Dilemmas

PostingTepee or not Tepee

270pxRowanberriesinlateAugust2004inHelsinki_Small.jpgIt wasn't until we were sat on the lawn underneath one of the rowan trees at Kiltyrie Farmhouse, by the shores of Loch Tay, that I had a chance to think about the twists and turns that led us there. We were meant to be staying up the road in a wooden tepee ('hut', in the words of one of my more candid friends). We dithered: some evenings we were all set for tepee adventure, others, not so much. About three days before the scheduled weekend, I rang to see if we could still cancel. No, we were too late for an automatic refund, if they managed to re-sell the hut/tepee we could have our money back. I asked them to do their utmost to find a taker, then rang back on Friday afternoon, rain beating at the windows; no-one else was interested in the 'Ben Nevis'.

The next day, less than half a mile from home, by now bathed in sunshine, these guys were playing on the radio. "Just phone and check they still have the tepee for us, would you? Just to be absolutely sure," I said. Va-vay rang, asked and went quiet. "Okay. Yes, yes, no, absolutely you did the right thing."

"They've sold it? The tepee?"

"I'm afraid so," said Va-vay.

"They hadn't sold it when I rang yesterday afternoon."

"Well, they have now."

"What shall we do?"

"Let me phone tourist information in Killin."

At Kiltyrie Farmhouse, the owner, Jane, served us tea and home-made lemon cake on the lawn. Walking books lined the sitting room. There was a noticeable - and, lest you are unfamiliar with my taste, welcome - absence of chintz. Beanie enjoyed making the acquaintance of the chickens who lived in their Eglu ('Look, Mummy, they've got a wee house'). The next day we breakfasted off their eggs. We played tag around the apple trees, which were dropping their fruit, admired Jane's vegetable garden, where she grows leeks, parsnips and potatos, scrambled up the hill behind the house, climbed until we could see the loch spread out far below us. Rowan berries glinted red in the autumn sunshine.

It was then I remembered a piece of Scots folklore; ancient Highlanders revered rowans for their mystical powers; druids made their staffs from rowan wood; witches used the branches for dowsing and charms. Many Scots, even today, still wish on rowan wood and use it as a talisman for protection. And I knew what it was that drew us here.

Posted 23 September 2009 19:14 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

Activities Dilemmas Fun Holidays

PostingWeekend, or, what if you die?

Shedworking, one of my favourite sites, is running a theatre review I wrote for them about a production of Walden, a one-man show from Magnetic North about a man who flees civilisation to live in isolation in a hut in the woods. It was great fun going to the theatre (they even gave me a complimentary press ticket, something I haven't enjoyed in years) and because I went on my own I chatted to other people in the audience afterwards. Nothing to do with late parenting, but a mini-highlight of the weekend.

Somewhat closer to home, Va-vay, Beanie and I went to our local Home Birth Support Group at the weekend. Beanie was entranced when a pregnant lady stuck her tongue out at her (in a friendly way) - and revealed a rather splendid tongue piercing. I knew I needed the Support Group after I told a friend last week I was planning a home birth and he said: "What if you die?" Huh. It's one thing for me to criticise the NHS, but I don't like it when other people do. The Support Group nodded and smiled when I recounted all this, before bursting into tears, and said they hear this kind of thing a lot. They said that statistically home births are safer than hospitals. That people who are negative about you having a home birth are often just worried for you. Beanie beamed as I sat cross-legged on the floor, weeping, then made friends with a small boy wearing a T-Shirt saying "Born at Home". Although not yet two years old herself, Beanie loves pointing out "babies" she sees out and about, saying the word "baby" in great excitement, as if the child in question belongs to a different generation from herself. When in fact there's an age gap of twelve months between them. She spent the rest of the event cuddling the "baby". His mum was there too. Alive and well.

Other News

A friend is organising a fertility afternoon at the Aditi Yoga Centre in Edinburgh on Sunday 2 March from two till five. This is a chance to hear expert speakers on how to improve the chances of becoming pregnant, maintaining a healthy pregnancy and much more.  Topics covered include acupuncture, chinese herbal medicine, homeopathy, mind and the body, natural ovulatory cycle, nutrition and yoga. Open to all.  Donation £5 per person.

Posted 04 February 2008 11:01 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Activities Angst Childbirth Daughters Dilemmas Friends Fun Health Home birth Out and about Pregnancy

PostingA spot of shopping

plustwos1_Small.jpg "What is it with you and your clothes?" I ask Va-vay.

We are sat in an Edinburgh cafe planning the final shopping onslaught before Christmas. My cup of hot chocolate must steel me for the fight with battalions of shoppers who are advancing on the city's shops like scavenging hordes. I have presents for everybody except Va-vay, who is unable to think of a single thing he might like for Christmas (saving arcane items of geekery that I do not understand well enough to purchase).

"What do you mean?" he replies. "I buy clothes, I wear them; they wear out. That's it."

This description barely does justice to the war of attrition Va-vay wages on his clothes.

"Yes, but Va-vay, the clothes disintegrate on you. Within months. Weeks even. Remember the Thomas Pink shirts?"

We both fall silent at the memory of the shirts, now reduced to dish rags and eking out their last days in a bucket under the sink.

"That wasn't my fault," says Va-vay. "Something in the fabric attracted stains." As if a laundress had put a curse on them. A Vanish-proof jinx that would defeat the housewives of Harry Potter.

"What about your socks, then?"

I've got the trump card here. Va-vay (who has size 14 feet) has issues with socks that not even his optimism can deny. They tend to sprout holes within weeks and his toes peep out to greet the world.

I've bought socks from all the obvious sock-buying places, thinking somewhere must have some that fit his feet. In vain. Our home is full of greying, unmatched socks that have wilted at the challenge of clothing Va-vay's feet. At night, his feet stick out the end of the duvet. Large and vulnerable.

I have offered to knit him socks, but Va-vay has declined, saying his skin allergy makes him sensitive to wool. Yes, it's hard to believe this is the same man who dashed across a busy B road to save the life of a caterpillar he saw stranded on the tarmac.

"Don't buy me expensive socks for Christmas," he says. "They're no better than the cheap ones."

