We need to talk about returning to work

02 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Motherhood, Parenting, Returning to work

Return to work

This week’s report about the rise in discrimination in the workplace against new and expectant mothers comes as no surprise to me. It probably didn’t surprise you either.

Unfortunately, though, this is not just a simple matter of recognising injustice and redressing the balance. I’m afraid it’s far more complicated than that – and goes deep into the very fabric of our society – not to mention biology and psychology.

And that means we’re going to have to have some potentially awkward, and unnervingly contentious conversations.

Returning to the workplace after having children is HARD. Waaaay harder than I thought it was as going to be.

It’s hard for everyone. (It’s clearly hardest – as the report points out – for those in low-paid jobs on zero hours contracts forced to go back before they or their babies are ready).

I naively thought I’d slip back into my work shoes and carry on pretty much where I’d left off. I forgot that my feet – quite literally – grew an entire size during my pregnancy and didn’t shrink back down. (Yes this is a thing). Anyway, for whatever reason – those work shoes didn’t fit quite as they had done before.

The truth of the matter is that whatever your role, whatever your level, whatever your industry, when you return you are NOT the same employee that left. You can’t be – because you’re fundamentally not the same person in the same place.

That doesn’t, by any means, take away your talent, experience or expertise. It doesn’t necessarily make you any worse at your job – it can in fact make you better if you get the chance to be better – but it certainly makes you different. And amongst other things, we need to talk honestly about that difference.

We need to talk about the fact that return to workers have new priorities and commitments. They may not have the hours to throw in for that big pitch or urgent deadline. They may not be able travel anymore. They may have to drop everything at a moments notice for a sick dependent. Their job – shock horror – may no longer be the be-all and end-all of their lives.

We need to talk about the UK’s prevalent long hours culture, and the level of commitment employers require and reward. That unwritten expectation that people will go above and beyond if they want to go far – which basically precludes primary carers.

We need to talk about what we can’t change – like it being women who physically have the babies, and then the boobs to feed them. Making them often, ergo, the primary carer.

We need to talk about why since legislation came in to allow parents to share parental leave, so few families have taken this option.

We need to talk about the cost, quality, and availability of childcare.

We need to talk about the lack of funded support services for new and expectant parents.

We need to talk about school hours and holidays and how that’s supposed to fit in with the expectation parents will work 9am-5pm +

We need to talk about the army of unpaid grandparents taking up the care slack and plugging the gaps in the system – and what on earth you do if you don’t have any.

We need to talk about the lack of part time roles or job shares at all levels, and across all kinds of industries. We need to talk about why it is so hard to excel in part time work, and advance a career.

We need to talk about why and how females – despite performing better than their male counterparts at school and university – face discrimination in the workplace even before they have children. Why they are paid and promoted less.

We need to talk about why girls are choosing subjects and careers that are ‘worth’ less and paid less than boys. (Why, for instance, having been instrumental in early computing, they are now under represented in the modern tech world).

We need to talk about the fact that in so many UK households the male still earns more than the female, making it financially sensible for her to make the career sacrifices for their family.

We need to talk about the reality that parenting is a choice which inherently involves sacrifices – of all kinds. That no one can have it all, and that ALL families have to juggle to find their balance – to keep all the balls in the air.

We have to talk about what some of those sacrifices really look like.

We need to talk about how much harder that balance is to achieve for single parent families. And why the majority of those single parents are women.

We need to talk about how such a big life change can change someone’s perspective, and with it their career aspirations. We need to talk about how that’s okay, too.

We need to talk about the impact sleep deprivation has on the cognitive functions, personal performance and even personalities of new (and old) parents.

We need to talk about the wider impact of parenthood on mums AND dads. We need to talk about hormones, postnatal depression and mental health.

We need to talk about why rearing children continues to be so undervalued in our society. We need to talk about attitudes to stay at home mums, to working mums, to mums on benefits, to young mums.

We need to talk about why as a society we SHOULD be collectively supporting the growth and development of the next generation – the workers (and carers!) of the future – by supporting their parents. (Because people clearly aren’t getting it).

We need to talk about the legislation and loopholes that are allowing – and indeed encouraging – employers to save money by avoiding their obligations to parents.

We need to talk about the fact that even organisations obeying the letter of the law still aren’t really supporting or empowering their female employees.

We need to talk about the fact that meeting maternity requirements can put small and even medium-sized enterprises under extreme pressure, and how that might be mitigated or subsidised.

Look, in short, this is not an easy subject. It IS quite an emotive one.

I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do believe the very first and most important step towards solutions must be just to talk about it, full stop.

This week’s report gives us that opportunity. And I’d really love to hear about your experiences.

Mumonthenetheredge

Zero Fox

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

Today, this:

Fox Sake 2

The pre-school bucket list

08 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 4 Comments

IMG_4158.JPG bucket list

Four and a half years ago the most wonderful, frustrating, amazing and perplexing person I know came screaming into the world.

She’s still screaming now. She is alternately giddy with joy, then mired in anguish – all within seconds. She feels each emotion at a hundred and ten miles an hour. Navigating the highs and lows of her day routinely leaves me reeling, baffled and exhausted.

So basically that means she’s your average four year old.

And that, I have realised, also means I’ve had her for more than a quarter of the time that she’ll actually be mine.

BOOM.

Now the screaming is no longer an external noise pollution. It’s in my own head, and my own voice. It reverberates around my skull, from temple to temple, and the roar of it buzzes loudly in my ears.

Yes, in just a few short weeks, my baby goes to school. And that four years has gone by in the blink of an eye.

Obviously, I have known this was coming. But it has arrived rather faster than I thought it would – and like so many parenting milestones it’s hit me a great deal harder.

Already I can see this complex little person is less and less mine everyday. And that hurts. She is more and more hers, more the product of her friends, her nursery teachers, her favourite book and tv characters. She is being shaped by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways – and my influence is well and truly on the wane.

Like most four year olds, she mostly knows best. She would prefer to experiment rather than take my word for something (often ending in the aforementioned screaming). Pretty much any authority is automatically ranked higher than Mummy. She doesn’t listen. And I am afraid, I am so afraid, that she is hurtling down the path to not hearing me at all. School will only speed that process up ten fold.

But school or no, the fact is I am no longer the centre of her universe, solver of all problems, comforter of all woes. (I’m more the spoiler of fun and dictator of broccoli). And that’s only going to get worse as her confidence and independence grow.

That is, of course, the natural order of things, and of course it makes me as proud as punch to see her flourish and find her feet. It is also a very real tragedy. It’s a tragedy I’m sure other parents of 2011/2012 babies are facing too.

I for one am not ready.

It’s not actually the baby I’m pining for. I don’t really want to turn the clock back. I love watching her develop and learn. Every stage of her life has been my favourite – the one right in front of me. (Apart from the screaming). No, the only thing that’s not grown into its potential is ME.

My real sticking point is the thought of the mother I thought I’d be and never was.

Suddenly, I’ve been swamped with all the things I haven’t done and said I would, and all the things I said I wouldn’t do but have done anyway. I’ve been busy. Stressed. Preoccupied. Frantic. Frazzled. Impatient. Imperfect. I’ve shouted. I’ve diverted. I’ve minimised. I’ve rushed. I’ve broken promises. I’ve broken down. I have not done enough, given enough, been enough. I’ve failed – often.

And all at once, it feels like it’s too late. I’ve squandered those precious years we had together, and the treadmill of real life has caught us up.

