January 27

This is the day my mother died 12 years ago.  It was sudden, unexpected and overwhelming.  She was 54 years old. 

Until then, I had taken her for granted as one does, getting on with my life and I think not having any real comprehension of how much I loved her.  For a while the loss of her shattered our whole family but slowly things got better in their own way for each of us.  My father who was and remains most clearly lost without her, has lived to see 9 grandchildren, something she would have loved. 

It seems to me sometimes that I am now navigating without a compass.  Pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing in particular have all perhaps been slightly more anxious as a result.  And of course, she has not been around to share the joys either. 

So this is an important day.  For various reasons I will not be in Ireland as I would have liked.  Instead I will be at work and in the evening, meeting friends for dinner.  These are the same people who were with me when I heard she had died and who, whether they realise it or not helped get me through the months which followed.  

This is a picture of her in 1971, wearing a mini-skirt and lacy cream tights which you can't see but I remember them because we were all having our picture taken that day and at one point I was sitting on the floor and I could put my finger through her tights.

She had 4 children by then and would have 6 in all before she was 30. During the mid-seventies she grew her hair long and (shockingly for our small farming village community) wore trouser suits.  With the arrival of my own children has come a recognition and understanding of her need back then to cling onto some sort of identity beyond that of farmer's wife and mother.

My youngest sister and I were talking last Summer about fashion and stuff and she remembered a comment that one her work colleagues had made about Mam, which made us smile because it was so true and perhaps even more than us, she would have loved to hear it - "She always had great style".

In which...reality bites

Apologies for the radio silence over the past week; life has caught up with BM a bit and the job search took precedence over pretty much everything else.  Anyway, happy to say that it looks as if it paid off and things might be looking up for the BM exchequer very soon.

These past few months have been a strange mixture of anxious 'in-between jobs' time and re-charging the batteries, after what's been a fairly tumultuous 10 years or so.  Back then BM and BH were both young professionals about town, me expecting a baby, he starting a political career.  Like everything in life maybe, we could have had no idea how those 10 years would pan out.  
Flash forward to 2010, both pushing mid-forties, when even the most clear-headed tend to take stock, and what does the balance sheet look like?   Well I suppose it depends on how you measure these things.  In pure financial terms, it's pretty bad, particularly if you compare us with our contemporaries from 2000 who continued to pursue a legal career.    In non-monetary terms we have packed a lot into those 10 years, met people we would not otherwise have met including the famous and not so famous and experienced another way of living beyond a concentration on the self.  And we have a lovely family, which I treasure above anything else.

The way I see it, I have another 20 years or so of useful working life left ahead of me and (and yes I am aware of just how cliched this sort of mid-life assessment is) so it's important, within the constraints of family finances, to make them count by ensuring that the work is meaningful and life-enhancing, instead of soul destroying.   At the moment that might just be possible.  That's the plan anyway, and I have to have a plan, however flaky. 

But if the last 10 years have taught me anything, it's that things don't always go according to plan - or at least plan A.  I've not worked out a plan B yet but I'll keep you posted.  

Empowering Parents, Empowering communities

Nice piece in the Guardian today about this successful parenting project in Southwark, although to be fair it is only at the half-way stage.  Worth noting too that despite the climate of cuts facing the Authority, a decision was made to fund the research project jointly with Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Trust earlier this year.   It's also worth reading the terms of reference for the study which interestingly point out that the facilitators are parent peers - so the whole process becomes a virtuous circle.    Watch this space for the final judgements of the research project, published probably September 2011.

Cristina Odone blogs for the Telegraph

Today her theme is the battle between working and stay-at-home mums, or rather whether there is a qualititative difference in the care provided by these different types of mum.  Not that she is really curious - her mind is firmly made up and guess which type she believes is best...it's not a stretch.  

Two things strike me as noteworthy from the blog (and I take into account the fact that blogs are by nature opinion pieces but nevertheless):-
 
1.  Her current position is described in the Bio as 'Research Fellow as the Centre for Policy Studies'.  So I'd like to know what level of research rigour was applied to the bald statement of fact (without any evidential references) that:-

"Then along came the chest-thumping professional women who scoffed at the domestic goddess, mocked the mumsy attitude and, even if they happened to spawn a baby or three along the way, ensured there was someone else to do the boring tasks of feeding, nappy-changing, reading The Hungry Caterpillar six times in a row. The message was clear: women should be like men, not mums.
Soon, many of these professionals held high-flying jobs and influential posts and had the ear of government. They persuaded ministers that national policy should get women out of their homes and into work. No one, it was clear, should be a full-time mother."