"Va-vay, you do want something for Christmas, don't you?"

"You've got me a hat. That's enough."

"No! It's not enough. I want to buy my husband a nice present for Christmas. Why won't you co-operate in this? There's pleasure in giving as well as receiving, you know. You're making it very difficult."

"Oh, alright, alright. What about a pair of trousers?"

As well as having feet at the more err, generous end of the spectrum, Va-vay is also tall (around 6ft 6in). As you might imagine, trouser-buying has its challenges. We trail from shop to shop, meet assistants who laugh at us or cannot help, while elbowed by fellow shoppers who refuse to move aside for the buggy. I am paranoid that a stranger will touch me and cling to Va-vay. Our search for the right sort of trousers is proving fruitless.

Eventually, I spot a countryside shop purveying guns, Barbours, goggles, corded strawberry trousers, tweed caps, padded waistcoats and any other accoutrement you could imagine the sporting gent about town might need.

"Look, Va-vay, we could get you a pair of plus fours!" I tell him in excitement.

Va-vay glances in the window at the dummy done up in a pair of moleskin pantaloons that finish just below his knees. A shotgun trails by his side. Compared to his friend (in canary yellow trousers), his get-up looks almost sophisticated.

"Any pair of trousers is like plus fours on me," he says, with resignation.

We turn from the knickerbockers, and head for home.

Posted 18 December 2007 13:57 | Number of comments: 14 | Comments

Dilemmas Domestic chaos Edinburgh Husband Likes/Dislikes Out and about

PostingTime and Tide

Apologies for the lack of recent postings. I've only just realised it's been six days since I managed to blog. Six whole days. Shameful contrast to the high watermark of summer, when I set myself a target of daily postings.

I'd love to blame the downturn on Christmas and being too busy with shopping and partying to blog. But the truth is I haven't been too well and have hardly left the flat. I'm also finding I need to put any spare time into writing my book.

I've been busy reading around the subject of motherhood when not looking after Beanie and working on the book.

Regular readers of this blog might remember I'm a huge fan of Kate Mosse's Becoming a Mother. I liked it so much, I re-read it over the weekend, just to enjoy that feeling of companionship and support again.

I've also been reading Susan Faludi's Backlash - The Undeclared War Against Women, which has got me energised with anger. She dismisses the infertility scare stories of recent years as having little or no basis in fact, blaming them on widespread resentment at women's new-found freedom to work and decide when (or if) they will have children.

Reading Backlash reminded how fed up I am with some of the unflattering descriptions used for women who have babies after 35. Is it not about time the medical authorities thought up something less insulting than 'senile primigravida' to describe a first-time mother over 35?

I'm also losing patience with hearing healthy, blooming women in their late thirties and early forties described as 'older'.

When are we going to wake up to the fact that women in their thirties (and older) are in their prime? These are some of our most productive and creative years. Calling us 'old' is part of the same attempt to stigmatise any woman who shows some choosiness about when and how she has children that also leads to bogus infertility scares and 'man shortage' stories.

I don't think of myself as 'old' or even 'older' - and that's because, looked at in absolute terms, I'm not. I was older than the average first-time mum (29) when I had my daughter (at 38). But that doesn't qualify me for the zimmer frame and slippers quite yet.

Come to think of it, I don't even consider my mother, an energetic 67-year-old, to be  'old'. Though she has qualified for a bus pass that Beanie regularly filches from her handbag.

What do you think is a good substitute for 'old' or 'older' to describe new mums or mums-to-be over 35?

Posted 10 December 2007 12:17 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Blogging Books Dilemmas Fashionably Late - the book Older mother Paradoxes Work at Home Mum

PostingL Plates Mum

Reading last week the story of a rise in unjust adoptions, I was taken back to my fears as an L Plates mum when Beanie first arrived and I hadn't a clue how to get from one minute to the next so sat in my flat shaking, wondering what to do next. Terrified the Baby Police (my friendly health visitor) would rumble me, I asked a friend who's a paediatrician if I'd get into trouble for general ineptitude in the matter of caring for a newborn. "No," she told me. "Not unless you're doing drugs or hitting her." Big sigh of relief, since I was guilty of neither crime, though I continued to fear the weekly health clinic weigh-ins when I had to de-robe Beanie and pop her in a set of kitchen scales. It felt like the neo-natal equivalent of annual performance appraisals.

Other News

In the Night Garden

Thanks to Littlemummy, who has a posting on how much her daughter Erin loves this programme, Beanie has discovered In the Night Garden on CBeebies. She's so excited by it, she insists on standing up and swaying furiously while it's on, waving at Iggle Piggle, Uppsy Daisy and their friends in what I take to be ecstasy, though her waves cause me a small pang of heartache, when I think how the characters will never wave back at her and see how unsuspecting she is of this. Her dad and I are pretty taken with In the Night Garden too. Va-vay in particular enjoys repeating the names of the different characters to himself. Sitting eating his veggie dinner a couple of nights ago he said, apropos of nothing in particular: "Tombliboos." Short pause. "Tombliboos." Va-vay, who has a degree in linguistics, is trying to pass his love of In the Night Garden off to me as an interest in the development of infant speech patterns. An interest that has led to him starting to get home earlier from work, in time for the 6.20pm start time. My cup, it runneth over.

Posted 26 August 2007 11:26 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Activities Childcare Daughters Dilemmas Domestic chaos Home Husband News

PostingWhy not to have children

scan0002_Small.jpg Interesting piece in The Times yesterday about a new bestseller by French author Corinne Maier called No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. I say 'interesting' advisedly, if only because the story made me wonder how Maier's managing chez elle, where I imagine her two teenage children have presumably had something to say to their mum about breaking this social taboo. I don't know anyone who's dared to admit they don't want kids, so I quite admire Maier for tackling this thorny subject.

Despite its provocative title and tongue-in-cheek content, No Kid actually makes some sensible arguments, with Maier suggesting, for example, that it's a mistake to pity people who do not have children, when many of them have chosen a positive and sensible alternative to becoming parents. Better to label them child-free, rather than childless, she argues. Perhaps it's an issue of semantics, but I couldn't argue with the underlying sentiment.

