If my day were a children's TV episode

It's funny what lengths I can go to in order to amuse myself on days when 95% of my human interactions are with people under the age of three. Today was a fairly average day. It rained.  I cooked, and cleaned the toilet. I somehow lost my baby's hat. My toddler and I played a lengthy game of 'Traffic Jam', and I read both children some That's Not My books. Nothing remarkable. But, for no other reason than to amuse myself, I had fun thinking about what would have happened if my day were an episode of children's TV. Here goes.

Peppa Pig

My children would have loved the rain, and it would have been difficult persuading them to stay away from the many muddy puddles around our house. Ms Rabbit would have been the carer in my son's nursery, the shopkeeper I talked to, as well as the driver of every form of public transport that I saw as I was out and about. If my day were an episode of Peppa Pig, I probably would have thought I was losing my mind due to seeing Ms Rabbit everywhere. Either that, or taken out a restraining order against her. 

Dora the Explorer

The hat I lost would have wandered to some far-off and exotic locale, its destination described by a singing map. My children and I would have crossed bridges and rivers to find it, and would eventually have reunited it with my baby's head. We would have then sung "We Did It!" while dancing. Now I think about it, I wish my day had been a Dora episode. At least then, I'd still have the hat.  

Reflections on when my husband was a stay-at-home Dad

This week, my baby girl reaches the age my son was when what I like to think of as the Great Swap Over occurred - I went back to work, and my husband became a stay at home dad. It was a couple of years ago now, but I've been reflecting on the experience of being a woman in the workforce when my partner was at home, and what I consider the benefits and challenges of the arrangement to have been. 

First, the benefits:

1. It was great for my reintegration into the workforce. Having my husband at home made the transition back to work so much easier without be having to worry about leaving work in time to pick up my son from nursery, or dropping him off in the morning. Not to mention only having to get myself ready in the morning, and not having to worry about the chewed food or boogers that always somehow make it onto my clothes after leaving the house. And, unlike when my son went to nursery, I didn't feel bad for calling him every two hours for the first week for a complete blow-by-blow account of everything my baby was doing. 

2. My husband really liked it. He thrived as a stay-at-home dad, getting to know some of the local shopkeepers, and singing along with the other parents to 'The Grand Old Duke Of York' at the local library. He still considers his four months at home as being a really special bonding experience with our boy.

3. He understands. After his stint at home, my husband wrote in his blog: "anyone who thinks that being the stay-at-home parent is a cruisy deal, hasn't done it." This makes things much better for me, now I'm at home again.  Not only does it mean the dreaded question "what do you do all day?" never gets asked, but he also understands what suburban neurosis can feel like. You know the feeling: when the thought of dealing with another nappy gives you a nervous twitch, and when you swear that the house has shrunk to Lilliput-esque proportions after a spell of rain. Or the sense of immense pride from finally having tackled Mt Washing-ton, only to be quickly followed by feeling like a total lame-o for caring so much. It's lovely that he gets what that's like.

But there were also challenges:

Is it harder to make new friends when you're older?

I had a friend recently lament how hard it is to make new friends nowadays. She lives in a different city to many of her old friends, and simply doesn't know how to meet new people. She's lovely, so lack of new friends can't be put down to her being a heinously bitchy Alpha-witch or the like. She meets plenty of people to chat to, and maybe even to become 'friends' on Facebook with. But, as for making real friends, it seems it's harder now than ever before.

This conversation had me wondering: is it harder to make friends now? It certainly seems that way. I've met a number of women in recent years that I've gotten on really well with, and thought "if we'd been at uni or school together, we would have been friends". Yet, we never seem to get past the swapping numbers and agreeing to have coffee at some indeterminate point in the future stage. Regardless of how well you seem to get on with someone while seeing them at drop-off, it's a big jump from "how's little Bob doing at school?" to "I have these problems and really want to talk about it over wine and ice cream".  A jump that, for people like my friend, is almost impossible to make. 

So, why could this be? My oldest friend and I bonded over a discussion about an Enid Blyton book. It was pretty easy, then. "I like that book too. Let's be friends!" Friendships from high school were cemented over sitting together in science or history, and talking about teachers/assignments/boys in our class. At university, my best friends and I lived in the same hall of residence during the first year, and other university friends were from my course. Work friendships evolved during lunch-breaks and after work drinks, and friendships with other mums have developed after attending structured groups. 

When I think back to how I became friends with all of these people, the common denominator is spending bucket-loads of time with them. Hours and hours and hours. And not just that, hours and hours and hours where you don't have to have that awkward "let's meet up sometime" "Sure, I'm free three Mondays from now between 2 - 4 pm" conversation to see each other again.   We just turned up to school, class, work or parties and saw each other there, until we knew each other a bit better. Apparently, we became friends due to meeting the three criteria that sociologists pin point as being important for making close friends: proximity, repeated unplanned interaction, and a setting that makes people comfortable to let their guard down.  Criteria that are much harder to meet now than they were when we were younger.

