How did I find myself in church singing carols?

I know I’ve blogged about atheist Christmas before but it is something I find slightly awkward. I love Christmas, I like trees and presents and big family get togethers. I like having something to think about when it’ cold and dull. I like the midwinter festival.

 However we don’t believe in the story of the nativity, which for my son is rather integral to Christmas as they tell the story at school. At the same time there is an element to Christmas that is about ritual, the process of advent, the tree, decorating the house with holy….

So what does it take to get a confirmed atheist to church?

Very little it turns out! I was sitting in a café with my son and his best friend. The BF is Christadelphian and I consider to be very religious as they go to church at least twice a week and organise events for the church. The BF is also very very cute and he looks up at me with his big blue eyes through his long blond fringe….’would you like to come to our carol service, we’ve been organising it and I’ve made biscuits…’ his mum tries to hush him and my son turns to me…can we mum please?

OK I say.

I have a word with his mum afterwards- is it the story we know, will there be much focus on salvation and hellfire…

Come the day of the service I have serious misgivings- I’ve looked Christadelphian up on Wikipedia and discovered that they believe that the bible is the literal word of god. So when it say angel it means…angel. I’m also not sure what to wear feeling that I should wrap up warm but not wear jeans.

We arrive at the church slightly late but before they start, my son sits on the front row with the BF. I sit at the back and boil, the fires of hell may be hot but the church was putting up some stiff competition. The carol service was lovely- mainly the songs that I know from school. Precussion instruments were given out so that we could join in when the Vicar led us in a Caribbean carol on his guitar. They told the story of the nativity- each child was given a model of a character to bring to the front at the appropriate moment and power point was used to illustrate the story.

Near the end the vicar started to talk …it has been hard he said to read this story today oh no I thought hear comes the message…because I’m having trouble with my glasses….my husband and I exchange confused glances….however he says there is nothing wrong with my ears and I think I hear bells In comes Father Christmas ringing bells and distributing presents to the children. Which leaves me wondering, as an atheist can I object to the commercialisation of Christmas?

Superheroes and Heroines

Superheroes seem to fall fully into the realms of boys activities. The 6 and 7 year old boys I know are super hero crazy and this obsession seems to run across the different demographic groups of kids we meet (school, football and super camp). In some ways I’m quite pleased because it means my son has something in common with the other children he meets. The girls play too but mainly with the boys rather than on their own.

I get annoyed that the female super heroes have such sexy costumes – I’m not sure that crop tops and high heels are perfect for fighting the forces of evil…

My son has recently got hold of a copy of an X-men comic. It’s completely incomprehensible as it starts part way through 2 different stories and doesn’t complete either. It also seems to assume a knowledge of previous characters and stories that we don’t have. He keeps wanting us to read it to him.

In the comic there is a picture of Storm which has impressed my son greatly. He has created his own super hero (Tempest) and is making a Tempest costume as we speak…amusingly he’s gone for the same hot pants and crop top as the hero in the picture with a velvet cape. If it was a daughter I would certainly worry about the sexualisation of young girls as it is I’m mainly worried that he’s going to get ripped to shreds by other children who have a better understanding of the girls wear X and boys wear Y rules. And yet I certainly don’t want to be the one to tell him about these ‘rules’ or become the arbitrator of them.

My favourite sleep story

A blog I read was having a carnival of sleep deprivation. I loved the idea of celebrating all those sleepness nights with sleep depravation stories. Or any stories I was very disapointed when the soap I was listening to on the World Service ended.

 My favourite sleep story is very short…but needs a tiny bit of background. My son was a terrible sleeper until he was 6 and ¾. Getting him to sleep every night was long and traumatic and people including my parents seemed to think it was my parenting that was at fault. If only I….let him stay up later, gave him a bath, fed him different food….he would sleep.

 I met a mature student who was pregnant with her 7^th child…I said to her…Oh I suppose you’ve got the whole sleep thing sorted and she said…no

 Her first 5 children and been really good sleepers and she thought ‘hey this is easy’ those other people who can’t get their children to sleep should do it like me..they are so rubbish. Baby number 6 NO SLEEP!! It wouldn’t go down- it wouldn’t stay down….

 She did nothing different, there was no illness…some children just don’t sleep.

 I can’t tell you how this cheered me.

Lego rules

When your life falls apart you have to identify your key priorities. So when the chips are down what really matters?

 The answer surprised me. It is lego.

 It’s my sons birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m structuring our finances to focus on the purchase of lego. I’m desperately cooking our stock of millet to save money to buy lego.

