First World Problems

There's a hashtag on Twitter called #firstworldproblems. People use it to acknowledge that their moan isn't all that important in the general scheme of things.

For example, 'we've run out of hummous LOL #firstworldproblems'.

There is so much awfulness in the world that I often find it difficult to watch the news or read about it. Of course I care, but there is so much that is wrong that it threatens to overwhelm me.

It angers me that starving children in Africa are my problem. There is enough food for everyone if only it was fairly distributed. Even so, I still try to do my bit. I join in with bloggers by raising awareness for Save the Children or World Vision or Unicef. I sponsor people for running or walking or whatever. I donate to charities, but it's never enough.

How do we reconcile this suffering with our comfortable daily lives? We have to make the best our lot in life, whatever that is. We have to care for our children and raise them to be decent people. Our problems are all relative, but they are still problems.

Sometimes we just like a good moan. Our tickets for the Olympics may arrive while we're out. Those oranges in the fruit bowl aren't very nice. There's nothing on the telly. We haven't had much of a summer. I can't open Tweetdeck or Google Reader without rolling my eyes or wanting to tell someone to eff off.

We have to do something about the bees nesting in our roof. I don't know many decent tradesmen. My children squabble all the time. I'm trying very hard to get over my disordered eating. I'm fat, frumpy and can never find the right coat. I need to get my roots done.

I can't keep my house clean and tidy, or play with my children, because I have a slipped disc. It's painful.

My best friend is very ill.

I hope I can find a parking space at the hospital LOL #firstworldproblems.





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First World Problems

Wordless Wednesday - Beeline

Wordless Wednesday - Beeline

Where do babies come from?

Some conversations can be tricky, but not always in the way you may think.

4yo: Where do babies come from?

Me (only pausing for half a beat): Mummy and Daddy have a special cuddle, then a baby grows in Mummy's tummy.

3yo: Is there a baby growing in your tummy, Mummy?

Me: No, darling.

4yo and 3yo (sadly): Oh.

3yo: Can you grow a baby, Mummy?

Me: No, love, Mummy is too old.

4yo: You're not, Mummy. Please can you have a baby girl. I haven't got a sister.

3yo: I'd like a sister, Mummy.

4yo: I'd like a sister, Mummy.

Me: Sorry, boys, and (changing the subject) we need to made Daddy and Grandad some Father's Day cards.

I was fine with the sex education for pre-schoolers aspect to this conversation. I guess I'd already thought about my answer before I gave it. I was honest, but not graphic.

What rattled me was how I feel now. I'm 42 and won't be having any more children.

I had it in my head that 40 is the cut-off for having babies. I made up this life rule years ago, based on 'the risks'. I'm generally risk averse, but having children isn't like saving money for a rainy day or deciding not to do a bungy jump.

Andy and I found having two children within a year was Quite Hard Work. We decided then that we would stick at two children. It's not quite so demanding now. They go to the toilet themselves, they dress themselves, they feed themselves, they play, they sleep. In September they start school.

If I was a few years younger... If I had met Andy a few years earlier... If I wasn't so fat... If I didn't have a slipped disc... In an ideal world I'd be pregnant now. I'd have a baby in September.

I can't tell you how much I wish I lived in an ideal world.

I wonder if the longing for another child ever goes away?


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Where do babies come from?

God Save the Queen

1977 The Queen's Silver Jubilee

There was a party in my village, on the rec. Tables and chairs were laid out in long lines. The tables were covered by flimsy plastic cloths, their red, white and blue edges flapping in the breeze.

We ate sweaty ham sandwiches. The thick grey margarine made my mouth feel funny. I ate jelly from a cardboard bowl. I had to go home to be sick.

There was a fancy dress competition. I went as Noddy. I wore a red top and blue shorts. My mum drew big red spots onto a yellow scarf with a felt tip pen. She made shoes and a hat out of blue and red felt; both had bells on. She drew circles on my cheeks with red lipstick to match the scarf. This was our go-to fancy dress costume for several years in the mid-70's. My mum wore it too. One time my dad dressed up as a woman. He wore a blonde wig. I loved that wig. Another time he dressed up as an Arab. He wore a sheet, a tea-towel, sunglasses and sandals. He carried a fat cigar as a prop.

Robert, who lived next-door-but-one, should have won the fancy dress competition. He dressed up as Dougal from The Magic Roundabout. He crawled along on the grass with a straggly rug on his back. He had a paper-plate mask on his head with Dougal's face on it. Everyone said he looked brilliant.

The judges from the Parish Council came round and gave first prize to a girl dressed as a Victorian. All she did was wear a long skirt, a white blouse and a shawl. Even at the age of seven I rolled my eyes at the injustice. The silly old duffers probably chose her because she reminded them of their childhoods. Everyone said Robert was robbed.


