May 23, 2025 • 49 mins
In this week’s episode, hosts Philippa and Julie ponder the playful traditions that shape who we are—past and present. From cherished family games like cribbage and Rummy to the joyful, sometimes complex dance of blending new traditions in modern families, they explore how play weaves connection, identity, and belonging across generations.
Through personal stories, thoughtful metaphors, and reflections on adolescence, the episode unpacks how play is more than fun—it’s foundational. It can unite or exclude, heal or divide, depending on how we hold it. Whether you're nurturing your family’s rituals or starting new ones, this episode invites you to reflect on how traditions can be both a bridge and a legacy.
🔗 Tune in for insights on play, tradition, and the gentle power of connection. Subscribe now and start your listening tradition today!
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Episode Transcript
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Philippa (00:00):
Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and
(00:04):
Therapy with me, Philippa,
Julie (00:07):
and me Julie.
This week's episode is on Playand Traditions, and we did toss
a little bit over the title ofthis one, but Insane Traditions,
what We're Thinking About.
Is the concept of somethingplayful being passed down the
(00:28):
line within your family orwithin your friends, something
that's passed down the line toyou, a tradition, and also the
things that you may create withyour family, your friends, to
your colleagues, and pass downthe line to others.
So in that sense, we arethinking about.
Playful traditions over time,over weeks, over years, over
(00:54):
generations.
So that's what we're going to beparticularly thinking about
today.
And so we'll think about firstof all the playful things that
have been passed on to each ofus from the generations before
us.
But we'll also then spend timethinking about.
(01:14):
How within a family, a group offriends, a newly created family,
a workplace, we begin to createtraditions that give that sense
of safety and belonging in thegroups that we are in.
Whether those groups arepermanent groups or temporary
groups.
(01:35):
So that's today's episode,thinking about play and
traditions and this.
A conversation that Philippa andI had oh, several weeks ago
about Domino's and a cribbagebox is, have I got that right?
Philippa, tell us about those inyour family.
Philippa (01:56):
Absolutely.
So we were talking about playand.
What we do in our families,weren't we?
Which is that traditions, and Isuppose I was talking about my
grandparents and theirgeneration.
So my granddad.
Where I always played cribbagewith them.
(02:18):
It's the only people I've everplayed cribbage with.
I don't know that I could playit now, but I just remember it
was like 15 1, 15 2, 15 3.
But my dad, when he was a child,had made my granddad and grand a
cribbage board, which is just awooden block with little holes
(02:39):
in that you count when you say15 1, 15 2.
You move these.
Count these sticks along inlittle holes along this board.
And when my granddad passed, Ihad, that's what I had was this
cribbage board.
That my dad had made and thelittle counters, which are
actually matchsticks andcocktail skewer things, that you
(03:03):
put a cherry on and then put ina cocktail and those are the
things that, that are in there.
And my granddad's uncle, so myUncle Norman, he used to live
near to a school that I did.
My YTS people won't know what AYTS is now, but it was a youth
training scheme when I was 16.
I used to live a few doors downfrom there and two days a week
(03:26):
on my lunchtime, I used to goand play dominoes with him, have
my lunch and play dominoes, andI.
I had from his house, his dominobox, and they are ivory
dominoes, which I know is reallyawful.
And you wouldn't want to haveivory, but they are treasured
because they came from him.
(03:48):
And the other thing that we.
Played with my nana was, I thinkit's called, the actual name of
it.
It's called New Market.
It's a card game, but we used tocall it a penny and a penny out,
and you have a saucer with acard underneath and it's a
gambling game.
But I remember that when we werekids on the only time I ever
(04:10):
played it was on Boxing Day atmy Auntie Flo's house.
When.
All the family went and sat inher front parlor, but it was
just the front room of a Terry'shouse, but she used to call it
the parlor.
And there must have been, Idon't know, it felt like
hundreds of people when I was achild, but probably about 30
(04:34):
people of all generations.
We were the youngest generation,but went right through three and
four generations and we'd,they'd put all the coffee
tables, all the tables togetherin this parlor and we'd all sit
around it and there'd be asorcerer in the middle with a
card underneath.
And there must have been loadsof packs of cards.
(04:55):
And then you just follow, sosomebody put the ace of hearts
down and then you put the two ofhearts down and somebody put the
three of hearts down and if youwere out first, you got the
money on the outside, which wasthe penny out, and if you'd
played the jack of the card thatwas underneath the saucer, you
(05:16):
got the penny in.
So the penny out was always one,but sometimes the penny in
wasn't one.
'cause the jack wasn't played.
So that could build up inpennies and you'd get quite a,
as a kid you'd get like a poundsworth of pennies or something
like that.
And those I think are, from mygrandparents.
(05:37):
Those are really wonderfulmemories for me.
They're, playing Penny and Pennyout new market, whatever you
want to call it.
No, it really fills my body withjoy and thinking about cribbage
and dominoes with my UncleNorman and my granddad.
Those were times of reallyimportant connection and really
(05:59):
great memories that I have of myfamily.
And sometimes it was, when mygranddad, he'd got Parkinson's
and was.
Was, quite poorly towards theend of his life, but he could
still play cribbage or crib andwe would still be able to do
that, two or three times a week.
(06:20):
Even when he was in hospital, wecould still play cards and that
was a really important.
Way that I connected with himand heard his stories about life
and things like that.
So yeah, those are reallyprecious memories and items for
me.
What about for you,
Julie (06:38):
Julie?
Just thinking about, hearing youtalk about that and listeners
won't be able to see Philippa'sface at the moment, but you
absolutely beaming.
While you tell those stories,it's like you've gone into a
different place.
You are reminiscing.
But it's more than reminiscing.
It's very present.
(06:59):
The, these people have all died.
They've all passed on.
They're no longer physically inyour life, but in your reciting
the those memories.
You've become very alive andit's almost as though they have
also become very alive in theroom.
I've never met your Aunt Flory,but I have a picture now in my
(07:21):
head of her front parlor withall these card tables and the
saucers and so there's somethingabout who you are that's being
formed by these traditions.
Even though those traditions areno longer happening with the
people that they first happenedwith for you, and we don't know
(07:44):
the stories of who they firstplayed cribbage with and Penny
in, penny out, where did thatcome from?
It's that sort of play heritagethat you and I know that we
have, but we're very aware thatmany people don't have that.
And so later on in this episode,that's why it's so important to.
(08:06):
How each of us may create playtraditions with the people in
our lives, even if we haven'tinherited something.
So as you were talking, I wasthinking, gosh, what do I have
object wise?
And I've recently been clearingout my parents' house along with
(08:26):
several of my siblings, andthat's brought a lot laughter.
Oh my goodness.
Why did we ever have that andwhat was that used for?
Okay, we need to get rid ofthat.
So there's been a lot ofclearing out, and actually, I
have to say, there are lots ofpacks of cards, but no other
games that I've come across.
(08:46):
Oh, there was the Scrabbleboard, so I'm hoping one of my
nieces may take the Scrabbleboard.
But I think for me, when I thinkabout playfulness.
As a tradition within my family,it would certainly be card games
with one of my nanas.
We lived in a different countryto our grandparents, so I
wouldn't see them very often,but the game of Rummy, which I'm
(09:10):
sure many people know, is theonly card game I know of by
heart because I learned it veryearly on.
And it's a game that's beenpassed on to nieces and nephews.
We can all play rummy withouthaving to think about the rules.
And so I have saved several ofthe packs of cards.
(09:30):
They don't particularly have asignificance because I don't
remember them as this was thepack of cards we always played
with, but it is the fact thatit's a couple of packs of cards
from my parents' house that weare likely to have played rummy
with.
And they're not full size cards.
My nana particularly likedplaying with the smaller version
(09:52):
of the cards.
They're about, I don't know, aninch and a half by two and a
half inches, but they're muchsmaller, partly because she also
liked playing solitaire, playinggames on her own, and they would
fit on one of those little traysthat you could have.
On the wheels above your chair.
(10:13):
So she would sit for hoursplaying solitaire, but with
small packs of cards.
So I, yeah, I'm thinking aboutcard games.
I'm thinking about.
I never really got the hang ofchess, didn't.
So thinking about board games,which were often associated with
(10:34):
a bit of stress for me as well.
'cause actually I think I wasn'tvery good at them.
I wasn't good at thinking ahead.
And if I did play them, then Iwould often lose, and I would
find that quite tricky.
So when I think about playingboard games as traditions in my
family.
I don't always see that assomething that I found helpful
(10:56):
or enjoyable as a child.
That's come much more as anadult.
I've found the games that Ireally enjoy and I found people
to play them with.
