A Simple Song

In the nineties, when I learned to use makeup, the whole idea seemed to be to make as little difference as possible to your natural face. Hours were spent deliberating between eyeshadows with names like Ecru, Bone and Shell; if it was a really special occasion I might break out the Mushroom. (No, not that sort of mushroom).

Things are different now. I stand at a makeup counter in John Lewis in Oxford Street, feeling old and out of touch. Should I pick Bird of paradise, Neon, or Pop? Which one of those says 'the grandparents are babysitting and I've got a night off, baby' most effectively? I decide on Bird of Paradise, because it's true - the babies are being sat upon and J and I are off to see the Shins. The tickets for this London show sold out in sixteen minutes and I got two of them; I scored them from work a few weeks ago, frantically pressing 'refresh' on my computer while the interns shouted encouragement from the sidelines. I haven't been so excited about anything since... well, since I saw Radiohead in 1998, I suppose.But now the day is here, I feel disoriented too - I haven't done something like this for such a long time and I find that I don't really remember how to do it.

I wasn't even sure what to wear. I know that everybody else there will be wearing confusing shirts with logos I don't understand; shirts that have obviously come from some Hipster Palace of Awesome that I've never even heard of. None of them will have to check their cardigans for evidence of some small person's mucus, and if they are wearing cardigans at all it will only be in some sort of hip, ironic way, rather than, you know, to actually keep warm, like me. I can't keep up with that. In the end, I wear jeans and a striped top from the Anthropologie sale because I just want to be comfortable, dagnabbit, but now I'm regretting it and some new eyeshadow seems the only way to redeem my confused, out-of-touch self. I realise it's unlikely that James Mercer will see me up on the balcony and say 'Hey! You! Onstage now! I must have you for my muse!' but if that does happen, I want to make sure my eyelids don't let me down.

I take the package and slip it into my bag and wonder what to do next. J is still at work. I've left the children with his parents and travelled up to London and I have an afternoon to myself. Shouldn't I have something urgent to do? Apparently not. I may be on my way to an utterly awesome gig, but I'm still a woman in my thirties who is renovating her attic so I go and look at fabric swatches and request some samples.  Then I go to the hotel and put on my new makeup, layering it on until my eyes look bruised, and then I get on the tube and now it's the date and the time that it says on the ticket and here we are, it's time.

I meet J at the tube station and we go to grab a burger, but I'm so excited that I can't eat it.  I know I'm ridiculous but I can't help it - I'm absolutely giddy with anticipation. Any moment, I could breathe in some carbon dioxide that has actually been inside James Mercer's lungs. It's too much to take in. We go to the venue, me faster than J's long legs for once, dragging him along and saying hurry, hurry! I don't want to be late!

We are definitely not late. This is how out of touch I am - I'd forgotten how boring it is waiting for the main act to come on stage if you turn up at anything resembling the time printed on the ticket. Also, I have no idea why the support act are wearing surgical masks. Would I understand if I was younger? If I didn't have kids?  Is there some kind of airborne pathogen I should be aware of?  This is dull. J and I start to play Angry Birds.

Then The Shins finally come on, and they hit the ground running. They kick off with an incredible version of 'Kissing the Lipless' and the crowd goes crazy - okay, I go crazy, anyway. I was hoping they would start with this! I say to J and clutch his arm in excitement. He says why? and I look at him like he's got two heads and say because it's awesome, also it's the first song from the first album of theirs that we bought, obviously and then he looks at me like I'm the weird one, even though he has heard these CDs as often as me and really, there's no excuse, he should totally know these basic facts.

It just gets better and better. I love the songs from their new album and they are even more amazing live. The Shins is exactly my very favourite sort of music - downbeat lyrics with upbeat tunes, sort of a bit Smiths-ish, I guess - and I'm as happy as I can ever remember being.  There's so much energy and I'm bouncing on my chair like a two-year-old because I'm just having so much fun.  It's not like I don't like my normal life. It's not like it isn't fun watching DVDs of 30 Rock on the sofa and eating pasta, but I'd forgotten what it felt like to just be swamped by a wave of fantastic music, to be in a room where everybody is being carried along by the same tide and everybody is feeling it (except, maybe, J, who would possibly rather be dropping eggs on a pig wearing a helmet). Right now it seems to me like every minute of my life that hasn't been spent at a Shins concert was a total waste of time.

My favourite thing about live music - any kind of live music - is that you can be totally absorbed in the experience but at the same time, your subconscious is footling along in the background and you find yourself suddenly thinking about stuff, stuff that you didn't realise was even in your head until it falls out. I'd say that a really good concert takes up exactly three quarters of the brain, leaving the other quarter to wander down strange, deserted alleyways.  I guess that means live music is sort of like going for a run, but without the pesky shortness of breath or unattractive sweat circles. I find myself thinking about the people onstage and wondering about their lives.  I know the frontman is married with two kids. Does having two kids feel to his wife like it does to me? Or does being married to someone famous (and presumably rich) insulate a person from most of the inconveniences that go along with everyday life for the rest of us? Does she have a cleaner, at least? I bet she gets to go to more live music than I do. But then, my husband doesn't go on tour. She's probably at home, on the phone to her mother, right now, complaining that he's off having a grand time while she's stuck on her own looking after the kids and her life wasn't supposed to turn out like this and she has dreams too, what about her dreams? Or maybe they've brought the kids on tour and she's sitting next to me. Gosh, if so, I hope I didn't say any of that out loud. But speaking of women - there's a girl in the Shins now. How did that happen? It seems odd to me, but I can't really put my finger on why, apart from the fact that she looks about eighteen. Also, that guy playing the keyboard - his hair! Ouch. Definitely the world silver medallist in Bad Indie Hair (with the gold, of course, going to Darwin Deez and his frankly ridiculous ringlets). And then they start playing New Slang.

