Playground Politics

The village school my children attend lies just a few minutes walk up the road from our house and is responsible for the education of about fifty children. There are two classrooms; one for the reception class and pupils in years one and two, and the other for the pupils in years three, four, five and six. At the moment I have Eldest Son in one class, Middle Son in the other and The Youngest attending one day a week, although that will all change come September when Eldest Son goes off to secondary school and The Youngest moves up to full time reception. The team of staff is made up in its entirety of a head-teacher, two classroom teachers, one classroom assistant, one cook, and a taxi driver whose main job it is to ferry some of the children to and from school, but who also doubles up as a dinner lady. She's a 'twofer' as my mother would say - twofer the price of one.

The school is very much the hub of the local community and always has a large part to play in the organisation of village activities such as the annual fete, the fun run, and the summer grass-cuts of the village church grounds in which all the parents get together to strim, rake, and then finally wheelbarrow great heaps of grass up steeply angled wooden boards and on to flat bed trucks while the children all run around shrieking and chucking the grass at each other. The P.T.A. is extremely well attended with the majority of mothers going regularly to meetings; indeed if you do not choose to get involved with the P.T.A. and by the same token do not then contribute towards the planning and running of community activities, it tends to be rather frowned upon. The more active mothers huff and sigh and whisper amongst themselves that if so and so can't be bothered to help the school raise a bit of bloody money then why should so and so's children be entitled to free school trips along with their children. What can I say... there's not much to do around here.

Now. There is a small but powerful clique at the centre of the school that has the classroom assistant at its head, her best friend the cook as her trusty sidekick, one of the fathers who is on the board of governors and who has fairly recently split with his partner (he now rents the house directly opposite her) as the third in command, and a few of the other parents as their loyal sniveling minions. They are all on extremely friendly terms with the teaching staff, including the head; in fact the father who is on the board of governors is actually having a relationship with one of the teachers whose class includes his youngest daughter. It's supposed to be a secret but it's a fairly open one really - subtle gestures of intimacy can often be seen passing between them when they think no-one's looking - and so in a nutshell I think it would probably be fair to say that the whole group is rather...um ....cosy.

Funny isn't it how one small group of people can have such a big effect on the wider community around them. One of the ripples cast in the village pond by this particular groups social brick is that of a real change in the dynamics between the children at the school. The offspring of the cliques chosen few all socialise together regularly with their parents and so have very much picked up on the overblown sense of power and influence that their parents have. They shun the children whose parents are shunned by their parents and as a result, something of a two-tier social system has begun to emerge in the village. The strange thing is that all the other parents are only too aware of what is going on. The classroom assistant (who it is quietly felt has far too much clout when it comes to the running of the school) is not well liked despite her position at the top of the tree. She is seen to be something of a bully and a gossip, the sort of person who paints themselves with a superficial coating of sugary friendliness but who is actually rather mean spirited and judgemental, very much focused on their own agenda and concerned mainly with the retention of power at all costs - a bit like David Cameron.

I used to be very much involved with the P.T.A. when Mr S was still living with us and The Youngest had not yet been born. I did the lucky dip every year at the school fete and we would always go as a family to the grass cuts. But these days not so much. The Youngest is too small to be left to roam and play unsupervised at community events while I am busy, and I do not have a partner or any extended family living nearby to help supervise her. Besides I find the group dynamics these days deeply unpleasant - any comments or suggestions made in meetings by anyone outside of the inner circle tend only to be dismissed out of hand anyway - so I've backed off from it all a bit with a view to perhaps becoming more involved again once my daughter is a little older.

Now I know full well that the clique despise me (they barely acknowledge my existence most of the time, often to the point of downright rudeness) firstly for what they probably see as my lack of contribution to the school but also because I just don't fit in with them - never have and never will. They are uber parents and uber villagers, and I'm a bit messy and a bit disorganised and a bit, well.... slummy. I'm not overly concerned by their chilly shoulders, I don't think much of them either and there are plenty of people around that I do like. My main social circle is outside of the village anyway and I find that I much prefer it that way - that it prevents village life from becoming too claustrophobic - however I do know that their superior attitude and air of exclusivity, not to mention their disproportionate degree of influence as to how the school is run, does upset some of the other mums very much and so I was wondering...

Does this happen at every school? Is it inevitable that there will always be some sort of a hierarchy amongst parents? Or is it simply that the community here is small and a little incestuous? I would love to hear about other peoples experiences of school gate politics - what say you?

Some People Shouldn't be Allowed to Have Children...

The other day while I was lolling idly on my sofa reading the supplement magazine that comes with my weekend paper, I came across something that genuinely frightened and appalled me. Now I am, if I'm honest, the sort of person that often tuts at articles in the newspaper - it is a rare day indeed that I find myself short of things to tut at - but it is not often I find an article that makes me balk in quite the way this one did.

