The Lie of Father Christmas

There’s a rash at this time of year of people lamenting the terrible lie we tell to children. You know, the one about the fat man who comes down your chimney on Christmas Eve and leaves presents for good girls and boys. How can we keep perpetuating this terrible fantasy? they ask. Wouldn’t it be better to instruct our children in science than have them believe in some kind of overgrown fairy?

Floodllama, Santa Claus is coming to town, on Flickr.
Not hugely relevant but an awesome picture.

I have to say that of all the lies parents tell their children, this one is a long way from being the worst. ‘Honest, it won’t hurt.’ ‘You’ll enjoy it when you get there.’ ‘You look so beautiful.’ ‘Of course you’ll get a boyfriend/girlfriend.’ ‘Wow, you did that so well.’ These are the kind of lies that seem kind at the time but can leave you let down, betrayed, feeling misunderstood.

Father Christmas is the best of lies, and I’m not so sure that it really is a lie. (I’ll come to that.) Father Christmas is a lie that lets you get so excited on Christmas Eve that you can’t sleep. It’s a lie that makes magic sparkle in children’s eyes. It’s a lie that allows you to drop off at night and then wake up in the morning with that curious weight on your feet, to open one eye and see something lumpy and indistinct lying across the bottom of the bed, to sit up and open presents without any preamble, any manners or holding back.

Bill McChesney 5176 Guess Whooo's coming to town, on Flickr.
This is not Father Christmas. This is a man in a suit.

As you get older you think, ‘I’m sure I saw that in mum’s shopping,’ or ‘Isn’t it odd that Father Christmas shops in Tesco too?’ But it’s not like the moment after you’ve had the immunisation and realise, eyes wide with shock, that it did hurt and mummy didn’t tell the truth. It’s not like the moment when you objectively look at the outfit you put together and realise you looked an idiot. It’s a moment when you realise that for all these years your parents have loved you enough to help you believe in something wonderful.

And that’s where we come to the other thing, the fact that Father Christmas isn’t a lie. Father Christmas is someone who loves you, who brings light and kindness into your life. Father Christmas is the person you never see. Never mind men who dress up in synthetic red suits and plastic beards and call themselves ‘Santa’ and sit in grottos in garden centres and shopping centres. They’re not Father Christmas. Everyone knows that he comes when your eyes are closed, and that you must, must, never be awake when he’s there. He’s invisible, incorporeal. He is a manifestation of love.

I have always remembered how Laura Ingalls Wilder summed it up in On The Banks of Plum Creek. I couldn’t do it better.

“Ma!” Laura cried. “There IS a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s a Santa Claus,” said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.

“The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.

“Well,” said Ma. “Then you see–“

“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve was the one time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.

“If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”

- Laura Ingalls Wilder, On the Banks of Plum Creek

A Little Life of George

It’s hard work being George. It really is. Currently he’s not diagnosed with anything and he’s waiting on assessment, so I won’t make any assumptions here. But this is what it’s like being George. (I feel the need to remind you again that these aren’t my children’s real names.)

From Chaos to Order, by Sebastien Wiertz on Flickr. Kind
of the wrong way round, but do you know how hard
it is finding photos for things like this?

Life is endlessly frustrating for him. People talk to him and make demands of him and don’t know his reactions unless he verbalises them, which I feel irritates him a lot. People annoy him by distracting him or breaking into his routine. They ask him to do things he has no interest in, like dressing himself or tidying up. If he’s asked to do homework he usually collapses into a heap, or turns himself upside down, or shouts or screams. He’s asked to go to school and mix with crowds of people when really he’s best one or two on one. Apparently small and insignificant things can throw him right off the rails. These issues don’t bother him every time, but they do more often than not.

Yesterday was a doozy. George was playing with a toy car in the school playground. When the time came to go home he realised he’d lost it. He wanted me to look for it, but since Ben (three) had already walked out through the gate with Oscar I needed to follow him. I told George he could quickly have a run around to look for it himself, and catch me up, but he wouldn’t. I understand the paralysing fear of doing something like that, but I still had to catch up with Ben, who’s too young to be out of the school playground without me.

Toddler in the Middle of a Tantrum, by Stephanie
Chapman, on Flickr. This is an 18 month old. It doesn't
get easier when they're six years old.

