Ack, just go to sleep already!

Last night DD was being highly irritating. In and out of bed, up and down, “I keep having bad dreams”, “I’m not sleepy” and so on.

Well, sweetie, I don’t care if you’re not sleepy. It’s 9.30 pm, I want to watch my own show on TV in peace and quiet, and I deserve some quiet, “me” time as a single parent. Go to bed!

Sometimes I roar. Usually when I am exhausted, need recharging and DD has pushed every button I have. Yes, she’s sweet. Yes, she’s irritating.

I’m not marking this as a Mom Fail. I deserve time for myself. DD gets many good things. DD needs sleep. And we had to get up at o goodness o’clock this morning to take the car for servicing and we’re going to a musical this evening. Consequently, sleep is a necessity for little kids, not to mention grown ups.

 

Comparison of different childhoods

New Yorker article on “Why Are American Kids So Spoilt?”

Read this article this morning – oy vey. What an eye-opener!

Somewhat relieved that I make Miss 6-y-o, my DD, do chores. It’s expected that she can get herself dressed and that she can pack her schoolbag (granted, with a little nudging some mornings). She feeds the kitten and I clean the kitty litter. Those sorts of things. If she sat back and expected me to pander to every requirement, I would go nuts pretty quickly and doing everything for her would do her no service whatsoever. I want her to grow into a resilient, reliable, thoughtful adult.

 

Working mothers – will the guilt never end?

Opinion piece here.

Like the writer of this piece, Amy Gray, I don’t feel ‘working mother’s guilt’. I may feel guilty about other things (like when I demonstrate poor language choices by swearing at other drivers in Canberra’s annoying traffic!), but I don’t feel guilty about working to earn money so we have a roof over our head. I’m a widow. I don’t have a big fat pension to lean on and we hadn’t paid off our house when DH died. Like my mother, I’m giving my daughter an example of how to work and how to be a mother, and that neither is a walk in the park, yet both can be enormously rewarding on many different levels.

My paternal grandmother was widowed young with two small children. She also worked and had support from her mother with childcare. I have support from paid childcare. Believe me, I appreciate the fantastic young women and men who run exciting activities after school. I couldn’t come up with that variety of activities (soccer, monkey bars, tag, cricket, craft, etc.) for DD and me to do on our own – some things need a number of kids to make it work. DD loves being with other kids. She’s extroverted and very sociable. Hence the endless cries for playdates on the weekend.

 

Are the French better parents?

Article here.

We hang out a lot, we laugh a lot and she amuses herself a lot while I get stuff done.

Yup, DD and I do the same.

 

Only children are the future

Article from the Sydney Morning Herald here.

The writer, Emma Kennedy, says

The only thing I’ve been spoiled with is my parents’ love. I adore them. I speak to them every day and see them at least once a week. Often, when I tell people this, they look at me as if there is something wrong with me for loving my parents. I find this extraordinary.

Only children can choose their own siblings – cherished friends, close relationships with cousins and second cousins, make friends and seek out social occasions.

 

Worrying before it happens?

Surely every parent does this. Your kid says something daft at home and you worry that she’ll say it at preschool and OMG what will they think?

Then it gets worse. You read an article like this one and wonder “What will technology be like when my kid is in her teens? Will she be safe online? Will she be savvy enough to know that people lie their pants off when they have online anonymity?”

My only hope is to stay up-to-date myself, to help DD build up her own image and confidence and common sense so that she is the best and most resilient she can be. And a healthy dose of scepticism now and then doesn’t hurt.

 

Loveys, blankies and other comforts

Now that DD is 5 years old, I was interested to read a short article from BabyCenter .

Just recently I noticed that DD had stopped sucking her fingers at night (yeah, it’s taken long enough). She still wants her stuffed cat toy and finds comfort in having him held tightly, but the accompanying tooth destruction seems to have decreased to almost nothing. One night when she was very distressed about bad dreams, I suggested that she might want to rub the toy and suck her fingers, and she looked at me with a hurt expression. “I don’t suck my fingers anymore” she said. What about rubbing the toy with your hand, I asked. Hmmm. She wasn’t too sure about that.

I am grateful that DD knows Kitty doesn’t come to school or parties or church (though it took a bit of effort sometimes). I’ve seen kids in kindergarten who arrive at the gates with their loveys and have to be peeled away from them by their parents. That must be hard.

 

If you don’t have a kid, then why don’t you shut up?

Ooh, I’m rude. I think that sometimes but so far, coming up to five years of DD and her funny behaviour, I’ve managed to keep that thought to myself. I’ve rolled my eyes or given people the evil eye but I have heroically managed to avoid telling someone to shut up if they’re not in my situation.

That said, I felt a twinge of recognition when reading Danielle Sparks’ Heckler column yesterday. Go on, click on the link and read it. If you’re a parent, you will probably recognise that feeling. Of course, if you’re self-centred and pompous and only remember bringing up children who were perfect from Day 1 and you beat them with the jug cord regularly, you will of course feel nothing for the mother and feel she had it coming because she had the audacity to take a child to Ikea instead of keeping the child at home in a quiet room until primary school.

I’ve had enough of people being rude about kids having a ‘moment’ or a tantrum in public. I’m not happy when it happens during a movie unless it’s the Mums and Bubs session at the local cinema (specifically designed for kids who have those sorts of moments). But shopping? Hey, parents have to shop at some point, not all can arrange some convenient home delivery, and kids have to get used to different groups of people, crowds, shops, atmospheres and so on.

