The personality trait I admire most, and strive to attain is tolerance. In my opinion the world would be a much better place if there was more of this around, but I can only do what I can do, and in my small way I try.
Which is why, if and when I get a moment to reflect on things, I'm quite surprised by how my life has changed, for the better, since having children.
I'm not a naturally maternal woman. I don't ooh and aah over small fluffy cute things. I don't often coo about babies. My instinct has been to avoid small children, medium sized children and teenagers, they're all too needy and noisy, too whiny, too sticky and smelly, too tangible. I was quite happy without them. For quite some time. For 35 years to be specific. Well, for 34 and something years. To be frank, I didn't want children, and they equally didn't want me.
And then Mother Nature caught up with me, my biological alarm clock went off, and happily, in the year 2000 we got Phoebe, and in the year 2006, we got Tom.
So life changed. From being the happily independent, working woman, to part-time working mother, to full time mother, and back to part-time mother working again, has been an education in self-perception and tolerance if nothing else. And what have I learned from this experience?
I've learned that not all children are as bad as I'd imagined. Which is a good thing. When we moved to Oxfordshire in 2007 I did what many mothers do to get established, and went to the toddler groups. This was a new experience for me at the age of 41, and often made me the oldest mother in the room. A strange feeling whichever way you look at it.
Luckily I saw that I could benefit if I became more actively involved and for 18 months I ran one of the toddler groups when the other mums moved on. I didn't realise it at the time, but looking back this exposure to very young children (en masse) gave me the confidence to expand my horizons when I started work in the Library. I got to grips with organising and conducting rhymetimes for the under 5s, and that gave me confidence when I had to handle a class visit.
Now I'm settling down in my new job as Library Manager (I still can hardly believe it), I really enjoy the aspect of the job that involves children, as much as any other part of the role. To this end, I've been volunteering my time on Wednesday mornings (my branch is closed on Wednesdays) in my son's primary school library.
Sadly, the school library had become neglected, and hadn't properly been used since 2010. Ah-ha. I spied an opportunity. I could volunteer - they get the benefit of a 'real library person' working for free - I get the benefit of working more closely with children, learn a bit more about what makes them tick, and then take the benefit of this knowledge back to the library to make it tick there too.
Woo hoo. It's a win-win. This morning in the school library I had great fun introducing 30 Year 3s (ages 7-8) to the library, explaining who I was, why I was there, how I could help, and then putting it into action as they each chose just one book to take away from the shelves that aren't quite in order yet, but we'll get there, and why should we have books in order on the shelves, and if they'd written a book themselves where would they look to find it on the shelves? and go and stand where they think their book would be, and I sat on the floor by the letter 'L' because that's where my book would be if I'd written one, and it was funny to see a grown up sitting on the floor just chatting happily with them about choosing a book, and with a promise that when they come back, they'll tell me something about the book, no right or wrong answer, just how did they get on with it, how did they feel? even if they don't like reading, just to tell me something, even if they didn't like the book. And do you know what? They all looked me in the eye and said they would.
That's why I love my job. And I couldn't have, wouldn't have done this job without having had my two lovely (mostly) children, Phoebe and Tom. The cycle of life. What goes around comes around.
Kat :)
Which is why, if and when I get a moment to reflect on things, I'm quite surprised by how my life has changed, for the better, since having children.
I'm not a naturally maternal woman. I don't ooh and aah over small fluffy cute things. I don't often coo about babies. My instinct has been to avoid small children, medium sized children and teenagers, they're all too needy and noisy, too whiny, too sticky and smelly, too tangible. I was quite happy without them. For quite some time. For 35 years to be specific. Well, for 34 and something years. To be frank, I didn't want children, and they equally didn't want me.
And then Mother Nature caught up with me, my biological alarm clock went off, and happily, in the year 2000 we got Phoebe, and in the year 2006, we got Tom.
So life changed. From being the happily independent, working woman, to part-time working mother, to full time mother, and back to part-time mother working again, has been an education in self-perception and tolerance if nothing else. And what have I learned from this experience?
I've learned that not all children are as bad as I'd imagined. Which is a good thing. When we moved to Oxfordshire in 2007 I did what many mothers do to get established, and went to the toddler groups. This was a new experience for me at the age of 41, and often made me the oldest mother in the room. A strange feeling whichever way you look at it.
Luckily I saw that I could benefit if I became more actively involved and for 18 months I ran one of the toddler groups when the other mums moved on. I didn't realise it at the time, but looking back this exposure to very young children (en masse) gave me the confidence to expand my horizons when I started work in the Library. I got to grips with organising and conducting rhymetimes for the under 5s, and that gave me confidence when I had to handle a class visit.
Now I'm settling down in my new job as Library Manager (I still can hardly believe it), I really enjoy the aspect of the job that involves children, as much as any other part of the role. To this end, I've been volunteering my time on Wednesday mornings (my branch is closed on Wednesdays) in my son's primary school library.
Sadly, the school library had become neglected, and hadn't properly been used since 2010. Ah-ha. I spied an opportunity. I could volunteer - they get the benefit of a 'real library person' working for free - I get the benefit of working more closely with children, learn a bit more about what makes them tick, and then take the benefit of this knowledge back to the library to make it tick there too.
Woo hoo. It's a win-win. This morning in the school library I had great fun introducing 30 Year 3s (ages 7-8) to the library, explaining who I was, why I was there, how I could help, and then putting it into action as they each chose just one book to take away from the shelves that aren't quite in order yet, but we'll get there, and why should we have books in order on the shelves, and if they'd written a book themselves where would they look to find it on the shelves? and go and stand where they think their book would be, and I sat on the floor by the letter 'L' because that's where my book would be if I'd written one, and it was funny to see a grown up sitting on the floor just chatting happily with them about choosing a book, and with a promise that when they come back, they'll tell me something about the book, no right or wrong answer, just how did they get on with it, how did they feel? even if they don't like reading, just to tell me something, even if they didn't like the book. And do you know what? They all looked me in the eye and said they would.
That's why I love my job. And I couldn't have, wouldn't have done this job without having had my two lovely (mostly) children, Phoebe and Tom. The cycle of life. What goes around comes around.
Kat :)
