Dads, not designed to help

You know what shits me to tears? (You know that’s a great colloquialism right there, up there with ‘flat out like a lizard drinking, amirite?)

Anyway, you know what really, really does?

The devaluing, infantilising and otherwise off-the-hook-letting of fathers. The implication that notions of equal parenting and dads mucking in to do their share around the house are silly feminist pipe-dreams dreamed up by silly women who really should have better things to do. Like have babies. Because in Advertising Land at least, women who’ve had babies know to stop faffing around with such fantasies and just accept the reality that menfolk are rubbish at housework so they might as well knuckle down and do it all themselves. Otherwise, when the dreaded question is posed, they’ll come up wanting. (The most pressing of dreaded questions, of course, is ‘what does your loo say about you?’ in Advertising Land. And we don’t want it to say ‘relies too heavily on a naturally-incompetent male’ now do we, ladies. Amirite?)

Here’s a particularly execrable tourist brochure from Advertising Land.

(The ‘Designed to Help’ ad campaign for Sunbeam appliances. Features fathers and bonus! teenaged boy being unhelpful around the house by variously: leaving the fridge door open, ironing flat the pleats in a little girls’ skirt, and opening the oven when a souffle is baking. The featured people are all pale-skinned, thin, conventionally attractive, and their homes are modern and spookily clean. The women have long-suffering, patronising expressions. The menfolk are infuriatingly clueless. The little girl is hopeful, then devastated. Clearly she should learn to iron herself, I mean, skirts are too much for dads to manage.)

And just in case you were thinking you could avoid this crap by avoiding commercial TV, here’s an actually published book which people are allegedly paying actual money for. That’s from the Real World, people.

Be afraid.

The radical notion that children are people

Australian readers are probably already familiar with this story about teenager Hannah Williams, who was prevented from taking her girlfriend to the formal held by her private girls’ school.

A teacher had told the year 11 student she wasn’t allowed to attend the Preston dinner dance with her 15-year-old girlfriend, Savannah Supski. She was asked to bring a male instead.

”It made me very upset. I thought it was unfair so I didn’t go,” she said.

The story of Hannah and Savannah and the missed school formal has been all over the media – hearteningly, most people seem to be in agreement that their school made a wrong decision. We know that the cost of bullying — something experienced disproportionately by certain groups, including GLBTIQ teens — is unspeakably high. And there is clearly a link between institutionalised oppression and the role-modelling of discriminatory behaviours and attitudes by adults, and the bullying that young people inflict on others. It seems that Hannah Williams and Savannah Supski have the support of many of their peers; that could very easily not be the case. Schools need to lead by example and demonstrate that discrimination on the basis of sexuality is never acceptable, or else they really must wear the blame when their students suffer reprisals at the hands of bullies.

The truth is, of course, that Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar is not the only school to either overtly or subtly discriminate against students or teachers on the grounds of their sexuality or gender. The difference in this case? The girls have parents who are supportive and prepared to be outspoken about this issue, and who took the step of alerting the Equal Opportunity Commission about the case. In other words, the difference is that the protagonists in this story were listened to and were not silenced or repressed by all of the adults around them.

One of the key mechanisms that facilitates the oppression of GLBTIQ students in schools is the failure to recognise the personhood of young people. Or, to paraphrase The Fireman, ‘this only happened because people think they can tell a 17 year old what to do and who to be attracted to.’ And indeed, people do think this. Yesterday more than one person said to me but Savannah is only fifteen, how can she even know that she’s a lesbian? It seemed to slip these peoples’ minds that we never seem to question the sexuality of teenagers who present as straight. I’ve never heard anyone say to a fifteen year old, when professing her adoration for a young man, how do you know that you’re actually heterosexual, dear? Have you? Of course, this sort of ridiculousness is a function of the heteronormativity of our culture but it is also a way of disregarding that at fifteen a person can decide for herself what her feelings, thoughts, and desires are and what her identity is. In our culture, it somehow seems perfectly legitimate to say to a fifteen year old girl that purely by the function of having reached the age of eighteen or above, an adult is better at telling what is in her heart than she herself is. Nice.

