Category Archives: Motherhood

The Santa Script

08 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting

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Right. If you’re of a cynical disposition, easily offended by sentimentality or allergic to mawkishness – you’re going to have to look away now. Because I acknowledge that the following is a maybe a bit… sickly sweet. OR it’s just sweet. (It’s Christmas, I now cry at adverts, and I don’t know the difference anymore).

So. Someone asked me what I actually said to the Big Small when she pinned me down about whether or not Santa was real.

And I just wanted it to be something more than, “No love, it was all a big ol’ lie – LOLS!”

Because Christmas IS magic to me, however nauseating that sounds. Even more so since I had kids… and I think magic/joy in any small form is worth trying to preserve, and pass on.

I also think I managed to sell it to the Big Small okay because she’s genuinely been really excited to be involved from the other side this year. She’s LOVING joining in on the Elf and is full of ideas for Santa’s visit! The Small Small has no idea what she’s in for…

I was probably slightly less eloquent at the time, but I had been thinking about it for a while, and this is the general jist of it.

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 did warn you it was sentimental).

Happy Christmas

xxx

Choosing patience.

04 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting

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There is a Small person stalking off ahead of me.

She is tossing her sun-bleached hair and there is anger in her rigid legs, held in her shoulders, and the chin I can’t see.

Probably, there is muttering.

It is the scenery, and the soundtrack, of my summer.

I can feel reciprocal – and cumulative – anger boiling in my own bones, straightening my own spine, lurching up in my own chest, to my own mouth.

It has seemed like someone has constantly been flouncing, whinging or whining for at least three of the last six weeks, due variously to it not being fair, perceived slights, injuries real and imaginary, getting the wrong sandwich, not wanting do do whatever we’re doing, being too hot, being too cold, being too bored despite the myriad of adventures laid at their feet, not feeling listened to, not being the centre of my attention, wasps, being told no, having the worst mother/sister/life in the world, or losing at Uno.

Rightly or wrongly, my main aim in parenting over recent weeks has mostly been to avoid being screamed at – something I have very much failed to achieve.

When not kicking off with random negativity, the Smalls have varied the screaming across the remaining three holiday weeks through the medium of kicking each other, or kicking up a ruckus being giddy and silly and thick as thieves – to the point where I’d really rather they went back to beating each other up.

For reasons I cannot understand we have not seemed to be able to be a successful three. Any two of us can get along at one time, but all three IS APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I, like so many other parents – so many other mothers – am TIRED.

The effort of keeping everyone happy and stable and constantly managing big emotions – from all of us – has been exhausting. Especially out of routine. We talk about the mental load of motherhood, we don’t talk so much about the emotional load. And right now, it is a LOT.

It has always seemed to me to be a great gynacolgical injustice that women hit the menopause at precisely the time girls hit puberty, and if the hormones of the last few weeks are anything to go by, BOY are the next few years going to be super fun!!!! I can’t wait.

Because already there is far more rage in family life and far less joy than I was expecting. I often wonder if that is normal, if that is my fault, if I’m doing it wrong? If other people, other children, are happier? I often fall into that familiar gap between expectation, comparison and reality.

The hole is deep, with spikes at the bottom.

And it’s not the only hole…

The other one I tumble into, often, is created in the gap between how I was parented in the 80s, and how I want to parent now. I had a wonderful childhood, don’t get me wrong, but times have just… changed. Parenting has changed.

I KNOW I don’t want to give my kids a clip round the ear, or invalidate their feelings, or demand total unthinking obedience, or withhold love until they comply. But I don’t always know what ELSE to do. I don’t always get it right. I don’t always set the right boundaries and the right consequences.

I’m all at sea with just how much parenting has evolved in the last 30 years – and the gentle parenting textbooks and articles don’t always keep me afloat – especially in the heat of the moment. The fact is that trying to raise kids with empathy through empathy is a much longer and harder road to ‘easy’ kids. Or at least it is with my kids. And waiting for them to become healthy adults at the other end currently feels like an eternity.

So here I am again, about to fall into my own special parent traps, feeling my frustration build with each stomp the Small in front of me takes away from me.

And it’s here, right here, as I teeter on my own edge, that I’ve tried to set a failsafe switch. I’ve tried to recognise this, this moment when I’m about to go over, and stop. Because I know THIS is when I have to choose.

I can shout, I can yell, I can throw myself off an emotional cliff and add to the general screaming – about under-appreciation and entitlement and respect, about how hard I am trying and how hard I am working… Or I can choose patience. I can choose love. I can hope that I am able to keep choosing it, if I practise enough. I can hope that one day, it will prove to BE enough. I can hope that a long time from now, they will look back and remember and know, and choose patience and love, too.

So I reach really deep down inside myself, and I manage to choose.

I don’t always.

But this time I push down the red mist, just, and I jog after the small, angry figure in front of me. I marvel at the beauty of her, the strong muscles, the even stronger views.

I realise she has grown in the sun. Her squidge is gone. Her shape is changing. There is a glimpse of the teen and the woman she will be.

I offer her a piggyback, while she is still small enough to carry.

She accepts.

And what we really have is a cuddle.

With that connection, our anger disperses, and the last days of summer continue.

Later, there will be time to talk about our day, what happened, and how we both handled it. For now we keep walking. Together.

Roll on Monday.

You cannot come soon enough.

Summer Loving

04 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Postnatal depression

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Sometimes, I worry that I don’t feel the right way about my children.

Or at least, not the way other people do.

That I love them too violently and too all-consumingly and too hard.

The thing is, I just don’t know how else to do it.

If I’m honest, it’s one of the things that probably cost me my marriage.

We tell our kids – and maybe we tell ourselves – that love is this huge, infinite thing, or that it grows and encompasses and enfolds anyone else that comes along – that it doesn’t run out, that loving one thing a whole lot makes it easier to love other things too, not harder.

But that’s not been my experience.

I think my love diverted, and funneled into those babies. And the bond was so strong, all others felt weak by comparison. I fell so hard for my children I couldn’t see straight – for YEARS. Still.

And I couldn’t understand why my ex didn’t feel the same way, or at least feel IN the same way I did.

I’ve always been like this.

There’s a famous family story about one Christmas where my Granny Betty had made my sister and I two matching stuffed cats. They were the first presents we opened. And I loved mine so much I refused to open any more presents, and my sister had a bumper year of opening everything. But more than that – I followed her around with her cat as she was playing with double the new toys trying to make her cuddle it and love it as much as I loved mine.

That’s how I felt about my children, and my ex.