The book apparently emerged from Maier's concern that no one is doing anything to temper an idealised view of motherhood fostered by two potent forces in her native France: the state, which wants more babies to help pay pensions, and the baby industry. Belonging to a generation of women who despair at their own inadequacy if their babies don't possess the most desirable audio-visual stimulatory toys of the moment, ('stimulation' being one of the current baby industry buzz words) I know what she means.

The book certainly does its best to counter any idealistic views, listing all the things parents have to give up when they have kids:

1. A full night's sleep,

2. A lie-in

3. Deciding to go to the cinema on the spur of the moment

4. Staying out later than midnight (babysitters have to be relieved)

5. Visiting a museum or exhibition (children start playing up).

Then there's the colossal strain on parental relationships to take into account, when having sex has to be dutifully squeezed into those tiny windows when neither partner is too exhausted even to contemplate it, when differences of opinion on the best way to warm a bottle of milk (before adding powder or after?) assume monumental proportions it would take a peace camp to resolve.

This sounds like a clever, sophisticated book; it's already climbed to the top of France's best-seller lists, and its publishers, Michalon, must be hoping it will do the same here in the UK, but even so, I still can't agree with its basic premise. Having a baby is fab. 

Posted 21 August 2007 14:28 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Parenting gurus Books Childcare Dilemmas Domestic chaos Etiquette Guilt Paradoxes

PostingNo escape

BookFestivalWarhol002_Small.JPG I accidentally plunged into the world of obstetrics again yesterday, in what was meant to be a break from hard-core mothering, during a lunchtime talk at the tented International Book Festival from writers Janice Galloway and Alan Warner on their launch of a not-for-profit publisher in Edinburgh called Long Lunch Press. Galloway and Warner set up Long Lunch with Arts Council funding to ensure an audience for unusual writing they believe deserves to reach the public but that wouldn't attract a commercial publisher.

Hearing this, I was sorely tempted to put my hand up and recommend blogs for the purpose of reaching readers but managed to refrain. However Vanessa at Fidra Books has plenty to say on the subject of not-for-profit publishing in this forthright and shrewd account of why she doesn't think publishing that sneers at profit makes any sense - and why instead of producing unread pamphlets Long Lunch should be promoting their work here on the net.

In keeping with the theme of unusual subject matter, Galloway read to us from Rosengarten, her prose-poem discussing the obstetric tools of child birth. It was the difficulty of finding a publisher prepared to accept this decidedly difficult account of childbirth that prompted Galloway to set up her new publishing venture.

When Galloway told her audience there was to be a reading about obstetrics, I must admit I thought what the many commercial publishers who turned it down obviously did too. And after the reading one couple got up and left, the woman white-faced.

But now I've had to time to get used to the idea, I rather like Rosengarten, which sheds light on a closed world. Stick with me here while I quote from the book, I was initially shocked too, but it's worth persevering.

"This is the business of life

with death, two balances in

precise relation. This is the

business of drawing air and

of drowning fluids, of

slickness and dry compression. Of making

two from one, of nerves

and channels, down and

muscle and veins. Of dark

to light, a business carried

out under the broil of

woollen covers, a business

of touch and steel and

random happenstance

There is bleeding of course.

And splitting and aweful surrender."

For their research, Galloway and her co-author studied obstetric implements, mainly forceps, through the ages, hunting through cases at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, the Edinburgh College of Surgeons and the Hunterian Museum . Their conclusion? "Raking about... showed how little over centuries the basic designs of the implements have changed."

Maybe the implements themselves remain unchanged, but one aspect of obstetrics that could usefully change is the continuing secrecy and embarrassment about the process of childbirth. Perhaps women do deserve to hear more about what childbirth is really like, and it would be worth overcoming our natural squeamishness for that to happen. Our ante-natal classes were great for making friends, but I learnt little that was useful about the actual birth, then spent months afterwards in shock.

Then again, if someone had presented me with a copy of Rosengarten in pregnancy, would I have wanted to know? Nowadays, of course, I'm fascinated by anyone prepared to talk frankly about childbirth, even if it happens unexpectedly. 

Posted 19 August 2007 12:41 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Breastfeeding Health Pregnancy Blogging Childbirth Festival Books Dilemmas

PostingStrangers

Just back from an unpleasant encounter in a local cafe. An elderly man came across uninvited to our table to talk to Beanie.

"You're a smiling wee baby, aren't you?" he started.

Fine, but then:

"My wife doesn't smile at me like that."

Cue sinking feeling in my stomach, while I simultaneously steeled myself for battle.

"You're very pretty," he told her. Was this really happening? In a coffee shop in broad daylight?

Sure enough, his hand went out to ruffle her hair.

"She's not public property," I told him. "Take your hands off her."

Filthy look in my direction, he slunk off.

Despite my outburst, he still insisted on sitting at the table next to ours, while Granny and I drank our skinny lattes double-quick so we could make our escape.

"Taboo, taboo, taboo," he muttered to his wife as she joined him. Yes, the same one he described so flatteringly earlier.

After a short muffled conversation, his wife turned to me and informed me that they were respectable people who meant no harm. I nodded at her without saying anything. I began to feel guilty for saying anything, wondered if I'd misinterpreted his comments.

But if he'd been as well-meaning as she insisted he was, then wouldn't he have backed off? Possibly even apologised? Or left us alone as I asked.

I find this area so difficult. I believe my daughter has the right to go about in public without strangers touching her. But I hate embarrassing confrontation as much as the next person and I lose confidence in my own judgement.

My difficulty is that I don't want her to grow up seeing the world as a bad, dangerous place, since most people are absolutely great. Beanie is a friendly, outgoing child and I would hate for her to become paranoid and suspicious of everybody she meets.

The truth is I don't really mind when some people pat her on the head, or give her a cuddle.

But there is a tiny minority of people like today's plat du jour at lunchtime.

The guy today just gave me a bad feeling, a creepy-crawly feeling up my spine and sick churning in my stomach, even before the comparison between my 16-month-old daughter and his wife.

How do other parents handle this sort of thing?

