Talk To Your Kids

Last weekend, I organised and hosted my Dad's 70th birthday party.

It wasn't a huge affair: most of his co-workers are overseas or in a differnt state, and would be hosting their own birthday dinners for him local to them, and sadly a lot of Dad's family are only able to attend parties in Heaven.

We did have both of Dad's surviving kids (me and my younger sister) and the grandkids, and Dad's brother brought his branch of the extended family (wife, my cousins, and one of my cousins has four kids) and some life-long friends and their son and grandchildren. My partner and their parents, who Dad gets along with well and specifically asked to invite, were also there.

I got a local Mediterranian resteraunt who also caters for functions to handle the food, and brought an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good time, with only a few embarassing dance moves when YMCA came on, but since organising the music was my sister's contribution, I can blame her for that.

Around 7pm (the party was 4pm - 8pm, since the majority of guests had bedtimes) my 8-year-old neice pulled me aside and very seriously asked if I'd forgotten the party bags. She didn't want me to be embarassed when people came looking for them.

Dad's 70th was the first big Adult party she'd experienced (Mum is younger than Dad, she wasn't born or doesn't remember the 60th parties, and my 40th isn't until next year), so all the birthday's she has gone to so far have been other children's parties, where little bags of candy or trinkets are handed out at going-home time.

I had to explain that for adults, having someone else pay for food and drinks - and potentially a second meal in the form of leftovers - is the equivalent of a party bag.

The lack of party bags over a certain age was apparently a very baffling concept to my niece, but she accepted it.

Personally, I would have expected my sister or her ex- to have had this conversation with her before now, but I didn't mind doing it myself. When you're young, every day holds a new lesson, and the only way you learn is by someone taking the time to teach.

I probably spend more time than I should on Social Media, which inevitably leads to seeing posts about assorted family struggles.

Recently, I saw a post by someone who had suddenly realised that his teenage daughter was lacking in life skills, due to having grown up with a maid and a chef. He set out to teach her by throwing her in the deep end and hoping that she worked it out for herself, then scolding her for not automatically knowing how to cook, clean, etc.

At 15, I could cook and clean. Pocket money was earned by weekly chores, and mine was vacuuming. If we made a mess, we were expected to clean it up. But those skills didn't materialise out of no-where; they were taught.

My godmother let us help in the kitchen on Saturday Card nights as far back as I can remember, under close supervision. With two working parents, weeknight dinners were prepped ahead of time, but I remember being allowed to measure ingredients and stir pancake batter, and eventually pour and flip the pancakes myself on weekends. I remember being shown how to crumb/bread various meats, which graduated to a production line of three little girls in a row at the benchtop, one in charge of flour, one of egg, and one of breadcrumbs.

I remember the rule that if we didn't like what was being served for a meal, we could have something else... but that something else had to be made ourselves, and we were responsible for cleaning it up after. The first thing I learned was microwave scrambled eggs, before I was old enough to be trusted with the oven or a frying pan by myself. Grilled cheese sandwiches came next, along with chicken nuggets.

At 18, my sisters and I were put in charge of dinner one night a week.

It didn't matter what we cooked, but store to sink, it was our responsibility. We bought the ingredients, we cooked enough for the household, we washed up afterward. The natural culmination of a thousand smaller lessons on being independant and looking after ourselves.

But none of that happened in a void, like some parents apparently assume.

There were grown-ups around my child-self that fostered my interest in cooking. I was taught to keep my own spaces tidy and clean. I was taught to be proud of doing things myself.

Teach your children. It's the only way they'll learn.