Some things we argue about

How hard is it to hang up a wet towel instead of leaving it on the be, soaked through and more than likely to never smell of roses ever again?
Very hard? Or not hard at all.
Very hard, he seems to think.
Every morning, the same thing.
Wet towel, almost strategically placed on top of the bedspread.
- At least I made the bed, he says.
And that's it. At 7.35am we argue.

Everywhere in this country, Damien is born, and born, and born again

What mother does not think that they are doing their child the biggest favor in the world by stop working and staying at home, spending their undevoted time to them? 7, or maybe even 8 out of 10, I guarantee you. Guess what?
You are most likely making them a huge disservice, catering to their every need, teaching them that you will wait on the 24 hours a day, not giving them a chance to ever, ever learn through trying by making mistakes, by hurting yourself every now and then.
It's not malicious, but a lot of times, we create a false sense of security by building up a very distorted reality that our little angels will mistake for true.

We drive them in the car everywhere. We have every snack you can possibly imagine packed, ready to be served within seconds of the slightest hint of a dissatisfied sound. We talk to them in fake baby-voices. We are always there to stop and solve any conflict that might ever happen in the playground before they even take place. We teach them that they will never have to be bored, and God forbid, they will never have to make up games of their own, because we will always, always be there, putting everything else we were doing away to yet again read that wretched Thomas the Tank engine book instead of saying, 'Not right now, mommy is busy.' We show them that they will never have to eat anything that might possibly look or smell a little different because we have all the time in the world to make them the dinner that they will eat. They will never experience pain because they'll never have a chance to graze their knees, or bump their head on the kitchen table.

By doing this, and more, we will create little monsters, and they are our future.

Too much is always a bad thing

Pediatricians exist to make the average mother's life hell, and that's a fact.
With their charts, statistics, and personal opinions they take real pleasure in filling us with worries about how much, how little, not enough or on the way to obesity everything is going wrong in our children's lives. They judge, they frown, they preach and they make us feel like we are not worthy of our own children.
Children has existed since the dawn of the world, yet never has it been more difficult to be a parent than it is today. There are research, statistics, charts and figures to show us how to deal with everything, down to the smallest detail. Never has it been easier to obtain advice about anything concerning our children, but never before has it been more confusing. And in the midst of it all is the all mighty pediatrician, each and everyone with his or her own set of rules. I've started to dread check-ups as much as I used to fear PE swimming in third grade, so, a lot.
He's eating too much, he's not eating enough lumpy food, her teeth will rot, she's on the road to autism, if you do vaccinate, if you don't vaccinate, are you still giving formula, are you still breastfeeding, what ever it is, it's not enough, or far too much.

The statement 'as long as he seems happy healthy' doesn't seem to work anymore.

Our home is our own private government

My mother-in-law raised boys to become men. Today, he's more traditionally conservative in-laws look at him and say: He's one of those 'hands-on dads'.
Like, he can change a diaper!!
My mother-in-law didn't do gender stereotypes. As far as she was concerned, in her home, everyone chipped in to get the job done. Her husband, who couldn't even make himself a cup of tea before he married, soon learned not only to cook a Sunday roast, but to do a pretty damn good one too. Shocking, I know.

After posting the questions about equality-definition the other day, I realized that it really doesn't matter much what the government does to help families create balance in the home. If we are not up for changing our attitudes within our own personal sphere it's not gonna work anyway. It has to start in the home, from the beginning, otherwise it's a lost cause. We can get all the paid paternity leave, job-shares, shorter working days and cost-affordable day-cares we want, but if mommy is still doing all the ground-work in the home, it's not gonna change the signals we send our kids anyway.

So you're a woman and your fed up with being stuck in the trap of home-making and being a full-time mother. You'd like to work? Earn yourself a little money? A little independence? Would like to send a positive message to your kids, shake up the gender-rolls a bit?
Good.
But your children won't applaud you for suddenly turning in to a regular Erin Brockovitch, what they will remember is that you came home from a long day at work and still cooked their dinners, washed all their clothes, always made their beds and helped out with the homework, falling a sleep at the table when daddy was surfing on the computer or said goodbye as he left for tennis-practice with the mates.
Guess what your son will be looking for in his future wife? Guess what kind of wife and mother your daughter will become?
Policy change starts at home, in the family.

