Is It Just Me?

I’m looking at women’s magazines today after a conversation I had about them with my husband last night. There might be a bit of my usual parenting content, but it’s mostly just muted outrage.

Let’s start with Mother & Baby, since I always intended for this to be *mostly* a parenting blog. Giles Coren used to write a column for M&B called “dadvice”, which usually consisted of him moaning about something that only a parent with a lot of money could moan about. Like how awful it is taking children on long-haul flights. But one day he took it too far and his column was basically a page-long rant about how his wife needed to get her act together and lose the baby weight. You know, when you disrespect the post-partum body of your wife - and mother of your children - in a column for a magazine aimed at pregnant and post-partum women... Yeah, you can pretty much just get fucked, to be honest. The wife in question was pretty gracious about it on her Twitter account and M&B said it was all about encouraging debate or whatever, but I think all it did was make a whole lot of women wonder if their partners secretly felt the same. So I briefly fell out with M&B over that one, but I'm over it now. Coren has taken his #dadvice elsewhere (probably Twitter) and M&B is undoubtedly better off without it.

I used to read a sleazy little publication called MORE (does it still exist? Does anyone know?), up until about four years ago when it advised me to crash my boyfriend's office Christmas party in order to show him how much I loved him. I'm not even kidding. I mean... What the fuck?! Male readers, if women are crazy then that's probably due in large part to the shit they keep in their magazine rack and how seriously they take the “advice” therein. 

One other trend in women's magazines is the mandatory "Sex move that will change your life" article. Every. Single. Month there is an article like this. First of all, whenever I read these articles I usually find myself wondering who can be bothered with this?! Secondly, doesn't anyone have any imagination anymore? What are you going to do? Start the whole process off and then, at some crucial point or another, yelp "STOP! STOP! I need to consult the magazine article because I can't remember what comes next!"? Are you really going to do that? No. You don't need a magazine to tell you how to have sex. Just go forth and multiply. Or take the appropriate precautions. Whatever. But please don't rely on some complicated hand-tongue-big toe combination (I'm making this up) from an over-hyped double page spread to make it memorable.

This month on the cover of the only women’s magazine I still sort of read we have: 388 Style Upgrades (that you probably can’t afford); 89 Genius Health Hacks (what?); 17 Ways to Score Tons of Free Stuff (I’m afraid to ask); She changed her Tinder to ‘women only’. OF COURSE it got interesting (she slept with a woman. Shocker. NOBODY saw that coming); THE SEX GAME CHANGER you haven’t tried (which turns out to be lube. Who hasn’t tried using fucking lube?!) and then the usual celebrity stuff. I also tend to find that there are a lot of articles about getting ahead at work, generally with the assumption that “work” takes place in an office environment and goes by the name of “a career”. We’ve already covered the fact that I don’t actually have a career (despite several people over the last three and a half years trying to tell me “but motherhood IS a career!” It really isn’t. Trust me), so whenever I read these magazines, between the career stuff and the sex stuff that assumes I don’t actually know what I’m doing at all and the talk of Tinder (which I don’t fucking understand; what is it for?!), I usually end up feeling only one thing: I don’t belong here. These are not my people.

Which brings us back to parenting magazines, but you know what? They’re not really my people either, because they assume certain things about my life too. Like that I can afford to go on expensive holidays every year (nope) and that my children don’t sleep very well (sometimes). I’m starting to feel like I’m either incredibly awkward and should just pipe down or that maybe I need to stop trying to find a magazine written by and for “my people” (and I’m not even really sure who they are myself, to be honest) and stick to books, blogs and the occasional internet article.

Alternatively, I could go get myself a career, some lube and a Tinder account.

Becoming Your Parents

Something I’ve been ruminating on for a few years now: Are children bound to repeat their parents’ mistakes? I think about this on and off because my mother made two very defining mistakes in her life and I have gone on to repeat both of them.

The first mistake she made was my father, who died of pneumonia when I was very young. I remember nothing of him and I am not sorry. What I do know about him is that he was a functional alcoholic (one of the handful of reasons why I do not drink) and he was abusive. Growing up without him has not, in my eyes, had any detrimental effect upon my wellbeing. However, I do recall that I had a bit of an identity crisis when I was about 17 because I’ve always known that I look very much like my father and yet I know so very little about who he really was. The bad things were whispered secrets and cautionary tales told throughout my teenage years. The good things seemed less important, less real, when put beside them. The end result is that I have never felt any worse off for not having him around and I will not forgive him.

