David Lammy and My Increasing Disappointment in the Labour Party.

This one is as the title says really. I feel that another nail has been pounded into the over crowded coffin of the current Labour party. Even Diane Abbott has been disappointing me recently, and that's saying something.

Anyway, today there was an article in the Guardian quoting Tottenham MP David Lammy's interview with LBC where he outlines his support for slackening the current smacking laws (you are allowed to smack your child but nothing that causes a reddening or marking of the skin). He feels that parents should be allowed to be "sovereigns of their own homes" and able to use their own judgement when it comes to disciplining their children. He actually goes so far to suggest that the London riots could have been avoided if parents were allowed to discipline their children with as much force as they like. I don't even have a response to that, it's such a stupid comment I don't think it needs one.

He did actually make a couple of good points in the interview, firstly that the reddening of the skin distinction was a bit irrelevant for non-white parents and secondly that many parents are confused by changes in law around smacking and disciplining their children. Obviously skin comes in many different colours and shades and some reddens easier than others so therefore a law that makes this distinction is completely unworkable. And if laws are changed and different distinctions made then people will be confused. Hell, I'm confused by it!

Unlike David Lammy though, my resolution for these discrepancies and confusion is simple. Ban smacking. If there was a blanket ban on hitting children there would be no space for arguments of any kind.

I am actually one of those people who can stand up and say "I was smacked as a child and it didn't do me any harm". I was never smacked hard and I wouldn't say that the smacking was ever unmerited (I consider drawing on the carpet with felt tips would be enough to drive any parent to their limits), and it didn't do me any harm, I love my parents dearly and we're very close. It's not shaped me that much as an adult; I don't resort to physical violence to settle disputes and I wasn't out there looting JD Sports during the riots. But I was scared of this punishment as a child and I vividly remember being afraid of the possibility of a smack. I am therefore aware that there is a distinction to be made between what the majority of parents would consider reasonable chastisement and what is very blatantly unreasonable abuse. The loving and happy childhood (with very occasional smacking) I had is obviously not in any way comparable to the likes of what Victoria Climbie and Peter Connolley went through but the crucial point is where do we draw the line? If there is a blanket ban then fewer children will suffer and fall through the net.

I cannot understand how it is illegal to hit an adult who is annoying you but it's OK to hit a child. Shouldn't we be protecting the most vulnerable members of our society?

I'm also not going to pretend that I have all the answers when it comes to child discipline. I am blessed with a generally well behaved and easy going child whom we currently employ a variation on the naughty step for. We call it the "thinking step", bleeding heart liberals that we are! The idea is that meanderingdaughter sits on the step, is told why and we check she understands and apologises for her misdemeanours before she's allowed off. It is working well but I think that's because it hasn't really occurred to her that if she really wanted to, she could get up and walk off; at the moment she just sits there and looks sheepish... I know this approach is frowned upon by some and that's fair enough, I don't know if it's the right way to go but what I do know is that's it's not causing meanderingdaughter any harm and that's the most important thing.

I would like to add that I also do occasionally completely lose my rag with meanderingdaughter and have screamed at her and scared her in a way I would not do to an adult (except when they step in front of my bike). Consequently I can see how easy it would be to lose control and hit a child, especially in difficult circumstances (eg being a single parent of more than one child) and I personally wouldn't censure a parent for doing so occasionally. Saying that (and I know I'm vaguely contradicting myself here) I don't however think that physically disciplining your child should be legally acceptable behaviour.

So, unlike Lammy, I am all for a tightening up of our laws and attitudes to child discipline in this country. I think a little more respect for self and others all round would work better for preventing riots and hopefully create relationships based on understanding instead of fear.

As a last point it is a worry that Lammy is touting these views when he is an MP for part of Haringey, a borough with arguably a more troubled past than most when it comes to child abuse. What those cases should teach us is that children's safety and well being should be a priority and there is no excuse for hitting a child.

