Regrets of Parents

Who needs Huggies to swim?

What!? No one regrets a baby!? Want to bet - this kid sure grew up feeling like a mistake.

Then along comes the Huggies survey of parents, saying two thirds of parents regret stuff about raising their children. I have to say I'm kind of shocked at the large amount of parents regretting things, and the long list of regrets, none of which I identify with. 

Day in the Life of a Sydney Stay at Home Mum

Even in winter we're at the beach

OK, so while I wait for the Institute of Teachers to approve my teacher status, I am wiling away the hours at home with my little one. It's a sweet reminder of what the first year of her life was like, and now that she's just turned two, a hell of a lot more fun. It's also a welcome reprieve from what was a hellish year of huge challenges and changes as I trained as a teacher. I am now done! And I have a long hot happy summer stretched out before me.

Don't Blame Mum

The last dress she ever wore

Another baby has died at the hands of her mother, the very person who is supposed to champion her rights above all else.

Why this keeps happening is anyone's guess, but it is an enduring feature of humankind, and our friends in the animal kingdom, that babies die, sometimes often, and often at the hands of their mum or dad.

The biggest cause in modern Australia is depression. The self loathing some mothers feel when they 'fail' to breastfeed or settle their babies is all consuming. The effects of sleep deprivation, a popular and very successful torture technique, combined with clinical depression can be toxic. I do not want to demonise mothers with depression or even try to imagine the horrific combination of factors that could push you over the edge.

What I want to do is mourn the loss of this little child's life, just a baby girl starting her life. Eighteen months is the most adorable age, when grandmothers come up to your little one in the street and say My Goodness, I just wish they'd stay like this forever! Their eyes sparkle with mischief, their little cheeks dimple and their fat rolls are irresistible as they skip ahead of you, tiny versions of their future selves.

This little eighteen month old was deliberately left by her mother to drown in the one place most toddlers adore, the bath. The image of her scrabbling for air, trying to get out, screaming and finally choking in the bathwater is deeply upsetting. She died alone in her own home. After her death, her little body was dressed in a christening gown and she lay next to her suicidal mother for two days before someone found them, or missed them.

It is this image that speaks to the core of what I am constantly concerned about: the isolation of mothers in our harried society and its lack of support for new mums. If they feel like there aren't a lot of options out there, it's because there honestly isn't.

Baby health centres, playgroups, local libraries, modern hospitals and highly regulated childcare centres are wonderful but many of them could be more accessible to mothers. For my baby's first six weeks, for example, I couldn't walk or drive to the shops so couldn't access my baby health nurse. She was also solidly booked weeks in advance. So I didn't find out my baby was losing weight steadily for two months until she ended up in emergency. Some of the reason she lost weight was my low milk supply, something I wasn't given information about because I did not have any lactation support. The complex list goes on.

Our one playgroup is 30 minutes away. There are no support groups, meals or anything to help a new mum without mobility, unlike the elderly. A lot of what is on offer is expensive. And many in our generation can forget about grandparents: our parents tend to be more interested in their next promotion or trip to Europe than their new grandchild.

It's not just lack of governmental and civic support for mums, it's also our cultural expectations on mums and our opinion that bearing children is a lifestyle choice, like being gay (ha ha ha), choosing solar or driving a BMW. We don't berate car accident victims that they shouldn't have bought a car. We don't even tell lung cancer victims they shouldn't have smoked, or diabetes sufferers they should lay off the sweets. So why we tell mothers they shouldn't have chosen to have children when they hit a rough patch is beyond me.

I think it's the old Women are to Blame acorn. Blame the ladies for men's collective inability to retain self control. Blame the rape victim's dress for the crime. Blame the mother who kills her baby for her isolation and untreated depression. "You chose to have kids, didn't you?" is the one thing most mothers really do not want to hear when they are in trouble.

Not to mention the glaring fact that about half of all babies are unplanned (for more, see contraception failure or heterosexual couples having spontaneous sex) so were not actually conscious decisions or choices. And of the babies that were planned, not all of their parents carefully planned on having a child with autism, with projectile vomiting that lasts for 3 months, who screams ten hours straight every day. No. Not many parents happily make a choice to sign up for that! It's a miracle more babies actually survive babyhood considering the raft of pressures on their new parents, and a glowing reflection on the stamina of parents that more are not relinquished to state care. 

