Raising Children – Cynthia Reyes

Parents know how anxious children can be when school begins, and one of a child’s biggest worries is whether they will make friends.

Lauren and I heard this when we toured primary and nursery schools with our Myrtle the Purple Turtle books. When we visit children from 3 to 11 years old, we don’t just read the books to them: we also listen to their experiences.

Some children told us about being left out. No one wanted to play with them, or “be friends”. Some were made fun of, or bullied by others.

Of course, these things can happen at any time, not just in the first weeks of school. We also know that parents are looking out for their children, themselves anxious about how their child is faring each day.

But there is another thing parents (and other adults who care for children) can do:

Encourage or remind your children to be kind to others, and especially to children who seem to have no friends.

Just as they clearly recalled the painful times they were excluded, the 9, 10 and 11 year old children we met had uplifting stories. They had distinct memories of the classmates who noticed they were excluded and reached out to them.

Some remembered being told they couldn’t join in a game, but also happily remembered the time they were included. And they cherished their memories of the classmates who simply asked “Do you want to be friends?”

Out in the community, we’ve even met adults in their 80’s who remember those incidents from early childhood. Some today say they are still marked by those experiences of being excluded or being befriended.

Every child needs to be included and every child can be a friend to another.

The original Myrtle story was written for Lauren, after an incident at her school when she was almost five years old. But if you were to accompany us on a book tour in schools, you would understand why these issues are so present in our thoughts as we write every new book.

We are passionate about Myrtle’s messages of inclusion, kindness and self-esteem because we see the great need for them — and we see it often.

To order, or learn more about the Myrtle books, please visit: https://myrtlepurpleturtle.wordpress.com/

We are also grateful for this award recognizing Myrtle’s relevance to schools:

Myrtle - Purple Dragonfly Book Award

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Mother’s Day in the Garden

May 11, 2014May 12, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

One garden here at the old farmhouse is extra-special.

Partly shaded by a large red maple, it has two dogwood trees, two purple lilacs, a Japanese maple and a forsythia shrub. The Japanese maple was stuck there “temporarily” but was somehow forgotten and has outgrown its spot.

“One of these days, I’ll have to move it,” my husband says. But that tree is so big now that I suspect it’s not going anywhere.

Hydrangea shrubs and tree peonies also flourish here.

In front of them are smaller plants: Solomon’s seal; ferns; the intriguingly shaped “Jack-in the Pulpit”; the occasional trillium (Ontario’s official flower); may apples and another woodland plant whose name I never learned.

Pink tulips come up every spring, as do daffodils, astilbe, and hosta. It’s the only garden bed that’s home to such a variety of characters: woodland, shade, and sun-loving plants.

No wonder it’s called “Mama’s Garden”. The children she mothered are a variety of characters too.

Throughout the spring, pink lamium borders one side of Mama’s Garden, while blue forget-me-nots border the other. Recently, though, they’ve both strayed into the path.

“Your garden would look better if I could weed the path regularly”, I apologize to Mama.

And I can hear her voice saying: “Ah, m’dear. It’ll get done. Right now, there are more important things on your plate.”

My husband named the garden in tribute to Mama’s great love of gardening.

My mother died several years ago.

On every Mother’s Day since, I head out to Mama’s Garden, no matter what the weather, no matter what condition I’m in. I bring a sturdy mug of coffee, walk through the entrance arbour and down the short pathway, looking at the growing things around me.

I sit on the stone bench at the back of the garden.

“Thank you, Mama,” I say.

There are so many things to thank her for.

So I thank her and I thank God for her, and sometimes the talk with Mama gets mixed in with the prayer and it feels like the beings I am talking to are one and the same, but I don’t think either Mama or God would mind.

I give thanks.

For a mother who loved and tended her family. For a mother who taught us the importance of growing things. And for a mother whose love and faith live on in our hearts.

Garden photos by Hamlin Grange. Photos of Cynthia by Dale Ratcliffe.

This post is dedicated to my mother and mother-in-law, who mothered not just their own children, but all our cousins and friends when they needed mothering too.

Happy Mother’s day, and happy belated Mothering Sunday, to all women who tend and care for children.

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My Proudest Achievement – Part 2

May 8, 2014November 26, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

My career took flight during the women’s movement in the late 80’s and kept moving.

Each job paid more, demanded more, involved more travel.

For the most part, my life was unlike my mother’s (she never traveled abroad till she was in her late forties). But, at times, my life was also strangely reminiscent of hers. For long periods, I got to work at home. Got to be there when the kids came home from school. Like my mother did.

