Editor's Blog
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A pocketful of change – and what to do with it
8 July 2008
Children grow. And once there’s a full-half-forearm poking from their sleeve, or two inches of sock beneath their trouser leg, you just have to get them something new to wear. Children are not ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly’. However, if you take the clothes recycling route to their wardrobe, I have belatedly discovered, a little smug satisfaction awaits you.
I’m currently helping out in a charity shop and coming across some fantastic bargains – well-made high-street labels for a couple of quid – has been a revelation. Wearing second-hand clothes is something I never would have thought of a few years ago. Now, I wonder why not.
If some kid has grown out of them, or a grown-up has become tired of them, the most logical thing to do with clothes is a swapsy – especially if a charity will benefit.
I’m at Scope – for people with cerebral palsy – which, like the other charity shops, has some excellent stuff. Not just clothes but books, pictures, records, etc. The charity shops are possibly the best places for a great find and to drop things that you have tired of, in the knowledge that they will not go to waste – and that the proceeds will go to a good cause.
Supportive parenting is key
22 May 2008
Following a vote in parliament on Wednesday, IVF clinics will no longer be required to consider the child’s ‘need for a father’ when single women or lesbian couples seek treatment. Instead the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a ‘need for supportive parenting’. Effectively, this will ease access to treatment for women who want children and are not part of a heterosexual couple.
We all know that happy families and supportive parenting can exist outside of the traditional family model – even if our own situations were not planned or of our own choosing. I personally think that a father – or father figure – is of enormous importance to children.
But families come in all shapes and sizes and there’s plenty of evidence to show that, providing the right support is in place – from extended family, friends or same-sex partners – children will grow up to be secure, happy and level-headed. With families coming in so many different shapes and sizes in the 21st century, this change in the rules can only make sense.
Jobhunting
15 May 2008
’Experienced editor seeks work’
That’s me. And I apologise for my delay in updating my blog ... for the above reason.
It’s not proving easy, though. It must be even harder for ‘women returners’ who have been out of the workplace for some years. Updating your skills – particularly with regard to IT – has to be a good place to start.
In my case I am pretty au fait with all that, and I’ve been working most of the time since my children were born, albeit on short-term contracts, freelance and running this site and the magazine. Now I completely appreciate that I may be competing with more suitably qualified people ... However, while we are reassured that experience counts for something, I can’t help thinking that my date of birth must raise doubts in potential employers’ minds. This, I think, is not least because a team leader might feel awkward having someone who may be considerably older reporting to him or her.
Don’t worry. I shall still keep this ezine going because we have a constant readership of about 5,000 a month so we must be hitting some spots at least. But I do need a source of income!
Wish me luck!
With Young Mums’ Mansion the BBC is making fools of us all
8 April 2008
I knew it was going to be appalling even before I switched on last night to this very improbable ‘reality’ TV show’ (BBC 3, 9 pm) that we have paid good licence money to fund. The insult is that last year I, along with One Parent Families/Gingerbread, were consulted by one of the production team to give our input into the idea. The team rode roughshod over our suggestions, which were based on real experience of the difficulties faced by single mums – most of whom work hard to do the best by their children in challenging circumstances.
In principle I could see the value of two or three single parents getting together to share the responsibilities of running a household, earning a living, looking after the children. I suggested that a mix of age groups would be helpful: they seem to have taken that on board, with an age range spanning from 19 to 35 years old. When asked if I thought we should stick with mums, rather than mixing the sexes, I said that I thought a balance – with a few single dads – would be helpful as we all know how emotional a group of women cooped up together can become. They were talking about a large group sharing a large house. I said that the very maximum number would have to be six, and that already would be unwieldy.
The production assistant was honest enough to tell me that my responses were largely reflected by those of the One Parent Families/Gingerbread adviser he had consulted. Needless to say I heard no more until this series was done, dusted and scheduled (under the initial denigratory working title
Pramface Mansion).
Well, it is an absolutely gorgeous house with wonderful gardens and it’s no wonder that at first sight some of the mums and children were excited. But that is the only good thing about the whole depressing programme. I couldn’t believe that the producers had gone about this charade so irresponsibly. One of the mums had whisked her child away from the extended family that usually looks after him, for four weeks of being incommunicado, leaving his father in the blissful assumption that he would be returned to him later that day.
Without going into the grim details of rifts, stroppiness and tears even within the first 48 hours, the BBC has succeeded already in enhancing all the worst caricatures of unreliable single mums. One quick example is the above-mentioned mum who was shown sitting on her bum smoking away while the children she was supposed to be ‘minding’ ran riot.
There were insights from some of the participants. Toni, the oldest mum, soon asked herself: ‘What on earth am I doing here?’ But the people who seemed to be behaving most maturely were, ironically, the children. They seemed to be communicating well with each other and expressed concern at one three-year-old boy who was all over the place. ‘He’s just hyper.’
Things can only get worse in the weeks to come. There has been a lot of recent research, including a OneUp survey last year, that illustrate how well most single parents manage their situation and contradict the now disproven depiction of single parents as feckless. It is the producers of programmes like these, that have nothing to do with ‘social experiment’ and all to do with pulling in viewers to gawp, that are neglecting their obligations towards audience and subject alike.
Parental leave – time for a complete re-think?
17 March 2008
I don’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of the system of maternity/paternity leave, but I do know that paternity leave is – happily – being encouraged and becoming more acceptable. David Cameron is trying to ingratiate himself by proposing that parents should be able to take maternity and paternity leave simultaneously after the birth of a baby, for up to six months.
Let’s put aside for a moment the impracticalities of this proposal (dramatically reduced income at a time when you really need it; even with the best relationship in the world, being cooped up together to dote on your little bundle of joy is bound to give you both cabin fever and to give time and space for resentments to fester). It has always seemed to me that special leave for parents should be available not only in the first year – but at crucial periods in the child’s life, whenever that may be, and delicately agreed with your employers – right up until your child is sixteen years old.
There is a very good reason why one parent should take time off work when their child has just come into the world. More often than not it is the mother but does not necessarily have to be – once she has recovered from childbirth and when a feeding method has been established that does not exclusively involve the breast. I am also all for both parents having a couple of days together with their baby now that life is to take a dramatic and fundamental turn.
But I have enough experience to know that mothers are usually by their nature and physical make-up nurturers, whereas fathers tend to be more people of action and definitely come into their own when the child is able to walk, talk and do stuff. If fathers could be given leave for six weeks over the summer holidays at a critical stage in his son’s or daughter’s development (say, at the age of fourteen) would that not be great way for him to re-connect with his child at the cusp of adulthood? Hugging your very own, flesh-and-blood hoodies has to be the best way to encouraging them away from antisocial behaviour, while giving fathers – whether live-in or separated from the mother – a meaningful involvement that could last a lifetime.
A further plus factor is the break it would give to single parents and step parents!
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