Morning of my life

Today is six days before my 40th birthday. To be honest this countdown has been bothering me for a while. It’s been hanging there like a stinky wet towel. I’ve tried avoiding it, then be wrapped by it, then throwing it aside because it reeks of great expectations.

There have been various attempts on how to approach this impending date. I’ve tried the introspective/deep approach.  This is where I fool myself that I want to be a better person. It’s better to give than to receive and all that crap. Besides being a giver I was also going to work on my “flaws”. This birthday will be profound! It is big and important. Bigger and more important than what I did for my 30th. I had a baby. Single. With no clue whatsoever about being a parent. Definitely more profound than that. Now is the time to work on me. I can change, I’m now 40.

This approach worked for a month or so, but two weeks ago I decided I wanted to adopt the IDGAF approach instead. The introspective/profound take was too hard to keep up. I have to admit that I did want to get some pressies (That COS dress really looks good!). It’s only another birthday. A dinner at a restaurant and some material wants given to me would suffice. Simple as.

Today, though I woke up feeling well… panicked. I had this mini-anxiety attack while lying in bed. It’s only 6 days away. That’s too close. I can smell the stinky towel on my face as if someone threw it on me while I was sleeping. This is when I decided that I have to tackle and wring the stinkiness of fear out of the towel. But what makes it stinky?

I guess this whole kerfuffle about my 40th stems from the fact that I never expected to reach this age. The way I lived my life in my 20s was not conducive to a long life. I remember dating a 42 year old man when I was 27 years old, thinking then that I will never get as old as he is. My fantasies stopped when I’m in my 30s… I’ve done all the things I wanted to do in my head by the time I am in my 30s.

Having a baby changed that. It was hard to see this at the time, especially since I was sleep deprived, had no clue what I was doing and was experiencing the biggest come down of my life! From partying at all hours and being the usual selfish, self-absorbed 20-something; to all of a sudden dirty nappies, colicky cries, and pretty much just crying about 80% of the time – both of us – baby and me. There was no break from the decadent lifestyle and the I’m-only-living-until-I’m-30 to the stressed, shit-I-better-take-this-whole-life-thing-seriously mindset. All of a sudden my plans for dying young were thrown out the window. I was living life for my baby. Have been doing so for 10 years now (congrats me!).

It’s like standing at an AA meeting saying: Hi I’m Nikki, I’m 39 almost 40 and I’ve been LIVING for almost 10 years now.

The thing is, I am grateful that some things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to. Not that I was completely clear how I wanted things to be. I am here now, though. And I have to figure out how I want things to be. This is what scares me. I do not want to explicitly say it – not even a slight whisper in my head because I feel that saying it, admitting it with all my heart will make it more visible. And the more visible it is, the more vulnerable I feel. But here goes… I will say it. To hell with vulnerability (Brene Brown said it in a more eloquent way I think):

I now want to live as long as I can live. I feel that I’m at the morning of my life. If my earlier life was hazy and crazy and dark at times, that was the dawn. I am now fully awake and ready to face the rest of it.

When I close my eyes and fantasise, I now know what I want to do by the time I’m:

50 (write a children’s book, start my own business)

60 (do my PhD, run a marathon)

70 (probably still trying to run a marathon)

80 (wear a bikini and look good in it while on a cruise – if we still can do this)

90 (flying to the moon with one of my daughters as the “pilot”)

100 (dancing under the stars somewhere in South America with my hubby because I feel that more half a century is enough time to teach a man to dance).

I know it’s cliche to say that having children gave me meaning in my life. So I’m not going to say that. Having my first baby made me want to live and be here for her. Because of my first baby I ended up being married to the best man, husband and father. I also get to experience what it is like to enjoy childbirth with my second baby. I just want to be with them more than anything else right now. I’d like to be with them while fulfilling those fantasies. So, 40th birthday hello.

P.S. T minus 9 years 364 days to write a children’s book and start my own business.

On female bosses

I am guilty. As a woman I was one of those who used to say: I prefer a male boss than a female boss.

Yes, I said it all the time throughout my 20s. I said it with bravado and a hint of provocation, mostly while speaking with another woman.

It was true. In the first 12 years of my professional life I’ve only had to report to a female manager not more than 3 times. I am not even sure if it’s really as many as 3 times. And during those times it was not a good experience. Either they weren’t supportive or I felt that they were threatened by their other women staff that they ended up creating tensions in the team.

If I compare that with the numerous men I’ve had to report to, I would have to say that I prefer men to women because I had more experience with male bosses. I can honestly say, if I was to use statistics, that there’s only 1 in 3 chance I will get a bad male boss compared to 3 in 3 chance for the bad female boss.

But here’s the funny thing about statistics. It doesn’t show the pool of male bosses that I’ve had. So to the 3 female bosses, I’ve probably had about 15 male ones. (I was working in consulting for the first 12 years of my professional life, by the way. So, every new project had a different set of project managers and managers to deal with.) Also, my little bit of statistics did not mention the fact that I work in IT – one of the most male dominated industries known right now.

So what I’m trying to say is: I was an idiot for saying that I prefer a male boss than a female boss.

What really happened was that I became conditioned to work with men and not with women. How could I even compare when the numbers are so skewed?  Of course, I had more chances of having a great male boss – because the pool of male bosses are bigger. And for the 3 bad female managers I’ve had, there’s an equivalent of 5 bad male bosses. Also, as in the paradox of value, since it’s very rare for me to experience female bosses I placed higher value and higher expectations on them. I would remember the bad experiences with female bosses because they were few and far between.