But as I've said before, inother episodes, I think singing
was a thing that yeah, we'vejust begun to do as a family.
(11:17):
My mom seemed to sing a lot.
She would sing things like,their son has got his hat on to
get us up in the morning.
She would sing while shevacuumed the house.
She would sing while she waswallpapering.
She had a song for everything.
(11:37):
And I think I've just pickedthat up and with some of my
family.
That's what we still like to do,is just have a sing along.
Just somebody sit around thepiano, somebody start a daft
song.
So yeah, the things that we'veinherited, and both of us
(11:59):
happened to have been infamilies where we have inherited
some playful ways.
But one of the things we wantedto think about today then is
what can be created.
Playfully within families,groups of friends, groups of
colleagues.
(12:19):
That then becomes the tradition.
It becomes the thing that we dowhen we are together.
And just before we came on, youtalked about.
The Tango and the foxtrot.
Tell us about the tango and thefoxtrot, because I found this
really helpful and I'vescribbled it down because I
wanna remember it.
Philippa (12:41):
I suppose it is thinking about why are those
traditions important?
Why do we need them?
And I.
I suppose it's, it is to belong.
It's to connect.
It's to be part of somethingbigger than us that says, this
(13:01):
is our clan, this is our family,this is our people, this is our
tribe.
What, however you want to say,but this is where I belong and I
am part of.
This belonging group and we havethese traditions and these feel
safe and secure for me and it,you know those people at my Aunt
(13:25):
Flurries who I didn't see.
From one year to the next, wecould sit down and play Penny
and Penny out.
And everybody knew like yourgame of rummy.
Everybody knew what to do, wherethey were gonna sit, what was
gonna happen whether you werefour years old or 84 years old.
There was a connection thatengulfed as all through that
(13:49):
tradition of playing Penny andPenny out.
So when we blend families,whether that's a foster family,
whether that's families comingtogether where, they've got step
families, I suppose is whatthey're called, aren't they?
Where we maybe haven't alwaysgrown up from a tiny baby and
(14:11):
just inbuilt those traditions ininside us.
We come with different.
Experiences different.
Traditions, different thingsthat have happened to us.
And when I worked with fosterfamilies, I used to ha think
with them about, actually yourfamily does the tango.
(14:32):
And you do the tango reallygreat and you all know the
steps.
And now you've got this child,this teenager coming in or
several coming into your family,but they dance.
The fox trot.
And that's a very differentdance.
And how do you get together?
(14:52):
So you can teach them the tango,and that's okay.
You can teach them the tango andhelp them to learn the steps,
but it's not ingrained insidethem.
They are coming from the outsidein.
And that's okay.
That's it.
All right.
And you can learn the foxtrot,but again, you're coming from
the outside in.
(15:13):
But maybe.
If you can combine the two oradd a bit of the foxtrot into
the tango or a bit of the tangointo the foxtrot where you can
create something together, thenI think that's much more
powerful because that'ssomething that you create as
this new group of people, afamily a cohort, whatever it is.
(15:36):
You you are doing, you are nowdeveloping your own.
Tradition, your own kind ofsense of belonging from your
original tradition.
So it's not about saying thesearen't important, I guess it's
like when you have an adultrelationship, whether you get
married, whether you live withsomebody, whether you've got a
group of friends, you all come.
(15:59):
With experiences and youhopefully blend your dance.
You blend your foxtrot and yourtango to create something that
is meaningful, that you all knowthe steps of together.
Yeah.
So a sense that rather than achild, say a child, for
(16:22):
instance, coming into a fosterfamily, into an adoptive family.
Feeling that perhaps they willnever belong because they don't
know the traditions of thisfamily.
They haven't been in this familysince they were born.
They haven't grown into thosefamily traditions, which could
create a sense of exclusion anda sense of I never quite fit and
(16:47):
never quite belong.
And as you say, there isopportunity to.
And for the parents to learnthat foxtrot, but ultimately the
strength in that family or thatgroup, new group of friends is
to create something that is newand unique and about the now and
(17:09):
who we are now, and creatingthose playful traditions with
the people who have cometogether perhaps later in life.
And haven't come from the sametraditions.
How important it is yes.
To teach one another our owntraditions, but to be very
(17:30):
consciously creating new plaguetraditions within that new
group.
And I'm thinking here about,friendships.
I've just come back from alittle bit of a road trip with a
very good friend who has acamper van.
I've known this friend for agood 30 years or so, and we had
(17:52):
a road trip to Ireland.
We both have heritage in Irelandand we were visiting cousins,
uncles, neighbors, people that,have been part of our lives for
a long time.
But what we have, just the twoof us.
Our own road trip traditions.
So this friend, camp Van twodogs me up the front is not
(18:17):
great on windy roads and she'salso not great going downhill.
So we often have a bit of a tailbehind us and it's become a game
over the 30 years or so issaying, probably time to pull
into a layby or pull into a sideroad and let the queue go past.
And then we guess how many carsthere are gonna be in the queue.
(18:41):
And then the winner is theperson who's guested close to
the 5, 10, 15.
I think our record is 30 oddgoing past, and it's just a
thing we do.
The other game we play istapping out a tune on the
dashboard.
Just tap tap, tap a tune.
The other person has to guesswhat it is.
(19:03):
We've just created these ways ofbeing on low long road trips
together, and we don't have tosay, oh, when we go on that road
trip, we are going to play this.
We just know at some point, oneof us is gonna say, what's this?
Tune then, and we'll starttapping.
(19:25):
And that's not, neither of thosegames are things that have come
from my family or from otherpeople, but they're unique to
that relationship.
I don't play them in otherpeople's cars.
I don't play them on other longjourneys.
I only play them with thatfriend and it is something very
warm and connecting for me andher.
(19:48):
And until we're old ladies,we'll probably be.
And I think that, when you create new families and when
you have your own children, youhave some of the traditions that
come down from your, yourparents, your grandparents, but
you also create new ones.
(20:09):
Don't you?
I think lot, lots of familiesdo.
In hours.
It's just something simple likea calling the Caterpillar cake.
Everybody has that on theirbirthday and whoever's birthday
is, gets the choice of whetherthey want the face at the front.
And, my nieces, when they werelittle, my sister-in-law had
(20:31):
these beautiful cakes made.
They were absolutely beautiful.
All of, whatever theme they wereinto when they were toddlers and
when my oldest niece got to, Idunno, about six, she was like,
why am I having that cake?
I want the calling, theCaterpillar cake.
(20:51):
You might need to explain
a column so cakes are available.
Yeah, they're, I think Aldi and everyone do their own
versions now it's just a verysimple Swiss roll covered in
chocolate with a white chocolatecaterpillar face on the front
and white chocolate feet.
It is very simple.
It's about nine quid.
(21:13):
Compared to these reallyelaborate beautiful cakes that
my niece was having that werelike 60, 70, 80 quids worth,
because they were well worth it.
They were amazing.
But actually what she'd seen wasthat everybody else in the
family has a call calling theCaterpillar cake.
Because that's what my childwanted when they were babies and
(21:35):
toddlers.
Yeah.
So it was like I would, so noweven they have Colin, the
category and my sister-in-lawwas like that's fine.
It's gonna save me like 60 quid.
I don't need to be doing thatanymore.
But that is a tradition that noweverybody.
And even if you didn't have ityou felt like you missed out.
So and so that, that issomething that is, is passed on.
(21:57):
I remember then my son gettingto about, I don't know, 13 and
saying, I don't even likechocolate.
It was just at that age, they'rehitting those teenagers and all
that brain, and they're tryingto find their clan outside of
their family.
They're trying to find theirpeople, and so they, they were
(22:19):
like, I don't like chocolate.
Why?
Why are you buying me this?
I want a sponge cake.
I want this.
There was a rejection of thistradition as we hit these
teenage years.
So everybody else is having acalling the Caterpillar cake,
and my child is having aVictoria Bond or whatever it
(22:40):
was.
They decided that they wantedthrough these first few years of
the teen teenage years, we'renow back to calling the
Caterpillar cake.
But there was a rejection off.
I don't want that.
And I think that when we've gotthese traditions, whether it's
(23:01):
in families, blended families,foster families.
It gives a sense ofpredictability, it gives a sense
of security, it gives a senseof, this is what my family is
about and I belong within this.
But it also allows for arejection of something in a safe
(23:22):
way, so we can go and exploresomething different in those.
Times of teenage early twentieswhere we do, we should be trying
to find traditions, we should betrying to find our people.
That is what we are designed todo at those points of time, I
suppose what we did in ourfamily and is we kept the
(23:45):
tradition going.
