Mummy's Daily Telegraph

Where's the praise for breastfeeding mums?

2013-06-19T01:31:00.002-07:00

There is a particular advert for baby formula on television that I find borderline offensive.

The one which finishes something along the lines of 'we think you're doing just fine'.

It could have been a really good advert. It features a number of sketches of the minor trials and tribulations that parents have to deal with on a day to day basis, from taking off a nappy only for the baby to instantly do a wee, to getting a child all ready to go out only to find they have got a dirty nappy.

These are all scenes that any parent can associate with and are probably less talked about than the sleepless nights, the teething and the weaning. Having said this they all add to making life just that little bit more complicated.

It would come as a comfort to any parent to hear the words, 'you're doing fine' but the fact this is an advert for formula heavily suggests these words are reserved for those who bottle feed their babies. Because there is a double layer of meaning here. Not only does it mean doing fine in general parental life but doing fine in giving your baby formula.

As a breast feeding mum I have to say these words make me feel a little upset. It just shows that anyone who chooses to formula feed their baby can no longer make out they are the ones marginalised by society. The fact there is an advert openly saying they are doing the right thing by giving their baby formula rather than breastfeeding is a huge step, and in the wrong direction. Before it was as much as these adverts dared say that formula was a breast milk substitute. From what I have always seen in the past, they had to carry the words of caution that breast milk was best and formula was very much second place.

So I can't help but feel resentful, because as anyone who is, or has, breast fed their baby will know, it is such hard work. It doesn't matter how experienced you are or how long you have been doing it with your current baby, you are dealing with two personalities, instead of one person and an inanimate object, so all sort of problems can be thrown up just when you thought you were really getting into your stride.

It is us breastfeeding mums who could do with a little bit of support, not those who just have to heat up a bottle and put it in their baby's mouth.

Three-year-olds to be taught about death – over my dead body

2013-06-18T04:58:00.003-07:00

There are calls for children as young as three-years-old to be taught about death at schools, and I assume, nurseries.

Now this is a subject which makes me really nervous. I have purposely skirted around the issue of death and dying with my two-year-old daughter to the point that I not only avoid it but give it a wide berth for fear if I dip even a toe into the issue, alarm bells will ring, sirens will whirl, lights will flash and the hounds will be released after me.

In other words I'm not very keen.

Having said that, if anyone is going to talk to my daughter about death it is going to be me. Believe me, I'm more than aware that there will come a time when I will have to explain to her what it is all about. But it is certainly not going to be at the age of three and I would resent it if she was first talked to about this subject by a teacher.

What concerns me the most is how the subject would be broached outside the family circle. There are many different view points on death. Some people believe in the afterlife, like myself, and others do not, and I would hate it for my daughter to be fed views that do not coincide with how I would like her to grow up. There will be plenty of time for her to form her own viewpoint later on.

And then there is this on-going idea that all children need to be educated about a whole range of subjects at school. What is wrong with parents stepping up to the plate and actually talking to their children about such important subjects? The school curriculum should be reserved for core subjects such as English, maths and science.

Anything else is down to the parents, especially such an emotive subject as death.

“He said snake”?!

2013-06-17T01:47:00.003-07:00

The good thing about being left holding the baby is you get out of situations you would rather not be in, such as holding reptiles and rats at an animal farm park.

Because that is where we headed yesterday to celebrate Father's Day, the local animal farm park.

And first stop on arrival was the meet the animals session, which my daughter was very keen to take part in.

As the other children and parents took their places and the hand sanitiser went round for those who wanted to hold the 'furry friends', I happily declined, gesturing to the pram with my little boy inside. I felt even more relief when the word snake started to swirl around the room.

They say you shouldn't show fear in front of your children and so if that's the case, when it comes to reptiles and rats, I'm just going to have to avoid those situations in front of my daughter.

Being an observer to a scene such as an animal handling session means you have a bird's-eye view of everything going on around you. And a real classic was breaking out in the far corner of the room as one of the animal handlers draped a python around the neck of a nervous mum of a young boy.

She looked about to give birth to another child as she puffed and panted, eyes bulging, before breathlessly squeaking, “he said snake, he said snake, that's the first time he's said snake”.

I'm assuming she was referring to her son who looked at least three or four years old, and not the animal handler. But it was still a bit of a puzzler.

Had the word not come up in conversation before or something?

For me and my two-year-old daughter to recreate such a scene I would have to be being chased by the now extinct Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, rather than saying just a single word, my daughter would be more likely to shout out, “mummy, mummy, what you doing running from that Tyrannosaurus. It's so beautiful”.

But such is life.

Home ownership is every hard working person's right

2013-06-13T23:57:00.003-07:00

I find it terribly sad that my daughter and my little boy may never own their own home if the property ladder remains as impenetrable to first time buyers.

According to the latest statistics, less than a third of young people up to the age of 35 will own their own homes by 2020.