I'm particularly interested in the assertion that this unnamed group of women, directed government policy.  If the subject matter weren't so serious then this and the idea that this is written by someone described as a Research Fellow, would be laughable.

2.  She goes on to describe full-time mothers as 'angry and resentful'. 

Again no research link, no evidence base for any of this, how shall I describe it -  nonsense, I think sums it up best.

The simple fact is that much of government policy on family, welfare, child development and bridging the inequality gap has been driven by sound research and analysis of data collected on a continuous basis by the ONS. (for stats nerds like me, invaluable tool for knowing your local area but that's another story)   

It may serve Ms Odone's career and imminent book release well to incite controversy with this sort of provocative opinion piece but she has nothing of any substance to say.

Something's gotta give...

So Allison Pearson is the latest well known woman who seemed to have it all, to admit to clinical depression.  The pressure of work, children, partnership, housekeeping and maintaining a groomed, well toned appearance has taken its toll.  Although not unsympathetic, Bermondsey Mum's response would be:- "Well yeah, and what did you expect ?"   There are only so many hours in the day, at least 7 of which should be spent sleeping, which doesn't leave much to divide between work including travel to and from, children and their diverse needs, housekeeping (including shopping, cleaning, paying the bills and dealing with mail), keeping up meaningful friendships and extended family relationships as well as 'couple' time...In choosing what's gotta give in all this, there is an opportunity cost ie the benefit that is given up when a choice must be made because resources are scarce in relation to wants.  

In Bermondsey Mum's experience, women are their own worst enemies when it comes to making that choice.  They would rather hurtle towards mental ill-health than admit that they cannot possibly keep everything going to the same high standard.  Let's not forget either that often the harshest critics when a woman slips up, are other women.   A friend of BM who shall remain nameless, keeps a file of Daily Mail headlines because she is waiting for the one to cap it all - that working mothers caused global warming ! Not as fanciful as you might think, if you are familiar with the Mail.

In the article linked to above, Minette Marrin suggests letting standards drop or more radically, giving up something completely in order to gain the benefit of time for other activities.  Bermondsey Mum did just that 5 years ago...for a saner if less financially secure and intellectually challenging lifestyle.   Nevertheless, the Opportunity Cost is of course, lapsed career.  If BM is aware of this, so it seems are many other people, with pointed enquiries about the childrens' age now, such a pity to 'waste' all those years of study etc.  BM finds herself increasingly unmoved by these not-so-subtle hints and has discovered that an unexpected bonus of stepping off the competitive merry go round has been the ability to care a little less about what other people think.  

In the modern male parlance then, the advice would be to 'grow some'.  Actually maybe that's Bermondsey Mum's prescription  - make a choice, stick to it and almost magically you'll find that you care less and less what other people think.  Now that would be real girl power !

Problem parents!

Bermondsey Mum has long suspected that she was not the only one...with bed-hopping children...and lo and behold, in the Guardian Weekend Magazine, Gordon Brown and David Cameron both admit to sleepless nights.  Not just them actually, Ed Balls & Yvette Cooper too (how does that work, both Cabinet Ministers, how many children under 5?!?).  

It's seen as a badge of honour or control, the claims that people make about their offsping's sleeping habits.  Bermondsey Mum attended 2 coffee mornings of her local NCT group listening to competitive mums outdoing each other with champion babies 'sleeping through' from birth, before accepting her abject failure and never returning.  Needless to say, BM was hopeless with the whole Controlled Crying business - crying uncontrollably herself - and embraced/resigned herself to the concept of intermittent bed sharing and only now that they are both of school age, can I (honestly) say that they sleep through the night and (recently) in their own beds!

Bermondsey Dad might disagree, but having agonized for years about various parenting strategies and where she was going wrong, Bermondsey Mum felt a certain sadness when she realised that a whole month of nights had gone by without night-time interruption by a small person and only she and Bermondsey Dad awoke in the marital bed. 

For anyone in the throes of that phase where sleep is precious and broken into 2/3/4 hourly slots, my only advice would be to chill about it - seriously, it's normal, everyone goes through it no matter what they say in public and it passes and a small part of you (once you've recovered obviously) will mourn its passing.   And then every so often, years later, when your bigger child wakes up just before the alarm goes off and comes into your side of bed for a morning hug, it will be a precious thing.