No, Do It Yourself.

The 4 year old I look after was crying for an hour when she was left with me and her lovely lovely mummy and daddy went off to work.

An hour.

She had spent the entire journey from the breakfast bar through the lounge, to the foyer, putting her shoes on, putting her coat on, ascending to the car, then driving to school crying and asking for literally anyone except for me - her old minder, mummy, daddy, gran, her godfather - after an hour of this, she calmed down a bit. I asked her what the problem actually was.

'You make us do things, and unpacking my lunchbox is too hard!' She stuttered through the sobs.

I tried to stifle my initial response of 'aww diddums, suck it up buttercup. Life is full of things we don't want to do,' and instead countered with 'Oh, I didn't know that was such a problem, I can help with that, that's what I'm here for.' 

I hope it was believable.

You bet your ass I make her do things. My entire training in life and as a teacher has bred an obsession with creating kids who are capable of cleaning up after themselves, who are self-sufficient and independent.

Part of this is slightly selfish - if they don't do it, then I have to, and I didn't do 5 years of tertiary education to happily play maid. But it's also just creating a 'normal' where kids know that it is their job to look after themselves and if they make a mess, they need to clean it up.

This kid enjoys being babied. She loves having a house full of people who dote on her. This is her normal. It is not my normal, I actual expect her to do things herself. I find it unfathomable that she doesn't want to. 

However, mum sides with daughter, and I'd like to keep my job. So instead it is me that must suck it up, buttercup.

I have always been obsessed with doing things by myself and fought for independence from a young age.

I was the eldest of 4. I demanded to do things 'by myself' from an early age, including dressing myself and doing my hair. My mum was elated she had one less to choose clothes for, do the hair of, pack lunch for or drop off to school when I decided that walking the 3km between school and home at age 8 was a super-great idea (although at that point, she was dropping my brothers off to the same school, so moot point on that one).

This was encouraged by both of my parents with things like being sent alone on a plane to visit one of my friends in Christchurch at the age of 5, and when I asked mum for help with calling church people for selling Girl Guide Biscuits at age 7, there was a firm but fair 'No, you can do it, they'd love to hear from you, not me.'



We were expected to make our own lunches from age 8ish, and were often left to walk home from school from a similar age, as there was 2 or 3 of us walking together normally, and it was a pretty safe area.

We often went for walks on Saturday afternoons, and if you wanted to bring a bag, that's fine, but you better believe you'll be carrying it yourself - what's the alternative? Mum or Dad carrying 4 bags plus their own, plus a child or 2? Oh nononono.

I got my drivers license as early as possible because I yearned for the freedom and independence that offered. My parents encouraged this by teaching me to drive from age 13 in car parks and such, buying me a car to learn in, fixing up said car, and turning a blind eye to my driving around by myself on my Learner's license for a couple of years.

Similar to my beloved first car, but mine was obviously cooler as it had 4 doors.

We read a book in Y12 (6th Form) called The Education of Little Tree, and it talks about an American Indian boy who lives with his grandparents, and he has a bunch of different encounters and how he learned life lessons from this. He gets jilted by a Christian, so from then on, doesn't trust anyone who is a Christian. His grandfather tells him about the idea of having two wolves inside of him, a good wolf and a bad wolf, and the one who wins is the one he feeds. His grandfather tells him he's going fishing the next day, and he dearly wants to come. His grandfather tells him that he's not going to wake him - if he wants to come, he needs to be ready at 5am. But then his grandfather also makes an exceptional amount of noise while he's getting ready the next morning.



We analysed a bunch of values that the book talks about: family, love, independence, discernment, intelligence, caring for nature, etc etc, and we were asked to rank them by order of importance privately then share with our classmates sitting next to us.

My list went like this:

1. Independence
2. Intelligence
3. Love
4. Family

My classmates all had either love or family first. 

Unaccustomed to not having the 'right' answer, this left me a little taken aback; I felt like a freak. 

But let me put this in a bit more context for you. 

My family had been blown apart 2 years earlier, April 2001, after finding out about my father's affair(s), the most significant of which resulted in him fathering a set of twins half way up the country. My parents had tried to work things out, but after 2 years of that, and a whole lot of other shit, my mum politely said 'This isn't working, please leave.'