That’s how I tried to make him love them in my way, not his way…

I still have a great deal of this huge, hard, fierce, overwhelming love to give. But sometimes it bubbles over. Sometimes it burns through rationality. Sometimes it lacks perspective.

When my children first started spending time with their dad, one night a fortnight at first – I felt like my heart had been cut out. I was bereft. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t do anything but feel empty – literally hollow on the inside while on the outside my arms ached for the imprint of their little bodies, my nose caught ghosts of their scents and my ears strained to hear them in their empty beds.

I wrote about it once, and someone on this blog told me I should stop acting like they’d died.

She was right.

But that’s still what it FELT like. It was still real to me, even if it wasn’t rational.

Since then, lots of people have said to me that I’m living the dream. Getting time off from the kids! A whole weekend to yourself every other weekend! A kid-free summer holiday! Whoop!

Well my dream was to be part of a functioning, happy family… So, it’s not so much a dream, really, as a reality I have had to learn how to appreciate.

And I have.

Mostly.

I mean, intellectually I KNOW they need to be with their dad – and I KNOW I need time to be the me that isn’t only their mother.

Sometimes I crave it. There ARE Friday nights when they’ve pushed every button there is and I’m almost – ALMOST – glad to see the back of them. When I know we need the distance from each other to be healthy. When I am glad to go out, and see friends, and drink, and lie in, and read and write and play at being care-free and child-free with Boynotquiteonthenetehredge – and be the me that’s there when they are not.

I KNOW this.

And I know it does me, and them, so much good.

I know a lot of stuff in my head.

But my heart… my heart knows stuff, too. And it knows it louder; wrenchingly, gutterely, roaringly.

And despite how far I’ve come and all the perspective I’ve gained, it is still hard, sometimes, for my head to wrestle it into submission.

This last week has been one of those times.

It has been one of those times because it has been the week they have been away abroad with their dad and their ‘other’ family.

The step-mum who I’m sure is lovely but I still want to scream at for having her hands on my babies and playing the role that means the very most to me, however part-time; the grandparents-by-marriage they see more than they see my own parents; the family unit I wanted so badly; the experience I can’t give them – won’t know anything about, and can’t control.

It is the longest and the furthest I have ever been away from them.

And it has been HARD.

Don’t get me wrong, it has also been wonderful to be with the Boy, pretending not to be parents, putting that bit into a box. But the lid has kept cracking open under the pressure of what’s been locked inside…

Like those first nights without them all over again – I have been grappling with all this anxiety, and all this love that suddenly has nowhere to go, and won’t be contained.

If I’m honest, I am a bit afraid of it.

When they call, they are like other people’s children.

They are browner and blonder in the sun. They don’t speak to me normally, can’t relate to me on the phone because we’re never apart enough to call – and it is all stilted and wrong. They are wearing clothes I don’t recognise, and have done activities and have family stories and jokes I’m not part of.

They are less mine.

I am less me.

And that tiny slice above my eyebrows knows this is the way, this is right, this is proper, this is growing up – but the rest of me… Oh God the rest of me is WILD with longing for them.

I get off the phone, and I weep.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way about their children, or about co-parenting their kids.

I don’t know if the way I love is the wrong way.

But if this is you, too, I want you to know that I KNOW how hard the summer holidays are when you’re a single parent without your kids.

Much harder than they look.

And I hope yours are back in your arms soon, too.

xxx

Professional Wingwoman

04 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in Motherhood, Returning to work

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Side-kick Extraordinaire.

Back-up Babe.

These are the things that should really be on my CV, forget the official job titles and all of this I LEAD X, MANAGED Y, GENERATED Z BILLION POUNDS stuff.

I didn’t. But I helped other people do so, because THAT’S actually what I do best.

The fact is that I don’t have the personality, mental health, energy, logic, planning skills or capacity to deal with difficult problems/people that it takes to be a Head Of or Director (in my case of Communications).

I can be easily distracted from any goal by my pathological need to be liked, keep the peace and make everyone feel comfortable. I baulk at even slightly difficult conversations; become instantly overwhelmed by big pictures and even moderate responsibilities – and crumble under any sort of pressure or negativity.

But if you need someone to rely on, champion, support, commit, brainstorm creative ideas with and go above and beyond to deliver them with aplomb, mild irreverence and a bit of a twinkle – I’M YOUR WOMAN.

And it’s taken me a really, really long time to come to terms with that.

I have spent a long time berating myself – and being berated – for my lack of ambition.

Like so many women of my generation I was convinced I needed to earn my age, move up the ladder, manage bigger and bigger teams, develop my leadership skills, aim for the c-suite – SMASH THE GLASS CEILINGS.

(Whilst at the same time – obviously – still keeping on top of the washing, the cleaning, the gardening, the school admin, being an engaged and present parent, arranging the playdates/clubs/parties/doctorsandvetsappointments, keeping up successful friendships, maintaining grooming standards and shagging my partner like a porn star).

I know we THINK we’ve busted the ‘women can have it all’ myth already – but the thing is, we’ve really only just acknowledged it as an impossibility. We haven’t actually DEALT with it in any meaningful, relieving, way.

And I for one have still been internalising it. Maybe you have, too.

1980s/1990s feminism told me I should want The Career. It told me I should want to be Day to Night Business Barbie (the pink one pictured here who’s reversible skirt flips round to reveal a tutu overskirt and who had a spangly boob tube under her suit jacket).

I believed it.

And I believed the workplaces that wanted me to keep giving me promotions out of my comfort zone and do management courses and set professional goals and have a five year plan for advancement/world domination.

And I somehow didn’t process the memo/fax that 21st Century feminism evolved – and empowered me to be whatever damn kind of Barbie I wanted, on any given day, depending on my mood, and very much NOT depending on what other people expected of me. (Including slob-about-in-black-leggings-feeling-guilty-about-not-having-changed-the-beds-for-six-weeks-Barbie).

I have always been so proud of the women I’ve known moving up around me – but at the same time I have been angry with myself that I wasn’t doing the same – that I didn’t seem to have what it takes to go the route I thought I was supposed to WANT to go – even though I secretly knew – deep down – I didn’t.

But I think I’ve finally let that go.

It took a while. But now I’m here:

I like my job. I’m even good at it (some days).

I like doing the coalface work – doing the actual DOING. I don’t want to manage other people to do it in my stead.

I like the fact that if I do something wrong the buck ultimately stops with somebody else.

I like the fact that the very worst that can happen is that an article is a bit late or a press release doesn’t go out. No one dies! (That might actually be my favourite bit).

I like the fact I can put my work down and forget about it.

