Tuesday 5 November 2013

Young Male Suicide

Max Kurzweil - Despair (Creative Commons)
A year ago, give or take a few days, a friend committed suicide. He disappeared, leaving friends and family in panic for his safety. He loaded his backpack with concrete. He left a note in his car, and he drowned himself in one of the most beautiful places in the country. No one could believe it, because he was such a fun guy. His life was played out through photos of football matches in fancy dress, travels to the most far-flung places, love of good music, an arm flung round the shoulders of friends all around the world. There was not a bad word said, and that was before he died, not afterwards.

Afterwards his Facebook page, always the news-bringer, lit up with messages of love, sadness, disbelief. Friends from around the world were in shock. He had been a great traveller, an experiencer of life, someone who seemed to grab every opportunity with both hands. He had brought joy and love and great fun to people in almost every continent, and now they were reeling.

This was a single tragedy to many people. It happened, and people moved on. They felt sadness, deep sadness, but life goes on. But 'three young males take their own life on average every day across the [UK].' Three, every day. That's over a thousand a year. A thousand young men who take themselves out of life and leave a wrack behind them, a knock on effect of grief and loss and disbelief that ripples through thousands. Too many people have stories like this to tell of the man who they never thought would do something like that, but did.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel. (G Meyer, on Flickr)

The supreme tragedy of this to me is that many of these young men aren't suffering from severe long-term depression or chronic physical illnesses. They are afraid or pressured or at the end of their tether at that precise nadir of their lives. They are in a situation that could be turned around, somehow by someone, if only there were more awareness of how these things happen. They could carry on and overcome their problems, and look back on that time as one of the worst in their life, but one that they got through. One that they survived.

I don't know how to solve this issue. I wish I did. But surely spreading awareness must be a key step. Be aware of the men in your life – especially the young ones, the ones who seem to have it all but are going through a bad patch, the ones who put a brave face on it but perhaps spend each night in fear. Please, be aware. Don't be afraid to reach out. Surely it is far, far better to offer help to someone who doesn't need it than to miss someone who does? Offer them love, understanding. Help them solve their problems. Help them realise that they don't have to go it alone.

And if you are a young man in this situation, please, speak to someone. Anyone. A friend, a doctor, a stranger at a bus shelter. Anyone. Give yourself time. We don't want you to die.

Please, save a life.

Friday 25 October 2013

How My Children Lost Their Faith

Halloween iPhone-Desk Paper by arsgrafik on deviantArt

It's that time of year again. You know. The time that you can't mention. (Shhh! Hallowe'en.)

Yes, that time. As a Pagan – a very loose Pagan, but a Pagan nonetheless – Hallowe'en has a strong place in my feelings. It's a special time of year. I feel closer to the dead and the not-yet-living and to the threats and wonders of all of those things.

Temporary Altar by Bart Everson on Flickr
But I keep hearing reports that pupils aren't allowed to talk about this in my children's school. It sounds as if some teachers allow it, while others don't. As always with children, these things are unclear. To be honest, it doesn't bother mine much. To them Hallowe'en is about sweets – America's fault, I suppose – despite the fact that I don't get sweets out on Hallowe'en. But this discrimination does bother me.

The problem is that my children attend a faith school. I know the words 'faith school' conjure up images of extreme Muslim academies teaching small children to be terrorists. At least, the tabloid papers would have it that way. But probably most Muslim/Jewish/Church of England or other religious schools are pretty much like the Church in Wales one my children go to. A good, open, friendly school with good teaching and a great learning environment.

But there are issues. Despite some small evidence that they learn about other faiths, Christianity has a very large place in their schooling. It's the only faith that I hear my children talking about in relation to school. And recently George got into trouble during prayers. They accept him not putting his hands together and not saying the words, but he was turning his back on the teacher. I explained that I could tell him that it was rude to turn his back, and he shouldn't do it, but I couldn't force him to pray.

'But this is a Church in Wales school,' I was reminded.

Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church light cross by Bergmann
'Yes, but it's the only school in the area. We have no choice but to send our children here. And forcing someone to pray makes a complete mockery of prayer,' I reminded them.

My son's teacher, a lovely woman, thankfully acknowledged this. What would I have done if she didn't?

It seems that there's not much I could do. Religious schools appear to be pretty much exempt from discrimination laws. It's a confusing subject to research (especially with a mild migraine and a Lego-obsessed three year old in the room), and the Armchair Backseatologist has done it much better here. But the National Secular Society's page states, 'Many faith schools are granted exemptions from equality laws which are meant to ensure that schools cannot discriminate against pupils because of their religion or belief.'

There's something very wrong in this. Discrimination is discrimination. Yes, some discrimination can be positive – teaching children of different abilities differently, for example. But surely it's wrong to say to a child, 'You cannot express your faith in our school.' If their argument is that they're not celebrating Hallowe'en as a part of faith, then why is it a threat? If it is a part of faith, then surely it's wrong to suppress it? I'm sure that if that faith was Judaism or Islam they wouldn't be met with this response, but Hallowe'en straddles an odd border between Paganism and Christianity, and it apparently scares the Church in Wales. Discriminating against one particular form of faith is even worse than discriminating against them all.

There's Probably No God by Dan Etherington

The result of this attitude towards faith? Oscar, 8, not only believes there is no god, but also that Jesus never existed, no matter how much evidence there is that he was a historical figure. George's thoughts are going the same way. They have been so pushed into the Christian faith that they are revolted by it. Really, is this the way we want to introduce our children to faith? My family has a wide spectrum of views including Pagan, Baha'i, Judaism, and Christian (Church of England and Church in Wales). There's probably even some Catholic somewhere in the woodwork. I would like my sons to grow up able to choose what to believe, whether that be a religion or atheism, rather than either being indoctrinated into one faith, or so sickened by it that they cannot believe in anything.


