Offerings from my kitchen today

On September 9, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Awesome Recipes, Everything!!!4 Comments

My children’s father asks very little of me. He did not mind when I gave up a highly paid job. He doesn’t mind coming home to a messy house. He never complains when I use his credit cards to purchase things that he does not understand. He doesn’t even expect me to do the school run or to help our youngest with her homework or wake up for her 6am football sessions.

All he ever asked of me is to create a happy, nurturing home for our children. Fortunately, it isn’t such a difficult task, thanks to my mum who is Chief Happiness Officer at large: I just have to take my mind back to the sunny kitchen of my parents’ house in Southern England to know just what I have to do. So here are the offerings from my kitchen on this rainy Phuket day:

Start the day right: green smoothies!

My friend Vivienne Webb bought a bag of avocados that she left behind. We went to the sea-gypsies area in Rawai yesterday and bought some as-natural-as-you-can-get veggies and I had some other greens in my fridge from the organic section in Villa Market. Blitzed together with some filtered water, topped with chia seeds, flax seeds and bee pollen, and voila, I have fulfilled my first task of the day, namely providing my family with a nutritious breakfast. 100% goodness, and so easy, too.

Making a veggie stock

I can’t find organic Swiss bouillon anywhere in Phuket. I have to make my own stock. It’s actually easier than you think. I just boiled these veggies in a large ceramic pot with distilled water, and then simmer on low heat for hours. You get a really delicious broth from this.

If you are an instant noodle fan, try making your own version with this stock, cooked spaghetti and lightly boiled bean sprouts. Add cooked chicken if you are not a vegetarian. That’s what I would have for lunch, probably.

Eat rainbow colours

I am trying to get my 14 year old to eat more veggies and less red meat. her father is worried that it will not be enough, given that she does so much sports and is going through a growth spurt. I think it is. Broccoli has as much protein as beef. In fact, 11.1 grams per 100 calories of broccoli = 6.4 grams per 100 calories of beef. I also would add cashews and other nuts for that oomph.

From this colourful platter, I could add Thai paste for a curry, or go Italian by cooking the veggies in red pesto. If I were to go for the Thai option, I would serve it with a wild rice/red rice combo; the Italian option of course goes with spaghetti.

My secret arsenal: sprouts!

Sprouting is actually something fun and easy to do, and best of all, it is exploding with goodness. Sprouts are rich in enzymes (even more than in uncooked fruits and vegetables). These enzymes are vital for many of the body’s functions, including extracting more amino acids, essential fatty acids, minerals and vitamins from food, so the body works more efficiently.

All you have to do is soak the seeds and then sprout on! Make sure that the seeds you use are the ones specially for sprouting, namely not irradiated or contaminated. Put them on a sprouting tray, water daily and agitate the tray to prevent mould from forming. When the little shoots appear, they are ready to be eaten. I add them as topping.

Making our own trail mix

This is a little sweet treat for my minx’s lunchbox tomorow. I dehydrated some apples and pineapples in my dehydrator to make trail mix (I add nuts to the dried fruits combo). I added some gorgeous tomatoes in to make dried tomatoes, which makes a tasty addition to salads and pasta dishes. Well, that’s my lunch tomorrow.

Note about eating rainbow colours, as we have done today in rainy Phuket:

RED
Red fruits and vegetables are coloured by a natural plant pigment called lycopene. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that can help reduce the risk of cancer and keep our heart healthy.

PURPLE /BLUE
The plant pigment anthocyanin is what gives blue/purple fruits and vegetables their distinctive colour. Anthocyanin also has antioxidant properties that protect cells from damage and can help reduce the risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease.

ORANGE/YELLOW
Carotenoids give this group their vibrant colour. A well-known carotenoid called Betacarotene is found in sweet potatoes, pumpkins and carrots. It is converted to vitamin A, which helps maintain healthy mucous membranes and healthy eyes. Another carotenoid called lutein is stored in the eye and has been found to prevent cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.

