Life, Love, and Looking for the Positive (with Bon Jovi)

The view from my ‘office’ this morning

Reading the latest post from The Belle Jar yesterday, and from Miss Fanny P this morning, about how hard it is reconciling being a Mum with being a person, I couldn’t help but pour out a long heartfelt reply of agreement.

I spent the entire summer holiday sleeping in defence against being in a situation I couldn’t change, even though it was a situation of my choosing.

This was my comment on Miss Fanny P’s blog:

“Ah, I can so relate. I spent most of the school holidays ‘napping’ and I thought it was a virus. Only when it went on for two months did I realise it was my body’s way of escaping an unwanted but unavoidable situation.

There was a great post on The Belle Jar yesterday about losing self when you become ‘Mummy’. It’s so true. We make our choices but from a really limited set of options. Hubbie was telling me this weekend that he read some of my old work notes and realised how very good I used to be at my job and it made me so sad, because even though I didn’t quit to become a mum (rather to be an artist, which didn’t work out) I lost all ability to go back as soon as the children got used to having me at home.

If you’re a working mum from the beginning, fine, because that’s the child’s normal. But to take kids at 4 and 5 and say, ‘Mummy’s going to leave you with a childminder at 8am and pick you up at 6pm’, that doesn’t feel fair. So when hubbie says I could go back, start at the bottom rung because of my seven years out (yay!) and the kids will adapt, that doesn’t really feel like a choice.

But I know in my head how lucky I am, and that most working mums wish they could drop their kids at school and go write novels in the coffee shop (because they tell me all the time, like working 30 hours a week to make £20 a month is so great). I yearn to be Amanda Martin, instead of Mummy. Of course I’d feel different if my books actually sold, but still I feel I’m making the best of the crappy options rather than steering my own craft in the river of life. And so, when despair takes hold, I sleep. And sleep. And sleep.”

“There’s no going back on the highway of life” Bon Jovi

I meant every word, at 9am this morning, having survived the weekend with chunks of time hiding in bed. But as I left the coffee shop in the sunshine, and walked through shadow-patterned pavements and a summer scented churchyard, stopping to order a balloon for my son’s birthday, I realised the feelings were fading. I smiled, with sun on my face and a blue sky behind the trees above.

Even driving to my Gyn appointment (because that’s what every woman wants on her first day of term-time freedom) listening to Bon Jovi, I realised I’m not unhappy with my lot. Frustrated, yes. Struggling, definitely. But not unhappy. I did make my choices, possibly for the first time. For the first time life didn’t dictate my path, I did.

I’ve been going through my first ever novel this week, with a view to editing it for my next release. Oh my. It’s not a novel it’s a bad biography. My ‘character’ is just me. All her opinions are mine, and boy is she miserable. I wrote the novel between the birth of my first child and my second (and lord I hope it gets better, or it’ll need more than a complete rewrite, it’ll need a miracle!)

I read this section this morning (it’s all this bad, but it just shows how far I’ve come as a writer, that’s what I tell myself).

“That sense of belonging she had assumed she’d find at university continued to elude her. So she had thrown herself into her studies, determined at least to graduate with a high grade and get the perfect job, whatever that was. She had never been clear about that point – still wasn’t really. An accidental career, that’s what her CV should say. She admired friends who had a passion, “I want to be a …” fill in blank. It didn’t matter, Doctor, Dentist, Film Producer, Bin Man. It didn’t matter what someone’s passion was, just that they had one. Hers had been to have a family, to belong somewhere: she had paid a steep price for that knowledge.”

Oh yes, that’s me. It goes on to describe my final year at uni, when my boyfriend snogged someone else on NYE and how I wandered in a fog of despair for months until I suddenly realised I had six weeks to write my dissertation and save my degree. The despair hadn’t been losing the bloke (although I thought so at the time. In hindsight it was a lucky escape), it was losing a vision for the future.

Up until then I’d followed the system. GCSEs, A Levels, University. But I didn’t know what to do once I had to make my own choices. I ended up taking the first job I got, survived four years of mega-stress, broke down and ran away to New Zealand.

I could go on, but really my life summarises into trying to find love, a place to belong and a job where I felt useful and appreciated.

