Know your Limits

Nothing punctures the smugness of a smug parent who thinks she's got it in her stride more than her child moving to a new stage.  Baby to baby who rolls. Child who holds onto the buggy while walking down the street to child who rushes towards the dual carriageway to push the button on the pelican crossing.  Child who enjoys going to a film with her family to preteen who wants to hang out independently with her 11/12 year old mates.

When we left UK, Firstborn was just 10. We were part of a closeknit small town community and one block from a large, safe park.  She knew 'safehouses' and all the parents of similar aged children in a two mile radius. We knew their phone numbers. She had been walking to the corner shop to spend her pocket money for years. She and her friends had passed cycling proficiency tests at school and spent summer evenings whizzing round the neigbourhood in a small tame gang, stopping off for popcorn at one house or another, and returning home as per their curfew.  It was a model we, her parents, had known ourselves, with which we felt at ease.

Returning back for a holiday after a year away, the peer group boundaries had moved.  Now the friends, about to leave primary school, were allowed to go for a communal meal and early evening film in the nearby mall unaccompanied.  They were about to start secondary school, to travel by bus or trains to schools up to 10 miles away.  Several were allowed shopping in SmallTown centre with a friend.  We, Mother and Daughter alike, were wistful, thinking of the things which were possible there, which it felt too insecure to allow in Nairobi.

And now her Nairobi group would like to be let off the leash for an afternoon. They're a sensible lot.  Not a cause for concern were the external environment controllable. And much of the time here it feels as if it is. But is that because we ignore and shut out the nagging fears about which we can do nothing?  Or is that just usual anxiety, when giving children greater leeway? We get regular email security alerts and incident reports. Lots of them. From D's employer. From friends. From a global security company here. Some understandable, some straws flying in the wind. But who knows which is which? There's a standard alert  recommending we avoid malls and places where foreigners hang out, in case of bombs.  It's a perennial alert, like in IRA times it doesn't deter me from a cappucino midweek, or from leisure trips en famille.  But let Firstborn and her mates go bowling alone in possible PrimeTarget mall by the United Nations, or go to a film in another mall, which already has bomb checks on  each car?  Well suddenly that feels one big step too far.

Ever since I trained as a first aider with a traumatised paramedic who'd coordinated triage in the Heysel Stadium tragedy, I've been prone to imagine the worst case scenario.  Scenes from Casualty, everywhere. Entrusting baby FirstBorn to her marvellous, loving, experienced childminder, along with instructions on handling the frozen icecubes of babyfood, I looked her in the eye and was clear, 'I'm looking to you to get her out if there were a fire or an accident.'  Agreeing playdates with schoolmums I'd move from gratitude to pernickity puncitiliousness 'I always put the visiting children on our safety booster seats when I'm driving, I expect you to do the same with my children.'  Ooerr, steady.  So it felt today that the only way to square the independence vs security circle was for one of us parents to set up a mulish basecamp in the mall, far enough away not to cramp her style, close enough to be texted to dive in, in a fluke nightmare scenario.

But that's to assume that we are the only parents to have reservations, or that all reservations are similar.  We had wanted a clearcut group pre-agreed agenda and a security parent closeby. Others had been anxious about the participation of the opposite sex in the trip. Others still had vetoed a film, while we had been helping Firstborn to clarify end times of all the shows.  The group-agreed start time of the trip shifted, evening by evening, from 12, to 2. The mulish Security Parent saw her whole Saturday afternoon disappearing.  As we were leaving for the event itself, Firstborn got another call from her mates. They were at a hockey tournament which their school was hosting.  And on arrival there its groundrules had changed. As the hosting school, all host participants must stay till the bitter end. No rejoicing in lesser athletic prowess and skulking off early. No enjoying your Saturday afternoon, continuing with what you or your family had signed up to. And still, they reported no end was in sight. And no clarity for Firstborn or the mulish SP. 

I drew my line in the sand there. Happy to support you to have fun independently, but this, today, feels an ill-fated venture. Do you want to go ahead with the two (male) friends still committed, maybe hanging on for hours for the others to arrive?  Or would you like to rearrange for a day in the holidays?  She had wanted to be with the whole group.  The hockey friends were still stuck at the tournament at 4, two hours after the latest agreed rendezvous, hours and hours and hours after its morning start.  Not their fault, but not the universe doing its bit. 

Its my culture, not the culture here. But the key bit I remember from being out independently as a teenager is that you stick with your mates.  And for matters beyond their control, this was made impossible for Firstborn's mates today.  I really, really, really think that in letters to parents sent by schools, they need to be clear in advance on groundrules, end times, participation obligations. The assumption here, and on so many other occasions, is that the family has nothing better to do, no other child, or foresooth, the free unfettered leisure time of the caretakers to consider. An assumption that the Prodigal Child has a driver at her personal behest, who won't care - or might care, but won't protest - if an event assumed to finish at midday drags on till 5.  I think its a power thing. We, the school, are the important ones. You, the child, the parents, comply with what we want, even if we've only just told you.  It ignores the power of children to know their own minds, to choose. It ignores their growing power as a peer group, who make independent sorties possible for their peers, if they too are there. 

I know there are bigger issues one might take on.  But this is the third weekend in a row where a compulsory school event has dragged on, and on, on and on. My kids weren't even invited to this one, and still it impacted on us. So today its the need to communicate end times, to model clarity of communication, so we can support our children to grow more independent, safely, to themselves communicate with responsibility, for which I'm standing.