Joanne the Coach

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

I like to think of myself as a fairly liberal parent, but even I know that this is wrong on so many levels.

This is kind of off too. Though the reviews have a lot of class.

Happy Guilt-Free Mothers Day

Look what I found between the sofa cushions - an extra day.  Where did that come from?

Did you see Sandra Parsons' column in The Times yesterday?  She's certainly spot on to note that the more Middle England the child, the more they view a trip to McDonald's as an immeasurable treat.

However, one sentence made me pull the face.

One of the things you learn in personal development, is that if a client talks about 'you' doing or feeling something, what they really mean is 'I'.  So if someone says "You know when you do X and you feel a bit Y", they are really talking about their own feelings.  But it helps to mentally distance these things, because then you can blame it on somebody else and avoid taking responsibility for your own feelings.

So when Sandra Parsons writes about working mothers:  "You feel feel permanent guilt at not being a good enough mother", although it reads like an attempt to tar the lot of us with the same brush, it's really the writer's own feelings about her own life coming through. 

Regular readers will know that this blog is a parental guilt-free zone.  My children were not born with a free package of guilt, and I resist any attempts to palm one off on me. I don't feel guilty about any aspect of working and parenting.  I'm doing the best I can.  When I go wrong I aim to do better.  Why feel guilty about that?

The part I do think Parsons gets right is about our lives being out of control.  But then that's true for anybody, whether you're a parent or not.  Absolutely nobody is in 100% control of their life.  This is why perfectionism rarely works - life, with its regular curveballs, will always change your plans.

It doesn't do working mothers any favours at all to promote the myth that we must all feel guilty that we're somehow not good enough.  And sometimes it feels positively radical to say that you (of course I mean I) will have no part in keeping the guilty myth going.  Even with an extra day, life's too short for that.

Parenting for Beginners - Peas To Meet You, Fussy Eaters

I have invented something fabulous.

It is called a peabab.

Basically, you get a cocktail stick, skewer as many peas as you can on to it, so you end up with something that resembles a mini kebab made of peas.  And that's the peabab.  I told you it was fabulous.

If you are a small child (not too small though - cocktail sticks a bit pointy for some), you then consume said peabab, and get started on making another one.  You may briefly wonder why your mother is doing her Happy Dance, but you carry on and soon have consumed more peas in one sitting than you did in the last year.

It's ridiculous some of the things we do to get children to eat more healthily.  Having extensively researched the subject over the last 7 years, I can tell you that some of the most effective ways to get your little blighter darling to eat more veg are:

• Invite round a pal for tea.  If you happen to be the proud parent of The Boy Who Likes Carrots, rest assured that your child will never be short of a dinner date.
• Focus on the things that they do eat, and make them the most nutritious versions you can find.  Anybody want a loaf baking, I do the healthiest bread in Brighton?
• Bribe them with stickers.  Why are stickers such kiddie-crack?  It's a mystery, but it works.
• Astonish them with a peabab.  You know it makes sense. 

Working Mums - By Your Chubby Kids We Shall Know Thee

More parenting bollox in the news to try and trip up those of us doing the working mother mambo.

As reported by BBC News, a study from the Institute of Child Health claims that children of working mothers are more likely to be obese.  So add that to your list of stuff to feel guilty about - then burn it.

The study's researchers are reported as saying: "Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity.  For example, parental time constraints could increase a child's consumption of snack foods and/or increase television use."

Note the use of vague, wobbly language in that quote - mothers working long hours "may" stop their children having healthy food and "could" lead to increased snacking & TV watching.  Not that they definitely do, just that they might have an effect.  Just as paternal working hours, location, other priorities and the man in the moon may also have an effect. 

This study appears to take a very all or nothing approach, contrasting the full time working mum (she bad, she eat chips and watch TV) with the stay at home mum (she good, she make nice food).  But what about the increasing numbers of women who adopt a mix and match variation of this - the part-timers, the flexible-shifters, the self-employed?  The trouble with these sorts of surveys is that they tar all working women with the same brush, even when you've done your best to find a working pattern that also gives you time with your kids.

The Kellogg's Family Health Study (of which I'm a panel member) showed that parents are their children's greatest role models.  So if you have a generally healthy and positive attitude to food and exercise, then your kids are likely to adopt this also.

