The policy on child anxiety and school absence is indefensible and needs to change

I said when I wrote about our son’s trouble’s there were systemic issues I intended to address. We’ve been busy working on his recovery, adjusting to a new and unexpected way of life and of raising our children. He is is a lot better, we are all a lot better, but the improvements are slow and uneven. So I haven’t done the writing about this that I wanted to, because those things, of course, come first.

But today is World Mental Health Day, and that has given me the impetus to write this post.

The Boy is now out of school, he is learning at home. We are privileged to be in a position where that is an option for us. It isn’t for many people. And this leaves children and their parents exposed to a very real problem – the school system does not recognise anxiety as a legitimate reason for school absence.

If your child is absent from school because of their mental health struggles, that goes down as an unauthorised absence. The same category as truancy. With the same legal ramifications.

Yes. You read that correctly.

I want to tell our story to illustrate how maddening, frustrating and unfair this is. How ignorant it is of the struggles of children who have problems with their mental health.

But I want to be absolutely clear that this isn’t about our school or the individuals we dealt with who – the odd miscommunication aside – were exceptional, who helped us as much as they possibly could. This is about the system that constrained them and us which is wholly at fault.

So, whilst this blog is sort of semi-anonymous, it would take all of 2 seconds to find out who I am and thereby some of the likely schools and individuals involved. Please don’t do that. That is not the point.

Here’s our story, some of which you’ll know if you read my earlier post.

Our autistic son liked school at first, he was really excited about going, but even in the first couple of weeks of attending he had a “meltdown” in the playground when arriving and was unable to attend. He behaved well at school, but his behaviour at home deteriorated, including an increase in the number of meltdowns. The novelty of school outweighed the efforts of masking his struggles for a while, but it didn’t take long for the weight of this equation to shift.

After his first Christmas at school, things began to deteriorate quickly. The meltdowns became more frequent. He became withdrawn. He stopped wanting to leave the house at all. Screens were his only solace. Essentially, he was having a breakdown. It’s 9 months later, he is still not fully recovered from what, for him, was a deeply affecting trauma.

In the early midst of all of this, we were still really hopeful that he would be able to attend school, especially as he’d liked it so much at first and had made a little gang of close friends. We tried to get him in whenever we could. But he was more and more withdrawn. Any mention of school, any suggestion of putting on his uniform, any questions about his day when he got home would trigger his anxiety, sometimes resulting in a meltdown. The journey to school became more drawn out, more avoidance, more tension, more danger.

I want to, briefly, talk about what a meltdown is, because I think that’s important. It’s accepted but, I think, unhelpful language. It makes it sound like a tantrum like any 4 year old might have. A bit shouty and cross because they can’t have their way. It’s much worse than that. A meltdown is essentially a panic attack. He would be in tears, fight and flight mode enacted, visibly shaking, begging with tears in his eyes for us to not force him into school – or worse, at the gate, surrounded by parents and peers, begging us not to make him go in. This is what a meltdown is.

One day, on the way home, he had a full meltdown in a public square on the way home. Insisting his mum stayed far away, attacking her if she didn’t. Close to two main roads busy with cars and buses. His little sister witnessing it all. Aside from his mental health, his physical safety was placed in jeopardy.

It was happening with increasing frequency to the point where we decided he needed some respite and recovery. Apart from anything, this was physically exhausting for him and us. He was ill, he needed time off. Just like if he had flu or the chicken pox, we took the call to keep him at home for the rest of the week to recover.

When the school realised (we had not consciously kept it from them, we’d just said he was ill) he was “not poorly” and that we were keeping him off “just” because of his anxiety we were informed that it would go down as an unauthorised absence.

Of course, we strongly challenged that, but it turned out we had no grounds to do so.

At this point, we had no formal diagnosis of his autism, nor any referral to mental health services (both of which are now in place) – we assumed that this was the issue. And you could sort of understand that. Mental health is a complex thing, especially in children, maybe parents aren’t qualified to self-diagnose absence for reasons of anxiety. I mean, it’s not an argument that holds an awful lot of water because we’re also not qualified to diagnose chicken pox or how severe a cold is “severe” enough to stay off – but it is a sort of argument.

But what was most shocking was in a subsequent meeting we were told unequivocally that even if you have a diagnosis of anxiety from a medical professional, school absence remains unauthorised.

The school checked and double-checked this with the LEA (I suspect because they weren’t sure it was right themselves), and there was no question that this is the policy. Information is sketchy, and in part it will depend on your school and area’s interpretation – but it does appear that to at least some extent, this is a policy applied nationally.

Schools are under enormous pressure in terms of school attendance. Any unauthorised absence reflects badly on them, but for parents, there are potential legal ramifications.

We, of course, made it clear that we would never put our child’s mental health behind the school’s attendance targets in our priorities, but the fact that there is pressure on parents to do so is outrageous. Not all are in a position to argue their case. Not all are fortunate as we were to have an understanding school (and it helped that he was still 4 – so not of compulsory school age.)

I’d ask you to consider the equivalent scenario for an adult:

Imagine (or for many of you of course, recall what it is like) to be suffering from crippling anxiety. Imagine that there is something at your place of work that triggers that anxiety for you, to the extent that when you get to the office, you have a panic attack on your way into reception. This happens on several occasions. You take some time off to recover, with relevant support from your GP or other medical professional.

But your HR department tell you that you just need to work through it, you’ll get used to it eventually – that any absence you have as a result of this is not authorised.

This would of course be illegal and you’d be well placed to sue your place of work for a likely very healthy sum of compensation.

And we are talking here about a 4 year-old. A vulnerable child who has no idea what is going on, or why he feels so scared all the time. Someone who can’t possibly understand why his parents keep trying to make him do something that is so obviously traumatic for him. Somebody who in may ways really wants to go to school but can’t.

Someone who, above all, needs help, support and protection.