For my child, we respected theirwish of, we don't want a color
calling the caterpillar cake.
We.
We want a, a sponge cake.
'cause I don't like chocolate.
Which really wasn't true, but,that was just the point of where
we were at that point.
But we are, there was anallowance for them to reject the
(24:08):
tradition.
But the tradition still held,but there was a respecting of
their wishes, their viewpointsat that time their thoughts of,
I need to go and find somethingfor myself.
And hopefully we come back tothose things, don't we?
Or we don't.
We find something different andwe find a new tradition as it
(24:30):
goes.
My.
Person came back to it and that,that was great, but it was okay
if they hadn't have done, ifthey'd always stuck with what I
want as a victorious and we drawa, any elaborate cake or
whatever it is.
Yeah,
so that as you're speaking,that's reminding me of that
what's sometimes called thecircle of security or the
(24:51):
attachment circle, which wethink about very much with
toddlers.
That sense of I have my securebase, I have the people I know
and understand the people I feelsecure with, safe with.
And because I've got that, I cango off out into the world, which
for a 2-year-old is get offdad's knee and go to the other
(25:15):
side of the room and go and playwith potentially a new person at
the playgroup.
That's the element ofexploration for a 2-year-old.
But I can get off my parents'secure knee.
I can go off and explore andmeet new things, meet new
people, meet new experiences,but always knowing that I can
(25:36):
come back to the familiar andthe secure and that same pattern
seems to happen again inadolescence.
That sense of, I have my securebase, but I can go off and
explore.
And with it comes, rejectioncomes a sense of disdain for the
(25:57):
secure base.
And it, I, but ultimately it'sstill there and the, that
exploration is much, much wider.
It's way beyond the house, it'sway beyond school.
It's out into very unfamiliarsettings that the parents, the
carers, won't know all thedetails about.
(26:19):
But the child, the young person,the adolescent knows that safety
is ultimately still there.
Absolutely.
Dan, sorry, Julie, Iinterrupted.
Yeah, no go for it.
I was gonna say, Dan Siegeltalks about this put a link in
into a YouTube video that's freeand available, and he talks
(26:42):
about.
This need for the adolescents togo and explore, to go and find
their own people, because we areeventually not gonna be
available for them, do they?
And if they're on their own,then actually that survival is
dependent on having your clan,your pH, your.
(27:06):
Your people around you.
So actually in adolescence it isabout moving away from us as
their parents, their olderadults, the ones that have kept
them safe up until this point tofinding these new group of peers
or people that are gonna takethem into their future and.
(27:30):
For them.
They then need to develop theirown traditions with those what
they do there outside of theirfamily, don't they?
But their family still, like yousaid, needs to be that secure
base whilst they do that andthere needs to be this.
Extending of the attachmentconnection.
(27:54):
It needs to be pulled really farso that you are still there.
You are still that person thatsays, it's okay.
You are safe.
If anything happens, I've gotyour back.
But yeah, you can go out andexplore and find.
Other ways of having birthdays,other ways of being on a Sunday
morning or, whatever it is thatthey're doing that, that there's
(28:19):
a difference for them.
And with that, I guess comeslots of risk and some of that
risk is really important totake.
And some of it for some peoplewill be a little bit.
Too much for others they'llweigh up quite right, just right
(28:40):
in this.
But that is part of being andfinding your new clan and your
new traditions while stillhaving an anchor in, in, in
where we are now.
So that allows us to then becomethe adults we are and cherish
the traditions of our family,but we've still got new
traditions with our new familyand with our new friends.
(29:02):
And it's all interconnected,isn't it, in many ways.
Yeah.
And that sense of being able tocontribute, so I might have as,
as you and I have done, we'veboth grown up in our families of
origin with the people who gavebirth to us.
We grew up in our birthfamilies, and to what extent
(29:24):
were we able to contribute totraditions when we were growing
up.
Probably not.
I'm thinking probably not verymuch.
I went along with what wasoffered and what was already
established in the family, butthat capacity as we get older,
as we move through adolescence,as we go out into the world,
(29:45):
beyond our families, or if weare moving into a family that
isn't our birth family andcreating a new family through
design.
Then there's the opportunity tofeel that we belong through
contributing to develop a newtradition, a new way of playing,
(30:06):
a new way of being together, andthe strength that can come from
having your idea taken up andused and wanting to other people
wanting to repeat your idea.
So that sense of when you meetsomebody again, or if you are in
the same family, meet, the nexttime that event comes up and
(30:30):
somebody's saying, oh, Julie,remember that thing we did last
year, that was really great.
Should we do that again?
That huge sense of belonging andbeing able to contribute to
being valued.
That what I offered last year isremembered.
And is remembered with a smileand with a sense of connection
(30:52):
and the desire to repeat it.
So I, in thinking about, I, Ibecame an aunt quite young.
I was still at school when Ibecame an auntie and developing
traditions with my nieces andnephews, and some of them I've
seen very often.
Some of them I don't see sooften.
(31:14):
But some of the things that Iintroduced, like just, the child
lying on their front or curledup in a little ball and me it's
making me smile.
Even thinking about it.
I pretend that their back is apiece of paper oh, I have to rub
out the piece of paper.
So I give them a good oldmassage.
And then the bit they all squirmat, but love is I tickle them
(31:39):
under theirs with my finger,theirs, your armpits.
I'm sharpening my pencil.
And then I'd ask them, do youwant a letter or a number?
And then if it's a letter, howmany letters And that when they
were 2, 3, 4, it really was, Ithink it was just shapes when
(31:59):
they were very little, but atthe time they were six or seven,
a three letter word.
And then I'd create that.
Three letter word on their backand I was always completely
amazed that they knew what itwas.
They couldn't see what I wasdoing, but they could feel it.
Or they wanted a five digitnumber by the time they're 11
(32:21):
five digit number, and then I'dhave to remember what it was.
I'd drawn on their back.
Now most of those young peopleare grownups now.
But even now, one or two of themwill just, if it's on the sofa,
just curl up and I'll say, Ooh,I rub out the paper, and there's
just this sort of lovely smilethat goes on.
(32:43):
So that's a tradition that we'vecreated just between me and my
nieces and nephews.
It's not something that camefrom the wider family, but the
joy that gives me to be able tocontribute something.
And to have it invited again andagain is just lovely.
(33:04):
And that becomes then anunderstanding, a connection with
that person and me.
That isn't something thatanybody else in my family does
with them as far as I know.
So that sort of foreverhopefulness of being able to
create tradition, give it a go.
Try out something and some of itwill fall absolutely flat.
(33:33):
The child, the young person willjust walk away and go, oh, don't
do that.
That's horrible.
You think, oh okay, I got thatwrong.
But every now and again, justfinding something that has
potential to become a traditionin that group, I don't think it
can be planned.
I don't think it can bemeasured.
I haven't got much of this outof a book.
(33:54):
I've just it's just emergedprobably somebody has written
these some things down in abook, I don't know.
But just giving it a go andseeing what happens and just
keeping your ear to the groundis, oh, I wonder if this might
become a little bit of atradition in our group.
(34:14):
Yeah.
I dunno if that rings any bellswith
you.
Absolutely.
I but what it made me start tothink about was that.
Traditions can build connection.
That can bring people in.
It can help us to feel part of agroup, but they, it can also be
(34:36):
rejecting.
It can also help you feel on theoutside of a group.
It can also make you feel likeyou don't belong in somewhere
because you don't know thetraditions, you don't know what
they're doing that, and nobodywants to.
Include you in them and that canbe quite harmful and hurtful.
(34:58):
I think about school and groupsand even mothers and toddlers
groups and groups that you,training groups where you attend
and people already all know oneanother and they know what's
going on and they know.
What's gonna be done and howit's going to be done.
(35:19):
And you don't, and nobody tellsyou, oh, actually what we do now
is this, or this is whathappens, or this is how we
interact, or this is this song,or this is, and you are just
watching.
And that can really make youfeel like an outsider.
Or when you approach people,stop talking or stop.
(35:41):
Doing what they're doing, andyou can literally see that
they're not including you insomething.
And that in itself can be reallyhurtful and harmful.
And maybe if as an adult for me,I would just think, oh whatever
it is.
I always really try not to swearthere, Julie and walk away.
(36:03):
I appreciate that and walk away,but as a teenager you don't.
I think that, and as a youngadult, I think those can be
really hot for me.
I was very sporty at school, soI.
Was always in a group because Idid sports and that just led me
(36:26):
to being in a, in an inclusivegroup.
And, I was pretty good atswimming, I was pretty good at
rounders and netball and thosesorts of things.
