The Mores and Myths of Modern Mothering

Here's me and my new blog, born out of boredom in a vain attempt to postpone cerebral atrophy. As a full time “home maker” (ug, more like destroyer) to toddler twins I find myself lured to the blogosphere in the hope that someone out there may be listening to me as my kids certainly don't.

So I figured I had to come up with some sort of unique selling point, niche in the Twitter Zone. But what defines me? Well, I used to be a science teacher but now I am extremely experienced at tandom nappy changes (if only it were an Olympic sport...) so I thought I could combine the two. My inane whitterings will discuss how science fits into our everyday lives as parents. My credentials for this are, however, limited: a degree in Cell Biology and 10 years at the chalk face do not a scientist make. So I apologise in advance for factual errors, poor referencing and cherry picking information that fits my cause (I should go into politics...). Please feel free to correct me or point out that it is all b*llocks – I like nothing better than a good ding dong argument (as the long suffering members of my book club will contest. Yes, I am a middle aged, middle class stereoptype). I have a reputation for being candid. Oh, and I like alliteration. You have been warned.

So here is my first blog:

The Old Wives' Tales of our grandmothers' generation sometimes had an element of truth in them, for example rubbing a ring on a stye (silver is used as a antimicrobial agent) or carrots helping you see in the dark (OK, so it is impossible to see in the dark but vitamin A provides retinoids for the production of rhodopsim, a pigment in the photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye). I find, however, the myths of modern parents unsettling at times and frequently have to try my hardest not to comment on people's gormlessness, smugness, ignorance and prejudices (I confess to many myself but in the nature of dogmatism I just don’t like those that are different to my own). So here is my A-Z of Modern Mothering Myths and Mores:

Antibiotics: Do I really need to say this? They don't work for viral infections.

Breast feeding: is easy for some but extremely hard for many. Praise those that persevere but let's just be honest about the real reason women give up (it hurts like x&*#).

Calpol: paracetamol is an analgaesic and an antipyretic, not a sedative. It will not make your child sleep.

Diarrhoea: do not bring your child to my house within 3 days of having a squiffy tummy and a volcanic vomiting. They are not teething, they have been infected by a hideous virus with a very low minimum infective dose.

Effing and blinding: is is perfectly acceptable to swear at your kids, especially when they are screaming and you are driving the car. Anyone who feigns horror when you admit this is protesting too much (see Lying).

Formula: breast IS best, but formula is NOT poison.

Guide books: it is appropriate to buy a guide book for a mini break to Paris, but for becoming a parent? Don't bother, they are all useless. The “sleep through the night at 12 weeks” thing is a conspiracy perpetuated by the baby industry to make you feel like a failure whose only chance of salvation is by buying another book. Kerching.

Health visitors: have an agenda. Admittedly it is not a bad one as it is in the best interests of your child but they have to tow the World Health Organisation and NHS line. So don't expect sympathy if you commit the crimes of formula feeding, weaning before 6 months or night feeding with a bottle at 1year. Fortunately my health visitor towed no line – she was a maverick who did things because she thought they were right for that individual in their specific circumstances. She saved me from myself (see Mental Health Issues).

Immunisation: is the best way to prevent your child from DYING. Compared to the billions of microbes your child encounters on a daily basis the routine vaccinations they will receive for a few infectious diseases is not in any circumstances “overloading their immune system”.

Juice: to a toddler water is the most disgusting beverage you could ever provide.

Keeping up appearances: she may have a Mulberry handbag, skinny jeans and a rich husband but she is probably just as miserable as the rest of us.

Lying: “Sebastian slept through the night a 10 weeks”, “Eliza always eats her brassicas”, “Olivia completed 5 simultaneous equations in 6 minutes last night, and she's only 3”, “I would never give Oscar a lollipop and a packet of Monster Munch to keep him quiet in the supermarket”. Note deliberate use of middle class names.

Mental health issues: you see it is a classic Catch 22 situation. Never would you admit to the psychotic, murderous, self harming, not slept in 6 months 4am thoughts for genuine fear that social services will be round quicker than you can say “I love them really I just need a break from time to time”. So you can't ask for help. Leaving a real possibility that maybe one day, at the end of your tether, the thoughts may become actions...

