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.

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.

We are not run-of-the-mill parents.  We had tried – unsuccessfully – to persuade our older children to be beach bums like us.  Didn’t work. They all went to universities and gotten respectable jobs as soon as they could. Hmm, it must be backlash against having hippie parents.

We raised our kids differently.  We did not fret when they couldn’t read at 6. We didn’t bat an eyelid when they did not come top of the class (or anywhere near the middle).  Why fret? Life is not a race where there is a prize to be won for being the youngest to achieve something.  Indeed, G never really read until she was 9 or 10 – right till then, her father read to her every night. But she is in the top set of an academic school for every subject.  It goes to show, a bright kid can always get to the top at the appropriate time. In the meantime, he or she has more important things to learn first, that will provide a foundation for all future learnings, that become their character.

Childhood is for learning other more important things than doing worksheets or memorising facts. Children have to be out there, living life in 3D and getting to know their world firsthand. It instils confidence in them and also a sense of being comfortable in their environment. It is from this base that they climb higher to achieve bigger things in the bigger world.

Our list of Six Must-Do’s for young children:

1. Swim by 18 months

2. Ride

3. Sail (in the UK, you can buy secondhand Topper or Mirror dinghies suitable for 8 year olds for 400pounds)

4. Two European languages (because they are English)

5. Look after pets

6. Have friends of other generations, nationalities, and social strata.

I swear G’s success stems from her physical confidence.  Feeling bored hanging around the lagoon, she swam out into the open sea, out to the yacht 300 metres away, to join the boys without a second thought. Priceless!