Shit on my hands

MH

Have you been watching the current season of “Offspring”? The one in which the central character, Nina Proudman, is supposedly pregnant? This is the only show on commercial TV that I watch, and despite it being a huge grind to get through all the ad breaks, I keep coming back. Mainly because I want to see how Nina’s experiences of early pregnancy compare to my own two. But I’m still waiting for any kind of indication that she’s pregnant at all. If it weren’t for a meeting with an obstetrician (played delightfully by Kamahl), and the odd mention of her soon being a mother, I’d have no clue as to her knocked up status. Here is some the behavior that she engages in which is very un-pregnant:

1.       She runs around all the time. As one of my friends noted, the only time she ran throughout her entire pregnancy, was to get to the loo to spew

2.       If all the running around wasn’t gobsmacking enough, she does it all in ludicrously high-heeled boots, which would take levels of concentration and energy pregnant women just don’t have (well, I didn’t anyway).

3.       She has HEAPS of sex. Yes, I’ve heard of some women coming over all horny due to pregnancy hormones, but by and large, they’re so freaking tired, sex has as much appeal as climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge

4.       She has sex on the floor. Again, too much energy and concentration required to avoid carpet burn

5.       She is never exhausted. Surely the combination of pregnancy, a highly skilled, demanding full-time job, and turbulent relationship would see her sneaking at least the odd kip under her desk, rather than fielding constant calls from her siblings about bullshit.

6.       Her boobs don’t seem to hurt

7.       She NEVER seems to eat or talk about food. In my second trimester I was still imbibing vast amounts of carbohydrate-rich tucker, or risked falling over from hunger.

The most striking aspect of Nina’s supposed pregnancy, however, is her complete lack of anxiety about the fetus she is incubating. Surely a woman this overwrought about everything and everyone in her life would be just a little worried about her baby’s development? The sanest, most level-headed women I know spend their entire pregnancies losing their shit about putting their unborn in peril. That Nina knows exactly how badly pregnancy and birth can go would perhaps make her just a little worried?

The comedic and dramatic potential of growing a baby is so rich, I’m really surprised the show’s writers haven’t milked them, rather than focusing on all the repetitive storylines involving nosy, insensitive rellies. I’m hoping the rest of the series balances all the relationship drama with some realistic (and entertaining) depictions of the kinds of struggles women like Nina experience trying to combine pregnancy, work, and family. And that she starts wearing some freaking ballerina flats!

Image from stylingyou.com.au

MH

Rightly so, there’s a lot of discussion in the media about the impact of idealized female bodies on women’s and girls’ self-esteem. Debates swirl constantly around fat shaming, anorexia, obesity and liposuction. I’ve never had too much personally at stake in body politics. I’ve ranged from mildly overweight to worryingly thin (breastfeeding), but have never had an eating disorder. I feel slightly glum while perusing Vogue in my local café – but that’s as much to do with the unattainability of all the glad rags on display, than the thoroughbreds modelling them. I’m also at an age now (35) where I genuinely admire the attitudes and physical presence of confident young women – be they coat hangers or lusciously curvy.

What does make me feel persistent shame, however, is my skin. I carry from my late childhood acne scars and the humiliating memories they evoke. I refuse to spend money on ‘fixing’ them via laser dermabrasian or whatever the hell the ‘in’ treatment is at the moment, as I cannot bear wasting cash on what I perceive as my vanity. Not that I have the cash, anyway. But if I did, I would still resist, because I can’t bear people peering at my skin and commenting on it.

The fact that I have the scars in the first place stems from the same exact reason. From when I was ten years old, my patient and sensitive mum took me to dozens of appointments with doctors, dermatologists and beauty therapists, but I always baulked at the drug treatments or invasive skin procedures. I just didn’t want anyone LOOKING at me. Mum never forced the issue, though it must have caused her great pain seeing the long term damage cystic acne was having on my face, and my crushingly low self-esteem.

On the first day of grade 5, a boy came up to me and shouted, “Madeleine! Pimple, pimple, pimple!” and proceeded to jab with his finger at each offending blemish.  

