Busy is best for balance

Plenty of family time and a busy schedule of activities helps to keep kids happy and well grounded

MARIA CUNNINGHAM has the double distinction of being a Millennium and a leap year baby, having entered the world at 8.30pm on February 29th, 2000 in University College Hospital, Galway.

It earned her instant fame, with TV cameras coming into the ward the day after and her photograph making the front page of that week's Galway City Tribune. But she has two older sisters, Alice (13) and Jennifer (11), to remind her that a mere date of birth does not make her any more special than them.

“Busy, busy” is how mother Sally (45) sums up Maria’s life. That is what differentiates it most from her own childhood in Gloucestershire, England, she says, along with the fact that Galway has a much wider mix of people.

“I had Brownies and piano lessons and that was it. She has a lot more opportunities to travel, to do things and to see things and to meet people.”

Maria enjoys lessons in ballet and Irish dancing, swimming and gymnastics. She is also learning circus skills with Galway Community Circus in Shantalla and has just started doing drama classes with StageCoach.

At home in Dangan House, where her father Paddy (53) runs a garden nursery with his brother, Maria enjoys drawing and playing with the Sylvanian Families. She can cook easy things such as pancakes and scrambled eggs on the Aga in the kitchen – using eggs from their chickens, who are among the family’s 42 pets. The latest arrival is Stanley the turtle who Maria keeps in her room.

Like her two sisters, Maria was christened in the Church of Ireland but then went on to make her First Communion through after-school classes at the Galway Educate Together School. Some Sundays the girls go with their father to Mass in Galway Cathedral, on others they go with their mother to morning service at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.

Generally, Sally and Paddy try to keep the girls away from electronic games. “They go on the computer of course. But we have a trampoline outside in the garden and we try to get them out as much as we can.”

Despite society’s mounting concern over the past decade about how we are raising our children, Sally believes that Maria, like her sisters, is enjoying a happy, balanced childhood. “As long as we ground them and give them plenty of family time,” she adds, “I feel they’re all right.”

Last word from Maria: "I want to be a famous actor or singer when I grow up." And the best day in her life so far? Winning a "very big gold medal" at the all-Ireland gymnastics final in Dublin this year.