Buffy's Salon

Resources for brand new mothers

 

Although hardly an expert myself I've read some very helpful and enlightening articles on how to handle the exciting, if somewhat pressurized, period in a woman's life.  Here are a few of my favourites:

I never realised what impact the position the baby was in had on the birth experience until I read fruitfulvines' article.  Most moms and health professionals are satisfied once they have established that baby is head down. But, truthfully, that is only one small part of the big picture. While most babies will lie head down, their position can vary.

 

Charming the Birds lists ways to help prepare older brothers and sisters for a new arrival.  Move your older child out of the crib well in advance of the baby's arrival (or wait at least a few months after the baby is born). It is important not to give the message that the older child is being "replaced."

 

Within the Eastern Orthodox church there is a tradition for a new mother to spend the first 40 days after giving birth resting and bonding with their baby at home rather than attending church or any other social activity.  Two women write about their experiences in 40 days and  Forty Days with Natalie.  For 40 days, I was disorientated, elated, confused, and sleepy-eyed. I wasn't quite myself — and I think it is always that way during the major transitions — the self that we thought we were must be remade. And this is the gift of the 40 days — a chance to be still in the care of the changeless One as life shifts around and within us.

And two articles from women who successfully brought routine into their babies's lives from the earliest days.  Girltalk: Caly leads a simple life.  She sleeps, she eats, and she has awake time.  That’s it. Her life is a constant three-hour cycle of eat/wake/sleep and in that order. And these are the building blocks of her schedule, which I’ve used since we arrived home from the hospital. The purpose of this schedule is to help set Caly’s internal body clock and to teach her how to fall asleep on her own. 

Brocante Home To me having a baby was like starting a whole new and really rather fabulous creative endeavour and I applied all the same principles in terms of preparing, reading and understanding all that I could before Finley was born, so I made educated choices on every aspect of his care.

Damaged Childhood?

The Story Book

Whilst it would be naive to suggest that there was once a golden era for children, we need to be concerned that research is showing that our modern lifestyles are creating children who are more difficult, anxious and troubled than in the past.

A report commissioned by the Children's Society came to the conclusion that "excessive individualism" (aka selfish adults with the wrong priorities) is to blame for many of the ills of modern childhood, and that youngsters would be happier and more stable if they were taught a value system based on helping others rather than focused on seeking only one's own personal advantage.  (Now where have I read that before?)

We find ourselves these days in an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation where society encourages us to behave in certain ways which our own commonsense tells us will only cause damage in the long-term.  Yet everyone is afraid to speak out and say that the Emperor is naked for fear of ridicule from others.

The Good Childhood Inquiry, however, quite clearly tells us that:

• stressing children out with tests and league tables
• stopping children from playing outdoors, and 
• exposing children to advertising for unhealthy or unwholesome products

will eventually damage them.

The inquiry goes further into controversial territory.  Young children living with a single parent or step-parent (as opposed to married parents) are 50% more likely to fail at school, lack social skills, have behavioural difficulties and suffer from anxiety and depression.

"Child-rearing is one of the most challenging tasks in life and ideally it requires two people," they comment.  Sounds obvious when you put it like that!

The report even dared to suggest that the increase in working mothers may contribute to the damage being done.

"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."

Some women (or men) don't have any choice about being a single parent and some are both the only carer and the only breadwinner.  We can't judge everyone in this situation, but when are we going to realise that lifestyles aimed at what boils down to instant gratification and acquiring material wealth result in society paying a price which far outweighs any initial individual gain?

A More Caring Society

Kindness

Just before Christmas several papers reported the news that more babies are being born with Down's Syndrome than have been recorded since screening began.  This is being seen as a result of a more caring society which is increasingly receptive and open to people with this condition.  As a consequence women who find they are pregnant with babies with this genetic disorder are more inclined to go ahead with the birth.  (The alternative obviously being to abort the fetus once the pre-natal testing shows up the genetic abnormality.)