Sunday 20 October 2013

A Caveat On Jumping to Conclusions

This is far from how I looked, I must say.
If you walk past our house at the moment you'd see that my husband keeps me in a cage. Half-naked, the pressure of the bars leaving red marks on my skin. The door is latched but not locked. Obviously I'm too scared to leave without permission. Either that, or I'm deriving a sexual thrill from my captivity, regardless of the children in the room who are able to watch this gratuitous display. They're so inured to the sight that they don't bat an eyelid. In fact, after a time, George crawls in with me. It's disgusting to see such a display. Appalling. There are no words.

You might be tempted to call social services or the police. You might be tempted to whisper or make comments about how terrible the situation is in my house and what my children are exposed to. You might even feel like popping an anonymous note through the door telling me where I'm going wrong. People do this. I know that, because I've had it happen.

If you actually stopped and came into the house you'd be able to see around the corner of the settee. You'd see that on my chest is a large ginger cat with a severe wound on his leg and a plastic cone on his head. He's just had his shattered leg repaired with intensive surgery. There's just enough room in the cage for him (and his cushion), me, and a litter-tray, food bowl, and water bowl. I'm not actually being abused by my husband or shamelessly living out sexual fantasies in front of the children. I'm trying to help the cat heal faster by giving him comfort at what is probably a pretty terrible time for him. I'm spending a couple of hours a day with him, at the very least. It's not easy, but it's best.

Yes, this is a kind of allegory. You may wander past this blog and look in and wonder at my life. You may tell me that I and people like me 'probably all freely have sex in front of [our children]' or be 'appalled' at the fact that my life and my children's upbringing doesn't closely resemble what you believe to be best. But, as with most things on the internet, you need to remember a few things. Blog posts are rarely the sum and measure of a person's life. They don't present every aspect of what happens in a house. They are written by real people who actually exist in a real place and time. These people really have feelings. And I don't just mean me - I also mean the many other people I know who are subjected to vile rants because their beliefs don't match with those of the (usually anonymous) commenter.

Even if my blog posts were not a highly edited glimpse into my life, even if they reflected the absolute reality of everything that goes on in my house, rather than just reflecting the high points and the low points, I would still have no reason to be ashamed of my parenting. It's rather astonishing that this needs to be pointed out to people. My children are very healthy and happy and well-adjusted to life. They are kind and generous. They are naughty and playful and conscientious and they do well at school. They are protected and they are loved and they are held.

My children are looked after from around 6a.m. (5a.m. if we're unlucky) until 8a.m. most days by their father, who then leaves for a very responsible, very demanding, and very selfless job. They are looked after from 8a.m. until 9p.m. by me. Of course we're still on duty even outside of these times. Until recently, when Ben started afternoon school, there were no regular breaks or time out. From mid 2005 to September this year parenting has been a 24 hour responsibility, as it is for many parents. There is no placing them in daycare or leaving them with babysitters outside of the family. There's very little leaving them with babysitters within the family either. There is being on call all day every day, and for a large portion of the night, too. That's including Christmas, Easter, weekends, and holidays. Now that duty has been reduced to 22 hours a day during school days – but even then you have to be on hand for the sudden phone call from the school. It's a hard job, but a very, very rewarding one.

I don't parent like every other parent, but then I don't tell the other parents I meet to stop bathing their children every day or not pierce their young daughters' ears. I don't tell them to make their children run around naked more or to stop spanking them or grounding them or feeding them junk food. I don't tell them to stop smoking around them or to keep them away from tabloid newspapers. I probably grumble about these things in private. I'm not a saint by a long shot. But I wouldn't have the gall to call them out for it. I certainly wouldn't leave anonymous notes to that effect.

I bring my children up in much the same way that my parents brought me up. I hold them when they need holding. I read to them and cuddle them and watch television with them. I hold their hair back when they're sick and clean their mouths afterwards. I let them into my bed when they're scared in the night. I discipline them when they're naughty and praise them when they're good. I let them have sweets, but not too many sweets. I feed them good food, but I also indulge their fancies. I'm not going to change my style, since all the evidence points to the fact that it's pretty successful. But I'll let the people who know me judge whether or not I'm a good person – those who actually come into my house and see my children and interact with me, rather than those who are looking in from the road or who drop anonymous notes through the door. The same goes for this blog. I'm happy to enter an intelligent debate. I'm happy to consider alternatives. But I won't accept irrational and accusatory comments from anonymous callers. Not any more.


Friday 11 October 2013

Why Does Facebook Hate Women's Nipples?

Proving that most of us do have breasts, even if we aren't
allowed to show them.
Breasts. Even their mention can get people flustered. I have a pair of my own. Most women do. This is evolution doing a wonderful thing. We have breasts so that when we have children, we can keep them alive. If we were a bird or some other non-mammal perhaps we'd be dropping insects into our children’s mouths, or perhaps regurgitating our food for them. But we don't. We have these clever things that secrete a perfect feeding formula directly into a child's mouth. Biology is wonderful.