This is an essential point. Schools have a clear responsibility to protect the children in their care – just as employers do their employees. They love to talk about safeguarding. And yet here is a policy that does the exact opposite – actively removes protection from children suffering from anxiety.

I was furious when I found out about it. I’m furious now. I don’t know how this isn’t a national scandal. I don’t understand how it can possibly be justified that mental health protections very rightly afforded to adults in their workplaces are intentionally reversed for children unable to attend school.

It’s indefensible. I mean, if you can think of a defence, I’d love to hear it. What possible justification can there be for enforcing school attendance when it is causing trauma, even where that is recognised by a medical professional? It is astounding.

It has to change.

I believe that the beginning of change is to raise awareness of the issue. I certainly was not aware of this until it impacted my family directly. So do please share this post.

 

Wired Differently

Our beautiful boy is finding life very difficult at the moment. He is a bundle of anxiety. All because his operating system is different, he’s wired differently. The world, especially the world of a four year-old, is not designed for people who are wired differently, it assumes we’re all the same and, if we’re not, seeks to re-program us such that we are.

His unusual brain drives his phenomenal curiosity and outstanding capacity for learning. As much as two years ago, I wrote about his pretty astounding capabilities. He has only continued to amaze us. He can read fluently and with comprehension, add and subtract, knows some times tables, can read 7 digit numbers, he can recognise most of the world’s countries by shape alone and probably tell you its capital and some of its administrative regions.

At one point, when he was just 3, he started independently learning the Cyrillic alphabet.

He is also incredibly creative and imaginative. He dictates lengthy stories to us which contain rich, engaging characters and invents games with complex rules. His logical problem solving, as evidenced by how quickly he tests and learns to progress on games like Cut The Rope, is well above his age range too.

But whilst his particular operating system means he is genuinely amazing in many ways, it also makes the everyday tasks of being a four year old – going to sleep, getting up, getting dressed, going to school, being at school, coming home from school, eating meals – near impossible for him to achieve.

His brain requires him to feel completely and entirely in control. When you are four, complete control is a rare commodity and ultimately, for his own safety, never entirely possible. Imposition of demands (direct, or implied, big or small, strong or gentle) create crippling anxiety. This can manifest itself in simple refusal, right through to a full meltdown where he loses control to such an extent that he is a potential danger to himself and others.

This is currently all exacerbated by the fact that the implied demands currently creating the most anxiety for him are bedtime and going to sleep. If he’s asleep before 11pm at the moment, we consider that an achievement. He is exhausted and on edge. And so are we. He used to love bedtime and sleep brilliantly.

This is Pathalogical Demand Avoidance (PDA), a condition on the autism spectrum.

We do not have a formal diagnosis, PDA is still seen as “controversial” so, indeed, we may never get one. We’re in the process or trying, but in a chronically underfunded NHS, it can take up to 2 years – and it hasn’t started well, expect a subsequent post on this. But there is no doubt in our minds that this profile describes exactly how our boy is wired.

We have long had our suspicions, but the challenges for him have become particularly acute since he started school. His curiosity meant the first few weeks were brilliantly exciting for him, but once the novelty wore off, he started to show the strain. Bedtimes became gradually more difficult. Journeys to and from school more challenging, he became more withdrawn, less willing to tell us about school, or talk to us at all beyond (literally) growling at us.

After two weeks off at Christmas where we kept demands to an absolute minimum, he refused to go back. Getting him to school has been a huge challenge every single day ever since.

When he is at school, he’s outwardly doing pretty well. He is just so desperate to be a good boy. “I try my best to be kind. I try my best to go to sleep” he told my partner the other day. But we believe he is “masking” (performatively hiding his anxiety to be seen to fit in) whilst at school – if you’ve ever tried to be someone you’re not at work you’ll know how phenomenally draining it is. Imagine being 4, being consumed by anxiety and doing all you can to prevent people seeing it. It’s no wonder things have become more difficult at home.

The school have been fantastically understanding, generous with their time and as flexible as possible to our needs. There is much at school that he enjoys. He’s made lots of friends, his classmates love him. But even in Reception where direct demands are relatively light, schools are built on implied demands. Wear the uniform, it’s lunchtime now, choose your lunch, eat your vegetables, play outside for this specified amount of time.

Imagine this if demands make you anxious and you’re still four so you have no understanding of it, but you see everyone else is fine with it. He’s also one of the youngest in his year, so he is really very little to be coping with all of this.

All of his incredible knowledge has been self-driven. He obsessively explores an avenue of learning for 4-6 months, then moves on to something else. We encourage it and we join in, but it is led by him, not us. This is just not how schools work.

I am a passionate believer in comprehensive education, but it’s hard to provide a comprehensive education to 30 kids when some of their brains work entirely differently from others. It doesn’t allow them to follow a single obsession of one child for 6 months, that is for sure.

It has broken him. Over the half-term break just gone, he has struggled to leave the house. Paces anxiously if he can’t have the comfort of a tablet to play on (a tiny world that he is very directly in control of via swipes and pinches). He needs his mum by his side almost constantly (when he realised she’d gone out this morning, he broke down in tears at the top of the stairs).

There are better days, we had a lovely day at the farm park and a trip to Think Tank for a couple of hours, but there are days where even getting dressed is too big a demand. I have lived with people suffering from depression. At times, it feels the same. Again, he’s just four.

Watching all this unfold as a parent is, of course, absolutely heart breaking. And it’s so hard to help. He needs sleep, but telling him he has to go to bed just triggers his anxiety. Society says he should be at school, but even mentioning it at the wrong time upsets him. Your natural instincts as a parent, all of the advice about parenting, is fundamentally about how to control your kids. We have one that needs to be in control himself. At times, it just feels impossible.

It isn’t, and in some ways things have got better. We’ve got better. But it’s really hard.

Above all, as parents, you want your kids to be happy and you don’t want their lives to be difficult. There will always be things he struggles with, not because there’s something wrong with him – there isn’t, but because the world has not been designed with him and people like him in mind.

