Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

This is embarrassing to admit, but my kids aren’t competing in the Beijing Olympics.

I live in the Eastern Suburbs where there are more A-type personalities than the national average. In this neighbourhood, kids have been Kumon tutored within an inch of their lives to keep up with their parents’ turbo-charged, Porsche Cayenne aspirational lifestyles.

The first dead giveaway of a parent’s gold medal desires for their kid is in their name. Check out the class list and among the usual suspects there is always one or two names that indicate that a kid has been bred for greatness. It’s a sure bet that Kristal won’t be working at Kmart to pay for her University fees and Hunter won’t be fixing your roof or dunny. Oh no. Mum and dad have had their lives mapped since conception. The plan usually involves Arts/Law at Sydney University, followed by either Investment banking or NIDA actor or medicine. Legend has it that there are a pair of twins bubbling away somewhere in the East with the names Champagne and Carrington. Now, if you’ve been christened Champagne (did they break a bottle against her head, like she was a ship when she was named?), it might go to your head that you’re something special and expensive and you’d expect a life to match. But what about poor cut-price Carrington? Is she destined to a pale, fizzy alternative to her sister’s sparkling life?

We all hope for the best for our children and want to provide as much as we can to make their journeys safe, happy and successful. But if it was as easy as giving them a wannabe name, I’d have called my first born “Powerball Mega pick-win” and sat back on my arse waiting for the riches to flow.

And success and upward mobility mean different things to different people. Last week in Sydney a poor little innocent was christened Torana. Her mum and dad have a thing for Holden and if they’d had a boy he would have been Brockie for the rest of his life. Somehow, I don’t think Hunter will be riding off into the sunset with Torana at the under 18’s disco if their parents have anything to do with it.

Enrolling your kid in every sport and extra-curricular educational activity going is also a sign that mum or dad is gunning for the Laurie Lawrence Parent of the Year award.

Kumon, Aussie. Kumon, Kumon. That’s the chant around the bubbler at my kids’ school, where they gather before their 4:00 p.m. maths tutoring, followed by the 5:00 swim squad, followed by the 6:30 scouts meeting, followed by relaxation meditation, followed by homework, followed by dinner, followed by bed. Then up and out for their 8:30 a.m. piano practice.

In the year of the XXIX Olympiad, I’ve taken stock of my chances of winning a medal or even a gold star in the parenting Olympics and I don’t think I am a contender.

My second grader has the IQ of, well, a second grader and his sporting prowess hovers around there as well. And my kindergarten kid is built like a Kinder egg. He’s perfect for Rugby League and loves running in a pack, but when the ball is passed to him, he’ll quite cheerfully give it to the opposing team if he spies an interesting flower or lady bug. No-one seems to mind, excepting the coach. And even he doesn’t mind too much, seeing we’ve taken home the “most improved player” trophy twice (it’s a pass the parcel kind of prize and it was my kid’s turn). In fact, Sunday morning is the funniest time of my week, and most footie parents are on the ground laughing when their kid does something equally unsporting but excruciatingly funny.

My kids also love playing soccer and kick the ball around our flat like they are Harry Kewell or David Beckham. The TV is the goal. But they are so enthusiastically average that I usually can get through 20-1 with only the odd “goal” whacking into the football-headed Bert Newton.

But my kids are mostly happy and I am as proud as Libby Trickett’s granny of their ability to come through their parents’ split with their spirits intact and cheekiness in place. After the carnage of divorce, I’m grateful to report that my children are deliciously average and bear no obvious scars. They are clear eyed and love school and McDonald’s and their mum and dad equally (though not as much as a Happy Meal).

And they enthusiastically embrace life, even when it’s not a contest. My oldest kid had to make a vehicle for his school project. Handily combining a 50 metre roll of alfoil with the Plasma TV box left on the landing by the upstairs neighbour on the arrival of a new bub (compliments of the Federal Government’s baby bonus bonanza), he’s made a solar panelled car that’s around half the size of a Toyota Prius. I was as pleased as Stephanie Rice’s sister as I showed it to the Rabbi next door.

It would be great if we could all be a bit kinder to ourselves as parents and relax a bit. They’ll grow up anyway. Recently, while waiting for a leg wax, I read some research on whether there were distinguishing characteristics shared by Nobel Prize winners. The researchers wanted to identify the traits or experiences which separated these amazing people from the rest. The finding was that Nobel Prize winners almost all had a mentor between the ages of 11 and 14. When these brain boxes hit puberty, there was someone they trusted who was fully available to guide their intellect and passions. (I don’t think I was reading Who Weekly, must have been something clever, like Maxim, in the salon for the members of the back, crack and sack waxing community.) It didn’t matter so much if the kid had done nothing but eat snot for the first 10 years, what mattered was that when that crazy combination of brain and hormones peaked there was an older, knowledgeable individual who could channel their passions into a passionate vocation.

So, if you’ve got a potential Grant Hackett or even a Milhouse Van Houten from The Simpsons at home, be careful that you don’t burn them out by putting them too close to your burning desires for them. Maybe it’s better to chill out with the bug catcher and some books rather than stress yourself out in traffic, taking your beloved to one extra-curricular activity after another. No-one wants to be so hard training a gold medal hopeful that they end up with a sad Nick Darcy, commenting from thousands of miles away while other people live the dream he shattered with one nasty punch.

Looking at my kids in the back of my crusty, rusty Volvo I know that I couldn’t ever trade their scabby knees, dirty faces or reassuring pre-teen averageness for all the tea, or medals, in China.
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