This time around, Akra yet again demonstrates a complete lack of sensitivity for my pregnant cravings. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I really fancy some chips from the chippy.

Akra: They’re not good for you.

Me: So?

Akra: I don’t feel like going out again now.

Me: Let me get this straight, you’re making me go out in the dark, a pregnant woman alone, to get my own chips?!

Akra: Yes

Me: Look, I’ll blog about this, and you’re so not going to come out looking good in it.

Akra: I never come out looking good on your blog.

Me [trying a different tactic while getting my coat and shoes on]: If I don’t come back, I’m dead in a ditch somewhere.

Akra: Take your phone to ring for help.

Me: Well that’ll be a lot of good … “hi dear, it’s me… I’m dead in a ditch… going to be a little late.”

Akra: [just laughs]

Well, I’m back, and needless to say, I’m not sharing any of my chips.

From BBC Hereford & Worcester

Police hold curry recruitment night

A curry night was held by police in Worcestershire as part of an effort to recruit more people from ethnic minorities.

The police say that an unusual approach was necessary in order to break down the barriers that can exist between people from different cultures.

The event was held at Pasha in Worcester on Monday – the same day the UK’s first black chief constable started his job with Kent Constabulary.

Detective Sergeant Rick Claire, from West Mercia Police, told BBC Hereford and Worcester that getting black and ethnic minority people to work for the force is often a cultural problem.

Oh yes, that’ll make the world of difference. I’m sure the only reason ethnic minorities aren’t joining the police is for the lack of a good curry… nothing to do with high levels of racism or anything like that.

*goes away shaking head in disbelief*

I’ve been thinking some more about why the phrase “So, what do you do?” sets me so on edge, and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. It’s the implication that your job defines you, that your status in society is solely based on what career you chose. I know what you do, therefore I can put you in this little box here. Nice and uncomplicated. Of course, no job (regardless of the reasons) means no status.

We seem to have a really skewed view of work in a society which suffers more and more from work stress. In some ways, the work ethic has done us a lot of damage in that the emphasis is on working harder not smarter. In many companies, leaving before the boss (let alone on time at 5.30pm) implies that you’re not committed, not working hard enough, regardless of how much work you have done and how well you’ve actually done it. Surely, it has to be more beneficial to the company to encourage efficient and quality working?

In every company I’ve worked in, no matter how well the official policy treats part-time workers, in practise there is still a certain stigma. The comment “you part-timer!” if you have a half-day as a full-timer is proof of the attitude. A part-time worker cannot possibly be committed enough to the company, especially if they then have to take time off due to an emergency childcare situation. Never mind that they make the time up afterwards, the belief is still that the rest of the workforce “carries” them. As a result, many of the part-time staff I worked with ended up feeling unable to say no and got extremely stressed attempting full-time responsibilities on only part-time pay.

There is blatant sex-discrimination here too, and no, it’s against men. Don’t believe me? Listen around in your office. If a woman phones in and says she can’t make it in as her kids are sick, there’ll be grumbling, but at the end of the day it’ll be accepted as unavoidable. If a man did the same, 9 times out of 10 they’ll be asked why their partner isn’t doing it. It is not considered acceptable.

Things are improving. It is becoming more socially acceptable for men to downgrade their career so they can spend more time with their children while they’re young, but I can’t see it’s going to make much difference in attitudes in the long term. Why? What do we all affectionately ask our children, right from when they’re small?

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It’s meant in a nice way, and we don’t take their responses seriously. If we think about it we’ll probably say we want them to “be happy” with whatever they do. But if I’m honest, I’m not sure I’d be too keen on my kids still living with me at 30 never having had a job either, no matter how happy they were. So we’re all grooming our children to have this same focus on work as status, even when we kid ourselves we’re not.

I don’t have a solution to this, I wish I did. I’m not even sure I know what I want to be when I grow up either.

Whatever I choose though, I want to be me.

Today I have tried to leave comments on three different blogs (Blue Witch, My Boyfriend Is A Twat and Oddverse) and failed miserably (kept timing out or coming up “document is blank”). I’d be inclined to blame Enetation but the latter is an MT blog, so it’s either my shitty connection, I’ve had my IP banned everywhere or suddenly everything on the net has decided to hate Mozilla.

Not that what I had to say was that interesting… *sniffle*.

Edit: argh… I was wrong… my comments on one of them *did* go through… four times! I think I’ll give up and go for an early night…

[Smug Mode: Off]

Well, the running away fund didn’t last for long. I suddenly realised that I was going to have to seriously dip into it when I looked at Akra Jr this morning and realised his longest jumper only reached down to his belly button… oops! Not only that but he was overdue for feet measurement too.