The Evening Standard's Dispossessed Fund

I fear this blog may be about to make a comeback as a place for me to vent my irritations in more than 140 characters but I'll try to throw in some parenting posts as well!

This one is triggered by noticing an Evening Standard front page while on my way home today. I normally don't touch the Standard as I have a huge issue with the way its vile messages are handed out for free and seem to be absorbed without question by a large number of London's commuters. I don't even blame the commuters really, the paper is just there alongside the morning's Metro and they're so insiduous and easy to pick up and read without questioning the message within.

Anyway, I note that the Evening Standard is giving away £1.25 million to charity as part of their ongoing Dispossessed Fund. Very commendable, although I daresay they can easily afford it. My big problem were their three big quotes on the front page:

Prince William "I consider the Evening Standard's exposure of hidden poverty a call to arms for us all. This is a great city. However, the plight of the dispossessed in its many forms tarnishes it"

David Cameron "The Dispossessed Campaign has stirred London's conscience and will have a big impact in helping people climb their way out of poverty"

Boris Johnson "I am grateful to the Evening Standard for again highlighting the poverty and deprivation that shame this city while giving every Londoner the chance to help remedy the situation"

Um... excuse me?

Dearest Wills, once your family of scrounging throwbacks start supporting yourselves then you can have a say on poverty. Until then keep your mouth shut, you embarrass yourself.

David, Dave, Davey boy. You could single handedly have a much bigger impact on helping people out of poverty if you stopped destroying the job market, the welfare system and everything else that makes this country a great place to be. You are forcing huge numbers of individuals, families and children into poverty which they will have no chance to climb out of. Is your conscience not stirred? Oh, I forgot, you never had one.

And darling, bumbling, lovable Boris. You twat. You should be ashamed of what you have done to London and your role in helping keep people in poverty and deprivation.

Glad I got that off my chest.

Sex Education Conservative Style

Now, I know it's going to be a while before I have to worry about teaching Jess about the birds and the bees but given that I'm a sexual health and contraception nurse this is a topic close to my heart.

The teaching of sexual health and contraception in schools has long been a contentious topic. To my mind it's perfectly obvious that young people need to be aware of the risks of having sex and be in complete possession of the knowledge of how to go about things safely before they get down and dirty, apparently there are some (unfortunately some in our present government) who disagree with me.

I have come across an article in the Guardian about Nadine Dorries who seems to think that teaching abstinence to girls between the ages of 13 and 16 is the way forward. This is her blog and it seems that she's very pleased with herself as the House of Parliament has voted to allow her to have her bill read.

To give her her due, she doesn't just want abstinence taught on its own but wants it taught alongside sex education. And in theory I don't disagree with that idea. Part of sex education should be the legal aspect, the psychological and emotional aspect and the fact that you can and should say "no" if you don't want to do it and this should be listened to.

But why the blue rubbery fuck should this only be taught to girls? And only those above the age of 13? If you only teach this to girls it puts all the emphasis on them to control the situation and pops us in a time machine back to the 50s where boys are all ravening mindless beasts intent on getting their end away and girls are frigid if they say no and sluts if they say yes. This is not empowering young women but quite the opposite.

Surely it'd be better to try to include in sex education lessons the importance of having respect for each other and if one partner isn't ready then you don't do it but if you are both ready then go ahead but do it safely. We do live in a highly sexualised society, it's everywhere and there is no putting the cat back in the bag. People like Nadine need to understand that and move with the times or we are letting another generation of young people down.

Daft bloody cow, but unfortunately not at all surprising given this government.

Cloth Nappy Rant

It's been a while again, it's amazing how working actually takes up so much time.... I may need to think about having the occasional rant on here and lots of short bits about what we're up to!

Anyway, today's rant is about nappies but it's not my rant! It's probably a rant about a rant

I recently had this article in the Torygraph drawn to my attention. Jojo Moyes seems to have a bit of an issue with cloth nappy users. She seems of the opinion that all cloth nappy users are middle class pseudo hippy hand wringers trying to assuage some of their guilt at their lifestyles by slaving over a hot nappy bucket.

