Here be Madness

So, we've sold our house. Which is 'A Good Thing' given the current climate. But we now have to actually move out of the damn thing which is 'A Bad Thing'. Chiefly because of ALL THE STUFF.

We have alot of stuff and most of it is in boxes, completely unsorted in the loft. We are going to rent a house for a while before buying and I am determined not to pay removal men to move boxes of crap from one house into another house and then another. I will banish the crap first I tell you!

But Lord it's hard. I'm very busy at work and more than a little stressed so coming home to fab evening spent sorting through boxes containing such delights as rock-hard play-dough and a 20-year-old ceramic pig collection (don't ask) doesn't rock my world.

Unfortunately I just have to keep my head down, put one foot in front of the other and get through the next 8 months or so.

Why are you moving I hear you ask? Because of schools I reply. Yes, we are those people. We are moving because of schools.

Fuck - just writing that sentence has depressed me.

But it has to be done. We always knew we might need to and so we're just going to do it. We're not moving to get into some top-notch grammar school or anything. We're just aiming for a good comprehensive which seems to share our values. The alternative is to stay where we are, get allocated a tough, failing school and send Thing 1 there until we can get him into the reasonable local high school.

But I can' t do it. I can't spend a summer worrying about which school he will start at. Whether he'll be ok in the really tough school we'll almost certainly get allocated. Whether he'll cope well with moving schools at some point in the future.

I just can't.

The move to high school is tough enough without adding all that into the mix so we're moving to make sure we get something we're happy with. And then we can get on with the rest of our lives which will be such a HUGE relief I can't tell you.

And actually, moving will be good I think - for all that I'm down about the process. We can enjoy the hunt for our next home knowing that it will be somewhere we're going to stay.

It may also work out well in that we can probably get more for our money where we're going so we don't have to have such a big mortgage. That would go a long way to reducing my stress levels for several reasons chief of which is the insecurity of my husband's job coupled with his long term depression.

Living with a depressed partner is a whole other post that I don't have the energy for right now.

I have to say that I'm lucky in that my husband usually suffers fairly mildly and has worked pretty constantly for the last eight years. However, he has had long periods of time on sick leave in the past and I'm always worried that the next down episode he experiences will The One. The One where he just stops getting up, ever, and sleeps for days at a time. The One where his boss eventually fires him.

And moving has triggered a set of behaviours that have sounded alarm bells both our brains.

It spoils the good life we have now, this background worry. We've had some shit times in the past, chiefly when our first child was a baby and I felt like a single parent because his depression made him physically present - and therefore in need of food and clean clothes, but emotionally insular and absent. This caused me to feel a huge amount of resentment and we both withdrew from each other. The following years were equally tough with another baby and the death of both my parents.

But the recent past has been so much better. We're happier now than we've been for a long time. We've re-connected and become a team again and it feels so much better. Which is why the spectre of that black dog returning is so scary.

I think I will just keep my head down and keep putting one foot in front of the other. That's what I do. It's worked up till now.

But any good karma you could throw my way? That would be very welcome.

Wading In

I'm still here - honest. I'm just very busy, and knackered. I found myself doling out oven chips the other day while simultaneously trying to implement some key changes at work. I think this is what they call 'Having It All'. Funnily enough, all I feel I'm having is the shit kicked out of me most of the time.

But it did make me want to write this post and add my ten-pence worth on the cyber mummy wars. Because not enough has been said about cyber mummy wars already obviously.

Now let's get one thing straight - I'm not actually complaining about my life ok? Well only about life's general busy-ness and the not-enough-hours-in-the-dayness of life but that's not unique to mums is it? Pretty much most adults with responsibilities feel like that some of the time no? And I'm guessing they're allowed to moan about it a bit if they want to right?

