Category Archives: Motherhood

The Santa Script (again)

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

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I think this is my last year of Santa.

And I’m rather sad about it.

The Small Small expressed her opinion the other day that He doesn’t exist, and that I probably do it all when they’re asleep.

I told her that sounded like a lot of effort for me, and I’m far too tired for that sort of thing.

She accepted this verifiable truth pretty readily, but still looked somewhat doubtful, so I rolled out the ol’ ‘Don’t believe, don’t receive’ adage as back-up.

She dropped the subject.

But, clearly, it’s nearly over…

Pretty soon she’ll ask again, and it’ll be time to roll out the Santa Script I used with her big sister. (I’m fortunate she’s just got a new baby brother, so she has someone to keep the magic alive for).

But I’m going to miss it.

Making magic come to life for my kids every Christmas has been one of the highlights of motherhood. And as they get older creating joy for them seems to get a lot harder…

It used to be easy, didn’t it? I could get a genuine giggle out of them with a sloppy kiss, by throwing them in the air, pulling a penny out from behind their ear, with silly voices, a song, a tickle.

Now the even the antics of the Elf are barely eliciting a grunt.

Welcome to the pre-teen and teen years…

But there are compensations.

Now they laugh at my puns (sometimes). And at my misfortunes… which is actually validating. At the shows and I actively LIKE on the telly and would watch even without them. At absurd things we observe together – at memes, at Catonthenetheredge’s antics, at misheard lyrics.

And weirdly, despite the sadness at what’s gone, I wouldn’t actually change it. I wouldn’t go back.

I suppose Christmas magic will evolve in the same way everything does. That it will build from the family traditions I made, the joy I weaved for them, the memories I built as foundations.

Maybe next year they can surprise ME with the Elf’s nightly adventures (and see how they bloody like it).

It’s the time of year for looking back and looking forward, and a very good time to remember that it’s okay, normal and indeed a GIFT to be able to hold two (or more) truths at once, two (or more) feelings: happy and sad, terrified and grateful, excited and disappointed, defeated and defiant, up and down and back again.

For now, I’m going to enjoy my last Christmas as/with Santa.

And I’m going to post again the Santa Script, for anyone else who thinks they might need it sometime soon…

THE SANTA SCRIPT

I want you to know that Christmas magic IS real – but there is also a secret. Are you sure you’re ready to know the secret of it, or would you just like to have the magic for a bit longer?

Okay, well if you’re really ready, this is it. But before I tell you, you have to promise to keep the secret. So I can never hear that you’ve told anyone else about this, ever. Do you promise?

Christmas magic is real. And Santa is real… But he’s not a man in a red suit. I’m a Santa. And now you’re a Santa, too.

The magic bit is that all these grown-ups – and now you – across half the world, with all our different views and opinions and languages and ways of doing things – we all agree that once a year we’ll come together to tell this shared story, and make this legend of Santa Claus come to life for children.

We don’t talk about it. No one confers. We just all quietly agree to do it – and we all keep the secret. And THAT’S a pretty magical thing for half the world to do. And the REALLY INCREDIBLE bit is we all do it without expecting anything in return. It’s a completely selfless act – and there aren’t very many of those.

Usually, when people give a gift, they do it because they’re building a relationship with someone. So you give your best friend a present on their birthday because you know they’ll like it, but also because you know they’ll like YOU for giving it to them. It’s part of how you confirm your friendship. They feel good about getting a gift, but you also feel good about giving it.

But when a gift comes from Santa, it’s not about you at all. It’s JUST about them. You won’t get a thank you. You won’t get the credit. But you get something else instead – something better; you get to be the one who makes magic come alive for someone else. And that’s really, really amazing.

Sometimes, the world isn’t always a very nice place. Sometimes it isn’t fair. Sometimes life is really, really hard for people. But sometimes, sometimes there IS magic in it.

And if you’re the sort of person who knows how to believe in magic from your own childhood, who knows how to look for it – and who then knows how to MAKE it for someone else – you’re someone who can not only get on in the world, but make it a better place, too.

I don’t know how you do it

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood

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“I don’t know how you do it!”

“I couldn’t do what you do”

“You make it look so easy!”

I’ll take these in turn.

1. Because there isn’t any other choice.

2. I hope you never have to.

3. I certainly don’t mean to.

In fact, I WANT to make it look hard.

This life. This middle age. This motherhood.

And I think I’m achieving that aim…

The other day the Small Small said to me, after a particularly trying evening, that she didn’t think she wanted to be a Mum anymore because it looked like a lot of work.

She’s not wrong.

But I think in that very moment I realised that this is EXACTLY where WE’VE been going wrong, as women. FOR YEARS.

We’ve been quiet.

We’ve been like these swans on a lake – furiously paddling beneath the surface, looking all put together and serene on top.

Like it’s effortless. Like it’s not costing us.

And it’s not done us any favours.

Being cool and collected just means people pile more crap on.

We should have dumped swanning years ago and instead channelled the energy of pondweed – visibly hanging on by a murky thread, not going anywhere – and just managing to crest the surface occasionally.

We shouldn’t be Keeping Calm and Carrying On, like good girls/swans.

(I mean, we DO have to carry on – see point 1. Quitting isn’t actually an option. However much you wish to curl up in a ball and stay there forever, as a woman and mother whenever you try it a dependent wants feeding and you have to get up again and make snacks).