If you didn't think that post-punk pop could do bittersweet visceral yearning, you haven't heard this. Suddenly, without warning, this song catapults me back to 2007, when we went on holiday to Wales and had this CD on repeat in the car the whole time. It poured with rain that whole week - in fact, that whole summer - and we were miserable. We were in the middle of the horror of trying to make a decision about how to have a family and I couldn't think straight for sadness. The couple in the cottage next to us had a little baby and I would run past their front door in the rain and glare at them damply and get in the car and turn this up. I had forgotten about that.  I loved this song, and every time it came on I would press repeat to hear it again.  The line that always stuck with me was: If you took to me | Like a gull takes to the wing and I know this is cheesy  but I used to listen to this and think about that image, two people taking to each other in a way that is irrevocable and natural and somehow immediate and right, like jumping off a cliff together and finding out that you can fly. I wondered if I would feel that way about my baby; I wondered if my baby would feel that way about me, if we would ever have a baby at all. And in a matter of seconds I'm not sitting here any more, I'm that old Claudia again, somewhere else, heartbroken and lonely and hollow and willing to trade all the freedom in the world for what I have right now, two precious children to tuck in at night. 

The song ends but I still feel dizzy. I feel like crying and I don't know whether it's the smash to my emotional solar plexus or something else. Probably it's just that I'm up past my bedtime and I'm overexcited; too much time spent looking after toddlers and it seems I've become one. I want some juice. They do another number then leave the stage and the crowd begs for more - and they come on for an encore and do three more incredible songs.  I'm myself again by the end - waving my arms with excitement and glad, so glad, that I work with people who are young enough to explain how to get tickets to shows when they are going to sell out quickly. 

******

A day later. We've picked up the children; disassembled their travel cots and packed up their highchairs and thanked the grandparents and driven back to our house. It's good to be home. I like my home, and I missed my kids, these kids I fought so hard to find. This life feels very stable and anchored and I wouldn't change a thing but sometimes I get the urge to wriggle out of the ties that bind me and leave that weight behind and fly, just fly away. 

I shake off that thought and turn my ipod on to  scroll through my ipod to get Artist>The Shins > All Songs>Shuffle. I press play and let the melodies wash over me again, the perfect studio mixing reminding me that this is not the same.  

It's not the same, but it'll do. And then I go downstairs and get out a chopping board and I cut up some potatoes for dinner.

Something That Other People Do

I sometimes find myself in a social situation where I need to say, politely,  "I'm not sure I agree with what you just said about that ethnic group".  In my head, this feels like a non-confrontational way to get a conversation going that doesn't use the R-word - racist - but it never seems to work as well as I hoped.  Here is how those conversations go for me.

When I say: "I'm not sure I agree with what you just said about that ethnic group" it seems that most people hear I think you are a bad person. I hate you and your whole ugly family. And then they get angry, and then they aren't listening to anything else I say and then we're both angry and I wish I'd never opened my mouth, even though I knew that I really needed to say something.

A comment about what you said is heard as a judgement on what you are. I think this happens because, as a society, we've tied ourselves into a big ugly knot when it comes to talking about race and racism. We've made racism such a huge taboo that we've set up the following logic chain within people's heads:

1. Racism is really, really bad
2. Therefore only bad people are racist
3. I am not a bad person
4. Therefore I cannot possibly be racist. 

Racism is such a big ugly word, such an unforgivable sin, that I think it's only ever conceptualised as something that other people do; bad people, people who aren't like me. I think this means that most people can't even consider the possibility that something they have said might be racist, or on the path towards it. The way they think about themselves just can't allow for this possibility.

I think this is incredibly unhelpful. I find this tricky because hey! Racism is bad! But I think we're all predisposed towards it, too, and I think that our failure to admit this to ourselves, to each other, makes dealing with the issue as a society worse, not better. After all, how can we address a problem in our attitudes if we won't admit it exists? It's much easier to shunt the problem to the sidelines, as an issue that only members of the KKK or people who shoot innocent teenagers or people who shoot Jewish schoolchildren need to deal with. Much less constructive, but much, much easier.

Admitting the alternative - that I have a problem with this too - is far from easy. It was a big deal for me to realise that I, personally, struggle with racial prejudice. I mean I struggle personally. I mean that I find it easier to assume good things about people who look like me. I mean that I am prone to leap to conclusions about groups of people based on stereotypes. I mean that I am working on all of this and I've come a long long way but it does take work. I mean that I wasn't born with an attitude that truly sees all people as equal, that never gravitates towards people because they remind me of myself.

I don't think any child is born with this attitude; not really. Children start to 'sort' from when they are very young. They don't know about race but they can see skin shades and they aren't stupid; of course they use it as a sorting tool, as a way of determining who 'belongs' and of course they are sometimes unkind about it and sometimes downright horrible. Why does this surprise us? Why would we expect that kids would get this right? People who think that children are pure and know no evil - have you ever met a child? Children do a whole lot of stuff that I wouldn't want to see in an adult: tantrums, hitting, biting and a whole lot of  smearing vegetables in their hair. Our job as adults is to take all of their baser instincts, face them head on,  and guide them towards being the kind of adults that we want in society. This includes being adults who have learned to see people for their whole selves - including ethnicity and skin - but not define them solely by it. It also includes not telling the world when you are about to poop, but that one is a long way off in our house.


It seems to me that racism is the ugly flip-side of the desire to belong. Humans want to be part of a group, and that's a good desire. But wanting to define my group too easily turns into defining those who are not in my group: not liked, not welcome, not equal. Excluding one group of people fosters a feeling of belonging in those who are included. Children love this, and adults often love it too. Stretching one's definition of belonging to include people who dress differently from me, look different and speak differently is not automatic. If it was automatic for you, if it never, ever feels like an issue - well, good for you. That must be nice.

And I think you're probably lying.