So let's think carefully on what we're expecting of new parents and consider how we might as a society offer more support and relief to new parents and activities for young children.

The First Time

Do First Steps really matter?

My colleague was upset yesterday because he missed his three month old first rolling over for the first time. I know everyone approaches this parenting thing differently but I can't help feeling annoyed at first time parents who see their baby's milestones as major achievements or Kodak moments.

We've all had to put up with the insufferable, never ending litany of stories from parents in close office quarters or facebook.

"Jack is onto solids!!!"

"Mia is almost walking!!"

"Cooper is constipated!"

I know you're proud, because I was proud when my kid starting walking a few months ago. But did I need to rave at length about it to colleagues, friends and strangers? No. It's not an achievement, just a natural first step to her becoming an independent adult which is my ultimate goal.

I honestly know what it's like to look at your little growing baby with wonder and marvel at how quickly they are growing up, or feel teary that you can't remember their babyhood. Actually I don't know what that last thing feels like, because not only do I remember very well, but I also took about 100 photos a day to 'record the moment'.

A friend cried when Grandma gave her one year old her first haircut. Really? Aren't there more important things in the world to get upset over? If you are actually sad because you'd rather be next to your little one's side 24-7 to hold her, walk with her and see all her firsts, I can guarantee you would not only possibly start feeling a little desperate and bored, but your family would miss out on the confidence and income you enjoy from working. Is it really a huge sacrifice to see a few firsts the second time round?

Many parents miss the first steps. My little one was walking before her first birthday - or more accurately had taken her first steps but didn't feel like repeating the trick - but I never saw her walk because her carer didn't tell me, and that's fine - since she's with her three days a week it's quite likely she'll be seeing a lot of her firsts.

Do I feel sad about this or like I'm missing out? No, because I see this as one of the more illogical aspects of keeping linear time. I don't share a cultural obsession with being the first, or seeing the first. The second is fine. Or the third time. And if you think it's the first but it's the 10th, what does it matter?

Time Magazine's 4yo breastfeeding cover

Care factor?

Judging from the reaction to the latest Time magazine's May cover of a young mum breastfeeding her kid, it's apparent we don't like the look of a kid on the breast. But really, are they hurting anyone? And why does the feature title read Are You Mom Enough: a deliberately antagonistic and confronting question? As if the desire to connect child's mouth with nipple proves you are, or are not, a good mum. How ridiculous.

Why should you care if another mother is still breastfeeding, or not breastfeeding, or enjoys sleeping in bed with her child, or carries the kids in a sling until age 10? Who cares, really?

Last time I checked, the term mother covered quite a variety of women, roughly from ages 10-60 plus of every race, religion and persuasion. The only thing many mothers have in common is they conceived a child, which is possibly the most universal act on earth apart from copulation and digestion. So why do we have such strong expectations and opinions about how mothers are supposed to raise their young?

Why does the image of a nipple in someone's mouth provoke such strong feelings? No one seems to really care when it comes to who is involving who in oral sex or nipple play, as long as everyone is a consenting adult. I guess that's where the problems start: we think children are asexual. But they are not. Does anyone not remember being a child? As Belle Du Jour's - sorry Dr Brooke Magnanti's - new book, The Sex Myth explains, childhood is a time of sexual exploration. Not an opinion, but as evidenced by extensive research.

And most mothers know this. They either ignore or temper their young child's sexual behaviour.

Is it because we know that children are sexual that we don't want them going near a woman's nipple - women's nipples should be reserved for sexual pleasure, but not for children, and only for a strictly short time for babies as a source of food. I mean, who really cares what a woman does with her nipples? We don't stand around discussing the ins and outs of which mothers are engaging in nipple play with their lovers, why do we care so much about her giving breast milk via the nipple to her child?