PS:

Someone told me that it was difficult to post comments on my blog. I have tried to rectify the issue, but if you still experience problems, please email me; angrymotherca@gmail.com, and I'll take a better look at it. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Alpha mothers are the curse on our society

Don't you just sometimes want to ram your Mclaren stroller in to the group of alpa-mothers hogging the swings at the playground, or at least 'accidentally' knock over their triple wet no-milk no-coffee hot-cold americano or something.
This breed of zombie-like women staring at their children, not letting them go for even a second, their vacant smiles glued to their faces as they keep a steady stream of nasal yapping coming out of their mouth:
- Good job, buddy. Good girl - let's grab the bucket, good job, now let's use our shovel to put some sand in the bucket, that's it, good job, buddy, no let's turn the bucket up side down, good job-
I mean, come on, if they don't get bored by the sound of their own voices, please spare a thought for the rest of us.
And in between the nasal yapping of fake enthusiasm is the conversation with the other alpha mothers, the high-pitched, too fast for the human ear to catch, stream of competitive note-swapping on pre-schools, play-groups, toddler science, music fun, which sun-block works and how much of an age gap is appropriate between kid two and kid three?

These alpha mothers reassure me that being a mother is the best thing that has ever happened to them and yet they are sucking every last drop of want out of my own body. Being a mother and ending up like that?

Small words, big definitions

So what is equality in a relationship? What constitutes a relationship built on equality?

Does both partners work equal hours outside the home as well as in the home?
If one partner work and support the family financially while the other partner is at home and they are both happy with that balance, is that equality?
Does it mean to have equal amount of free time/time to oneself, one's individual needs, interests and hobbies?
Is it to have ones views heard and to be respected for those views?

Is it to take out equal amounts of trash each week?

Shall each family personally determine what works for them, or shall we find a universal mould which each individual family should conform to?

To some women, not having to talk curtains and fabrics the cocktail party, but join the men in talking cars and baseball would be enough. Some women feel they have only reached equality if they can be as foul-mouthed as men without being judged. A lot of women would settle for a lie-in every now and then, and would call that equality.

So what is equality in a relationship?
I'm f***** if I know.

Let's forget about the last fifteen years of our lives

My friend of a friend (my FoF), who's husband has been cheating on her, is very anxious to keep the marriage going. She still loves him and want to fight for him. Most of all, she doesn't want her children to grow up in a broken home. He agrees to go to counseling together to talk some things through. Suddenly, in the therapist-room, he trows a bombshell.
- I have never been really happy in this relationship. It feels like you're suffocating me.
My FoF is going mad.
- The wedding, the children, moving in to our house. All of which should be the happiest day's in our life. And they made him more and more un-happy.

The incredible thing is that she is still willing to work through it. She cries, and screams, and goes through roller-coaster rides of emotions, but she's willing to take him back.

Some things we argue about

In the middle of the night. I wake of up from Leo crying, not my husband. Always. He's a deep sleeper. Sometimes I kick him in the back until he wakes up, and then pretends to be sleeping when he comes to his senses. Just to even it out a bit. He can go back to sleep. I can't.
Last night there was no point. I was wide awake and might as well roll out of bed and in to Leo's room. He doesn't have a night-light, so it's dark, and I trip over something on the floor, and end up hurting both my toe, and my shin.
After settling Leo, I crawl back in to bed. My husband is now miraculously awake.
- Is he OK? he asks.
- Uh huh.
...
- And next time you out him to bed can you make sure to tidy away the f***** toys on the floor.
That does it. We're both wide awake, arguing like mad, at 2.30 in the morning.

With a little help on the way we can do big things together

The British government is urging the public services to practice a more "father-inclusive" policy rather than treat the mother as the only guardian in a child's life, yet there is still no talk about longer, paid, paternity leave.

This is the UK. Two weeks paid maternity leave or more is still a thousand light-years ahead of what most US mothers can expect, let alone US fathers, between you and me, US of A has very confused views on importance of family, but that's another blog-post. So let's stick to the point: governments need to change policies in a big way to make fathers inclusive. Only then can we expect fathers to be a natural part of a child's life, and I don't mean being "fun dad" who plays for a few minutes after work, before bed-time, I talk about knowing when to pack for PE, how to schedule a play-date and when to do home-work.

Two people make the decision to have children, yet, somehow, as soon as the child is born, we're one parent short. It's often not the father's fault that he doesn't play at bigger part to play in his children's life; our society often make it plain hard for him.

When I was a little girl I dreamt of being a.... penniless divorced mother of three. Then I would live happily ever after.

I bumped in to a friend of a friend in the book store the other day. She looked pale and tired and in desperate need of a good meal. I haven't seen her for a while, so after the pleasantries I asked her how the holidays had been, and that's when the flood-gates opened.
- Oh God, she said, trying to hold the tears back. I can't do it any longer. If I don't tell anyone I will go mad.
Turned out her husband left her.

