Reflection

Living a More Uncluttered Life

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Last post, I told you about how I’d been uncluttering my study. I’m nearly finished with it, especially since the garbage will be picked up tomorrow, but I’m already noticing a few differences. In fact, one of the first things I did was pick up my crochet hook and begin making some little crocheted characters – something I hadn’t done in ages.

Living a More Uncluttered Life

Why did I return to crocheting creatures? Because it was easy. Because everything was right there where I needed it – I could easily lay my hands on the right hook, the right yarn and even the eyes. And then I had space to work.

A little decluttering is a powerful thing.

So, I wondered, what would happen if I consciously chose to unclutter my life in other ways. If I chose to do more with less, chose to spend less time on inconsequential things? If I created a house that makes me truly happy. And how can I go about doing this?

Well, it turns out there are lots of books and websites on being more uncluttered. So I plan to peruse them, to find things that some something to me and to try them out. Then I will, of course, share the results with you. Because if decluttering one room feels so good, what would it me like if more and more of my life was in the same state?

What would you like to declutter in your life?

The Con of ‘Certified’ Infant Sleep Trainers

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The Con of Certified Sleep Trainers - You'e inviting this person to 'fix' your baby - what training have they really had?

Last week, the Courier Mail wrote a gushing advertisement for a sleep training service. This seems to be one of those bread and butter topics for mainstream media, there’s a pretty steady stream of articles and segments touting one ‘baby whisperer’ or another, filled with language about ‘manipulative’ or ‘wrong’ babies that need to be ‘fixed’.

What particularly struck me about this fairly mundane article, was the mention of the ‘training’ the sleep trainer went through. She wasn’t involved in a paediatric health field, (or any health field) before becoming a sleep trainer. Instead she ‘retrained’ to become one.

There’s nothing wrong with retraining. I did a post graduate degree in teaching, so was surrounded by others ‘retraining’ to become teachers. We all had 3 or 4 year degrees in our past (one of my friends had a PhD in Chemistry) and then completed 2 more years university with around 400 hours of practical teaching (and most of us would have liked more). I was then allowed to teach in a classroom on my own, but had to complete more hours to become a ‘full’ teacher, both under the Queensland College of Teachers (a regulatory body, overseen by the government) and Education Queensland (my employer).

With that in my background, I was really interested to see what kind of training would be required to become an Infant Sleep Trainer – particularly since these people often offer advice on mental and medical issues babies might be having.

So far, I’ve found three different training courses. One from the Maternity Institute (which I think might be like the Ponds Institute) is called the IMI Maternity & Child Sleep Consultant Certification program. This is a 12 week online course which covers a range of sleep related topics, as well as “The Business Basics Of Sleep: What is involved and what you need to get started” and “an in-depth look at green and eco-friendly sleep practices” (Eco-friendly sleep practices? What is eco-unfriendly about sleeping?) This course is the cheapest at a sale price of $1550 (American), though there are additional add ons you can pay for.

The next course comes from the Family Sleep Institute and is the FSI Child Sleep Consultant Certification. This course, which involves a 4 week pre course and then a 12 week course, with 70+ hours of teaching material, “allows our certifying graduates to confidently run their own private and independent child sleep consulting practices as soon as they graduate.” (No probationary period here). This course, which entitles you to free promotion of your business, includes lessons in “Business Aspects: Website Design, Database Management, Marketing, Pricing” This course will cost you around $3000 (American)

Finally there was the Gentle Sleep Coach (though I could find no information on her ‘gentle’ sleep coaching practices) and the Gentle Sleep Coach Training and Certification Program. This course touts itself as being the most comprehensive training course around, so possibly closer to the kind of training you would expect from other professionals (teachers or doctors) working with children? Or 80+ hours of training. And what do you pay for the 80+ hours? $4995 for the additional program, plus $1000 a year to be certified. (By the way, my yearly teacher certification cost about $60. A professional engineer in Australia would pay around $600) Parting with that $1000 a year allows you benefits, including “use of the GSC logo and business resources”

Wait a minute. Doesn’t that sound awfully like a franchise? So are people actually paying for these programs to become trained health or counseling professionals? Or are they paying to be part of a franchise?

