Torture? Really?

For days now my Twitter feed has been full of people asserting that I've tortured all of my kids. This cartoon was being retweeted all over, praising Leunig for identifying what controlled crying is all about. Since then I've seen a whole lot of commentary about how controlled crying is cruel and torturous, and about how it's used only by the ignorant or the poor victims of society. I'm sorry, but I call bullshit.

I understand that there are many ways to parent. I get that controlled crying, in any form, isn't going to work for some people. Attachment Parenting advocates, for example, are not going to find this helpful. However, we are not all AP people. AP would NEVER work for me, but it works for lots of people and produces happy, balanced kids. I've also seen AP fail badly - but that doesn't mean AP is a failure - it just means it didn't work for those people in their circumstances. It's not reasonable to condemn an approach because sometimes it doesn't work.

So WTF gives with equating controlled crying with torture, with our government's abominable treatment of asylum seekers, and with inevitable despair and hopelessness? Do any of these people seriously think those of us who used some variation of controlled crying did so by locking our kids in their rooms without support, without love, without a whole swag of strategies to teach our kids how to settle themselves and sleep? CC is one small part of how I'm living with, teaching and loving my kids. The way I used it varied considerably between each child, and at different ages for each child. I'm fairly confident none of my children are despairing, detached and hopeless.

My eldest child possibly owes his life to CC. A friend of mine told me she dealt with the endless screaming with earplugs. That's cool, but it wouldn't have worked for me. The details of his path to sleep and happiness are too tedious to go into, but I came close to losing my shit once, and I'm glad I had CC in my repertoire (along with lots of other stuff) to get through that stage. The other two were each very different kids, and I used different versions of CC with each of them. There was very little crying at all with second born, as it happens. We're now well past all that, although we're still working through teaching the youngest to deal with her nightmares on her own. I imagine we'll still be doing that for a year or two more.

I could go through all the complexities of the way sleep was managed in our family, what the benefits were for us, why those benefits matter a great deal to us, but may not matter so much for other people and so on, but ultimately, it doesn't matter. The point is, if you're condemning me for torturing my child, you are presumably not one of the people for whom CC can be a helpful tool. You are probably approaching much of your parenting from a very different angle. I salute you. I would not inflict my style of parenting on you any more than I would fuck up my family by attempting a parenting style that I would be doomed to fail with. However, if you want to pass judgement on the way other people do things, may I respectfully suggest you make sure you're not somewhere in the vicinity of the first bump in this graph? Please?

Image credit: Meanwhile In Canada

(I should point out I recognise Mount Stupid, I've climbed right to the top too many times to count, so I'm only asking people to slide on down the other side, no hard feelings.)

Can a girl be a daddy?

Tonight's bedtime conversation started out a little challenging, and ended up beautifully.

Charlie asked if a girl can be a daddy. I explained that mummy and daddy were essentially just the names for girl parent and boy parent, and so no, a girl can't actually be a daddy. Charlie impressed me with his next question: "Can a girl call herself a daddy?".

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy - Yes, a girl can call herself a daddy, I was please to be able to say. Thinking of Lesbian Dad for one, I explained that if a family has two mummies, one might call herself daddy so there aren't two people called "Mummy" in the one house, or for whatever other reason - a girl can call herself whatever she wants.

Because these kinds of conversations never end here, Ben asked if there had ever been a daddy involved in the parenting of the kids with two mummies. Well, yes, because biologically, technically, a baby needs egg and sperm from a woman and a man, but they don't have to actually live as a family. So Ben says "So they don't have to get married, they can just go together for a while to make the baby?". Well, yeah, but since you can freeze sperm, you don't even actually have to meet the man if you don't want to, but there are a number of options. Some people also adopt children into their family.

BUT, I carefully explained, you need a man and a woman to make a baby, but you don't need them to make a family. A family can have a mummy and a daddy, or two mummies or two daddies, one parent or even three people. I know a family, I told rapt faces, with two daddies and a mummy (taking some poetic license with the story - I doubt they would ever have used that description of themselves). Ben, ever the pedant, asked if you could also have two mummies and a daddy. Indeed, I told him.

Then Charlie announces, in earnest:

I want to have two mummies and a daddy and no babies and no toddlers.

So this is his plan for adulthood - he's not asking me to find another partner. He's made it clear recently that he's not planning on having kids when he grows up.

Ben follows this logically and says: That means you have to marry two people.

Charlie: Do I have to marry people?

Me: No, you don't have to get married, lots of people don't.