Because school is the beginning of a whole new chapter for her, a trajectory that will take her through education and into the world, away from me. So however much the logical part of my brain tells me she’s still mine evenings, weekends and holidays, that she is still going to need me for many years to come, the rest of me is gut-deep, goddam sure this is an ending.

The pangs I’m suffering are really pangs of withdrawal, because however selfishly, I loved being someone’s hero. Someone’s everything. Someone’s sun and moon. It’s addictive. And that time has passed. And I didn’t do it right. And I didn’t see the end coming.

But the truth is, she was never really mine was she? She was always hers. From the very beginning. I just got lucky enough to borrow her until she got bigger.

Letting go isn’t much of a choice. The separation has already started to happen without my say so. And now I’ve got to face a different stage of parenthood – one where I have gradually less influence and importance. It will still be my job to help her find her own way, and help her find the very best of herself. I can still be her hero, maybe, sometimes – but only when she needs me to be. Only from the sidelines. Only on her terms.

Now, parents of the class of 2016, we get to watch them as they grow. We get to watch them fly – even if it’s in the other direction. We get to catch them when they fall. We get to love them, even when they’re not in our arms anymore.

All we can hope, really, is that the connection we’ve built is strong enough to bring them back when they need us. An elastic band that can stretch to give them freedom, but snaps into place when they’re scared, sad, confused or conflicted.

All I can hope is that I haven’t fucked it up too much.

And in the meantime, I can frantically spend the summer paying into that pot of connection, and filling in some of the gaps that are haunting me. Doing some of the things I thought I’d do as a Mummy.

So this, friends, is my pre-school bucket list. Let’s see how far I get before September. Your ideas and tips appreciated.

1. The craft project

There will be glitter. There will be the regrets, swearing, and daily hoovering associated with glitter. There will be glitter found in personal crevices, on work shirts, and in the litter tray for weeks to come. But by God, there will still be glitter.

Look out Pinterest, here I come.

2. Science

I’m not one of life’s natural scientists. But there will be diet coke. There will be mentos mints. There will undoubtedly be a lot of cleaning up.

3. Water play

We do some water play, but not enough. This is probably because it takes a lot of setting up – finding the right attachment for the sprinkler, adding buckets of hot water to the paddling pool so it’s not too cold, assembling children in swimwear, applying suncream to exposed body parts, preparing towels, and digging out appropriate plastic pouring vessels.

This will be followed by approximately five minutes of play, and then demands to go inside and watch the telly. But I will do it. I might even invest in some water guns. And I will take smug pictures for Facebook of my children looking momentarily happy.

4. The great outdoors

The biggest barrier to the great outdoors is Dadonthenetheredge, who prefers to receive his UV light in the form of iDevice glow. People’s legs will hurt. Their shoes will pinch. The sun will be too sunny. The rain will be too rainy.

But we live a stone’s throw away from some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK, and we will go out and bond in it whether anyone likes it or not. There will be stick sword fights. There will be picnics. There will be paddling. There may even be den building, but probably in the back garden.

5. One-on-one time

I don’t spend enough time one-on-one with the Big Small Person, because the Small Small Person came along and rather got in the way. While their burgeoning relationship is lovely, the impact on my relationship with the BSP has been huge, and not 100% positive.

I miss our games (apart from bucket list no 7), our chats, and playing with things small enough to fit in an esophagus. I miss focussing on her. So I plan to pack the baby off somewhere and concentrate – without distractions or goals – on just my big girl and whatever she wants to do.

6. Wrestling

Too often when the Big Small Person hits silly, I know she’s moments away from hitting crazy freaking meltdown. And I try and end the silly to prevent it. No more. There will be tickles, there will be wrestling, and yes, there will probably be tears before bedtime. But before that there will be giggling.

7. Imaginative play

My own personal hell, in which I’m not allowed any independent thought or action, and seemingly cannot EVER follow the instructions I’m given to the satisfaction of the three foot Director/Despot of the game. Also I am required to do the character voices (to the exact script and stage direction given) in public places. More on this another time. Just know that I shall grit my teeth and endure more of it instead of hiding in the kitchen pretending to make the tea.

8. Baking

I never baked anything other than potatoes before the small people came along, and since then have I’ve only begrudgingly extended my repertoire to include cupcakes. These sessions have been few and far between, though, as I cannot bear to witness either the mess or the incompetence. I will get over this.

I will let flour cover the kitchen, children, me and the cat. I will not intervene when most of the mixture is mixed straight out of the bowl. I will not show impatience when the mixing takes FOREVER. I will remain calm when people won’t take turns. And I will watch cheerfully as egg shell shards are dropped into the bowl and children cover themselves in slimy salmonella. I may even let them lick the spoon. (OK, that might be going a step too far).

9. Movies/theatre

Again, one related to the Small Small Person. We’ve not done enough of this sort of thing because it’s not really baby-compatible. And to be fair, also because the Big Small Person has an exceedingly low threshold for ‘mild peril’. But there will be popcorn. There will be dark. There will be cinematic or theatrical magic. And there will probably be a lot of soothing and assurance that everything will work out alright in the end.

10. Not shouting

There will be a day. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon. Ish. Where –

WILL.

NOT.

SHOUT.

Even if I’ve asked people to put their shoes on three billion times. Even if we’re late. Even if the small people are trying to exterminate each other. Even if I’ve asked someone not to do that less than two seconds ago. Even if the prospect of bedtime is still distant.

Wish me luck.

And let me know what’s on your bucket list, too.

Mumonthenetheredge

The End of the World (as we know it)

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Parenting, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

IMG_4093.JPGapoc

There is a fly stuck in my window. It is buzzing and butting at the glass intermittently, alternating between hopeful zeal and impotent despair. A car goes past. There’s a lawn mower somewhere nearby. I can hear the neighbour’s insomniac kid screaming. Life is going on, and as I watch it, I feel strangely disoriented.

Because something is off. Something seismic has happened in our green and pleasant land, and the world ticking by, pretending to be the same, is in fact less certain, less safe and less united than it was mere hours ago. It just hasn’t realised it yet.

It’s the kind of tense, eerie normality that precedes the horror of pretty much any dystopian future movie ever made. And episodes of Casualty. I’m just sat here waiting for the accident to happen – or the aliens to land. (Maybe Will Smith will turn up, or some ex-Hollyoaks actor. Possibly even Peter Capaldi).

In fact, now I think about it, isn’t isolationist politics, right-wing absolutism, conservative fear-mongering and the wilful rejection of progression and liberalism, like, the beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale? Or 1984? Or The Walking Dead???

Because there is something end-of-the-world-ish here. Certainly the end of my comfortable, smug, middle-class mummy-world.

It might not be monsters or thought police (yet), but there’s a lot that’s very real to be afraid of. Things I assumed could never happen to me, in my town, in my country.

There’s the economics – the value of the pound, the value of my house, my savings. The danger of recession. The fear for my kids’ future. Of losing my job, my freedom of movement. Opportunities, education, social mobility. The wonderful third sector propping up the most vulnerable – itself propped up by EU funding. The doctors that treat my kids being sent back home. The loss of benefits and public services. The loss of Scotland. The renewal of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Terrorism. Division. A generation of dissatisfied youth. The breakup of the EU. The rise of the right. Trump.

I don’t mean to overdramatise, but THIS IS HOW IT STARTS, people. Sure it was a referendum yesterday, but tomorrow it’s a zombie apocalypse!

That’s how I feel today, anyway. I’m sure many of you – however you voted – feel the same way, too.