The article - written by Jenny Kleeman - was about an American woman named Barbara Harris who runs a charity in the US called Project Prevention. Now Barbara Harris is of the belief that some people shouldn't be allowed to have children and has therefore made it her lifes mission to try to prevent them from doing so. So convinced is she of the rightness of her mission and the efficacy of her methods that she is now intent on exporting Project Prevention to the U.K. In fact she has recently spent time here, trawling our most deprived areas, dropping leaflets, talking to local people and making the most of various media opportunities with a view to spreading the word, managing to bag herself a wealthy British donor in the process.

What Harris does essentially is buy peoples fertility. She pays people to get sterilised. Almost all of the people whom she offers money to in return for their ability to have children are women. Women with drug and alcohol problems. Her website claims that her goal is to "reduce the number of substance exposed births to zero." Harris herself has been directly quoted as saying that she and her charity are "preventing child abuse."

It's an easy throw away comment to make isn't it? 'Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children.' I've heard it said many a time. I've seen it written in the comments sections of other peoples blogs in response to some awful story or another. Hell, I've probably even said it myself without really thinking. But now here we have a woman who has taken that common knee-jerk reaction and is doing her best to put it into practice (or at least to put her own ideas about what it might mean into practice) and the horrifying implications of what the impact might be on real peoples real lives begin to become clear.

Personally I choose to avoid the obvious comparisons with the Nazi eugenics programme that have been made by other critics of Project Prevention. I find them a little bit crass to be honest and I worry that others may find them offensive. I also think that Harris' complete and utter lack of even basic ethics are plain for any thinking person to see and so I will not focus long on those either. Instead what I would like to look at are her beliefs and aims themselves.

Harris believes that if you are an addict then you have no right to become a parent. There seems to be no space in her world view for ideas of redemption and recovery. Becoming a mother is an extremely meaningful occurrence in a womans life and can be the catalyst for all sorts of positive changes in her habits and behaviour. This can be true for any woman (I'm sure we can all think of changes that we might have made in our lifestyles for the sake of our children) but comes all the more sharply into focus when you consider that former addicts will often cite their children as being the main motivating factor in their decision to kick their habits.

Harris believes that she is preventing child abuse, but the deliberate infliction of harm upon children cuts across class and social barriers. Why then is she only concentrating her efforts on the most deprived and run-down areas of Britain and the U.S? Homing in on some of the poorest, most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society and coercing them into becoming sterile does nothing to reduce the appalling rates of physical and sexual abuse of our societies children. If a woman gives birth to a baby who is suffering from neo-natal abstinence syndrome, (or who in plain English is going through the symptoms of withdrawal) the harm inflicted on that child is not the result of deliberate violence or malice on the part of the mother, but rather her inability to manage her addiction during pregnancy. It is a terrible thing by anybodies standards, but not the same as deliberate child abuse.

Harris believes that she has the right to decide who is worthy of the gift of parenthood and who is not. She has amassed serious funding and is garnering a degree of credibility amongst some professionals involved in child protection, aswell as a lot of serious opposition. Where will the line be drawn? How about women who are addicted to anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drugs that are legally prescribed by their doctors? How about women who smoke? Or who live below the poverty line and so are unable to provide their children with everything they need? How about women who have mental health problems, or a significant chance of passing on a debilitating and hereditary disease or disability? What about women who have a history of being abused themselves as lots of addicts do? Where will it end?

For those of you who think that Harris may have a point and that she is being unfairly lambasted by a gutless media (and a rather mediocre blogger) I would ask you to consider her next plan for Project Prevention. She intends to go to Haiti and pay women food stamps for their fertility. I quote: "Women in Haiti are having children they can't even feed, so why are they getting pregnant?" She thinks African women who are HIV positive shouldn't be allowed to have children either.

Like I said.... where will it end?

Roll up, roll up! It's The Bad Mummy Moments Carnival!

Yes, I know what you're all thinking. What's with the picture? Not exactly seasonal is it Gappy? But please bear with me, for all will soon be revealed....

You see I have (after some fairly perfunctory how-to research) decided to host a carnival. I thought that perhaps it would be a good way to help us bloggers come together and discover some new authors, and that also the theme, "Bad Mummy Moments" (don't snigger, it took me bloody ages to come up with that) might provide us all with some laughs and reassurance along the way. I suppose that strictly speaking I should have called it "Bad Parenting Moments" but that didn't have quite the same alliterative ring to it, so "Bad Mummy Moments" it is, although of course anyone who would like to join in is more than welcome.

