Maybe I'm not a feminist afterall

If you give me half a chance, and the right trigger, I will happily rant at you for hours about gender equality, equal pay, the glass ceiling, barbies and babies, or rude, discriminatory and aggressive phrases used in our culture that are defended mostly with arguments of "stop being such a girl" or "its just a phrase/movie/song". My husband will (not so) happily vouch for me when I say this, because he endures most of them.

However, according to this article in the guardian, perhaps I am not a feminist afterall. Although aimed at men, this article raises the point that if you are more interested in talking about men, or if you believe that there are some areas where men are discriminated against too, you're not really a feminist, so stop claiming to be allied with them.

So, here's my confesssion. Last semester I took a class on identity politics. Which is basically looking at the ways in which people are grouped together based on certain characteristics, and how that affects what we understand about who they are, what they are like and the kind of life chances they get. It focussed on feminism and sexuality based discrimination. So far, so good, right? Still a feminist? But when it came to writing my essay for the course, I chose to talk about men. And not in a "burn them at the stake for patriarchy" type of way, but to highlight how society is systematically failing to take domestic violence against men seriously. I argued that this came down to identity politics, to a lack of belief that men can be victims, and a lack of belief that women can be violent, and that this violence is dangerous. I also argued, that this leads us to a gross misunderstanding of what actually happens in many violent relationships, because, according to Straus' numerous population studies into family conflict, in 50% of violent relationships both partners hit. Furthermore, the other 50%, where only one partner is violent, is split down the middle: 25% is the woman perpetrating the violence, 25% is the man perpetrating the violence. If we believe his studies (and not everyone does) then the assumption that all domestic violence is wife beating is wrong 75% of the time. By only talking about violence against women at the hands of their male partners we are ignoring 75% of violent relationships, and we will neglect every single homosexual who suffers violence and abuse from their partner. It means that men who are trying to protect thier children from a violent and abusive wife have to fight all the harder to be believed. It means that men who go to domestic abuse shelters for help face ridicule, rejection, suspicion and are turned away because the vast majority of domestic violence shelters do not admit men.

To those who say that women's violence is not really a big is sue, because either women are not naturally violent and abusive, or not capable of inflicting harm- you are not only wrong, but guilty of the worst kind of assumptions about identity. It is equivalent to believing all women are poor, or need a man around the house to look after them, its like believing all women want children, all women are straight, all women love to cook, all are weak, all are victims. In the words of Malinen (2012) "If womanhood is coextensive with victimhood feminism is a hopeless enterprise."

The Weight of Responsibility

For me, the worst thing about living with a disability is not the pain, the exhaustion or all the things you miss out on. All of those things can be more horrendous than I can put into words, but what is completely devastating is that our responsibilities; what we expect of ourselves and what others expect of us are based on the assumption of good health. We all have the same physical and moral obligations to make sure our kids have hot meals, clean clothes and a safe environment to grow and learn in. We love our families the same, and there is the same expectation that we will step up when we're needed. What's not the same is our ability to do any of those things. That's completely restricted. On our bad days we have to choose between washing up or doing laundry, when we've completely run out of both clean dishes and clean clothes. So we choose, and we push, and we do what we have to at a huge personal cost because we need to. We have pain and suffering from housework, from playing with our kids, from picking them up and giving them a cuddle when they hurt themselves. And we push and we push and we push ourselves right to the very limits of our health because we have to. Everyday we walk a knife edge between what people need of us and how much damage we could do to our bodies by meeting those needs. And those responsibilities are what keep us up at night, what we cry over most, they are the most completely devastating thing about being a Mum with a chronic condition.

