Obligation (I)

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This photo of my son (used with permission) was taken when we climbed Ben Vrackie (2760 feet) with friends in the Easter holidays.  It's only about five miles, a distance we matched and easily surpassed several times later that holiday while on woodland walks with other friends including a five year old girl. But the conditions and weather are different on Ben Vrackie and it is steeper. The photo above is actually past the stage of obligation:  this is realisation about what you are going to have to do.

Besides having a PhD in brain science, a regular job and two small boys my friend Hannah is in the Mountain Rescue.  

She also runs up hills - for pleasure; sixteen miles the other day she told me.  

When we decided to go hillwalking with our children she described Ben Vrackie as a “proper hill”. Three of us had no inkling of all the steps to come.   

We were new to hillwalking. It started off gentle and satisfying, with great views around Pitlochry:

The photo below is perhaps half way. I still don't think I had realised where we going. At the bottom of that distant hill, the wind got up, it started to rain and turned surprisingly cold. "We won't need waterproofs will we" I had said in the carpark. Always take waterproofs!

The other children flew or strolled up the steps but Henry objected.  No surprise because in the inclement weather he was wearing his brother’s waterproof overtrousers about three sizes too big, an adult cagoule and skiing mittens and was evidently tiring.

I suspect the moderate enthusiasm that informed my own effort up that hill was largely from trying to persuade my son up it too.  Then the thought struck him that he had missed out on the motivational sweetie round at the bottom of the hill and that could he but right that omission all would be well.  Since this would clearly spur him up the hill far more effectively than any chat with me “What a good idea”, I said.  But Hannah had the sweets.  “You’ll have to catch up with her”.  He bounded away, paused beside her for a few moments and darted off again as only a six year old can in such clothing.  After that I found it decidedly strenuous.  Ten minutes later I caught up with three of the four boys, chatting and laughing together:

Hannah said, wryly, it’s not about the view, it’s not even about the walk, it’s not about the experience so much as it’s about getting to the top.  I wasn’t quite sure how much to believe her.  Men say that, I said nonplussed.  “Oh, they do” she agreed.  Another time I remembered saying in similar perplexity “The “advanced”  hillwalking groups are full of men.  And you.”   She’d laughed.   I just don’t seem to be made psychologically quite the same way, with quite the same focus and determination or perhaps just in different things. She did that walk carrying not only mountain survival gear, masses of food, drinks and spare clothing probably for all of us, but also her old dog, Maisie up that hill.

Still, a lot of it is about getting to the top.

We couldn’t have left Henry half-way up the hill:  “No problem, you just sit here, enjoy the view and we’ll pick you up on the way down”.  It doesn’t happen.  Of course you try first to reason with, persuade and eventually as the case becomes more desperate, cajole, bribe and demand your children do things. What is the difference between a bribe and a reward anyway?  It strikes me it's simply the way you pitch it and beyond any objective difference that it’s more about your own view of yourself, the way you appear to others and your relationship with your children.

Sometimes - quite often -   children have other ideas.  Sometimes it seems you just have to tell them, boringly repetitive:  

I:  Here you are (handing to child - usually food)

Child takes offered thing

I: Pardon?

Child: Thank you.

Seven years, nine years we have been performing this daily sketch.

Or: “Turn off the Xbox please”. Off. Now. Your shoes.  Put on your shoes. Please. Now.  “Er, where are you going?” “WOULD YOU PLEASE WALK OUT OF THE DOOR”. Though as the years roll on I'm more inclined to adopt the position my father took: “I'll be sitting in the car and at <time t>” I will be leaving.  I should say “try to adopt”.   It’s hard to square that approach with the mothering side:  But have you brushed your teeth. Really? Can I see please?  It’s that or face cavities and reproachful looks from the dentist.  If only that were the half of it:  And you’ll have been to the loo/ put your plate away/ watered the hamster/ made your bed/ done your homework?   Fathers in general apparently tend to ignore most of that stuff.  

In fact my children are helpful: they tidy up after themselves and don’t even always need to be asked. They set the table, help clear up after meals, clean out the hamsters and take out the bin.  But it is a routine, not natural behaviour.  Natural behaviour seems to be to drop coat/shoes/laundry/towels on the floor and usually in front of doorways.  It’s a relief when I hear this borne out by many mothers of boys.  

Strikingly, the best motivation, as evinced by Henry’s sudden flight up Ben Vrackie, the only motivation that really works, comes from within themselves.  Somehow in the general grind of parenting the answer seems to be to try to find what it is that motivates children from within.  I don’t mean in the big stuff.  Children are so naturally curious, energetic and engaged that I find that takes care of itself. I mean in participating in the essential tasks of daily life.  Often I can think of no puzzle more intransigent.  

One reason though children do need to do what they’re told is because it is seldom that I find that the thing to which my sons can object to so vehemently is as stomach-churningly unpleasant as they’d have you believe at the time. At the weekend the younger one threw a blue fit about going to a party which invitation he’d accepted.  I don’t believe in forcing children to try things they aren’t keen on but if they’ve decided to do something, arrangements are made and then they try to renege on it at the last minute my patience thins at such poor manners.  He was marched out of the house but returned later all smiles, and contradicting, not uncommonly, everything he had said and having had a super time.  I love by the way, that plasticity of mind that accepts with a simple shrug that they were mistaken before and now things are different.  There is none of the obdurateness you find in some adults, the kind who can never be wrong, who are.unable to view something from different sides and who are determined to stick to their position come what may,

There is an obvious if I feel spurious rejoinder:  if parents didn’t oblige their children to do things perhaps they would do less of the same once they become adults.  This is the sort of thing somebody might say who hasn’t raised children for years continually in their home.   But if you do think that children and adults need to be similarly obliged or not obliged to do things I would love to hear it.

Thanks to Hannah for permission to use these photos.