Naming things: Keep It Simple when it comes to toddlers

E. was hungry. He had a whole plate of broccoli and still wanted to eat more, so I asked him kindly -What do you want: yogurt or fruit?. I suppose to do this because emotional responsible parents that care about their toddlers’ needs ALWAYS  allow them to choose ( if it’s  possible)

And my emotional responsible son says: I want fruit. Here we go! I’m allowing him to choose, how smart and loving parent I am!

Me: Ok maitia (basque word for dear) do you want banana or apple?

E.: No, I want fruit.

Me: Maitia, banana and apple are fruits. Which one do you want?

E.:I want fruit- now he sounds angry and puzzled.

Me:  But banana and apple are fruits, like strawberries or oranges.

E.: Nooooooo, I want fruit!!!! fruit!!!!!FRUIT!!! -screaming the house down in a tantrum 9 on Richter scale.

Me: Sh*t !

Natalia

in my mind these days…

I know this is a silly thing to be asking…but at this point in time I would like a magic wand that would dress r. and make her nap without taking 3 hours to do so….

Next week she will be starting to go to her montessori ‘house’, and she has to be there by 8.45, and again I am faced with the question: how the hell do people get to drop their children in time, dressed and fed? It is a small mountain in the larger order of things, but one which I can’t help but fret about.

 Since we moved houses three weeks ago, r. has been quite challenging and our rhythm totally out the window: naps are until 4ish, bedtime again is 10ish, and it is driving me mad, so we have been working this week on being more organised ourselves and a little bit more structured, but even so… I am not sure how I am going to achieve getting her in time…. At the moment my average is getting out at 10.30/11 from an 7.45 wake up…so any tips welcome.

Other things on my mind: looking for work, painting samples, dreaming about a house that is not cluttered and full of boxes and things that don’t seem to belong anywhere, and a life in which everything flows, is more ordered, simple, lovely and cooperative….and on ways to make some of these things happen, but obviously, even if this was achievable, any progress here is SLOW, and my body does not seem to want to cooperate either: too tired, grumpy and impatient. So that is what is going on around here…

What are your current gripes? Come on, here is your place to rant!

Lucila

struggling here…

I have always been one for children’s empowerment…I have made my best attempt at making the house feel as much r’s as it is ours, inspired mostly by Montessori principles, and many many ideas from bloggers out there. R. has all her stuff at her reach in her room, pictures at her level, has a kitchen cupboard so that she can get her stuff, her little spaces in almost every room of the house, and ways of adapting the big rooms and heights for her. I also respect as much as I can her timings, her need to do things alone and her way – mainly because chaos ensues as soon as you unthinkingly try to help her. In any case, you get the picture…

One thing, however, that has always been an issue for me was the bed. I could not bring myself to make r. sleep on a floor bed from the start, mainly for my/our benefit. First she slept with us, although she officially had a moses basket, and then, slowly, she started using her cot, a decision we made for different reasons that I won’t go into now. I know it was for my peace of mind mainly – the thought of her falling off the mattress, of her crawling at night and putting her fingers somewhere dangerous, or something falling on her…that kind of thing would keep me awake, at a point where more sleep is all I could think of.

Now she is two and a half, however, that is no longer a choice, since she started using her ‘big girl’s bed’, as she could get out of her cot. And you know, at the moment, I find it is an utter nightmare. Her bedtime, usually around 8, is now around 10.30, with all her coming and goings, because she clocked very early on how lovely it is to get out. …and its driving me nuts.

I hate how this little thing conflicts with the way I try to do all other things, but I also have learnt that coherence is not always possible…but I struggle. So I try to be gentle, and manage timings and routines a bit more tightly, to see if I can move this new development to a shape that does not make me want to scream every night. Unfortunately, this is how it seesm to end up every night. Me, álmost asleep while she keeps chatting and poking me to keep me awake, or me explaining that mummy needs to go now, and that she needs to stay in her bed, in her special room…which lasts about three minutes, at most. In the end, I bring her back all huffing and puffing, at the rhythm of ‘how many times have I told you to GO TO SLEEP’….which ends up making her cry, and me feeling shit, and crying, and her going to sleep two minutes later. So, as you can see I am not getting there. 

I am not sure how much this is about feminism and motherhood, but it explains partly why my level of productivity has gone way down – I just can’t face sitting at my desk at 11 at night, and in any case, I need to clean up, organise stuff for the next day, and even talk to my partner. So sorry, and if any of you please can tell me this is a phase, which of course, it has to be, I would be grateful!

Lucila

 

Pink and pretty – how ‘innocent’ can harm

Orenstein, Peggy, 2011, Cinderella ate my daughter. Dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture, New York:  HarperCollins Publishers

I explained before what moved me to grab this book. As the title of the book suggests, it studies and analyses the new incarnation of the girlie-girl culture.

I liked this book for several reasons.