“One man’s ceiling’s another man’s sky” Bon Jovi

Fast forward a decade or two and I have a gorgeous husband who I love, who loves me and treats me well. I have a place I belong and a job where I am (mostly) useful and appreciated. I am Mummy. I fit. I belong. I have an identity. And, much as I hate to admit it, because I feel it’s only using a tenth of my brain, I’m actually quite good at it.

And I chose it. I wanted babies. They weren’t an accident, they were a choice. Okay I didn’t have a scooby what being a parent meant or how ill-equipped I was to be one, but I’m doing okay.

I’m doing everything I wanted to do. I’m dropping my kids off at school, I’m writing novels and using my creativity. Three days out of seven I have hours of freedom. Right now (having had my gyn appointment and tried to sell a book to the nurse who has known me since I was nine) my ‘office’ is a parked car on a hillside (because the neighbours have builders in!), with a chill autumn wind blowing through the open windows, a clear blue sky overhead and Bon Jovi on the stereo singing a bunch of optimistic songs full of messages of hope and fight (better still, it’s a CD I somehow never listened to and only found this weekend, so it’s full of new stuff!)

Some Bon Jovi wisdom 😉 –

“We weren’t born to follow”

“Back when we were beautiful, before the world got small, before we knew it all. Back when we were innocent, I wonder where it went, let’s go back and find it”.

“Can I be happy now? Can I let my breath out? Let me believe, I’m building a dream, don’t try to drag me down.” Bon Jovi

A decade ago I would have stared at the blue sky out the tinted office windows, before going to some stupid meeting where actually I was mostly unappreciated. In the evening I would have hooked up for a beer with an ex who definitely didn’t appreciate me.

Then I signed up to UDate, met hubbie, and the rest, as they say, is history.

When I’m struggling with my lack of choices, I have to pause and remember how fortunate I am and that it’s all about context. I jokingly said to Miss Fanny P that my life will start when the children leave home and I can set up my Writer’s Retreat in the Welsh hills. But my life is now, I just have to look for it.

“Home is where you are and where I am” (Bon Jovi)

Lately Facebook has become my therapy, strange as that sounds. Between the positivity posts and the Humans of New York UN world tour (seriously, subscribe, it will change your life) I am strangely optimistic. I just need silence and time away from the children’s tantrums and histrionics to remember! 😉

As Bon Jovi says, “You’ve got to learn to love the world you’re living in”

(All lyrics from The Circle album)

Art in August #26 – Daughter’s YouTube Tutorial Art

Proud of her robot

Today’s Art in August is dedicated to my amazing five-year-old daughter who, inspired by Mummy painting Elsa from a YouTube tutorial, has been drawing from tutorials for the last four hours.

I have never seen her concentrate so hard and work for so long at something without input from Mummy and Daddy. Not only has she focussed and chatted along to the videos, she has produced some excellent pictures.

When no one was watching she didn’t get frustrated at mistakes and, on some of the videos, there were even other children doing the drawings too, so she could see others making errors.

My daughter tells people that when she grows up she wants to be an author and an illustrator. In fact, she will tell people she already is both of those things, because she makes books and illustrates them (I believe in visualisation).

Concentrating hard

But today is the first time I’ve seen her really work on her drawings, rather than producing endless pictures of (very cute) cats.

YouTube tutorials are amazing. Children take instruction from strangers much better than family members, or mine do anyway.

And after four hours of drawing with a permanent marker, wearing her best party dress, I think she made one small mark on the table and none on herself.

My little girl is growing up and I am so very proud.

Shout out to the following YouTube channels:

DoodleDrawArt
ArtForKidsHub.com
DoodleKat1
Artist Rage
MNMarcel

Sleep: Before and After Children

Today’s survival method

I had one of those nights last night. Actually, who am I kidding? This is what it’s like most nights.

In amidst the weird dreams and the random wakings of a small child I tried to remember as much of it as possible so I could write it down.

It went something like this.

9pm: Both children finally asleep.

10pm: Can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Time for bed.

10.15pm: Read for ten minutes but the words keep merging into bizarre sentences. Lights out.

12am: Husband comes to bed. Trips over something and smashes into the radiator. I’m awake now. But actually that’s okay because I was dreaming I was in the middle of the Syrian conflict. Damn you HONY for humanising it so I can imagine all the stories of the poor people trapped by war.

