s not. You do know, he’d say. There are signs. Humbly, you know it’s true. There are signs, you have a way to go until you learn them that’s all…

You want the rain because there’s tomatoes and spinach and garden peas that beg for it. Water is water but rain is better water, they seem to say.

Rain brings weeds also, there’s more weeds every day and less time, and you wish for a magic touch that will take them all away and make the garden clean of unwanted green. Someone once said that weeds are good, they would not flourish in bad soil. Take heart, is what they meant…

TenderBringing up children and tender crops. The same. Weeds taking over in both worlds. Screams, stomping of small feet and sulking, fights among boys too wild to know the slow art of diplomacy, and they’ll tell you being diplomatic makes you a loser… ‘cuz they know, they’re in the thick of it. Could all of that go like dandelion fluff, all the weedy dragon-like behavior and you’ll see but smiling faces, mannered boys taking turns speaking and never ever talking with their mouths full or stealing from other’s plates, no talking back… Nope. Sigh? No sigh. Joy. Nothing goes away that comes from within. Acceptance, all the struggle that children put into becoming people. The relentless struggle of tiny seedlings pushing through gritty soil.

You pull weeds, and the air is pierced by the boys’ voices. Shrills, screams, laughter, then the loud dragons again… ‘No, no, no, I am not playing with you…’

Should you step up and see about it? You call their names… Silence.

‘We’re good!’

Magic? Perhaps. They are tough, you can see their heads past the weeds just like you can see the corn rising thin and green and brave, reaching high. There’s no going back now.

Weeds, glassy skies, rags of clouds hanging lose, the world seems lazier than a sloth in the leftover heat of late afternoon, but you don’t stop. You can’t. The earth is dry, feels sandy between your toes. Barefoot boys, skipping past pebbles, they don’t stop… They can’t. It’s the game.

It’s the rhythmicity of it that makes it all exist, grow, and become more. Day after day, small things becoming big deeds, small roots holding small bodies, there’s no going back now. Rhythmic. Every day. Enough to fill the spaces in your body where you felt fear so often. You will again, but fear moves up, like bubbles in a glass that’s always half-full. Fear for them, for the crops to grow. But fear withers like the weeds you pull out of the ground and throw to the side. Fear has small roots. It must…

‘Mom, can we go for a bike ride?’ Little boy rides fast, you run to catch up.

Boy, tag‘Tag me if you can…’

If you can. Ha! What cheekiness… Fast becomes faster. You chase him just to hear the giggle, almost touching his back, then you slow down so the mad dash won’t make boy and bike topple. And they do, but there’s no crying. Grimaces, a look of ‘it hurts’ that you want to go and make better, but there’s no need because… ‘Tag me again!’

Remember the day when big brother stopped crying when he fell. That day… he rubbed the knees, rubbed palms, no need for kiss to make it better. T-shirts wiped all that Band-Aids masked until then. ‘Will these scars stay, Mom? I hope they do…’

Signs of time. Scars are not to cover. Boys are afraid no more, now your fear can go away too.

‘Try to catch me on the way home!’

WildYou run, fast, but wait… there’s berries in the back lane, growing wild, kissed by sunsets and taken care of by invisible hands… time. You gotta remember to bring the boys to the back lane bounty in a couple of weeks. Bounty, growing wild. You know it’ll be sweet and flavourful, and it’ll be like that whether someone pulls the cluster of weeds surrounding its spiky feet or not. It’ll be sweet, whether it rains or not, or despite of it… You know everything grows stronger without perfection to choke it. Children too. Bounty.

You follow the boy and his wild head of hair, palms of sunset glowing light caressing every strand and making them into golden streams. You’re at peace, not worried of rains and weeds and magic touches that can make everything perfect.

Magic is when you let go of the fear that you have to have it perfect so they’ll turn right. Magic is when you finally understand that they’ll still need the hug to make it better, but not for scraped knees. For egos that grow too soon, for life so loud it makes your heart pound and for bruises that come with it.