I like the fact I can take a lunch break, listen to the birds, do the school run, manage my household, read my book, write for myself.

I like the fact I have been the quiet supportive force behind some truly amazing women, delivering some very cool projects, on their way to some truly amazing places.

I like the fact my worth is no longer tied to my productivity.

I like the fact that I measure my success against my own happiness and not other people. (Or at least I try to).

I like the fact that I don’t feel like a failure anymore – like I’ve not achieved my potential. My potential was NEVER about being in a Boardroom, or running any sort of show. And that’s really, really, really okay.

Perhaps most of all, though, I like the fact I don’t have to wear a pink power suit and high heels and turn them round after work to do – shudder – NETWORKING.

A few weeks ago I wrote that I officially set us all free from having to achieve anything with our creativity. Well now I set us free from having to achieve Business Barbie-shaped success at work, too.

It’s bollocks.

You are enough.

You’re doing enough.

In fact, you’re doing GREAT.

xxxx

Abortion.

23 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in Abortion, Infertility, mental health, Miscarriage, Motherhood, Politics

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I’ve spent a long time wondering what, and if, to say anything about abortion.

It’s a divisive issue.

And it’s a gift for for keyboard sancti-warriors everywhere, and I’m not really one to put my head on the chopping block for no good reason.

But I’m going to. Because this IS a good reason.

I’ve chosen to post in particular because I’ve not only been following what’s been happening over in America, but some of what’s been happening here as Britain’s pro-lifers have been galvanised by the ‘victory’.

[I’m going to say now that I’m really happy to discuss this issue in comments, but I reserve the right to stop talking to you if I feel it is unproductive, and I will immediately block you if you are disrespectful. This is my page, and I can choose what I share, how I spend my time and energy on it, and who I let in].

I’m sorry I’m late to the Roe v Wade response-party. But I’ve been watching, and listening, and processing.

And I’ve found some of the coverage and comments very disturbing, in many different ways, but in particular for the stunning lack of empathy and imagination I’ve witnessed – for other people’s pain, and for other people’s pleasure.

Because fundamentally when I’ve boiled it down to it’s roots, abortion opposition seems to stem largely from a belief that women SHOULD NOT BE ENJOYING SEX.

This is actually the crux of the matter. If you don’t want a baby, and if you’re not prepared to take whatever risks that involves for you, you shouldn’t be having sex at any time, FOR ANY REASON. Particularly not because it feels nice. That’s not a ‘good’ reason. That’s dirty. And wrong. And if you do it you deserve everything that’s coming to you.

But remember, also don’t do anything ELSE fun (and more expensive) to feel good, like drinking, or taking drugs, or dancing, or dressing up – because that’s also BAD, and you deserve what’s coming to you. Again.

Look, you should basically just stay at home and be safe and small and miserable, as God intended.

(I’d be interested to see, incidentally, what this would all look like if the religious masses were coming after MALE sexual pleasure, because I suspect if would look very different).

It has been made very clear from the pro-life camp that women should not be having sex if they don’t want the baby-consequences. But even if they are ‘virtuous’ and abstain, but someone has sex with them anyway against their will, they should STILL have the babies. (See the miserable clause).

It’s here I’ve seen beleaguered pro-choicers try to appeal to the common sense of the pro-life-at-all-costers, citing cases of rape or incest or extreme youth – followed by cases of fetal abnormalities and risk to the mother’s life.

But this is a mistake. Not only because they seemingly can’t listen to reason or nuance – but because IT’S NOT ABOUT THE EXTREME CASES.

You don’t need a ‘good reason’ (as defined by a branch of Christianity, or anyone else at all).

The only reason a woman should need to have an abortion is that she doesn’t want to be pregnant.

And while the cells involved are at the organising stage where there is no sentience, no viability and NO DAMN LIFE – that should be it. Period. (Which you might not even have missed until you’re already 6 weeks along).

If you’re really pro-life you should be pro the life that actually real-life exists already – the mother – and what she wants and feels as a person. Not a vessel. Not a publicly-owned incubator.

You should of course also be PRO child-lives when they exist in the world outside the womb – and ready to support them through the simple expedient of paying more taxes for public and social services, and doing practical things to help families in your community. Because if birthing and raising kids was safer and less expensive, having babies would be more a viable option – and you say that’s what you want.

But pro-lifers never seem to want that, do they? The people picketing outside the clinics typically aren’t doing anything to actually help mothers. And mothers who DO choose babies outside of the very strict parameters vast swathes of pro-lifers prefer – including heterosexual marriage, being between 20 to 30 years of age and sticking to 2.4 by the same father – are also vilified by them as irresponsible, promiscuous, selfish, or tainted.

Sigh. Look, I’ve seen a lot of coverage about pro-lifers only being pro-fetus, and there is so much that has been said and is still to say about institutionalised sexism and deep societal problems and the problematic role of religion in politics – but that’s not actually I want to talk about right now.

I want to talk about my own experiences.

I’ve come to believe we should all be talking about this more often. We don’t talk about our fertility journeys, our losses, our choices or lack of them, our menstrual and gynaecological health and traumas – or our struggles with motherhood. And our collective reproductive privacy, secrecy, shame and fear have been used against us to get to this point. At the end of the day, when it came to Roe v Wade, we simply weren’t the ones shouting loudest.

I have two children.

But I have been pregnant four times.

I have been pregnant when I really, really wanted a baby.

And I have been pregnant when I really, really, didn’t.

And the difference was complete and utter, and undoing.

I am not going to go into the minutiae of the circumstances that have resulted in me not having four children, but I DO want to talk about how it FELT. Because I feel like it’s a bit of the picture that’s been missing.

I’ve read the extreme examples, and how it feels to desperately want a baby and for something to go wrong to make abortion a neccissity – but I’ve not read anything about how it feels just to plain NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT.

So. Here’s what I want to add to all of this.

I have been pregnant when I wanted the baby so much it was all I could really think about, to the exclusion of all else, and I floated through the rest of my life willing it to stay, to be, to just make it all the way through to my arms. When I felt that baby in my heart from BEFORE I saw two blue lines. When I loved it with the sort of subwoofer love that you feel in your chest, that rings in your ears, curls your fingers, buckles your knees, clenches your womb and eventually drips from your breasts in milk. A violent love with the whole of your body, the whole of your mind, and a little bit more of you that wasn’t even there before it.

And then I have been pregnant, and not pregnant, and grieved for a baby when it wasn’t even there – when it wasn’t even real. When it was an empty egg sack. But it felt real to me – I wanted it. I loved it already, truely and wholly and desperately. And when I lost something I never really had in the first place, it felt like I had lost a slice of myself. I HOWLED at the empty. And there is still a space inside me where it was. Or wasn’t. Still.