But instead of Keep Calm and Carry On, we should change the script:

We should Lose Our Ever-Living ShEEt and Carry On.

We should Scream Our Pain Out Loud – and Carry On.

We should Complain – and Carry On.

We should Make Noise – and Carry On.

We should Be Real – and Carry On.

This expectation we feel, this need to pretend everything is okay, to smile love it might never happen, to grit our teeth and bear it, to suck it up, to not make a fuss, to not rock the boat, to take it on the chin, to endure – is just another way we are being silenced. Another way we don’t matter.

And it is another way we’re showing the generation coming up behind us that they won’t matter either, that their emotions won’t matter, and their pain won’t matter. That sacrifice is sacrosanct, stoicism is dignity – that being phlegmatic and unproblematic are qualities to be prized. That this is what being good girls and women and mothers should look like. Quiet. Pliant. ABSORBENT.

We teach them by example that when things are hard, we don’t say so, for fear of being branded ungrateful.

That when men are awful to us, we rise above it, for fear of being called a psycho if we react.

That when we hurt, we pretend not to, for fear of being dismissed as over-emotional, irrational, hysterical.

That when we stumble, we fail.

That when we cry, we lose.

Well no more.

Let’s make it look HARD, when it is.

Let’s stamp our feet when things aren’t fair.

Let’s howl at the bloody moon!

Let’s not care who hears us, who sees, what they think.

Let’s tell each other, and ourselves, the truth.

Let’s be AUTHENTIC.

Because maybe if we do, maybe if we stop the swan act, the next generation of girls won’t be in the same position – or at least won’t be so bloody surprised when they get here. (And maybe the next generation of boys will have more realistic expectations).

Maybe they won’t have to don a mask everyday, wonder how everyone else is doing it all, why they’re struggling so much, if they’re normal.

Maybe they won’t pretend they’re okay when they’re not – to make everyone else around them feel more comfortable.

Maybe they won’t feel ashamed if they need to ask for help.

And maybe creating all the oxygen for everyone else and being the bedrock of the entire pond ecosystem will get just a little bit easier.

XXX

PS. If you still insist on being a swan instead of pondweed, please be the sort that starts breaking freaking arms if someone looks at you funny.

Medals

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

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I’m really fed up of my kids.

I don’t think we say this enough as parents.

In particular, I don’t think we say this enough as MOTHERS, because we’re still so caught up in the societal expectations of us and the belief that we must constantly nurture and sacrifice ourselves, over and over, because we are women – and we are less worthy as women if we don’t.

My kids are HARD WORK.

There are high needs kids and there are low needs kids (with and without a neurodiversity diagnosis) – and there are high need seasons and low need seasons for everyone. Right now I have high needs kids in a high needs season and it is A LOT.

It is absolutely unrelenting, and there is very little reward or gratitude in parenting them.

There are no medals.

And trust me, recently, I have very much deserved them.

This last few weeks, I don’t think anyone in my household has said anything that hasn’t been angry, whiny, or tearful. Misery and hostility have abounded. I have been managing emotions and managing emotions and mopping-up and sympathising and counselling and consoling and cajoling and distracting and peace-keeping and negotiating and TRYING and BEING love, love, love, love – for at least 8-10 hours a day because of course in this high season of high need NO ONE IS GOING TO BED AND STAYING THERE.

I am tired, and worried, and FED UP.

I wanted kids because I thought it would be FUN. I wanted an excuse to go in soft play areas, and down slides, and to dig holes on beaches, to sing songs and go on walks and have days out and games nights and tickles and wrestling and dancing and snuggles in bed. I thought it would fill me up.

Turns out most of it is cooking, cleaning, and trying to keep your own emotions in check while handling theirs. Most of the time, it drains me. Plus, you know, I’ve also got to be running a household, keeping everyone’s calendars, holding down a job and trying to conduct healthy adult relationships – and not give in to my own mental health demons. It would drain anyone.

This is always a bad time of year.

I find my soul weighed down with darkness every October. The bright leaves flutter down like burnt orange snow, and while they are glowingly, stunningly beautiful – they leave behind them naked skeletons and decomposing mulch. For me it’s like that process is echoed internally every year, and I think something of that is true for my kids, too. So I should really understand… and be able to muster more patience.

I know I wouldn’t say to any struggling adult, for instance, ‘Come on now, smile, love, it might never happen’ (in fact I’d want to slap someone who said it to me). I wouldn’t say, ‘Pull yourself together. It’s not that bad. You’re exaggerating. Be grateful. Why can’t you just be happy? It’s like you WANT to be miserable. You can just CHOOSE to react differently you know. ’

But as I have battled more and more Small negativity and become more and more drained and more and more fed up, I have found myself wanting to say all of those things to my kids.

I DO want them to be happier. And I’m sure they are, elsewhere – with their friends. But back with me the masks are off, the gloves are off, and the Autumn blues are very much ON.

THIS, this right here is the reality of motherhood: Taking the punches, absorbing the hits, biting your tongue, coming last.

And it is tiring.

Like so many parenting crises, the trick to getting through it is to parent myself first.

I have to remember my children are allowed to have their feelings, just as I am.

I have to consider that maybe the person I’m frustrated with is me – that maybe the person I want to be happier and different is MYSELF.

I have to understand why I pretend so often, why I put myself last so often, and why I resent it when it’s a choice that I’ve made.

I have to reflect why disharmony triggers me the way it does.

I have to remember I can’t make other people happy – however much I want to.

