Should I be blogging about my children?

Following on from my last post, I found this article interesting.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5600675.ece

Blogging for Charity

Blogging is a strange thing. My husband encouraged me to start this blog to market Revolution Baby but as I write I still wonder who really cares what I think about Toys R Us or schools closing in snow. As far as I’m aware I only have two readers – Al Humphreys and my mother in law!

I was therefore excited to receive an email from Hotels Combined - someone else had read my blog! And they had a request - all I had to do was mention HotelsCombined.com in my blog and they would give $20 to one of their selected charities: WWF, World Vision or the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There, I’ve done it, the money is earned for charity and I can close now. But no, being interested in details I decided to tell you more.

Hotels Combined is a leading price comparison system used by over 25 million people every year. They aggregate and compare accommodation prices from all major sources such as Hotels.com, Travelocity.com, Priceline.com and many more. It is a free research tool helping users find the best priced accommodation option. If required, the reservation is made directly on the compared websites.

What I found more interested was their marketing technique, what a great way to promote your company by approaching bloggers to mention you for $20. Then I started thinking about the phenomenon of blogging. I wonder why I feel a compelling need to expose my thought processes to 1.5 billion Internet users. If you think about it, it’s extremely arrogant; you’re presupposing that you are important and or interesting enough for a stranger to spend their precious time reading about.

I was grateful to Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times for admitting it’s addictive. He lists many reasons for blogging; intimacy, exposure, the ease with which you can reach billions. For me the reason which resonated was “the relief involved in getting something instantly off my chest”.

This, I’ve realised, is why I blog; sharing my thoughts with anyone who might be passing is a form of free therapy. If no-one reads it, it doesn’t actually matter; the mere act of expressing myself serves the purpose.

My blog is often an outlet for frustration. I have thoughts I think are valid and want to express, so I dump them on the net and feel better that I’ve offloaded my rant. It’s actually a harmless way of anger management, you don’t abuse the kindness of friends by making them listen and you don’t make embarrassing mistakes. Take my entry about schools closing in snow. That started life as an email to my son’s headmistress. It’s probably best for all involved that it ended up on my blog.

Sometimes I’m testing book ideas. I’m writing a “mum’s diary”, Brigid Jones for those with children. Today’s working title is “There’s Always One Pooing: The Diary of a Mum-of-Three”. So, if you love or hate one of my entries, please write and tell me. Bryan Appleyard states that with the rise of the Internet “people were dazzled by their power to connect and communicate”. What I love is sharing ideas, the hope that someone out there might relate to what you write. That is what I hope mums will enjoy about The Diary.

According to BA it’s all about connectivity – you comment on someone’s blog and they come back to you. Hotels Combined are going to list my blog in their charity centre, http://www.hotelscombined.com/Charity.aspx. I advertise them, they advertise me, who knows who might read what and visit my blog or price up a hotel, more strands woven on the extraordinary Internet web.

At least this particular post has a purpose: I’ve mentioned Hotels Combined and they’ve given $20 to charity. But in doing so, I’m just realising, I’ve managed to focus the whole entry about me! That, I’ve decided, is the reason blogging is so popular - it’s the ultimate self indulgence because, even when you’re blogging for charity, it’s all about ME!

Friends for Tea - 2

So far Friends for Tea hasn’t been much success. One child was crying before we even got home, freaked out by our chaotic school run with Baby J arching her back and screaming in protest at being shoved from car seat to buggy and back again. Once home, however, they did all have a wonderful time playing.

The second time a friend came back my son had had a serious fall in the playground and after tea didn’t feel like playing and sat drooping on the sofa. Whilst it certainly wasn’t T’s fault I felt sorry for the guest who entertained himself with lego on the floor, waiting for his mum to arrive. I called my husband in anxious whispers, asking him to come home asap as I was worried T had concussion and how would I get four children to casualty in a hurry.

T went to a friend’s house today. It’s amazing how much time you seem to have when you don’t do the school run. I did puzzles and read stories with our second son, B, who liked the attention but missed his brother, confused as to why we had tea without him.

T loves going to friend’s houses – on one visit he played on a Nintendo Wii and has been asking “do you know which shop to buy one from?” ever since. He also loves having friends for tea, and it’s interesting to see what he proudly points out as we pull into the drive.

You learn something of their perception of their home life when they explain what’s important to a friend or compare their life with something they experience elsewhere. When I was a child I can vividly remember wanting to live in the local cul-de-sac where it was much better to ride bikes. I loved going round to my friend’s house to have soda stream and play with her Girl’s World. She was fascinated by our Landrover and just wanted to sit in the cab, calling it “the big old truck”.

I’ve realised that little things that were important as a child stay with you for the rest of your life. Which is why it can be so daunting as a parent, wondering what your child’s formative experiences and lasting memories will be.

But well done Dave the milkman!

I forgot, in my rant about schools closing, that I wanted to counter the negativity by saying thank you to Dave the milkman. At 8 this morning, when everyone seemed to be giving up for the day, he arrived on the doorstep with our milk. This was extra impressive because we live down a very narrow country lane which is never salted. We were about to run out of milk so his perseverance and commitment saved me a lot of hassle. Well done and thank you to Dave from Dairy Crest!

A bit of snow and we all give up!

Okay, so we’ve had the worst snow in years but I still think they close the schools too easily these days. My eldest son goes to the village school where most people walk, or could walk to school, and yet it has been closed for two days. By mid-morning roads were easily passable and I know lots of people were travelling about to see friends and family – if travel logistics were the reason for closing, why could they not have just opened school later?

I hope that whoever was responsible for closing the school – the headmistress, teachers who didn’t make enough effort to get in, overly-cautious council officials – feel ashamed of their over-reaction, especially when watching stories on the news about conscientious nurses who walked for two hours to make sure they got to work and honoured their commitments.