I have also been pregnant when it wasn’t my choice. When it wasn’t fair. When I had done everything right. When I had been good. When I didn’t want it, and didn’t want it and didn’t want it in every single fibre of myself, every single second, profoundly, profusely. When I felt like my body had betrayed me and I wanted to punish it, to hurt myself, to claw this alien thing out of me before it robbed me of everything I knew, and dreamt, and planned, and WAS – until I was a scream inside out of myself, vibrating and keening and helpless and IMPOTENT. It was so other, so foreign, so invading. It was raw rage and resentment, flat, bone-deep repulsion and souring, soul-deep refusal.

So here’s what I know, and what I’d like you to think about.

I know that up to a certain point, a baby is a baby because you BELIEVE in it. It is an idea as well as a bunch of cells.

But if you don’t believe in it, if it wasn’t your idea, it’s not. It can be a violation.

I don’t think any pro-lifer is going to read this and suddenly have an empathy revelation by understanding something of what it’s like to lose control over your own body. But people who are on the fence might just read this and think that maybe, just maybe, not wanting a baby desperately and viscerally…. IS a good reason. Maybe people who have been in this situation might feel seen. Maybe people who will inevitably be in it someday sooner or later might remember this, and feel validated.

Whatever your views on abortion, I really, really hope you or someone you know never has to experience what it’s like to be pregnant – and not WANT to be pregnant.

And if they do, I hope they get some sympathy – and some mercy.

I hope they get to have some control over what happens next.

And I hope there are still good, safe options available to them.

Because – believe me – they WILL take the bad ones otherwise.

And if you felt like this – if circumstances you are lucky enough to currently be unable to imagine put you HERE, in this head space, in this body that is no longer your own – you might too.

Parenting the child in front of you, and inside you

23 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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There are many, many, MANY hard things about being a parent, many of which I don’t get right. But the two very hardest lessons I find I still have to learn over and over nearly every single day, are these.

You have to parent the child that is in front of you.

And you have to parent the child that is inside you first.

I was lucky enough to have be on an Easter break by the seaside, and was sitting on a bench at a park when I saw a young couple with a toddler, doing A Trip To The Park.™.

This toddler had a baby doll, and all she wanted to do was to push the doll on a baby swing. The parents, however, were desperate to persuade HER to go in the swing, because that’s what you go on A Trip To The Park ™ , and they kept trying to make her go on the equipment, and threatening to leave if she didn’t because there wasn’t any point in A Trip To The Park ™ otherwise.

And I remembered being there, SO CLEARLY, with a really Small Small, wanting it to join in at a baby group, or try a slide, or stroke an animal – or take part in whatever the experience I wanted it to experience was – exactly as I had imagined it.

It took me so long to let go of the expectations I had about what my child would be like, what it would like and not like, what I’d be like as a mother, and what parenting and family life would look like and feel like and taste like – and just let my baby do what it wanted to and be there to support and enjoy it as it did so.

And as I sat there thinking ‘just let the damn kid push her baby she’s perfectly happy’ – I realised that I still haven’t actually learnt this lesson for myself. I’m STILL doing the same thing – just with slightly older children.

Because too often I find myself parenting the child of my expectations, and the not the child in front of me.

For a start, I didn’t expect the child in front of me to be so anxious. Or for her anxiety to make her so angry, for it to make her not want to go anywhere or do anything – including to the park. For it to stop her eating, and playing, and enjoying, and joining in.

And I was on the bench because I was ANGRY the day wasn’t going as I wanted it to, and the Big Small wasn’t behaving how I wanted her to.

But you have to parent the child that is in front of you.

And the very biggest challenge you have in doing that is having to parent the child inside you first, and harder.

The one that gets cross when it is thwarted.

The one that remembers what it loved as a child and tries to recreate it.

The one that remembers what it hated as a child and tries to resolve it.

The one that feels rejected.

The one that craves approval.

The one that wants to be understood.

The one that wants to be seen.

The one that feels injustice.

The one that feels despair.

The one that feels afraid.

Managing myself, my baggage, and my emotions remains the very, very hardest part of being a parent. And the most unexpected.

Like all of us, I thought I was going into this whole shabang as a whole and rounded person. But having children made me realise how little I knew about myself, about children, and about my own parents – particularly my mum. And I realise it again and again at all the different stages of my motherhood and their childhood – and the echoing stages of MY childhood, overlaid.

The only way not to be crippled by the confusion, guilt and shame of it all is to recognise the child inside you, acknowledge the feelings you’re feeling, accept them, think about why you’re feeling them – and then offer yourself the same kindness and grace you’d like to be offering your own children in their own peaks and troughs.

Because it’s the only way you’ll be free to properly give it to them.

So I forgave myself for feeling angry. And I forgave the Big Small for feeling angry, too. And I got off the bench, smiled my biggest smile at the couple with the toddler, and went to see what the Big Small was doing, what she wanted to do, what she was feeling now, and what she wanted to feel next.

And we walked along the seafront and performed poems on the benches in front of the sea instead.

And for a moment, a perfect moment, all four of us were in front of each other with no expectations between us, and all four of us were happy.

We need to talk about Encanto (no no no)

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

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If you have smallish children (especially of the female persuasion) and access to Disney Plus you have probably not made it through Christmas without watching Encanto at least once.

I have seen it 7 times (or at least snippets of it in between cooking, cleaning, entertaining and breaking up fights).

Moreover, I have listened to the soundtrack on repeat and cannot get ‘Surface Pressure’ out of my head.

It LOOKS amazing. It’s rich and bright with the detail we now expect of these big lavish animated productions. It SOUNDS even better. The music is by Lin-Manuel Miranda and is LUSH and rich and wonderful (I love Hamilton). But the story… falls flat. It’s a great premise that just fails to deliver.

For some reason, this is not only frustrating me, but CONSUMING me.

This is Disney, people. I don’t want to be left to draw my own conclusions – I want the answers spelled out for me like I’m five. (You know, like the target audience). I want closure. I want full circles. I want narrative arcs, dammit.

Clearly, I am obsessing about it far too much because THAT’S WHAT I DO. (And it’s a great distraction from life! Try it!)

Anyway if you don’t want spoilers, or you don’t want to talk about Enanto (No no no), look away now. This is not for you.

If you do, YAY – strap in.

Here’s the thing.

There are just SO MANY unanswered questions, incomplete storylines, half-finished thoughts and frankly half-arsed messages that are marring what could and SHOULD have been a GREAT film.