And I have to look at WHY I’m so invested in people being happy all of the time, why I’m such a people-pleaser, constantly assessing the moods of those around me and trying to change them so I feel better – so I feel safe.

It’s something I’ve done my whole life.

As a child, I was trying to please my parents, and in particular my dad. At work I was (and am) continually avoiding conflict – often at the expense of personal comfort and progression. As a partner I try to predict reactions and fix things by showing my jugular, appeasing, making myself smaller, taking up less space – staying one step ahead of their needs and trying to shape myself to fill them.

The good news is, I suppose, that I can step back and see this now. I can see that my need to smooth over, keep up appearances, paste on a smile, radiate positivity, martyr myself and pretend everything is fine when it’s not – isn’t actually healthy.

The even better news is that I have at least broken the people-pleasing cycle in my children… Certainly, they are not trying to please ME, very noticeably.

And they shouldn’t have to. Because I am the adult, even when I don’t want to be. Even when old wounds are ripped open. Even when it’s difficult and thankless.

And that’s the real reason we should admit that we’re fed up with our kids more, because it’s the first step in recognising THAT IT’S OKAY.

It’s normal. Pretending otherwise or beating yourself up about it isn’t actually helping or working. It’s a feeling – in the moment – that will pass only if you give yourself the space and grace to FEEL it. If you examine where it came from. If you acknowledge that you deserve to say when hard things are hard without being judged for it, and that you deserve to have someone recognise how hard you’re working, and that you deserve to be loved for it and because of it and no matter what – JUST AS YOUR KIDS DO.

Admitting you’re fed up with your kids is the first step in re-setting. In starting over fresh. In coming back stronger. In parenting with intention and not reaction. In being the love THEY need, no matter what.

So if you’re at the end of your own tether, say it.

I am fed up with my kids.

I am fed up with being a mother, and not a person.

I am fed up of everything being hard.

I am fed up of looking after everyone else.

I am fed up of being responsible for everyone else’s emotions.

I am fed up of coming last.

I am fed up of no one seeing, no one understanding, and no one appreciating me.

I am fed up of not getting any mother-forking medals.

Well I see you, I hear you, and because no one else is going to I’M here to give you the medal you deserve.

Because if this is you too, I know that you’re a goddam freaking HERO.

I have compiled a list. Take one, two or more. Let me know which, and why. And please add your own:

Medal for Restraint

Medal for Outstanding Fortitude

Medal for Unfathomable Reserves of Patience

Medal for Apologising When Unfathomable Reserves of Patience have Run Out

Medal for Being the Repository of All The Bad Emotions

Medal for Services to Laundry

Medal for Doing Hard Things

Medal for Juggling Everything

Medal for Listening to Small Children Even When It’s Boring

Medal for Consistently Showing Up Even When You Don’t Feel Like It

Medal for Getting Up and Doing It All Anyway

Medal for Everyday Bravery (see above)

Medal for Self Management

Medal for Holding It Together

Medal for Incredible and Invisible Effort

Back to School RAGE

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, School

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Week 2 of Back to School and for the Smalls the unfortunate reality of having to go in FIVE DAYS A WEEK has set in once again. Welcome to the rest of your lives, kids! Anyway, everyone is exhausted and a bit ratty.

This includes me.

I find that random RAGE is actually a general side-effect of middle-age.

Here’s five things that have annoyed me this week:

1. School communications

After a halcyon year of dealing with only one school’s insane levels (and contents) of communication, I am back to receiving missives from TWO schools across multiple platforms, multiple times a day.

Many of these begin with the biggest school comms lie of all: ‘As you are aware’.

Let’s be really clear: no, I was NOT aware, and I will likely remain perpetually confused about what day PE is on, who needs to take an instrument in, what donations for resources I’m supposed to have made, when after school clubs actually start, how much is on lunch accounts, which permission forms I’ve forgotten to fill in, and who has to dress up as a bloody Roman.

Also, I’ve already lost the reading diary.

2. Phones

The start of secondary school has meant the advent of the phone-life for the Big Small.

I began with good intentions about restrictions, screen time and supervision, but despite these – like everyone else – I have basically said goodbye to the Big Small ever wanting to play with any other toy ever again, and indeed to her even acknowledging my presence once she is basking in the hypnotic blue light of her new God.

The main theory, of course, is that as they get more independent and are out and about before and after school, the phone will offer reassurance about their whereabouts. Spoiler alert: it won’t. They won’t bloody answer the thing and the tracking app never works. OR you will receive 50 messages from them in under 4 minutes demanding to know YOUR whereabouts, usually while you’re in the middle of an important meeting, out with your mates, or undergoing a gynaecological exam.

Both of these things are enraging.

At home they will be glued to it continually, get into farcical What’s App misunderstandings even with the limited number of contacts you allow them, and make borderline inappropriate videos of themselves.

Since the Big Small has had a phone, I have had to have several conversations I wasn’t really terribly ready for, including what counts as age appropriate content, what is ‘sexy’, how to recognise emotional manipulation, being aware of what’s in the background of our photographs (there is a small group of 11 year olds who are never going unsee that image of me mostly in a dressing gown), how to safely confront racism (plus the whole history of why white lives matter isn’t a thing), and swearing etiquette.

In short, I wish the bloody things had never been invented. No phone contains enough head exploding emojis to sufficiently express or justify this sort of horror.

