Jenography

Clash of the Christmas traditions

For the first time in years I'm going to be celebrating Christmas in my hometown, the place I spent the first 18 years of life and frankly couldn't wait to leave after graduating high school. Now I'm absurdly excited about having Christmas there with my English family and also seeing my siblings and their families as well. But the other day at lunch I heard the first indications it might not be such smooth sailing with my posse.

"You know there won't be roast potatoes," I said matter-of-factly to my husband and the kids.

A stunned silence.

"What do you mean, there won't be roast potatoes? There will be! We'll make them," husband insisted. Step-son nodded vigorously.

Sensing a need to back-track, I responded, "Oh of course, you can make them." Then, because I never know when to quit, "But you'll be the only ones eating them. Everyone else will have mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole."

"Don't be silly!" husband scoffed. "Of course, they'll eat the roast potatoes." He took another bite of lunch. "Will there be Brussels sprouts?"

What can happen when you go away for an adult weekend

So it was supposed to be just a fun little jaunt to Copenhagen. Just a short little anniversary getaway with some friends who got married the same month we did. No pressure, no stress. Drop the daughter off at granny’s, catch the plane the next day, sleep in, walk ‘round, have afternoon drinks, eat well. Perhaps some adult situations.

And it was that. Copenhagen is an incredibly liveable city. On Sunday, the sun was out so we sat by the canal, had a beer. People tucked into lunch with blankets tucked around the legs. Even a minor Easyjet delay couldn’t take the glow off the afternoon.

Then the next morning I arrived at granny’s to discover that my daughter has spent Sunday evening vomiting over herself, the bed, the brand new slippers granny bought her, her favourite oversized teddy bear, the nursery rug. Grandpa's note read:

12:15 - Projectile vomit covers nursery. Child in guest room. Grandpa in deep shock.

1:15 - Sick again.

Yet to make that list: granny’s car, in abortive outing the next day.

She had also developed a rash around her mouth that didn’t go away when pressed by a glass, necessitating a quick run to Casualty to be told that she had none of the symptoms of meningitis. Even the rash was the wrong type. I’ve never been so glad to hear she had failed a test.

Everyone involved behaved impeccably – grandparents being very che sera sera, daughter not vomiting in the car on the way back to London, smelly teddy bear leaving graciously. But I can’t help feeling this might be the last grown-up weekend away we have for a very long time.

The hair-raising world of kids' Halloween costumes

It's officially autumn: we bought our first bit of Halloween paraphernalia today at the local pound shop. My daughter has been carrying around her string of skull lights all afternoon before setting them up on her bookcase for bedtime. (We then had to turn them off because they were a bit too spooky.)

In the past on Alpha Mummy I've written about distasteful "sexy" Halloween costumes for kids. But this year what I'm noticing is just how bizarre some of the costumes are. Forget about "witch" or "cat" or "vampire". Now you have Spider Fairy, Bat Witch, Devil Fairy, Queen of Flames and loads of other permutations that throw in everything vaguely "spooky" with something girly, all manufactured from highly flammable synethic fabrics, and call it a night.

Boys costumes tend more toward the old reliables - Werewolf, Pirate, Grim Reaper - but you do occasionally get the completely bizarre, like Skate Punk Zombie. (The most adorable are the baby costumes. The only time your can dress your child like this or this is when they are too young to stop you, so enjoy it now.)

Maybe we should blame it on the short attention spans of the young multi-tasking set for the rise of the mash-up Halloween costume. Maybe I'm now just part of the older generation that doesn't get it. I suppose I should just be thankful that, for right now, we have some time left with the inscutable costumes before my daughter advances to the indecent ones. That's when it really gets scary.

 

Do we need child-free cafes?

 

Update: a restaurant in America has banned screaming kids. Read Mummy-Tips's blog on the subject

At AlphaMummy I once wrote a post about children in pubs and how everyone should quit screeching that kids ruin the whole "slowly getting off my face" experience. After all, there are all kinds of people who ruin the pub experience for others. For me these are: screaming girls talking about the "wild night" they had, groups of men who hog the bar so you can't get up to the front to order, and televised sport of any kind. I'm happy to admit that to some folks these may be things that make a pub visit simply peachy. So we each gravitate toward the places that fulfill our expectations. 

