THOUGHTS ON COOL MUMS

There seems to be a window of time in which you're not too young to be some silly uneducated girl who got herself knocked up and is now living on welfare handouts, and not too old to be, well, old, and if you're somewhere in that window and have a kid, for some reason people tend to think you're a "cool mum".

Let me give you some incredibly bizarre and completely misinformed reasons why people have sometimes labelled me as a cool mum:

Because I am under 30.
Because I don't have a proper job and am STILL at university (ten years and counting).
Because I had green hair.
Because I play music I like in the house.
Because my daughter says/does/wears weird/funny/amusing things.

Here is the reality behind those reasons:

I am under 30.
I am not earning much money and get asked questions like "So when are you finally graduating?" A LOT. I am also maybe avoiding entering the real world.
I do strange things with my hair sometimes.
I am selfish and have a low tolerance for listening to kids' music.
That's all her.

In case you aren't aware, I'm going to let you in on a little secret - there is nothing cool about being a mum. There are lots of things about it that are rewarding, and fulfilling, and joyful. Motherhood is many things but it is never cool.

Giving birth is not cool. Waking up every 2 hours to a screaming baby is not cool. Being vomited or urinated on is not cool. Feeling irrationally jealous of all your childless friends who can eat a meal from start to finish is not cool. Spending days where you might literally not have any adult contact or company is not cool. Dealing with tantrums is not cool. Getting rid of head lice is not cool. You get the idea.

Don't be disappointed though. The goal of having a kid, after all, shouldn't be to be cool - if it is, I suggest much cheaper, less painful options, like going sky-diving or getting a pet pig. Being a cool mum is not going to make your kid turn out any smarter or less annoying. It won't guarantee that they'll lead interesting lives or that they won't end up liking Billy Joel. It won't make you any more capable of raising a human. It won't make you a better person.

Nowadays if someone calls me a cool mum, I reply by telling the truth - that I'm as cool and uncool as every other mum. I have also dyed my hair a more natural colour, which makes me significantly less cool, for which I am grateful.

ON BECOMING THE PARENT I NEVER WANTED TO BE (AND WHY IT'S OKAY)

Before I became a parent, I had a pretty clear framework in my mind about the type of parent I wanted to be. This framework, I have since realised, was constructed on a foundation of ignorance, naivety and a very misguided assumption that parenting involves the one-way transmission of behaviours and values onto a passive recipient. The crucial thing I overlooked (other than the fact that you can't really learn anything meaningful about parenting without actually being one first) is that parenting is a dynamic process, involving the interaction between two parties, one of whom is their own entity who functions, thinks and behaves entirely beyond your control or your ideas about how they "ought" to be.

Some key things that I remember adding to my mental list of "How To Be The Best Parent Ever And Raise The World's Most Amazing Human" were:

• Absolutely 100% do not change anything about my life or myself. That damn baby will have to work around ME. After all, I've been here longer than it.
• Be like those trendy "French parents" that everyone seems to be talking about these days, who raise kids that dress better than I ever did or will, who quietly entertain themselves while their parents throw elaborate dinner parties, and who probably come out of the womb fully toilet-trained. (NB: this kind of parenting has as little to do with being French as it does to being a realistic expectation for expectant parents).
• Don't be a Helicopter Parent. This is basically a parent who constantly hovers over their child and is overinvolved in every aspect of their child's comings and goings. As the child of a Helicopter Parent, I knew first-hand that I didn't want my own child to be raised under a magnifying glass.

Ha.

So, obviously the first one is completely ridiculous. I only had to look at how much my identity had been shaped in those formative years by the influence of celebrity or pop-culture idealisations - people who I had never even met - and it's easy to see where my thinking went wrong. Part of the great thing about the social nature of humans is that we affect and influence each other - yes, sometimes in a negative way, but also in some of the most beautiful and profound ways. We are, after all, the sum of all our collective experiences, and I know I have taken so much from my parents, teachers, friends, lovers, even strangers I encounter... How could I have thought that I wouldn't be influenced and more importantly, want to be influenced, by arguably the most important person in my life?

Kids of "French parenting". I am sure there are people out there who have kids like that; I just haven't met any of them yet or met anyone who's ever met any of them. Perhaps it's because we are raising people, not cardboard cut-outs, and people do tend to make mess and wee and shit and vomit and occasionally throw themselves on the floor in a screaming, sweaty mess in the middle of the supermarket. There are many times when I wish my house didn't resemble a temple dedicated to the glorification of noisy, garish plastic shit and Peppa Pig, and that my hair was more presentable and washed. But I can't help but think, even if I did hold the secret to raising a mess-less, voiceless wallflower, would I even want to? 

The last one is rather more interesting because I still firmly stood (and still stand) by my original belief, but circumstance seemed to have other ideas for me. When M was diagnosed with a potentially fatal food allergy, I was suddenly faced with the dilemma of having to become that overprotective, constantly vigilant parent I had always been so scathing of, out of pure necessity in keeping her alive. It was, and continues to be, something I grapple with and find difficult to negotiate. I hate being that person that watches over her every move and preempts any engagement she has with her surroundings, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, even if you don't really like it.

These days, my list is now called "How To Keep Your Child Alive And Happy" and consists of the following:

• Feed and water daily
• Try to win the sleep battle more often than not
• Be really silly all the time. Kids will never think you look stupid, they will think you're hilarious
• Provide good music for dancing
• Be open to things not looking how you thought they would (and sometimes they'll be better)