Nobody Can Have It All. So There.

"Do not trade your birthright as a Mother for some bauble of passing value....the baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise or the sunset of the rushing days." George H. Hinckley






A Rant at Ranting Mothers


I am oh so fed up with you whinging about how you cannot be mothers and have a career at the same time. About how employers are not understanding or flexible enough to allow you to work part-time/leave early/bunk off for children's illnesses or Sports Days or drama performances. About how your husbands/partners/fathers-of-your-offspring don't help/understand or simply would not succumb to the daily grind which is housework ('like writing a report and having it deleted daily').

Life's just like that. It is what it is.

It's a succession of choices - and presumably you mothers have been making choices all your lives, thus far? Life is the sum total of said choices at any given time.

One of the more pivotal choices is whether to have a child in the first place and when you decided to go ahead, then many sub (sic. consequent)-choices followed; shall I return to work? can I return to work? will I be able to afford a cleaner/nanny/second car?

And whilst I subscribe to the view that the government should recognise life choices, I also support the position that it's not the government's responsibility to assist families either financially or by manipulating employment law. It's a free world and a free market.

It's simple. If you can't afford to raise your children, don't have any. If you're not willing to sacrifice a career/joint income, don't have any.

If it is unacceptable to defer your own personal ambitions, and you perceive child-rearing as monotonous, repetitive drudgery, or, even worse, beneath you, then why have children at all?

Arguably raising a child in its early years is infinitely more important that practising law, medicine or any other profession. Those worlds will continue to revolve without you. Bringing up one's children should never be seen as a waste of an education.

It might be an idea to apply the supposed prodigious intellect to envisioning the sacrifices which might be required before the children are conceived. Admittedly, it's a challenge to imagine the changes that will occur after the birth of a child in detail - there are no manuals, after all - but surely it's not beyond the wit of Woman to recognise that someone is going to have to alter their lifestyle to accommodate the new dependant and that someone is frequently the mother.

Moreover, you not only blame successive governments for not facilitating your childcare, frequently it is your husbands/partners who are in the firing line.

They're variously accused of not understanding, not wanting to do the housework and, more, that they simply wouldn't do it if they were in the position of stay-at-home parents. Well, there's a thing.

But here's the thing. Who actually does want to do the housework? Men can hardly be singled out for their aversion to it. And, secondly, should you, as child-carer, not feel like doing it, then don't. Apart from the unhygienic bits (food on the floor, dirty nappies) and laundry, everything else can wait. Do those 'essentials' when the child is asleep - none of them stay awake forever. How long does it take to clear up the kitchen floor or switch on the washing machine, or both? And the ironing? Sing and clap and recite rhymes. And laugh, for God's sake. Smile.

For someone of your intellectual capacity and success, such multi-tasking should be a doddle.

And while you're giving your husbands/partners a bum-rap, do a stock-take on their lives. No career, no matter how worthy, is without the mundane, the boring bits - the same report with a few bits changed, similar clients with the same old complaints, traffic, pressure, promotion, office politics. They might enjoy what they do but that's no reason to suppose their lives are one long riot, or that you've drawn the short straw.

If you're seeking a ROI, let me tell you, there is none. Zero, zilch, nishto, nada. But if you can't devote your energies to your babies for a few years with no payback then it's a sad thing.

Freedom

So, we escaped the hazy streets of Dubai one week before Ramadan was called.

This is the first year since our arrival that we have been away for the whole of this religious festival.

Because of the timing this is the first year when Daughter will return to school after Ramadan - no shortened school days or road chaos for me. Ha!

As we left at the beginning of August - so early it messed with our heads - it was 42 degrees C with 90% humidity; a continuation of one of the hottest Summers on record.

So we're in Cyprus; a mere three hour (-ish) hop from The Gulf but a world away in so many ways.

Daughter has, until recently, embraced every aspect of life in Dubai positively; a staunch advocate of the benefits whilst living with the downsides. But developing maturity and an expensive education has encouraged her to question some aspects and she is not buying into many of the answers. I'm interested to watch her develop if only because I see some return on investment...

Top of the list of things she was looking forward to prior to our departure was being able to wear without restriction the teenage clothes of the western world which are freely available in all the malls. The old adage 'You're not going out dressed like that' takes on a whole new meaning when we're at home.

However - pause for sharp intake of breath and an OMG - Daughter has been horrified at the sartorial mistakes which freedom of dress encourages. Acres of exposed flesh oozing out of lycra - and that's the more conservative approach - is unappealing in any culture, and that's just the men! Individual dignity and personal respect appear to have been thrown to the four winds in the stampede to discard clothing the more to reveal body art and piercings and third degree sunburn.

So we've had this discussion about freedom, both personal and societal; about responsibilities; about manners and mores.

The contrast between the culture we have come from and the one we have come to could not be more stark. The fight for women's rights in the western world should be remembered, applauded, admired and enjoyed. But the fight is not over and if we take it for granted as complete will not progress.

Meanwhile the fight for women's rights in the undeveloped world has hardly begun in terms of achievement. The raison d'etre for the majority of women is merely to produce male offspring. The men are encouraged to enjoy all western 'freedoms' both at home and abroad whilst prohibiting similar behaviour in their wives, sisters and cousins.

Whilst being able to dress as you want is a consequence of a freer society rather than freedom itself perhaps the careless way the west exhibits its freedom illustrates how little freedom is valued and the price paid to get it has been long forgotten.