As a mother to two daughters, I’m extremely conscious of the way women and young girls are portrayed in the media and how this influences how they feel about their own bodies. There has been a lot in the press lately about the use of airbrushing and younger and younger girls wanting to wear make-up, but what can we do about it? How can we make our daughters feel good about themselves without closing them off from the real world?

Wednesday is my day for volunteering at Belle’s school. I sit on a coach with 50 small children and we all get taken to the nearest swimming pool. My job is to look after the girls in the changing rooms, supervise the switchover between the year threes and the year fours, and make sure everyone goes home with the right pants on. It is an intense couple of hours.

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This weekend I was tagged in a meme by Hari at Thank You For The Days, asking me to write a letter of complaint. How it works is this – I have to write a letter, complaining about something (natch), and then I tag some other people, thus triggering a ripple of whingeing across the blogosphere.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? A nice simple meme for a sleepy Sunday evening. The twist is that it has to be about something true. Now I’m not saying my posts are normally outrageous lies – I’m not really a single fifty-year-old northern man or anything. Nor am I claiming that ‘I’m just not the moaning type’ – cue regular readers snorting with disbelief. Now that really would be an outrageous lie.

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This afternoon Belle and I went to see Streetdance, the British dance movie featuring Diversity, Flawless and George Sampson – basically it was a warm up for watching Britain’s Got Talent this evening…

One of the main attractions of course is all the flesh on display – taut, sweaty, topless young men, leaping and bounding, lifting the girls above their heads and making it look easy.

Then there is the opportunity to indulge my fantasy of being an equally taut, gorgeous young street dancer, spending my days passionately throwing myself around London and my nights holding dance offs in painfully trendy clubs.

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God only knows.

Although they have made some of the right noises – signing up for Gingerbread’s ‘Let’s Lose the Labels’ campaign for instance – I’m not convinced. The married couples’ tax allowance for example – I know, I know, it’s about ‘the message not the money’, but seriously, that’s WORSE. What kind of message are they trying to give exactly? Basically ‘we like married people more, so there.’

As the votes roll in I can’t help but feel a growing sense of dread. I have spent pretty much all of my adult life under a Labour government and quite frankly I’m scared. I’m all for ‘change’ – only last week I rearranged all the furniture in my kitchen – I’m just not mad keen on the kind of change that disempowers women and discriminates against the already marginalised sections of society. Call me old-fashioned, but there you go.

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Yesterday was my nephew’s first birthday.

I only have one nephew – my sister’s son – and no nieces. I never expected I would be an auntie by now, and I often wonder whether I am doing it right.

I imagined that when the time came I would somehow be further on with my life. I pictured myself much as I remember my Auntie Jill, my Dad’s sister, when I was young – a fleeting, exotic figure, always seeming to be doing something terribly exciting like riding a motorbike around Brighton or playing the tambourine in a Cajun band.

Either that or I would be a traveller, stopping in once or twice a year on my way to or from an airport, a string of rhino teeth round my neck, pulling bizarre and unique baby gifts from around the world out of a large patchwork bag.

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Thank you very much to everyone who replied to my post yesterday about talking to children about death.

I’m sure you all hardly slept last night, anxious to know whether someone would have moved the bunny, or whether we would be forced to confront the realities of death on our way to school. Really? You slept fine you say? Oh.

Anyway…

This morning we set of to school, late as usual, as Belle had been watching a recording of the election debate while she ate her rice crispies. At her request may I add. She is, she tells me, ‘really very interested Mummy’. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how much of it she was going to be able to understand, but she seemed to get to grips with it very well and appeared genuinely interested.

“Mummy,” she asked as they discussed inheritance tax, “David Cameron’s got it wrong. He wants to give the rich people even more money…”

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Our walk to school every morning takes us alongside a small cricket pitch. Yesterday morning there was a rabbit stretched out on the grass, clearly dead, but nevertheless looking decidedly relaxed.

Belle, who at seven years old is highly sensitive and often slightly melodramatic, spotted the bunny straightaway. “What’s that rabbit doing there Mummy?” she asked, looking concerned.

I then had exactly two seconds to make a decision. Do I tell her it is dead, which will result inevitably in her crying and clinging to me at the school gates telling me she never wants me to die ever ever, or do I lie?