When we say we're struggling, what we're saying is that our health is showing the cracks that we're doing too much, that we could cause real and lasting (risking permanent) damage to our health and that we're already way behind on the most basic essentials for what needs done. And for us the basic essentials are not a clean house, home cooked meals and occupied children. For us the basic essentials means managing to get to the toilet ourselves, even if it takes us 10 minutes to work up to it, and 10 minutes to climb the stairs and half an hour to recover. The basic essentials means crawling to the kitchen to get our children juice and cereal for tea. And every day we struggle on to do the basics we further restrict what we can do over the next few days, weeks and months. Because every time we push when our bodies tell us to sit the fuck down our health deteriorates further. The rules of carrying on and doing what needs doing no matter what don't apply to us. They absolutely can't. And when our children or others we love need us, need us to do more than the basics that are already too much, we can't. And the morals that say family always comes first and that you are there for your friends when they need you, the morals that we feel with all our hearts and are aware of with every fibre of our being, that fill us with guilt and shame and hurt over the fact that we can't help those we love when they need us; those morals can only shape our behaviour if we ignore a much greater duty that we have. The duty to be as healthy as we possibly can so we can feed our children tomorrow.

Breast is Best Unless....

I am still breastfeeding my 15 month old baby. Most people have stopped by now, and I am definitely starting to feel pressure, said or unsaid, from society that Isaac is shortly going to be past the age that it's acceptable to breastfeed.

He now has teeth! And can communicate a little. He can tell me when he wants it, (usually by pulling at my top, or something similar). He can walk. So surely, he doesn't need his Mummies milk anymore?

The often mis-quoted statement from the World Health Organisation is that wherever possible babies should be breastfed until they are 6 months. It annoys me when formula companies use this to suggest that after that, a bottle is better, or at least as good; and the implication is that breastfeeding after this point is unnecessary.What the WHO actually says is

"Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond."

(http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/)

 

For me, this is just one of the many restrictions and social boundaries put to breastfeeding mothers. Breastfeeding a baby is ok, but after that it's all a bit icky. And breastfeeding is fine if people want to do that in their homes, in the toilet, or covered up with a blanket or other appropriate garment, but really, do you have to get your boobs out in public?? We forget that breasts are just another part of the human body, as natural and normal as a hand or an arm; and that babies and children especially see them like this. Most people think nothing of giving a toddler a glass of cows milk, and in fact see it as an essential part to their diet, but many would think it wrong for them to get healthier milk, better suited to their digestive system and nutritional needs straight from their mother.

 

The advantages of breastfeeding are too many to list here, the arguments have been said and are not my point. It frustrates me that formula feeding has become the norm to the point that so many unsaid restrictions are put on mothers who choose to breastfeed. Less and less women are breastfeeding for shorter and shorter times. It has become unacceptable to say that breastfeeding is truly better for your child, not just in thier infancy, but later in life too; with less obesity, less diabeties, and higher IQs waiting for breastfed babies.

 

The damage is real and lasting. And if you restrict a woman from breastfeeding openly in public, you restrict the next generation from learning about it. You restrict them from seeing it, from accepting it as an option for their children, from seeing it as normal and healthy and good, and you narrow their choices. The number of women who grow up seeing breastfeeding and feeling confident in their bodies and in breastfeeding reduces, and so do the breastfeeding rates, while the health of our children, and the next generation, decreases.

 

In "The Politics of Breastfeeding" Gabrielle Palmer makes the point that although there is much talk of how low breastfeeding rates are, the really incredible thing is that so many women do choose to breastfeed despite being in such an innappropriate environment. She was talking about hospitals and the unfamiliar environment, surrounded by strangers when most women's breastfeeding journey starts, but I think it applies to the whole of society. It is amazing that so many women do breastfeed for any length of time, given all the challenges they face, from pressure from formula companies (which can be subtle and incredibly effective) to pressure from partners and society, from simply just the normalisation of bottle feeding.

 

When are we going to stop underming breastfeeding by focussing on the details that are completely unimportant, and start truly supporting it and upholding it.



Enough

“Their position was perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale, being above the line at which neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too little of enough.” 

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

I've been thinking about that quote a lot; and I believe with all my heart it applies to me. We have enough, not too much, so that it gets in the way of living life and appreciating what you have, and not too little that we truly want for anything. I feel truly blessed beyond measure, and I know that we are well provided for. We have a safe, warm home, we have each other, we never have to go without anything we really need and, to be honest, we have a lot of stuff that we don't. While I'm not perfect, and our lives aren't perfect and so there are always things you want to change or do differently; we certainly have enough and I can't express how grateful I am for our wee family.