Soooo if you would care to write (or already have) a post detailing your finest slackest hour, simply leave a link to it in the comments section or e-mail it to me so that I can feel so much better about myself No! I mean so that we can all support each other and take comfort in the shared knowledge that there is no such thing as a perfect mother - and that as long as we are genuinely doing our very best - then that is good enough. Your post can be humorous, thoughtful, poetic, or whatever you feel. The carnival will go live on Thursday 24th June and the author of my favourite post will receive a special prize...

And so back to the picture. That picture actually accompanied one of the first posts that I ever wrote. I have decided to re-publish it here as my own contribution to the Bad Mummy Moments carnival as I distinctly remember worrying at the time that the drawing of satanist snowmen might just be considered reasonable justification by my sons teacher for a discreet wee call to social services... I give you:

Sinister Seasons Greetings

Tis the season to be jolly... And with that in mind presumably, my sons were asked by their teachers a while ago to design christmas cards, which could then be printed out and bought by parents wishing to send personalised seasons greetings to family and friends. I gave the school what seemed an inconceivable amount of money, in advance, for four packs of five.

Today Eldest Son comes out of school grinning proudly and gives me a stack of cards with what appears to be some sort of evil snowman on them. On closer inspection, one can see the snowman is carrying a forked staff, and is sporting sharp red horns. He is surrounded by ice blue snowflakes, and if you look really closely you can see a vague smudge of red around the mouth, as if he had failed to scrub up properly after feasting on bloodied corpses. The 'Merry Christmas' written on his body looks like an oddly obscure threat. 'We could send one to Grandma' chirrups Eldest Son happily.

Now Eldest Sons favourite song is Monty Pythons 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'. His favourite and most oft repeated lyric (regularly sung with gusto whilst zapping aliens on the computer) is: 'Always look on the bright side of death. Just before you draw your terminal breath'...

Ever wonder if perhaps you're doing something wrong?

CBeebies is for Girls. Salami is for Boys.

We are going through a funny phase in our house at the moment, or at least the youngest is. She has become inexplicably convinced that everything in her world can be categorised and sorted into two distinct camps - the boy camp and the girl camp. Everything is either for boys or for girls and woe betide anyone who is caught doing or touching anything that she considers to be outside the boundaries of their gender based confines. Extracts from recent conversations include:

"CBeebies is for girls. It's not for boys. Not for boys with short hair anyway" (WTF?)

(Pointing at a strange man in the street who is daring to wear white trainers with a small dark pink motif) "Look mummy, that man is wearing giiiirrrls trainers!"

(Looking suspiciously at some new foodstuff) "That looks bisgusting. I think that must be for boys" (I am ashamed to say that that one made me laugh. A lot.)

The thing is, it's all getting a bit random. It started off predictably enough with the obvious gender stereotypes being applied to colours and toys and the like, but these days anything - food, inanimate objects, words even - can be assigned masculine or feminine status by my three year old daughter. She is the worlds self-appointed leading authority on what is supposedly for boys and what is for giiiirrls.

Where is it all coming from? Before I had children I was convinced that gender was, for the most part, socially constructed. As a mother I am now less convinced by that argument, but not much less. I still think that boys and girls simply learn very early on what is expected of them in terms of demeanour and behaviour and that no matter how much we as parents try to guard against gender stereotyping, our children are still receiving messages about what it means to be either masculine or feminine from many different sources. It is a very human trait to seek approval by behaving in ways that you know are expected of you. Some of the earliest lessons we learn are in how to tow the line. But still... CBeebies is just for girls???

So I have started gently challenging my daughter when she makes these sweeping declarations. I ask her why she thinks girls shouldn't like the blue Power Ranger and why salami is only for boys, but her reaction is simply to look at me as if to say, 'Good lord I really have got my work cut out with you haven't I...'

Do you believe that gender differences are to a more or lesser extent innate? Do you go out of your way to avoid gender stereotyping at home? Is there a limit to how much we as parents can do? And how the hell has my daughter got it into her head that salami is boy food?!

I'll Think About it Tomorrow, I've Had Enough of Today

I am so tired today.

We all had to get up earlier than usual because the boys had a school trip and the bus was leaving at 8.30 am. So the day started with us all bleary eyed but having to hurry in order to ensure that packed lunches were made and that the right uniform, footwear and weather appropriate outerwear were found and matched to the correct bodies before 8.15. Then five minutes before we were due to leave the house, the youngest decided to have a (thankfully rare) tantrum and refuse to put on her jumper, raincoat or shoes. I know the accepted thinking is that it's best to ignore tantrums - it is sound advice too in my opinion - but what do you do when you can't ignore it because whatever it is your child is kicking and screaming about actually has to happen now? I tried to jolly her along, I tried cajoling, pleading, I even tried bribery, and in the end I shouted at her. She is three. There is nothing quite like shouting at a three year old to make you feel extra specially good about yourself you know?