GREEN
Green vegetables contain a range of phytochemicals including carotenoids, indoles and saponins, all of which have anti-cancer properties. Leafy greens such as spinach and broccoli are also excellent sources of folate.

BROWN/WHITE
White fruits and vegetables contain a range of health-promoting phytochemicals such as allicin (found in garlic) which is known for its antiviral and antibacterial properties. Some members of the white group, such as bananas and potatoes, are also a good source of potassium.

Footnote:

It has been nine months since I gave up work, and I can honestly say, I have found gainful employment in the home. I love what I do and enjoy each day to the fullest, this simple and wholesome life without complexities and complications. For this, I have the father of my children and my mother to thank.

PS: Today’s offerings took less than two hours.

Conversations in the car

On September 9, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, WhimsyLeave a comment

I think this is the most important part of a child’s day, because you make them feel loved and also they learn communication skills. So with the other children, we had a policy of never having the radio on in the car on our drives, but to make the conscious efforts to talk to each other. With G, we turn up the volume to give ourselves respite, but she still talks over the radio. This was yesterday afternoon’s conversation:

G: “Momdad, let’s talk economics.”

Us: “OK.”

G: “At school today, I just had to spend a little money at break to buy eight dim sums. Because I get lunch for free. It is all included in the school fees, remember? So I had lots of ribs, I skipped the rice. And finished off with banana fritters with chocolate sauce.”

The father: “In that case, we are net-positive then, since we only paid for a little snack and you chowed down so much.”

She whipped out a piece of paper from her bag. ‘Not so fast, Dad. Here’s the note from my maths teacher: you have to buy me a calculator that costs THB5,900 for my maths class. And the bursar said you only paid THB15,000 out of THB75,000 for my International Awards. So you still have to pay the school THB65,900. That’s 1,275 pounds by the end of the week. There is no such thing as a free lunch, folks.”

My article on growing your child to get 100% through conversations is published in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jacqueline-koay/the-scenic-route-to-getti_b_5770398.html

Rainbow looms? Forget that! Try nature bands instead!

On September 9, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Love, light, blessingsLeave a comment

From the lovely Susan Orchid Bansin who lives in Borneo:

This pretty and delicate bracelet is made from the tip of an unfurled banana leaf. I used to make this bracelet all the time when i was a child, adorning myself with natural ‘jewelleries’ and flowers tucked in my ponytail. I showed my daughter how to make this natural bracelet recently and she was so delighted. “Watch out for baby bats inside the unfurled banana leaf!”, I exclaimed. “What!! Baby bats?!!”, she exclaimed, too! Haha…. but it is true, bats like to sleep inside unfurled banana leaf.

The Scenic Route to 100%

On September 5, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Whimsy1 Comment

It’s a well-known fact: Asian parents are hot on education. The type of education that means anything less than 100% is not acceptable. A friend from my hometown (Portsmouth) taught Math at a top international school in Asia. He said parents would often ask him, “How can my child improve on his grades?” Err, the kid had 95%.

Into this hot-housed world we arrived a few years ago with our weird values of raising happy strong children, never mind the grades. Georgina could not read at 5, but she was a glorious, delightful child. Here’s a video of her at 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RFONbabE6A

She took her own sweet time. For the longest period, her father read to her every night. He read her every book in Fairy series (from Bethany the Ballet Fairy to Gemma the Gymnastic Fairy to the 200 fairies in between the ballerina and gymnast). Father and daughter then moved on to Jacqueline Wilson’s books. The father was so into the books which he read to his daughter that once, forgetting himself, he got very excited about meeting Jacqueline Wilson. Poor lady must have had a shock when a middle-aged man came up to her and gushed, “I love your books!”.

G finally decided to read when she was around 11. ‘I could read from when I was small, you know,” she declared. ‘I just pretended I couldn’t, that’s all.”