There's always a but though, right?

Well, there is and there isn't. I meant every single word of what I just said, and I believe it with all of my heart. I know how lucky I am to have not just our worldly comforts, but a wonderful, supportive husband who is my best friend and the actual best baby boy in the world (although, it's probably more accurate to say he's a toddler now! How did that happen?!?). In my heart of hearts, and despite myself though, I would really like another. I want a brother or sister for Isaac to play with and to grow up with. It's only been in the last couple of months that I've come around to the idea of another, after 9 months of being sick and feeling sick followed by about 6 months of not being able to walk properly, plus all the normal sleep deprivation and exhaustion and at times complete despair that comes from having a newborn baby, you'd think that one would be more than enough! Maybe if Ben was open to the idea of another child then I would be more apprehensive, maybe then it would become a real possibility and I'd actually have to think about the practicalities. If I'm nearly as incapacitated by a second pregnancy as I was with the first I have no idea how I would manage to look after a toddler too. And then there's the financial considerations. And space, and time, and everything else. But Ben doesn't want another. And people say maybe that will change, and maybe it will but it's not something I can rest my hopes on.

So I feel very conflicted. Because it's a kind of grief to give up the desire and love and hope that you feel for the possibility of another baby. And sometimes its a sadness that weighs heavy on my heart. But on the other hand, I have more joy, more love, more happiness than some people get in a lifetime. How can I possibly complain?

Doubt

Self doubt is my biggest enemy. Its nagging questions plague my brain and undermine my confidence. If it was a problem before I was a Mum its all the more exhausting now. The biggest issue is the inconsistency it leads to - all these voices running round in my head, telling me what I'm doing will never work, a hundred voices from a hundred different opinions assaulting me.

When I think about it, my heart breaks for Isaac. How can he ever learn to be secure, confident, to behave well and to know what that is if his Mum is constantly changing boundaries and consequences? With all my heart I want to do right by him, want to give him a secure and happy childhood, to set him up well for the rest of his life. To slowly teach him what it is to be independent, secure, confident, happy. I want him to love life and be sure of his place in it and I know that starts right here; with him knowing his place in our home, knowing boundaries and rules, and knowing how to have fun, to live, laugh and love within them. My inconsistency is failing him already.

Its causing huge issues with bedtime battles. I had thought I was being consistent, but I'm not. He has a regular bedtime routine and everything, but we're trying to wean him off needing rocked to sleep. Last week we started a new tactic, and for a couple of days it was working. The couple of days I wasn't feeling well and Ben did it all. Since I've started doing my share, its gotten worse. And I know in my heart its because I'm not consistent. We have agreed a plan. But I question, I wonder, the HV's suggestions nag my brain, other Mum's stories and tips run round and round. I try to skip 2 steps ahead, it doesn't work, I get frustrated, we go backwards. 2 hours later he's still not sleeping.

If there is any reason for me to stop, to harden my heart, to steel my resolve, to learn to trust myself to stick to the plan it is for my baby boy. Tonight I took the first baby step towards that, decided to trust myself and our plan, to stick to it and follow it through. And I will keep taking those baby steps, all in the same direction for my son, for my husband, and for me. God help me.
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For as long as there are parents and children debates will rage about the "right" way to go about family life. Arguments about parenting are some of the most ferocious I've ever witnessed; more so than those about politics and religion combined. From breastfeeding to co-sleeping; attachment parenting and baby wearing, routines, weaning, sleep training, the minefield is endless.

It always amazes me the strength of feeling, and if I'm honest, the volume of stupidity. Perhaps its just that those with the strongest feelings are often those with the most extreme views based on the least evidence, and that those same people tend to shout the loudest and drown out or inflame those who are usually well reasoned, intelligent and secure. It makes me wonder if people ever stop to question what they hear or read on the internet but I suppose its more a case that you look for evidence to back up your beliefs. I know I do.