Some people would consider 35 to not be that old, but believe me, speaking as a 30-year-old, it is more than old enough to want to achieve some of life's major goals.

Because that is the thing, I feel that as long as you are earning a regular wage, there should be no barrier to owning your own home.

The issue of scraping together a huge deposit is proving to be a stumbling block to so many young people wanting to get on the property ladder and I think it is clearly becoming an outdated concept.

Most working people are proving they are more than capable of keeping a roof over their heads by paying large amounts of rent each month, so why can't this simply be changed to mortgage payments on their own home instead? There should be no need for a deposit, as if they fail to meet the mortgage repayments their house will be taken away anyway.

Perhaps there would need to be some kind of nominal payment to distinguish between renting and buying but by no means the huge amounts that people are currently having to pay.

It never used to be so difficult to own your own home. The cost of living used to be much lower and so people were in a position to save. Admittedly we live in far more of a consumer led society and people are seeing things like the latest technology and clothing as necessities these days but not everyone is living like that. Some young people would love to have any spare cash after paying their rent, bills and buying food to put aside for their own home, but it is simply not possible.

As a child you have no idea the lengths your parents have gone to to get a roof over your heads and you believe that one day when you are all grown up, you too will have your own house.

It is only people, rather cynical and corrupted people having said that, who have put these barriers in place to prevent everyone who works hard to be able to own their own homes, and so it should only take people to break these barriers down, with a bit of common-sense and a child-like belief that owning your own home is a person's right.

Gotcha rabbit

2013-06-13T01:32:00.003-07:00

My little boy's firsts – grasping

My little boy marked turning 15 weeks yesterday by grasping and holding his first toy.

This moment has been building up for a few weeks now as he has been getting to grips, quite literally, with the muslin cloth I use to wipe his mouth and the flannel placed over him to prevent any accidents whilst changing his nappy. (Anyone with a little boy will understand what I mean there).

He also likes to grab onto my clothing now whilst I feed him and will even hold onto his own clothes. What makes me laugh the most is when he holds onto the little belt which straps him into his bouncy chair in an excellent impersonation of John Wayne holding onto his belt buckles.

But until yesterday he hadn't quite managed to grab hold of any of the toys I waved in front of him.

It was his special rabbit toy that we bought for him before he was born that he grabbed hold of. As soon as he got hold of that rabbit's ear the first thing he did was pull that toy to his mouth. When I finally got that bunny back he was a little bit damp to say the least.

It's funny that the fact he put that rabbit in his mouth made me feel a little nervous, as at this age alarm bells ring and the word 'germs' flashes neon in my head. However, there must come a time when as a parent all you can do is relax about this as there came a point with my daughter when she put everything in her mouth and made a good attempt at eating it.

Anyway, well done little man for such a monumental milestone achievement and with those biceps it won't be long before you're picking up the sofa, and waving it above your head, with one hand.

My little boy – the baby bird

2013-06-12T01:32:00.004-07:00

Every time I see any baby chicks on Springwatch I can't help but think how similar they look to my little boy. (And yes let's first just clear up the fact I do watch Springwatch and I am 30-years-old and not 65).

The thing is, I think I may have my little boy slightly on the brain as I'm sure I could watch something else, say the Great British Bake Off, and still think to myself, that Danish pastry bares a striking resemblance to my little boy. Actually thinking about it...no perhaps that would be taking it a little too far.

So back to the chicks. I think its all in the downy feathers they have spiking out of their little heads. My little boy's hair is currently enjoying the same kind of effect now that his big mop of dark hair is falling out. A waste of some rather severe heartburn during the pregnancy but such is life.

The other similarity has to be the little birds gaping mouths as they beg their parents for food. It's not surprising this kind of greedy behaviour reminds me of my little boy when he has the appetite of a little sumo-wrestler.

To get a little bit factual, I was quite staggered that the parent birds make around 40 trips back and forth to the nest with food every hour for their chicks. And there I was thinking I had it bad when I get called up to my little boy's bedside of an evening to give him an extra feed to settle him to sleep.

Those parent birds certainly don't seem to have any time for TV viewing of a night.

The Little Chef

2013-06-11T03:12:00.001-07:00

It's always fun to speculate about what career your child may fall into. I still stand by my previous prediction that my daughter is going to be a farmer's wife. I'm giving her the more subordinate, female role on the farmstead at present simply because I'm not quite sure, as yet, where she is going to get her own farm, but give it time.

And I've also come up with my first idea for my little boy's career – and that is a chef. As I've hinted at, my little boy is simply not so little. You know that sometimes when you go to a pet shop they have put a giant lop-eared rabbit in with the normal size rabbits. Well, if you put my little man in with a bunch of other babies his age, he would be the equivalent of that giant lop-eared rabbit. The fact he would also be the cutest and most eye-catching is by-the-by – well not really but that's a mother's bias at work.