Usual story, nothing new. The classic.
He starts acting strange and absentminded, takes even less of an interest than usual in the kids. Does over-time, working late, going on spur-of-the-moment business-trips and when he is home he sits in front of the computer or receiving text-messages at inappropriate times.

All the tell-tale signs of someone who's met a single, late-twenties, no-children, no-commitments, no-obligations woman from work. And two weeks prior to my meeting her in the aisle by self-help section and
sociology at Borders, he moved out, asking her to not only put a brave face on for the kids and the in-laws over the turkey-stuffing and Christmas carols, but also to please not tell anyone until he's had a chance to figure out what he'd like to do.
- Do, as in what? I ask. Hasn't he done enough?
- He'd like time to figure out if he's gonna stay with me or with her, she sighs.
- It doesn't really feel like he can make any demands at all, I say.
- What can I do? she asks. He's got the money. And I'd be left looking after the kids. The little help I got from him before was better than no help at all.
She's quiet for a little while, than she says:
- He says he's been un-happy for a long time. He says that I stopped being fun. It's like he's saying it's my fault he had an affair.
She adds sarcastically:
- Well, I could have been more fun if I wasn't so exhausted all the time. I look after three kids 24 hours a day! If he stopped playing golf and started to spend a little more time at home, maybe I'd find the time and energy to give him some attention. If he stopped acting like one of my kids, and started acting like my equal and partner.
She put the book back in the shelf for self-help and amateur psychology.
- You know - I don't need this. This is war. He can bring it on!

Just what the Doctor ordered

It is typical, I have caught the bugs of my children, and am confined to my house until I feel better. There is no time for me to actually take to my bed and sleep it off, a mother's prerogative is such that she will never be able to be sick, but I will come back very, very soon with some new posts.

Hit him with a stick for crying out loud, and if that doesn't work, stop making his dinner for him!

I have more than one friend with this problem, but one friend in particular is annoyed with her husband for never getting up at weekends and deal with the kids. So all week, he has to sleep because he needs his beauty-S for work, and at weekends, he needs to sleep in because he's had such a stressful week at work. Well, Hello? This is such a cliche I can't believe I'm using it, but since when was home-making (I hate that word BTW) not hard work? Since when did taking care of children not require anything but the sharpest head?
- What does he think you do all day? I ask.

My friend belongs to the more dedicated of mothers, not fully an alpha, but close enough. She drives her SUV around town all day, picking up and dropping off and scheduling activities and has time to do a pot-roast and has all the tupper ware to go with it too, I mean, the woman is a Hellrazer as far as I'm concerned. At ten o'clock she's exhausted and drops dead in bed. She hasn't read a book in years. She has no idea what goes on culturally, she doesn't even know Reality TV, it was that long since she sat down in front of a screen that didn't show Elmo.

Meanwhile, after work her husband still has time to play Tennis, go to the gym, play a few rounds of golf, and comes home to home cooked-warmed up dinners, peaceful silence and no arguments over the remote control. And he gets to sleep in at weekends while she's up making pan cakes and getting the kids ready for soccer practice.
- What would he do if you wanted to go back to work? I ask her. Would he start doing his share of the work at home?
- Maybe, she says. Thing is, he doesn't really enjoy house-work?
Well, who the F*** does?
- And he wouldn't know what to do with the kids, I mean, that's my job.

Honey, your kids are your kids, not your job, and you had them with your husband, and you made this decision together. Did he think it was something that would be fun but that he didn't need to take any responsibility in dealing with them?
My friend needs to get a grip of her life and shake some sense in to that husband of hers. He's not suddenly gonna wake up one day with an urge to do something nice for his wife. She needs to beat him over the head with a stick: "This is our family, this is our home and our children, we started it together and we work it together and we share this, all of it, the good and the bad."

We need to shout it out over the roof tops.

After I wrote the posting on my PPD someone send me a link to this article from the Guardian.

Although I'd be the first one to say that I agree with whatever takes anyone through a rough time, I am not a great advocate of anti-depressants. I think there are a lot of cases where they work, and where they have helped people out of a very bad place, but I also think that there is a tendency for Doctors to prescribe them quite liberally, without sufficient monitoring, and without an agreed dead-line with advice on how to come of them properly. I don't think medication should be used as a final solution, it should be a help on the way, a kick in the right direction, to stabilize a condition together with other means of treatment. The most important thing for a mother with PPD is that she is not left to believe that she is alone in her experiences. If health-visitors, OB-GYN's, nurses and mid-wives where properly trained to spot signs of PPD they could catch falling mothers a lot earlier, and guide them in the right direction. To brush a falling mother of with a prescription of anti-d's is like putting the lid on the whole situation. She's not likely to seek further help, but she's also not likely to actually get to the bottom of what's going.

