Rediscovering the 'Me' in 'Mumeeeeeee'

'I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways'. (Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861)

September 18, 2010

Wise words


As I finished reading Roald Dahl's 'Danny, the Champion of the World' to my five-year-old last night, I was struck by the words at the very end of the book:

A MESSAGE

to Children Who Have Read This Book

When you grow up
and have children of your own
do please remember
something important

a stodgy parent is no fun at all

What a child wants
and deserves
is a parent who is

SPARKY

Wise words indeed.

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9 comments:

  1. Unfortunately they forget these key messages as soon as they hit their teens. Believe me, the last thing my daughter wants is for me to be 'sparky', especially when her friends are around...

    Of course, I take no notice of her. She may appreciate it again one day!

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  2. I'm not sure - my daughter likes other people's parents to be sparky, she just wants me to be Mum. She finds me an embarrassment now, just imagine her agony if I were sparky too!

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  3. Not quite sure what sparky means but I definitely like to think I'm a fun mum. I hope me and my daughter can always have fun together and I don't get to the embarrassing stage. Like Suzie says above we'll see what happens in the teenage years eh!

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  4. My son tells me he just wants to BE Danny The Champion of the World. (We too just finished this book recently.) When I asked him why, he told me he loved the Dad as the Dad was "as cool as".

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  5. Sparky sounds like 'perky' which, frankly, translates as annoying. To me...

    But then again, it's Sunday and I've been up since before 7am, minding the p's and q's of my 4yo while her own "as cool as" Dad sleeps in til 10am then takes a leisurely hot shower. I'm neither liking nor feeling "sparky" at all right now.

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  6. Sparky sounds great. Just get me some heavy duty caffiene and a couple of decent nights sleep and I'll see what I can do. Oh, and a child that listens to his mother occasionally...

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  7. I wished we could all skip the stage where daughters find their mums an embarrassment. Until then - I'll revisit my childhood together with her. It's been fishfingers for dinner on end during the past week. I am feeling young in a very weird kind of way.

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  8. I thought it was sparkly not sparky? that's what I have been telling Chief Spending Officer. Though now we face severe austerity measures I may need to rethink!

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