But I feel like this lie is what we all should be saying; anything else leads to much clutching of pearls. It's that only-bad-people-are-racist thing again. (Did you hear her admit that she doesn't always love people who are different? That she is raaaaaaaaaaaacist? And her with those two precious brown children!)  If I'm honest, I find it kind of odd. After all, admitting that we all tend towards racial prejudice doesn't mean it's okay. Far from it. It's like selfishness or greed or envy or any one of the other awful things that we humans do which come naturally to us. I am ashamed of how far I still have to go in dealing with this, but I'm not ashamed to talk about it. Again -  how can I possibly work on something if I won't admit that it's there?

(It's probably worth saying at this point that yes, I think we are probably all the same on the inside when it comes to this issue. I don't think that Black people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people are any 'better' than White people. I don't think they are made of different stuff.  I don't think their almond or cocoa or copper hearts are any purer than my peachy-pink heart, even though it's us peachy-pink ones who benefit from most of the power structures that are in place in the West. I'm sure that people of all shades have their own heart issues to work on. But in a way, that's none of my business. It's vanilla-flavoured racism I need to deal with because I am White). 


And I am dealing with it. My thoughts and attitudes have changed immeasurably over the last few years, and I'm nothing but glad about that. The irony, of course, is that when I knew absolutely nothing, I thought I knew everything. I thought I had nothing of which to repent. And now that I know a bit more, I realise how far I have to go.

Being racist isn't about being a good person or a bad person. That's not how it works. It's too serious an issue to pretend that it's something that other people do, something that only bad people need to deal with. I still don't know how to talk about this issue with people who are still at the 'denial' stage, but maybe I need to work on being more open about how I think this is actually something that affects all of us; including me; especially me.

So. My name is Claudia (well, okay, actually it's not) and I struggle with racial prejudice. And I bet you do too. And I would love to reach a point where one of us would be able to say to the other "I'm not sure I agree with that generalisation about that group of people" and for the other to then say  "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I was being prejudiced. Thanks for calling me out; I need to work on that". And then the first person would say "Any time; and by the way, I think your family is very good-looking" and we would high-five each other and go on our way.

A girl can dream, right?

In On It

While we were waiting to adopt, I remember seeing my mother-in-law standing in our hallway, looking hopelessly at our shelves and shelves of adoption books. "Are any of these books for me? I just wish there was something about adoption that I could read" she said, and I wished there was too. Once when she came over, she pulled Joyce Maguire Pavao's The Family Of Adoption off the shelf, hoping that it would be the 'grandparents' guide' she was looking for. Now, that is a really good book but it is not a grandparents' guide. Neither is this, or this, or this, or this or anything else that was on our shelf.  There were a few books aimed at family out there, but they were mostly hopelessly anodyne - anything really helpful about adoption parenting is going to be fairly raw in places, and that's not what she or I were looking for. 

My mother in law was the only person who directly asked me for a book, but there were a lot of people I would have given it to if one existed. There was so much I wanted friends and family to know about adoption, but every time I talked about it I got upset  because they never seemed to ask the right questions or say the right things or read my mind like I wanted them to. I was definitely hypersensitive, but (some) people also say some crashingly dumb things. It would have been better all around if they could have had those crashingly dumb misconceptions corrected by someone else, someone who wasn't me, someone who would take them by the hand and tell them all the things that I wish I had the presence of mind to think of.  

It turns out that what I needed was In On It, by Elisabeth O'Toole. This is a book about adoption for people who care about adoptive parents (or parents-to-be) and who plan on loving their kids, too. It's an overview of adoption - what is it, what does it feel like, how does it work, what does it mean? aimed at the interested bystander / grandparent / brother-in-law / friend. The author (who is lovely, by the way) recently sent me a copy to review (and once again, I'm going to stress that no, I'm not getting any money from this review or anything else on my blog).  When it arrived, I opened it up and started flicking through it and within minutes I was hooked.  I started reading... and kept reading... and didn't put it down until it was finished.  I could tell straight away that this was the book I needed back in 2008 for my mother in law. So. Can you tell I am about to rave about this book? Well, I am. I am about to rave about this book. 

Here are my three favourite things about this book: First, its tone is extremely generous. It assumes the best of the person reading. It assumes that the reader has nothing but the best intentions and really really wants to do and say the right thing and be there for their friend / relative as they go through the nightmare rollercoaster confusing process of adoption. It isn't sarcastic, it doesn't condescend and it doesn't treat the reader like he or she is an idiot. Revolutionary, I know. But that is a lot more than I could do in person when we were waiting to adopt.  I was easily offended by people saying the wrong things. I was easily upset by people putting their feet in their mouths, or even just putting their feet near their mouths. I was prickly and defensive and hurting and I was not feeling generous. I wish I could have given some people a book that would have been generous on my behalf, without me actually having to screw my face into a smile. Win-win! 

My second favourite thing: It's respectful of all the people involved in adoption. Even the subtitle (What adoptive parents want you to know about adoption) is respectful - it doesn't assume that adoptive parents speak for everybody. Again - revolutionary, I know. This book talks about the different ways that adoption affects adopted people and first families (again with the revolutionary!) but doesn't try to speak for them. Another big tick. 

And this carries through to my third favourite thing, which is the hardest to articulate: I was really impressed by the way this book deals with the sensitive topic of adoption and loss / trauma in children. It's so hard to get this right, and this is what I found most difficult when I was talking to people about our adoption before we adopted - in fact, I still do. I found that most people I talked to about adoption didn't really have many opinions about it - which is fine, obviously. But those who did seemed to fall into one of two groups. The first was 'adoption loss, what adoption loss? Adoption is great! Who doesn't love adoption?'  which was a nicely cheerleader-ish attitude, but made it difficult to talk about attachment strategies, issues of race and how our family would be different from other families.  The second group was 'adopted kids have seen too much and suffered too much. They're damaged. I wouldn't want one of those in my house'.  (The second group was not my favourite. Obviously). 