So I was part of a group thatreally I didn't need to, kind of
find a way into, I just, it justhappened because I was good at
(36:47):
what I did and so therefore Iwas included.
I moved schools when I was, 14and so for the last two years,
and it was a school that didn'tdo sports and I really struggled
because I didn't know anotherway of being, I could connect
with people.
I could, I knew the traditionsof a swimming team or a.
(37:11):
Of a netball team and knew whatyou did, and to be part of that
group was really part of myidentity.
I was good at those things, andI did academia because that gave
me access to sport.
Because I, you had to attendclass and achieve in order to be
able to do the sports, becauseobviously you had to leave
(37:32):
lessons.
When I went to this new school,there was no sports, there was
no group I was involved in.
There was these cool kids whoreally.
Weren't very pleasant.
And that's because they'd gottheir own groups that kept you
together.
So eventually I just didn't goto school.
I just didn't go to school.
(37:53):
'cause I just didn't know, Ididn't fit anywhere.
I didn't have any connectionwith anybody yet all the people
that I had connection with hadgone because I'd moved to the
other side of the city and yeah,I just didn't go to school.
'cause I didn't have anything toconnect with.
I didn't have, I was on theoutside of all these groups.
(38:17):
Yeah.
So the importance of, we'vetalked about this before about
the word play in English, theway we use it in our language.
We play sport, we play music,but it's more than the rules.
It's about being with otherpeople.
It involves at least one otherperson.
(38:39):
It involves a connection.
It involves keeping to the rulesthat have been established for
that particular game, but alsobeing creative within that and
having a sense of belonging, butalso being myself.
Within that and you really lostthat at that age.
Yeah, and I think, I was 14, but that sense of
(39:01):
identity, I knew I was good atit.
I wasn't the best.
There was people that were muchbetter at all the sports than
me, but I was good enough tomake the teams and that gave me.
Some privilege within theschool.
I could miss some lessons to goand practice.
I got to, we were lucky enoughin the, that school that there
(39:23):
was a swimming pool on site.
So at lunchtime I could go andswim at lunchtime.
So anything that was.
Maybe a little bit more trickythat if there was gonna be
clashes at school or bullying orI could opt out.
I had got a way of getting outof that.
I could go and swim in, in theswimming pool.
(39:45):
I could go and have hockeypractice.
I had, that's what I did afterschool.
My whole identity.
Was around sport and that'swhere I belonged.
And I knew what I was doing.
I knew that, this was our.
This was how you got ready.
This was how you got on thecoach.
This was how you shouted andsupported people.
(40:09):
I, Mr.
Ku, I still remember him.
He was in my middle school,actually not my high school.
I was a swimmer there and he wasjust the most amazing teacher.
And he used to call me rentergob because I used to shout so
loud.
But I knew that was my job inthat fam in that.
You said family?
(40:29):
Yeah.
And there was a family.
Yeah, it was, yeah.
And then I went to anotherschool and I just ha it was all
gone.
There was no Mr.
Koch, there was no swimmingteam.
There was no, there was nothingthat I belonged in.
I didn't have these connectionsor anything like that.
(40:51):
It was just horrendous.
And my will fell apart for quitea long time.
Because you didn't have thatplace where you felt you
belonged, you were playingsport, but again, you knew the
rituals and the traditions ofhow those teams and those groups
worked at your school and inyour county and all the meets
(41:11):
that you.
I'm thinking I had that, not somuch with sports, but with
music.
I knew what to do in anorchestra.
I knew what to do in a choir.
I knew how to, as you said, geton the coach, go to a festival,
go and play in a concert, andknew the rituals of what to
(41:31):
wear.
And we were playing, we call itplaying.
I did drama as well at school,and I loved that.
I loved being able to.
To act, to play anothercharacter.
And interestingly, Philippa, youand I haven't shared this
before.
I also swapped schools at 14.
(41:53):
But the opposite way to you, Iswapped at my school I was at,
couldn't offer music andcouldn't offer drama.
So I swapped schools at 14 inorder to be at a school that
offered music and offered drama.
Offered the two things.
Play that I already knew Iwanted to do.
(42:14):
So for me, at that age, that wasa wonderful shift because
suddenly I was in a school thatallowed us time off to go and
practice for the school concert,go for a festival, go to the
theater and that concept ofplaying with others was huge.
It allowed me to make friendsvery quickly within a few weeks.
(42:36):
I had found a group of friendsbecause they're the ones who
played music.
They were the ones who wanted tosing.
They were the ones who wanted toact, and I had no problems, if
that's the not the right word,but, I didn't have a difficulty
finding friends when I was 15,16, 17, because I'd found a
(42:56):
common thing.
Yeah, play with
others through music.
So it's interesting play.
These are two new episodes.
I know we're coming to the endfor today probably, but two
other episodes might be aboutplay and sport and play and
music and where those topicsmight take us for another day.
(43:17):
Yeah.
I just want you to just linkthose really and think about.
Children that are moved, wetalked about moving school.
So for me it was a disasterreally.
It was just, I don't regret it.
I absolutely, I did have friendsoutside of school and, I had a
(43:38):
really nice life.
Really.
I just didn't go to school.
And it.
Took me a long way round toreach academia and, but that
gave me a lot of lifeexperience, a lot.
So it was the right thing for meat that time.
But at that time it was quitetricky.
I guess for you it was theopposite way is that you found
(43:58):
your people and I suppose whatI, what it was making me think
about was children.
Who move homes, whether that'sinto foster families, whether
that's into adoption, whetherthat's into residential
services, whether that's becauseparents separate and then they
maybe have new new stepparentsor siblings become blended
(44:23):
families.
And I wonder if sometimes.
Their experiences like yours,Julie, where it feels like they
fit and the play and theconnection is really for them
and it feels like these are mypeople and this is where I
belong.
But I also wonder on theopposite of that, about the
(44:44):
impact of leaving something thatis so familiar, whether that, it
might be that.
It's chaos and violence and, butit's still familiar.
Those are still the traditionsthat you have in your family.
Yeah.
And you may be moving to afamily where all your needs are
met and you go to school on timeand you've got nice clothes and
(45:08):
you've got board games and allthe things that, that it.
Adults, we perceive children tobe needing, but as a child.
What's that like?
You know where, how you belongin one family.
These adults are saying, this isnot an okay family to you, but
(45:31):
those are all your traditions.
Those are all your, that, youknow the play might not be the
kind of play that as adults wethink children should be
engaging in, but it's the onlyplay that they've known.
It's the only way of being thatthey know how to be.
And now we put them in thefamily that we say, this is
gonna be much better for you.
(45:52):
This is what life should looklike.
But actually.
You just don't know what to do.
'cause my when I moved schools,my parents moved me schools
because they thought the schoolI was going to was academically
much better, was gonna help me.
And they were right.
Academically it was moreacademically driven and the
(46:16):
attainment of that school wasgreater.
But for me it was absolutely theworst thing because my links
were with the sport and thefamily there that this school
didn't offer somebody else as anadult, made those decisions for
me.
For the right reasons, in theright context, but without
(46:37):
really.
Knowing what it was gonna feellike.
And I think that we often, thatoften happens with children who,
are moved out of their family oforigin or maybe, like I say,
within blended families or haveto go and live with grandparents
or, extended families is.
It's probably for the very rightreasons and done in a very
(46:59):
caring way.
But what does that feel like forthat child?
Yeah the loss of familiarity,the loss of sense of belonging,
the loss of playfulness in waysthat, you know, within the chaos
or within the neglect or withinthe things that were not going
(47:20):
well for that child.
There would've been some goodenough.
Even if that hasn't been fromthe parents, that could have
been with a neighbor, it couldhave been with a grandparent, an
auntie, a cousin.
There will be playful traditionsthat will have already built up
in 2, 3, 4 years for that child,and then that suddenly all is
(47:43):
taken away.
And even the good enough is not taken away because
if you don't know anything else,and that's all you know, then
you know, you develop in thatway that you have those things
that this becomes your normal,your every day, your, this is
what your life is like and youfeel safe and con connected in
(48:05):
that in a way, even when you areunsafe.
And it can feel unsafe beingsafe.
And I think that's probably awhole, we have talked about
playing play.
We have talked, we have a,
one of the earlier episodes isabout play and safety and
feeling unsafe while playing.
(48:25):
Listeners can go back and lookat one of those earlier
episodes.
But that's probably a place topause for today.
Thinking about play andtraditions.
Traditions over time.
And another episode, we'll thinkmore about the small rituals
that might happen within a day,within a week within everyday
(48:47):
life.
