Author: Alison

Looking back to when my kids were little, things were very different to how they are for mums today. Bear with me…this isn’t a, ‘back in the day’ reminisce – I’m not that old! It’s an observation of how much the internet has changed the way parents parent.

When my kids were born we had Gina Ford and her, ‘Little Contented Baby Book’, which was easily hidden under a pile of muslin squares and nappies and most importantly, lost. Without it, we only had our instinct to rely on and other mums’ experiences at the local toddler group, as well as well-meaning relations (who, to be honest, were pretty easy to ignore). Most of it was very real and solid advice and we all managed to muddle though. The kids of this generation are now doing GCSE’s, A Levels and degrees and are going great guns. Then came: Google and the already fragile and exhausted brains of parents were suddenly overloaded with a tsunami of information at the tap of a few buttons. I’m bad enough at using Google for a photo of a rash or a description of an illness, that deep down I already know is only a virus. If I’d had Google at my fingertips for advice on giving birth, breastfeeding and weaning, my brain would have been unable to cope; I would have felt like the worst mother on the planet and would have ended up in some kind of mental institution. The internet is undermining everything that we already know as parents – it’s undermining that most precious gift of all: instinct.

Fast forward to when the little bundle is able to sit up and play with toys – a joyous milestone! Finally, you are able to go and get things done while your cherub sits on the floor surrounded by the mountain of toys you have scattered around her, in the hope of getting some peace. Catch the moment before she can crawl! It was win win – you got five minutes to stop the house looking like a war zone and sprog learnt about independent play. Happy days… but not any more. Nowadays, parents are made to feel guilty for not spending every bloody second on the floor interacting with their little darling, because some twat in Ohio on the parenting forum has mentioned that recent studies show bla bla bollocks…

Next you get to the verbals and that precious time when they start to chat and to express what they want to do. If you listen really carefully, you will hear them telling you that a couple of lumps of playdough or a Mr Potato Head will do them just fine. But no, some uptight mama in Putney, who used to be a Hedge Fund Manager, details a daily craft option on Pinterest. If Pinterest had been around when my girls were small, I would have stuck a post-it with the word ‘failure’ on my forehead, before anyone else had a chance to say it. I am crap at crafts. My idea of doing a craft activity with my kids was making a paper doily and I thought I was a legend! I am of the Blue Peter and stickyback plastic generation and we really know how to use a loo roll. Then along comes Pinterest and it ups the ante with sequins and cotton and special glue that I’ve never even heard of before and suddenly, guess what…parents everywhere find their wine consumption rising disproportionately to Government guidelines, but it’s the only thing that will keep them from drowning in PInterest Stress Syndrome: PISS.

Finally, there’s the children’s party. Now mummies today, I know that you will think I am lying when I say that not 10 years ago, parents everywhere were sticking 20 kids in their sitting room with a creepy, ‘what’s a CRB check?’ clown and handing out a container of bubbles at the end to the sugar-pumped darlings. Nowadays, you cannot get away without inviting the entire class – even the kids your kid hates, finding a theme in July that hasn’t been done by all the little sods whose birthdays are before Christmas and showering them with more gifts as they leave, than they arrived with. One party for a 6 year old I heard of recently, said on the invite that it will end: when the last child is asleep?? You what?!!! Ok, I’ll see you at midnight, cheers! Mums now are putting more thought into their child’s 5th birthday cake, than they gave to their wedding cake. It’s going to get spat over by 36 sugar-junked up rugrats – IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! Just buy a couple of cupcakes from Waitrose, take a close up and stick it on Instagram saying: look what I made for Tinkerbell’s birthday…NO-ONE WILL KNOW!!

As long as a kid has water, a watering can, sand, paint (when you’re feeling brave) and paper, they are happy as pigs in shit and you can sit and feel smug that nobody’s life is perfect, but this is pretty goddamn close, because sane parents=happy kids. My advice for staying sane and not drowning in internet madness: look a little, cheat a little, follow your gut, because it knows best.