We all must all work to change that – because, as described above, he is phenomenally gifted. To see those gifts go to waste would be absolutely devastating, not least because the world is pretty fucked and we need all the help we can get. We can not afford to waste anybody’s talents.

There are signs of hope that the adult world is slowly starting to wake up to neuro-diversity. But there’s a very long way to go.

With this in mind, it became important to me to start writing this blog again. This is not going to become a blog specifically about PDA or autism – there are people doing that already far better than I could, some of which have been phenomenally helpful to us.  But as well as continuing (or returning) to sharing my general observations on family life, there is this additional lens I will be using to frame them.

Maybe our experiences will be helpful for others? Maybe we can promote a bit of additional understanding? I do hope so.

But most of all, my brain is wired for logical argument and there are things, systemic, bureaucratic things, that even this early in our journey, it is so clear are fundamentally broken. Someone needs to talk about them such as they might be fixed.

There are some things that I am already consumed with a righteous fucking fury about and I will be writing about those. I will be writing the absolute shit out of them. So do please watch this space.

 

Punks & Princesses

I am a republican. A republican with a small ‘r’, not one of those absolute clowns busy enabling a big orange fascist in that America. I think a Head of State should be elected democratically such that every child in the country can aspire to that office. I don’t think you should be Head of State just because you are born into a particular inbred family.

That said, I am also a democrat. A democrat with a small ‘d’, not those clowns busy failing to effectively oppose a big orange fascist in that America. For whatever baffling reason, the royals and particularly the Queen are really fucking popular. Indeed, only today at work I listened to a study we’d done called The Truth About Britain. In said study, the person the majority of people thought best represented what Britain is all about was the bloody Queen. Which is very depressing but means I can’t with all good conscience suggest that we take a leaf out of the French book and cut all their heads off and take all of their palaces and land into public ownership. If we were to have an elected Head of State you mad fucks would elect Queenie anyway.

I’m resigned to that. What I’m not resigned to and pretty fucking annoyed about is the idea that our Head of State’s grandson, a guy six steps away from being Head of State himself, gets a taxpayer funded wedding. Imagine that somewhere else. Imagine Macron or Merkel saying their grandson should get a free wedding at the expense of the French or German taxpayer. Imagine. And leave aside how wealthy that grandson and his movie star fiancée are in the fucking first place. Come on mate, why am I paying for this?

If that weren’t bad enough my less than two year old daughter’s nursery think it is appropriate to assume that we’ll all want to celebrate this travesty of justice. That she is expected to come in dressed smartly or as a prince or princess. Let’s all have a lovely party to celebrate our subjugation – YAY! Let’s all wish we too could be born or married into extreme privilege. Let’s teach our kids to want it too.

Leaving aside my own political views on the monarchy, which The Girl may not grow up to share, there is a much wider bit of bullshittery here which is the idea that being a prince or princess is something to aspire to be. It isn’t. The media says “this wedding is every girl’s dream! Every girl wants to be a princess! To marry their Prince Charming!” They fucking well don’t all dream of that and the ones that do want to find themselves a better ambition. An ambition that is about who they are and what they can do, not just who they can marry.

So, no, I won’t be dressing her up as a princess to continue to propagate this nonsense. I have no issue with those that choose to do so, but I do object to the assumption that this is an uncontroversial thing to suggest that you do. I don’t think this is a thing to celebrate.

She will be dressing up though – I don’t want her to feel left out and she does love to dress up. I did field a suggestion that she shouldn’t dress as a prince but as Prince – which was an excellent idea. I did also consider a Nazi uniform given that’s how the specific prince involved in this wedding likes to dress at parties – but I have a bit more sensitivity to what wearing that uniform means than that ginger bellend does.

In the end, we decided on a tutu (or “dancing dress” as her big brother called it when he put it on to dance around the living room when it arrived) – so she has some fun and sparkle – but paired with a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen t-shirt.

The point is not to make her a republican, or a poster girl for my views (although I’m doing that a little bit obvs and don’t really mind) she’s obviously too little to understand or care about that.

But what I do want her to know is that it’s better to be a punk than a princess. That she shouldn’t accept what others (including me) assume or suggest she should be. That what society expects her to want, do or be isn’t to be passively accepted. I may regret saying this, but I want to raise a rebel.

Your baby change room is probably terrible, here’s how you can fix it

Hi Baby change facility providers,

I’m a dad. I’ve got an almost 4 year old and an almost 2 year old. I’m deep in the baby-change game. A veteran. I’m fast closing in on changing nappies being a thing of the past. Obviously, I can’t wait. Part of the reason I can’t wait is that nearly all baby change facilities are just terrible and clearly designed by people who don’t have babies, or hate other people who have them. Based on my years of experience, here are some things you should know about baby change facilities.

