Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Guilt

Cheers

Pregnant women are being advised not to drink any alcohol during the first three months of pregnancy by a health watchdog that last year said would-be mothers could drink a glass of wine every day. What is it that makes every man, dog and government quango think they have the right to pontificate on how about pregnant women and new mothers should manage our lives? And why can't they at least make their minds up about what they're telling us to do?

The Department of Health said in May last year pregnant women should stop drinking altogether. But the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said a few months later there was no evidence a small glass of wine every day caused any harm after the first trimester. The obstetrician who chaired the group developing the latest abstinence guidelines has admitted the latest guideline changes are not based on any fresh scientific evidence, saying: "There's no evidence of definite harm of drinking that level of alcohol per week [a daily glass of wine] but we are unable to guarantee women that there will be no harm." As if pregnancy isn't hard enough already, you get bombarded with conflicting advice from medics more interested in covering their backs against lawsuits than in looking after vulnerable pregnant women.

Posted 26 March 2008 21:46 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Guilt Health New baby

Time and tide

Erica at Littlemummy and British Parent Bloggers has pointed me towards a story revealing the pressure on mums is so great that we have just ten minutes of 'me-time' every day to ourselves, leading researchers to label our generation as 'motor mums'.

Writing as one who can barely bring herself to drive a car, I'm not sure this is the right label for me. I'm also unsure what counts as 'me-time', which in itself could be sad and telling. Loading and unloading the dishwasher? Cleaning the floors? Vacuuming? The Sisyphean task of laundry management, for which I'm beginning to wonder if I need one of those project management qualifications? Blogging?

I did go to lots of Edinburgh Book Festival events, some of them even on my own. That's got to count. But that was okay because I suffered torments of guilt for my frivolous abandon.

According to the people who came up with this research (a washing powder company) mums have so little time to themselves because they spend most of the day keeping their children happy.

I don't mind not having much 'me-time', (though as I write Beanie is screaming for my attention, annoyed to have lost me in the blogosphere, so I'll have to be quick). Perhaps I'm not being strictly honest with myself - there is tension between her needs, or at least her wants, and mine.

But I had to wait until I was 38 to have Beanie. So I had a super-abundance of 'me-time' before she arrived, some of it great, some okay, and some, well, frankly, lonely; spent wondering if or when Mr Right would materialise, if I'd be able to have a baby. Yes, I know: Bridget Jones, eat your heart out.

Maybe being older has meant a bigger adjustment to devoting most of my waking hours (and quite a few of the sleeping ones, too, on occasion) to another person.

But after waiting so long for her, now Beanie's here, I intend to make the most of it.

Posted 05 September 2007 11:46 | Number of comments: 19 | Comments

Childcare Daughters Guilt News Older mother

Becoming a Mother

Enjoyed hearing Kate Mosse, the author, that is, not the supermodel, speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival earlier this week. Mosse wrote the excellent Becoming a Mother at the start of her writing career, before becoming an international best-seller with her novel Labyrinth. Becoming a Mother is a wonderful book, deceptively simple yet powerful, that helped launch Mosse's fiction writing. And it's helped me immensely too, lifting the guilt and grief I've been struggling with since a miscarriage in May.

Reading Becoming a Mother, I'm reminded of that famous line from Alan Bennett in The History Boys, about how we read books to find that hand stretching out through the darkness to take ours. Bennett's referring to the joy and relief of finding a kindred spirit on the written page, meeting someone who's experienced the same feelings as ourselves when we thought we were alone in them.

Unlike most of the many books I've read on pregnancy and childcare this book doesn't judge any of the ordinary women who feature in it. Instead it tells their stories, starting from the decision to try for a baby through to the early days caring for a newborn. Without preaching or pedantry. Not once does she lay claim to being an expert. Not once does she lay down the law.

Mosse manages to get inside women's heads, and gives voice to many of the conflicting emotions we feel. She understands the rollercoaster of ovulation kits and pregnancy tests, the obsessive weeing on sticks, the running to the loo to check for bleeding every twenty minutes.

On the subject of miscarriage, Mosse quotes one woman unlucky enough to suffer this experience saying:

"I know it is better to lose an abnormal baby - but the loss coincides with the ambivalent feelings you have at the start of the pregnancy. Half-feeling it was a bad idea - even if the pregnancy was planned - just makes you feel guilt when you do miscarry."

