Things other parents have taught us (thanks guys)

On parenting advice and tips to find your bloom, straight from the village.

Things other parents have taught us (thanks guys)

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Find Your Bloom has done something I did not entirely expect. It has brought me closer to other parents. Not in a performed, content-creation way. In the way that happens when someone shares their actual world with you and you recognise something in it.

Vanessa, who plays musical chairs between the double mattress and the bottom bunk every night in Thirroul and woke up last week because her son was sleeping on her chest and she could not breathe and did not move him. The morning walk tip I picked up somewhere along the way and now actually do, most days, because it clears my head in a way nothing else manages to. The fussy eater trick (walking around with your own plate and offering it to them) which again came from Vanessa, whose Filipino heritage apparently has a lot of wisdom to offer on the subject of getting small people to eat things they have decided they will not eat.

These are the things that travel between parents. Not the polished advice, but the real stuff. The things that actually work, passed from one camera roll to another, one notes app to the next.

And then this month, it brought me back to one of my oldest friends.

Meet: Olivia

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I met Olivia at a magazine where we both worked. We loved it with our whole hearts. It was the kind of place where you showed up early and stayed late and nobody thought to check the time because the work was the point. We read Joan Didion and Patti Smith and drank up everything that was offered our way.

That was twenty years ago. Since then we have been in each other’s orbit the way old friends forever are: not always in the same city, not always in the same season of life, but always there. A text every few months that arrives at exactly the right moment. A visit when one of us is passing through. She house-sat for us once, which is the kind of trust that only exists between people who have been through something together. I don’t even think I cleaned for her, now that I think about it (sorry, Liv). She moved to Byron and built a ranch she and her partner Geoffrey call Butterwood. It is beautiful there. We made sure we stayed connected. Pics, books, links and podcasts passed back and forth. Everything else too.

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And now we are both mothers

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Olivia lives on a hill overlooking the sea, not unlike Peppa Pig, she pointed out recently, which tells you something about where her head is at these days. She has two daughters, Lila and Vivien. Lila, who photographs door handles and the underside of things and handed Olivia her camera recently to reveal thirty-seven images of the most quietly extraordinary record of a life. And Viv, her little shooting star, who came in fast and early and brought with her all the questions that early babies bring. Including one Olivia could barely say out loud. Whether Viv would see the world the way they hoped she would.

Olivia talks about the moment they brought her home, and how everything was suddenly brighter: the trees, the flowers, the sunsets, like the world had been turned up. I think about what it means to have known someone long enough to feel the weight of that sentence.

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The day on the hill

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We spent a day at Butterwood filming Olivia’s story for Find Your Bloom. Lila cleaned her room for us and Olivia made us all lunch. Proper lunch, from scratch, the kind that makes you want to sit down and not leave. I made her tell me the recipe on the spot. Then I made her text it to me. I have made it every day since.

To give you an idea of her life, a week later Olivia was having an exhibition at the cabin while mumming at the same time. Because that is what it looks like, being her. The creative life and the family life, not competing, just coexisting. Loudly. Beautifully.

We have been trading war stories on text ever since. Cleaning up things that should not be discussed in polite company. Burgers made from scratch on request, rejected by the children who requested them. Books the kids will not put down. The particular madness of a Tuesday that somehow contains everything.

This is the campaign, really. Not the films or the flowers or the beautifully produced content. This. The text thread. The recipe. The room Lila cleaned because she wanted the day to go well.

What Peppa Pig taught us

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Olivia said something in her film that I keep coming back to. About Peppa Pig, of all things, and the way Peppa always sees the best in everything. Every puddle is the best puddle. Every person she meets is, basically, wonderful.

That is actually “quite aspirational,” she said.

It is. It really is.

And it is something this campaign keeps reminding me of. That the people who see us most clearly are the ones who have been watching the longest. The old friends. The partners. The children who photograph door handles because they have not yet learned to walk past them. They remind us to always look for the goodness, for the rainbow.

The thing I finally did

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This month is Children’s Eye Health Month. And in the spirit of Olivia’s film, and everything this campaign keeps teaching me about paying attention, I finally booked my own boy’s eye test.

Not because something seemed wrong. Because I want to make sure they can always see it this clearly. The puddles. The door handles. The underside of things. All of it. This campaign, it teaches me something new every month, changes something. And for that, I’m so grateful.

So my takeaway this month? The stats tell us that one in five Australian children have an undiagnosed vision problem. The test is free through Medicare. It takes five minutes to book (max). 

Find Your Bloom, as presented by Bio Island. Always read the label and follow the directions for use.