The focus on ‘business practices’, the talk of ‘a career you can have when you have kids’, the franchise nature of some of these programs – plus the minimal work you need to put in to be fully certified. More and more, this is sounding like Avon or Tupperware or other products you ‘sell’ to other people. Except we’re not talking about makeup or plastic goods here – we’re talking about babies, and possibly the mental health of parents and their children.

I’ve got no doubt that there are many well meaning sleep trainers out there. There are probably those with additional medical degrees, possibly even ones in mental health. But there is no regulatory body, no government oversight, no place to turn if the advice, routines or procedures turn wrong. And the training available is simply not rigorous enough to allow these people to work with our children. We wouldn’t allow teachers into the classroom after 70 hours of study, even with ‘on the job learning’ there’s simply no way they would be prepared to work with our children.

There’s also the fact that the majority of these courses are online – and then allow you to call yourself a ‘baby whisperer’ or to pose as a ‘sleep expert’. That would be like calling myself an expert on global history, because I’ve taken (an equivalent length) online course. (So if you want to spend $300 to get advise on Global History, drop me a line)

Parents in need of sleep help, of real help, are usually pretty desperate. They don’t have the time to look at the backgrounds, the qualifications, the training of ‘sleep experts’. They don’t have the time to sort the good from the bad. When they see the word ‘certified’ it needs to mean something. Instead, what they’re getting at the moment, if a bunch of certified people who might have taken a 12 week course and is looking to make a quick buck off your distress, or might have 30 years working as a sleep trainer, as well as degrees in nursing, or training as a lactation counsellor. There’s a place for the latter, especially as support for tired parents. There is no place for the former to be working with our children.

There needs to be more government oversight, there needs to be a proper regulatory body, there needs to be acknowledgement that no matter what you might think about sleep training, this is too important to be left to people who don’t have adequate training or who might just be in it to make some money.

Will The Sky Fall if I Publish This Post? – Anxiety and Parenting

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Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Anxiety in Parenting

There’s a lot to worry about when you’ve got children. You’ve got to worry about how they’re doing when you’re pregnant and how you’re going to cope with the birth. You’ve got to worry about whether you’ll be able to feed the way you want and whether the baby will put on enough weight when you leave the hospital. Whether they’ll react to the vaccinations and if that weird thing they’re doing is something wrong or just a normal developmental stage. When to start swimming lessons, music lessons, sky diving lessons . . . it’s easy for it to all build up.

So how does that affect you when you have anxiety?

I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder with a healthy dose of Social Anxiety. I was diagnosed with this about 7 years ago, although I’ve probably had it most my life, and I went through cognitive behaviour therapy to deal with it. I’m not on any medications, and I look after myself through relaxation and mind exercises, being aware of when things are building up, and trying to keep in general good health. There have been periods which have been very dark, when anxiety slips into depression, but probably 90% of the time, things are very manageable.

But how does it affect me as a mother?

Well in some ways, not as much as I thought it would. Some of that has to do with the parenting style Mr Pilot and I have chosen to get us through Squirm’s infant years. We don’t fuss about sleep or routines (partly because we haven’t needed to and partly because we’re aware that babies march to their own little drum corp). We’ve tried to simplify our lives as we’ve become parents and that’s contributed to a bit more calm. It’s also easier because we’ve been very blessed to have a healthy child, who is generally pretty happy.

But there are some times when the anxiety makes things very hard. I worry myself into a state at times, and need to check immediately that Squirm is ok. I had horrific nightmares that I’d lost him in the early days and would wake up searching for him. I get overly worked up over things which do not impact directly on me – debates like cry it out and breastfeeding. I also have a lot of trouble driving to new places – which has definitely been challenged by the library tour!