Charlie: How do I get married?

Me: You have a ceremony and a party.

Charlie: Naaah, I'm not going to anyway.

Ben: I'm not getting married either.

Me: You don't want to get married?

Ben: No, well, I don't want to do the stuff before it.

Me: What stuff?

Ben: You know, the dancing.

--

I loved it all. So far my boys have aspired to be homosexual, poly and asexual - one of them wants kids and the other doesn't. Sadly for him, the same one wants to be asexual and have children, but I'm sure he'll change his mind again before the reality bites. I hope we can keep this openness and total lack of judgement alive for a while longer.

Stupid Parents

We are stupid parents.

The weather in Sydney today was pretty miserable - cold and raining. As such, I couldn't face the kids' request for the swimming pool - even indoors it's unpleasant when you start out cold. They were desperate to go somewhere, and out of complete lack of inspiration we decided to take them to an indoor play centre we hadn't been to before.

We are stupid parents.

This place was grossly understaffed, over-booked with birthday parties (more than a dozen, although I didn't count), had very poor visibility and nowhere near enough tables. We should have decided to go elsewhere as soon as we arrived, but we were worried about how late it already was and had no obvious backup plan.

We are stupid parents.

We spent the afternoon counting the building code violations and refereeing arguments over the helicopter ride (that you had to pay for) that was next to us. There was one highlight though. I'm becoming something of a connoisseur of children's tantrums, and the little girl who screamed, "I don't want to die, please!" in response to being told that it was time to go home was definitely setting the tantrum bar high. (I didn't hear, but I'm assuming logic along the lines of "I'll die if I have to go home now"...)

I'm a bit hopeless when it comes to places to go when it's this miserable. We probably should have gone to the Powerhouse, it can't have been less pleasant. Beyond the Powerhouse, I'm at a bit of a loss, but this afternoon should provide some motivation to do some research for next time.

What are your fav wet weather outings for 2-7yr olds?

Competing needs

So, have you been following the train wreck that is "On Hating Children" over on Feministe? One commenter pointed out that there'll be a rash of "I have the answer" posts on personal blogs, and I wouldn't like to disappoint.

While the argument rages with ridiculous extremes on both sides (for the record, I don't think anyone thinks that children should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want in a public space, nor do I think anyone thinks that children should never speak above a whisper, but that seems to be what both sides are accusing each other of), a few very important points were made. The main one being competing needs.

Jackie commented that she experiences sensitivity to noise, and kids being loud are really quite unbearable for her. I have a kid who is still really struggling to control his impulses, and is well known for loud, frustrated outbursts. How would I handle it if Jackie (or someone with similar sound sensitivity - it ain't that uncommon) were a friend, or just someone who regularly shares the same space? Well firstly, I'd explain to my kids that not everyone experiences sound the same way, so that at least they understood the situation. In the end, though, I'd really need to keep noisy kid(s) away from Jackie, through sensible negotiation and a bit of thought.

All good and well if I know who she is and where she might be. But what if I don't know who she is, but she's often at the same places? It seems that the only real solution is that which has been implemented on some UK commuter trains - quiet spaces. It doesn't seem at all beyond the realms of plausibility that restaurants and cafes could choose to advertise as "Quiet" spaces, or reserve "Quiet" areas. We have cafes clearly designated as "loud" by virtue of having play equipment for kids, I'm sure you could do well opening the "quiet" one across the road.

This addresses a whole range of problems - the hens/bucks night at the table next to you when you were hoping for a quiet, romantic meal, the business meeting when you're trying to study and so on.

It also strikes me that parents would be a good group to advocate for such a thing - after all, when we do manage to escape the kids for a wee while, it'd be awesome to know there was a place we could go that was quiet. In addition, if the space is not designated as quiet, then we'd have better rules of engagement with the death starers and drive-by parenting suggesters.

I don't, of course, have any answers for the rest of the battle over there, except maybe downgrading the defensiveness. It seems like a lot of people have had so many bad experiences in way or another, they've given up believing that anyone is reasonable, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Infantilisation of kids

I've been watching Brat Camp, an American wilderness camp designed to shock wayward teens into better behaviour. It's fascinating in a I-don't-support-this-philosophy-in-its-entirety-but-I-see-where-they're-coming-from kind of way. What strikes me is that we expect very little of our kids until they hit their teens, and then we want them to suddenly grow up, take responsibility and be all that society wants them to be.