HarvestDay’s over. You pick tender leaves of lettuce, green and red, herbs… The shimmering sunset light is about to plunge behind the horizon. Tomorrow’s roots.

 

 

 

If You Could Stop It, Would You?

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On May 27, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

Monday morning came heavy and grey; a merciless headache and sore throat included.

Some chores had to be done, less so taking the boys to school. Pink eye on one, a bit of a cough on the other, the house felt like a camp where the blind learned to lead the blind. Everyone stayed home.

What then?

Two boys and a sea of Lego has but one big consequence. Creativity; with loads to spare. Breakfast anyone? Later, yes. Clink-clank, get started.

Head aching, I returned to bed for a nap. Close the door, soft covers wrapped around… Sleep.

Clink-clank. Pieces of Lego being fished out of the pile, not a good one, let it get buried by unearthing others. Clink clank, busy boys’ hands, eyes intently following the trajectory of fingers into the pile. Clink clank… Let’s be quiet, Mom is sleeping, says one boy to the other. Boys shushing, a cluster of whispers hanging by the door but not daring to come in.

Head stubbornly pounding, I wake up… I hear them whisper, playing… Memories of teeny boys snuggled against my body, smelling sweet and having their round arms all scrunched against their soft tummies, PJs all crumpled up, hiding behind their round knees… Nestled around like little birds, cozy and quiet… Please, there will be no growing up from now on.

PortraitWhy grow up, what’s there to do, what’s there to see?… You see a lot more when you’re stopping at every step to observe the world, you’re doing that now. So stay… Was the world richer then? It was, it is still…

Clink-clank… Asleep, awake, I should not miss a moment with them. When I wake up they’ll be older… Nothing stays the same. Lego people with short-lived bodies, crossing boundaries of time and becoming astronauts a minute or two after roping a plastic cow because they were cowboys…

Clink-clank, just two minutes ago… boys were small and words were as round as their fingers pointing to things they could not call by name because they did not know the words. Laughter…Shh, Mom is sleeping, let’s be quiet. Whispers flying around like soft butterflies, boys voices…

Memories of a new baby growing inside my womb, tiredness, joy. Big brother cuddled to read a book, eyes bright and ready, mornings starting too early, but time was ours, the big secret I found out about later…Big brown eyes, seas of love enveloping all my sleepiness and making it right. Can we read, mama? I read slow, he laughs, I read it again just to hear the chuckle, and then again… Laughter hides in the creases of my heart made especially for that. Little boy laughing and smelling sweet, asking for stories, more and more… Keep asking, make me remember I should never stop telling stories, because then you’ll laugh; when you laugh, you stay, time is ours…

TimeThe rushed river of life take laughter and round fingers pointing to worlds new and fantastic, days of unexpected joy, ‘just because’ hugs and kisses… the rushed river takes them all like small boats floating to islands of unchartered self, islands I did not know of until they appeared when little boys were born. Because they had to have places to live in. Tell me again how I was when I was born… They ask of the world only I have seen, the world of them joining mine.

I doze off, clink-clank… I wake up to a sweet burned smell that snaked its way into the bedroom and lands on my pillow. The boys, they must be hungry… Something’s cooking…

The sea of Lego is still in the living room, I step carefully over boats and forts and cowboys who lost their hats… the smell, what’s the smell? Little boy lifts bright hazelnut eyes from the sea of Lego. “I helped Tony make pancakes, for when you wake up…So you’ll feel better.”
Big brother chirps in … “They may be a bit salted… and a bit burned, we kinda guessed the recipe…” Big boy, wide-eyed and smiling, surprised at his own sudden growth into knowing how, explains some more with a hug. “To make you feel better…”

You don’t cry when that happens. You are not allowed. How could you not… You can, please know that you should. Because you see, the tears, hidden as they are, are but the big boulders that will stop the mad rush of the river, the boats will be pushed into green fields to become forget-me-nots… and you will never forget this, that and all that has been…

You want to keep them there… the clink-clanks of games past and present, the snuggles, the hugs, the surprises, the little hands creating wonders and not knowing the words to name them and inventing a whole new world of wonder just for you… The worries even, you know how to do it all as long as they are there, near… not letting go.