12.30am: Finally get back to sleep, although husband’s snoring sounds like a frenzied horse. Think about putting the ear plugs in, but my ears are sore from wearing them so much.

3am: Son gets up for a wee, leaves the bathroom light on and comes in to say he can’t sleep. Send him back to bed, but the bathroom light is shining like a searchlight onto my face.

3.15am: Find the energy to get up: son is out cold. Turn out the bathroom light, but the damage is done. I’m wide awake.

3.30am: My brain starts writing this blog post. It has a ‘blogging’ voice that takes over and all I can do is listen. I want it to shut up. Try the meditation breathing techniques I learned from this video, which I discovered through Helen Yendall’s blog post, but it’s not working.

3.45am: Husband’s snoring sounds like an asthmatic bear. It’s ruining my concentration on my own breathing. Meditation isn’t working anyway. The blogging voice won’t be quiet. I’d get up and write some notes but my body seems to be full of cement.

5am: Think I must have slept because son wakes me from a strange dream about being in a supermarket. He doesn’t ask this time, just crawls into bed. I’m too tired to send him away and, after my odd dream, a cuddle is nice.

6am: Son has been stroking my arms and hands for an hour. I feel like ants in running spikes are crawling all over my skin. I keep telling him to stop but I don’t have the energy to send him back to bed.

6.15am: Finally roll over so son can’t reach any bare skin. He finds my feet, which is the worst feeling in the world. I curl up in a ball and eventually he says, “can I have the iPad, Mummy?” Send him away to watch programmes.

6.45am: Daughter comes in to say she needs a poo.

6.50am: Wipe daughter’s bottom. Go back to bed.

7.15am: Son asks if he can go downstairs. I mutter something unintelligible and he goes away.

8am: Son yells that he’s finished. I go and wipe his bottom. Try going back to bed, but it’s too late, I’m up. The in-laws are coming for lunch and I have to tidy the house and make crumble. I feel like I’ve had twenty minutes sleep and half a bottle of vodka. The night seemed a hundred hours long.

I remember what it was like before children. It went something like this:

10pm: TV show is boring, go upstairs to read.

12am: Tear myself away from the book because I have work in the morning and need to sleep.

7am: Alarm goes off. Is it morning already?

Why being an Introvert is toughest in the Summer Holidays

My house, my head, my life…

I finally got to the bottom of my exhaustion today, after a friend on twitter suggested it might be due to my diet. I spent a lot of time musing on what is actually causing it, and whether sugar and caffeine are to blame.

It’s certainly true that there has been more coffee and cake this holiday, as survival against being home with the kids. But, if anything, my diet has been better, as I’ve had the children to feed too. Lunch is more likely to be pasta and veg than marmite toast, and there is much more fruit. I’m also drinking less tea, because I never get a chance to make and finish a cup while it’s hot.

But today I broke. We were meant to go and pick the car up from the garage and then go to the farm. Somewhere between trying to make a picnic as the kids hurled demands at me, and fighting to get two children dressed who declared they didn’t want to go out, I lost it. I walked away, climbed the stairs and crawled into bed. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Followers of this blog will know I am both an introvert and an HSP or Highly Sensitive Person. The latter is a term I hate, because it sounds like something kids would taunt in the playground, but it’s a diagnosis that applies too closely to me to be ignored. Let’s look at the two terms:

Introvert: I found this brilliant definition on the gifted kids website (not because I think I’m gifted, but because I googled it!).

Definition: Contrary to what most people think, an introvert is not simply a person who is shy. In fact, being shy has little to do with being an introvert! Shyness has an element of apprehension, nervousness and anxiety, and while an introvert may also be shy, introversion itself is not shyness. Basically, an introvert is a person who is energized by being alone and whose energy is drained by being around other people.

Introverts are more concerned with the inner world of the mind. They enjoy thinking, exploring their thoughts and feelings. They often avoid social situations because being around people drains their energy. This is true even if they have good social skills. After being with people for any length of time, such as at a party, they need time alone to “recharge.”

When introverts want to be alone, it is not, by itself, a sign of depression. It means that they either need to regain their energy from being around people or that they simply want the time to be with their own thoughts. Being with people, even people they like and are comfortable with, can prevent them from their desire to be quietly introspective.