Posted 15 August 2007 15:49 | Number of comments: 36 | Comments

Childcare Daughters Dilemmas Out and about

PostingWeighty matters

I had an ambivalent reaction to news in The Times today that guidance for parents on the optimum rate at which a baby grows is to be measured against a breast-fed infant rather than the faster weight gain of those fed on formula milk.

This is more than a technicality, as any breast-feeding mother who's faced the tyranny of a health visitor's scales can tell you. Life in the early months of a baby's life is dominated by weigh-ins that health visitors use to judge if a baby's thriving or not. The problem with the existing charts is that they can lead HVs to decide that breast-fed babies are growing poorly, because formula-fed babies put on more weight.

I was lucky with Beanie, whom I breast-fed but who still put on weight at a rate her HV decreed acceptable. That's some background to pre-empt comments from the kind strangers who like to write in when I post about breastfeeding to tell me why I should have breastfed my daughter - sisters, I did! But all too many breast-feeding mothers find their babies aren't putting on weight as fast as the HV would like, then get into a vicious circle along the following lines.

HV puts pressure on mum to supplement breast milk with a bottle, citing baby's poor weight gain. Mum, confused and anxious, does as HV wants, her own milk supply drops off at introduction of formula and breastfeeding ends abruptly, usually way before the recommended six-month mark for exclusive breastfeeding. Mum, conditioned by several trees' worth of government material on why she should breastfeed, comes away from experience feeling wretched and guilty, despite having done nothing wrong, except perhaps allowed herself to be bullied by her HV.

I'd be interested to know why a government that's forever pushing its 'breast is best' policy in new mums' faces has taken so long to change growth measurements. Ministers have been under pressure for a while to introduce World Health Organisation standards for baby growth, following fears that the formula-based growth charts are leading to the overfeeding of young children but have taken their time. The Child Growth Foundation complains the government could have got new charts in place a year ago.

One woman who had a child at the same time as me was so traumatised by the entire weigh-in misery (she was forced to introduce formula for her son at a few weeks old due to 'poor' weight gain) she more or less decided to have another child almost straightaway so she could have another go at getting breastfeeding right. Is it just me or is there something wrong with a health system that makes women feel so bad about themselves? Second time round, she's more confident and planning to ignore any pressure from her HV to supplement.

There's never any shortage of propaganda telling women to breastfeed their babies, but there's a lack of proper guidance and support (like the right growth measurements) to help new mums achieve all that the NHS tells us we should. It annoys me when people suggest breastfeeding's an innate skill, because I believe it's something you have to learn, like speaking French or driving a car. The result is that many women don't breastfeed, because often they've been let down by a system that doesn't give them the right help and advice, just lots of guilt-inducing leaflets.

Posted 14 August 2007 13:51 | Number of comments: 19 | Comments

Breastfeeding Childcare Dilemmas

PostingOver the sea

view to FifeI'm still getting the hang of blogging, so might be wrong about this. If so, please let me know. But I get the impression postings about things that go less well in my life are more interesting than happy rhapsodies about the Scottish countryside, flora, fauna and trees, or similar. Even I can only take so much of the "Hello Trees!" type of posting.

I would drop my cheerier postings altogether but I like to let you know about the happy side of my life. You see, I don't want to give the wrong impression that my life is one long misery-fest, because nothing could be further from the truth. So I try to include some more upbeat postings about the nice things that happen. But the nice postings can be, well, let's be honest, a teeny bit dull.

Perhaps all writing thrives on conflict, including blogging, and there ain't enough of that in 'my family day out' on the hills. But one of the several reasons why I blog - Gather material for a book on parenting! Release the frustrated journalist in me! - is to create a record of these early years with the Bean.

Before I blogged I kept a diary, now dusty and neglected, in which I recorded her milestones and stories of our days together. Mother at Large is the on-line equivalent. So I want her to see we had fun together, in amongst everything else.

Though speaking of family days out, there's one coming up next week that could be filled with conflict aplenty. Granny, Bean and I are planning to try and take the new hovercraft across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh to Fife (the Firth of Forth is pictured above) one day next week. For people who don't know Scotland that well, the Forth is a narrow strip of sea that runs inland from the North Sea across a good chunk of central Scotland.

Granny's especially keen because OAPs get on board free. Provided, that is, the grandchild of the OAP in question hasn't ransacked their handbag and lost their free bus pass.

I say 'try' to take the hovercraft because the Edinburgh papers are full of accounts of long queues for this service, with bust-ups between other OAPs who've had the same idea as Granny and have been waiting hours to get aboard.

The OAPs won't be the only ones to get tetchy at delays. Beanie will tolerate ten-minute waits max, before she goes nuclear, so if the queues are still as bad next week we'll have to turn back.

I'm not even sure what there is to do in Kirkcaldy, assuming we manage to get there.

The town's dubious claim to fame in my family is as the erstwhile home of my father's aunt - a redoubtable old lady who made her disapproval of my mother quite plain. According to Granny (who is from Yorkshire) this aunt said to my father at their engagement party: "Och! Could you not have found yourself a nice Scottish girl?" We didn't see much of this aunt - transport links to Fife and her range of social pleasantries being what they were.

I'll keep you posted on how we get on next week.

Posted 20 July 2007 12:29 | Number of comments: 15 | Comments

Daughters Dilemmas Edinburgh Etiquette Granny Out and about Domestic chaos Fun

PostingMum-upmanship

Cover illEver worried about 'mum-upmanship' at mum-and-baby coffee mornings? Thought there was something wrong with you for fretting you had little in common with the other mums? Had 'knickers made of barbed wire' tugging at your post-natal stitches?

If so, help is at hand. A small and entertaining book, Staying Sane, by Kathy Miller, (Portico Books, £6.99), has 99 suggestions to stop yourself going mad when you become a mother. Including tackling mum-upmanship and painful underwear.

There are lots of great tips on keeping it together through your child's babyhood and toddler years that struck a chord with me.

These are some of my favourites:

1. When motherhood seems intolerable, remind yourself quite how much you disliked being a childless singleton.

2. Just because you have a child doesn't mean you have to make instant friends with everyone from your nearest Mums and Babies group.