3. The weather

I’m British. I am obviously a bit disgruntled about the weather at all times.

4. Perimenopause

I continue along the super-fun path of trying to find out why I’m feeling rubbish, in a roulette-style game I like to call ‘Is it long covid, thyroid, perimenopause or cancer?’

Next up: various wands and cameras inserted into places which, I have learned, ARE NOT ALWAYS COVERED BY MY DRESSING GOWN. I can’t wait. And frankly, if I don’t feel annoyed about it, and the unfairness of being a middle-aged women vs being a middle-aged man, or the injustice of having to battle to be believed about my own body, or the travesty of an NHS so crippled it can only fire-fight and not prevent – then I’ll have to start feeling WORRIED.

As I’m about 98% worry/neurosis at any given time anyway, I don’t think I’ve got capacity for any more. Ergo, annoyance. It’s actually a healthy displacement activity.

5. Toothpaste cars

I’m sorry, I’ve been holding on to this for some time, but it now has to be said:

MINT GREEN, POWER BLUE AND MUSHROOM BROWN/BEIGE ARE NOT APPROPRIATE COLOURS FOR CARS.

Especially when they are MATT colours.

For the love of all that is holy, these are CARS – not kitchen cabinets or bathroom paint options from Crown.

Come on, automobile designers, get a grip.

I will accept matt white, red and black, or metallic silver, blue of any shade (I’m not unreasonable), red, green or grey. I don’t much hold with gold/yellow whether it’s sparkly or not, but after that I NOW DRAW THE LINE.

I have no idea why these particular shades should anger me so, but they do.

Probably – again – they are a scapegoat. Because there is so much else big and little to worry and rage over, from climate change to playground dramas, the degradation of women’s rights worldwide to flour weevils (don’t even ask), all of which are so wildly and overwhelmingly out of my control that the feelings they engender have to go SOMEWHERE that’s comparatively manageable, generally benign – and suitably distracting.

In short, every middle-aged girl has got to have a spurious-rage hobby, or hobby-horse.

I welcome all new ideas.

Friendship

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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I’m sorry if I’m a terrible friend.

It’s not that I don’t love and value you. It’s just that I’m running on empty.

By the time everyone who needs me every day has taken a slice of me, there is just… none left over.

I can’t give any more, or do any more, or be any more, for anyone else.

If it helps, please know you’re not the bottom of my to do list.

I am.

I think friendship in middle age does just have to look a bit different, sometimes.

Sometimes it’s not about the nights out you have, the deep and meaningful conversations – putting the world to rights, the laughs, the drinks, or the coffees. Sometimes it’s not about the hours put in. Sometimes it’s just a periodic text to check the other person is still alive. A fleeting catch-up on the fly to report the latest updates on crazy kids, ailing parents, and stalling careers.

Sometimes, friendship in middle age is an act of faith – object permanence for adults. You have to believe the other person is there even when you don’t see them.

I think I am here when people need me. When you’re not looking, I still exist – a tree in a wood when there’s no one to hear it slowly collapse in exhaustion. And I’m far better at holding your structural integrity than my own. I don’t think I’m mean, or using you, or taking more than I’m willing to give? I know in theory friendships aren’t transactional – but at the same time I feel so guilty, so much of the time. Like I’m not enough for you, or me – or anyone.

I wish I was better at object permanence, myself. I wish I could rest in friendships without feeling the need to make people like me all over again whenever I next see them. I wish I was better at remembering birthdays. I wish I was better at reaching out after a gap instead of being weird and awkward about it. I wish I was more organised. I wish I had more energy – more get up and go. I wish I didn’t find correspondence and diary management so terrifying and overwhelming. I wish I had more free time. I wish the smalls were easier, and easier to blend. I wish I was capable of peopling better and more often. I wish I believed, deep down, I was worth the wait, your time and patience.

So if you’re still my friend despite the scattiness, gaucheness, random silences interspersed with over-familiarity, the rampant poor time management and even more rampant self-doubt and self-pity – thank you.

I’m sorry if I’m a terrible friend.

If you bear with me I’ll bear with you.

And I’ll make it my new Summer’s resolution to do a bit better.

xxx

The Barbie Speech (for mums)

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

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It’s literally impossible to be a mother.

It kills me to see you try so hard, and care so much, and that you still don’t think you’re good enough.

Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

You have to be nurturing but not coddling, present, but not a helicopter parent, involved, but not smothering. You have to do everything for them, but not so they’re entitled. You can’t yell, but you have to make them listen, you have to gentle parent and keep them off screens, but also not let them cause a scene in a restaurant.

You have to breastfeed, but not for too long, or where anyone might see – you have to be a good mother and a good girl, and a good feminist, too. You have to put your baby down and let cry it out or you’ll make a rod for your own back, AND you have to lie with them until they go to sleep, AND get in your own 8 hours a night because you have to NOT do the school run in pyjamas, or with bags under your eyes, and it’s just a matter of sticking to a routine, but you should be baby-led.

You have to treasure every moment, even when there is screaming, and other people’s bodily fluids, and BOREDOM, and acting out the same play-scene on repeat, watching the same show, listening to the same Minecraft details, over and over and over again. You can’t complain about it being hard because if you do, you’re ungrateful, but if you’re not self-deprecating enough you’re smug, or a martyr, or some hybrid of the two – smartyr.