At a Kylie Minogue concert during the grade 6 school holidays, my best friend reported that a boy I had kissed during a spin-the-bottle session subsequently told everyone that up close, my face “looked like the moon”. I can’t say I enjoyed Kylie’s exuberant renditions of ‘Got to be Certain’ and ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ after that.

These are just a couple of examples of the relentless comments and observations made by nasty or clueless people. Those ‘trying to help’ were often the worst. Unsolicited tips about diet and skin products made me want to disappear down a manhole.

The only family member who had to authority to approach me on the issue was my uncle who had been similarly afflicted as an adolescent (both my mother and father had beautiful visages). He told my parents in no uncertain terms that it was absolutely paramount that I get on the anti-acne drugs pronto. He knew intimately the diabolical dance between low adolescent self-worth and ugly skin. But what could they do? Force me into skin treatment? Have me committed? I wasn’t having a bar of any more doctors looking at me with their surgical lights and magnifying glasses.

But, I finally bit the bullet when I finished high school and went on a long, side-effect ridden course of Roaccutaine. This medication shrinks the pores permanently, but while doing so, temporarily dries up absolutely everything in your body that usually contains moisture – skin, eyes, joints, vagina, mouth – everything. You also have to go on the Pill because the drug causes massive physical defects in a baby. It’s all brutal. But was it worth it? Yes. Do I wish I had done it as soon as it was on the market in Australia? Yes. Will I compel my daughters to undergo such treatment if they develop similarly unruly faces. I will bloody try, but if stubbornness runs in the family like acne, I’m possibly in for a hard time convincing them.

MH

 

Manzanar Relocation Center, California, 1943. Photo by Ansel Adams

Yesterday, just as I had finished putting my toddler down for her afternoon nap, my friend rang me on my mobile. Crying, she begged me to be a witness (over the phone) to a meeting she was just about to go into with a Victorian Department of Human Services case worker, a representative from the local youth emergency housing organization, and her 16-year-old daughter’s adolescent mental health worker. I agreed.

In minutes I was called back, told I was on speaker, and introduced to the other meeting participants. Before the discussion got past the starting blocks, I warned the assembled that my friend was an institutional care leaver and member of the Forgotten Australians, and consequently would be affected by this meeting in a more profound and possibly disturbed way than many other parents. But I don’t think they gave a shit.

The point of the meeting was to break an impasse surrounding my friend’s mentally ill, highly self-destructive daughter. My friend wanted her child to stay at home, but her seriously disturbed daughter wanted to move out and set up on her own. All of the professionals at the meeting were strongly of the position that for their respective well-being, mother and child should be separated. They insisted that the daughter would be provided with financial support (a Newstart allowance), appropriate mental health services, and strong encouragement to go back to school or find employment. 

My friend (understandably, I thought) resisted this idea every step of the way. In turns, she cried, raged, shouted and implored. Her despair was met with utter coldness, defensiveness, terseness, and rejection. The meeting hastily concluded when my friend announced she was leaving to drive her car under a train (thankfully, she didn’t).

Throughout the meeting, I offered my opinions as sparsely and calmly as I could (so fucking hard!), and sought to clarify just how much monitoring the state would be doing of this self-harming teenager. I was shocked to my core, however, by the complete lack of warmth or empathy these workers extended towards my friend who was clearly struggling. At one point she asked, “Why haven’t I received any help with my daughter? Where is my assistance?” The emergency housing worker flatly stated that they were there to help the child, not her. At another point, when it was clear my friend wasn’t going to help the child to find a new home in any way whatsoever, the same man said, ‘Well that’s okay, that just makes my job easier, to be honest.’ They just didn’t seem capable of seeing things from her (frankly, traumatized) perspective – that she was losing her only child, and that the girl (whose life she has saved twice) was about to enter a life where there would be no enforced rules or structure.

As disturbing as the whole experience was, I’m glad I was part of it. While before I knew abstractly that the state is incapable of intervening in the earliest stages of family strife – the point at which mothers, fathers, and children might be kept together – now I know first-hand that resources are allocated to (and facilitate) child removal. And so the cycle continues.