Number 1 friend just came round. She looked rather dishevelled. I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking: crikey, camp really took it out of you, love! The kids wanted me to go swimming with them, she said. Of all the days, when I’m on my knees after camp, they ask today. Aha, I thought to myself. That explains why you look a bit ropey and my second thought was: oh god, no. Anything but swimming! Soft play (when they were younger), the park, even Diggerland but please don’t ask me to get in a bloody swimming pool!

Firstly there’s the faff of getting the gear together. It’s at this point the goggle black hole resurfaces. I see goggles when I’m tidying the girls’ rooms. I find them in bathroom cupboards and in the pockets of the car, but when you are about to go swimming there are no flipping goggles to be found, anywhere.

Next, there is the costume…all mine are chlorine damaged aka slightly see through, but I forget this until I am about to go swimming.

Then there is the hair: leg, underarm and pubic. Way too much to deal with when the kids are all waiting downstairs, ready to go swimming. So you scrape a razor around like a madman on a mower, hoping that will do. The reality of this botch job is a rash and some bleeding cuts here and there.

You get to the pool and pay…how much!!! Seriously: to have to share changing rooms with kids (and potentially men) looking under the door, to share showers, with hair clogging up the plug holes and the worst bit: TO SWIM!!!

I looked at number 1 friend, make up less and without her usual blow dry – still beautiful but with that, ‘I’ve just been swimming’ look about her and I reminded myself to just keep saying, ‘no’.

A local stylist, Susie Hasler, has written an open letter to the Daily Mail, stating her disgust at the passive aggressive way it uses headlines to put women down and the lasting effects their reporting may be having on women in general, but most worryingly, on girls. It’s insightful and to the point and says it all in a nutshell really:

As I was applying body butter to my arse this morning – a daily ritual…I don’t know whether it’s the road to the elixir of beauty or just pure entertainment for partner, but it is part of my get up and go routine and I’m hoping that’s what the cellulite is thinking it may as well do, because this woman isn’t showing any signs of a let up. Anyway, I just had a thought about Kim Kardashian. (Before I started blogging in January, Kim was hardly on my radar. I was simply aware of her existence in a world that I didn’t want to know about. Now she seems to be a regular feature Shit. What’s happening to me…?) So, my thought was twofold: firstly, it would take her ages to body butter her arse and secondly, the cost! Or, if her arse is fake, and I don’t know the facts, does it need its own beauty routine? Maybe it’s made out of play dough or plasticine and just has to be moulded and smoothed into shape by her children and their friends on a rainy play date. That would explain how she managed to balance that champagne glass on it: OK kids, listen up! You’re making my backside into a shelf today. Hello magazine are arriving in 20 minutes – get to it!

Ah Kim, I feel I’m getting to know you better now. You are my bridge to another world. A world that is so full of sycophantic bollocks, it will provide me with blogging material forever. I shall go and find you on Twitter.

On Facebook last night, I came across this:

Now, I would say that this is pretty risky. You’ve got to have serious iron bollocks to put something like this up. Which is probably why the person who posted it invited us to turn it around and to describe ourselves in one word, as they felt it is important to take time to think about our own attributes – a great sentiment. The trouble is, I was sitting there and all I could think of was: knackered, shattered, catatonic, pissed. Other people had written really lovely words about themselves: caring, loyal, kind..and the more I read these, the more negative my word became: irritable, unhelpful, telling the kids to make their own bloody tea (I know that technically this is more than one word, but I didn’t care).

Some posts on Facebook, I just don’t get. Like the one that does the rounds where people ask friends to share the post into their own page and comment with a word to show they’ve read it – or something like that! Why?! For a start, apparently only 12% of your Facebook friends see your posts. So I would say that it’s very dodgy ground writing someone off for not replying to one specifically. Yes, by all means write a friend off who has sex with your husband, or posts a picture of you naked from their Hen night in Lanzagrotty 20 years ago on Instagram, but not because of a poxy Facebook post.

I’ll leave you with a card that I have blu tacked to my kitchen door – because it says it all really!