Christ, it even reads like fiction – two aristocratic schoolboy chums playing out their rivalry on a political chequers-board, carelessly using Joe and Joanne Public-England as disposable pawns with a sickening, glib, glee. I think I’ve actually read it – it’s by Jilly Cooper. It was **probably** called ‘Hoodwinked!’, and had a picture on the front cover of an arrogant bloke in pinstripes getting sucked off by Geri Halliwell in her Union Jack dress.

[Personally I think we should have just got them to measure their dicks with rulers at the back of the Commons and be done with it. (Mr Speaker! We’re going to need considerably smaller measuring devices!).]

Back in real life, I wonder if this banally-coated upheaval, this sense of unease and unreality, is the experience of our grandparents upon hearing of the German invasion of Poland. The calm before the shit-show. I wonder if it’s the experience of people elsewhere in the world right now, where there is civil unrest, political tumult, where that turned on a sixpence to oppression, violence, war.

It is in fact the very people many ‘leave’ voters wanted to keep out, that I feel closer to now than ever before. Because I have a new appreciation that this shit can obviously happen to anyone, anywhere.

As Jo Cox told us – we have far more in common than that which divides us. These are people who also feared for their jobs, saw their money worth less than the paper it was printed on, faced personal restrictions, worried for their children’s futures. People who lived somewhere, divided, hostile. Who watched sovereignty, religion or national identity turned into something increasingly poisonous. This, right now, is how it started for them, too. Just before their world descended into antiutopia.

How quickly we have forgotten the uncertainty and danger of the divided and unchecked Europe our Grannies and Granddads faced, and what they fought for. How easy it is to be detached, to fail to identify with the crying mother beating her chest on the 10 o’clock news, halfway round the world after another bomb. In a dusty city that looks nothing like your own, wearing different clothes, speaking a different language. How easy to turn over and watch Big Brother instead.

But she is us, fellow Mums and Dads, far more than Carmen with the double Ds, trout pout, and hunger for fame over on Channel 5. She’s just somewhere and somewhen else, slightly farther down the road to hell. That love she feels – that’s your love for your child. That fear of change, of political machinations she couldn’t control – that’s your fear right now. Just like it was your Gran’s fear, too. Theirs just came to pass. Yours hovers on a cusp.

We woke up to a very different world yesterday; now we have to wake up to how we got there. And we got there, I believe, by not looking, not listening, not feeling and not caring. Because it wasn’t happening to us.

If nothing else, this referendum has proved we don’t need history, geography or ideology to divide us – class will do just as well.

No one listened to the dad-of-five on the estate in an impoverished seaside ghost-town, who couldn’t get work that paid enough to make ends meet. No one listened to Maggie from an old, defunct industrial heartland who couldn’t ever get a Doctor’s appointment. The woman in a crippled rural village with zero amenities, who cares full time for her husband, but had her benefits cut anyway. No one listened, and no one represented them. They are us, too. Same feelings, same fears, same failings.

And when given the chance to finally have their say, to vote for actual change, they said leave. But what they meant was so much more than that – boiled down to a dangerous, unnecessary, underhanded binary. They meant, something’s got to give. They meant, we’re sick of rules imposed upon us from afar. They meant, this isn’t fair. They meant, it was better in the olden days. They meant, I’m struggling. And we should have heard them.

It’s only now we’ve realised that ‘It won’t happen to me’ and ‘It won’t happen here’ are just a pay cheque or two away, just a referendum vote away. Just half a world away. Just next door.

It’s hard to know how political to be on here. Half the time I don’t even know why I’m doing a blog in the first place. I suppose it’s part loneliness, validation, therapy, catharsis. Part vanity. I will go back, very shortly, to providing some comic relief from reality – the less apocalyptic but no less real struggles of parenthood.

But if I’m going to write about real life, in real time, it would be ridiculous to ignore the biggest event of recent British history, likely to ripple throughout the rest of the world for weeks, months and years to come. Something that will affect us as parents, and affect our children’s lives, forever more. As much as I’d like to pretend it’s not happening, it is. And while it might not end in zombies, the uncertainty of it has shaken me to my core.

Whether you voted in or out, whether you know all the arguments off by heart or went with your gut, we are where we are. It might feel like there is very little any of us can do, now the die has been cast. But I have to do SOMETHING. So I will start here. I will open the window, and rescue the fly that’s been stuck there as I type.

It is highly doubtful our politicians will ever be held accountable for their decisions in this matter, their failures or their lies. I can’t do much, but I can and will hold myself accountable for my own complacency. I can start to listen for pain, see distress, and I can start to try to effect change – however small – where I can. I can start to really model empathy for my children, and hope they grow to try and make this fucked-up country (and wider world) a slightly less crappy place.

And who knows? In times of apocalypse, the flies could be taking over the world very shortly, anyway. I might as well secure a merciful death/life of servitude to our Insect Masters while I still can.

Mumonthenetheredge

Holiday take-homes

23 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 2 Comments

I remember when the things I took home from a summer holiday included a tan, a few souvenirs, a taste for sangria, a satisfying stack of well-read novels, and a Europop earworm.

HAH!

Those were the days, and boy are they loooooong gone. Post parenthood you get to bring home over-tired children and a shit load of holiday washing. In fact you’ll be tied (or sellotaped) to the bloody washing machine for perhaps the rest of your natural life.

So after the epic pack-a-thon, here’s the full list of our collective take-homes from a week in the sun.

Big Small Person

An unprecedented tolerance for water on the face
Complete (over)confidence in jumping into the pool
A vehement conviction that dipping one’s face into the surface of the pool constitutes ‘swimming under water’
Rampant desire for a swimming pool in the garden at home
Absolute certainty that 21.30 is the ‘new’ bedtime
Doubt in the omnipotence of the sacred Glo Clock (Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!)
Nut-brown knees
An aversion to socks, or footwear that doesn’t make a flip flop sound when you walk
A new hat
A fan, purse, mini dream-catcher and various other tat for amusement and parental peace purposes
A strong predilection for the consumption of chicken nuggets, chips and ice cream at every single fucking meal.

Overall thoughts:

Holidays are brilliant!!!!!

Small Small Person

A deep set and unshakeable belief that anyone other than Mummy is UP TO NO GOOD and BODES ILL FOR BABIES
A runny tummy
Sleep regression
An aversion to all types of food, including former favourites
Newfound hatred of inserting one’s body in bodies of water OF ANY TYPE
New flirtation skills, reserved only for foreign waiters
A mild concussion having thrown itself off the bed onto the ceramic floor in a temper tantrum
An unhealthy obsession with the Big Small Person’s flip flops.

Overall thoughts:

No. Produce Mummy now or suffer the consequences.

Dadonthenetheredge

A nice, even tan after hours in the pool with the Big Small Person
Top ‘fun parent’ status
A deteriorated relationship with the Small Small Person, who is broken
Two books read cover to cover
Fitness levels kept up with daily jogs or swims.

Overall thoughts:

Meh. Not enough booze or sex.