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Firstly, please let me apologise for my last post.  I had had a couple of rather emotionally exhausting days, and clearly wasn’t feeling myself. I am now back though, and to lighten the mood I am going to write about parties. I don’t want everyone to think I am some kind of isolated single parent who spends all  their time at home alone, pacing about, writing occasional bursts of gibberish.

I love parties. I get to dress up, drink cocktails and talk to men. What’s not to love? Unfortunately, I don’t often get invited to parties (sob). I don’t know if it’s just that no one I know has them much, or that I am particularly disliked, but I never have to push my way through piles of invitations to get to the front door. It’s the same with weddings  – everyone else I know seems to be complaining constantly about having the spend every weekend over the summer at a wedding, but I’ve only been to about five in my whole life.

So, to solve the problem, I basically have to throw my own parties. Being the host has its benefits of course – you get to set the date, choose the fancy dress theme, and not have to worry about staggering home without your shoes on and dropping your chips. It does mean you have to spend the next week cleaning red wine off things, but it’s a small price to pay.

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Before you start thinking ‘three in a bed, what’s not to love?…’, let me make it clear I am talking babies here.

Before you have them, other parents joke about ‘sleepless nights’, but until you become a parent yourself you just don’t appreciate the hell of being kept awake all night by the horrendous squawky crying and irritating writhing that babies combine so well.

Anyway, regular readers will have gathered by now that my parenting style is fairly ‘instinctive’, (a euphemism my critics may say for lazy or ill-informed), and the books I read and the friendships I form are chosen very carefully, designed to support rather than inform the choices I make.

We all know that you can find a study (or friend) to back up any argument, and I always manage to justify the decisions I make. It’s a bit like shopping – “But these shoes were in the sale, so technically I have saved money, and they go with everything, so represent excellent cost per wear value..”

I’d be the first to admit that my parenting isn’t always selfless, but honestly, TV can be terribly educational you know. There are some choices I make though that, although they have not made my life easy for me at the time, I feel confident were absolutely the right thing to do for us.

One of these is sleep. Bee slept through the night from six weeks old. I don’t say this in a gloating way, it’s just a fact. Although at the time I smugly put it down to my ‘laid back parenting style’ (oh what a young foolish woman I was), on reflection I realise it was just luck. She did however sleep in the same room as me, and at times in a bed pushed right up against mine, until she was at least 18 months old. If I’m honest this was less a philosophical standpoint and more a matter of logistics, living as we were then with my mum in one bedroom. It felt right though, and I never had the urge to push her out into her own room.

And then I had Belle.

It would be fair to say that Belle didn’t sleep quite as well as her sister. In fact, she woke up regularly at hourly intervals throughout the night until she was about two, and it was only when she started school that she began to sleep right through.

Many of these nights were spent with her in our bed, often with her Dad relegated to a mattress on the floor. When she got older she moved into her own room, but this just meant I had further to stumble in the night when she woke crying, and that I slept even less. If you’ve ever done that teenage thing of sharing a single bed with another person, it’s like that, only worse, as you can’t really shove a toddler against the wall in protest of them stealing all the covers. Well you can, but I believe it is frowned upon in parenting circles.

My point is…what is my point?…ah yes, my point is that I never resorted to controlled crying. Babies only really have one way of telling us something is wrong, and although it’s a shame that the one way is so loud and piercing, it has a purpose. Whatever the parenting gurus like to have us believe, babies don’t cry as some kind of elaborate mind game, to test us, or to prove a point. They cry because they are upset and need comforting. So when my babies cried, I comforted them. Sounds obvious doesn’t it, but there are plenty of parents who don’t do it.

I was delighted therefore to have my choices validated this weekend in The Guardian  by psychologist Oliver James. James’ examination of the evidence shows that ‘unresponsiveness’, i.e. ignoring your baby when it cries, has been shown to have serious long-term consequences. Having your cries go unheard as a child can make you insecure as an adult and lead to emotional vulnerability in your future relationships. James also highlights how unique we are in this country in believing babies should be sleeping alone – 79% of  societies around the world normally have their infants in the same room, 44% in the same bed.