It is important to inform expecting women about PPD when they are expecting so that they can read and understand potential warning-signs themselves. It should be right up there with epidurals and pain-relief. And it is time that all the cutesy mother-baby books stopped talking about "the mother can sometimes feel a little blue but hey, that's OK". We need to start telling it like it is and be honest about what happens when the post partum experience becomes to over-whelming to deal with.

Mothers need to be able to talk to someone who will listen to them and take them seriously. What they don't need is someone who sends them of with a box of pills, and a "now you will live happily ever after".
We don't want zombie-mothers. We want happy, healthy mothers!

It doesn't matter, at the end of the day, inequality is a lost cause

It is a well know fact that no matter how hard you work at it, after children, there is no such thing as an equal relationship.
The article in the Guardian today comes as no surprise to me. It doesn't matter how hard you try, the mother will know the names and numbers to the pediatrician and the kids' dentist, she will know which morning to pack PE gear, and she will deal with the play-dates, the birthdays-presents and the 20 Valentine's cards that need to be written. Nine times out of then she is also responsible for making sure home-work and violin practice is done. Of course, the mother will be the nagging b**ch and the dads? Oh, they get to be Fun Dad, who come's home and plays for fifteen minutes before sitting down to eat.
Not a bad deal.

Baby talk is cheap

I had dinner with a few girlfriends the other night, some of which I haven't seen for a long time. There was a lot of catching up to do, what's been going on in our lives, how high our hopes are for Obama, are going skiing this year, and so on. And, for a few around the table, inevitably, the baby-talk.

Fact: I am not big on the baby-talk.
I like relaying a clever comment that my daughter made after school, or stating the fact that I will be brain-dead during our conversation because I didn't get any sleep - again, but apart form that, let's keep it real.
There is one obvious reason why this is, and here goes: Talking about your your own children is OK. Talking about other people's children is B_O_R_I_N_G. And if you talk about your own, the polite thing to do is to reciprocate too, and that's where I draw the line.
I mean, come on, we all think that our own little spawns are God's gift to the rest of the world. We think they will grow up a Super Model with a PhD in quantum physics and be a professional, classically trained piano player, that is how it is - but no one else can see what you can see, and if you go on about it too much, everyone is going to think that you are incredibly self-centered - because you are!

It is also not interesting to talk about strollers, play-groups, organic crackers and the latest sing-a-long craze. We are grown-ups and we are intelligent. Why oh, why do we need to let ourselves down like this?
The contra-argument would be that if you are a proud mother (and there is no reason why you shouldn't be), you want to share the joys of your life with the rest of the world. Sure. I can see that. But let's be realistic here. If you are not particularly in to dogs, you wouldn't be that keen on listening to a dog-owner and how she has just potty-trained her Alsatian. If you couldn't see the point of soccer, you'd hate to have to go through every single minute of the Spurs-Arsenal game (yeah, we all know that Spurs lost, yeah). So why on earth do we just take for granted that our children is by default a suitable subject for a conversation?

My time is simply to valuable to be wasting it on things I have no interest in. There was a time when I was young, free-spirited and had all the time in the world to sit around and talk nonsense for hours on end without getting any wiser (and guess what, that was in my life before children!), but these days, I want to spend my time doing things that matter, and, to be brutally honest, other people's children don't matter that much to me.
Also, listening to a group of women squel for hours over nap-times, baby-spoons, zippy-cups and organic snacks gives me migrane since it's so mind-numbingly hard to even try to look even a little excited about it.

And here's the thing: women struggle to claim and define their space in this fast-changing society and they often feel that they get pushed out, brushed to one side, walked all over, as soon as they have babies. Suddenly, their place is not where the fun and action happen anymore, their place is the home, whether they chose it or not. At least, that's what society would like women to think. You had the babies, so now you should have everything you ever asked for, right?

Well, if women want to be taken seriously even after they decided to enter the scary world of no-return, we have to cut down on the baby-talk, literally. If you start acting like you went in to hospital to have a baby, but came out like you had a lobotomy you're going to get written off as a reliable human being pretty sharpish.

