Why I'm Redefining Having It All

This post was originally featured on Littles Magazine.

The concept of having it all, is in my opinion a strange one. It's the idea that the woman, the Mother should strive to have an excellent career and a contented family life and that these things should exist in harmonious balance with one another. It's the idea that this is what all women want or at least should want, because its now (apparently) all available to us.

Ugh. How patronising.

I'm a full time working mother of one, with a husband who also works full time and co-parents with me in equal measures. Whilst I am not particularly qualified or financially well off, I would go as far as to call my vocation a career because it is specialised and I've been working on it for a long time.
Sounds like I've got it sorted doesn't it? Well some days I do, some days we get up, we get ready, I've made lunches the night before and everyone has clean underwear. Some days the toddler fully co-operates, he actually brushes his teeth and he lets us dress him without kicking Daddy in the balls. He's excited to see his Nanny or his friend Lily at nursery and he's bowling out the door with a huge grin on his face. On these days I've straightened my hair, I'm on time, I'm wearing that dress with the little brown belt and there are no ladders in my tights. These are the days that I, by definition look like I 'have it all'.

When Your Toddler Holds You Hostage In Superdrug

Sometimes I forget that I'm still a first time parent. I feel like I've been a Mum for a while, its not all shiny and new and I should just know the answers by now. I mean you get all that when you have a new born, that feeling of not knowing what you're doing, not knowing how to hold them without their head falling off. Unsure of the normal temperature, the normal colour of poo, the normal amount of crying. You're supposed to not know when they are new and you are new at being a parent, its expected, its accepted. Its ok to hold your hands up and say 'Sorry I'm new at this, I don't really know what I'm doing!'. 
Trouble is, I'm not really sure I can do that now my first baby is a new toddler. I mean I'm more confident with my parenting skills than I was in those first few months, his needs are easier to read, mostly because they are being screamed at me from across the supermarket. I can assess the right temperature because I've realised that its either just too fucking hot or too fucking cold, it doesn't matter if you're nine months old or ninety. I don't worry about the colour of poo, I no longer phone my Mum about it. Two and half years in, I've seen it all or at least please God, I hope I have. Its been on my hands, in my hair, on the carpet, there's nothing in the poo department that can worry me now. We've kept him alive and reasonably well behaved, we used to congratulate ourselves on what a 'good baby' he was.

Then three weeks ago, he held me hostage in Superdrug.

Women With Influence

Last week the post I'd written last year, Don't Fear the C-Section re-surfaced itself on Twitter courtesy of Kirstie Allsopp. She'd come across it via a hashtag I assume, read my piece and deemed it worth a re-tweet to her 399k followers. How terribly exciting for me and very flattering of course. I've watched her television programmes for years and was quite taken aback by such a compliment. Fully aware that this would be the first and last time my blog received any level of notoriety from the outside world, I allowed myself to get a bit giddy about it, told anyone who would listen and congratulated myself with a large glass of wine at the end of the day. Oh yeah.
Then I got to thinking about why she'd done that, what was her motivation. Why does she care what I think about C-Section births? Kirstie Allsopp is typically known as a broadcaster of property programmes and has made a living selling vintage home ware and interiors. So I had a good google on her and discovered that it was a topic close to her heart, something she'd written an open letter about a few years ago. Having had two Cesarean births herself, she'd taken an exception to the "too posh too push" stigma and spoken out about how we should be better prepared for the eventuality of a C-Section birth, as now 1 in 4 results in one. Turned out she'd started a bit of a debate. With many women supporting and thanking her for speaking out and others slating her for promoting unnecessary birth intervention. She's not afraid to speak out about other women's issues either from her opinions on marriage and banning homework. Through to acknowledging your fertility window and considering putting that first before your education and career. You may or may not agree with her opinions but at least she has some and there relative and real. I found it really refreshing to see a woman with influence sparking a discussion about something important that actually relates to my life.

There's Too Much Fucking Swearing On This Blog

Its fair to say that there's a lot of swearing on this blog. None of it is particularly offensive in an aggressive sense, its all intended as tongue in cheek humour but I cannot deny that the profanity word count is pretty high. I'd never really considered it until recently, I'm pretty free and liberal with how I write, in that I write how I like and if I like it then I keep it. I don't write for other people, I write for myself and I've found it very therapeutic, cathartic even. I just start tapping away and if a 'shit' or a 'fuck' contributes to the giggles or exasperates my tone I go with it. Particularly if you're writing about something that pisses you off, I've found a couple of 'bastards' and 'arseholes' really help get your point across. Of course I'm thrilled to bits to discover that people actually read my nonsense and even if it is just mostly my Mum (hi mum!), I've enjoyed that I've made people laugh and engaged with them on a certain topic or event in my life. I've had some cracking comments and direct messages, many full of obscenities and 'Fuck Yes!' moments. I've laughed my arse off at some of the feedback I had on that tit post, apparently it is a real issue affecting mothers globally - not just me!

C-Section Bashing

Ok so I read this article recently and well, it kind of pissed me off.

How-C-section-affect-baby-s-BRAIN-development

Here’s the link if you want to read it and obtain a more articulate overview but allow me to give you a brief outline.

It’s basically a piece about a study carried out in Canada comparing the spatial attention of babies born vaginally to those delivered by Caesarean section.

In a nutshell the study was carried out on 36, three- month old babies who had some stuff waved about in front of them. If their eyes followed the object, that meant their attention had been caught and everything was hunky dory. If their eyes didn’t follow the object, it was deemed that their spatial attention was slowed.

The results of the study found that babies delivered via C-section were more likely to fall into the latter category.