The way playfulness might comeinto daily rituals.
So we know traditions andrituals are very similar words
and may have similar meanings.
For listeners, but today we'vetalked particularly about
traditions over time and anothertime we'll get to play those
smaller rituals.
(49:10):
But for today, we are going topause.
Thank you for listening to this week's
episode.
If you've enjoyed it, thenplease hit subscribe and we'll
hopefully see you in the nextpodcast.
Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and
(00:04):
Therapy with me, Philippa,
Julie (00:07):
and me Julie.
This week's episode is on Playand Traditions, and we did toss
a little bit over the title ofthis one, but Insane Traditions,
what We're Thinking About.
Is the concept of somethingplayful being passed down the
(00:28):
line within your family orwithin your friends, something
that's passed down the line toyou, a tradition, and also the
things that you may create withyour family, your friends, to
your colleagues, and pass downthe line to others.
So in that sense, we arethinking about.
Playful traditions over time,over weeks, over years, over
(00:54):
generations.
So that's what we're going to beparticularly thinking about
today.
And so we'll think about firstof all the playful things that
have been passed on to each ofus from the generations before
us.
But we'll also then spend timethinking about.
(01:14):
How within a family, a group offriends, a newly created family,
a workplace, we begin to createtraditions that give that sense
of safety and belonging in thegroups that we are in.
Whether those groups arepermanent groups or temporary
groups.
(01:35):
So that's today's episode,thinking about play and
traditions and this.
A conversation that Philippa andI had oh, several weeks ago
about Domino's and a cribbagebox is, have I got that right?
Philippa, tell us about those inyour family.
Philippa (01:56):
Absolutely.
So we were talking about playand.
What we do in our families,weren't we?
Which is that traditions, and Isuppose I was talking about my
grandparents and theirgeneration.
So my granddad.
Where I always played cribbagewith them.
(02:18):
It's the only people I've everplayed cribbage with.
I don't know that I could playit now, but I just remember it
was like 15 1, 15 2, 15 3.
But my dad, when he was a child,had made my granddad and grand a
cribbage board, which is just awooden block with little holes
(02:39):
in that you count when you say15 1, 15 2.
You move these.
Count these sticks along inlittle holes along this board.
And when my granddad passed, Ihad, that's what I had was this
cribbage board.
That my dad had made and thelittle counters, which are
actually matchsticks andcocktail skewer things, that you
(03:03):
put a cherry on and then put ina cocktail and those are the
things that, that are in there.
And my granddad's uncle, so myUncle Norman, he used to live
near to a school that I did.
My YTS people won't know what AYTS is now, but it was a youth
training scheme when I was 16.
I used to live a few doors downfrom there and two days a week
(03:26):
on my lunchtime, I used to goand play dominoes with him, have
my lunch and play dominoes, andI.
I had from his house, his dominobox, and they are ivory
dominoes, which I know is reallyawful.
And you wouldn't want to haveivory, but they are treasured
because they came from him.
(03:48):
And the other thing that we.
Played with my nana was, I thinkit's called, the actual name of
it.
It's called New Market.
It's a card game, but we used tocall it a penny and a penny out,
and you have a saucer with acard underneath and it's a
gambling game.
But I remember that when we werekids on the only time I ever
(04:10):
played it was on Boxing Day atmy Auntie Flo's house.
When.
All the family went and sat inher front parlor, but it was
just the front room of a Terry'shouse, but she used to call it
the parlor.
And there must have been, Idon't know, it felt like
hundreds of people when I was achild, but probably about 30
(04:34):
people of all generations.
We were the youngest generation,but went right through three and
four generations and we'd,they'd put all the coffee
tables, all the tables togetherin this parlor and we'd all sit
around it and there'd be asorcerer in the middle with a
card underneath.
And there must have been loadsof packs of cards.
(04:55):
And then you just follow, sosomebody put the ace of hearts
down and then you put the two ofhearts down and somebody put the
three of hearts down and if youwere out first, you got the
money on the outside, which wasthe penny out, and if you'd
played the jack of the card thatwas underneath the saucer, you
(05:16):
got the penny in.
So the penny out was always one,but sometimes the penny in
wasn't one.
'cause the jack wasn't played.
So that could build up inpennies and you'd get quite a,
as a kid you'd get like a poundsworth of pennies or something
like that.
And those I think are, from mygrandparents.
(05:37):
Those are really wonderfulmemories for me.
They're, playing Penny and Pennyout new market, whatever you
want to call it.
No, it really fills my body withjoy and thinking about cribbage
and dominoes with my UncleNorman and my granddad.
Those were times of reallyimportant connection and really
(05:59):
great memories that I have of myfamily.
And sometimes it was, when mygranddad, he'd got Parkinson's
and was.
Was, quite poorly towards theend of his life, but he could
still play cribbage or crib andwe would still be able to do
that, two or three times a week.
(06:20):
Even when he was in hospital, wecould still play cards and that
was a really important.
Way that I connected with himand heard his stories about life
and things like that.
So yeah, those are reallyprecious memories and items for
me.
What about for you,
Julie (06:38):
Julie?
Just thinking about, hearing youtalk about that and listeners
won't be able to see Philippa'sface at the moment, but you
absolutely beaming.
While you tell those stories,it's like you've gone into a
different place.
You are reminiscing.
But it's more than reminiscing.
It's very present.
(06:59):
The, these people have all died.
They've all passed on.
They're no longer physically inyour life, but in your reciting
the those memories.
You've become very alive andit's almost as though they have
also become very alive in theroom.
I've never met your Aunt Flory,but I have a picture now in my
(07:21):
head of her front parlor withall these card tables and the
saucers and so there's somethingabout who you are that's being
formed by these traditions.
Even though those traditions areno longer happening with the
people that they first happenedwith for you, and we don't know
(07:44):
the stories of who they firstplayed cribbage with and Penny
in, penny out, where did thatcome from?
It's that sort of play heritagethat you and I know that we
have, but we're very aware thatmany people don't have that.
And so later on in this episode,that's why it's so important to.
(08:06):
How each of us may create playtraditions with the people in
our lives, even if we haven'tinherited something.
So as you were talking, I wasthinking, gosh, what do I have
object wise?
And I've recently been clearingout my parents' house along with
(08:26):
several of my siblings, andthat's brought a lot laughter.
Oh my goodness.
Why did we ever have that andwhat was that used for?
Okay, we need to get rid ofthat.
So there's been a lot ofclearing out, and actually, I
have to say, there are lots ofpacks of cards, but no other
games that I've come across.
(08:46):
Oh, there was the Scrabbleboard, so I'm hoping one of my
nieces may take the Scrabbleboard.
But I think for me, when I thinkabout playfulness.
As a tradition within my family,it would certainly be card games
with one of my nanas.
We lived in a different countryto our grandparents, so I
wouldn't see them very often,but the game of Rummy, which I'm
(09:10):
sure many people know, is theonly card game I know of by
heart because I learned it veryearly on.
And it's a game that's beenpassed on to nieces and nephews.
We can all play rummy withouthaving to think about the rules.
And so I have saved several ofthe packs of cards.
(09:30):
They don't particularly have asignificance because I don't
remember them as this was thepack of cards we always played
with, but it is the fact thatit's a couple of packs of cards
from my parents' house that weare likely to have played rummy
with.
And they're not full size cards.
My nana particularly likedplaying with the smaller version
(09:52):
of the cards.
They're about, I don't know, aninch and a half by two and a
half inches, but they're muchsmaller, partly because she also
liked playing solitaire, playinggames on her own, and they would
fit on one of those little traysthat you could have.
On the wheels above your chair.
(10:13):
So she would sit for hoursplaying solitaire, but with
small packs of cards.
So I, yeah, I'm thinking aboutcard games.
I'm thinking about.
I never really got the hang ofchess, didn't.
So thinking about board games,which were often associated with
(10:34):
a bit of stress for me as well.
'cause actually I think I wasn'tvery good at them.
I wasn't good at thinking ahead.
And if I did play them, then Iwould often lose, and I would
find that quite tricky.
So when I think about playingboard games as traditions in my
family.
I don't always see that assomething that I found helpful
(10:56):
or enjoyable as a child.
That's come much more as anadult.
I've found the games that Ireally enjoy and I found people
to play them with.
But as I've said before, inother episodes, I think singing
was a thing that yeah, we'vejust begun to do as a family.
(11:17):
My mom seemed to sing a lot.
She would sing things like,their son has got his hat on to
get us up in the morning.
She would sing while shevacuumed the house.
She would sing while she waswallpapering.
She had a song for everything.
(11:37):
And I think I've just pickedthat up and with some of my
family.
