One-upping

Hi there fellow bloggers (and the odd reader). I got lost in the mists of time and in the process of raising a child have just realised that I haven't blogged for an entire year. Crazy. Well, not quite an entire year, not quite, but close enough. Did you miss me while I was gone? kind of like missing a grain of sand on a beach I suppose. One voice among many, it's a wonder people blog at all really. Perhaps for some it's like a form of journal writing but I presume that most people do it because they want an audience of some sort, some feedback and validation?

The last time I created a blog post I had been a parent for around seven months. Well, as I said earlier, a lot of time has passed since then and our little girl is now a very busy and active 18 month old toddler. I have learnt a lot and a lot of things have changed. But more on that in future posts. I won't bore you with the in and out specifics that fascinate us as parents (but let's be honest are probably not that interesting to anyone else). What I feel like getting off my literal chest today is something that happened to me recently that made me think about parenthood and what it means to be a parent in this day and age.

Firstly, I would just like to state that I am in the very fortunate position of being able to stay at home with our daughter and raise her while my husband works. I realise that this is not a common position to be in these days, with a lot of women having to go back to work once their 12 months (or however long) of maternity leave is up. We are lucky in that Tim earns enough for us to not have to worry about me being at work for financial reasons. I still do the odd day relieving at my old job, but that's only a couple of days every 2-3 months. So for the most part, I am a full-time SAHM.

Anyway, to set the scene you should probably know that I am interested in the topic of parenthood as it is something I am experiencing myself and has been THE BIGGEST life changing thing that has ever happened to me. I am always interested in hearing what other people have to say about it and what their experiences have been like - it's an endless source of fascination and a world which I previously did not know much about. I post a lot about it on Facebook which can be a good medium to ascertain other people's opinions and ideas, a useful way to ask for advice or share one of your child's milestones with whoever might be interested. Above all, I like to be honest about how things have been for me, because I don't see a point in pretending otherwise. A lot of my posts probably come across as being me complaining about something, I guess I just find it a good way to vent.

Yesterday I had a dreadful day with my daughter. She is teething at the moment and had been grizzly and clingy all afternoon, not going five minutes without crying. I did everything I could think of to try to calm her down but nothing was working. And I was starting to get worked up myself, after all, there is only so much you can take. I was in the kitchen trying to make a casserole - dinner for us that night and for her and I needed perhaps 5-10 minutes just to get it underway. Just 5 minutes! Vivi chose that moment to be extra clingy, crying at my feet, wanting to be picked up, inconsolable. I found myself thinking 'it shouldn't have to be like this' and felt tears rise up at the frustration I was feeling at not being able to even get a simple task such as dinner underway because I was alone at home with a grizzly toddler with no support and no one who was able to take her for just five minutes to give me the time to get done what needed to be done. It occurred to me that this was not a natural or healthy way to bring up a child - all by yourself for the majority of the time, isolated from everyone else. At that moment the whole situation seemed ridiculous. Raising a child is something that surely cannot (and should not) be done by just one person - yet it is, by many, many people.

So in a fit of frustration and anger at being a parent in this 'modern western world' I posted on Facebook: "Surely it's not a natural state of affairs to be pretty much raising a child completely by yourself? how on earth are you meant to get anything done when it's just you and a toddler demanding your attention the whole day, who cannot stay engaged in a task for even 5 minutes and screams the house down as soon as you try to clean up/make dinner/do anything else that has to be done? modern society is seriously screwed up with so many Mums living in isolation and getting no help whatsoever."

Slowly during that day the responses trickled in, as I had hoped they would. I was interested in seeing what other people would say about it, whether they had had similar experiences and could offer any suggestions or just join me in bemoaning the state of the world. What surprised me, however, was some of the comments that were anything but supportive and helpful.

One person suggested to me (and to my sister-in-law) that we needed to 'get a grip' because we had no idea what loneliness was because we were not single parents. Another person decided to give me a blow by blow description of their mother who had raised children in rural NZ in the 40's "Try this.3 kids under 5, no road to house- 2 mile horse ride to nearest road. No phone, no power, no lights/ washing machine/ fridge/ drier/ vacuum cleaner/ stove/ microwave or radio. woodstove only to be kept goig 24/7 - lots wood to chop. No doctor/ dentist. No shops- all clothes made at home, all jerseys etc knitted by hand. all fruit/ veges to be grown in own garden, surplus salted or bottled to preserve. Washing all clothes + nappies for 2- no disposables- done in copper every day- another fire to light. drying on line or in front of stove. sheareres meals + shepherds meals to be done as well. My mother might have complained had she had the means to , but was probably too tired" 



What I cannot get my head around is the amount of 'one upping' that happens in the world of parenting.  I felt as though this was what was happening here as if someone was saying 'feel like complaining? well, unless you're a single parent, you don't have the right!' or 'feel like you've got it tough at times? my mother had to raise three children under five with no electricity and had to wash all the nappies by hand in a copper pot!' I mean, how is this at all helpful to someone who is a first time parent? the truth is that it's not helpful at all, and only serves to create bitterness and resentment. Besides which, it has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make - that parents on a whole are isolated and most of the time are raising their children completely by themselves and that it shouldn't have to be this way.

If you 'one up' someone, you are effectively dismissing their situation as being not as important as your own and it is like saying to them that they should simply just 'deal with it' and stop complaining. Wouldn't it be far more productive to be supportive rather than alienating other parents and discouraging them from sharing an experience that is important to them? In my opinion, what you go through is all relative to your particular situation in life and you shouldn't be made to feel as though you do not have the right to complain about the odd 'bad day' just because you live in different circumstances to someone else. As parents, we're all in the same boat - completely in awe of the responsibility we have and how we can best raise our children to be healthy and happy adults. So why the competition?

Thoughts?