It made no difference to us. Because she learned a lot of other important things the natural, organic way with the time that was available to her. She grew into a strong girl with a good understanding of the world. She has such enthusiasm for life and forms her own opinions from the thousands of questions that she asks daily. She was (is) excited about learning new things, has an inquiring mind, is eloquent, sharp, witty and quicksilver bright. And when the time was right for her, she began reading. Mein Kampf is one of the books she is reading, because she is interested in the politics and the wars in today’s world. Slowly, steadily, she climbed up the rankings. All on her own steam. She got into the top set for all her subjects, and that is at an academic school where tuition is norm. English and Music are her weakest subjects.

“Don’t blame me,” she said with her usual insouciance. “My dad speaks bad English.”

I sighed. “But Music, G! Your dad is a guitarist in a rock band, and you got 0% for your Music exam!”

“I only do Rock,” she said belligerently. “And that’s not on the curriculum.”

But she excels in Math. “Momdad, I have beaten all the Asian kids. Even those who do 10 hours of tuition a week.”

Do I sit down and teach her Math for hours on end? No. But I wrote about the ten most beautiful equations in the world. I am always pointing out to her the Fibonacci sequence in the natural world. I told her about Pythagoras and the cult he founded. We talked about Fermat’s Last Theorem (which took centuries to be solved). I asked her if it is ever possible to find Theory of Everything, the one equation that describes “everyfink”.

None of it is related to ’exam’ Math.

Last Monday, she started at a new school. She had to do a Math test for streaming purposes. She was totally unprepared for the test.

She came back in a foul mood. “Half of it was on Probability! And I didn’t do them at the old school. Well, other people probably did, but I was out playing football. I must have missed it.”

The result came back 2 days later. She had 100%.

Her father was annoyed at her for getting 100%. After the fuss she kicked up. “I thought you said you hadn’t covered Probability?” he said. “You lied.”

“I didn’t!” she protested indignantly. “I have not covered them before! I just worked them out. Probability is like the gambling stuff, right? You just work out how likely somefink is going to happen or not, that’s all. So what’s the big deal?”

As my friend Azlan Adnan said, “This is what education is all about – empowering people to work things out from first principles using logic, which is the highbrow word for “common sense,” which, unfortunately, is not very common nowadays.”

And so, here’s our scenic route to 100%. Not through rote-learning, tuition or hot-housing, but through conversations with our child – she was about 6, when we asked her to tell us 10 reasons why it is not a good idea to build houses on a cemetery that is not related to ghosts. It was a good conversation.

Back to School: First Day Gremlins

On August 26, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, WhimsyLeave a comment

I have five children. Georgina (”G”) is the youngest. She is 14. And she is the one causing grey hairs to sprout abundantly from my scalp, if old wives’ tale about correlation between lack of follicular colour and stress is to be believed.

Today was her first day at a new school after the long summer break. I got up early to have breakfast with her and to kiss her goodbye at the door as per the perfect family scenario.

But instead, we stood across the room from one another, the chasm as wide as our generation gap, snarling like a pair wild beasts. I was quoting the school rulebook aggressively at her, whilst she obstinately stood her ground.

For starters, her skirt was far too short. School rule says, the hem must be skimming the knees. Hers was sitting defiantly somewhere mid-thigh, showing off her long coltish legs. Yes, she had done what bold schoolgirls from previous generations had – she had rolled up a good 10 inches of the length at the waistband.

“So?” she said with a jut of her chin. ‘You can’t see my knickers, can you? And anyway, I am wearing shorts underneath.”

“You have to make your skirt longer,” I said in a voice that invited no further discussions. “Because it is part of the uniform rule.”

“And why is that so? What is the rationale behind the on-the-knee rule? You can’t see my panties at this length. It is not even a safety issue in the labs to wear shorter skirts. And anyway, some teachers wear skirts that are much shorter than this.”

And then there was the make-up. Lashings of mascara and eyeliner. And lipgloss (“Mum, it’s for moisturising my lips, you don’t want me to have chapped lips, do you” With saccharine sweetness).