We really need to challenge that ridiculous and damaging assumption: and not only for the sake of ‘out’ teenagers who want to go to the ball.

Yesterday ABC News tweeted this little piece about Australian hospitals agreeing to recognise the charter of children’s rights in healthcare. It was a small story, no fan-fare. But I found the comments by Human Rights Commissioner particularly telling

“It’s actually quite challenging for many of us, the need to consult the child, to hear and respect the views of the child,” she said.

“It’s so easy to overlook the right of the child to be heard and go directly to the parent.”

That children should be heard and consulted is, in our culture, a very challenging notion to assert. There are arguments to be made, certainly in a healthcare context, about the cognitive abilities of children at different ages and how these could impact on decision making. There are also arguments to make about ‘maturity’ and ‘experience’ and there are certainly contexts in which these are very valid. But, there is also the fact that our discourse about childhood and adolescence rarely allows for the admission that young people have real and meaningful thoughts and feelings and that they do not magically become autonomous people on their eighteenth birthday. Our culture too often fails to acknowledge and cater to their needs and to accept their right to exhibit individuality.

I remember vividly what it was like to be a child. I recall in searing detail the powerlessness I felt in the face of silencing and dismissal from adults around me. And I am all-too aware of how that routine failure to listen to and engage meaningfully with children — that is, how our insistence that children are not only able to be controlled but should be controlled — doesn’t make children safer and keep them more innocent, as many adults assume. The reality is quite the opposite.

I am, in many ways, a fairly traditional parent. Some aspects of my parenting and our family life consciously acknowledge Bean’s personhood: some aspects, quite honestly, do not. I am not perfect; and in any case, I am still working out where a comfortable balance falls, for us. Sometimes I feel uneasy about that.

But what I mostly feel, when I think about this, is an overwhelming sense that until more people start to question the status quo regarding the rights of young people, until more people agree to re-write the cultural script about the abilities — or lack thereof — of children and teenagers, until fewer people are willing to view issues concerning children and young people as just women’s business or family business or ‘mummy blogger’ business or as something they can choose to engage with or not, any progress we make in our family will come up against societally imposed limits.

Our culture, in many ways, is toxic to children and young people: the child abuse statistics and the failure rate of government-run child protection services tell that tale aptly. So does the need for organisations like Collective Shout, and The GreyMan. So does the latest Amazon Fail.  So does the high rate of bullying and tragic bullycides, and so does Ivanhoe Girls Grammar’s insensitivity. I care about the rights of children, in part, because protecting and caring for a child is what I conceive to be my primary job. But I also care because I was a child, and because children need us to care. And they don’t need just ‘mummy bloggers’ to care. Opting out of giving a shit about the personhood of children might be possible for those not actively engaged in the life of a child — but just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.

Yes, that sounded preachy, and I’m not even going to apologise for that. I can preach now. I’m 31 years old and I am seen and heard.

Peadophiles and panic and parenting, oh my

A few months ago, Bean was in the suddenly-bolt-and-disappear stage: new-found speed and confidence meant that it wasn’t unusual for her to leave my side far more quickly than I could catch her. One day we were in the local chicken shop waiting for our order when she just up and ran out of the store and legged it down the footpath. Coming in the other direction was a man – I would guess he was about sixty – who very helpfully put out his arms as if to catch her as she hurtled towards him, which of course made her stop in her tracks to take a better look at this man-sized obstacle. Within seconds I was able to scoop her up, and ensure that she didn’t run out into the carpark. I looked up to express my gratitude to the man, who immediately started to apologise. ‘I wouldn’t have picked her up,’ he hurriedly assured me, ‘I just thought I might slow her down!’ and then then walked off so abruptly that I could barely tell him thank you.

It made me sad: I had assumed he was simply trying to help, and when you have a toddler sprinting right next to a busy carpark, that kind of help can be a matter of life and death. I felt sorry for this man who seemed so kind, that he would fear judgement and reprisals for showing interest in the welfare of a little girl.