1. The start

Right from the off it’s LAZY. The village kids ask heroine Mirabel about her magical family.

THE VILLAGE IS LITERALLY SET UP AROUND THEIR MAGIC HOUSE. How do these kids not know who these town saviours and protectors are??? Or who the oddity who DIDN’T GET A GIFT is? The postman is clearly blabbing about it left right and centre, ffs.

I completely get that these kids love to hear their village legend told over and over. All the writers needed to do was have one small kid say “Hey, my cousin is visiting us. Tell us again about the Madrigals!” Or “My baby sister doesn’t know about the Madrigals.” Then someone can legitimately not know Mirabel has no powers. See? Fixed it. Now the first song actually makes sense.

2. Plot holes

There are so many, but one of them is HOW IS BRUNO LIVING IN THE MAGIC WALLS AND NO ONE NOTICES? Including Delores, who is supposed to hear everything. I mean they gloss over this every now and again with her ‘hearing the rats in the wall’/‘it’s like I hear him now’ and then at the end, ‘oh I always knew he was there’. But it’s pathetic. And again it didn’t need to be… Delores could have been SO MUCH MORE than a love-lorn bit-part. And it wouldn’t even have needed much airtime!

One of the themes Encanto is SUPPOSED to be exploring is the weight of expectations, and the pressure of fitting a mould you’ve been assigned – the pressure of being allowed ot be only one thing, one dimension. We see it with Luisa (SERIOUSLY – go listen to her song it’s the best bit of the film and will make you want a donkey) and we see it with Isabela wanting to break out of her perfect princess role – and how being her full authentic self STRENGTHENS the magic. (I’d have liked to see how freedom would have strengthened Luisa’s magic, too. There could have been some great stuff in here about the strength to be found in vulnerability – I wish they’d leaned into it). And ALL of this could have been extended to the other characters, and would have reinforced a really, really important message for young girls.

Delores’s story could have been saved by making her a bit mad. She doesn’t sleep well because of the voices in her head, all of the time. And she’s had to learn to keep SO MANY SECRETS that she’s inevitably overheard over the years. Maybe the only time she finds peace in her head is with the love interest Mariano because he’s so delightfully dense and SILENT.

She’s so used to keeping the secrets she hears she doesn’t tell anyone about Bruno… But she can’t keep any more secrets in because she’s full to the brim BECAUSE THE MAGIC IS BREAKING – and THAT’S when she blabs at the dinner table.

Again. Fixed it.

3. Unexplained mystery

I get that they are granted a miracle because the Abeulo sacrificed himself for his family. But but but but but – nothing of this is FINISHED, either. There are so many loose strings of plot and unanswered questions! Who are the bad men? Why are they burning the village? Where have they gone now? Is the village safe now? Or is it secret/hidden by the magic?

Look, faceless, nameless and motive-less Baddies are a frankly WEAK plot device and Disney should be better than that. (It’s almost as bad as killing off parents as a quick excuse for child-only adventure. Beeyastards).

Also. Why Abuelo? Did no one else fight back? Why at THIS river? What IS the magic? Why does it become both a candle and a cheeky living house? Is it a watersprite or river mermaid, touched by the sacrifice, curious, living in/as the house to be close to the family it fell in love with 50 years ago? Is it breaking because the family is breaking? I MUST KNOW!

Also:

WHAT IS ABUELA’S POWER???

OF WHAT USE TO THE VILLAGE IS THE FACE-SWAPPING POWER????

HOW DOES THE MAGICAL HOUSE BUILD MAGICAL TARDIS ROOMS???

IF IT BUILT THEM WHY CAN’T IT GO INTO BRUNO’S????

WHY DO THE PARENTS NEVER OBJECT TO MIRABEL BEING BANISHED TO THE NURSERY????

IS BRUNO GAY????

SO MUCH ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a few simple connections and answers would help this feel like a whole, rounded and ultimately satisfying story rather than an ill-thought-through quickie for the cold hard cash. Gah.

4. Unfinished stories

SO MANY.

We never do really get to the bottom of why everyone hates Bruno so much they don’t talk about him (No no no).

At the end he tells his sister he just wanted her to be herself and ‘Let it Go’ (see what they did there?) on her wedding day. They could have made more of this – because Bruno also knows setting the magic free instead of controlling it and snuffing out the light is how to amplify it. (Again, as Elsa finds out when she unfreezes Arandelle).

I’m also annoyed none of his other transgressions brought up in ‘We don’t talk about Bruno’ (No no no) are addressed. I wanted to see Bruno’s side of ALL of them – from the bald man to the dead fish. And I wanted in both songs to hear about the good prophecies too… the people he helped but who were still scared of his gift. IF YOU START SOMETHING PLEASE FINISH IT. I need balance, Disney. I can’t deal with this.

5. No redemption arc

As quickly as the whole estranged brother thing was brushed under the carpet, Abuela is forgiven. That women has made the lives of her children and grandchildren – particularly Mirabel – vastly unpleasant. She’s excluded, chided, humiliated and blamed Mirabel since she was tiny. That’s… cruel.

It was also a genuinely important opportunity to explore intergenerational trauma – especially for the latino community. Gliding over it without touching the sides isn’t just unfortunate but even slightly… unethical.

The bit that genuinely upset me (from an admittedly very personal perspective) was the gaslighting – Abuela pretending Mirabel is mad when she KNOWS the magic is in trouble. Her back story is not an excuse for being a beeeyatch her entire life, and a quick river-hug and grudging admission she may have held on the reins a wee bit too tight DOES NOT CUT IT WITH ME. (Or my kids. They still hate her).

The thing is, that kids know – and they SHOULD know – that sorry isn’t always enough. That relationships are complicated. That trust and forgiveness both have to be earnt.

Basically Abuela needed to do more for her redemption arc to feel a bit more authentic and a bit less rushed.

6. No follow through on the core message

Watching trailers for Encanto, I thought this was going to be the embodiment of a message that has been developing through Disney films for some time – that you don’t have to be special to be special – just the way you are.

Sure, Mirabel’s parents say this. But it is not ever PROVED. There is no finale to her journey.

This message in Disney history is of course most obvious in Frozen, where Anna is not The Chosen One, has no special powers, but is actually more relatable, likeable, charming and dynamic than Elsa. (I don’t know about other kids, but mine idolised Elsa when they were very little, and as they grew bigger both switched allegiances to Anna. Because she’s better).

This was the chance to really drive that message home – and they didn’t. We still don’t really know WHY Mirabel didn’t get her gift. But THIS should have been the why. This is the completion of the story I really wanted.