Only you’re not smarter, at all, because you’re so damn TIRED, like all the time, and your brain doesn’t work how it used to – but you can’t let the patriarchy know, because you still have to smash the glass ceilings for the sisterhood. You have to set a good example for your daughters, and chase the promotions and deliver the targets – and don’t, whatever you do, let down the team, or snap, or be BOSSY. But you DO have to be a boss, you just have to do it in a caring way – but also don’t show your emotions at work because that’s icky and unprofessional.

You have to love being a mother, but you have to love your career, too. You have to 9 to 5 but you have to be a stay at home mum, do the school runs, and the doctor and dentist appointments, the after school clubs, the interminable Saturday mornings at the pitch side and afternoons at endless soft-play parties, and keep everyone’s schedule, and keep up with the bombardment of school emails and events, and keep up with the infinite washing pile, and keep house – but not like a show home because your kids won’t be having fun there, but also not like a sloven because it’s gross and unhealthy, and make delicious, nutritious meals that everyone will eat, but not serve freezer food and not encouraging fussiness – and somehow fit all that into a 24 hour day and a 44 year-old human mind.

You have to maintain successful friendships, and go out on the town, despite being exhausted, but not talk about the kids all the time, even though they’re supposed to be your world, but not too much of it. You have to be an earth mother but you have to be a MILF, keep it classy and be natural, but not let yourself go, but also not be fake, or care TOO much about your appearance – because if you do you’re vain, or a cougar, or desperate – or asking for it. Still.

You have to be the perfect mother and you have to be the perfect partner. You have to pay attention to your relationship, do date nights, and keep the magic alive. You have to enjoy an active sex life, and you have to not talk about how it’s changed, or prolapses, or dryness – or not having really felt like it since 2017. You have to never NEED any help, but if you do, you have ask your your spouse for help/housework foreplay, because how is he supposed to know about it otherwise? And you have to do it in a way that doesn’t blame him, nag him, or make him feel bad.

You have to be strong – in the right way – but you also have to be vulnerable in the right way. You have to be real about mental health but definitely not in a way where you’re actually not keeping it together. You have to pretty cry. You have to let the next generation see your struggles so it’s not such a god awful surprise for THEM when they get here, too, but still make it all seem rewarding enough they don’t run screaming for the hills/hysterectomies.

You have to sacrifice, but without being diminished. You have to come last because your children come first, when it comes to career, food, sleep, meals, or just going to the bloody toilet, last in line, busting, with a wobbly pelvic floor you’re meant to be exercising four times a day without raising your eyebrows, because that means you’re not doing it right, and also causes wrinkles and you have to be smooth and never age. You also have to come FIRST, and prioritise grooming, and a gym routine and self care – because you can’t pour from an empty cup. Particularly an ugly, hairy, lined or overweight one.

You have to smile, even when it hurts. Even when you are the broken Weird Barbie. Stuck in your own, internal splits trying to do it all, please them all, get through another day.

You have to never get old, never be fat, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never show fear, never show anger, never lose control, never get out of line.

It’s too hard. It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you.

And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault in the first place.

You asked for this.

[An adaptation in honour of Barbie, this page’s cover girl, and the brilliant speech delivered by the also brilliant America Ferrera]

My house

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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I love my house.

I moved in the summer before the pandemic hit. It was a big downsize after my divorce. I was so, so tired. I just wanted to rest and be SAFE. And it’s given me that, these four walls. If my life goes to shit all over again, I can afford it. I can still pootle along gently. I can breathe.

I’ve also questioned myself, again and again, if I did the right thing.

I’ve worried I’m lazy. That not going bigger and better and working harder and earning more and aiming higher and having more ambition is a cop out. That I chose retreat. That licking my wounds and living smaller (and out of catchment) and cutting out big rooms (and cars and holidays) might ruin my life, and the Smalls’ lives in turn.

Well the cost of living crisis has sort of put paid to that… As interests rates hike again I’m increasingly grateful for my cowardice/caution. (And the Big Small, after months of worry, is going up to big school with all her mates – also a massive relief).

I still love my house. I love that I can walk to the shop, and the vet, and the pharmacy, and the take-away, and the park. I love my neighbours, and my community. I love the security.

But some days, these same four beloved walls press in HARD.

Some days, I think I hate it, too.

For a start I hate that there is always something to do, and fix, and clean, and sort out, and spruce up – in an oppressive cycle we were never told about as kids, drawing the dream, the red roof, the four windows and front door in the middle, stripes of blue and green top and bottom. A starburst sun in the corner.

I hate the fact nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever DONE. You can’t stick it on the fridge with a magnet and just forget about it and move on to the next thing.

I hate that after four years it has inexplicably filled back up with all the junk I worked so hard to eliminate so we could fit into it in the first place.

I hate that post pandemic my life is STILL shrunk mostly to these rooms. To a short circuit around them, of school runs, and supermarket shops, drs appointments and very little that is much further afield, off the paper.

I hate that like millions of home workers, I feel the weight of the privilege of being able to pick up and drop off kids, put a wash on, wear pyjama bottoms and drink tea in the garden – and the pressure of being seen to be present and productive and switched on at all times.

I hate that I am on my own in it. Because funnily enough as a child I never drew stick me outside it, all alone. I drew company.

I hate that I am so often so lonely, here. So claustrophobic. Chafing at my boundaries. When I feel I am spring-loaded in my own body, ready to leap out of the picture, hurl myself off the set tracks I laid so deliberately.

I hate that as soon as I leave it all I want to do is get back to it.