He’s not the only one. My father in law, a man in his sixties, has a ten year old daughter. On a family holiday last summer, his daughter had entered a sand-castle competition and we were all down at the beach enjoying the afternoon. I asked my father in law if he had managed to take any good photos – he’s never far from his camera – and he admitted that he hadn’t taken anything. ‘There are too many other kids here in their bathers,’ he explained ‘if people see an old man like me taking photos, they’ll get upset.’ He’s been questioned before about his ‘interest’ in his own daughter by people who assumed he was someone other than her parent so, unfortunately, his fear of censure wasn’t unfounded.

I completely understand the impulse parents have to protect their children from any potential threat, even an unlikely one. No one is under any obligation to accept help from a stranger, or to allow strangers to talk to our touch their children. But fearing the father at the beach or the man at the shops for no reason other than the fact that they are men? These are not protective, helpful behaviours (unless other sound reasons, even if they are mainly instinctual, give cause for suspicion or alarm). We need to keep our children safe but knee-jerk fear and prejudice does not equal exercising judgement.

I have no doubt that my husband would stop to assist a child in need, and I would hate to think how he would feel if his motives were called into question. But this is not just about lamenting the hurt feelings of decent men – after all, decent people don’t wish to contribute to anxiety or distress and hence many men have become accustomed to keeping their distance from other people’s children. These two stories posted on Free Range Kids both attest to this.

The real losers, when we succumb to ‘peodophile panic’, are not only men in the community, but our children. When my daughter is lost in a shopping centre, or injured at the playground, or in need of the physical reassurance that a hug from an adult can bring whilst away from my care (at school, perhaps), I want the decent people around her to step in. I want someone, anyone kind, whatever their age or gender, to come to her aid. When I was a child my parents could count on that happening: adults were accustomed to watching out for other children, especially in the rural area where I lived. Can I count on it? Perhaps, sometimes, I hope. But the reality is that the number of benign adults willing to interact with children on any level is reducing, and not only because of changing attitudes to children and families but also due to fear of being labelled a ‘pervert’ of some kind. And when kind and trustworthy adults are less likely to intervene? Less likely to consider watching out for all children to be part of their role as a citizen within a community? That leaves children with only their own parents and designated carers – and even perhaps adults who are not so benign – to interact with. It leaves them with fewer meaningful exchanges with people outside of their immediate family and, importantly, it leaves them with less protection. It also potentially leaves parents more isolated, with less help (and, as Arwyn argues so strongly here, we need help!)

If you’re one of the vast majority of human beings who have only good intent towards children and you see my Little Bean heading towards danger and you want to reach out to her to keep her safe? Please, be my guest. She and I will both be grateful.

Quantity time

I once read in a Penelope Leach book that if a mother ‘must’ work out of the home and hence have others care for her infant some of the time, that it is better for the carer/carers to get the daily routines out of the way so that, in the main, mother-infant time is playtime interaction rather than ablutions and such. In this way, mother-infant bonding can continue at the best ‘quality’.

In my considered opinion, that is complete bullshit.

I mean, if I was working away from home more than the few hours a week I do, I’ve no doubt the parts of the day I’d miss least would be nappy changes and having a carefully prepared meal spat all over me. But actually, it is in those daily interactions; the thousands of little ways I care for Bean bodily most days, that the foundations of our bond have been laid. When she was newly born, all she wanted was to feed and sleep and shit in warm, supported peace, and the actions The Fireman and I took to make those things possible for her made up the bulk of our days and nights. It wasn’t always fun and it wasn’t always pretty but it was… always.

Those early animalistic weeks don’t last forever but the principles remain. Loving Bean is an action (actually, millions of tiny actions.)