The difference between my mother’s mistake and mine is that she didn’t know that there was trouble ahead at the start and I most definitely did. I had the good sense to be cautious, if not outright afraid, from the very beginning. I knew that I was throwing myself to the wolves. But the other thing about me back then was that I was reckless and I believed that I could be the change, that the sheer force of my will and strength of my love would be enough. I turned a blind eye to bad behaviour, cut off friends who tried to tell me things I didn’t want to hear and when the violence started, I convinced myself that it wasn’t really happening at all. Every time I picked myself back up and went back for more. I tried to leave, but we were like magnets left just that little bit too close together; we always found our way back to one another. We were so intent on destroying ourselves, and if not ourselves than at least each other. We were going down and we were damned if we were going to do it alone. When I finally severed the ties it was awful. It was bitter and angry and the fallout went on for years. It has taken me nearly a decade to get to a point where I can hope that he is doing okay and that he has found happiness, and part of me thinks that that is only because he is far away now. I wouldn’t still be walking these streets if he was too, but I will never get too far from him.

The point is that, before him, I always told myself I would never put up with what my mother had. The first time would be the last time. But when it’s a shove into a wall rather than a punch or a kick, somehow the lines feel blurry. From the outside it can be crystal clear, but in the eye of the storm the perspective is a little different.

The other mistake my mother made was the decision not to go to university, and it was for the same reasons that I chose not to. At 18, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life and neither did I. And I didn’t want to get myself into debt in the process of trying to figure it out. I told myself that I had plenty of time, that I was young and that I would find my place in the world eventually. That was ten years ago and I am still no closer to knowing. I’m starting to realise that this is probably it for me, and I am trying very hard to be okay with that. But that doesn’t change the ever-growing inadequacy complex that feeds on the knowledge of my peers’ successes, which is not to say that I begrudge them those triumphs. No, it’s not that. It’s the fact that I feel like nothing and no one in comparison.

Growing up I remember my mother doing a lot of different jobs to make ends meet. The cruel irony was that she had given up a very good job to have children, then when my father died there was a steep drop in income and she had to go back to work. But by that time the job she had left required a whole new set of qualifications and she had no way back in. So, until her retirement at the end of October this year, she had spent over 20 years doing bit-part jobs to pay the bills. And she, like me, was smart enough to do better.

These are mistakes that I don’t want my children to make because I want what all parents want; I want my children to be happy. Abusive relationships don’t make anybody happy, and men can be victims too. Hopefully by the time my sons are grown up there will be less shame attached to being a male victim of domestic abuse and more transparency about how big the issue really is. And it’s not that I think my children need to go to university to be happy, but I feel like the exploration and reaching of one’s potential plays an integral role in future happiness. Because if you always feel like you could have been “more”, how can you ever be satisfied with falling short of your own expectations?

I don’t want them to end up like me; always damaged and always wondering “is this all I will ever be?” Because once they are grown up and I have fulfilled my active role in their development as individuals, just exactly what does that leave me with?

This too shall pass.

The Week In Worries

I am a worrier. I worry about everything all the time. If I can't find anything to worry about then I worry myself about that instead. Do you ever do that thing where you've been cold-sweat obsessing about something all day, then you're just dropping off to sleep - having kinda forgotten about it - and you remember that you were worried about something earlier and then wrack your brains to remember what it was so you can continue worrying about it? I do. I do it all the fucking time. It's really no great mystery why I don't sleep well. And it's always stupid, small shit that doesn't even actually matter at all. Like I forgot to buy something that I don't really need or didn't wash up the stuff from dinner.

We have one of those Elf on the Shelf things this year. Do you know how fucking stressful they are? It was sent to us as a gift by my relatives in the US and Toddler Taylor loves it (which is all that matters and makes me incredibly grateful to my family for sending it as I don't imagine I would have thought to buy one myself). Every night the elf is supposed to fly back to the North Pole and report the day's events to Santa, then he will return to our home and find himself a new spot. Of course, that means it is my parental responsibility to find him a new place to sit in each day. So far he has perched in the Christmas tree, clung to the wreath in the hallway (where he had to have a safety rope because I found him on the floor when I came downstairs and can only imagine the horror that would have ensued if it had been Toddler Taylor who made the grim discovery rather than me), poked his head out of a box of Ready Brek, and today he is swinging, Miley style, from a glass bauble in the kitchen. He has also sat on a few shelves too, just to keep things traditional - and easy, if I'm being completely honest. But the point is that every night when the kids have gone to bed, I wander around the house, elf in hand, looking for a new spot for him. I worry that Toddler Taylor won't be able to find him. I worry that he will fall to his death from whatever lofty perch I have chosen. Mostly I worry that I will forget to move him at all. This has happened more than once and resulted in a sudden bolt-awake incident in the middle of the night, accompanied by frantic thoughts of, "The elf the elf oh my fucking god I didn't move the fucking elf!" So yeah. I worry about that cursed elf a lot.