In Britain in 1989, when pre-natal screening was introduced, DS births fell from 717 a year to 594 in 2000.  It has since then increased to 749.

Originally it was thought that this upturn was simply a result of more older women having babies.  However, a survey of parents of children with Down's Syndrome asked them why they decided to go ahead with the pregnancy  and 35% said that they thought life and society had improved for people with DS.  One third were against abortion on principle.  25% already knew people with DS or a similar disability and this had influenced them to go ahead with the pregnancy.

The Chief Executive of the Down's Syndrome Institute said:

"When I and others had our babies it was a very different world – those with Down's syndrome were treated very differently. Now there is much greater inclusion and acceptance, with mainstream education having a huge role. We think this plays a part in the decisions parents make."

Even more enlightening than the reports are the comments that the general public have left here.   There are many from friends and family of people with DS which are very positive.  However, there are others which focus on the difficulties that are created for parents and society when someone is born with DS.  As one commentor said "More disabled children is not good news"; he sees them as only a burden.  This of course was the thinking behind the screening programme that was devised to "solve the problem" of DS through termination during pregnancy.

Reading those comments it seemed like there are two sorts of people in the world, the ones who are worried about anyone being a drain on our resources, and the ones who, as one commentor said, have the imagination and love to want the lives of any disabled person to be as happy and supported as possible.  

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the survey was that most of the parents said that a major factor in going ahead with the pregnancy was that they could count on friends and family who would help and support them.  In other words, they were not expected to take on this heavy "burden" alone.  One of the saddest things that was reported was that of parents being worried sick about what would happen to their DS children when they had died.  Wouldn't it be good to know that vulnerable people would always be treasured by "society", and not just by their parents?  People who argue for termination because of the extra trouble and anxiety these children might cause are missing the point.  The abnormality lies with the lack of love and kindness in our society, not with the people with DS.

Feral Children?

    When I think of feral children my mind turns to the story of those unfortunates who were abandoned or stolen as babies and raised in isolation from other humans, allegedly by packs of animals such as wolves or bears.  Attempts to re-introduce them into civilisation have usually been dismal failures.   Alas, the term is now being used to refer to children closer to home.  A recent UK survey by YouGov found that over half the population think that children in this country are not only wild but dangerous. It is clear that, generally, British adults are not feeling tolerant of youngsters.  The survey, along with a recent one on British crime, found that:

• over half the respondents feel that children are beginning to behave like animals, a quick scan of comments left on relevant newspaper articles online finds children described using words such as feral, animal, cruel, ruthless, vermin and liable to "wander in packs"
• one third of those surveyed feel the streets are "infested", and something needs to be done to protect adults
• children are perceived as being unruly and criminal, and responsible for half of all criminal activity (in reality children are in fact responsible for only 12% of criminal activity)
• nearly half the respondents disagreed with the statement that the children who get into trouble were misunderstood and needed professional help

The survey was, in fact, commissioned by Barnardo's (a children's charity) who believe that society are increasingly and casually condemning children.  They argue that the adult population have a jaundiced view of children in general, and that:

"The real crime is that this sort of talk and attitude does nothing to help those young people who are difficult, unruly or badly behaved to change their ways."  

They also pointed out that:

"young people who became involved in criminal activity came from the most deprived families, had the poorest educational experiences and were more likely to suffer from poor health. "

The points that Barnardo's are making are that, firstly, children as a whole are being unjustly demonised and secondly that those children who are causing problems need to be helped rather than condemned as animals.

Of course, the majority of children are not a social nuisance, the problem is the age-old one of only the negative behaviour being visible.  For example, for every child hanging around shouting abusive language on the street there could be five at home leading blameless lives, but the one shouting on the corner is more obvious, and therefore someone who doesn't know a lot of children will form their opinion of modern children on the ones they do see.  Also, as the picture at the top of this post demonstrates, no one has ever been entirely safe from naughty children.