Actually, no, we want them to keep being kids, until they are 18, and then we want them to be fully functioning adults. Pretty much the day they turn 18.

I am criticised for letting my kid cross some roads on his own. I am criticised for letting my kid climb trees. I am told that my child might be able to walk to school on his own by 6th grade - I expect him to be doing it in year 3.

These are the things I'm aware of, but what other concessions am I making? How else am I infantilising my kids? It seems to be the standard course just now. I'm watching these kids on TV fight against a world that has suddenly changed the goal posts, and I just don't think that's fair. The demands being made of these teens should have been made of them in steady increments from age 2, but some of them have barely made it past pre-school level of responsibility and respect.

It seems kinda obvious to me that the transition to adulthood is best done slowly, with heaps of time for backslides, fuck-ups, and re-drawing of the rules. The sooner we start, the more chance there is that adult responsibility isn't going to hit kids with a brick.

I could be way wrong, my eldest is only 7, but I remember being 8-18, and I know how hard some of those transitions are.

Which way do you lean? Protection or responsibility? I've written this entirely from my position - do you think I'm way off the mark? I'm still learning - not a week goes by that I don't hear something that resets my position.

Teaching altruism

I was chatting to my mother about how one goes about teaching the joy of giving and helping - neither of us really knew how it's done, although Mum seems to have done a reasonably good job, even if she doesn't know how.

Inevitably, in the few days since, the subject has come up in a number of ways in our house. In the first instance, Charlie demonstrated that the joy of helping can always be a source of tantrums. Ben helped Elissa and Charlie missed out on the helping opportunity, resulting in a melt down. If I don't find garbage in pairs (one for Elissa and one for Charlie), the whole day can go to pot.

More usefully, last night Ben volunteered that at school they are always told that it's more fun when you share, but he was definitely less than convinced that this was true. He gets that he needs to share anyway, but he feels it as an obligation, not a source of joy. After a discussion about the fact that even as an adult, there can be certain things that one shares out of obligation (there may be a few kinds of chocolate that I share only out of obligation, but good wine I love to share), we started talking about sharing toys, and about serving communal food around to everyone and about how it makes you feel good to make someone happy. Ben was delighted to discover that there are lots of occasions when sharing and helping do make him happy - he's just been focussing on the pain of sharing the small bag of lollies with his siblings.

So maybe a big part of teaching altruism is just pointing out when it's happening already.

Feminism, self determination and peer pressure

A year and a half ago I blogged this photo, since dubbed "Vengeful Fairy of Doom".

I love this photo so much. I love the sword slung in the fairy wings and the gun holstered under the tutu. I love it so much it's my wallpaper on my phone.

However, recently, Ben has come to dislike it. Wednesday night, he asked me to take it off my phone. About a thousand voices bounced around in my head shouting about his right to decide how his photos are used, and about my right to use my photos on my phone, and about what was making him dislike it anyway. I don't know if he noticed the pause while I waited for the shouting to stop, but I asked him why he didn't like the photo - everyone else I know does. The answer was, predictably enough, that his friend doesn't like "that sort of stuff". At this point all the voices joined together to scream, "WHAT??? GIRL STUFF?????". I said, almost calmly, "What? Girl Stuff? But you know there's no such thing as girl stuff." Standard peer pressure type conversation ensued, and I left it at that for the evening.

Yesterday morning, I brought it up again. It was revealed that said friend is excessively anti-fairy. Ben believes this has its roots in "girl stuff", but he can see the friend's point about fairies being a bit pathetic. Ben has been exposed to "The Fairies", so I can see why he might be sympathetic to this position. Time to leave philosophy aside, and go into bat for fairies. I showed him some classic Brian Froud, which didn't really impress, but then I pulled out the big guns - Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book.

No seven year old can resist a bit of splattered fairy.

After he went to school, I was left to return to the philosophical questions. I still need to revisit whether he really wants me to remove the photo from my phone, and I have just re-published it here. I don't think the latter is a big deal, it really is all about his mate not seeing the photo, but I may pull it down if he really is distressed by it. I will change the wall paper if he still wants me to.

We did discuss that part of the reason the photo is cool, is that he's messing with stereotypes. In it, he's happily playing with "boy stuff"and "girl stuff" all together. I know that he's at least beginning to question these stereotypes. He pointed out, unprompted, a sentence in a home reader that said that boys think they are better at sport than girls. He was most unimpressed. I'm not too worried about this part of the message.

The question for me is how to balance his right to decide his own course with his need to not have that course too heavily determined by peer pressure and also with the cost of challenging his mates.