Now, my little boy was a big baby when he was born but the fact he has kept his giant size has everything to do with his big appetite and his love for his mother's milk. Due to this, it is hard to imagine he is not going to have a similar love for his solid food when he goes onto it.

What made me think that his love for food could grow into something more than just a pastime was the fact he became absolutely glued to Gordon Ramsey cooking a pork chop on TV yesterday.

He had just finished his feed – naturally - and turned around to see what the noisy box in the corner of the room was doing, and when he saw that pork chop sizzling away in the pan. That was it. There was no getting his attention away from it.

So in the same way that I made a blog-style note about my daughter's farming career, so I lay it down here. My little boy at his grand old age of three months, has all the signs of a little chef in the making. Watch this space.

Breastfeeding can be a joke

2013-06-10T02:24:00.001-07:00

Anyone who has watched ITV comedy The Job Lot can't have failed to notice the healthy dose of breastfeeding-related jokes on the programme.

For anyone who has not seen this comedy, it follows the escapades of the characters either side of the desk at a job centre. It gives both a stereotypical and highly individualistic look at those who work at such organisations and the unemployed that seek their services and is very much of the moment in terms of today's current obsession with benefit culture and so on. It is altogether very well observed and extremely funny as a result.

Amongst this mix of characters is a young mum who has returned to work after her maternity leave. Unlike most mothers in her situation however, who will have left their babies at a nursery with a bumper pack of formula, this mum is still breastfeeding her baby. Therefore we see her dealing with expressing her milk at work and the discomfort of engorged breasts. Well that is the serious side of matters.

What comes to the fore more is the fact she enjoys telling her male colleagues how she has gone up three cup sizes since breastfeeding and she is even seen to exploit her milk by slipping it into an unpopular colleague's coffee. This is the first time I have seen breastfeeding feature so heavily as the butt of a joke in a comedy and the question is, is this a good thing?

For the most militant of breastfeeding campaigners this could be deemed highly offensive. The fact the character is never going to win mother of the year because she is more keen to slip off to the pub after work than home to her baby isn't going to make things any better.

But I would actually say this comedy does a service to the breastfeeding cause. The very fact this mum is young and image conscious and even a little dizzy, helps show that breastfeeding isn't for an allotted few but is accessible to the masses. The fact she has returned to work and is still continuing to breastfeed is commendable and will hopefully make other mums who feel they need to bottle feed because their return to work is imminent, think again.

But all in all the breastfeeding jokes are so true to life that anyone who has breastfed will certainly have a good chuckle to themselves about it and it makes a nice change to be able to laugh about something which can be so emotionally draining. It says, in short, you are not alone in your breastfeeding woes and I commend the writers for this.

Nepotism – no thanks

2013-06-06T03:54:00.003-07:00

Former Dragon's Den star James Caan has said you shouldn't help your children into a job.

I completely agree.

First and foremost I should say, I would do anything for my children, but my honest opinion is, that to simply spoon feed them into a career, hand it to them on a plate – and other feeding metaphors – will only do them a disservice in the long-run.

I believe all you will end up with is a pampered and spoilt child/adult who will never know how to make it on their own in the world and may not be the nicest of individuals to boot.

Alternatively they may turn into a frustrated character who feels they have been pushed into a career they may not have chosen themselves or feel unfulfilled because they did not achieve what they have got on their own.

We all know jammy people who walked straight out of school and into the family business or parents who pulled every string to get little Johnny that job at that prestigious firm. But while it may seem they are the lucky ones on the surface because they never had to suffer to get where they are today, I think you will find, those people who had to work their way up to where they are and had real trials along the way, are much more appreciative of what they have got, and much better people as a result.

Cheese grows on plants!?

2013-06-04T23:50:00.003-07:00

What is going on in this world. How can it be that primary school aged children do not know the answers to the simplest of food based questions.

Jamie Oliver would turn in his grave, if he was dead.

Apparently according to a recent poll, around a third of children aged four to eleven believed that cheese came from a plant, tomatoes grew underground and fish fingers were made from chicken.

I mean really?!

Even my two-year-old daughter knows that fish fingers are made from fish. The clue is in the title let's face it.

On the TV-based coverage of this story, the onus was being put on schools to educate children in these matters and it was felt that somehow the school curriculum was letting these youngsters down. But surely it is not down to the school to solely educate children about where their food comes from.

In fact, these issues are not really down to education in a sit down and take notes kind of way. There shouldn't have to be lessons at school on the contents of fish fingers. If you ask me, the answers to all these and similar questions should come about as a matter of discussion between adult and child, and mainly at home with the parents.

How is it that a third of children are not inquisitive enough to ask where these basic food stuffs come from and if a child is living in this kind of ignorance, why is this not being addressed by mums and dads?