This precipitated a tantrum of epic proportions. Everything became a scream. He screamed at me for calling the playground a playground. (He wouldn’t tell me what it was called.) I told him I wasn’t arguing about taxonomy because I had to go after Ben. A lot of hanging on to my arm and collapsing onto the ground ensued. It’s hard to describe the horror of trying to deal with this kind of thing when you’re Aspie yourself and get completely overwhelmed by the chaos of someone else’s meltdown. The screaming and shouting and screaming from a six year old who is consumed with rage at not being able to control his own circumstances. Trying to walk carrying multiple bags, coats, and a guitar, with a tantruming child hanging off one hand and a three year old trying to hold the other. The world condenses down to a place where the only thing that exists is your child, screaming and kicking and slapping and collapsing on the ground and shouting at you and becoming enraged at anything he can get a hold of. ‘Stop walking like that, mummy.’ ‘You’re making me do x, mummy.’ ‘You’re making me bored, mummy.’ It is impossible to adequately describe how enveloping and affecting this behaviour is. By the time we had got across the field I was at the point of beating my head into the conveniently place electrical substation. I needed to have my own meltdown. Instead I managed to hold off until we were in the house where I went into shutdown mode, where I could barely speak or move for the next few hours.

These kind of meltdowns don’t happen every day, but there is always something. Here are a couple of examples of what it’s like to be George.

Sometimes he wants a drink of water and I can’t find the water bottle that I carry with me most of the time. He relies on drinking from this bottle. He can’t go to the tap and get a drink in a cup because – well, because it’s not what he does. He has to drink from my water bottle. He either shouts or screams or collapses.

Cucumbers En Route to Pickledom, by Stacy Spensley on Flickr.
George would love this. He is made very happy by cucumbers.

One day he was given two slices of cucumber at dinner (one of them was very thick). He almost always has three slices of cucumber. His response to something like this is a burst of fury and outrage. I got out my penknife and tentatively cut the thicker slice in two. Calm and happiness was restored. He’s not being awkward or picky or over dramatic. He is genuinely thrown off track by having the wrong amount of slices, and things won’t be right until the normal routine is restored.

Recently he’s been wearing black school trousers every day. One morning his black ones were dirty and I had to give him grey. His tantrum lasted through getting dressed (which I had to do by holding him down and forcing the clothes onto him) and through most of the walk to school. He had to be carried at times (and he’s quite a solid 6 year old). It wasn’t until I thought the time was right and I crouched down and hugged him very tightly that he could grow calm.

Sometimes we ask him stupid questions, like, ‘Do you want shoes or boots?’ ‘Do you want to wear socks?’ ‘Do you want sauce with your dinner?’ Often the answer is a very indignant, high-pitched scream of ‘yes!’ or ‘no!’ depending on his preference. He’s not just being stroppy. He’s genuinely indignant because I believe he expects us to know.

If he can do things as he wants to things go on pretty well. He needs to stand in the right place to brush his teeth, use the right toothbrush, always with the right toothpaste. I don’t argue with this, so things are fine. But if I told him he couldn’t stand on the left side of the sink leaning on the bath or if I suggest it’s late and he just go to bed without worrying about his teeth, he would get very upset.

It gets harder when we go out of the house. He can be very talkative but he doesn’t like speaking to strangers. A lot of interactions are made non-verbally. He’ll hide his face or stare at the floor. He makes a thumbs up sign for thank you. He whispers things to me to tell other people. He points or nudges or obliquely indicates things.

Waiting Room, by Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr. George would
be under the chairs by now, with his face against the floor
or the wall.

Even worse are medical appointments. I can’t get him to open his mouth to the dentist and I’ve never dared making him an official appointment. He spends most appointments hiding under chairs or screaming. At a recent speech therapy appointment he spent the waiting period mostly under chairs. He had to be manhandled into the room, where he stood in the corner with his face to the wall shouting, ‘Stop talking, mummy,’ until he switched to hiding behind some chairs.

He left that appointment by rolling on his side out of the room, down the corridor, and across the reception area.

There are a lot of things to be grateful for about George. He is the most sweet and loving child. He is creative and kind. He’s doesn’t seem physically sensitive like Oscar, and he’s not particularly picky over his food like Oscar is either (the list of things that Oscar won’t eat because of taste or texture is very, very long, whereas George will eat olives and couscous and houmous and drink concentrated lemon juice, neat.) He is wonderful and imaginative and generous. His smiles are like the sun coming out. He gives spontaneous hugs and gifts of food or flowers. He is the kind of child who can roll out of an appointment with complete aplomb, and I think that’s the kind of thing to which we should all aspire.

Playdough Saturday!

Things are always different when we're at my parents' place. They live on a four acre permaculture smallholding and for an HSP (that's a whole other blog post waiting to happen) it's so much easier for me there. This morning I felt capable of making playdough. It's been a long time. I'm not sure if I've ever made it with my children, but I have great memories of it as a child, the smell of it, the salty taste on my hands, making all sorts of shapes and things with it. Since three-year-old Ben's teacher had just recommended him playing with playdough to strengthen his hands for writing it seemed like the perfect time.