Ps…please like this post and share it on your news feed and when you’ve done that, please comment on it with a word that best describes your feelings when you read it, so that I know that you really read it and didn’t just say that you read it, my friend 😜

We have just finished the penultimate day of our Taekwon-do camp. In plain English this translates as: we’re almost there! I love our camps, I love the kids, I love our brilliant team, I love it when I can sit on the sofa with a glass of leftover wine from the weekend and reflect on the camp so far.

70 children – no problem! Now, this may sound weird to parents who struggle with about 2, but trust me – generally we see their best sides. At pick up, me: your girls are so lovely, always smiling and they get on so well. Do they ever argue? Kids’ mother (with a look on her face): all the time! The hard truth is, that kids are brilliant when their parents feck off. The parents turn up at pick up time and you can track the kids’ little backs, complete with backpacks, to the door, turning into little shits again as they go. Parents actually look suspicious when I tell them how great their child has been all day: he’s always looking after the little ones and loves to sweep up after lunch. They look down at their child, as if they are looking at an alien and are not sure whether to say: well done sweetheart, or: you little bugger! You never do the bloody clearing up at home. You treat me like your sodding slave and beat up your little brother constantly.

During camp the children do various, absolutely brilliantly imaginative craft activities, thanks to two of our brilliantly imaginative team (not me). One of the activities this week was making mermaid’s basket, as we have an underwater theme, and filling them with four chocolates in the shape of shells (these camps aren’t just all about kicking and punching you know!) One of the children told a team leader: I like white chocolate, dark chocolate and chocolate! Hmmm, that’s pretty comprehensive!

One of our wonderfully creative helpers, hiding in the inflatable treasure chest

Yesterday, a camper came armed with a cake for the team. It was very gratefully devoured and during the day I mentioned this to all the children and said that any cakes they would like to bring in, would be gratefully received. At 4.30am this morning, I woke up in a cold sweat, with visions of 70 cakes walking into camp and wondering how we would deal with all the Tupperware. (I sadly didn’t need to worry!)

Number 1 friend showing worrying ‘cake obsessive’ behaviour during camp

So, tomorrow will bring to an end another wonderful camp: wonderful because the children are, truly wonderful little people: learning how to work as a team, how to be kind, how to be sociable and how to sweep up. Wonderful because our team of helpers, from teenagers upwards, are attentive and creative and selfless, and wonderful because every morning I am greeted by one or other of the team with a lovely smile and a: would you like a hot infusion? These days, I just have to get my kicks where I can – even if it is just someone else making me a cuppa!

I just have to have a word about selfies. Firstly, that ‘helfie’. I mean, I am a bad flyer. If there is a weeny bit of turbulence, I panic. If there is turbulence and we have to put our seatbelts on, I have to do my breathing exercises I learnt in my NCT classes. If there was a man claiming to be wearing a bomb, I can’t say what I would do, but I can tell you for absolute bloody certain, it would not involve taking a photo. Our narcissistic selfie obsessed society has finally gone awol.

I was first introduced to selfies by my step daughter. I honestly could not get my head around her obsession to take photos of herself. I’ll be honest, I found it weird. Oh, how naive I was. I now have four more girls who are constantly taking selfies and what’s worse, they are dragging me down with them! Let’s take a selfie mum, they chirp, proceeding to vie for the best position, leaving me in the dud light. When I then dare to suggest it’s a good photo of us, they demand that I delete it immediately.

Every time I turn on my bloody phone, I am faced with another photo of one daughter or another who had hijacked it and taken a selfie pulling a silly face. Why can’t you make nice faces, I plead with them. Why do you have to look like idiots? But the real idiots are the people who take selfies while being chased by bulls or with black bears. There is even a term: selfie walkers, people who climb mountains in shorts and end up having to be rescued at great expense and danger to others – but thank god they have the photo to prove it!

On close inspection of the helfie (hijack selfie) even I can see that the suicide vest looks a bit Blue Peter and I love the fact that, in the face of adversity, Ben Innes is still sucking his stomach in.

