Perfection
Without Prejudice
One of my daughters said to me recently,
"You're not Perfect!"
And neither I am. I am certainly not perfect nor would I want to be. No one is perfect.
We come into this world with no idea who we are, what we want or need, fully formed, our biology tied up in our parents DNA. Already genetics have played a part in our lives and we have our Mum's blue eyes or Dad's short sightedness. We know we are born and we live and then like all things we die. Leaving behind, what ? A better world? Certainly not a perfect world.
We live imperfect lives as we are human beings, given to vanity, ego, petty jealousy, hatreds, just like all human beings. As you get older things that bothered you once, no longer do and I heard when at Rusden Teachers College that psychology is pretty much about the age you are at the time. A 40 year old acts like a 40 year old and an eighteen year old acts like an 18 year old.
I am a strict parent and I expect of my self to be a good one. Same with being Nana. I am strict. I used to yell a lot, now I don't. I demanded the best from my kids and was tougher than tough on them. I had the brains to teach, nurture, enjoy my kids and having kids was my best decision ever and I no longer demand they be perfect. I love them imperfect, just as I am.
Fancy living with a perfect person anyway. Can you imagine? That would be horrible and after a week you would probably want to get up in the middle of the night and beat them around the head with a pair of saucepans. Because no one is perfect, thank God.
Even kids are not perfect, far from it and no where in the world is there a more relentless pressure or pleasure than being a parent. A psychologist once saying to me as I took my child to him. She was 10, hated everybody and everything, I had been sent there with her after she kicked a Teacher in the shin and walked home, vowing never ever to going back there, school.
My Sister did the same at 14 and went to work. She didn't get in the 60's what my daughter was forced into, therapy. Jackie didn't like school, wasn't a scholar like me and left with no misgiving at all, seeing school as dumb and immature. Jackie was ready to work, her skills as home maker standing her in good stead. Yvette should have been home schooled as I have taught her as much now as she ever needs to know, for now.
"Kids are Buggers", the child psychiatrist said.
"They are relentless"
I sat back in the chair when he said that. I realised how much work and energy goes in to the raising of kids. There is no handbook, no ebook, no training manual, that will apply to really being a parent and you do try and be a perfect role model for them. But you are only human too and I have never met a Mother that hasn't wanted to adopt her kids out, even just for 24 hours, so she could get a break.
I've met people, older, who have had kids and singletons, who haven't. Their levels of happiness are about the same until they hit old age. And the singletons lose their friends one by one to death, dementia and infirmity sweeping them away and the singleton is then left alone and without family, it's hard. Kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids come in to their own then.For most people as they age a sense of belonging, of support, of love is what they crave.
Children are most ordinary people's infinity, their only infinity. Not everyone is an Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs, Germaine Greer or Princess Diana. Our names will not be on the front cover of magazines, we will not stroll the red carpet of famousness ina Designer gown and dripping with diamonds. We will not write the great novels, sail the loneliest sea, nor win at the Olympics. But our stories and our essence will be passed to future generations.
I recall my Mothers Mother and act in ways like her every day, some I realise and remember and some are buried in my subconcious and make me act that way. Ian said in our family of "Brucks" we all sweep crumbs off the table and on to the floor. I clean like an Edinburgh housewife, my step has to be perfect, my unit has to be perfect and my cooking has to be perfect.
I stiffen at the sounds of bagpipes and I revel in tales of the 2nd World War, of bravery and compassion by British Soldiers. Love it! My parents served in The Uk in the army, for Dad and RAF for Mum. Mum was a plotter of fights, obviously as she was a posh Grammar School girl and bright, genius almost.
I think back now to her and know she was far from perfect. But she loved us and that love remained consistent through out our lives. We loved her in all her fallen glory and sad shaking trembles as her diease became worse.
She wanted the best, only the very best for her kids and said she should have had a dozen. Don't worry when the Test cricket was on Mum would not budge from her armchair for days and we kids thought we were like Bob Cratchetts kids. Hungry, spoilt and waitng for Mum to get up and cook us something.
We learned some strange concoctions when we were kids to stave off hunger. Dry oats and suga, sugar sandwiches, H.P. sauce sandwiches, tomato sauce sandwiches. If we didn't have bread we had scarmbled egg or omelettes. If we didn't have eggs, we made a sweet sort of shortbread, that I still can't stomach the smell of now. We made Scottish Tablet from condensed milk and sugar and if it burned while cooking the whole house reeked of burnt tablet for days. It was sugary and like a dry fudge and every so often now I have to make it and then rush it to my kids as I will eat the whole lot over a week if I am not careful.