I worry about Baby Taylor a ridiculous amount too. There's the fact that, at 14 months, he shows no interest in independently walking. I know that this is my fault because I have babied him because he is the last baby I will ever have (but that's a story for another day). I also worry about his proclivity for injuring himself. Because Baby Taylor may not be able to walk, but the kid is a fucking mountain goat when it comes to climbing. However, unlike a mountain goat, he often falls off the stuff that he has climbed and hurts himself. Yesterday he climbed up into the high chair and then onto the table. About half an hour ago he climbed onto this huge, soft cube he has that plays songs about shapes and, predictably, the thing tipped over and he fell off it. I can't even go to the bathroom anymore unless I take him with me because he WILL climb something, fall off it and probably give himself concussion. It's a nightmare.

I also worry about my house. My husband takes a philosophical stance on the issue of cleaning and tidying. "It will be better when the kids are older," he intones with a resigned sigh. I, on the other hand, regularly explode into hysteria over the state of our house: "If we don't fucking keep on top of cleaning the fucking house then it will be so fucking dirty by the time the kids are "older" that we will never actually be able to make it look clean again!" I hiss emphatically, windmilling my arms frantically in the general direction of the various detritus strewn about the place with gay abandon. For most of my adult life I have lived in the midst of other people's mess. First it was the boyfriend who never cleaned up after himself to such an extent that I gave up too. Then, after living in a few very cramped flats with no storage space and a three month suitcase-living stint in the US, I had to put up with my brother's negligent approach to basic cleanliness for six months. But in between there was this one flat I had with cavernous storage and plenty of living space and I kept that place immaculate. That flat stands as a monument to how I would live if I didn't have to deal with everyone else's shit being everywhere. At the present time, the ironing pile is so damned huge that I fear Baby Taylor may soon decide to climb it. I find myself panic stricken over the sheer volume of stuff there is to tidy away and clean sometimes. Like right at this moment my heart feels a little strangled by it all.

Money. Who doesn't worry about money, especially at this time of year? At the moment we are okay, but I know that soon we are going to need to send Toddler Taylor to playgroup for full days and I just don't know where that money is going to come from. I could work more, but that seems self-defeating because then I would need someone to look after Baby Taylor. So sometimes I look at the lives of my peers who have good jobs and are making good money and I wish that I had done more with my life. Of course, being a pragmatist, when I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my life at 18 I decided to put university on the back burner and work instead. And if I hadn't done that then I probably wouldn't be who I am today. But just every now and again I feel like I could be so much more, like I had so much potential and I just threw it all away. I guess there's more than one worry here, but they're so intrinsically tied up with each other - and both have such a huge bearing on my self-worth - that it's impossible for me to mention one without thinking of the other. Maybe what I should really be worrying about is why either of these things actually bother me so much in the first place.

Here's something else I worry about: Am I not enjoying this as much as I should be? Am I spending too much time worrying about stuff and not enough time just being with my children? Is it normal to worry this much about mess and finances and milestones and fucking elves? Will I look back on this one day and realise that I worried so much about the things that didn't matter that I missed out on getting the most out of the things that do? But the thing that I keep hearing from the older generation is that this is just how it is. This is just motherhood and parenting and that I will find all of the joy that I lost out on to worry when I have grandchildren someday. To me that feels a little bleak, so instead of thinking about that I keep bringing myself back to an afternoon I had with Toddler Taylor a couple of months ago. We went up into the woods and balanced along the trunks of fallen trees and threw piles of leaves into the air and ran along the twisting little paths and listened for an owl hooting in the canopy above us and we had the best fucking time just being together. 

That's what I always dreamed of when I thought about having children. That's what makes me happier than anything else in the world ever, and I get so excited when I think about being able to do these things with both of my children next year.

And the best part? I wasn't worried about a thing.

Job Wars

I keep having this argument with my husband every couple of weeks at the moment and I’m starting to go batshit crazy about it, even though I’m pretty sure it’s an argument that all parents have with each other on a semi-regular basis. The argument is this: WHO HAS THE HARDEST JOB? You see, my husband and I both have two jobs. One of them is the job we do out of necessity; the one that brings in the money to pay the mortgage and feed our family. The other one is the job we chose together back in 2011 when we decided to try for a baby. My husband goes out to work five days out of the week, stays home alone with the kids one day a week and co-parents with me on the other day. I go out to work two days a week (unless I have to fill in for someone somewhere), stay home alone with the kids four days a week and co-parent with my husband on the other day. So who has the harder job? Well, hereabouts I need to put some things into perspective.

