Parent guilt is as normal as nappies, as common as colds. The guilty switch is activated by remote control in the maternity ward of the hospital in a procedure, which is unfortunately irreversible.
Whether it is the immense working Mum guilt; diet or discipline worries; breastfeeding or bottle feeding; constantly wondering if we are doing the right thing and comparing yourself with other Mums, the crushing guilt us parents experience feels like we are paddling up Excrement Creak without a parenting manual.
A study of 2,000 parents in the UK has found that we are consistently racked with guilt because we believe we are doing a bad job of raising our children.
The study found that more than half felt they were not good parents and did not have basic confidence in their ability. The research also reported that people constantly subjected to parenting advice in the media find themselves led away from their own common sense and down a road where they are made to feel bad about their parental decisions.
People bombarded with a perfectly fluffy version of how parenting should be can be made to feel like their ways are simply not good enough.
That’s where I come in. For the past six years I have regaled you with stories of how I get things spectacularly wrong. Not wrong that people die, wrong in a milder sense of the word where I feel stupid and people laugh. I hope, that by my failings, I make you folks feel better about yourselves and your far superior parenting skills.
My only hope is that I have entertained you with tales of our various trips to casualty, our disastrous holiday experiences, our comedic attempts at organising birthday parties, our novel ideas for First Communion outfits (remember Dan as Darth Vader, Me as Princess Lea, the baby as Yoda?)
Alongside all the other guilts I feel my own unique version of mummy guilt by parading my family’s life, experiences and adventures here on these pages for the world to see. I relay, with brutal honesty, our very trips to the dentist, what my kids do at school, the funny things they say. In a way I invite people into our home, into our family. Others would find this intrusive. Through these pages I have shared with you my son’s first steps, my daughter’s first words, my father’s last breath.
I showcase myself every week here in Technicolor with neon signs pointing at my own failings. I put myself out there for people to criticise my mothering skills. And they do.
We may feel that we are bad mothers on occasion or that we have made the wrong decision. But from time to time total strangers inform me that I am a bad mother, usually via email on a Tuesday morning after this column appears in the Irish News. It can be anything from my choice of career to my decision to breastfeed. Nothing is off limits for people’s vitriol.
But much like the parenting manuals with the perfect fluffy version of how we should behave I completely ignore them. What the hells bells do they know about me, about my kids?
There is not a one-size fits all parenting model no more than there is a perfect mother. It’s no good struggling to be perfect. None of us will ever be that. Just be the very best you can be. That’s good enough.
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Tuesday 20 September 2011
What, no dramatics?
My baby boy Finn turned three last week and he started playschool to celebrate the occasion.
I wasn’t sure how the boy would take being separated from me for three hours a day, saying as how we’ve spent most of the past three years in each other’s company.
When I left him at the school I was anticipating a bit of screaming, a bit of leg hugging, maybe a spot of banging his fists fiercely on the nursery door with a touch of high-pitched wailing about not leaving him there all alone thrown in. I was highly disappointed that while all the other Mums had to contend with clingy, sobbing children, my little guy waved me a cheery goodbye and headed for the building blocks.
I even went over and reinforced the fact that I was leaving now, going away and leaving him here all by himself in the hope that it might spark a bit of dramatic reaction. He bid me farewell and went on about the business of building a castle with plastic blocks.
I resisted the urge to accidentally push over and annihilate his multi-coloured creation so that he’d cry and I’d have to hug him like all the other Mums were hugging their offspring. His lack of dramatics was making me look bad.
So I shuffled and huffed off back to the car, turning back in the hope that he’d at least have the courtesy to run to the nursery windows, put on a bit of a show of crying after me. I’d settle even for one solitary tear.
Nothing.
When I returned a few hours later I asked the nursery assistant how he had got on. Had he shown any signs of missing me? He had had a great time, she said. They had sung Happy Birthday and he had worn a silly king’s hat. Was there any tears, I enquired? Yes, she replied. He had shed a tear or two when the staff had told the children it was time now to go home.
She commented that my boy was very quiet. I laughed. His nickname in our house is ‘the curly-haired lunatic’. Wait until he settles in, wait until they get him full throttle. Then they’ll be banging on the nursery doors, crying for me to take him home.
After playschool the husband took the boy into town for an ice cream. He was wearing a big blue star badge that read ‘I am 3 today!’ – the boy, not the husband.
