UNDERCURRENTS.....

Some days, I, Lysistrata, manage a shower before Aristarchus sets off for work, Artemisia is happy to potter with a dolly, a jigsaw, some crayons..trip to the park ensues..everything seems very relaxed.

....While, the day has another level.

Someone tells me online that I am crazy for suggesting that a child is much better off choosing when it would like to wean itself. A friend excuses herself from a park meet, and I suspect that she did not like my texted link that discussed the negative side of time-out for children under seven years.

  Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the issue of interacting with other mothers in a positive way; it is something that I am finding hard because, more often than not, I find that mothers subscribe to practises that I find difficult to understand. While I always strive to be supportive, I do find that my primary instinct is to think about the child.

This morning, I was surprised to find that this topic was something that the mummies, Thesmophoriazusae

were wanting to talk about, and had had conflicts of feeling, just like my own.

When a close friend embarks upon a programme of mother-led weaning that appears distressing to her child, when a visiting Mum tells her child that she is naughty, and must sit out in the hall and only come back when she can be nice, when a pregnant mother smokes, as she tells her firstborn to stop bothering her, so that I have to sit her child in a swing, when a child is openly slapped in the park, humiliated, and made to cry, and your own child is privy to this - what is one to do??

Every day I have differing levels of energy spare for discussing parenting, and more or less emotional strength to brush off those who dismiss my parenting style as strange, bizarre, hippy, niche, weird, cranky, policing, spoiling....you name it - I have had it.

Strange, though, because I have lost count of how many times people have commented upon the joyful and positive demeanour of my little Artemisia!

I am finding that this is an almost-taboo subject, these days, but the Thesmophoriazusae discussion showed that it is something that we all have to grapple with, and worry about. Becoming a mother plunges us all into unfamiliar new territory, and we all struggle to find our way, and, yes, every mother and every child is unique.

Yet, my own personal arbiter is to advocate for the child, while trying to be supportive towards the mother - but this can be terribly difficult when one fundamentally disagrees with her actions or decisions.

As mothers, we are so sensitized to the polarised cliches..... Breast versus Bottle, Stay-at-home-Mum versus Working Mum, Career woman versus Homemaker..Glass-ceiling-Smasher versus Slipper-wearing-Slouch, Dungaree-clad Feminista versus Miss Pink 'n Frillibusti

...but are these not constructs? Extremes that engender division?

When feminism lost its way and forgot all about mothers, we lost a voice! We have been reshaped, revamped, restyled and Spun.

And, yes, as a result of this, we do have to take care not to demonise and leave behind mothers who are "artificially pigeonholed" - but, surely this does not mean that we must be PC beyond the pale, and embrace all sorts of way-off parenting as generally beneficial?

Mothers have a hard job within Western society, what with their lack of payment for their services to the government in nurturing the next generation, with their being viewed as slackers and scroungers....so, yes, we need to support each other.

BUT - children come FIRST.

So, when I tell you that I, Lysistrata, am a Feminist, Co-Sleeping, Breastfeeding, Attachment-Styled, Mother of three year old Artemisia, don't tell me that I am saying all of this just to try to make you feel guilty, or judge you.

I am simply these things because I love and respect my child.