Sure, before I get my head kicked in with someones diaper-bag I'd like to point out that I do talk, and I take a deep interest in talking about the children of my close friends, should they feel the need to let of some steam or otherwise. This is not about me being a terrible friend, cold- hearted and emotionally fucked. What I don't buy into is that if you are a mother you should, by default, have to OD on baby and let it take over your life. My children are important to me, but I accept that talking about them might not be that interesting to everyone else, and all other baby-related stuff, like Gymborée classes, organic cheese-sticks and the necessities of two nap-times a day, well, that really shouldn't be interesting to anyone.

Telling like it is - the English way

I love frankness and the straight-talking, no-bull-shit, just put-it-out-there, way to put forward an argument. Why hold back? Just be honest.
After all, we can't all want for the same thing in life, and we have to accept that.

We like to go around in circles

One of the multitude of things that I argue with my husband about is the weekend shopping trip to Safeway. If I have planned to do something with Kate, my daughter, we have to plan this around him, and it turns in to a really big deal and at the end of the day, I am left at home with the kids, like I am the rest of the week, while we all wait for him to get back. The reason? He doesn't want to bring Leo, the toddling terror.
- What the fuck?! I say every time.
- It's just easier if I can do it alone.
- What the fuck!! I say again.
- It's a hassle bringing him, and it will delay me getting him in and out of the car. Easier to just do a quick in and out. (My husband doesn't do anything 'quick'. Rustling up a chicken salad takes him the best part of two hours.)
- What the-, I say again. What the eff do you think I have to do every day? Do you think I stay at home all day? I just have to suck it up and do it. Toddling Terror in tow. That's how it works. That's life.

Ex: I take him to the local grocery store, get him out of the car and in to a trolley, which I then can't leave for even a second in fear of him either falling down trying to pull himself up the shelves or him shop-lifting every single bag of Goldfish he can find. I then put him back in to the car, load the bags, take him to the corner store where I take him out and carry him in to the store because the aisles are too narrow to push the stroller around. I queue for what seems an hour by check-out, nearly breaking my back holding and distracting Toddling Terror from eating all the strategically-placed-right-in-front-of-us-croissants only to learn that it is cash only for parking meter cards, and I have the grand total of a dollar in my pocket, and so, strap him back in to his car seat, drive all the way to the hardware store where it takes me ages to find parking. I have to unload the shopping in order to get the stroller out of the back, and then, as I come back 15 minutes later, I have to do it all again before heading home. And that's one hour of one day, and a good day at that.

- And you are moaning about taking him to Safeway? They even help you out to the car with the bags if you ask them to!
- Well, you do it then. I stay home with the kids and do window art.
It's a foul cop-out and of course, I don't go for it.

There's two issues here.
Issue Uno would be that on weekends, I really like to get myself out of the things that I spend so much time doing weekdays. Like negotiating yet another snack-time, fighting another tantrum over toilet-roll I'd like to not be rolled out all over the bathroom and so on. So sure, technically, I should take him up on the offer.
But issue number Dos is, I'd like my everyday routines to come as naturally to him as they have had to to do to me. I've had to learn, and master the craft of coping with everything with a child glued to me, I've done it skill-fully, and so should he. We are equals and should share everything. Why should he demand get-out-of-jail cards? Do what you have to do and stop moaning about it!

( I know that he would argue that if we are equals why do I keep nagging him to change the spot-lights in the living-room, why not change them myself? And why do I always, always leave old food in the fridge and wait for someone else to find it? Why do I call his bedside table a sorry mess while mine is organized clutter? Well, what can I say? If I was perfect, it wouldn't be much fun being married to me. And by the way, this wasn't about me, it was about him.)

Every one is being hit by the crunch, but who will get back up again?

'The face of the recession is not a woman's.' But fact remains: he recession is hitting women harder than men. Women are the double-losers. Not only will they often stand a bigger chance of loosing their job than their male counter-part, but once lost, it will also be twice as hard for them to get back in again.

Women have been fighting too hard for the right to work outside the home, so let us not lose out to this man-made crunch, the operative word being 'MAN'.

We are used to the pain, used to suffer in silence, so what's the problem?

I pretty much slept my way through the first 18 months of my daughter's life. Even when I was awake, I was sleepwalking myself through the day, isolated from the rest of the world by a veil of zombie-like tiredness. I found it hard to keep my eyes open, and if I wasn't trying to hide a yawn, I was fighting hard to concentrate enough to find my way from one room to another in my apartment.
The health-visitor, who I took my daughter to once every two weeks to have her measured and weighed, and, who's job it was, technically, to see what was going on, always asked me the standard question: And how is mummy doing today then?
- I'm tired, I said. I don't seem to be able to find energy to do anything.
- I know, the health-visitor always replied, smiling vacantly. It is hard with all them sleep-less nights, innit? Don't worry, it'll get better.

