Home from boarding school
I was sent to boarding school at the age of 12. It was the same for most of our friends, and for us, there was no such thing as a “soccer mom” because kids played most of their sport at school and a bus would take us to other schools for matches at the weekends. This gave parents the time to socialize with friends as well as enjoying the opportunity to meet new people. The women tended to be at home and their job was to continue the tradition of caring for their busy, hard working husbands, cooking delicious meals, arranging flowers, looking after a large home and being involved in some charity work.
Everything changed during the school vacations, or the odd weekend when we came home from school. The focus was on us, the children.
The home where I was raised in Monk Sherborne, Hampshire
Parties involved the kids and we would invite families to play games such as charades or quizzes.
The British hostess was expected to cook all the food herself. In an earlier generation people were more likely to have paid help but we could not afford this (boarding school was expensive) and my mother worked very hard to produce wonderful food and my father would organize the games. It was fun and we enjoyed ourselves. We appreciated having our parents involved, especially as we did not see much of them during the term time. As a parent now I believe that kids still benefit enormously from doing activities with their parents and with family friends.
The challenge today, is that homework and activities including sport, take up so much of our Californian life that our kids may as well be at boarding school. My mother was motivated to devote time to us when we were at home, as she knew that we would soon be back at boarding school. I want to encourage myself as well as other parents to seize opportunities to make time during the summer or at Christmas to become an old fashioned family. Time is short and even if your kids do not admit it now, they will be thankful for these special times.
How do you encourage your kids to do things as a family? Do you agree that teenagers need a family focus even if they do not admit it?
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The family gatherings were great. Usually my two grandmas did most of the cooking. Us kids played until dinner time (lunch to you city-slickers) and we were starved when we were called in. When relatives visited from Michigan, California, or Missouri, we were treated like royalty with a cooked turkey or goose or duck, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade bread and jam, veggies from the garden, and banana cream pie with real merange! There were lots of stories among the adults that made them laugh and laugh. After dinner, the women would clean up and the men would go have a smoke and maybe get in a nap, then the adults would gather around the table to play cards and drink beer. Us kids couldn’t wait until we were old enough to join the card game! Us kids would get swooshed out of the house and we would play tag or hide-n-seek, or sit around and talk when we were teenagers. Birthdays and holidays were other times our families got together. I was fortunate to have 3 sets of grandparents, so visiting them was always fun. They all lived in my hometown. In the summer, after planting was done, we went fishing. I am so thankful to have those memories! So tell your kids to enjoy the fun with family – they will miss it as they grow older. Hopefully, they will continue the tradition! Darcy