The Mule

Dear Daughters Brace yourselves, I have a confession to make. It may or may not surprise you. Here goes... I don't like being woken up in the night! I REALLY don't like it! I can't stand it! Maybe you thought it just washed over me - all part of the service - like chopping cheese into chunks or sitting through Waybaloo - well you're wrong. Being woken up and dragged from the delicious depths of sleep two, three, four, five times a night is WAY more irritating than that! WAY MORE! And, quite frankly, I'm bloody well sick of it! It's not just the nights - which are bad enough - it's the evenings too. For five years now I have had my enjoyment of every single evening compromised in some way, either because I've been trapped in a bedroom breastfeeding, singing, storytelling or simply begging you to go to sleep, or because I've had to abandon my delicious food / fascinating film / other grown-up activity, and go back upstairs to soothe you back to...

Sometimes I pass the place where we once lived And glimpse three ghosts arriving at the door A woman - me, a man, a newborn child, Alighting, in the darkness, shocked and sore. I watch them cross the threshold, disappear, They don't exist now - all of them are gone, For brand new parents barely last a day, And babies only live 'til they are one. In twenty years I'll show you our old haunts: "We used to come here once when you were small" You'll shrug, but I'll see flashes everywhere - Each gate you climbed, each park, each village hall.        Our lives move on, we change, evolve, adjust,         Leaving our trace, our imprints in the dust. If you are partial to sonnets about parenting you might also like:  I Lie With You Until You Are Asleep

The UK news this week has been dominated by the story of Jimmy Savile, the television presenter and media personality currently under investigation for a string of sex offences. It's emerging that Savile, who died in October 2011, abused a series of young people - the exact number is yet to be established - over a showbiz career that spanned several decades. Our reaction: shock, horror, sadness even, but surprise? Not really, because, we sort of knew, didn't we? We sort of know. We have uneasy feelings, gut reactions, hunches, intuitions, sixth senses. The hairs stand up, very slightly, on the backs of our necks. We don't know how we know. But we do. No one could capture this better than poet Simon Armitage , a former social worker, in his poem, The Guilty : They look us dead in the eye and deny it. They turn out their pockets - nothing but biscuits and shreds of a tissue. They will undress their children this very minute. Suggest their names, they are astonished. ...

Freedom for Birth, a new documentary film about human rights in childbirth, was screened in over a thousand locations across the world last Thursday, and I was there, keen to take part in a 'Mother's Revolution' supported by leading lights from the field - Ina May Gaskin, Sheila Kitzinger, Michel Odent - all calling for women to 'take back birth'. The film took as its focus the plight of Agnes Gereb, the Hungarian midwife currently under house arrest for attending women in illegal home births, and the related case of Ternovszky vs. Hungary, in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that every woman has the right to choose where and how she gives birth. Quite clearly, there are some circumstances in which the compromise of freedom and the violation of human rights are tangible, for example when imprisonment is involved, or, as in another case touched on in the film, a woman's baby was taken away on the grounds of negligence because she has refused med...

I lie with you until you are asleep, Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, often more, Clocks tick, frustration builds, yet still I keep, And stay with you on your side of the door. Out there, my old life tempts, a voice cries, "Fail!", And tells me there are better things to do, Release: the world shrinks down, we both exhale, And drift together, touching souls, we two. In age, perhaps, you'll do the same for me, And hold my papery hand, and stroke my hair, You'll know the worth of love's proximity, The gift we give by simply being there.   A final kiss, a sigh, a comfort deep:   I lie with you until you are asleep. If sonnets about parenting peel your potato, see here for another: Sometimes I Pass the Place Where We Once Lived .

Sleep training, controlled crying, and crying it out: is it ok, or isn’t it? New research has just been published in the American Journal of Pediatrics suggesting that: “Behavioral sleep techniques did not cause long-lasting harms or benefits to child, child-parent, or maternal outcomes. Parents and health professionals can feel comfortable about using these techniques to reduce the population burden of infant sleep problems and maternal depression.” The research is already being hailed as a victory by those who claim that sleep training is an essential parenting rite of passage and completely harmless to the child involved. The Daily Telegraph headlined: ‘ Leave your baby to cry, scientists say ’, whilst the good old Daily Mail claimed, ‘ Letting babies cry rather than rushing to comfort them is secret to longer sleep (for infants AND parents) ’. This is not a new debate. The fight over whether or not sleep training is harmful rages constantly amidst parents, faceboo...

People make different parenting choices, and that's fine. We don't all want to sleep with our baby in our bed, carry them in a sling, or nurse them until they're three. We might not like the idea of routines, we might despise the thought of spoon feeding a baby purees. But whilst these issues are often a source of interesting and sometimes heated debate, none of them really matter, or at least, they pale into insignificance compared to the bottom line, which is this: Parents need to be Responsive . No matter what other choices you make, as long as you try your best to be consistently and lovingly responsive to your child, you are 'getting it right'. Tantrums - which mostly happen at the toddler age - are a difficult area for all parents and it's sometimes hard to know what to do. But how we respond to our children in these testing moments is very important. I've written a detailed post about responding to distress in general here: Everybody Hurts: Ten Ways...

