Chris | Waitākere
“Probably maybe a career choice different, yeah, I actually don’t particularly have a career.
I’ve spent quite a few years of bringing up my kids, volunteering in different, you know, parts of their lives, coaching, also you know, PTA; all of that sort of thing. I think I perhaps maybe would have at some stage gone back to school a bit earlier.
I would have liked to have done some higher education, because what I’m interested in now is probably not teaching as a career, as in a school career, but I’d like to teach probably kids that don’t have much art or, well pretty much art is the thing I, I really love, and I also enjoy writing. So, I would have liked to have gone down those tracks, and perhaps used those to help other people, really. Yeah, not to say that I can’t do that, because I can, life’s not over yet.
I think it’s a gradual process. I mean, you always think, oh my kids are a certain age now, and I can go off and do things. I’m finding out, you know, they still need you, not all the time as much, but they certainly need you there to be supportive. The world’s a different place now, for them. It’s incredibly difficult, I think, because they never get away from anything. You know? I was sort of talking to them about that the other day, and we were laughing, and I said, when I got home from school you were at home hanging out, and there was no-one there; just your family, and it was really nice, you know? You just did what you wanted. So, you didn’t have everyone in your face all the time, contacting you. It was a much, I think just a much easier life then, in certain ways.
I grew up partly in Te Atatū North, but now called Peninsula, and then I moved out to Swanson, which was a really cool place to grow up. I grew up on a 10-acre block. It was really enjoyable. We had, I had, just had animals, and you know, muck around in the paddocks, and horse riding and all sorts of stuff. Made most of, quite a few good friends at high school there, and yeah just typical old Westie, I’d say. Went on a few adventures, you know? Went to Australia, did a couple of things, came back, settled down and had a family. What I value in life is kindness and friendship, yeah and that’s I guess what I try and teach my kids, which I think, yeah they are pretty good kids.”