Mirabel is not consumed by a talent or a purpose – so she’s free to be herself. It means while the others become only or mostly their gift, she becomes herself. She sees things the others don’t (hence the glasses). She sees the magic in people, the small stuff, the beauty in the everyday, the ordinary. In making things by hand – in the process. She’s the one the village children gravitate to. She’s the one smallest Madrigal Antonio wants to hold his hand during his gift ceremony. She’s the one who has the most affinity with Cassita, the living house. She’s the one the magic asks for help. She’s the one that SEES what the magic needs to thrive – and sees what’s going wrong. She’s the one the villagers want to help at the end. She’s the one that leads the rebuild, because she’s the ONLY one not lost without magic powers.

When everyone else’s gifts fade, Mirabel’s shine. Because she doesn’t need external ‘magic’. She’s got her own, internal kind. That’s why the house comes back to life when SHE puts in the door handle. She’s the one that’s kept the family, the magic, together. It makes sense she didn’t get a gift because the magic needed her to take care of it when it couldn’t take care of itself. It recognised that she was so special she didn’t need embellishment.

Maybe Abuela doesn’t have a gift either. Maybe her door shines because she is the Keeper of the Magic – and that’s her role in the family, gone slightly askew with age and fear. And Mirabel has been chosen to be the Keeper after her, and she’s been shown that letting go of fear and setting the magic free is actually what keeps the flame burning.

It’s what sparked it in the first place.

FIXED.

IT.

I think the reason I’ve found Encanto’s many gaps so frustrating is that THIS was the feel good film I really needed at the close of 2021 – this was the MESSAGE I really needed.

I needed someone to tell me I don’t have to be the best. All I have to do in 2022 is just be the best me. I am not the sum of my talents, I am not the hats I wear or the roles I play – I am more than all of them. All I really have to is TRY my best. Get up and do it over and over again in a row. See the little things. Find extraordinary in the ordinary. Fail a bit. Succeed a bit. Escape expectations… most particularly my own.

Maybe I’m so angry with Abeula because I’m so often my own Abeula… maybe I hold on too tight and I spoil things – because ultimately – I’m scared, too.

And maybe, just maybe, I need to get a life and stop taking animations quite so seriously.

Happy New Year!

xxxx

Alopecia

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Aging, Motherhood

≈ Leave a comment

All I want for Christmas is…..

Hair.

I have recently been diagnosed with alopecia.

I am coming to terms with this as I come to terms with most things; by oversharing it with random people in an effort to work out how I actually feel about it.

And I can tell you that I feel worse about it than I thought I would.

I mean the good news is that it’s not going to kill me (although clearly my already dicky immune system attacking my hair follicles is not IDEAL).

This last two years we’ve had a proper reality check about what really matters, and how precious and precarious our health is. So in the grand scheme of things it’s all fine, right? But still… it’s not fine. I’m not fine.

(Apart from the hair there is left. That’s VERY fine. And thinning. And not going to last for very much longer).

Quite how bad I feel about it has come as a shock to me as I didn’t think I was a terribly image-conscious sort of person – as anyone who has seen me on a school run can certainly attest.

But the thing is, my hair HAS been part of my self image. Playing with it, flicking it, has always been part of how I’ve dealt with nerves. Part of how I’ve flirted. Part of how I’ve felt sensual. Part of me. I’ve think I’ve always known deep down that while I’m not traditionally pretty, I can scrub up okay with a bit of effort, and that I can be attractive when I’m animated – which usually involves waving my hands around a lot as I talk… and running them through my hair.

In general terms I think I’ve been sort of lucky that I’ve had this weird, spidery inner thread of self-acceptance, if not necessarily full blown self-confidence – because so many people really struggle with body image and it does SO much damage.

But I’ve also been sort of UNlucky because the reason I don’t have lots and lots of body hang-ups is that I’ve been obsessed with just ONE big one my entire life. And in comparison all my other imperfections have just seemed… peripheral.

This issue has had a HUGE impact on me, on what I do, how I feel, and where I go. It has shaped my decisions about jobs and relationships, my choices of hobby and my breadth of ambition. It has driven my anxiety, and at its worst, even bouts of depression.

I’ve always been vaguely plump around the edges, and this has been fine.

I’ve always had massive glasses, terrible posture and what I like to think of as an EXTREME nose – but this has been fine too.

I’m even fine (ish) more recently with my saggy tummy and boobs, and my wrinkles. Even when the Big Small plays my forehead lines like a guitar.

I can dress my curves.

I can style out the nose and wrinkles with big hair and a smoky eye.

I can put on a decent bra and some MAHOOSIVE hold-it-all-in pants.

What I CANNOT do is hide my acne.

Especially when it is at the stage of massive, angry, painful boils that are openly weeping on my face – the bit of me that people look at the most and which doesn’t actually cover up.

(Mask wearing briefly played into my hands, but also made the spots situation even worse – as does make-up).

I have been locked in a battle with my skin since the age of about 11.

And I know I am not entirely rational about it. But it’s my THING and rationality is not going to suddenly appear after 31 years.

Unfortunately I also know – to my very real frustration – that it has been worse than ever over 40, which just seems terribly UNFAIR. Acned teens are supposed to grow out of it at some point, right? Not just continue on indefinitely! (There was a bit of a reprieve around pregnancies and breast-feeding).

On reflection, perhaps the most important role my hair has played in my life has been in helping me hide my face when I cannot bear for people to look at it.

And that has been A LOT of my life.

My hair has always been something to hide behind.

And now it’s not going to be there.

The good news is that the same dermatologist dealing with my scalp is also dealing with my acne – the first time I’ve ever seen a specialist. (Which is crazy. Please insist on referrals, people).

I am now at the wonderful stage of treatment where I essentially get to pick 2 out of 3 options:

I can be a size 10-12

I can have clear skin

I can hang onto some hair.

And… I choose bald.

Which I suppose is empowering?

The next hair treatment option for me is strong steroids, and I’m not going to take them because my middle-aged spread does not need any assistance, thank you very much. I basically feel like I’m more likely to be able to face bald at a size I’m vaguely comfortable and familiar with – and a body that feels like my own.

The next acne option is Isotretinoin – a relatively controversial drug with pretty horrible side-effects but that does, mostly, work. And I think I AM going to take this one – despite the trauma of googling others’ experiences. (I’m currently on enormous doses of antibiotics which can’t carry on indefinitely, and are becoming less effective over time).