3. When contemplating the desirability of divorce, go to a party. "Chances are you will have your evening spoiled by a self-important oaf whose prejudices, politics or misogyny ensure that when you snuggle up to your husband in bed that night, you thank your lucky stars you ended up with him," writes Miller.

PS - I know this tip is true. It worked a treat for me at my French evening class.

4. "Just because you coped with tricky types at work doesn't mean you should do it now," she warns. "Try to concentrate on women whose company gives you a boost and don't let yourself be undermined by competitive, critical or gossipy women."



5. "Avoid complete paranoia by resolving to consult a medical dictionary as rarely as possible to check up on childhood ailments,"she says. Otherwise you end up catastrophising about all manner of ailments. Same would go for internet, presumably.

The tone is cheery, light-hearted and positive. There are lots of lovely cartoon illustrations by Louise Quirke. Miller doesn't patronise her audience, or preach. As a mother of three young daughters, two of them twins, she plainly knows what she's talking about.

I didn't agree with every suggestion - there was one about wrapping your head in a pashmina I couldn't understand - but overall I liked Staying Sane a lot. It'd be a good gift to any new mother. Along with the valium and ready meals.

Posted 11 July 2007 22:46 | Number of comments: 19 | Comments

Dilemmas Domestic chaos Etiquette Fun Home Missing sanity

PostingThin line

It's a fine line between diligent parenting and utter lunacy, as Dulwich Mum was saying the other day. The trouble is telling when you've crossed the line. What self-respecting lunatic parent is gifted with self-awareness?

A nasty bout of what could be parental paranoia kicked off yesterday morning. Or then again it might be normal maternal instincts to protect my child. Don't ask me.

It started when I staggered up the hill to take The Bean to nursery. She couldn't be happier at nursery these days, sometimes waving and clapping as we approach.

I wasn't so thrilled, though, at our arrival. My heart started pounding and my knees went shaky at the sight that greeted us. Was I being negligent in leaving The Bean here?

The security gate into the front garden was swinging open, beckoning in anyone from the street. This isn't just a garden gate; it has an intercon and buzzer for access to the inner nursery sanctum.

Big boys and girls - by which I mean pre-schoolers - play in this garden, admittedly watched over by nursery staff. It's about the fourth time in a fortnight I've found it wide open.

I wheeled her through the garden, past the climbing frame, discarded tractors and trikes, to a second security door in the actual nursery buildings. That, too, was wide open.

The nursery insists its biggest defence is that staff never leave the children alone. I can't relax  knowing the doors are often left open.

Nursery has been responsive to my concerns. They've put up notices remininding people to shut the doors behind them. And they've promised to get a locksmith to check the latches.

There's not a locksmith in the world can do anything about people who won't shut the door or gate behind them.

So yesterday I explained again to The Bean's key worker why it's maybe not such a good idea to leave the doors open. She said a locksmith was coming out again this week to ensure the doors locked properly.

At times like this, I rejoice in the sheer good fortune of having a husband. This called for reinforcements.

Once on the case, he called the nursery, then rang back with good news. The nursery was planning to remind every parent individually that same evening to shut the security doors.

When I went to pick The Bean up later that day, a nursery sentry stood guard at the garden gate.

The upshot? Relief, but also fear I made a big fuss about nothing. Since the miscarriage I've had heightened fears of all sorts about loss - awake and in dreams. So this might be personal paranoia. Or maybe it's the reaction of any responsible parent.

I'm not alone in these concerns. Caroline Dunford writes amusingly about how she handled similar dilemmas in leaving her little boy, 'The Emperor', at playgroup in her wry and entertaining book How to Survive the Terrible Twos (published by White Ladder Press at £7.99). I've just finished Caroline's book, but fear I may be referring back to it frequently in coming months.

What do you think? Please leave a comment!

Posted 10 July 2007 11:34 | Number of comments: 18 | Comments

Daughters Dilemmas Husband Miscarriage Missing sanity Nursery

PostingSleep no more

The Bean is scrabbling at a kitchen cupboard door that her dad and I have barred against her. She tugs at the shiny cream surface, tugs again harder, loses her balance, teeters for a moment, then falls backwards onto her bottom. She emits a shriek of distress and indignation. Mishaps like this happen approximately twenty times daily, but don't normally bother her. On this occasion, however, because she is tired, the fall causes her alarm and distress. It is 9.30am, and we both know she is upset because she's now been up for two and a half hours and is due her morning nap. I silently wonder again how the researchers of a large US university could have decided in their infinite wisdom that letting young children nap could be harmful for them.

Looking smaller than usual sat down on the floor, she lifts up her arms to signal she wants to be held. I bend down to pick her up, cuddle her close to me, and carry my small, disconsolate daughter through to her bedroom, where I draw the window shutters, and lay out her sleep bag in her cot ready for her. She is too tired even to demand to play with her dreamcatcher or inspect her flowery chicken mobile that hangs from the ceiling. Go straight to the cot. Do not pass the toy basket. Do not pause to play with festive Santa bib.

I lift her into the cot, get her left arm into the hole of the sleep bag, then manage to remove her right-hand thumb from her mouth long enough to get the other arm into the bag. In another well-honoured part of our morning ritual she reaches out for the well-chewed form of Mr Bear, her faithful bed-time companion, clutches him to her, and reinserts her thumb in her mouth. "I'll be back when you've had a sleep," I tell her, but she's not listening. She's already shut her eyes, curled onto her side, and is slurping on her thumb, zoned out.

Every morning that The Bean is at home (not nursery) she has a nap on similar lines to this one she had this morning. Not just so that I can use the time to clean, do emails, chat on the phone or catch up on work, though, my goodness, it's great to have the chance to do that, but because she needs the rest, otherwise life becomes too much for her. She hasn't got the energy yet to get through a full day without a sleep top-up.

But woe betide me! For now research from Florida University says that daytime napping prevents children sleeping well at night - and could even impair mental performance. They say children's puzzle-solving abilities can deteriorate when they take longer daytime naps. I might have known it. Is there no area of parenting free of some controversial new recommendation? Pregnancy, toys, food, sleep.... none of it simple, all filled with advice from the so-called 'experts'. Who could be more 'expert' on whether my daughter needs a nap than me and her?

