The Table

“It’s ok to have strengths and weaknesses as parents. Some parents play games, other listen well, some cook with love and others are great encouragers. We don’t have to be everything every day to our kids.” – Developing Minds.net.au

I love this. I believe this. We need to go easier on ourselves. We do not need to be all things to all people, even our children.

I want to take it a little further though because perhaps the reason we are all different and we all have different strengths and weaknesses is because of the village. The village that doesn’t really exist anymore…unless we build it for ourselves.

In the village I picture my children and all the other children gathered around the person who was amazing at telling stories. They may have followed the joker around and he or she would have been witty and laughed with them. They might have all hung out around one kitchen table or campfire at dinner time to watch food being cooked.

We don’t live in the village anymore but we can still outsource the things that aren’t our strengths! As our kids get older its pretty normal to outsource sports and recreational activities to coaches and we have the option to outsource cooking (the options for doing this are getting better!) for a cost. When our children are little we can and should do the same.

I will admit that I am hopeless at imaginative play. I just can’t do it. When my oldest was a toddler I felt terrible about it but now I see that he used to spend time with his Aunty and Grandma when I went to work and they are both so good at it. He didn’t miss out at all and his brother and sister have learned through having older siblings and spending time at daycare as toddlers interacting with other children.

What I do notice is that when my children are with their cousins they play imaginative games on a whole other level. They take the lead from the kids who it comes naturally to, who’s parents might be good at it. It’s as if we pass on our strengths to our children and then they take them out into their own little villages to swap and share! We give them what we can, what we have and if they have a rich network of playmates, family and friends around them they will pick up the rest from others.

So rather than trying to give them everything they need ourselves (and running ourselves into the ground in the process), maybe our focus should be on building them a village. A village where we as parents can bring what we have to the table and know that everything they need will be available to them somewhere around that table.