However, whilst Barnardo's are making two valid points, we should not ignore the fact that in general rudeness and wild behaviour is more prevalent in the UK than certain other European countries and also more than it was say, fifty years ago.  Is this the children's fault?  No, of course not.  It is the result of the society in which these children are raised.  Take note:

• If children are more unpleasant than they used to be, then so are adults.  Our society is much more selfish and obnoxious in public than it used to be.  How can we expect our children to be polite and kind to others if that's not the example set by adults?
• We do not seem to have the strong sense of family in Britain that is found in countries such as France, where children are not wandering the streets, they are with the rest of their family.  There is not the same separation between children and adults in terms of social activities and parents are more generous with the time they spend with their off-spring.  One of the reasons so many children spend time unsupervised is that we have got ourselves into a situation where both parents are working long hours.
• The days of real consequences for anti-social behaviour are behind us.  Children know they can't be clipped round the ear by an adult, or if they are they can get them into trouble by complaining about abuse.   Most parents seem unwilling to discipline or don't know how to, especially now that smacking is illegal.
• Our media are hardly promoting sound values to youngsters, on the contrary they are promoting a freakish, violent and dysfunctional sub-culture.  Why do we teach our children that to be cool you have to be obnoxious?

Bernardo's are right that we have an unhealthy attitude to youngsters.  Why should we use them as scapegoats for society's dysfunctional ways?  How about thinking of changing society and our own selfish attitudes first?

Playing Outside

First Day of the Holidays. Two children eat their breakfast on the first day of the school holidays, anxious to leave the table and play in the garden.

A recent article on the BBC website reminded me of this post that I wrote well over a year ago.  You may have noticed from more recent posts that this is a subject I do feel strongly about.  If there was one thing I could change about modern childhoods it would probably be the way children's lives are so impoverished by our desire to over-protect them.

In Praise of Summer Mischieflaments the lost art of playing outside.

Today's adults look back to a golden age of long summer holidays of "playing out". Through the hazy prism they see endless days of bike odysseys, camping in the back garden, building dens in the woods and plopping off homemade rope swings.

To understand how we (at least in Britain) have lost this idyll you can read the original article that got me thinking: Why are we such worried parents?

In the UK we are all so terrified that harm may come to our children that we severely limit their lives.  Children are not even allowed to walk down the street on their own anymore, they have to be driven everywhere.  This is crazy because:

- your child is far, far more likely to get killed in a car crash than be murdered by a stranger
- it denies the child the pleasure of exploring and playing outside and making friends that way
- the child does not learn to be independent or react well in an emergency if he or she cannot even walk down the street on his or her own
- the child is stuck with a sterile environment of TV and computer games instead of playing outside
- the child also eats more (because he's bored) and exercises less (because he's watching TV or playing computer games) so becomes unhealthy
- it teaches children to be frightened and nervous of everything

Statistically, children are no more at risk from predators than they have ever been.  However,the sad thing is that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you take all the children indoors and tell them to be suspicious of everyone then you destroy your community.  The world does become less of a safe place.

Anyone who reads Swallows and Amazons now must marvel at the freedom those children had: camping out without parental guidance, trusted not to drown themselves on lakes, expected to be able to not only look after themselves but behave decently towards others as well. 

Children who are told that everyone is their enemy do not treat others decently. 

For hundreds of years (many of them much more physically dangerous than modern times) children have lived their childhood to the full by playing outside for hours, building tree houses, exploring unknown territory, packing picnics, exploring rivers, meeting new people and talking to them, finding out how other people live, people of all ages and both sexes.  Remember in The Railway Childrenhow the three children made best friends with the station master, or how the young Gerald Durrellspent days and nights exploring Corfu, camping out and investigating all the wildlife, talking to total strangers? 

I don't envy our children growing up in the current environment.  They may be safe, but they must also be jolly bored.

What's Your Teenager Reading?