First, because I could identify with the authors concerns for her daughter and the reasons she set out to study more in detail this phenomenon. She describes how she wants to encourage her daughter to be a healthy, happy, strong girl. The girlie-girl culture freaks her out, but at the same time she does not want to give her daughter the impression that feminine, or girly stuff is not good, that ‘boys’ things are better. She wants her daughter to find a way of exploring her sexuality in her own terms, and being able to understand her body, her desire, her needs. And thus, objects strongly to the early sexualisation of children, and to the models of coming of age that seem to follow the princes stage – that of modern human ‘princesses’ such as Hannah Montana or Britney, which ends up being about objectifying.  She wants her daughter to be strong and independent, to have a healthy body image and at the same time to fit in. She is worried about media, but also about social media. And more. 

And she is brave to tackle head on these difficult issues. To do so, she immerses in the girlie-girl culture, by talking and interviewing different people, such as the mind behind the Disney Princess phenomenon, by analysing different products and toys – from Barbie, American Girl to Bratz, and all the z phenomenon-, by talking to mothers and children –including toddler pageants’ mothers- , by reviewing studies, and also weaving in personal stories. This book is mainly targeted at the general public, more than an academic audience. It is journalistic. And it is well-done in this sense as I found it not only informative, but also funny, and very engaging. I read it very quickly.

A thing I really appreciated about this book is that it is not written from a smug ‘know-it-all’ perspective. She questions herself, backtracks, starts again, moves in different directions around the issues and shows her personal struggles. It is like reading a funny, honest, on-going conversation of the author with herself, and with others, around the tricky issues parents and children face in contemporary girlhood. It is the type of conversation I would have myself. So in a way, I am glad she has done so much work that I can use, and also work with. Beware, if you are looking for a more ‘parental advice’ book, this book shows her journey, not a clear cut ‘solution’.

For me, this made the book meaty and engaging, but also particularly difficult to review properly, to summarise. And for this reason, I have decided that it would be more interesting to describe here briefly the issues the book touches on, and to, in the following weeks follow up with the different themes this book raises.

So here it goes:

Orenstein starts this book by arguing the importance of thinking about the girlie-girl culture, even though we might be tempted – with so many other issues to worry about- to give it a pass. She states that the emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase a girl’s vulnerability to the issues that most worry parents: depression, eating disorders, disordered body image, risky sexual behaviour, to name a few.

She argues that these issues don’t just magically appear during teenage years, but are slowly built throughout the years. And that these little decisions parents make all along, such as which toys, movies, clothes, children wear/use matter. Her aim is to understand ways in which we can help our daughters navigate the contradictions they will face as girls, and to show us how and what this culture has become and what has changed in the last years.

She deals with the question of why princesses appeal, not only to children and businesses, but to parents. And shows how these are appealing to parents many times for their ‘safety’, but that this is done through a consumer culture that encourages the opposite. In addition, she scrutinises the boom of ‘pink and pretty’ for girls, and for this explores the business sense in this strategy, and how limiting this turns out to be for creating a female identity. This leads her to tackle the issue of nature vs. nurture, and to show how even though there is phase where gender for children needs to be validated through exterior signs, which makes them more prone to seek reassurance from toys, clothes, colours, this is also a stage in which they are more malleable to long-term influences on abilities and roles that go with sex. Next, she looks at how exploration of femininity can lead to exploitation and how difficult to manoeuvre the land of sexually charged toys, dolls, clothes.

Furthermore, she discusses the need for violent play, and critiques how this has been thwarted by TV. She shows how, even if children use the same toys –such as guns – as older generations used, the marketing culture in which they are immersed means that the relationship that girls (and boys) have with this toys and the impact they have, is different. The author also explains how tame Disney fairytales can be detrimental to a child’s emotional development, and describes her successful experiments with more gory versions, which at least, she argues, give better models for coming on age than the real life princesses she goes on to examine.

Orenstein described how the passage, the coming of age, of real-life princesses, such as the Hannah Montana actress or Britney Spears, for instance, seems to invariably involve the shedding of clothes. Her struggle here is that these modern day princesses seem to express the struggle of girls more widely, but encourage girls to view self-objectification as a female rite of passage.

Next comes a related, and major, issue in all this girlie-girl culture:  the importance of body image. She describes here the history of fat, and how it became not only a health issue, but the moral issue it is today. Her advice, before having a daughter, to avoid eating disroders and a disordered body image was the usual: praise the actions not the body, involve her in group sports, in volunteerism, and make her media literate. But she shows how hard it is to counteract a message that is given by everything and everyone, and also one that you find hard modelling yourself. And how hard she finds it to give her daughter a sense of self-worth that was not contingent on her looks and clothes, but at the same time make her also stay allies with other girls.

Finally, she studies how the internet and social media is experienced and used by older children. She shows how social media has changed the ways children conceptualise their selves and their relationships, and that these are build in a similar way as ‘branding’. In addition, she shows how bad judgement was much less memorable before, and how forms of harassment and bullying have found new and wider forms of expression. The author points out how different ages bring different challenges, different abilities and development, and thus, different parental strategies need to follow. The author, however, reminds us that our role is that of preparing them, more than shielding them, from the world.  

As you can see, even with this brief summary of issues, there is plenty of stuff to dissect. I do recommend this book, and would love if you want to join me in reading and discussing it together…like a geeky book club, you know you want to

And if you don’t keep up, I will send you some pink toys and a princess DVD your way…

Lucila

Note: I have not been sent or asked to review this book.

