As the Christmas holidays come to a close, and my house looks like a bomb site, my 15 year old barely grunting at me as he rises at 12 noon, eats and leaves the building, and a 12 year old eating her entire bodyweight in sugar when I’m not looking, I’ve been continuing to ponder about what messages we give our children about “The Real World”.
While distracting myself from my work, I found an extract from a speech by Bill Gates given a few years ago at a High School about things they did not and will not learn in school. He expressed concern at a generation with no concept of reality and a lack of the necessary skills with which to function in the world. I think this is a great reminder of our role as parents. Even though I am often faced with a horrified expression from my off spring when I try and impose certain values, beliefs, rules and life lessons, with their biggest moan being about why I can’t be a ‘normal’ mother (whatever one of those might look like)!
Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Feel free to print off, colour in and use blutak to stick on their doors!
In February 2010, with two months gardening leave, the emotional recovery of my marriage ending only 9 months earlier still in full swing, two children, a mortgage and my ever so slightly feisty attitude, I walked out of my job. I worked in the Public Sector and the contract was always going to end and the inevitable fight for another job that failed to satisfy would be due to take place soon and I just couldn’t face it anymore.
I left behind a slightly startled Manager, six weeks paid leave, sick pay, mileage allowance and a respectable salary. It wasn’t enough for me on any level and single parenting with a full time job based an hour away, is a comprehensively difficult task for reasons that shouldn’t need detailing.
As I head towards two years of self-employment, I have learnt more than I could ever have imagined. The very process of getting up each and day and having to take responsibility for your earnings, ensuring that the children have food and warmth, is character building to say the least. I regularly meet people who are setting up in business who want as much information as possible as to how you can actually make this happen. So what can I tell you?
Get used to having only what you need. When you strip away most of what you spend your money on, much of it only serves to make you feel better about the unsatisfying life you lead. We actually need very little. Strip it right down. Now. And hope that you have lovely friends who pretend to employ you for bits of work that need doing.
When you first start in business, days off and work/life balance are luxuries spoken of by employed people or people supported by a partner. If it’s just you, prepare to work all day and all night, managing the basics of sleep, food and conversations with your children (if you have them) that are in the very least, done face to face. I absolutely promise that life will not stay like this. I have at least one day off a week now and I balance my life through the days that I do work by working hours that fit around my family and my social life.
Know this, you will become unemployable fairly quickly. The thirst for making a success of your business will be a driving force that most employers don’t really want in their workplace. No longer limited by other people’s needs and expectations, you can reach as high up to the stars as your wish. Also, taking lunch, starting work and finishing work, will all become time frames that you wish for no-one else to ever interfere with again. In short, once you start on this journey, you’re likely to have to stay on this journey!
Connect with as many people as you can from which you can then find people to form your support group or your team. These are the people that you will learn from and that you will teach, that you will have coffee with and cry with. These are the people that you will grow with and you will form a Network with whereby you recommend each other businesses forming a thriving business community that then connects with other thriving communities.
You are now several departments. You are Marketing, Personnel, Payroll, Health and Safety, Book Keeper, Social Media Strategist, Communications and, of course, you complete the job itself. It is possible that you have not ever learnt so much information before.
Being Self-employed is a little like life before children…you really can’t explain it to someone until they’ve done it. It’s hard, it’s amazing, it’s frustrating, it’s fulfilling. Like parenting, it is every emotion and it takes you right through the sleepless nights to that look of love you have on your face as you gaze down at your full diary in a doting fashion and think “I made you”.
So there we are, a very short introduction to my life in Business with more posts to follow. This is my own story and I have learnt that I have quite a high propensity to risk taking behaviour (although I think that has lessened somewhat over the years) and this attitude has helped. Running your business is not about certainty or safety or security, even if these are future goals. But it is definitely about excitement, learning, empowerment, creativity and an overwhelming sense of achievement that I don’t recall feeling since I put myself through my degree while working full time back in the early 1990’s. If I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t do it sooner!
The clocks have made their way back an hour, the evenings are now dark and I’m starting to notice people catching colds, feeling rough and coughing their way through conversations. As a self employed, single parent, being ill isn’t really an option for me so I have learnt over the years how to make sure that I am strong and healthy and able to cope with what life sends me.
So how can you look after yourself during this time? Or more importantly, how do you maintain a healthy and robust immune system, because that is essentially what will protect you from illness?
Poor diet, lack of self-care and nurturing, not listening to your body when it’s tired, stress and emotional angst, will all leave you open to picking up colds and flu.