Of course, very many men like breasts. Breasts indicate that if a man is lucky enough to mate with us and we fall pregnant, we will be able to keep his child alive. Evolution dictates that keeping children alive is good. So if you want to breed with a woman, make sure she has good breasts. But mostly in our society (and I'm talking the society I'm familiar with – the mainly white, first world, European-influenced world), it's all about nipples. At least, it seems to be. You can post a photograph on Facebook with practically all the breast except the nipple and areola exposed, and that's fine – unless it's obscured by a baby's mouth, and then that's not fine.

Two naked male chests that I'm very fond of. Not just an excuse
to get Peter Graves and Spock on this blog. Not at all.
The funny thing is that men have these things too, and that is fine. I don't know what would happen if you posted a photograph on Facebook of a man with a baby's mouth over his nipple, but I imagine that would be a-ok. But I dare say most hetrosexual women will find a picture of a man's bare chest just as alluring as most hetrosexual men will the woman's. I dare say that a lot of hetrosexual men would find a picture of a provocatively dressed woman with her nipples covered just as arousing, or more so, than a picture of bare breasts.

There are so many issues here. The way that essentially male morals still run the world, no matter how loud the voice of woman becomes. The way that it's acceptable for women to be sexualised, and controlled by the perception of their sexuality, in a way that men would never accept for their own gender. The way that the function of breasts in Western society has been completely subverted from their actual purpose – to feed infants – into a kind of flag to inflame male desire.

My own breastfeeding photo. No problems on my Facebook
account with it, luckily. I must have good friends.
I have to admit that I'm not the queen of breastfeeding. I didn't battle through all ills and pain in order to nurture my children with the pure milk of my breast. Oscar pretty much flat refused to feed. George developed an allergy to milk very early on. Ben – well, by the time Ben came along it was obvious to me that you could raise healthy, intelligent, well-attached, and happy children without breast milk, so he got his first few weeks and then I elected to go back on the anti-depressants that keep me (moderately) sane, and we went with all of the benefits of bottle feeding. And there are benefits, believe me, especially where my sanity is concerned.

But I do believe in breastfeeding. I believe it's wrong to profit by getting Third World mothers to bottle feed, exposing their children to all of the perils of poor or no sterilisation, to a lack of protection from the antibodies in their mothers' milk when they have poor or no access to medical help, and to privation caused by their parents' small resources being spent on formula feed. I believe that it is heinous to do this purely so that companies like Nestlé can sit back on their profits. I believe it's wrong that the default setting in every doll's set is the dummy, the disposable nappy, and the baby bottle and that we seem to have forgotten that humans are, in fact, equipped with the resources to feed their babies.

Most of all, and here I come to the point of this post, I think that Facebook is wrong. I love what I get from Facebook. Since I find phone calls and face-to-face talking very difficult almost all my friendships are upheld there and I dearly miss friends who have left. But Facebook, it seems, hates breastfeeding. I have heard so many stories of photographs of breastfeeding mothers being taken down from its pages – not even public, shared pages, but private pages that are only shared with people's friends. Conversely I have reported so many public comments suggesting things like 'all Muslims should be exported,' 'all Muslim men should be killed,' and other such lovely sentiments, and this, it seems, doesn't come under their heading of 'hate speech' and is allowed to remain.
'Emma' by  Lies Thru a Lens  on Flickr. I have no problem
 with this photo, but it's odd that Facebook would be far
happier with an image like this than a woman breastfeeding.

There is something wrong with Facebook's policies if it believes that a picture of a woman's breasts is more worthy of censor than a comment advocating genocide and racism. There's something wrong with Facebook's policies if it thinks that a picture of a woman breastfeeding her child should be hidden while a picture of a woman bottle-feeding her child is fine; when you can post pictures of animal cruelty, murder, and dead bodies without issue; when a picture of an oil-sheened woman bending over in the smallest of bikinis is considered less offensive than a child drinking milk.


I don't know who Facebook are trying to appease, but I don't want to be part of that demographic, and I wish their censors felt the same.


Thursday 3 October 2013

The Terrible Taboo of Toddler Nudity

A while ago we got into trouble on facebook – and when I say 'we' I really mean 'I,' careless mother that I am. It seems that Ben (then almost 3) was being too naked in the schoolyard, and a handful of people in the school facebook group were concerned about this.

'Children At Play' by abcdz2000 (License)
There were a variety of problems with his nakedness. It was 'embarrassing' for some of the parents (they were forced to exchange glances and mutterings.) One wonders if they dressed and tended their own children through a veil.

He was also at risk of injury. Penis accidents, I've heard, are rife in countries where little children are routinely unclothed. (Actually, I've never heard any such thing. I made that up.) I suppose its conceivable that his genitals could get trapped between two pieces of some of the wooden play equipment, but I'd hate to calculate the odds.

Worst, of course, was the threat of paedophiles, because everyone knows about paedophiles now and we all know that being aware and afraid of something makes it far more likely to happen. It's like fear of crime. The more aware you are of your vulnerability to burglary, the more likely you are to be burgled. (Actually, I made that up too.)

'I See An Angel' by Shari (License)
Of course I made the mistake of responding to the horrified comments about a child in only a t-shirt, where people could 'see everything,' and things turned into a heated debate. Thankfully most people saw nothing wrong in toddler nudity, but a few people continued to be disgusted.

These memories came back to me yesterday, when, on coming out of school, Ben decided to pee through his clothes. I say decided, but he probably just forgot that he's a big boy now and was wearing pants. What do you do when this happens and you have no other clothes on hand? Luckily it was warm, so I stripped off everything from the waist down, rolled it up and put it in a bag, and let him run around naked.