I'd like him to be proud of the photo, and to have the confidence to tell his friend that he's wrong, fairies can be cool, and Ben dressed as one is definitely cool.

I'll settle for him to be proud of the photo but still prefer to keep it somewhere where his mates can't see it.

I know I can't make him proud of it if he can't feel it.

PS. At the Mothers' Day breakfast this morning, my place card had a picture of a squashed fairy on it. :)

I am a selfless mother

I will be accepting the Mother of Year award shortly.

Yesterday, I got a new iPhone. I brought it home, but despite the desperate desire to play with it, I didn't even get it out of the box until I had:

• Picked up Charlie
• Picked up Ben and friend and taken them to gymnastics
• Gone shopping and bought food for 2 days or so
  
• Cooked dinner
• Fed family
• Done washing
• Read stories and done bed time

Shit I'm virtuous.

I'm one of THOSE parents

Yesterday we had a barbecue to celebrate the Hottest 100 and Australia Day. It was a fantastic day - cool enough to be comfortable and the usual complement of good friends, good food and good wine. But it also caused me to show my true colours - I am one of those parents who discipline other people's children. Yesterday I confiscated toys (aka weapons), insisted on apologies and issued cease and desist orders. I didn't actually issue, or even threaten, any timeouts*, apparently I do have some kind of line I won't cross.

It's a messy grey world. As a responsible adult, I feel the need to act. I also feel I should be able to deal with a situation (up to a point) without bothering the parent in question. I feel this much more strongly with kids the same age as mine. On the other hand, I know some people take quite some exception to anyone else speaking to their kids. I am not one of those people, but depending on what experiences one may have had with drive by parenting, I can understand where they are coming from.

In the end, it's my house, and I feel responsible for everyone in it. Therefore I think I will continue to discpline other people's children if I am Johnny on the Spot.

You have been warned...

*I did threaten one person with a timeout, but at 40-odd, he would have occupied the bathroom for too long to be acceptable to the comfort of others...

The things that uni teaches you

I have an exam tomorrow for developmental psychology, which is clearly why I am blogging. I have just finished reading the last of the notes from the tutorials. The last one was taken from a paper called "Maternal Sensitivity: What does it take?". Holy crap. Good thing I never read that little gem before I started having kids.

It starts like this:

Sensitive, responsive parenting has been recognised for many decades as a necessary (though not sufficient) requirement for the development of secure infant-to-parent attachment, and the term "maternal sensitivity" is now part of the everyday language of health professionals.

I like the slick transition from "parent" to "maternal". But anyway, ok, seems vaguely reasonable, although, as the paper itself asks "How is "maternal sensitivity" defined and by whom?". Well, in the selection we got, the latter question was not really addressed. However, the definition was, in spades. There were 4 pages of what a mother needs to do to be sensitive. I seriously don't have time to go through it all, but the highlights are to always be aware of, understand, respond appropriately to and provide the right emotional environment for, the baby's cues. And another section I just need to quote for your edification and amusement:

The ability to accurately interpret cues is dependent on the mother's awareness that the baby is giving cues (for God's sake don't assume that the 3 hours of solid crying every night could possibly have no useful communicative value! -ed) ... and also on her capacity for empathy.

And then this:

The mother who has the qualities necessary for sensitive and responsive parenting will, in most instances, respond appropriately, quickly calming or soothing the crying infant or engaging in play or distraction in response to the infant's cues. The mother who is less sensitive to the infant's cues will frequently misinterpret them ... and then may respond inappropriately, for example in a way that may be hostile or non-supportive. ... Alternatively the mother's responses may be overly intrusive. ... The usual problem here is that the mother is consciously or unconsciously giving priority to meeting her own needs rather than those of the infant.

Righteeeeo then. That'll be the problem, that useless mother selfishly felt that her need not to go postal outweighed the baby's need for... whatever the hell the baby wanted, because clearly you'll do the wrong thing in preference to shutting the screaming banshee up.

Now I know this isn't in reference to an isolated incident, it is about a pattern of behaviour. But still, even on kid #3, at 10 months, I pretty regularly have to go through 2 or 3 options to find the "appropriate response". I would not describe myself as having "quickly attune[d] to [my] infant's cues". And yet all these mind boggling requirements are only necessary, not sufficient for forming a secure attachment!