And the multiple ear piercings (“OK, I will take my ear studs off when I am playing sports.” Grudgingly.).

And the colourful bracelets (“They are for religious reasons,” said this heathen child. “I got them from the monks in Cambodia, and it’s bad luck for seven years to remove them.”)

Her father, watching from a safe distance, said, “Let her teacher deal with it. After all, it’s the school that sets the rules, so let a member of staff justify those rules to her.”

Then, damningly, he added, “I actually agree with her.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t subcontract disciplining your child to teachers. It is our responsibility as her parents to raise her right.” That’s the Asian Tiger Mum in me speaking. The part of me that expects unquestioning, blind obedience, on the basis that I am the parent, therefore I must always be obeyed.

But fortuitously, recent stimulating conversations with my neighbour Richard Boyle short-circuited the part of my brain that is conditioned and sleep-walking, to jolt the slumberous thinking part that my parents had invested a lot of money (three years at Oxford) to cultivate. Richard and I had been discussing the masses’ readiness to obey governments unquestioningly, blindly (is it laziness, fear, or lack of self-empowerment?) We concurred that one does not have to be a rebel or an anarchist to question instead of obeying blindly. It is about exercising one’s brain, it is about doing audits, it is about functioning as check-and-balance, it is about being alive, instead of going along like sheep and lemmings with the decisions of the minority who rule.

For example, did you question, protest or think about fluoride in drinking water? Or did you accept the PR line that “It’s good for teeth”? What do you think?

And so, having taken some time to mull over it, I think that raising a child right entails teaching him or her when and how to question authority – politely and constructively, of course – because it is part of the learning to become a thinking adult and a responsible member of society.

This child of mine is fortunate that she has had far-sighted teachers in the past who had supported her mental growth. Most notably, Mr. Jonathan Booton.

At 10, G had marched up to him and asked, “So, Mr B., why are there new dustbins in all the classrooms on our floor?”

Jonathan Booton, without missing a beat: “To justify the exorbitant school fees that your parents are paying.”

Yes, I blame him. With great affection.

A little sweetness … tiramisu

On August 25, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Awesome Recipes, Everything!!!Leave a comment

Happy parents = happy kids. So here’s a simple-to-make sweet for grown-ups, beloved of the Italians: tiramisu. It requires no cooking or baking whatsoever, just assemble and chill.

First, you need to track down Italian sponge fingers (also known as lady fingers). The Italian name for these fingers are savoiardi. They are quite easy to find: in Jakarta, at Ranch Market or Hero Kemang, in Phuket, at the bakery by the supermarket in Central. If you can’t find them, I have included the recipe at the bottom of this post. But let’s start with the tiramisu first.

INGREDIENTS

1 packet savoiardi

500g mascarpone cheese

6 eggs, separated

350ml espresso coffee, cooled

3 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

50ml cognac or brandy

Grated zest of 1 orange

1 bar good quality dark chocolate, shaved

I banana, sliced, optional

Add the sugar to the egg yolks. Beat well until the mixture is light and creamy. Add the mascarpone and half of the cognac or brandy, and beat well. Add the orange zest.
With clean utensils, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mascarpone mixture.
Pour espresso into a shallow dish along with the remaining cognac and 1 teaspoon of the cocoa powder. Stir well. Quickly dip each lady finger in the espresso mixture, working one at a time, and line the bottom of a glass dish, approximately 20cm round or square.
Once the bottom of the dish is covered in an even layer of espresso-soaked lady fingers, top with 1/2 of the mascarpone mixture. Add the sliced banana. Dust with 1/2 of the cocoa. Repeat with another lady finger layer, then finally the remaining mascarpone and a final dusting of cocoa powder. Top with shaved chocolate.
Chill in the fridge for about 4 hours, then serve!