That's exactly how I felt when I had a miscarriage in May and I blamed myself for having felt daunted by the prospect of looking after two babies, both of them under two. I thought the new baby must have sensed my ambivalence and thought better of joining us, but couldn't admit this to anyone. Somehow reading that other women have felt the same way has helped me see it's ridiculous to torment myself like this.

Posted 24 August 2007 22:18 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Books Edinburgh Festival Guilt Miscarriage

Bad mother

It's a tricky business, being a mum and an individual. This morning I did something bold and daring, something few mums dare to do - I did something for myself. It wasn't easy, but I persevered, despite all my torment and guilt.

My first crime: taking the phone from my daughter so I could make the necessary calls.

An attempt to placate Beanie by offering her the TV remote control fails.

She simply gives me a look that said: "I'm no fool, you know. I see straight through you. I know you're trying to fob me off with some silly pretend phone."

I feel crushed, though no words have been said.

I remember how only an hour or so earlier she kicked her legs in delight when I fetched her out of her cot and beamed her best smile at me, how she laughed and smiled so readily at me when I played peek-a-boo from behind the shower curtain, how she tried to feed me some of her breakfast, even though I had my own toast and marmalade.

But I really, really need the phone to book some tickets for a couple of Festival events this evening.

I make the call and all hell starts to break loose. Not only have I stolen Beanie's favourite toy, but (my second crime) I am ignoring her and I think she might have also sensed my longer-term objective (third crime) of planning an evening out on my own while her dad babysits.

At first I hope she might settle down after a few minutes. Fat chance.

An attempt to buy on-line doesn't work any better and the computer freezes as I go to click 'submit'. By now tears are rolling down Beanie's face, and I feel like the worst mother in the world as I fight my own rising hysteria.

The guilt's almost unbearable and I force myself to remember how when I was pregnant I was so sick with nausea and joint pain I managed to go out roughly four times in the entire nine months. One of those occasions was an ill-fated trip to the Edinburgh Tattoo, which ended in me throwing up outside the Castle under the wary gaze of a soldier armed with a machine gun.

Someone once told me: 'The healthy mother takes time for herself'. Why can't I believe that's true?

Intermittent shrieking has intensified into one long wail, punctuated only with heart-wrending pauses to draw breath. Only ten minutes have passed, but it feels like eternity.

The computer creaks back to life. 'Your order is confirmed' flashes up on screen. Just as this happens a human being speaks to me on the phone. At least, I think it's a human being, though Beanie's screaming so hard it's difficult to be sure.

Then my brain clears and at last I know what to do. I pick up my daughter, cuddle her close to me and listen to her heaving sobs subside.

Will my guilt lend an extra piquancy to the festival events? Or will I sit there kicking myself for being so selfish? Who knows. She's sleeping now, as I write this. When she wakes up I'll give her my undivided attention - all afternoon.

Posted 22 August 2007 13:28 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Angst Books Childcare Daughters Edinburgh Festival Guilt Out and about

Why not to have children

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

Food fight

Following my Wednesday rant here about how nonsensical it is to blame working mums for the rise in child obesity, it seems the food companies are getting worried they might end up taking the rap after all. Maybe passing the buck to working mums isn't, errr..., working so well.

Eleven US food firms are about to announce voluntary self-regulation on how they advertise to children. The UK's Chartered Institute of Marketing is urging British companies to follow suit. The Institute's David Thorp said: "Companies must now face up to their responsibilities and decisions must include the likely impact on society. Responsibility no longer ends at the retailer's shelf and those who market to children must look for ways of promoting a more healthy [sic] diet and lifestyle."

I'm sure the thought never crossed their minds that voluntary self-regulation was a palatable pre-emptive to legislation. Still, any development that stops the ridiculous suggestion that working mothers are responsible for children's expanding waistlines is welcome.

Posted 27 July 2007 14:03 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Food Guilt Work vs mothering

Extreme childcare

I'm no great fan of posh gel Katie Hopkins from the BBC programme The Apprentice, though bless her, anyone who behaves like that must surely have "issues", but even I cringed at her grilling last week on television on the old chestnut of childcare arrangements for her two young daughters. I suspect we've now probably all heard enough about poor old Katie, who might not have got the apprenticeship but has assuredly been appointed pantomime villain to the nation.

