Motherload

Now, I can hardly complain about Christmas. My former chef husband always cooks an incredible turkey and I baste in his glory. I have been able to leave my mother's warm embrace and step into the brawny waiting arms of a Christmas chef. I have never actually prepared the beast. Even when we lived in Australia — and still ate turkey in 40 degree heat, natch — it was broiled on the Weber by my father-in-law. The day itself is a piece of cake for me, compared with the stress it must cause many people, and those mainly female. I can remember my mother trotting for years between kitchen and sitting room, under the irritable watery eye of my father, trying to cook and Be There while the presents were opened. Her black patent leather shoes, with the gold buckle and a little heel, were firmly on; a gin and tonic was permanently in hand; she sported a smart red A-line skirt under an apron and a film of worry. Strange how silence is golden when it comes to the magical preparation of the

I Don't Know Why She Bothers has just been published by Daisy Waugh, to join the Mummybook pile. I read it at a couple of sittings, like a bag of sweets in front of Strictly Come Dancing . Nice to gobble, but not particularly nourishing. I Don't Know Why She Bothers , to be fair, wasn't intended to be a heavy read — its whole raisin d'être is that time is precious, and shouldn't be wasted agonising about one's children. Loving them, yes, but not agonising pointlessly about them. It's meant as an antidote — the cure of laughing at one's self — to killjoys, health and safety mongers, self-appointed experts, meddlers and misogynists. It's a joy manifesto. So far so good, I applaud mightily the motivation to write this book. It's important — so important, in fact, that I have been thinking about the same issues for a decade. It's not that Daisy Waugh is wrong — it's that she doesn't go nearly far enough. The book purports to be

Yesterday Motherload led me to commit a bad thing. Like that’s unusual. No, hear me out, this is what happened. I was running late to collect the children, because I’d been working very hard on something… for the children (go figure). It was pouring with rain, and everyone else had also decided to drive to school. The reason I was increasing the world’s carbon footprint was because we have to get to a swimming lesson within half an hour on a Friday, and the only way we can do it is in the car.  Plus, frankly, I’m always running late, because I’m always trying to snatch a few seconds extra from the jaws of the playground wasteland. Those futile minutes spent just… waiting around for your children to come out of school, because, these days, you HAVE to be seen by the teacher so that they will release your kid (as otherwise they are bound to be snatched/run over in the gap between the school gate, and your waiting arms). Minutes usually taken up with sub-competitive non

Last night saw Showdown at our house. The usual story… a long day culminated in a bout of dinnertime naughtiness, then the barked order to, "Go upstairs and get ready for bed right now," then extended stubborn refusal, pushing, crying, howling, screaming, and me with my fingers in my ears and my eyes shut, willing it all to go away. It wasn't pretty. I didn't feel good for my Show Of Authority. The children were particularly outraged and irked, because their punishment was coterminous with not having apple crumble. They insisted that they had in no way been naughty, that they had, "just been laughing", and they wanted a recount. There was a tearful, fruitless, appeal to the Father, working upstairs. Eventually they gave up, and retreated to the silence and darkness of their lairs. I held firm. To my ears. I sat, catatonic, at my desk, pretending to sort out chores. Half an hour passed. My husband finished the work he was doing, gave me a look, and

A friend made a very intriguing comment this morning. Our children are going away for a five-day outward bound trip, and we stood in the October playground, acorns and condensation dropping on our heads, watching them try to unpack their rucksacks before they'd even boarded the coach. I was encouraging my friend to go out every night while her child is away, and take the chance to reconnect with her partner. She said, "But I find it really hard to go out if everything's not done, I'm not sure if I can actually do  that any more". We looked at each other, she, a highly intelligent, senior civil servant, and published author, working full time, me… in my yoga gear, and nodded. After a decade of clearing up, we have gradually been worn down until neither of us can face "dropping everything and going out for the fun of it", simply because of what will be waiting for us when we get back home. Now… is this being adult, depressed or a drudge? Which is it?