I feel all of this particularly hard after the death of my dad.

I suppose it is partly the classic carpe diem of grief, wanting to feel and experience and expand to fill what life and time there is left. Like him, I am also on an ever-shifting continuum between the Myers Brigg I and E – sometimes drawing energy from others but needing time to recharge on my own.

And the balance right now is… off.

Some days I’m conscious the only real-life adult interactions I have are the small talk conversations at the school gate, at which I am only partially successful. This is not the social life I imagined for my adult self.

When the kids return, they have used up their own quota of other-people energy at school, or at their dad’s, and they want to veg, to hibernate, to retreat into their own little home world and not come out – not go out.

When the most anxious Small is particularly anxious, I cannot pry her from the house at a weekend with either force or bribery, and she rebels at the thought of my inviting others into her safe space. Babysitters and having mates round for an evening cuppa is not always possible, here. Bedtime isn’t always easy. This is not something people always understand.

There are days when I feel trapped in my own home, a prisoner of a nest I created. A haven which has also limited my horizons, a safety net that has become a sticky web – pulling my limbs down harder the harder I fight it.

And always always, just behind my shoulder, out of sight, is the knowledge of the spider that is waiting to eat me – the doom that stalks all of the anxious. (I wonder where she gets it from).

I’m not quite sure that there are answers.

I think that this – this trapped feeling – is maybe just… middle age. A combination of the squeeze of responsibility, the boredom of monotony, the gaping hole of loss, the reality of physical/hormonal exhaustion, the tick of the clock, the double-edged sword of home-working, the challenge of raising kids wired differently – in a world too fucked up to make safe for them.

This, of course, is the junction at which men start wearing sports blazers, buying two seater cars, developing a coke habit and dating women 15-20 years their junior.

As a woman my options are more limited. An extra glass of wine, maybe. A spring clean. Fluff up and feather the nest with a trip to Dunhelm and a few different cushions and lamps… Possibly a kitten.

I think as women we are often better at understanding how love and hate live together, under one roof, two sides of one of sheet of paper, scrunched up into a ball. We are so used to feeling more than one thing at once, often in direct opposition, and feeling the feeling rather than seeking a solution to the dissonance.

And we are good at smoothing out the wrinkles, placing it carefully in a memory box, starting over with a fresh sheet, every day if that’s what’s necessary.

This summer, I definitely need to draw some new lines.

Wish me luck.

xxx

How to be a grey rock

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in Divorce, Domestic abuse, mental health, Motherhood

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It involves considerably less paper mache and craft supplies than you might think!

Grey Rock is a technique that people who have been in abusive relationships can use to deal with someone they still have to communicate with – for instance an ex they’re co-parenting with, or a close family member like a parent they’re trying to set boundaries with. It also works with difficult work colleagues.

It’s about being practical, boring, and unreactive – like a rock – so you stop feeding your abuser with emotion and reaction.

It is also very much easier said than done…

So here’s some top tips from women who visit this page, to help you put the Grey Rock theory into practice.

1. Write where possible

It’s much harder to consider and control your reactions and emotions face-to-face. If you are split up from an ex-partner for instance, or estranged from a parent, it’s highly likely you don’t communicate that well. It’s up to you to break the cycle and re-set your interactions, and the time and space written communication can give you to do so is key.

There is the added advantage, of course, that your interactions are recorded. This can stop an abuser from gaslighting you by making claims about what you said or didn’t say, agreed to or not.

It is also evidence, if you need it, for legal proceedings.

2. Think about the outcome you want

In every single interaction, it’s important to always have the end in mind. What is the outcome you want, and how can you best achieve it – or get as close to it as possible?

Don’t feel the need to rebut every point they make – it is a skill to mentally sift through the rubbish and find the nuggets you actually have to or want to respond to.

Take a step back, consider what you REALLY want to get out of every conversation.

3. Use single subject emails/texts

Don’t stuff an email or text with paragraphs and paragraphs of every little thing that needs to be decided. Pick one battle at a time. Keep it short.

4. Use short sentences

Imagine you’re talking to a stranger from space – or sending a telegram you pay for by word. You have to keep it really clear, really simple and break it down into easily understandable and actionable points. (Actual bullet points are probably going to annoy them, but THINK in bullet points).

If you go over 3 sentences, you’ve probably written too much.

5. Don’t rise to the bait

Don’t get bogged down, side-tracked, or distracted by other topics, accusations, grievances, or recriminations. Your abuser’s correspondence will inevitably be peppered with all of them.

I know you’re angry. I know you want to shout at them about how AWFUL they are, how that’s not what happened, how they’re wrong, how they can’t control you anymore – but you will only make things worse, mostly for yourself.

For so many people who have been abused, part of the problem is that you could never win the argument. You were always the one that was stupid, and over-emotional, and misunderstanding, and getting it wrong. Now you’re finally free some of you wants to fight back. I get it. But here’s the reality: YOU WON’T WIN. I’m so sorry. They’ve had more practice. They know your buttons. They ARE your trigger. And it is not going to get you the result you actually want…

The only way to proceed is to CHANGE the argument, by not attending it. Don’t rise to the bait.

The truth is this. When you rise up, when you show your strength, all they will want to do is push you down harder – back into your place. That’s not going to get you what you want or need from them.

6. Save your emotion for the right people

Obviously you have to vent. Because they are a WANKFOFFLENOODLE. But do it to your friends, not your abuser. Laugh at them together. Share the absurd responses. Cry and scream and shriek at how they still talk down to you. But only show your abuser the Grey Rock.

