MARITAL BEDDING

Snippet of conversation from dinner time in our home:

Me: Well I stripped the bed today to wash the sheets, and I was about to remake it and I thought I'd better discuss it with you first...
Husband: Discuss WHAT?!?!
Me: Well, I was thinking I'd take the winter blanket off, but then I couldn't decide, flannelette sheets, or normal sheets??
Husband: ... Maybe normal sheets?



To me this most mundane of business is really the bread and butter of how we live our lives together. I know my husband is going to be too hot before me (he's also, mysteriously, too cold before me? I think he's just one of those sensitive people who feels the changes most acutely!) so when I ask him which sheets he wants I am expressing my love for him, instead of imposing my will for how things ought to be. If we're going to share the same bed let's agree on what sheets we both want, before we try to work out anything more serious!

It's this gentle dance of respecting the shared space of our lives which must be done to keep harmony. My husband is relieved not to have to take part in the decisions on what we will eat every single night, however every so often he will say "You know what you haven't made in a while??" My husband takes me out for lunch every Sunday. I am so pleased not to have to prepare a meal that I don't really mind where we go, but out of courtesy he always asks where I'd like to go!

Some people call it give and take, others speak of balance, but those things really point to the idea that we are tilting in one spouse's favour at every turn. So many little decisions must be made in a marriage and it is all too easy to keep a score sheet and feel "But I let you have your way the last three times, it is my turn!" if it is simply about balance.

Often it just happens that one person has the idea and the other follows, but if we are to follow in a loving manner, we shouldn't allow our spouse to feel that we are begrudging them our acceptance. Similarly the party that is asking for something shouldn't desire the other person to feel compromised. It might be just a mental leap to learn to say "I'll do it for us" instead of "I'll do it for you". Congratulate your spouse when they have a good idea, and congratulate yourself for recognising it, and helping make it a reality. 

We should be striving for unity, rather that feeling that we're always giving in to the demands of the other. True unity is in the decisions where we don't worry about whose idea it was but where the decision will take us. Will we go together? Will it drag us apart?

Respect the Union.


We went with the "normal" sheets, by the way. I'm relieved to be rid of the wool blanket, but I'm still having problems deciding on pyjamas every night! :)

MY FIRST BABY - Breast is Best

That's right. I'm going there. Let it never be said that I shy away from controversy!!

Here's the thing; when you have a baby you never believe it's going to be as hard as people tell you it will be. It doesn't matter how many times you hear it, or how much social media whines on about the burden of parenthood, you always think "Well these people MUST be doing it wrong, it can't possibly be that hard or surely people would STOP DOING IT!!"

This is what I think happens with breastfeeding too. Almost every mother has a horror story to tell about their breastfeeding experience, but we never listen and take notes as if there's a possibility of it happening to us.

And then someone hands us a baby and we try to get our dinner plate-sized nipple into their keyhole-sized mouth, that keeps opening and shutting like it's some kind of fairground challenge... And we have what Oprah likes to call an AHA moment. This is NOT going to be as easy as I thought. Even if we sort-of believed what people were telling us before, this is where the realisation really begins to dawn.

And then we get injured. We tell ourselves it doesn't matter if this feed hurts, we'll just get baby filled up and we'll get the latch right on the next one. And, like taking a cricket ball to the nuts (it sounds bad, right?) you can't possibly appreciate the misery of a nipple injury until it happens to you. You'll be in a crowded cafe, biting down on your lip so you don't start swearing like a sailor, one solitary tear squeezing out and plopping into your coffee, your brain madly flipping through all the breastfeeding related images your mind has stored up looking for inspiration or clues, and discovering that most of the breastfeeding women in your mind are half-naked black people, who don't even have a smartphone, and how come they can do it and I can't......

Here's my advice; you need help. You need to learn good technique as quickly as possible because the misery is trying to get it right, once you've got an injury from doing it wrong. Don't be too proud to buzz the midwife before EVERY SINGLE FEED to check your latch. Trust me, they'll understand, they'll be on your side for getting it sorted. If you WANT to breastfeed, in my humble opinion, you should be permitted to stay in hospital until you have it sorted. Obviously that's a "perfect world" scenario, and not every hospital can afford to keep you on for that long. It needs to be acknowledged that breastfeeding is a SKILL. Some people have a better musical ear than others, but there must be a tiny tiny tiny minority that can pick up a violin and play it without any training! Remember learning to read? Me neither, but you did. There was a time when you couldn't read and now you can, but it's unlikely you taught yourself. Practice makes perfect, and you do sort of need to get it perfect, or you're going to get hurt.