Because if I can wake up on a morning where the first thing I think about ISN’T how bad my skin is, if I’m going to be able to cover it up, if I’m going to have to cancel plans or make excuses, if I can pretend my Zoom camera is broken, if the kids are going to comment on it and how much that will hurt – if anyone can love me when I’m so hideous – then – THEN I can do anything.

Including being bald or partially bald. (Which is somehow even more grotesque. Just google frontal fibrosing alopecia images).

So, seeing as I’m NOT going to get hair for Christmas, what I’d really like is some advice.

Has anyone ever taken Isotretinoin? Are there any NON-horror stories out there? Any advice on how to deal with the side effects?

And has anyone ever experienced hair loss? Is spending thousands of pounds on an expensive weave actually worth it? Where do you go? What brand of wigs do you buy – what are my options? Do you shave the rest off? Top scarf tips?

I’d love to hear from you.

Middle age is FUN, isn’t it?

(PS. Oh, and if you actually know me I’m relying on you to tell me when the thinning gets to the point I really need to take action. Ta).

(PPS. I did consider sacrificing a Barbie’s hair for a photo but decided the Smalls would never forgive me).

x

How to home school in Lockdown 3

11 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by in Humour, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, School

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I’ve seen a lot of people on my news feed expressing frustration about home schooling.

It’s really just something we have to get on with and a matter of just getting yourself organised. I’ve put together some simple steps to help you plan your day.

How to Homeschool in Lockdown 3

1. Set the alarm for 6am so you can do some work before the kids get up.

2. Tell the kids to get themselves up and dressed, and head downstairs for simple, healthy breakfast you’ve prepared the night before and some educational screen time.

3. Ask your older child to help any younger siblings with teeth/hair/pants.

4. Ignore the screams from the bathroom that indicate power crazed, overzealous brushing.

5. Ignore the screams from downstairs that indicate IT’S NOT FAIR, IT’S MY TURN NOW, I’M TELLING MUM and I’VE DROPPED THE NUTELLA.

6. At 8.30 head down to set up home school for the day.

7. Try not to baulk at the fact all the furniture is now strewn across the room for The Floor is Lava to accompany the telly.

8. Save the cat from a lava-prison constructed of cushions.

9. Clean up the nutella now on every surface and every piece of soft furnishing. Including the curtains. And the cat.

10. Re-dress and re-brush all children so they don’t look like demented ballet dancers and cause the school to call social services.

11. At 9am log the first child on to a video conferencing registration session consisting of far too many children and the pure essence of chaos.

12. Simultaneously attend a work meeting, while also starting the other child off on the day’s learning, using all 3 of the devices you apparently have at home!

13. Try to figure out why the microphone that was working two minutes ago is no longer working.

14. Ask child what it pressed.

15. It doesn’t know.

16. Tell it to use sign language.

17. Go back to the other child.

18. Re-login the registration child who has inexplicably logged off and can’t get back in.

19. Get another Mum on the What’s App to message the teacher to let the child back in.

20. Update your team on the priorities for the day.

21. Miss what the teacher has asked the child to do that day.

22. Ask the child, which doesn’t know. Even though the meeting only finished two seconds ago.

23. Figure out where the day’s learning is for BOTH children by consulting What’s App, visiting BOTH woefully inadequate school websites and searching for information buried under 300 random levels. This will take at least an hour.

24. At 9.30 log the next child onto a registration session, which has to be supervised.

25. Repeat steps 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 21.

26. Print out twelvety-hundred worksheets for the day, across eighteenty different websites and links. None of these will print out properly.

27. Break up a fight over who gets which device first.

28. Re-fill the printer ink. Which you don’t have. Nor the instructions on how to refill it. It’s now beeping at you and flashing red.

29. Ignore this until tomorrow, knowing you will hate yourself even more in the morning.

30. Realise you’ve had 3 missed calls from your boss because Child 2 is on your phone.

31. Set up Child 1 with it’s first task, which involves downloading a Powerpoint, watching a BBC Bite size video, and a youtube video, none of which it can navigate to or operate independently.

32. Set Child 2 up with it’s first task, which needs them to be on the same device at the same time, and involves a reading app which the other one is logged into and you can’t remember the password for, a maths games app, and a really annoying Youtube woman doing phonics who talks to children like they’re chihuahuas.

33. Explain to Child 1 that yes, Child 2 is watching the telly, but no, it is work so it IS actually fair.

34. Write a work report for 10am deadline.

35. Provide snacks to shut the children up.

36. Cry for the first time of the day.

37. Know it will not be the last.

38. Help a child shouting it’s stuck.

39. Help a child shouting it’s boring.

40. Help a child shouting it can’t do it.

41. Help a child shouting MUMMY just for the sheer bloody hell of it.

42. Good news! 25 new emails from just one of the schools, including with details of a new learning website/app/sharing platform.

43. Follow the instructions to register.

44. Keep following the instructions. Over and over again.

45. Fail to register.

46. Try to download another of the random phonics/timetable/colouring/maths websites/apps/sharing platforms.

47. Realise your phone is full because the children have been recording long videos of themselves doing The Floor is Lava, and nothing works, not even What’s App, cutting you off from other desperate parents.

48. Weep for the second time.

49. Take a work call, while pretending you’ve not just been crying.

50. Break up a fight.

51. Put Child 1 in front of a maths sheet.

52. Ten seconds later help Child 1, who is stuck. Already.

53. Try and remember everything you ever knew about long multiplication.

54. No, that’s not how they teach it at school, are you stupid?

55. Listen to Child 1 scream about not being able to do it, having not even tried.

56. Attend an external client meeting while doing this.

57. Set Child 2 up with art supplies to draw a picture and write a sentence about the weather!

58. I don’t know what weather, you have to decide.

59. You can draw what you like, darling.

60. How about snow? You can write a sentence about what you did in the snow and draw a picture of you on a sledge.

61. You’re right, that’s a stupid idea.

62. So is that.

63. JUST DRAW SOMETHING AND WRITE ANYTHING I DON’T CARE WHAT ANY MORE.

64. NO YOU CAN’T WATCH THE FLOOR IS LAVA.

65. IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR 9 TIMES TABLE WRITE IT DOWN DON’T JUST GUESS.

66. THEN DO THE COMPREHENSION.

67. YOU CAN DO IT. THE ANSWERS ARE LITERALLY WRITTEN DOWN IN FRONT OF YOU.

68. I’M NOT SHOUTING.

69. Realise you are shouting.

70. Realise it’s not even 11am.

71. Cry.

72. Pull yourself together.

73. Email the school about losing the latest password.

74. They can’t help.

75. Make lunch.

76. Clear up after lunch.

77. Prepare and present a lunch and learn presentation for 30 people!

78. Set Child 1 up on it’s next task so you can read peacefully with Child 2.

79. Lol! Don’t be silly.

80. Scream JUST WAIT and CAN’T YOU GO ON TO THE NEXT QUESTION and I’LL BE UP IN A MINUTE while listening to the torturously slow adventures of Biff, Chip and the other one.