Being introspective, though, does not mean that an introvert never has conversations. However, those conversations are generally about ideas and concepts, not about what they consider the trivial matters of social small talk.

[Emphasis mine]

Even the garden is a mess

Remind you of anyone? This is me. My life became a different place when I realised I was an introvert and that was okay. I am married to someone who recognises that I need plenty of alone time, and that even having him home in the garage can stop me from fully recharging. I am liberated by the knowledge, but it’s tough to handle at times, especially when most people I know are extroverts and think I’m antisocial or just plain weird.

The parents who tell me they love being home with their kids, love the constant chatter and the laughing and silliness are not introverts. And, possibly, they will never understand why, even though I love my children, it physically pains me to be around them all the time.

Highly Sensitive Person: On the HSP Website, it says this:

Is this you?

Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?

Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?

Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?

Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?

Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?

Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?

Do you have a rich and complex inner life?

When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

I read this list and ticked every single one. I tick them in relief, because so many things I thought were just me being difficult or a freak turned out to be things that other people could relate to. The two bits I’ve emphasised are the ones that have been hardest this holiday. As above with the introvert definition, I “need time alone to ‘recharge'”. This holiday that has been “bed or a darkened room”. A lot. Not very healthy. When the children are at school I recharge by writing and walking the dog, sitting alone in cafes and getting the weekly food shop. None of those options are available to me, so I sleep.

More Playroom Mayhem

Another thing that has exhausted me this holiday is the constant conflict. I hate arguments. I grew up in an argumentative household and any sort of disagreement, even without raised voices, ties my stomach in knots and makes me shake. Recently I’ve been having heart palpitations and there is a permanent knot of angst in my tummy. When I went to get my contraceptive pills this week they wouldn’t give them to me because my blood pressure was high.

Today I realised why.

My children are three and five. They argue all the time. When they’re not arguing, with each other or with me, or having screaming heebie jeebies because their socks are the wrong colour, they’re shrieking with glee, which usually ends in someone crying because they get too hyper. And, try as I might to block it out, I can’t. I’ve been living amidst constant noise and angst and conflict for fourteen hours a day for over four weeks. I have had two hours by myself to recharge. Two hours in four weeks. It’s been five years since I had a child at home full time, and back then they couldn’t talk.

I don’t know if being an introvert and being HSP are the same thing. I don’t think so. But I know that being both, and being a stay at home mum, are definitely mutually exclusive things if you want to stay happy.

My exhaustion is because I’m ‘switched on’ all day. It’s like wearing a heavy rucksack that I can’t put down. It starts off manageable but gets heavier and heavier as the journey continues. So my body copes by shutting down. If it can’t make the noise go away, it will go to sleep and escape that way. That’s my thought anyway. And it makes me sad. I had such great plans for the holiday and, in small doses, I genuinely love spending time with the children, taking them to the park, listening to their shows and reading them stories. But this summer I reached my limit.

‘Painting’ hmmm

I suspect it is all exacerbated by the fact that my children are likely also introverts (with two parents that are, it’s pretty inevitable), so they’re also suffering from being with each other day after day. It’s noticeable that my son, who has had no time by himself, being either at home with his sister or at nursery, has reverted to a tantrummy two-year-old. Normally he has a day or two with me just watching TV and cuddling. Time to switch off. Then he becomes my sweet little boy. At the moment he’s angry and stroppy and teary much of the time. Needless to say that isn’t helping any of our stress levels!

So I just have to hang on. In a week and a half I’ll have a few hours by myself. I think it might take more than one day to regrow the layers of skin that have been stripped away, but just knowing it’s coming is helping me cling on to sanity. It doesn’t help that hubbie is between contracts and at home, but hopefully that at least will be a short-lived situation.

And next year? Like it or not, tears and tantrums or not, even if it’s only for a day a week, they’re going to camp!

What’s Possible Today?

I absolutely love this post. Carpe Diem.

Must Be This Tall To Ride

Marital status aside—my life looks a lot like I thought it would when I was growing up.

I live in the Ohio suburbs. I’m middle class. My child goes to Catholic school now, just like I did.

When I was a kid, I didn’t really know what marriage would look and feel like, so I didn’t spend a great deal of time imagining it.