Me

A limpet baby
A feral pre-schooler
Chronic sleep deprivation
Alabaster/cornbeef skin, having spent holiday inside or in the shade
A deteriorated relationship with the Big Small Person, having barely seen it for a week
Bottom ‘boring pool-side parent’ status
Zero books read
An extra 15lbs
Something of a grudge against Dadonthenetheredge
Backache, from constantly holding limpet baby
Nipple ache, as primary point of limpet attachment
Expertise as wiggling the same damn three toys in new and exciting ways in desperate attempt to distract limpet baby from limpetism
A disinclination for human contact having been ‘touched out’ by limpet baby
Homicidal hatred of the four baby books that came on holiday (yes, including Fox’s Socks)
Ongoing heart palpitations, having watched suddenly un-sticky un-limpity baby fall straight off the bed
Intimate knowledge of the symptoms of concussion and cerebral contusions following extensive and obsessive internet research
Astronomic data roaming charges (see above)
Sparkly new neurosis around ‘secondary drowning’ (look it up and join me!)
A fervent appreciation of routine
Overwhelming gratitude for alternative sources of childcare
A mountain of fucking holiday washing
A gazillion and three midge bites (approx)
A possible drink problem
A strong desire never to leave the Nether Edge ever, ever again.

Overall thoughts:

Never again. Pass the wine.

I could go on, but I’ve got far too much washing to do – and then leave languishing in unsorted piles for the rest of eternity.

Toodle pip.

Mumonthenetherege

When the fear comes

17 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Parenting, Postnatal depression

≈ 4 Comments

IMG_4056.JPGcroc

I was going to write a blog this week about the return from a family holiday. Perhaps I still will. But today I’m tired, I’m hormonal, I’m sad and I don’t bloody feel like it. And I don’t feel like it mostly because I’m scared.

I’m scared some nutter with a gun is going to walk into a library and start shooting. An MP. Walking out of a surgery. Someone actually trying to make stuff better for people. Fighting poverty. Fighting injustice.

I’m scared some dickhead is going to walk into an office building to shoot cartoonists, a rock concert to shoot leather-clad rockers, or a club to shoot a bunch of people having a bit of a bop. A school, to shoot children. That next time it’ll be me, or mine. Any one of us.

I’m scared Donald Trump will get in and send the world to hell on a handcart.

I’m scared of Brexit, the small mindedness of the world, the push to the right.

I’m scared Boris Bloody Johnson or Michael Merkin Gove will be the next Prime Minister.

I’m scared of war. Of broken people. Of fanaticism. Of the desperation and deprivation that drives people and families to do desperate things.

I’m scared that I’ll turn over the baby washed up on beach and see my daughter’s face.

I’m scared an alligator is going to grab my paddling toddler, and I’m obsessed with thinking about her baby legs, her pudgy arms, trapped in jaws, pulled apart by teeth. The screams, the horror, the struggle, the hopelessness. The last view of her, looking to me to make it better. Her pain.

I’m scared I’ll look away for one minute and my big kid will have fallen into a gorilla enclosure. I live it. I can see it. I can feel it. That moment she’s just gone. The plummeting, the slow motion, the panic.

I’m scared my kid is going to drown on holiday. That I’ll take my eye off the ball and she’ll slip quietly into the pool and it will be too late.

I’m scared someone is going to shoot my plane out of the sky.

I’m scared someone will steal them from the villa in the middle of the night. The heart stopping horror of finding them gone. The torture of imaging where they are, what they’re going through.

I’m scared the holiday apartment will have dodgy generators, and they won’t wake up one morning. And the howl is already in my chest.

I’m scared the cot mattress won’t fit properly, and she’s going to get her face stuck down the edge and stop breathing. And I can’t sleep from the panic.

I’m scared we’re going to crash the car on the motorway on the way somewhere. The terror, the roll, the fear, the blackout, the children. God, are the children okay?

I’m scared of bringing home a foreign spider or insect in the suitcase and having it bite or sting one the children.

I’m scared the baby is going to find one of her sister’s fucking barbie shoes and choke on it, and that I’m not going to know what to do. That I’m going to watch her die. That I won’t be able to help her.

I’m scared of the big kid going on school trips. What if that’s the one time something happens. The coach crashes, the harness isn’t done up right, the bridge fails.

I’m scared one of them is going to get ill. Seriously ill. That every recurring cough is a sign of underlying immunity issues.

I’m scared I’m not doing enough with them, for them. That I’m not enough. That I can’t cope. That I’m fucking them up. That I can’t keep them safe.

I’m scared of the world and it’s horrors big and small, real and imaginary, and how the hell I’m going to get them through it. Get me through it.

I’m scared of failing.

I’m scared of succeeding.

I’m scared at how much there is to be scared of.

I’m scared of how scared I am.

I’m scared of how visceral that fear has become. How debilitating. The weight on my chest.

I’m scared that I really am on the edge.

Because I now know enough about my mental health to know that the apocalyptic thoughts, the sense of doom, the personalisation of news items and tragedy, the detail, the inability to distance those thoughts and feelings – to stop thinking or feeling them – is all a sign. It’s a sign I need to stop. Take stock. And take care.

I know there are other people out there who feel the fear. Who are gripped by it. Frozen. Paralysed. Who let the bad thoughts creep in and take over.

So this is a blog to say the one thing you don’t have to be scared of is being alone. Because you’re not.

I never had the fear before I had children. Maybe having them triggered it. Certainly it changed me. Maybe I just never had as much to lose.

There is a fine line between caution and obsession, empathy and infatuation. And recognising the fear when it comes – spotting the pattern in time – is the key to stopping it.

When the fear comes, when the hypothetical becomes hyperreal, when you are crippled by crisis not yet come to pass; breathe.

The mistake people make in taking a deep breath is to breathe IN. The trick is to breathe OUT, and keep your lungs empty for as long as possible. The next breath in then really matters. Let it pull your diaphragm down and push your stomach out. Don’t let your shoulders rise.

I’ve learnt to speak my fears, because they’re always worse in my head. I can then recognise their ridiculousness. Like alligators in Sheffield. Yet trying to suppress or dismiss the emotions doesn’t work. Let them out. Feel them. Acknowledge them. It’s only then you’ll be able to rid yourself of them – put them away in a box and seal the lid.

Accept where you are stupid, where you are impotent, and where you have the power to manage, mitigate or change things. And then change them.

Because if you’re too scared to try and change the world, starting with you and your head, it will never get better for your kids to grow up in. And they will never see or learn how it’s done.

And that’s something that should frighten every one us.

Take care.

Mumonthenetheredge

Is this you? If you recognise these thought patterns, please breathe, take stock and take care, too. And if that doesn’t work, please ask someone for help. Try your GP, or MIND.

Packing for a family holiday – in 171 easy steps

03 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

IMG_3991packing

I’ve always wanted to be one of those women who could throw a toothbrush and a spare pair of pants into a handbag and just go somewhere. I’m not. Packing sends my anxiety to new, heady levels. This has only been exacerbated by having children.

Now it’s as least 3.5 times as stressful, as I’m packing for 3.5 people (the .5 being my husband, who can pack clothes but obviously can’t locate sun hats, trunks or towels without assistance – and certainly doesn’t consider the ins and outs of travelling with, clothing, feeding and entertaining two small children in a strange place and climate for seven whole days).

Fortunately I’ve developed a foolproof system, and I’ve compiled a comprehensive guide for other anxious packers in 171 easy steps.