In that 2 years, I had basically stepped up to be a quasi-parent. I spent a lot of time acting as confidant to my mum, and on occasion, also my dad, and when my mum got really depressed - suicidal I later found out - she went to Australia for a month to get her head right, and I was left as interim mum, doing all the housework cos my useless-as-fuck teenage brothers were far too busy watching TV to get off their arses and help me. 

I told my mum to kick dad out from the get go. I was so seethingly angry at his betrayal. She would counter with 'But what would I do by myself? I haven't had a job in 15 years.' 

I held her as she wept for her broken marriage, her broken dreams of happily ever after and our broken family. It was that moment that I vowed that I would never ever ever let myself get into such a vulnerable position. I would never not be able to support myself, or get myself into a position where I couldn't leave if I wanted to. I would have a career, I would have financial independence, and I would never ever be that woman. 

My mum was one of those martyr mums, happily suffering under the burden of motherhood. She strove for perfection and bent over backwards to make it so. She has always been an amazing cook, and every Friday, without fail, she cleaned the house for Sabbath. She has always had great attention to detail and had always done everything to the highest possible standards.

If this was what it meant to be a mother and a wife, then fuck that, I'd not be participating if all the thanks you get is betrayal and heartbreak as payment.

It was usually too much effort to get myself or my brothers to help with housework, so it was easier if she just did it herself. We were all pretty lazy, and totally took advantage of this.

All of this means I have weird hang ups about doing things for people, particularly housework, because I balk against the idea of being a subservient lowly woman, foolish enough to put in more time and effort than others.

To counter my natural people-pleasing bent of being helpful, and to ensure that I'm not the Little Red Hen, I'm obsessed with this idea that doing things for others will make me vulnerable to being taken advantage of, so I do just enough, exactly my fair share.

And I do a lot of score keeping.

This was most acute when I lived in our family home, with my brothers as adults. I felt the weight of expectation to keep the place clean, and live up to the high standards my mother had attained, but I also hated housework. However, my brothers hated it more, and would just leave it and leave it and leave it, so that eventually I would get so fucking fed up that I would do it, even though it wasn't my turn or my job.

This resulted in me balling my eyes out whilst vacuuming more than once.

'The house needs to be cleaned, and I'm the stupid fool who's willing to do it. I'm going to end up breaking my vow to myself and be the ridiculous person who ends up doing most of the work and being taken advantage of and walked all over.'

And obviously, all men are lazy pigs. (Since learned this isn't limited to men.)

I remember when I was 15, after a month of playing mum to my brothers and dad, and going on teen expedition to Marlborough Sounds, and my best friend offering to get something for me. I nearly cried. Someone offering to put in a little extra effort on my behalf so I didn't have to? And I didn't have to cajole or beg? It was so simple and so kind.

At that point, I couldn't remember that last time my brothers had willingly helped me with anything, or offered to put in more effort than was absolutely necessary. They certainly wouldn't go out of their way to help anyone, then. (We're speaking about when they were 13, 11 and 8. Thankfully they be lovely adults now.)

Around that time, I vomited in the middle of the night, and just missed the toilet, my dad got up to check on me, but at 4am he watched while he made me clean it up myself, his revoltion obvious. This is just the way of it, right? Obviously I was big enough and ugly enough to be doing that for myself. Is this what independence feels like?

Trying to walk the line between helping your kids and leaving them to do things for themselves so they feel empowered must be tough. I struggle with it and the kids I look after aren't even my kids.

Is it tough love or are you just being a dick?

So I started looking at myself and why I care so damn much about this.

I have known for a long time that the way that I was raised had some great parts and some not-so-great parts. I think the worst thing you can do when working with the next generation is assume the the way you were bought up was fine, and arbitrarily repeat that. Some parts of it need to be replicated, and other parts? Not so much. They need to be consigned to the annuls of history. 

I got to thinking about where this obsession with independence was coming from.

This fear of being taken advantage of lies at a juxtaposition of vehement independence - because other people can't be trusted - a healthy dose of feminism, a belief that to need help is weakness, and also 'treat em mean, keep em keen'. Obviously, if you're too nice to people then you create laziness in others and codependent relationships where they do not look after themselves, and then you end up resenting them because you're busy being a martyr and doing more than you signed on for. After all, how you interact with others, and what you say no to and what you allow them to do teaches them how to treat you, right?