Now, I haven't read the full findings of the Florida survey, which I'm sure is well-intentioned and thoroughly researched. I read a summary of its findings over on Mumsnet. But the idea that day-time naps are harmful completely contradicts my personal experience. There's no way The Bean - 14 months old - could cope with a day lasting from 7am to 7pm without at least one nap. She'd be hysterical and grumpy.

This latest research into naps reminds me of last week's story that pureed food was bad for babies. What have we parents done to deserve so many scare stories that overturn so much received wisdom? Maybe the answer is that young (well, okay, I'm no spring chicken, nearly 40, so not that young) parents are a good target market for this material - you know, largely clueless, impressionable, desperate to do their best, lacking instruction manual or, indeed, clear instructions from the child herself. Ready to listen to anything that promises The Solution. Well, that's what I'm like, though in fairness I've gained a lot in confidence over the past months.

But it seems like the advice to parents changes all the time. This year's new parents are told to put baby to sleep on his back, scared witless by stories about what might happen if they don't. The previous generation was given exactly the same lines about how babies should sleep on their fronts, for the same reasons. In another ten years the 'experts' will doubtless change the advice again - but stick with the same dire warnings.

What really gets to me is that all these parenting gurus like to impart their advice with the message that if you don't follow it to the letter, disastrous consequences will ensue - with the pureed food research the authors said babies could get addicted to gloop, constipated and eventually obese. That surely can't be true, can it? In this instance, it's the threat of impaired mental performance. I don't know. Maybe they're right, and I'm stupid and cynical to suspect otherwise. What do other people think? Are we right to give our children day-time naps? Are we being preyed on by a parenting advisory industry?

Posted 29 June 2007 23:09 | Number of comments: 13 | Comments

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PostingProtest march

I've always been a literal-minded sort of person.

So when the Bean began screaming in protest today as I strapped her into her summer chariot it was something of a double whammy.

Firstly, though I suppose I would say this, her hysterical anger seemed a tad out of proportion to my crime. You know, maybe a little OTT when I was only trying to take her home for her tea.

My only response to her fury was to adopt my automaton air hostess voice. Something along these lines: "Will passenger Bean please remain calm, return to her seat, stow her seat table away and fasten her seat belt."

They'd have had her up for air rage on any flight. She countered by rearing up out of the buggy, a full two feet of small girl held rigid with the force of her rage.

I looked round furtively, afraid lest someone might hasten to the Bean's aid and call social services.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I'm doubly dismayed because the Bean is only 14 months old, a stage I thought was still meant to involve cherubic innocence. Too early for pram strikes, sit-ins (well, stand-ups, in this case) and unpredictable boycotts. And if this is the warm-up, what's the main event going to be like?

So it seems I was too literal when I thought the terrible twos were exactly that, an affliction that began on second birthdays and ended on the third. I never reckoned on this stuff beginning a full ten months before she turned two.

I blame nursery. She must have got together with the other babies. They've been giving each other ideas as they hang out, drinking Babycinos, doing their chalk drawings.

Yes, they've clearly been talking to the union, finding out their rights, ganging up on their poor, frightened bourgeois parents. Mark my words, one day it's pram strike, the next they'll be toddling through Paris to overthrow the reactionary 'system'.

Where will it all end?

Posted 25 June 2007 23:43 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Daughters Dilemmas Out and about

PostingA good man

"Then get down on your knees and thank God for a good man," says Granny.

I am telling Granny how the Bean's dad gets up every morning at whatever very un-Godly hour his daughter awakes, then looks after her until it's time for him to go to work, while I enjoy a lie-in. Not bragging. Just casually explaining household workings.

"He's more of a morning person than me."

I'm lying sick in bed with flu, as she berates me. Too sick to genuflect as instructed. Too sick even to blog. Much too sick to disagree with anything she says. Even when she calls the Bean a little potato.

I give a humble, token nod at the carpet to indicate I take her point about knees. Just a gentle nod, though. Don't want to hurt my sore head.

Then I reassert myself: "Mum, it's not just him. It's this generation of men. They all help out more with childcare, the house."

"Even so," says Granny, in a certain tone of voice. "Even so. To have a man who'll get up every morning and look after your child, leaving you to sleep..... "

She used this exact annoying tone years ago, obliquely reproaching me for some poor judgement in my love life via discussion of the novel Vanity Fair. This is what comes of both being English graduates. An end to direct communication. Everything couched via easy-to-misunderstand literary references.

Needless to say, she was enchanted when I met Jack (also, surely no coincidence, an English grad). The afternoon I first took him to meet her, he bounded down the pathway to her house, huge bouquet of flowers and chocolates in his hands, desire to please writ large on his eager, honest brow. She almost visibly melted.  I could see the relief in her eyes that I'd picked a good 'un.

Three years later, and in between the chaos of looking after the Bean, both of us working, me trying to get established again professionally and keeping up with friends, I do forget to be grateful for how much he does to help me. It's easier to pick holes in his bottle-warming technique than remember to be grateful he does it all in the first place, even if it's not quite to my personal specifications.

Then this morning an article in The Times "Need a child-friendly dad? Then get divorced" reminded me to count my blessings. The writer of the article made the sad claim that divorced women get more support from their children's fathers than married ones do, saying many married dads spend more time at the office than they need to because it's less exhausting than the bath-and bed-time rigmarole at home. How grim.

So, for the record, I am grateful that Jack doesn't mind getting up early with the Bean, often around 6am, to supervise her loading and unloading items from various receptacles she's commandeered for her corner of the kitchen: waste-paper bin; laundry basket, computer packaging. A couple of mornings last week she was so tired by this ritual that no sooner had Jack gone to work than she was ready for a nap, meaning I got to lie in until 9am. Even I can't find anything to complain about in that.

Posted 23 June 2007 12:50 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

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PostingAll in good time

Set in stone My husband and I cannot agree on what “leaving in good time” means. Last week was our  first parents’ evening at nursery – a momentous event in our small household. We built up to this for days beforehand. Somehow we still ended up half-running through Edinburgh’s early evening drizzle, sans umbrella. We arrived dishevelled, damp and out of breath.

