As a child if you asked me what family life was and what I wanted when I am a mummy, I would have said that I want at least 4 children and I wanted to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with them. I had images in my head of me dancing around the kitchen, cooking dinner while they sat at the table drawing or all of us in the kitchen baking cakes and having fun.
Several years later I am a mum of two girls and the dream of a house full of children is still alive inside me but reality is that we have stopped at two. My girls are now 9 and soon 5 and growing more independent by the day. Life as a family is not quite how I pictured it, as a child I never saw myself as a working mum. My mum worked from home, she was a childminder and in some ways I never really saw it as working. I never took notice to the time she spent doing laundry or just tidying. What I remember of the childhood is the things we did together, some things we only did once or twice but they are memories that was embedded so strongly that it felt like we did it all the time.
Traditionally family is mum and dad living in one house with their children, however today family is can no longer be defined in the traditional way as family is so much more. We now have a multitude of people who are single parents, co-parenting, his and hers and our children. Family is the bond that bind us together, not necessarily by blood but by how we act as a unit. It is the life we live as a group of people living in the same home.
To me being a family, means that you have someone that depends on you but you also have someone that you can rely on, someone you can lean on and someone offering a support and encouragement. As parents we want to provide our children with a safe and happy home where we offer them the support they need to grow confident and chase their dreams, aim high and accomplish their dreams.
We make sure we listen to our children, even how hectic the days are we always make sure that we sit down around the table to eat dinner. As we eat our dinner our girls will tell us about their day, what they have accomplished, the challenges they have had, things that made them happy or sad. As parents we can support them, offer them solutions to problems or when needed take the neccessary steps to try and fix issues that needs to be fixed. It is important that my girls know that they can come and speak to us. In a family unit I am also a wife, and my role as a wife is to support my husband, listen to what his day has been like and any challenges he has experienced.
Not daily, not weekly but every now and then we bake, we craft and we do the things I imagined myself doing as a mum. It is not what defines us as a family but it is part of teaching life skills, it is part of just doing someting together and doing something together also means that you communicate. You listen, you teach, you learn and you grow closer as a unit. In fact my 9 year old is not far from being able to make waffles all by herself now, we have gone from her assisting me to me supervising.
Most importantly, family is just being comfortable in each others company. It is sitting together on the sofa watching a movie and not really saying anything, not feeling the need to speak as just being there is all that we need, all that we want. Sometimes as a mum all I need to do is step back and observe, listen to my children play, listen to them act out magical dreams through play.
We have had a very busy time lately with daddy away with work, this has resulted on mummy being very busy and although we have lots and lots of photos that we want to share in this blog, somehow they are still waiting on being edited. So I will share a little photo of my daughter who found this old rug and was playing that it was a magic carpet taking her on new adventures which is the pure innocense of a 5 year old. Once I have my photos ready I will create a family life part II picture blog.
This week my 9 year old saw a poster with a little boy hiding in a corner and a question “do you want to go home tonight” and I had to tell her that not everyone felt safe at home. Not every child had a mummy and daddy that treated them nice. So that poster has a phone number so that a child who wants to speak to someone can call that number. She was numb and shocked by the idea that some parentswere bad to their children and she just could not comprehend this. The following day I saw a short video that had me in tears and it painted the family life that is the complete opposit of what I try to give my children. So rather then sharing lots of adorable happy photos of my children I want to share a link to this video because it is so powerful.
So I really want to dedicate this months blog post to all those out there who open their hearts and home as foster parents or adoptive parents to create a safe home to those who needs it where they offer the support needed to build their their trust and confidence.
This month I am linking to the talented Sarah Ferry and her blog post Looking Back, have a pop over to her blog to see the true beauty of family life.