I then spent the majority of my mornings free time manically cleaning the house because I was expecting a friend for lunch who then didn't turn up, or bother to phone to say that she wasn't coming.

Then at 12.00 I picked the youngest up from nursery, came home and spent the first bit of the afternoon trying to persuade her to eat her lunch (she refused point blank) and then the rest of it attempting to simultaneously entertain her, which involved singing her favourite song 'Rudolph the red nosed reindeer' about three million times in a row - and yes I do know it's bloody May - and attempting to keep myself abreast of what was going on in terms of the hung parliament we now find ourselves landed with. Personally I am anxious about the prospect of a conservative government in these tough times we are facing. Tax cuts for the rich to accompany massive cuts in public spending? Surely they can't be serious.

We then went to pick up the boys from school. The bus that was bringing them back from their trip arrived and all the children disembarked sporting bright blue painted faces and rather realistic looking toy spears. They seemed as though they had had a fine old time although of course within half an hour of arriving home, the blue face paint had migrated all over the sofa, and my eldest and middle sons were making serious attempts to decapitate one another with their new novelty weaponry.

Eldest son had also managed to persuade me to let his friend come round for a sleepover so I have had four children to feed and water this evening, which would be neither here nor there I suppose were it not for my own childrens endless, endless requests for drinks and snacks and updated information about exactly when dinner will be ready. Between them they form quite a sophisticated tag team - taking it in turns to find that perfect moment in which I have just sat down in order to call out, 'Muuuuuum can I have a drink?' Or, 'Muuuuuum, tell so and so to stop annoying me.' Or my particular favourite which is, 'Oh Muuuuuum, not (whatever it is I'm cooking) for dinner.'

It is nearly 10.00 and my eldest and his friend are still up. My kitchen - which was perfectly clean this morning - looks like a smart bomb has been dropped on it. Dirty plates, cooking vessels, and cutlery all vie for space on my spill-ridden kitchen counters. I know the children will want pancakes for breakfast tomorrow and so really I should clean the kitchen tonight in order to be able to cook in the morning.

But I'm too tired. I've had enough. I'm done for today.

So sod it. I'll think about it tomorrow.

First Day At School

Today was The Youngests first day at school. She is only three. Where I live kids start full-time school the term before they're four. She will not be going full-time untill September, but in the meantime will go one day a week in order to get slowly accustomed to school life before she begins reception class properly after the summer holidays.

I got up even earlier than usual to make doubly sure that we had plenty of time to get ready, figuring that if she was feeling at all nervous about going to school for the first time, the last thing she would need was a rushed and chaotic morning. We went through the usual routine of breakfast, teeth brushing, face washing and getting dressed. Then I brushed her hair in front of the big mirror in my bedroom and arranged it into two plaits. I smiled at her reflection and asked how it felt to be a big school-girl. She hugged her toy cat and said, 'Meow.'

Her brothers shot like bullets out of the car and into the playground as soon as we got to the school. Their bags slapping against their legs, they disappeared quickly round the corner to the school entrance. I lifted The Youngest out of her car seat and set her down on the pavement just near the school gates. I went to take her hand but suddenly she was off! Like a coiled spring, her little legs motoring as fast as they possibly could, her plaits flapping in the wind, determinedly hot on the tail of her older brothers. She ran as fast as she could into her classroom and didn't give me so much as a backwards glance. I hovered neurotically a while at the classroom door asking her teacher to please remind her to go to the loo, and please would she phone me if there were any problems at all, but The Youngest had already made herself perfectly comfortable at a table with some other children and was doing a spot of colouring.

Ah... mixed feelings. She's my last child, and while a big part of me is relishing the prospect of having more time to do my own thing and pursue my own ambitions, another part of me felt heavy hearted today. My beautiful little girl is growing up and becoming more and more independent, and while I know this is something to be celebrated, I must admit to a small lump forming in my throat as I walked back out through the windy playground towards my car this morning.

The Big Question

This post is a contribution to Josies writing workshop, although it is not strictly speaking a piece of creative writing, it was still very much inspired by prompt 3 which was itself inspired by Christine at Thinly Spreads beautiful post: What Comes Next?


Occasionally when I find myself unable to sleep and it is a clear night, I open my curtains and lie on my bed looking out at the sky. Its vastness is soothing, the moon always seems to stare back knowingly, and sometimes if I'm lucky I will catch a shooting star flaming across the inky backdrop as if intent on a last hurrah before its light finally goes out for good. It is a good time for thinking and for half-dreaming.