A good friend of mine was having coffee round at my place this morning. She and I have often talked in the past about having children, whether or not to, and what it means not to have children. She described how a close friend with children said to her this summer, "I won't be able to see you 'til September". I was incredulous — until I thought about my own behaviour: I, too, duck into the trenches over the summer weeks, mainly because I don't have childcare, partly because everyone seems to go away, and sometimes we do too, and, with regard to single or childfree friends, I somewhere make the assumption that they won't want to see me with my pesky kids. But my friend today made it clear that it was she who felt excommunicated. "Why does she think I wouldn't want to see her children?" my friend said. I think that, after years of interrupted conversations, I know the answer: her friend wants to have a peaceful chat, and knows she won't g

Harriet Harman gave a lovely answer this morning when pressed on why she didn't run for leadership of the Labour Party: I actually... still... wanted something else of my life outside the Party. She had just been discussing the paucity of women in Parliament (even as Thatcher was Prime Minister); the fact that fewer than 1000 men have taken up maternity leave if women want to return to work within a year of giving birth; the notion of transferring unused leave to mothers and mothers-in-law (although these people are likely to be working to reduce the earnings deficit they themselves suffered through having a family); and finally she had slipped in the old chestnut that women are still tearing their hair out looking for affordable, flexible, reliable childcare. Women. Because apparently no one, however much they believe in equality, can ever bring themselves to imagine men "looking for childcare". That, apparently, is intrinsically, inherently, BIOLOGICALLY part of a

This week my daughter sat an 11+ exam for a grammar school in our area. We stood outside at 7am, in the biting September cold. No one spoke to anyone else. Everyone clutched their daughters. We had got up at 5.30am. The staff called out, "All right, we're going to take your girls in now". Their voices took me, in a heartbeat, to the moment late in the night after I had given birth to my daughter, when a nurse told me, "All right, we're going to take her away and give her formula". I wanted to push her aside, run into the hall and take the damn test myself. You know it has to happen, you've got this far, and you know/pray/hope she's going to be OK, but you are being left behind, and others are going to have possession of your vulnerable child. Who knows what they are going to do to her? My husband was away while it happened, and, in his panic, ended up shouting at me that I hadn't prepared her enough. Three hours later, she came out smili

This week I was contacted by a lady called Heather from the States, who has been living with cancer for the past seven years. She asked me to put a link to her awareness campaign on my blog. She has a rare form of cancer which is contracted through exposure to asbestos fibres. She was diagnosed incredibly soon after having a baby, and given a poor prognosis. Wanting to live for her child has kept her focused on seeking treatment and looking after herself: I am a wife, mother, and a mesothelioma survivor. When my daughter was 3 ½ months old, I was diagnosed with this rare and deadly cancer, and given 15 months to live. Despite my grim prognosis, I knew that I needed to beat the odds for my newborn daughter, Lily. It’s been 7 years now and I feel that it’s my duty to pay it forward by inspiring others. In honor of upcoming Mesothelioma Awareness Day (September 26), I want to use my personal story to help raise awareness of this little known cancer, and to provide a sense of hope f

I spent a lot of time at our children's school today. First up was a class assembly. One of my children is entering her final year of primary school, and a mother pointed out that this will be their last class assembly before they leave. Class assemblies, for the uninitiated, involve three weeks of daily rehearsals, a worthy topic spiced up with some in-jokes, and a Friendship Song. If it was going to be their last, the involuntary parental sobbing quotient was instantly ratcheted up to 'Full On' before they even started. Not aided by my daughter's Special Dream, so innocently voiced as part of the assembly: "I would like to do well in my exams and get into [insert names of local hard to get into schools]". I'm not sure if there actually was an audible gasp, or whether it was just the rush of blood to my head as I watched my child tell 700 people what she really really wanted (along with 1800 other little girls). I'm not sure how often I have gen

Yesterday I made a glutinous Banoffee Pie for the first time in my life, so sweet that my son actually failed to finish it. The Banoffee Pie There's been a theme to desserts recently: (1) we've had some; (2) they've all been baked, brown and packed with sugar. The Salted Fudge After we came home from a brill 1970s stylee driving across Europe holiday (all 2700 miles of it, mostly un-air-conditioned, once we'd realized how much fuel aircon uses, and how pricey Italian petrol is), I felt the need to end August with a violent burst of baking. Suddenly, the dormant bread machine was mobilized, and produced streams of chewy pitta bread, and white loaves with glorious tanned muffin tops to match my own. We'd spent all our money on French motorway tolls, so I immediately reverted to type, and behaved as if we were in the Second World War, except with bananas. Out came the houmous recipe, and we all had to suffer through weeks of dubious chunky chickp