I will hold my hands up; I am middle class, I am a bit of a hippy and therefore probably a pseudo hippy and I wring my hands about various issues. The issues which induced me to use cloth are concerns about the chemical gels in paper nappies, concerns about the environment and concerns about the cost of paper nappies.

Anyway, here are some of my main issues with this article:

"I did consider trying cloth nappies for my second child. At least I did until a visit to the house of a friend who used them. It took days for the twin fragances [sp] of poo and Napisan to disappear from my clothes."

Really Jojo? I suspect this is just bollocks. Babies poo, their poo smells wherever they do it and nappy buckets do not, if you rinse off the poo, smell of poo. They smell of wee which is still fairly unpleasant but that's why they come equipped with these things called "lids". So how your clothes smelt of poo is beyond me. And your clothes may have smelt of Napisan, I don't know what Napisan smells like.... which might mean it's not an essential component of a cloth nappy lifestyle. I'd also suggest that if your clothes were smelling you might want to consider taking them off and washing them.

"The bottom line is that it's easy to soak your nappies in a bucket when you have a) time, b) a utility room to hide them in and c) a garden in which to pin them out."

Ok, firstly; if you read any cloth nappy website they don't advocate soaking your nappies in a bucket (wet pailing), you just pop the dirty nappy in a dry one (dry pailing) but even if you did wet pail just how long would it take to fill a bucket with water and stick a dirty nappy in it? How much space does a bucket take up? and no, you don't need a garden you just need half a brain to get a decent clothes airer. Don't get me wrong, I wish I did have a garden! If I did the nappies would be out there but as it is they're drying in the sitting room behind me as I write this.

"The queens of nappy valley must be aware that the ecological argument is far from conclusive, given the extra water usage and leaching of detergents from the washing process. Friends who use cloth nappies admit that they tumble dry the towelling squares to avoid crispiness."

Actually the government report that stated cloth nappies are just as damaging to the environment has been discredited. See Go Real for details. If you use mainstream detergents, bleach, wash at 90 and tumble dry or possibly iron your nappies then yes, they are probably not very good for the environment but if you wash them every 3 days when you have a full load, use ecover or similar or ecoballs, wash at 60 and allow to air dry or in the sun (if you have access to it) for stain removal and don't bother to iron (why would you) then they are much much greener than paper. Most cloth nappy users no longer use towelling squares either as there are many more fabrics and designs that won't go "crispy" in the wash.

"Others, who can't face the task, use a laundry service - and what's the carbon footprint of a 20-mile round trip in a white van?"

Most laundry services try to use greener transport as far as I can tell and most will be fairly local. They also won't just travel 20 miles to collect one persons nappies, they'll be picking up a fair few. What I would like to know is what's the carbon footprint for manufacturing and transporting paper nappies to shops? Oh, and the carbon footprint for mothers like Jojo driving to the supermarket to buy them? And the rubbish vans that have to come and collect them? And as they sit in landfill slowly decomposing and filling the atmosphere with methane? I do realise that you'd be going to the supermarket anyway and the rubbish vans would be coming anyway but if we all tried to use more reusable goods maybe more trips to the supermarket could be made on foot or maybe fewer rubbish vans would need to prowl the streets.

"These "green mums" also tend to be the mothers who preach, but don't see the inconsistency in purchasing expensive Bugaboo prams, immaculate new nursery furniture from the White Company and lovely new outfits from Boden. Not forgetting the two holidays a year on a big, carbon-spewing aeroplane."

Actually most of the cloth nappy users I know of are more likely to carry their babies or use second hand pushchairs, second hand furniture and clothes and may go on holiday on a big carbon spewing aeroplane but I doubt they have two a year. A lot of cloth nappy users that I know of don't even have a car.... However even if parents are buying a load of new stuff and jetting off at every available opportunity, at least by using cloth nappies they are doing something to reduce their waste. Surely it's brainless to say that anyone who buys a bugaboo can't use cloth nappies without being hypocritical?

