Month: December 2016

Who says girls can’t fight?

I’d always admired her breasts. Perhaps there was even a little envy. So well rounded and so early – years before mine had woken up. I loved the way they sat in her shiny Marks and Spencer’s bra. I don’t think that I stared and I was conscious that I mustn’t. Yet, I wanted to. I wanted to indulge a little in my awe of them. There was certainly no sexual intent in this. It was pure admiration for something that I didn’t yet have. Something that I knew that I was going to get and I hoped that when I did, they would look just like hers. It was the only real thing that separated us. When we left the swimming pool and squeezed into a changing room together, we were different. Until those gorgeous breasts were packaged up and a t-shirt was pulled over them and a hoodie and then we were the same again – giggling, getting up to mischief, building dens.

Then I heard that she had found a lump. It was Cancer and suddenly we were different once again. We are different, but other friends are now the same. Everyone knows someone. Those two beauties had been invaded by the beast. Now the fairy tale ending is getting the all clear. Being left with a feeling that you are now one of the lucky ones. Lucky? Can’t definitions be strange? The grueling rounds of treatment that sap you into a void, yet they make you feel so lucky for everything you have.

I know she will be lucky. She’s stubborn and strong and that’s a winning combination. Now, I can only hope that we’ll never be the same, but that she will be lucky.

Image result for breast cancer awareness quotes

Burn, Santa Baby, burn

Many of you reading this will have young children. You may well be shitting yourself as we speak, because it’s nearly midnight and you’re yet to think of what the Elf on the fucking shelf can get up to in the night. Because the pressure is most certainly on to make Christmas for your little ones as magical and memorable as you remember yours were. Because of this and only because of this, you will happily be woken up at 6am tomorrow, iPhone at the ready, to record your little ones discovering that the naughty elf has emptied out the sugar and in it are drawn the words: ‘I’m bloody knackerd, ok? This is all I could manage.’ Not one for the boast feed on Facebook or the Instagram photo perhaps. Don’t worry though, there are 17 more days to make up for it (gulp).

When my kids were younger, I too can remember thinking to myself: make the most of this really mind-blowingly, hyped-up excitement, because when they are teenagers, they won’t give a shit. They will have long discovered that Father Christmas isn’t real, they’ll want a lie-in on Christmas morning and won’t have any money to buy Christmas presents, because they will have spent it all on make-up brushes.

Well you know what? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My teens are rocking Christmas! My god, they’ve been rocking it since October. Packages from China have been coming thick and fast! They have been excitedly showing me what they have bought each other and almost giving it away. Presents have already been wrapped and hidden in drawers under beds. Christmas music has been downloaded onto their phones and Christmas songs are hummed at breakfast. Last night, daughter 3 harangued me to put up the Christmas decorations, until I was beaten into submission by her pleading. We now have two trees, tinsel everywhere and even a star hanging from the front door. Christ these teens know how to start a Christmas party!

So for those of you with little ones, who may be concerned that you have limited time to make your children’s Christmas special, I have one word of advice: don’t burn yourself out, because trust me, you have many, many years of this ahead.

christmas-party-dj

Sexual control

sex-ed

As mum to 4 girls, I worry about sex. I don’t actually worry about them having it, because they will at some point and I’ve got to get over that one. My worry is whether they will feel in control. I have more than one reason to feel worried, but for now let’s focus on the fact that nearly three quarters of girls in their late teens said that they heard names such as, ‘slut’, ‘bitch’ and ‘slag’ used several times a week. Boys call it banter, I call it harassment. I call it undermining females and taking away their control.

Kids are accessing porn younger and younger. Kids own mobile phones younger and younger. My step daughter didn’t have a smart phone until she was 17. My 12 year old had one at 11. With the best will in the world, parents can’t always be the internet police. Primary age children are being exposed to violent and graphic pornographic images and common sense tells us that many of them will normalise what they see, in order to try to understand it. The porn industry’s core target is boys aged 12-17. As author Mark Kastlemann said, “Giving porn to a teenage boy is like giving crack to a baby. Addiction is almost guaranteed.”

Schools are a hot bed of risk for our girls and so they must share the responsibility of sex education. Yet calls to make sex education compulsory for all children have been rejected by ministers. This is despite a group of MP’s finding that almost a third of girls aged 16-18 said they had been groped at school. I’m sorry? You what? The inquiry was also told that it was common place for girls to be slapped on their bums and for naked pictures of girls to be circulated among boys. So you see, I really am worried about control.

We can bring our girls up to be savvy and confident females in many areas of their lives, but the world of sex is different. Talking about it openly brings awkwardness and shut down, making exploring the issues surrounding it a whole lot trickier. Their sexual experiences are hidden so far away from us parents, that getting an understanding of their views on it is virtually impossible. “Don’t ever send tit pics” I lamely told my eldest daughters. They both looked at me as if I was a freak. The disdain in their faces made me feel uncomfortable, when I thought it would be the other way around. I am parenting in the dark here and I would appreciate a bit of help from teachers who have an element of detachment. People who can give out the facts to kids who can’t walk away with eyeballs rolling towards the ceiling. Kids who must listen, even if they think that they know it all. My daughters may not want to sit and chat to me about sending naked images of themselves online and the implications of it, but they may feel grateful if it came up in an organised discussion at school.

Yes, I really do feel a bit helpless here. “Ok girls, when you end up having sex with someone, make sure you are in control. Make sure you want it. Make sure you are happy to do what they are asking you to do…erm” Oh Christ, this isn’t going to happen. They’ll have switched off at the first bit. They’ll have run for the hills by the second. Yet this is an area of their life that could completely undermine the confidence that we have spent all these years building up. One photo, one misunderstood,’no’. A life long impact.

I need help. Society needs help. Our kids need sex education in school.