The princess phase

I just finished reading Cinderella ate my daughter, by Peggy Orenstein, as I am already thinking about how to handle the looming challenge: the princess stage, which I can already see brewing. R. is only 2 and a half, but she received her first pink glittery fairy outfit for Easter, and she put it on and her face lit up and she said ‘princess’. And she puts towels and any fabric really, around herself and says ‘princess’. She wants to wear dresses, and wants me to wear dresses too, especially flowery ones. She grabs them from the wardrobe, and tells me to put them on.

It is weird, because I never talked about princesses, we did not care about the royal wedding, and she does not have books about them, or anything. Her first encounters with the notion of princesses were with her cousins here in Argentina, where things are much more divided in terms of gender in things such as clothing, colours, activities.  But that wasn’t very intense either. Maybe the nanny too, or other children she plays with. In any case, it is happening.

But, as a mother of a girl, I really want to think ahead, rather than let the steam roller of the marketing machines at work and the flow of mainstream culture pass smoothly (though if I had a boy, I would do the same, but probably my concerns would be different). As Natalia commented before, I get fed up of the limited range of things that boys and girls are meant to do, be, use, or wear. It is limiting, in a bad way, and it does not nurture the amazing range of qualities that these little individuals might have. For instance, I find the importance that body image has in this culture, especially for women, is oppressive. And that is why I am thinking about this, because play is crucial way in which children understand things.

Furthermore, these first years are very important in terms of how nurture then becomes nature. As books such as Lise Eliot’s Pink Brain and Blue Brain shows (or what Cordelia Fine seems to be saying though I haven’t read it yet), babies and children’s’ brain are still in formation, and even though there are no significant differences, these are turned into big gaps, and also into ‘nature’, into adult brain differences.  So what we do now, matters in more than one way.

So when I read in Blue Milk about this book, I ordered it and these last few days had a bit of time to read it. And this book kind of reassured me, but also scared me too. The scale and diversity of shit is much worse than what I imagined….

So I want to arm myself with a way to handle this many faceted issue. Because, as other mothers, I want her to grow up to be a happy, confident, strong woman that does mainly get not her self-worth, as Orenstein says, from the outside in, but from the inside out. And what I don’t like about the whole pinkness and princessy thing – as reinterpreted by Disney for instance -is that it is mainly about looks, about being beautiful, about not doing much, and being rescued by a prince. I am already aware of how she mainly gets compliments a lot on her looks, while boys don’t as much.

However, I struggle with thinking in terms of big powerful machineries at work vs little us. Though I know it is true in a general sense, and it pushes my politics in many ways, I also know that the details, the how things work are also important, and that this is often more full of cracks than what grand narratives allow. So though I know Disney and Mattel are totally retrograde in terms of women, I also think there is a lot of leave in terms of how things are used. And in what you can do about it. However, and this is a big however, we don’t live in a vacuum. R. has already started venturing in the big wide world, and will continue to do so.  And in this, Disney, Mattel and others have quite a lot of money invested so that they presence seems almost unavoidable.

So how to deal with this? Here are my first thoughts…throwing the TV out of the window, keep them enclosed forever, moving to the middle of nowhere, talking about these things with them (or brainwashing – if Disney can, so can you!)… but really, as Orenstein says in her book, we are immersed in it in many ways, and there is a lot of money involved, much much more than even fifteen years ago. So an important question she asks is: how do we deal with this girly-girl culture? Where do we draw the line/s? How?

I will do a review tomorrow, but in the meantime, one thing that really matters and makes a difference is awareness. And as the author declares, to remember that our role is not to keep the world at bay, but to prepare them so that they can flourish in it.  

I will leave you with this nice thought, and scare you tomorrow ; )

Lucila

Rhythm

Why is it that on the days when I am with r. all day, everything seems to flow much more smoothly than on the days where I work, especially those days like today, when I work for longer?  It feels that on days when I work, I get into another mode, another flow, another rhythm. But I think my worst mistake is, guess what? trying to overcompensate.

Hear this and laugh. Today I worked longer hours because I have to do the corrections for my PhD, and as usual, until I don’t have the pressure of the deadline looming, I cannot seem to gain momentum. In this case, the fear and dread of going back to my thesis meant I avoided it like the plague. Well, I decided that when r. came back, we would cook dinner together, and not just any old bit of pasta, but something new, exciting and fun! Sushi!! Yeah! Did I say overcompensating?

But this is what happens. The days I work I seem to have much less patience, much less tolerance for interruptions, disorder and mess, so, well, it is not a day to make sushi for the first time. The inevitable happens – r. does not really want to cook, pulls me away from the kitchen, and wants me to go to the garden. I decided I would not be fazed, and take her little table and chairs outside, and as much of the ingredients I can remember and grab with one hand while being pulled with the other. I try to read the recipe but cannot concentrate with the tugging at my clothes, and well, r. enthusiasm, as usual, is for the ingredients, which she eats happily while I try to make sense of how to roll the sushi.