In our culture most infants have one primary care-giver and for that person, daily care like nappy changes (or potty visits, if nappy-free is your thing) is a given. But what about the other family members? For most people I know, the traditional mother-at-home/father-at-work structure remains the norm. And in our house, that means that Bean’s father is more often than not on nappy/bath/teethbrushing/facewiping detail in the hours that he is at home. This isn’t just because I’m lazy, or because of an ideological position we take about shared parenting, although those two are factors. It’s also because through muddling our way through we’ve worked out that the more of the boring but intimate caretaking The Fireman does, the closer he and Bean become. Sure, playtime is special and they have a particular bond involving plastic blocks that my non-spatially oriented brain can’t really appreciate. But there is something even more special about fostering closeness, trust and yes, reliance, through essential care. The more Bean seeks out her father - as well as me – for simple things like a drink of water, the more connected we all feel.

Not everyone has the time or the ability to devote to round-the-clock parenting. And there is nothing wrong with a bit of outsourcing. But parents ( in my acquaintance, always fathers) who opt out of the ‘boring bits’ as much as possible even when they are at home, are missing out in a myriad of ways. It’s not just about ‘giving the mother a break’, as many parenting books and advice columns would suggest. It’s about creating a bond and showing love in ways that kicking a ball around the backyard can never quite match.

Brooding

I’ve been thinking about babies. A lot. Not my walking, talking, roaming alwaysbemybaby Bean or her friends. No, I mean actual babies. Crying, mewling, suckling, shitting, vomiting, sighing, sleeping, finger-holding ickle tiny cute wee babies.

Or rather, baby, singular. In a sling, against my breast, where I can smell its lovely head.

So it has occurred to me that the crucial point at which my memories of how traumatic my first six months of motherhood were have faded sufficiently for me to contemplate going back to newborn la-la land might be around about now. (Don’t get too excited. I only said contemplate…)

Obviously, life has gotten much easier since I wrote about being a human venn diagram with a severe sleep deficiency. But why? Most people seem to think that toddler wrangling is harder than babycare but it hasn’t been that way for me. I guess because:

- Bean was a particularly difficult baby. I won’t stand for the good/bad baby thing but the reality is some of them are difficult. They are. She was a ‘crying baby’. I know now that I should have pushed harder for the health nurse and doctor to take my concern that she had reflux more seriously but at the time all I heard were people telling me that some babies just cry. And cry.

And so do their mothers.

- I don’t take no shit no more. It’s probably easier to feel confident now that my daughter is so obviously healthy (she used to look so thin) but I put a lot of it down to experience. I’ve been doing this parenting gig for almost two years now so I figure I’ve earned the right to ignore unsolicited advice, even (especially) when it comes from professionals whose opinions I take issue with.

- I feel more supported. For those early months I felt the lack of a supportive maternal figure and a closeknit extended family like a looming prescence in the middle of my life. And I was too afraid of unravelling in front of people to ask for much help. Asking for help is still tough for me but at least I have worked on assembling enough of a network that I know that there are people who could watch Bean in a pinch, and who listen to me rant about motherhood sucking without judgement.

- I’m better with a walking-talking-person than a little squishy grub. It’s true. I loved her perfect babyness but I always suspected that I’d enjoy her more when she could do some things for herself and it’s proven to be true.  I’m actually excited about mothering a teenager. (Oh yeah, the next ten years are going to beat that out of me no doubt!)

- There is so much about her to feel joyful about. This morning I dropped Bean at daycare and one of her little friends was crying so she ran up to hug her, and then she turned and waved and said ‘bye Mum!’ and picked up a pile of blocks. She’s got compassion, confidence, self-assuredness. How’d that happen?

- My depression is being effectively treated. Funny how life gets easier when it’s not a struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

- As a baby, Bean was shy and clingy. I let her cling, believing, hoping that if she got her fill of reassurance she’d eventually have the strength to go off on her own, so I didn’t push her even when relatives or health nurses encouraged me to. Now, I can leave her at the gym creche and she enjoys it, I can leave her at daycare and she bounds in the door and fully trusts I’ll be back to get her before too long. It’s so much easier to parent when we can be separate as well as together.