I wanted to find a recipe that didn't include cream of tartar, because I was sure we wouldn't have that in the house, and I don't remember it being in the recipe as a child. Luckily I found one on the Cbeebies site that was perfect. A bit awkward that it was in cups (and surprising for a British site) but we had some measuring cups in the drawer, so it was all good. Once we'd mixed the salt, flour, and cornflour I split the mixture in half and coloured half of it red and half blue.

The children had plenty of fun helping me make the dough, and the fun continued once it was kneaded into balls and out on the table. With the help of the cutters I used as a child and various other kitchen bits and bobs they have spent the morning making shapes, mountains, babies in cradles, graves for their Lego men (that was George. He has an interesting mind), pancakes and ice cream.

For an added bonus, while I had the cornflour out, I decided to introduce them again to non-Newtonian fluids, which flow when they're not under pressure but go hard when force is applied. We've shown Oscar and George this before, but I don't think they remembered. I mixed a bowl of cornflour with a little water and put it on the table to show them how it worked. Ben was a little freaked out at first, but Oscar and George were fascinated and George spent at least three quarters of an hour deeply engrossed in this single bowl of cornflour. Now Ben is pretending it's Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings and is digging it out onto the table.

We got a little science in with this, discovering that these fluids work as they do because on the microscopic level you have little grains of solid in a suspension in a liquid. When the fluid moves slowly the particles can move past one another, but under impact there's no time for the particles to move aside and make way, and so they behave like a solid.

Of course as an HSP parent I'm exhausted now and they're still going strong four or five hours later. There's playdough everywhere. But they're having fun, and that's what counts.

What's Under Your Sink?

A plunger? Cleaning cloths? Bleach? Antibacterial spray? Febreeze?

'Poison' by Cavin on Flickr (license)

'Every week around 500 children under five [in the UK] are rushed to hospital because it's thought they have swallowed something poisonous.' (Source: nidirect.gov.uk)

I remember this kind of incident in my own childhood (due to berries on a blackberrying trip not household substances.) Being taken off to hospital by worried parents. Orange juice with an emetic concealed inside. Staying in hospital overnight. The high bars of the hospital cot. Even if no ill effects unfold, the repercussions of possibly ingesting something poisonous are unpleasant for both parent and child.

I want to address a fundamental strangeness in the way we organise our kitchens. To be clear, it's the way I organise my kitchen too. We have cleaning products under the sink. Pretty much everyone does. My parents do and always have, as far as my memory goes. Almost every house I've been in, when I've had cause to look under the sink, shows the same arrangement. Bleach? Under the sink. Window cleaner? Under the sink. Dettol? Under the sink.

We don't keep a lot of chemicals at home (and when I say chemicals I mean cleaning fluids and the like. Of course everything is composed of chemicals, from the H₂O in the taps to the O and CO₂ in the air we breathe.) Most things come clean with water or water and a little washing up liquid (Ecover if the supermarket has it.) It's best for the environment and your personal health not to rely on too many nasty chemicals. But still, I don't want my boys indulging in their own form of speakeasy on the kitchen floor.

'Chemistry Bottles With Liquid Inside,' zhouxuan12345678, cropped. (License)

Do most children show an interest in swigging bleach from the bottle or rummaging in the medicine cabinet? None of mine ever have. They're very clear on 'that's medicine' (it's all under lock and key anyway), or 'that's a nasty chemical.' They know not to touch. But Ben, in particular, loves cleaning. It's one of those things I pray he won't grow out of. He's forever rummaging under the sink and coming out with cleaning spray so he can 'help' clean up.

So why do we keep our cleaning fluids under the sink? What's the point? Why spend time fitting child locks and desperately trying to barricade the cupboard? (In our previous residence we used a stick to 'lock' the doors.) I understand that you don't want to put certain things under the sink, but there are plenty of things that could be stored there. Tinned food. Food in plastic and glass containers. That could fill a whole cupboard, and meanwhile all your horrible bleaches and sprays could be up at adult eye level, well out of the reach of little hands and mouths.

So isn't it time for a fundamental reorganisation of our kitchens, and of our mindset regarding where things 'should' be kept? Do we have to keep our bleach under the sink because Mrs Jones next door does, and so does Mr Hughes the next door down, and so do your parents, and so do your friends? Educate your children about what's safe and what's not, but if you can, keep dangerous substances out of reach.