All it takes is a simple discussion around the dinner table. I realise that these are different times to a few generations ago. Now more children live in inner city areas and haven't seen a cow in real life for example and as far as they are concerned things like tomatoes come direct from a supermarket onto the plate.

But this is no excuse. There are books and even children’s television programmes which all inform on this subject and predominantly, I wonder what kind of parent serves up fish fingers to their child without ensuring their son or daughter realises the contents of that said fish finger is fish, not chicken?!

'I've lost my mum...'

2013-06-04T01:19:00.003-07:00

I can't abide today's hyper-paranoid culture which suggests that if parents let their children out of their sights for just a few minutes they will come to harm.

Having said that I was really impressed by what the organisers of our local asparagus festival did to protect the little ones at the weekend.

Everyone, adults and children alike, were given wristbands on entry to the festival but the youngsters ones were a little bit special. They came complete with their parent's mobile phone number written on them so that if they did wander off and get lost it would be a lot easier to track their mummy or daddy down.

As I said, I don't like this idea that we have to put the fear of god into both parents and children in order to make sure they are not carted off by a stranger. But this idea of the festival's just seemed so simple yet effective that I feel it could be employed in more places. (Perhaps it is and I just haven't come across it before.)

Because I think us adults can all recount a story from when we were young of getting separated from our parents, or at least thinking we had been. I remember thinking I had lost my mum for good one day whilst out shopping. I looked round to where I thought she was and she wasn't there and in that moment I thought that was it – I was now an orphan doomed to fend for myself for all eternity. The fact that she was only a few metres away in the opposite direction is irrelevant. I didn't know that.

This is all a part of growing up in the same way as learning to ride a bike and losing your first tooth but there are more genuine cases when a child does wander off without the parents realising and if a simple wristband with a mobile phone number could help bring parent and child back together more swiftly and reduce the trauma for both parties then that's a great thing.

Mr Bloom exposed (kind of)

2013-06-03T01:54:00.002-07:00

They say you should never meet your idols as you will only be disappointed.

I don't know who 'they' are but they have certainly got a point. Three words for you – Sir Ian McKellan – the biggest disappointment of my journalistic career.

And my daughter came a whisker away from sharing this kind of disappointment after rubbing shoulders with Mr Bloom at the weekend. All it would have taken was for her to be a year or two older to fully comprehend what happened and we would have had one crestfallen little girl on our hands.

To back track, Mr Bloom the Cbeebies gardener, was at the local asparagus festival at the weekend and it was a no brainer that we take our daughter along to see what I would guess is one of her top five characters on children's TV.

As the time drew near for Mr Bloom to take to the festival stage, families gathered on the grass below. Not us. My eagle eyed husband spotted Mr Bloom in the backstage area, which was just a tent to be honest, and before I knew it the four of us – including the little boy in his pram – were heading his way.

Just metres away from him we stopped and my husband asked our daughter, 'can you see him?'.

'Yes', my daughter breathed before giving a little wave. Mr Bloom meanwhile kept his head down, refusing to make eye contact despite knowing we were there. How could he not as we were only a short distance away.

Then Mr Bloom emerged from the tent. This is it, I thought to myself, he's going to at least acknowledge my daughter's presence as he passes on by. Just a smile or a wave will do but, nothing.

And then my shy daughter, completely out of character, calls out, 'Mr Bloom, look at my bracelet,' pointing at her little wrist where her festival wristband had been put on.

Did Mr Bloom now turn and give a nod, a blink, a muscle twitch, our way. No chance. He was too busy having his photo taken with two scantily clad samba dancers who had accosted him on the way to the stage.

Now I'm not saying Mr Bloom is a bad man, a secret child hater in straw hat and wellies. And he wouldn't know what a bold thing my daughter did by calling out. For all he knew she was always shouting around.

But it wouldn't have taken much to give my daughter a smile. I realise he wouldn't have wanted to open the flood gates and have lots of children suddenly mobbing him when he was about to perform, but no one else knew he was there. And he seemed to have time for those two samba girls...

Cuppa round Myleene's anyone?!

2013-05-31T02:00:00.003-07:00

They were debating the thorny issue of breastfeeding on Loose Women yesterday.

I happened to be breastfeeding my little boy at the time, so it was quite obvious which side my bread was buttered.

These debates always run along the same boring lines of how those mums who choose to bottle feed shouldn't be victimised and those who speak out in favour of breastfeeding are 'right on' types who fancy themselves a bit, blah, blah, blah... And usually it is water off a duck's back to me.

But on this occasion I have to say I was a little rattled. It doesn't help that the whole discussion was sparked by the irrepressible Myleene Klass – the only woman in the world to have children – who has made the newspapers after revealing she let other people taste her breast milk.

Anything which gets talk of breastfeeding out into the public arena can only be positive but I'm afraid Myleene's behaviour will leave most people with a bad taste in their mouths, metaphorically and literally in some cases, and do the image of breastfeeding very little good in the long run.