By the time the husband had reached the ice cream parlour he had made a profit of £4. Random people – female, average age 80 – kept stopping to admire my boy, his birthday badge and his curls.
When the husband reached the ice cream parlour the owner gave my boy extra helpings and refused payment. Whilst sitting outside the shop in the sun the boy made another profit of £2.70, a badge with a tree on it and a red balloon.
If we continue this way the husband and I calculate that we will be able to retire at 40. I’m sending them both into town next Saturday, adorned with several birthday badges and the husband will be sporting a curly wig for extra effect.
I wasn’t sure how the boy would take being separated from me for three hours a day, saying as how we’ve spent most of the past three years in each other’s company.
When I left him at the school I was anticipating a bit of screaming, a bit of leg hugging, maybe a spot of banging his fists fiercely on the nursery door with a touch of high-pitched wailing about not leaving him there all alone thrown in. I was highly disappointed that while all the other Mums had to contend with clingy, sobbing children, my little guy waved me a cheery goodbye and headed for the building blocks.
I even went over and reinforced the fact that I was leaving now, going away and leaving him here all by himself in the hope that it might spark a bit of dramatic reaction. He bid me farewell and went on about the business of building a castle with plastic blocks.
I resisted the urge to accidentally push over and annihilate his multi-coloured creation so that he’d cry and I’d have to hug him like all the other Mums were hugging their offspring. His lack of dramatics was making me look bad.
So I shuffled and huffed off back to the car, turning back in the hope that he’d at least have the courtesy to run to the nursery windows, put on a bit of a show of crying after me. I’d settle even for one solitary tear.
Nothing.
When I returned a few hours later I asked the nursery assistant how he had got on. Had he shown any signs of missing me? He had had a great time, she said. They had sung Happy Birthday and he had worn a silly king’s hat. Was there any tears, I enquired? Yes, she replied. He had shed a tear or two when the staff had told the children it was time now to go home.
She commented that my boy was very quiet. I laughed. His nickname in our house is ‘the curly-haired lunatic’. Wait until he settles in, wait until they get him full throttle. Then they’ll be banging on the nursery doors, crying for me to take him home.
After playschool the husband took the boy into town for an ice cream. He was wearing a big blue star badge that read ‘I am 3 today!’ – the boy, not the husband.
By the time the husband had reached the ice cream parlour he had made a profit of £4. Random people – female, average age 80 – kept stopping to admire my boy, his birthday badge and his curls.
When the husband reached the ice cream parlour the owner gave my boy extra helpings and refused payment. Whilst sitting outside the shop in the sun the boy made another profit of £2.70, a badge with a tree on it and a red balloon.
If we continue this way the husband and I calculate that we will be able to retire at 40. I’m sending them both into town next Saturday, adorned with several birthday badges and the husband will be sporting a curly wig for extra effect.
Tuesday 13 September 2011
Don't let hatred build a home in your heart....
Ten years ago I was 26 years old, making plans for my wedding and greatly enjoying my early years working as an Irish News sub-editor. My children were not even a twinkle in their Daddy’s eye. The future was bright and laid out before me to do what I willed.
On September 11th 2001 I drove down the New Lodge Road to work listening to a song on the radio when the presenter cut in to announce that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York.
When I arrived at work my colleagues were transfixed by the images being beamed through the newsroom televisions. No one spoke. The phones, which rang constantly, fell silent. I watched, as the world did, in horror and disbelief as the towers burned. I watched as human beings – people’s husbands, children’s fathers, mothers, wives – fell like burning confetti to the ground below. I watched as live feeds brought images of people hanging out of the skyscraper’s windows, sick to my stomach knowing that there was no conceivable way those poor souls would ever find a way out.
I watched as a man, who looked around my husband’s age, waved his white suit shirt desperately out the window. The camera zoomed in. He’d written SOS in black marker on his shirt. The black smoke from the crash consumed him. I walked to my desk and closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch any more. The image of that shirtless man falling through those black clouds to his death is seared into my memory forever.
I could not imagine that man’s wife, his mother, his children watching their televisions, seeing their loved one’s last moments being played over and over again on the news. I couldn’t imagine sitting at home watching my husband’s building turn to rubble.
For all who remember that day, witnessing and experiencing the last moments of life and death through our television sets from the safety of our offices or homes it was surreal, disturbing, heartbreaking. What must it have been like for the families of those that perished that day?
