Penni Drysdale - P Plate Parenting

It’s a been a while between drinks here at P Plate Parenting. I could name a number of excuses or reasons (the usual stuff, like life’s just too damned busy to justify sitting at a laptop and indulging myself in self expression, I’ve been working more…paid work, that is etc etc). Or I could try to explain… Oh, God, don your apron, this could get messy…thoughts splattered all over the page and possibly flicking into your eye.

We went away recently. Up north, to the Daintree to spend five nights  in the rainforest. A stunning house amid spectacular scenery, surrounded by real wildlife and only a short trip to the (crocodile-infested) beach. It was luxury. It was time off work. It was warm… But this pause on the ‘real’, everyday life was what did it for me. No hurry. No chaos. No cleaning or packing school lunches. Just me and the boys, being a family.

I think what struck me most was that I found myself being a little more patient, more understanding, more engaged. I whinged less, raised my voice less often and smoothed out the constant crease on my brow. My jaw relaxed giving my back teeth a break, my shoulders inched their way down from up near my ears and the morning habits resumed their proper function (who knew that tension/stress/life, whatever you want to call it, can seriously block you up?).

I could connect with my kids in a real way, that wasn’t governed by routine or a necessity to hurry the hell up! I could be there to hold the Toddler’s hand while he navigated his way around (yes, now that he’s walking, I’ve heard that I should be calling him a ‘toddler’ ); I could listen to the School Boy’s bizarre stories, uninterrupted by my own nagging thoughts of tasks I really ought to be getting on with. I could cuddle more and argue less. And this change found a way into my wee mind, causing me to pause and reflect on what I believed was My Experience of parenting.

My experience of parenting is a construct of circumstance and mind set. When life is busy and there really are things that have to be done in order to function adequately and survive, the perfect parenting model cannot co-exist. I now recognise that it is not that I am an Impatient Person (though some would argue…I reason that I can be patient if I choose to be, such as when working with people who have dementia), a Grump or digestively challenged. I am a person – a working adult, a wife, a mum – who lives a real life that pulls me in many directions and I cannot do it all perfectly.

And so, back to the point of this post. Many of my posts so far have had a touch of the whinge about them. They have been an opportunity to de-brief, get things off my now non-existent breast, I mean chest, and this blog has served a brilliant therapeutic purpose. But somehow I find it harder (at present, anyhow) to get back into that mind set, that identity. So I am pausing, to think, to reflect, to deconstruct and then reconstruct. Stay with me – I’ll see you on the other side.

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Now, let’s not pretend that we have never thought it, even if only fleetingly. If you try to tell me that it’s never crossed your mind, I simply won’t believe you. The thing is, the Post Office won’t accept a live package, and the practicalities of returning your baby from whence it came…well…hmm. I’ll leave that thought with you. But what about men?

Recent discussions about baby-proofing our future have caused me to reflect on and rant about the lack of physical contribution that the male body makes when it comes to reproductive matters (despite the rather essential  tadpole offering that facilitates baby-making). It’s not their fault, but someone has to be held accountable.

We (women, that is – I am assuming that the majority of you are female) assume at least part of, sometimes sole, responsibility for contraception, before we succumb to ‘instincts’ (or insanity). We ride the waves of nausea, dizziness and erractic eating during pregnancy. We lug a bowling ball on our front (and around our sides if the ball is female….kidding) and then pass this ball through our most delicate orifice in the most primal and undignifying way. We donate our breasts to milk production, inflamed and infected ducts, stretching and then drooping. And then we start back at artificial hormones.

The men? The only transformation that their bodies undergo around the years of reproduction is the loss of some strands of hair, the greying of others and a little more spread around the gut. So, can we return to sender? Or do we just need to accept that women have been chosen for these roles because we are simply braver, stronger and, well, more superior?

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There was no soft, warm glow. No white linen clothing. No airbrushed looks or ‘I’ve just stepped out of a salon’ hair. There was no dreamy sleep-in followed by breakfast in bed.