"This nappymania is a peculiarly female obsession. Men believe their time is valuable. My husband, domestic animal though he is, would no more wash a nappy than he would attempt to breastfeed."

So you have a useless husband. No reason not to use cloth! Maybe I'm just lucky in that my partner was very receptive to the idea and has taken to using them as well as I have. He doesn't wash them but I suspect that is more down to my control freakery than any unwillingness on his part. He will hang them out on the line and put them away. Maybe he's unusual. I doubt he is. And I believe my time is valuable. I just happen to believe caring for my child and all that comes with it is a good use of what time I have.

"An unscientific survey revealed that other mums at my children's playgroup had reached the same conclusion: too much time, too much detergent and definitely not safe for bumshufflers."

My issue here is the bumshufflers comment. What nappies have these women tried? My nephew could bumshuffle for the Olympics, I've never seen a baby move so fast. He also wears a wide variety of cloth nappies and not one of them has fallen off or befallen any mishap in any of his bumshuffling adventures.

So Jojo. All in all a very lazy and badly researched article. I would guess the real issue here is your laziness in not wanting to use cloth and guilt because you know you should. You get around it by being defensive and having a bitchy pop at anyone who does actually take the little extra time and effort to do what's best for their child and the environment.

Who can resist a huge cloth bum anyway?

Sleeeeep! And lack of....

Sleep is one of those really contentious issues when it comes to children and for some reason whenever strangers ask me about Jess they seem to question how well she sleeps.

With my return to work I recently became very fixated that Jess should be sleeping through the night, in her own room. You are repeatedly told that this is what should be happening and it can make you feel like a bit of a failure if your child is still waking up three or four times a night! In addition to this I am very attached to my own sleep and really hate being dragged from my nice warm bed a couple of times a night to coax a child back to sleep. Especially when said child is exhausted but is for some reason fighting against the inevitable.

I will admit that when I have put her down, crept back to bed and then heard her start crying again I have, occasionally, lost the plot completely. Even though I know that screaming at your child to go to sleep is actually the last thing that will encourage them to do so.

So, nearly on my knees with the lack of sleep and having to go to work (I know it's only three days a week but I am weak!) I decided to go for some serious sleep training. I went and looked at the "No Cry Sleep Solution" which I understand is very good, I seriously considered some form of controlled crying and weaning her at night. I know for some these measures do work but I could not deal with the idea of leaving Jess standing in her cot screaming or denying her a bit of boob when I know that's what she really wants. I did look at the NCSS but didn't think it would really fit in with the way we do things, especially when I read the bit about keeping a sleep diary, I don't want to keep a diary, I want her to sleep now!

Fortunately John demonstrated his ability to take a step back, have a think and come up with a simple solution. So now, she starts off in the cot and when she wakes up after we've gone to bed, she comes straight in with us and we all snuggle up together. His reasoning was that things are a bit weird for Jess at the moment, what with starting nursery and trying any kind of controlled crying or night weaning will make her feel even more like we're pushing her away.

So far this has been working brilliantly, she comes in, she sleeps, we all sleep. I feel far happier about getting up in the morning when I have spent the night in my own bed not sitting in Jess' room practically crying from exhaustion and Jess is sleeping for up to seven hours in a stretch not just two or three.

To be honest, I've always been a bit ambivalent about co sleeping. I don't think it's a magic cure all and, on the flip side, I don't think it's creating a rod for your own back. Everyone has to do what feels right for them. The reason I haven't really done it is because I like my space and I sleep better when I'm not worrying about rolling onto a tiny being. The tiny being is now less tiny and is much more comfortable to sleep with because of that. I still hope that if we continue what we're doing for a little while she will eventually become more comfortable with sleeping and spend longer and longer in her own cot but for now this is suiting us.