Then there’s my little strain of social anxiety which makes it very hard to interact with people and to use the telephone. I worry a lot about what people are thinking about me, so I’ll put off making connections with other people in case I look stupid. I hate the telephone because I think I sound stupid, which makes it very hard to make appointments or set up things like lessons. And then, if I feel something has gone wrong I worry over it again and again.

I don’t want my son to see me as an anxious person. I want to be brave, to try new things, to be willing to set out and make things happen. I need to live in the moment, rather than worrying over what happened or what might happen in the future. It’s difficult, it takes a lot of brain work, and a lot of inspiration – sometimes from the strangest places. But I’m going to do my very best not to let the worries take control of my parenting.

Have you experienced anxiety as a parent? How do you deal with it?

Image from Flickr

Life with a More Mobile Baby . . .

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Just before Christmas, Squirm decided to roll from his back to his front. Twice. When we weren’t looking. We thought it was wonderful and amazing and asked him very nicely if he could just wait until he were watching next time . . .

Now, of course, he’s unstoppable. Rolling is like second nature to him. And once he was on his front he started pushing himself around . . . backwards. Then changing direction. Then creeping forward. From the way he gets up on his hands and knees, we’re getting closer and closer to crawling.

Of course, things change a little when your adorable, but stationary, baby starts moving. Suddenly you’ve got to think about what else is on the floor (note to Mr Pilot. Don’t leave the newspaper on the floor). Toys start migrating from one part of the room to the other. Babies disappear under furniture (well, that might only be my baby).

In truth, though, it makes for a pretty remarkable time. Squirm gets a bit frustrated when he can’t get where he wants to go immediately, but he usually keeps trying until he figures it out. (I wonder if he’ll be like that when he’s older). He loves being able to explore his surroundings. He loves finding new things – like the fact that kicking his feet on the lino sounds different than kicking his feet on the carpet. And he really does love rolling and creeping under things.

Adventure of a Subversive Reader: Hiding

Squirm finds it roomy under the couch . . .

I’m really making sure to enjoy this stage, for I’m sure it will be fleeting. Before we know it, we’ll be looking at crawling and standing and walking, and Squirm’s world will open up even more. Looking at all the lovely school photos and posts this week, I’m all too aware that these early years, filled with such love and hugs and crawling around on the floor will come to an end, and I’ll be the one sending my little boy off to school, while another mother is watching her little boy learn how to move on their own.

Adventure of a Subversive Reader: Squirm Moves

Being an Ambitious Mother

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am·bi·tious

[am-bish-uhs]  

adjective

1. having ambition;  eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, 
2. showing or caused by ambition
3. strongly desirous; eager
4. requiring exceptional effort, ability, 

 

A week ago I read Mia Freedman’s column, Birth of New Era, in the Sunday Mail. It started off good, talking about how the word ‘ambitious’ is seen with a negative view when it applies to women, though it is a virtue in men. In fact, a lot of the column is good, pointing out once you get pregnant everyone starts asking you what you want to do about work – and that it’s impossible to know the answer to that until the baby comes along.

Then the second last sentence comes along: “And more women are better educated and actually WANT to work.”

In that one sentence she swipes a paintbrush full of generalisations over those women who choose to stay at home with their children. She paints them as less educated and refuses to acknowledge their work as work. It immediately sends your mind back to earlier in the piece, when she talks about being concerned with nothing more than tiny socks or which breast you fed from last, like that’s the kind of thing that always fills the minds of stay at home mothers.

It’s not going to be surprising to anyone when I point out the stupidity of this. While those small socks are amazing, and those early days are a bit of a haze (lack of sleep induced, usually), there’s plenty of highly educated mothers who intend to stay at home. There’s plenty of stay at home mothers who are interested in the world outside (or the parts that matter, anyway.) And there’s plenty to learn from our children, as well as plenty of work to do with them.