If you're in pain, you need intervention. You're probably not going to be able to solve "pain" on your own because, and I know this is going to sound absurd, in your muddled head it's not always going to be clear what is causing the pain. You need help from people with the qualifications to help you. A lactation consultant (and many midwives have the training and not the certificate) can do wonders for helping you get your latch right, and a paediatrician can check your baby for tongue-tie and reassure you that they're gaining weight etc. Both of these can also offer you support and a pat on the back for what they know, in their wealth of experience, is not an easy skill to master.

If you have an injury, and you don't fix your latch, things are NOT going to improve. Indeed, things will get WORSE. If you have an injury, and you fix your latch, the bit you injured IS going to heal. And then it is NOT going to get injured again. The pain WILL stop, IF you get HELP.

In my opinion, perseverance is worth it. I say that as a lazy mama who couldn't be arsed with all the bottle-washing and sterilising unless her nipples literally fell off. The number of times that an older child has been sick, and the baby has had only a tiny dose (if anything at all) of that illness, I cannot count. We now know from scientific research all the health benefits that our ancient ancestors must have sensed as they fed their babes, it seems like some sort of miracle potion to ensure baby gets a magical start in life! It's incredibly gratifying watching your bubba pork up like a little Michelin Man and knowing that you poured every drop of that goodness into them. And the bond forged by skin-to-skin contact, and carefree timelessness spent with your babe, is priceless. It's worth all the backache, neckache, blistered nipples, blocked ducts, cabbage scented bras, everything. In my humble opinion!

What you also NEED - more than a great bra, great absorbent (reusable!) breastpads, feeding pillows or fancy gadgetry - is support. You need your husband to be in your corner telling you what a great job you are doing. OF EVERYTHING! But particularly with the feeding, because it's ALL YOU. He can change nappies, and bounce the kid when he won't settle, and even learn to swaddle him and put him down for sleeps... But only you can BREASTfeed the kid. And this pressure should be acknowledged by the person providing the other half of the DNA. 

The support of your friends, the ones whose opinions really matter to you, also wouldn't go astray. You need your best friends to say "You're amazing, and you make all the right decisions!" whatever you decide. Whether you keep slogging away at breastfeeding, or you give your child a bottle, what needs to be reflected back from those who love you is that they know you're not a quitter, you haven't quit on your baby, their health, their future, you make a decision which protects you all - your mental health is QUITE as important as your physical health.

Finally I would say to have realistic goals. Tell yourself you'll get through today, or even the next hour. Don't stare hopelessly at your bleeding nipples and your screaming hungry newborn baby and tell yourself you have to get through another 18 months of THIS. Babies grow and change, and so does our ability to cope with what they throw at us, whether that's for better or for worse. For some women sticking with breastfeeding, making it past the six week milestone, or whenever it gets easier and they suddenly hit their groove and feel a great sense of achievement, and validation for not changing to formula. For some women choosing to stop breastfeeding gives them lightness in their step, they can finally deal with the sleepless nights and the screaming and everything, because the pressure is off. It just depends on you, which one would you be? I don't think there are really many mums who regret their decision to stop whenever they did, nor should there be, because you should be 100% invested in and supported in your wisdom about what is right for your child and what is right FOR YOU. And I think that's what the decision to stop often comes down to. Your child is going to be absolutely fine if you choose to go to formula, so they're not the problem. Are YOU going to be fine? Are YOU going to feel like a hero or a failure? And is that because of what other people think, or what you believe?

I respect that for some people the pressure that motherhood puts their mental health can create a real risk for them and their child. For some mothers this pressure is exacerbated by what feels like "life and death" pressure to provide the sole source of nourishment for their child. For some mothers not getting a full night's sleep, makes them totally and completely, even suicidally miserable. And those mothers have my deepest empathy. Some people's strong decision is to keep going, for others it's in letting go. We have all had dark days, we are all in it together. There are no medals at the end, for those of us who do it over those of us who didn't. Get the help you need to deal with your OWN feelings, don't push those feelings out into the world as a judgement of other people and whether they have it easier than you.