I thank my lucky stars I have a partner who can bring me back to the path and remind me how we wanted to bring our child up. Once again, the practice of following our instincts on what is best for our child has worked better than believing in the myth that children should sleep all night long on their own from a very young age!

As an aside, Jess has learnt to kiss this week! It's delightful, despite being a bit heavy on the teeth, tongue and dribble!

Interlude Over and The Real World Reasserts Itself....

Well, I've started back at work and the year that a year ago seemed so long has gone so very fast! I've started a new job where in a lovely clinic in Soho. It's reigniting my love of sexual health which is great and putting my brain back into gear which is also great but it's taking a lot of effort.

What I'm finding strange though is my different status in a new work place. My usual approach when starting new jobs (and I have started a fair few if I'm honest) is to work out who is likely to go to the pub after work and ingratiate myself with them, an approach I can't really use this time. I will admit, I feel old! Suddenly I'm the "Mum" who only works part time and has to leave at five to pick up her child from nursery. I guess I'm struggling a bit to work out where I'll fit in and I suspect it'll take longer than usual for me to feel settled. It's also taking a huge effort not to rabbit on about Jess all the time, I know how easy it would be to do so and how boring my new work mates are likely to find that. It's probably quite good for my baby ravaged brain to have to think about other topics of conversation!

Jess has started nursery but only went in for one day last week as she developed a bit of diarrhoea on Wednesday. Luckily for me but not so luckily for John she could stay at home with Daddy who was off sick for two days. I'm actually finding leaving her easier than I thought I would though. Probably helped by the fact that she seems quite happy with the whole situation. Saying that it's a bit odd and quite upsetting just dumping her in a room at nursery at eight in the morning with a few other kids and a couple of members of staff who don't actually ignore her as such but who aren't as focused on her as I would be.... She looks very small and alone as I walk off and I can't linger in case she picks up on how I'm feeling. I completely trust that once I've left she's fine which I think is probably some sort of survival mechanism kicking in as if I didn't trust she'd be fine I could never just walk away. A big part of me is looking forward to seeing how she develops away from me. I think hanging around with other children and the nursery workers who are experienced in looking after small people will be really good for her, especially with regards to getting her to go to sleep without a boob in her mouth!

One great point about starting work is being able to cycle to work. I have missed my bike and it's been a lot of fun pootling about on it again! It's another sign of how motherhood has changed me that I won't go anywhere without my helmet and I seem to be a lot happier to stop at red lights. I look at helmetless lunatics speeding through traffic lights and tut, conveniently forgetting that was exactly how I used to cycle. Gratifyingly I'm not too sore either (apart from the obligatory sore bum) which means I can't have been as unfit as I thought I was. It was a nice surprise to be able to get to the top of a stinker of a little hill behind Mount Pleasant post office on my first ride home too.

So I apologise for my rambling and slightly pointless blog post but it's been a big week for me! Hopefully I'll have some more coherent thoughts to blog about in the near future.

Day Out In East London

We had a lovely family day out today in east London which for some reason I felt the need to share!

Went first to Hackney City Farm, which wasn't that great to be honest but maybe we'll go back in baby animal season and see if it's any better!

Sleepy donkey in a field a long way away.

Huge pig

Then we went to the museum of childhood which was great fun, Jess actually slept half way round but once she woke up seemed to really enjoy it!

Sooty and Sweep with a Dogtanian puppet in the background, she's actually eyeing up the Care Bears which are out of shot (her mother's daughter!)

With some weird Japanese puppets, they were a bit scary actually....

And finally showing off my / Jess' new sling. Didymos hemp size 6 (if that means any thing to you) and dyed to my specification by the very talented Ola at Turquoise Fields. It's inspired by my distant memories of caribbean beaches and Ola named it Anegada which is very fitting. I love it, the colours make me smile so much and it's such a cushy and supportive wrap for my growing girl. I now have all the wraps I will ever need (I may have said that before but this time I think I mean it!) but I suspect none of the rest will get a look in for a while!

So all in all we had a lovely day, bit overcast but hey ho.