by tashmcgill | Jan 3, 2015 | Community, Leadership, Youth Work
I have this running joke with a couple of teenagers I work with. They are daughters of dear friends of mine but also in my youth work circles. Sometimes they come and hang out on the weekends because we’re doing youthwork-y things and sometimes just because I’m offering caregiver duties to parents stretched thin. Either way, we joke fondly about my role as a Weekend Mom.
These girls, and so many others that I am lucky enough to spend time with have become my ‘kids’. It’s a term of endearment for me, although other youthworkers I respect dislike the terminology. I get that, I really do but there are some young people who transcend my ‘regularly scheduled youth work’ relationships and become part of the fabric of life.
What It Heals In Us.
Often, I will tell my friends how grateful I am for the opportunity to express something of a communal motherhood in the role they let me play in their children’s lives. It is a gift to be trusted to walk alongside young people, particularly when they are the children of other wise, gracious and experienced youthworkers and teachers! I get to play mom when parents go away or even take them on holiday with me. We share in one another’s lives, even birthday parties and school events.
“The first third of your life is about learning, the next third is earning and the last third of your life is about returning.”
A wise friend shared this saying with me many years ago. I’ve learned the parts are not chronological. We never finish learning, therefore are constantly earning and we ought to, as soon as we have anything of worth, start to return investment back into our communities. So it heals something in all of us (the question of self-worth) when we discover we have something worth returning, worth giving back.
It’s what keeps me coming back to youthwork and investing in people, over and over again.
The Gift Of Being A Youthworker In Your 30s.
By the time you’re doing youthwork in your 30s, things are probably (hopefully?) a little different to when you were at college or barely out of school yourself. It’s slightly different too, if you are single. You have capacity, a different set of resources to invest as well as a few more freedoms than others may have. The other great thing about being a youthworker in your 30s, are the young people who have graduated and become friends. They offer plenty of input as to what was helpful to them and not so.
1. Experience counts for something.
I don’t believe that the longer you are around, the better youthworker you are. Being a good youthworker has to do with learning, practicing, listening and being committed to developing your leadership and skills. A graduating youth worker can be just as impactful as a long-timer, but likely in very different ways than a youthworker who has invested years in learning about adolescent development and the challenges that young people face.
For starters, hopefully you’ve had the chance to read, converse and grasp hold of learning opportunities when they come your way. I’ve been lucky enough to find a few mentors (and friends) who have expanded my practice, my understanding and my abilities.
2. Youthwork is an intentional lifestyle choice.
Lots of young adults get involved in youth work because it’s an opportunity to meet and work alongside other young adults. It’s also something of a common practice for young adults who have grown up in youth groups to graduate and work within those youth groups too. When you’re in your late 20s and 30s, regardless of whether you are a fulltime youthworker or a volunteer, youthwork has become an intentional lifestyle choice. You already know the cost of weekends, evenings, extra gas mileage and the impact on your social life and family. There’s likely to be more of a gap between your personal life and your youthwork than there was when you were younger, probably more consideration of balance between the two as well.
3. Resource is probably a little easier to come by.
Having a group of teenage girls over on a weekend afternoon is a lot easier now that I’m older, live with fewer people and run my household. I have space that I can easily make available to young people, young adults and other youth workers to meet, spend time, eat and generally feel at home. A big part of my Weekend Mom routine comes from the reality of welcoming young people into my home. They come and eat, make food, laze about on the couch and know the Wi-Fi password. Extra gas money, a few extra dollars for snacks and activities are all far easier to come by now. It’s no big deal to take them camping for a weekend, when I used to spend enormous amounts of time budgeting for such days.
4. Your role can be Mentor/Friend/Aunty/Mom.
It’s challenging for a twenty year old to play more than one or two roles as youthworker. Even as a twenty five year old, there’s still so much learning about your own ideas of being friend, mentor, caregiver to be done and rarely can you step into the wisdom and security of a parenting role. Mentorship changes over time. It can be instructional, simply learning how to be in certain ways. It can be a devoted do-as-I-do discipline. Or it can be more ancient – the practice of encouraging someone in how to think their way through problems and questions. The joy of being a Weekend Mom, as well as youthworker, mentor and friend – is the way those questions come about.
5. You know when to stay calm and when to escalate.
We all know that not every youthful crisis is actually a crisis. But you have to learn to read the signs carefully, because the younger you are the closer to those same heightened emotions and new experiences you are. That’s potentially controversial, but I find it anecdotally to be true. What seemed overwhelming as a twenty-something youthworker feels very approachable and manageable today.
Something We Should Always Do.