When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand what separates the financial winners from the losers. And I still don’t. I often feel like a complete failure. But compared to many people (the statistical majority, actually), I’m really doing quite well.

I hold myself to pretty high standards. And maybe that’s not psychologically healthy. But I don’t know how to quit. And I’m not sure I’d want to if I did.

Ask me why I’m 35 and have never been promoted at any of my…

View original post 1,079 more words

Let it Go (Parenting remix)

The dirt never bothered me anyway

I wish I could sing. I’ve fallen a little bit in love with the Let it Go song from Frozen, much to my kids’ disgust. They keep telling me off for singing it. But I love the sentiment and I’ve always had a weakness for a power ballad.

The song plays on loop in my head, going round and round. Slowly new lyrics have started to accompany the song, and suddenly I found myself writing the kind of parody I love so much on social media (like the brilliant Do You Want to Go to Starbucks.)

Unfortunately I can’t sing. I try. I love singing. But I’m always flat. Plus I don’t like cameras – I don’t even like photos of me, never mind video or audio. So all a bit of a waste really, I’m never going to make my perfect parody.

But I did have fun writing the words. When I wrote a romantic version of James Blunt’s Goodbye my Lover for my other half, the band sang it at my wedding. Maybe I’ll find someone to film this for me (and split the advertising revenue if it goes viral! Haha.) Of course there are already a few Mommy parodies, but I like to think I wrote more of my own words!

Let it Go (Parenting Remix)

The toys are strewn on the playroom floor, not a clean space to be seen
A whirlwind of dark destruction and it looks like I must clean

The kids are screaming like their favourite dog just died
I can’t keep calm, heaven knows I’ve tried

Don’t let them win, don’t let them see
How their constant mess is killing me
Just breathe, don’t grieve, don’t get too low
Go with the flow

Let it go, let it go
Can’t fight the mess any more
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and close the door
I don’t care what my friends might say
Let the kids play on

The dirt never bothered me anyway

It’s funny how some caffeine makes everything seem fine
And if that doesn’t quite cut it then I’ll open up the wine

It’s time to take some time for me, read a book or turn on the TV
No guilt, no shame, no endless chores
I’m bored

Let it go, let it go
I can live with the filthy floor
Let it go, let it go,
I won’t get angry any more
Let them paint and make things from clay
Let the kids play on

I tiptoe through the bricks and beads and rainbow bands
I pass the barbie shoes and broken cars and scattered sand

And one thought creeps up on me like a muddy pet
It may be chaos but I aint seen nothing yet!

Let it go, let it go
And I’ll learn to smile again
Let it go, let it go
That perfect house is gone
Here I am in amidst the fray
Let the kids play on

The dirt never bothered me anyway

By Amanda Martin

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Thank You cards

Eleven months ago, my little girl put on her red gingham summer dress, shiny shoes and a huge smile, and went to school for the first time. Today, wearing a bigger red gingham dress, and her second pair of shiny shoes, she held my hand and skipped with me to her last day of Reception.

I am a proud Mummy today. She has had an amazing year. Helped by brilliant, caring teachers, and some how surviving my rages and tears and inability to tie a plait or remember to always order her school lunches, she has flourished. From barely knowing her alphabet she can now read and write and loves nothing more than to spend her free time doing both, when she isn’t doing sums or making robots out of cardboard boxes.

She started the year clinging to one friend and now she has a dozen or more. Although she spent her last morning, like her first, standing by the teaching assistant, there were no tears and I walked out with a happy smile.

It’s hard for a parent to relinquish their child to school. There is difference of opinion, there is letting go. There is dealing with, “but Mummy you’re not a teacher, so you don’t know anything” and “teacher says we have to do this…” There are constant rules, about uniform and behaviour, hair clips and pack lunches, but, frustrating as they are sometimes, the rules are what make it work. It’s about becoming part of a community, working towards a common goal. No wonder it feels new.

First Day at School

I have also started my school journey this year, and I found it as hard. Many times I wanted to relinquish my responsibility and let go, to enrol in breakfast club, after school club, to go back to the world of suits and coffee breaks and feeling like I know stuff, (instead of, “no, Mummy, you’re wrong!”) But I signed up to be a school run mum. It is important to me.