They don’t get your emotion anymore.

They are not worth the energy, or worthy of the honour.

7. Cut the chat, but be civil

With that in mind, forget everything you know about interacting with normal people.

Don’t ask how they are. Cut the preamble. You are not there to make friends all over again with this person. But neither are you there to make them more of an enemy… Be civil, but impersonal. Be clear about what you want/need. But do not wander into the thought process behind it, or how you feel about it, or why you think it’s a good idea.

Don’t let them IN. Channel Queen Lizzie – be aloof, unattainable; never complain; never explain.

8. Pacify, but don’t pander

It’s best to treat your abuser as a bomb that’s about to go off, or as an extremely extremely tired toddler, which we all know are much of a muchness. Don’t make any sudden moves that might startle them, or confront them too directly. Give options. Make it easy for them to ‘win’.

If you don’t, they will just come out swinging at you – and back you’ll go round the circle again.

That’s not to say you should roll over to their every demand. Those days are OVER, darling. You don’t have to go back there. But setting up the back of someone you are obliged to keep in your life is foolishness – and you are no longer anyone’s fool. Be reasonable. Be fair. Be gone.

9. Walk away

With that in mind, don’t continue a conversation that has become unfruitful. If you are going round in those never-ending circles, just step away. And don’t be tempted back into response once you’ve done so. Here’s some phrases to help:

I don’t think we’re getting anywhere, so let’s leave it for now.

I’m disappointed you feel that way.

I don’t agree. Let’s leave things as they are.

No.

10. Just say no

Oh, that’s the hardest one isn’t it? But you can just say no to your abuser, you know.

I know you’re used to making excuses, and trying to please them. I know at least 80% of you secretly still thinks they’re right and you’re wrong, because that’s how they’ve trained you. I know you’re afraid deep down. Even though there’s that rebellious bit that wants to fight now, you’re afraid of them. Even though they may never have laid a finger on you, you’re afraid of them.

But you can just say no. Honest. And it can be empowering:

No, that doesn’t work for me.

No, not this week.

No I can’t do that.

No, we’ll leave things as they are.

11. Don’t panic

It is in the abuser’s manual to make threats when they don’t get what they want – including the reaction they are used to from YOU.

When you say no, they will threaten you with court, with safeguarding concerns, with parental alienation accusations, with telling everyone what you’ve done and setting them against you, with phoning your workplace, etc etc.

Hell, they may even follow through.

Don’t panic. This is all quite standard.

Remember, just because they’ve said it, doesn’t make it happen, and doesn’t make it TRUE.

You don’t have to believe them, anymore. And other people won’t either. They can see through them from the outside far more quickly than you did, trapped on the inside.

12. Set correspondence boundaries

One of the best ways to Grey Rock is to stop being so responsive, literally.

They do not get to bully you by appearing constantly in your life – pinging in your pocket several times a day. Set rules. They are not allowed to contact you at a weekend unless it’s an emergency. They can only email on a certain address (set up a new one just for them), or call on a certain number (get a burner phone).

And then enforce the rules! Turn off the phone. Don’t look at the email address on your ‘rest’ days.

This will be hard. You are still in fight or flight and you want to know what they’re going to hit you with next – but stepping away is VITAL to help you re-charge the Grey Rock.

Be disciplined, with them but mostly with yourself.

13. Sleep on it

Except in the most simple of circumstances, never EVER respond to any correspondence with your abuser straight off the bat. This is for two key reasons. First, it trains them that you are no longer at their beck and call. Second, it gives you a chance to check your Grey Rock is grey enough and rocky enough.

It’s HARD to take emotion out of an emotional situation. Write your response, but then sleep on it. Read it again with fresh eyes before you send it.

I’ll bet money you change it for the better after a kip.

14. Find a Grey Rock buddy

Even better than sleeping on it is getting someone ELSE to read it before you send it!

You just can’t see clearly when you’re so embroiled in something. Find someone not directly involved who can check your message for clarity, reasonability, length and focus.

Tell them about Grey Rock.

In fact, tell everyone.

xxxx

Perimenopause the Superpower

31 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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I’m trying to view Perimenopause as a Superpower. So it’s less about what I’m losing – like control of my pelvic floor, fertility, skin elasticity, and rational thought – but what I’m GAINING, and how I can use it to FIGHT THE FORCES OF EVIL.

Here are 14 of my not-so-secret PM weapons:

1. Sweats/hot flushes

Yeah, just try it, Punk. Put your hands on me and you will BURN. Or slip off, like I’m a bar of boiling-hot soap.

Also I spend so much time fanning myself I’ve built up serious wax-on-wax-off karate moves.

2. Bloating

At the start of the day, my trousers fit fine. At a certain point in the afternoon, I can ping my top button off with the force of my belly bloat, and take out someone’s EYE. Even when they’re wearing a mask! Peeeow, peeeow.

3. Saggy boobs

Think Elastigirl, but in two very specific anatomical areas. I need someone to design me some sort of really cool leather bustier that flips down in a Janet Jackson-esq wardrobe malfunction.

Boobchucks. What a way to go.

4. Sore joints

I can tell you now which hip is going to need replacing in circa 20 years, because it’s killing me 80% of the time. Often the only relief I can find is to whip out a quick Downward Dog. The butt in the air thing might be more element of surprise than combat strike, unless combined with…

5. Wind

Personal chemical warfare! Some days I’m so trumpy I feel like I’ve probably created my own mini ozone hole that follows me round like the Pink Panther cloud.