Hands up who feels they are sensitive, responsive mothers? Statistics suggest that around 50% of babies are, in fact, securely attached (and this is with a very limited definition of securely attached - all but another 10% are regarded as functionally attached, but with less balance in their lives) so I wonder where all these super mothers are. My kids show all the symptoms of securely attached kids, as do those of pretty much all the people I know. So I call the usefulness of this paper into serious question. Which would be no big deal, except that it has been supplied as text book supplement type information to second year uni students. No analysis. No hint that it might be an enormous pile of doggy do.

And in case you were wondering just how irritated I was about all this, I did not have this text in electronic format, and had to re-type all of that...

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Just a week or so ago, I was discussing Mem Fox with some friends, over a copy of "Where's the Green Sheep?". We were discussing that her pro-reading stance is generally a Good Thing, but I expressed some suspicion of looneyism on the basis of her many many rules about reading to kids.

And then this weekend this appeared.

Ms Fox , 62-year-old author of books such as Possum Magic, Koala Lou and Where Is the Green Sheep, told News Ltd she believed society would look back on the trend of putting infants in childcare and wonder "how could we have allowed that child abuse to happen".

"I don't know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work," she said.

Mmmmm. I don't know what Mem Fox's definition of infants is, but the Australian Family Association (whoever they are) defined it as less than 2, maybe even 3.

Firstly, I am not convinced how exactly a children's author is qualified to have newsworthy opinions on the subject.

Secondly, while there is real validity in looking at all the various issues of child care - including making it viable for parents to stay home if they want to, and also ensuring real quality care is available for those who can't or don't want to - exactly what is to be gained by such ridiculous, unfounded, inflammatory statements? How dare she condemn a huge swathe of the population as child abusers.

Thirdly, my reading of most of the literature is that good quality child care ends up with different, but not better or worse outcomes than kids who stay at home. I am not sure about the situation for very young (less than 3 or 6 month olds), I haven't read enough to have an opinion. My gut says the answer could be different, but I don't know for sure. And it may just mean "good quality" means something different for very little ones.

And as for that "I don't know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work," remark. WTF?

I think I will be less reserved in my suspicions of looneyism in future...

Balance in all things

In answering Aztec-rose's questions about work-life balance, I started on a rant about needing a life apart from kids and work. I think this is an underrated concern.

In the workplace, a culture of obsession is developing. Great professionals are held up as role models, people who are described as "having dedicated their lives" to their jobs. Great success stories involve years of working 90 hour weeks. The problem with this is that it is not what everyone should be aspiring to. Now everyone is required to go the extra mile. For me, the pin-up boy of this view is Einstein. He is held up as an academic hero, and there is no doubt that he was genius. He was also a disaster personally. The world needs the odd Einstein, it does not need an entire generation raised as "Little Einsteins". In fact, his obsession even affected his own work. If a driven, obsessed man can be negatively impacted professionally by a lack of balance and distance, I can only assume it has a greater affect on your average punter.

When I first started working in the corporate world, our workplace had an informal policy of mental health days. People were encouraged not to take sickies, to truly only take sick leave when it was needed. In return, if you just really needed a day off, you could take it as a sick day as long as you let the boss know, so that appropriate staffing could be maintained. I thought it was a bit of a rort when I first worked there (which I was more than happy to make the most of), but when it disappeared in an ocean of NYK head office policy, I realised how productive it had been. People who have the opportunity to de-stress when they need it are much better employees. They handle work stress better, they handle irate customers better, and they are less likely to do a bunk when chaos strikes and you really need all hands on deck. In addition to that, people who have a life outside of work are better at keeping an appropriate perspective. For most of us, no matter how bad the disaster, people won't die, empires won't fall. No doubt everyone has worked with someone who seems committed to the belief that this is the gravity of problems at work. In general, this doesn't make for better handling of the problem.

So you need time off from work for your family. After all, poor bonding with your baby will cause emotional problems for life. 95% of juvenile offenders have emotionally or physically absent fathers. The behaviour of your toddler is the best predictor of their behaviour as a teenager. Best not leave them for a moment, you may regret it for the rest of your life. I take the piss, but I understand why these studies, and the headlines they create, exist. If we don't provide some hard evidence that kids need their parents, caring for them will never be valued. This is a war for the social value of productive adults' time, and no weapon can be spared.

The problem is that this is the order in which most people encounter the battle at the moment. They are already living the obsessive corporate life, then they have kids and have all these statistics thrown at them. It is a major struggle to maintain a career and anything resembling the kind of parenting they want. All the studies designed to legitimise parenting as a use of time just become a source of guilt. Added to the guilt about leaving work on time. Taking regular time out to do something with no corporate or parenting value is largely unthinkable.

