Wot, no kids?

Now and then I still feel a little embarr-assed that I don't have any children. Having children is seen so widely as the "normal" thing to do, that even after many years of being childless, and not in any way regretting it, I still feel it's a choice that needs to be somehow justified.

Nobody ever asks me why I don't have children, nobody ever gives any hint that it was an odd decision, but nonetheless I always feel slightly unusual, a bit of a maverick, a bit of a rebel.

I suppose it doesn't help that there are two schools close to our home, and twice a day dozens of children pour in and out of their parents' cars, the parents obviously doting on their little offspring and watching them protectively.

It also doesn't help that any woman who gets pregnant is promptly congratulated by all and sundry, everyone admires the gradually swelling belly, and when the baby finally appears, yet more congratulations are offered.

Unfortunately all the fervent enthusiasm and showers of baby-gifts, however natural they may seem, inevitably give the message that having a baby is much more impressive than not having one.

I can justify my child-free decision by pointing out how much extra cash I've had and how much that's improved my quality of life, but somehow that just makes me sound a little selfish and smug, as if other people's sacrifices for the sake of their children are worthless.

In fact being "selfish", not replenishing the human race but thinking only of our own pleasure, is what childless couples are often accused of. If I suggest that maybe the anticipated joy and reward of having children is itself a somewhat "selfish" desire, the reaction will be frosty to say the least.

I've never felt that I've missed out by not having the patter of tiny feet around the place. But it still seems a bit like the exception that proves the rule.

Feeding time

Why are people still so hung up about breastfeeding? It's a totally natural activity, all the experts recommend it, there's nothing sexual or porny about it, yet any public glimpse of it is still seen by many as shocking or even distasteful. Why such extreme reactions?

One woman suggests it's partly the lack of breastfeeding photos in the media. If you never see pictures of it, it turns into something odd and furtive, something you feel uncomfortable about. If images of breastfeeding were everywhere, that sense of peculiarity would disappear.

It's not only photos we're lacking. It's any mention at all, other than in parenting columns. It seldom comes up in books or plays or movies. Or public health ads. Or people's photo albums. Even in ordinary conversation, it's a bit of a taboo.

Not so long ago pictures of heavily pregnant women were thought outrageous. Now they've become normal and nobody bats an eyelid. Breastfeeding photos need to become equally common. And not just photos in a domestic setting but in those public places we use all the time - restaurants, cafes, shops, cinemas.

Feeding your child with your own milk (or someone else's child for that matter) is one of the most natural and beautiful things in the world. It's far more natural than the sort of images routinely plastered over the media every day - images of death and destruction and disaster.

Newspapers fall over themselves to publish pointless pictures of buxom, scantily-clad women. Yet when breasts are put to their intended use, suddenly mass coyness descends and nobody must see this awful, corrupting sight. It's absurd.

If breastfeeding mums were as visible as page three girls or underwear models, maybe ordinary women with hungry children wouldn't find themselves relegated to a filthy toilet or dingy storeroom as if they were hopeless perverts.

Good mothers

Journalist Bronwen Clune moans that from the day she produced the first of her four children everyone expected her to be a "good mother" and assessed her every action against this impossible ideal. Any careless lapse was instantly jumped on.

But can this really be true? Surely in this day and age everyone - including non-parents like myself - knows that parents are not perfect, children are not perfect, and obviously you have to make allowances for normal, fumbling human behaviour.

Not so, says Bronwen. She's expected to make gourmet school lunches, supply everyone's favourite breakfast cereals, be a maths wizard and always have matching socks on hand. She's meant to be forever smiling and free of foibles and oddities.

I don't believe people are so censorious. Doesn't every other parent know full well how hard it is to bring up children? How demanding and awkward they are, how exhausting and infuriating, how unpredictable and startling. Do parents who know all too well the non-stop craziness of parenting and their own constant inability to measure up really expect other parents to reach some exalted standard they couldn't possibly reach themselves? Are they truly such mean hypocrites?

Even those of us who've never had children and may know little of the day-to-day turmoil and weariness of looking after them can surely imagine what it's like and sympathise with those mums and dads who're temporarily losing it or collapsing in a defeated heap while their offspring happily misbehave?

Who are all these people who expect Bronwen to be so saintly? If they're friends and relatives, then shouldn't she either keep well away from them or tell them to go screw themselves? If they're complete strangers, why take any notice of them at all? Or are these elevated standards ones she's actually setting herself, some kind of internal perfectionist streak?

This "good mother" hang-up seems especially odd for someone who's had four children. Hasn't she realised by now that there's no perfect way to bring up a child and you just have to take things as they come and do the best you can? Isn't the best response to other people's sniffy disdain a gale of raucous laughter and another glass of pinot noir?

Baby blues

There’s still this big myth that new mothers are ecstatically happy and madly in love with their new baby, that it’s the best time of their life. Nobody wants to talk about the large number of new mums who get severe post natal depression and are at their wits’ end.

Up to 25 per cent of new mothers get PND, and almost 50 per cent of teenage mothers, and it can last several months or even a year. And yet this huge departure from the rose-tinted image of motherhood is constantly swept under the carpet.

A TV programme tonight featured several women who were badly affected by PND. Instead of being overjoyed by the new arrival, they felt no bond with the baby, they felt their body was ruined, they cried all the time, they felt paralysed, they felt inadequate, and when it was really bad they just wanted to die. Some mothers are so distressed they actually kill the child.

