Due April 2009: Episode 9 - April Mums with Guns: Rise of the Fanjo Warriors?

[BabyBolat]

Here we go again....

Too late springy, the baby didn't really want that sandwich I don't think - it really is like being in the first trimester again!!

Catchup email:

Boffin- LOL fumigating 11 yr olds. I laughed so suddenly I startled the cat off the couch Thanks for the links on remedies and such. LOL about the door rattling response.

Springy- pelvis breaking Not good, not good...

Kitty- I am truly envious; what a fun weekend for you!

Ginger- glad you got out and did some socializing

Lulu- I'm in Cardiff

I actually feel better for it now - am about to go and take on the computer people now - be back soon - probably to a new thread!!!

We had a little snow last night after in ILs left and now there are whispy flurries coming down from the sky...but it's no more than a dusting over here either Nutty...

This weekend I guiltily played 'non hostess' to the ILs...I ended up being so tired by the time they came (abt 4.30 on Sat) that all I could manage was to point out (remind) them where they could find the tea and mugs then I sat on the couch in a bit of a stupor the rest of the evening until we all went out to eat. After supper I again sat about waiting to make a reasonable exit, but ended up not getting to bed until 1! Then was awoken Sunday morning at 6am by 2yr old nephew at the bedroom door screaming I want Bleu! He was allowed in because I felt sorry for the rest of the house and he subsequently went through the ensuite cabinets and my undie drawer finding all sorts of interesting things to play with...managed to get him to leave behind the black lace nightie and garter belt and only take a toothbrush and mini hair brush to show his parents however... Thank good as they had already seen my very naked belly when the door was opened for him to enter the room... Spent yesterday firmly sat on the couch in a daze, pretty much not aware of anything going on around me, trying to answer questions with more than a snore...

BUT having sat around all of yesterday means the sciatica has eased again, and since I'm far too tired to do anything today either (as I was still up til about midnight last night and had a restless sleep to boot) I shall be resting again today too. Hopefully that means tomorrow I will feel fab.

anyone else see this article this morning?

I did bleu and it was on GMTV and BBC and I was infuriated!

LOL at your nephew!!!

It annoys me that it says 'mothers' working causes problems...It ought to at least say having both parents working...or not having at least one parent staying at home... WHY DO THEY ALWAYS BLAME MOTHERS?!

I note they don't criticise the thousands of bone idle, relatively affluent, fit and healthy baby boomer grandparents in their 60s and 70s, who accepted family help in rearing their own offspring but refuse to lift a finger to support their own grandchildren on the grounds that they 'want to get their lives back' and 'they have done their bit'. They leave their own children to run themselves ragged, and just sit back and watch from the touchlines.

Interestingly, if you had criticised working parents or single parents (aka widows) in the 1940s and 1950s it would have undermined the war effort, so somehow it was OK then, and the children didn't have problems, but now it is all the fault of the women. However back then children spent time with their grandparents and families supported each other, whereas now this is becoming less prevalent.

Yes, that article is infuriating, partly because there is, in my opinion, a lot wrong with the way we devalue family and fun these days but it is SO wrong headed to make out that the whole thing is about selfish women wanting to work.

It would be great if families could get by on one adult working a 37 hour week, I would be all for it and for spending the rest of our time doing something perhaps economically invisible but humanly valuable. But is there any chance of our society getting over this pathetic, slavering iconisation of "work" as some ultimate good? We are just making crap to be thrown away, like prisoners moving rocks from A to B and back again for the sake of it.

I hate that everyone has to work so hard to afford somewhere to live.
I hate that everyone has to travel so far to do so, because business is so insanely concentrated in certain areas where no one can afford to live, and home working is regarded with such feverish suspicion.
I hate that these things mean such intense panic in families when something happens like a child is sick or an aged parent breaks a leg.
I hate that all the good stuff feels crammed in around the edges of these overweening economic imperatives.

WORKING WOMEN DID NOT INVENT ANY OF THIS

Exactly! Why is it that society STILL feels that women need to sacrafice their individuality to better the whole? Why can we as a group of human beings not understand that everyone must sacrafice some to better the whole...Why must one group always be the scapegoat and lose out to others?!?

I do understand and agree about needing to help children more...and be more active in children's lives/growth...but I take great offense that I, simply because I am the woman, need to be the responsible party...