But what really got to me was the misinformation that those on the Loose Women panel were spouting.

There was Denise Welsh stating how formula actually makes children sleep better as though this was a positive, health benefit, rather than a result of their little tummy's being unnaturally stuffed full.

Then there was Lisa Maxwell who said she had breastfed her daughter for a grand total of two weeks as that was the most important period in which to do it due to the colostrum – which is true - but she added that any time spent breastfeeding after that initial two weeks would have been a waste of time.

Both these comments will be taken as red by the less informed Loose Women viewer.

Personally I think the whole issue of breastfeeding is over thought by the majority – even the supporters. To me it is simple. It is not just the most natural thing to do for your baby, but THE thing to so. You have the baby, the milk comes in and you feed your baby. Yes it does have huge health benefits for mother and baby and helps with the bonding process but overall it is simply the next stage in a mother's journey with her baby.

The readiness of formula to mums who struggle to get breastfeeding off the ground has provided an unfortunate fall back. Less than a hundred years ago when there was no formula, mums had to get to grips with breastfeeding or their babies went unfed.

With awareness comes naughtiness

2013-05-30T01:35:00.003-07:00

Now that my little boy has turned three months, it appears a switch has flicked in his head.

In the same way that the day after my daughter turned two she went from angelic toddler to a demon one, my little boy has decided that now he has 'come of age' he is all grown up.

The prime reason I say this is he is simply refusing to have his afternoon nap. He laughs in the face of that nap, quite literally.

My daughter will be upstairs fast asleep in her cot and there my little boy will be, smiling at me from his bouncy chair as if to say 'what?'

Go to sleep, I will him, in my mind, as I don't want to risk waking my daughter up. He continues to smile, until the smiles turn to grizzles and I tell him 'I told you so'.

'I've seen it all before with your sister' I tell him in a stage whisper. 'You've got yourself overtired now'. And there's nothing worse than an overtired baby as I'm sure you'll agree.

He's also decided he's too big to be going to sleep at 7pm. Nine o'clock is the time for him, he argues, now he's a big boy. The fact that he spends the two intervening hours crying for his mummy and daddy rather undoes the fact he thinks he's now 'all mature' but he doesn't seem to notice this.

Next thing I know, he'll be under the duvet until lunchtime, answering me in grunts and refusing to pick up his dirty socks and pants. But at least then he'd be getting some sleep in the day.

I can categorically say that with awareness comes naughtiness, when it comes to little babies.

The problem is, all my little boy has to do is give me his gummy grin and all is forgiven, darn it.

Brucie's Right

2013-05-29T02:10:00.002-07:00

I'm beginning to come round to Bruce Forsyth's way of thinking, that TV talent show Britain’s Got Talent is no place for children.

At first I thought Bruce's words were a little too damning. There is plenty of genuine talent in this country and much of it amongst the youngest inhabitants, so why shouldn’t they get a chance to take part in a competition looking for the best Britain has to offer?

But my way of thinking has definitely changed. It is not so much because of the pressure and disappointment that the competition can put upon children – even though this is something to be given serious consideration. You only have to look at their little faces as the results of each round are given to pause and think, is this really a good idea?

However, what really concerns me is that these children are not essentially taking part in this talent contest as children. It seems that the way they, and those advising them, believe they will succeed is to mimic the behaviour of the adults. I have seen little ones dancing around like Madonna's backing dancers, little comedians taking on adult subject matter and most memorably, the little girl singing of one night stands to get through to the next round. I'm not saying such children need to stand up there and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but there has to be more of a happy medium.

I also have my doubts about the credibility of this show. To my mind, all it takes is for a pretty mediocre singer to stand on that stage and sing a huge lung-busting ballad and it gets the Britain's Got Talent audience on their feet. It doesn't help that this is then followed by Simon Cowell and Co endorsing this over the top applause with comments which should only be reserved for those who are truly great, not middling.

It is terribly unwise for children to be boosted up in this manner and given a distorted idea of their talent on the one hand and, in the case of those genuinely talented little ones, knocked out of the competition by an average performer singing from Les Miserable.

'There's a woman breastfeeding in there!'

2013-05-28T01:40:00.001-07:00

You would think that Mothercare would be pro breastfeeding but after my recent experience I'm not too sure.

It was a quiet weekday afternoon when I was browsing a Mothercare store and my little boy woke up in his pram demanding to be fed.

I thought to myself what excellent timing as I could see all the signs for the feeding and baby changing rooms at the back of the shop.

To the back of the store I went to find a very nice looking baby change and feeding room tucked away out of sight from the rest of the shop.

There was only one woman in there changing her daughter's nappy and by the time I had changed my little boy's nappy and settled down to feed him, she had gone so I couldn't feel any more content.

Of course there was always the chance someone else would walk into the room at any point but I was happy to deal with that as I have become quite used to feeding my little boy out and about in busy cafés and the like.