Radio 4 Woman's Hour was getting all steamed up this morning about the social rights and wrongs of tutoring children during the school holidays. "Socially divisive", "giving the posh kids an extra leg up they don't need", "impossible demands placed on young shoulders", etc etc. According to some amongst us, children turn into vegetables during those precious few weeks of summer, and need to be kept nose to grindstone lest they forget how to spell, punctuate, do times tables and stand still in the lunch queue. I've been tutoring children and young people from 11 to 18 years old for the past few years, and it's completely changed my views on what tutoring actually is . In the summer holidays, most of my tutees stop, unless they are preparing for a selective entrance exam that's going to come up early in the next academic year. These poor souls have to keep going, yes. I find it next to impossible to force my own poor children to d

This morning on the BBC — modesty bags for lads' mags!  Brilliant. The Co op is asking the people who publish Loaded , Nuts and the other boys' peep show titles to put bags over their product, to protect the innocence of children coming into the shops. Feminista  wants to go further, campaigning for an outright ban on these magazines. Their argument is that the Co op is still aiming to make money out of lads' mag culture — the fig leaf of a plastic bag is just a way to get around the profit hit it would otherwise take. What's the real problem, of which lads' mags are the pathetic symptom? Girls are sent the message, "sex is dirty and you are dirty if you do it — aren't you?", while boys are sent the message, "sex is dirty and girls are dirty if they do it — here, have a little look". Queen Victoria would have been proud. Seems to me that putting a doggy bag over a soft porn mag is a bit like men telling women they have to wear burkhas

The other day, my daughter and I were standing in line at a supermarket, idly waiting for the man in front to get an assistant to check the price of his pâté, have an argument about it, and then decide not to buy it. Our eyes, as we idled, fell upon the obligatory magazine stand. It was crammed with celebrity gossip mags screeching about the forthcoming Royal Birth. My daughter read out, "Kate: My Worries About Whether I'll Be a Perfect Mum! Royal Pair: Will and Kate Already Planning Number Two! Duchess: Too Posh to Push? Kate Says She's Worried About Losing Her Figure!" Actually, I can't quite recall the wording, but you get the idea. Royal Babymania, to crown the summer of British Sporting success. Murray! Tour de France! Ashes! Rugby! Parturition! My daughter, bless her, and no doubt because she is being brought up by the world's most argumentative mother, was horrified and incredulous. "She hasn't even had the baby yet!" she shrieked,

And now this. Mumsnot . This is a very clever title for a very upsetting debate. The way it's framed is particularly saddening: if a woman doesn't have children, what value does she have, and indeed, does she have any? HELLO? EXCUSE ME? Of COURSE a woman, like any other person, or animal, or flower, has value, simply by existing. OK, evil people, flowers and animals have perhaps less value, and usually do more damage. Value — now there's a word. What on earth does it mean to "have value"? In economic terms, it means "be tradeable". I'm not sure that that's what the Mumsnot debate means. After all, women have been traded for centuries, and it's usually the idea that they're not virginal that prompts the idea of their loss of value. When did tradability shift to the post-partum female? And who is assigning that value? It used to be men, on the basis of dowry or chattels. What is it now? An index of male fertility, or capacit

Well lookie here, this is turning into a sign from the universe. Apparently home schooling IS the way forward. After our son's raucous 7th birthday party on Sunday (007 spy party, held on 07/07, d'you see?), at his school, we headed home, sweaty, laden with parcels almost certainly containing Lego, and thought no Moore of spy parties. Come Monday morning, lo, a burst water main had closed the school ! Out of the blue, on a glorious summer day, the children had NO SCHOOL. Coupled with the planned teacher training day the Friday before, this amounted to an unexpected long weekend, at least from the children's point of view. What luck! Hmmm. What was Mother to do. Options options: 1. Complain to the Council. No point, it's Haringey. 2. Go home and complain to the husband. No point, he's trying to earn our mortgage. 3. Shout at the kids. Tempting, but not really fair. 4. Turn on the television. The weather's too nice. 5. Go to Hampstead Lido. ARE YOU KIDD

