Posted under parenting

A throwaway comment by me on twitter last night led to a really interesting conversation between about 15 of my friends list, split almost exactly in half. Half who agreed with me and half who thought I was being judgemental. The comment?

Now, the difficulty with making comments like this on twitter is the restriction of having 140 characters to make a clear, concise and considered point. I immediately faced fair criticism. “Not everyone can breastfeed” replied more than one commenter. “What business is it of yours?” asked another. Several told me I was being very judgemental. Each of them had a valid point and thus I wanted to explore this a little more both within the context of breastfeeding and within parenting at large.

Firstly, although I breastfed all of mine I didn’t feed any of them for the two years recommended by the World Health Organisation. Findlay fed for four months before starting solids – as was the recommendation at that time – and stopped breastfeeding at 6 months old when he discovered it came faster from a bottle. Nairn managed three months before I had to switch him onto a bottle to administer medication for the reflux that was steadily ruining our mother-baby relationship.

I have never been able to pump more than 2oz at a time and – exhausted with running around after a 4 year old and a fractious, pukey baby – I gave up. I never did get over that and constantly felt guilty about it until my vastly improved breastfeeding relationship with Greer gave me a little closure.. The longest I managed to feed any of my children was 9 months with each of the girls which I was pretty damn proud of, particularly because many of you will remember the battles that we faced – and indeed still face – with Erica’s health issues. Greer stopped breastfeeding when – like Findlay – she realised the bottle dispensed it more quickly.

I understand that breastfeeding can be hard and that for the most part, I had it easy. I persevered through cracked & peeling nipples, through sleep deprivation with a baby who fed all night, through being made to feel a failure because my baby wasn’t gaining weight. I persevered through it because – as we all do – I wanted desperately to do what was best for my children.

And now? My eldest son who was bottlefed for 6 months is a superhealthy genius. My second son who was bottlefed for 9 months rarely catches so much as a cold. My eldest daughter who was breastfed for 9 months is allergic to everything, has eczema and is under observation for suspected asthma while my youngest daughter who was breastfed for 9 months is never seen without a runny nose. Now I can read as well as the next person. I know that breastfeeding protects from breast cancer, promotes intelligence, increases physical contact between mother & baby and therefore promotes the emotional bond. In fact I’m almost certain I heard some self-proclaimed “boob nazi” types declare that world peace could be achieved through mass breastfeeding. You may have gathered that I am somewhat sceptical about the claims around the amazing power of breastfeeding – sure it’s great for the baby, designed specifically for them but I doubt any kid has reached the end of his education thinking, “Well I’m sure I’d have done better if only my Mother had breastfed me.”

I understand that breastfeeding versus bottlefeeding is a wholly personal choice. I have no issues with that whatsoever and I would never intentionally push my feelings towards breastfeeding my children onto another mother because it is a personal choice. Yet, when I saw a photo yesterday of a brand new Mum in hospital feeding her baby with a bottle I had such a visceral reaction to it that I went straight to twitter. Through debating it over last night I realised that my main issue was around bonding because for me, bringing my brand new baby to my breast and watching as my milk nourished and comforted was the “WOW. I REALLY LOVE THIS KID” moment. It was when it suddenly became real that I was a Mum with a teeny tiny person to be responsible for. It makes me feel really sad that the breastfeeding rates in this country are so low and the photo that I saw made me as a Mother feel frustrated at whatever had caused that mother to opt for breastfeeding. Again I will reiterate that I know not everyone can breastfeed but I struggle with the fact that some parents choose not to. I wonder what the breastfeeding rates would be if breastfeeding support was funded to even 10% of what is spent on formula advertising. Would things be different?

Is this judgemental? Well of course it is. I am making a judgement on the actions of another person based on no information or facts whatsoever. Is it a bad thing to be judgemental, particularly around parenting issues? I personally don’t think so. I believe that the vast majority of people are judgemental in some facet – whether that’s over discipline issues, what clothes our children wear, how they behave (and I don’t mean tantrumming) – and in fact, I’d go as far as to say that this parenting judgementalism is what individually encourages us to raise our standards of parenting. Who hasn’t seen a child being screeched at or smacked in public? I know I have and my immediate reaction is, “That poor child. I swear I’ll never treat my kids like that.” For me, the subject of feeding babies is a similar judgement and reaction. I can still remember the first time I ever saw someone breastfeeding – it was my parents’ friend “Auntie” Linda, breastfeeding her first daughter. I remember the bond between them being almost tangible, the two of them staring into each other’s eyes – and I compare that to watching my Mum bottlefeed my siblings and how clinical it seemed to be with little physical contact. Thus, when I see a teeny tiny newborn I feel a pang of sadness that this mother-child pair will never experience that intimacy.