Later he decided to take his t-shirt off too, and was running around totally nude and obviously very happy with the condition. He was dancing a lot, chasing older schoolboys and revelling in their freaked out reaction. I was watching with amusement, but after my experience before the summer holidays it also made me nervous, and it's a very sad thing to have to be nervous in the face of your child's nakedness.

'IMG_4957' by pixydust8605 (License)
What's wrong with a culture where children are taught that nudity is disgusting and embarrassing? Where 'I can see his willy!' is an exclamation of shock and revulsion? What happens to these children when they get older and their bodies start to change, and they have a childhood of shame to teach them how to go forward into life? I worry about children who are taught that there's a paedophile lurking in every corner and that being comfortable with their bodies will open them to attack. My three boys have spent a lot of their childhood naked and totally happy, but exposure to peers and parents at school is teaching them that this is wrong.

Most of all I worry about the sexualisation of infants and young children. My detractors couldn't see the is sexualisation. They are looking at my beautiful, innocent child and thinking only of sex – and that is wrong. It's almost impossible to guard your school aged children from closed minds and senseless taboos. I hope I can guide them through the minefield safely, without them losing their freedom to be comfortable in their own bodies.
correlation, but to me to have another parent looking at my child and seeing their nudity as shocking and a possibly lure for paedophiles

Saturday 14 September 2013

Recipe Wednesday! Blackberry Pie


(A little note - blogspot has stolen my nice background again, and none of my carefully centred pictures are in the centre. I am blameless.)

I fully acknowledge that, again, it's not Wednesday. In fact it's a rather pleasant Saturday with some early September sun. The bees are busy, the flowers are open, and there are blackberries ripe on the brambles. Thanks to the fields at my parents' being left largely to their own devices in places there are brambles all over the place, which is wonderful. There's none of the 'will the hedge cutters come just before the blackberries are ripe?' anxiety that has prevailed in the past, because there are blackberries aplenty in the field. And what better to do with blackberries than to make a pie?





Actually I can think of a few good things. Eating them straight from the bush springs to mind. Making bramble jelly is another. But for today, pie it is!

First up is to go out into the fields and pick some blackberries. The children started this, gathering a handful of late raspberries and then some blackberries. Then four geese scared them inside, so off I went to pick a few more, Ben on my hip and the dog snuffling around at my heels. There's nothing like picking blackberries from prickly brambles surrounded by gorse and nettles. My hands still feel a little tingly.





Next up was to make the pastry. I enjoy making pastry. Or I should say I enjoy eating pastry. I enjoy the fact that the fruits of my labour will be short and crumbly and melting in the mouth.




I always use the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book for pastry making (since it's usually been long enough that I'm not sure of the amounts or cooking temperature.) This book is my bible in the kitchen. You can tell how much it is used by the amount of centuries old flour on the page. I also learnt a few handy tips in the short time that I was learning catering in school, such as use only your fingertips to rub the fat into the flour. Ideally your palms should stay clean. Keep everything as cold as you can.



Recipe

I used these quantities to make a pie of about 8 inches diameter -

8oz flour (I used brown spelt flour.)
2oz lard
2oz margarine
A little water.
Blackberries (or other berries) - enough to fill your pie.
A little sugar.
Egg to glaze.

Oven: 220°C (or 425°F, or Gas Mark 7)



Once you've weighed out your flour and fat, you get a small kitchen minion (in this case George, who loves baking almost as much as he loves eating what he cooks) to cut the fat into small pieces, to make it easier for rubbing in. Then rub the fat into the flour with your fingertips (clean and cold hands are best!) until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then mix in water (tiny, tiny quantities to be sure you don't put in too much and make your pastry tough and doughy!) I didn't have to put any water in at all this time. The fat was sufficient to hold the flour together. Once it's moist enough to stick together, roll it into a ball, flour the worksurface well, and start to roll it out with a light hand and plenty of flour on top of the pastry as well as below so that the rolling pin doesn't stick!


You can easily get your minion to help with the rolling out. If you want an even sheet of pastry I'd suggest helping, though. Make it about a quarter of an inch thick. Or half a centimetre, if you're feeling metric. If it's lovely and short, as it should be, you'll have a hell of a time picking it up to drape it over the pie dish. I forgot to mention the pie dish. You'll need a pie dish of about 8 inches diameter, and be sure to grease it with margarine (or butter if you don't have dairy intolerant children.) Also, some time during the rolling out is a good time to put the oven on to preheat, at 220°C (or 425°F, or Gas Mark 7).



Once your pastry is rolled out you can prise it off the worksurface with a palette knife and lay it over your pie dish. If it's short enough it will probably crack like an earthquake-torn country and you'll weep and make a ball again and roll it out again, and you might have better luck the second time. Or you'll put up with the cracks and just squish them together once you have the pastry in the pie dish. Once you've laid the pastry over push it down gently into the dish and cut off the excess around the top with the palette knife. When your pastry is nicely bedded down fill the dish with your berries and sprinkle with sugar, as much as you feel is necessary. I don't have a very sweet tooth, but I found some lovely vanilla sugar that my mum had made by putting vanilla pods in a jar of sugar and that complimented the taste of the blackberries beautifully.



Hopefully you will have enough pastry left to roll out to make the top. Lay that over the dish just as you did before, and cut around the top with the palette knife. Crimp the two sheets of pastry together with your fingertips by pressing the top layer into the bottom. I still had enough pastry left over to cut out a lot of little pastry leaves with a table knife. I brushed a beaten egg over the top of the pie and arranged the leaves to garnish, then brushed those with egg too.



