FAMILY MATTERS

I have two sisters and one brother, we are balanced in our family, in every way you look at it... we came in the order of boy, girl, boy then girl again. My favourite of my siblings is the littlest of us all, so when they closed school for the holidays I was very excited (my dad decided to take her to a boarding school this year, something I silently disapprove- she's turning eleven in two days!) and looked forward to seeing her. Three months seemed like ages. When mom goes to visit her during visiting days, they must call and I would talk to her and the first thing she'd ask is why I hadn't gone... laziness :(. Well, I love that kid. And now I realize I should have made the title of this post Emily Matters, for I see this being purely about her.

Anyway, I kept wondering how big she'd grown, would she be taller than me now? (Oh, she's tall for a ten year old I think). Did them boobs pop up yet? She walked through the door with my other sister who had gone to pick her up and I wasn't far off, she's grown. But she's still flat around the upper abdomen part :). People do have a problem with the way I usually talk about my female family members, I hope you don't. I remember when a female cousin came over to visit us for a few days one time. I started talking about how cute she was with my friends and  I was told I was not supposed to say that due to the fact that we are family. I don't know, it's not like I want to have sex with her!! I'm just pointing out an obvious fact.

Speaking of sex. But wait. I need to sadly tell you that Emily didn't do well in her end term exams. No, she did pretty bad! I guess boarding school doesn't mean better grades. And my dad, yes he's concerned but I'm surprised he's not making the noise he used to during my time. I used to do fairly well but it was never enough! What, did he lose his voice?! Okay. Okay. Having said all that I can now bring in the sex part. I have been volunteering to offer Emily home tutoring when I get the time. She came home with sample test papers from her school which we would go through together after a little lesson. Now these science papers are filled with so many reproduction questions with a penis diagram here and a vagina there, talk of sperms here and ova there (ova there?), what's a brother to do? I did what I had to do, I provided a little sex education and funny enough she felt most uncomfortable. For some reason my favourite part was the part where I explained to her what menstruation was. I must admit I was a bit (a bit) uncomfortable too so I kept it strictly formal. Sometimes I just feel I'm the wrong person to be teaching her these stuff, where are the parents at?! But she knows these things. Going through the female reproductive parts, I asked her what the uterus is. She said its where the baby grows... I was proud :)

And my thirteen year old brother, the quiet type, still sucks his thumb, you can find him doing it 90% of the time. I let him play Fifa on my laptop the other day (I know, these 'other days' have become one too many) and he missed to score by an inch and he went "fuck!". What can I say, he just might have picked it from me. As much as parenting is tough, parents you need to be involved in almost every part of your kid's life! The woes of being a first born... you become a parent before your time.

I'M A 80'S BABY

Babies of the 80’s, those were the last good bunch of babies, the generation that scooped that last bit of fun in real childhood. I mean real childhood. Life was good then, there wasn’t global warming or the numerous TV stations we have today, and perhaps because of that we had plenty of time to be real kids rather than trying to act older than we were.



And parents were parents, discipline was effectively instilled in a child whenever he displayed the slightest sign of drifting away from the right path and was promptly ‘straightened up’. Get home past the curfew- whoop ass! Return from the shop without the bread he had been sent or the money because he lost it on the way- whoop ass! Hell, look at your momma wrong and you get a whoop ass! That wasn't the good part for us kids but the point is things were in order.



Fast forward to 2009, parents went stale like they had a use-before date. Parenting stopped. My nine year old sister's favourite commercials are the 'tumechill' and 'shake-shake' (that one for sanitary pads, she loves the song!) commercials. She won't stop singing and reciting what they say in those commercials. I did not have an issue with that until she approached me and asked about the tumechill symbol; is it like this (normal peace sign) or like this (peace sign with fingers close together)?



'I don't know', I muttered, 'how did you see them do it on TV?'



'Like this', she said waving the normal peace sign.



My argument is this; yes, I'm a first born but I am NOT a parent yet! Where are the parents at? If I go through this, will I have to go through it with my kids too? Oh, I guess I'll leave it for my first born kid, they really do come in handy those ones. I just need to make sure I give him enough whooping while he's still young, he'll take care of the rest.



'Daddy, can I ask you something?', that would be my 6 year old daughter asking in the year 20__ something, in a curious but sweet face. You know how adorable kids can be.



'Sure, honey. You know daddy's a genius. Shoot'



'What's a blow-job?'



'Aah, that's easy. Go ask your big brother!'



Boys are easy, you just buy them a couple of porn magazines on their 14th birthday and they'll learn everything by themselves. More effective than an uncomfortable lecture by his old man. Seriously though, nobody should buy their teenage boys porn magazines, I'm just saying it works better.. a win-win, everyone gets what they want. As for girls.. once they get comfortable they get it all out, I'm not sure I'd like that. That's where mothers come in, I guess.



My siblings are growing up in a very different environment, right from the realm of the family. They get to watch TV 'til midnight, I used to be sent to bed by 9pm. My mother used to switch off the TV on me and made me do homework or some excuse of a chore, now I settle down to watch TV and it's not odd to hear her yell from another room:



'Let your sisters also watch what they want to!'



Even when they don't want to watch. I don't know what changed.

These '90's babies don't know any better but lucky for them they have us, the generation that will make the coolest parents. If they pay attention the may learn our swagger. The revolution is here and it's ours- babies from the error of good music but bad sense fashion- The Eighties.