That’s it – the gift of being able to return something from how we are constantly learning and then what we earn. It’s not just money, but wisdom, experience and the capacity for grace and generosity. We should be returning it back into people as soon as we grasp hold of it. So I think, that after years of wondering and questioning if I am done with youthwork and years of trying to figure out how to do it well – I’ve settled on it. There are young people and families who have chosen me as their youthworker and at times, a Weekend Mom. What a joy, what a healing experience – that I’ve grown into someone who has something to offer beyond my youthful exuberance.
by tashmcgill | Jan 2, 2015 | Poems, Prose & Poetry
I’m trying to enter this year full of positivity, good intentions and motivation to achieve some big goals. I’ve been working hard on this posture since December. So, it was challenging to come home on New Years Day to discover my second-most valuable writing tools had been stolen.
My Macbook Pro, which I use to write, edit and publish – not to mention many other day-to-day tasks. Hundreds of documents, ideas, InDesign files and otherwise. Thankfully 95% of that work is backed up in the cloud. But replacing the tools will be expensive and frustrating. It won’t happen right away.
The second, my iPad, is one of the main resources I use daily to feed my brain. I use it primarily to read and digest news articles, online magazines and books. I’m feeling teary about the bookmarks I’ve likely lost. Ugh. Still – they are only words and the good ones stick, right?
The most important writing tools – my hands, pens, journals and my mind, they are all fine. Really. I am safe, so are my housemates. Nothing else was taken, we believe they were interrupted. I know they are unlikely to return in the short-term, but there is still a moment of uncertainty. There will be new bolts on the doors and windows. I have no desire to repeat previous self-defence endeavours, regardless of my courage or capability. I will be fine, but something has been stolen from me. I can only hope that some good comes of this moment.
I am grateful for what was left untouched – my precious journals and poetry books, a ring, my guitars. So – what else is there to do but write? What was really stolen? Words. About 13,500 of them by my count – the article ideas and about a chapter of the novel I’ve been working on for such a long time. Just what wasn’t caught in the latest backup.
So here’s some words about the words that were taken.
Stolen.
It takes such a long time to drag them out,
the good ones, carefully sculpted sentences.
As if I carried them in womb, once born cord must be cut –
my ideas become their own, independent creatures.
So the labour is hard, to wrestle these thoughts from my body
and give them up into the world.
Now harder still, the wrestling is done but no life comes.
Just a space where words once were but won’t be seen, not as they intended to be born.
I’ll do the birthing, call it a born-again, always now wondering
what if, what could have been?
What sentence that on which the story once hung so sweet?
Which words of love and truth now miss their true intent?
That turn of phrase so perfect, flickers at the edge of memory –
so I must give you up, stolen moment, stolen thought.
To do it all again makes my muscles ache, my mind grows heavy.
I will whisper, only the good ones stick.
by tashmcgill | Dec 31, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Strategy
The Scots have a few bloody brilliant traditions. Most of them have to do with feasting and drinking, a few of them have to do with fighting. But hospitality and celebration is something they do well. One of the traditions I appreciate the most (because it lends itself to whisky drinking) is Hogmanay. This year I’ll be turning over the New Year with a select group of friends with good food and drink to hand. The celebrations will start early in the day as brunch with a friend then carry on into the night. I intend to drink some good whisky and start this year of life change well.
The season between my American Thanksgiving and the New Year is always awash with sentiment and good intentions. It’s in November that my heaviest reflections on the year past come to light and I put choices, desires and wishes into words for the coming year. Now, that they’ve had a little time to settle in – I set about my New Year celebration as a fine-tuning of the discipline required to see it all come to light. Hogmanay is more than just a party, it’s closing one chapter and very purposefully opening another with very good intentions.
So, here’s to a year in which I have big plans and I hope, so do you. Here’s a short list of good intentions for us all to share.
- Love well.
I read recently that love is part chemistry, part risk and part choice. I think it to be true, but in the opposite order. Choose well first and then risk bravely to love well. Love with compassion, with self-awareness and with honesty. Don’t love people because of how they make you feel, love them for the gift of your love is enough.
- Make bigger, bolder changes.
I’m shamelessly applying some lessons from my work here, but they hold true. Over time, incremental shifts will result in change. But it’s within your capacity to make bigger, bolder changes with faster, better results.
- Where you desire change, focus on what process, habit or behaviour you’re going to change, not on the end result.
If you want something to be different, focus on what you can change in your everyday life to get that change. Don’t focus on the change itself, because you never know what you’ll learn along the way.
- Spend time with children.
Children have a vitality and innocence in the way they see the world. Spend time with them so you can see the world through their eyes every so often.
- Work with your eyes on the horizon.
Don’t let your eyes stay so close to the immediate work of your hands that you forget to look up to where you are going. Go dream-chasing with everything you have. Keep your eyes steady focused on where you are headed.
- Don’t be afraid to say no, in order to achieve something more important.
If hibernating a little more will get me closer to my goals this year, I’m happy to do it. Don’t be afraid to order your life around the things that are most important to you.
- Tell the people you love that you love them and why.