I found that it's really hard to talk honestly about loss in a way that says these kids are vulnerable, but they are valuable. They have suffered; they have faced difficulties and sadnesses that most of us will never need to, but they are precious and worthy and fully human. I really thought this book did an excellent job of talking about the realities of what adoption is like for a child in a way that is compassionate rather than fearmongerish.  (Not actually a word. I know. Sorry. But you know what I mean). 

Here is the one thing I didn't like about this book: It wasn't around in 2008, when I really needed to hand it out like candy.

Which is not to say it's too late to read it now. I'm no longer an adoption beginner, and I found this book really helpful and very moving. Anyway, you should all have a copy, especially if you are still pre-adoption, especially if you are at any stage of adoptive parenthood and have family who are well meaning but occasionally clueless (don't tell your family I said that about them),  especially if you have friends or relatives who have adopted / are adopting and want to be even more awesome and supportive than you already are.  Did you miss the amazon link above? Here it is again. (This is a US link; there doesn't seem to be a UK link). And here is a link to the author's site with more information about the book and other ways to buy. 

While I was reading my copy, I originally thought that I would do a giveaway and let one of you lucky ladies get your hands on it when I was done. But when I finished, I changed my mind immediately. You're all going to have to buy your own copies - mine is going straight to my very-supportive, now-quite-adoption-educated, but I-think-she'd-still-enjoy-it mother in law. 

Still

I am still sick. I'm about to enter week six of a low-grade but beastly virus and I feel utterly depleted. 

Yes, I am solely responsible for the existence of MRSA. 

I want to say something profound about this experience but really, there is nothing profound about mucus. 

I am just so tired. We have our annual church day of prayer tomorrow and I have never felt less like praying. I know that the less I want to pray, the more I need to pray, but I'm worried that the moment I close my eyes I'll fall asleep and snore. Also - speaking seriously - at the moment I am finding it so hard to deal, spiritually, with the chronic discouragement of the everyday. I have wrestled with God over Big Things several times in my life and always come out so much stronger in my faith, so much closer to Him. But thorns like this lingering virus and attendant exhaustion and the thousand tiny inconsequential dramas  of life seem to shred my soul in a way that nothing else does. I need to take my eyes of myself and focus on Jesus but I'm struggling. Those of you who are Christians - if you want to pray for me, please pray about this. 

On the plus side, my hair is still bouncy, thanks to the ministrations of my wonder gadget. Several of you have asked for proof so - it's surprisingly hard to take a picture of your own hair, but here it is.  This picture is only impressive if you know what a frizzball I usually am, so you're going to have to take my word that for me, this is as sleek as it gets.  

What? You want my autograph because you think someone this glamorous must be famous? No problem. Five bucks. 

Anyway.  I'm half-way through a book review that I want to share here, but I'm too fuzzy-headed to do it justice tonight. And seriously, people. It's eight thirty. 

I'm going to take some more drugs, and then I'm going to bed. 

Fundamental Error

A few days ago, a friend with no kids said something about my kids that annoyed me, something that made me think 'you have no idea how hard my life is', that made me think 'you should be more sympathetic about the difficulties that I am facing, even if they are not your difficulties'. 


And then I remembered  thinking exactly the same thing from the other side around three years ago. I was talking to a friend with children about waiting to adopt and she said what no woman with empty arms wants to hear: 'Hey, if you really want kids, you can have one of mine!' 


I felt like I had been punched. 


At the time, I thought she was saying 'It's hilarious to me that you are aching for a child'.  Now, I wonder if she was really saying 'I'm struggling with this. Please help me'. I didn't help, of course. I just turned away, burning with anger. 


That comment wasn't an isolated incident. Most women who face fertility problems could write a masters thesis on Awful Things That The Fertile Woman Says and Does. Chapter one is Complaining About Her Children and some of the rest are Not Realising How Hard This Is, My Childless Life Is Not One Long Carefree Vacation You Know;  She Said WHAT? Doesn't She Care About Our Friendship At All?; and Even If She Hasn't Been Through This Herself, Has She No Imagination? 


It hurt me so much that my friends didn't understand how hard my experiences were. It hurt me so much that they minimised and ignored the pain of wanting a child. This is so much harder than it looks from the outside, I remember thinking. I wish you could see just how hard. You think your life is hard, so mine must be easy and it's not, it's not. 


I didn't see that I was falling into the same trap they were. 

Honestly, I had no idea how hard their lives were, and I didn't really want to know. I certainly didn't ask; I certainly didn't want to listen. They underestimated my difficulties but I did it to them, too. It's so strange to be on the other side now. Even after years, I still struggle to reconcile the pain of disconnection and isolation I felt then with how connected I feel to that equal-and-opposite shared mothering experience now. 

I do think that they should have been nicer to me. More understanding. But I'm sure I should have been nicer to them too. 

I suppose we were both in the wrong, my friends with kids and me. We could see that what we were doing was hard, but we couldn’t see that what we weren’t doing was hard too.

Fundamental error of logic.

Fundamental error of empathy.

I think the moral of the story, probably, is that everything is harder than it looks when you’re not doing it.

Confessions

• I haven't done the chidlren's lifebooks yet. I know, I know. If you had asked me before we adopted, I would never have believed that I wouldn't have done it by the time they were two and a half.  In my defense: I was waiting for information from the search we did back in July, then I was waiting for the searchers to do some follow-up investigations, then I got super-committed to finishing the first draft of my book. That's done now, though (HOORAY!) so it's time to get other tasks knocked over while I give myself six weeks off before going back to start redrafting. The task at the top of the lists is lifebooks. Any tips much appreciated. On a related note: 

• We are a two-parent family, but for some reason tasks like lifebooks fall entirely to me. On the other hand, J does all the heavy lifting and gets things for me off high shelves. I think we have a nice balance. On a related note: 

• I love that J works three days a week and does the parenting two days a week. I'm planning to interview him for the blog about this because I think it's interesting. I talked to him about it yesterday and we both think the key to sharing part time work and parenting is that neither of us is particularly into our careers (unless anybody from work is reading this, in which case I am totally into my career). On a related note:

