Unschool: Disco Boots and Old Stories

We listen to the cafe music, and I say, “I was a teenager when I first heard this song!” I tell my daughter about those pre-digital days when I went to discos and danced in gold boots, and she soaks up my words.

While Gemma-Rose and I enjoy coffee together, we listen to the music playing in the background, and I say, “This is Dad’s and my music! We listened to these songs when we were your age.” I tell my youngest daughter how we’d save our money, buy vinyl record albums with covers we examined intently, and listen to them on turntables. I mention a few of our favourite musicians, including The Police, The Tourists, Debbie Harry, UB40 and a string of heavy metal bands that Andy particularly liked. Gemma-Rose knows a few of these because their names feature on the t-shirts Andy buys for her, “We went to concerts and came out with our ears ringing,” I say. “The loud music probably damaged my ears.” I don’t hear as well as I used to. I tell Gemma-Rose about the discos we’d go to each Saturday night and how I’d dance in my gold boots.

My music stories lead to university tales. “I lived above a newsagent’s in Aberystwyth. That’s on the west coast of Wales,” I say. I describe the location and the weather and then remember how this small farming and tourist town was cut off from the rest of the country one winter by a severe snowstorm. “No one could get in or out. Maybe a few supplies, such as milk, were delivered by boat.” I can’t quite remember. But I definitely remember the enormous piles of snow dumped on the beach after the snowploughs cleared the roads. And I will never forget how cold I felt. “I had an electricity meter in my room,” I tell Gemma-Rose. “If I wanted to use my heater, I had to keep feeding coins into the meter. I often didn’t have much money, so I tried to keep warm by wrapping myself in blankets.”

My daughter has always lived in Australia, so she’s familiar with scorching summer winds, sandy beaches and aqua oceans, bush, drought and dusty dirt roads, cockatoos, kangaroos and kookaburras, and she knows about preventing heatstroke and sunburn and how to prepare a house for a bushfire. But she hasn’t experienced pebble beaches, countryside parcelled into small fields by hedges or dry-stone walls, climbing over stiles, quaint Welsh pubs selling delicious scrumpy, ancient stone castles with tightly wound spiral staircases, and huge computers that fill a room, and she’s never had to deal with extreme frostbite-cold and roads covered with snow. My old stories of my university years take her into another world.

The following words come from my book, The Unschool Challenge.

I love telling stories, and my kids love listening to them. I share tales about my childhood and teenage days: what life was like, the places I lived, the experiences I had, the clothes I wore, and the lack of technology in days gone by.

I share photos or Google items and events from my younger days, we look at Google maps of the homes I used to live in, and I talk about the painful times of growing up as well as the happy moments.

I talk about my travels, school and university days, and how Andy and I met and married. Then there’s the story of how I became Catholic even though I’d declared that I’d never do that. I describe the grandparents they can’t remember and how their paternal great-grandparents were deaf, and how this affected their lives, isolating them within their community.

I also like to tell stories of when my kids were younger. I tell them how I felt when I saw them for the first time, how my heart overflowed with love (and still does). I describe our days together: what we did, what they liked, and where we went. I talk about the brother they never knew.

Family stories bind us together. They tell us who we are. We have a shared history and belong together. Our stories also teach us a lot about such things as history, geography, science, and how the world changes quickly. We learn about our faith and relationships and how we’re not alone when we struggle, grieve, get upset or feel pain.

There’s a wealth of learning experiences wrapped up in our family stories, isn’t there?

I’m wondering…

Have you done Challenge 55 from my latest book, The Unschool Challenge: Tell Some Family Stories?

Do you know Dad Angel likes to tell old stories – some based on my experiences – to his family? You’ll find lots of his stories – ones about his childhood and early days of marriage – within the bigger stories in my Angels children’s novels.

Do you have a favourite story you love to share with your kids? What have they learnt while listening to your tales?

Why not stop by and tell an old story or two!