1. Have one – Look, I get it. You don’t really want families in your pub. You don’t really want to serve food or wipe down tables or deal with any of that hassle. It’s just that your old-fashioned regulars have  died of liver disease or stopped coming in because of the smoking ban and cheap supermarket booze. But if you’re going to take my money, at least make it so I don’t have to change my baby’s nappy by precariously balancing her atop a toilet. Which I have had to do. More than once. You pricks.
2. Put them somewhere where men can access them – I mean, it’s 2018. It’s not just that there are obviously single dads out there, or dads who aren’t single dads but sometimes take their kids out alone (WHAT? MEN ON THEIR OWN WITH KIDS ARE YOU MENTAL?) but most dads in general are changing their fair share of nappies. Not Jacob Rees-Mogg, obviously, because he thinks it’s the 18th century, but most of us. Even when we are out with their partners, it’s sometimes just our fucking turn. Which isn’t to say an excuse to get out of your turn to deal with a huge shit isn’t an absolute delight in the short term (“Really sorry babe, the only baby change is in the ladies…”), it really is. But it only means you have to do it next time anyway, so the joy doesn’t really last. And if you are on your own the whole thing is awkward as fuck.
3. Make sure they’re in full working order – hello there Chiltern Railways. The above photo is totally unacceptable. As it happens, I was on business when I saw this, but if I’d had two kids in tow and one of them was leaking piss and shit everywhere, it’s not going to work out well for me or your other passengers if I’ve got to drag them down two carriages to find another change table. You’re not alone Chiltern Railways, I’m sorry it had to be you, but fix this shit so I don’t have to spread my children’s shit around your train. This also applies to your pub, restaurant or shopping centre if you are not Chiltern Railways but something is broken in your baby change area. Oh, and in particular, make sure the safety strap is working because it’s always broken and IT’S LITERALLY THERE TO STOP MY BABY FALLING ON THE FLOOR AND DYING OF A SMASHED IN HEAD.
4. Have somewhere to put ALL of the things – Changing a baby requires many things. Enough things to necessitate a whole bag to contain them. A “change bag” it’s called, maybe you’ve heard of it? See the photo a the top. That one’s at the Bull Ring Carluccio’s. No hook, no shelf, nothing. You’ve got to balance your “change bag” on a sink or a toilet (which, granted, is better than me having to balance my baby on a toilet, but still not ideal). Or maybe I’ll just squeeze it on the actual change table, yeah? Where my baby can take everything out of it and get it in all the shit? Yeah, that will work. “Oh, but there’s a hook built into the edge of the change table” I hear you say. Yeah, that hook is fucking useless and I’ll tell you why. It’s useless because if I hang my change bag on it, the change bag is virtually on the floor – and I need to take a lot of stuff out of it and put some stuff in it and what have you, it’s kind of integral to the whole changing process. So if I can’t access it easily, that is no help.
5. Empty the bin – If the bin is full, we have to carry a bag of human piss and shit around with us inside your restaurant or shop. Don’t make that happen.
6. Help us to  help you – We don’t want to change our kids on grubby change tables with other people’s kids’ filth on them. So give them a bit of a wipe down, again, the strap, it always collects crud. But also, WE WILL CLEAN IT FOR YOU – just provide some anti-bacterial wipes or something and most normal people will give it a wipe down when we’re done. We all win. Change table socialism now!

Those are the minimum things. That means you should all be doing them as a matter of course. And some of you dicks aren’t even doing number (1). COME ON YOU GUYS.

But if you really want to attract the parent dollars to your establishments (think of all those high margin kids meals – fish fingers, chips and a scoop of ice cream for £6, piece of piss mate) here are some added value things you can also do to make your change rooms extra special.

1. There are other needs – this is hard to believe, I know, but parents also have biological needs. And they are sometimes hard to service when you have kids with them. A toilet in a change room (I DO NOT MEAN A CHANGE TABLE IN A GENERAL USE TOILET) is excellent. You can have a piss without worrying about the 3 year old eating urinal cakes and the 1 year old knocking on cubicle doors or whatever.
2. Somewhere for a buggy – children often travel in large wheeled devices, it is good to be able to get them into the change room, or as a minimum, have a place to park them.
3. Provide some stuff – we’re doing our best, ok? But sometimes we run out of wipes or nappies or forget the change mat. Provide access to these things. If you really like parents, maybe for free. But we’ll also pay for a few if required because what fucking choice do we have at the point we realise we have none?
4. A choice of hand drying options – Children are weird. He’s ok with them now (allowing for certain very specific criteria about heat and volume), but my 3 year old was, for some time, absolutely shit scared of hand dryers. Often, the only option is a hand dryer. It’s quite a loud and aggressive noise so I’m sure he’s not the only child with this issue. So basically, we couldn’t dry our hands in 80% of change rooms.

Obviously a lot of places are restricted by the size of their establishment, by budget or any number of other ways. Parents get that. But we can also tell when you’ve made a bit of an effort to accommodate the needs of us and our kids, and when you’re basically taking the piss and not bothering. So if you want us to come back, have a bit of a try.

I’ve named and shamed a couple of places here, it’s only fair that I also give a shout out to the places I’ve bee that do this really well – those that immediately spring to mind are:

• John Lewis Solihull
• The MAC (Midlands Art Centre) in Canon Hill Park
• Tebay Services
• Quarry Bank Mill National Trust (this was an absolute champion, loads of space, two bogs – a grown-up one and a special toddler size one – we actually went in here as a full family and took care of 3/4 people’s needs simultaneously, unheard of.)

Fellow parents – who is good at this? Who is terrible? Let’s get a good list going. And what have I forgotten where the requirements of a change room are concerned?

Why I felt I had to delete the social media apps off my phone

I recently took the decision to delete Facebook, Twitter and Instagram off my phone. I’m not the first, I’m sure I won’t be the last. It’s not because Facebook are increasingly used for evil and don’t seem much bothered about it nor that Twitter seem to think inciting nuclear war is compatible with their terms of use, nor, indeed, that Instagram is helping to perpetuate unattainable visual ideals. It’s because I’m an addict.

I love social media. In particular, I love Twitter. I’ve met some amazing people through Twitter. It’s genuinely helped me in my career by exposing me to interesting and inspiring people who share fascinating stuff that I can’t imagine I would have come across otherwise. It allows me to challenge my thinking, to monitor breaking news, to engage in debate. It’s very broken post-Trump and the armies and armies of bots subverting democracy, but it’s still great if you use it right.

But it refreshes constantly. I only follow around 600 people on my personal account, and 200 on my Dad and That one, which isn’t that many (especially as there’s some overlap.) But there’s almost always something new to read. By the time I’ve cycled through tweets, Facebook updates, Instagram updates, read a few links or bookmarked some for later, I then go back to the beginning. It’s endless.

I love learning stuff, I love knowing stuff. It’s not an attractive quality really, but knowing something before you know something or (at least in my own head) better than you know something is what my self-esteem is based on. Social media powerfully facilitates that. But it does so relentlessly.