MH

(No, they don’t have to be married)

1. Financially independent. This means a trade qualification, not an arts degree. The Castle’s Tracey Kerrigan, with her Sunshine TAFE hairdressing diploma, is my model here.

2. Sexually confident. If this means a period of experimentation, then so be it. (Though I may find it quite confronting if they emulate my year 9 friend, Cassie, who had sex against the boundary fence with a guy she’d just met called Sean at the 1993 Calder Park Guns n’ Roses concert and as a result contracted crabs).

3. Good friends with a lucky few. They don’t have to be popularity queens or even enjoy socializing that much. A reasonable connection with a couple of good people is all they need.

4. Unpressured about their fertility. Childless, mothers, whatever. I want them to have access to birth control, abortion, egg freezing and IVF. Whatever their needs at the time, I hope I can help them.

5.  Readers. Don’t care what it is or how often. 

MH

We’ve just returned from a glorious summer sojourn on the Bellarine Peninsula. There were dinners in Barwon Heads, sorbets in Queenscliff, glorious walks on Ocean Grove beaches, and a truly humiliating experience in a Bakers Delight store when a ferocious industrial fan suddenly blasted into action and propelled my skirt up around my ears (pity the poor fellow customers who witnessed my Target nanna knickers wedged up my generous bum cheeks). But by far the most transformative and (happily) startling experience of the whole holiday – for me anyway – was being fitted for two brand new bras.

I have shrunk a whole cup size since my pre-baby days, and though PJ is just about weaned, I’ve still been getting around in a series of shabby old maternity bras which gape around my poor contracted norks and give off the whiff of a hundred uncontrollable milk let-downs. Is there a more pitiable sight that a baggy bra? No matter how pristine and fashionable your clothes, you’ll look like a discarded chiko roll wrapper. I hated that my inappropriate brassieres were impacting upon my overall self-esteem, but they just were.

My previous attempt to get professionally fitted at David Jones during the January sales was a failure, and I had consequently resolved to do my undergarment purchasing at a small independent lingerie shop. What a winning decree! How lovely to have the store-owner guide me expertly into the right bras for my particular tits. Professional bra fittings seem to have changed in recent years. Remember when a pursed-lipped madam would put her hands inside the cups and kneed and jiggle your boobs into prime possie? Having endured this Tit Offensive (see what I did there, Vietnam War buffs?) during my very first bra fitting as an early-developing ten-year-old, I’m glad for the gentler, hands-off approach that I received down at that beach bra boutique. They may not have discounted heavily like David Jones, but I was delighted to pay extra for proper assistance and correctly fitting bras. I now feel like a million bucks anyway.

BB

Most of the people I know won’t have a bar of living in St Kilda due to the shit quality of its bars. This put the kybosh on it for me, too, until I fell for a Southsider . St Kilda became much more appealing when I realised I wouldn’t be forced to go to the Espy and fend off pissed plonkers in Stones tee shirts should I feel like a drink and some socialising.  I promptly shacked up with my beloved and began the slow and thus far resoundingly unsuccessful process of trying to convince all my Northside friends to shift South.

 The downside of life in St Kilda is that, in the absence of other stimuli, you wind up having sex. At some point this- if you’re an idiot- leads to the conception of an infant. 

This is the scneario I’m currently knee deep in. At least I assume I am. I won’t be able to see my knees again till April. 

It is- to say the least- quite a drastic change of circumstances. I am suddenly the walking embodiment of wholesome family values. With my curly haired cherub on one arm and protruding stomach, any lingering traces of the gnarly skank of yore have been nullified.

Only eighteen months ago I looked like the put upon geriatric babysitter of my kid. People could not make assumptions about my marital status just because I had a child in tow. Now, it’s abundantly clear that I am not only With Child, but With Man, too. Pregnancy means strangers are compelled to ask me questions like:

 ‘When are you due?’

Me: ‘Hitler’s birthday’

Stranger: ‘And how old is your daughter?’