• A few days ago, I was in a meeting at work with a thoughtful expression on my face. My boss asked 'what are you thinking about, Claudia?' and I said 'I'm thinking about how we will get buy-in on key internal stakeholders for this project' but actually, I was thinking about some bathroom tiles that I saw on Pinterest.  On a related note: 

• We haven't had any internet all week. It's been broken (and okay, by 'broken' I actually mean 'unplugged', for reasons that are too complicated to go into. (And - double bracketing here -  by 'complicated', of course, I actually mean 'boring')).  A whole week without being able to pin anything! A whole week without reading or commenting on blogs! A whole week only being able to read email on my phone! It's been incredibly difficult. I'm kind of horrified by how difficult. Now I know what suffering is. On a related note: 

•  I had to go back to the doctor and got my dosage of brain medicine increased.After three weeks of sick kids and sick self and getting really uptight and upset again, I finally admitted that it was time to move up a notch.  It was strangely difficult - I felt so good after the first few weeks that I was sure everything was going to be fine again, forever.  I felt so angry with myself when it wasn't.  I was in a bad place in my head again, and this time the conversation went 'Claudia, you are such a loser than you can't even get it together when you're taking antidepressants. Wow. All of the stigma of medication with no actual benefit. You really DO make bad choices about your life'.    Fortunately I remembered that tone of voice and knew enough to at least try not to listen to it. And apparently it's pretty normal to feel great after starting and then slip, and now that I've got a few more milligrams in me, I feel fine again. Not swinging from the chandeliers, just normal, which is what I want. Isn't that what we all want?   I'm saying this here because a lot of people have read the original post I wrote about this stuff, and I think it's only honest that I do this follow-up. I've been extremely positive about the brain medicine, and I still am, but I probably was a bit overeager to say 'I'm cuuuuuuuuuuured!' and to use the phrase 'magic bullet'. I'm sorry if I said that to any of you. On a related note: 

• I've had to apologise more since I started parenting than ever before in my life. Right now, I've left my children 'napping' despite the fact that they have been wide awake for the last half hour. I'm not going to apologise for that though, since they can't tell the time and don't realise how late it is. I'd better go and get them up now, though, and wash their hair.  But first, on a related note: 

• I got one of these things, (US link - and no, none of my links ever get me any money, just in case you were wondering) and I think I want to marry it. It's a hairdryer with a brush that rotates, ie it has magical powers. You know when a hairdresser blow dries your hair while using a round brush? This thing does all that by itself.  I've only had it three days but I have suddenly become very, very vain about my hair. It's so swishy! It's so shiny! You can't see me, but I'm flicking it right now. I'm so enamoured that I've bought one for my mother for her birthday and I'm pretty sure it's going to get me bumped back up to 'favourite daughter' status. I know my sister is reading this and I just want to say that you'd better get on it if you want to stay in that will. On a related note: 

• I have no idea how to tip a hairdresser. I know that you're supposed to do it;  I just don't know how. My mother never went to the hairdresser (and she cut my hair at home so I didn't go either - is this making you re-evaluate the usefulness of my hair recommendation above?) so I never got to watch how she did it. I had to get my husband to teach me how to tip a taxi driver (because I never used taxis, either - right now I bet you don't believe that I grew up mostly in a major metropolis, not in a cave somewhere) but he cant' help me out with the hairdresser thing.  With a taxi, if the driver says 'eight pounds fifty' I know to say 'make it ten' and hand over a twenty smoothly  and get the right change.  But when a hairdresser says 'that will be six thousand pounds' - or near enough, it seems - I have no idea what to do so I just say 'okay then!' and give them the sticker price.  Because of this, I tend to only go to a hairdresser once. I don't want to get the butchering that would inevitably result from being 'that woman who didn't tip last time'. I really liked my last haircut, though, and would like to return to that salon, so I'd be grateful if you can help me out here, internets.  On a related note: 

• Internet, I'm so glad to have you back. I've missed you - let's never break up again. 

Hamlet Would Approve

I just had to apologise to my son for deliberately pouring a glass of water over his head. What can I say? Mealtimes ain't easy around here, and I finally snapped.

This is how I thought food worked: you try to feed your kids reasonably nutritious food. If they really, really really won't eat the good stuff, you may have to face a situation where you (gasp!) have to feed them (gasp!) nothing but sausages and mashed potato, and, on the bad days, nothing but  (double gasp!) pizza or mac 'n' cheese.

Turns out I knew nothing. Nothing! I would be so happy if my children would eat pizza - they won't even lick it. I'd be dancing on the ceiling if they would eat mac 'n' cheese - they will eat pasta, and they will eat cheese, but they will not eat pasta and cheese together. Seriously, we are talking here about kids who won't eat chicken nuggets. Their eating (or lack of) is off-the-charts crazy. Except that crazy sort of implies fun, and this is not fun. They don't really eat anything. I'm pretty sure they just photosynthesise.

Here is the list of everything that my children will not eat: Ummmm... actually, there's no point typing that out. Basically, it's everything. Everything that does not appear on this next list. So, here is the very short and specific list of food my children will eat:  jam sandwiches cut into the shape of dinosaurs, pasta with butter, fish fingers, pancakes, blueberries (Pink only), frozen peas (ditto) cheese (both, but only 20% of the time) and apples (ditto).

Oh, and they will also eat cake. Or, as they say it, CAAAAAAAAAAKE. It's the only food they truly love - they are like this about cake. Sometimes, in the middle of a totally un-cake-related activity, Blue will turn his little face towards me and say, in a plaintive voice, "caaaaaaaake?" as if I might have just whipped up a three-layer sponge for him while his back was turned. I never have, just for the record.

Thing is - I love food. Love it! It's pretty much my favourite thing. What's not to like about food?  I love cooking almost as much as I love eating, and I was really looking forward to sharing that love with children. Ha, ha, ha. One of my friends recently said "I can't believe that you have such fussy eaters! You are really into cooking, and your kids are, like, the worst eaters I have ever seen!" Ummm, thanks, I think.


