After the horrifying news that a teen-age is brave enough to embrace a weapon and erase another human being`s life, I have no other feelings but fear ... fear of failure.
Fear that as parents we are all failing in finding the right place in this society for our children.
Fear that my own children could be the next victims of a non-sense OCD action.
her is my list of things i would eliminate if I could:
1) The positive attribute to the word "OCD". Americans tend to use acronyms for their words such that the real meaning is masked. OCD is an obsessive compulsive "disease". occasionally I hear people at work, or in the elevator state happily that they have OCD and expect for me (or others) to understand and embrace their obsession as a positive thing. This entire universe is dominated by chaos, and if they cannot accept the fact that people with this disease are only a minority, while all the others are perfectly fine in their chaotic environment, they need to take a deep breath and step back to look around them at the way everyone live their life. It is a false presumption and an act of arrogance to pretend that we all need to embrace and share each one`s OCD, because in different ways everyone has their own "fissazioni", meaning, things that you want to be done in a certain way, but nobody is so far ahead from reality to suffer if the social or working environment does not reflect their own fixations. Or I should say, only people whose OCD is pushed to the extreme can end up passing the limit of reality and disseminate terror around them.
2) The Saturdays off. I grew up in an island, beautiful and peaceful, where the only Holy day made to rest is the Sunday. Our school hours were Monday to Saturday 5-6 hours per day, with just a 20` break in the middle and lunch at home. No cafeteria, no junk food, no after school. Only me and some peaceful rest, while I was spending the rest of the afternoon doing my homework in literally 4 hours or less. I was pretty good in almost every topic, I was helping my schoolmates by giving private lessons and passing out my notes. It was easy for me to be the best in such environment. I als had a lot ot free time to enjoy and make memories with my friends. Then I experienced in college (at the age of 18 years old) the trauma of not being able to have my little afternoon nap before starting the mountain of homework, but have only the week end available to study. It was very hard for me to keep up with 5 consecutive days of lessons in just two days of the week end, it was humanly impossible to have classes from 7.30-5 PM and go home and study the same day... so I was not able to pass more that 2 final exams that year and left 3 behind.
It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I still remember the sky and its grey muddy color and the cold that penetrated underneath my clothes while I was waiting for the bus...and also the couple of time i was up late to try to study resulting in falling asleep at the first lesson of the day in the big auditorium that was the Polytechnic of Torino.
Maybe not all of us have the skin to handle such rithm, maybe some of us need to work constantly every morning and use the afternoon for their leisure. If I could make a big suggestion to this society i would say to leave us the choice to choose what kind of job we need: 5 days a week for 8 hours, or 6 days a week for 6-7 hours. I am Catholic and could not care less about working on Saturdays. And I believe that family in long term would benefit of having their children at home for the entire afternoon, with no need to worry about bad habits and uncontrolled after school activities.
3) A houskeeper. Dear mothers, dear working mothers, dear housewives... Do you truly believe that a stranger can take care of your nest, of your home, of your living place better than you? That is your own space, your territory, the place were memories are made, in the middle of whatever mess it is. It is the space that reflect your lifestyle, and if you and your entire family cannot keep up with the current choirs, than you all need to take a break from whatever you are doing, and start loving your home as a baby. Things need to be in order and in the right place all the time for our brain to work properly, we all keep things where they belong at work and at school, so in the public places, why not in our own home? are we really in so much hurry that dishes cannot be washed, laundry fold or bed always made? I feel a secret pleasure after i am done cleaning my house, is like fighting a war that you always can wind, is like turning the page of a project and restart a new chapter with blank paper to draw on it, is like making a gift to my entire family, telling all of them: I love you so much, here it is, instead of going to a beauty saloon, or shopping on line, i spent my time for all of us to live in a neat, positive and stimulating environment. This is the feeling that I have every time that I accomplish all the task I desire. And my husband is very helpful in this tasks (maybe he likes to clean too). What happens if for a week we skip laundry or for a day we eat out and do not do the dishes? Nothing, simply the will be a message from the house to us, telling that it is time to slow down in something and take care of the nest first. No panic, no depression, no anger, simply embracing the chaos around us and translate it in one single message: Patience.
