Travels to my Aunts

Excuse the title. I’m not a big fan of Graham Greene but I am a big fan of trying to appear cleverer than you are.

This summer I went to visit my three aunts in America and at the time things were a bit shitty. My grandmother was dying and my horse needed a major operation; I’ve tried to put those two things in order of priority but at the time it didn’t feel so straight forward. Work was crazy and my two daughters were like flour – self raising.

Daughter #1 was getting along ok but #2 was turning into a bit of a monster. She was ferocious and funny and already running with the big dogs at nursery. I’m a professional with almost a decade of teaching experience – including the ability to make 17 year old boys cry – and yet she could stare me down, beat me down and get me down pretty much effortlessly. By the time we reached the States, we were in a permanent stand off.

Of course, she was just ferociously funny with my family and they all adored her ‘spark’ (their word – mine was ‘orneriness’). And that was the problem; how to make her follow the simple rules of social acceptability without destroying her spirit. It was like trying to save only one side of a coin.

And their advice was so simple – they said her peers will educate her. And they were right. It wasn’t my response which would mould her behaviour – if anything, I was making it worse; it was her peers. And a bit of tough love from the three year old gang at nursery has worked wonders since September.

I miss my family and wish they were not 6000 miles away. But I am going to hug my family, who are right here, a little bit closer.