Me: ‘She’ll turn five at the same time this baby is born’

Stranger: ‘That’s a nice gap, isn’t it?’

 At which point I wonder if I should be honest and confess that the gap is due not to any sage family planning, rather a result of having switched partners in between babies.  Unfortunately, and surprisingly, I have some issues around being the woman who has two kids with two different dads. It is nothing more complicated than simple snobbery that prevents me from ‘fessing up. I don’t want to be seen as a walking coin slot for the government. I don’t want to be thought of as any kind of slot at all, come to think of it. 

Why am I falling prey to this dated social prejudice? Nobody else appears to be judging me.  I put in a very solid two and a half years of single motherhood before meeting my boyfriend. It’s not like Clementine’s head was crowning while I cruised RSVP for the next baby daddy. My boyfriend and I have no immediate plans to break up, nor long term ones, for that matter.  I champion the cause of blended families, stepfamilies, single parents, and Elizabeth Taylor. In other words, I’m not morally hung up about this stuff when it comes to other people.  I’ve just been slow to walk the walk, and, characteristically, the first to talk the talk.

It’s something I’m learning to get over as the pregnancy progresses. Don’t be surprised if you see me about town, introducing myself in the awkwardly forthright manner of a reformed alcoholic: ‘My name is Bunny, and I am to reproduction what Zsa Zsa Gabor is to marriage’

MH

Rubberband girl

This song popped into my head the other day when Posy was playing with – you guessed it – a rubber band. I showed her the seriously kooky clip on YouTube and she was very impressed – especially by all weird dancing in undone straight jackets and with yoyos. She habitually re-enacts the runaway industrial-sized fan sequence at the end. Kate Bushy (as she adorably calls the legendary songstress) is now on high rotation. I think I may go mental if I have to see ‘the trees one’ (aka ‘Wuthering Heights’) one more time, but really – it’s a darn sight better than Hannah Montana or some other vomitous Disney creation.

It’s a funnily appropriate theme tune for Posy because of her hyper-flexible, unwieldy long limbs that are giving her so much bother with balance and coordination. She is my little rubber band girl. And as I listen to the lyrics (again and again and again) I realise that I need to be a rubber band girl too. I’ll have to have to bend, twang and bounce back from the punches that seem to keep coming.  But I am going to have to rapidly grow some fucking spine too. 

Are you expecting your first baby? Or looking for a Chrissie pressie for a knocked-up mate? Then here is the perfect purchase for you! ‘Sh*t on my hands: A down and dirty companion to early parenthood’ is available at all good bookshops. Only twenty bucks! Free postage from the marvelous Readings 

MH

Yesterday I haphazardly drove to Eltham to attend the launch of Karen Andrews’ ripper little book Crying in the car: Reflections on life and motherhood. For once, I didn’t accidently end up in Doncaster, but I still have no geographical concept of where Eltham is in relation to Preston. As usual, it was entirely accidental that I ended up in Main Street, and a small miracle indeed that I located the library. I had such a great time at the launch because I felt swaddled in the company of like-minded women – creative, sensitive writers who also happen to be mothers. It was a lovely end to what has been an emotionally volatile week.

Overall, things haven’t been as bad as I might have expected. Aside from the support of my family (particularly my adorably bearded husband), it has been the incredible emails landing in my inbox like prettily wrapped Xanax-laced marshmallows from my lady friends that have ameliorated the shock. These chicks have all proved remarkably deft at composing messages of comfort and reassurance. It’s like they’ve all done the same How to Write Brilliant Prose and Life-Counsel Simultaneously workshop. One of my proudest achievements is the network of whip-smart and empathetic women I have garnered around my socially flaky self. To each and every one of you brilliant birds, a whopping big THANK YOU!

