In the last few months, we have started doing “Favourite Thing” at the start of dinner. This started because of about 70% wanting to delay the “Can we watch something?”, and 30% wanting to hear more about their days and what they remembered about good things. Well, those are very vague percentages because while writing this I also remembered that part of it was to get them to start going back over their days and pick out positive things. A bit like practising gratitude. Note to self:  introduce a gratitude element.

Sunday night, before Favourite Thing, I reminded them of what had happened that day. It had been huge. It was Glenn’s first day back at work after some leave, and I had already decided train to church for us because of potential traffic delays and sitting practically still on a bus when you can literally see your destination but can’t get out of the bus at all and you have three girls who just want to be off the bus and seeing their friends or doing anything other than just sitting moderately quietly on a bus is not an experience I would like to revisit thank you very much. So we all caught the train in to the city. Then church itself was very different because it was Palm Sunday, which meant very much out of the ordinary and I’ll get to it later. Once home, the girls had edamame (“enamummy”, “emadahmah”, “enadummy”) for lunch which is their second favourite food, plus I let them watch Despicable Me 2 while eating. Outside later in the afternoon, C did roller skating all by herself for the first time outside while the other two played this and that and climbed on the wall and played ice cream shop at the letter boxes. So. Much. Happened.

C’s favourite thing was catching the train with daddy in the morning. E’s favourite thing was seeing her favourite person at church. S’s favourite thing was catching the train holding on the stroller. Glenn’s favourite thing was catching the train with all of his girls. 

My favourite thing was being part of, and having my girls be part of, the Palm Sunday traditions and experience. Religious ceremony that is centuries old. Religious traditions that happen every year, all around the world, in some way or another, that people have been doing, repeating, for hundreds of years, and my girls are now able to live that and be part of something much, much bigger than themselves. All of those elements are, I think, very important. They are important to me – for my soul, for my being, for my mental health – and as someone tasked with raising children, I see it as an important element to have as part of their lives. 

The words that keep coming to me are words like “duty” and “due diligence” and “responsibility”. These words are close but wrong. Those are the words that I hear in court cases and hearings and so forth. Those are the words that come when love isn’t enough. 

I love my girls. I want, and need, them growing up in as many circles of love and care as possible. I want them to have places to turn that are safe, places and people who are safe and comfort and love, who love them because they exist and not for what they can do or what they look like or what they say. Extracurricular activities help with that, as well as practising those resilience muscles and persistence and practice and determination skills. School is also providing an extra circle of care and a wide variety of backgrounds and culture and language. All those are good to have, and I am conscious that we are so, so fortunate to have great (such an understatement there) daycare and an excellent school, as well as the funds to have the girls do swimming for now and for C to do Irish dancing. Church, which often feels like an added extra and sometimes just too much, is just as vital to their wellbeing. And honestly, when E asks “Where are we going when we wake up?” – as she does every single day, sometimes as early as morning tea – if the answer is “Church, so long as everyone is well”, it gets the biggest cheer.

There is a whole mountain of reasons why church – the building, the people, the ceremony – is important. Why I was determined to get the girls to church when we could from when S was three months old. Trying to organise the reasons in my head and new reasons keep emerging. I will try, and I will try to keep it organised so this isn’t a flood. (Posting this later than I wanted because clearly that was harder than I anticipated!)

At the very surface, it is an outing. A Thing to Do. Something that gets us out, family energy out, and stops (or at the very least, reduces) bickering that happens from staying home. When public transport fares were at the past rates, sometimes this was just too expensive but 50c fares, with free travel for kids on weekends, make this much more available. Kids have a children’s area with space and toys and craft. Kids are part of the service, while not having to be too quiet or sit still or kneel or anything, or even be part of anything if they don’t want to. Kids are given a snack during the service because at some point, someone realised that the service really went through morning tea time for kids and 20 hangry kids is not something anybody wants in their life. 

Kids who are there because they have a parent or sibling or both or more involved in the service are just as welcome and included as kids who are there because their parents are there under slight duress to make a good appearance at the baptism of their niece or nephew when really their part of the family is atheist. Kids are welcome to listen to anything the person in charge talks about (this is the bit closest to the Sunday School of my childhood) and to participate in the relevant activity, but also if they just want to keep going building the most amazing train track they’ve ever built, that’s fine too. It is such a safe space for children.

A safe space for children, which means a space I can take them and then sit or stand by myself. I can watch them, with some space between us. I can watch them interacting with others. I can watch how and what and who they choose to play with. I can even now get a cup of coffee at morning tea and have a conversation with an adult – like, a real other grownup! – and not have children hanging off me to do so. Church is for me, too.

Church also provides that extra circle. Not that they are needing it now, but if we don’t do this now then when they do need it it will be much less strong. And this circle has so much variety. A big factor for me was to have them know as wide a variety of people as possible. They play with kids aged 1-11 and coo over any babies that are brought around to the children’s area. They play with kids of a variety of ethnicities, a range of neurotypes, a range of wealth, a range of family types. This is both normal for them, as well as developing their inclusion muscles and their flexibility muscles. It’s also, if I’m honest, developing my parenting skills. If one of my girls is rejected or slighted at the park, I can just whisk my girl away and have a few words about the situation, whatever it was. At church I am more inclined to see what the kids do to work it out themselves, and find out the why of the other kid’s behaviour. I won’t go into any of the “why’s” here, but it’s enough to stop any assumptions in their tracks and to practice kindness first.

Tradition. My tradition, of growing up with church. Remembering that often there was a feeling of “but why???” Knowing now that that questioning is healthy (as it was treated when I was young, too). Knowing now that sometimes the answer is too huge to explain but sometimes it is as small as being the tradition. Tradition is important. It gives a sense of security. It grounds us. The comfort and familiarity get me every time. Tradition!