The Butterfly Effect is a metaphor that seeks to sum up the principles of Chaos theory - it is a metaphor that asks a question: Does the flap of a butterflies wings in Brazil start a ripple effect that could result in a tornado in Texas? Although the science behind it is beyond me really I have always loved this idea and the image it creates. Recently whilst lying half awake on a late and starry night I found myself gazing out at the sky and dreamily wondering if perhaps the death of one human being could set off a similar ripple effect - eventually causing a small but significant shift in the entire universe - with planets and stars all being forced to change course and realign as a result? Whilst I do not believe that this could be literally true, it is nevertheless an idea that I find beautiful, and that weaves seamlessly into my genuine belief that birth and death are simply a part of the cyclical nature of life along with the tides and the seasons.

Neanderthals were one of the earliest species of hominid to inhabit the earth. They lived 250,000 years ago and survived on their own wit and resources through an ice age, but perhaps most interestingly of all they are said to have been the first hominids to have buried their dead. Not only that but some evidence has also been found to suggest that alongside the bodies of their dead they sometimes buried trinkets and animal bones. The assumption made by many archaeologists is that this indicates a belief in some sort of an afterlife, and that this is turn is evidence of their humanity. Which then of course begs the question: is there an intrinsic human need to want to trust in our own relative immortality? If the most primitive humans who must only have been bent on survival in the harshest of conditions sought the comfort of belief in a life beyond the grave, what might this say about human nature in general?

None of this would ever have crossed my mind for long if it weren't for the fact that inevitably - like every other mother sooner or later - I was confronted with The Question.

'Mum, what happens when you die?'

Nothing. You just die. For some reason I balked at saying this to my child. It seemed almost cruel, so abrupt, so harsh and yet it is what I have always believed and it has never frightened me. I have no problem with the idea of an end point, of closure. Indeed the promise of eternal life - that triumphant carrot dangled so enthusiastically in front of non-believers by the majority of the worlds religions - has never held any lure for me. My money has always been on Darwin. But when my curious and sensitive eldest son first asked me The Question, an inner voice suddenly said, 'You can't just say 'nothing'. It won't do, not on its own. You will cut him off dead when what he needs is to explore the possibilities for himself.' So I have tried my best to enable him to do that, which has not always been easy to square with my own strongly held atheism. I have also tried to answer his many questions as honestly as I can, which has not always been easy to square with my desire not to steer his train of thought too sharply in any direction. He knows that I do not believe in a heaven. He knows that I do not believe in ghosts. He knows that I do believe that unquestioning and devoted faith in something which has been proven to be highly improbable can be dangerous, and that far from being a virtue I believe it can breed intolerance and inhibit moral behaviour. He also knows that he is absolutely free to make up his own mind.

My mothers father - my 'Diddydad' - was dying in a small cottage hospital just at the time I was due to give birth to my second child. My mother sat with him through the last days of his life and one night when she could not sleep in the armchair beside his bed, the nurse on the night shift took pity on her, made her a cup of tea and some toast, and sat down with her for a while to chat. My mum talked of how I was expected to go into labour at any time and how sad she was that she could not be there for me. Apparently the nurse had said briskly but kindly, 'Well I'm a firm believer in one in one out dear'. My mother still remembers this particular nurse fondly and repeats this story often, and somehow - although I know her words of comfort were essentially nonsense in light of the current global population explosion - it always brings me back full circle to where this post began.

A full circle back to the butterfly and its flapping wings. Back to my night gazing and nocturnal imagining that with every death the stars and planets might sigh, change course and roll over to make room for the new life that is to follow.

Good For Babies - But is it Good For Mothers? Some Thoughts on Attachment Parenting and Baby Wearing

Since I first began my blog I have had a vague intention to write a post on baby wearing and attachment parenting. But my views on the subject are so conflicting that although half formed ideas have been floating around in the darkest recesses of my brain for a while, any attempt to gather them together and organise them into a coherent post seemed a near impossible task.

I became pregnant with my first child when I was 22. I was idealistic and impressionable, and when I look back now my heart bleeds a tiny bit for the naive young woman that I was. She was so desperately excited to be having a baby. She had no earthly clue how horrendously hard it would all turn out to be.

During my pregnancy a friend lent me a copy of The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. Liedloff had developed her continuum theory of baby care through her observations of Yequana indian women living in the South American jungle. She claimed that their babies almost never cried due to being carried constantly by their mothers as they went about their work and daily business, and that the whole community enjoyed a level of well-being and contentment unheard of in modern western societies due to having had their need for contact with their mothers consistently fulfilled as infants. Liedloff had come to the conclusion that western styles of baby care which involved separating babies from their mothers by putting them in cots and prams, and leaving them to cry, were responsible for the high levels of mental ill health in our society. I had what I thought was an epiphany reading that book, and vowed then and there that I would never ever put my baby down. Liedloff had mentioned very briefly that some house work, particularly bed making might be hard to do whilst carrying a baby, but had gone on to say that a resourceful mother would find a way. I was going to be a resourceful mother - I was going to find a way.