2012 The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

I have my Jubilympics bunting ready to go up. I'm hoping it will survive being up from the end of this week until the end of the Paralympics in September. I have my special edition Marks and Spencer tins, and a sequined union flag tote bag, and a Paralympics scarf from Our Greatest Team Rises and flags for us to wave at the Olympic Games. I'm having to resist the urge to buy a Jubilee tea-set and picnic-ware, although I do have tea-towels and mugs. We don't eat enough of the stuff to justify a jar of Ma'amite, but I bought one anyway.

There's going to be a street party in our village. I am ridiculously excited at the prospect. I'm imagining a good old-fashioned knees-up. I know a lot of parents from the school gate, so there should be some familiar faces there. There will be a bouncy castle, welly wanging and rolling pin hurling (for the ladies), and a drunken tug-of-war.

Bring it on.

God Save the Queen

Why I'm glad I have sons

When I was pregnant, both times, I secretly wanted a boy. I'd have been thrilled to have daughters too, of course, but I really wanted sons. I've had a tough time being a woman. I've been better at my job than men, worked harder, but been paid less. I've been overlooked, particularly at work, and I've been ridiculed for having (large) breasts. Now, as a fat, frumpy, forty-something mother, I feel invisible.

The grass is always greener, but life seems altogether easier if you have a penis. You can pee anywhere, for a start.

I have two sons, Presley and Cash. They are aged four and three and are becoming aware that there are differences between boys and girls.

I am raising them to be civil children. I chose the word civil carefully. You can not be civil if you despise one half of the population. I am also raising my sons to be feminists, like their parents.

We're not nearly as extreme as some parents in our dislike of gender stereotyping. We currently have no gender confusion. They are boys. They love playing with cars, they love trains and dinosaurs, aliens and pirates. All pretty typical of boys their age. They also push their teddies around in pink pushchairs, wear hair clips and spend a lot of time colouring-in. They fight over who has the pink cup at breakfast time. They are still boys.

Recently they told us that they were playing a game at nursery and they wouldn't let the girls join in. When we asked why not, they couldn't answer. They've never watched Peppa Pig, but Cash told me 'only girls like Peppa Pig'. Again, he couldn't tell me why, he was simply observing or repeating something from nursery.

I am appalled in shops that there is such a pink/blue divide. Feminism has been around for decades, but the obsession with pink and princesses is escalating. What does that teach girls? Madonna summed it up for me on The Graham Norton Show. She said that even when we're strong, powerful grown-up women, we still have a nagging feeling in the back of our mind that our prince is out there, ready to rescue us. This is Madonna talking. Madonna.

The obsession with 'pinkification' continues as girls get older. As tweens and teenagers they're bombarded with passive female sexual images in magazines and music videos. Andy's friend has a daughter. On her 13th birthday a friend bought her a present in a Victoria's Secret bag. Her father felt nauseous as her friends chanted 'thong, thong, thong'. She's 13. The Playboy bunny is a huge brand, plastered all over pencil cases and other products aimed at young girls. Let's not even mention Primark and their hideous padded bikinis for seven year olds. Urgh.

Of course, it's not just girls this is aimed at. Our sons see this crap too.

I need to figure out how I'm going to counter this superficial nonsense and teach my sons to respect girls, even when girls don't appear to respect themselves.

I get it though, I really do. I know how girls feel. I remember being a teenager and wanting to look sexy, to get a boyfriend. Hey, I remember being single in my late twenties and I still didn't have much self-respect. I chased after 'bad boys'. Sure, they wanted to get into my pants, but they didn't want to be my boyfriend. I confused sex with love. I think Jerry Hall has a lot to answer for with her statement that 'a woman needs to be a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom'. No, Jerry, a woman needs to be loved and respected.

It's even worse now that the porno look seems to be so mainstream. The boob jobs, fake tan, ratty blonde extensions, plumped up lips and bald fannies. Yes, I'm looking at you Katie Price. These girls are in newspapers and magazines, and on television. You can't get away from them. Who is telling women they should look like dolls? My guess is there are a lot of men who hate women and some of them run the media. No matter how far feminism has come we're still being kept in our place by men who want to have sex with passive, pouting, bald-from-the-neck-down dolls. These men are suggesting to my sons that women are only worth shagging if they look - and act - a certain way.

Well, I am going to rage against this. I am going to teach my sons about equality. I'm going to teach my sons to respect men and women. I'm going to teach my sons to be civil. Once they are older we'll have the big awkward conversations about relationships and condoms. For now we're going to lead by example. They have loving, caring, feminist parents. They have strong grandmothers, one a fantastic matriarch. We are all civil.

Why I'm glad I have sons