And then she does help me. She is overenthusiastic with the amount of rice that needs to be put in the nori thingy, and with patting it and spreading it everywhere, which in my impatient state means that after a while I cannot help but shout, ‘that’s enough now!’, as my exasperation grows. Finally, she, of course, is not keen to try the result, she already ate the ingredients in any case. And it is late, and she is tired, but I am hungry, so she sits on my lap, and delights in splashing the soy sauce with the sushi and wanting to put ALL the sushi bits in my mouth, one after the other, which means I get all the drips of the soy sauce and almost choke trying to tell her to stop. Exasperation and shouting ensues. R., who is now much more articulate, tells me she is upset, and how mummy got angry, and she cried, and then of course is the only thing that she wants to tell her dad when he calls from the airport.

Tomorrow, long working hours again, but my plan is simple: pasta with pesto – prepared in advance- and as soon as she arrives I will sit and read books forever and ever…

Lucila

Reflexiones sobre nutrir y comer, como madre feminista

Uno de los temas que me preocupan como madre, especialmente como madre de una nena, es el tema de la relacion entre la comida y la imagen corporal. Como feminista, me parece que ya hay bastante con la presión cultural y de los medios, con la obsesión por la imagen y un modelo de cuerpo de mujer, y por ende, con la relación con la comida que eso genera, para yo contribuir más a esto. Por eso, cuando tuve a mi hija me puse a pensar en como hacer esto, lo que me llevo a repensar mi relación con la comida y mi cuerpo, que no es poco, digo.  El camino que encontré, que va con mis valores, y con lo que quiero llegar a poder hacer, es el de comer intuitivamente (Perdón pero no encontré un buen link en español). Puesto de una manera simple se trata de dejar de lado la mentalidad de hacer dieta y comer lo que tengo ganas, cuando tengo hambre, y parar cuando estoy llena. Y de enteder, y buscar otros caminos para nutrirme emocionalmente, que no estén atados al comer.

Este fin de semana estuvimos con otra pareja que tiene chicos un poco más grandes, uno de casi cinco y uno de dos y medio. Aparte de pasarla muy bien, lo que note es la tensión que se generaba y que roles se asumían a la hora de comer. Por ejemplo, uno, el más chico, come de todo sin problemas y en cantidad. Y así era, todos los chistes eran acerca de  ‘ahh, el se come todo, no hay problema’, o risas cada vez que comía algo, o te pedía un poco de tu comida, y así. Pero era visto positivamente. Con el otro, todo era una continua negociación. Si decía que no tenía hambre o quería comer solo comer fruta, no primero la comida; si decía que no tenía hambre en el desayuno era come tres cucharadas y después te podes levantar, o come dos brócolis si no, no hay postre, y el negociaba – uno, no dos, y así constantemente.  Y todo el tiempo, puedo comer helado, puedo galletitas, o lo que haya visto. Y así se generaba una dinámica familiar particular. No es una escena nada fuera de lo común, ¿no? ¿Quién no vio o vivió estas escenas cotidianas? ¿Como el chico, o los padres? Sé que este es un modelo, casi diría el más común.

Pero la verdad es que no me gustaría que sea así con r. No quiero negociar constantemente, no quiero que coma para mí –porque cocine- o solo cuando esta lista la comida –si tiene hambre entre comidas-, o que se termine todo el plato, o lo que sea. No quiero que la comida sea un arma de negociación, ni una penitencia, ni una recompensa, ni valorar unas comidas sobre otras como cuando hacemos si les decimos que tiene que comer algo – en general verduras (menos valor) – para llegar a la recompensa – helados o chocolates (mayor valor). Y así las verduras o lo que sea –nunca escuche que fueran los helados o chocolates- van al segundo lugar.  Y se genera una dinámica de prohibición y deseo que ya conocemos.

Pero creo que es muy difícil de manejar, porque dar de comer y nutrir es gran parte de nuestro rol como padres. Y si te sale mal, sentís que le cagas un poco la vida al chico, y de alguna manera te sentis que fracasas como padre/madre. Pero bueno, la perfección no existe, y hay muchas cosas entre medio entre sano y totalmente insalubre. Pero siento que hay mucho en juego. Y esto tambien esta magnificado por los medios con el miedo a la obesidad, y por cierto, de quién parece que es la culpa? de las madres.

Sé que es muy difícil, porque lo vivo día a día. Me preocupo si no come mucho, lo que come, o si come mucho de algo, desde el día que nació. Sobre todo porque cuando nació era muy chiquita, tanto que en su primera semana en el mundo no tenía fuerza para tomar la teta  y le daba de tomar en una copita. Y siempre fue chiquita para su edad. Pero sigue su propia línea de crecimiento, así que me di cuenta que tengo que tratar de dejar de preocuparme por algo que obviamente ella maneja bien. Y aparte de esas primeras semanas en los que me decían que tenía que darle de comer al menos cada tres horas, el resto fue siempre darle la teta por demanda – cuando y cuanto quería.

