Solo mama role models

I had a bit of an emotional time last week, post-summer blues and despair at how behind I feel with everything. The house seems to be sliding inexorably further away from decent-enough-to invite-people-over. I've got drawers in the kitchen whose contents keep spilling out because the front has fallen off and I can't figure out how to get it back on. The garden is sprawling with weeds, broken furniture and unloved pots (good job I like unkempt gardens, ha!) My bills are eye-watering and consistently outpacing my salary. And work seems to be piling up faster than I can tackle it too.  

Generally feeling overwhelmed and in failuresville, then, and that was before I started reading all this stuff about how single mothers have health problems and reduced life expectancy, even when controlling for poverty (I'm still very much luckier in that regard than most single mothers!) because of all the stress and depression.

What does one do when it all feels too much? I started casting around for role models,

My favourite things that I taught this semester: Fiona Woollard

 

 

Last semester I had my 'Feminist Philosophy' students read Woollard's prize-winning 2021 paper, 'Mother knows best: Pregnancy, applied ethics, and epistemically transformative experiences.' 

Day 72: Nanny McPh*$%

72 days......that's 2.4 months. How much is a respectable amount to have written in 2.4 months? How much was I planning to have written in 2.4 months?  You know the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade'? Well the fact is that making any kind of juice is a lot like writing.........you get through a whole pile of raw material, put in a load of work, and get a tiny dribble of juice plus a ton of waste for your efforts. It's not clear its even worth it, especially when juice in a carton is so cheap! 

Day 49: Half term etch-a-sketch

It's another one of those mondays where I sit before an enticing browser, trying to remember who I am, what I was meant to be doing, what it's all about........half term happened. And actually it was wonderful, busy, full of love and laughter with friends and family. There was mountain climbing, karaoke, a hedgehog, ghost biscuits, crazy golf, water sliding, trick-or-treating, and one slightly hair-raising adventure getting lost on a small Welsh island. I'm lucky to have a lot of great people in my life and my children are hilarious. It's all been highly effective at wiping my brain clean of all thoughts, worries, and ideas about my book. In fact, I feel borderline pre-linguistic at this point. I'm thinking in emojis. It's time to drag myself back on the horse. Goals time.

Half term marks my half-way point: 50% of my leave is gone. Only 11 short weeks left till I'm back to teaching, with christmas to fit in there somewhere too. Cue the emoji with the clenched teeth. I need to pick up the pace.

Chapter five is actually going pretty smoothly, and I think I can have it nailed this week if I go hard at it. That will make four chapters finished (one, two, five and seven) and four to go (three, four, six and eight). Three should be finished as well, I've been agonising over it needlessly, but I know that at crunch time I can see it off. So I can sort of say I've nailed five out of eight, if I want to haggle with myself pointlessly, which I do.

Of course, there is also a thesis to examine, and then a pile of external examining work, and my final project supervisions........but if I squint my eyes hard enough they go invisible and it will all be okay. I think I can do it. But I need to go dig out a heavy duty leash...................

Day 14 - Emollient gamification challenge

 

Another monday morning rolls around. I find it so hard on mondays to snap back into philosopher mode, after a weekend of refereeing squabbles and the mad dash to locate water bottles that is a monday morning. I tend to feel pretty shell shocked by the time i get in from the school run, and the fact that is was pouring with rain so i had to locate wellies and raincoats as *well* didn't help. It was a lovely weekend, actually, the kids were on good form and we had a cosy sunday with lots of stories and cuddles.

On being a grinch

Passing cuddles down the generations (and what else besides?)

Did you know, a mother’s love is so strong that the power of her kiss can be felt many generations after it happens? It is true of rat mother love, at least. In 2004 Michael Meaney's group published the results of a study showing that the nurturing behaviour of a mother rat brings about physical changes in her babies that are subsequently transmitted to grandchildren too. It is a fascinating example of an epigenetic effect – a change that is passed across cellular or organismal generations, even though there is no change to any DNA sequence.

Toddler food fads

 

My nearly- three year old has been through some odd food fads. At the moment he is going through a stage where he prefers not to eat food items that are mixed in with each other. He suddenly only eats salads of the 'deconstructed' variety.