For the savoiardi:

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs
100g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
115g plain flour

Preheat oven to around 180 C. Line three baking trays with baking parchment. Prepare a pastry bag with a plain 1.25cm piping nozzle.
Separate the eggs. Whisk the egg yolks with 1/2 of the sugar and all of the vanilla. Beat until very light coloured.
In a clean bowl beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. While beating, slowly add the salt and the remaining sugar until combined. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.

Sieve the flour over the egg mixture and gently fold it in.

Fill the pastry bag with half of the batter and pipe 9cm fingers, 4cm apart, in rows on the baking parchment. Continue with the second half of the batter in the same manner.

Bake at 180 C for about 15 minutes until firm to the touch and golden. Remove the paper and fingers from the baking tray and place on racks to cool. After cooling, remove fingers from the paper and use or store between layers of greaseproof paper in a airtight container. These freeze well.

How much greens should my child eat a day?

On August 24, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Awesome Recipes, Everything!!!Leave a comment

Kids (and adults too) need greens for a variety of reasons, chiefly because greens contain the nutrients essential for healing and growth.

But kids are notoriously difficult to feed greens to. Parents over the generations have developed strategies and threats to get their little darlings to eat greens. And they are not wrong in that.

My tried and tested way has always been to get my kids to chug down green smoothies. I swear by them. Over time, they may even grow to like it.

Here’s how you make a monster green smoothie:

Use as many different varieties of greens as you can find. Organic, if possible. If not, wash them thoroughly. The dark, leafy ones are the best. Spinach and lettuce are tasteless, so they are good starters.

To make the green combos tasty, add one or more of the following:

1. Banana

2. Apple

3. Pineapple

4. Dragonfruit

5. Melon

6. Coconut water and/or coconut flesh

Blend, and drink at room temperature, within 15 minutes.

Tip: for young children and newbies, try serving the green smoothie in shot glasses, so that it looks less intimidating.

This is my blend for the day: I added in dates, for the sweetness.

Food safety: Eggs

On August 21, 2014December 19, 2015 By bumblebee3londonIn Awesome Recipes, Everything!!!5 Comments

On of the most disquieting things I heard in recent months is a 9 year old girl developing breast cancer. Of course, the causes of cancer are multifactorial, namely genetic, environmental, lifestyle and nutritional, to name a few. There is no one culprit that we can definitively lay the blame squarely on for making the C-word mainstream. But there is no doubt about it: more and more pharmaceutical by-products are seeping into our food chain, chemicals that are not meant for human consumption.

In eggs that you buy in supermarkets, for example. Eggs are good sources of nutrition. They are versatile, delicious, and an affordable source of protein. But it is so difficult to find organic eggs that are free from growth hormones and antibiotics. These are more expensive that the normal ones, sure, but are still reasonable cost-wise compared to other sources of proteins. I bought eggs with a particular strong branding implying that the products are healthy and green, but a perusal into the company website showed that the eggs are not free from stuff that I do not want in my body (especially my growing child’s). In the tropical paradise of Phuket, ‘clean’ eggs are not easy to find.

What are clean eggs by my definition? I want eggs that are cage-free (I don’t want them laid by hens in battery-cages), antibiotics-free and hormones-free. If possible, I want eggs that are organic as well, namely the laying hens are not fed with animal byproducts or genetically modified (“GMO”) crops but are fed with feeds that have been produced on land that has been free from the use of toxic and persistent chemical pesticides and fertilizers for a minimum of three years. Apparently, the supermarket in Central is one of the few places (other than specialised organic shops) that one can find these pure eggs, though I am not sure how rigorous the organic certification in Thailand is.

Click on this link for the US standards :http://www.uspoultry.org/faq/faq.cfm

But I was very happy when my neighbour Richard Boyle presented me with a dozen. Now that I know where I can lay my hands on them, I will be cooking up a storm with these babies. Stay posted for yummy recipes! The eggy treat shown below is from a previous post: Spinach and eggs, German-style. Served with truffle butter on warmed toast, it is sheer decadence.

