Liz Fraser - A Spoonful of Sugar

Old-fashioned wisdom for modern-day mothers

LIZ FRASER

For Granny, with love .

Author’s Note

Introduction

Meet Granny … and what you’re in for

Chapter One: CHILDHOOD

The very basics

The big rush

The curse of worrying

When push comes to shove

Playing by the rules

Letting kids be kids

Chapter Two: HOME SWEET HOME

Household chores

Routine, routine, routine

Illness

Health scares

The great outdoors

Chapter Three: EAT YOUR GREENS

We really are what we eat

The good news

Buying local

The bad news

Strike a balance

Cooking from scratch

Spilling the beans – was it really all home made back then?

(Don’t) supersize them

Chapter Four: PLEASE MAY I GET DOWN?

Animals feed, humans dine. Which are you?

Once upon a breakfast time

Lunchtime, what time?

The evening meal – nervous breakdown anyone?

Getting bums on seats

Who’s at the table?

Eliminating fussy eaters

And you’re not getting down till you’re finished

And for desert: a serving of realism

Chapter Five: BECAUSE I SAY SO

The importance of discipline: at home

Drawing the line

Discipline: where are we now?

Crime and punishment. What to do when they cross the line

Smacking. Oh, here we go

It stands to reason … or does it?

Out of sight, out of order

Another challenge for parents

Chapter Six: RESPECTFULLY YOURS

Where are we now?

How has it got this way?

Generation ME

Manners

Thinking of others: spending time with the Real People

Coming right back at you, Mum

The drinking culture, family and behaviour

How to bring back a little respect

Chapter Seven: DRESSING UP

You’re not going out dressed like that !

Fashionista, baby

Money, money, money

I see, therefore I want

Sexy baby. Ummm, isn’t that exactly the problem …?

Role models

Mummy, I want to look just like everyone else

Chapter Eight: SCHOOL TIME

A is for Attitude

B is for Brains

C is for Computers and stuff

D is for Do It Yourself

SILENCE!

Classroom chaos

Getting tough on unruly kids

Cyber bullying

So what can be done?

Oh, litigation’s what you (don’t) need

Solution 1:throwing out the rule book

Solution 2:on the home front

Chapter Nine: ’TIS WISE TO BE THRIFTY

The curse of consumerism, and how to escape it

‘The price of everything – and the value of nothing’

Yes, it’s credit crunch time

Pester power

Playing ‘green’

Birthday parties – Noooooooo!

Reversing the trend

Pocket money

Chapter Ten: … AND DON’T COME BACK TILL TEATIME

A train ride

Kids in the community

My mum is a control freak!

Community parenting

Fear of other people

A new kind of risk: the internet

Abductions and sexual assaults: the facts

What’s a parent to do?

Chapter Eleven: OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE …

Family holidays

Searching for that missing ‘something’

Everything but the kitchen sink

But there’s a whole world out there!

Holiday clubs – love ’em or hate ’em?

Chapter Twelve: MOVING WITH THE TIMES

The ups and downs of the modern world

But everyone else does!

Conclusion

Final Note

Acknowledgements

Permissions

Index

About The Author

By The Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Liz Fraser, aged three

This book won’t make you or your children perfect. It won’t solve all the problems of parenting; it won’t stop kids writing ‘Suzy has big nokkers’ on bus stops or flicking snot into the freezer compartments in Tesco’s. It won’t answer all of your parenting prayers or make your husband’s tongue more agile. Sorry, but it really won’t.

What it will do is offer a whole host of practical, simple, common-sense solutions to many of the dilemmas faced by all those of us who, despite trying really jolly hard indeed to raise decent citizens of this world, feel we might just be making a dog’s dinner out of it.

Those of us who feel hemmed in by public opinion, government legislation, rules and regulations, by the pace and stress of modern life, technology and consumerism. Those who have had enough of the Negotiation Generation, of the early sexualisation of our daughters, the cotton-wool parenting of our sons, the loss of respect and manners, of not feeling that we can parent our own kids: who feel something precious has been lost and who are equally worried and saddened by what is happening to the people we love the most. In short, those of us who want our children to be allowed to be children again.

What I hope is that this book can make the experience of childhood better for thousands of children growing up in this country today, while making the job of parenting them a good deal easier and more enjoyable for you.

Sometimes you need to look back in order to go forward. Talking to my grandmother – and thereby to a whole generation of parents gone by – has been the most eye-opening and helpful experience I’ve ever had where child-rearing is concerned. I just hope we can pass some of our combined experience and knowledge on to you, too.

Take your pick and see what works for you. Children are only young once and they are our future – so listen to those who have done it before, and then give it your best shot!

Liz and her Granny, 2008

One late-August day, I receive a phone call from my Granny: she has recently had an operation to improve the feeble circulation in her leg and foot, and, although she is trying to sound upbeat about it, she is clearly very under the weather, in pain and unusually weak. I decide immediately that a spirit-lifting visit is required, so a week later I, my husband and our three children all pile into the car for a 480-mile drive to the highest inhabited village in the remote Scottish highlands, which Granny calls Home and I call Far Too Bloody Far Away.

As we squash our bottoms into cellulite pancakes all the way up the M6 and beyond, I am more anxious than ever to get there and with every passing motorway service station I have a growing regretful, guilty, wretched feeling that I should have spent more time visiting her in the past. Like most pissed twenty-somethings and self-obsessed thirty-somethings I have been too selfish to make time to visit her; to connect with someone who, suddenly in light of her illness, seems such a vital connection to my children: through her, through my dad and then through me.