Between doing housework, juggling work and childcare, and spending time with your other half, most people also simply don't have the time to get to know someone in the same way they did when they were younger. With old friends, you don't need to see them all the time to feel close. But, that's because of all of the hours you spent together in the first place. If you aren't even friends yet, it's hardly going to progress beyond the superficial. Instead of talking about feelings over ice-cream, you'll only continue to make inane conversations about flavours of ice-cream.

My top tips on how not to become egg-shaped this Easter

I saw my first Easter egg in the supermarket in late January. Ever since then, it's been a long running battle of the wills not to eat my body weight in chocolate by the time Easter Sunday is done and dusted. Most years, the chocolate goodness wins this battle, but this year I am determined to be the victor. 

It's getting harder; as Easter approaches, the pile of brightly-wrapped eggs in the supermarket has morphed from ant-hill sized to one more closely resembling K2. And not only does the pile grow in size, but as each day passes it seems to move even closer to the shop's door. At this rate, we'll soon need crampons to scale the pile of deliciousness. So, this year, I decided I needed a plan, albeit a plan I knew I would probably ignore.  But, humour me.  Here it is, my top tips to not becoming egg-shaped this Easter:

1. Leave your wallet at home when going shopping. This means you won't be able to buy any chocolate eggs. True, you also won't be able to buy the essentials like milk, bread and real eggs, but at least you'll be chocolate-free.

2. Google photos of people with rotten teeth. You know the photos, the type that dentists use to frighten you into brushing and flossing.  Look at the photos when tempted to eat anything sweet. To be honest I haven't actually done this myself as I don't fancy it, but I imagine it would be effective. 

3. Remind yourself that your children really should eat less sugar. This one does work for me, to a certain extent. It certainly does help me give less sugar to my toddler as I don't want it to be his teeth that may be used for the purposes noted in point two above.  Stopping me from eating chocolate when away from his all-seeing beady toddler eyes is another story, however ... 

4. Invite someone to your Easter-egg hunt that is really good at hiding eggs. Like my Mum. One year, she hid my eggs on the roof. In a drain. I was still looking for my special treats long after all my younger siblings were charging around the back yard on their delightful sugar-highs. If you can't find the eggs, they can't be eaten. Or, if you do eventually find them, they may be so yucky from sitting in the drain on the roof that you don't want them anyway. 

5. Don't buy the kids their special eggs too early, or else they may be eaten, then have to be re-bought. Then eaten. Then re-bought. 

Social media: it feels like we know more, but do we actually know less?

It often feels like I know much more about other people since the advent of social media.  I know what some people have for dinner each night. I know what holidays they go on, and what sort of travel photographer they are. I know who gave who lives in Candy Crush Saga (AKA the void into which time is thrown, never to be seen again, ever). Some days, it feels like I'm drowning in the inane minutiae of other people's lives. On those days I tell myself I'm going to break up with Facebook. I think about all of the hours I've wasted reading about other people's children and cooking when I could have been doing something productive. That's it, I'll say. No more Facebook for me. I'll just read this one more post ... 

Other days I read about a new baby being born, or see pictures from a friend's wedding that I couldn't attend. On those days, I am glad for Facebook. On those days, Facebook goes from being a frenemy to my BFF. I can't quit Facebook, I think. It's how I find out about friends that I don't see all the time, and interact with them via likes and shares. And where else can I post adorable photos of my children, to then bask in the warm, smug glow that comes from having dozens of likes under a photo of my progeny?  

Then, yesterday, I found out via Facebook that a friend had died. We hadn't seen each other in a few years, as while we were from the same hometown we lived in different countries. If you'd asked me a week ago if I'd heard from him recently, I would have said yes. We'd swapped messages not too long ago, and 'liked' each others statuses. It hadn't been that long ago. Had it? Thing is, I found out he'd died after his profile picture on Facebook was changed to a picture of his gravestone, with a date of death from last year. And I'd had no idea. So, it turns out, the 'recent' Facebook interaction wasn't that recent at all. It was three days before he died, over seven months ago. 

I thought I knew too much about people due to Facebook, but now I realise that there is even more I don't know. It's as if social media creates an illusion of closeness due to how frequently you can read other people's news and see their photos. But, in most cases, that's all it is. An illusion. You can't know how happy someone is, or what's going on in their lives. You don't know if someone's just separated from their partner, or lost their job. You don't know if someone is very sick. Most people don't post stuff like that. In the 1990s, my friends and I who lived in different cities used to write long letters to each other and ring each other up. For much of the 2000s, we wrote emails. Now, I'm ashamed to say, we rely on Facebook far too much to keep in touch. Which is crazy, really. It's like keeping in touch via telegram rather than letter, when you aren't even certain that the person is going to receive the telegram in the first place.   