And it’s so easy. It requires little thought, engagement or effort. Passively scrolling, occasionally clicking, posting a throwaway remark. Lots of tiny little rewards to make you feel good for a fleeting moment, but little substance.

I have found myself almost constantly staring at my phone. Little else gets my undivided attention. It’s a reason why I get less sleep than I should. It’s a reason I read books less than I’d like. It’s a reason I do less exercise than I should. It’s a reason (though probably not the main one) I haven’t posted on this blog as often as I might.

If I do stop to read a book, or go out for a meal, I feel a constant tug at my sleeve. My attention is never fully there.

Very much worst of all, it impacts my darling girlfriend and my lovely children. I have to change that. I don’t want my kids to remember me staring at my phone when they were trying to ask me something. I don’t want them to feel I’m reluctant to play with them because I’d rather be tweeting a shit joke about the cricket. I don’t want my partner to feel ignored.

I don’t feel like, if the apps are there, the notifications are there, all those dopamine-inducing micro-enticements are there, that I can moderate my use, at least not right now. Which is what being an addict is, I guess. So I’ve deleted them.

The trigger for me was someone else writing about this issue (I can’t remember where, no doubt I skim read it whilst firing through my Twitter feed.) They said that their tipping point  was realising they were hiding their phone below the bath and checking Twitter whilst bathing his daughter. To me, the idea of looking at social media whilst monitoring my kids in the bath was unremarkable, even typical. I do it all the time. I wouldn’t go to the trouble of hiding my phone to do it. And I don’t mean a quick check, I mean constantly cycling through until bathtime is over. Time to stop.

It’s not cold turkey. I’m still checking in via a desktop now and again, still managing the blog and so on. But I need to give myself space to breathe mentally. Space to think in longer than 140 characters at a time (yes, I know, 280 now) and, above all, I want the time back. Time for my family and for myself. Where my attention is genuinely undivided. So I can be a better dad.

I’ll keep you posted (although slightly less frequently.)

10 things I absolutely cannot wait to get out of my house

Christmas, isn’t it such a joyous time? What is better than watching your children hurriedly opening the many presents that friends and relatives have so kindly bought for them? On the other hand – WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE GOING TO PUT ALL OF THIS EXTRA STUFF?

When we made the playroom into a playroom, we temporarily regained some grown-up rooms, but it was a matter of weeks before children stuff started bleeding once more into these safe spaces. A rocking horse here, a walker there.

In the midst of a festive comedown, here is a list of things I absolutely cannot wait to get rid of. The things that, once gone, may actually make the house feel like it is for human grown-ups.

1. The Buggy –  We didn’t even get one of the big ones (we had a small car it had to fit in at the time) but it still seems to be constantly in the way. It’s got so many bits. It’s got muddy wheels. We’ve got a front step it has to struggle up and down and, worst of all, since I became a bike wanker, it’s now in the way of where I want to keep my bike. GET OUT OF MY WAY.
2. The Nappy Bin – I mean, this is literally a bin full of human shit and piss and it lives inside my house. Let’s just reflect on that for a moment and think about what we’ve become.
3. Bath Toys – When we were away over new year at a nice little AirBnb in Yorkshire, we took no bath toys. They actually played with each other and had the most fun they’ve had in a bath for ages. They don’t really need bath toys at all. But here, we’ve got to have mounds of precariously stacked bath toys, slowly going mouldy that frequently topple into the bath when you’re trying to shower. The squeezy rubber ones that leak black cum into the bath are my favourite. It is entirely impossible to tidy bath toys away comprehensively. They always escape. The pricks.
4. The High Chair – That thing where you walk past the high chair based on how wide the top bit is but they have those fucking splayed legs that you misjudge and trip over EVERY SINGLE TIME. The dried on food hidden in the tiniest nooks and crannies. Total bullshit.
5. Ripped Up Books – I’ll tell you what, let’s ignore the 20 or so brand new books you’ve had for Christmas that we somehow have to fit on an already overflowing bookcase. Instead, let’s just read the wrinkled old copy of Rabbit’s Nap. “What’s that?” “A band of mice?” – yes, obviously it’s a fucking band of mice because your brother ripped the door of the clock off two years ago and the little squeaky bastards aren’t even remotely hidden. Why Rabbit is even trying to nap in clear view of these mice I don’t know. And, no, the window seat doesn’t look nice, it looks really uncomfortable.
6. Plastic bowls, plates, cups, cutlery, bibs – our kitchen cupboards were already full pre-children. I’m supposed to throw away something to accommodate all of this or what? I’m not parting with my popcorn maker that I’ve never ever used. No way. Instead, I’d rather have a plastic cup fall on me every time I open a cupboard.
7. Stuff that’s a bit broken – There’s those toys, yeah? You know the ones, they sort of still work, and they have a go at them occasionally, but they don’t quite do what they’re supposed to. But you keep them, because they have a go at them occasionally.
8. Child snacks – you know when there’s no snacks in the house but you’ve got a cupboard full of polar bear paws and mini gingerbread men? But they’re fucking not gingerbread men really, are they? They taste of actual dust. DUST. I’d rather there were no snacks.
9. Small bits – Any toy that is made of separate parts can fuck right of. How is it possible that bits of jigsaw end up in rooms that the jigsaw has never even been in? How? TELL ME HOW?
10. Charity shop stuff – Every now and then, you actually sort some stuff into a bag to go to a charity shop. Usually, it’s all the clothes they’ve grown out of, maybe a few old toys. But then you never actually take them and they just sit in the dining room or under the stairs for ages. They never go to the charity shop. Even though we live within 5 minutes walk of probably 5 charity shops. Then the kids find the toys and get them out and decide they want to play with them again even though they hadn’t touched them for months.

I’m not saying the house wasn’t full of shit before, it was, we’re not very good at tidying, or throwing things away or even putting things that have a place to go in that place. But it’s different when it’s your own shit cluttering up the place. Stuff you like, that you’ve chosen for yourself.