Like many mothers I had multiple problems with breastfeeding and one of them was the cultural struggle to see my own nipple as a source of food, comfort and pleasure for a little creature who was not my sexual partner. I was also a little jealous of mothers who found breastfeeding so easy they could feed baby on the go, while I had to mess around with sterilised bottles, cooled boiled water and carefully measured powders.

After I finished breastfeeding I was a much freer person, able to leave my baby for more than three hours and venture back into the city and other adult only venues. I met another mother who was still breastfeeding her four year old and when I laughed in surprise she explained she had had to train her daughter to only ask for the boob at home, not in public. The image of a four year old girl in scruffy shoes reaching up to have a suck on her mum's nipple was strange to me, just as the Time magazine cover is deliberately confronting. But I didn't really care. Why would I? This is not a child rights issue.

Breastfeeding is, however, a human rights issue. That is, a mother's right to breastfeed and not be thrown out of cafes or off the bus because she is feeding her infant, something that still happens in Australia today. But when I trained companies on this issue and how to implement a lactation friendly workplace, the issue of child's age never came up.

I asked if the legislation would stipulate a cutoff age, so that we would not have a mother of an eleven year old asking for her right to breastfeeding breaks, but legislators apparently did not see this as an issue, despite the increasing awareness of breastfeeding older children raised by Little Britain's skit of a grown man breastfeeding.

In Australia we had the fantastically misogynistic but uncomfortably realistic peek into parenthood via the award winning novel The Slap and its fabulously produced ABC TV miniseries. This novel, bought to us by single gay childless author Christos Tsiolkas, explored modern parenting matters via central character Rosie. Rosie was characterised as the ultimate victim loser by her attachment parenting methods, including the continued breastfeeding of her three year old Hugo who happened to be a little demon. The Slap of the title occurs when Hugo's behaviour slides into the unacceptable and an adult belts him. Is Rosie abusing this child's rights by breastfeeding him? No. Is slapping a child a child rights issue? Um, yes.

We can talk nipple until we're blue in the face but really we should stop demonising, as The Slap does, or martyring, as Time does, women who breastfeed. And focus on more engaging and practical parenting topics such as what activities you can do with your toddler lying down.

In Defence of the Kardashians

Khloe is the funniest...

When I started watching the Kardashian family in action five years ago, I saw a funny, daggy bunch of sisters fighting over trivial things. They reminded me of my family. 

I come from a family of four girls. Like the Kardashians we grew up yelling at, and jumping on, each other in a big house with broken doors. Like the Kardashians’ mum, my mum is conservative Catholic. And like the Kardashian father, an Armenian, my father’s grandparents come from neighbouring Georgia. I like to think there’s a level of warmth, bossiness and female dominance shared by families from this part of the world.

I just don’t get why the world hates these sisters. They are funny, smart and experts of PR. Major charges levelled against them are that they are spoilt, trashy, cheap, sexually promiscuous (or even "reckless"!) and talentless. That Kim’s only claim to fame is a deliberately leaked sex video. So why do they command so much attention, with a hit TV series going into its seventh season with several spin offs, various successful product lines and more branding kudos than Richard Branson?

I think they are fabulous role models and would be very proud for my daughter to turn out like any of them, but especially my favourite, Khloe. I love her to pieces, from her curves in fur PETA campaign to constantly fighting with her mum, her gorgeous husband Lamar, and almost getting fired in her Miami radio DJ job where she shone as the very talented comedian she is.

Khloe has more vagina jokes up her sleeve than Tina Fey, more personality, and more cheek than any other person famous for being funny. She also puts Kourtney's dodgy babydaddy Scott in his place and has impeccable judgement in character. The episode where she went to anger management was gold. So leave her, and the clan, alone.

We live in a world where most women are famous for their looks alone, so why is it such a crime the Kardashians are not only beautiful but also smart, rude, funny, loyal and business minded? If only some of those vapid vacant Victoria’s Secret angels could claim half as much talent as the sisters.

I just love how their pushy stage mom Kris acts all wide-eyed and innocent while coercing them into Girls Gone Wild and Playboy shoots. I love how she pretends to protect her daughters while pushing her teen model daughter into bikinis for some smoky eyed shoots. If my daughter were as sexy as hers I would be doing the same, and putting the money into her college fund. Or my entertainment fund...