Y cuando llego el momento de empezar a darle comida, decidimos hacer algo que acá se llama baby-led weaning. Básicamente, es darle la comida que vos comes, no molestarse con los purés, y dejarlos que experimenten y juegue con la comida porque de esa manera generan la habilidad que necesitan para aprender a comer solos. Una de las cosas más importantes es respetar su hambre y sus habilidades. Si quieren comer, comen, si no, no. No hay nada de eso de forzarlos  a comer una cucharada más, o distraerlos así comen más. Ellos se sientan con vos a comer, y se entretienen jugando con la comida. El punto es que hay para eliminar las peleas en las comidas hay que encontrar una forma de dejar de hacer de las comidas algo emocional, y de aprender a confiar en ellos. Tal como te decían cuando querían tomar la teta, y cuando no querían mas – porque lo dicen con o sin palabras pero es bien claro.

La cuestión es cómo llevar eso y los principios de comer intuitivamente cuando empiezan a comer comida. Tal como comer intuitivamente implica confiar en nuestro cuerpo, esto implica confiar en el cuerpo de ellos. Si  empezamos desde la premisa que nosotros y ellos, nuestros hijos, saben cuando tienen hambre, que tienen ganas de comer, y cuando están llenos, la cosa cambia. ¡Pero qué difícil que es! Sobre todo porque implica decir que nosotros no sabemos lo que es mejor que coman que ellos.

Lo que me daba miedo es que no coma suficiente, porque la verdad que r. no comía casi nada, prefería teta, hasta pasado el primer año. Y aunque al principio lo decía, después empecé a cuidarme de decir algo como ‘ella no come nada’ y mas bien ante la eterna pregunta de ¿cómo está comiendo? empecé a decir, ‘come lo que necesita’, o de cuidarme de no parecer preocupada o frustrada cuando por enésima vez cocinas y no come nada y lo tira todo al piso- y a veces me salía mejor que otras. Ahora ya come más, y a aunque es poco comparado con otros chicos, ya no me preocupa – tanto. Sé que tiene fases de tipos de comidas que tiene ganas o que a veces, sobre todo si esta con los dientes o resfriada no come nada. Pero obviamente come lo que necesita porque está bien.

Y ahora que se extendió su conciencia y repertorio, bah- se da cuenta si estas comiendo otra cosa y siempre quiere probar- empiezan otros temas. A mí me da miedo, supongo que por extensión de lo que tengo miedo de mi misma, es que si le dejo comer cualquier cosa ¡¡va a comer helado, galletitas y chocolate todo el día!! Pero habiendo empezado a comprar las cosas que me gustan y dándome permiso para comer cuando y cuanto quiera me está mostrando que no, que si sé que es ‘legal’, y que hay, y está disponible, no me como todo, como más cuando tengo ganas, y paro cuando ya estoy llena – o al menos estoy en camino a eso. Y tendré que encontrar maneras de hacer esto con r.

Nosotros por ejemplo, decidimos que –siguiendo las pautas locales- no íbamos a darle comida con sal o azúcar al menos hasta el primer año. Y hasta el momento en que se empezó a dar cuenta, tratar de evitar cosas procesadas o muy dulces. La idea, aparte de un tema de salud con la sal, era exponerla a muchas comidas antes de que se reduzcan – porque parece que es normal que en el segundo año empiecen a ser un poco más limitados en lo que quieren comer. También pensamos que tiene toda la vida para probar todo, que si nunca comió nada, no le iba a hacer mal no comer ciertas cosas por cierto tiempo, y que hacia demasiadas cosas ricas naturales antes de exponerla a cosas más procesadas y con químicos. Que por ahí es un poco controlador, pero pensamos que hay tiempo para cada cosa. De más está decir que ya descubrió cuanto le gustan los helados y las galletitas. Y que me da miedo que solo quiera eso. Y a la vez no quiero hacer un gran tema de estas comidas. Creo también que hay que poner algunos límites, dado que los adultos somos nosotros. Pero es difícil el balance, y el confiar.

Una cosa que encontré útil es un libro de Ellyn Satter, aunque también hay cosas con las que no estoy tan de acuerdo. Pero como siempre, hay que sacar lo útil para nosotros, y descartar lo que no nos sirve. Básicamente lo que propone es una división de responsabilidades, los adultos/padres están a cargo de decidir que se come y cuando, mientras que los chicos deciden si quieren comer, qué quieren comer dentro de esto, y cuánto. Y esto quiere decir, que por ejemplo intentar que coman más es cruzar esa división de responsabilidades. Dentro de esto, es también flexible en tanto que el qué se come esta también marcado por el gusto de los chicos, pero no necesariamente en su totalidad, por ejemplo. Y propone  cosas para lidiar con por ejemplo, esas cosas que me preocupan a mí como son los dulces, galletitas, chocolates, jugos, cosas procesadas, que llenan pero no son tan nutritivos si sólo comen eso, sobre todo cuando todavía no pueden entender la relación causa y efecto – por ejemplo si comes un montón de chocolate, después te duele la panza – pero que tampoco quiero prohibir y crear una dinámica de deseo. La idea es encontrar  la forma de darles lugar y tiempo para que coman todo lo que quieran. Por ejemplo – que la merienda un dia sea de galletitas de chocolate, y dejarlos que coman las que quieran. Que sepan que no están prohibidas, que pueden comer la cantidad que desean, pero que a la vez no interfiere con otras comidas, como puede ser la cena o almuerzo, en donde hay otras cosas para comer. Me parecen ideas útiles, y las adaptamos como nos parece, y las cambiamos también cuando vemos que no estamos cómodos, o no funcionan. Pero así es todo. En fin, quería acá poner el tema sobre la mesa, porque es uno de los temas, para mí al menos, importantes y difíciles, como madre, y como feminista.

