The toilet has always been a popular subject in our house. We talk about it constantly, and I have lost count of the number of songs I have made up about it, usually to the lyrics of classic tunes such as I Need A Hero by Bonnie Tyler (“I Need a WEE WEE! I’m holding…
Tag: parenting judgement
Why I Am Still Breastfeeding My Three Year Old
It is now almost three years since I first latched Piglet to my breast that surreal morning in the hospital. Technically, he is not yet three, but unless he suddenly weans in the next few weeks, it looks as though I will have a nursing three year old. I am fully prepared for the onslaught…
Parenting: The Olden Days vs Now
Is it normal to have some sort of imposter syndrome about being a parent? Sometimes I’m not sure I can even say I engage in any actual parenting, since I seem to spend most of my time either at work away from my son, or being micro-managed by my mother who seems to think that…
Sorry Not Sorry: A Never-Ending Story of Guilt
This week, my A level students and I have been discussing guilt. As we debate over whether or not using someone else’s mug in the common room is a matter for a guilty conscience, my own mind keeps returning to the question of parental guilt. I feel guilt on a daily basis. Some of it, like…
Welcome to the World of Mothers
“Welcome to the World of Mothers,” said no one, ever. But yet I was a newcomer in the World of Mothers, and the other Mothers knew it. With tales of breastfeeding woes and terrible births, of reassuring smiles and messages in the dead of night to tell me I was doing OK, the World of…
Parenting Judgement: I’m All Over It
As a parent, there are many things to fear. Potential abduction, getting lost at the beach and disappearing forever, the dawn of World War III, threadworms…. And those are just the things that you worry about happening to your child. There are also things that you worry are going to happen to YOU, and I don’t…
Extended Breastfeeding and Parenting Judgement
Before I had a child, there were many things that I thought I would never do. Bribing my child with biscuits to get them to sit in a pushchair, for one (clearly any child of mine was going to come running from the swings and willingly climb into the pushchair with nothing more than a…
Having a Baby: What’s The Right Time?
Another day, another brief trawl through the news; another headline flashing a great big red warning light decrying the trend for women (note I said “women” and not “people” here, as if women alone are responsible for furthering the next generation of humans) to have children later, and admonishing us all for being hard-headed careerists/wanting…
Five Things I Swore I Would Never Do When I Had a Child
There were many things I swore I would never do before I had a baby. Most of them were things that other people did that unintentionally annoyed me, as someone who was desperate for a baby, and as a member of the public frequently forced to take public transport. Others were merely naive reflections of…
A Little Visit From The Parenting Police
M’am, We dropped in to see you earlier, but it appears that you weren’t in. Probably out working, I imagine. Shouldn’t you be at home like a proper mother? Oh no of course, we forgot, you are a single mother. We wouldn’t want the likes of you eating up the welfare budget with your fecklessness…