Chat with Coralie

Like many of us, I have been enjoying more than my usual time on Netflix and YouTube, whilst I, probably wrongly, use these tools to switch off to what’s going on around us.

I have found myself drawn to a few things in particular which I wanted to share with you all this month, just in terms of giving another perspective on the way we live. You may know that we have a busy household - 4 of our 5 children still live at home and my paraplegic mum and her partner live in the annexe. We have 2 elderly dogs and of course like many of us we are homeschooling. Firstly I am grateful for everything we have. But I find myself getting increasingly frustrated by society and the invisible ropes which seem to be drawing us in.

On the face of it we live in a lovely part of the country. We have the seaside on our doorstep, countryside a small drive away and some reasonably good schools who are doing their best to support our kids during the pandemic.

And yet.... so much seems so wrong. Reliance on screens has now become a permanent fixture at home making me worry about the addictive affects of social media as well as the possibility of sleep deprivation, eye strain, and other negative outcomes such as depression and mood changes. At least at school the screen time was generally restricted to ‘between lessons’ and there was some break. Now the lessons are all on zoom and it feels like a constant battle to remove our kids from a device and get them doing other things.

I have found myself immersed in YouTube channels (oh the irony!) that showcase families having simpler lives in smaller homes, being off grid and more sustainable in their choices and spending more time in the necessary activities of their lives rather than superfluous ‘surfing’. I yearn to be able to buy some land (albeit somewhere warmer!) where Sean and I can build our own house, heat it with sustainable fuels, grow enough fruit and vegetables for us all and rely a lot less on stores for our day to day necessities. I want our kids to be less concerned about their profiles, the brands of their clothes and whether they have the right filter on their pictures. I want them to do daft things like building tree houses, learn how to cook properly and garden without the draw of Fortnite or Fifa being the main focus in their worlds.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a knock on my kids. But I know I’m not alone in saying that it’s much, much harder to extract them from what has become totally normal in todays society into something that I believe to be healthier and give them more happiness. We can be as strict as we like but it doesn’t stop them feeling as though we have somehow treated them differently to their friends.

We are generally at our happiest when we are travelling with our caravan behind our car. The first few days can be tough whilst we try and extract them from their ‘home life’ with phones and screens at every turn. But I yearn for the day when we can get back on the road and let them splash in the pools in France, goof about at Disney and have outdoor cooked food together in the awning where we play cards and chat instead of looking at the back of each other’s iPhones.

Until next month Coralie x