One FINAL final note; If you make the decision to stop breastfeeding, without a paediatrician's direct command to do so or else your child is in danger of PERISHING, don't tell anyone else they're so LUCKY that it worked for them. The numbers for how many mothers are physically incapable of breastfeeding, versus the number who formula feed, do not add up equally - many mothers who are physically capable of feeding choose not to. I happily console a woman who has no breasts, or whose breasts never produced so much as a drop of milk... I don't want to hear the story of how you gave your child a few bottles in their second week so you could get 12 hours of shut-eye and your milk MYSTERIOUSLY dried up! That is NOT a shock, or a heart-wrenching tale of struggle. 

If you haven't had your baby yet, get educated and find out exactly how to make breastfeeding a success, rather than just trusting it will all come easy. Start with the Australian Breastfeeding Association who have consultants all over Australia who will sit down and talk you through it woman-to-woman. In fact, take your husband too, so he'll know how much you're pouring into it.

HOW DO YOU RATE YOUR KIDS' BEHAVIOUR?

And I really do mean HOW? 

Is it case by case?

Is it an average?

Is it their "best behaviour" behaviour?

A number out of ten? Poor, average, excellent... ?

And what factors do you take into account when assessing you child's behaviour?

I think before we become parents we rate individual kids against our "Experience of Kids". If all the kids we've ever known were little angels, then a child who is even slightly stroppy convinces us that those parents must be clueless! When we meet with truly obnoxious children we recalibrate everything we know about kids, and everyone moves up a peg to make room for those kids at the bottom of the ladder!!

In our cluelessness, we might fail to take into account the company or the environment. In my experience children are most confident and relaxed in their own home. They become less so when there are other people visiting, depending on how well they know the visitors, and yet less again in unfamiliar territory, eg. other peoples' homes or public spaces. In an unfamiliar setting they will assess the adult's capability to deal before exhibiting testing behaviour, gently pressing forward to see where the boundaries with other people lie.

But they can only hang back in this way if they understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. They can only activate self-discipline if they have had discipline. Only the child who is reprimanded for jumping on the couch at home can stop himself from jumping on someone else's couch. If your child is jumping on someone else's couch, they don't know it's wrong, because you haven't told them, and then kept telling them, repeatedly, monotonously, until they understand, and stop... Or they don't care. Which is worse?

I think as parents we might fall into one of two camps:

We are aware that apart from the occasional anomaly, what we are witnessing from other people's kids, especially when we first meet them, is usually their "best behaviour", eg. the behaviour that they know for sure won't get them in trouble with their parents. Their best behaviour is shaped by their parents' expectations for their average behaviour. And so we weigh our kid's best behaviour against their kid's best behaviour. If their kid is always screaming, crying, pleading (and probably getting his own way) we reason that this is what he is used to, that is why he does it in public. If their kid races straight over and starts shattering our kids' toys, well....

The only hope you have of keeping them in check in public, is that they are used to not running amok at home. I can't help but pity children whose parents don't have the energy or courage to correct them at home. Those parents make the overall experience of child-rearing miserable for themselves, bowing to the will of these tiny tyrants. And they seem to forget that they make their child intolerable to everyone else. It seems unfair on the child to find themselves in the position where everyone's charity toward them is damaged because of the parents' failure to step up and enforce the law.  Has their experience of children in general been shaped in such a way that allows for total obnoxiousness as a normal state? Have they expended all of their energies on lesser things and so find themselves without the will to discipline their child? Do they think that this is the job of society, school or daycare, to whip their child into shape?

Smart parents weigh their child's day-to-day behaviour against the best we know they are capable of (taking into account all the usual variables of course, hungry, tired, hot/cold...) and we expect a certain standard of behaviour at home. And because our child is used to limitations they are able to more easily accept limitations when they are even more necessary. We expect more and better of our children each passing week, rather than just more of the same.