[A little post-script. It's not only cleaning products and medicines that can be harmful. When George was younger I invited him to smell some powered ginger. Instead of sniffing he blew, and the powder billowed up right into his eyes. On that occasion we rushed him straight to A&E where the doctor confirmed that ginger was one of the most painful things you could have in your eyes. He had to have anaesthetic eye drops for three or four days afterwards. And it's not just ginger. The more obvious one is nutmeg. The ingestion of 'five or more grams of nutmeg causes acute nutmeg poisoning.' (Source: toxnet.nlm.nih.gov) Be careful with spices as well as the more conventionally 'dangerous' kitchen items! ]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Think We Need to Talk

‘Ooh, don’t talk to him like that. He won’t understand.’

That’s the kind of comment my husband used to get when he took our then-baby son out. Why old women felt free to berate him on how he looked after our baby, I don’t know. They didn’t assail me with quite so much advice. Perhaps they assumed a father needs more advice than does a mother. They would spend a lot of time telling him that Oscar (I’m sorry. That’s not his name, but I can’t think of another, and I went with that last time) was going to catch his death of cold. He was born in a blazing hot June, and spent a lot of time naked with a muslin cloth shading him from the sun, but no matter how hot the sun my husband would be told by old ladies in coats and hats that he needed more clothes on. When Oscar was a little older the old women moved on to ‘you don’t want to use long words like that with him,’ whenever my husband spoke to him. That slotted in with the ‘where’s your shoes?’ and ‘shouldn’t you have a hair cut?’ and ‘you don’t want to play with dolls!’ that came at regular intervals as he grew older.

Thankfully our habit of using long words – our general habit of talking to our children as if they can understand what we’re saying no matter what their age – has just been vindicated. Gwen Dewar reports here on a study that shows a correlation between the amount of words that babies hear spoken to them and their academic performance later in life. Unsurprisingly, those children who are exposed to more speech – more interaction, more attention, one would assume – perform better at reading and have a better vocabulary. Another study cited in the article showed that ‘use of sophisticated vocabulary during free play predicted kids’ reading comprehension scores.’

This will perhaps be why at five my eldest son was using phrases like ‘vis a vis’ (correctly, too.) He was very slow to speak – he barely spoke at all until he was two, instead creating a range of signs and sounds for things. But he cracked it, and is now far more eloquent than a lot of his peers. For a long time I was worried that he wasn’t picking up reading that fast, but now, at seven, he can devour a Roald Dahl book in a couple of hours and stay awake until 11 p.m. reading. So I’m glad that we always used long words with him. I’m glad we said ‘thank you’ and not ‘ta,’ and spoke of ‘trains’ and ‘sheep’ rather than ‘choo-choos’ and ‘baa-lambs.’ I’m glad we have books in every room, including the bathroom, and I’m glad he picks them up and looks at them. I’m glad I didn’t dumb my language down, and still don’t. Instead, I explain words if he asks me to, and trust him to understand or at least learn to understand me if he doesn’t. I tell him the origins of words, what languages they come from, how words in other languages are similar.

That leads me on to bilingualism, which is another factor in my children’s lives. Bilingualism is heavily pushed around here by a government which, thank God, recognises the benefits of learning multiple languages at a young age. The second language here is Welsh, which may not lead on to a great prospect of communicating in other countries (Patagonia, maybe?), but does at least open minds to different words in different languages, to different grammar and syntax, and to different ways of expressing ideas.

This is a favourite at bedtime for Ben.
He's too young to tell me to read it in English.

I can’t claim to be a fluent Welsh speaker. I was taught it up to the age of fifteen and deeply resented it. Now, of course, I regret not paying more attention – but I can at least read books in Welsh to my children and they have a bilingual education at school. So they’re exposed to two languages at a very young age, to all of the Celtic and Latin-origin words that Welsh contains as well as all the variously sourced words in English. Since they know that ‘eglwys’ means ‘church’ it won’t be a great stretch to them to learn that the French for church is ‘église’, or the Spanish, ‘iglesia.’ Their brains will be used to stretching for other words with other meaning. What a wonderful thing it is for a child to be trusted to be capable of learning, and to be given education for their minds to take hold of. But still people keep perpetuating the attitude of, ‘oh, you don’t want to teach them more than one language. It’ll confuse them.’ I know people who have been told this by ‘well-meaning’ friends, and have actually listened, and denied their children the joy of bilingualism.

We can put these kind of suggestions in the basket along with, ‘I think it’s time you visited a barber, young man,’ and ‘wouldn’t you rather play with cars?’, and ‘ooh, look at your bare feet! You’ll catch your death!’

But what do all these comments by various strangers about how we bring up our children say about our society? About our attitude to parenting? About the alteration in society from close-knit communities to ever-varying masses of people who move in and out of contact like jellyfish caught in the tide? I think that might be my next topic for this blog.