Lucila

Expectations

One of the things that I think has played a major role in how I felt as a mother is the kind of expectations I harboured. These expectations were sometimes based on observations, many created while reading (I am also a member of the ‘you read too much’ club), other were naive ideas or assumptions that I had not questioned or even realised I had until closer examination, and also, my lack of ideas on what to expect. But all of these were important in constructing my experience as a mother, and of many of the mothers I know.

For instance. (I think I have read Mr Bump too many times, I am even copying its style!)

 Sleep.

 Baby sleeping patterns, or the art of not sleeping. I am a person that needs loads of sleep. Before having r., unless I had 10-12 hours sleep, I was not in the best of moods. However, for some reason, which now I don’t remember (might be because of my lack of sleep), I psyched myself thinking that we would probably not sleep much the first year. This was very important, and it helped immensely, even though I erred in my predictions and we are still not sleeping through the night (she is almost two and a half). Many of my friends expected that their babies would sleep better after a few weeks, and many of those suffered, while some lucky ones did actually get the sleep they expected.

Co-sleeping. Before having r., I used to think that I did to want to co-sleep. At all. When she was born, the only way she would sleep was on me. My midwife, different people and books I’ve read made me feel guilty and afraid of doing this, but reading a bit more, or shall I say, different books, and the everyday the practise made me more confident about doing it, and enjoying it. If there is a next one, this is going to be the plan for the start, no question.

Routine.

Oh! How I fell for this one. I was given a book before r. was born, which charted how babies would ‘work’ in terms of routine, which went something like this: feed, awake for a few hours, sleep, and so on, every three hours, and then after three or four months, every four. If this did not happen naturally, I was to stretch it myself. R. was born early, three weeks early, and she was tiny. Her pattern was more like feed-sleep, every two hours. Almost no awake time. It made me worry that she was not awake but for her feeding time, which was, say an hour. Writing this makes me laugh now at my innocence in a way, but it wasn’t so funny then. When she was a three months, she did not do the switch at all to longer time between feedings, and I could not do dreamfeeds, and I could go on on all the ways that neither r. nor I fitted the pattern set in the book. And stupidly, it made my question myself, feel guilty, get frustrated and flustered if I attempted to do what the book suggested. It was very unhelpful. I eventually found other books that confirmed what I was doing, and made me chuck the other ones, as well as release the guilt. Confidence in myself slowly grew too, but this was not instant, and not without that permanent questioning.

Breastfeeding.

Pain. I knew breastfeeding could hurt, because my mum had a rough time, and my sister-in-law, and many other close friends. Although books say it is not supposed to hurt if the latch is right, I think that is actually quite a crap thing to say. I think this is done to not put women off breastfeeding, but really, it is unhelpful for those of us who do get blood, sweat and tears over breastfeeding. One of the things that kept me going was actually reading that it took different women weeks, even six weeks, for it to pass. Even though breastfeeding was torture at the beginning– I dreaded the moment and the ever present comment whenever she cried, ‘I think she is hungry’. Thrush did not make matters easier, or having breastfeeding-ignorant GPs. But knowing that it would hurt, and that it might take time, pull me through (and well, my stubborn streak helped here too probably).

Frequency. I kind of expected that after six months, breastfeeding would tail off, while her food intake grew, as the standard advice seems to go. This never happened, at least not at six months, maybe more like 18 months. R. did follow my expectations of feeding every couple of hours for the first months, but at six months and onwards, she seemed to start breastfeeding more frequently, rather than less, though much less time each time. And this carried on, and even increased after her first year. It was almost every time I sat down. To give you an idea, booby is her second name at home. Everyone around me seemed to follow the other pattern, the books one. But me. And the weaning questions started to come. My expectations, as well as what if felt, the rest of the world, differed from what was happening, and it made me feel that I was doing something wrong – was the food I cooked bad? Was I doing things wrong with my approach to food (coming next)?Should I put limits on breastfeeding? Fortunately, the internet exists, and forums, and books. And I found a book on extended breastfeeding which put me at ease. It seems that her feeding frequently was quite normal, and that there were many benefits to ‘extended’ breastfeeding. Ahhh. I relaxed. And it stopped being uncomfortable, and frustrating. And it started to feel good, and, what it was, joyful (well, not always, but most of the times). It feels strange that I needed this external corroboration, but it helped. It helps to find your pack, it helps to find you are not so weird, or that you are, but in good company!

Food.

Baby-led weaning. When the time came to start thinking about feeding her food, rather than breast milk, at six months, I rather liked the idea of what is called baby-led weaning (BLW). I am glad I did, because no spoon would cross her lips. I had a very skilled spoon-avoiding baby. But I did not care so much, because I had another option. BLW implies feeding babies what you eat, and giving them finger foods, instead of purees, and letting them feed themselves, from the very beginning. At the same time, breastfeeding (in my case, bottle feeding instead), is kept up on demand. What I had not realised is that sometimes BLW comes with small print. Some babies do not eat and just prefer to toss all the food away after playing with it, and just go for the good old boobs when talking business. And not for the expected first months, but for much longer. And this happened until, well, she was more than a year old. Not that she did not eat at all, but very little. She still does eat little. But she has always been fine somehow. And I had to adjust my expectations once again. Once I did, I again, relaxed.