So why are co-sleepers so often made to feel like freaks? When ever anyone tells me their baby shares their bed, it tends to be in a conspiratorial whisper – ‘I know I shouldn’t, but…’. We feel guilty, weak maybe, despite the evidence showing we’re actually setting our kids up for a healthier adult life.

I thorny subject maybe, but I’m happy at least that one of my parenting choices has turned out to be a good one. Now all I need is a study showing Oreos make a wholesome breakfast and I’m set.

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One of the things I struggle most with as a parent is consistency. When it comes to setting boundaries and laying down the law, I often find myself floundering. I can’t quite get my head around the idea that it is completely up to me, that I can just decide. Sometimes this power goes to my head and I find myself saying ‘no’ to the most innocent of requests. Catch me in a rebellious mood though and I will happily let Belle watch hours of TV in the nude (don’t ask), offer up toast and chocolate spread for dinner and quickly succumb to my children’s requests for that guiltiest of pleasures – garage tea.

For me, being a single mother makes consistent parenting even more of a challenge. I don’t have another sensible adult on hand to keep me grounded or to question why I think it is ok to let Belle watch 12 certificate films, but not ok for her to eat a bag of maltesers while she does it. (Funnily enough, the malteser website says you have to be 12 or over to enter – how weird is that – so maybe I’m not being so unreasonable after all!)

Of course I do have my mother. She is always happy to challenge me, often in front of the children, about my take on discipline. But however reasonable she may be, she is my mother, and my childish side kicks in, making it seem suddenly even more important that Belle eat all her peas before being allowed a pudding. Why? Because I am her mother and I say so. No other reason that ‘just because’.

Not wanting to sound too much like a Marks & Spencer advert, I have been trying lately to challenge myself, to think more carefully about what rules and routines are actually important and which are just me flexing my mummy muscles for the sake of it. The trouble is, that once I start questioning things, my pinball machine brain runs away with me. Will tidy bedrooms really make us happier?  Does it actually matter if Belle finishes her peas when ultimately we are all going to die anyway? You see my problem.

My sense of discipline also varies hugely depending on my own selfish needs and fluctuates with my mood. If I have a deadline looming, the Disney Channel suddenly becomes a much more attractive option. When I’m tired, I can easily convince myself that ordering vegetable supreme as a Domino’s pizza topping constituents several of our five-a-day.

Yesterday I had one of those days when my own preoccupations meant Belle was free to wander the house, watch back to back Hannah Montana and eat Weetos out of box. Now I know in my heart of hearts that Weetos do not a wholesome supper make, but I get sucked in by idea of them being ‘fortified with vitamins and iron’ and they are just so yummy.

Busy in the garden with my pressure washer – relocating the moss and mud from the patio onto the walls and my face – I ignored Belle’s plaintive cries for snacks. It was only when I realised it wasn’t actually late-afternoon at all, but nearly 8pm, that I thought I should probably come in and rustle up a healthy snack.

Unfortunately the fridge contained only Carlsberg and Jarlsberg (what are the chances??) so I turned instead to the emergency freezer drawer. 20 minutes later we were tucking into fish fingers and naan bread. By rights it should have been bedtime for Belle, but having neglected her for most of the afternoon I decide to let her stay up with me and watch Jonathan Creek. We are half way through before I wonder if it’s really suitable for a sensitive seven-year-old, but I put my hands over her eyes for the bit where the crazy secretary is having afternoon tea with the corpse of her former boss, so I think it’s ok.

When we finally get to bed Belle is overtired and a little traumtised and wants to come in my bed. I say no – kindly but firmly. Five minutes later she is back, but again I say no. In my head I decide that if she asks again I will say yes, so ten minutes later she is asleep next to me, thus rendering my initial resistance fairly pointless. What kind of rubbish parent develops a method of saying no twice, then yes on the third attempt? It doesn’t make a huge amount of sense.

But maybe it doesn’t need to. Maybe my fickleness is teaching my girls a valuable lesson about the inconsistencies of life and the importance of determination and persistance in getting what you want. Perhaps I am actually being a Very Good Mum, subtly showing them that life as an adult isn’t always fair or rational. Yes, that sounds plausible. Excellent. Now, Sunday lunch, Wheetos all round I think…

Photo credit: GavinLi

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A friend asked me this week what my dream job would be, if children weren’t a consideration.