There's some truth to all of that I think, but perhaps it is not the only truth.

After an hour of tears on 4 y.o's part, and a lot of self-doubt and questioning who I am as a person on my part, I was reflecting about why this 4 year old has so many problems with me and with emptying her own lunch box, a task that seems so amazingly small to me, yet huge to her. But I also wondered why I have such a abhorrence to emptying her lunch box for her - after all, I am paid to help her.

I think my nanny kids wishes I did stuff like this. Ha. No.

In my head I'm going 'What kind of namby pamby second rate citizens is all the mollycoddling going to create?!'

As a teacher, you can pick from a mile away the kids who are expected to help around home and those that aren't. Guess which ones are easier to teach? I don't want to be responsible for helping to create humans that are a pain in the arse in the classroom.

I tried bargaining with her - sure, I'll empty your lunch box - if you mop the floors? Fold the washing?

This just resulted in floors that were mopped in a half arsed way, and me being gently reminded by her mum that she might need help with her jobs.

This is not the first time I've encountered this in Ireland. Independence is not a virtue that is strongly fostered here. I've seen kids that look about 7 being pushed around in prams on Dublin streets. My nanny family seemed aghast when I suggested that there was more there kids should be doing for themselves, and presented them with some lists of 'norms ' for various age groups online.

3 and 4 year old children at creche - perfectly capable in my opinion - had parents put their shoes on for them, put their jackets on for them, and carry their bags for them.

I set about teaching all those kids how to do that all for themselves. I did not last long in creches here.

Is it possible that helping kids with their things actually creates helpful people?

In Ireland, the equation of helping and being kind and caring to children seems to create beautiful, kind, caring children, who are willing to do things for other people. 

This stopped me in my tracks.

Is it possible that doing things for other people - kids in particular - is actually just a manifestation of love, not weakness?

If you model kindness and caring, will that actually then just create kind and caring people? Not spoiled brats?

I think the answer is sometimes.

The binary is not quite that simple. The recipients of these loving acts of service, in my experience, will have one of two reactions:

1. They will copy this, as this is their normal, being kind and caring to others
2. They will then expect that others do everything for them

I think there's more power in kids attitudes and reactions to things than a lot of adults give credit to, and there will be a decision between one of the above two options for most kids, whether it be conscious or unconscious. For my family growing up, it seemed it was the latter for most things to do with housework. For my nanny family, there's an interesting mix of the two. 

My nanny family kids are lovely. They go out of their way to get things for each other, and take care of their siblings. They're kind to each other, they're good at taking turns and share things well. 

This new equation of cause and effect, and it having vastly different outcomes than I expected, has started to seriously challenge my beliefs around what is and is not OK, and how I should be interacting with these precious wee people.

All this thinking helped me to articulate something that has been unconscious for a long time:

I want to spare the kids I work with becoming like Peter.

Peter had a great many wonderful qualities, but he was a lazy fuck.

I was always the most willing to help out around the house, and Peter was always the least willing. Trying to get his lazy ass to do his weekly jobs was nigh impossible, and Steven and Brendon were hit and miss, but if Peter wasn't doing his, they wouldn't be doing theirs. Cleaning then became women's work, and not their problem. 

Peter's unwillingness to help permeated a great many areas of his life, and eventually also his mental health. He believed that anti-depressants were all he needed to be cured from clinical depression, and anything that involved incremental daily effort like healthy eating or exercise, well that didn't work that one day that he tried it, so obviously that was a waste of time. 

I think there could be a case for arguing that his laziness was ultimately a big factor in his demise, and because he was never forced to look after himself or anyone else in any meaningful way, he never created those habits for himself early, and thus when he NEEDED to look after himself, he couldn't. 

I do not wish that fate on anyone. 

It seems a ridiculous to answer 'Why should I have to empty my bag by myself?'
with 'Because if you don't, it might kill you.'

That is possibly a bit of a stretch.

But all of these things are the little building blocks of independence that enable one to eventually be able to look after oneself one day. 

Obviously, Peter's fate was a lot more complicated than that, and clinical depression is a unyielding task master, but a lack of discipline and a lack of willingness to help - even himself - was certainly a component, in my estimation. 