At least one month in advance of holiday, start compiling lists. Lots of lists.
Wrestle suitcases out of loft, as husband/partner will continue to put it off as it’s ‘too early’ to start packing.
Assemble on spare bed.
Dust.
Try to persuade cat suitcases are not a new cat bed.
Start assembling essentials for each person in piles.
Have protracted and traditional argument with husband about what will and won’t fit in the car.
Wrestle big suitcase back into loft with passive aggressive huffing.
Attempt to fit beach towels into small suitcase.
Show husband suitcase full to the brim with only towels.
Make him wrestle big suitcase out of loft.
Look smug.
Debate the pros and cons of taking the buggy vs taking the sling. Come to no conclusions.
Repeat over next three weeks.
Search entire house for sun cream.
Find sun cream in tool box or other random location.
Read article on FB about the dangers of out-of-date sun cream.
Discard sun cream.
Purchase new sun creams for all family (UVB and UVA) at shockingly extortionate prices – significantly eating into holiday spending money.
Add sun hats to pile, even though none of your children will keep them on for more than 30 seconds, due to rare but near fatal (presumed from the screaming) allergy.
Remove hats frequently for fleeting glimpses of British sun.
Develop constant fear you will forget them.
Ambitiously purchase baby sunglasses, because sun protection allergy definitely won’t extend to eyewear. Definitely.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Argue with larger child about why they cannot wear their favourite item of clothing (which has never been favoured before) as it’s been packed for holiday.
Yes, you know they can see it in one of the piles on the spare bed.
Put fingers in ears and sing ‘La la la’ to drown out incessant whining.
Give in and plan a billion more more holiday washes. Fuck it.
Ask larger child to pick some toys to take with them.
Explain that not all toys will fit in suitcase.
Ask, very calmly, why we might need 5 babies, 7 barbies, Tinkerbell and co, plus 37 stuffed toys for one week in a villa.
Repeat step 31 x infinity.
Secretly rationalise toys in the dead of night.
Get caught out by child who is running daily inventory of toy pile.
Explain that the nylon Elsa dress and cloak may not be suitable beach wear.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Open wine.
Pack medical kit for emergencies.
Debate whether to take Calpol and/or Nurofen.
Take both.
Pack the thermometer.
Order extra ear hats for thermometer from internet (you have never needed these before but you never know).
Realise new ear hats are inexplicably the wrong size.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Get caught packing medical kit and then get asked for princess plasters incessantly for four days, for mythical injuries.
Pack night light.
Congratulate self about remembering a night light.
Research universal plug adaptors for your destination.
Discover none are compatible with your night light, or monitor.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Pack an outfit for each child for each day.
Plus beachwear x3 (wash one / wear one / dry one, as child will not let slightly clammy lycra near its person).
Add extra evening and beach outfits.
Add jumpers, just in case of post pool or evening chill.
Pack more vests, in case air conditioning is mental.
Scrap enormous pile and start again.
Be extra strict with necessities.
End up with the same pile.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Pack sun tent.
Realise sun tent is not as compact as you had hoped.
Dither over how many nappies/swim nappies to take.
Explain to husband that you understand they have shops in other countries, and babies. And nappies.
Explain to husband in graphic detail the results of a poonami disaster if you run short. In terms of a) washing, b) grossness, and c) your own mental health.
Take out some nappies.
Wake up in the middle of the night in a panic.
Restore nappies.
Attack top layer of clothes in suitcase with sticky roller to remove cat hair.
Pack three packets of wipes.
Remove two.
Add two more packets.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Explain to husband that it is not your job to keep track of his swimming trunks.
Ransack house for swimming trunks.
Force husband to shops to buy new swimming trunks.
Find original swimming trunks three days later stuffed in baby’s vest drawer.
Remember you have yet to pack books, crayons and rainy day entertainment.
Look at bulging suitcase and weep.
Open more wine.
Wrestle suitcase into bathroom scales to check weight.
Remove three vests and pray.
Weep some more.
Consent to remove travel stair gate.
Remember pool stuff in middle of night and set alarm reminder.
Add goggles and floats to suitcase.
You haven’t packed books for bedtime. These turn out to weigh more than gravity – all if it.
Threaten to get cat put down.
Attempt child friendly explanation of ‘putting down’.
Explain to children that Mummy is just a bit stressed and didn’t mean it.
Rescue cat from suddenly over-affectionate children and place out of grabby hand reach on top of suitcase.
Ignore triumphant purring and try to shake suspicion this was part of cat’s nefarious master-plan to sleep on suitcase all along.
Weigh suitcase again.
Wonder how the fuck it gained 2kg over night.
Remove randomly added toys.
Ban everyone from the spare room on pain of death.
Remind yourself not to kill husband who is asking two days before you leave when the last wash is going on.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Pack kid friendly cups, plates and cutlery.
Pack the one shape of pasta your kids will consent to eat, for emergencies.
Pack two jars of sacla pesto, also for emergencies, as your children can taste other brands without even fucking eating any.
Put some shreddies into a sandwich bag, as it’s the baby’s favourite breakfast.
Take some out.
Put some more in.
Painstakingly Count out 15 shreddies for each day.
Try not to kill child when it insists on having the pink cup for lunch, which is packed, under the cock-wombling sun tent and medical kit.
Remove cat from suitcase.
Empty car CD holder and fill with DVDs.
Not that one, as apparently you must watch it right now.
Let baby put DVDs in and out of plastic sleeves as novel new game, that it will scream blue murder over if you attempt to halt.
Fear DVDs now covered in fingerprints will not play in villa DVD player, or indeed anywhere else.
Calculate cost of replacing all Disney films.
Apply medicinal tea to calm palpitations.
Locate wine for later.
Try and distract baby with sun tent.
Realise you can’t now fold sun tent back into a fucking circle, let alone fit it back into it’s arse-twonking bag.
Weep.
Subdue homicidal rage as husband asks why you’re getting so stressed about packing for a week’s holiday.
Add 0.5 tog sleeping bag.
Remember air conditioning.
Add 1 tog sleeping bag.
Add bed sheet in case cot mattress at villa is disgusting.
Berate self for OCD. Remove sheet.
Replace.
Remove.
Gather socks and muslins at random.
Halve.
Add one for luck. Of each.
Maybe one more muslin.
Pack washing powder, as may not be available in foreign parts, and child will not wear clothes if they ‘smell funny’.
Consider fabric conditioner.
Dismiss as ridiculous and possibly leaky.
Cram toilet roll in front pocket.
Remember the cagools, just in case of freak weather, and the horror of being stuck inside with children and not enough toys.
Open more wine.
Admit you may have become obsessed and overwrought about packing.
Weep.
Remove the fucking cat from the fucking suitcase.
Dig out your own summer clothes.
Try on.
Realise everything is at least two sizes too small and not compatible with breastfeeding.
Weep.
Wine.
Pack toiletries and make-up a week in advance, as the one thing you can fully control and achieve, and finally cross off your list.
Become increasingly annoyed at having to rummage through toiletry bag for everything.
Unpack it.
Pack sandals and beach shoes for everyone.
Add plastic bags for wet stuff.
Remember travel change mat.
Add fashionista huge beach bag.
Remove as takes up too much room.
Replace with Tesco bag for life. (Glam).
Remove cat from suitcase and throw out of front door.
Overhear larger child threatening to put the baby down.
Experience remorse.
Wine.
Remember you have yet to face the challenge of packing the hand luggage and airplane entertainment.
Weep
Consider whether to take glo clock and decide it’s not essential.
Wake up at 3am to pack chargers.
Get woken again by child explaining that while the sun hasn’t yet come up, they just need to add a toy to the suitcase.
Pack glo clock.
Sit all children and self on seriously strained suitcase in order to do up.
Listen to husband bitch about carrying suitcase downstairs, asking ‘what the fuck have you got in this thing?’
Resist sharing detailed lists of exactly what you’ve got in there.
Brace for the ‘it’s never going to go in the car’ speech.
Suffer ‘what have I forgotten?’ paranoia all the way to the airport.
Panic over whether stuff will fit in hire car at the other end.
Abandon buggy in car and take sling. (One of three. Obvs.)
Throw toddler style tantrum punching and kicking husband’s suitcase, in lieu of actual husband, when he inevitably asks at the airport, ‘what do you mean you didn’t pack the x?’
Avoid the disapproving stares of other travellers for the rest of your journey.
Have a HAPPY FUCKING HOLIDAY!