Here’s another wonderful, healthy recipe with eggs: energy pancakes

And finally, don’t forget the simple omelette. Load it with sweet Spanish onions, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes for a wonderful, protein-filled treat (gluten-free too).

Tip for egg safety: wash all egg shells, store eggs at 40F or below, in the interior of the refrigerator, rather than the door, which is subject to variable temperatures. Cook eggs – yolks and all – to a temperature of 160F if you are pregnant or vulnerable. I love runny yolks so I take the risk 🙂

Scrambled eggs: Cook until firm, not runny.

Fried, poached, boiled, or baked: Cook until both the white and the yolk are firm.

Egg mixtures, such as casseroles: Cook until the center of the mixture reaches 160 °F when measured with a food thermometer.

NOTE: SALMONELLA KILLS.

Another woman’s son

On August 20, 2014June 2, 2019 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Love, light, blessings8 Comments

Two years ago, I wrote a parenting book, Barefoot in the City, and I dedicated the book to Antonio Castellano.

Antonio works for McKinsey & Company. He worked crazy hours in Jakarta. But in the fast-paced world of international business, Antonio never stopped being the boy from Sicily who loves football and who stays close to his boyhood friends. He holds on to the values of the old world and his connection to what that is real and meaningful. This I admire and love deeply, because it is so easy to lose our way when a fast and glamorous existence beckons. Lost, we develop a new set of values, a new reality, to justify our less-than-honourable actions and selfish choices in pursuit of temporary highs and fools’ gold.

My eldest son Nicolas plays in the same fast and glamorous world as Antonio. I have told Nicolas several times in the past, get close to Antonio, talk to him, learn from him. Never forget where you come from and the values that your parents brought you up with. Be like Antonio. After all, both men are not that dissimilar: both are the eldest of five children, both are sons of mothers who are religious and who are doctors, both have fathers who are wonderful, strong fathers. Both are successful, despite their idyllic childhoods.

Antonio endeavours to spend several weeks a year in Sicily at Christmastime with his family, despite his hectic work schedule and ample opportunities to be somewhere else glamorous. But for Antonio, it has always family and home.

“Wine?” I tease.

“Yes,” Across the miles, I can so easily imagine his megawatt-bright smile as he walks home late at night through the streets of Sicily, talking on his phone to me. “Pasta and family too. It was a good night.”

I feel a deep longing in my heart. “Don’t forget to bring back for me vin santo. And cantucci. And that little fried pastries from the corner of your apartment block.”

He doesn’t forget. His bag spills with goodies for me, even though he travels with carry-on luggage only. I dive on the goodies, cooing gleefully like a little girl, completely ignoring the little Hermes box.

“I have been thinking about my parents,” he says. “What keeps a long marriage going.”

Me: “Love?”

He: “Complicity.”

Me: ‘Read to me.”

He: “Ambrogio’s book?”

Me: “No, your essays. The stuff you wrote. And then Ambrogio’s book later.”

Ambrogio, his boyhood friend, who wrote the beautiful story about wartime love in Monte Rosa. Antonio remains in close contact with his boyhood friends. Four hours after arriving in Milan, I faced six of those guys, and he was sitting there, happiest as I have ever seen him, as they teased him mercilessly about his (lack of) footballing skills. This is his world, this is the real world. This is what that really matters.

That deep connection and transmission of old values are maintained throughout the year whilst he was in Jakarta by the effort of his Uncle Sal. Uncle Salvatore is a schoolteacher back in Sicily. He would send recipes, along with his teachings. As we ate the food, so too we imbibed the good values from home. Through Antonio, I started to feel proud to be quarter Italian.

So my question is, do we invest enough in teaching our children core good values? And do we do enough to keep the education going for our older children? Do we hold them close enough in adulthood so that they don’t lose their way? Have we ourselves lost our way?