So, I scrabble around in my purse and find £30 (no idea how that got there, I normally operate on a no cash policy to stop me spending it!), my mother promises me £40 to buy “an outfit” for him, I stopped laughing and told her I could get a couple for that, and using the money put away and dipping slightly into next month’s “spare” cash I came up with a budget of £170 to completely reclothe my son.

And I don’t think I did too badly.

One pair of shoes (of *course* his feet had grown – having no money virtually guarantees it), the only pair in Clarks his size so not much choice and to be fair the last pair are getting a bit battered – he’s had good wear out of them … £28

From Mothercare: 1 dressing gown, 2 pairs of pyjamas, 5 pairs of trousers and 5 tops… £88

That leaves £54 to stock up on 5 jumpers (Mothercare had none in stock Akra Jr’s size, and they don’t sell the toddler clothes online, boo hoo). No problem (she says, after looking at Blooming Marvellous and discovering their jumpers are £19 each… criminal!)

Also, on my money discovery mission I found £20 worth of vouchers for M&S hidden away that we’d forgotten about. So got a more advanced jigsaw for Akra Jr (his current ones are getting a bit easy for him), an alphabet book, a numbers book, and a matching textures game which looked fun.

So all in all a satisfactory haul.

And okay, so I don’t have any savings left, but we haven’t gone into the red over it either. I’ll just have to run away next month instead… ;o)

As Kyren predicted, I am now completely absorbed in The Sims: Superstar and am currently shmoozing along up the ladder to fame and fortune. Well, okay, I’m still a plebby nobody in Studio Town, but a girl can dream.

Akra Jr thinks it’s a fantastic game too. He hasn’t seen me play many computer games (normally, I’m a good mummy – at least when Daddy’s not here to do the Akra Jr entertaining) and he’s got really involved in watching all the little people going to dinner and going for a swim. Actually, his favourite bit is when they go to the loo… I think he’s getting a bit confused with this and Zoo Tycoon though because he keeps asking where all the animals are and isn’t satisfied with the occasional wandering dog.

Be back properly tomorrow… just got to get a few TV commercials under my belt and hobnob with the stars a bit more… ooo … there’s the paparazzi…

For the first time in my life I’ve managed to stick to a budget for a whole month.

First, a bit of background information. When we moved here, we paid off all of our debts using the equity in our previous house and very much hoped that with lower living costs here things would be much easier and we could relax a little. It very quickly became apparent that with Akra’s salary it was going to be a bit of a tight squeeze.

So as we usually end up doing, we sat down on worked out a budget. The difference being that this time we made it realistic. Previously, a budget has usually been thrown out of the window in days as soon as an unexpected expense came along, or we hadn’t allowed for proper treats. This time around, we’ve even allowed for some savings so we can work up to some big ticket items we want for Akra Jr and the house.

Anyway, I looked through the figures this morning. Not only have I kept to the budget, but I’ve underspent by ?100 this month. So, I’m going to treat myself to The Sims: Superstar expansion and stick the rest in the savings account (or the running away fund, as my mother-in-law calls it!). It’s a really good feeling which will hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow for next month too.

[Smug Mode: On]

There’s an interesting variation in the “So, what do you do?” conversation. Instead of changing the subject, the questioner will then respond something along the lines of “That’s good. I can’t understand these women who have children then go straight back to work. Why bother having kids if you don’t want to be with them?” This also annoys me intensely (probably proving that getting into a conversation about parenting with a pregnant woman is going to be a bad idea).

This sort of response assumes that a woman (once she has children) is invisible. That she no longer has any personality or needs and paying any attention to herself is automatically detrimental to the child. I am a strong believer that a mother (and a father for that matter) needs to look after herself as well, her wellbeing is paramount. Remember in aircraft they always tell you to adjust your own oxygen mask before attending to any young children you are travelling with? If you are not looking after yourself, you are not going to be in any position to look after your children. An unhappy and frustrated mother is going to lead to a miserable child.

There are two reasons why women might choose to go back to work after birth, regardless of whether it is full or part time. Firstly, is because they simply cannot afford not to. Money worries are not minor and nor can a lot of families “make do” at a lower standard of living. Akra earns a fairly good wage, and I’m lucky that I am able to stay at home, but it still means making a fair few sacrifices and budget juggling. It’s not a great mental leap to realise that there’s many to whom losing that income just isn’t viable.

The second reason is because they enjoy their career, or want something outside the home that they can call their own. They enjoy the mental stimulation that work gives them, the feeling of doing something they’re good at and are recognised for – and who can blame them. Even now, at 2 years old, Akra Jr isn’t exactly a sparkling conversationalist, leaving me craving for adult interaction, even if it is a customer screaming that their delivery hasn’t arrived yet, and I didn’t even like my job that much.