Natural: makes me very, very wary. Public perception (if we follow the deficit model that the general public are ejits) is this: natural = good, synthetic/processed = bad. But reality, as always, is more complex. Among parents there is this notion that “sugar” is bad but “natural fruit sugar” is good. Well yeah, an apple is a better snack choice than a Kit Kat but a poncey, over priced, organic fruit bar with no “added sugar” loaded with so much dried fruit that it may as well be sold with a syringe of insulin still contains sugar. Yep, the same stuff that rots teeth and contributes to type 2 diabetes.

Osteopathy: may or may not help with your bad back but technically it is a complementary medicine and it is unlikely that the trend for cranial osteopathy will actually prevent your child sicking up it's dinner (see Reflux). An imperceptible laying of hands on an infant's scull will not cause its pyloric and cardiac sphincters to close – but it will rid you of a couple of hundred quid.

Parties for chicken pox: purposeful exposure of your child to a pathogen is morally dubious. Much better to use a vaccine. Brendan Hall the paralympic swimmer had his leg amputated due to complications following a chicken pox infection.

Quietive: synonym for pacifier or dummy. We all hate the sight of a Vicki Pollard with a 5 year old in a buggy with a can of coke in one hand, a bag of Wotsits in the other and a dummy in its mouth (but hey, who are we really to judge? As long as the child is cuddled and fed). But dummies are fine. Really, they are OK. You may well turn your nose up but they have been shown to reduce cot deaths (hence my two irritants being given them by the SCBU nurses). And unlike thumbs, you can take them away.

Reflux: sounds innocuous? Then you haven't been totally saturated, from head to foot, down to your underwear, in your baby's vomit. Unless the chunder takes a horizontal trajectory from one wall to another, spraying all surfaces in a mellifluous mist of milk, then it isn't reflux. It is a tiny bit of posset. OK? (See Osteopathy).

Sugar: does not make your child hyperactive. This is a big fat urban myth. Sugar is not a stimulant. The reason that the sweets have made little Jake hyperactive is a) the 40 other kids in the booming soft play area that accompany the sweets and b) all kids called Jake are hyperactive.

Teething: homeopathic teething granules don't work (the clue is in the “homoeopathic” part).

Umbrella: you will have no further need for this. Your hands will be perpetually used for pushing the buggy, holding little hands while pushing buggy and holding little hands while pushing buggy, wiping snot off a face and scrambling in your bag for a fruit shoot/ biscuit/ dummy in the pissing rain while being mistaken for a Vicki Pollard type by a woman with Mulberry handbag (see Keeping Up Appearances).

Vaginal birth: where oh where did the “too posh to push” nonsense come from? Vaginal deliveries are horrible. Caesarian sections are horrible. Which ever way your baby makes its first appearance it will hurt. A LOT. Women, stop competing over something that you have little control over and give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done (but not too hard lest it dislodge some stitches, wherever they may be).

Wash your hands like lady Macbeth (see Diarrhoea). You have not been initiated into the parenting club unless you have had poo under your finer nails.

X-ray: for arms broken on trampolines, colons containing coins and items stuffed up nasal passages. These are rites of passage. Unless you are on the Christmas card list of all the paediatricians in A and E then you really haven’t been parenting properly.

Your children: you are genetically programmed to lay down your life for them. You love them in a way that is almost impossible to express. But that doesn't mean that you have to enjoy spending all of your time with them. Most of the time they are annoying and boring. To those who say “enjoy every minute” I say “I will endure as best I can”.

Zzzzz: or lack of. Sleep deprivation is a killer (literally, well in lab rats at least). Extreme exhaustion is a normal part of parenting. We are social animals who evolved to live and work as cooperative groups. Throughout human history parents and children have slept together in caves/mud huts/beds. You are not a failure if little Johnnie is lying spread eagle in the centre of your bed and your partner is on the floor (see Guide books). If that is the only way you can get 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep then so be it.