Our Mum and Dad were not perfect. Mum was over proud and a bit of a snob and Dad was a samll time conman at times, Flash bloody Harry. But they loved us and we have all turned out OK. three of my sibs are sooooo wealthy and soooo successful in their business lives. I am the brain of the family for general knowledge and Ian for high academic. He speaks 2 languages fluently and is on another planet from the rest of us re computers and programming.
He can still be fun as well, Ian, he's not all seriousness. I am the dag head of the Family. I say what I think, I am abrupt sometimes and arrogant, shy, lazy, hesitant. A procrastinator, (I'm winning the war on that one), writing lists now of things to do and ticking them off the list. Stops my anxiety. I am anxious disposition and outrageously confident at the same time. My sister Jackie said I can be very "cutting". And I sure don''t mean to be. I am impatient and want things, NOW. Or used to I am getting better at that now.
I am vain and ego driven just the same as everyone else. I have a mind that thinks too much, worried too much. Now I decide I am not going to ever try and perfect again. It holds you back from doing something imperfectly as you only want perfect and wait for the right time or the right place. It's such bullshit to be like that. It;s OK to make a bed imperfectly or a cake imperctly, a wonky coffee table, do something up and hate it and think
"What was I thinking??"
No one is going to tell you off if its not perfect. They will more admire you if you have made the attempt, failed and did it over and over. I sing terribly and I think it's funny as My Sister Can, Perfectly. But she can't write a book, perfectly. It's good to be not perfect and laugh at yourself. To undo a little the constraints we feel others put on us, or society puts on us.
I have always pushed against the norm and the constrained. I'm a Germaine Greer clone, always have been but think I will change that now. Men and women are as good as each other I decide and men know it. Sometimes that "Little Boy Devil" wants to come out. You are best off ignoring him, as no matter what the age, he will still want to squash a cream bun in your face (thanks Ian ). Or put red hot chilis on your tongue (thanks again Ian ) or beat you at Trivia (not a chance George and Dave). I grew up with mainly all boys and they taught me to compete.
They were hardly ever nice. Jackie and I were as sweet as pie to them but they still locked us out of their lives. We were the enemy, girls. Even now Ian will say he hated "the girls" as he thinks we got away with murder. We may have. Dad was soft on the girls. Mum was hard and loved the boys but they got the short straw as she was vacant a lot of the time, or tired and depressed.
Dad was as sharp as a tack, a mind like a "Steel Trap", Jackie would comment. He never let the boys raise a hand to us, so I am sure we were revolting little cows to the boys as we knew we couldn't get hit. The did any way, just when Mum and Dad weren't around and Jackie and I would be forced to dob them in and they would hate us all the more. Calling us whingey and sooky la la's and lots of liar liar pants on fire.
It's funny living in a big family like that. It teaches you a lot about society on the whole as you are in your own secret society. Well we always were as Mum and Dad liked kids to be seen and not heard, so we plotted amongst ourselves. trying to work out what was wrong, were we moving again ? were we in debt again? Would we be uprooting to greener pastures anew, and when, how soon?
Mum and Dad spoke pig latin as their own secret language and we soon learned it and didn't tell them, listening in avidly to their conversations.Dad pawned mums watch for petrol many a time and we would go back weeks, months or years later and retrieve it. The "MARQUISITE" watch. I can't remember Mum even wearing a wedding ring or any sort of jewellery, but she did have a fur, "The Rabbit", she called it and always mocked Dad about it.
It was a brown stole that you wore around your shoulders and I can never remember Mum wearing it. I saw her dressed up a lot. She was like Vivien Leigh, doll like, elegant and completely mad as a cut snake. I think she would have made a great Hostess to a rich man. She was elegant, she chain smoked, could hold forth on any subject, had impeccable manners and played the welcome Hostess to all and sundry. She had to be the centre of attention and all had to bow before her.
"Never, ever Kow Tow, to anyone", she would state to us.
"This is not Nazi Germany and you can not be lined up against you a wall and shot for your opinion"
Nil Illigitema Carborundum, (Don't Let The Bastards Grind you down)
"You are Scottish, British, Australian and you are a Bruckshaw and you are proud.
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride"
"Educate a boy and you educate the man, educate the girl and you educate the family
The sign Slippery When wet", amused her,
"What isn't?', she would say
She was also as cunning as a shit house rat when mental, sly devious, telling the doctors she was fine and then acting as crazy as a loon when we exited the Doctors Office. Dad and I having done our best to assure the Doctor things were not normal, in a guarded way in front of her. She could fly off the handle with a trigger temper and you never ever knew what was going to set her off.