Books Carry

A report published in the Spring about children's reading had some good news and some bad news. The good news is that teenagers are still reading. The bad news is that their reading material of choice is Heat  (a celebrity-focused magazine.) Yes, at the age when girls (11-14 to be precise) should be relishing Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or even one of the modern books for young adults I've reviewed such as The Declaration or How I Live Now, their favourite read is a magazine full of celebrity gossip. Can you guess how far down the list of favourite reads a book actually came? Number five (Harry Potter if you're interested). I suppose one can take heart that both Anne Frank's Diary and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe appear in the top ten; I assume this is the real book readers registering.

Boys were included in the survey too, but I am sorry to say they did raise the tone.  Their main contributions at number 2 and 3 were online song lyrics and computer game cheats.

You know, as I write this I do wonder if I come across as an intellectual snob, implying that any teenager not reading a "worthy" book is wasting their life. I admit it, I do think books are the best thing invented by man. I think a life spent without reading books (or listening to audio tapes of books) is a life half-lived. Please feel welcome to disagree. However, I do accept that some people can get immense joy and value out of life without cracking open a paperback. On the other hand, I really don't believe that anyone whose main source of literature is a magazine with top articles entitled Boyzone reveal a shocking secret or Look! it's the BB girls with no slap is enjoying a life well lived. As as one literacy consultant said:

The trouble with reading magazines and reading online is that you don't get the narrative thread of a story in the same way.  By reading a book you are building up the stamina to absorb words for a longer period of time. What you are doing is gradually locking brains with the author, which you do not really do in quite the same way when you read chunks of a magazine or chunks of text on a screen.

Let's look at this from another angle. What do readers of gossip magazines gain?  I think we all know these days that the focus for teenage girls is the world of celebrity. Within the pages of Heat or Bliss girls can, however subliminally learn the importance of being skinny and spending money on designer clothing like Victoria Beckham, or binge drinking like Kate Moss or Any Winehouse.  They can learn that promiscuity and drug taking is normal behaviour, that pregnancy and single motherhood are cool and that, ultimately, we are all sexual commodities.  Is it any surprise that teachers have been warning us about the dangers of a celebrity obsessed culture on our children's educational aspirations? A recent survey found that one third of pupils wanted to be famous for the sake of being famous. The top model for boys is footballer David Beckham and for girls Paris Hilton.

I can't wait for them to grow up.

A Traditional Childhood

Play in the Surf

A couple of reports on childhood earlier this year revealed both the parlous state that modern childhood in the UK is in and a longing amongst adults to return to something more traditional.  A survey by Random House Children's books found that we now believe childhood ends at the age of 11.  Meanwhile research carried out by The Telegraph's Hold on to Childhood campaign found that 60% of parents mourned the traditional childhood of old.

The two main problems for modern childhood seem to be a leniency on the side of parents combined with increased spoiling with material goods and other treats that would not have been the norm 40 or 50 years ago.

An alarming 75% of parents said their children had scant regard for their authority and regularly disregarded instructions.  Nearly as many admitted that they were less strict with their children than their parents had been with them.  Some of the differences in allowable behaviour included more children being allowed to watch 18-certificate films when they were underage, children under 16 being allowed to stay out after 11.00pm and, at 16, being allowed to spend the night at their boyfriend or girlfriend's house.  Most of the parents who allow this behaviour are buckling under pressure, rather than following any kind of ethical code.  Also much commented on in recent years has been the unpleasant sexualisation of young girls.

As for increased materialism, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a timely warning when he said: "The selling of lifestyles to children creates a culture of material competitiveness and promotes acquisitive individualism at the expense of the principles of community and co-operation."  Interestingly another survey looking at the increasing materialism of children reported that parents felt children needed better role models than "stick-thin fashion models, drug-addled rock stars or obscenely rich footballers".