MumreallyreallyREALLYONTHENETHERFUCKINGEDGE

The Great Vulva Dilemma

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 8 Comments

IMG_3304.JPG vulva

To vulva or not to vulva? That is the question. And it was first posed to me by a wonderful (and somewhat boundaryless) friend of mine some 10 or more years ago, in the middle of an open plan office. Now that was a Tuesday to remember.

At the time, she was debating what to call her small child’s lady parts. (‘Lady parts’, by the way, was never any sort of contender, on the grounds of being offensively euphemistic, unattractively po-faced, and alarmingly Kenneth Williams).

When it was my turn to face the dilemma, I was actually quite surprised to find that a decade on there was STILL no appealingly benign opposite of the universally used ‘willy’ to describe the rude bits (not rude – don’t want them to grow up with a complex!) of the female small person.

Oh, there are plenty of contenders, and after a quick survey of both friends and the internet, popular names appear to include the following:

Foo Foo/Foof

Sounds like a poodle. Could get confusing in middle class parks like Millhouses.

Moo Moo

Old MacDonald has just taken on a whole new meaning in your toddler’s mind.

Choo choo

Seriously? A train analogy? Into the tunnel we go? No. I don’t have time to go into all the different kinds of wrong this is. Get your coat.

Wee Wee

Okay, stop with the twee double wording now. And it’s not just for weeing!

Tuppence

Personally, I’d like my daughters to put rather more value on their vaginas than this implies.

Lady parts/bits

See above. Euphemistic. The idea is not to make the female genitalia something to be ashamed of, or squeamish about. (I’m also ruling out the phrase ‘down below’).

Privates/private parts

Yes, it’s important for children to know their genitalia is private, but defining it solely by its privacy is not quite right… That’s not the first thing I want my daughters to think about this very important part of their bodies. I want this associated with happiness, pleasure and pride, preferably before privacy.

Snooky

?????????
Just.
No.

Coochie

A slang term that seems sometimes to have derogatory connotations – avoid. (Also never say ‘coochie coochie coo’ to a baby).

Mary

This could lead to some very dangerous Nativity-based questioning. Happy Christmas to you if this is your term of choice.

Minnie

As in mouse? Confusing and icky-cutesy.

Fanny

Leaving aside the American confusion, this is still rather unsatisfactory, and even slightly unsavoury. Smacks of bad 70s comedies – a la Mrs Slocombe’s ‘pussy’.

Pussy

No. I’ve also automatically discarded anything else blatantly rude. (Grandma, btw, insists on calling cats by this name, which takes rigorous re-programming whenever the big talking child returns from a visit. Pussy-CAT, darling. PUSSY-CAT).

Vagina

Good word, but slightly inaccurate. If we’re going to go with biological fundamentals this word refers very specifically to, well, the vagina. It’s not the right word for the whole kit and caboodle.

Front bottom

Sooooo confusing! It’s not in the least like a bottom, with completely separate functions, and if they want to avoid years of Canesten ahead of them they need to learn to distinguish between the two and keep them hygienically separate. Front to back, kids, front to back.

Anatomical accuracy in this most sensitive of areas is actually quite important. Not least because your child – and you – really need to be able to understand and describe whether an itch or irritation is around the vulva, in the vagina, the clitoris, the inner or outer labia etc etc. This could be the difference between a water infection, thrush, foot and mouth blah blah blah.

China

I see where we’re going here. Fine china, vagina – cockney rhyming slang. Easily broken and must be handled with care. Only get the best stuff out when you’ve got guests round. Never put it in the dishwasher.

Va-jj

Also no. This is Sheffield, not Essex.

Flower

It’s enough to make Cbeebies Mr Bloom blush! It’s not a bloody plant, however pretty or fragrant. Neither is it perennial. And heaven help the female small person helping Granny with the gardening.

Vulva

This is pretty much what we’re left with after dismissing everything above.

Let’s say it together. Vulva. Vul-va. Vulva. VULVA.

Try saying it out loud and seeing what kind of reaction you get from those around you. (Possibly avoid this if you’re at work). Let me know how that works out for you.

So……

What, you may ask, do we say in Chateau Mumonthenetheredge?

Despite my ambitions to be ‘right on,’ sisters, I’m afraid that I still baulked at the idea of my small person telling Grandma in a pre-schoolers shriek (presumably somewhere nice and public like a supermarket aisle or nice and quiet like a library) that her vulva was itching.

Oh, I know it’s the right word. I know, I know. But I just couldn’t do it!

So we say ‘bits’ in our house.

It’s not ideal. It IS euphemistic. I’m not 100% happy with it.

But as long as my daughters are happy with theirs, I suppose that’s all that really matters. (Turns out in one case she’s very happy with it – but that’s a WHOLE other blog…. I haven’t had enough wine yet.)

Now this isn’t a new debate, and I’m sure you’ve had or seen versions of it many times before. But it will continue as long as we have no satisfactory conclusion, and actually, I’ve got a very special reason for posting it here.

What Sheffield has in common with Shakespeare – besides alliteration – is a talent for making up words from scratch in order to fill senseless semantic voids. (Two quick and well documented examples include ‘nesh’ for those too pathetic to deal with a bit of Northern chill, or ‘jennal’ for those paths between terraced houses or at the end or between streets).

So come on Sheffield, what do you call ‘bits’? And what new word could you invent to fill this really very unfortunate vocab gap? Here’s the criteria for the challenge. It’s got to be:

Accurate
Unoffensive
Friendly
Positive.

Do your best. Or worst! I for one will thank you for it.

Oh, and if you enter on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/mumonthenetheredge) before 3 June 2016 there’s a £10 Mothercare voucher up for grabs too!

Mumonethenetheredge

At least you’ve already got one

21 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Infertility, Miscarriage, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

IMG_3280.JPG at least

At least you’ve already got one was the thing I heard most after my miscarriage, and in the months of treatment, infertility and more treatment that followed. At least you’ve already got one became the refrain to the very worst time of my life.

It’s surprising for just how many people misery comes in the form of a single blue line in an oval window. Hope and despair neatly packaged up in a little white stick. Not pregnant. Again.

The official figures are that one in six couples in the UK experience infertility. It’s the numbers underneath that though – the ones not collected in any survey or census – that are rather more telling. The number of those sticks weed on each month, the number of excruciating, heart-pumping seconds waiting for those lines to appear, the number of tears shed as the stick is thrown in the bathroom bin. The number of times it’s been dug back out, just to check. Just to see. Just in case it’s different this time.

People don’t talk about infertility very much because it’s a very personal subject and a very private pain. And even more secret is the heartache of secondary infertility. Secondary infertility is what happens when a couple who has a child (or children) for some reason can’t conceive again – or can’t carry a baby to term. Worldwide, secondary infertility is now estimated to account for 6 out of 10 infertility cases.

And the very worst thing about secondary infertility is this: At least you’ve already got one.

It’s so awful largely because it’s TRUE. You do already have one. And you are so, so lucky and so, so privileged to have that little person in your life. Some people who desperately, desperately want to be in your position don’t ever get that chance.

But at least you’ve already got one is also complicated, as truth often is. Because underneath it really means several different things.