Voilà! Your pie is complete! (Well, mine is, anyway.) Put into the centre of a pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes. Be sure to keep an eye on it in case it needs a little more or less time.



Once your pie is cooked you can sprinkle a little icing sugar over the top to make it look pretty, if you're going to take photos of it, anyway.




Cut, and serve! Blackberry joy is yours!




I would have enjoyed some expensive vanilla ice cream with this, or some clotted cream. Thankfully for my waistline we had neither. It was still lovely.

Friday 2 August 2013

Joyful Chaos in the Morning

(I have to apologise for the fact that my rather lovely background has disappeared from my blog. I don't have time to sort it out now... I also have to apologise for the fact that the font size and things are all messed up. Again, I have no idea and no time.)


Today we are preparing to go away on holiday. When I say ‘holiday’ I mean staying at my parents’ house a few miles away and pretending we’re on holiday. We do live in a beautiful part of the world, after all. (Donations towards a real holiday can be sent to my paypal account.)
We do live in a beautiful area.
I can't really disguise the fact that I don't have photos for this post.

I don’t feel very well. Because it’s the start of August I have a cold. The house looks like a bomb’s hit it, and I need to pack. (For anyone inclined to break into our house while we’re away, tough luck – my parents will be here.) This is a fun time when the three children play downstairs on Lego Batman 2 while I run around upstairs looking for clothes. (Why does Oscar unaccountably have no t-shirts or underpants? Why does George never have trousers? Why have all of Ben’s trousers disappeared too?) I discover Oscar’s lunchbox stuffed into the front pocket of his school bag, and an apple so rotten it’s almost liquid at the bottom of the bag pocket. Luckily this mess isn’t in the main part of the bag, where I’m packing his clothes.

Let’s see what goes on while I’m upstairs.

Occasionally I hear noises as of glass being broken.

Sometimes there are screams.

While I’m downstairs ensuring there is no broken glass, Ben is upstairs looking for my water (I always have a bottle of water to hand.) He comes down to tell me ‘Mummy, me split your water.’ Upstairs there’s a lake on the bed. Luckily there’s a towel strewn on the floor ready to deal with this. It’s better than the vomit/urine/faeces that usually adorns the sheets, since Ben sleeps in there with us.

Back upstairs to sort out more clothes (Where has my summer dress gone? Why do I have no underwear? Why are there no pairs of socks in the world, only odd ones, ad infinitum?)

From downstairs Oscar shouts helpfully, ‘I emptied all the ginger nuts into the tin for you.’ (These children can go through biscuits like locusts through a good crop. Thank god for value ranges.) Later George yells up to me through the floor, because children believe that wherever you are in the house you can still hear them. The sad truth is, you can.

‘Mummy, Ben has got so many biscuits I can't count how many. He’s got more than two!’ George shouts, ‘Because I’ve got two and he’s got more than me, and it might be four or five or six or seven or eight or nine or ten.’

When I come downstairs Ben is holding five ginger nuts in one hand like a layer cake and is biting through all of them. For good measure he has a spare one in the other hand, and Oscar has just eaten George’s last biscuit that he inadvertently put down on the settee. Oscar is stick thin, and something like the aforementioned locusts. No amount of calories will satisfy him or make him fat – but they have to be calories from chips, sausages, cake, white bread, and other such food. Nothing will persuade him to experiment with new tastes. After all, he knows the old ones work. (George and Ben love nothing more than a buffet of tortilla chips, houmous, olives, and taramasalata.)

Then I discover it. On the carpet. Something suspiciously brown, covered in a layer of tissue that’s been embedded into the substance beneath. The brown stuff is embedded in turn into the carpet.

‘Why didn’t you tell me Ben ee’d?’ I ask. (Ee is a very useful word for faeces, somewhat onomatopoeic.)

‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ Oscar says.

‘I put the toilet paper on it, mummy,’ George says. ‘That was good, wasn’t it?’

Sigh...

Donations for a new carpet can be sent to my paypal account.


Friday 12 July 2013

The Interference of Strangers

There are two ways to help someone with their child-rearing. You can offer advice or help when it’s needed, and if it’s rejected you can accept that. Or you can decide that your way is right and their way is wrong, and feel that righting that wrong is the most important thing. I have had a lot of help and advice from friends and family through pregnancy and all the years that followed. Sometimes I took it and sometimes I didn’t and they respected that.

One thing my friends and family don’t question is the way I dress and treat my children. I’ve brought all my boys up with long hair. I get rather sick of the gender expectations placed on children – the ranks of pink and blue clothing and toys; the constant either/or with no in between. Sometimes, because of their hair, people have thought my boys were girls. Angelic long blonde hair is instinctively perceived to be feminine, and mistakes are made.

What I find harder to deal with are the intrusive comments of strangers. ‘I think you need a haircut.’ ‘You should go to the barber.’ Sometimes this is just from people on the street. Sometimes from shop employees, who should really know better. My eldest’s grandparents were once told that he would grow up gay if they let him keep his hair long, which pulls two misconceptions together – one, that hair length is related to sexual orientation, and two, that it would be a bad thing if he were to be gay.

Then you get the other comments. Often my children don’t wear shoes – especially whilst in the pushchair. What’s the point of putting shoes on a child that isn’t walking? That one’s a constant draw of, ‘Your feet will get cold!’; ‘Ohh, where are your shoes?’; ‘Have you lost your shoes?’ When they’ve been seen holding a Sindy doll they get, ‘You’re a boy, you don’t want to be playing with a doll!’ And my husband has been told more that once, ‘don’t use long words like that, he won’t understand.’ (Being a man seems to draw more comments from old ladies on how you raise your children.)