As a bonus, those parents who lay down a standard of behaviour are also better able to see when certain things are out of step with their child's usual temperament. We often know (or can see in immediate hindsight) when our child is coming down with an illness because of a marked change in their behaviour. How do parents of children who communicate only through screaming and whining ever know when their child is sick, or truly upset?? Our children's behaviour can educate us, if we are prepared to lay down the groundwork. It is one of my deep fears for these children, should some real tragedy befall them, how are they expected to cope then?

THE STORIES WE TELL OUR CHILDREN - JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

So. 


I've been listening to a lot of kids' audiobooks lately (I have to catch myself because I always go to say "stories on tape", which is of course showing my age!) and I've heard the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" about fifteen times in a month. A couple of weeks ago the Gospel in Mass was the parable of the unjust steward, which finishes with the line "For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light."

I never quite got this story, I think as a child I couldn't wrap my head around it, because the Master, who has dismissed his servant without notice, commends him on his shrewd action even though he has defrauded him. It seems injustice is piled upon injustice, but the servant still wins approval in the end. As it is with many firstborn children, my main aim in life was to win the approval of my parents and others, and so I think I assumed that Jesus was also approving what the servant had done. The clue is the Master's unjust dismissal of the servant; God is a just ruler, so unlike many other parables, in this parable the Master is not supposed to represent God. The Master is a master of this world, drunk on his own power, which is also why the Master eventually praises the deceitfulness of his steward. 

Anyway, this is all very well, but what has this to do with Jack??

Well. Jack and his Mother are poor, starving, and desperate. Jack takes the cow, the only asset they have (which suddenly becomes a liability when she stops producing milk) and goes to sell her to scrape together enough money to feed themselves. There seems to be a devastating lack of foresight here; once the money from selling the cow is gone HOW are they planning to feed themselves THEN? One wonders, is it the effect of a brain that is not adequately nourished to behave in a reckless manner?

Jack comes home with a handful of beans (hunger impairing brain function?) but as so often happens when one makes a leap of faith, a magical beanstalk springs up in the garden! The starving boy climbs the beanstalk and comes home with a bag of cash. Hurrah! Jack and his mother are saved... At least for tonight. Short term gain, buys short term security. The hungry brain can only really be expected to think as far as their immediate needs. However, once Jack has experienced a full belly for a time, he unsurprisingly decides that's not enough.

So up he goes again, and this time he comes back with the hen that lays the golden eggs. Jack's mother speaks prophetically, "We'll never go hungry again!" Once we are accustomed to comfort, we seek security. Once he is no longer starving to death Jack is able to consider his future, and plan accordingly, so symbolically the next thing he takes is a source of passive income.

Finally, with their future needs provided for, Jack becomes simply an opportunist. Jack's final visit to the Giant's house sees him take for himself a total luxury, the magic harp. Finally, having reached security Jack sees there must be more to this world than simply having your bodily needs provided for, there is art, beauty, and perhaps one day, dare we hope, truth? But Jack has pushed his luck once too often, and of course the Giant comes after him. And we all know how the story ends; the Giant tumbles to his death, Jack is the victor who lives out his days in comfort and security. Naturally we pity Jack, a hungry child, and fear and loathe the Giant, who is big and scary and consumes little boys for breakfast!! Consequently children finish the story in no confusion that Jack was right to steal, because the good guys always prevail in our story, and because Jack is left standing at the end he must be GOOD.

However if we compare this story to the unjust steward, we can see maybe all is not as it seems.

We can see how hunger might blind someone, how those struggling under the weight of poverty might not have access to so-called simple solutions. Even if they could somehow arrange to have a bull service their cow, Jack and his mother don't have time to wait for her to calve again, they need food now. No matter how good a cow she is, she's never going to be able to compensate for the fact that they have no investments or assets, and no skills to fall back on. They also face the extreme risks associated with her being their only source of income, the length of her lactation is a finite resource. Why don't they have two cows, people say, that would be more sensible than relying on one! Heck, why don't they have a whole herd of cows, that makes more sense than two! And a few sheep too, why rely on just cows?? Well maybe keeping cows was all they'd ever known, maybe they did have more cows and they couldn't afford to feed them, maybe they don't have enough land to keep more than one cow... The unjust steward has spent a lifetime in loyal devotion, so when that loyalty is not rewarded by the protection of his master he too must act in a drastic manner to look after himself, and indeed only himself.