Meanwhile the Hold onto Childhood campaign found that the top ten activities that parents felt children are now missing out on were:

Brownies/Scouts
Board games
Seaside day trips
Harvest festival and nativity plays
The school or village fete
Traditional playground games - conker fighting, hop-scotch
Sunday school
The school milk break
Visiting museums
Household chores

Sadly more than half of parents questioned feel that the freedom to play outside has disappeared, so climbing trees and playing hide-and-seek has been replaced with sitting in front of a TV or computer.  And whilst 75% of parents have fond memories of taking part in nativity plays or harvest festivals only a third of their children have done the former and 17% the latter.  The breakdown in religion and community has many ramifications.

All this provides plenty of food for thought.  It does seem ironic to me that so many parents are raising children in a way that is contrary to what they think is best because they are bowing to pressure not to discipline, exposing their children to media that is bad for them and showering them with material goods, which sometimes means running up debt.  It seems that it is the parents who are willing to swim against the tide who must be congratulated, especially those who are careful what values and expectations they are exposing to their children to.

Best Children's Books

Girls Reading Umbrella

Earlier this year Booktrust did a survey of over 4,000 people in the UK to find what we thought were the best children's books.  (Booktrust is a charity whose aim is to encourage people to enjoy reading.)

I expect it will be no surprise to find that The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the most popular children's book.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar was second and the Famous Five series was third.  Winnie the Pooh and The BFG took fourth and fifth places.

It's good to see so many classics in the top fifty.  The most popular author appeared to be Roald Dahl, with six books.

The best news is that the poll found that four out of five parents read their children a bedtime story every night.  Over half started when their children were six months old but a slightly eccentric 18% said they read to their bump before it was born.

Books were a very important part of my childhood and my mother read to me every evening in the bath.  (I was in the bath, not her.)  I think my five favourite books from childhood would be:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (and the other Narnia books)
Neverending Story
Little Women
Malory Towers Series
Ballet Shoes

These are the stories I read again and again at different times in my childhood.  What would be on your list?

Do Idle Parents make Happy Children?

Children Playing Rock Pool

"We don't care about status and career advancement and how we are perceived by others. We are free of all of that rubbish. We simply want to enjoy our lives and to give our children a happy childhood. What greater gift could there be from a parent? If our children tell their friends in later life that they enjoyed their childhood, I would count that as a great achievement. Better to have a happy childhood than a high-achieving one that brings a big psychiatrist's bill in adult life."

I refer you to a refreshing article on idle parenting.  Written by a father who thinks we've lost our way with modern parenting, it goes against our modern cultural view of raising children.

The main point he makes is we should leave our children alone more to have some unstructured time for exploring, playing, using their imagination, just having fun.  What he is rebelling against are some of the, relatively modern, ideas which have infiltrated children's lives (and, consequently their parents').

They are:

1. Children must work hard academically and be constantly tested to see if they are meeting the appropriate targets
2. Children's days must be crammed with activities, from learning a musical instrument, to joining several clubs, or just doing too much homework
3. Children are encouraged to get caught up in the consumerist culture.  Perhaps the stupidest recent example being Wii exercises and games (encouraging you to play outdoor activities, such as golf, indoors in front of the TV).
4. Children must receive constant stimulation from the TV, ipod, computer games etc so that they never have to exercise their imagination or entertain themselves.
5. Children must be trained not to be able to so much as make themselves (or you) a cup of tea in the morning, therefore making them thoroughly dependent on you instead of being able to look after themselves.
6. The absolute necessity of costly leisure pursuits, either investing in equipment for hobbies or expensive days out at fun palaces, zoos etc.
7. The idea of insular parenting, because of the breakdown of community and smaller families, you don't get neighbours or family members gathering, so the children can play together and the parents can socialise and support each other

Now I must admit I don't entirely agree with his philosophy of how to raise contented children.  I do, for example, think children need a certain amount of adult guidance.  For example, too often we leave them to be influenced by friends, the media and school without talking things through with them and providing some direction for their moral and spiritual unfolding.  I do believe in the principle of keeping your child close to your heart; as they say at No Greater Joy, tying strings of fellowship with your children is vital.