She should have seen the signs. But, then again, I never pushed it any further. I never told her that I did in fact get a full nights sleep, because my daughter slept through the night very early, and I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn because she was happy playing in her bed for hours by herself, and even though she was the easiest, happiest creature alive, I still felt exhausted and constantly on the verge of death. For a long time, I felt it was my own problem to deal with, and how could anyone help me if I didn't spell it out to them? (I feel very differently about this today, but that's another blog-post.)

When I finally did muster up courage to talk to my doctor about this, he prescribed me a dose of medication which was supposed to help me up from the black hole and make me function properly. What he forgot to do was to monitor my response to the medication and as it wasn't the right dose for me, it just sent me spiraling deeper down a spinning vortex. I wouldn't be able to give you a specific time when I finally got better. The journey back to normal life was so long, and so full of re-lapses that I have stopped keeping track.

Needless to say, during the second pregnancy both me and my husband was very worried that I would fall back down again and when I finally mustered up enough courage to talk to my OB-GYN about it, she made a few notes in my papers and I felt safe.
This time, both birth and the after-care experience was wildly different, in a good way, from the first time, and I felt very positive that my mental approach to motherhood would be too (this too is another blog-post).

One Sunday night, about two weeks after the birth, we eat a family dinner around the table when the phone rings. It is my OB-GYN.
- I just wanted to call to see how you are doing, and how the baby is.
- Everything is fine. We're doing well.
- Good. Good. And how are you feeling?
I give her an update on the physical state of my body.
- Good. Good. And you? You are doing well? Good. Fine. So I'll see you for your six week check up. Have a good night.
At the check-up she didn't even ask me any questions. She only confirmed that I was in good enough shape for light exercise. That was that.

One thing motherhood has taught me is that unless you're making a lot of noise, a hell of a lot of noise, you're not going to get heard. And most new mother's don't know how to make noise. They are tired, confused, low on energy and very reluctant to complain, because, after all, they are new mothers who should be feeling like they're in seventh heaven. What could you possibly have to complain about when you've just had a new baby?

Even though it is believed that between 13-15% of new mothers experience PPD in the UK, until recently it was still a very taboo subject. In the US, a study made by PRAMS shows that one in five American women suffer too but again, no one talks about it. So many women, so few voices.
It is not deemed as 'appropriate' to be feeling anything but joyful since you're embarking on this supposedly best of all journeys. At a strech, "Baby-blues", or "feeling a bit low for a few weeks", is something that society has taught us to brush off as "hormones". After all, women show all kinds of weaknesses due to our hormones, don't they?

Unless professionally trained (and even there, I have showed you how arbitrary that can be), few people would know how to respond if you told them that you found it hard to put on your own clothes or leave your apartment every day. Or that you can't pick up your baby because you are worried that you will hurt her. Or that you are missing every single mile-stone in her development, the smile, the gurgling, the rolling from one side to the other, because, if you're not sleeping with your eyes closed, you are drifting in and out of a vacuum, not really sure where you are.
How could they understand? After all, you should be smiling. You've just become a mother, what could possibly be wrong with you?

We need to stand by each other

It's yesterdays news- today's fish-and-chips wrap, but I am still mulling over the french justice minister and her baby. I want to applaud her and at the same time I am stunned. Mostly because I wonder if she can manage to up-hold her perfectly immaculate self so soon after the birth. Does she actually have time to do her hair and make-up in the morning before going in to the office or is it all breast-pumping, Abercrombie comfy's and steeling another five minutes of sleep? Personally, I had no use for any other clothes but my pyjamas for the first three months after my daughter's birth.

Having said that, I shouldn't even blog about this as I think it is important not to turn a woman's personal decision in to a public debate just because the woman in question happen to have espresso and croissants for breakfast with President Sarkozy (I'm sure it's not all just work, work, work even in French high office). I have read some very unfavorable comments - almost all of them made by women - about Ms Dati and her choice, but shouldn't women support each other in our decisions whatever they might be?

So women who wants to go back to work are bad mothers and mother's who don't end up raising Norman Bates but we tend to forget that those of us who do have a choice, whatever it might be, are very lucky, and those who don't, well, they need all the support they can get.

When all is said and done you still have to live under the same roof

One of my best friends and I were talking the other night and broached the subject of marriage after children.
- It's a fact, she said. We are still happily married, and we love each other, but our relationship has fundamentally changed since the kids. It is impossible to be the people we were before them.