And after. This one is harder, because I cannot benefit from hindsight. For me, the natural step after BLW is intuitive eating. But I am still working at it, and get confused on the how to, and tinker with it. What I am trying to avoid is the struggle over eating, and the bribery and negotiations, the categories of good and bad foods that are so common, but not sure how this will pan out yet, as I still need adjustment myself. I find it hard though, as she eats little, and sometimes does not eat her meal, but does eat heartily her ice-cream, and I feel the questions coming – from within and from outside. Though many times, she eats both at the same time. And it is not so normal….

This rambling post had at some point a purpose. Hmmm….maybe that expectations matter, and adjusting them is painful, but powerful. And that there is no other way, at least for me, but to be attentive, to change, to be flexible, to read, to find my pack. This, in hindsight, is called to trust your instincts, but somehow, it feels more complicated than that, and more of a process of knowing what your instincts are in the first place.

Lucila

of sweets, englishness and campaigns

I was thinking of what to write yesterday while I was at the supermarket, when my muse came to visit in the shape of a tantrum.

What I find almost inevitable at the supermarket is that it takes always a little bit more time than what I expect, and it usually means that some kind of meal or snack time is looming. So here we are, it is ‘elevenses’, as the english call it, and the time that r. likes to have a snack, or even lunch. We are at the supermarket, rushing to get all the stuff I can in the least possible time, pushing the buggy with one hand, the basket dangerously balanced inside the buggy with more stuff than it is probably meant to take, and R. on my other arm (or alternatively running away). We finally get to the till, and the inevitable happens. R. spots the sweets that are packaged and placed strategically so adults and children get tempted at the last minute, while they wait. I am not against eating chocolates and sweets at all, but I do prefer to have some say over when and what it is, while I can, that is. That’s not the case here. And frequently, when she realises that we can’t buy all the bunnies, coloured eggs, marshmellows, the inevitable happens: tantrum at the till.

So what’s new, you are entitled to say. Well, I say, nothing. But that is the problem. People around me don’t really appreciate it, and I think it rather spoils it too, I would rather go without the sweating and flustered movements that come with this moment. So even if people are understanding, most would agree that it would be better if they didn’t have a screaming angry toddler in their face. So? The problem here could be easily avoided if these sweets/crisps/etc could be moved somewhere else.

As we are in England, and one thing that always strikes me, and yes, I find it sometimes hilarious, is that they have a society for EVERYTHING.  So I looked online and voila, a campaign to chuck snacks of the checkout (I quite like the excuses that supermarkets used to avoid doing this). The campaign comes framed with a lot of concern for healthy eating and such, but well, I think we can talk about that another time. For now let’s focus on the important: no screaming, less spending, less sweating, less clothes washing. Ta da!! I am well-inspired today, I say, fight the good fight.

childcare and the time for separation

We are in the midst of big changes around here: we are moving house/city/jobs in a few months, as my partner has a new job. This is a huge move in all senses. For us, it implies selling and buying a house, thinking about childcare and eventually schools, since I am gathering that where you live – i.e how many metres away you are from the schools you like – is crucial for this. I also need to find a job. Making all this things align seems daunting at this moment – i.e. how do you know what childcare you want and where you want it, when you don’t know what job you will have (and if!), and also when we don’t know where we are going to live? But as the reality of waiting lists and catchment areas welcomes us in its madness, it seems we need to make these decisions way too early. So that is where we are at.

But here is the thing. One of the things that makes me anxious is the thought of sending r. to a nursery/playgroup and/or Montessori school (you can see I am very clear on what to do!). At the moment, she is cared for by an amazing nanny. However, as r. will almost be three, I think she will benefit from learning in a different environment, with different people, and where she can start to socialise a bit more, even though she has some of these things now too, so that is why we are considering a different form of childcare. 

The anxiety comes from many angles, not only because I am not sure what I will need, and want, or from the fact that I cannot explore much as I don’t live there (though as we did live there before and we have family I have had some valuable help), and that two year waiting lists ban us from many good places, but mainly from feeling that I cannot manage this process as I would like to, that is, gently.

A disclaimer first: I will tell here my personal story, and what feels right and wrong here for me. The point is: this is not meant to make judgements on the way parents manage this process at all.

Ok, so here it goes. When r. was 10 months old, I hired a nanny for a few hours per week so I could work on my PhD, for a couple of months. This mainly worked for me, as I had to start because of funding and university deadlines. Then we went to Argentina for three months, where my mum took care of r. a lot while I worked, and which also worked really well. We had arranged for a nursery place for when we got back, which, in all honesty, I was dreading a bit, not because I did not want to work but because I was not sure about how it would work sending her to a more ‘institutional’ type of care.

A few days after we came back, we went to start the settling-in period, which was, I was assured (because I asked many times!), slow, gradual and flexible, depending on our needs. This did not end up being the case, or what they counted as slow and gradual did not feel like that to me.  