It’s so much easier to be me, when I can live within the boundaries of my own skin.

And yet, I’m keen to go back to newborn daze all over again. I guess that for me, the blurred-boundaries, womb-and-breast connection really does have a pull all of its own, afterall.

Broom broom!

Just a little while ago, Bean couldn’t get enough soft furriness. Now, she’s car-obsessed.

All day long, it’s Car! Car! Broom Broom Broom! Car!

The Playschool ‘On the Move’ DVD that we borrowed from the library is going to be mourned like a beloved pet when we have to return it. Actually, I’m considering not returning it, because I just don’t know if I can take the tantrums. It’s been rationed, of course, but that doesn’t stop her asking to watch ‘Cars!’ all the livelong day.

I’ve developed a pathetic habit of trying to distract her from attempts to turn on the TV by pointing out the window every time a car drives down our street. I even made three colours of playdough yesterday to try to make ‘On the move’ seem less appealing. It worked, for a moment, once we found the car-shaped cookie cutter.

Perhaps I should send her over to the petrol-heads next door to Broom Broom Broom to her heart’s content. It’d give me a chance the hide the remote control while she’s out of the house, anyway.

Happy birthday to me

It’s my blogaversary! (Okay, so, actually I missed my own blogaversary… how sad … but today is near enough.)

Through blogging (and reading others’ blogs) I have learned much about the world, about writing, about myself. I think one or two people have learned a few things about me too – and, I hope, some other stuff they may not have encountered otherwise. I have also been blessed with some lovely readers, some of whom have supported my blog through adding to blogrolls, linking, tweeting and submitting my posts to carnivals, or face-to-face encouragement. Thank you all – I am not very good at acknowledging comments or maintaining connections (something I am resolved to improve) but please know that every time someone acknowledges or supports me in that way, I feel very much humbled and grateful. And also, inspired to keep writing. This is no small thing, to me.

In celebration of a year of Spilt Milk, I’ve decided to revisit a few of my favourite posts. If one can’t be self indulgent on one’s birthday, then what really is the point, I ask you?

Life in the ‘hood - where it all began, after some random musings turned into a brief essay one night and the phrase you should write a blog was said to me the magical number of times. Voila! Conception!

Thanks for the mammaries - I’ve written a number of breastfeeding posts but I reckon this one sums up my feelings on the matter more or less.

A good dog - we still miss you, Ferris.

Hello Little Bean – my birth story, in all its effusive glory. Still the best experience of my life.

Feminist mothers - in a nutshell, why I’m doing what I’m doing and writing what I’m writing.

Welcome to the tantrum club - because sometimes you have to laugh over Spilt Milk, too!

 

Blossoming Bean, 20 months

It’s fun watching Little Bean’s play habits change and develop.

Right now it’s all about the nurturing.

She feeds her doll, she gives her soft toys water, she takes her little plastic farm animals over to a little bowl to feed them, she holds her baby doll’s hand to wave bye-bye, she kisses and cuddles her toys, she rocks her doll and pats her on the back, she hugs the cat until she’s half-squashed, she insists on having a soft toy sit in the chair with her at meal times, she tries to brush her toy dog’s teeth, she puts toys in the basket of her trike and pushes them around whilst talking to them, she picks her up her doll and dances along with her to the music or makes her do the hand actions, she won’t leave the house without a soft little friend tucked under her arm, she tucks her doll into bed, she strokes her daddy’s head and plays run-and-hug games, and she kisses and holds hands with other children she likes.

Louann Brizendine would say this is all such a prominent part of her behaviour because her brain was ‘marinated in estrogen’ during her development and so she’s hard wired for social connection. I tend to think it’s beause she’s at the pretend-play stage, and she’s a sweet kid. And because adults coo and praise her for that very sweetness (very likely more effusively than if she were a boy, because that’s how these things roll). Truth be told, my little girl is also physically brave to the point of foolhardiness (I told her she could go down the big slide when she could climb the ladder by herself so she damn well learned to climb the ladder, of course) and when she’s not being affectionate with something soft and furry, she’s completing a puzzle, building a block tower or pushing a truck around. Even so, many people still point out how ‘girlie’ she is, what with all the kissing and hugging that goes on. We see what we expect to see.

