Tag Archives: confident mums & baby massage

April 1, 2012

 In The Guardian yesterday, Bibi Lynch wrote an article entitled Mothers, Stop Moaning!  because she is sick of women complaining that motherhood is hard. It pissed me off a bit…

I feel her pain because I wanted children and I have children. I adore my children and she’s right – the love I feel for my children is like nothing else I have experienced in my life. I do appreciate what I have in my life but I don’t need to be preached at because she didn’t meet Mister Right and I did, because I wanted a family so I had one. Just because she doesn’t have her own children, that doesn’t give her the right to tell mothers that we can’t have a moan about mine when we are pushed to our limits and need to let off some steam and gather some support.

 

With the greatest of respect to Ms Lynch, unless you are a mum and are used to juggling the demands, squabbles, needs, responsibilities of your children as well as working, making sure the house is slightly presentable and making time for the husband, friends and family, you have no idea what it is like to walk in a mother’s shoes. 

Being a mum isn’t all about love and cuddles and feeling fulfilled – it’s about responsibility and worry and guilt. It’s about dropping everything when we need to because our child is ill; it’s about not sleeping whether they are a baby, a child having a nightmare or a teenager who isn’t home yet; it’s about educating and teaching and guiding; it’s about mopping up tears when they fall out with friends or don’t get invited to a birthday party; it’s about learning patience, it’s about having happy children; it’s about finding and giving our time to our children; it’s about being selfless when we would quite like to be selfish and do something for us…

And it’s not just babies who are exhausting – 11 years into my parenting journey and I am tireder now than I was when the kids were very little. Life, for me, is a chaotic mix of kids, their friends, homework, schoolruns, no you can’t have an iphone, no you can’t have a sleepover, housework, teaching, writing and then doing my admin at midnight, not to mention finding time to have sex with the husband. But I wouldn’t swap it for a second, it’s my life, my choice and I am happy, but I am knackered so I will have a bit of a moan ta very much!

 

I’m a bit dumbstruck by her rant actually because I don’t see the point of it – we all have issues and baggage, we all have something we can’t have, life is bloody tough sometimes.  Just because this woman didn’t meet her Mister Right and, therefore, has been unable to start a family, is not the same as being unable to have children. I know women who have had miscarriage after miscarriage and women who have had so many unsuccessful attempts at IVF that they cannot bear the emotional torment anymore. In my opinion, that is a very different place to be.

I have three children – two growing girls who create havoc, chaos, noise, frustration, laughter and love everyday and my dead baby son, who I miss and long for every day.  If he was alive he would be almost 5 now and I would be moaning about him too!

In her article Bibi Lynch writes “I can’t tell you how painful not having a child is. My heart drops every time I read a “We’re pregnant!” email”  Well, I can’t begin to tell you how painful it is not having the child I carried, grew and bonded with for nine months, who lived for three days and then whose dead body I cuddled, willing him to wake up. I sympathise with the writer because being a mum and having my children is everything to me (even though I occasionally need to lock myself in my bedroom to get some peace, or dive into the wine bottle at the end of the day) but she made her choices in life and she didn’t start a family. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss my child and my arms still ache for him, it wasn’t my choice that he left us but life is tough and painful and I pull myself up and get on with it – with the help of the husband, amazing friends, chocolate and some bloody good therapy! I don’t need to be told how lucky I am that I have children, I look at the photo of my dead boy everyday, feel that pain of missing him and count my blessings for what I do have in my life and then I’ll moan at my girls for being so messy and noisy and have I told you how tired I am…

 

 

Posted by Janine Rudin in antenatal classes, birth&babynetwork, parenting Tags: baby groups, confident mums & baby massage

March 30, 2012

A little while ago someone sent me this link and it made me think about me before I was a mum, the judgements I made and how differently I feel about parenting and children now. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t judge others on their parenting – it’s all so different for everyone, we all try to do what works best for us and our family and some days it’s just so hard to feel like we are getting it right! But I wasn’t always so wise. When I began my family I was the first of my group of friends to do it, so contact with children was fairly minimal. So here are my apologies…

 

I’m sorry to all the parents I judged when your toddlers were kicking off. I have now been there, done that and just about lived to tell the tale. Now I smile an understanding smile to mums who are trying to deal with a tantrum with as little fuss as possible because no parent wants their child to have a meltdown – we don’t want to look like we can’t handle our child, we don’t want to look like we discipline too harshly or that we give in too easily and are raising a spoilt brat.  It’s all very complicated and a tad stressful!

 

I am so very sorry to breastfeeding mothers because, before I went on to breastfeed my daughters to one and then two years old, I’ m afraid I judged women who breastfed their babies beyond the newborn stage – they were hippy, needy people and what was wrong with a bottle? Of course I was young and completely uneducated about breastfeeding and my views changed when I had my own babies.

 

I am sorry to the parents who, I thought, just stuck a dummy in their baby’s mouth to shut them up. Well  the last laugh was on me because, when my baby’s were small , I was jealous of every single one of you when mine refused to take one and, after so many attempts with my first, it felt like it was something else I had failed at.

 

I also judged the parents who allowed their children to sit in front of the TV – by three months old my first baby used to chill out with The Tweenies, how else was I going to sit on my back side with a hot cup of tea?!

 

Before kids I didn’t get the all consuming exhaustion and the ‘really-couldn’t-care-less-about-my-appearance’ attitude. But I have now experienced being so tired that I could have gone out in my pj’s and, when I went back to work when my first baby was 6 months old, I considered it an achievement to make it to work in clothes, it didn’t matter if they had baby puke and snot on them and I mastered the art of wearing my hair in a bun because I was too tired to wash it let alone brush it!

And, finally, apologies to work colleagues who didn’t get my full understanding when family came first. When I cast a look to a designer because he was on the phone to his wife who needed support because she was on her own at home with a week old baby, when I complained about colleagues arriving late and leaving early when they needed to and when I didn’t truly engage in conversations about their baby’s development, lack of sleep and poo! After ten years of being a parent I have, of course, been there – I have been criticized by work colleagues, I have been on the phone to the nursery to check on my baby daughter and I have bored everyone with the day to day details of my children’s routines and my lack of sleep. It’s what parents do and it’s now my job to listen and I love it!

 

Being a parent has taught me an awful a lot about tolerance and patience and individuality and about being non-judgemental. So I truly do apologise for being a judgemental grump but I’m all better now and I don’t wear my hair in a bun anymore! 

Posted by Janine Rudin in antenatal classes, birth&babynetwork, parenting Tags: baby groups, confident mums & baby massage