Fabulously challenged!

Sitting next to my youngest, six-year-old Master Solo, over the weekend at a certain quiet and sombre gathering, he made a urhhpp sound with his mouth (and throat?) which I thought was gross.

“What’s that!” I enquired in a disgusted-mother tone.  Well, it turned out, the gum he was chewing was about to swallow “itself” so in an effort to retrieve it, that ugly sound had escaped from his mouth.

“If it’s going to be a problem for you to keep that gum in your mouth, then spit it out and throw it away,” I hissed in indignation with an annoyed grimace plastered on my face.

“I can’t,” he said in his smart alecky tone, “You always say that I must never give up.”

“So?” I questioned.

“So I want to keep trying to make it stay in my mouth! If I throw it out it means I give up.”

Okay fine, yes, I am always hammering it into all my three children that they must never give up, but folks, I don’t mean it for trivialities like gum chewing! What oversimplification of things! Can you imagine that. Try, try, try again to keep a bubblegum in the mouth? Bubblegum indeed. But, of course, that temporarily threw me off guard.  It was a moment before I could make a come back to that retort from one so young, daring and challenging.

But you see folks that is what I am finding makes up quite a chunk of my interactions with these young ones of today who are too clever by half.  In my forties a significant amount of my time is occupied by how to manoeuvre some silly little thought trails and trying to take advantage of the petty annoyances and hammer some lasting lessons into these young minds.

While you dish out all you may know as wisdom and try to instil some good old values in these impressionable heads as a mother, aunt or whatever else, you will find that the application of the same is not always well matched.

And as the adult, a mature one in your, yes, forties, although some of the curveballs that may be thrown your way by these wily ones, may offset you for a minute, the point is you have got to gain your balance and lead on.  It is critical at this stage of one’s life. The fabulous forties. While at 20 my preoccupation, might have been coming up with witty answers to dish out to some interested boy’s advances; at 40 I am finding myself challenged with coming up with wise retorts to my children’s testing minds.  But not only that, in my forties as a mother, wife, daughter-in-law and whatever else, there is all the more need for me to know how to handle situations.

I need to be able to also manoeuvre the sensitivities of an adult relationship creating my own safe space even as I serve and honour the relationship. Just like as a daughter-in-law or community woman I need to know how to stand up for myself when at social gatherings some gutsy and brazen folks say the first thing that comes to mind, I need to be able to make a come-back that is not offensive in as much as it also sets my position clear and make boundaries clear of what I will or will not take lying down.

These are all skills I never gave a hoot about when I was 15 and not so much when I was 30. The forties really just require some other form of grounding, experience, soft skills and a whole lot of emotional intelligence.   

The Fabulous Forties column is for all readers: readers in their forties;  readers who were in their forties and who care to remember what it was like; and those readers still looking ahead to their forties and would like a foretaste.

Contact: maggiemzumara@yahoo.ie