Let’s see: the first day we stayed for an hour, and we left. The second day we stayed for 15 minutes, and I was asked to leave for 5-10 minutes.  This might sound like nothing, but I did not want to leave her yet. I had never left her before with people she did not know, in an unknown place, and we had just had a huge change: we moved countries, time-zones, we went from family intensive to being by ourselves, and I thought this was a bit too much. I preferred to do a few more sessions before I actually left. They put their foot down. They said that in their experience is better not to make this a long drawn out process, that it disturbs the other children, etc, etc. Feeling pressured, and with heartache, I left the room. And what happened? Ana cried her eyes out, as I did, outside. She eventually calmed down, but when she saw me again, she wanted to breastfeed, she would not leave me, and I could not move an inch without her being wary and teary. I cried, and I explained that it is not that I did not believe that this would work as they said, she will forcefully adapt, because children do.

But I did not like the method, and I did not understand what the rush was, I was not asking to camp there forever, but to spend a few more days before I started to leave her for short periods of time. R.’s anxiety did not stop then, and travelled to our house, where she would not let me go to the toilet, cook, or have two hands for a weeks (I bought two slings to cope!). For me, it felt like a cry it out method for sleeping, it probably works, but I cannot stomach it, and I believe that somehow this type of ‘shortcuts’ have some effects. R’s behaviour could have coincided with other things, but the experience at the nursery, at a time with so many other changes, probably had to do with it. In any case, it just did not go well with me. And I did not like to feel under pressure to do something that did not feel right at all.

The staff at the nursery tried to reassure me, invoked hormones and other mums’ attachment issues, and told me to come the next day, to do it again. After much crying, and thinking, and not sleeping, I decided that I would not do it their way; that I would stay for few days. It did not feel like much to ask and it would make me more comfortable with the whole process. The next day, I told them I wanted to stay for few more days, but they did not agree. They told me that they also did some thinking that afternoon, due to my reaction, but that they wanted to stick to this process. So much for the flexible, slow and gradual approach. I refused. So in the end, they let me stay for the next two days. The tension was palpable. I was certainly classed as the ‘crazy mum’, I even overheard one of the staff whisper to r.’s key worker ‘is that her?’

In the end, I realised that if such as simple, common-sense request (for me), was seen as extraordinary, and frankly, crazy, then I could not trust that we would agree or be able to reach agreements on other issues. After thinking it through during the weekend, and having good talks with friends and family, I realised I did not want to send her there, and more importantly, I did not have to do it. To be honest, even as I am writing, it sounds as if I am exaggerating, but the emotions it brought up were (and still are) so strong that I cannot and don’t want to dismiss them, as childcare business seem to do almost in a condescending way.

We made and re-made calculations and decided to hire a nanny. And with her, we did it slowly. For a few days r., the nanny and I spend a few hours together, doing our usual routine and getting to know one another. The third day, r. was ok to go for a little walk with the nanny, not ecstatic, or happy, complaining even, but ok, no mad crying involved. The next day she was happier to go to the park with her, again no desperate crying.

My point is that with a little bit of time, she was ok, and I was ok, which is also important. I know children are all different, but having some time to get to know the place, and the people, cannot hurt, on the contrary it creates trust and confidence for all involved. I haven’t yet digged up much on this in terms of academic work, but probably the attachment ‘science’, and all the new studies on cortisol and stress levels on children would probably have a say on this (If anyone knows, could you please comment below or send me an email? Thanks!).

This idea is not common in many of the nurseries I visited, and in view of my limited experience. Even the Montessori schools I visited, where the whole idea is that the process of learning is child-led and child-centred, seem to have this policy of only visiting the place once, and then the second day leaving them.

However, in Argentina, this is not the case at all. On the contrary, most kindergartens (from 2 – 2½ years old) have almost a month of settling-in period, where children go at first with their parents –as much as they need to- then start to go for one hour, and then slowly increase their time. This brings other problems, not because of the process itself as most people working in childcare settings there seem to agree that this is the best way for children to be confident and happy in the place; but because working parents –well, who am I kidding, women – find it really hard to cope because they need to juggle work, settling-in, and find alternative forms of childcare while this is happening as well.

In my view, the problem here lies in the way in which ‘society’ at large, and workplaces are not designed for the flexibility that this type of processes need. That is, it has not caught up really with the fact that women are part of the workforce, or more accurately, as Natalia’s post also shows, it has not accomodated to the fact that most parents work, and that things need to change to accomodate for this, in different, flexible and creative ways, instead of women (mainly) and children always needing to accomodate and to take the brunt. 

Could we think of ways in which to make time and space for this, both in childcare settings and at the workplace? I am thinking of long settling -in periods for those children and parents who need it, ways for parents of being more involved in the education of children (if they want to), real flexible hours at work, time off for parents when their children need to start nursery/playgroup/school, and maybe it should be mandatory that this be divided between the parents and not let this be a woman’s problem… can there be time and space for more inclusive workspaces, more gentle chilcare?

One can only dream.

I am curious to know more about this issue from you: what was/is your experience with this? Have you felt this way too? What do you think?

Lucila