So, what do you think? Do you think you’re a judgemental parent? Do you agree with what I’ve said or do you think I’m talking havers?

Posted under parenting

The fantastic Rosie Scribble tagged me for this meme and I am snatching the opportunity to combine two posts in one, since I’ve been planning to blog about this chap since his recent news broke out. Cristiano Ronaldo, I hereby put you on the naughty step.

(photo credit donttread22 © All Rights Reserved)

When Cristiano Ronaldo announced that he’d become a father recently, I know I wasn’t the only person thinking, “Eh, what?!” when he stated that the child was to be under his exclusive guardianship. What got me wasn’t that the baby had apparently been born to a surrogate, or that the mother was to remain anonymous or indeed that the baby’s mother was not Ronaldo’s longterm partner – it was that whilst making the announcement that the baby had been born several weeks ago the baby was photographed in Portugal under the care of Ronaldo’s sister & mother whilst Ronaldo partied it up in New York. To be fair, Ronaldo did say he was looking forward to meeting the lad. That clearly makes this messed-up situation A-OK then.

To me, that’s not the actions of an excited and devoted new father. Maybe I’m being judgemental but if my babydaddy had gone thousands of miles away for fun and frolics leaving the baby at home, I’d have a few choice words to say about his parenting, his prioritisation and his aptitude for being a father. This whole situation just stinks of someone with more money than sense buying something he’s decided he wants on a whim. It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable to read about and as much as I know this child will materially want for nothing I still feel a great amount of pity because there’s nothing that can replace being loved unconditionally by a parent. I truly hope that my gut feeling is wrong though, that Cristiano Snr bonds properly with Cristiano Jr and forms a solid, secure and loving family unit. I guess time will tell.

So I tag Nicola, Louiz, Rachael, Hayley and Laura

Posted under parenting

I spent yesterday at the CyberMummy conference – an experience I’ll write more about later this week – and as we mostly only “knew” each other online we had little badges to wear around our neck with the title of our blog and our name on. Of course, many of you might not be aware that the title of this blog is “Adventures of a Lady in Training” or what it means to me so after answering that a few times yesterday, I thought I’d share. This is likely to be long, intimately personal and full of emotion. It’s the first time I’ve felt that I have the right to share this element of my life in such a public manner and I hope that I can do it justice without hurting anyone.

I’ve written 700 words of this, deleted it, written 376 words and deleted that. I can’t tell my story because I have an innate fear of hurting other people, even if I’m the one who has been hurt. I had a fairly bogstandard “nobody understands me” kind of teenage experience and left home/was kicked out a month after my 16th birthday – the day after my Higher English exam and the day before my Higher Maths exam. Whether it was the less-than-stellar home life I’d experienced or simply my hormones being crazy insane I had a longing to be a Mum myself. This is something I’ve talked at length about with my friends, I have always – for as long as I can remember – been broody and even now with four children who test my every boundary I don’t feel that longing has been satisfied. As a result, when I met Findlay’s Dad it suddenly became imperative that I had a baby. Looking back we had a seriously dysfunctional relationship – one that took us both a long time to get over – but when you’re 18 you know everything better than everyone else around you, don’t you? I discovered I was pregnant with Findlay and that weekend, discovered that my parents were splitting up because my Mum had been having a relationship with someone else.

I think you can only understand the hurt and pain that comes out of that kind of marriage breakup if you’ve been a part of it. My sisters were only 14 & 13 and my brother Callum was 9 the weekend my Mum left. I’m sitting here with tears streaming down my face as I remember walking into my parents house seconds after the kids had been told what was happening. The ramifications were and have been widespread but as I have joked since it was almost the perfect time to tell our families that I was pregnant because the heat was truly off us. Selfish? Perhaps, but when you’re 18 and think you know everything you don’t quite see it like that.

