Harden up Kids - Mum wants to write now!

My children are at an age when they’ll soon be flying away and I’ll be staring at my empty nest wondering where all those years went.

I’m a realist and I know one day they’ll be forging their own paths and living their own dreams but I’ll miss them. Where was that tissue?

The big thing is, I think this generation of kids have been pandered to too much and maybe they’ll never actually contemplate leaving. As much as I’ll miss them I wish they’d leave me in peace to write, read and daydream. To have my office study back to myself would be bliss. I’m sick of the constant tug-o-war with the internet USB. It’s mine!

I feel guilty that I’m a terrible parent for being too loving (constantly talked about in the media for being too soft), yes pandering to their every need, and not just me, my hubby does too.

We say:

• “Do you want a sandwich, honey?”
• “Don’t worry I’ll make your bed for you.”
• “Yes, I’ll pick up your socks again.”
• “When would you like me to drive you to the shops, even though you have your own car, license and good driving sense. Oh, that’s right you want to use MY petrol.”
• “Okay if you don’t know how to turn on the lawnmower Dad will mow when he gets home.”

My teenagers don’t even pay board. Don’t start wagging your finger at me. One’s still at school (well, that is when he actually attends). The other has just started out in a career in personal training. I get free personal sessions doesn’t that equate to his board? On second thoughts I may have been ripped off though because the amount he eats in broccoli alone would fill a commercial fridge.

Yeah, I’m not really justifying anything am I? They need to harden up and so do I.

I was not much older than my youngest and two years older than my oldest when I started flatting. Just learning to live with the different complexities of flatmates prepared me for what it would be like coping with a family and the array of tantrums and melodramas.

When I was 20 I travelled around Australia in a yellow XB Ford station wagon with my best friend and lived day-to-day, town-to-town. I found jobs as varied as compositing and typesetting to fruit picking and working as a cook on a prawn trawler.

These gave me so much life experience and even sometimes put me in danger and I was a girl. Hello, are our boys wimping out? Why aren’t they going out and experiencing travel, excitement, fun, frivolity etc.? Why?

I hope I’m not old and grey before they leave even though I love them to bits. I’ve started on a campaign to toughen them up and make them street smart – well flatmate smart. I’m teaching them to cook and clean up after themselves. I’m teaching them about finances and how to build security. I’m teaching them to have goals and most of all to dream about the endless possibilities in life.

I thought I’d set an example by what I did when I was young but they don’t want to hear about THE OLDEN DAYS, they want to hear about here and now. I hope my new strategy works.

I really want my desk back – ONE DAY!