One thing that I really didn't expect from motherhood was that my relationship with my husband would change so drastically. We went from being best friends with benefits and added bonus on top to two very tired, angry people who argued, and argued, and then argued some more. Seven years later we are still married, and we would probably define our marriage as a happy one, but it's like my friend said: we are different people, in an different place, and there's no turning back.

Priorities change, the balance within the household suddenly starts weighing very much in favor of the man, it seems, and time, that dreaded, wretched time factor becomes so acutely prominent and suddenly, that rock-solid thing called love, that you thought you had for granted, turns so incredibly fragile that you run the risk of ruining what what you have by every new damn argument over who's turn it is to do the dishes.

An average argument, of course, would be who's right it is to feel more tired. We're both light sleepers, so we both wake up at night if the kids do, and we both find it hard to go back to sleep. Next day, he's going in to the office, sitting in front of his computer, and I'm trying to keep it together for the kids whilst fretting over the fact that this is yet another day when I am too tired to do all those things I need to do, take those pictures I promised my friend, write that short-story I've been meaning to send of for so long. By the time my husband and I see each other again some time in the early evening, bed-time routine beckons and we are fighting over who should bath the kids, who should help with home-work, and who should just have the right to crash on the sofa, because, by God, we are having a competition about who is more tired, comparing notes on how many times we were close to nodding off during the day.
- I did homework yesterday.
- Yeah, but I bathed two kids, and read three stories.
- But I made their beds two days ago.
- So, I do that all the time?
- But I am so tired. I had x meetings and no lunch.
- I had x melt-downs and no dinner.
- I haven't even had a chance to sit down all day.
- And me? What do you think I have been doing all day?
- I really am more tired. I only slept five hours.
- Only slept 4,5.

You get the idea....

Most of the time, I'd say, nine out of ten times, we manage to solve the arguments calmly and nicely and we both know that we are going through a stage in our life where logic and reason really don't feature but still, ten out of ten times, before the "I'm sorry"s and the make-ups, I will have had "This is it, I won't have it anymore, this time I'll f****ng divorce him!" played on repeat in my head first.
That's just it. You go from being so passionatly and madly in love with your partner and the relationship you have together to being tolerably respectful but also hating and loathing each other more than you ever thought was possible.
A lot of people can't see it through. Divorce-rates in families with young children are sky-rocketing.
Personally, my husband and I are doing our best, but sometimes, every day is an on-going struggle.
To be continued....

A little background

One of the first things that hit me as I became a mother was how isolated women became as soon as they stepped out of the hospital with their new baby and in to their home, where they are expected to adapt this new role as a mother and subsequent house-wife as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Having a baby is not only physically challenging, it is also a mental fuck-up which will take long time to get used to, and there I was, in London, with no support-network, having to find mother-baby groups, learning to maneuver my way around Babies 'R Us and find new and exciting playgrounds to discover. This was very new to me. I had been working as an TV advertising exec, and I knew my job, how to hide a terrible hang-over from the boss, and where to find the best Sunday-brunch.

Some women have planned their own motherhood since they were little girls. Diapers and rash and snugly-toes comes natural to them. But most women, I dare say, find themselves lonely and confused and with no-one to talk to. They become isolated through motherhood because they are suddenly forced to know their way around a a brand new environment without manuals or instructions.

As I was sitting through yet another mother-baby group without being able to share my feelings with anyone I felt more and more desperate. It was clearly obvious that most of these mothers felt as exhausted, and fed-up as I was, yet everyone tried to smile as if nothing was wrong. We were all acting like lobotomized maniacs on Valium.
It was quite scary.

Yet I was telling myself that it must be something wrong with me. I did something wrong. Why wasn't I enjoying every single second with my new child? If all the other mothers were happy, or at least tried their best to be happy, why did I have to go against the grain, as always?

Late night on a school-night?

I have discovered that staying out late on a school-night is not a motherly thing to do. Especially not if you pair your lateness with a few drinks.

The talk amongst the mothers at school pick-up is that you should refrain from leaving the home after six o'clock mid-week, and only stay out until no later than 9.30 on a weekend. If you really feel the need to drink (and why should you as you drive because you couldn't possibly take a cab because that would be way too... what's the word?...inappropriate?) you should definitely stick to one glass of wine. Or one cocktail - but that's pushing it.
There are still a few decadent souls who likes to flaunt the fact that they still consider themselves rock'n roll enough to talk both loudly and openly about how they go out to dinner with other mothers mid-week, and have at least one glass of wine and stay out until eight, or even nine o'clock. These mothers regard themselves as adventurous and young at heart. These are also the mothers who come up with the crazy initiative of a "mother's only-night" where one mother invite the rest of the mothers to their house for finger food, strictly BYOB, to talk about......your kids. And school. And after-school activities. Just like you do at pick-up. But with a glass of wine that you are desperately sipping very slowly so it will last the duration as you can't possibly be seen to want another glass.