It was just nice for once to actually sit back and relax with him without the thought of any prying eyes on me.

Again I thought little of it when a member of Mothercare staff came in to tidy up. I listened as she explained that there was a breastfeeding room next door to the room I was in and that I should ask for the key next time I was in the shop. I just thought she was being friendly and letting me know there was somewhere even more secluded if I wanted. Inwardly I knew I wasn't interested in that option as, having relied on such rooms when out and about feeding my daughter, I found they made the whole thing seem rather sordid and something to be hidden away.

This time round with my little boy it is actually more liberating to be confident enough to sit in areas where other people are rather than feel I should be ashamed.

What left me puzzled was that as soon as this shop assistant left the feeding room I heard her say to a colleague, 'there's a woman breastfeeding in there'.

It seems a bit of a strange thing to say if you are completely happy with what I was doing. I've thought about it and she must have felt put out I was not feeding my little boy in the designated area. It appears in her eyes that while the area where I was sitting was a designated feeding area, in her eyes that was for bottle feeding only.

What she is missing is the fact breastfeeding mums are within their rights to feed their babies anywhere and it's not as though I was doing it out on the shop floor!

Time to put on the brakes

2013-05-23T01:33:00.004-07:00

The nature in which the killing of the soldier at Woolwich has been reported, yet again reminds me of how I would like to put the brakes on the way this world is progressing.

Not so much for my sake as for the sake of my children.

Having worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time mum I feel I am qualified to comment on this subject and can categorically say that reporting, certainly on the television, has become far more explicit.

I could hardly believe my ears when I heard the reporter on the six o'clock news treating us to the graphic detail in which the soldier was murdered. It was enough to make me wince, and as I say, I come from that field and have been privy to much detail on certain stories which, in my time, was deemed far too explicit to put into the newspaper. We were always warned not to write anything which would be deemed too gruesome or unnecessary, and TV journalists are under just the same kind of restriction, or they should be.

I was also surprised at how they showed close up footage of the soldier's attackers lying on the ground after being shot. This would not have happened even just a couple of years ago. It seems this country is moving ever closer to the Americanised, over dramatised, movie-style way of broadcasting.

The Americans may have given us peanut butter and Elvis, but they can keep this. I don't want it to become normal for news reports of murders and the like to be reported in such a way, so that by the time my son and daughter are old enough to understand, they will be able to take in every little graphic detail along with the rest of us.

High street all the way for Edith

2013-05-22T01:48:00.002-07:00

Finally a celebrity talking sense when it comes to designer baby clothes. When I say 'celebrity', I am referring to radio presenter Edith Bowman, but she is married to the front man of The Editors, so this does raise her in the fame stakes slightly.

Anyway, regardless, Edith, a mother of two young children herself, has branded people's obsession with dressing their little ones in designer togs 'ridiculous', and good for her. She claims that the high street is a more than acceptable place to shop for children's clothes as they grow out of them so quickly. And that is just it.

The very thought of dressing my little boy, heavyweight champion of the world in training, in designer clothing is ludicrous. It is as much as we can get him into some of his clothes once, before he is too big for them, and I do not exaggerate.

It is one thing for the likes of the Beckhams to buy designer clothes for their children with their endless disposable income – though Victoria does rather flaunt Harper's high end wardrobe on Twitter with daily pictures of her latest designer piece.

But it becomes something far more worrying when ordinary people are making huge sacrifices to ensure their children wear designer clothes. The children aren't even going to care what label is in their top, so yet again it is the competitiveness of the parents coming out here and that constant need to ''keep up with the Jones'.

There are far more important things to cultivate in your children than a taste for expensive clothing. The ability to be able to go into a shop and spend extortionate amounts of cash, which you do not have, on clothes you will hardly wear, is not a skill for a lifetime, is it?

All it does is leave you looking silly. When other people's children are running around free and unfettered, you are left calling fretfully after your little Johnny, warning him not to rip a hole in the knee of his D and G trousers.

Women called to freeze their eggs when they hit 30

2013-05-21T01:11:00.003-07:00

There was discussion on daytime TV yesterday about whether women should freeze their eggs at 30 in order to take control of their fertility.

This would essentially mean that women who wanted to further their careers, had not met the right man or who simply were not ready to start a family could do so later down the track if they wished without the worry of their biological clocks ticking.

Now, I always have to be careful when I talk about this kind of thing because I realise it is so easy to sit here at age 30 myself with my whole little family complete, without a simple problem with fertility along the way.

But the thing is I really do strongly believe that in life we need to follow what nature dictates.

The very thought of freezing eggs and therefore going down the route of IVF later in life just seems too manufactured and alien to me.

I know that many women who were desperate to have children have gone on to have them through this process and in turn these children have been much loved. And it really gets to me how it seems couples who would make wonderful parents end up childless whilst others who are awful parents end up with whole tribes of kids.

