Yesterday at the dinner table, we asked our children a very dangerous question. We said “If you were the parents of six children, what would you do differently?” Suckers for punishment, I know. “I wouldn’t have six children” was the first (half) joking reply, followed by “make more money.” Then the conversation turned more serious: “I would do more things with my children, fun things” said one, “I would better protect the older children from the younger ones” said another. It was humbling, if entertaining.
Which is why I was so excited to see this morning’s feature in the Ottawa Citizen: Family 101 with Angelina. Help is at hand, thought I, she also has six children and she’s a celebrity, so she must know what she’s doing. Right?
So how does Angelina do it, with six kids, including toddler twins, a full-time job and a hot husband partner? As it turns out, the answer is that she lets her seven- year-old do the cooking. That’s it! Despite the best assurances of the journalist, I have an inkling that childcare and household staff *may* be involved.
So for the rest of us, I have created a hair child-raising assignment that Angelina will need to successfully complete before claiming a seat among the parenting experts:
1. Your teenage daughter, who rides horses and knows how to keep them alive, tearfully demands a horse. Lovingly shoot her down. Lose points for laughing. Absolute failure if you purchase a horse farm and/or a groom.
2. Your toddler’s life mission is to trash everything that is not bolted down. Your life feels like an endless game of whack-a-mole. Your challenge is to cook a healthy meal for eight and clean the toilets. Fail if the toddler ingests cleaning products or climbs in the oven.
3. School lunch challenge: your daughter is sick of homemade cookies. While looking for snack options, you learn that your son is selling his homemade cookies at school to buy chips from the vending machine. He is concerned about his clientele’s reaction to the change in menu. Mediate. Loose points for referring to personal Chef.
Email results to Véronique at keeping it real dot nut.
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I laughed really, really, REALLY hard at that last one. Entrepreneur much?
From the article – “When I think about him, I just think of the man who’s such a great friend and such an extraordinary father” — how about “husband”?!
Great post Véronique!
Veronique – I would soooooooo take parenting advice from you over Angelina any day of the week! Got a question for you though. What school does your son go to? I might hang out in the cafeteria and purchase some homemade cookies. Could you start sending him to school with some Christmas baking (so I won’t have to). 🙂
Ha! Ha! I wish I had time for Christmas baking! The cookies are really easy: I make the dough on Sunday afternoon, roll it into five packages of 430g (that’s what I need to bake a dozen) and slice-up the cookie dough every morning for fresh-baked cookies. And yet my 10 year-old is sick of them: she’s asking for animal crackers. *Sigh* School lunches are a loosing battle.
@Heather: my son is quite the entrepreneur (that’s the 13 year-old one). The first day he sold his cookies, he sold them for $0.25. The next day, I asked him where my cut of the $0.25 was and he said “Too many people wanted them for $0.25. Now they’re a buck each.” Nice.