When I'm not blaming my husband for our poor time management,  I blame poor Granny. After she arrived to babysit for our big night, an hour slid by. We rifled through cupboards filled with small plastic containers, tidied away toys. I produced breadsticks, cereal bars, potted apple puree; lifted down boxes of formula. Made cups of tea; relocated the remotes, chatted, got daughter to bed, and there we were, time to go. Another ten minutes vanished looking for glasses, applying lipstick, brushing hair, smoothing on “product”. Whoosh.

Jack and I clattered downstairs, giddy with the freedom of a rare night out. Then we looked at his watch, and panicked.

“We should have left earlier,” I began.

“I was ready a good half hour before you,” he said, in a mild way.

“No, you weren’t,” I retorted, knowing what he said was true.

“I think you'll find I was. I was waiting for you but didn't say anything as I didn't want to rush you.”

"You should have said something!" I blustered.

We began half-running/half-walking along Edinburgh's cobbled lanes, skeetering in our haste over treacherous, uneven stones lying sleek and smooth with rain. Every so often Edinburgh Council erects huge tents over the road, digs up these cobbles, cleans them and replaces them to make road surfaces smoother. Within months they revert to the default of their old uneven ways, set, as it where, in stone. The butterflies in my stomach refused to settle. Not a product in the world could have stopped my hair frizzing.

We could have driven, but decided lack of both parking skills and spaces might make it quicker on foot.

“You can slow down. We’ve got a good ten minutes to get there,” my husband tried to persuade me.

“No! We can’t be late. We’ve got to keep going, it'll take at least ten minutes to get there,” I insisted.

Of course I caved.  Ground to a halt. Wheezed.

“We should slow down. I don’t want to be all out of breath when we get there. I want to make a good impression. What will all the other parents think if we arrive like this?” I preached to my converted husband.

"Why do you care so much what other people think?" he asked.

I had no answer.

The grown-ups had reclaimed nursery for the evening. Someone showed us into a large room with drinks set out next to the Wendy House. We demisted our glasses. Under the felt-tipped airplane with pictures of children's heads pasted to the seats stood one mother. Over by the window stood another. That made four of us in the room. A nursery assistant brought us our drinks. Grimaced.

"Nice weather, isn't it? The other parents'll be along shortly I expect. Must have got held up by the weather."

Posted 06 June 2007 11:00 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

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PostingHappy campers

The first family holiday is a shock. Ours wasn't a holiday at all, not in the strictest sense. We worked harder than I've done in some paying jobs. It was hard graft. Day and night. Each evening I squirted my milk into a bowl and mixed it up with powdered baby rice for my daughter. I still remember the sound it made hitting the plastic. It was fun. But in an unfamiliar, cow-like way. I felt sad at losing the old freedoms. In private, I cried.

Back in the heady days of coupledom we used to book a cheap flight somewhere, then wing it, smug about being proper "travellers". We only once came to grief, descending from a Cevennol mountain to find a room for the night in the valley. A Festival de Cinema had taken all the accommodation in a 10k radius. No room in the inn. Again, I cried.

The nice monsieur in the local hotel rang round. After many worried looks, he found us somewhere and sent us off with rabbit stew for our supper. After all he'd done for us, I had no heart to confess my husband was vegetarian. The cottage was grim; no windows. The bed too small to accommodate me or husband. I woke several times with nightmares, unsure if awake or asleep. A long night.

We left the next day, both blaming the other, and got a room in the hotel, which all the actors had by then finally left. We stayed for two days, because we had no money and the one cashpoint in the village was in a shop that didn't open until for another two days. The hotel staff asked every time they saw me "Ca va mieux?", which seemed to translate as "You're not going to have a nervous breakdown on our premises, are you?"

Not wishing to risk a repeat of this on a family holiday, we've agreed to plan ahead. I'm not experienced in any of this, but we're ruling out hotels. Either we'd have to leave daughter alone in the room while we got our meal. Or sit there in silence and darkness from 7pm.

The obvious solution would be self-catering. But that would mean booking a place for a week or fortnight, and then we'd be stuck. I've a yen for adventure, and would love some of the old spontaneity.

So we're investigating tents. I discovered on Saturday tent brands are named after birds. Buzzard, Hawk, Shrike. It speaks of freedom. Prairie, Roadrunner, Vista, Oregon, Halo, Aurora. Challenge and adventure. In my imagination, I'm there. But our daughter is already ahead of us. Her Pop-Up Activity Tent arrived home yesterday.

Posted 03 June 2007 20:19 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

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PostingFeminine mistakes

An article on the excellent News for Parents site reports that an American writer has stirred up controversy with a book arguing that mothers who don't work could be risking their financial security, as well as their happiness.

In The Feminine Mistake, Vanity Fair journalist Leslie Bennetts warns stay-at-home mums that their decision to give up economic self-sufficiency and rely on their partner could have disastrous consequences.

The book's title's an ironic nod to fellow American writer Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, the groundbreaking work credited with launching the feminist movement. The book attacked the idea a husband and children were all a woman needed for fulfillment.

The latest book's stirred up a hornet's nest in the US, where according to poor Bennetts, stay-at-home mums are "burning up the blogosphere denouncing me". Last time I checked there were no fewer than 68 heated reviews of the book on Amazon alone, most of them huffy and defensive, all defending the writer's personal choices on working or not working.

Bennetts, herself a working mum, insists she only wants to alert women to dangers in giving up work to rely on a partner's income, like divorce, or a husband losing his job. My fellow blogger Omega Mum over at 3kidsnojob can tell you all about the latter scenario in her entertaining account of what happens when a husband loses his job, in their case through no fault of his own.

Bennetts also says that women who take career breaks planning to get back to work once the kids are ready should know they will take a huge salary hit - and might not get back to the same level at all. And there's also the sense of self-worth that women can gain outside the home. Plus pension entitlement. I'll see what she says about part-time work-at-home mums, and let you know about that.