Ginger, you are sounding strangely like a feminist Marxist there.

Hi everyone. Hope you're all ok

I want to recommend IO jeans - really nice and flattering and not at all like those old style maternity jeans! Crikey, any of you that have a 7-year-old like I do will remember the horrendous numbers with a big stretchy elastic thing on top of the waist band.

With this pregnancy I am carrying quite high. The baby has very hard bones I think because it hurts when it moves.

Do any of you have milk? I seem to have quite a bit coming out and wondering if this is a good sign for me because last time I breastfed was before I had my implants done. I've been told it either comes together or it doesn't from the first - so you can tell after the baby's born.

And the working from home thing! Oy don't get me started! So many office jobs could be done in the home, cutting down on commuting and travel and making childminding easier on the whole.
DH is a computer programmer and could do 95% of his job at our home computer and yet the powers that be feel they need to see him everyday in the office... Of course people need to meet up and talk things through and communicate, but a lot of what's done sitting at a desk (in MANY different fields, not just computing) would not need to be done in an office...

Goooooood morning (yawn)..

I had the DAY OFF today !!Amazing. Snowy enough that work is closed but not so snowy DH couldn't take DD to nursery this morning. Therefore I had a whole four hours in bed with a book and a box of Millie's cookies..oh such bliss!

Blizzard outside though I am a little bit worried I will have to leave DD at nursery forever.......

Boffin, you say that like it's a bad thing...?

This has me absolutely foaming at the mouth (a complete non sequitur sprung in after loads of half-way sensible stuff about not testing kids to death, not pushing consumer goods at them relentlessly, etc)

"Most women now work and their new economic independence contributes to levels of family break-up which are higher in the UK than in any other Western European country."

The BLATANT implication that it is bad for women to have access to money other than through some form of prostitution.... AAAAAARGH! So.... if a good society requires slaves, let women be them. Sounds kind of Platonic

Nonono, as a sociologist I was deeply impressed.

Ditto Ginger, and...
Honestly I don't like the tone of the article at all...I do not think it is very constructive in many ways. Many families just cannot afford to live anymore without both parents working...
The bits about having more play areas and the like for kids good...
The bits about people need to stop being selfish...also good to a degree... but people need to understand what that means...it means including children in life, not giving life up...

I think a lot of our over-work culture has to do with the fact that the people who make the rules are self-selected workaholics. Some people temperamentally love to work 20 hours days, I have had bosses like this who feel exhilarated when they are physically chained to work for long, intense days, and they honestly think that to live like this would be good for everyone. Most people who are forced to work like this feel constantly on the edge of some kind of breakdown.
Or, you can cut down the quantity of work they do but only if you are prepared to accept a very junior level of work in terms of content and quality - as if not wanting to work 100 hour weeks makes you somehow stupid or unfit to do anything interesting.

Ginger that is very interesting... you think it's bad here you should see the States... People here often wonder why I would ever deem to move to the UK, well that is exactly one the othe reasons I did. In the States the work situation puts tremendous pressure on you to achieve and push yourself and become obsessive about it...it is not quite as bad over here, making the quaility of life/living that much more bareable.

DH emailed me abt the article saying this:
I know what you mean. I got the impression that they were aiming it more at people who don't really appreciate their kids and want to be 25 year olds all the time....But yes, it's an uncomfortable article about the report, which suggests the report has some unpleasant generalisations in it.

They need to be careful about how they report this stuff because they run the risk of alienating and upsetting a lot of people, which will distract from their point which is that we need to be aware of our children's needs...

(no offense to the 25yr olds and unders of course)

Bleur - yes, most families are not working any more than they absolutely need to, even if they are also working absolutely as hard as they can.
Which makes me sigh when people talk about the credit crunch as being a good thing for us all (mentally, or psychologically or emotionally) if we are forced to turn off our rampant greed. (like Oliver James, for instance.) People are going to have to work harder now, because people around them are going to be made redundant and the absolute workload, plus rampant insecurity, will have people chained to their desks.

I have just had an email from my boss (yes! a communication! to me! from my boss!) saying that he and HR will be in touch formally about what they are going to do with me now I am all SPD-d up. If they are going to try to bundle me off onto early maternity leave I am going to kick up a fuss because I need the money for a few weeks longer.