For those who stay at home (for whatever reasons), the guilt turns into something along the lines of "if you aren't doing real work, you'd better raise perfect kids". Martyrdom to children is becoming legitimised. We hear that someone "devoted their life to their kids". We are supposed to protect them from bad influences, be there for them always, give them every opportunity.

In contrast, hanging out with friends, adult dinners, even a solitary coffee are described as indulgences and luxuries. Leaving work on time to look after kids might just barely be tolerated, but leaving to go surfing or to the pub with mates (not clients) is definitely poor form. Letting your social life in any way impact on your kids is also a no-no.

The problem here is that as well as having an impact on work performance, a lack of a life can have a negative impact on kids. At worst, parents smother their kids. They don't teach them independence, don't let them learn to critically assess the world. Maybe even end up in all the problems that living vicariously through your kids can cause. At best, it just doesn't teach kids how to live an enjoyable life. It creates an expectation that adults live their lives for work and kids. I suspect it also delays the point where kids realise their parents are real people with faults and quirks. Kids are the centre of the universe, seeing their parents doing stuff for their own edification, with no connection to the kids, helps realign the universe for them. I am not suggesting that this realignment won't happen without parents with lives, just that it is worth considering all the consequences of your self-indulgent behaviour, not just the guilt producing ones.

I would love to see some studies on the long term outcomes, both professional and parental, in people who maintain balance in every aspect of their lives, not just the ones society judges as valuable. I want to see a headline that says "Parents without playtime raise delinquent kids". Lets see some alarmist nonsense in favour of down time for everyone. I really think everyone benefits.

A good age

When people are getting acquainted, it is not unusual to hear an exchange something along the lines of:

"Oh, you have a child? How old?"

"18 months."

"That's a good age." (with warm sincerity)

Of course, any age can prompt this response. Back in the days Before Children, I might even have had some opinions on what was a good age. I can't remember what they were.

Any given child has good ages. For Ben, this was 2 and 4. For Charlie, it was up to 8 months. Maybe in other families there is a universal good age, but we've not found one yet. 35 perhaps?

On the other hand, 8-10 or 11 months has been pretty universally bad. It seems, in my kids at least, to herald a time of emerging will, without sufficient means to satisfy it. And so it is with Elissa. She's cranky at least as much as she's happy and it's all about frustration. Leaving me with absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Two was not a good age for Charlie, and I was hoping that three might be better. So far it isn't looking good. I don't think I am doing much of a job in helping him manage his anger. He is so wonderful in so many ways - really affectionate, wicked sense of humour, bizarre and delightful. Unfortunately the stubborn, angry side seems to get more press. I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. The net result is a little overwhelming. And definitely involves too much yelling and narkiness from me. It might be time for me to do some more reading and get some new inspirations for new approaches. Something needs to give. And I can only wait out Elissa's difficult age.

I'm a bad mother

OK, so maybe I am not quite the parent I would like to be. I'm fairly sure the parent I would like to be would know how her almost three yr old got a black eye... He does wear glasses, and I'm pretty sure that they have been the immediate cause of the bruising, allowing for a large range of falls and injuries to be the root cause, but it is still rather distressing that I don't know how it happened...

On the plus side, he doesn't either, so I guess it can't have hurt that much.

Or maybe I am still the parent I want to be, I don't want to be hovering over my children 24/7. No permanent damage has been done and presumably some limit has been discovered. Still, it doesn't look good not knowing the origin of a black eye. Perhaps I'll make up a good story and everybody will be happy.

Case in point

I was just watching one of those Tanya Byron shows, and a young mother absolutely exemplified that thing about judgement. Early in the show (before much interaction with Tanya) this young woman brought me to tears the way she interacted with her daughter. They were playing, being playful with some crisps, and the 18 month old dropped one on the ground. She picked it up and ate it, grinning and laughing with her mum. Mum then called her a "scrag", scowled and turned away. The child looked like her whole world had crumbled. It was nothing short of awful.

Later, the back story becomes apparent and the situation rapidly improves. The only difference between this Bad Parent and the Earth Mother guiding her brood through tranquil gardens is circumstance and understanding (and in this case 5 days or so of intense training and therapy).

Strangely enough, she loves her kids and wants them to grow up happy and healthy just like everyone else. I'm guessing the mum in the supermarket was probably the same.