It’s not detrimental to the child either. Akra Jr started at a nursery one day a week from 9 months old even though I didn’t need that for work purposes. The benefits were many – I got some time to rediscover a “non-mummy” me, time to do a bit of writing, catch up on chores, put my feet up for a little while. Akra Jr got to meet other children (okay, at that age other children were more wandering squidgy toys which squeeled if you poked them, but he was still fascinated), got to do lots of messy activities that he didn’t get the opportunity to do at home, and lots of attention from people who didn’t have to pop off every now and then to do chores.

He very quickly grew to love going to nursery – even now he hassles me for ages wanting to know when we’re going. Today, he ran all the way there, and was completely absorbed in the playdoh activity within seconds. “Go away, Mummy!” is a far more frequent cry than “I want my Mummy!” Days after nursery tend to have much better Mummy-Akra Jr relations as we’ve had some time apart and appreciate each other far more.

What I’m not saying: that every mother should immediately go back to work. Obviously, personality of parent and child are a factor, as is childcare you can trust. Until you come up to the point where maternity leave is running out, all bets are off. I know mums who have been convinced that they would return to work after birth suddenly realise that they can’t leave their new baby and change their minds, and mums who have been looking forward to being with their new baby suddenly feel trapped, lonely and desperate to get back to the office.

You see, what people forget when they say “why bother having kids at all” is that a child in childcare isn’t an unloved or unwanted child. Work doesn’t (or at least it shouldn’t) take up your whole life. You are still there for and with them. They are still very much loved and adored. It’s good that they have a mother who looks after herself as well as her family – is it really beneficial to a child to have a mother whose only interest in life is them?! What on earth does that mother do when that child goes to school/college/university/leaves home?

It’s a balancing act, of course. And we don’t always get that balance quite right – we’re only human after all. But we get enough guilt and stress thrown on us as parents anyway, it’s time we ignored the crap that it’s selfish and undesirable to look after our own needs as well.

Well, I’ve got myself a bit more organised and updated my NaNoWriMo pages with the remaining Character Profiles and added a new section called “Premise, Conflict & Crucible” with broad brushstrokes of where I intend the novel to end up.

I’m actually getting rather nervous now. I keep getting flashes of “Oh.My.God. This is going to be terrible” and keep losing sight of the fact the idea of NaNoWriMo is to free you up to write without the hangups of only writing if it’s going to be “good”. I’m not sure I’m up to this! It’s almost as if I’m mentally hanging too much significance on the project, which is daft, this is supposed to be fun.

Let’s hope I snap out of it by November 1st.

It’s a casual enough question, but it’s guaranteed to send shivers down my spine.

“So, what do you do?”

The response, if I’m not feeling particularly pedantic that day is usually, “I stay at home with my son.” That’s the point that the questioner’s eyes usually glaze over. If I’m lucky I get an “oh” and the conversation is changed. Other times you can hear the cogs turning: “Shit. I’m not interested in hearing about kids, and she won’t be capable of talking about any other topic. Now what?” and then you get the awkward silence.

I hate all the terminology that goes with looking after children instead of going out to work. Stay-At-Home Mother seems to conjure up the stereotype of endless cups of coffee and daytime TV. I wish. Housewife winds me up even more. My job isn’t the house. Sure, I’ll do the bulk of the housework (I think it’s good for Akra Jr to see that it doesn’t magically get done, and he “helps” where he can), but my key responsibilities are Akra Jr, and if the hoovering doesn’t get done then that’s tough. Homemaker isn’t too bad, as that’s closer to what I believe I do – create and maintain a good environment in the home for my family, but it’s still missing something.

Then there’s the term Working Mother, which (just to prove parents can never win no matter what) also has negative connotations that somehow you’re avoiding your responsibilities as a mother. News Flash: EVERY MOTHER IS A WORKING MOTHER. It’s a full-time job. It’s hard work, the pay is crap, there’s no recognition, but it’s very rewarding. Some mothers also have paid employment outside the home, but we’re all working.

So, what do I do?

Well, for a start my every waking (and a few of the sleeping) moments are available to my son. I am chief entertainments director, educator, negotiator, chef, nutritional expert, exercise coach, child psychologist and counsellor to name a few of the hats I wear. The role is diverse and no day is the same. You need good communication skills, endless patience, a thick skin, enthusiasm and can’t be resistant to change. I regularly review and update my skills by reading as much about my chosen profession as possible and incorporate what I’ve learnt into the daily routine. I don’t work alone – I also liaise with nursery staff, health visitors, librarians and other parents during the working week – but effectively the buck stops here.

No paid employment I’ve ever had has been so demanding of my skills. No paid employment I’ve ever had has been so rewarding.

What I think mothers need is a better title and good PR…