That isn’t a judgement. If I had an office job that I loved, even if that didn’t let me do the school run, that would be amazing too. My daughter has asked to go to breakfast club, and next year possibly she will. But there are few ‘achievements’ for a stay-at-home-writer-mummy. Dropping a happy child in her classroom this morning, skipping the last 100 yards (to applause from a random stranger, which made the knee pain worthwhile), even though I forgot the beautiful handmade cards for the other teachers my daughter wants to thank, made me feel like I’d earned my own gold star.

The summer will fly by, and before long we’ll be getting more shiny shoes and trying on new gingham dresses. But this time I’ll be excited, for her and for me. I think about the Dr Seuss story, ‘Oh the places you’ll go,’ and I know that school is giving her, and me, the ability to move mountains.

A Public Apology and a Heap of Perspective

My lovely mum

I upset my mum with my last post on parenting. I didn’t even think. The post was written as a rant against a British Nanny’s take on the ills of modern parenting. But I confess I was possibly also influenced by having spent a few hours at my mum’s house, feeling like she was criticising me because my kids backchat a lot.

I can’t blame her, they do.

But I shouldn’t get cross and I certainly wouldn’t want to upset her just because we have different views on parenting. Just because we don’t see eye to eye on one little thing doesn’t mean I don’t love her and would certainly never say something to hurt her. I owe her too much for that.

Yes there were elements of my childhood that weren’t great. My dad had about as much patience for parenting as I have, but without my self-awareness and support network. He raged, he occasionally hit, he hated mess and lateness and noise, and I grew up terrified of him. But I still loved him. And I wish he’d lived long enough for me to tell him that I yell just as loud at my kids.

Holidays in Dorset

And yes my parents went down the pub and my sister and I sat with our coke and crisps, but I can’t recall ever minding. In fact I am certain we got up to all sorts of high jinx while our parents were otherwise occupied. We were very good at entertaining ourselves writing notes to strangers through the window on long car journeys or finding things to climb on.

In many ways I had a great childhood, full of freedom and adventure. I spent my formative years in a housing estate in Sussex, with a garden that backed onto fields. I ran in a pack of kids, climbed trees and played in the tree houses Dad built behind our back fence. I practiced gymnastics on the beam he built and played on the stilts he made.

Fabulous fancy dress

I went to fancy dress competitions in the incredible costumes my mother made with hours of endless patience and much tissue paper. I remember my mum was always baking – mostly raisin fairy cakes with icing on top. We got to lick out the food processor, even the super sharp blade, and we never cut our tongue. I remember putting on endless shows in the back garden for our parents and the German students who came to stay in the summer.

I remember going to the sweet shop and buying halfpenny sweets, and going for cycle rides all together at the weekends. I remember ‘spotting’ for dad when he was welding, watching for flames with a washing up liquid bottle full of water, ready to put out the fire. I remember helping him bleed brakes and accompanying him when he went to visit houses to collect cars.

I remember buying cream soda in a shop in a nearby village and my parents playing darts and whist and winning loads of prizes at the Christmas whist drives. I remember picnics on the beach and learning to swim in the icy cold sea. I remember the amusement arcades and holidays to Weymouth.

The camper vans (ours is the white one)

I remember going to France in our Comma camper van and learning to say, “un litre du lait, s’il vous plais” to the woman in the campsite shop, when offering an empty bottle, without having any idea what it meant.

Mum made the most amazing birthday cakes: pink princess castles and gymnastic medals. We had birthday parties at home, with sandwiches and cheese and pineapple on sticks. We went to fetes at the school and the summer fair at Wisborough Green and Mum would run in the Mummies race.

My memories of my parents fighting and my Dad’s rages are what motivate me to be a gentle, patient parent (even though, genetically, I’m fighting a losing battle.) My fears of speaking out to Dad are why I let my children talk back to me (up to a point) because I never want them to be afraid to speak. But my childhood wasn’t ‘inadequate’ and, on the whole, it wasn’t unhappy. I remember the stuff I don’t want to emulate, without focussing on the bits that were great.

So this is to set the record straight. And to say sorry.