The drawback is that occasionally a kid will chuck a wobbly, sometimes an A-grade wobbly, and people will give you “The Look”. I remember it. It’s the “How dare you” look, the “Thank God I’m childfree” look, and the “I deserve peace and quiet and have never, ever created a fuss in my entire, perfect, blame-free life”.

Thank goodness for the women and men I’ve seen at the local supermarket where kid-sized meltdowns often happen after tiring or hot days. These are the people who resolutely ignore the noise coming from the aggrieved child – thank you. And sometimes there can be a gentle word: “You’re doing OK.”

Yes, tantrums and wailing children are horrible things to hear. No, these tantrums are not designed solely to hurt people’s ears. No, it doesn’t mean we’re bad parents or the child is defective.

And if you have the nerve to say “When I have children, they won’t do that”, I may then have a hard time struggling to not say “If you don’t have a kid, just be quiet.”

 

Competitive mothers

One dear lady said to me “Since when has being a mother been a competition?” I would say “For years”, unable to be more specific.

I know when I had DD nearly 5 years ago, it was competitive among the mothers groups online to have the ‘best’ birth.  The overt antenatal competitiveness wasn’t so pronounced at antenatel check-ups, though it came to a head at the birthing classes.  My DH would hold my hand tight and give me a warning look so I didn’t say anything awful to the other soon-to-be mothers.   What, you didn’t know there was a hierarchy of how good a birth a woman has? Let me tell you how it works and how you get points.

1. Natural childbirth without any drugs whatsoever – 50 points
Bonus points if you don’t have an obstetrician and only have midwives.
Bonus points if you bring your own doula
Bonus points if you have aromatherapy, a special playlist on your iPod, hypnotherapy instructions, and hold on to your completed birth plan

2. Childbirth with pain relief or epidural – 30 points

3. Induced childbirth, with or without epidural or pain relief – 20 points

4. Caesarean section – 10 points

There are more point-gaining possibilities for the competitive mother. For example:

• enduring a very lengthy or a very short labour,
• having two or more children,
• enduring an avalanche of relatives and onlookers during labour and birth,
• being unable to eat for three days during the labour
• back labour (not rated as highly, which peeves me enormously because I don’t get as many points that way)
• extreme organisation of one’s labour bag
• complete disorganisation of one’s labour bag because one headed off to hospital at the rate of knots

Before I get howled down for being a horrible mother and  an awful human being, I’ll tell you what I consider to be the ‘best’ birth. The ‘best’ birth is one where the baby is born healthy, and the mother is well. That’s it. We all want that same result: a beautiful, new human being to welcome into our family, our lives and our hearts.  I really don’t mind how each mother gets to that point. Just leave the points-scoring and celebrate this wonderful new life.

 

Next: how to be competitive after the baby’s birth.

 

New Year’s Resolutions

I’m not making any.

Last year’s were depressing or not worth it or completely derailed by life sucking massively.

There’s an article by Peter Gorski in The Sydney Morning Herald about trying to be a better parent which is definitely a good thing to try, whether it be the start of a new year or the middle of the year or any time at all.

So what do I take from his 10 tips? Firstly, there’s a lot packed in those 10 tips. While he has briefly covered them, I think that musing over the points and then working out how to apply them would easily take a full year – and what a year it would be! Challenging ideas, some are not new, some I’m already doing and want to continue.

I was reminded about number 4, Set consistent, secure boundaries, or rather, the fact that DD has variable boundaries depending upon who is looking after her. DD knows what my boundaries are. She knows the boundaries for behaviour and care at childcare and preschool last year. This school year she’ll learn what it’s like in kindergarten (how did my little darling suddenly become so big and ready for primary school so quickly?). But like every other 4, nearly 5 year-old, she pushes boundaries and some people cave in faster than others. So, yeah, it’s easy for some other parents to have a go at me because I’m a single mother and I share my child’s care with her teacher and others. I should add, I look after other children who come over to play with DD and I’m happy to do that. (Should add, my friends do not comment like that, for which I am enormously grateful.) DD would have probably loved to have a brother or sister, but having time to play with other kids and learn how to get along with people is very important.

What about number 5, Know and respect your own emotional thresholds and physical limits? I found my physical and emotional limits were variable last year. I was far sicker than I thought I would be, never anticipating how badly I would be shaken with asthma and viruses. It felt like my body was a battleground for emotional battles fought out in my immune system. How can I make things better this year? I have to be strong and well to provide the best care for DD and me.

First up, I’m fixing my messed-up ankle so that I can continue my regular walking for pleasure and health at lunchtime and on the weekends with DD, as well as using the exercise bike in the evening after DD has gone to bed. I want to increase my aerobic capacity bit by bit. Secondly, I also saw an immunologist last year about my allergies and asthma and I am getting better at managing the allergies, with asthma problems decreasing a bit. Thirdly, I’m seeing a GP regularly if I am ill and that is helping me to keep on top of the illnesses rather than suffering in silence and becoming worse. Yes, it costs more but it’s better than ending up feeling revolting and not being able to be there for DD.

I don’t see these as resolutions. I’m currently doing these things so it doesn’t come under the heading of “New things for torturing myself”. By the way I’m still doing a resolution that I made for New Year in 2009. I’m not watching repeats of television episodes. I still have to work harder on reading more and more books but I’m getting to the point where I’m having difficulty finding more hours in the day.