Auriol Hays

Lawrence Fishburn’s daughter is becoming a porn star to kick start her acting career. Personally, I think she is just doing this to piss her Daddy off. Lord knows she could afford the odd acting class. This rant is about kids and the choices they make – not porn.

No matter what your kids get up to or how old they become – parents always feel responsible. If there is any truth to the reports then poor Lawrence must be mortified. I know I would be! I can hear some of you saying, “Well, she is a grown ass women so the choices she makes are her own.” But be serious now how would you respond if that was your kid?

Look I feel terrible when my daughter can’t keep her room clean. The site of that dirty instantly reminds me of some very unpleasant people. So I do the next perfectly understandable thing; I freak out. In order for peace to prevail in our universe, I have accepted that every now and then she needs a bit of help so I help her out. After the required screaming and preaching of course…

“I’m hoping the same magic will work for me. I’m impatient about getting well-known and having more opportunities and this seemed like a great way to get started on it.” In other words she wants to be famous and now. Lord, this is alarming stuff. “I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape by Vivid.

Sure, I hope that I am quoting her out of context and that she has some other exit strategies. This 19 year old, by just doing her own thing, is making us question why we value the things we do and just who we are becoming.

I have many nicknames for my daughter. “Jacket of muffins”, “Love Dragon”, “Grumplestilskin” but now I call her Bad Horse from Dr. Horrible’s Sing along Blog – one of my favourite musicals. “You are not like other mothers who are lovie dovie all the time. You are unique but you really should do something about your swearing!” This is the nicest thing my daughter has said to me this week.

My Bad Horse knows that she can’t try her luck with me. I will not fall for the tricks or settle easily when we are negotiating. So she runs to the Granny instead. Seriously, that is why Grandparents exist. To indulge, spoil and to witness their suffering…lol! This is something I understand completely – minus the constant complaining of course. I recall lying on my Ma’s big, juicy, fat tummy with the sole intention of making her laugh. I just loved the way it moved when she did…rollercoaster like lol!

There was a time when I was very sad about the fact that my Bad Horse is growing up but then I remembered that I do not find babies particularly interesting. I dig it when they can talk and argue. Honestly I miss the down right silly conversations, the bad singing (mostly on my part), the hours spent together in the bath, bad dance moves (again on my part) and watching Bear in the Big Blue House…

Yes, she will be an interesting adult. I can’t imagine her marrying in a church seeing that she is very opinionated about religion already (most of it bad – and trust me, I have tried giving her a balanced view). But when she does she marry she will be an interesting wife and give me interesting grand kids. Hopefully I would have learnt to not swear as much…but that is a far way off and well, let’s be realistic here. That might not happen…lol!

Someone jumped over our wall last night. I was watching TV and ironing clothes and my daughter was about to go to bed. It was just one of those days. So when the security guards knocked on our door and gave us the news we were all a bit rattled. When anything out of the ordinary happens I think back to all those esoteric books I loved reading. Then I ask myself just why it happened.

Truthfully those books helped me cope. They were the reason why I could make up with my sister-in-law (who I had mad beef with) or forgive my father who was a bit of a bastard. And they all stress the same thing :  your attention should always be focused on the things you want in your life. This is why I think about my insane family and music all the time….

Yet every now and then something happens to snap me out of the bubble I created for myself. When that happens it feels as though some cosmic dude tapped me on my back and said, “That’s nice, the life you have for yourself, but take a look at this please.”  It’s not that I am oblvious to crime and poverty but I, honestly, just don’t look at it too closely. And on the day that my  best friend and I went into the township schools…it was all I could see.

Imagine my shock when I saw a shebbeen right on top of a school. In fact there were drunks stumbling out of the place while the kids were eating lunch a few yards away. Then we drove up to another school, and lordy lord I locked my door immediately, that had a chop shop directly opposite it. Some enterprising criminals even cut off access to one of the roads by using a very big tree stump. And all around there were dodgy looking cars and even dodgier looking people.

In all these schools there was hardly any space for kids to really move about or play or a stitch of grass. In my head I was thinking, “Why would anyone be concerned about kids brining weapons to school. All they have to do here is pick up a brick!” There was dirt and rubble all over the place.

The only thing that redeemed those schools were the teachers. Teachers who despite everything get up in the morning and do more than just their job. .And just like that I was snatched out of my bubble and forced to think about things other than music and my family. There was only one question I had to answer, “What will I do now?”

I am just going to say it – there was a time when I hated kids. Aside from their basic cuteness – I thought they were an annoying bunch. So year in and out I would look at people with little kids and think, “Ha-ha, at least it’s not mine!”  I would ignore all the dreams where my future son would make a guest appearance. I had to get on with my life…yes, the one where I was just annoyed by children in general.  Looking back I realise that that it said more about what I was going through than anything else.  I needed to grow up and let go of my “stuff” but I was nowhere near ready for that yet.

Now that Christmas is around the corner kids are on my mind once again. My daughter, the comedian, calls herself a casual Christian because she loves Christmas and thinks that Jesus was on to something.  She is possibly the craziest person in my life and reminds me about everything that is good and unusual on this planet. And now that there are more kids in the family there is more to celebrate. My poor mother in law is going to cook and bake her soul out while the rest of us eat, drink and become very jolly…lol!

My family and the crap we all get up to got me to thinking about kids in orphanages. For a kid it’s a catastrophe when they don’t get presents but to have no one around you to love? Most people feel guilty about something this time of the year and so give wherever they can. Yet after speaking to someone involved with kids it became apparent that they are forgotten the rest of the year. Can you imagine being forgotten?

So made a decision to do something because…dammit-all….I am lucky. Yes, my parents had their issues and life wasn’t always rosy but they were there. I always felt at home.  Honestly I don’t really know what I am going to do just yet or how I will get it right but I have to do something. We all should do something.

I remember watching Beowulf with my then 8 year old. I know….clearly a mistake on my part. All she did was shout and say, “I don’t want to watch this.” And after about 15 minutes I agreed with her. Her reaction is typical…well, if you know my daughter it is. I got the same reaction when I wanted to talk about the Nazis and WW2. She could not believe that people would treat people like that. In fact she started crying. I realized that if I wanted to talk to her about human behavior (the “bad” stuff) I was going to have to try another angle completely. I would have to frame it in a way that makes sense to her. I love it when situations present themselves so I can share something with her. A few days ago I spoke of Dr Jack Kevorkian who assisted people in committing suicide. I tried as best as I could to show her both sides…the why’s and why nots. Then I asked her what her thoughts were. I used a technique called the Thinking Hats and asked her put on a different one in order to gain a different perspective. Now some might say that I am being too hasty. She will learn all that when she is older. This is not my view. I think it is my job, as a parent, to help her understand the way humans behave….to understand the psychology behind it.

No one told me any of this until I was a teenager and then, honestly, I didn’t really care. I am teaching her things that I only recently learned but already she is way ahead of me. Children, by their very nature, know more about compassion than we give them credit for. They are more balanced and in tune with their true nature than we are. I told her that it is her job (the most important thing) that she live a life that she is happy with….Yes, I do this because I do not want her to make the same mistakes I did. After all….all any parent wants for their child is that they live their life on their terms. Sure…she is going to give me hell when she becomes a teenager….I wouldn’t expect anything less. After all I taught her to think for herself..