Now the anti-kid, anti-family vibe has seeped out of the pub and invaded the cafe.

On a neighbourhood blog in Balham, where I live, a resident complains that families have taken over our neighbourhood cafes to talk about Gina Ford and baby massage.

"...other people, apart from a very few good friends and family members, find other people's children very irritating and don't want to spend their down time being with or listening to the hubbub that comes with anyone under, lets say 10 years old.  Yet, in  Balham, that is virtually an impossibility during the day and at weekends."

Believe me, I know how irritating it can be to be child-free and have to negotiate pushchairs, highchairs and children toddling glacially in front of you. When I lived in New York City, I avoided certain parts of the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn, on weekends because I couldn't stand the Maclaren gridlock. Then again, I also avoided 14th Street and Times Square on Saturdays, because that's when those places were rammed with clueless tourists taking pictures of taxicabs.

So maybe this kind of curmudgeonly talk is just part of urban living. Someone will always be annoying us and kids, who can be messy and loud and darned inconsiderate sometimes, are among those annoying people.

John Comyn, who goes to one of my favourite local pubs The Nightingale, hates a lot of his fellow pubgoing types. He details them in a recent article in the Publican: people who complain about the price of pints, people who pay for one drink with a credit card, and - of course - parents who "slurp your Pinot Grigio, bleat about house prices and ignore the fact that you're being willfully blind, smug, inconsiderate gits" while little Tarquin and Jemima run riot.

It's nothing new, the enmity towards families and children. It's understandable too. We've all been places where the parents sit by while their offspring wreak havoc.

But are we really misantropic as to ban children from certain cafes? The idea of calling something "child-free" sounded anti-social to me even when I was child-free. A no-kids-allowed  restaurant/pub/cafe sounds like the kind of place where people sit around bitching about families. How fun! 

Better to create an atmosphere that encourages the grown-up behaviour and thereby discourages little Thomas from running laps round the dining room yelling "Charge!"

There are some great cafes near my house that I would never go to with my daughter because they're obviously set up for the young and single set - tables wedged in close together, rickety chairs, food for grown-up palates. I sought out these kind of places before I was a parent and so should people who can't bear the sight of a baby slowly gnawing a rusk into mush.

Of course, owners and managers have a responsibility to make sure everyone behaves responsibly in their shops; that includes children. If tearaways have changed your favourite spot into a setting for Lord of the Flies, have a word with the manager and ask them to intervene. If they don't or won't, seek out a more mature venue for spending your hard-earned money.

But don't sit having your coffee and sulking because the cafe is too child-centric. Stop that pouting and please just grow up. 

 Picture: Garden Tea Party by Peppercorn_pixie via Flickr.com

How much should you supervise playdates?

Another day, another playdate, another late afternoon wrestling with the dilemma: how much do I need to supervise these little monsters? When it's just my daughter and her older brother, I'm content to let them disappear for ages, knowing that the older one will keep the younger from practising flying out of upstairs window, and the little one will tell on the older one taking scissors to the soft toys. But when it's not your own children, the consent forms at hospital can be a bit tricky.

A big problem is that tiresome measuring-up-against-other-mothers kind of thing. You know when your child goes to their house, the children play outside in the sprawling garden while mum (it's usually mum) and possibly the au pair/nanny/resident childcare slave as well oversee the action from the pristine open-plan kitchen. Your child comes back knowing new tricks or having learned how to bake bread, whereas theirs returns with a few tips for effective arson.

My husband's no help, as his attitude veers more toward the "no haemorrhage, no foul" school. And I hate to haunt the children's social interactions like some Poindexter at the prom. They should explore free play, negotiate their own conflicts. Plus, six-year-olds' game can be boring.

So I'm trying to explore the parameters of playdate supervision. Within earshot but out of sight is OK. What about downstairs when they're upstairs? What about in my upstairs office while they're in the garden? Do these rules hold when they want to try some facepainting or holding the pet gerbils?