But I think that despite this it is not for humans to interfere with what nature is saying should be. If a couple cannot have children there is the option of adoption and if more people were open to this, this would mean there would be more unwanted children finding loving and caring homes.

At the same time, for women it really does come down to making a decision. Despite what the Government and society in general are trying to tell us, you simply cannot have it all.

I was extremely career orientated but I also wanted to have a family, and at a young age, so I realised sacrifices had to be made. More women need to do just the same. If you want to carry on well into your 30s with your career then you are just going to have to take that gamble later on over whether you can have children.

The option of motherhood needs to be a far more recognised and valid career option if you ask me and then I think more women would be happy to take it and we wouldn't be so embroiled in this talk of freezing eggs and IVF in the first place.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

2013-05-20T01:52:00.003-07:00

Well the walls in our bedroom are remarkably clean now.

I could say it all began with a careless mummy leaving her glass of water on the bedside table and the disappearance of my daughter's sponge from the bathroom.

But in actual fact it goes back further than that to my daughter's desire to help mummy with the dusting. (Yes I know, not a bad thing for a toddler to want to spend her time doing). I can't even get the duster and polish out without my daughter wanting her own duster to waft around with her own little squirt of polish on.

I didn't think much of her desire to clean the walls with the said duster rather than any actual items of furniture at the time. When there are already so many restraints and boundaries in place, it seemed foolish to introduce more when it came to something as positive as my daughter wanting to help her mummy out with keeping the house tidy, so I left her to it.

It was when I came into the bedroom after my shower the other morning, that I realised that there was a problem not only with my daughter's desire to help with the cleaning, but more specifically her desire to keep the walls clean.

I was confronted with the whole expanse of one wall dripping with water. In that split second when I saw that water it could just as easily have been blood or gunk or any other equally gruesome substance, such was my shock.

I know water on the walls doesn't compare to being confronted with crayon scrawled all over the walls, food splattered irredeemably across the sofa or the television set pulled off the TV table but so far to date, this is as shocking as it has got in our house, and I was most certainly shocked.

It was just the way the water was slowly dripping down the walls, mocking me as it went, saying, 'yes, I may just dry and leave no trace, or maybe somehow I will stain and leave a permanent reminder of what your daughter did.'

It did dry without a trace but that wasn't the point. I was gob-smacked by the event itself but also stumped as to what to say to my daughter. She pretty much went off without any reprimand at all, because what can you say? My daughter thought she was doing a good deed.

You want my opinion on NHS maternity services?!

2013-05-17T01:56:00.003-07:00

Here's a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

And I'm not talking about my inability to function as a normal sane human being at the moment. I nearly went out with my slippers on yesterday for goodness sake.

But no. What I'm referring to is the fact I have received through the post a letter inviting me to take part in a survey about my experience giving birth at the local hospital. The letter has been sent out by the local NHS Trust.

The key point is – and those who follow my blog closely will know – I ended up giving birth at home rather than at hospital in the end. To cut a long story short, events came on so quickly and sharply, by the time I realised my little baby boy was about to poke his head out into the big, wide world it was as much as my husband could do to call the ambulance staff to my bedside. Forget actually getting me to the hospital.

Admittedly I would have been down to give birth at the hospital throughout my pregnancy but after giving birth any further documentation filled out by me, the midwife or the health visitor quite clearly stated I gave birth at home.

It just shows you that NHS records are simply not in sync. While one body knows one thing, somewhere else another department is being left completely in the dark.

There isn't one big computer system where the fact I didn't give birth at hospital has been logged.

But there is a far more serious side to this. The letter states this survey has been sent out to all women who were due to give birth at around the same time as me. But if there has been no proper checks on the eventual outcome and circumstances of that birth, who is to say women who did not successfully go on to give birth to a baby, such as those who miscarried or those who lost their babies during the delivery, also received the same letter and survey as I did.

It's one thing me having a moan about the lack of co-ordination across the NHS departments but another for a grieving woman to receive this piece of buffoonery through the post.

Four-year-olds are 'fattist' - apparently

2013-05-16T01:29:00.003-07:00

According to a newspaper headline yesterday, children as young as four are 'fattist'. In other words they have already developed a prejudice against fat people.

Now to me this is merely stating the obvious. I think most people are aware that young children can be the harshest of critics and have not yet developed any notion of holding back when it comes to pointing out differences in people.

I think it is only to be expected that they would be showing signs of prejudice against people who are on the large size.

What does need to be considered however is where these children are getting the idea that fat people are somehow inferior to their slimmer counterparts. A lot has to do with their immediate families as they are obviously picking up ideas from home. Again this is not radically different to any other time throughout history. Go back just a couple of generations and it would have been completely acceptable for adults to make racist comments in front of their children, which in turn the little ones would have brought into the school playground.