I’m certain there’s other crap that I’ve forgotten about. What’s on your list?

Big Up the Mums

It’s Mothers’ Day (I’m never sure where the apostrophe should go – is it a day for all mothers or for my mother specifically? Given the context of the post I’m going with the plural) so I thought I’d give a shout out to the two mums in my life, the mum of me and the mum of my darling children. I’d like to have posted it earlier, but I’ve been too busy cooking them lunch, making tea, clearing up and changing shitty nappies.

So, first up, here are some things I want to tell my mum about how awesome she is (obviously not exhaustive, just some top of mind thoughts):

1. My mum is fiercely independent, always worked and at times was the chief income earner. Even these days that’s fairly unusual, and it was more so then. Mum and dad were always a relationship of equals, a partnership, to the extent it’s a bit weird singling one or the other out in this way (but it is Mothers’ Day). Both worked,  shared housework and cooking and so on. Because of this, I have never questioned women’s ability to do anything men can do and much of it better (patriarchy has made a pig’s ear of the world really.)
2. Mum is strong-willed and has a point of view on most things. I have inherited this. At times this is to both our detriment (more so for me as I have also inherited dad’s famous lack of tact) – but in general it has stood me in good stead, particularly being in a career where arguing a point of view convincingly is pretty central. Drunken debates over the dinner table are a family staple and there was never any question that any voice, regardless of age or gender, carried any more weight than another. From a young age I was taught to think for myself but also to hear others because there was no choice in our house but to do so. There’s a lot of talk about the need for strong female role models for girls, but it’s often forgotten that strong female role models matter to boys too. Good luck getting the last word in though.
3. Mum tried to ban me from having toy guns (sensible), but when I kept just making them out of LEGO anyway she bought me one because me expressing myself and being happy was more important. But also, when I wanted a My Little Pony so I could play with my big sis, she bought me that too. I subsequently threw it in the bin when someone made fun of me and that made mum sad – but the point is, fuck society and be more like my mum – more My Little Ponies, fewer guns.
4. Mum used to (sometimes) come and watch me play football in all sorts of weather even though (a) I was terrible and (b) I quite often only got on for 1o minutes at the end (as a result of (a)). Generally, she’d be the only mum amongst all the dads. She also didn’t force me into the family Manchester City tradition, which for most of my life I was very grateful, although, as it turns out, I’d probably have been better off in the long run if she had.
5. Music. This is an area where mum and dad are definitely not equals, dad only likes Medieval Babes and military brass bands. But mum ensured a childhood soundtracked by the Beatles and the Joshua Tree (there was some Cliff too, but nobody’s perfect.) When I came of musical age, mum also learned to love Blur, the Stone Roses and even very shouty Nirvana to share them with me.
6. Mum read something in the Guardian once that said if you don’t hug your boy often enough he might turn into a football hooligan. So she hugged me a lot. I didn’t always like it, but I’m not a football hooligan, so it obviously worked. And I like it now.
7. In general, home was a caring place, a supportive place where I was encouraged to try stuff out, a place where I felt I could talk about problems and didn’t have to hide them. That is all too rare and isn’t easy achieve whilst still ensuring your kids grow up as reasonable citizens. Thanks mum (and dad, obvs, but it’s not your day.)

And now the mum of my children. Wow. There are so many things I admire about how you love and care for our little monkeys.

1. You take The Boy out to do an activity every day sometimes twice in a day. Drama class, music shakers, willow tots, woodland play, stay and play etc. Some days, I know you are completely exhausted, but if he’s up for it, you go anyway. You only don’t go if he’s tired, fuck how tired you might be. This was impressive enough when it was just you and him, but now you have to carry The Girl around with you too. If I were in charge, I genuinely don’t think I could be arsed with this. There’d be a lot more CBeebies.
2. All of the nighttime stuff  and all of the feeding with The Girl, as discussed here.
3. You are so patient with the little man. He’s a pretty good one, but even a good one during the terrible twos is a bit of a nightmare. He drives me fucking insane sometimes at the weekends when he runs off, climbs on stuff, ignores everything you say and then just grins disarmingly at you when you try and tell him off. You have to deal with that shit all day every day, but you almost never shout and the dreaded time outs are still reserved for major offences. It’s remarkable. You’re remarkable.
4. You have indulged all of The Boy’s creative urges. When that was endlessly writing out numbers and letters, you did it. When it’s making up stories about Flanimals or his breakfast cereal or the silver bars on the buggy and having to tell them when you’re walking past strangers on the street, you do it. When it’s acting out Room on the Broom and Stick Man in their entirety and being shouted at if there’s one word out of place, then you do it. These things are relentless and repetitive but they make him happy, so you do it.
5. When I get home from work tired and grumpy (often) and your biggest desire is almost certainly to just throw the kids at me and sit and drink wine in a chair, you don’t. You ask me about my day (despite the answer pretty universally being “all right”) and then we divide and conquer/divide and struggle manfully against the tide until they’re both in bed. Then you drink wine – but usually with constant interruptions as per (2) and (6).
6. The Girl loves you completely to the extent that a lot of the time, only you will do. This is obviously lovely, but must also be maddening. As mentioned above, there’s the sleepless nights, but also trying to do anything in the day when all she wants is her mum. When I try and help, all she wants is her mum. But you always put her first, ahead of your sleep, ahead of a tidy house, ahead of a hot dinner, ahead of all of it. Legend.
7. Just like my mum and dad, I always feel like we’re a partnership, like we’re on the same side and that we have each other’s back.
8. Our kids are awesome  – given they spend a lot more time with you than me, you deserve most of the credit for that.