I feel I have to say this because apparently there are Stay-At-Home-Mums who might read this and think 'Well it serves you right, you're stretched too thin, you're kids will suffer'. And then there will be Working-At-Home-Mums who think 'You think you've got it bad, at least you get to work in an office where no-one needs their nappy changed and latte is easily available'. And no doubt there are some Angry-Of-Tunbridge-Wells types who think that all yobs would disappear if only I would stay at home and bring my kids up properly. And there are bound to be a few Single-With-No-Kids-And-Tired-of-Covering-For-You-When-Your-Kids-Are-Sick types - actually they can just fuck off because in my experience it's not the parents in the office who take most of the sick days. I'm just a Tired-Of-Covering-For-You-Because-You're-A-Bit-Hungover-And-Can't-Be-Arsed-To-Come-In type of person I think.

But anyway, I digress. What's my point? My point is I've been all of those people, the SAHM, the WAHM, the WOHM and lots of other things too. But at no point did I feel under pressure to be a certain way. I didn't feel I had to conform to any stereotype while wearing one of those hats. And yet, alot of the mum wars seem to me to be about this point. That some other group of people - let's call them 'they', want 'you' to be a certain way and you're angry about 'them' trying to make 'you' into one of 'them'.

And this supposed 'pressure' then becomes an excuse to disrespect other people and their choices, sometimes in extremely inflammatory terms.

Now I find myself in a really odd position where I'm disagreeing with the people who are most like me when it comes to this topic. I'm all for 'good-enough' parenting. I don't strive for perfection and I accept that other people will parent differently from me. This seems to be common-sense to me. But alot of what I read from women who seem to hold the same point of view really concerns me. There seems to be this idea that there is a conspiracy out there against 'real' mothers and that everyone is pressured into being a 'perfect' mother. A perfect mother only feeds her child home-made organic food, has a perfect home, a great sex-life, no baby-weight and goes to the gym 3 times a week. The perfect mother doesn't sit in front of daytime trash tv eating her twelfth round of toast having been up feeding a new-born four times last night.

But you know what? I don't buy it. There is no perfect mother conspiracy intended to make 'real mums' feel inadequate. I think the people peddling the perfect mother conspiracy are often those same women who use it to strengthen their own 'real mum' credentials. When my children were babies, the only mothers I knew were 'real mums'. We were all working it out as we went along. Nobody ever made me feel inadequate because I was shattered, and still in pyjamas at 4pm some days. My heaven-sent neighbour who rescued me from my smoke-filled house the day I put food on the grill then promptly forgot about it in a fog of sleeplessness regaled me with her own stories of domestic disasters caused by sleepless nights.

In fact, in my experience all mothers have been at pains to point out that there's no wrong or right way to be and to go with what works for you. I never sit in judgement on other parents when I'm out and about as you can never know what's brought them to the point they're at. It's only some very new mothers who will occasionally lapse into 'Sanctimommy' mode and they soon get that knocked out of them. (Trust me - if you're reading this and think you will never bribe your child with sweets/never let them eat junk food/never use a naughty step/never drag them bodily out of a supermarket/never tell them to just BE QUIET FOR FUCKS SAKE? You're almost certainly wrong. )

Does anyone really feel the pressure to be a perfect mother? Because I don't. I feel under pressure to be other things but not that.

Where is all this 'pressure' supposed to be coming from? Not the media surely? We're not stupid enough to fall for that are we? I don't look like Madonna because a) she has shedloads of money, b) she has a cook, c) she has a housekeeper, d) she has a nanny or two and e) she has a personal trainer. Not because I'm inadequate. And do you know what? I bet if I was sat in a coffee shop and got chatting to Madonna about babies she'd offer up some choice parenting moments of her own. Because mothering and our acceptance of how hard it can be unites us much more than it divides us. But you don't always hear that.

Random Foot in Mouth Moments

This week started briliantly on Sunday when I got to meet up with some British Mummy Bloggers at the Rainforest Cafe. Thank you Susanna (http://www.amodernmother.com/) and Amy for organising this. I know everyone's said it much better than me already but it really was a fantastic couple of hours. It's why I love the Internet - you can make connections you'd never be able to make otherwise. And being surrounded by all these wonderful blogging men and women made me determined to get writing more frequently.

