Show us your Tits

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like a bit of a creep when a mother is breastfeeding nearby. I look anywhere but her, avoiding all eye contact and generally give her a wide berth. If a women starts breastfeeding next to me at playgroup I'll find a reason to get up and move.

I wonder why it makes me so uncomfortable, and I know I'm not the only one who feels like this, given that men and non mothers probably feel even more ill at ease when  a woman does something we've been trained for decades not to do: pulls out her tits in public.

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.

While I was out...

Leopard print for the boy!!!!!!!

So I haven't posted anything for about two fat months but they have not been slow lazy sun and sex fuelled months, believe me.

While I was finishing the practicum placement of my teaching degree in Sydney, which involves me teaching four grades of pimply but rather hilarious teenagers for 80 days full time, ten hours weekly commute, $500pw in childcare and fuel bills, no income, student fees and tiresome hard to communicate with lecturers...the media simply did not let up on mothers and mothers kept on bitching about other mothers!

I felt exhausted just thinking of all the problems mothers are responsible for, including that my daughter turned up to childcare wearing wispy Balinese sundresses in the middle of winter because my husband said she wanted it, and that Sue on Puberty Blues had developed a drinking problem and a nasty habit of teenage sex.

The media was busily keeping tabs on the mothers of the world while I was swotting away. August and September saw Jessica Simpson pilloried for not shedding her baby weight in under six months, Kendra defend her by saying she was focused on her baby and couldn't run due to her large tits anyway, some unfamous British personal trainer given a tongue lashing for telling new mums to get a grip and stop getting so fat, and my favourite Kardashian, Khloe, start fertility treatment. Snooki also happily birthed a baby boy and showed him off in a bassinet replete with leopard print blankets. Awww...a must have for every guido baby.

The shock event of the month was when X grade celebrity Charlotte Dawson tried unsuccessfully to top herself after being urged to do so by several 4chan members on Twitter. I mean, this is someone who makes a living being nasty to vulnerable people, which may explain her fragility of self. A feature quite apparent in her shaky psych ward 60 Minutes interview. If 4chan told me to put my head in an oven I'd chide them for putting me in the same literary league as Sylvia Plath.

And even while I was up to my teeth in lesson plans on medieval Europe, Mussolini, women's lib and federation Australia, I still had time to start yet another novel, this time a fan fiction inspired by yet another sex fuelled debut novel, book several flights, organise my daughter's 2nd birthday party (that's an overstatement as there's nothing to organise, just a box of booze, some fairy bread and turn up at Sydney's Palm Beach next week) and read several interesting books to undermine my cultural values including Sex at Dawn, The Sex Starved Marriage, and Mating in Captivity. Darned good reads I will review shortly.

I have nothing of value to add at this late hour in the day. I think the media sums it up best by saying to mums: "if you can't cope with your kids, why did you have them in the first place? YOU made the lifestyle choice, YOU deal with it!!"

On that note, remind me to write something soon on private school mothers, and on darling Khloe and her imminent baby with Lamar, what a treat that child will be, and so dearly awaited.

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.

Sex at Dawn in Australia

The myth of monogamy?
Try the myth of primary care!

Apologies to anyone who thought this post would be about pre-coffee coitus. It actually touches on the brilliant bestselling book Sex at Dawn which puts to rest once and for all the myth of monogamy, and how this premise fits in with the Australian cultural context...and its denigration of mothers who work.

So let us define our Australian cultural context. We have an increasingly matriarchal society, where women and men enjoy sex freely from puberty. Serial monogamy is still the standard, contrary to what Sex at Dawn explains is against our nature, but we have quite a few features of a matriarchal society.

Many individuals of both genders are free to pursue multiple partners without fear of legal consequences or social censure. When a couple, hetero or homo sexual, decide to live together they often move to the female's home. And women in Australia are generally strong, bossy and all too quick to put in their $6 worth. Most husbands in Australia will agree their wife has the final say.

Sexual jealousy and male aggression similar to chimp societies are, however, so much a key feature of Australian culture that is would be folly to suggest Australians are becoming matriarchal. An examination of these aspects as well as our sordid recent past of female convicts, institutionalised rape and floating brothels, and our current reality of unfavourable rights for working women, expensive childcare and the persistent gender pay gap will render any claim to matriarchy null and void. Australia is far too diverse to impose one social context, so what I am really referring to is modern Sydney.

Here we see women flaunting their sexuality with abandon, free to pursue as many sexual trysts as desired. Just watch The Shire, visit a beach or peep into a nightclub and you'll see women of every age and persuasion available for free. And happy about it.

I would go as far to suggest that the myth of monogamy can be held up to another biting parallel: the myth of the primary caregiver. Women are forced to read study after study showing that children under three thrive under the care of only one primary caregiver. Try telling that to the billion of infants who thrived in the village!

The idea of being a primary caregiver, while flattering, is simply outdated. So How Not to F--k Them Up and all those other books can go back to their studies and start looking at incorporating some of the multiple realities of post modernism, one being that a father or mother may easily hand the baby over to a close relative or paid mercenary (this is my only option, thank you to my government subsidised day carer) and baby will NOT SUFFER.