I am still of the belief that a baby needs as much physical contact with his/her caregivers as they can feasibly manage. I chose to breastfeed my children as and when they seemed interested, as opposed to trying to impose a feeding routine onto them. I also co-slept with my two younger children for the first six months or so, simply because it meant that I was actually able to get some sleep (a breastfeeding baby soon learns how to help herself during the night) and I also believe that if I had co-slept with my first child and therefore not had to endure night after night of broken sleep, I might have been spared the worst excesses of the post-natal illness that destroyed our early relationship. The basic principles of attachment parenting still make sense to me. And yet... so much writing on the subject, particularly the Continuum Concept itself, now makes uncomfortable reading for me.

Firstly, I would say that in my experience baby wearing doesn't 'work' in terms of its promises to create a happy baby that rarely cries. Both of my sons screamed as though they were having their fingernails pulled out with a pair of tweezers, almost continuously (or so it felt at the time) despite being held for the vast majority of their waking hours.

Secondly, I found that far from satisfying my own primal needs as a mother for contact with her new child, I didn't always enjoy it very much. I hated the lack of personal space that came from having a baby attached to me all the time, and found myself longing for someone to come and just take the baby away for a bit. By the time my babies were old enough to be carried in a back pack, it just plain did my back in. I struggled on regardless, still believing it was the 'right' thing to do.

Thirdly, I often found it more or less logistically impossible. I must have tried just about every sling on the (incredibly lucrative) market, but failed to find one that allowed me the freedom of movement I needed to go about my everyday tasks with ease, and which also felt secure enough that I could be confidently hands free. I became only too aware of just how miserably I was managing to fail Liedloffs resourcefulness test. The dirty dishes, dust and laundry kept creeping up ever higher around my ears.

By the time I got to baby number three my approach had, through necessity, morphed into a 'whatever works' type of pragmatism. The Youngest spent much of her time in one of those metal framed cloth chairs, watching her brothers play and the washing machine go round, and observing the general chaos that surrounded her with remarkable equanimity. Wouldn't you just know it, she was the happiest baby out of the three of them. I was so busy managing at home alone with three children that it was physically impossible for me to always pick her up at the first squawk, and the poor thing basically got offered a feed whenever I had a spare ten minutes to sit down in. But she took it all in her stride and I can certainly detect no ill effects so far.

So now as a more experienced mother, I can sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable listening to vehement advocates of attachment parenting and baby wearing. My discomfort comes I think from the idea that there is only one way to nurture a baby effectively, and the resulting pressure that attitude puts on women to do it the 'right' way. In order to be good enough mothers we must breastfeed on demand, preferably until our children self-wean. We must carry our babies in close contact with us at all times no matter how difficult or impractical this may be. We must sleep with our babies untill they leave our bed of their own volition, with no thought for our own personal space or how this may affect our enjoyment of our sexual relationship. But most of all we must always be there, and this has huge implications for women who need or want to work outside their home, or to have an identity apart from being a mother.

So with this post I am asking: Would a wide spread adoption of attachment parenting methods mean a huge step backwards for women in terms of their options and freedom of choice in how to live their lives? Does attachment parenting theory lean too heavily on the notion of endless maternal sacrifice being the true path to womanly fulfillment? Perhaps the reason that the Yequana women and other women all over the world practice baby wearing is because they have little choice in the matter. Has anybody ever actually asked them if they enjoy working all day with their babies tied to their backs? Perhaps given the option some of these women would give their eye teeth for a pram and a nanny and an office job. I don't know. I'm not trying to infer that our way of life is in any way superior, but equally I don't accept that it's necessarily inferior either. It's just different. I do however think that attempting to parent as if one lived in an interdependent and supportive community in the South American jungle - when one actually lives in a post-industrial western society in which most of us barely know our neighbours and have to parent alone for most of the day - can be strewn with difficulties. It certainly was for me. What do you think?

Good Enough?

What makes a good mother?

Or perhaps a better question might be: What do you consider to be good mothering?

It's a rhetorical question, but nevertheless the reason I ask is because every woman I know who has children seems to struggle sometimes with what it means to mother well. In fact I don't know a single one who doesn't now and again fear that she is doing a bad job, that she is somehow failing her children despite her best efforts, and who doesn't occasionally catch herself hoping against hope that her children will grow up to be far more forgiving of her perceived motherly mistakes than she herself is. My first forays into the blogosphere have shown that it is no different for a lot of the virtual mothers I meet. Of course it isn't. Why would it be?

The question posed by this post seems on a superficial level to be a fairly easy one to answer. We can surely all agree on the basics of food, warmth, love e.c.t. But dig below the surface, and the question becomes complicated. It becomes emotive and delicate. Opinions on the smallest of issues can become polarised. We start to judge each other mercilessly.