 What is so great about lego?

• His face on his birthday when he comes down and finds parcels
• Then opens them and finds lego
• Backwards compatibility (small lego fits on duplo)
• The colours
• The build quality; even 20 year old lego still works
• Lego can be anything. He imagines things I’d never consider; we built a recycling foundry, a sunflower oil factory and a car making robot.
• We also built a house, a car, a hospital so I’m able to relive my childhood
• He spent 4 days playing with the space ships he built- one was adapted from a boat bottom
• When his interests change he simply builds more toys
• Sorting lego is surprisingly soothing
• That familiar feeling of lego under bare feet
• We learn about planning (we have to build the stairs before the walls)
• We learn about structure and balance
• We make mosaic like pictures and draw them on squared paper. And we make pictures and copy them in lego
• Its for boys and girls
• And men and women the type of building simply evolves with age.

And so much more.

Line dry, fresh crisp laundary

During the time I’ve wasted on the internet I’ve come across a number of ‘frugality’ blogs. Usually people trying to pay of debts, or study or deal with significant drops in income. I’ve always thought it sounds so dull to worry about collecting coupons.  Whilst I realise that our entire life style is going to change I don’t want saving money to become what we do.

 However I find myself thinking about how we can reduce or bills. I’m intrigued by the relationship between time and money. Our utility bills are quite high, our electricity bill could be cut by not using the tumble dryer. I find myself slightly shocked that we do use it…We use it because washing takes so long to dry- we are out of the house most of the day so can’t dash out and bring the laundry in if it rains therefore it can take 3 or 4 days to dry a load of washing. We need to do about 7 loads a week so we tumble dry. If my husband was home he could line dry our clothes and reduce our environmental guilt.

 Well he could if we had a washing line. Recently I hung the towels on the line- it snapped in half and the clean towels fell in the pond.

 We got the tumble dryer originally because somebody kept stealing my underwear. We lived in a house with a small front yard and a line across the yard. I used to hang out my underwear (usually black M+S) and somebody used to pinch it whilst I was out at work. I didn’t just hang out underwear, it was all my laundary.

 The police took the whole matter alarmingly seriously. I decided eventually that I should inform them in case something untoward developed at a later date. They sent somebody round and took photos and then offered me help from victim support. Apparently there were 2 underwear thieves in the area one who only took designer stuff and one who took everyday stuff. They thought the designer underwear thief was selling the underwear on.

 My grandmother was touched by the story and sent me some alarming underwear. They were the biggest knickers I’ve ever seen- proper nipple warmers. I considered putting them on the line as it would take a brave underwear thief to take those home.

People in glass houses

My husband and I like to consider that gender isn’t important in our relationship; that neither of us has predefined roles to fulfil. I suppose we like to think that having a house and a child is a joint project.

 However generally speaking he’s better in the house than I am. He seems to enjoy being at home more than I do and to be better at staying on top of it all than I am.

 I’m more interested in my career than he has been in his. He has tended to avoid additional responsibility and not apply for promotion etc. he likes the technical aspects of his job but isn’t really interested in managing others or brown nosing the boss. Where as I enjoy a challenge and find my work quite exciting.

 So I suppose we have prioritised my career as it means more to me. Other people are shockingly judgemental about this decision.

 The other night in the pub I was teasing him slightly as he has done quite well in his career despite himself! He is well thought of at work and earns reasonable money. I was teasing him about shirking responsibility and my friend said ‘why, why do you do that?’. He responded I’m not that interested. To which she replied ‘even though its worse for your son?’

 I was so shocked as she works part time in-order to look after her child and has been a touch critical of my decision to work full time before. We defended ourselves as we don’t feel we can both go full pelt into our careers whilst having a child and we don’t want to.

 She then started asking me if I expected my husband to pick up the things that I miss because I’m at work. I was unable to explain that I don’t think they are my things. Clearly the floor needs cleaning from time to time and from time to time one of us will do it. But I don’t feel that cleaning the floor (or cooking or knowing where the washing is) is my responsibility. My husband doesn’t wash the floor to help me out, he washes the floor because it needs washing.

 The interesting thing about my relationship is how well it works.. My husband and I met in 1996 when we were both students. I fell in love with him from across the street and the more I got to know him the more I loved him. Our lives have changed dramatically over this time through times of unemployment (both), different types of jobs, additional studies, starting a family and we’ve always been able to make it work. My husband has loved me in my ball breaking career phases and my bread making periods.

 Being together allows us both to be who we want to be even when that changes and I really wish that people would stop telling us we are doing it wrong!!