That's what we still like to do,is just have a sing along.
Just somebody sit around thepiano, somebody start a daft
song.
So yeah, the things that we'veinherited, and both of us
(11:59):
happened to have been infamilies where we have inherited
some playful ways.
But one of the things we wantedto think about today then is
what can be created.
Playfully within families,groups of friends, groups of
colleagues.
(12:19):
That then becomes the tradition.
It becomes the thing that we dowhen we are together.
And just before we came on, youtalked about.
The Tango and the foxtrot.
Tell us about the tango and thefoxtrot, because I found this
really helpful and I'vescribbled it down because I
wanna remember it.
Philippa (12:41):
I suppose it is thinking about why are those
traditions important?
Why do we need them?
And I.
I suppose it's, it is to belong.
It's to connect.
It's to be part of somethingbigger than us that says, this
(13:01):
is our clan, this is our family,this is our people, this is our
tribe.
What, however you want to say,but this is where I belong and I
am part of.
This belonging group and we havethese traditions and these feel
safe and secure for me and it,you know those people at my Aunt
(13:25):
Flurries who I didn't see.
From one year to the next, wecould sit down and play Penny
and Penny out.
And everybody knew like yourgame of rummy.
Everybody knew what to do, wherethey were gonna sit, what was
gonna happen whether you werefour years old or 84 years old.
There was a connection thatengulfed as all through that
(13:49):
tradition of playing Penny andPenny out.
So when we blend families,whether that's a foster family,
whether that's families comingtogether where, they've got step
families, I suppose is whatthey're called, aren't they?
Where we maybe haven't alwaysgrown up from a tiny baby and
(14:11):
just inbuilt those traditions ininside us.
We come with different.
Experiences different.
Traditions, different thingsthat have happened to us.
And when I worked with fosterfamilies, I used to ha think
with them about, actually yourfamily does the tango.
(14:32):
And you do the tango reallygreat and you all know the
steps.
And now you've got this child,this teenager coming in or
several coming into your family,but they dance.
The fox trot.
And that's a very differentdance.
And how do you get together?
(14:52):
So you can teach them the tango,and that's okay.
You can teach them the tango andhelp them to learn the steps,
but it's not ingrained insidethem.
They are coming from the outsidein.
And that's okay.
That's it.
All right.
And you can learn the foxtrot,but again, you're coming from
the outside in.
(15:13):
But maybe.
If you can combine the two oradd a bit of the foxtrot into
the tango or a bit of the tangointo the foxtrot where you can
create something together, thenI think that's much more
powerful because that'ssomething that you create as
this new group of people, afamily a cohort, whatever it is.
(15:36):
You you are doing, you are nowdeveloping your own.
Tradition, your own kind ofsense of belonging from your
original tradition.
So it's not about saying thesearen't important, I guess it's
like when you have an adultrelationship, whether you get
married, whether you live withsomebody, whether you've got a
group of friends, you all come.
(15:59):
With experiences and youhopefully blend your dance.
You blend your foxtrot and yourtango to create something that
is meaningful, that you all knowthe steps of together.
Yeah.
So a sense that rather than achild, say a child, for
(16:22):
instance, coming into a fosterfamily, into an adoptive family.
Feeling that perhaps they willnever belong because they don't
know the traditions of thisfamily.
They haven't been in this familysince they were born.
They haven't grown into thosefamily traditions, which could
create a sense of exclusion anda sense of I never quite fit and
(16:47):
never quite belong.
And as you say, there isopportunity to.
And for the parents to learnthat foxtrot, but ultimately the
strength in that family or thatgroup, new group of friends is
to create something that is newand unique and about the now and
(17:09):
who we are now, and creatingthose playful traditions with
the people who have cometogether perhaps later in life.
And haven't come from the sametraditions.
How important it is yes.
To teach one another our owntraditions, but to be very
(17:30):
consciously creating new plaguetraditions within that new
group.
And I'm thinking here about,friendships.
I've just come back from alittle bit of a road trip with a
very good friend who has acamper van.
I've known this friend for agood 30 years or so, and we had
(17:52):
a road trip to Ireland.
We both have heritage in Irelandand we were visiting cousins,
uncles, neighbors, people that,have been part of our lives for
a long time.
But what we have, just the twoof us.
Our own road trip traditions.
So this friend, camp Van twodogs me up the front is not
(18:17):
great on windy roads and she'salso not great going downhill.
So we often have a bit of a tailbehind us and it's become a game
over the 30 years or so issaying, probably time to pull
into a layby or pull into a sideroad and let the queue go past.
And then we guess how many carsthere are gonna be in the queue.
(18:41):
And then the winner is theperson who's guested close to
the 5, 10, 15.
I think our record is 30 oddgoing past, and it's just a
thing we do.
The other game we play istapping out a tune on the
dashboard.
Just tap tap, tap a tune.
The other person has to guesswhat it is.
(19:03):
We've just created these ways ofbeing on low long road trips
together, and we don't have tosay, oh, when we go on that road
trip, we are going to play this.
We just know at some point, oneof us is gonna say, what's this?
Tune then, and we'll starttapping.
(19:25):
And that's not, neither of thosegames are things that have come
from my family or from otherpeople, but they're unique to
that relationship.
I don't play them in otherpeople's cars.
I don't play them on other longjourneys.
I only play them with thatfriend and it is something very
warm and connecting for me andher.
(19:48):
And until we're old ladies,we'll probably be.
And I think that, when you create new families and when
you have your own children, youhave some of the traditions that
come down from your, yourparents, your grandparents, but
you also create new ones.
(20:09):
Don't you?
I think lot, lots of familiesdo.
In hours.
It's just something simple likea calling the Caterpillar cake.
Everybody has that on theirbirthday and whoever's birthday
is, gets the choice of whetherthey want the face at the front.
And, my nieces, when they werelittle, my sister-in-law had
(20:31):
these beautiful cakes made.
They were absolutely beautiful.
All of, whatever theme they wereinto when they were toddlers and
when my oldest niece got to, Idunno, about six, she was like,
why am I having that cake?
I want the calling, theCaterpillar cake.
(20:51):
You might need to explain
a column so cakes are available.
Yeah, they're, I think Aldi and everyone do their own
versions now it's just a verysimple Swiss roll covered in
chocolate with a white chocolatecaterpillar face on the front
and white chocolate feet.
It is very simple.
It's about nine quid.
(21:13):
Compared to these reallyelaborate beautiful cakes that
my niece was having that werelike 60, 70, 80 quids worth,
because they were well worth it.
They were amazing.
But actually what she'd seen wasthat everybody else in the
family has a call calling theCaterpillar cake.
Because that's what my childwanted when they were babies and
(21:35):
toddlers.
Yeah.
So it was like I would, so noweven they have Colin, the
category and my sister-in-lawwas like that's fine.
It's gonna save me like 60 quid.
I don't need to be doing thatanymore.
But that is a tradition that noweverybody.
And even if you didn't have ityou felt like you missed out.
So and so that, that issomething that is, is passed on.
(21:57):
I remember then my son gettingto about, I don't know, 13 and
saying, I don't even likechocolate.
It was just at that age, they'rehitting those teenagers and all
that brain, and they're tryingto find their clan outside of
their family.
They're trying to find theirpeople, and so they, they were
(22:19):
like, I don't like chocolate.
Why?
Why are you buying me this?
I want a sponge cake.
I want this.
There was a rejection of thistradition as we hit these
teenage years.
So everybody else is having acalling the Caterpillar cake,
and my child is having aVictoria Bond or whatever it
(22:40):
was.
They decided that they wantedthrough these first few years of
the teen teenage years, we'renow back to calling the
Caterpillar cake.
But there was a rejection off.
I don't want that.
And I think that when we've gotthese traditions, whether it's
(23:01):
in families, blended families,foster families.
It gives a sense ofpredictability, it gives a sense
of security, it gives a senseof, this is what my family is
about and I belong within this.
But it also allows for arejection of something in a safe
(23:22):
way, so we can go and exploresomething different in those.
Times of teenage early twentieswhere we do, we should be trying
to find traditions, we should betrying to find our people.
That is what we are designed todo at those points of time, I
suppose what we did in ourfamily and is we kept the
(23:45):
tradition going.
For my child, we respected theirwish of, we don't want a color
calling the caterpillar cake.
We.
We want a, a sponge cake.
'cause I don't like chocolate.
Which really wasn't true, but,that was just the point of where
we were at that point.
But we are, there was anallowance for them to reject the
(24:08):
tradition.
But the tradition still held,but there was a respecting of
their wishes, their viewpointsat that time their thoughts of,
I need to go and find somethingfor myself.