All of us are very much influenced by what we believe other people may think of us, (and our mothering) however much we would like to pretend or insist otherwise. Human beings are social animals - to want to fit in and be liked is an essential part of our makeup. Seeking the approval and acceptance of others is in part instinctual, after all our ancestors lives depended on the support of the whole group. We are not designed to rear our young isolated and alone. But alone we often are in this modern age, the extended family and close community or tribe that was once always on hand to help and give guidance is there no longer. We have no choice but to try to make the best of it and work with what we've got, finding our own parenting way, often in near darkness. We turn in our thousands to parenting books, but often these give confusing and contradictory advice, and so we stumble along unsure, trying desperately not to repeat the same mistakes we feel our own parents made, while joking nervously with other parents who make up the substitute community of the local toddler group or on-line forum, about how our kids are heading for therapy in twenty years time.

The majority of my identity is rooted in being a mother. I take pride and find meaning in my work, I enjoy my friends and my writing, I have lots of interests, but mothering is mostly what I do. And being that I am determined to provide my children with as much love and stability as I possibly can, the question for me then becomes how to do that to the absolute best of my ability, whilst still retaining a sense of self - not to mention my sanity.

Before I had children I was extremely judgemental when it came to other peoples parenting. I had all sorts of ideas about what sort of mother I was going to be (a lot of the ideas were in hindsight rather vague, but definitely involved being better at it than almost everybody else.) I was going to be endlessly patient for one thing. I was certainly never going to shout silly things like, 'I'll count to three....' oh no. It never once occurred to me that there would be times when I would rather do almost anything than look after my child. Or that I would ever desperately watch the clock, counting the minutes untill bed time. Or that I would ever say no to a small child who wanted to do some painting, simply because I could not face dealing with the mess afterwards.

Oh, how I can look back now and laugh at my younger self and her ridiculous notion that motherhood might for some reason change her entire personality. That it would transform her from a rather idle, truculent young woman who liked a good party and could never get up in the morning, into a serene and patient angel who loved nothing more than 6.oo am starts, and having next to no social life. The reality of parenthood and the subsequent realisation that I could never live up to my own initial standards of perfection, forced a major about turn in my attitude and ideas about mothering, and these have continued to evolve and grow with my childrens different developmental stages and my own changing circumstances.

The difficult truth is that over the years I have found the needs and wants of children to be boundless, and that in a zealous quest to be a 'perfect' mother it is all too easy to run oneself completely into the ground. I have had no choice but to develop ways of protecting myself from being sucked dry. Most of all I have had to struggle to find a way to truly accept that keeping a little bit back for myself is o.k. I find this extremely difficult to do without collapsing into a pit of guilt and self flagellation. As much as I tell myself that I don't buy into these notions of endless maternal sacrifice being the one true path to womanly righteousness, and as much as I do take steps to meet my own needs aswell as theirs, I still feel guilty about it. I feel guilty that I could not provide my children with the consistent stability of a two parent family, even though I know that my relationship with my ex-partner was damaging me psychologically. I feel guilty for occasionally feeding my children frozen pizza for tea when I'm exceptionally tired, even though I know that the vast majority of the time they eat perfectly healthily. I feel guilty that my children do not enjoy the endless after school activities that their friends seem to - ballet, karate, rugby e.c.t - because I cannot afford it, or manage the constant too-ing and fro-ing on my own with no partner to help out or make sure dinner's ready when we get home. Even though I know that my kids are fine. Even though I hate that pushy style of parenting that allows children no free time in which to make their own entertainment!

My point is, that although I know intellectually that my mothering is good enough - more than just good enough, it's still extremely hard for me to put a full stop at the end of that sentence and have done with the self doubt. The secret for all of us I think, lies in a genuine acceptance that less than perfect but perfectly good enough, really is good enough.

Oh Sh.....ugar!

I am rather a prolific swearer.

It's my mothers fault. She's far worse than me - honestly, she could make a navvy balk with her foul mouth.

I first realised that perhaps this was going to be an issue in terms of my parenting when Middle Son, aged four, began to refer to our local garage as 'The bloody garage'. As in, 'Look mummy, there's the bloody garage' each and every time we drove past it on the way to the supermarket. At the time we had a car that was continually dying a death, and then being resurrected with the aid of enormous amounts of money, only to promptly die again. Hence we were spending an awful lot of time at the bloody garage (and probably single handedly subsidising it aswell). I hadn't even been aware that that was what I called it untill it came out of the mouth of my four year old babe.

I really do try not to swear in front of the children. But obviously not hard enough, as last night Eldest Son threatened me for the umpteenth time with a swear box. The idea apparently is that every time I say a 'naughty word', I have to put fifty pence in it. Then at the end he, I presume, gets to collect all the money.