But it got me thinking about "help" with childcare again, what's acceptable, what's not. At least Katie appeared to be living with her children, who were looked after by herself and other family. You can't say as much for every mother of young children. I know of one Edinburgh "mum" who spends four days a week working in the City of London, while a team of nannies looks after her little girl back here in Scotland, ferrying her to and from school, ballet lessons, tea parties etc, organising after-school. Some couples employ "night" and "weekend" nannies. And all this is before the kids become old enough for boarding school - the other big parental cop-out. Of course I love nothing better than getting on my moral high-horse and being all judgemental about other people's parenting. I only do it so I won't feel so bad about daughter's twice-weekly time at nursery, and one day with her reprobate Granny.

Posted 12 June 2007 13:33 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Childcare Daughters Granny Guilt Work vs mothering

Vicious circle

My heart sank this morning when I read in The Times about yet another pregnancy survey that will alarm many mothers and mothers-to-be. Apparently women who suffer stress in pregnancy transmit their anxiety to their unborn child from as early as 17 weeks. Stress levels in foetuses as young as four months old rise and fall in line with those of their mothers.

The Times quotes a midwife for Tommy's, the baby charity, saying: "What is now clear is that high levels of stress in pregnancy can in some cases be detrimental to the health of the baby and to remain as stress-free as possible is certainly important."

The researchers, though doubtless well-meaning, seem to have forgotten something important in all this - stress is part and parcel of being pregnant. At least, it is for me. Pregnant women are biologically programmed to worry about anything that might present a danger to them or their child(ren) - and pregnancy is a stressful time.

Professor Vivette Glover of Imperial College London, who carried out the research, has suggested previously that the greater the stress felt by a mother, the lower her baby's IQ. The babies of stressed mothers are also more likely to be anxious and show signs of attention-deficit disorder.

Medical staff have responded to the findings by asking the family, friends and employers of pregnant women to give adequate support and reassurance during their pregnancy.

Consultant obstetrician Pampa Sarkar who worked with Professor Glover on the research is quoted in The Times saying: "We do not wish to unduly worry pregnant women. It should be remembered that one of the best ways for people to avoid general stress is to lead a healthy, balanced lifestyle."

Pregnancy is stressful at the best of times, even with a supportive family. Will the baby be okay? How will I cope? Will I be a good mother? How will my relationship with my husband change? Will he still fancy me? What will the birth be like? What about my work? Will we be okay on one income? How will wider family politics change? What on earth have I got myself into? Will I ever get a good night's sleep again? Why has he got all the duvet on his side?

Posted 01 June 2007 09:36 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Angst Guilt Parenting gurus Perfectionism Pregnancy

The 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

Angst Breastfeeding Daughters Dilemmas Guilt Paradoxes Parenting gurus Work Work vs mothering

Choosing a nursery

Apparently a chain of London nurseries is promising guaranteed happiness for children or giving parents their money back. After children have been there six weeks it will measure their happiness using a series of 'observational methods'.

It's a clever marketing wheeze to exploit parental guilt for leaving their children in nurseries in the first place to go to work, although why we should feel guilty for doing this has never been entirely clear to me.

Anyway, it started me thinking about what we can expect from nurseries and how to choose one. I'm no expert on any of this stuff, but these are my thoughts.

Beware the sycophants

One nursery kept talking in its marketing material about "your VILP". VILP? Very Important Little Person. Oh, for goodness' sake.

Watch staff when they're out and about in your area

I don't mean go all weird and spy on them! But I was really impressed by staff from the nursery we eventually chose, because they came across as professional and courteous in the street, whenever I bumped into them.

Location, location, location

Ideally your nursery is near you, and en route to work

Visible, involved owner?

Ideally with long-term plans to be involved. Most nurseries do a good job, but like any other business they've no doubt attracted their share of charlatans.

Realistic, sane staff

It makes me nervous when people promise the earth, the moon and stars.

Check out what the inspectors think

The Care Commission has good nursery and pre-school reports available to anyone online that will tell you a lot.

Ask around

Find out its informal reputation from other parents

Spend time there

If they have a problem with you wanting to hang out there for a little while, that's worth knowing in itself.

Instinct

Is this a place you'd like to spend time yourself?