And then there is the exception, the special mother, who not only goes to dinner, but then also rounds of her evening back at home, at 8.53pm, with a mojito.
- That was probably not a very good thing to do on a Tuesday, she says, and looks for sympathy, but secretly she thinks she's really cool and out there.

One mother was complaining yesterday about how tired she was when having her mother and sister around for dinner because they stayed 'till 11.30.
- 11.30!!! Can you believe it? I mean, come on!!!
Mojito-mom's jaw hit the floor.
- That is just too late.
- She turns around to me:
- I have a friend visiting from out of town. I have not gone to bed before ten o'clock three nights in a row now. I am starting to feel it.

OK. So do I or do I not tell them that I went to a gig last week and didn't come home until 3 or after? I am thinking it's probably not a very good idea.

Another new start in my life

I woke up one morning and found myself being a mother. A very reluctant mother, the pregnancy was not planned, but a proud and happy mother nonetheless. Or so I thought. It took me the best part of five years to battle post-partum depression along with my conflicting feelings towards having left my job behind and being financially supported by my husband, and this was on top of the every day struggles of coming to terms with motherhood, learning to always have a stocked up snack-bag, not forgetting the stuffed monkey and trying my hardest to enjoy - to actually enjoy - the mother-baby groups I forced myself to go to.

The fact of the matter was, I found motherhood to be quite boring, but I found it even harder to be able to tell other mothers how I felt, mostly because the response would always be a blank stare with glazed over eyes and a slow: what do you mean?
And don't get me wrong, I love my children, and I love spending time with them (after five years, we finally mustered up enough courage to go through another surprise-but-welcome-pregnancy). I wouldn't change things to save my life. Trust me on this one.
But I don't buy in to the whole image of the perfect mother, the full-time alpha household boss who schedules play-dates, cooks five different types of exotic breakfasts, who organizes her children's lives down the very last soccer-practice and who most of all seems to thrive on these so-called challenges as if her life depended on it.
Motherhood was never a project, or a job, to me. To me, motherhood is a natural part of my life and it shouldn't take over my existence to the extent that I end up loosing myself and my identity to it.

In playgroups I found it hard, actually, impossible, to strike up a conversation that didn't focus on nap-times, baby-yoga and different types of pureed vegetables. I would try and talk about a book, a film, a restaurant I'd like to go to, and suddenly the chatter around me would stop.
"Uh huh. That's nice....", and the conversation would go back to mush and diaper rash.
I couldn't help but wondering: Do we really need to give up ourselves in order to be good mothers? If we do, are we happy mothers? And if we don't, why do we feel so alienated?

Another thing I found very hard to come to terms with was being financially dependent on my husband. I was born and raised by full-time working parents, and a key around my neck to let myself in when coming home from school in a country where maternity-leave lasted more than two weeks and where work-commitments where less stressful and demanding than they are today. How could I accept that not only would my maternity leave be next to nothing, but the society I lived in (England, UK, at the time of my daughters birth, USA at the time of my son's) would make it virtually impossible for my husband and I to build a balanced home where we would be able to acknowledge our working commitments, which is a big part of who we are, without our children suffering from having over-worked, stressed out parents they never really saw.
My husband, who is, I might add, the best man in the whole world, has done everything he can to help me accept that right now, our situation is far from ideal. He has supported me and encouraged me and he has let me know how proud he is over what I am doing. He also says that he always knew that I would never be your archetypal housewife, all apron and dinner waiting for him at the kitchen table after work, and he loves me for that.

But all around me I still find my self surrounded by women whose husbands demands will sometimes surpass those of their children, who end up running a household like a full-time nursery rather than that of a home built on equality and respect. I am still mystified as to whether these women are happy with their lot, or if they are just hoping for things to magically change one day.

So this is me and my blog.
I am a full-time mother trying to keep my identity intact.
I go to gigs, I go drinking with my friends. I have hobbies, I have ambitions, and I have fights with my husband. I always wish I could be a better person, and I never have enough time in the day, but it has taken me seven long years to get to where I am today, and there is still so much to do, so much we need to change in society in terms of our view on motherhood, our approach to families with children, and our perception of women as second-class citizens.

This is not a political or academic blog, but it is my story, my opinions, my frustrations and reflections. I hope you'll like it.