Unfortunately I'm so busy at work right now I can barely think straight. Here I am, it's Wednesday already and I really can't think of a single remotely interesting thought that I've had in the last few days. That is unless detailed technical insights into Oracle rock your world? No? Can't tempt you? You surprise me.

So instead I'm posting more randomness.

So I get out of the tube this morning and there are some charity collectors at the entrance to the station collecting for a charity to help the blind. One of the collectors obviously was blind or partially sighted as he held a white stick. This guy called out a greeting to another guy who had just arrived. Second guy responded with "Hi! Nice to see you!" That's funny right? If I'd said it I would be mortified obviously.

My favourite ever TV blooper was Dicky Davies, sports presenter (anyone remember him?) on live TV saying "And now let's go to the Cop Succer."

Thing2 once had a wormery as he's something of a bug fanatic. One day he found a huge centipede and decided to put it in the wormery too. He's something of a pedant about words and I overheard him explaining to Thing1 that he couldn't call it a wormery any longer as it now contained a centipede as well. He thought for a few moments then announced he was going to call it a buggery! Luckily I managed to persuade him to to remove the centipede!

Favourite saying of the week is by Thing2: "My life just gets better and better."

He's right too - it does - lucky bugger.

Random Thoughts

I've been too tired to blog for the last couple of weeks. Just too much going on. Thing2 was eight years old yesterday and we had lots of family over on Saturday for a party. This entailed much shopping and cooking and also much thinking about shopping and cooking. It's the thinking and planning that eats into all my spare time. Working full-time is fine as long as there is nothing else going on, like having a life. It's particularly frustrating me at the moment as I seem to have found my misplaced mojo and am fired up about lots of things I want to do but I have very little time in which to actually get started.

Anyway, I've thought about blogging alot but I guess that doesn't really count does it? Anyway I thought I'd post a list of the things I'd like to blog about with a view to perhaps fleshing some of them out at a later date.

1) British Mummy Bloggers vs American Mommy bloggers:

I read alot of American blogs. But I wonder about the differences. Americans - more likely to publish very detailed accounts of their children, husband, selves. This may be unfair as there are literally thousands of American bloggers out there who probably don't but I'm deliberately thinking in generalizations. Brits more likely to maintain anonymity of their children, particularly with regard to photographs. Is this a cultural thing? A reflection of the maturity of the mommy blogging thing in the US?

2) Blogging and Anonymity

Two areas: my anonymity and my children's anonymity. As far as my chidren are concerned, I'm unlikely to post much detail about them on this blog. At first I thought this was to do with their age but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I would not have posted alot of detail about them even when they were babies and I'm not sure why this is? Cultural? Invasion of privacy?

As far as my anonymity goes I'm really struggling to sort out my feelings. On the one hand, anonymity is nice in that you can say things you might not otherwise say. Then again, because the possibility exists that someone else might read it, you have to think about what it is you are trying to say rather than just indulging in an emotion dump-fest at the end of shitty day.

On the other hand, it's quite cathartic to indulge in an emotion dump-fest at the end of a shitty day but the idea that you might meet a real, live person who had actually read the dump-fest is terrifying. I think I need several blogs to cover all the hats I want to wear but the chances of me updating more than a couple are nil. I'm treading a middle path at the moment i.e. quite alot of self-censorship going on.

3) Maternal guilt and competitiveness

I think there's too much guilt associated with mothering. Is it a generational thing? A class thing? When did we all get so judgemental? Isn't good-enough parenting good enough? Are parents using their children's achievements to try and bolster their own self-esteem?

4) Spoilt Children

How do you make children appreciate how lucky they are? I'm at a loss with this one. I think I'm lucky in that I've got enough money to provide my children with a comfortable life. However, we're not wealthy enough to spend money without a second thought and my children do sometimes hear the the phrase "...because we can't afford it." But even so, they are fairly careless with money and posessions because they can afford to be. How to impart the value of money and appreciate the things it can't buy?

5) Do I drink too much?

6) Is there any nicer smell than that of an eight year old boy with no front teeth?

7) Is anyone else obsessed with the way their children smell or is that just me?

8) Should I go to bed now? Very probably.

Signing off.