ContentedLife

All children have the capacity to be great teachers to their parents.

Firstly, they hold a mirror to show you what needs healing in yourself. That ugly behaviour you see in them probably has its origins or counterpart in you; the uglier it is to you, the less you want to face it, the more you need to.

Secondly, time is running in. Our children are that much closer to the omega point. On the deepest level, they know, better than we do, which way things are heading. They can feel more keenly the pull of that strange attractor; are more aligned with it. While we have become magnetized, polarized by the dead weight of the past, they are aligned to a future of infinite potential, and are trying to guide us there. We need to listen to them.

They want to give us an inheritance. Instead of passing on to our children all our ossified and stratified millennia of pain from the past, let our children pass on to us their flexibility, adaptability and ready forgiveness.

Thankyou, my children, for being such wonderful teachers. I humbly promise to try to be a better student.

Now eat your vegetables.

This morning, DS1 (who is 3 years old) breezes into my room to wake me up as normal. He opens the curtains as normal. “Ooh look!”, quoth he, “lights are on cos it’s dark outside”. It is indeed pitch black. I look at the clock. 04:00 on the dot. “Erm, it’s a bit early to be getting up. Can you go back to bed please?” He did, bless him.

My car is unwell so I’ve been shuttling the pair of them back and forth to nursery by train. Of course they love this, while it shreds my nerves somewhat. They’ve actually been really good, not running up and down the carriage, not terrorising fellow passengers, not teetering on the edge of the platform etc. Same cannot be said of the visit to the supermarket this evening… DS1 starts grabbing random things off shelves and throwing them on the floor. DS2 wanders off. The former is plain attention seeking and can be dealt with as such, but the latter poses a problem: DS2 (2yo) is quite advanced with speech, but doesn’t seem to know when he’s being called, no matter how loudly or fiercely I shout. If I go and get him, DS1 feels spurned and starts attention-seeking again.

*breathe* It will get easier…

Meanwhile, I wonder what I’m doing here, and whether to move back to Soton. It’s likely to happen sooner or later, by the looks of it, but the timing’s bad as I’ve got a lot of work on till the end of the year. Not that I won’t necessarily have just as much in another 6 months’ time…

Now playing: Esem “Scateren” kahvi.org ..161

Thanks to a bit of synchronicity I just found this statement from the Inland Revenue:

The present regulations were laid on 24 March [2005]. These make changes to the CTF regulations to allow credit unions to offer their cash deposit accounts for the CTF.

I think this is good news and could well be the best place to put those pesky government cheques — get them invested in your local community. Sure, cash deposit is low return, but also low risk. Doesn’t seem to have been much publicity about this, perhaps unsurprisingly. Well, you know now. Spread the word!

Having read through some information sent to me by The Childrens Mutual, and done some more digging, it looks to me like non-stakeholder CTF accounts (which are the only option for those wanting a truly ethical/eco investment), seem to offer very poor value for money — and even stakeholder accounts aren’t that great. If you intend to put aside a regular monthly payment for your children, you might be best to put it somewhere other than a CTF account. (more…)

So, your youngster(s) have just got their cheque for £250 from that nice Mr Brown. Now, what to do with it?

Many people will want to put their child’s trust fund into ethical and environmentally sustainable investments. After all, there’s not a great deal of point in them having a pot of money in 18 years time if the planet has gone to hell by then. You want to invest in their future, right?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of CTF accounts do not assess any criteria of ethical, ecological or social responsibility. And, depressingly, most people probably won’t realise that their CTF is being invested in arms, tobacco, environmental destruction and oppression.

So… where are all the CTF funds to cater for our requirements? (more…)