There isn’t any way in which comments like that are helpful.

Most of these comments came when we lived in a larger seaside town, rife with pensioners and uneducated people, and I spent a lot of time wandering around the place with my children. They came in charity shops and Asda, mostly, whatever that may say about those places. Since moving to a rather smaller town and spending a lot less time wandering it doesn’t happen nearly so often. Now we live in a residential street and mostly encounter other people on the school run or in the playground.

Now the interference becomes far more closeted and sinister. Living in a nice residential street in a nice area seemed like a big step up from a flat in a big town. We have a front door that opens straight onto the garden. We have a sandpit and plants and a herb bed. We have our own walls and floors to do what we like with, and front and back gardens to enjoy. But we also have neighbours. We have some lovely neighbours, some neighbours we barely interact with, some neighbours we barely see. Having grown up with neighbours who all get on together and share ups and downs, and having lived in a flat with wonderful neighbours who felt like family – an adopted grandfather and an adopted sister – I find it a bit strange to live in a street where half the neighbours are almost invisible.

I’ve debated for a long time whether to blog about the issues we’ve had in our new home. I’m not sure if it’s advisable or not, but I think it needs saying. Other people may be suffering the same kind of problem. There are a lot of very nice people where we live, a lot of people who will help at the drop of a hat and are good friends. Then there are the others. The ones who like to say things behind their hands, to gossip and criticise without even an intention of helping. The sly comments and oblique criticisms of, it seems, anyone who is different. The drawback of living in a rather smaller community is that there seems to be an uneasy balance between the anonymity of a large place and the over-the-fence gossip of a small one. People seem to think they can comment on your life without commenting to you.

For two years we have been subjected to anonymous calls to the health authorities and council about how we live our lives. This sprung out of the fact that when Ben was born he was making noise in the night, and then spiralled out of control. Perhaps it was affected by the fact that I am very introverted and have trouble talking to friends, let alone mere acquaintances. Our poor health visitor has to call us apologetically and relate these things to us, in the full knowledge that we look after our children very well. Criticisms have ranged through shoelessness, unhygienic playspaces, noise, bullying at school, lack of outdoor activity, and playing on the windowsill. This person has accused us of cruelty to our dog, and gone as far as posting an anonymous newspaper clipping through the door while they knew we were away with highlights accusing us of laziness and animal cruelty. Of course we know who is doing this, and we have had the police involved, but it makes it no less pleasant to experience.

The craziness in all of this is that there is no neglect or cruelty; that any initial issues of noise were dealt with immediately; that my children are very healthy and very happy, as is our dog and both cats. They (the children, that is) are often praised for their politeness and consideration. They are doing well at school. We try to live our life in a way that doesn’t impact on other people, but I refuse to conform to convention just so that we look ‘right’ to other people. I won’t cut my lawn until I want it cut (I do love the lawn flowers and grass seed heads). I won’t cut my children’s hair because someone wants it short. I won’t force them to wear shoes if they don’t want to, or a coat if they don’t want to. They’re quite capable of telling when they’re too cold and asking for more on, just as I’m capable of judging if they need me to take over their decisions.

Why post this here? Since seeing another friend blog about a similar kindof anonymous interference, I think it’s important to get these things out in the open. How does one defend oneself against anonymity? I would say, be honest with the authorities. Speak openly with your doctor or health visitor. Trust them and let them trust you. Defend yourself where you can. Know that you’re better than that, that you’re doing fine, that your children are well looked after and perfectly happy. I reassure myself by thinking that no matter how mad I am (depressed, eccentric, sensitive), I am better than the kind of person who has to resort to anonymous harassment. If you’re a good parent, be proud of it.

As parents we’re forgetful and disorganised. We lose things. We get stressed and sometimes lose our tempers. But we do our best. Our children are not neglected, unhealthy, or unhappy. Temporarily bare feet, tangled hair, dirty hands and faces are a sign of enjoying the world. I will be proud of the fact that my children bring home reports that praise their kindness and pleasantness, that they are given awards for smiling and being a friend. I will be proud that they are intelligent and individual and that they are growing up healthy and happy. I will be proud that they love books and science and history and art. I will be proud of the fact that they will enter the adult world thinking for themselves, whatever they choose to be. If you are a good parent, you should be too.




Thursday 27 June 2013

Recipe Wednesday! Elderflower Cordial



I know. This isn’t going to be a regular thing, I promise. And I know it’s not Wednesday – but I started making this on Wednesday so I think it qualifies. It seems I get round to cooking more often than blogging.

We’ve been having some lovely summer weather (off and on, between the thick cloud and the rain showers and the freezing cold days) and the elder tree is out in full blossom. Put that together with my lovely cousin posting about elderflower cordial on her Facebook page, Foraging with Amelia and Leon, and I just had to try it. On Wednesday the sun was out and the garden was full of the scent of elderflowers, and it was too good an idea to resist. You can’t exactly claim I foraged for the elderflowers. I walked to the bottom of the garden in pink rubber shoes. But still, I got the flowers.

You start this recipe the night before (hence Wednesday), ideally using a small boy (Oscar in this case) to help you clip the flowers from the tree. We cut more or less 25 heads. I tried to make sure I got nice, fresh, pollen-dusted blooms. Oscar tried too, but there were a few more spider webs on his than there were on mine. I’m sure it adds to the taste. We spiced it up by having a ginger cat (and a tortoiseshell) share the box for a while, too.