In the days that followed we went to work, we relayed the news as always. Part of our job was to trawl through news from American reporters, condense and organised the stories for inclusion in the paper.
I read hundreds and hundreds of heartbreaking stories; saw hundreds of heart wrenching images. Some of the details from the more graphic reports had to be omitted in case they would upset our readers. But I read them and I remember them.
I read dialogues of last phone calls to wives, viewed pictures of grief-stricken fathers searching the savaged streets of New York for their missing daughters, read of how entire fire departments had been wiped out. Thousands of miles away from the events of that day, sitting in a newsroom in Belfast, I cried for people I had never met. Just months before I married my husband I cried for the wives whose husbands were never coming home, the children who would never see their fathers or mothers again.
Ten years on the horrific images are on the television again. I have four children now. Two of them are old enough to be aware of world affairs, but too young to fully understand the viciousness of world we live in, the hate that drives people to kill their fellow human beings.
They have asked me, “Why did those bad men do that?”
It’s complicated I say. I have told them there were men who hated America. This hatred was so intense they turned themselves into human weapons and destroyed what they thought were the two great symbols of America.
I tell them that America went to war after that attack and that there are families in Afghanistan and Iraq who are suffering the same horror of having their loved ones ripped from them, just as those on 9/11 did. Entire families have been wiped out. Innocent men, women and children, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters slaughtered as those were on September 11th. That soldiers were sent off to war in unpronounceable places and have never come home again.
I wonder what kind of world I have brought my children into, I worry for them as they grow. As a mother I hope to teach my children that there are no winners in war. Hatred is like poison I tell them. People should never let it build a home in their hearts.
In the days, weeks, months and years after 9/11 there were a lot of words written on the tragic happenings. I don’t recall a lot of them.
What stands out in my mind are the words of my colleague, Irish News columnist Anne Hailes. In the days after the horrific events of that day she told us in her column to gather those we love dear and hold them close, cherish them, appreciate them, tell them we love them. They were wise words then, and wise words now.
On September 11th 2001 I drove down the New Lodge Road to work listening to a song on the radio when the presenter cut in to announce that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York.
When I arrived at work my colleagues were transfixed by the images being beamed through the newsroom televisions. No one spoke. The phones, which rang constantly, fell silent. I watched, as the world did, in horror and disbelief as the towers burned. I watched as human beings – people’s husbands, children’s fathers, mothers, wives – fell like burning confetti to the ground below. I watched as live feeds brought images of people hanging out of the skyscraper’s windows, sick to my stomach knowing that there was no conceivable way those poor souls would ever find a way out.
I watched as a man, who looked around my husband’s age, waved his white suit shirt desperately out the window. The camera zoomed in. He’d written SOS in black marker on his shirt. The black smoke from the crash consumed him. I walked to my desk and closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch any more. The image of that shirtless man falling through those black clouds to his death is seared into my memory forever.
I could not imagine that man’s wife, his mother, his children watching their televisions, seeing their loved one’s last moments being played over and over again on the news. I couldn’t imagine sitting at home watching my husband’s building turn to rubble.
For all who remember that day, witnessing and experiencing the last moments of life and death through our television sets from the safety of our offices or homes it was surreal, disturbing, heartbreaking. What must it have been like for the families of those that perished that day?
In the days that followed we went to work, we relayed the news as always. Part of our job was to trawl through news from American reporters, condense and organised the stories for inclusion in the paper.
I read hundreds and hundreds of heartbreaking stories; saw hundreds of heart wrenching images. Some of the details from the more graphic reports had to be omitted in case they would upset our readers. But I read them and I remember them.
I read dialogues of last phone calls to wives, viewed pictures of grief-stricken fathers searching the savaged streets of New York for their missing daughters, read of how entire fire departments had been wiped out. Thousands of miles away from the events of that day, sitting in a newsroom in Belfast, I cried for people I had never met. Just months before I married my husband I cried for the wives whose husbands were never coming home, the children who would never see their fathers or mothers again.
Ten years on the horrific images are on the television again. I have four children now. Two of them are old enough to be aware of world affairs, but too young to fully understand the viciousness of world we live in, the hate that drives people to kill their fellow human beings.
They have asked me, “Why did those bad men do that?”
