Paradoxes

PostingRing and a prayer

navidad11_Small.jpg Just before the sky darkened this afternoon, I made it out of the house for the first time in three days. I almost skipped along the street, it was such a relief to be somewhere, anywhere that wasn't my bedroom and did not contain damp laundry, memories of round-the-clock nausea, or a re-purposed waste bin. A trip to an out-of-town shopping centre on Christmas Eve might even have lifted my spirits, I was at such a low ebb.

Once I tottered outside, I felt bereft without my sick bin, like when you learn to swim and let go of the edge for the first time. But the most simple experiences assumed proportions of wonder - nodding and smiling to our neighbour - who looks like Cap'n Birdseye and stands outside his tenement in all weathers smoking and grinning through his white beard - was my most exciting, no, let me be more accurate, my only social encounter in days. (I assume he smokes outside because Mrs Birdseye refuses to tolerate it inside, but it might be a throw-back to his nautical days pacing up and down the main deck)

As we passed our local church, Va-vay noticed a sign advertising a children's service. It turned out to be starting in two minutes' time. We dithered in front of the church, not knowing whether to go in, unsure Beanie was old enough, until a man came out to welcome us.  After that, there was no turning back.

For what was one of her first church services, Beanie (twenty one months) behaved impeccably, and sat quietly most of the time on her father's knee playing with his mobile phone. She listened without a sound while the vicar talked us through the arrival in Bethlehem of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and wise men. All was well until we got to the part where the vicar announced he would lead us in prayer:

"And now we are going to talk to God," he explained to the assembled tots and us parents.

At the call to prayer, Beanie pressed a button on the mobile, held it to her ear, assumed an expression of concentration, and piped up: "Hello?"

Who says the spirit of Christmas is dead.

Posted 24 December 2007 00:02 | Number of comments: 4 | Comments

Kit Out and about Paradoxes

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: 10 | Comments

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PostingHappy Birthday, Mother at Large

BirthdayBalloons.gif Posted by Va-vay (husband of Mother at Large)

Regular readers of this blog will know that Mother at Large has hinted that she is nearing her fortieth birthday. Personally, I have no reason to believe that this is true - I think she has just been trying to reinforce her credentials as an older mum. However, she is now claiming that the day has actually arrived! Just in case it really is her fortieth, you are invited to a virtual party to celebrate. As you'll have noticed, I have provided balloons! Please feel free to add congratulations, encouragement or words of wisdom in the comments section.

Mother at Large's own reflections (posted on the eve of her birthday) follow...

Tomorrow I officially enter Vintage Chick territory with my 40th birthday. Am I bovvered? Well, strangely, no. I follow an inverse logic for milestone birthdays, the older I get, the more I enjoy them. Do other people feel this way? You'd think it would be the other way round, but no, life has got better for me as I've got older. Ten years ago, when I turned thirty, I was on the shelf, childless and without even a boyfriend. I had to work my guts out in a job I didn't much like, doing unpaid overtime till all hours, and commuting two hours daily from one of London's scarier outer boroughs, walking to and from Kensal Green Tube past drug dealers and their victims.

Somehow I've managed to turn a corner over the last ten years - I'm lucky in that I do interesting work, live in a beautiful city, am married to the man I love and we have our beautiful daughter Beanie. I don't always like seeing the bags under my eyes, or fatter belly, but they're a badge of honour - show that I'm a mother now.

I'm realistic. Soon, I'll need reading glasses and will go on Saga cruises. I'll embarrass my family by buying their presents out of catalogues selling gadgets for trimming ear hair, orthopaedic slippers and jam jar openers. I'll splash out on complicated trolley-and-hot-plate arrangements for ferrying food from kitchen to table, and invest in a tartan shopping bag with wheels I push into people's legs, unapologetically, while at home I hoard cupboards of biscuits that would allow me to survive a siege. I'll develop crushes on children's TV presenters and  give Granny a run for her money in Sudoko and crosswords. I might even take up golf - you can't fight these things, they come to us all in the end. But I couldn't be happier. I might even chance my arm and say, yes, I'm actually looking forwards to tomorrow.

Posted 08 November 2007 22:41 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Edinburgh Granny Older mother Paradoxes

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

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 they enjoy the banter, get a rest, earn lovely dosh to spend on nice things and can go to the loo alone never admits as much, but instead expresses stoical regret that her life has worked out this way, as if it happened outwith her control.

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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