I have two wonderful men to thank for that. My husband’s support allowed me to travel on business. My boss’ support allowed me to work at home often, in return for all that travel.

Support came from remarkable women. My own mother, who’d been denied the career she wanted, sometimes moved in temporarily when my job took me abroad. My husband’s mother often cooked the Jamaican dishes we loved (but weren’t good at making). My sister, who taught me to cook dishes my kids would like. And a very caring nanny; we lived very frugally so we could afford her and it was money very well spent.

And so, my proudest achievement – raising children who’ve become strong, decent adults — is something I’m not very confident about, had a lot of help with, and cannot claim as entirely my own.

Even with all that help and support, my husband and I worked hard at parenting our children, sometimes completely unsure whether we were doing the right thing. We got advice from our parents, but sometimes screwed up royally when we tried to apply that good counsel to our own family.

Looking back, we sometimes joke that the girls turned out alright, in spite of us. We’ve watched with pride, astonishment and awe as our daughters have grown up and made choices about their lives.

They’ve done well at school and work. They know when to “step up and stand up”: stepping up to help others going through tough times; standing up for what they consider to be right. They have strong values.

And – to my astonishment — each has a great sense of style, is a good cook and a great wit. These are talents which I’m sure come from their father and grandmothers, since no-one has ever accused me of any of those things.

Our daughters are strong, decent adults and I am proud of having had something to do with that outcome. But, more than that, I am thankful for having had the chance to parent them and watch them grow! As they have grown, my husband and I have also grown.

I’m thankful for my career. The doors it opened, the confidence it built, the money I earned. The people I met, the travel to foreign lands.

But when someone asks me about the proudest achievement of my life, there’s no debate: I’m proudest of raising children who have become strong, decent adults.

Dedicated to my daughters, my husband and our mothers, with thanks.

And to all those who, like us, learned parenting as they went along, and all the people who helped.

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My Proudest Achievement – Part 1

May 7, 2014May 7, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

At the pinnacle of my career some years ago – and about to receive another award for outstanding achievement – a television interviewer asked me:

“What is your proudest achievement?”

I looked at her smiling face, at the cameras and lights surrounding us, at the bare studio floors — and paused only slightly.

Thanks to: publicdomainpictures.net — publicdomainpictures.net

“Raising children who have become strong, decent adults.”

She stared back, surprised. It was not the answer she was expecting.

I knew she was expecting me to mention my professional achievements. The award-winning television programs. Contributions to the media industry in Canada and other countries. Championing new program methods and technology. Mentoring women and cultural minorities in the sector. Helping to transform South African public television after apartheid.

But she hadn’t asked me to identify my biggest career achievement. She’d asked about my proudest achievement, and I had answered truthfully.

Was that a look of disappointment I saw on her face? That a woman who had come of age during the recent years of the women’s movement, the years when we fought hard for gender equity in the workplace — that a woman who had climbed those challenging ranks, moving up from one influential role to the next – that such a woman should, after all that, point to raising children as her proudest achievement?

I didn’t mean to disappoint her. I didn’t mean to suggest to someone in the early years of her career that mothering should be her greatest aspiration.

I was simply voicing my own truth.

Not that I’d always known it. There were times when I was being lauded for my career achievements and I got a big head, and could feel myself getting high on my own supply.

But now I had been there, done that and won all the career accolades. And, upon reflection — as I thought about all the things that I had done with my life — I knew my answer as surely as I knew my own name.

Parenting was the thing for which I’d never received an award – and rightly so. Indeed, I was still struggling at it. Parenting may come easily to some people. Not me.

Just a few days before, I’d rushed to give one daughter advice when all she’d needed was a listening ear.

A week before that, I’d missed an opportunity to hang out with my other daughter, only to realize later that I could and should have gone. I’d remembered too late, my mother’s advice: “When your children invite you to spend time with them, drop everything else and go.”

Ironic, then, that I should name parenting as my proudest achievement.

My mother, despite her academic brilliance, had given up her own dreams of becoming a professional teacher. Money was scarce after her father’s unexpected death.

Instead of going to teachers’ college, my mother had married, borne five children and become a seamstress – designing and sewing dresses for the ladies of our village, something she did at home.

She was a loving mother; a great mother. But I vowed that my own life would be different. I wasn’t sure if I’d have children, but I knew that I’d have a career, one that took place outside the home.