Interesting Times

 I’m waiting for news…not good news. My husband has been told that 10% of people in his organisation will be made redundant. He has a meeting at 10am which will clarify things. He suspects that he will be going.

 He’s worried and stressed and also a bit annoyed that it seems to be a fairly short term decision.

 I’m not quite sure what the news will mean. He won’t get much redundancy; few people do these days.. There aren’t many other jobs about although there are some. He is skilled and qualified and has experience. It could easily take 6 months to find another job. Although its not as bad as Primark in Bristol which had 14,000 applicants for 400 jobs. There are other things he can do to make money (sell his body??) mainly contracting type work which means nights and weekends providing the work actually turns up.

 In some ways I quite like the thought of him not working –I’ll get relieved of the school run, he can look after the house and make dahl. Life could be simplier.

 I like to think he might try a different occupation; maybe he could knit yoghurt or something. Although with the school run and the chronic lack of money I’m not sure he’ll be able to come up with something more fulfilling as an occupation.

 Money wise I’m not sure how we’ll cope. Assuming he doesn’t make any money at all post redundancy we should be able to manage on a day-to-day basis as long as we are less profligate but its going to be a huge change. We won’t loose the house or have to take my son out of school but I think everything else will be up for grabs. Also managing on paper is one thing- actually having to do it might be another matter.

 My husband works in the railway industry which is heavily reliant on government funding. The government have given all the money to the banks. Australia however has a long term plan to expand its rail network and a shortage of skilled designers. We might just be leaving the country. Exciting times.

mystery plays and atheists

I am trying to raise my son as an atheist and therefore haven’t spent much time telling him bible stories. However these stories are so ingrained in our culture I presumed that he knew some of them (Noahs Ark for example). I recently spent an idyllic evening with him in a park watching plays, it was sunny, children were frolicking, kites flown and plays watched.  Mystery plays turn out to be a whistle stop tour of bible stories.

My son is not aware of bible stories but loves CS Lewis which added an angle on the experience I hadn’t expected….he noticed the connection but obviously Aslan was first. God also came of rather badly in the comparison.

The first play was Adam and Eve- my son was shocked that God would put the apple tree there, tempt them, allow them to fail then cast them out. He couldn’t accept the lack of forgiveness…Noahs Ark turns out not to be a cute story about animals but a rather horrific story about God killing most of humanity (Aslan would never do that!). At this point my son decided that God was a nasty man and went to climb trees…so he luckily missed Abraham and the awful sacrifice.

He returned for the nativity which he knew from school and didn’t cause too much upset…

My husband was raised in secular France and didn’t know the stories either.

My beautiful garden

This is the time of year when we reap the benefits of a garden; mine is mainly given over to climbing frames, wendy houses, woodpiles,
chickens and rabbits but it still has a few touches of glory.
Last night I sat under the plum tree eating dinner whilst the rabbits and kittens frolicked around my feet. The olive tree has survived my ministrations (or lack of) and sat proudly on the table. My husband mowed the front lawn which had grown to a good 3 foot in my spring attempt to create a wild flower meadow and I was able to watch the bees buzzing in the long lavender border that I’ve finally achieved.

A bad parent…

  Being a parent is about doing the best you can; trying to balance competing priorities and trying to make decisions for somebody else. I frequently worry that I’m a bad parent- not that I’m making bad decisions but that I’m missing something. ( I may well be making bad decisions too).

A new mother said to me that she knew she didn’t have postnatal depression because she loved her child so strongly. Another friend (who does have postnatal depression) said she felt jealous of that, she doesn’t look at her child and feel filled with love. I love my son but it’s a love that’s grown out of knowing him, I love him because he’s him, the more I know him the more I love him. I love that he asks me 10 million questions that I can’t answer about the relationship between mammoths and elephants, I love that he now thinks I’m not that clever because I don’t know much about mammoths…But I don’t know if that’s how I should love a son; it didn’t arrive in a fit of burning passion its gradually developed.

Sometimes (often) I feel that I’m just pretending to be a parent, that I watch other people and see what they do then copy the bits I like. I read books on parenting and try to decide if the approach suggested to a particular problem would work with my son.

The new mother said to me: we love our children so much don’t we, if they asked us to lay down in the street and die we’d just do it without thinking, we love them so much….I didn’t say anything but I thought why, why would we do that? If my son wanted me to lay down in the street (even without dieing) I’d want to know why? How would it help? Is there another way of achieving the same thing?

As a parent I do very little without thinking.