Both tales demonstrate how we justify our own sins when they are done to those we consider less than human, those who are different to us, those who don't appear to care about us, those who have more than us... After all, will the Giant really miss one of so many sacks of gold? What right has he to hold onto that wealth when others are starving? If we were in any doubt about his character he threatens to "grind his bones to make my bread!" I don't doubt that Jack was probably "a nice boy", I mean, in desperate times he was going out to sell the family cow, not steal from the next door neighbours. But it's easy to justify a crime against someone who would perpetrate the same crime on us. Similarly, when he is turned out by his master, the unjust steward wastes no time, repaying betrayal with betrayal is simple logic, especially when his master has so much and he has nothing.

In Jack's case the path of "small" sins, leads swiftly to much much bigger ones. We ought to keep this in mind then, when examining the links between poverty and crime. When one crosses the line of crime as a matter of necessity, particularly in his youth while his morality is still being formed, one has already consoled the conscience when it comes to future crimes. Desperation is a poor educator for conscience.

It could be argued too that it is this desperation that fosters Jack's eventual greed. We've heard of children rescued from dangerous home environments, found to be hoarding food in their bedrooms in foster homes because of a scarcity mentality. Scarcity mentality forces not only the poor into crime, but also helps those of us who are resource-rich to justify our lack of generosity. After all the end of the story says Jack and his mother never went hungry again, it doesn't say Jack and his mother set up an independent foundation to help feed all the hungry in their village. And the unjust steward only seeks to set himself up in comfort, he doesn't rally and unionise the other workers so none of them will suffer the same fate.

As you've probably guessed by now, Jack is not my favourite character, he's certainly not a role model for young men! But there is one small fact of redemption for him; Jack's first crime at least is unpremeditated. Jack's hand is forced by his starvation, he can see no further than his next meal. Jack should have paid attention at school... But what if he was so hungry he couldn't focus? What if he was so busy cutting wood to keep warm he forgot to do his homework? What if he was so devastated by his father's death that he was too depressed to study? The unjust steward is backed into a corner, he justifies himself that he has nothing to fall back on, no time to learn a new skill, and too much pride to beg. 

Essentially each is story about looking out for Number One. It's a story of fear-mongering about what the evil-overlords, all corrupted by power, might do to ME. We cannot trust anyone to care for us, so we must do whatever it takes to look after ourselves. After all, it is simple logic that if we all look after ourselves we will all be fine. What goes unexamined here is that we can busy ourselves so much with our own needs that we fail to see how our actions will impact on others. When our only concern is ME, we don't even have to justify it to ourselves that the authorities are traitors, or that those poorer than us aren't trying hard enough, any action is justified by the fact that it is in my interest.

Habitual selfishness is in some instances fostered by desperation, and in some instances the cause of our desperation. After all, Jack and his mother seem marooned together in poverty with no way out, no neighbours or relatives to call on to pull together and help them. The unjust steward also was alone in the world. His main concern was to pull together enough wealth to see him out in comfort. Why did neither have family or community to support them? Was it perhaps the constant turning inward toward themselves, that stopped them looking outward and upward to God to provide for them? Did this stop them finding the source of love, so they had no love for others? 

It seems that, yes, even in desperate times, God calls us to look outward instead of turning inward. I suppose this is why I didn't understand the story as a child, it didn't occur to me that the Master could be anything but good, or that the Giant could be anything but bad. And it didn't occur to me that the main characters might not be supposed to be role models, even if everything worked out in their favour at the end.

And it didn't occur to me to examine the story of Jack and the Beanstalk as anything more than an entertaining little story. We need to be careful about what we are feeding into our children's minds, because the lessons are likely to stick for longer than we realise. Children ask a lot of questions, but only in order to understand our reality, not to challenge that reality. We need to provide them with resources and opportunities that support their ability to learn right from wrong. If we present them with only selfish, subjective stories about how immoral actions can sometimes be justified, they will never develop any courage...And they're going to need courage.

MY LAPTOP CHARGER BROKE

It was a whole big thing. I don't want to talk about it. I'll post properly again soon!!