I actually did like whipping up the occasional three layered sponge, before I began to find the kitchen the most demoralising room in the house. Honestly, honestly - there is nothing much more depressing than making meal after meal after meal, day after day after day,  knowing that in thirty minutes time I'll be scraping it into the bin after they have said nooooooooooooooo and cried. Again.

If you've been there, you know the feeling. Unfortunately, many people who haven't been there seem to want to dish out advice about how to miraculously get my kids to eat. As if I haven't been trying, or aren't really interested enough to put some effort into making this situation better. Of course, it feels to me like I do nothing but try to make this situation better. And this means that,  whatever they are all primed to tell me, I already know it. I already know it! I'm sorry for sounding prickly about this - it's because, well, I am. It's just so hard to not be able to give my kids food effectively, you know? It's not like I don't care. So. Here is a (prickly) list of things I already know and do not need to be told about my children's eating:

Children object to texture more than taste
They will eat as much as they need and they won't starve themselves
Children need to taste a new food several times before they will accept it
I need to not make a big deal out of it, because they are picking up on my stress
If I was a better person, or at any rate more like the person giving me advice, my children would be snacking on jalapenos right now

And, my favourite: it's mostly mind games, and I shouldn't let it get to me

This is true, of course. I know it must be largely psychological mind games, because they will eat pretty much anything if the person feeding them is someone they don't know very well. Here's the thing, though: not letting something get to you is incredibly easy to say and incredibly hard to do.

 I know that the only way to survive the mind games is to just not make food a battleground. It's not a moral issue, it doesn't have to be a fight. The way we try to do this is following the Ellyn Satter approach of: my job is to decide what we eat and when we eat. The children get to decide if they eat and how much they eat. If they don't like what I serve out, they can eat plain bread but I will not short-order-cook. Neither will I wheedle or plead or emotionally blackmail or bribe or make food into an emotionally charged issue. So, we have an anti-mind-games plan. We even stick to the plan. We do not fight battles about food. Really, it shouldn't be getting to me at all.

What Ellyn Satter never says is that it's also my job not to lose my FREAKING MIND about faking being okay about all of this, and that's by far the hardest part. It's not a decision you make once; it's a constant drain. On a daily basis, 'not letting it get to me' actually looks a bit like this, and it usually starts at lunchtime:

12.15 choosing not to get mad that they push away their sandwiches (even though they are jam, in the shape of dinosaurs, of course) and ask for cake
12.25 choosing not to get mad that they ask for an apple and then don't eat it
12.26 choosing not to get mad that they won't drink any water because it's not in the right bottle, even though the only Blue-approved bottle has been discontinued and I can never buy more, ever again
12.28 choosing not to get mad that they didn't end up eating or drinking anything at all for lunch
12.32 choosing not to get mad that the table is still a disgusting mess despite the lack of eating

Many days, I feel like  choosing not to get mad about food is my full-time job. It sounds trivial, but it's not trivial. It uses up all my daily resources of willpower. , which is particularly hard when there is other stuff going on like sickness (hello, right now) or boundary-pushing (hello, most of this year).

They nap. They wake up. It continues. So:

17.01 choosing not to get mad that they are screaming for dinner, when they wouldn't be so  stupidly hungry if they had actually eaten their lunch
17.22 choosing not to get mad that Blue cries and says No peas! No peas! because he sees me getting the peas out of the freezer, even though I am only adding them to Pink's bowl, like I do every single day
17.43 choosing not to get mad that they don't actually eat anything once it's in front of them
17.44 choosing not to get mad when they ask for cake - again
17.45 choosing not to get mad when they suddenly start frantically shovelling their food in as soon as I take it away
17.45 and 30 seconds: choosing not to get mad when they abruptly stop and decide not to eat anything after all
17.46 choosing not to get mad that Blue wants water, then when I give him water, says 'NO WATER!' and then ten seconds later wants water again, then says 'NO WATER!' when I give it to him, then wants water again, then shoves the water away when I put it down

And that is why, at 17. 47, I picked up what remained in the cup of water and poured it over his head.  He looked at me, shocked and speechless, then said "Blue naughty!" and I said "Yes! You WERE!" and then I took him upstairs and changed his clothes and apologised for getting mad.

And I shouldn't have gotten that mad. Was it mature? No. Was it appropriate? No. Do I recommend it as a parenting strategy? Definitely not. Would my social worker approve? Again, no, no, no.

But, on the other hand: did it do him any lasting harm? No.

And was it a long-awaited, Shakespearean-tragedy-level cathartic experience?  Might as well be honest.

YES. 

A Few Things About Today

• Today, within twenty minutes of waking up, I knew it would be a day spent in the vortex of sick twins. It was tough. 

• Within thirty minutes of waking up, I had decided that the DVD player would probably be on all day. 

• Within forty minutes of waking up, I had decided not to battle about clothes (or, frankly nappies) and left them in their pyjamas all day. 

• Being sick seems to make Pink bossy and demanding, and Blue very sad. To illustrate: Within an hour of waking up, Blue cried and cried because Pink wouldn't let him sit in the toybox with her. Pink seemed quite clear about the fact that Blue was not allowed to sit in the toybox, and told him so in no uncertain terms. She seemed less clear on the fact that she is not allowed to either. 

• He also cried and cried because it was naptime, then because it was time to get up, then because he was still in his pyjamas, then because I changed him out of his pyjamas, then because I put him back in his pyjamas, then because it was time to make dinner, then because it was time to eat dinner, then because dinner was finished. 

• During their putative nap, the doorbell rang. It was a friend from church, needing me to sign something. Defying statistics, she happened to arrive during the 45 minutes I was cramming potato chips into my mouth and watching Alias on DVD. I don't think my day looked to her like it felt to me. 