Essentially, I don't think this kind of behaviour warrants a newspaper headline, and certainly not one which suggests this behaviour is by any means new, or even something to be terribly worried about.

It is simply an unavoidable part of growing up as children recognise differences in other people, and unfortunately are going to point them out.

All we can do as parents is encourage them to be more accepting of different types of people and when they inevitably come across children at school who are not quite as accepting, hope they are not swept along.

A child is always going to make some kind of disparaging remark about a person when they are little. The difference is you have to hope that when it comes to your own children this remark does not grow into a genuine prejudice held in adulthood.

It is certainly up to us as parents to ensure it does not develop into this and that means looking into our own hearts to make sure we don't hold such prejudices ourselves.

Angelina Jolie - a shining example to mothers

2013-05-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

The news that Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy demonstrates the lengths a mother will go to to be there for her children.

Of course there will be other factors than the fact she has six children which have driven her to have such a drastic operation. Finding out, as she has done, that you have an 87 per cent chance of developing breast cancer in your life, is a huge blow to your mortality - but I think any mother will agree with me that the biggest motivation will be her children.

It is heartening to see that even a woman of her profile, whose life is consumed by an industry obsessed with vanity, is prepared to go through a procedure which so brutally affects a person's appearance, and femininity.

In this respect, it shows that it doesn't matter if you are one of the most successful actresses in the world or a lowly cleaner, when it comes down to it we are all the same.

Anyone can be vulnerable to cancer and everyone is put on a level pegging when it comes to having to decide how to move forward on hearing you have such a high chance of succumbing to the disease.

I have to say that I don't know if I could be brave enough to take such a bold step should I ever find myself in Angelina's shoes. It takes real guts but at the same time, now I am a mother myself, I can see that you become more than prepared to take steps which you would once never have dreamed of taking. So when it came down to a choice of doing something which could potentially ensure I was around longer for my children, then I have to say I would give it long and hard consideration.

Good on Angelina Jolie for making the right decision for her and may she be an example to all other women, and mothers, who find themselves in her position.

My daughter – the social butterfly

2013-05-14T01:48:00.003-07:00

My daughter is becoming quite the social butterfly. She insisted on being allowed to play with all the other children in the Ikea play area at the weekend.

So off she toddled. However, she very quickly realised that playing with these children wasn't going to be as straightforward as playing with the little girl that lives next door.

All the other children in the Ikea play area were older and much bigger than my daughter, and, most significantly, were far too busy doing their own thing to take her under their wing.

This left my daughter rather alone in the corner of the play area until one girl came along to inspect the toy my daughter was half-heartedly playing with - before disappearing off again.

My daughter meekly followed after this girl and stood beside her waiting, for what – this older girl to start playing with her I guess, but again this girl ran off, leaving my daughter alone.

In that moment my heart went out to my daughter. Gone was all thought of the fact she wakes us up at ridiculous hours of the morning and throws terrible two-style tantrums over absolutely nothing.

Instead, she looked like my vulnerable little baby girl once more, trying to make it in the big, wide world.

Smoking tests for pregnant women?

2013-05-13T02:01:00.003-07:00

They have been talking about whether mums-to-be should be made to take a carbon monoxide test to see if they are smoking.

On the face of it, I am all in favour of anything which will get more pregnant women to kick the habit as there is no worse sight than an expectant mum smoking. I cannot begin to fathom why these women would want to endanger their unborn children in this way when the effects of this smoke are very real and proven.

I understand that for some women it is not a simple matter of stubbing out the habit overnight, though at the same time I am sure there can be no greater incentive than wanting to stop smoking for the sake of your unborn child. You also have to think about after you have had a baby. I think that seeing even a mother with young children smoking is a little unsavoury, so surely before getting pregnant is the right time to give up smoking, and for good. At all stages of a child's life they are in danger of illness through passive smoking. The same goes for smoking fathers in this case.

On this basis surely before a woman thinks about trying for a baby they should stop smoking first. A little life is not something to mess with and surely these women want to provide the best environment for their babies to grow – and that includes a smoke free one. However looking at the evidence, many women are not seeing the situation in this light. In fact, one in five women carry on smoking whilst pregnant.

On the other hand though, I think, as a non-smoker, I would have felt quite offended if the midwife had asked to run a carbon monoxide test on me whilst I was pregnant simply because the very idea that I would be doing something like that is so far from my mind. I would be offended that the midwife would think it even necessary to do such a thing.

Therefore it is a tricky subject when it really comes to that moment when a midwife has to get out that test and ask the mum-to-be's permission to do it. Whilst it will catch out those mothers who are not being honest about smoking, and in turn hopefully help them give up – isn't it at the same time an affront to those innocent of such a filthy habit, tarring all pregnant women with the same brush, as it were?

Really it should be for individuals to look into their own consciences but the problem is too many women are selfish to their own needs, even ahead of the little life they are carrying inside.