Not only is this true, but this is how almost every generation have been raised: not by one person, typically an isolated female living in the burbs, but by a collective.We have plenty of modern, successful examples of happy infants in kindergarten and childcare in Scandinavia, in addition to millennia of farming and pre-agricultural gatherer communities raising children together, to prove that infants don't suffer if mummy works.

So let's just admit child rearing is about multiplicities and stop making rude comments (to me) at the shops or writing mean spirited newspaper articles that unless I stay home with my infant she will end up disabled. She's doing great and if she were to contract permanent emotional damage, it will be due to my emotional blackmail of her as a teenager, not her happy early days with her carer in the garden because mummy was working.

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?

Is Having a Baby a Good Investment?

Good value or waste of money?

Since we live in economic times, I thought I should do what money minded women all over Australia are doing: an economic analysis on the potential Return on Investment of Children.

Because we are basically the first generation to carefully control our reproduction. Women from 1970 - 2000 do not count as they, the Gen X-er's, basically forgot to have kids. In other words, women up to 1970 did not have access to reliable contraception so had to deal with any pregnancies as and when they came. Abortion in Australia only became accessible in the late 60s, so it has been a very short time indeed that women have had any control over if they have children.

Women who took up the Pill enthusiastically post invention regarded it with, understandably, such open admiration and gratitude that they forgot to stop taking it and suddenly, woops, 40th birthday and bye bye baby.

These Xers regarded babies with open suspicion, and were too chuffed with their corporate and career success to stop and smell the roses. Their next Beemer and Dior suit were more tantalising than screaming babies. What WERE they thinking?

So I am in the vanguard of Women Actually Choosing To Breed, Just For The Hell Of It. And FYI, I'm a Gen X / Y "straddler" - born in 1978. Being a straddler is quite fun.

While we, who actually chose to have a baby rather than having it thrust upon us, don't (yet) have an army of nannies to do the job for us, there are still plenty of resources in our toolkit.

Television is the first and most obvious. There are kids my age who grew up on Sesame Street, and this gave them a world class education complemented by expert skills in reading texts and critical thought. Most of them, unsurprisingly, work in high level media positions and their factory-working mums and dads are breathing sighs of relief that not being around for their kids' early years didn't seem to harm them.

Today we have not only the traditional TV shows like Sesame Street and Playschool, we have CeeBeebies on all day with delights such as In The Night Garden, and we have unlimited shows to download. Dora and The Wiggles get the most airplay at our house.

Dora has taught my daughter Spanish words and how to share. When my four year old niece met kids on holiday in Spain she understood that not only did they not speak English, but she could have a basic conversation in Spanish - thanks to Dora. Dora has better language lessons than Sesame Street according to a recent Harvard study - challenging my old-school mum in her assumptions that modern animations are a load of junk (her words not mine).

I credit the excellent Brainy Baby series with teaching my daughter the alphabet before 18 months, and saving me many trips to playgroup, because she's surrounded by friends and animals all day (when she's not at daycare). Our big screen TV makes it look like the kids are life size, so that saves mummy an awful lot of time and expense in silly excursions she'll never remember.

Before I wax lyrical too much about TV, I will point out there are other great tools for raising your kids cheaply by other people - the park, the beach and childcare are also excellent options.

We'll revisit this topic further down the track because it deserves an extensive and thorough analysis. I just wanted to introduce the concept by pointing out that while babies seem a terrible investment at face value, you can easily increase their ROI by using TV to raise them and training them to work from an early age.

The Nanny Economy

I've never smiled when my kid wrecks my work

I should elaborate on the title of this blog. For me, The Nanny's Dead, not because I don't want one, not because I killed her, but because in my part of the world they cost $200USD per day. So for now, I spend $80pd on childcare.

If it is true that women are starting to out-earn men, and have out-educated men for over a decade, it might be about time for Australia to admit it needs nannies, and at least extend any childcare benefits to nannies.

Everyone thought it was amazing that we got paid maternity leave a year ago, but the $10,000 payment was not really aimed at high earning women and kind of came about 20 years too late. And was rounded off with a litany of insults against women not staying at home and Doing the Best By Their Children. A lot of people in 2012 Australia think that if a woman chooses to have children she has to pay for them - never mind the benefits of raising children. We might as well import all our food (ala Singapore) and import all our future generations.

Better late than never, but let's really get up to speed. Let's look around to see what the rest of the world are doing. There's Canada's thriving nanny economy, which rewards nannies for three years service with residency. I am quite intimate with this particular quirk as my husband's first wife was a Slovakian who had gained Canadian citizenship after working as a nanny for a few years. That's a pretty cool bonus for the working women of Canada. I understand Switzerland and several other countries have a nanny migration system.

I would love to have a Cambodian or Thai nanny but for me to even consider this I must be prepared to pay a minimum wage of $50,000 a year for her to get a 457 visa to Australia.

Is this not a little ridiculous? There are thousands of women in Australia who really want a nanny but don't have a spare $1000pw lying around and are not sure about the visa issues around employing a backpacker. My understanding is you must ensure she leaves your employ, or the country, after less than 12 months.

Which doesn't give you much time to get to know the Nanny. Which would be particularly unfortunate, points out my husband, if she were a hot Swedish blonde.

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.