Making Friends With Uncertainty, and Never Saying Never

It seems that uncertainty is to be my friend for a little longer. At this point I don't know where I will be working or living in a month's time. Something that probably wouldn't have unduly disturbed me in my pre-motherhood life, but is now requiring a lot of concentration on 'letting go and letting God'.

The company where I started a job just over a week ago, can only offer me a month's contract due to needing someone to work full-time. 'Discrimination', says a little voice in my head - after all, I'm a mother of a pre-schooler, I'm not on an even playing field here - but I'm trying to see it more as a sign that there's somewhere else more suited to me.

So...my search begins again. Exciting things are happening on the living situation front, though: together with a friend, I am looking at creating a 'conscious community' of like-minded people to live together in Brighton or Hove, from October. At the moment fliers are circulating on the web, and soon to be distributed in real life too. I feel positive about finally creating a living environment that reflects my values, and sharing it with people who feel the same about the planet and about spirituality.

A big 'letting go' is coming in the area of childcare arrangements....as with so much about parenting, I've discovered once again the truth of 'never say never'. Never say you won't do something, because you probably will, whether it's shout at your child, give them sweets or...put them in nursery.

After reading Oliver James' Affluenza and Steve Biddulph's Raising Babies: Why Your Love is Best - Should Under 3's Go to Nursery, I was dead set against the idea of J ever going to a group care situation before the age of three. There are lots of reasons which I won't go into here (I've probably discussed it on another post anyway), but basically I'm now finding that a nursery for 4 hours a week is the best way to meet my childcare need. A good friend whose little boy went to nursery at 10 months and has thrived, (to the point where he doesn't want to come home sometimes!), has reassured me a lot, but even so, I feel sad about letting go of one of my 'big ideals' in parenting. J starts his first 'settling in' sessions at a small private nursery next week.

The funny thing is, everything seems to be coming together at the right time. Even two months ago I would never have imagined J being ready for this amount of separation from me, and not being left with people he knew well. He has always been incredibly 'attached'. But just recently, he's taken great strides forward in his 'independence' (I hate using that word in relation to such dependent beings as babies and toddlers, but you know what I mean) and ability to withstand separation. He is genuinely enjoying the company of other children and seeking them out. Just a few days ago I watched him run around the park, with complete confidence, initiating games with children older than him and not looking back to me once. I felt proud - and, yes, a little sad. But more relieved than anything else.

After investigating child-minding options and finding that they're basically the same as a nursery but with less staff, I decided a nursery would provide more safety and peace of mind for me - and having seen the staff from this nursery out and about with children several times, and being impressed with their warm, natural and 'non-hovering' interactions, I decided to try this particular one. My other childcare hours will be taken up by a very kind friend who's doing a 'swop' with me, and by J's dad who has a day off. So...it's not that bad really.

J has, so far, adapted remarkably well to all the changes, but at the moment he has a cold and his need for 'mummy' has come out a bit more. I'm finding an unexpected side-effect of working part-time is that I appreciate my time with him more, and am more able to focus on him when necessary (except when I'm stressed!) We spent a week at a friend' s house and he loved playing with her children, barely noticing that we were outside of our usual environment.

What's been getting me through all of the uncertainty and change is a very simple, yet amazingly effective breathing exercise from Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, which I got from his book 'Be Free Where You Are'. Doing it twice a day, and whenever I feel tense or need a 'pick-me-up', is helping me to stay calm and be in the present moment. I highly recommend it! Prior to that, I was doing a Kundalini Yoga meditation called 'Creating Self Love' daily for a couple of weeks, and I'm now also doing the Buddhist metta bhavana (loving-kindness) meditation - on myself. As a mother, continually giving, I'm finding I need to give some of this energy to myself.

And it's coming out in unexpected ways, with more energy and inspiration for my creativity. My novel has sprung back into my consciousness again this past week, and I've been scribbling away, really enjoying the characters and feeling them come alive. Who knows when I'll ever finish it, but for now it's great to be inspired to write.

Well, I think that's enough from me for now! Next time I hope to update you on the developments with the budding 'conscious community', and on how J does with nursery.

SAHM or WAHM?

I came across Veronika Sophia Robinson's blog today. She is the editor of 'The Mother' magazine. It was extremely thought-provoking, on everything from the real origins of breast cancer increases, to the cause of teenage dysfunction and violence, to, in her latest entry, being a 'work at home' mum versus 'stay at home' mum.

This has been a question which occupies a lot of my thoughts since making the decision not to go back to my job or to look for another. Although I am a writer and yoga teacher, am I still a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM)? My day is structured around child-friendly and child-orientated activities, rather than my work, at present, so I would lean towards the SAHM side, particularly as I am not yet earning any visible money from my endeavours.

I've just finished reading a fascinating, if dated, book called 'Who Cares?: A new deal for mothers and their small children' by Penelope Leach. I picked it up at a book market at Embankment in London this weekend, and devoured it in a couple of days. Leach puts forward the argument that until the age of three, group scenario's of childcare are developmentally inappropriate and damaging. What a child needs is one-to-one attention from a mother or mother-substitute. Feminism has done a great job in many ways but unfortunately it hasn't helped women to mother better, because they are forced to choose between mothering and career, mothering and money, and to feel guilty either way. "I do think that loving and caring for a baby and child is too important to give less than the best that we can.', Leach says in an interview with Oliver James. She has also recently led a study showing that children cared for in nurseries, child-minders and grandparents had more problems such as aggression and withdrawal.

The way that it's become harder to leave J in the evenings lately, to the point where I've decided not to try and do so again until I feel he is ready; the way I feel guilty when I'm only giving him 'half' my attention because I'm trying to do something else that, when you come down to it, isn't really that vital; the way I find that the more whole-hearted and involved I am with him, the more I enjoy parenting rather than find it overwhelming and burdensome; the way he is developing, more and more, into a person in his own right, who fascinates me with his total focus and motivation; all these things intuitively confirm the facts that I am learning about. Attachment parenting seemed so 'extreme' when I first saw it and read about it, but I now find anything else rather unthinkable. What is disturbing to me, is how few people seem to know what is best for children, developmentally and emotionally, despite the numerous studies that have been carried out on the subject. Is there a cover-up going on here? After all, clearly it suits our economy to have mothers all going out to work, and many jobs provided for the out-sourcing of childcare. If mothers knew how daycare could affect their children, at least they could make an informed choice.

'Writer Mama' (see my previous blog) is great,and has given me a lot to work on systematically in terms of breaking into publishing, but it assumes that you are happy to leave the care of your very young child with someone else, and that you have natural breaks during the day from the responsibilities of childcare. This is not the case for me right now, and I have found this difficult at times, but the more I accept it, the more I can see motherhood as my career right now - perhaps as my main job, with other things as corollaries. Much as when I was working a 37 hour week, I saw my writing and yoga as hobbies outside of that (even when I hated my job: the fact was, the sheer amount of time I spent on it, pushed other things aside).

No doubt I will continually revise these views as I go along, but that's where I'm at right now. I feel passionate about the way the younger generation is cared for and becomes part of the larger world, and that this is more important and more essentially creative than any other endeavour. The beauty of it is, I can write about my passion (when I get time...)