Often they’ve never heard of PND and they don’t know what’s going on. They just wonder why they can’t cope and wonder what’s wrong with them.

They feel scared or ashamed of admitting their feelings or asking for help. If they do admit their feelings, they may be shunned by their friends who see them as abnormal.

Whether help is available is very much a postcode lottery. In some areas mothers can get all sorts of help including psychotherapy, anti-depressants and mothers’ groups. In other areas there’s very little help and PND is still seen as nothing more than “baby blues”.

The causes of PND are still not properly understood. Many things have been suggested, from birth-related trauma to marital difficulties, low self-esteem and unwanted pregnancies. Whatever the cause, it can strike right out of the blue, even to women who were perfectly happy and well-adjusted before the baby was born.

So let’s stop pretending new mums are always over the moon. Quite often in private they’re thoroughly miserable and desperate for help.

Picking a fight

Everyone knows it's not always sweetness and light even in the most compatible families. Now the time we spend arguing with each other has been pinned down - around 91 hours a year.

A survey by Uinvue, the family website, says the most common arguments are over household chores, children "treating the house like a hotel", couples taking each other for granted, choice of TV viewing, and children's excessive phone bills.

Well, since I don't have children, I've been spared that particular source of friction, but there are plenty of others I could name - like what we spend our money on (or not wanting to spend anything), those irritating personal habits like noisy eating, and arranging that outstanding repair job.

Mothers supposedly start most of the disagreements while fathers and children are less volatile. Does this mean mothers have higher standards (of politeness, cleanliness, tidiness, kindness) and are more likely to complain if those standards aren't met?

In my own family it was my father who started most of the arguments, my mother being more conciliatory and easygoing, so I'm surprised at that finding. Maybe women are more willing to admit they argue?

Of course the 91 hours only applies to the immediate family. If in laws were included, that figure would shoot up dramatically. Getting on with relatives we've only acquired through trails of confetti can sometimes be an uphill struggle.

In fact the tensions can be so bad that one in ten family members aren't even on speaking terms with another member. I can easily believe that. My father and I hardly spoke to each other for the best part of 20 years. We were chalk and cheese the moment I hit adolescence, and that never changed.

Baby shambles

If the NHS is getting better all the time, as the government claims, why did pregnant 22 year old Karen Shaw have to be airlifted from Northern Ireland to a Scottish hospital because neo-natal cots weren't available?

This was hardly a rare medical condition that took the Causeway Hospital by surprise, with the resources needed simply unplanned for.

Karen was expecting twins and her waters broke seven weeks prematurely - as happens frequently to mothers-to-be. But the hospital was unable to cope and had to send her elsewhere.

Her stepfather Paul Parry said she had been "terrified and traumatised" and criticised the local health service as "underfunded and farcical".

Karen has already lost one child after a miscarriage so naturally she was scared of losing the twins. She nearly lost them early in the pregnancy.

The hospital didn't explain the lack of neo-natal cots but claimed there was no risk as two specialist midwives accompanied her on the flight.

But you have to ask why the cots weren't available when premature birth is so common and maternity services are one of the major elements of the NHS.

How can such a basic failure occur when so many billions have just been pumped into the health service? And isn't it ironic that the airlift across the Irish Sea (over 100 miles) probably cost more than the missing cots?

PS: Karen has now given birth to healthy twin boys.

Photo: Karen Shaw

Mother knows best

My 85 year old mother, bless her, is quite convinced she knows best about everything, and no amount of reasoned counter-argument from me makes any impression. Frustrating in the extreme.

If I mention my creaky knees, she always blames it on short coats that don't cover my legs. In other words, damp knees. But in that case, mother dear, every swimmer in the country, and everyone taking regular baths, would have no knees left.

When crime comes up, she's adamant it's all down to single mothers and broken homes. Stable families with two parents couldn't produce anything but little angels and rosy-cheeked choirboys, even if all the neighbours are burglars and car thieves.

Knowing that I seldom shop around for the cheapest bargains, mum sees me as hopelessly profligate, squandering money like water and being shamefully ripped off by greedy shopkeepers. But I'm not wasting hours traipsing the streets just to save a few quid, I explain. Which cuts no ice with Mrs Canny-Shopper, The-Woman-Who-Can't-Be-Diddled.

No sooner do I mention our two cars, indispensable in a city with minimal public transport, than mum insists we could make do with one. With the odd taxi, a bit of walking, a bicycle, and more reliance on the local shops, we could manage easily. Er, not really, mum, only if I was a hermit living on bowls of rice and doing nothing but contemplating my navel.

I can argue my point of view till the cows come home, but mum stubbornly stands her ground, listening politely and then promptly repeating what she told me before. I'm obviously mistaken and it's her maternal duty to put me straight.

I guess mothers never quite lose that air of authority they have to acquire when they're a new parent steering their vulnerable offspring towards autonomous adulthood. Although I achieved that state many decades ago, she still thinks I need her guiding hand on the tiller. And her years as a primary school teacher probably reinforced that fond belief.

Still, better a bumptious mother than a clinging one. Or a mother who doesn't give a damn about her children and only cares about property prices and gin.

(NB: Photo is not my mother. Thank you once again, Google images)