Like the development of language skills. Squirm couldn’t communicate in any way but crying when he was first born. Now he babbles to us, experimenting with a wide range of sounds. Every day, there seems to be a new sound he can make. He’s at a point where he babbles, then stays quiet while I talk, then babbles again – he’s learning how to hold a conversation. At a time where more and more children are coming to school without adequate speech skills, I think that learning from and participating in this is pretty important work.

Like watching him work out how to move more effectively. In the last month, Squirm has gone from waving his hands at thing and being amazed if he made contact with them, to reaching deliberately for things and accurately pulling them towards him (usually towards his mouth). He can even turn the pages of a book, now. I think learning from and participating in this is pretty important work.

And it’s this kind of work I want to be ambitious about. I am ambitious about being the best mother I can be, just like I used to be ambitious about being the best teacher I could be.

For me and my family, my staying at home is the best choice. For other families, both parents working is the best choice. For other families, the father staying at home is the best choice. And, I bet for most of these families, they are ambitious to do the best by themselves and their children, no matter what choice that might be.

Mia Freedman didn’t need to make it an us versus them thing. She didn’t need to make it into ambitious versus not. It comes across, quite frankly, as a way to be controversial and throw another punch against other mothers. Or, otherwise, it was just lazy writing, which is just as bad. Working at home or away from home, women are working their hardest to do the best by themselves and their families.

They’re ambitious that way.

On Getting a Refund – And Other Reasons To Shop Elsewhere

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Would you eat these? We couldn’t

The sausages were inedible. Within minutes of putting them under the heat, my husband noticed that there was a lot of fat in them. Then one of them burst, spraying oil across the kitchen. Mr Pilot started collecting the oil in a measuring cup, getting about half a cup out of six sausages.

He hadn’t intended to buy them in the first place. He’d gone to Coles looking for a barbecue chicken, but they didn’t have any of those. We’d had a bad experience with sausages a while ago, and had avoided them since. But surely we wouldn’t be so unlucky to have the same experience again. After all, these were the expensive sausages.

But, suddenly, there we were on a Sunday night, our dinner massively reduced to some salad and a small portion of creamy pasta. And as a breastfeeding mother, you can bet that I was annoyed to have such a small meal on my plate. As Mr Pilot retrieved the receipt, I tweeted about our problem, getting a response from Coles that they’d be happy to refund. No problem, I thought. Last time this had happened, it had been quickly resolved with an apology, a refund and a small discount voucher to make up for the inconvenience.

This time, I stood for ages waiting for someone to serve me at the service desk. It used to be that there were always two people nearby because the service desk was between a regular register and the express register. Often the express register attendant would see to the service desk between customers. But the express registers have been closed, self serve registers put in another spot, and now there’s only one person in the area.

When I was finally served, I was treated with suspicion. It was like I was there to make trouble. Phone calls had to be made. Then the money was refunded. No apology, no voucher. And to make matters worse, I know the woman who was serving – her child attends the school I was working at. But she was obviously stressed, trying to do two jobs at the same time. And I left feeling like I’d been let down by Coles for a second time.

There was a time when Coles was the only place I’d do my shopping. Woolworths brought in self-checkout (though they kept express lanes), cut down their check out staff, and made it so I couldn’t use my debit card without incurring a charge. At my local Coles, there was usually lots of check outs available, a great express service, friendly staff who were interested in helping me and I could use my debit card. It was an easy choice and I’d go out of my way to shop there.

But then things started to change. The deli suddenly had problems offering the range they used to have. The self-serve checkouts went in and the express lanes went out. Mr Pilot mentioned that we primarily shopped at that Coles because of the great service and was assured that they’d actually put on more staff. Which might have been true for a week or two, but definitely isn’t evident anymore, with only one or two registers open apart from the self serve. Plus one of the self-serve machines couldn’t take $2 coins. Then the debit card restriction was lifted at Woolworths. Then there was the sausage incident.