I'm not agreeing to that. I'm not fucking stupid.

The thing is, if I'm honest, I like swearing. It's expressive. It's cathartic. I don't just swear willy nilly, I mean there are rules - well one actually, which is that I never swear at anyone - and it's always in an appropriate context, for example if I've dropped something on my foot. That was in fact two rules wasn't it... The point is that it's not, to my mind, excessive. The excessive curser is lacking in both imagination and finesse in my opinion - in fact my favourite line from anything ever was: 'See you, you need a fucking thesaurus' from the brilliant The Thick Of It. No, swearing only serves its purpose if used judiciously and with precision. Dare I say it, there's an art to it.

But I digress. In this post I am primarily concerned with discussing the issue of swearing in the presence of children, and finding out what other parents views are on the subject.

The other day you see, I was having coffee with some other mums (the conversation, aswell as the threat of the swear box, providing the prompt for this post) and one of them declared - rather sanctimoniously I thought - that she never swore in front of her children. Her body language was all wide eyed and shocked, as if indignant at the mere suggestion that she could ever do such a thing, and to be honest, although I was a bit taken aback by what I felt was her slightly pious attitude, I also felt suddenly self conscious. I mumbled something about how I never swore at my kids, whilst simultaneously praying that social services would take a liberal view if she pounced on the phone and called them in horror, the minute I left. Now, I happen to know that this woman smacks her kids, which is something I genuinely never do, as for me, hitting children, even if it is 'just a little tap on the bum' is unacceptable. That doesn't mean I judge anyone who has, on reaching the absolute end of their tether, smacked once or twice and then gone on to regret it terribly and vow never to do it again, (I think lots of us have been there). It means I believe it is wrong to use it deliberately as part of an ongoing strategy to control behaviour. I certainly believe smacking to be far more harmful to children than hearing their mother say the odd 'Oh fuck it' when she spills or breaks something.

I suppose that ultimately this woman and I simply come from two very different points of view, and although I do disagree strongly with any use of physical punishment, I have no desire to get into a competitive 'I'm a better mummy than you, nurny nurny nur nur' discussion. I accept that we are all doing our level best with a difficult job. But I have written this post with the specific intent of asking others for their opinions on the issue of swearing. How do you feel about swearing in front of your kids? Relatively harmless on occasion? Or setting a really bad example? Is it naive to think that it's really no big deal? Feel free to throw any and every shade of grey into the mix. Let me know what you think.

A Trip To The Headmasters Office...

Eldest Son has been getting into trouble at school. I have been summoned on more than one occasion to the head masters office, to be told that my son can be uncooperative, and is at times, extremely rude. The headmaster tells me these things as if I somehow don't know. But I have a sneaking feeling that shrugging and saying, 'Well, you don't have to live with him mate', is not something good mummies do.

At home I attempt to talk to him. Eldest Son that is, not his headmaster. 'Is there anything worrying you?' I say. 'Do you want to talk about what happened at school?' At which point he launches into a tirade about how, when Miss R tells him if he can't speak nicely to her then don't speak to her at all; what she is effectively doing is giving him the option, so she is therefore in no position to complain when he tells her in no uncertain terms that fine, he won't bother then. He looks at me, eyes wide, palms upturned in a gesture of helplessness. 'She gave me the option' he says, disingenuous to the last.

You can't argue with that sort of logic. I sometimes try, but tend to give up - failure looming ever larger in the middle distance.

I'm not sure what to do. I have no yardstick with which to measure his behaviour, nothing to compare it to. I don't know if this is something I should be really worried about or not. How am I to know what's normal pre-pubescent testing of the boundaries and what's indicative of a future spent at her majesties pleasure? Apparently mothers just know. It's something to do with 'womens intuition'. We have an inbuilt capacity for being able to weed out the merely irritating phases from the sociopathic tendencies. This will no doubt be the same inbuilt capacity we supposedly have for being able to tell the difference between our newborns 'hungry' cries and 'tired' cries. As opposed to just the one, brain searing, god awful noise.

I do not mean to sound flippant. I have spent many a dark hour mulling this over. My biggest fear is that his behaviour is an expression of unhappiness. Funny really, I could live with him sometimes being rude and uncooperative, so long as I knew he was happy, rude and uncooperative. Or at least if I knew for certain it didn't stem from unhappiness, then I could take it all in my stride so much more easily.

Sometimes I think that you just have to take a step back. Rein in the empathy a touch. I need to remind myself that it is only a few tickings off from the head master, and that this does not a miserable social deviant make. That he has a loving mother and father, even if they don't live under the same roof. That soon no doubt, there will be other more hormonally driven challenges to contend with, and I will find myself longing for those halcyon days when he was just, simply, rude and uncooperative.