So far the only problem we've had was the mysterious disappearance of a bag of sweeties. Is that something I can tolerate in exchange for being able to catch up on email and make some phone calls? Absolutely. (Just don't tell their mothers.)

Image: Boaz Yiftach / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Should I try to negotiate my child's friendship problems?

Knowing how involved to get with the ups and downs of your child's social life can be tricky. If they're fighting with a best friend or are suddenly outside a group they were formerly in, should you get involved, give advice, talk to other parents and teachers, or just let them use it as a learning experience, even if it's a painful one?

Sarah from School Gate (Times subscription required) has been wrestling with these questions. Here's her story. Do you have any advice for her?

Over to Sarah:

My children think I know stuff; after all, I'm their mother. But (don't tell them this, even though it's true), quite often I have no clue. I have lots of questions, but don't know all the answers.

My son is five and a gorgeous boy, fun, out-going and very sociable. He started school last year and loved it, making lots of friends and quickly learning to read and write. But there was one problem and, now the children are back at school, I have a feeling it might rear its head again. But to be honest, I'm simply not sure how to deal with it.

There are 30 children in my son's class and I'm pleased to say that they seem to be a lovely bunch. However (and you knew that was coming), there is one boy who is not exactly the child I would have chosen my son to befriend.

The problem with 'Me time'

Around the corner from my house is a beauty salon that does great bikini waxes and naturalistic spray tans but has the ickiest name: Me Time, a phrase that sets my teeth on edge.

"Me time" is something mothers talk about a lot and frankly, we need it, but that phrase and that idea has taken over parents' free time the way "your big day" has taken over weddings. The wedding industrial complex uses a perfectly natural impulse - to make one's wedding day a special rite - and bastardizes it into an excuse to overspend on canapes and napkin rings. Now parental downtime has fallen victim to the same thing.

"You need more 'me time'," we're constantly told in ads and magazines. TV advertisements trumpet the benefits of me time. I wouldn't be so against it except their suggestions aim so low.

Get more "me time" - have a bath with foamy soap

Get more "me time" - drink a premium coffee with 100,000,000 calories

Get more "me time" - go to the bathroom on your own

Now that's living!

Since when did enjoying perfectly normal adult pursuits such as reading a book, washing yourself or talking on the phone to a friend become specialised activities that you can only do when the kids aren't around? I fall victim to this thinking myself. I tend to read books at night in bed instead of my preferred time on Sunday afternoons, a perfectly good moment to bring out a book since we're all lazing around doing this and that anyway.

It's beneficial for children to see their parents do grown-up activities (within reason) and also to come to terms that mum and dad aren't available to them every single second to fetch some juice or play Frustration. To be sure, when children are babies, we do need to be at their beck and call, watching out for sharp corners and feeding times. But once they hit a certain age - I'd put it at 4 years, if not before - they can learn that "Mummy is reading her book/doing her nails/in the loo now. She can play in 15 minutes" is part of life.

In those circumstances, they must entertain themselves for short periods, which is something so many of us want to give back to our kids anyway: the opportunity to be bored then discover something on their own.

And while we're at it, let's expand our own definition of "me time" beyond activities we do in a few snatched moments at home. Last week I went to Bournemouth for the afternoon with a friend to take a two-hour surfing lesson. We booked reduced fare train tickets, £10 lessons and rode our bikes from the station. We gabbed the two hours there and back. No children wanting help building sandcastles or getting on their bodyboards. Just pure adult fun.

It's time we embrace real "me time" - and let the phony kind that comes in a box of bath salts drain away.

Image: "Ahhh, a delicious cup of me time."; Graeme Weatherston / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Free-range kids in London: Jenography on Lenore Skenazy's blog

This past week it seemed like everyone (including even London mayor and flamboyant Tory Boris Johnson) was talking about the Dulwich parents who let their kids ride bicycles to school on their own.

For those of you reading Alpha Mummy, you know that I support the Schonrock's but the situation has raised some interesting questions.

I've written about the issue for Lenore Skenazy's site FreeRangeKids.com in the US. Check it out and let me know what you think.