Suddenly Woolworths looks just as good as Coles. In fact, sometimes it even looked better, with more registers open and an express lane option still available. The staff were friendly and the range was similar to Coles. (Something not available at any of the local independent groceries, unfortunately). So, while I’m not boycotting Coles, I’m not going out of my way to visit them. I no longer feel the compulsion to walk to the other end of the shopping centre to do my grocery shopping. If I’m near Woolworths, that’s where I’ll shop.

It’s not too difficult to keep me happy as a shopper. I like the conversations you can have when you shop, so I like being able to go through a checkout. I like that they (mostly) know how to pack bags better than me, and they don’t have a squirmy or screaming baby, so can pay more attention to it. I like the products I want to buy to be available and in good condition. And when they’re not, I like to get an apology. Without these things, my loyalty is lost, and I will look for other places to shop.

Has a shop ever lost your loyalty?

Fat from the sausages

Why Fake Pregnancy Jokes Are Not Actually Funny

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Last year, one of those ‘breast cancer awareness’ memes went around Facebook. One of those ones where you post a cryptic status based on something like your birthday, then pass it on, making sure ‘the men’ don’t find out. These are stupid on a whole lot of levels (like doing nothing to promote breast cancer awareness). This one was particularly cruel, though, encouraging people to post a status that they were ‘x week and craving y’. Pretending they were pregnant.

So, what, you might think. It’s just a joke, it doesn’t mean anything.

Except, maybe someone on your friend’s list is going through infertility. Every month is a struggle for them, and it’s hard work to be happy for the people around you who just seem to fall pregnant automatically. When you’re going through infertility, you see pregnancies everywhere – it’s like magic. So, suddenly you see friends announcing pregnancies, with cryptic messages, not even bothering to give you a call to tell you first. And then, after everyone’s congratulated them, they say – no I’m not pregnant. It’s just a joke. Now you’re upset, and you feel foolish. And nothing’s been done to raise awareness of breast cancer (which, by the way, can cause infertility).

It’s just a joke, though. It doesn’t mean anything. Your feelings don’t mean anything.

Another blogger put together an elaborate version of a fake pregnancy joke. They used cryptic messages and images to get people all involved in the story. Then they posted a status on Facebook that they were expecting. Except it wasn’t a baby they were expecting, it was Santa.

I don’t think the blogger meant to upset anyone. I think she’s a genuinely nice person, who maybe hadn’t thought of the joke from this point of view. But when I pointed out that it might be funny to some people, but it might be hurtful to others (especially if friends or family are following and feel bad they weren’t told) I was immediately told that it was just a joke, it doesn’t mean anything, it was all just in good fun.

Your feelings don’t mean anything.

Humour is not an excuse to make people feel bad. Jokes about race, disabilities, rape – they’re not funny, and they aren’t clever. They’re a tool people use to put other people down. Yet, constantly these jokes are defended because it’s just meant to be funny. It doesn’t mean anything.

And when someone speaks out, when someone says that a joke can be hurtful, they’re put down, their feelings disregarded. And less people speak out. Less people say anything. The ‘humour’ goes on, unquestioned.

Infertility is silent enough as it is. People don’t talk about it. People don’t want to hear about it. So when someone talk about it, points out that people going through infertility are people with real feelings, don’t silence them. Acknowledge that there might something you may not have thought of, resolve not to cause that kind of hurt again. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, just that you may not have thought of something from a certain perspective.

Because everyone’s feelings mean something.

Early Mornings

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I’ve been a morning person for as long as I remember. I’ve never liked being rushed in the mornings, so I used to wake myself up early so I had time to get ready for school – and watch the cartoons before I left.

As I grew older, I would use the early morning time to study for tests. Then I began university, which meant more than 2 hours of travelling each day, and I would get up early to make sure I could catch one of the sporadic trains that would take me there.

But then, even when I didn’t have anywhere to go, I would still wake up early. It was like I had a little bell ringing inside me, telling me to get up, get moving, there’s a day going on out there without me. Sometimes I’d wake too early, and I lay there in bed, things running through my mind faster and faster until I have to get up and do something just to slow the thoughts down a little.

