Is it wrong to relive your childhood through your children?
One of the more fun parts of parenting has been being able to bring out my inner child and do all the things I enjoyed — or wasn’t able to do — in my youth
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I took my son to see Paddington in Peru in the cinema recently, under the guise that it was for him. Really, it was because I wanted to watch it. Ten minutes into the film he asked if we could go home, and then proceeded to fall asleep until the credits rolled.
One of the more fun parts of parenting has been being able to bring out my inner child and do all the things I enjoyed, or wanted to do, in my youth. With my son Ammar, I’ve rewatched my favourite classic Disney movies, zoomed down playground slides, jumped into ball pits and spent hours on fairground rides.
These are all things I loved doing when I was young. And as I sat through the new Paddington movie — based on a story I loved when I was a child — I began to wonder if I’m trying to relive my childhood through him.
This desire to reconnect with my past is driven not only by nostalgia. Part of it is wanting Ammar to have a better childhood than I did, one with more opportunities — surely all parents strive for this.
When I grew up in inner-city London, my mother and father struggled to make ends meet. Though they did their best to take us to free museums and parks, I remember feeling jealous when schoolmates spoke of weekend trips to Alton Towers and holidays to Disneyland. I loved acting and dreamed of learning to play the piano, but my parents simply didn’t have the money for drama clubs or music lessons. Even now, I am still wistful when I see someone playing the piano.
I remember one Eid when they couldn’t afford to buy presents for my siblings and me. At the time, not knowing any better, we were dismayed that we weren’t being gifted new toys. Now I know just how heartbreaking that must have been for my parents, who were just doing the best for us within their means.
Perhaps I am making up for the frugality of those times by treating Ammar with trips to places like CBeebies Land and by buying him new toys. I have an ongoing anxiety that he does not have enough — whatever that “enough” might be.
There is a risk that this desire for our children to have fulfilling lives, packed with the experiences we wished we’d had, can morph from being innocent to overbearing. My husband and I have a friend who has packed her two young daughters’ weeks with private after-school activities such as tennis, lacrosse and piano and violin lessons, because she didn’t get to do such things as a child — her parents just couldn’t afford it. She is determined to make up for her own lack of opportunities by enrolling her children into as many clubs as possible, wanting to give them the best start in life. But it’s exhausting for them all, and expensive.
This drive to pack children’s schedules is not uncommon, with many parents travelling to and from dance lessons, hockey games and acting school. But, in reality, filling our kids’ lives with hobbies and extracurricular activities does not necessarily make us good parents. Instead, it can be quite the opposite, leaving them stressed and anxious from the pressure to succeed.
More often than not, children don’t have a say on their schedules. When journalist and mother Esther Walker asked her children if they enjoyed doing extracurricular activities, they told her they did not want to go to after-school clubs, sleepovers and playdates. They said they were happier just being at home after school, eating biscuits and watching Charlie and Lola.
Ammar can’t always articulate what exactly it is he wants to do or what he enjoys, but he seems equally happy going on the swings in the local playground as he is when my husband and I take him to exhibitions and theme parks.
I thought that by booking tickets to the children’s theatre, sensory experiences and museums every other weekend that I was giving Ammar a more fulfilling childhood than the one I had. But really, all he wants to do is build a fort out of pillows and blankets — the exact thing I enjoyed doing at his age.
Maybe the secret is in simplicity, making time and room for our young children to be creative, rather than force-feeding them hobbies and experiences.
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