The young lady of the house (who is nearly five) kept me busy at every available opportunity, including decorating the Christmas tree and building Lego skyscrapers (which was actually rather fun). I don't think the teddy bears who are my regular travelling companions "knew what had hit them" and they were pretty glad each night when the little one had gone to bed! She has more toys, CDs, DVDs and books than I think I saw in my entire childhood.
I ended up spending a lot of time playing with fluffy toys (pretty well representative of a small zoo) and building things (probably my favourite sort of active toy). As well as the Lego castle I built a Magnetix spaceship and a Migoga Marble Run (perhaps faintly reminiscent of the 'Mousetrap' of old), which required a little bit of grey matter input to ensure everything flowed in the right direction.
The youngster dismissed Buzz Lightyear as a "boy's toy" so I tried to explain to her that toys should not be characterised in this way - it was rather that different people liked to play with different sorts of toys. It was very commendable that a Swedish toy store has recently started advertising toys in a gender-neutral way. We were also playing 'birthday party' with Geoffrey the Giraffe, who started demanding that all party attendees should bring him a "good present". So, I tried to explain that we should not demand or expect gifts and that not everyone was in a situation to be a giver or recipient of gifts and that the company of friends was a gift in itself. Whether any of it will stick, who knows, but it was worth a try!
The young one also does beginners' gymnastics, and from watching one class the group of small children were extremely variable in terms of being able to follow the teacher's instructions, particularly in terms of holding a pose, and copying the teacher's actions exactly was more the exception than the rule. Apparently she did not have her normal level of confidence and the next day said that sometimes your confidence goes to sleep for a while! It is somewhat alarming to me to find out that they are shortly holding "assessments" for children so young, and already starting to create expectations that winning or getting medals is more important than doing it for fun (and this goes with unavoidable performance anxiety). I recently heard that funding will be reduced for sports that do not win medals at the Olympics and World Championships, and this seems at odds with the Federal Government's stated position that sport is about participation and not winning and of encouraging involvement in sport at a 'grass-roots' level. This is especially important as a public health measure with the current epidemic of obesity in both adults and children. Only a tiny percentage of people who get involved with sport will win or become an elite performer, and we as a community should not be fostering a "winner takes all" mindset if we want people to have a healthy attitude to participation.
After I had been in Cairns for a week another relative arrived and I joked about her being the "fresh meat" as far as the young girl was concerned. However, as she has seen a lot more of the youngster and she often gives her presents, so it was quickly apparent what the 'pecking order' was! However, when the little one did not want to play with me anymore as she would much rather play with the new visitor, it was a surprisingly emotional experience, which I did not expect. It brought back memories of being bullied and left out at school and people telling me to go away as they did not want to play with me, and the needy people I have encountered in adulthood who latch on to you as the best thing that has come into their life for a long time and almost suck the life out of you with the intensity of their apparent desire to be good friends, and then suddenly someone or something else that can be exploited comes along and they are gone - leaving you wondering what happened and wounded that you took the risk of opening yourself up and making an emotional investment in the relationship. Perhaps the most poignant example of this was during medical school when we were away on rotation and another mature age student who had lost her father to heart disease the previous year monopolised my time and took me away from the people I was fond of in my own study group. During the next 'away' rotation our study group was split up, and tragically the person I was closest to in the group was killed in a car accident on the way back to Melbourne. I felt especially sad that the time I would have spent with him was taken by someone else who it turned out was just using me and quickly moved on to some other sympathetic soul when the rotation was over.
After my visit if I was honest I would have to say that I find the concept of the child who has everything as a result of rampant consumerism quite troubling. There was an excellent article in “The Age” on 18 December 2012 reflecting on the “buy, buy, buy” mentality leading up to Christmas - "Buying useless gifts again? Try giving an experience instead." I really couldn't have said this better myself. I think next year I will go back to my earlier practice of choosing a "gift" for family members from the Royal Flying Doctor Service Christmas Catalogue and sending them a card telling them what I have donated towards in their name. You can contribute towards splendidly useful gifts such as a Heart Start defibrillator, aeroplane nose wheels, dental packages, snake bite kits, neonatal incubators and ambulance stretchers. There are also more traditional Christmas necessities available such as cards, Christmas puddings, diaries and calendars if a more physical gift is required. See www.flyingdoctor.org.au. I am proud to support their work, and if I ever had a dream job as a doctor to aspire to, it would be working with the RFDS! Of course there are many other worthwhile causes (e.g., Oxfam, offering support for people in developing countries) which have a similar donation program at Christmas.
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