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

~ Matthew 16:26

And it was precisely for this reason that I wrote my parenting book, a book about raising kids to be happy, strong AND decent human beings. Someone that his parents can be proud of, someone who leaves a legacy of light in a darkening world. As with the book, I dedicate this blog to another woman’s son, the boy from Sicily who grew up to be the man who read to me, cooked for me, and sat with me in the Catholic church in Jakarta, the sweetest moments ever. Lei, Castellano.

My message for the day: hold your children close, hold each other close. Spend more time in your hometown, connect those old values once more. And if you have time, read the fable of Icarus.

When is the right time to have kids?

On August 20, 2014September 10, 2014 By bumblebee3londonIn Everything!!!, Love, light, blessings7 Comments

I don’t think men are ever ready to have kids.

When I told the father of my children I was pregnant, he went off sailing for a week with zero contact (whilst my mother fretted and my father went ballistic). In that time, I thought seriously about having an abortion because I had already been accepted for medical school. He, in the meantime, contemplated running off to Paris to start a new life.

Looking back, I don’t blame him. He was in his twenties, enjoying an exciting, selfish life to the maximum. He worked enough (rather than climb the career ladder) to feed his hobbies. Feeding kids certainly wasn’t on his agenda. He lived out of a suitcase in his friend’s back room, spending all his money on his three boats and alcohol.

I told him the news at Langstone Harbour, England. I had walked there, to make it more dramatic. He was about to set off for the Olympics Trial. He was ranked 21^st in the country for the Finn class sailing, and was filled with optimism and excitement for a bright future ahead. Getting the one-night stand pregnant certainly wasn’t on his agenda.

But he came back, and came through strong for his child and I. Beneath the hellraiser was a decent, honourable Catholic boy. He came back after a week at sea. Though I freed him of all obligations, he wasn’t going to let me bring up his child on my own. He wasn’t going to allow me to have an abortion. He believed in the sanctity of life, that life is a gift whatever the circumstances.

Of course he wasn’t the perfect partner. To start off with, we are so different from each other, with nothing in common except animal passion. He wasn’t excited the way first time dads are supposed to be. He didn’t want to attend parenting classes or go shopping for baby things. He couldn’t understand how I changed from a fit, sporty person to this hormonal, weak woman. He just didn’t want to know.

But when his first son arrived, there was just the biggest smile on his face. Those startling blue eyes softened the way I have never seen them soften. His big hands cradled the new life we had unwittingly, accidentally, made. He came to his firstborn with such reverence.

My mother said she will never forget the smile on his face as he walked down the path to my house at 8am on the unforgettable April morning to tell my parents the news in person. He walked, with pride and happiness radiating from him, my blood and amniotic fluid still on his jeans. My mother said she often sees that young man walking down the path, almost three decades later.

He was the perfect father the moment he held his firstborn, and he continues to be the perfect father for all his children. He is the one who read to them every night and kissed them with gratitude every night, more so than me.

And that summer, standing on Langstone Harbour, we saw his beloved Fireball sailing out in the Solent with her new owners. The sail was billowing, and someone was on the trapeze on the boat, skimming the waves, cruising at speed.

“There she goes,” he said with emotion, blue eyes crinkling as he stared at his beloved Fireball setting off. We were leaving our much-loved Portsmouth, where I come from, to go to Manchester, where I will be starting university, to an uncertain future, far from the life that we had originally intended.

It’s August 2014. In 18 months’ time when we return to England, I will buy him a Fireball so that he may sail in these waters once more. Though the years have aged him, the blue in his eyes never changed. He will always be the man I love, the father of my children. Looking at our big brood of beautiful children, I know I couldn’t have asked for more, because what is life, if not family?

And so, with learned wisdom and experience, here’s what I think: men are never voluntarily ready to trade in their carefree life for fatherhood. It’s just too scary, and if you read Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene, it is counter-intuitive biologically. You just have to pick a decent one to give your womb space to, that’s all. Tip: Spanish genes and Catholic upbringing are strong bets.

raisinghappystrongkids

Category: Everything!!!