britfamilymorrissey's podcast

It is crucial for children and young people to learn the spirit of discernment. This is the capacity to know when something is right and true. It requires practice and experience. We also go through a number of questions we have had from listeners. 

Technology and education are two major preoccupations for many parents, and with those worlds colliding in coronavirus lockdown, many of us are struggling with both the practicalities and more philosophical issues.

Over the years we’ve come to appreciate just how important it is to ‘break bread’ together as a family. The food itself is important – the act of preparing a meal, making an effort to create a dish that hopefully everyone will enjoy. But the food itself is just one aspect of regular family meals together: they’re also a chance to share our days, discuss what’s going on around us and to create lots of happy memories.

In part 2 of our conversation with our son-in-law Benjamin Clementine we look at accepting difference, how to cope with rebelliousness and whether a happy family results in happy children. 

Our son-in-law, Mercury Prize-winning musician Benjamin Clementine, challenges us around aspects of our family philosophy, how we balance our roles and whether our children are prepared for the harsh realities of the world.

Helena is often asked how she ‘juggles everything’ – and of course the truthful answer is that she drops balls all over the place. The reality is that it’s complicated and difficult for parents to be genuinely, deeply involved in bringing up their children at the same time as furthering their careers. But there are ways of being a good, devoted mother or father and having a fulfilling career. We certainly can’t ‘do it all, all of the time’ – but we can learn to prioritise what’s important to us and to enjoy that!

The evidence suggests that it’s important for boys in particular to have strong male role models at home. Richard has been in the unusual position of being a ‘stay at home’ dad for twenty years, and seen how he approaches things often quite differently to how many mothers would. If parents are bringing up children together, it’s important that each plays to their own strengths, and that if there’s no father figure, other male role models are part of a child’s life.

A happy family life helps us to be centred, to be resilient in the face of a chaotic world. Right now, many families are spending far more time together than usual due to the coronavirus lockdown. There are stresses involved but it’s also a great opportunity to reset our family life, to reconnect with each other in a way that was impossible when we were rushing from one thing to the next. The family had been devalued precisely at the time we needed it most – now is our chance to change that.

Many of us are struggling to manage family and work life. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and trapped by the circumstances. Those feelings may be heightened during the coronavirus lockdown, when there are so many restrictions around our daily lives. Yet we can decide to be more in charge of our own and our family’s happiness. It took a crisis for us to make essential changes and we learned that we didn’t need to map out our whole future, just take one step at a time. The key is to take that first step.