It means, look at everything you DO have.

It means, get some perspective.

It means, stop being so ungrateful.

It means, quit feeling sorry for yourself.

It means, your pain is out of proportion.

It means, you’re not allowed to be sad.

And it means you feel guilty for your ingratitude – and confused as to why you’re not happy with your wonderful life and wonderful family. At least you’ve already got one takes away your right to grieve. It drives it underground. It makes it a sordid, lonely, isolating little secret. It compares your pain with other people’s and finds it wanting.

The fact is that whether you’ve physically lost a baby or lost your ideal ‘image’ of your 2.4 family – you have still lost something important. Something real to you. Something you desperately wanted. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve already got a kid or not.

Society has an unhealthy obsession with comparing human hurt. Anguish is not a competition – there are no winners here. Only losers. You simply cannot categorise negative experiences on an arbitrary scale and then assign appropriate reactions to them. The death of a loved one does not ‘trump’ a miscarriage. A cancer diagnosis is not ‘better’ than a heart attack. It ALL SUCKS. Pain is pain. Shit is shit. Does it really matter how brown and sticky it is?

Yet for some reason we persist in making those judgements, and in continuing to judge anyone whose responses fall outside of accepted parameters. So you can cry about your Dad dying, but you need to get over your miscarriage? Who the hell is making these rules? And why are the rest of us following them?

At least you’ve already got one is mindfulness gone mad. You can be thankful, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever be sad. That’s far too simplistic a view.

If you want simple, try thinking of it like this. Person A is drowning in a puddle. Person B is drowning in the Atlantic. There is a great deal more water in the latter, but both are still drowning. Dead is dead – no one is going to be any less dead at the other end.

And as person A takes their last gurgling gasp, I’m pretty fucking sure they’re not feeling grateful that at least it’s muddy rainwater and not giant volumes of sea filling up their collapsing lungs.

Now Person A is thrashing around wildly, and making a mess. Person B is taking it rather more on the chin. Who’s to say which one is having the ‘right’ level of reaction to their situation? Because really, we don’t know how either of them ended up in the water in the first place. Maybe Person B has been swimming for hours and doesn’t have any fight left. Maybe Person A’s head is actually being held under the water. You just don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life because you can’t see under the surface. You can’t judge what they’re going through or how they’re going through it.

For me, secondary infertility was so very raw (not by any means any worse than infertility, NEVER that, just raw) precisely because it was secondary. Because I KNEW.

I knew exactly what it felt like to have that secret flutter in my stomach, the shift of another life, the thump of feet and hands inside me.

I knew what it was like to hold that tiny, tiny body, push my finger into that crinkled palm, hear the first mewls of life and see that sticky sweep of hair and scrunched up, perfect face.

I knew the impossible weight of that small body folded into my neck, the smell of new baby filling my nose, my head, my heart.

I knew that surging crash of LOVE and awe and wonder. I knew the crush of fear and overwhelm. I knew the swell of joy that expands your chest and clogs your throat and chokes you to tears. I knew the tingle and pang of let down as all that emotion came out as milk.

I KNEW, and I wanted it again. I craved it. And I could feel it, a physical ache, a gap – a ghost.

Because I could feel the outline of another hand in mine as I crossed the road with my daughter.

I could feel the press of another small person in my arms as we cuddled up on the sofa.

I could feel the imprint of another soul on mine that was never really there, but left a gaping, jagged hole none-the-less.

Oh I’m quite sure it doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure half of the people reading this are running to call the little men in white coats. (That’s why this blog is anonymous. They’ll never take me alive!!!)

I’m also sure that the other half – the half that’s been there – will know exactly what I mean.

When the giant pulses of grief and rage would fade, in my more normal moments, there was still the nagging feeling of something missing, something not being quite as it should. The world slightly out of kilter. I would suddenly look up and feel sure that someone had put the wrong filter over the snapshots of my life.

Now I freely admit to being a supremely selfish being, but my sadness wasn’t all reserved for myself. Some of it was also for my husband and my daughter.

I fell in love with my husband all over again when I saw him as a father. His kindness, his gentleness, his patience – his love for the little life we’d made. And I wanted that for him again. For us. Four of us. One-on-one, two by two. It just added up to US.

Perhaps more though, I wanted it for my daughter. I would watch her, playing in the garden or on the beach by herself. I would remember my own childhood, shrieking and chasing my sister, and feel incredibly sad that wasn’t going to be part of her life. That she would be alone. That when we died there’d be no one there for her – no one to help arrange the funeral, to hold her, to reminisce about our family. To know the sayings and the songs and the silliness.

Not everybody has these feelings – nor should they. For some, their vision of the perfect family was only ever one child. For some three isn’t uneven or unfinished – it’s precisely the right balance. Others can summon some rationality and accept – perhaps with passing sadness – that another child simply wasn’t meant to be.

The point is only that I SHOULD be allowed to have these feelings. That it’s okay to feel them without feeling guilty. And it’s taken a long time for me to be able to acknowledge that to myself. Because of course in the background I was thinking – and I was repeatedly told – at least you’ve already got one.

Look, no one likes a wallower. But there is a line to be trodden between letting someone indulge themselves and letting someone grieve. I think we can all agree that there has to be a bit of space before ‘get over it’, ‘buck up’ and ‘at least you’ve already got one’. And it’s really not up to you to judge how much space someone else needs.

My particular secondary infertility tale had a happy ending, after a lot of heartbreak, strain, and surgery. And I am so very thankful that I finally got my beautiful second baby. The family of my dreams.

Not long after my second daughter was finally born, the Big Small Person fell over, and scraped her knee. And I caught myself saying, quite literally, ‘At least you’ve already got one’. In shock news, it didn’t help. It didn’t take the pain away. It didn’t make her feel better. And that got me thinking about what we should say instead.

As a Queen of social gaucheness, I fully appreciate that it’s not malice or lack of awareness that causes people to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. (God knows I’ve practically made it an art form). Mostly it’s simply a matter of not knowing what to say to someone. I can help you with that.

If you know someone who is drowning (in whatever body or depth of water – this isn’t just about infertility), please do throw them a lifeline if you possibly can. You don’t need to risk being pulled into the drama-lake if you’re not up for a swim, but you don’t need to make things worse either. Don’t throw them a guilt-trip. Don’t belittle their pain, their experience, or how their feelings manifest themselves.

Instead, just try this. Just say:

I’m so sorry this has happened to you.

Simple. Easy. If you can look in their eye and hold their hand for the briefest of moments, that’ll help too.

Because that acknowledgement, that moment of human connection, that stark truth, is sometimes just enough to keep someone’s head above water.

It certainly helped with the skinned knee, anyway.

Mumonthenetheredge

Support

If you’ve suffered miscarriages or infertility, there’s a lot of support out there. Sometimes it just helps to know you’re not the only person going through it. Sometimes it helps to know there can be happy endings, other options, or just life beyond all the awfulness. Best wishes to you.

The Miscarriage Association

Tommy’s

The Infertility Network

Resolve

Hello vegetarianism

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by mumonthenetheredge in Humour, Parenting

≈ 4 Comments

I never thought you and I would become intimately acquainted, because bacon. But it seems we are in fact destined to meet after all, because of a Small Person and its love of animals.

Perhaps I should have seen you coming, vegetarianism. Because I have in fact always had a wussy soft spot for animals myself. I grew up with cats and dogs, but not in that real life farm/stable girl way that breeds pragmatism and realism. In a fluffy, ‘ahhh it’s sooooo cute’ kind of a way. The dog was my best friend and confidant. (The cat hated me but that’s a different story).