The recipe was the one my cousin suggested, from the River Cottage website. Who doesn’t love River Cottage? Probably lots of people. When I lived in a rented first floor flat I viewed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall with intense jealousy. Now that jealousy is ameliorated somewhat by my front and back gardens, my herb bed and elder tree, and the promise of, one day soon, swapping suburban living for a four acre permaculture smallholding.

The night before part of the recipe is pretty easy. Checking your flowers aren’t covered with all sorts of legged and winged creatures, putting them in a bowl, and adding the zest of an orange and three lemons. One day I must buy a lemon zester. I’ve had two instances now in my life when I’ve felt in need of one. My husband tells me to just use a fork. I can’t work out how, so I used a slightly serrated sharp knife to scrape the things clean of their outer skin. Painful, but effective. Once that’s done, you just dump one and a half litres of boiling water over the lot. I’m sure there must be a sensible Imperial alternative to that, but Google tells me it’s 2.63963 pints, which is not convenient at all.

By Thursday, the clouds had crept back over, rain had fallen constantly all day, my back ached, and the children were taking the opportunity to scream at each other pretty much non-stop, prompting the unplugging of the computer and the removal of the games console controls. But still, there was the steeped elderflower mixture waiting to be boiled up with sugar. Somehow this got done. Thankfully I had a muslin cloth in the nappy box to strain it through. (I did sterilise it first – I shoved in in the kettle while it boiled.) It doesn’t taste too promising at this point, but once I put the liquor together with the sugar and boiled it up it tasted lovely.

Then I had to perform some kind of bizarre sterilisation dance involving a pan, glass jars, two spoons, and a tea towel. It would have helped if I could find my funnel for pouring it into bottles rather than just a wide-necked jam funnel, but in a house with three boys interesting kitchen equipment doesn’t stay where it belongs for long. It’s probably been used as a trumpet, and is languishing somewhere bewilderingly illogical. But since I could only find one nice bottle to put the stuff in, and all the rest were jars, that wasn’t too much of a problem.

And there we are. I ended up with a bottle and four or five jars of what looks like urine, but thankfully tastes very nice (not like Magners, despite the photo trying to tell you otherwise). A thick, syrupy liquid perfect for diluting with water and giving a lovely taste of summer. George (5) told me he can’t drink it because it makes his eyes hurt, and curled up like a hedgehog to avoid it. Ben (almost 3) made grunting sounds of pleasure on trying it. Oscar (8) liked it so much he asked for a whole cup to himself – and since he’s the pickiest of all of them, I think I can be satisfied with that. Although he did just ask for more of ‘that cauliflower squash.’ Oops.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Recipe Wednesday! Houmous

It’s Recipe Wednesday!

Home-made Houmous with wholegrain bread and Cothi Valley goat's milk feta. 


Recipe Wednesday is a lie. It’s very unlikely that there will ever be a recipe Wednesday on this blog. I do enjoy cooking, but it very much depends on how stressed I am, how depressed I am, how much the children are driving me insane, how my back feels.

The 'sampled' cake, beside the second cake.
But today I somehow spent the whole day cooking. I decided to make a coffee cake for my husband’s birthday (typical Victoria sponge recipe of 4oz flour, 4oz butter, 4oz sugar, and two eggs, from my wonderful 1960s Good Housekeeping cookery book.) The same recipe is here on the BBC. You have to add a little instant coffee dissolved in warm water to the mixture before you add the flour, for the coffee flavour.

So I cooked the cake. It seemed rather flat, so I decided to cook another to put on top of it. I had to go out for more eggs, walking down to the local shop holding almost-three-year-old Ben’s hand all the way. (He seemed rather surprised we had to pay for the eggs. He’s used to his grandparents’ eggs coming straight from the chickens.) So I came home with my eggs and cooked another cake. I left it to cool while I did half an hour of exercise.

I came back into the kitchen after my exercise, rather tired and looking forward to a rest. Ben was still sitting innocently in the living room playing on Club Penguin. But I went into the kitchen to find that while I had been diligently exercising in the hall, Ben had been helping himself to half of the first cake.

Sigh.

I baked another cake. By the time that was done it was time to pick up the other children from school. Now we have a three-tier coffee cake with a rather wobbly middle.


Some basic ingredients - chick peas, garlic, and lemon.
In the middle of all this cake baking I was inspired to try making my own houmous by a friend on facebook. I have to believe that hers was more successful than mine because she’s more stylish than me and lives in Milan. I have no style and live in Wales. But it seemed like a refreshingly easy challenge, especially after my three-cake day.

I used this recipe from the BBC, but I stuck to it rather loosely. We didn’t have any tahini or cumin, and I put more garlic in than I should have. My husband, who has such a lack of taste buds that wine gums all taste the same to him, surprisingly found the garlic overpowering. The garlic had a kind of hit-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat quality, which I quite enjoyed, but I found the olive oil overpowering, and I think next time I’d find a blander oil. I hate the taste of olive oil. But spread on a sliver of toasted wholegrain bread with a slice of sublime Cothi Valley garlic, lemon, and parsley feta goat’s cheese, it was rather yummy.


Tomorrow I might blend in some more chick peas to even out the taste and thicken it up a bit – it’s a bit too sloppy. If I did it now I’d wake up Ben, who is sleeping soundly above us, and needs his rest so he can wake up at 5am, as is his wont at the moment. If I made it again I think I’d change the oil, use more salt, and make the effort to get tahini, because I think the bitterness of the sesame seeds would help to even out the flavour. But after all, it's a learning experience. Better luck next time!