And I really loved how when Rob thought he had made a scary latino ex, Rosa, pregnant he was very honorable in his behavior even while his mum and sisters were freaking out.

If nothing else, the TV series gives an excellent insight into how to get along as a family even when technically you should be at each other’s throats. Like I said, it’s a lot like my family, and I’m proud that both my rapidly enlarging family and the Kardashians can all sit around a table at the end of the day and laugh. Because that’s what it’s all about.

Now that it looks like Kim and my favorite contemporary musician Kanye will be having a baby in about eleven months I'll be watching them more closely as this is one celebrity sprog I'd love see...

On Being a Fat Chick

Snooki losing weight

I have been fat, curvy, chubby, voluptuous, a cakelover, Rubenesque, rounded and plain obese for most of my life. The thing is, I think I look great and have never considered using my appearance to my advantage. And I think that should end.

Everywhere I look I see fat chicks banging on about how life is as a fat chick, and skinny chicks bemoaning the fact they have no ass. It’s the pet topic of the underweight Ms Mamamia Mia Freedman, who can be found in most media outlets harping on about body image and promoting fat chicks in magazines.

Being fat made that fat chick from The View famous. Khloe Kardashian got instant street cred for “celebrating body diversity” in her fur shoot. And Jersey Shore’s Snooki gained an overnight fan base from flashing her rapidly shrinking ass. The retro Fat Chicks in Party Hats was one of my first favorite websites when I was a teenager.

Fashion editors and designers glance up from their strips of silk and lines of coke long enough to say “hey we’re not cutting cloth for fat chicks”, Anna Wintour doesn’t bat an eyelid (but does she ever, even during bukaki?), and the world keeps on turning, a world where chubby girls are treated like dogs every day of their school life until they become mums and everyone urges them to celebrate their curves.

But while we’re all pretending that fat chicks are the bomb, it’s about time I started making a living from my enlarged moneymaker. I can’t help it that I love chocolate. It’s a permanent fixture in my life. Last week over easter I ate over a kilo of chocolate and I really don’t care what it does for my already oversized curves. When I wasn’t married, I knew if I didn’t find a husband in Australia, where men drive utes with “no fat chicks” bumper stickers, I’d go to the USA where the guys adore curves.

The only downside of being fat – especially the year I became a mother and sat in the obese category for quite some time – were those nasty Kmart knits. Oh and the dirty looks I get at the gym. But because I go to the beach 300 days a year and enjoy slurrying around in my black lyrca uniform, or nothing at all, clothes generally aren’t an issue for me. And dirty looks are something I got used to a long time ago.

So here you have it: moi, fat mamma famous for being fat? Nice to meet you.

Why Nice is the New Grey

PND caused by boring mums

I’m sitting in playgroup with a bunch of bored looking mums. Little Max is throwing cookies up in the air and Cooper’s crushing them under his toddler sneakers. My daughter runs into the fray grabbing for someone else’s treats.

“Oh your daughter's eating off the floor” says one mum to me “Oh, she does that all the time” I say flashing what I hope is a disarming and friendly smile. Everyone turns to look at my 18 month old licking crumbs off the ground. I roll my eyes internally at the constant pressure of judgement that came down on me like a grey UNHCR issue refugee blanket since I did the last thing I remember I wasn't judged for: had sex without a condom and deliberately conceived a child. The judgement is hard and fast. She's too cold, says a granny at the supermarket. She needs more fencing, says my neighbour as he watches her climbing our deck. Hungry, tired, too thin, too fat, no shoes, no manners, too loud, too immature, too cheap. And only just turned one year old.

A bit later on a mother I faintly know frumps in with her baby and two year old looking frayed at the edges. I haven’t seen her for two weeks and we discuss how she probably has PND, as did I at the six month stage, as would anyone who hasn’t slept more than four hours in six months.

She also confesses to not LOVING the whole baby stage, which I can more than relate to. Actually she says her husband wanted kids more than her, but now that they're here he's not really all that involved. It's a common story you hear. Babies are a LOT of work and an awful lot of guys understandably make themselves scarce, leaving their partners alone to mop up the milk, wee and tears.