Be sure to tell those you love, those that are precious to you why they are precious and how you love them. Tell them often, until it becomes uncomfortable because then it becomes an unavoidable truth. We get shy about sharing these things, but if there is anything I’ve learned from far too many funerals in 2014, it’s to express our love more frequently to one another. There are too many people who never hear it.
- Eat clean, sweat often, sleep decently, have (plenty of) good sex.
These are pretty self-explanatory – look after yourself. My goal is always to be ready to climb mountains. Those occasional, stay-up-til-dawn moments are magical if you have the reserves to do it. And by good sex, I mean, the loving, intimate, true kind – so whatever virtues you need to put around that, you do it. Unless you’re married/committed, in which case you should probably just go ahead and aim to have twice as much sex & intimacy next year as you did this year. It’s good for you.
- Choose a couple of key areas of personal development and self-awareness to grow in.
Without wanting to sound like Dr. Phil, this really is a gift you give yourself but also others. It doesn’t have to be big or even that hard, but try to work on a couple of insecurities and a couple of strengths. If you’re good at something but not doing it regularly – just find a small way of engaging that strength each week.
- Continue to be uncomfortably disturbed about a couple of things: something in your own life and something in the wider world.
Be passionate and compassionate about something bigger than yourself. It might be business-related, justice-related, social or political – but have something in the broader world that engages you. Talk about that, even if you can only do something small about it today, continue to be an advocate for something bigger than yourself.
So that’s it. Just some good intentions about living better.
My friend Jacqui posted this delightful little wish – I think it sums it up pretty perfectly. I’m down for the kissing, the making of things and definitely the surprising myself (and hopefully you too!) along the way.
Slainte mhor agus a h-uile beannachd duibh
(Good health and every good blessing to you!)
by tashmcgill | Dec 30, 2014 | Bodies, Community, Culture & Ideas, Friendship, Mind, Relationships
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
There is family; whom you cannot choose and there is fraternity – the brothers and sisters you do choose.
Do I value friendship over all other things? Yes. Friendship – true, complete companionship outlasts all. Friendship is the root of love. You depend on your friend, but you are not dependent on him. It is in friendship that we learn to see someone fully as they are, we learn how to live with the differences between us and remain loyal regardless. We learn to see the truth of people rather than our ideal of them. Friendship will outlast romance, marriages, the birth and death of children, the death and decay of lovers, career changes. Friendship is a paradox – to hold another so close in your heart yet not be dependent entirely on them in the same way we need a spouse. Friendship spans continents and endures the years.
We live in a complex culture, hindered by lack of inhibition yet a proliferation of obstacles to true friendship between men and women. But if we are to navigate this complex culture, we must do with the art of friendship high in our priority. Not just friendship between like of our like, but friendship between the genders (and transgender). More than ever, men and women need to understand one another and engage with each other in meaningful ways outside the limitations of potential partnership and sexual liaison. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Dec 29, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Monologue
I was standing at the kitchen bench, knife in hand and a slab of ham in front of me.
‘This is what you do,’ I thought to myself. Maybe it was the coffee, maybe it was the Mimosa. It seemed like a thought that came from nowhere, yet was profound in the moment it appeared to me.
It was a thought as visual as it was constructed of nouns and verbs.
‘You slice away at the meat of life until you hit the bone.’
Sometimes holding a pen, metaphorical or otherwise) feels like holding a knife at the throat of someone you love.
Perhaps that’s why writers drink: we need the courage that comes with loosening the inhibitions, the fear, the risk.
The virtues of public and private decency compete like never before in this digital age. When anyone can publish, there is no subtle observational art in how writers write. We can publish at a moment’s notice and therefore it is as easy to assume that all observations are those of our closest acquaintance. And often it is.
There’s the truth of it – sometimes I do not write about you, but sometimes I do. Sometimes I cut away at the flesh of our very real, everyday lives until I hit the bone. Then, even then, sometimes I am tempted not to stop but to continue carving until I hit the marrow.
Then , once I have hit the bone and passed through to the marrow – I hope that I have struck the core of it.
I want my words to cut to the core of who we are, to the very deepest and sacred parts of us. I want us to be challenged. I am challenged when I think it and even more so to write these thoughts in ways sharp enough to penetrate but thoughtful enough that my good intentions are clear.
Sometimes when I feel my words are like the knife at your throat, I think about stopping, holding back. But these words ring in my ear ..
“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anaïs Nin
I do not write to hurt you, rather to peel you back. To give you permission to live more exposed, more real, more true. To accept you as you are and as I am, all flaws exposed and not hidden. I write to carve you out, to tease you out until you have no choice but to show yourself unbound to the world.
Whatever those ideas of identity, belief, value, truth, sex, sensuality, spirituality and ambition are – I hope to use my words to bring them to life in you, willing you to come into the light. I want to know you. I want to experience you in the same fullness I offer myself to you.
As much as I am trying to carve you out, to really see you – I am exposing my own marrow and hoping you see me.