I found that pretty hard to answer, as I can’t remember a time when children haven’t been a consideration, and I’ve no idea what that would feel like. I already had one by the time I was 17, so I never experienced the luxury of being able to legally drink and drive (not together of course) without a child in tow.

If I didn’t have children, what would I do? Would I make the most of my freedom, skipping happily from the theatre to the gym, filling my days with fulfilling work and wholesome voluntary activities? Or would I be swaying from one cocktail bar to the next, an inappropriately young man on each arm?

Probably neither. If I didn’t have children I imagine I would spend quite a lot of my time loafing about at home on my own, watching re-runs of Sex and the City and imagining everyone else was out doing something terribly sophisticated, like having drinks and chatting about literature with Stephen Fry. Which is how I pass many an evening already really.

So what about as a child, before parenthood was even conceivable – what did I imagine my adult life would be like then? I gave the question some serious thought. I actually have a very poor long-term memory. Goodness knows what happened to me as a child, but whatever it was has been successfully blocked out. Most of my childhood memories come via my sister, who even at four years younger than me seems to have a much clearer picture.

I do have an image in my head that has stuck with me though, from a time when I must have been imagining life as a grown up. It is a really only a flash, and is basically me dressed in a lovely suit and high heels, letting myself into an elegant, tidy and sparsely furnished flat. That’s it, but the sense I get from it is that I am just getting home from a long day in some kind of stressful but rewarding office based job, and am looking forward to kicking off my heels and relaxing with a nice hot bath.

All in all, not very helpful in terms of career planning. The opportunity to wear a nice pencil skirt and a good pair of shoes is clearly important though, which makes me question my current work at home status. Much of my time is spent in trousers with elasticated waists and I barely leave the house, let alone let myself back in with a sense of exhausted satisfaction.

Obviously I like writing, which is lucky, given my line of work, but I do miss the social interaction. Half the fun of work for me is striking up some kind of inappropriate relationship with a colleague, and skiving off to look at facebook or send personal emails doesn’t give the same sense of wicked pleasure when you work for yourself.

In the back of my head I nurture a dream of being offered my own column in the Guardian weekend magazine, one I’m sure is shared by one or two others, but I have learnt in the last year that work to me is about more than just the job you do. It is about the company you work for, the people you work with and the person you become once you get into that pencil skirt.

As much as I love the flexibility that working from home gives me, I miss the banter, the camaraderie, and the reason to get dressed in the morning. So maybe I’ll stick with my journalistic dreams, but I need them to involve an office. An office with lots of other interesting people in it. And maybe an on site cocktail bar and a view over Manhattan.

Hang on, my secretary has a call waiting. It’s Stephen – he has a new book he’d like to discuss over lunch. Sorry – must dash…

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WARNING: This post in very uncool. If you are likely to be offended by the pleading of an angst ridden blogger, please look away now.

The world of mummy and daddy blogging has been buzzing this week following the launch of the new MAD blogging awards, aimed at celebrating the best UK parent blogs. There are several different categories and in most cases the winners are chosen by the public vote – the more nominations therefore the better.

Now there have been some people claiming that they don’t mind whether or not they get nominated, that perhaps having awards at all flies in the face of the ‘spirit of blogging’, but I must admit I’m not convinced . Maybe it isn’t the cool thing to admit, but I do care. I care if people like my blog. I’ve only been blogging a few months, but already I feel part of an amazing community, and other people’s opinions matter to me. Every positive comment I get makes me smile, I obsessively check my stats, and I am hugely grateful for every person that reads my outpourings.

There. I said it.

Maybe there are people who genuinely don’t care if one or one hundred people read their posts, but if I didn’t care I would just scribble my thoughts in a notebook and hide them under my mattress, like I do with my more private ramblings. (Note to Bee – don’t actually go and look under my mattress, it is a metaphorical mattress). I blog because I want other people to read what I have to say. I want to make people laugh, I want to strike a chord, touch a nerve, make people think. I want people to LIKE ME damn it.

So, with my fragile ego in mind, if you enjoy my blog then please nominate me! It will make me happy.  Thank you.

*picks self up off knees and looks sheepish*

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