Anyone who gets off being elbow deep in things I thought only S&M mistresses had to deal with has a conflict of interest. And all six month olds I've met fail to say thank you mum, thanks for changing and feeding me seven times a day and making sure my day is filled with an interesting age appropriate but not overstimulating variety of activities! Thank you for letting me take over your life like a virus!

It’s all just so boring sometimes, just the same drudgery, I console. She agrees. And it’s hard to find other mums who feel the same way, I say and she nods vigorously. “What are they all doing, pushing their kids in designer prams and sashaying from coffee date to manicure??” she cries.

“And they’re all so NIIICE” I say. “I KNOW! Is anyone around here not boring?” We sadly shake our heads at the nice but boring women surrounding us – at playgroup, the gym, the park, the beach, library story time and the shops. No wonder Jessica Rowe got depressed - and she had a two Nannies for the morning and the evening according to her latest book. So if even two nannies can't protect you from PND, what can? Ecstasy?

Babies are f-ed, I say. They wreck your lives and make once sexy women into yabbering zombies. The boredom and loneliness of early unsupported motherhood can wreak havoc with even the most upbeat mum's temperament. We both agree, then get back to pouring milk and solids down our respective children’s mouths.

And the Rest of You can go F Yourselves.

She cooks and cleans too

No seriously. So I’m sitting at dinner opposite an ex who didn’t have children with me four years ago. Luckily. Another asshole who now has zero current knowledge of what a csection, torn vag or the inside of a maternity ward looks like (uterine purple walls), let alone a baby slathered in vomit or a toddler stashing its own shit in the sofa.

 He asks me, having not seen me for two years, what I’ve been doing. Um, you know, I have an 18 month old, I say. Yes he says, but what else? Well, I could explain I’ve almost finished a grad dip, I worked briefly as a copywriter for a marketing company before they silently shafted me, and how I can’t seem to snare a part time job.

 But what I really should say is I’ve been to the beach with my toddler twice a day for the past 500 days of her life, to the library 400 times, to the Red Cross toy/op shop 300 times. I’ve cleaned shit off the walls and cot twice, been covered in every possible body fluid in unusual places, sometimes all at once.

That in the two years since he’s seen me, I gave her a spine, a heart and eyeballs, got married in Vegas, fed her vicariously through the womb (mostly not champagne), then fed her nonstop from breast to bottle to goopy rice and pear to toast and weetbix to steak. That it’s an fing triumph when I look up and see her healthy rosy face peering across the table at me, alive, well and alert.

 So this asshole who grew up in Singapore says: You have a nanny right? No I choke, no one in Australia has a nanny. Well, maybe your terrace-dwelling-IVF-twin-spawning-“William/Emily-or-Ruby/Imogene”-Montessori-patronising-friends in the inner west have nannies. Or the TV anchor woman. But not me.

 Now that I am a member of the secret world of mummies, the mysterious world of cafes and playgroups inhabited by designer prams, smart phones, heavily made-up mumazons or trakkie slugging slummy mummies, I am privy to a shocking revelation: Australian women really are doing it all. And it sucks.

Nowhere else in history have millions of women been forced to throw aside their postgrad degrees and six figure salaries, get shafted by midwives and insurance companies alike and lose their body and identity in such a sudden fashion as Australia circa 2012. And they think PND is caused by having a baby.

 Here’s the clincher: their new life of constant harassment and wiping little bums ten times a day is invisible, unnumerated and unsupported by either husband or grandma (who are either working full time to pay off the seven figure mortgage or busy abroad). It is certainly not supported by a thriving nanny economy they may simply tap into for a wealth of affordable talent.

 So when this ex boyfriend suggests I just get a nanny I want to reach across the table and slap him. He also suggests I “suck it up princess” and "get used to being a mum" in reference to my whinge about being booted out of hospital three days after major surgery and noone to take care of me. Ot the new baby.

If this attitude it any indication of Australia’s general feelings towards nannies then I really am stuck up shit creek without a nanny for the foreseeable future.