Don’t grow, stay. What then?

FlightThere’s much to see as they grow, much to learn and then there is the time when they’ll want to break free… They won’t go far without looking back. If you let them go, never clipping their wings, if you love them enough to never clip their wings, they’ll have wings strong enough to bring them back…

I will know it when it comes. Time will be the teacher of all. Life as it comes… Fluid, beautiful, clink-clank of boats that will keep on floating down a rushed river which you’ll never stop entirely but sometimes… Go on, dip your toes, live, grow; grateful for seeing it all, for salty pancakes and for the hugs that came with it. Better?

Pancakes were salted that Monday morning, a bit burned and the most amazing I’ve ever tasted. Like in fairy tales, taking a bite, just one, keeps the magic there, keeps you there and keeps them too… Stay, don’t grow yet. And when you will, will you be back every now and then?

Clink-clank… the Lego sea. It’s a sea we’ve learned to sail for now, square waves and all, they’ve never been rounder in my heart… We should be on it for a while. Clink-clank.

Again?

Joy In Routines? Here’s Why

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On April 29, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

Soon to beThe morning had no particularities unless you count the half-an-inch added to the tiny marigold plants in the front yard.

Write, get the boys up, get their lunches ready, take them to school. Come back, coffee time on the porch, back to writing.

Routines fragment the day into segments that make it feel familiar and also grow on top of each other as you approach the end of the day, giving you a full measure of where your time went.

If you’re not in a good place, soul uneasy with the action of being, routines are like heavy metal pins nailing you to a ground you do not want to be walking on.

But if you’re in a good place, where you soul resides without frowning, then routines have a magic message written all over them: Life is unshaken. Life where you are is not uprooted by any groundbreaking events. Routines mean you’re safe.

Routines change with time. Growing children, people coming in and out of your life, routines evolve, get dusty, fall to pieces and then they grow into new ones,

But their mere existence is the sign you want, the sun that guides your life with no eclipse shadowing its face. It’s a temporality we’re guilty of misplacing though.

A friend wrote today about his critically ill father. It has come down, and suddenly so, to making the best of the time they still have together. Life is fragile, he wrote. It is, I echoed. It always is.

I let it sink in.

Life as we know it could change at any time. It is not pessimism to think so. Nor is it an invitation to live in fear.

Live. With all that you have. Laugh with your loved ones, share time with them, with friends, with people who mean something to you.

Never wait. Never make concessions on waiting. You’ll always get the short end of the stick. Time, even shorter than it is, because you used it to chew your own misery, your relentless negative thoughts, your fear to connect, to live, to live fully with the awareness that you’re opening a gift with every breath you take. You are.

Still there...Life is fragile… Fluid. There is no going back.

To live without regrets is not to live mindlessly but to take each morsel of life and taste it. Mindfully present in everything you do and say, in how you share yourself with those you love and love you. Fully. No regrets, never holding back.

I thought of my friend’s dad all day. He will be on my mind for many days. Thoughts, prayers, wishes for being at peace.

Will you, when you’re sitting near that gap that divides our world as we know it from the one we don’t know? If someone will be holding your hand, will they be at peace? Or will there be pockets of unsaid restlessness, life unlived, life gifts you never got to open because you thought you shouldn’t, or you didn’t want to? You saved for later…

Later…Will it come? Would you build a home leaving holes in the walls that are supposed to keep you warm and protected… Would you add those bricks later because now you’re apprehensive, forgetful, mindless, cheeky (yes, we are,) overconfident that later is tomorrow and if not we’ll make it so.

Can you? Can I?