6. Brain fog

Good luck trying to predict my next move, Super Villains, because I’ve just left my door keys in the goddam FREEZER, fed the cat the hamster food, worn odd shoes on the school run and basically have NO IDEA WHETHER I’M MOTHERFREEZING COMING OR GOING!

Oh, you think YOU’RE the disruptor? Lols! I AM chaos. Bring it on, beetches.

7. Floods

Face-off with Harley Quinn, in the style of Crocodile Dundee, only we’re armed with tampons.

“Oh, darling, that’s not a Period. THIS IS A PERIOD.”

**Unleashes the red flood gates of hell**

8. Low libido

Going to try to seduce me to the Dark Side? HA! Good luck with THAT strategy.

9. Mood swings

I’m basically, temperamentally speaking, the Incredible Hulk. You do not want to make me angry. You will have no idea what will trigger this.

Here’s the really powerful bit: NOR HAVE I.

Tick tick KA-FLOOFIN-BOOM.

10. Vaginal dryness/discharge

I can suck the moisture out of enemies at 50 paces with only my vagina AND/OR AT THE SAME PARADOXICAL TIME cast a discharge oil slick across roads so they crash their villain-mobiles.

You better hope and pray I don’t take off my enormous M&S granny knickers, Thanos.

11. Hair loss

The Joker will never be able to wash that make-up off for a full day of Evilling on the morrow, BECAUSE THE DRAIN IS PERPETUALLY CLOGGED.

That’ll wipe the smile off his face. Or not. (Depending on whether he has micellar water).

12. Insomnia

Trying to catch me unawares? Planning to launch a strike at the dead at night? I’M ALREADY AWAKE, Evil Masterminds! THERE IS NO ELEMENT OF SURPRISE, OR ANY POINT TO LIFE WHEN IT INSISTS ON EXISTING AT 3AM.

In fact, I’m so tired I WANT you to kill me.

13. Fatigue

Oh hey Lex Luthar. You’re not going to need that Kryptonite, sweetie. 2pm is now my own personal Kryptonite – when I’m literally at my most feeble crawling through the day on my knees. (Or too much red meat – when I’m doubled up in pain on the bathroom floor). AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I have to get up and fight through anyway BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OTHER CHOICES AND NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO FETCH THE KIDS AND FEED THEM TEA AND PUT THE WASHING ON AND DO THE HOMEWORK AND LISTEN TO THEIR STORIES AND PUT THEM TO BED AND THEN GET UP AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT HURTS.

I’m USED to carrying on through weakness, sickness, thick and thin.

14. Not caring

I’m still working on tapping into this new Perimenopause power, but it’s there, thrumming under the surface.

Increasingly, I don’t care what you think, anymore. I don’t care if you LIKE me. I don’t care if you’ve got a plausible back story to make your bad deeds understandable. Frankly, my dear, I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FORK.

I’m finally free.

JOIN ME.

(And pass to a PM hero you know).

Happy Blancmange Day

01 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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This Mother’s Day, following hot on the heels of this International Women’s Day, I’ve decided I don’t particularly want to be a Strong Independent Woman anymore. International or otherwise.

Like many Mothers, I’m sick of being strong – of coping. Of carrying on. Of being congratulated for keeping lots of balls in the air or things on my plate, when what I’d really like isn’t flowers, or chocolates, or random toiletries (that’d probably give me a rash/thrush if I actually used them), but for someone to catch a few of the balls, or wipe a few things off my plate, instead.

I think, just for a bit, I’d quite like to be a Feeble, Heavily Supported, Local Puddle.

Or perhaps a Blancmange.

I feel like I could really put the Bleugh into Blancmange (said properly, not like it’s spelled).

First of all, it’s just a great, GREAT word. And I feel like it’s weirdly onomatopoeic for this point in my life. People who don’t enjoy the shape and feel in their mouths of saying the word Blancmange are frankly, Bleugh-wrong.

Plus, the Blancmange enjoyed its heyday in the 80s, a situation I very much identify with…

It’s also almost entirely made of sugar, and EXPECTED to be pink and jiggly, without judgement, which sounds like something I can really get behind, too.

Finally, it does not have to hold itself up and maintain its own structural integrity: it can flollop at will, and takes the form of whatever harder, firmer vessel is holding it – possibly a rabbit mould. (Surrounded by lime jelly grass, obvs).

Being passive and gelatinous and allowing someone else to shape my destiny and make my decisions sounds pretty damn good at the moment.

So today, Mothers, I hope you get to be a Blancmange. I hope you get to put down everything you hold up, just for a bit, and rest in a mould of some kind, resplendently wibbly.

Because all of us need to be able to wobble, sometimes, under the impossible pressure of being everything to everyone, keeping everything in mind, everything ticking over, everyone on an even keel. All of us melt down, sometimes, before we pull ourselves back together, try again, woman up. Re-form. Un-mange.

This Mother’s Day, rest, if you can, like an 80s dessert. Feel free to let it all slide. Gloop. Smell of strawberries. (An inevitable consequence of the crap smellies you will inevitably be gifted).

And if you CAN maintain your own structural integrity, go forth and be the rabbit mould for a Mum you know.

It’s what she really wants.

And deserves.

Xxx