Anyway, I don’t much care what the origins of her play are right now. I figure if she makes sure her doll is fed and cuddled and given lots of attention that’s got to be a good reflection on her father and me.  And — this stage is totally frickin’ adorable.

 In between tantrums, that is.

What if someone took you?

This afternoon The Bean and I had a lovely time playing in the sunshine in an outer suburban playground with fencing all around. It was a weekday afternoon; only a few parents (mostly mothers) and their toddlers/babies were in attendance.

A little girl – about 2.5 years old – came over to sit on the swing next to us. She was walking about six metres ahead of her mother – who was none too pleased about this state of affairs, as evidenced by the shrill admonishments that followed:

Zoe! Don’t run off! Why were you running ahead of me? You know you shouldn’t do that, don’t you? It’s very naughty, isn’t it? Yes. Very naughty. Don’t do it again. You must stay with mummy. You understand? You must stay with mummy!

What if someone took you?!

Now it would be very easy for me to be smug about this. Hell, my parenting is pretty Free Range compared with hers. And there was absolutely no reason for this mother to imagine that any of the other parents enjoying a sunny afternoon at this park were actually child predators with a big white van waiting around the corner. I feel sorry for that kid, and the fearful person she may grow into.

But I’m not posting this to anonymously shame an anonymous woman I saw at the park. She could well be suffering from an anxiety disorder or post natal depression or have been a victim of child abuse or have an estranged spouse who has threatened to take her child — there could be any number of scenarios I’ve not been privy to that would make her behaviour seem less bizarre.

There is a tension that parents face every day, between wanting to keep our children perfectly safe and allowing them to learn about the world for themselves. I remember when Bean was a few days old, just sitting and crying while I looked at her face as she screamed in hunger and frustration at my breast. I wanted to put her back in my womb where she had been nourished and protected. Always warm, always embraced.

And how do we - those of us who have faced hardships like molestation or neglect or bullying or abuse - learn to trust others to keep our children safer than we ourselves were? How do we do this without causing harm ourselves through our ‘helicopter parenting’?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that most parents could do with a little more kindness and understanding. We live in a world where some people tsk and frown at parents who put their toddler in a harness to keep hir close by in a crowd, and an equal number of people rant and complain at parents who fail to keep a toddler completely quiet in a cafe. In an ideal world we’d all find a happy medium between appropriate supervision and allowing children to develop their own resilience through learning natural consequences, and we’d be supported in that by a child-tolerant society.

But then, in an ideal world, child abduction wouldn’t merely be rare, it would be non existent. In an ideal world our worst fears would be far, far less frightening. And in an ideal world all parents would take their responsibility to protect their children seriously, and would love them.

On that score at least, the woman at the park is doing okay. We have that much in common.

Love language

Today The Fireman and I scrounged a few free hours to go and see ‘Up!’ (we both laughed and we both cried, incidentally). I enjoyed the delightful doggy character who can speak English with the help of a nifty translating collar. When he jumped up on the protagonist and cried ‘I’ve only just met you and I love you!’ I thought that is what Ferris used to say. He may not have had a translating collar but I knew what he was saying nonetheless.

Little Bean can’t talk. She’s trying, and there are a few discernible words coming through: Dad, that, milk, foot, jumper, block, bath, tail (for the cat), no, yes, Mum.

She talks to me though. There are days – admittedly, not the bad days – when I feel like I can hear her thinking. When she uses her gestures and expressions in such a way that we can converse without words. When she barely needs to ask because I anticipate or intuit what she needs. I suppose this has been going on since her birth, our communication. But now it is more complete and also complex and, in a way, all the more special because soon she will have words to take the place of our familiar telepathy.

I do long to hear her questions and her stories but I can wait. This is a nice place to linger.