You all know the story of Baby Taylor, which means that you all know that I haven’t slept more than five hours a night in about nine and a half months (because now, of course, Baby Taylor is finally kinda sorta sleeping through the night. Halle-fucking-lujah!). So for nine and a half months I have been sleep-deprived. My husband is a “modern man” in a lot of ways (I use quotations marks here because I really don’t get why for some men, the willingness and ability to change a nappy should earn them some kind of badge of honour among their womenfolk), but he has never shared the burden of the night shift with me. When I was breastfeeding, his rationale was that he couldn’t really do a whole lot to help, so he might as well just sleep through it. When I had to switch Baby Taylor to formula – reflux, blah, blah; you’ve heard it already – he still somehow figured that it wasn’t his job to ever be awake in the night. And now he just shrugs and says, “I don’t hear him wake up and you do, so you might as well go”. So, yeah, I’ve spent quite a few months feeling on-the-brink-of-insanity tired. On top of this, I went back to work two months ago. So on some of those nights when I hadn’t actually managed more than a few hours' sleep between trips back and forth to settle Baby Taylor, I then had to get up and go to work and try to remember how to do my job when I wasn’t actually sure if my pants were even on the right way out because I was Just. That. TIRED.

And then there are the days when it’s just me on my own with the kids from just after two in the afternoon until bedtime. And that’s probably fine with one child – even accounting for sleep-deprivation -, but with two it’s... Well, sometimes it’s not. Because I love spending time with my children. Of course I do. BUT – collective sharp intake of breath from non-parent readership – sometimes looking after children is exhausting and wearing and actually really fucking hard work. Sometimes I would actually rather be at work than trying to occupy a boisterous three year-old while his ten month-old brother disappears under the coffee table for the umpteenth time because he just hasn’t figured out how to crawl in the right direction quite yet. Sometimes I’d like to be able to get on with some cleaning or laundry without worrying what the ominous crash in the playroom just now was all about and if Baby Taylor was also involved in the disaster. Because that’s what parenting is like. It’s none stop. And then it’s bath time and both kids are crying because the big one is tired and also cross that he has to stop playing and the little one is hungry and crabby. Coaxing Toddler Taylor into pyjamas whilst trying to persuade Baby Taylor to finish his milk sometimes feels like the most insurmountable task in the world. But finally they’re in bed and now I can sit and vegetate in front of the TV for a couple of hours... But wait! There’s still that huge pile of ironing to do and all three of the laundry bins in the house are overflowing, even though I’m sure I literally did a load of washing like, two days ago. So I’ll do that first, and then suddenly it’s 11PM and I need to go to bed RIGHT FUCKING NOW otherwise I will not be able to make it up the stairs.

I’m really lucky. Both sets of grandparents are on hand most of the time, standing by for an emergency . Mostly because they’ve already seen what happens when I go into meltdown and nobody wants to deal with that ever again, ever. But even grandparental aid poses its own unique set of problems, because Toddler Taylor gets excited when grandma or nana turn up around bath time and he metamorphoses from a knackered out little boy into... Well, remember Hurryup from Stopit and Tidyup? Yeah. Pretty much that. And then I have to become Shouty Mummy and threaten him with NO STORIES and NO FRIENDS IN BED and I actually just fucking hate being Shouty Mummy because it’s a really shit way to end the day. But without help from grandma and nana, some nights I really don’t know how I would cope. I know I would, but probably not well.

So who has the hardest job? Maybe it’s not so much about that as it is about whoever goes out to paid work – because feminism – accepting and acknowledging that whoever gets left at home with the small people is probably having a pretty hard time too. There are always moments throughout the day when your children are both/all being lovely at the same time and you can’t imagine for a second that you would ever want to be anywhere other than right here with them. But those moments are just that; MOMENTS. If they happened all the time they wouldn’t be nearly so precious. The rest of time, being a parent is hard work. It’s the hardest job you’ll ever do, which is not to say that it isn’t worth it because it absolutely is. But when you’re the primary care-giver, the job you do is shaping a little person into a grown-up human and helping them find their way through the first years of their life, and that is a MONUMENTAL undertaking. My husband defers to me all decisions to do with the kids, which means that on some level, he must recognise that I am better equipped to make those decisions than he is. Why, then, is my job as a parent any less challenging than his job as the main earner?