Everything's good except for the bad stuff

Sorry for the week of silence. Since Monday I've mostly been slumped in front of the computer, reading about the riots and getting steadily more depressed by both the violence and the kneejerk reactions on each side of the political spectrum. I don't really drink much any more, but if I did I'd have taken a drink every time some pontificating muppet said "Bring back National Service" or "Take away their benefits!" The petition to take away rioters' benefits is making me crazy - we shouldn't need to make up special, new, extra-nasty punishments for these people, and in any case I think it's horrifying to create punishments that can only apply to the poorest rioters. The hand wringing about "see what happens when you take away the kids' youth centre" is just as far wide of the mark (though I do worry about the Sure Start cuts, because I think we need to be there for kids from the beginning if anything is going to change). If someone is so detached from their community that they can cheerfully smash it up, there's more wrong than just having nothing to do in the summer. I believe the ConDems are doing serious harm with their spending cuts, but social inequality in this country goes way beyond the current austerity measures.

ANYWAY. I'm trying to avoid thinking about this because it's getting me down, so end rant and move on.

I went out for a meal and drinks with some of my mummy friends on Saturday night, and really enjoyed myself (despite the cheeky bugger who, hearing that we were a group of mums, asked me whether I'd had my baby yet. I know I'm fat but I do not look pregnant!). I hardly ever go out in the evening and I don't think I'd realised how much I was missing it. I had three whole beers! Talk about living it up. I delighted the Spanish bartender by drinking Mahou, a lager made in Madrid. It wasn't entirely my kind of beer, but nice enough. I almost dropped out at an early stage, because the bar we were in was too noisy for a proper conversation, but we moved on and ended up sitting outside having a great chat. A taxi home turns out to cost around £18, which I certainly can't afford every week but is less expensive than I feared. Hoping to do it again soon.

Batgran is coming up this weekend (sorry Mum, I can't resist), which will be nice. We need to do some serious tidying today and tomorrow so that we can make her up a bed on the living room floor, since Bat now has the second bedroom. Characteristically, I'm ignoring the tidying and thinking instead about what I might make us for dinner on Saturday night. It's all right though, Owl will be home soon and I can make him do it! Though I've now dreamt two nights in a row that he's planning to leave me, so perhaps I shouldn't - maybe my subconscious is telling me that I'm a rubbish wife.

In other news, I'm trying to get back into fiction writing, with a short story and a longer project in the works (I can't say the word "novel" at this point, I've only just started and it feels like tempting fate). The short story is about a luxury wallpaper designer who casts spells on her distinguished clients, and it's shaping up OK. I've also registered on that OU course I was wailing about a few weeks ago - Batgran very generously stumped up half the course fees so I can do it after all. It's a creative writing course, it starts in October and I'm excited already.

Feminist Friday: things I am not proud of

I was almost relieved when the Bat turned out to be a girl. Not because of any particular quality that I believe girls have, but because I think this way I have a better idea of how to be a feminist parent. I know some of what she'll encounter as she grows up to be a woman (assuming she does turn out to be a woman, which is a whole other post), and it breaks my heart - but at least I know. And while there's not always much social support for teaching girls that they can be and do whatever they want, I believe there's even less support for teaching boys the same thing. For all that we've achieved, we still idolise the traditionally masculine end of the behavioural spectrum and treat the traditionally feminine as second-best (that goes within the feminist community, too. I've never felt so dismissed by some other feminists than since I became an at-home mother).

It's more socially accepted for a little girl to wear rugged trousers and climb trees than it is for a little boy to wear dresses and play with Barbie. In the last couple of months I've decided that I probably do want another baby in the future, and it pains me to realise that if my next child were a boy, I'd feel odd about putting him in some of the Bat's hand-me-down clothes. She has plenty of stuff from the boys' section and plenty from the girls', and I have no qualms about that whatsoever. I feel like I'm offering her more freedom. But when I think of my hypothetical future son looking through his baby photos and seeing himself in pink and frills, an irrational part of me feels that instead of offering him equal freedom of choice, I'd be imposing something on him. If he chose those things for himself when he was older, I'd be delighted, but I feel inhibited from putting him in them before he's able to decide. Because masculinity is the default, right? And for a man to deviate from that is not currently seen as just another personal choice, but rather a statement. I worry that he'd look back and feel that I crossed boundaries in some way, forced him into an identity that he didn't want, even though I've no earthly way of knowing what his identity and presentation would ultimately prove to be. I hate that I think like this. I hate even more the real possibility that I might be right.

I see boys learning that there is only one way to be, that they are not free to choose to be "unmanly" (whatever that even means), that such a choice is so extreme that their whole identity must be at stake before they even think of going there. I see them learning lessons about sexuality that scare the hell out of me - learning that as a guy they must always want sex and that missing an opportunity to get laid is weak and shameful, even if it means pestering a woman who really doesn't want to be pestered (or worse). I don't know where it comes from or how to counter it effectively - and given my unexpected qualms about baby clothes, for god's sake, I don't even know how much of it would unintentionally come from me.

Don't get me wrong, if I ever have a son then I'll be over the moon and love him to pieces, and I'll raise him according to my ideals. But the task is still a little scarier for me to contemplate.


See everyone else's Feminist Friday posts over at Transatlantic Blonde.

A contentious subject

[Image description: the Bat, a one-year-old with a mop of red hair, is wearing a pink T-shirt and standing with her back to the camera. She is holding onto the TV for support and gazing raptly at the screen, which is playing Show Me Show Me, a children's TV programme.]

Children's TV! It's a topic of hot debate among most of the parents I know - we're all much more opinionated about it than the kids, in fact, who will sit down in front of pretty much anything.

Bat and I watch CBeebies almost exclusively, because it means I don't have to sit through any irritating ad breaks. My favourites are Show Me Show Me, Octonauts, Rastamouse, Mr. Bloom's Nursery (because it's made in Salford, where I was a student, and also because Mr. Bloom is preeeetty) and Tinga Tinga Tales - and I do have a soft spot for In the Night Garden. I know lots of people don't like it, but I think the characters are appealing and I like the idea of all these different creatures having their homes in a garden. I think it could spark some lovely imaginative games with a child's own toys. The only time I have to hide behind my book is when Upsy Daisy has a dancy day, because that does get a bit repetitive.

Bat's favourite is - *spit* - Waybuloo. She tends to lose interest in the middle, but rushes back at the end to shout "Ba-ooooo!" as they all float up into the sky. It was practically her first word. I put it on because she loves it, but it's just so bloody twee. Thinkapow! Peeka! Yogo! Oo, Lau-lau find sparkly fairy thing! Soooo happy! I find it nauseating.

I have to turn the TV off when it comes to Teletubbies - or Gigglebiz, pleh. I just can't take it. I put up with Justin Fletcher doing Something Special, because Bat seems to like it and practises her "hewwo" and "bah-bye" while it's on. And I certainly see the value of a programme for and about kids with disabilities. But something about him freaks me out. Some presenters manage to do the giant-grin-and-giggle thing without sounding maniacal, but not him. The laughter doesn't reach his eyes and it all feels so forced, even though he's technically really good at the physical slapstick.

Oh, and talking about creepy, I really can't watch this new Baby Jake thing. I'd be so up for a good programme about an older child's relationship with their new baby sibling, but the animation and narration of this make me want to stick my head in a bucket of bleach. I have nightmares about Baby Jake setting that googly-eyed rabbit on me. Goggy-geeah! Urgh.