Joy Hester, ‘Mother and Baby’, 1955 National Gallery of Victoria

But back to the book event. Rachel Power, author of The Divided Heart did a sterling job of launching Crying in the car. In her engaging speech, she highlighted the difficulties women writers (indeed, all artists) experience during the years dedicated to mothering their young children. The effort to find the time and emotional space to produce good work (which will likely garner less financial reward than a few weeks spent employed in a call centre) can be dispiriting. I may be paraphrasing wildly here, but she concluded by arguing that to be a stay-at-home mother is to be closest to the essence of life, and that artist mothers should look at their daily life as artistically stimulating, rather than repetitive and isolated. I’m curious how childless creative women would respond to this idea – that the essence of life is found in raising children. Could this to interpreted to mean that their work intrinsically lacks real meaning? Which brings me to this fascinating piece on childless women in their fifties reflecting on their life choices. I was expecting one those divisive articles that promotes a childless-by-choice-Vs-breeders shit fight, but it was far more nuanced than that. Here’s a haunting insight from photographer Johanna Trainor:

“Are there things I wouldn’t have been able to do if I’d had children? Actually, I think another reason I wanted them was to avoid having to do meaningful things. I trained as an artist so there’s always that pressure to produce art and try and be successful. Now I have no excuse”.

If I’m truly honest with myself, my drive to have children and stay at home to raise them was motivated by the relief of not having to pursue a career in academia and experience all the grinding heart break and pressure that brings. A part of me strongly suspects that I took the ‘easy way out’ after finishing my PhD.

BB

We recently posted a link here on SOMH to an article by Liz Jones in the Daily Mail, which took a large, toxoplasmosised swipe at ‘mummy bloggers’. My initial reaction, having never quite shed my sneering adolescent skin, was to concur. Yeah! Fuck those insipid mummy bloggers and their misty eyed paens to flourless orange cake and crafternoons! We’re not like that. We’re too broke and bitter. We say ‘fuck’. We’re authentic.

After reading some of the responses from SOMH followers, my perspective began to shift.

I don’t really read blogs, not as a matter of snobbery, more due to a long standing affection for taking all written matter in the bath. I unwind by looking at pictures of degenerate celebrities falling out of their dresses/pants, not reading about motherhood. But I’m glad there are women out there doing it, and frankly, despite my noisy snorts of scorn directed at the crafty, cashed up, cupcake lovin’ mums, I haven’t really come across many ‘mummy blogs’ of that ilk. Most are a way of sharing stories and venting spleen regarding the less wondrous aspects of parenting. In the absence of a strong and supportive community of family and friends (with kids), these blogs, to use a tired expression, become something of a lifeline. I hardly think encouraging women to shut up about being mothers is a healthy approach.  The blogosphere is full of wankers- craft wankers, food wankers, eco wankers, art wankers. Naturally, there are going to be mummy wankers out there, too. 

Jones took umbrage with a father blogger who admitted that he didn’t include material that might compromise his family life.  Enduring the fallout with family and friends is the price you must pay for being a true artist, she believes. Not so long ago, I would have agreed.  While my writing has usually been of a confessional nature, I don’t believe it’s a requirement of quality writing. I’ve often witnessed it used as a cheap ploy to divert attention from crappy writing. I’m aware of more than one seemingly warts and all writer who omits the most objectionable of her foibles from her work. It takes some skill to write in a coherent and engaging fashion without resorting to self deprecating gags about your undercarriage /quirky romantic life/dad’s habit of taking his penis out at the Macca’s drive through to grab the readers attention. Needless to say, it’s a lesson I’ve only just begun to absorb.

I’ve remained a ghostly presence on this blog for the past year, as my personal life has become a vastly (and happily) more complicated affair. There are other people and other people’s children involved now, complex custody arrangements, and the blending of two families. Were I to blog in a ‘confessional’ manner, I would be compromising the welfare of a child that’s not mine, and revealing details which that child’s parents may not be comfortable with. It’s not just a matter of ‘putting people offside’. It has the potential to be used as ammunition should further custody issues arise. Many times I’ve wanted to bang out a lengthy rant and thought the better of it. Having known no other way of writing other than the confessional (unless you count my fine musings on kitchen splashbacks and life insurance) the consequence of my newfound discretion is that I’ve produced squat for this blog over the past year.  So while I don’t believe you need to lay spreadeagled on a surgical table to write in an honest and engaging manner, I’m yet to master it myself. Have I told you about my herpes?