Me, Sis, Mum, Grandma and Great Grandma

Wonderful Teachers and Winding Down For Summer

Gorgeous thank you

Today my daughter has her ‘Moving Up Day’ at school, when she will spend the day with her new teacher for next year. I can’t believe it came so quickly. Any regular followers of the blog will know that I didn’t take to school very well (slight understatement, as I ended up on medication to handle the extra stress of the school routine) so it might come as a surprise that I am sad the year is over and I will miss Reception and the teachers.

We took leaving gifts in today, even though there is still more than a week left, because there are so many other things going on between now and next Wednesday. I nearly cried when my daughter’s teacher hugged me and said thank you for choosing to send my daughter to their school (she knew it wasn’t an easy choice).

It shows you get out what you put in. It’s important to me to build strong relationships with the people who are in loco parentis for my children. I felt like I was being a pain, constantly talking to the teachers, double-checking everything, basically being that controlling parent. Clearly I haven’t been that annoying! And, for me, it has been returned ten fold.

Thank you card

My daughter’s teacher often goes out of her way to reassure me that my daughter is happy, well rounded, well liked. The teaching assistant listens to my rambles every day, and makes sure my daughter is happy and settled.

And, on Friday, when my daughter sobbed because she didn’t get the year one teacher she wanted, her Reception teacher took us through to meet the teacher she’s been allocated and they both spent ten minutes reassuring my timid daughter that she’ll have loads of fun next year.

To do such a thing at 3.45pm on a Friday, when suffering from laryngitis, shows care above and beyond expectations. As a result my fearful daughter, who has been crying about going into year one since Christmas, said “I’m so excited about Moving Up Day.” What more could a mother want?

This morning the teaching assistant, who has held my daughter’s hand at drop off every day this year, and talked me down off the edge more than once, said, “I’ve been worried about your daughter all weekend.”

Bless them all.

And so we wind down for summer. Not the best start, with Daddy having tonsillitis, but we’re muddling through. Loom bands have been ordered to keep little hands busy, craft has been stocked up and the paddling pool purchased.

For the lovely teaching assistant

All writing projects are on hold, although I’ve spent the last few days enthralled by the K’Barthan series by M T McGuire (you are personally responsible for the filthy state of my house, I’ll have you know!) does that count as working?

The blog will be sporadic in the coming weeks (nothing new there!) especially as I can’t seem to work on the iPad since I foolishly gave in and upgraded to ios7. I’m hoping to get in a few posts about days out and book reviews, but I’m going to give myself a holiday too.

It’s been a long and stressful year, with lots of achievements and a few battles. I feel like July might become my new Year End, when I take stock and down tools. It’s only six weeks, and I’m going to try and enjoy it with the children.

Of course, I’ll be on here moaning how they’re driving me mad in a couple of weeks, but for now I’m looking forward to a change of pace.

Happy holidays!

In Defence of Modern-Day Parenting

The rules we live by

I read an article on Huffington Post yesterday, via iGameMom, who I follow on Facebook. The article is written by a British Nanny, Emma Jenner, and discusses “5 Reasons Modern-Day Parenting Is in Crisis”.

According to Emma, these are the things we’re doing wrong:
1. A fear of our children
Giving in to their demands for a pink sippy cup when you’ve already put the milk in a blue one, to head off the inevitable tantrum
2. A lowered bar
Children are capable of better behaviour than we expect
3. We’ve lost the village
Other people – bus drivers, shop keepers – used to feel able to discipline our children, but no longer do, and we’re worried about being judged by other parents if we let our kids kick off in public
4. A reliance on shortcuts
Using technology to soothe your child – like an iPad in the restaurant
5. Parents put their children’s needs ahead of their own
There’s nothing wrong with not giving in to every whim, to say no occasionally

Emma Jenner goes on to say, “I fear that if we don’t start to correct these five grave parenting mistakes, and soon, the children we are raising will grow up to be entitled, selfish, impatient and rude adults. It won’t be their fault — it will be ours.”

For some reason this article really struck a chord with me, leaving me with knots of rage in my stomach. I can’t put my finger on exactly why. I think, as I said in my comment to iGameMom, it’s because “I agree with the points but not the tone.”

There are so many reasons why I disagree with Ms Jenner’s article, many of which I rambled on about in my original comment. Mostly the line above is what jars, because I already know plenty of entitled, selfish, impatient, and rude adults and I don’t think it was because they were mollycoddled as children.