What am I learning about modern parenting? Two things. 1. Legoland — a metaphor for alienation. 2. Race for Life — a metaphor for frustrated ambition. Let me explain. Marx (and I paraphrase) felt that people were being alienated from the means of production of things like food and clothing. Instead they went to work in mines, cities and factories, were paid money and then had to commute home to give this money to their families, to pay for things. They seemed to be gaining autonomy, but were actually losing control over their lives. This was in the sense of the overall arc of those lives, their destinies (getting work started to depend on your education rather than, say, farming your own bit of land). It was also at the level of day-to-day human pleasure (growing your own tomatoes; making your own shirts). He thought this as England's green and pleasant land was overrun by factories during the 19th century. The rest of us called it the Industrial Revolution. You can un

Well, your wish is my command. Do you remember my little daydream about teaching my children at home, with my phd, and my years of teaching experience, and my love of literature, culture and the young? Yesterday, as if by magic, the teachers had a TADS. This is a new educational acronym on me. Apparently it means something like Teacher Absence Day, S'there . Or possibly Training and Detention Summit . Something along those lines. Anyway, what it means is that several times a year, (a) working women have to scrabble about for yet more expensive childcare on a random day; (b) "stay-at-home mums" (those with phds who don't fit into mainstream society) have to Find Something To Do with Their Loved Ones, Instead of Their Writing. Because apparently teachers need to have training days, IN THE MIDDLE OF TERM. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE TEN WEEKS' HOLIDAY A YEAR. Having mentioned to my daughter the notion of home education, she decided to run with it, reminding me that

Yesterday I was preparing a class for a tutee, and came across a Home Education website. I found myself conducting a thought experiment. Why not educate my children at home? I have a doctorate, speak several languages, have years of teaching experience at university level, tutor others already in my own home, could find ways to develop curricula for all the subjects I'd love my children to learn, like Mandarin. I could join a network of home schoolers, all equally enlightened, and focused on the fascinating multiplicity of subjects children might like to study. We could take GCSEs early, and perhaps go for iGCSEs, and then the International Baccalaureat. My children would not need to spend hours of each day locked in a classroom, we would go to museums and art galleries, circus skills and dance classes. They would become independent learners, and follow their dreams into adulthood, instead of being constantly deflected from their goals by pointless tasks, testing and disc

I have been doing a mindfulness course in the last few weeks. It has changed my life. I no longer do any writing at all (agonized or otherwise). Instead I have painted our front door. Life has become extraordinarily easy. I float through each day, doing only the task that is right in front of me, planning only the amount I need to get the next thing done. I am kind, open and generous, even to my husband. I am able to control my temper, impatience and feelings of inadequacy. I walk the children to school and back at their pace rather than my own. I smile and ask questions. I ensure the house is harmonious. I no longer listen to the news — Egypt may or may not be on the brink of a military dictatorship, or a civil war, and that is terrifying, fascinating, worrying, but ultimately there is so little I can do except be nice to people here (since no one has invited me to become a diplomat), that I might as well try to grow peas, bake chocolate cake and sit doing maths problems with

This morning I was rushing back from buying gift wrap for son's 7th birthday, when I was waylaid and forced to have coffee with some other mothers from his class. Forced,  I tell you. Somewhere in the chat, one of the mothers proudly displayed bright red shellac nails, and told us she'd found a lady whose own children are in nursery, who does nails much more cheaply than on the high street, and that as a result she could allow herself to have a manicure every three weeks, rather than never. Another mother promptly reminisced about her own mum, who had frowned upon nail polish as risqué . As a result the daughter now feels naughty whenever she has her nails done. Luckily her mother's opinion hasn't actually stopped her doing what she wants with her nails. Which led somehow to a discussion of Cougar Slutting. Which made us all laugh immoderately. What was a Cougar Slut? And how wonderful that, if you turn it into a verb, 'to cougar slut', it can never be in

When our second child was three months old, I flew from Sydney to London with him and our three-year-old firstborn. My husband stayed in Sydney to finish things off. Without going into the details, the experience of flying, alone, with a breastfeeding infant and a toddler, for twenty-four hours, was almost exactly the same as labour. I knew the pain would have to end at some point, and I also knew that I was completely on my own, while simultaneously surrounded by people looking at me, just as most women are during modern births. The main two differences were (a) the lack of epidural on the plane, and (b) the fact that the stewardesses actively ticked me off, rather than telling me when to push. Nothing could have drilled into my brain better the understanding that we had not added to the family in having a second child, but rather that we had gone forth and  multiplied . No one talks about what it is like to move from one to two children. There is no What To Expect book, wi