Heather Bellamy spoke with Rob Parsons about life's lessons

Rob Parsons

Rob Parsons is an author and also the chairman of 'Care for the Family', a national family charity running events and courses across the UK and creating resources that are used all over the world. His latest book, 'The Wisdom House' is designed to impart life lessons to his grandchildren and Heather Bellamy spoke with him to find out more about that.

Heather: So first of all, what does being a granddad mean to you?

Rob: I love being a grandfather. We've got five grandkids, Heather, and if I'd known grandkids were so much fun I'd have had them first. One psychologist called it an uncomplicated form of love and I think it's because you don't have ultimate responsibility, so although many grandparents are almost like full­-time carers, you know, they work very hard at being grandparents, still I think there are elements to it that are magical. I think it's the business of not having ultimate responsibility - you can enjoy them perhaps a bit more than when you had your own even.

Heather: So is family supposed to be there to teach us and protect us from having to learn life's lessons the hard way?

Rob: Well perhaps we can't be protected fully from that, but certainly the family I think is meant to be a place where we share.­ I was talking to somebody the other day about the importance of mealtimes if possible, not every night and it doesn't matter if it's beans on toast, but just having time to talk together. I was talking to a single mum the other day. She said once a week, even if it's only beans on toast and normally on a Friday night, I lay the table and we have a proper meal and we talk together. She said it's agony getting anything out of a 14 year-old, but she said the other night on a Tuesday I got home and her daughter said, "We know it's not Friday night, but can we have a proper meal together tonight?" and I thought yes! I think those moments where we can share and talk, ­or it might be a teenager flopping on the end of the bed too late at night for us to really be awake, but we have to take that opportunity, just a chance to pass on these things. I think the reason I wanted to write the book is that so often kids aren't very receptive when they're young to our wisdom are they, they kind of brush it off. So I wanted to write the book to create something that they could come back to a little later.

Rob and Di Parsons with grandchildren

Heather: And one of the things that you look at in the book is life not being fair, which I'm sure all of us have felt at one time or another. Do you think that's very important to come to terms with?

Rob: Yeah, it's hard isn't it to come to terms with that, because we often feel it. I mean, when we're kids we say, "It's not fair, I gotta go to bed early, it's not fair his toy is bigger than mine." But I think sometimes when we get older we realise life is genuinely not fair; that bad people sometimes seem to live charmed lives and bad things happen to good people and that's hard to come to terms with. And unless we do, I think we will live all of our lives feeling disillusioned or feeling perhaps that even God has let us down, so I wanted to address that and talk about it. In that chapter I talk about a guy called Viktor Frankl who was a psychiatrist in Auschwitz, actually in the concentration camps, and he said, "You know, they can take everything from you except your freedom to choose how you react". And what he was talking about is whatever situation we're in, our tomorrows can be different by the way we react to them, even if life is unfair, and it's desperately unfair sometimes. It's a very important lesson for all of us to face.

Heather: And touching on Auschwitz there, the other thing that you mention in your book is forgiveness. Is that something everyone needs to come to grips with?

Rob: Yeah I think forgiveness is the kind of thing that we like to have in the Lord's Prayer and we say, "Dear Heavenly Father, forgive us our trespasses" and that's pretty easy, we think if there's a God in Heaven it's his job to forgive. Then we say, "As we forgive those that trespass against us" and actually I think sometimes it's very hard to forgive. In the book I talk about somebody who was holding her hurt so tightly it began to identify their lives and they couldn't forgive because if they forgave they would almost have to give part of themselves away. They loved talking about the way they'd been hurt and it had become the excuse for every bad thing that happened to them, this thing the other person had done to them. Although forgiveness is always hard, I think it can be liberating. Perhaps it's most necessary for the person who has to forgive. There's an old Proverb that says the person who will not forgive must dig two graves and I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Heather: Something you were talking about earlier was mealtimes and communication and communication is often a problem in families. What do you think holds parents and grandparents back from sharing their lives in that way with the family?

Rob: You know, I think sometimes, particularly in modern society, I think we often have less respect for the wisdom of those who are a little older. I call the book 'The Wisdom House' because as a kid my Mum told me the story that in a land far away, that the elderly wrote one life lesson before they died and they rolled it up and put it on a scroll and they kept them all in a hut in the centre of a village. And once a year the elders would get everyone together and they'd read one of these lessons, or a couple of lessons to them and they called that place The Wisdom House. Somebody said that when an old person dies it's as if a library burns down, but the library needn't burn down Heather and we can have times in our homes where older people have a confidence to share lessons and we encourage the young to listen. Cause the subtitle of this book is, 'You don't always have to learn the hard way' and you don't! You know, we say the school of hard knocks is the best way to learn, but it's not ­- if we can learn from others it's much easier and surely a lot quicker!

Heather: So if someone reading this today has a family that's falling apart or where relationships aren't what they could be, what would be the one piece of advice you would give them to help them start to put things back together?

Rob: I would say most of all that this is not just you. That although at the moment you feel totally isolated, you don't feel you love your husband, your wife...your teenager is breaking your heart, perhaps a teenage son is treating you badly and you think nobody could understand, I just want to walk away from all this - others have been in situations like that. It's not always possible, but it is sometimes possible to begin again. I think first of all we have to be released from this idea that it's just us, that we're the worst husband or wife, or father or mother on the face of the Earth, and perhaps begin taking small steps towards other people. Begin speaking more kindly than we did, try to see the good in them and not just the bad. You know, with our kids sometimes, even with a boy who's treating us so rudely, 13 or 14 years-old, even then we have to catch them doing something right sometimes,­ "You know Jack when I saw you buy a copy of 'The Big Issue' from that homeless person I was proud of you!". Now most of the rest of the time we're on their back, but then they hear this positive thing. To our husband or wife again, to­ remember the times that were good and sometimes that kindles a fire that we thought had gone out almost forever.

Heather: Now I know your grandchildren are young still so I doubt they have read your book, but what's the feedback been from the rest of your family?

Rob: (laughs) Well, the family are very polite. They say they like the book, but you know Heather from all over we're getting people saying "I love the cover! I love these two easy chairs and the idea of sitting down in one of them." And the book's not out yet, it comes out in a week's time so only friends and those who review my books have actually read it, but those who had, have said it's touched their hearts. I've written 15 books now, 20 if you include the really little ones, ­but this book was the most fun to write. I loved just writing it and sharing these simple lessons, and it's a book for anybody, you could give it to your next door neighbour or your kids or an 80 year-old. In fact there's an 80 year-old Doctor of Theology who writes on the front that he would've wished he'd learned these lessons earlier. So I enjoyed writing it and I really hope it will be a help to people.

You can buy The Wisdom House from Cross Rhythms Direct for only £12.34.