The solid ground I walk on today are routines. Walk back from school, chat, debate, listen, encourage, smile, hug, listen some more because things have to be said again and again, for safety and comfort. Kids’ words pearled up in colliers of worry, and you polish them to a nice safe shine. Every day, the routine of love and providing peace of mind.

Make food, eat, shoo away silliness when it’s teeth brushing time, hugs, say the soft words that you say every night, again and again, pearls of comfort and warmth.

Nighttime drapes, send the photo newsletter, remember where the photo was taken, right near that warning the boys find funny… ‘Uneven terrain, watch your step.’ They snicker, every time… Who would trip on that?

Both worldsSome would, I tell them. Some don’t need to be told, some will trip as they read the very words… Warnings we never heed. We know better when we don’t. But then we don’t know much anymore when we’re stopped mid-flight, plunging suddenly and not knowing how deep in.

We will rely on the senses we forgot to use a while ago, we’ll have them revived and sharpened by pain, surprise; we’ll be understanding the meaning of it all. Time. When we had it.

We still do. What now?

Tomorrow, routines again. It’ll mean nothing has changed. I am safe. Aware. Mindful.

You?

 

Birds And Bees – Are We Doing It Right?

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On March 31, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Motherhood

I thought I’d write about our last hike in Peterson Creek; about how every season transforms the park and how you always have the feeling of being in the right place when you hike there.

Yet fuchsia-infused sunsets and promises of spring in city wilderness parks are somewhat clouded by a rude reality: hypersexualizing of children and the high price we all pay, children first of all.

From elementary school girls sporting borderline risqué attires to high school students exchanging inappropriate content over their personal electronic devices, to swift word exchanges during school hours that send kids flying to online search engines where Pandora’s X-rated box is waiting to be opened, the world of children resembles less and less what it used to look like a few years ago.

It is striking to compare today’s faces to the ones that smile from all the old class photos that hang in the hallways of my sons’ school. Clothing spelled ‘children’ and their smiles were innocent. So what, you’ll say, children of today are innocent too.

True, many are, but there’s an early expiration date on that innocence. Exposure to inappropriateness happens early and surreptitiously. If you doubt this, ask your children. And hope they’ll have the courage to tell, because there’s lots to tell and it’s not pretty.

This is by no means a new topic: The age of information forces us to revisit it often as it dumps too much on our children’s heads, too soon. Parents, as per our parenting job description, have to somehow catch it all before the worst happens.

A month ago or so a few Kamloops high school students have been charged with possession of child pornography. The same happened on Vancouver Island, and in New Brunswick and in Quebec. It happens in the US, Australia and in Europe too.

Children know it’s wrong (at least some of them realize it) and they know they shouldn’t, but temptation and peer pressure rocks their budding foundations and they do it anyway hoping they won’t get caught.

But they do, and punishment ensues. Lessons to learn? Hardly so. It looks more like a case of treating the symptoms without addressing the cause.

Children of all ages are being introduced to the world of photographs early on by the adults around them just until they learn to do ‘selfies.’

There is an emphasis on sex wherever you turn your head, because, we all know, sex sells.

That the internet world abounds with sexual content is no longer news. Adults defend their right to access it as they please and to that we say ‘to each their own.’ What about children though?

According to the latest estimates, the number of pornographic websites, paid and free access, is approximately 25 million and growing. What is new though is how children can access these websites and how many of them display increasingly violent content that would never fit into a normal loving relationship.

It’s controversial, but it cannot be brushed aside either.

Children lose their innocence too soon and there’s nothing right about that. Dismissing the obvious by saying ‘It’s the 21st century, about time we emerge from the dark ages of taboos,’ makes adults part of the problem when children are charged with possession or distribution of child pornography.

If the revealing photo of 13-year-old is found in possession of a 13-year-old, logic dictates that we are looking at a case of distribution of child pornography by children.
What’s fair then?

Parental controls will never keep children fully protected. There is no school body or app or program able to keep children safe if the parents are not stepping up to the plate to talk about it.