[EDIT - so, today I put a whole new tin of chickpeas in and a very little sunflower oil, and it's much better, has more of that creamy houmous texture, and is less overwhelming on the garlic front. The olive oil taste still detracts somewhat for me, but it's much less strong. I have some for lunch with couscous and a little of last night's leftover chilli and black pepper belly pork, and a ratatouille type vegetable mix. At least, I try, while Ben tantrums over his boiled egg not being served in a precisely correct manner, feeds it to the dog, and then comes and aggressively sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at me.]


 
That lovely goat's cheese.
A little bite.


Next day's lunch. We have good leftovers when my husband's been cooking (which is pretty much every night.)



Thursday 23 May 2013

Vaccinations, Autism, and the MMR

From Wikimedia Commons. People were just as scared of vaccines in Jenner's time.
The issue of vaccines came up on facebook today – specifically the MMR vaccine and the threat of autism. Before I start I have to add the disclaimer that I have no medical qualifications and most of what I know, or think I know, has been picked up from general knowledge or internet searches. But I’m a firm believer in the benefit of vaccines. When Edward Jenner theorised and tried out the smallpox vaccine in 1796, he started an incredible thing. The BBC estimates that ‘300 million people died from smallpox in the 20th century alone,’ but due to a world-wide drive to eradicate smallpox the illness only exists in labs.

To my mind there’s too much science to support vaccines and not enough to disprove them. They’ve saved too many lives and saved so many life-altering problems. But it’s the MMR I was thinking of specifically. It was research led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in 1998 that started the panic over the MMR vaccine, leading to a great number of people holding their children back from vaccination. The Lancet officially retracted their publication of this research when it was shown to be rife with misconduct. It seemed to be a case riddled with breaches of ethics and underhand behaviour.

On the other hand, here are some of the risks of the three illnesses you are protected against through the MMR vaccine.

  • Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available.
  • In 2011, there were 158 000 measles deaths globally – about 430 deaths every day or 18 deaths every hour.
  • More than 95% of measles deaths occur in low-income countries with weak health infrastructures.
  • Measles vaccination resulted in a 71% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2011 worldwide.
  • From Wikimedia Commons. A child with a four-day
    measles rash.
  • In 2011, about 84% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services – up from 72% in 2000.

To quote WHO again, from the source linked above,

‘The most serious complications [of measles] include blindness, encephalitis (an infection that causes brain swelling), severe diarrhoea and related dehydration, ear infections, or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia. As high as 10% of measles cases result in death among populations with high levels of malnutrition and a lack of adequate health care. Women infected while pregnant are also at risk of severe complications and the pregnancy may end in miscarriage or preterm delivery.’ 


‘The virus usually causes mild disease in children, but in adults can lead to complications, such as meningitis and orchitis.’

(We all know the word ‘orchid’ means testicle, right? Rarely, mumps can leave males sterile.)


‘Rubella infection in pregnant women may cause fetal death or congenital defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). Children with CRS can suffer hearing impairments, eye and heart defects and other lifelong disabilities, including autism, diabetes mellitus and thyroid dysfunction – many of which require costly therapy, surgeries and other expensive care.’

Wait a minute? A foetus exposed to rubella can develop autism? That’s not something the anti-vaccine people talk about. And to bring it all home, take this from The Telegraph - ‘In the 1960s [mumps] killed about five people a year in the UK, compared to measles fatalities of about 100.’ That’s in a population, then, of about 53 million people. Imagine that. 100 children dying of measles? A year! Imagine your child dying because people were afraid to immunise and these diseases started to spread again? Imagine a hundred pairs of grieving parents, every year. The vaccines don’t always work on everyone, but if enough people are immunised then the ones it didn’t work for shouldn’t be exposed to the illness, and they won't get it either.

From Wikimedia Commons. A single virus particle from the
Measles virus. 
Of course it’s not as simple as that. A friend who is a nurse alerted me to a study by a Dr Singh which took place in 2002 – four years after the initial scare – which again seemed to show a link between the MMR and autism. One of the conclusions of Singh’s article is, ‘Fundamentally, I tend to think that autistic children have a problem of their immune system, which is the “faulty immune regulation.” Hence they have abnormal immune reactions to measles virus and/or MMR vaccine.’ This is linking autism not just to the vaccine, but to measles in general. What are the chances of your child contracting measles if no one is vaccinated? Just recently over a thousand people have contracted measles during an outbreak in Wales. Eight-five of these people required hospital treatment. 

Singh’s study has attracted criticism since publication, questioning methodology and assumptions of causality.   I don’t have the medical credentials to make many comments on this study, and it’s unclear to me what proportion of children receiving the MMR vaccine, in Singh’s opinion, develop autism as a direct result of the vaccine. Autism, it seems, has many and varied causes. On the other hand, the increase in measles since the MMR scare is stark. There have been 1,170 cases of measles in Wales during this recent outbreak alone, in a population of just over three million. In contrast, the British Medical Journal reported (in the link above) that there were 32 cases of measles in England and Wales in the last quarter of 2001 – that’s in a population of about 56 million people.

I don’t have any firm conclusions to take away from this. I’m not a scientist or a doctor. But I think it would behove all of us to educate ourselves over these matters before making snap judgements. I will continue to immunise my children against illnesses because it seems to me to be the best thing to do, not just for my own children, but for the other children and vulnerable people they might come into contact with. Without vaccines, with three children and a one in three death rate after infection, I might have lost one of them to smallpox by now.