Yet for some reason I had always vaguely assumed that I would be really cool about food production processes and totally matter of fact and honest with my children. In my imagination I would become suddenly and unexpectedly outdoorsy, wearing a waxed jacket, strolling around in Hunters wellies (how much????) and pointing out all the cuts of meat on a real life cow frolicking in a field. My child would LISTEN, and even smile at my wisdom, perhaps asking nice, comfortable questions.

(It continues, btw, to be one of my greatest disappointments in life that I didn’t miraculously turn into a new and better person with kids. Turns out I’m just me but with PTSD, chronic sleep deprivation, extra neurosis – and passengers).

I never, ever thought I’d actively lie about where meat came from. I mean who does that? But then I was gifted with a Fussy Eater. Something I had previously assumed didn’t exist and was just the product of poor parenting. (I was a DICKHEAD. I’m working on it).

Every meal with a Fussy Eater is an exercise in complex and detailed negotiation. We discuss the philosophical fundamentals of a ‘meal’, the true meaning of what constitutes a ‘bite’, and the semantic value of the word ‘more’. E.g:

Me: “Please can you eat some more carrots?”
Big Small Person: “I have eaten more already!”
Me: “No, I mean more on top of that more.”
BSP: “But I already did the more!”
(Repeat x 100).

The negotiation takes place over what is a average 2 hour meal time. (I really wish that was an exaggeration). Every mouthful is precious, and giving the Big Small Person any excuse to dismiss a whole (other) food group is literally unthinkable.

Let me set the scene. Sprouts very early on became ‘baby cabbages’ in our world. Cauliflower is referred to as ‘mini snow trees’. Tomato ketchup is ‘red sauce’ (you know, the stuff they put at the bottom of pizzas which absolutely no way has anything at all, ever, to do with tomatoes. No Siree, no tomatoes here). Every twee term has been deployed, every euphemism, every stealth vitamin and subliminal mineral – every bloody trick in the book. We have literally made up anthems to sing as different food items are ingested. My personal favourite remains ‘Pink Meat, like the piggies eat’ to the tune of ‘Go West’ by the Pet Shop Boys. (This is our term for gammon, and yes, pink is a motivational tool in our house, not merely a colour).

We have begged. We have bribed. We have shamelessly emotionally blackmailed by pretending individual peas are sad and lonely and just want to go down into her tummy to join their Mummy and Daddy peas. We have even given each pea a name and a voice. (You cannot begin to understand the depth of my hatred for myself, or the magnitude of the desperation which has led to such ridiculous measures. Don’t judge me until you’ve been there).

Meat, as you can see from ‘Pink Meat’ example (I defy you not to be singing this next time you eat gammon), has been something we’ve both – by mutual and silent consensus – become quieter and quieter about as the child gets older. Because she has now reached the stage where she’s perfectly capable of associating chicken with, well, chickens. And lamb with lambs – including her stuffed wooly pal ‘Lamby’ that’s been with her from birth.

So we have gradually fallen into the keeping of the Secret Of The Meat. But this secret, I fear, is not destined to remain in the bag for very much longer.

My first inkling, vegetarianism, of just how fast our tracks are hurtling towards each other, came on a leisurely weekend morning, kids playing happily, with a rare moment of Mummy and Daddy telly running innocuously in the background. It was a cooking programme, where some semi-celebrity chef was gutting a fish. And inevitably the Big Small Person froze amidst the Lego and stared.

BSP: “What’s he doing to that fish mummy?”
Pause. Mounting horror.
BSP: “Is that a REAL fish?”
Pause. Note of actual panic.
BSP: “We don’t REALLY eat animals do we Mummy?”
Tactical deployment of imploring eyes.
BSP: “That’s not kind is it Mummy? We don’t do that, do we Mummy?”

What would you do???? “No Darling, no!” I crooned/lied while desperately mashing my hand against the telly buttons. “Let’s watch some Peppa Pig shall we?” In hindsight this probably wasn’t the wisest of diversion moves. Because we definitely don’t eat pigs. Or bacon. Mmmmmm bacon…

In fact, vegetarianism, I blame kids media far more than I blame you. Because we bring children up on a diet of Shaun the Sheeps, Peter Rabbits, kindly cows and anthropomorphised chickens. And then we merrily serve them up as meals, possibly even at the same time. Ham sarnie in front of Peppa, anyone? Fish fingers under the televisual glow of Nemo? Nuggets before Chicken Licken as tonight’s bedtime story? Hardly consistent parenting!

Our children’s role models, heroes and best cuddly friends are the very animals we then expect them to gobble down at dinner time. It’s frankly a miracle any of them grow up carnivorous at all.

I do also have to take some of the blame onto my own shoulders, because I have been an active part of this process myself. I have encouraged the child’s interest in animals and animal welfare.

Like many toddlers she exhibited a natural affinity for sadism at an early age, and would try to exterminate or torture her fellow creatures by doing things like stamping on ants or pulling the cat’s tail – for the kicks (and inevitably – scratches). Like many parents – horrified by the prospect of breeding a mini psychopath – I leapt right in with lessons of empathy. Think how the ant feels. How would you like it if someone bigger than you chased you into a corner and pulled your hair? No Darling, we don’t do that to animals. Gentle hands! Kind strokes! Unless of course you are killing them for their delicious flesh.

It just doesn’t work, does it?

If I’m honest with myself, vegetarianism, I’ve been avoiding you for large parts of my life. I went out of my way, for instance, not to see that horrendous battery chicken documentary a few years ago, which has ruined cheap supermarket breasts for large numbers of meat-eating middle-class shoppers. I turned over from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage Farm and it’s ethical meat rearing, slaughtering and consuming. I didn’t want to know. It might have made me think too hard, and that might have made me flee into your celery arms and spongy tofu bosom even sooner.

Having once been vaguely bullied by some Friesians on a stroll through their field, I even convinced myself I could probably take one of the bitches in a fight, and especially if I could afterwards munch on it’s juicy steaky bits. (After un-caking them of poo, obvs). I hardened my heart against their big brown eyes by focussing on this one instance of unwarranted aggression and by simply not looking. It was easy. Not thinking generally is, I find.

But now I’m going to have to face some home truths. And the truth is I can’t reconcile my own (admittedly fluffy) love of animals with my love of roast chicken. And bacon. (OK, so I know there are many better arguments – practical and ethical – for vegetarianism other than the bleeding-heart cute thing, but these are not the factors swaying me or – more importantly – my Small Person).

The fact is I couldn’t take a heifer in one-to-one combat, not even with a stun gun. Not even a bazooka. I just could never bring myself to squeeze the trigger. Hell, I can’t even effectively swat spider with a newspaper and I am ACTIVELY HOSTILE towards them. I genuinely wish they were all dead – I just don’t want to kill them personally. I could probably bring myself to personally kill a fish, if I was really hungry. And stranded on a desert island. And if Bear Grylls was insisting. But I’d have guilt-laced nightmares for at least a week.

So vegetarianism, at some point in the next 5 years we will meet. We’re on a collision course. Because when the Secret Of The Meat is finally out, Dadonthenetheredge and I will be forced to confront our latent shame by the almighty power of Small Person logic and morality. We will no longer be roasting Lamby on a Sunday. We will change our meat-eating ways – probably for good. You are my fate, vegetarianism, and I will embrace you when you arrive.

But first I will eat a bacon sandwich. And I will savour its crispy, salty, goodness while I still can.