That brings me to another reason why we know less: social media is huge. Just because someone's posted something somewhere, doesn't mean other people are going to see it. People once arrived at my sister's flat for a party she didn't know about because she hadn't read about it on Facebook. No-one had told her, and the party was at her house. This is one example of many I can think of when someone didn't know about an event due to social media being used. And, to be honest, I'm guilty of relying too much on Facebook as much as the next person to share my news. Old fashioned phone-trees, letters, invitations and cards were much more onerous, but at least news got out there. At least a letter would be eventually returned if the address was wrong.  And if people aren't totally up to date on what's going on in your life, fine. They may not care anyway. It's just a mistake to assume that because you've put something online all of your friends are going to read it. 

I not going to break up with Facebook. A big part of that is because I'm scared of what I'll miss out on finding out if I do.  People just don't send personal messages anymore. Had I not been on Facebook, I wouldn't have found out about the births of four friends' babies in the past month, as none of them got in touch with me in any other way to let me know. I wouldn't have found out my friend had died, albeit seven months too late. But, I'm going to be better at sending proper, personal messages. Because, after all, without doing that, how can I find out what's really going on with my friends I don't see often? And, this week, I've learned the hard way how bad it can feel to know you've left that too late. 

"Leaning in" in practice - how on earth to do it?

This evening, I listened to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In TED-talk while cleaning the toilet. It's all very interesting and thought provoking, and I appreciated what she had to say. Women need to lean in more? Sure! Men need to be real partners? Of course! And women need to stop leaving work before they've left work? Makes perfect sense to me. It's a bit late for me now as I'm now at home with two children, but me of three years ago would have benefited from her words of wisdom about that one. Although, to be perfectly honest, such was my pregnancy-addled mind in the final stages of pregnancy, it would have taken a lobotomy to stop me leaving work mentally before I left physically. But, I take her point. That's different from needing a lobotomy to remain committed to work while trying for a baby. 

I found myself nodding along with her as I scraped the brush inside the bowl. Then, I realised what I was actually doing. I was listening to a well-informed piece about women in the workforce, while fulfilling my domestic duties. When, technically, I am currently a stay at home mum.  Right at that moment, the only thing I was leaning into was the toilet. 

That got me thinking: where does advice like Sandberg's leave women like me? Women who had jobs they loved, but now have children they love even more. Women who would dearly love to make both work life and family life work out, but have no idea how to actually do that in practice. Women who already have children, so if they do work they don't have the time or the mental energy to do all of that leaning in anymore, as there are meals to cook, children to collect from nursery, and washing to be done. So much washing. Piles, in fact. Washing that breeds while we sleep and quadruples its amount before you can get it anywhere near a machine. 

The hard thing is, I think, that we women are far too dependent on other people to make it work. First and foremost, as Sandberg points out, we're dependent on our partners to pull their weight and contribute equally to household chores. I have one friend who's husband said recently that looking after children "wasn't in his DNA", and there are a number of women who don't have partners at all. I know plenty of others with husbands who would win a gold medal at the slacker Olympics, and plenty of women who don't expect them to help in the first place. 

Second, we're dependent on our employers. We're dependent on them for flexible arrangements, and for not holding us back when we can't travel or work long hours. Leaning in is great in theory, but hard when you've got children. Last year I was on a work trip while 28 weeks pregnant, and the most important meeting of the trip happened to occur at 9 pm. I attended, but had to leave at 10.30. With a toddler at home and a baby in my belly, I was far too tired to stay up any longer. I certainly wasn't able to lean in on that occasion. Unless you count leaning into the pillows in my hotel room, harbouring that awful feeling that many working mothers have that we're not doing anything well. Can't be a good mum as I'm away from my son, and can't be a good worker as am too tired to stay at meeting. Lose lose all round. 

Yet, in spite of us being so dependent on those other factors, the decision whether to work or not seems to sit on our shoulders more than anyone else's. It's heartening to see change in how many families perceive women's work, but there is still a long way to go. Phrases like "the mother should be at home," "women can't have it all", "all of my wage will be eaten up by childcare" (rather than part of the household wage) and "what's the point in having kids for someone else to raise?" are still commonly used. Just last week someone said to me that they thought women should be at home, as no kid deserves a "part-time Mum". Sadly, though, I can't conjure up a perfect part-time solution out of the air that will both allow me to advance my career and spend time with my children. When faced with this decision, rather than lean in, many women lean out. They lean out so far they're no longer in the traditional workforce. Which, according to recent studies, leaves the women harbouring as many regrets in the future as women who went back to work full-time.

I'm glad that Sandberg has said what she did, as it's useful. At the very least, it's provided some interesting conversation fodder with other mothers I know. I also want to "Lean in" and have a good career. But I want to spend time with my children too. So, while I agree with Sandberg in theory, I still don't know where to start.

And until I figure that out, at least I can still do some leaning in while cleaning the bathroom.