Findlay was born 3 months after my 19th birthday and right from the off I felt under pressure to be better than any other parent because I was so young. Findlay’s Dad came home from work one day and I suggested that we get married to solidify our family unit and he agreed, so when Findlay was 4 months old we did. And when Findlay was 9 months old – the day before my 20th birthday – he left. We have a very good relationship these days – in fact I’d almost go as far as to say I count him and his lovely partner as friends – but I can’t and won’t ever forgive him for leaving us like that even if I have some empathy for his reasoning. I did not cope with my parents’ separation well and expended a lot of energy being angry at my Mum, supportive of my Dad and just being there for my siblings which was obviously to the detriment of our relationship. For the next three years I was 100% certain we’d reunite, which was a deeply unhealthy mindset to have when you’re getting involved in new relationships. We would fight, threaten one another with legal action and then put on a brave face in front of Findlay because the one thing I was so, so certain of was that I WOULD not and COULD not have Findlay ever feel the way I did when I was growing up. I felt like an oddity, a spare part. Like I didn’t belong – to an extent, I still feel like this – and it’s damaging. I wanted better for my son.

I started keeping a blog at Blurty and then Livejournal not long after Findlay’s Dad and I split up but when I met Bob and realised what a proper healthy partnership should be like, everything changed. Some of you will have done the maths yourself but we delivered Nairn – a pregnancy we both planned and dearly wanted – into our family 13 months after our first kiss. Erica followed 14 months later and I decided that I wanted to catalogue my “training” from being just a silly 18 year old girl who thought she knew it all to a grown up lady who could keep a house and work and parent and sew and bake and do all the things that a perfect lady could do. I wanted to prove to each and every single person who had ever wrote me off as a “daft wee lassie” that in actual fact, I was so much more than that.

Last week I wrote about making a gift for Findlay’s teacher and I also gave her a knitted bookmark like this one. I wrote a card thanking her for her work, added a quote that I liked and sent Findlay into school on the last day – not expecting to receive anything back. But I did.

I cried when I read this. I’m crying again now. I don’t doubt that Findlay’s teacher had a stack of cards to write out that day and that she perhaps didn’t necessarily plan out her thank you, but her words gave me validation and I finally feel that I’m not just a daft wee lassie anymore, I’ve graduated into the class of “doing not too bad actually”. And perhaps it’s time to rename my adventures and take the training wheels off.

Posted under me, parenting

Right now I’m sitting on my sofa, watching my baby – who I know will be my last baby – walk across my living room. Greer took four steps the week before her first birthday becoming my earliest walker but retired this new skill for a month so she could perfect it, and perfect it she has. She took her first unprompted solo steps at the entrance to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel last week and now spends a significant portion of her day simply wandering around the house as if it’s the most exciting place in the world. Which I suppose to her it is, being able to explore it all on her lonesome.

She’s been fairly verbal for as long as I can remember, always a very babbly chatty baby and her babbles have become more distinguishable. Her first ‘word’ was “WOOF” directed at next door’s dalmatian with her second being “HIYA”, a greeting she liberally expresses to passers-by whilst standing hammering at the window of our living room. In fact, her growing garrulity has created a new bond between her and Nairn who was ecstatic that his was the first of her siblings names that she has perfected and who now comes running as soon as he hears her.

She’s got her first tooth, had her first haircut, slept through the night for the first time (actually she’s almost always done that!), gone swimming for the first time and I know that there are so many more ‘firsts’ ahead of her. I do, I know this. But – and oh, there’s always a but – I have to admit to shedding more than a few tears over the last couple of months as it’s hit me: I will never again see a child of mine crawling for the first time. Walking. Breastfeeding. Talking. Smiling. Seeing her drinking out a juicebox with a straw whilst on holiday was a complete “What on EARTH…” moment. It’s such a bittersweet period for me, possibly exacerbated by my clearout of baby paraphernalia last week when I handed over to my pregnant sister every baby item Greer has outgrown. I needed to do it – God knows we need the space – and packing the baby walker, bottles & steriliser, baby bath didn’t bother me in the slightest but. But but but. It’s all just really real, now. I have no need for them anymore. I will never again have a need for them again.

I’ve been told to treat it like a grieving process which makes sense to me. I’m grieving for what I have been blessed with but which is gone – that precious time which I feel I muddled through in a fog of postnatal depression, breastfeeding and sleep deprivation. When everything that the baby could ever need, be that love, reassurance, milk or a clean bum came from me. Does that make sense? Watching Greer develop her sea legs has been amazing and I’ve spent a lot of time grinning at her perseverance this week but it’s been heartbreaking too.

It’s not that I grudge Greer – or indeed, Findlay Nairn and Erica – because I’m thrilled beyond measure that they’re growing and developing little personalities. I am just finding the contrast of pride and self-pity to be a bit of a strange one. Do any other parents feel this way?

Having her first Smore. Thanks to everyone who has messaged me asking how the kids are – Greer is still pretty unwell, but Nairn & Erica are well enough to have gone back to nursery today.

Posted under parenting