The one that me and Ben struggle with most is the argument about how to cope with a baby who doesn't sleep well. It doesn't help that we sit on opposite sides of the fence. We've often found ourselves bombarded with strict instructions to deal with it a certain way and advice that borders on the aggressive. Its hard to be on the receiving end but its even more heartbreaking to watch it from the other side. What I don't understand is why we don't talk to and treat each other as if we all have a functioning brain. Parents instincts and understanding of their own children is so undervalued, but so completely essential and more important than words can express. I believe that with all of my heart. Its sad to see parents undermining each other and dishing out well meaning advice in place of support and encouragement that builds confidence and reassurance.

Most of you will know that Isaac's sleep is an ongoing issue. Its debilitating, infuriating, upsetting and demoralising. I have felt utterly helpless, sick with stress and exhaustion. This last few weeks have been particularly bad and I've often felt like we have no option but to CIO. When I think about leaving my baby to cry I feel my chest tighten and my stomache knot. I know many parents who have done it and its helped them and I support their right to choose that. But it doesn't sit right with me. I'm grateful for my wonderful husband who supports me and understands even if he doesn't agree. He has sacrificed a lot to make sure I am happy with how we cope with Isaac's sleep and I will always be thankful for that. Today, I believe, I reached a turning point. And its not the point at which I suddenly believe Isaac's sleep is going to be fixed in the next week. Its the turning point that goes from "I don't have any other option but to do what I don't want to" to being comfortable in my own skin, comfortable with my decisions as a Mother and still feeling positive that with hard work we can help our baby sleep well without needing us quite so much. Tonight was the first night of our new plan and its gone really well. He's settled better than
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Giving your all

It's so easy to forget what you love. Maybe it's the monotony of everyday life that slowly erodes who you are, what you love doing, the relationships with those you love the most. It's easier to argue with your husband than it is to make time to do something fun together. We've found it especially hard to adjust to the full time nature of being parents, but it anything can get in the way: work, church, computer games, or just the daily grind. What an awful phrase, the daily grind.

Does life really have to be like that? Why don't we make time for ourselves, for each other? Why is it easier to be annoyed at the inconvience of your kids wanting to play when your busy doing something "more important" than it is to just enjoy that they want to spend time with them. To be silly, and play, or to include them in what your doing. Surely there's a better way. Every minute is a minute we won't get back.

That sounds kinda dire, doesn't it? But that's really not how I mean it. I'm getting a bit excited! I'll be honest, I'm exhausted, I'm a bit sore, and 13 months on I'm STILL not getting enough sleep! Which definitely makes for a grumpy Laura. But even so, today is one day that I will never get back. I will never get back the three more hours I have to myself before Isaac gets back from the childminder. So, instead of spending it on computer games, or watching crap on telly (really, has daytime tv alwasy been this bad?!?) I could make the most of it. I could SLEEP! Or, I could get my uni books out and do some much needed study, get prepared for next year so I can spend less time stressing and more time enjoying my baby. Or, I could write this. I had forgotten how much I love this space to organise my thoughts, vent my latest frustration, or type excitedly about the latest thing occuping my brain. At least it gives my hubby a break from the assault on his ears caused by the latest nappy I'm trying out, or water use in Dubai, or whatever else happens to be occupying my brain.
I read a book ages ago written about the proverbs, or at least, I read the first chapter or so - I am a bit of a book slut and find it difficult to finish one before I get excited about the next one. Anyway, I'll always remember it talking about living life completely to the full. Giving everything 10 out of 10. It spoke of how many people misunderstand that as taking on lots and lots and lots of different things; but really it's about choosing to do what you can give a lot to and get a lot from; choosing what's really important and giving that 100%. I obviously didn't take this advice when it comes to my reading patterns. But the importance of making sure you take the proper time to look after yourself, your relationships, and being wise in your choice of commitments really struck a chord with me.

How can you not enjoy that cheeky face??? So, here's to today, and to taking the time to enjoy it. ;)