How often do you hear parents of grown-up children say, "I just want you to be happy"?
Last week on SBS's "Insight" (a discussion forum with audience participation), the topic of discussion was "Pushing for Success". On stage was a mother and her 15 year old daughter whom she was grooming for academic success; a father with a 12 year old daughter whom he was grooming for tennis success; and Liesel Jones, swimming gold medallist. The host of the show, Jenny Brockie interviewed a number of youth (and their parents), some who lauded their parents' push for success and others who have been seemingly burnt by it.
There was the usual debate on what "success" means, what "pushing" means and the cost of pushing children towards this success. But one comment that caught my ear was from the psychologist in the audience. She said,
"[A]ny time you have a child carrying the responsibility of fulfilling the adult in the room's happiness, or trying to meet that perceived expectation, I think that's completely debilitating. A child is not equipped to make other people happy and my own personal belief, as a mother, is that my role is to role model being happy. (emphasis added)"
My role as a mother is to role model being happy. Interesting. Is that an oxymoron in today's society, when books like "All joy and no fun" tell us that a child's happiness is at the expense of a parent's happiness? That after a child's birth, marital satisfaction declines?
Before we ask whether parental happiness is possible, let's put the claim to the test by imagining the results. I think there are few who would argue that children learn through modelling. For example, we don't have to teach our boys to like noodles. They love noodles because Daddy loves noodles and Daddy's delight when he crams in a mouthful of noodles is contagious. On the flipside, have you noticed the more you demand of a trait from your child that you yourself don't have, the less inclined they are to produce your desired results? If you truly desire your children to be happy, then role modelling happiness is important. It is also why post natal depression is not just bad for mothers, it is bad for children.
It has often been said that the best gift you can give your children is a happy marriage. When children experience love and happiness outside of themselves, they have a secure place to base their world on. We do our children a great disservice when we tell them that life is only ever as good as they are.
It is not a long stretch then to say that the best gift to your children is your own happiness. Parents, it is squarely back in our court to inhabit a happiness that is independent of the enjoyment we receive from our children. That happiness can be founded on many things of course - our marriage (as discussed already), our friendships, our work, our hobbies, our faith. It is no help to our children to neglect all these things if we become miserable and visit our resentment on the children.
Isn't it liberating to know that our happiness is good for ourselves and for our children?
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Happy anniversary
On our sixth wedding anniversary - a little something I wrote for your twenty-seventh birthday recalling our seven years of courtship. Happy anniversary Kirbs!
The first year of love,
Taps on the shoulder –
Hesitates a pause before the song
To grasp at promises unformed
Only to receive its lonesome letters.
The second year of love
Laughs at sour faces.
Soft, like a ripened fig, slits
To find pleasure in a kiss
and reaches for farther places.
The third year of love,
Storms to a truce.
Boxing each within itself
In quietness of a darkened well
And still there is nothing to lose.
The fourth year of love,
How easy it does please.
free them will, unhurried dandelions,
let them pulse to lighter rhythms,
let summer make the peace.
The fifth year of love,
Lingers like little children.
One leaves to find her fame
The other stays to grow his pain
And so both seek a lighter burden.
The sixth year of love
Imagines a way home.
Might it so be defined,
the shape and contours of our time,
or might it go alone?
The seventh year of love
Brings a weighty question.
Yes, yes, a resounding yes!
No tears, no years make less
So loud an affirmation.
The eighth year of love,
He makes one flesh, one vow,
From imperfect then to imperfect now,
most perfect hence – a Son of sons,
a sun that burns where no love runs,
in days of silver and gold and diamond,
to love, like love has just begun.
The first year of love,
Taps on the shoulder –
Hesitates a pause before the song
To grasp at promises unformed
Only to receive its lonesome letters.
The second year of love
Laughs at sour faces.
Soft, like a ripened fig, slits
To find pleasure in a kiss
and reaches for farther places.
The third year of love,
Storms to a truce.
Boxing each within itself
In quietness of a darkened well
And still there is nothing to lose.
The fourth year of love,
How easy it does please.
free them will, unhurried dandelions,
let them pulse to lighter rhythms,
let summer make the peace.