This article is on the front page of today's Huffington Post . (16th August 2012) What did you learn about breastfeeding in school? Chances are - not much. Whether you were a pupil in the 1950's or the 1990's, it's unlikely you were told anything at all about nursing a baby, because breastfeeding has never ever been a statutory requirement on the National Curriculum, and it still isn't, even today. Teenagers are taught about alcohol, emotions, contraception, cultural diversity and more as part of their PSHE lessons. But breastfeeding? Telling girls how to do that is dangerous and downright disgusting, according to many commenters in this recent article in the Daily Mail about a pilot scheme in Merseyside teaching the benefits of nursing to 14 year olds. Revolting!! Don't teach them how to read and write but teach them how to breastfeed...ye Gods. Teach them how to respect themselves, how to say NO and how to keep their legs closed, along with teaching them ...

To get us in the mood for World Breastfeeding Week 2012 , I'm offering the chance to win a free copy of a wonderful new book on breastfeeding: Breastfeeding - Stories to Inspire and Inform , edited by Susan Last and published by Lonely Scribe . To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post - more details at the end of this review. Susan Last is a breastfeeding peer supporter and the mother of three breastfed children. The book begins with her informed and thoughtful introduction, in which she writes very cleverly and concisely about the politics of breastfeeding, it's value, and the main myths that surround it in our current society. The rest of the book is filled with over twenty women's stories of their breastfeeding experiences, and offers a wide and fascinating variety, from nursing a premature baby, to twins, to tandem feeding, and many more. In every tale, the women write passionately of both struggles and triumphs, of what helped, and what didn...

"I have, indeed, turned over a good many books." Nathaniel Hawthorne I don't read novels any more. The last time I sat and lost myself in a beautiful story was when my first daughter was a baby, and I would sit carefully with her hooked in the crook of my left arm, asleep but occasionally flutter sucking at my breast, whilst with my free right hand I held and quietly turned the pages of my book. Now, with a four year old and a two year old, neither of my hands are free, and the frustration of being constantly interrupted has become part of the fabric of my existence. I don't read novels, just as I don't get comfy in a chair: there is no time or chance to sink deeply into anything. So as not to forget completely how to read, I now prefer what I call 'dipping books', the sort that you can pick up and put down, read a bit in the middle and a bit at the back, whilst chopping cheese into cubes or grilling fish fingers. Parenting books, non fiction, poetry an...

A supplier of Amber Teething Necklaces on Ebay, Wee Rascals , has had to recall some of their products due to safety concerns, I learnt today. The company has recalled all of its necklaces and ankle bracelets for babies and children, because they failed a safety test instigated by the Buckinghamshire County Council Trading Standards Department. The tests found that, “The product failed to satisfy BS EN71-1:2011 (Safety of toys – part 1: mechanical and physical properties) when tested in accordance with paragraph 8.7 (Impact Test), in that several beads shattered and detached. The bead fragments fitted wholly inside the small parts cylinder of dimensions specified in paragraph 8.2. These components pose a potential choking/inhalation hazard to a child under 36 months.” How do I know this? Because I bought one of the damn things, and like many of the various bits of baby tat I've been suckered into purchasing over the years, it turned out to be a complete waste of money. Of co...

The discussion continues this week about feminist writer Elizabeth Badinter's book, The Conflict , which, amongst other things, is critical of the way attachment parenting 'tethers women to the home and family'. It doesn't really surprise me in the slightest that a style of parenting that often places the needs of children first and those of adults second is coming under fire, in a culture that acclaimed analyst Elizabeth Young-Bruehl has recently dubbed, ' childist '. Even the debates about Badinter's book and its implications for motherhood and feminism seem to be completely devoid of any mention of children's needs, rights or perspective. Children in our world are frequently portrayed as 'difficult', 'naughty', 'trouble', an impediment to adult enjoyment and progress, destroyers of careers and social lives, even ' the enemies of good art '. As parents we are often encouraged to view our relationships with our childre...

I'm really excited that the Huffington Post has featured my first article for them on the front page of their UK edition today! Click here to take a look, or read on below... Dear Nick Clegg Like most parents, I’m sure you love your child fervently, and want only the best for them. Like most parents, you like to think that the decisions you make are in your child’s best interests, now and in the future. And like most parents who delegate the care of their children to paid strangers, you choose to ignore several decades of psychology and neuroscience, which show quite clearly that the loving and nurturing environment and secure attachment experience provided by a mother cannot be replicated by a childcare worker of any quality. Of course, like most parents, you’re quite sure your choice is the right one, and this wouldn’t necessarily matter quite so much, if you were ‘like most parents’. But you’re not: you’re the Deputy Prime Minister. You recently announced your plans for c...

"If you nurse them every time they cry", she said, "You just become a human dummy". A dummy - as if I were...lifeless, still, inanimate, unresponsive, and easily and cheaply replaced. Worse still, perhaps, an idiot, a stooge, a fool. I know that Fools have a long history of being wiser than they seem... Nevertheless I prefer to think of myself as... A Human Pacifier. pac·i·fi·er   [pas-uh-fahy-er]  noun 1. a person or thing that pacifies. 2. a rubber or plastic device, often shaped into a nipple, for a baby to suck or bite on. OK. I'll take definition 1. I am 'a person or thing that pacifies.' pac·i·fy    [pas-uh-fahy] verb (used with object), pac·i·fied, pac·i·fy·ing. 1. to bring or restore to a state of peace or tranquillity; quiet; calm: to pacify an angry man. 2. to appease: to pacify one's appetite. 3. to reduce to a state of submission, especially by military force; subdue. Yes... I 'bring or restor...