That’s right. An honest, first-for-everyone kind of talk that brings awareness and lets children know they are not alone in facing a monster that is as tempting as it is scary. I don’t mean healthy sexuality, but its crooked version that sees children punished later on for something that could’ve been avoided.

Kind of like feeding children too much carrot juice and punishing them for turning orange.

We have to face a blatant truth: we are perhaps the first generation that will not talk just about birds and bees but about how bad it can be when they are out of control. Yes, we have to include the ‘porn talk,’ because porn is, you should know, something many children are exposed to at the ages of 10 or 11.

The idea that internet providers could install filters to prevent children’s access to online pornography was met with disgruntlement by most adults. What about people’s freedom to choose? There’s truth there.

But somewhere in between us adults having the freedom to exercise our adult choices as we please, a sexually-imbued free-for-all internet content and rushed existences that allow for little or any breaks to keep track of things, there are gaps wide enough to swallow our children whole and leave us nothing but the regret that we should’ve done more when we had a chance.

Now is the chance. Today.

Bubble-wrapping Our Children Doesn’t Work

By

On March 8, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Motherhood

Originally published as a column in The Armchair Mayor’s News on March 7, 2014. 

It is snowing as I write this. Shoveling (in replay) notwithstanding, new snow always promises fun.

It is almost noon; lunch break for school kids, most of which is spent playing outside.
But, the snow has to stay on the ground, they are told. For safety reasons. I had first become acquainted with this safety measure when my oldest was in grade 1. Things have tumbled since.

Snowman building is allowed as long as you are a primary student and your hands stay close to the ground while rolling the snow. For everyone’s (un-fun) safety.
Kids don’t see it that way. They want to play with snow, and snowballs fights are a fact of life.

The risks associated with the occasional misguided snowball are an accepted, worthy downside. Still, can’t do it.

Sure they can find something else to entertain themselves with. On non-snowy days, tag sounds like a good option. Except that some BC schools have now adopted a no-touch rule, due to a few injuries caused by hands-on playing. The kind of games you and I played when we were little and fear was not a decision factor.

Children are encouraged to say ‘hand off’ to each other whenever they are being touched – friendly shoulder taps included. Or an adult will remind them.

Where to from here?

Children explore the world using all their sense and touch is a big one. They need to play, and years of research showed that playing is not just playing, but learning, developing, and understanding. We can state the general rules and help them understand what’s acceptable and what’s not, but they need to figure out the rest, like all generations of kids have.

How safe can we make the bubble wrapping around our children before they lose contact with reality? We are already witnessing communication misfires among children, young and old.

No-touch rules will never prevent bullying or its new vile form, cyberbullying. Nor will it help keep children safe from getting injured on the school grounds.

Children get hurt. They fall or they play in ways that may just see one of them hurt sometimes. Things are pushed too far occasionally and lessons are learned. Scraped knees are part of growing up, so are squabbles among peers.

Things can get confusing for the youngest ones with too many of these safety rules in place. What’s appropriate and what’s not? They might wonder about bullying and boundaries, and see everyone as a potential aggressor.

Safety redefined.

The first time another mom caught a glimpse of my youngest son, six at the time, carving a stick with his pocket knife while sitting on the porch, she raised a brow. I explained that he has to sit while carving, or else the knife goes, and there is no playing with it as a toy.

She did not buy it. Knives are dangerous. True. So are bows and arrows. But if we teach children how to use them safely and be firm about it, they will. Somehow children know when we mean it. Or learn soon enough.

There is a high chance that a child who has been taught about sharp objects and was allowed to use them only under certain conditions – carving marshmallow roasting sticks perhaps? – will hold onto that knowledge for life and even teach others too.

Instilling a sense of responsibility is part of parenting. And appreciated by children. That’s how it has always been. Bubble wrapping never worked to protect children from getting in trouble after all.

Same goes for playing. Rough housing is important for a child’s development. That it sometimes becomes rougher than it should be is true, but that’s how boundaries are learned and rules are set in place by parents.