The fifth year of love,
Lingers like little children.
One leaves to find her fame
The other stays to grow his pain
And so both seek a lighter burden.
The sixth year of love
Imagines a way home.
Might it so be defined,
the shape and contours of our time,
or might it go alone?
The seventh year of love
Brings a weighty question.
Yes, yes, a resounding yes!
No tears, no years make less
So loud an affirmation.
The eighth year of love,
He makes one flesh, one vow,
From imperfect then to imperfect now,
most perfect hence – a Son of sons,
a sun that burns where no love runs,
in days of silver and gold and diamond,
to love, like love has just begun.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Tango lessons
Now and then, in the spare minutes of the day, I would think wistfully to the days when my husband and I used to take ballroom dancing lessons. It was a wonderful ritual. Two or three nights a week, we would meet up in Crows Nest, down a wonton noodle soup, then disappear into one of those one-room office suites that had been transformed with disco lights and loud music into a dance fantasy land.
Of all the dances we learnt, our favourite, without a doubt, was the tango – not the ballroom tango, with the arched backs and jerky heads, but the Argentine variety – heads bowed, hands clasped, faces and sides touching. Think Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. (Regrettably, the only dance we were any good at was the stiff-legged foxtrot, but this did not discourage us from setting our hearts on the tango for our wedding dance!)
So what business does an Asian, un-co tomboy have with this unashamedly sexy Latin dance? To begin with, I love tango music. I was captivated the very first time I heard the dramatic run of notes on the bandoneon. (A bandoneon is like an accordion, used often in tango music, along with strings.) Those who are familiar with the songs of Astor Piazzolla will know that they typically juxtapose a slow, sweet, dreamy melody in major key with a fast, dark, agitated melody in minor key. So in the space of three or so minutes, these songs traverse the entire landscape of a passionate affair – the innocence and the betrayal, the tenderness and the violence, the glory and the tragedy. It is indulgent, irrepressibly sensual, sure to capture the complete attention of any romantic.
But the most appealing thing about the tango, is the dynamic it creates between man and woman. In the Argentine tango, the woman never steps forwards, always backwards. Now, before jumping to the conclusion that it is a chauvinistic dance, note this is also a dance where the woman gets to do all the flourishes – from the seductive “ochos” – where she twirls in front of her partner in a figure of eight; to the aggressive “gancho”, where she steps to her partner’s side and deftly flicks her ankle backwards between the man’s legs in a kind of momentary leg embrace. And most unusually, compared with other dances where patterns and timing are everything, the woman is completely at liberty to do whatever flourishes she likes for however long she likes, until she decides to return to the waiting arms of her partner, or when he wants her back! So the whole thing is less like a structured dance and more like a free and natural conversation. The tango maestros call it simply, “walking”.
How then does the man communicate all the subtleties of movement without a word, with his gaze obligingly averted? How, in the words of our instructor, does the man “create the space for the woman to walk”? By nothing more than the momentum of his body! Any ballroom dancer will tell you that a man leads not by his arms or hands, though he embraces the woman with these, but with his chest – they way he carries himself, the way he moves, the way he – well – creates a space where a woman might feel completely protected and encouraged to take a brave stride backwards (hopefully not onto someone else’s foot). This is a much harder task than the heavy lifting! If you have ever seen a live tango performance, you will feel the extraordinary tension and release between partners. But if you have seen a husband and wife perform (as our instructors were), that is altogether something special. With expressiveness like this, who needs to talk?
This is where I think dance imitates life. Leading your partner in a tango, is much like leading another person in real life, especially in the context of an intimate relationship, like a marriage, in at least 3 ways that I can think of:
Of all the dances we learnt, our favourite, without a doubt, was the tango – not the ballroom tango, with the arched backs and jerky heads, but the Argentine variety – heads bowed, hands clasped, faces and sides touching. Think Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. (Regrettably, the only dance we were any good at was the stiff-legged foxtrot, but this did not discourage us from setting our hearts on the tango for our wedding dance!)