There was a 6:20 thump and bump, a blinding bedroom light switched on followed by a School Boy howl. There was a Baby who heard this and woke before he was ready. There was a last minute dash to the shops for breakfast ingredients. There was hollandaise that didn’t quite make it and poached eggs that dispersed freely in the water, unable to be rescued.

There were many reminders directed the School Boy’s way about the significance of this day and the importance of ‘being nice to mum’…please (fallen on profoundly deaf ears). There was a walk beside a river to the tune of whinging, whining and deliberate sloshing in puddles in new sneakers. There was chaos, mayhem, madness. It was just another day really.

To be fair, there were a couple of lovely little gifts from the boys. The School Boy had taken a gold coin from his own wallet to purchase a fridge magnet at the stall for me. He had written that “I love mum because she macs dina”. And the Baby had smudged some green hand prints below a cute poem for me to reflect on.

But really, Mother’s Day? One day in the entire year that our grueling work is acknowledged formally – cheers. Has anyone dared suggest that the best gift a mother could get is to spend a few precious hours in solitary confinement?

Mother’s Day five years on. Reality bites.

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To whom it may concern,

I have recently finished using your product ‘Liquid Gold’ (scientifically known as ‘breastmilk’), and so am writing to provide some feedback.

What I love about Liquid Gold is its portability. In my experience it has been readily on tap – at the right temperature and in the right amount. Both its incredible cost effectiveness and its ease of use makes it a stand out product in its category.

There are however, a few frustrating aspects of Liquid Gold that I would like to draw to your attention:
1. Whilst it can, with much time, effort and mess, be provided to the baby by a man, its great dependence on mothers can be burdensome. Is it possible that you could look into somehow making it ‘on tap’ by men as well?
2. No where on the packaging does it state the potential for addiction. I am convinced that my youngest child developed an addiction of sorts, perhaps to Liquid Gold itself, but also to the method by which it is delivered (even more reason to look into the issue above)
3. The well advertised benefits of increased protection against all things nasty (germs, allergies etc) have eluded my youngest. He has seen very few days in his 11 months of ‘good health’ – coughs, snuffles, tummy upsets – and has shown signs of eczema from early on. Are the benefits supposed to be immediate and for the duration of the product’s use, or is this ‘protection’ only evident in later years? Do the benefits cease to apply if the child has an older sibling who attends child care or school, or the child himself attends child care with all of its festering ill health?
4. When a decsion has been made to stop using Liquid Gold, I have had issues with pipe blockages. Is there an inbuilt mechanism within the product that makes it difficult to stop using it, or is there a fault somewhere along the tubes?

Thank you for your time.

Regards,
P. Runes

And that’s the end of that chapter.

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We haven’t really spoken before, in the six or so years that we’ve been living here. She’s the lady a few doors down on the opposite side of the road with the push mower that seems to never stop. Yet last week she stopped to say hello as the School Boy and I weeded the front lawn (an activity to keep him out of trouble indoors, rather than an obsession with perfection).

Our conversation was a breath of fresh air. I’ve always known that I’m not alone, but it’s not often that the words are aerated and given free reign. Powerful words shared between mothers who could otherwise tuck the thoughts away in a secret compartment, never to see the light of day. “I’m just not designed to be a stay-at-home mum.” Ahhh. “Me neither! Me neither!” I squealed, inwardly, aware of the keen kiddy ears only a few steps away. My eyes lit up as I recognised a fellow mum who worked, not because she absolutely had to, or because she adored her job, but because she knew that she wasn’t designed to stay home full-time with her child.

It doesn’t mean we love our children any less than stay-at-home mums. It doesn’t mean that we weren’t designed to be mothers. And it certainly doesn’t mean that work is more important than family (though it sure pays better). It’s just the realisation that comes with allowing myself to be who I am, not who I think I should be or who I think others think I should be. It’s a free pass out of the jail of guilt that comes with handing your kids over to someone else for a day or three. I’m just not designed to be a stay-at-home mum. What a brilliant thing fresh air is.

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