This fierce, biting, independence that I possess, that takes on a whole new level then. Independence that has depression, malaise and suicide as its alternative is very difficult for me to quell, or argue myself down from.

Being able to do things for yourself really does then become a matter of life and death.

Am I being unreasonable? Probably.

I also learned really early on as a teacher that if you do not get kids to pick up the rubbish off the floor of your classroom at the end of the day, there was then a social obligation to pick it up before the cleaner got there and saw it, and either gave you the disappointed look, or bitched about you to the other cleaners. No one wants to be that teacher. So I got to the stage where no one left any of my classrooms without a floor inspection, and no one was going home until it was spotless. This was true when I was relieving, even with 5 year olds. 

You better believe I am not cleaning up after you - but I will ensure that you clean up after yourself.

No, do it yourself.



See the other part of growing up with lazy arse brothers is that they would seldom to never do anything for you, which I then began to reciprocate because, well, get fucked if you think I'm doing anything for you, if you won't do the same for me. If I was foolish enough to ask Peter to get me a drink while he was up, the answer would usually be 'No, get it yourself.'

The constant laziness and teasing that I grew up amongst rubbed off, and while I've always been the kind of person who is happy to go above and beyond for people I care about, I curtailed that side of me - I didn't want to be the weak one, the one who was giving more than I was being given.

Is that what I want to be teaching my nanny kids? How do I find the line between do your share and take care of yourself and do only your share, take care of only yourself? 

I now need to somehow reign in all of this angst. 

I was talking to Jared about this, and he was saying that it was really hard to get me to do things for him sometimes, and that part of being married is doing things for people, like bringing them their keys when they forget them, or bringing them lunch when they forget that. 

I struggle with this, because my knee-jerk reaction is that 'If you were my child, I would not be dropping everything to bring you lunch. You would miss lunch as a natural consequence of your actions, and therefore hopefully not forget your lunch again.'

I think this stems from the idea that boundaries are strength. Being able to say No is a sign of someone who is strong and bad ass. 

This is what tough love looks like. 

Is this tough love? Or is that just being a bitch? 

Currently, these values spill out even when I'm trying to keep them in check. 

I've now managed to get to the stage where I can swallow my pride enough to help my little people if they ask nicely, but if they are all 'Lauren you have to do this', there will be an automatic 'Get Fucked Kid' look on my face, they will be told 'I am your minder, not your maid,' and I will walk away. 

Miss 4yo does not like this. Nanny Mum does not understand why this is such a big deal for me.

If kids can't do a bunch of things for themselves, is it fair of me to be expecting them to say please and thank you after Every.Single.Thing they need help with? Surely that's just part of the gig, Lauren.

But for me, independence is a life or death issue; fairly or unfairly.
If you can't be independent, then you better be asking nicely. 

Chatting it through with my hubby, I realised that perhaps I've been too harsh, and that there's some room for relaxing from these rules.

Another teaching truism: you can always become nicer, but it is harder to get meaner.

So now if I see my nanny kids struggling with 2 or 3 bags each, I offer to carry 1 thing for them.

I feel weak while I do this. Like my standards are slipping, and I am starting to be ruled by tiny overlords who boss me around, and I am now their pack horse/maid/taxi driver. I happily judged people like that up until now, and I feel like the esteem and pride I had in being a cruel-but-cool teacher fading rapidly.

But I'm working on re-framing it to:
'I am showing them how to see others struggles and lend a helping hand.  Share the load of life's burdens'

Maybe, eventually, I hope that will be believable to myself. 

Disclaimer: Shout out to my mum. She did an awesome job in raising us despite numerous challenges, mostly going it alone, and having an autoimmune disease. No one's childhood is perfect, and everyone has 'stuff' they need to grapple with even from the most balanced and amazing childhood. I think that grappling usually lasts for a long time and different things come up at different times. This is no way intended as an insult to my mum or anyone else in my immediate family. Just calling it how I remember it and grappling from there.

This has come up for me now because the Irish way of raising kids seems to be quite different to the Kiwi norm. Everything is worth questioning - and sometimes the answer is it was awesome and I'm gonna hold onto that, and sometimes the answer is I need to learn new ways of thinking, new paradigms, new talk moves, new ways of being and change my expectation of myself and others.