And hopefully we come back tothose things, don't we?
Or we don't.
We find something different andwe find a new tradition as it
(24:30):
goes.
My.
Person came back to it and that,that was great, but it was okay
if they hadn't have done, ifthey'd always stuck with what I
want as a victorious and we drawa, any elaborate cake or
whatever it is.
Yeah,
so that as you're speaking,that's reminding me of that
what's sometimes called thecircle of security or the
(24:51):
attachment circle, which wethink about very much with
toddlers.
That sense of I have my securebase, I have the people I know
and understand the people I feelsecure with, safe with.
And because I've got that, I cango off out into the world, which
for a 2-year-old is get offdad's knee and go to the other
(25:15):
side of the room and go and playwith potentially a new person at
the playgroup.
That's the element ofexploration for a 2-year-old.
But I can get off my parents'secure knee.
I can go off and explore andmeet new things, meet new
people, meet new experiences,but always knowing that I can
(25:36):
come back to the familiar andthe secure and that same pattern
seems to happen again inadolescence.
That sense of, I have my securebase, but I can go off and
explore.
And with it comes, rejectioncomes a sense of disdain for the
(25:57):
secure base.
And it, I, but ultimately it'sstill there and the, that
exploration is much, much wider.
It's way beyond the house, it'sway beyond school.
It's out into very unfamiliarsettings that the parents, the
carers, won't know all thedetails about.
(26:19):
But the child, the young person,the adolescent knows that safety
is ultimately still there.
Absolutely.
Dan, sorry, Julie, Iinterrupted.
Yeah, no go for it.
I was gonna say, Dan Siegeltalks about this put a link in
into a YouTube video that's freeand available, and he talks
(26:42):
about.
This need for the adolescents togo and explore, to go and find
their own people, because we areeventually not gonna be
available for them, do they?
And if they're on their own,then actually that survival is
dependent on having your clan,your pH, your.
(27:06):
Your people around you.
So actually in adolescence it isabout moving away from us as
their parents, their olderadults, the ones that have kept
them safe up until this point tofinding these new group of peers
or people that are gonna takethem into their future and.
(27:30):
For them.
They then need to develop theirown traditions with those what
they do there outside of theirfamily, don't they?
But their family still, like yousaid, needs to be that secure
base whilst they do that andthere needs to be this.
Extending of the attachmentconnection.
(27:54):
It needs to be pulled really farso that you are still there.
You are still that person thatsays, it's okay.
You are safe.
If anything happens, I've gotyour back.
But yeah, you can go out andexplore and find.
Other ways of having birthdays,other ways of being on a Sunday
morning or, whatever it is thatthey're doing that, that there's
(28:19):
a difference for them.
And with that, I guess comeslots of risk and some of that
risk is really important totake.
And some of it for some peoplewill be a little bit.
Too much for others they'llweigh up quite right, just right
(28:40):
in this.
But that is part of being andfinding your new clan and your
new traditions while stillhaving an anchor in, in, in
where we are now.
So that allows us to then becomethe adults we are and cherish
the traditions of our family,but we've still got new
traditions with our new familyand with our new friends.
(29:02):
And it's all interconnected,isn't it, in many ways.
Yeah.
And that sense of being able tocontribute, so I might have as,
as you and I have done, we'veboth grown up in our families of
origin with the people who gavebirth to us.
We grew up in our birthfamilies, and to what extent
(29:24):
were we able to contribute totraditions when we were growing
up.
Probably not.
I'm thinking probably not verymuch.
I went along with what wasoffered and what was already
established in the family, butthat capacity as we get older,
as we move through adolescence,as we go out into the world,
(29:45):
beyond our families, or if weare moving into a family that
isn't our birth family andcreating a new family through
design.
Then there's the opportunity tofeel that we belong through
contributing to develop a newtradition, a new way of playing,
(30:06):
a new way of being together, andthe strength that can come from
having your idea taken up andused and wanting to other people
wanting to repeat your idea.
So that sense of when you meetsomebody again, or if you are in
the same family, meet, the nexttime that event comes up and
(30:30):
somebody's saying, oh, Julie,remember that thing we did last
year, that was really great.
Should we do that again?
That huge sense of belonging andbeing able to contribute to
being valued.
That what I offered last year isremembered.
And is remembered with a smileand with a sense of connection
(30:52):
and the desire to repeat it.
So I, in thinking about, I, Ibecame an aunt quite young.
I was still at school when Ibecame an auntie and developing
traditions with my nieces andnephews, and some of them I've
seen very often.
Some of them I don't see sooften.
(31:14):
But some of the things that Iintroduced, like just, the child
lying on their front or curledup in a little ball and me it's
making me smile.
Even thinking about it.
I pretend that their back is apiece of paper oh, I have to rub
out the piece of paper.
So I give them a good oldmassage.
And then the bit they all squirmat, but love is I tickle them
(31:39):
under theirs with my finger,theirs, your armpits.
I'm sharpening my pencil.
And then I'd ask them, do youwant a letter or a number?
And then if it's a letter, howmany letters And that when they
were 2, 3, 4, it really was, Ithink it was just shapes when
(31:59):
they were very little, but atthe time they were six or seven,
a three letter word.
And then I'd create that.
Three letter word on their backand I was always completely
amazed that they knew what itwas.
They couldn't see what I wasdoing, but they could feel it.
Or they wanted a five digitnumber by the time they're 11
(32:21):
five digit number, and then I'dhave to remember what it was.
I'd drawn on their back.
Now most of those young peopleare grownups now.
But even now, one or two of themwill just, if it's on the sofa,
just curl up and I'll say, Ooh,I rub out the paper, and there's
just this sort of lovely smilethat goes on.
(32:43):
So that's a tradition that we'vecreated just between me and my
nieces and nephews.
It's not something that camefrom the wider family, but the
joy that gives me to be able tocontribute something.
And to have it invited again andagain is just lovely.
(33:04):
And that becomes then anunderstanding, a connection with
that person and me.
That isn't something thatanybody else in my family does
with them as far as I know.
So that sort of foreverhopefulness of being able to
create tradition, give it a go.
Try out something and some of itwill fall absolutely flat.
(33:33):
The child, the young person willjust walk away and go, oh, don't
do that.
That's horrible.
You think, oh okay, I got thatwrong.
But every now and again, justfinding something that has
potential to become a traditionin that group, I don't think it
can be planned.
I don't think it can bemeasured.
I haven't got much of this outof a book.
(33:54):
I've just it's just emergedprobably somebody has written
these some things down in abook, I don't know.
But just giving it a go andseeing what happens and just
keeping your ear to the groundis, oh, I wonder if this might
become a little bit of atradition in our group.
(34:14):
Yeah.
I dunno if that rings any bellswith
you.
Absolutely.
I but what it made me start tothink about was that.
Traditions can build connection.
That can bring people in.
It can help us to feel part of agroup, but they, it can also be
(34:36):
rejecting.
It can also help you feel on theoutside of a group.
It can also make you feel likeyou don't belong in somewhere
because you don't know thetraditions, you don't know what
they're doing that, and nobodywants to.
Include you in them and that canbe quite harmful and hurtful.
(34:58):
I think about school and groupsand even mothers and toddlers
groups and groups that you,training groups where you attend
and people already all know oneanother and they know what's
going on and they know.
What's gonna be done and howit's going to be done.
(35:19):
And you don't, and nobody tellsyou, oh, actually what we do now
is this, or this is whathappens, or this is how we
interact, or this is this song,or this is, and you are just
watching.
And that can really make youfeel like an outsider.
Or when you approach people,stop talking or stop.
(35:41):
Doing what they're doing, andyou can literally see that
they're not including you insomething.
And that in itself can be reallyhurtful and harmful.
And maybe if as an adult for me,I would just think, oh whatever
it is.
I always really try not to swearthere, Julie and walk away.
(36:03):
I appreciate that and walk away,but as a teenager you don't.
I think that, and as a youngadult, I think those can be
really hot for me.
I was very sporty at school, soI.
Was always in a group because Idid sports and that just led me
(36:26):
to being in a, in an inclusivegroup.
And, I was pretty good atswimming, I was pretty good at
rounders and netball and thosesorts of things.
So I was part of a group thatreally I didn't need to, kind of
find a way into, I just, it justhappened because I was good at
(36:47):
what I did and so therefore Iwas included.
I moved schools when I was, 14and so for the last two years,
and it was a school that didn'tdo sports and I really struggled
because I didn't know anotherway of being, I could connect
with people.
I could, I knew the traditionsof a swimming team or a.