A few reservations aside, however I do feel the author has made a valid point.  My own childhood was typical of the time (the 1970s) in that I was mostly left alone to get on with living my childhood and exploring my neighbourhood.  My mother did not mollycoddle me; whatever her feelings she allowed me a much greater freedom than most modern parents do.  (I found out recently that the first time she let me walk the half-mile to the shops on my own she followed me discreetly.)  I spent a great deal of the summer playing alone or with friends in the back garden, a nearby woods or even (shock! horror!) the streets.  I remember those times with great fondness, as well as awe for the unlimited and unceasing imagination we displayed.  Trips out were rare treats, and my idea of a holiday was visiting my grandparents or spending a week in the Lake District.  Occasionally my mother would organise something special during the school holidays, but she felt under no obligation to do so.  She expected me to be able to entertain myself.  Even though I was raised as an only child, I do not remember having a boring childhood.

When you think back to the childhood classics such as Swallows and Amazons, The Railway Children, The Secret Garden, Just William, The Famous Five or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer you can't help noticing the absence of parents worrying about their children's school grades/safety/boredom thresholds/lack of career skills and so on.  Of course not, because parents have to step back far enough from directing their children's daily life to let the children have their own adventures.

For interesting and related posts I refer you to Downtime is Good at Gathering Grace and Non TV Fun at Values Driven Family.

Be more tolerant of "non perfect" children

Bob Cratchit with "Tiny Tim" His Crippled Youngest Son

My last point in my post about making abortion a thing of the past was that society should rethink its views on children who are not (so called) perfect.

Although in some ways pre-natal testing has been a very helpful tool it has allowed people throughout the world to become increasingly picky about what they will and will not accept in their baby.

Perhaps the scariest example of this is seen when people in countries like India or China abort a healthy child simply because it is the wrong sex.  In China the one-child only policy has lead many to abort female fetuses (and in fact there have been many cases of infanticide) because of a traditional preference for boys.  90% of abortions are estimated to be of female fetuses.  As a result the population has become very distorted with men outnumbering women by over 60 million.  In India there are now 36 million more men than women as a result of abortion and infanticide.  This is because the society in India sees daughters as a burden but sons as financial providers.

The blame here must lie with the way societies in these countries holds such a negative view of the value of daughters and the fact that parents would rather kill their child than have what is considered to be "second-best".  In a moving article one pregnant lady writes:

If our baby is a girl her arrival is likely to be greeted, by some, with condolences. A friend - delighted with his new daughter - soon became infuriated at comments that his home had been cursed with a girl.  "Relatives arrived laden with gifts of sweet meats," he said. "They cuddled her and shook their heads at our misfortune."

These are attitudes which need to change.

The issues becomes a lot more murky when we bring disability into the equation.  This is a complex issue and it would be hard to lay down the law about when it is or is not acceptable to abort a child who is disabled which is why such decisions are left to the parents.  However, our society's obsession about physical perfection, which is so damaging in so many ways, can hardly provide a supportive backdrop for the parent who is wondering about bringing a less-than-perfect child into the world.  And for those parents who do decide to go ahead, adequate support must be made available on the understanding that raising a disabled child requires more resources than one who is able-bodied.  If we are serious about cutting down abortions this is something we must be prepared to do. 

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children quote the following story.  (Please note I do not agree with everything published on this site.)  In May 2003, the International Down Syndrome Screening Conference was held in London. A group of people with Down's syndrome had asked if they could speak at the conference but were not allowed to. They turned up anyway and one of them, Anya Souza, was finally allowed to say something about her own condition. She said: "I can't get rid of my Down's syndrome, but you can't get rid of my happiness. You can't get rid of the happiness I give others either. It's doctors like you that want to test pregnant women and stop people like me being born. Together with my family and friends I have fought to prevent my separation from normal society. I have fought for my rights... I may have Down's syndrome but I am a person first."