To be Continued
Love Janette
One of my daughters said to me recently,
"You're not Perfect!"
And neither I am. I am certainly not perfect nor would I want to be. No one is perfect.
We come into this world with no idea who we are, what we want or need, fully formed, our biology tied up in our parents DNA. Already genetics have played a part in our lives and we have our Mum's blue eyes or Dad's short sightedness. We know we are born and we live and then like all things we die. Leaving behind, what ? A better world? Certainly not a perfect world.
We live imperfect lives as we are human beings, given to vanity, ego, petty jealousy, hatreds, just like all human beings. As you get older things that bothered you once, no longer do and I heard when at Rusden Teachers College that psychology is pretty much about the age you are at the time. A 40 year old acts like a 40 year old and an eighteen year old acts like an 18 year old.
I am a strict parent and I expect of my self to be a good one. Same with being Nana. I am strict. I used to yell a lot, now I don't. I demanded the best from my kids and was tougher than tough on them. I had the brains to teach, nurture, enjoy my kids and having kids was my best decision ever and I no longer demand they be perfect. I love them imperfect, just as I am.
Fancy living with a perfect person anyway. Can you imagine? That would be horrible and after a week you would probably want to get up in the middle of the night and beat them around the head with a pair of saucepans. Because no one is perfect, thank God.
Even kids are not perfect, far from it and no where in the world is there a more relentless pressure or pleasure than being a parent. A psychologist once saying to me as I took my child to him. She was 10, hated everybody and everything, I had been sent there with her after she kicked a Teacher in the shin and walked home, vowing never ever to going back there, school.
My Sister did the same at 14 and went to work. She didn't get in the 60's what my daughter was forced into, therapy. Jackie didn't like school, wasn't a scholar like me and left with no misgiving at all, seeing school as dumb and immature. Jackie was ready to work, her skills as home maker standing her in good stead. Yvette should have been home schooled as I have taught her as much now as she ever needs to know, for now.
"Kids are Buggers", the child psychiatrist said.
"They are relentless"
I sat back in the chair when he said that. I realised how much work and energy goes in to the raising of kids. There is no handbook, no ebook, no training manual, that will apply to really being a parent and you do try and be a perfect role model for them. But you are only human too and I have never met a Mother that hasn't wanted to adopt her kids out, even just for 24 hours, so she could get a break.
I've met people, older, who have had kids and singletons, who haven't. Their levels of happiness are about the same until they hit old age. And the singletons lose their friends one by one to death, dementia and infirmity sweeping them away and the singleton is then left alone and without family, it's hard. Kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids come in to their own then.For most people as they age a sense of belonging, of support, of love is what they crave.
Children are most ordinary people's infinity, their only infinity. Not everyone is an Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs, Germaine Greer or Princess Diana. Our names will not be on the front cover of magazines, we will not stroll the red carpet of famousness ina Designer gown and dripping with diamonds. We will not write the great novels, sail the loneliest sea, nor win at the Olympics. But our stories and our essence will be passed to future generations.
I recall my Mothers Mother and act in ways like her every day, some I realise and remember and some are buried in my subconcious and make me act that way. Ian said in our family of "Brucks" we all sweep crumbs off the table and on to the floor. I clean like an Edinburgh housewife, my step has to be perfect, my unit has to be perfect and my cooking has to be perfect.
I stiffen at the sounds of bagpipes and I revel in tales of the 2nd World War, of bravery and compassion by British Soldiers. Love it! My parents served in The Uk in the army, for Dad and RAF for Mum. Mum was a plotter of fights, obviously as she was a posh Grammar School girl and bright, genius almost.
I think back now to her and know she was far from perfect. But she loved us and that love remained consistent through out our lives. We loved her in all her fallen glory and sad shaking trembles as her diease became worse.
She wanted the best, only the very best for her kids and said she should have had a dozen. Don't worry when the Test cricket was on Mum would not budge from her armchair for days and we kids thought we were like Bob Cratchetts kids. Hungry, spoilt and waitng for Mum to get up and cook us something.
We learned some strange concoctions when we were kids to stave off hunger. Dry oats and suga, sugar sandwiches, H.P. sauce sandwiches, tomato sauce sandwiches. If we didn't have bread we had scarmbled egg or omelettes. If we didn't have eggs, we made a sweet sort of shortbread, that I still can't stomach the smell of now. We made Scottish Tablet from condensed milk and sugar and if it burned while cooking the whole house reeked of burnt tablet for days. It was sugary and like a dry fudge and every so often now I have to make it and then rush it to my kids as I will eat the whole lot over a week if I am not careful.