I should also mention that while this was a lone female parent, whenever there is both parents present, both are regarded as equally critical in raising kids. Tanya permits no patriarchal buck passing by dads.

Parents, kids and responsibility

A couple of blogs (here and here) recently have discussed the way parents are judged for their kids' behaviour and how much responsibility they have for it. I can sympathise with some of the "kid haters" because some children's behaviour is abominable. But where is the responsibility and how much should the rest of society have to tolerate?

I think I come down mostly on the "anti-judgment" side of the argument, in terms of commenting on parents you meet in passing. Because while some children's behaviour is abominable most of the time, all children's behaviour is abominable some of the time. When you see a child being truly hideous, you have no idea whether this is just his/her moment for the week, or whether this is standard. And furthermore, if this is standard, whether there is some very good reason for it (such as autism or other issue that no amount of clever parenting is going to address).

However, I can see the point of people who see parents doing things we know to be a Bad Idea thinking "That is a Bad Idea". The issue here is one of leaping from "Bad Idea" to "Bad Parent". Every parent has partaken of the Bad Idea on occasion. It doesn't make them a Bad Parent. (My often repeated favourite is my telling my son "You can't have an apple until you have finished your lollipop" - I have many justifications for this statement, but it remains a Bad Idea.)

Given that all children will have their moments, how much should the rest of society have to put up with? I walk a middle line here. I accept that people may not "want to hear [my] fucking spawn shrieking at the top of its lungs in the supermarket", but then I didn't want to listen to John Howard's smug, irritating voice for 12 years either. Nor do I want to wait in queues at the supermarket. Some things are beyond our control. If we want society to continue, even long enough for Gen Y to die, we need the next generation to pay for it. So kids are a fact of life, build a bridge.

Still, there are places kids shouldn't go, both for their sake and for ours. In general kids are worst behaved when they are bored. So don't take kids to adult places for long periods of time and expect them just to be happy to be with you. People know their own kids, it is reasonable to expect that people don't bring kids to a place that they will hate. Unless of course it's a necessity. This is the problem with the supermarket complaint. Sometimes kids need to be taken there. Kids don't need to be taken to intimate restaurants on a Saturday night. The kids will hate it, and the other people dining there have a reasonable expectation to eat their meal without my 2 yr old whinging loudly next to them (or worse!). I don't think this is ageism, this is caring for the comfort of everyone involved, especially your kids. My kids would genuinely rather be at home with the baby sitter than at an adult dinner party.

The other issue is how responsible parents are for their kids' behaviour. In all that follows, I am assuming normally abled kids, in all the stuff I've read and seen about child rearing, I've seen very little about dealing with problems over and above average child stuff. (Hence my feelings on judging people.)

I think for kids up to about teenage years, it is possible for parenting to address pretty much all behaviour problems. But it is very important to note that this doesn't equate to parents causing the behaviour problems. This is obvious, plenty of parents have one child who is a problem in some way, while their others are fine. Children have their own personality, and sometimes it is necessary to parent each one really differently. By extension, their will be times when a parent has a child who needs parenting so different they can't work it out themselves. The benefits of an outside observer can be enormous.

There is a really fine line here, but I think we have to get it right, rather than err on either side. If we blame parents, it creates hostility and guilt, but doesn't actually improve the situation for child, parent or annoyed onlooker.

If we say that some kids are just like that, it removes the power from the parents and again, the situation is not improved for anyone.

Parents need to look at parenting as a constantly changing puzzle we need to solve. Sometimes we will make mistakes, but this should not be guilt producing. We are always aiming for a better life for everyone, not worrying about what went before. As with all puzzles, there may be times when we need a hint from someone with a different perspective. There should be no shame in this, it is just being sensible and using all the resources available. Changing tack is not admitting wrong doing, just learning and adapting. I watch lots of what Tanya Byron does, and I like it a lot. Kids that any onlooker would judge as right little shits turn around so quickly with a different approach. It is never about Bad Parents, it is about working out the right relationship with this little person.

As they get older, other people have much bigger impacts on their lives, and so parents have less ability to change behaviour on their own. The better the relationship going into puberty, the better the odds of being able to help steer them, but there are no guarantees. I haven't been there yet, so I am only speculating and channeling stuff I've read. Time will tell.