So, I leave you with some selfie tips, from a PhD student, who analysed 2 million selfies on the Internet (and that was just Kim Kardashian’s). Because we are all about to be swept away in the wave of the selfie revolution: ride that wave baby, ride that wave!

ps…
you can now get your dirty paws on a flying selfie stick, if that blows your hair back. The Roam-e apparently looks like an electric toothbrush with helicopter blades and it will follow you around for 20 minutes before it needs recharging…please don’t anyone tell Kim…

Listening to Radio 4’s Weekend Woman’s Hour earlier, a lady came on talking about the ladies who knitted socks and underwear for the soldiers in World War One. Literally millions of pairs of socks were knitted. It was a really interesting interview. She mentioned that sometimes, when the soldiers received their socks, they were so badly knitted that they unpicked them and re knitted them themselves! Near the end of the interview she was speaking about the time she spends in nursing homes. She takes in various items of World War One memorabilia and leads a reminiscing session. What a brilliant idea! We all need a prompt to converse sometimes: awkward cocktail parties (like I go to those all the time), weddings when you are an ex-girlfriend of the groom, so the bride has sat you next to the social retard and so on. Just pop an item out of your clutch bag, let’s say a lipstick and talk about it.

Anyway, the interviewer asked for the best story the lady had heard from someone about a string vest and it prompted a boob story. Every woman over the age of 18 has a boob story. I have a boob story – more of that later. Apparently, this very old lady in the nursing home had almost fallen off her chair telling her boob story: it was about her mother, who used to always wear a hand knitted string vest under her clothes. This particular chilly morning, the milkman rang the doorbell to be paid. She popped her dressing gown on over her string vest, answered the door and chatted a while. As she walked back down the corridor having shut the front door, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and noticed to her horror, that her dressing gown had slipped open, revealing her string vest and her chilly, pert nipples each poking through a hole. The milkman hadn’t said a word.

This reminded me of my own boob story, that took place in Bournemouth when daughter 4 was but 3 months old. I was on holiday with my sister in a caravan with 5 kids under 5 – one of those holidays that you go on, when you have no money but you have to get away or you will commit murder. Luckily, I had the foresight to pack a bottle of gin – we got through it. The final photo of the holiday was of my sister, standing outside the caravan in the pissing rain, miming pulling a noose around her neck. In fact, the boob story was the highlight of the holiday. We had one day of sunshine and decided to make the most of it by heading to the beach, where a fairly pleasant and uneventful time was had by all. For lunch we decided to do a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet. The problem being, that five kids under 5 eat their egg fried rice in a jiffy, so we left them all playing in the disabled toilet, where we could (almost) keep an eye on them, while we ate ours. We then headed off to the park, where there was a very enthusiastic children’s entertainer doing a free show in a large tent. We went and watched. At this point my sister abandoned me, with the excuse of needing to buy something in town. The entertainer had whacked on the disco music and was encouraging everyone to dance. I thought, why the bloody hell not, I’ve got nothing else to do, so I joined in with gusto: Agadoo, the Conga, all the old favourites. ‘The mum’s are having fun today’ the entertainer cheerfully boomed out over the PA system, catching my eye and giving me a wink. Eventually, I dragged the kids away. There was no sign of my sister, so we walked through the park, packed with people, struggling with a pram and four little sprogs, to track her down. At this point my flip flop broke, so by the time I saw her approaching me in the distance, I was walking in bare feet. When she got to us, I could see that she was pulling a weird face and I was about to explain why I had nothing on my feet, when she pointed to my chest. ‘Why is your tit hanging out?’ She asked me, as if I might have been doing it on purpose. I looked down and was absolutely horrified to see that my right boob had completely freed itself from my top. No wonder the entertainer was being so enthusiastic, I thought to myself.

That night, my sister and I laughed. We laughed so much that we almost fell off our seat and boy, did we need a laugh. There’s really nothing better than a good boob story – what’s yours?