Guilty mums and memes

There's an epidemic of guilt among mothers, and it's spreading. By sharing ideas we misguidedly think are inspiring, we're just making each other feel crap. Stop this right now, people. 

Where the sisterhood should be about support and compassion, all too often we're telling other mothers about our choices, in misguided attempts to help them do the right thing. But really, we're not helping them do the right thing, because they either had the same choice as us and deliberately chose a different route, or their life is different ours and they couldn't choose what we did. 

And the form this unhelpful advice so often takes? Memes. Soppy looking pictures with badly chosen fonts overlaid, employing questionable grammar to express patronising sentiment. Here's one that makes me want to vomit up my Pinot after a hard evening's mothering.

It's typical. On top of the usual responsibilities to feed, clothe, educate and keep our children safe, we're supposed to infuse their every moment with joy. Screw that.

Here's another delight for you. It made me so angry I almost missed the absent apostrophe in the first line. AND THAT'S PRETTY ANGRY. But that's typical, You can't even write a fucking sentence and you're trying to tell me how to bring up my child. I can't even write about this without including an expletive in every sentence. I'm sorry about that, I really am, but they make my blood boil. My child may have a leaky self-esteem bucket, but at least she will be able to take pride in her excellent grammar.

Rules from the other mothers

Here are the messages (paraphrased) that I've have come across, usually on Facebook via other mothers:

• Co-sleeping makes children cleverer
• Breastfeeding makes them stronger
• Nursery makes them more immune to illness in later life
• Nursery makes them grow up too fast
• Things you’re supposed to tell your child to build their self esteem
• Be there for your child when they’re small
• Be a good role model – go out to work
• Don’t rush your child – enjoy every moment with them

All of these things can be wonderful. But you can’t do everything. Some of them contradict each other. I get a better night’s sleep if I don’t share a bed with my daughter, and I’m definitely a better mum when I’m firing on all cylinders from a decent night’s sleep. My daughter wasn’t able to breastfeed. We tried, really hard. I was sad about it. I got over it. I wish the internet would.

The perfect way to bring up a child

Sometimes you have to hurry your toddler, because otherwise you'll be late for work and will lose your job and won't be able to pay the bills and buy food. Life isn't an unadulterated explosion of joy. They should probably learn that from an early age.

There’s one meme on the internet that I didn't scream at. It says the important thing is not how you feed you kids and where they sleep, but that you do feed them, and they have somewhere safe to sleep. I mean, I still hate it, because it's a fucking meme. I'm not going soft. See how they make me swear? Those things are evil. 

Because surely the point is to do our best. Even those of us that think we’re the best mums in the world will have days when we’re rubbish. And even those who think we’re the worst mums will have moments when we think, ‘yeah, I’m great at this.’ There is no perfect way to bring up a child, just many, many imperfect ways.

Most of the mums I know love their children to distraction, and would do anything for them. But won’t hesitate to admit that looking after them is hard work and half the time they just want to get through the day, put the kids to bed, check Facebook and have a glass of wine.

My advice: think before you share. Reach for the wine, not the mouse. 

Leaving women out of history (or Wikipedia)

It's not new to say that women have been left out of history. We were often too busy holding the baby to go out and do any top-class conquering, so our fathers, husbands, sons and brothers got all the glory while we had to made do with bringing up the next generation of conquerors, or whatever.

It has been noticed that the very word 'history' is about men - it's 'his story' not her story.

Women are also being left out of Wikipedia. In December last year the world's largest encyclopedia reported that just 17% of its biographies were of women. It shows how important our half of the population is considered to be.

Part of the problem is simply that far fewer women than men have left traces in the history books. But Wikipedia isn't just about history - a lot of its biographies are of living people

A US Soldier is decorated for his service, accompanied by his wife.

Photo by Herald Post via Flickr Creative Commons. 

I'm going to massively over-simplify and say that there are two main reasons why women are underrepresented in Wikipedia

1. Women are underrepresented in the history books. History remembers the man who fought in battle, not the woman who stayed at home bringing up his children.
2. Most of the Wikipedia's editors are men (90% according to a 2011 survey), and we are naturally drawn towards writing about our own kind, men write about other men, and women get left out.

Wikipedia is massively influential. It can at times be inaccurate, and students are constantly told to be wary of its claims, and check their facts. But surely it must almost always be the first port of call of anyone trying to find out anything, from who discovered to DNA to how you make yoghurt.

Why are most of Wikipedia's editors men?

Anyone can edit Wikipedia - I have done. Sue Gardner - Journalist and former Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director - explained on her blog why women don't edit Wikipedia. Reasons include:

• They don't like the unfriendly interface
• They have less free time than men
• They lack confidence in their own knowledge
• They think it will bring them into situations of conflict which they don't like
• The information women add to Wikipedia is more likely to be edited or deleted
• They prefer volunteering on more social websites, with more opportunity for interaction

You can find a much better explanation of these, and the other reasons in Nine Reasons Why Women Don't Edit Wikipedia (in their own words).

The suggestion about lacking confidence is telling. It's a big deal to make a contribution to an encyclopedia. I mean, it's easy - anyone can make an edit in 30 seconds. But you have to be confident in your knowledge and believe that you are equipped to make a meaningful contribution, to tell the world something it doesn't already know. And my experience of women (myself included) is that we generally have less confidence in our abilities than men do. It's the 'if I know it, then probably everyone else does too' view.

What is the answer to the Wikipedia question?

Women aren't contributing to Wikipedia, and so they're not appearing in it. Wikipedia could make their interface more friendly (although the point of a wiki is that it's just nuts-and-bolts). Maybe they could try harder to make women feel welcome, actively recruit us, and show that they value our contribution. But they can't give women more free time, or self-confidence.

Sometimes there isn't an answer. But that doesn't mean we should stop asking the question.

Women marching for women

This weekend thousands of women in cities across the world marched in support of women’s rights, the day after the inauguration of a US president who has shown he really doesn’t think very much of women or their rights.

The largest march was in Washington DC, with half a million women, men and children. But in London there were estimated to be more than 100,000.

Photo by Jane Dunton

Marching again Trump

They were marching because the most powerful country in the world, that considers itself the most progressive (although no one else does) has elected a President who believes it’s OK to sexually assault women. He openly said he thought they were fair game. If you want some of the detail on what President Trump thinks about women, there’s a nice roundup Trump-on-women piece in the Independent.

While so many of us around the world are rightly devastated by Friday’s inauguration, it is heartening to see people fighting back. Too often, feminism can seem like a niche concern – something that doesn’t affect half the world’s population (men) and that many women feel might make them seem more shouty and less feminine. On Saturday, thousands of women around the world made it a bit more mainstream. And that’s not to mention many men who marched with them, because  equality affects everyone.

Let’s hope that our worst fears of Trump presidency don’t come true, and that if they do men and women in the US and the rest of the world will unite against them, as they did this weekend. 

Photo by Jane Dunton

Marching and me

I didn’t march. I’m sad that I couldn’t be there. But my main reason is one that has affected women forever, and will probably continue to do so: I had to look after my child. Because like all women, with the exception of a few, like Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins, my daughter comes first, feminism second. I hope that I manage to combine parenting and feminism in her upbringing (and no, I couldn’t have taken her with me).

I have reflected that my reason for not marching is one of the main reasons we got into this pickle in the first place – why we always come second to men. Because we have to put children first. It’s at the heart of so much of what it means to be a woman. Even if we don’t ever want to have children, society expects that we probably will end up doing this, do we are inevitably tarred with the brush of biological determinism.

I wish I'd been there...

Photo by Jane Dunton