These are my practical top tips for looking after yourself this Winter:
At least once a week, and certainly if you feel symptoms coming on such as headaches, aches in general, sore throat and sniffles, drink some Manuka Honey and lemon in hot water with a splash of Ginger and a smidgen of chilli. Katherine Jenkins swears by it and always drinks her own concoction before she sings to nurture her vocal chords and stave off illness.
Wash your hands. Simple but true as germs linger on all the door handles and escalators and stair rails.
Go to bed by 10pm at least twice a week and rest your body and soul. The importance of sleep cannot be underestimated.
Make time for yourself. Whether that’s your monthly Massage Treatment, reading a book or spending some time alone with your own thoughts. This is true all through the year, but Winter is a time filled with stressful situations. The uncontrollable weather, the memory of a bereavement from the Winter months gone by and with Xmas and all of those prolonged family engagements, this can all prove very stressful to manage.
Understand the rhythm of Winter. It’s a calm time, a time to do projects that you wouldn’t entertain at any other time of the year. Sorting out your photo’s, making a scarf (wish I was good enough to make a jumper!), cleaning out your cupboards or learning to paint. This is the stuff of Winter.
I asked Natali Knibbs, Qualified and Certified Nutritionist, what we can do from a Nutritional perspective and she suggests the following:
Immune supportive diet:
High in colour-the power of phytonutrients
Oily fish and EFAs
Quality protein
Low in sugar, sat fats , alcohol etc
Garlic: Include raw fresh garlic in your daily cooking.
Anti-bacterial, anti-viral, antifungal
Potent anti-oxidant
Try use 4 cloves daily to fight infections
Reishi & Shiitake Mushrooms
Potent anti-oxidant
Help immune system to recognise and attack harmful invaders
Supplementation:
Echinacea
Echinacea can help prevent and treat colds and flu, but don’t use it for longer than 2 weeks at a time – always have a break of at least 2 weeks between. Echinacea doesn’t actually kill the bugs, but improves the ability of our immune systems to defend itself against attack.
Goldenseal: Strengthens the mucous membranes and great taken together with Echinacea. It’s a powerful immune boosting herb, with the potential to target viruses and bacteria directly.
Good multi-vitamin with Anti-oxidants and Vits A, C, the B- complex and selenium
Fish oils: Fish oils are a good source of Omega 3 fatty acids, which are important for all aspects of health including immunity. Oily fish such as mackerel and sardines are the best sources of omega 3’s. Sadly not many of us consume enough of these foods and therefore supplementation with fish oils is helpful.
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Rather disturbed by the News this morning regarding the amount of deaths that occur in the elderly population during the Winter and how fuel poverty will increase the numbers dramatically, it’s also a time of year to think about how you can be helpful in your local community. It’s well known that kindness, thinking of others and helping other people makes us feel good and that’s’ got to be the best boost of all!
Make this the Winter that you don’t have to feel rubbish. Taking some simple steps will ensure you have a healthy immune system, a healthy Winter and a lovely time. Enjoy!
I was recently privileged enough to be asked to co-ordinate a 42 strong group of single parent families for the holiday company Single With Kids. With only the tiniest trepidation, a smidgen of worry and a vague concern about group politics, I agreed.
I don’t often write about being a single parent, yet it’s a subject I know a fair amount about. My family now nestles in it’s fourth generation of female led single parents, acquired through death, abandonment and sheer absence. I have brought up my children as a two parent family, a single parent family, a step family and as a single parent again. I have been a step child and a step parent. I have been the child of a single parent in the 1970’s with all of it’s condemnation, lack of emotional articulation and hidden and not so hidden social structures that isolated and excluded those who sat outside what was then perceived of as the norm. In my previous career, I have also worked extensively with families in distress, abandoned families and families so broken they are unlikely to ever mend.
The experiences of single parents are so often categorised as though we are one homogeneous group in society operating within the same frameworks and experiences, a ‘group’ identified usually for the purpose of blame, vilification and as scapegoats for societies ills and dysfunctions, popping up in Daily Mail headlines as and when required.
Spending some time in an entire group of men and women, who sit inside the single parent spectrum has been inspiring. Watching everyone getting up and getting on with it, smiling, enjoying, loving their children no matter how exhasuted they feel brings a sense of pride at the sheer strength possessed in order to do this incredibly mammoth task. Listening to all the different stories of hurt, joy, recovery and determination is an honour.
The people here have families with one, two and three children, mostly with sole repsonsibility for their children, some with 50/50. The ages of the children range from 2 years to nearly 15 years and all of us are hard working, dedicated and committed to the bringing up of the next generation.
In the lift on the way to write to this, I said to one of the parents I was on my way to go and do a little blogging about single parents. He asked me if I’d made any general observations and I replied yes I have, I think we’re all amazing!