So big up the mums, all the mums, but especially you two. I hope you had a good day, you deserve it.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dad and That Review Series #1: 64 Zoo Lane

In this new series, I intend to review some of my children’s favourite programmes. Mostly the boy’s favourites, because he’s bigger. The girl doesn’t really watch anything yet. What I am interested in is the oft ignored subtext which children, little idiots that they are, are not able discern. They think it’s all fun and games. It isn’t, there’s some weird and dark shit going on.

Up first is 64 Zoo Lane. On the surface this is the heartwarming tale of a young girl, Lucy, who lives next door to the zoo. Each evening, before she falls asleep she is helped down from the dormer window of her bedroom on the third storey of her terraced family home by Georgina, the “incredibly tall” giraffe. Every episode, Lucy has some bullshit whiny problem like what children always seem to have. The animals gang together to tell Lucy an allegorical tale that sorts it all out. Then, Georgina lifts Lucy back up, and puts her back to bed.

Lovely, right? WRONG. What’s going on here? At best, if we take it literally, there is a severe case of parental neglect taking place every evening. I mean, Lucy is in there with crocodiles and all sorts of shit. The theme song even points out that some of the animals are “scary” and yet she’s lifted out of her window into the pen every night and nobody fucking notices? Why isn’t somebody at 58 Zoo Lane noticing this shit and calling in the social?

Then, what the fuck is this zoo? The animals aren’t kept in separate enclosures. You’ve got lions in with monkeys and zebras. The houses either side aren’t fenced off at all. And, more to the point, what sort of fucking zoo is sandwiched in the space two terraced houses would normally be in on a residential street? Who is licensing this place? I mean look at the picture at the top there, the elephant has to sleep with its trunk and one ear over the side of the external wall it’s so fucking tiny. SHUT IT DOWN.

That’s the literal reading, which is bad enough. But consider this, every story the animals tell Lucy is set in the wild, in their natural habitat (I say natural, there’s a crocodile that’s friends with a duck and doesn’t eat the squeaky bastard, but still). They are reliving, or, if born in captivity, desperately imagining their freedom. A freedom now so cruelly denied them in their tiny hell hole of a zoo where they are removed entirely from the comfort of the climate for which they are evolved.

Does Lucy even exist or is she a powerful group delusion, conjured up by the animals of the zoo as a means of escape? A Mr Robot/Tyler Durden-esque character that has evolved still further in that she lives in the psychosis of all the animals, a convenient delusion that helps project their fragile psyches as they pace up and down their tiny communal cage. Happier times, wild and free. Times that perhaps never were and certainly never will be.

More likely, it’s Lucy’s delusion. How likely is it that this zoo would exist? In what world other than the freakish imagination of a child would there be scouse puffins? Lucy is deeply sad, trapped in her upstairs bedroom, lonely and isolated. Unloved. She can tackle smaller problems, like an untidy room, with the help of this unlikely band of imaginary animals and their cheerful tales. But the wider arc, the common thread in all their allegories, is the freedom, the escape, the reach for happier, more comfortable times. Almost certainly, this represents a time before a divorce or other traumatic event in Lucy’s young life, now out of reach.

It’s a multi-layered Lynchian tragedy. It’s all there, you just have to look.

Are some behaviours and mannerisms in our genes?

In this post, I intend to to finally lay to rest the nature versus nurture debate that has raged in the sciences for centuries. I have a degree in cultural studies and have spent my career observing people’s behaviours in order to help large corporations better manipulate them for profit, so I’m well qualified on the nurture side of the debate. I never went beyond GCSE Science (Double Award) because I don’t like things with real answers that you can’t blag, so I’m perhaps less well qualified on the whole nature and genetics thing, but I did get 2 A’s so there’s no doubting my aptitude.

For too long, science has overlooked anecdotal evidence as a basis for its findings, and in this post-truth world, it’s time to stop fucking about and just decide about these things based on nothing but our immediate experience. So here is my anecdote.

My grandfather was a shopkeeper, then later a butcher. The spoils of his shopkeeping and butchering included a large garden. After a hard day’s butchery or,  he would enjoy little more than a lengthy evening stroll around said garden. When he did so, he would invariably stroll with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. Not a unique thing to do by any means, but not typical of how most people walk.

Neither my father nor I have such a large garden in which to stroll, but when we are visiting historical sights or perhaps perusing the exhibits or installations of a good museum, we both do exactly the same thing. As we wander and take it all in, we clasp our hands loosely behind our backs. Not when we are just walking, it isn’t compatible with a walk at pace, only when ambling, reading, looking.

My son, sadly, never met his great-grandfather. When he has joined us on trips to museums, historical sights or other places where one might stroll and peruse, he has typically been in his buggy. I would be pushing said buggy, so he would have no opportunity to observe this particular mannerism on anything but the rarest occasions. He can’t have learned it he hasn’t seen it often enough. And yet, like all men of the lineage and unlike most others, he does it. Most particularly, when he is strolling and perusing.

Here he is in some gardens when he was visiting a second cousin recently, having a lovely stroll over to have a peruse of a fountain. Textbook hand clasping.

So, there we have it. Unequivocal evidence that mannerisms and behaviours are inherited not learnt. I will hear no more about it.

 

Breastfeeding, a dad’s perspective

Breastfeeding is good, isn’t it? The WHO certainly think so. They say you should breastfeed exclusively for 6 months and continue doing so alongside other food until the child is two. Most people seem to see breastfeeding a two year old as basically being this. Which is a reflection of the fact that in Britain we’re pretty rubbish at it; at just 3 months, only 17% of women in Britain are breastfeeding exclusively. Lots of other countries do better, indeed, a recent study in the Lancet said the UK were the world’s worst breast feeders. The worst.

This creates a lot of pressure on women and breastfeeding, from what I can gather, is pretty bloody hard going and, for some women, basically impossible to maintain. This dynamic means that mum blogs are full of breastfeeding stories, challenges, advice and thoughts. But obviously dads are part of this breastfeeding dynamic too but less is said about that.