I think instead of hurling round more blame and doom, we have to ask WHY parents act like this. I know my parents think I’m not hard enough on my kids; that they’re too quick to backchat and I’m too quick to respond to their needs. But I was brought up to fetch and carry and do as I was told without question, so it’s not hard to see why I wait on my children hand and foot. My parents often say my upbringing ‘did me no harm’ but why then do I lack in confidence, and feel I am not worthy of love? Why do I instinctively and automatically run around like a servant anytime I’m in the family home?

I was raised not to challenge authority, to do as I was told without answering back; is it any wonder that I listen to my health visitor when she tells me it’s not possible to spoil a child? Besides, I don’t believe that raising a child to do as they’re told without question is wise or healthy. You only have to look at the prevalence of stories of child abuse from famous and influential people that litter the news right now; those children had no voice and were not listened to. I read one harrowing account of a ten-year-old boy with a broken leg being abused while on a hospital trolley by Jimmy Saville and when he tried to share his trauma, his mother told him to, “shut up, it’s Jimmy Saville!”

Also, which authority do we believe in? In a time of social media and blogs and programmes all telling us how to be good parents and all offering conflicting advice is it any wonder that we live in fear of getting it wrong? My children will be surrounded by people telling them what to do, some of them their ‘betters’ – older kids, teachers, doctors. But what if those people are saying, ‘take drugs’ or ‘you’re useless’ or ‘you’re bi-polar’ and they accept that without thought, because they’ve been taught to blindly ‘respect their betters’?

I’ve had plenty of therapy in my time, and have been told my own inadequate childhood is to blame for my failings as an adult; that I see things too much in black and white because I was never taught to recognise and regulate my emotions; that I take responsibility for more than I should because I was told things were my fault as a child and never challenged it; that my difficult relations with men are because I was never allowed to challenge my relationship with my father. Therefore is it any wonder I hesitate to make the same mistakes? During that therapy it was shown to me that everything a parent does affects (screws up) a child – so no wonder I’m a nervous, hesitant, worried parent.

Our parenting ethos

As for the other points, losing the village, taking shortcuts: we don’t live in the same world we used to. There is no village. No one helps me raise my kids but my husband and the nursery/school – and they’re as quick to step in with discipline when required. There are no next-door-neighbours, aunts and grandparents sharing the load, so they don’t know my children well enough to comment on their discipline. And maybe the iPad is my second parent, but I’d rather my kids played a maths app or Guess Who than annoyed other people in a restaurant or at a school play. I don’t have access to babysitters. Besides, I’m always on my phone or iPad – who isn’t? So better to teach them to do something productive on the device.

Articles like this only add to the focus on parents getting it wrong; we become the reason why society is in crisis. But maybe we might be getting some things right, too? Who is praising us for that? My children are the most intuitive, thoughtful, caring, empathetic people I know.

Maybe we’re teaching our children to challenge and fight for what they want and not blindly do what they are told? Maybe we’re teaching them that people who care about others care about their desires and seek to make them happy? Maybe we’re teaching them love and empathy? Maybe we accept that children are people, with wants and needs that shouldn’t be belittled and ignored? I have a favourite cup and type of cutlery; why shouldn’t my children be allowed the same? And why shouldn’t they come first, as long as there is balance? Better than sitting in a hot car with a packet of crisps and a bottle of coke while Mummy and Daddy drink beer with their friends.

Every generation will assume it knew best about parenting, but in reality there is no one right way to do it. The most important thing is to love our children and trust our instinct and know we’re doing the best we can. Whether we’re getting it right or wrong, it doesn’t seem fair to make all parents personally responsible for all the ills in the world.

Emma Jenner’s final rallying cry says, “So please, parents and caregivers from London to Los Angeles, and all over the world, ask more. Expect more. Share your struggles. Give less. And let’s straighten these children out, together, and prepare them for what they need to be successful in the real world and not the sheltered one we’ve made for them.”

I say, “So please, parents and caregivers, love your children, give them your time and support, teach them to challenge naysayers, teach them empathy and understanding and how to be resilient against attacks, and for goodness sake let them choose what colour sippy cup they want!” 😉