• I got through the day without once losing my cool at them. I didn't achieve anything else, but I was proud of that.  

• At about 6pm, I was so tired from not-yelling that I fell asleep in front of The Adventures of Spot the Puppy, even though Blue was on my lap and talking to me the entire time. 

• For once, J got home from work at 7pm rather than 8 or 8.30 which meant that he could finish bedtime. It is possible that my frantic texts throughout the day had something to do with that. 

• As soon as he got home, I put on my shoes for the first time, ran out the door and to the supermarket across the road. I dawdled and drew out my errand for much longer than I needed to. I found myself seriously wondering whether yes, I should really get some wok oil or hey, how about an ash removal attachment for my vacuum? In the end I just bought bread and milk. And also maybe some m&ms. 

• I then spent the evening catatonic on the sofa, eating m&ms  with my feet in a foot spa. J gave it to me for Christmas as a joke, but it turns out I really like it. It's very soothing. The instructions say don't add bubbles, but I do it anyway because I'm a risk-taker. The challenge is to get the bubbles up to my knees without turning my lounge floor into a slippery skating rink. 

• On a related note, I really need to get out more. 

• They are sleeping well now, which is a relief. 

• I went in to look at them a second ago, to give me that traditional parental night-time boost. You know, the 'awwwwwww, aren't they lovely, really?' boost that usually comes from watching sleeping children. Unfortunately, this time I just though 'sorry, kids, I still remember how much you annoyed me today'.  I love them, obviously, but.... you know. 

• In eight hours and six minutes, I have to get up and do it all again. Give me strength. And give me calpol. 

I Blame Post-Feminism

At work, recently, I was reading a study about post-natal depression. The researchers did a (very clever) intervention, and found that they were able to reduce the severity and length of PND episodes in post-partum women. They got lots of funding to take it further... to benefit child health. Because after all, post-natal depression is bad for babies.

And that's true, of course, but I couldn't help thinking: isn't post-natal depression also pretty bad for the mothers? Does that not matter?

Not as much as it should. When I was struggling badly a few months ago, I heard some stories from other people that made me incredibly sad. The worst I heard was of a doctor whose patient asked for help because she was struggling with depression and anxiety. When he asked her if she was thinking of harming the children (and she said no) he said "No therapy or meds for you at this stage. Come back if you're thinking about hurting the kids".

Awesome.

That man deserves a giant wedgie, obviously, but sometimes we talk like this ourselves, too. When mothers look at our lives, it's easy to talk as if the only excuse to help ourselves or improve anything is because it ultimately  helps our children. I don't think men talk like this. I think that when a man wants to, say,  go running, he just says that he wants to go running and shuts the door behind him. When a woman wants to go running, she usually has to find some reason why making the time to go running is going to make her a better mother (I'll be a better mother if I get some endorphins; I'll be a better mother if I have some time to myself) before she will let herself lace up her shoes.

I read this article recently (as did every other mother with an internet connection, I think, and if you didn't, FIX THAT NOW) and it made me think about some of this stuff, about how we value ourselves and each other as mothers, as women.

I'm in the thick of young-mothering at the moment. It's hard. There are lots of good bits, but it's hard. It does move fast, and parts of  it are incredibly wonderful, and I can see that there is something special about this time, something that will never come again. I will not always have a child who greets their naked reflection with 'Hello, nipples!' and I will miss that when it is gone. And of course, I already miss this: 

but when children are tiny, they are cute for a reason. If they weren't adorable, we would not put up with their insane demands. We would not let them ruin our lives and then pretend that we don't resent it. (Joking!) (Mostly). 

And people telling us oh enjoy it - enjoy it - enjoy it, it goes so  fast - that tells me that these are the only years of my life worth having. That all that will be left for me in ten years time, or fifteen, is a fading nostalgia for this time, now, when life was worth living.  

What nonsense. 

I think. 

 I hope that I will look back and see, through memory's soft-focussed, gilded  lens, how incredibly privileged I was to mother these two beautiful human beings through their infancy.  But I also hope that, as I am looking back, I will still be mothering these two beautiful human beings. They might not need me to choose their clothes and cut up their toast any more (and please, oh please let them take care of their own bathroom needs eventually) but this, here,  isn't the only way to be a mother. And being a mother isn't the only thing worth doing, either. My life didn't start when I became a mother. It won't end when they leave home. If we had never had children at all, I would still be a person. I love my children, but they aren't what makes me worthy of my space on the

planet. 

(Fellow Christian mothers, I think we have our own specialist version of this kind of thinking. Churches are usually pretty good about valuing motherhood, but I think that sometimes the intense focus on that aspect of what Christian womanhood means can lead to us devaluing a lot of other amazing things that women can (and do) do for God. if we let ourselves believe that THIS IS IT! the time that means something in my life! then we are going to struggle to lead worthwhile, Jesus-focussed lives as our children grow and leave us. Right now, this is my most important Kingdom work. Right now, self-sacrifice and loving like Christ means, most often, changing another nappy with a smile on my face and disciplining my children with consistent love and trying not to scream when they ask me to sing  The Teddy Bear Twist! yet. again. But it won't always be this way.  There will come a time when this job is done and that is okay. That will be a time to find new work, new ways to love other people, new ways to build the Kingdom. It has to be that way.  If we let ourselves believe that intense mothering is the only thing that matters, we are going to waste the next forty years after we have had our turn,  keeping our children's bedrooms like shrines to the time that they were ours rather than saying 'Okay, Lord, what do you need me to do next?')

They aren't what makes me worthy of my space on the planet. Which is just as well. And maybe, whether we enjoy this time or not isn't really the point. And who are the enjoyment police, anyway? No matter how much we enjoy it, or no matter how much time we spend climbing the walls, it's going to end anyway. I think that living, now, knowing that, helps me to keep these sweet and painful days in perspective. There is no amount of enjoying that will stop these days from ending. I cannot wring a day more from this time than I am given, no matter how upbeat my attitude. That's not how time works.