We are fortunate that both of ours have been pretty good feeders. Both have been exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months with some feeding after that. The first one, after a bit of a battle, also took a bottle, so I could help out more with some expressed milk. The second one got off to a bit more of a slow start finding her latch and that was hard because you assume you’ll know the craic with the second one. Just goes to show it’s the baby that has to get it right too and they’re all different. She won’t take a bottle at all, so I’m sort of helpless. She’s just started weaning and she’s getting there, so that will help, but she’s fairly slow out the block there compared to the Boy too.

So here are some random thoughts, good and bad, on breastfeeding from a male perspective. I emphasise a male perspective. I do not pretend that all men will agree.

Free!

People say kids are expensive, and over their lifetimes they certainly are (a quarter of a million fucking pounds!), but when they’re little babies, they don’t have to be. We got baby grows in the charity shop for 50p a go, they will literally sleep in a cardboard box and breastfeeding is completely, 100% free. Well, maybe not 100%, you might have to feed the other half an extra pie now and then to keep them going, but it’s still a bloody good deal. Formula is not free, it is expensive.

It is genuinely surprising how cheap they are when they’re small and breastfeeding. It doesn’t last long, but it’s good whilst it lasts.

Being unable to help

Men don’t have boobs. This creates a problem when you’re a proud feminist who believes in the equal division of parenting labour because stupid biology prevents you from helping.

Early on, even in best case scenarios there are sore nipples and latching difficulties. They’re knackered, they’ve just done the whole childbirth thing and the baby is hungry. You can’t help. We did NCT classes so I’d been to the strange lady’s house in Moseley and played with knitted boobs and that, so I sort of knew the theory and tried to remind of some of that, but there’s a very real danger of coming across as an interfering prick and just making things worse. It’s a minefield.

I’ve heard other dads say they feel a bit jealous about missing out on the bonding aspect of breastfeeding. I can sort of understand it, but that doesn’t really bother me, I’ll bond with them in my own way, but it can certainly be frustrating when they’re upset and you know a boob in the face is the only thing that will calm them. I DO NOT HAVE A BOOB FOR YOUR FACE SCREAMING BABY. Men like to fix things (or hamfistedly try to at least) screaming hungry baby we cannot fix.

It’s especially frustrating when you’re really trying to help and you’ve been all like, “yeah, don’t worry, I’ve got this, you go and have a rest/do something for yourself/get on with some jobs” and then half an hour later you’ve got to be like “Baaaaaaaabe, I think she’s hungry!”

The best you can do is stuff like get drinks and snacks when they’re feeding. Look, we know you wait until you’ve started feeding to say you need a drink because then we’ve got to get it for you. We know that you know we know. But, of course, we do it anyway because we can’t do anything else. The merry dance goes on.

But being able to sleep

As noted above, our darling little girl will not under any circumstances accept a bottle. This means I have an absolutely cast-iron excuse to just pat the missus on the back encouragingly and send her off to do the nighttime feeds whilst I roll over and go back to sleep. This leaves me conflicted. On the one hand, the missus is tired, exhausted even and at times genuinely exasperated. On the other hand, delicious delicious sleep and it’s not my fault I don’t have boobs.

The De-sexualisation of boobs

This is a difficult one to talk about without sounding like a raging misogynist which is probably why nobody ever really mentions it, but I think it does bear talking about. And it’s probably about more than boobs really, it’s about women’s bodies and post-natal sex lives in general. I shall tread as carefully as possible, but I can’t believe I’m the first guy to have thought about this.

Matter-of-factly, breasts are sexual objects. I’m not saying they should be, but they are. We are heavily conditioned (both men and women) to see them that way. This is largely a patriarchy thing (what isn’t?) but, of course, they’re also erogenous so it isn’t just that, there’s fun in boobs all round. For your entire adult life until babies arrive, fun sexy times is what we’re made to think breasts are for and what we use them for. They are adorned in expensive undergarments and pushed up and embellished to serve the voracious male gaze.

Then babies arrive and they’re not for that any more. They get bigger and fuller which we’re conditioned to see as of particular sexual attractiveness. BUT THEY’RE NOT FOR THAT ANY MORE. That is just fucking with our minds. I’m certain it’s even more weird when they’re actually your boobs, but, again, I don’t have any.

“Boo hoo, poor men. Women’s bodies are transformed in radical ways by childbirth and child rearing and all you can think about is that you don’t get to play with the big boobies” I hear you say. And you are right. But it should not be ignored that these changes also require partners to make an adjustment. It is by a million miles the easier adjustment of the two, but it is a very real one nonetheless.

To be clear, I’m not for a second saying this de-sexualisation is a bad thing, boobs are meant to be used for feeding babies, that’s why the exist. The real issue here is that they’re so heavily sexualised in the first place. If that weren’t the case and the male gaze were not such a dominant social force, then people would be less bothered about how sexy their post-baby boobs might be deemed and breastfeeding rates would probably be higher. But they are bothered and they’re not higher.

It gets everywhere

Breast milk is leaky as fuck. I find spots of it on the bathroom floor, on the bedroom floor, all over the show really. Typically, it will probably have been there for some time before either of us notice. When expressing and bottle feeding, it’s in the fridge, on the kitchen work surfaces etc. It doesn’t really matter, it’s natural, it’s sterile, it has all kinds of magic healing properties, so it’s probably good to have it about the place a bit.

But despite all of that rational stuff about how normal it is, if I get it on me at all I freak the fuck out. It’s so stupid, I drink cow’s milk all the time. This is human milk evolved specifically for human consumption, but that doesn’t matter, it just seems really gross. I know it shouldn’t and I know I’m probably not helping the encouraging breastfeeding cause, but ewwwww. Sorry.

But if it’s any consolation, formula is gross too, it smells really weird and the powder sticks to everything and gets all on your clothes. Hate that fucking stuff.

 

Dads, tell me about your breastfeeding feels. Am I some sort of freakshow for thinking about the stuff above or is it normal?