So what business does an Asian, un-co tomboy have with this unashamedly sexy Latin dance? To begin with, I love tango music. I was captivated the very first time I heard the dramatic run of notes on the bandoneon. (A bandoneon is like an accordion, used often in tango music, along with strings.) Those who are familiar with the songs of Astor Piazzolla will know that they typically juxtapose a slow, sweet, dreamy melody in major key with a fast, dark, agitated melody in minor key. So in the space of three or so minutes, these songs traverse the entire landscape of a passionate affair – the innocence and the betrayal, the tenderness and the violence, the glory and the tragedy. It is indulgent, irrepressibly sensual, sure to capture the complete attention of any romantic.
But the most appealing thing about the tango, is the dynamic it creates between man and woman. In the Argentine tango, the woman never steps forwards, always backwards. Now, before jumping to the conclusion that it is a chauvinistic dance, note this is also a dance where the woman gets to do all the flourishes – from the seductive “ochos” – where she twirls in front of her partner in a figure of eight; to the aggressive “gancho”, where she steps to her partner’s side and deftly flicks her ankle backwards between the man’s legs in a kind of momentary leg embrace. And most unusually, compared with other dances where patterns and timing are everything, the woman is completely at liberty to do whatever flourishes she likes for however long she likes, until she decides to return to the waiting arms of her partner, or when he wants her back! So the whole thing is less like a structured dance and more like a free and natural conversation. The tango maestros call it simply, “walking”.
How then does the man communicate all the subtleties of movement without a word, with his gaze obligingly averted? How, in the words of our instructor, does the man “create the space for the woman to walk”? By nothing more than the momentum of his body! Any ballroom dancer will tell you that a man leads not by his arms or hands, though he embraces the woman with these, but with his chest – they way he carries himself, the way he moves, the way he – well – creates a space where a woman might feel completely protected and encouraged to take a brave stride backwards (hopefully not onto someone else’s foot). This is a much harder task than the heavy lifting! If you have ever seen a live tango performance, you will feel the extraordinary tension and release between partners. But if you have seen a husband and wife perform (as our instructors were), that is altogether something special. With expressiveness like this, who needs to talk?
This is where I think dance imitates life. Leading your partner in a tango, is much like leading another person in real life, especially in the context of an intimate relationship, like a marriage, in at least 3 ways that I can think of:
- Leading is about having vision. In the tango, this literally means being able to see where you are going when your partner has no idea and trusts you completely. In the same way, leading in life requires vision – a goal for the future that is big and high and real enough to inspire through the good times and bad times.
- Leading is about encouraging and bringing the best out in the other person. In most dances, and especially in the tango, the woman is often the one who dazzles the crowd with her costume and her flourishes. But she is still following her man's lead. Leading is not about being in the limelight, or being dominant, but being supportive, encouraging and when necessary, pushing the other to be the best they can be. This is as much about courage and confidence as it is about modesty and humility.
- Leading is not by strong-arming but by the consistency and integrity of your person. If a man tries to lead his dance partner by pulling and pushing her arms, he actually makes it impossible for her to follow him, even if she wanted to! This is because he is not maintaining a consistent “frame”. A frame, in ballroom dancing lingo, is the poise of your upper body, primarily your head, neck, shoulders and torso. A man keeps his frame still when moving; he therefore leads with his whole body. I see the same principle at work in real life. Leadership is not by compulsion. Leadership is about opening up your mind, your heart, your soul to the other person and winning them over with your honesty and integrity.
* * *
But the tango is not just a dance for intimate lovers. In the milongas we frequented (milongas are social dances; in Sydney they are put on in RSLs and community halls), seventy-year old grannies in sequenced gowns and silver heels “walk” together with dapper, olive-skinned young men in white suits and a rose in their lapels. It is, in Argentine culture, a family affair.
* * *
There is a grey, pony-tailed busker who sometimes sings and plays tango music on his bandoneon outside Chatswood Westfield. In between numbers, he would jovially court conversation of passer-bys. I can’t help but feel he is underappreciated there. But transport him to the town square in Buenos Aires, in the cool of the night, I imagine they must, surely they must, stop in their tracks and break into passionate dance.
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