Our Mum and Dad were not perfect. Mum was over proud and a bit of a snob and Dad was a samll time conman at times, Flash bloody Harry. But they loved us and we have all turned out OK. three of my sibs are sooooo wealthy and soooo successful in their business lives. I am the brain of the family for general knowledge and Ian for high academic. He speaks 2 languages fluently and is on another planet from the rest of us re computers and programming.
He can still be fun as well, Ian, he's not all seriousness. I am the dag head of the Family. I say what I think, I am abrupt sometimes and arrogant, shy, lazy, hesitant. A procrastinator, (I'm winning the war on that one), writing lists now of things to do and ticking them off the list. Stops my anxiety. I am anxious disposition and outrageously confident at the same time. My sister Jackie said I can be very "cutting". And I sure don''t mean to be. I am impatient and want things, NOW. Or used to I am getting better at that now.
I am vain and ego driven just the same as everyone else. I have a mind that thinks too much, worried too much. Now I decide I am not going to ever try and perfect again. It holds you back from doing something imperfectly as you only want perfect and wait for the right time or the right place. It's such bullshit to be like that. It;s OK to make a bed imperfectly or a cake imperctly, a wonky coffee table, do something up and hate it and think
"What was I thinking??"
No one is going to tell you off if its not perfect. They will more admire you if you have made the attempt, failed and did it over and over. I sing terribly and I think it's funny as My Sister Can, Perfectly. But she can't write a book, perfectly. It's good to be not perfect and laugh at yourself. To undo a little the constraints we feel others put on us, or society puts on us.
I have always pushed against the norm and the constrained. I'm a Germaine Greer clone, always have been but think I will change that now. Men and women are as good as each other I decide and men know it. Sometimes that "Little Boy Devil" wants to come out. You are best off ignoring him, as no matter what the age, he will still want to squash a cream bun in your face (thanks Ian ). Or put red hot chilis on your tongue (thanks again Ian ) or beat you at Trivia (not a chance George and Dave). I grew up with mainly all boys and they taught me to compete.
They were hardly ever nice. Jackie and I were as sweet as pie to them but they still locked us out of their lives. We were the enemy, girls. Even now Ian will say he hated "the girls" as he thinks we got away with murder. We may have. Dad was soft on the girls. Mum was hard and loved the boys but they got the short straw as she was vacant a lot of the time, or tired and depressed.
Dad was as sharp as a tack, a mind like a "Steel Trap", Jackie would comment. He never let the boys raise a hand to us, so I am sure we were revolting little cows to the boys as we knew we couldn't get hit. The did any way, just when Mum and Dad weren't around and Jackie and I would be forced to dob them in and they would hate us all the more. Calling us whingey and sooky la la's and lots of liar liar pants on fire.
It's funny living in a big family like that. It teaches you a lot about society on the whole as you are in your own secret society. Well we always were as Mum and Dad liked kids to be seen and not heard, so we plotted amongst ourselves. trying to work out what was wrong, were we moving again ? were we in debt again? Would we be uprooting to greener pastures anew, and when, how soon?
Mum and Dad spoke pig latin as their own secret language and we soon learned it and didn't tell them, listening in avidly to their conversations.Dad pawned mums watch for petrol many a time and we would go back weeks, months or years later and retrieve it. The "MARQUISITE" watch. I can't remember Mum even wearing a wedding ring or any sort of jewellery, but she did have a fur, "The Rabbit", she called it and always mocked Dad about it.
It was a brown stole that you wore around your shoulders and I can never remember Mum wearing it. I saw her dressed up a lot. She was like Vivien Leigh, doll like, elegant and completely mad as a cut snake. I think she would have made a great Hostess to a rich man. She was elegant, she chain smoked, could hold forth on any subject, had impeccable manners and played the welcome Hostess to all and sundry. She had to be the centre of attention and all had to bow before her.
"Never, ever Kow Tow, to anyone", she would state to us.
"This is not Nazi Germany and you can not be lined up against you a wall and shot for your opinion"
Nil Illigitema Carborundum, (Don't Let The Bastards Grind you down)
"You are Scottish, British, Australian and you are a Bruckshaw and you are proud.
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride"
"Educate a boy and you educate the man, educate the girl and you educate the family
The sign Slippery When wet", amused her,
"What isn't?', she would say
She was also as cunning as a shit house rat when mental, sly devious, telling the doctors she was fine and then acting as crazy as a loon when we exited the Doctors Office. Dad and I having done our best to assure the Doctor things were not normal, in a guarded way in front of her. She could fly off the handle with a trigger temper and you never ever knew what was going to set her off.
To be Continued
Love Janette