Closing the school sets a bad example to the children. What it says to them is that when things get tough we just give up. Surely it would be more inspiring, and in keeping with the school's ethos, to adapt and pull together, to rise to the challenge of a snowy day rather than give in to slight inconvenience.

I’ve drafted an email to the headmistress and governors expressing my disappointment; I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear from me and I’m still undecided on whether to press send. I have no illusions that it will make any difference; it will just leave me earmarked as a pain in the arse. But is it not important to speak up and let officials know that we don’t all agree with their defeatist attitude?

I’m sure there were many concerns for “health and safety”. Of course we must give consideration to safety but I do believe that reasoning is over-used in current society. Parents are capable of taking more time and using more care in getting their children to school and the pupils at the school are of the calibre to understand why they might not, for example, be allowed to play in certain areas of the playground that day. Wouldn’t it be more impressive if the school administration showed it had more strength of character, that it wasn't going to feebly give up because some litigious minded official suggested it should?

One of the school’s strengths is that it is part of the village community and on days like today I think it should be proudly functioning, like many other aspects of our hard working community were despite the snow, thanks to the determination of many people. Perseverance is a virtue missing to the detriment of today’s society and we can only teach our children that through example.

Friends for Tea

When your first child starts school it’s as much of a change for you as it is for them. Days are dictated by a fixed schedule and you have new challenges to face. One of these is Friends for Tea.

My son has just started asking to have friends over for tea after school. I’ve discovered that there is quite a network of children going to each other’s houses, something we’ve not been part of. This has started to make me panic about my child being left out. Why has he not been asked when he seems to be popular at school? Do the parents find me too unapproachable? Do the children not really like him at all?

Fortunately, my son doesn’t have any of these anxieties, he just wants to have some friends over for tea. But for his mother this involves a whole new area of emotional turmoil. Firstly, with three young children, “after school” is a time of utter chaos. Everyone is tired and grouchy and I barely manage to prepare tea while they sit in a trance in front of the TV, fight or whine while baby cries for attention. I feel quite anxious about exposing a relative stranger to us at our weakest time of day. What will they go home and report to their parents? I will have to be organised and in good spirits, which is not usual by that time!

Secondly, there are the logistics. What will I cook? What do other children have for tea? I will have to find space in the car for a fourth child. I will have to be prepared for the three year old to be distressed the whole time the friend is here because he will be the “little brother”, unwanted in the dynamics of big boys games.

And then there’s the anxiety of being completely responsible for a stranger’s child. Until now, friends have come to play with their mums. Pre school, the reality is that your children socialise with children whose mums you want to chat to. Inviting friends to play is as much for your enjoyment as theirs. Friends for Tea means extra work without the therapy of chat. As my son makes friends I will have to leave my clique and introduce myself to their mothers, and even in my thirties that makes me feel shy and vulnerable. Relationships in the school playground are as complicated for the parents as the children.

This morning in the playground I was supposed to have made lots of enthusiastic plans with the mothers of the children my son has selected. Instead I stood alone feeling reticent to start the process which will change the relaxed sloppiness of our after school hibernation for ever. Who should I invite first? Will I be upsetting other mums or unwittingly butting in on social groups already carefully formed – I discovered that three of my son’s friends are meeting for tea tonight, happily this doesn’t faze him! There is a hidden protocol to having a school child, a lifestyle change I’m still getting used to. Having spent the journey home worrying about it my husband has told me to just listen to our son and invite people as he requests because thankfully, five year old boys don’t seem to have the social anxieties their mothers have.

The enduring magic of Enid Blyton

Back to school, back to blog. The holidays flashed by without a moment to write. I was too busy playing Guess Who with my children. It was great fun; the old games are the best - as are the old books. A good example is The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton, one of my childhood favourites. I remember spending hours reading and loving those books so, before Christmas, I went on line to Amazon to buy new copies. I was horrified to discover, courtesy of the wonderfully scathing Amazon reader reviews, that versions published today have been edited by politically correct idiots. Jo, Bessie and Fannie are now Joe, Beth and Frannie. WHY? Many chapters have been completely removed. Its original innocence has been modified: it’s not considered appropriate for the girls to help Mother with the ironing while Jo digs the garden with Father.

As one Amazon reviewer puts it, it’s pathetic. Enid Blyton is a piece of social history, why do we have to insult our children by hiding the true style of these books from them? Even my five year old can understand they were written years ago when words and lifestyles were different. Rather than being problematic for modern children, I think the characters serve as good role models – Jo, Bessie and Fannie are helpful, respectful, able to entertain themselves and wonderfully grateful – Jo makes terribly appreciative noises when his mother promises them jacket potatoes with butter for supper!

It's very sad that publishers feel they have to tamper with these books. Many modern readers may hanker after this seemingly golden era when children had freedom – Mother doesn’t flinch when three children under 10 creep in at midnight after wandering around in a wood. And in contrast, why should we be ashamed of the “bad” characters who do things no longer socially acceptable? My son can cope with stories about Dame Slap, a rogue teacher who slaps naughty pupils and locks them in cupboards. She’s a character, in a book, why does she have to be edited as if to assuage some shame about the way things were done in the past?

I am loving watching my children enjoying these books. They are completely absorbed and, like I was, wrapped up in the stories, transported, so that they talk about the characters, wonder what might happen, discuss scenarios or what should have been done, pretend to be Saucepan Man and play at visiting different lands.

My copies have pages falling out where I’ve read them so much. In respect to Enid Blyton and her imagination, and in protest of the absurd abuse of these precious books, I will be buying my children second hand copies of original versions on Ebay.