Interestingly enough, children left to solve their own issues – basic rules in place – may just learn important life skills. Negotiation, reinforcing of boundaries, fairness, forgiveness and learning to stand up for themselves or for someone else who is being mistreated, these skills are all learned during hands-on playing.

They’ll also be useful later on when children sail into the often dubious waters of online socializing.

If kept too tightly wrapped and helicoptered by adults, children will either assume that the world is a cushiony place where as long as you don’t touch something or somebody you will not get in trouble, or that everyone intends to hurt them, or they’ll learn to be sneaky about hurting others. Or all three. No one wins.

Keeping children safe should involve allowing them to play, make mistakes, have adults teach them about rules, learn about boundaries, honesty, and most of all, reminding them about the old rule that has kept many alive and thriving: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

It Takes A Village…

By

On February 14, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Originally published as a column in The Armchair Mayor News, the new venue for The Way I See It column, on February 14, 2014. 

It was at bedtime that I heard my youngest singing the refrain of a recent Miley Cyrus hit, something that has to do with a wrecking ball. Music likes and dislikes aside, the piece has a questionable video to go with it.

I asked where it came from. Kids in his class he said, some were singing it all day. He is grade 2. It was part of a school concert that he was absent from.

I know that this teen star who has long left innocence behind is merely a product of show biz. Her antics though are admired by many elementary school children, none old enough to fully understand the perils of missing moral values.

I admit to a sinking feeling. That he knew the song, that this song is in the end just a song that will go away but there are so many other things that have the power to take away his innocence and nothing short of keeping him away from the world will allow me to protect him. That other people could open his eyes about things children are better off without knowing.

There is a lot out there our children are not ready for. Think explicit sexual content, horror movies, pornography that should have nothing to do with elementary school children but it does. More than you think.

If you don’t believe me, ask your children or other children you know. If they’re letting you in their world even for a bit, and if you listen, you’ll find dark patches that will bring you to tears.

I said it before, it is not prudishness that causes my frustration, but the realization that no matter how hard I try to keep my sons away from things they are too young and too innocent to understand, someone will peel their eyes open and that can take away the one thing I cannot give back to them: their innocence.

This is not a new topic nowadays. We hear high school students swap inappropriate content pertaining classmates.  We want it addressed. We sincerely believe that the investigation that follows and possible criminal charges – possession and trafficking of child pornography – will teach them a lesson.

Until it happens again. Because it does.

We are told we should talk to our children. We know that and try. We should set a good example. We do, many of us. We should communicate more and better. Learn.

No parent is perfect. I diligently follow my heart when it comes to parenting and diligently own up to my many mistakes, learning a bit more from each of them. I answer questions, I hug, I wipe tears and hug again.

With the topic of sex and all related, I take the straight talk approach though I was raised with a dead silence around the very topic. Children know when you mean well versus just policing.

The sex topic includes pornography. It’s out there, lots of it and it’s never been easier to access. Some people say ‘Not my kid’ and I wish that were true. We have all been that parent at some point.

Before you say ‘Oh come on, what’s the big deal?’ I will ask you this: what is a 10 or 11-year-old going to gain out of watching porn? Or what is a seven-year-old to gain from watching horror movies that he is all too willing to share about with classmates the next day at school.

Nothing. They lose. And we lose with them.

I came to realize that no matter what I do, when my boys are out and about, I have no say in what they see or hear. It is often the roughest, dirtiest, scariest bits that come out that way. Resilience? Hardly a match for today’s challenges.

We are each parenting our own children, or so we should, but we are also parenting other people’s. As soon as my sons leave home to go to school in the morning, the things they learn at home and the examples we set as parents will show.

We’re in it together. It is the proverbial village called upon to raise the children that will do that. The way I see it, I am parenting some of the Kamloops children together with my own and so is every Kamloops parent out there.

Let’s not let our children down. Mine and yours. Ours.

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