3 minute read
Head Space
Images of beautiful family homes can be seen everywhere. Small children are artfully stumbling down stairs, their hair cutely dishevelled. Breakfast tables feature stylishly mismatched crockery, the crumby remains of a meal scattered elegantly. Sofas have cushions intact. A single pair of shoes is neatly arranged in a hallway. Throws are casually tossed across flawlessly made beds. Swathes of well-ordered space is shot from all angles. If a visitor from another planet were to flick through the pages of a magazine, they’d think humans lived in flawless spaces with decorative objects tastefully displayed on shelves in groups of three.
But here are some of the things you never see on Instagram. The total kitchen devastation caused by children baking cakes. Abandoned towels on the floor. Messy piles of dog-eared leaflets. Shelves of tatty books arranged with no regard for size or colour. Yesterday’s coffee cups. Discarded shoes, especially muddy ones, or lone ones. Unfinished craft projects too big for the cupboard. The detritus of family life requires endless clearing up, throwing away, sorting out, and that is, ultimately, what home means.
The key to a happy home life, according to the School of Life, can’t be found in a new rug or in matching towels or even in a loft conversion. Happiness comes through emotional intelligence, nurtured through ideas and discussion, and it’s entirely immune to the colour of your walls. The reality of family life comprises arguments, sulking, irrational
behaviour, door slamming and general emotional volatility – is this what we’re trying to tame with our storage solutions and our careful lighting? If home is a state of mind, how can we achieve the serene yet characterful home life implied by all the heavily styled images?
The School of Life, Alain de Botton’s centre for the pursuit of emotional intelligence, has a few tools to offer.
Many of them are simply conversation starters – but they’re very well thought out (not to mentioned elegantly packaged, so they also work as decorative objects for shelves). We start
Stop asking me things.” Instead, here are “100 carefully composed questions designed to get you into imaginative, thought-provoking conversations between children and adults”, neatly packaged “for families who enjoy lively discussions and meaningful conversations,” it says.
It’s pitched to be revealing, rather than exposing, and to appeal to all ages. In my household, everyone is keen to play. First question: “If you had to join someone else’s family, whose would you choose?” Ouch. This could easily lead to one of our oft-revisited rows, which begin with the recrimination: “Stella’s mother would never put spinach in
macaroni cheese. I wish I lived with her.” But happily the ensuing conversation is remarkably civilised, leading seamlessly into the following cards: What’s the best thing about your family? And the worst? Again, getting quite close to the bone but without actually bruising anything or slamming any doors. Answers to “The best way to get me to do something I don’t want to do is…” are predictable, involving money and chocolate, while more wide-reaching questions reveal heartfelt convictions about plastic in the oceans and global consumption and waste. Soon we’re in an intense and wide-reaching discussion spanning capital punishment, the value of learning maths, artificial intelligence, the existence of God and whether parenting should be strict. Each of us learns something new about each family member, whether it’s the smell they most associate with school or their best-ever dream. Further questions include: “What makes you feel lonely?” “How strict will you be as a parent?” “What would be the best
job in the world?” “Describe your ideal school day”, and the devastating: “Do you think your parents and siblings spend too much time on phones/computers?”
While we’re shopping at the School of Life – and on the subject of time spent on phones – we’re distracted by a stylish glass sand timer with enough yellow sand to mark out 15 minutes. This is another row-abater. When our youngest refuses to address her homework, we instate a 15-minute rule. Screen time can come in 15-minute increments. So can question time. And quiet time. And tidying up time. Soon we’re almost living to a timetable. This doesn’t work for everything: 15 minutes is long for toothbrushing, showering and the naughty step. Needless to say, the curvy timer looks nice on a shelf, too.
Ultimately, creating a lovely space for your family to inhabit is important, but it needs to be filled with what the Germans might call “lebensinhalt” – literally, life content. (The School of Life also has a whole set of cards on the subject of untranslatable German words, but that’s another conversation).
Words PENDLE HARTE