(37:11):
Of a netball team and knew whatyou did, and to be part of that
group was really part of myidentity.
I was good at those things, andI did academia because that gave
me access to sport.
Because I, you had to attendclass and achieve in order to be
able to do the sports, becauseobviously you had to leave
(37:32):
lessons.
When I went to this new school,there was no sports, there was
no group I was involved in.
There was these cool kids whoreally.
Weren't very pleasant.
And that's because they'd gottheir own groups that kept you
together.
So eventually I just didn't goto school.
I just didn't go to school.
(37:53):
'cause I just didn't know, Ididn't fit anywhere.
I didn't have any connectionwith anybody yet all the people
that I had connection with hadgone because I'd moved to the
other side of the city and yeah,I just didn't go to school.
'cause I didn't have anything toconnect with.
I didn't have, I was on theoutside of all these groups.
(38:17):
Yeah.
So the importance of, we'vetalked about this before about
the word play in English, theway we use it in our language.
We play sport, we play music,but it's more than the rules.
It's about being with otherpeople.
It involves at least one otherperson.
(38:39):
It involves a connection.
It involves keeping to the rulesthat have been established for
that particular game, but alsobeing creative within that and
having a sense of belonging, butalso being myself.
Within that and you really lostthat at that age.
Yeah, and I think, I was 14, but that sense of
(39:01):
identity, I knew I was good atit.
I wasn't the best.
There was people that were muchbetter at all the sports than
me, but I was good enough tomake the teams and that gave me.
Some privilege within theschool.
I could miss some lessons to goand practice.
I got to, we were lucky enoughin the, that school that there
(39:23):
was a swimming pool on site.
So at lunchtime I could go andswim at lunchtime.
So anything that was.
Maybe a little bit more trickythat if there was gonna be
clashes at school or bullying orI could opt out.
I had got a way of getting outof that.
I could go and swim in, in theswimming pool.
(39:45):
I could go and have hockeypractice.
I had, that's what I did afterschool.
My whole identity.
Was around sport and that'swhere I belonged.
And I knew what I was doing.
I knew that, this was our.
This was how you got ready.
This was how you got on thecoach.
This was how you shouted andsupported people.
(40:09):
I, Mr.
Ku, I still remember him.
He was in my middle school,actually not my high school.
I was a swimmer there and he wasjust the most amazing teacher.
And he used to call me rentergob because I used to shout so
loud.
But I knew that was my job inthat fam in that.
You said family?
(40:29):
Yeah.
And there was a family.
Yeah, it was, yeah.
And then I went to anotherschool and I just ha it was all
gone.
There was no Mr.
Koch, there was no swimmingteam.
There was no, there was nothingthat I belonged in.
I didn't have these connectionsor anything like that.
(40:51):
It was just horrendous.
And my will fell apart for quitea long time.
Because you didn't have thatplace where you felt you
belonged, you were playingsport, but again, you knew the
rituals and the traditions ofhow those teams and those groups
worked at your school and inyour county and all the meets
(41:11):
that you.
I'm thinking I had that, not somuch with sports, but with
music.
I knew what to do in anorchestra.
I knew what to do in a choir.
I knew how to, as you said, geton the coach, go to a festival,
go and play in a concert, andknew the rituals of what to
(41:31):
wear.
And we were playing, we call itplaying.
I did drama as well at school,and I loved that.
I loved being able to.
To act, to play anothercharacter.
And interestingly, Philippa, youand I haven't shared this
before.
I also swapped schools at 14.
(41:53):
But the opposite way to you, Iswapped at my school I was at,
couldn't offer music andcouldn't offer drama.
So I swapped schools at 14 inorder to be at a school that
offered music and offered drama.
Offered the two things.
Play that I already knew Iwanted to do.
(42:14):
So for me, at that age, that wasa wonderful shift because
suddenly I was in a school thatallowed us time off to go and
practice for the school concert,go for a festival, go to the
theater and that concept ofplaying with others was huge.
It allowed me to make friendsvery quickly within a few weeks.
(42:36):
I had found a group of friendsbecause they're the ones who
played music.
They were the ones who wanted tosing.
They were the ones who wanted toact, and I had no problems, if
that's the not the right word,but, I didn't have a difficulty
finding friends when I was 15,16, 17, because I'd found a
(42:56):
common thing.
Yeah, play with
others through music.
So it's interesting play.
These are two new episodes.
I know we're coming to the endfor today probably, but two
other episodes might be aboutplay and sport and play and
music and where those topicsmight take us for another day.
(43:17):
Yeah.
I just want you to just linkthose really and think about.
Children that are moved, wetalked about moving school.
So for me it was a disasterreally.
It was just, I don't regret it.
I absolutely, I did have friendsoutside of school and, I had a
(43:38):
really nice life.
Really.
I just didn't go to school.
And it.
Took me a long way round toreach academia and, but that
gave me a lot of lifeexperience, a lot.
So it was the right thing for meat that time.
But at that time it was quitetricky.
I guess for you it was theopposite way is that you found
(43:58):
your people and I suppose whatI, what it was making me think
about was children.
Who move homes, whether that'sinto foster families, whether
that's into adoption, whetherthat's into residential
services, whether that's becauseparents separate and then they
maybe have new new stepparentsor siblings become blended
(44:23):
families.
And I wonder if sometimes.
Their experiences like yours,Julie, where it feels like they
fit and the play and theconnection is really for them
and it feels like these are mypeople and this is where I
belong.
But I also wonder on theopposite of that, about the
(44:44):
impact of leaving something thatis so familiar, whether that, it
might be that.
It's chaos and violence and, butit's still familiar.
Those are still the traditionsthat you have in your family.
Yeah.
And you may be moving to afamily where all your needs are
met and you go to school on timeand you've got nice clothes and
(45:08):
you've got board games and allthe things that, that it.
Adults, we perceive children tobe needing, but as a child.
What's that like?
You know where, how you belongin one family.
These adults are saying, this isnot an okay family to you, but
(45:31):
those are all your traditions.
Those are all your, that, youknow the play might not be the
kind of play that as adults wethink children should be
engaging in, but it's the onlyplay that they've known.
It's the only way of being thatthey know how to be.
And now we put them in thefamily that we say, this is
gonna be much better for you.
(45:52):
This is what life should looklike.
But actually.
You just don't know what to do.
'cause my when I moved schools,my parents moved me schools
because they thought the schoolI was going to was academically
much better, was gonna help me.
And they were right.
Academically it was moreacademically driven and the
(46:16):
attainment of that school wasgreater.
But for me it was absolutely theworst thing because my links
were with the sport and thefamily there that this school
didn't offer somebody else as anadult, made those decisions for
me.
For the right reasons, in theright context, but without
(46:37):
really.
Knowing what it was gonna feellike.
And I think that we often, thatoften happens with children who,
are moved out of their family oforigin or maybe, like I say,
within blended families or haveto go and live with grandparents
or, extended families is.
It's probably for the very rightreasons and done in a very
(46:59):
caring way.
But what does that feel like forthat child?
Yeah the loss of familiarity,the loss of sense of belonging,
the loss of playfulness in waysthat, you know, within the chaos
or within the neglect or withinthe things that were not going
(47:20):
well for that child.
There would've been some goodenough.
Even if that hasn't been fromthe parents, that could have
been with a neighbor, it couldhave been with a grandparent, an
auntie, a cousin.
There will be playful traditionsthat will have already built up
in 2, 3, 4 years for that child,and then that suddenly all is
(47:43):
taken away.
And even the good enough is not taken away because
if you don't know anything else,and that's all you know, then
you know, you develop in thatway that you have those things
that this becomes your normal,your every day, your, this is
what your life is like and youfeel safe and con connected in
(48:05):
that in a way, even when you areunsafe.
And it can feel unsafe beingsafe.
And I think that's probably awhole, we have talked about
playing play.
We have talked, we have a,
one of the earlier episodes isabout play and safety and
feeling unsafe while playing.
(48:25):
Listeners can go back and lookat one of those earlier
episodes.
But that's probably a place topause for today.
Thinking about play andtraditions.
Traditions over time.
And another episode, we'll thinkmore about the small rituals
that might happen within a day,within a week within everyday
(48:47):
life.
The way playfulness might comeinto daily rituals.
So we know traditions andrituals are very similar words
and may have similar meanings.
For listeners, but today we'vetalked particularly about
traditions over time and anothertime we'll get to play those
smaller rituals.
(49:10):
But for today, we are going topause.
Thank you for listening to this week's
episode.
If you've enjoyed it, thenplease hit subscribe and we'll
hopefully see you in the nextpodcast.
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