81. Put Child 2 on a maths game.

82. Run between children like a slightly sweaty ping pong ball.

83. Ignore your phone ringing.

84. Mark a maths sheet.

85. Put Child 2 on kids Youtube. Tell it to be quiet.

86. Child 1 has heard anyway.

87. She’s younger than you, so she has less work.

88. Yes, well, life isn’t fair sometimes. TELL ME ABOUT IT.

89. Placate with snacks.

90. Child 1 tells you your work computer, which it has borrowed, isn’t working.

91. It has somehow managed to log in as a completely different and non-existent person.

92. Re-start computer.

93. Lose some important documents in the process.

94. Cry.

95. Attend to screaming Child 2 who has been scratched by the cat, who for some reason doesn’t wish to play schools.

96. Sympathise GREATLY with this point of view.

97. Shove it out the catflap.

98. Wish you could do this with children.

99. Comfort child.

100. Apply a plaster it doesn’t need.

101. Check your work email to discover you’re now up to 200 unread emails.

102. Miss another deadline.

103. Cry again.

104. 1pm – time to log Child 1 in for it’s next registration session!

105. Find out it has actually done none of the work it was set this morning and you’ve missed the upload deadline on the app you can’t download.

106. Give up on this child and do some number line subtraction with Child 2.

107. Realise it is functionally innumerate and despair of either of them ever learning anything or leaving home.

108. Update some complicated spreadsheets that require intense concentration.

182. Fear innumeracy may be catching.

830. Repeat steps 38 to 41.

990. Miss another online chaos session and send grovelling email to school so they don’t report you.

Q. Chair a meeting.

249. Put kids in front of Joe Wickes in the hopes of 15 minutes to yourself to actually get something done.

150. Listen to kids whine that Joe Wickes has a whiny voice and they’re tired/bored.

151. Break up a Joe Wickes star jump injury-based fight.

152. Provide more snacks.

153. Put on an educational Bitesize video and hide upstairs.

12ish. Pretend you don’t hear it turn into the Floor is Lava.

13.5. Oh, don’t forget to get them out in the fresh air!

*7. And don’t forget to squeeze in some enriching family activities like educational board games, baking, or maybe just a mindfulness session together.

450. Only do what you can, but also do it by these deadlines or your child’s future will suffer.

451. Next, make a delicious nutritious tea!

452. Try and get children to help you clear up the bombsite of printouts, cushions, pencils and snack wrappers.

453. Give up.

454. Put kids to bed.

455. Promise everyone tomorrow will be better.

456. Sit around and feel overwhelmed.

457. Do all the work you’ve missed.

458. Probably have another little cry.

459. 11-12pm – continue to avoid going to bed yourself because the idea of doing it all again tomorrow is totally forking terrifying.

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It’ll be scary this Christmas

02 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood

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It’ll be scary this Christmas.

For so many people, struggling to make ends meet.

Worried about what fresh hell 2021 is going to bring…

I’m lucky enough not to be scared about having enough food, or heat or presents.

But I am very much afraid about being on my own.

Every year I have offered to share the day with my ex, and he’s said no. He’s said the day itself isn’t that important to him. What he meant was he had other plans…

This year suddenly it IS important to him – and it is undeniably His Turn. And he doesn’t want to share it because all of those presents will be ‘too much for the kids’. Personally I think it would be their idea of heaven, but I am now overruled by the circumstance of recent history I didn’t choose, and the universal law of turns.

And of course, OF COURSE it’s the year I can’t see my family, 3 hours down the motorway and shielding still. I haven’t seen them in nearly a year.

It IS only a day, I know in my head. And I know I’ll see the Smalls the next day, and I know I have to share and he’s their parent too, and that really it’s the best thing all round – but I am still scared to wake up by myself.

I’m scared in my heart.

Because Christmas is a cornerstone of childhood, a cornerstone of memory, a cornerstone of MAGIC – a dying commodity. It IS important. To me. And I am missing it.

I think that’s what I’m most afraid of. Of missing it. And not just Christmas – all of it. It slides away so very quickly, doesn’t it?

My Big Small is 9, and on the final cusp of belief, and I’m so conscious that I don’t have long left. I am more than halfway through my time with her. I have maybe three or four Christmases before she’s lost to monosyllabic teenagehood and a phone screen.

This year has been a huge change, the turn from 8-9, summed up in a Christmas list that falls directly between toys and teen stuff, and includes both Polly Pocket and leopard print jeans. She’s growing up. And I feel slightly panicked by how fast it’s happened, how much I’ve forgotten already, and at the risk of sounding like a white rabbit – how little TIME there is.

And in the time left half of the Christmases won’t even be mine. And then it’ll be gone. This incredible season where magic is real, for children – made so by communal cooperation and parental hard work. This time of year where I can actually feel it, too, where I almost believe in it – just for a moment, through them. And I really, really want magic to be real. This year I NEED it to be real.

I suppose I also feel much the same way about summers. About weekends. That there is only so much childhood left. And I am afraid I have not made the most of it, and that I have not made the right memories, the right choices, the right impact. That I’m not doing any of it right and there are no do-overs. When it comes down to it maybe I am still afraid of who I am when I am not their mother. Who I will be. What there will be left over when they are grown and gone. Whether I’ll still be able to taste magic.

And of course it is another milestone where I suddenly look up and in at THEM being the perfect family I wanted, and worked for, and stayed too long trying to achieve, and finally broke for – and I am shocked it still has the power to hurt me, years down the line – and I am afraid I will never actually get over it. Layers on layers of fear…

I wish things were different, corona-wise, and that I could do what I wanted to do on Christmas Day, which was to spend some time doing something PRACTICAL for people who are afraid for much better reasons than me, volunteering somewhere and taking a much needed lesson in perspective, humility and GRATITUDE. But we are where we are.

Christmas is going to look a bit different for everyone this year. I think it just means we have to work a little bit harder to feel the magic. And to MAKE it. In our own way, on our our own timetables. And sometimes on our own.

xxxx

Ideas for places to donate: Mind Christmas Appeal, Shelter Christmas HopeWomen’s Aid – Gift of HopeFind a Foodbank – The Trussel Trust