When I was pregnant, I was often awake early, getting up in time to see tendrils of colour stretch across the sky. I’d spread out on the couch as sunlight slipped through the uncurtained windows and across our living room.

Now, I often do a feed early in the morning and find myself unable to get back to sleep. I take myself to the couch or the dining room table, a cup of hot tea in hand. I watch as the sun fills the sky, and I listen to the deep, regular breathing of my husband and my son. I take a little time for myself, happy to just be before the day really starts.

Early morning in Osaka, Japan

How do you feel about early mornings? What time of the day do you keep for yourself?

A weekend off is as good as a holiday

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So, over the weekend I barely looked at the blog. I looked at a couple of comments, and wrote down a few ideas for posts and just stayed away. Instead of obsessing over what I must post right now, I:

  • Visited family
  • Read a book
  • Went for a walk with Squirm
  • Went to church
  • Read to Squirm
  • Played with Squirm
  • Sat on the front lawn, watching the beautiful blue sky with Squirm while waiting for Mr Pilot to come home from his flying lesson.

And I finished the weekend more relaxed and happy than I have been in a couple of weeks.

The problem is, whenever I start blogging I want it all immediately. I spend ages obsessing over how other people do it, hours throwing myself into social media, endless energy worrying about whether I’m doing things ‘right’. It’s not healthy for me.

Instead, I was able to take the weekend to think about why I started the blog and what I wanted from it.

I started it to record the Library tour. I thought it would give me the motivation to keep going with a massive project and have a little fun along the way.

So, what do I want now? I still want that motivation and I want to write.

I don’t need to think about making money from the blog, especially if worrying about that takes time away from spending time with Squirm. If that comes up down the line, that’s great. But for now I want to concentrate on writing the best possible posts. I want to become a better writer – someone who writes things that make people stop and think every now and again. Down the track I have some ideas for some ebooks, and I’d love to learn more about writing them. I want to keep to the basic plan I came up with last week. And I want to keep the weekends as free as possible to spend time with Squirm and Mr Pilot.

It’s no good being a life blogger if I don’t get out there and live life. I can’t be a life blogger if my life is spent at a computer or spent obsessing over page views.

I need to get out and live!

He’s a baby, not a gender stereotype

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/78428166@N00/3846317803/sizes/l/

The other day I was talking with some other mothers who also had boys around Squirm’s age. We were talking about how babies get so dirty (it’s a topic for another time, but seriously, how do they get that dirty in those places!) when one of the mothers looked at her little one and cooed “It’s because you’re a little boy.”

It seemed that general consensus among the mothers was that boys were generally dirtier than girls, even when they were only a couple of months old. Because boy babies are obviously engaged in those notoriously dirty, boy only, pursuits of feeding, sleeping and playing with toys and parents.

No. Wait.

Of course baby boys are no dirtier than baby girls. Unless the parent is out there rolling their baby boy in mud, or washing them less than a baby girl then there’s no way for a baby boy to get dirtier.

There’s a lot of discussion about actual and nurtured differences between boys and girls, including the way that people interact with boys and girls differently, but there’s also a lot of stereotypes. And applying these stereotypes to babies, apart from seeming very silly, surely tells these children that, as they grow up, they should act one particular way or another. That other boys and girls should act in certain ways, and that those who don’t meet these stereotypes aren’t normal.

But they’re just babies. Surely they don’t really understand what we’re saying, so we can really say whatever we want. Sure, but that sets up a habit. And one thing I’m realising is that speaking habits are notoriously difficult to break. Today we’re telling them that they’re dirty because they’re boys, in a few years they might be telling us that it’s ok not to take a bath because they’re boys.

I know it’s a relatively trivial thing, not up there in the big topics of the world, but since having Squirm I’ve heard so much gendered language. (And don’t get me started on the whole ‘romantic baby’ thing) So it’s worth having these discussions and worth thinking about what we’re saying before we make big sweeping generalised statements.