With my own kids, I've seen spirals start, where my behaviour is not inspiring good behaviour in my kids. Then I'll watch something or see someone else doing exactly what I'm doing and I'll realise it's time to change tack again. Often what was working 3 weeks ago isn't any more. I can so see how a spiral can get out of control before you even realise it. I have no doubt some of the issues I have had have been caused by exactly that, and I never did realise it. Seeing that parenting can fix pretty much all problems is empowering to me, not condemning. Although I have often wished I had my own personal Tanya to tell me what I'm doing wrong right now. Like what I do wrong with toilet training. I seem manage to make it a mission. But I am the sleep Queen. :) We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

Having said all that, I still have an enormous amount of difficulty not having a knee jerk reaction to any advice my mother gives me. My sister pointed out recently that just because my mother said the problem could be X, doesn't mean it isn't X. Hmmm...

I'm a Bad Mother - again

Actually, as Crash pointed out, we are Bad Parents. We went on a picnic today to Federal Park in Annandale. Apart from Charlie being fairly horrid, especially in the first half of the exercise, and Ben not quite living up to our responsibility expectations, it was quite a pleasant afternoon - spent with Toni & Andrew and their girls.

However, every single one of us got sunburnt. Despite my having insisted on the boys sunscreening up before we left the house, and getting Charlie into a hat for the first time in about 2 years. We failed to reapply on arrival - which was made doubly bad by the fact that Ben insists on doing his own sunscreen, so many bits were missed. And we failed to put any on Elissa. She was in shade all day, but it's not like I don't know that's not enough. One of the worst burns I've had was in the Brewongle Stand at the cricket. We also failed to put any on most of ourselves. Sheesh. I feel guilty and stupid. Elissa's face is burnt. Try looking at a 3 month old with a burnt face and not feeling like DOCS should be knocking on your door. Ben's worst bits are similarly accusing. *sigh*

Who knew I had ugly underarms?

I support the concept behind the Campaign for Real Beauty that Dove advertise with, but one has to question their commitment to women's self esteem when they run an ad campaign for deodorant that claims to leave your underarms fit to be seen when wearing a singlet top. It has never occurred to me before that my underarms might have unacceptable skin. I mean, the hair I knew about, but I thought the skin was fine!

I have been thinking about body image a lot lately, trying to work out how to steer my daughter through the minefield when she is older. As with charity, it starts at home, and I have been actively trying to adjust my attitude. I'm trying to look in the mirror and look for the good stuff instead of the bad. I am also trying to change the way I look at other women. If I notice someone who I think doesn't look so good, I've started looking at what's wrong with the clothes, because they are clearly the problem. This leads to looking for what the assets are that are not being sufficiently justified by the naughty clothes and slowly starts to recondition my mind to look for beauty instead of flaws in everyone.

It's hardly a surprise that clothes that fit and flatter are hard to find, even if someone attempted to fit "real women", how would they achieve this? We are a wild and varied lot, how can we expect any more than 5-10% of clothes to look any good on any one person? I bemoan the massive variety of actual size in any given label size, but if this variety didn't exist, we really couldn't find clothes for most people. This hypocrisy in my whinging has only just occurred to me. Duh!

And then I see the news today, about a woman who may well have killed her children and attempted to kill herself, and I think, why I am I worried about body image?


PS 3 nights in a row of sleeping through! Woo hoo!

When is it 6 weeks?

Last night dear baby slept, well, like a baby, until midnight, at which point she decided that the only possible way she could be comfortable (read "not screaming") was to be lying face down on a parental unit's tummy. Until 7am.

Surprisingly you can almost sleep like this, that kind of sleep where the time passes a bit faster and you have probably managed about an hour's sleep in 3 hours.

Crash and I shared the joy, thank god for the spare bed.

Bring on 6 weeks when I can start inflicting my will on her instead of the other way around!

I just don't *like* babies

The enormity of the task ahead, namely bringing this newborn safely to the other side of babyhood, has just hit me. I knew the pregnancy would suck, and academically I knew I was no fan of baby's first year, but I suppose I had just blocked how much I don't like it.

It's not that I regret having the baby, far from it. I know that by this time next year, this will all be behind me and I'll be looking forward to talking and all the good things about children.

But right now the demands, the pain of feeding, and the guilt about not being able to pull my weight in the business are all hitting hard. I will never understand people who like babies, although I accept that perfectly rational people do. :)

I suspect that at this point in my life, with the business being what it is, losing my independence has been a bigger issue than previously. Certainly being able to have real maternity leave was better. And with Charlie, there wasn't anyone else in the business noticing what I wasn't doing.

Oh well, we'll get there. I am honestly glad to have a baby girl, I am just not convinced that adopting a 12 month old from China wouldn't have been a better plan. :)