There has to be something else afterwards. I refuse to believe that the next forty years of my life are going to be a wasteland because I won't have toddlers. They are not my only reason for existing. 

So I am trying to learn to refuse to talk as if the only reason to do something I want to do is because it will somehow benefit the toddlers. I think the two are tied together. 

Why do we talk like this, think like this? I don't know about you, but I blame post-feminism*. I think that feminism gave us the idea that our lives should be fulfilling (rather than just the self-sacrifice of motherhood) and then post-feminism told us that we could still get that fulfilment, but that we could get it through motherhood after all. Which, let's be frank, it some pretty serious mis-selling of the whole experience, right? Talking as if motherhood is the only worthwhile (or even the most worthwhile) thing we do reduces mothers to the sum of their mothering, and it reduces childless women to nothing at all. That can't be right. 

This book is very thought-provoking on the subject.  I would like to unpack this a bit more, but I don't want to make this post longer than it already is; I need to go and sit on the sofa for a while and drink some red wine.... (after all, I'm a much better mother if I get a break in the evenings. Ha). 

I think what I'm trying to say is: it's easy to forget that this isn't all there is, that the kids aren't the only people who matter. It's especially easy when we feel guilty about not appreciating this time enough (and we do, obviously, which is why that post resonated with practically the entire western world). 

Kids are nice to have, but we are people too. And that is reason enough to look after ourselves. You, on your own, are enough of a reason to take care of yourself, to go on a date night, to read a book, to occasionally leave your child in bed for a nap for an inappropriately long time while you take a bubble bath. If that self-care somehow helps your kids, that's great. But it's enough to do it for you.

Even saying that, I want to write after all, one of the best things we can teach our children is that the world does not revolve around them! They need to see us having the self-respect to care for ourselves! and maybe that's and true, but it's not the point. And the need I feel to write that is exactly what I'm talking about.

You are reason enough,  tired mother with a teething baby.

You are reason enough, mother whose children have left and gone

You are reason enough, just you, whether you have twelve children or none.

It doesn't have to all be about the kids. 

You are reason enough too. 

*I'm joking! Sort of. I do not have a degree in women's studies. If you do, please don't yell at me in the comments. 

Two Things I've Noticed Recently

I've mentioned before that my children love - no, adore Miffy. In case you haven't met her, Miffy is a rabbit. A small, white rabbit.

Did I mention that Miffy is a white rabbit? Well, she is. Not the peachy, browny, not-actually-white-at-all-but-lets-call-it-white-anyway shade that some of us humans are, but glowing, arctic WHITE.

You know, like a rabbit.

Yeah. So - this is fine with me, obviously. We got series one of Miffy on DVD a while ago, and we loved it. I don't look at the pictures of Miffy and her friends and feeling uncomfortable about race, or worried about what it's doing to my children.  This is partly because actually, Miffy is very diverse programme. It does not only show rabbits interacting; no! Miffy's friends include pigs (pink, of course) bears (brown) and a dog (also brown).  Here are miffy and her friends, circa series one:

So, yes, very diverse. My point is -  I'm not watching Miffy and wondering 'why are all the rabbits white?'. Instead, I am asking more fundamental questions, like 'why is that rabbit talking?' 'why is that rabbit going to school?'  and 'in the wild, wouldn't that dog actually be attacking the rabbit?' 


Along comes series two, and a new character called Melanie. I'm sure the series creators had the best of intentions, but - how can I explain this? I photographed my TV so I could show you what I mean:

Yeah. Now I'm feeling uncomfortable about race. Epic fail, Miffy, epic fail.

*******************

And speaking of pointless, borderline-offensive tokenism: what's up with nappy packaging? What I'm about to describe may be a UK-only thing, (well, obviously in other parts of the world you don't call them nappies at all, but you know what I mean). Or it might be old news to you. But anyway. Here's what newborn nappy packaging looks like over here (this is every brand I could find):

Notice anything? Yeah, all those newborns are white. Here's one exception: 

A very cute kid of indeterminate ethnicity

However. Once you move into the bigger sizes, there are brown kids all over the packets. For example (this is only a sample; there are still white kids in these sizes too, of course)

  But only on the big sizes. It seems to me like all the brown kids are on the big sizes. This can. not. possibly. be a coincidence.  My guess is this: the newborn sizes are the stage where mothers are developing brand loyalty. Those first few sizes, people are still open to switching brands. But after a year or two, who wants to be still thinking about what brand of nappy to put their kid in? Not me, that's for sure. We picked our favourite (which also happens to be the cheapest, which is also not a coincidence) about a year and a half ago. I do not think about what brand to buy now, I just buy it. There could be a big sign saying 'Now with added BPA!' on the package and I would still buy that brand. 

My point is, I don't think it really makes any kind of difference, marketing-wise, what picture the brand puts on the big sizes. So, yeah, when I look at all the white kids on the newborn sizes and then the kids who look like mine on the big sizes, it feels to me like they are saying: We will totally put brown kids on our packets, because we are super-inclusive like that. Just - you know, not at the point in the market where people are developing preferences that result in three years of brand loyalty. 

Did that conversation really happen in marketing departments all across the land? I guess it did.

Am I imagining this? I don't think so. I don't think I'm imagining this.

And then I thought about it, and remembered why I noticed it in the first place. When I was buying tiny nappies, I was looking, (subconsciously at first, then consciously), for a package with children that looked like my own children. I would have bought that brand, if it had existed. And I guess the white mothers mothers with white children want the same thing. And I guess the market says that there are more white children out there than brown children (that's definitely true in the UK).


We are all drawn to children who look like our children, even when - perhaps especially when - we are spending our money. Is that wrong?

I don't think it's wrong. Is it wrong that marketing departments just want to give us what we want? I'm not sure. That's much more complicated.

But it's probably worth noticing, whatever our market power is, whatever colour we are, whatever colour our kids are.