It’s complicated I say. I have told them there were men who hated America. This hatred was so intense they turned themselves into human weapons and destroyed what they thought were the two great symbols of America.
I tell them that America went to war after that attack and that there are families in Afghanistan and Iraq who are suffering the same horror of having their loved ones ripped from them, just as those on 9/11 did. Entire families have been wiped out. Innocent men, women and children, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters slaughtered as those were on September 11th. That soldiers were sent off to war in unpronounceable places and have never come home again.
I wonder what kind of world I have brought my children into, I worry for them as they grow. As a mother I hope to teach my children that there are no winners in war. Hatred is like poison I tell them. People should never let it build a home in their hearts.
In the days, weeks, months and years after 9/11 there were a lot of words written on the tragic happenings. I don’t recall a lot of them.
What stands out in my mind are the words of my colleague, Irish News columnist Anne Hailes. In the days after the horrific events of that day she told us in her column to gather those we love dear and hold them close, cherish them, appreciate them, tell them we love them. They were wise words then, and wise words now.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Poor Scary, I've been that soldier...
Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice, welcomed her third child into the world last week. No word on the name yet, but big sisters Phoenix Chi and Angel are, I’m sure, as eager as the rest of the world to hear what wild and wonderful title by which the child should henceforth be addressed.
The baby girl’s arrival was not the only significant part of the story. Poor Scary Spice was photographed in the throes of labour, stumbling through the hospital car park in her jammies (which were not even her good ones), with no make up, hanging on to her husband, walls, cars and passers by, trying desperately to make her way into the maternity unit through a sea of paparazzi photographers and the excruciating waves of labour. For a PR conscious celebrity, who has full make–up and hair done before she even pops out for a pint of milk, I'm sure she would agree it was not her finest hour.
I cringed when I saw those pictures in the papers. I think every woman who has ever had a baby did. For we all knew that labour is a most intensely private moment for us ladies. We are vulnerable, we are in pain, we are stressed and worried about the health of our babies. We are often in awful, terribly mismatched night attire and unflattering bedtime slippers. Labour is not glamorous, it is not fancy. It’s as rock bottom as a girl can get and it’s not a time for meeting people you know from work or getting your photograph splashed all over the front pages of national newspapers.
The last time I was in labour the midwives sent me out walking around the warren of corridors in the hospital to help things progress quicker. I wasn’t adequately prepared for the expedition – wearing a horrendous navy blue nightshirt from a budget retail outlet and bedroom slippers circa 1986 which, in any other scenario, would have assured my arrest for crimes against modern fashion.
So off we set, the husband and I, around the lovely new wings of the hospital and into the hospital proper.
We walked and we walked. And we stopped and held onto walls, said bad words and told husbands that there was never to be any more children, ever. And we walked some more. It was like we were in a cocoon, just the two of us. I didn’t for a moment stop to think that folk might judge me on my bad choice of nightwear or how the sight of my make-up free face, or my poor choice of hairstyle that day might burn the very irises out of ordinary hospital dwellers.
Thing is, when a girl’s in labour, the fashionable side of her brain that would ordinarily make her shun bad nightwear or hairstyle choices shuts down in order to give full power to the ‘Please God, I’ll do anything, make the pain stop’ department. Simple fact of the matter is, labour means for a few hours she doesn’t actually care how she looks.
That’s why it’s good to have a sensible man around.
On our travels around the hospital we turned one corner and walked into a crowd of people. While I held onto the wall and breathed the husband quickly established that the gathered crowd were not normal visitors and that there was a clear and present danger of me appearing on the six o’clock news. Someone – it may have been the Queen of England – was cutting a ribbon at the bottom of the corridor and those milling around with their cameras were a broad selection of my journalistic colleagues and friends from across the North with various digital recording equipment.
If you look closely at the footage from that day you will – in the far right hand corner – see a big, fat pregnant lady wearing a £1.50 nightgown with rabbits on it being manhandled around the corner with a coat over her head. This was not a kidnapping as you might assume, it was the husband saving me from the eternal shame of having pictures of me in labour beamed all over the world.
So Scary Spice, I do feel your pain. I did feel sorry for you. I was almost that soldier. However, I admire your restraint. Had the paparazzi decided to snap me while labour was in progress there would be threats of violence, there would be actual violence, there would be the forceful positioning of digital photography equipment in certain regions that biology determines the sun cannot possibly shine.
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