The report was mostly manna to my web-weary eyes after a sorry day filling up the depleted Mother at Large household coffers. But why do I need a US author I've never even met to validate my parenting choices? Why do I need to read this to feel okay about how I arrange my life? Am I the only mother who needs approval from a book I've not yet read for choosing to work? I'd like to see a time when women can make career decisions without reference to a battery of parenting experts. Then again, maybe most women already do.

Posted 30 May 2007 22:44 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

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PostingMoney talks

A new survey provides further proof, not that we should need it, that we working mothers are not a bunch of sybaritic "have-it-alls" after all. It proves what many of us probably knew all along: many, if not most, mothers who work do so because their families need the money.

Research published by Scottish Widows says the cost of running a home means that almost half the nation's households need more than one breadwinner to maintain what it calls an "acceptable" standard of living. In other words, most women don't have much choice about whether to work. And those are the households without kids.

What's worse, the firm says: "When it comes to those with dependent children, the need for two incomes increases, with one in two households relying on both partners working."

It notes: "Those with children have, as would be expected, higher levels of debt on both loans and credit cards than those without."

Apparently, the average household with two dependent children is £106,600 in debt, a whopping £19,100 more than the average household without children.

So if any mother reading this is feeling alone in having to return to work to help pay the bills, or guilty about it, now you know you're in good company - about half the rest of the country, in fact.

Now, I don't know what the survey is defining as an acceptable lifestyle. My idea of a comfortable lifestyle is probably fairly modest by the standards of somebody like Dulwich Mum, bless her, who might well have different ideas on lifestyle, as those 4x4s and Dior handbags don't come cheap.

But I'm guessing that when the survey says households need more than one breadwinner to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, they're talking fairly average, low-key aspirations involving one holiday a year, maybe, a car, a  few evenings out, decent threads for her, some hi-tech gimmickry for the bloke,  the odd weekend away, that sort of thing. We're not talking ruthless ambition here, just funding a reasonable lifestyle.

Reading this survey, which I first came across at Enterprise Nation, I couldn't understand how anyone could call a working mother a "have-it-all" - unless they were referring to her levels of debt.

Posted 28 May 2007 16:38 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

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PostingThe parenting paradox

You just can't win as a parent. It was my health visitor who explained the parenting paradox to me. If you take your child to ballet/football then you're labelled pushy, she explained. If you don't, you'll feel guilty for not encouraging them. Know the sort of thing I mean? Whatever you do, you can't win.

Fellow Edinburgh blogger Littlemummy did an amusing posting the other week on Socially Recognised Parenting Standards. Reading it made me realise we parents will never achieve parenting perfection, because no ordinary human could ever attain the standards we set ourselves.

I started thinking about the never-ending series of exacting rules and parenting commandments that all contradict and conflict with each other. So even if you manage by some feat of superhuman stamina to meet one of them, then you'll be breaking another at the same time. I suppose the only way round this is to concentrate on what we each think is right, and ignore other people's ideas, however well-meant.

These are a few thoughts on some of the main parenting paradoxes

Breastfeeding

Any young mum can tell you of the immense pressure to breastfeed a new baby. Not so many people talk about how only a few months later there's similar pressure to stop. In hospital after having my daughter my boobs became public property, staff were so keen for me to learn this womanly art. Hands came from everywhere to latch the baby on. Someone even told me to follow the "nose to nipple" mantra - a policy that was to cost my poor nipples untold anguish. Then, just about as soon as I got breastfeeding going smoothly, it seemed to be time to stop. No sooner had we got past the toe-curling agony stage of nipple guards and Lansinoh cream, than people were saying things like: "You've got to wonder who's benefitting from this - the mother or the baby."

Mother-infant bonding

Pick up any of the legions of parenting books available now and you'll read about the virtues of responsive attachment parenting, that involves "baby wearing", baby massage, skin-on-skin contact, and breastfeeding. The idea is these practices supposedly promote a strong bond between mother and infant. Fast forward only a few months later and it's all about fostering a healthy sense of individuality and self-assertion on the baby's part, with dark looks cast at clingy babies. How much is a good thing? When does a good thing turn into something bad? How do you get the balance right? Well, it seems you can't, because the goal posts are always moving.

Work vs parenting

This works a bit like this: you're not quite recognised as a proper human being or accorded any status if, as a mother, you don't do some form of paid work, but if on the other hand you do work then you must also express conflict, regret and guilt for doing so. Truly, no-win all round.

Any mother who loves going to work because, as much as anything else, it means they can go to the loo alone never admits as much, but instead expresses stoical regret that her life has worked out this way.

There's more on this theme over at The Bad Mothers' Club. Any thoughts on other parenting paradoxes?

Posted 27 May 2007 16:37 | Number of comments: 9 | Comments

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PostingCutting her teeth

My daughter is teething and I am in crisis. Could she not have picked a better time to grow new teeth? Unstoppable, they are erupting from her swollen gums like jagged icebergs in films where baddies have tampered with the earth's climate, destroyed its natural balance and caused chaos in the Arctic Circle. What little was left of my natural balance has gone too, Titanic to the trauma of her teeth.

My daugher has a nursery "key worker", a competent and kindly young woman who looks about 23 and is childless. It was she who told me that my daughter must be teething, an idea that had not occurred to me. "That'll be her off her food with her molars coming in," she informed me, as if it were obvious. I nodded in agreement to pretend this was indeed obvious.

Four tiny teeth hovering at gum level have destroyed our domestic tranquillity. At bed time last night she rattled the bars of her cot, screaming and roaring like a caged animal. Only an hour and a half and two spoons of Calpol later did we settle her to sleep last night. Someone has recommended frozen celery for teething babies to chew on. "But you have to mind out for the stringy bits," she told me. Presumably in case they stick in her sparkling new teeth.

My daughter and I do not much ressemble one another in many respects, something my husband tries gallantly to pretend is not the case. I am brunette and she is fair, like him. This is mostly a blessing for her, especially as I have bad teeth that an orthodentist once pronounced incurable. With that in mind, I am not much comforted by my husband's attempts to console me about the domestic confusion.  "Look," he told me. "Her teeth are coming in at the same angle as yours."

Posted 24 May 2007 13:47 | Number of comments: 0 | Comments

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