There probably are some good lessons to be learned from this study - it's quite an indictment of the UK's culture of presenteeism and long working hours.  I hope it doesn't become another stick to beat working mothers with, though I suspect it will.  The Daily Mail are probably raising their cudgels with glee already.

When Life Trips You Up

So there I was at the computer yesterday, thinking it was about time for another post and planning to let you know what some of the UK's experts on obesity reckon is the best way to combat over-eating.

And then the phone goes, and it's the nursery, and my little cherub of a son has fallen and needs medical attention.  When I mentioned the need for working parents to dance, not juggle, what I should have added is that sometimes the dance speeds up and looks suspiciously like a run.

So I pelt round to the nursery and there's already an ambulance outside.  I go into 'calm on the outside, freaking out on the inside' mode.  Son is in the middle of a lot of grey-faced people; looking very stunned, with a duck's egg of a bruise on his forehead.  And that's how we ended up spending the afternoon in hospital.

However, this is the boy who was born on Friday 13th, on the 13th floor of the hospital, in the room between 12 and 14, with a sticker saying 'Room 12A' on the door (yeah, right, just call it Room 13 and be done with it).  He squares right up to misfortune and keeps going regardless.   He's 100% recovered today, even the bruise has gone.

Phew, thank goodness for that.  Will post again soon with the news from the obesity experts - it'll surprise you, I promise.  But not as much as yesterday surprised me.

Down With Guilt - The Campaign Continues

Yesterday I wrote about guilt being the number one energy-sapper for mothers.  According to today's Guardian, actress Jessica Hynes agrees. 

Speaking to Gareth McLean, Jessica says: "There seems to be an epidemic of guilt among mothers. It's not about anything in particular but you just feel guilty. I've made a conscious decision to give all that up because it seemed to really cloud my experience of motherhood. I've given up on guilt like I gave up smoking. It's totally unhealthy, completely counter-productive, has no nutritional value whatsoever and I really don't enjoy it. Guilt is obstructive to love."  Read the full article here. 

Hooray for Jessica Hynes and her words of truth and wisdom.

Today, stick your nose in the air whilst you squish guilt into the carpet where it belongs.

The Working Mother Mambo: the antidote to juggling

At coaching school, lesson number one is usually not to moan about problems, but instead to "embrace challenges".  Well, being a working mother is one eff of a big challenge sometimes.   I do try to embrace it, but sometimes end up shouting at it and confiscating its sweets.

So based on coaching working parents (and being a mother of two myself), here are my best tips for managing parenting with work:

1.  Ditch the guilt.  Absolutely.  Drop it right there, and leave the worry behind while you're at it.  Feeling guilty does not have to be an inevitable part of parenting.  When parents talk about not having enough time to do things, I think the real issue is not so much time as energy.  You can achieve more in less time if you have the energy to do so.  And what are two of life's biggest energy-sappers?  That's right, our old friends guilt and worry.  Make a choice not to feel guilty about anything.  If you do something you're not happy with, decide to do it differently.  Ask yourself:  am I doing the best I can for myself and my children right now?  Don't waste your time and energy feeling guilty about not being some kind of mythical uber-mum.

2.  Accept that change is inevitable.  Your tiny angel baby will morph into a stroppy threenager* before your eyes. Just when you think you've got childcare sorted, somebody gets ill. Dealing with unexpected changes can leave many parents feeling wrung out at both ends.  Just take a deep breath and go with it when life sneaks up behind you and yells 'Surprise!'.

3.  Er...that's it.  Yes, I could give you the same old chestnuts about getting stuff ready the night before to save yourself five minutes in the morning, but the bottom line is this: don't juggle, dance.  Juggling always looks to me like a very stressful thing to do - constantly keeping your eye on the ball, permanently poised in case everything collapses.  And of course those balls always do fall in the end.  Dancing is about moving through life and accepting change with grace, reacting to what's happening and keeping moving.  Dancing is a lot easier than juggling.  And like parenting, it gets better with wine ((only joking)).

More on this soon..

*Threenager - not typo, but a three year old with the attitude and mood-swings of a teenager, and the advantage that they can be distracted with a quick dose of Cbeebies.