If it was not common to have female bosses, then I was lucky enough to get a couple in my 20s. I can just imagine how difficult it was for them to manage and lead. They had so much to prove and so few opportunities to prove them. When they get trusted to lead they didn’t get the leeway that their more common male leaders received. They were judged from the get go. And if they experienced what I experienced just to get assigned a leadership role – they must have had to go through hoops.

I can just imagine how many meetings they’ve had to go to where there were 10 males and just them as the sole female. Or being in an interview panel of 5 male interviewers (No kidding, I experienced this. Surprisingly I got the job). Or having to fight for their ideas to get heard only for a male manager to steal it or not get patronised every time they came up with a great solution. Or be manterrupted – all the time. Or be mansplained the exact same idea they just gave 5 minutes ago. Not to mention the sexist jokes and talks about their wives they’ve had to put up with.

But that was my 20s. Thankfully, I’ve since grown up and I’ve re-conditioned myself to work with both men and women. The female bosses are still rare, but I’ve met more and my pool of GOOD female bosses have grown, too! 

I’ve had a great program manager who was looking after 5 different projects, 1000-words-per-minute talker, a magic coffee drinker, passionate people person who really looked after me. I think reporting to her was the first time I felt heard, appreciated for my ideas and allowed to properly lead. Then I also met a finance director who was a straight-talker, made everything happen by forming great relationships with everyone. She just had this aura about her where you feel you can trust her right away. She was genuine and honest. And I really believe that’s her secret leadership thing – being genuine and honest.

What I noticed about female bosses is that in some way big or small they need to be on guard for those moments where their bad experiences might happen again or the feelings of those bad experiences rear their ugly heads again. Being on guard is a hindrance for them to connect to others or focus on the issues facing them. But when these female bosses let their guards down, when they finally let themselves be confident and authentic – that’s when all the good stuff about being a female boss happens.

So, I would just like to say: Go the female bosses!

 

 

 

 

Mum Blogs

Ok, warning controversial statement coming up.

I’m so over Mum Blogs.

I’m over this trend where mums who talk about normal mum stuff are glorified.

The key word here is: normal. Mums who talk about their labour. Mums who talk about the lack of time because they have multiple children. Mums who talk about feeling alone. Mums who talk about getting back into shape. Mums who self-congratulate because they are not insane yet.

I get that over the modern decades mothers’ role has not been so honestly, explicitly discussed by mainstream Western society. I get that we needed to be aware of this. Post Natal Depression, Gender Inequality in the household and Breastfeeding in Public – needed to be put into our awareness. We needed reinforcement of our role as a mother and acknowledgement of our hard work. Gosh, do we need someone to tell us not to feel guilty for wanting to leave it all. I get it. I understand it. I live it. But after 10 years of listening to this and seeing the growing trend of over-sharing the minute details of a mum’s life I’ve had enough. Putting a mum blogger on a celebrity status for declaring that she’s achieved something because she’s a mum and she can write about it – has turned me off the sisterhood of mums.

This has been a gradual change. It wasn’t a particular post or article or selfie. It’s the sum whole concept of women writing about normal mummy life. I guess my mummy journey started to take a different turn. I’ve gone past the need to relate and I’m now onto the need to have a role model. I now want to read about women who against all motherhood odds accomplished something else and defined themselves as more than a mum.

My mum blog journey started when I felt guilt with all the “mistakes” I made as an ignorant and clueless first time mum 9 years ago. I didn’t have the blogs then. I wasn’t even on Facebook to post photos of my very standard labour. I didn’t have WordPress to talk about how painful it was or the struggles of breastfeeding. I didn’t have the forums to rant and rave about judgey maternal health care nurses when I decided to give up nursing after a month. I was in my own (blissful) mum bubble. Since then though I’ve over shared on Facebook and posted passive aggressive statuses to those judgey women. And I started my own blog. Oh I did.

But I recently noticed that my blog is all about being a woman struggling to figure out what her calling is. It’s about being a feminist who’s also a mum, not a mum who’s turned feminist. When I had my second child 19 months ago I was lucky enough to now have Facebook, the parent forums, the mums who write about being mums and lots of blogs. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I felt like I was a member of a great club like the Toastmasters. I connected, and I belonged.

Lately, though I started feeling that I don’t want to be 80 years old, looking back at my life and my achievements and only have “great mother” as my trophy. I want to say to myself I was a great mum PLUS thinker, solution provider, contributor and helper to better the world. I want my children to grow up knowing that I wasn’t there when they played cello or danced or sang at school because Mummy was doing something larger than the sum whole of all their primary school performances. Plus hello technology! We can all go home at the end of the day look at the video of their performance, review it, dissect it, laugh at their observations all the while also hearing about the important thing that Mummy had to do, too.

I also want to be able to tell myself that I have other things to talk about besides my mum struggles or my fights with my husband. I would like to write about politics, astrophysics, the future of the world and when do I get to afford a Tesla car. Yes, it would be great if during these conversations I can intersperse the dialogue by how much I love my children and I swear by attachment parenting and baby led weaning.

Instead of reading how to be a Queen, I am reading Not Guilty, a book for women who won’t get all of it but will navigate being a mum and a career woman with aplomb. I am reading Start Something that Matters, a book about finding your passion and acting on it. And also reading A Brief History of Time because I think it’s about time I revisit my high school physics knowledge.

I guess this whole journey for me is about me as a whole. And I know that being a mum is only a part of my whole. I think that women should not define themselves as just being a mum, or just being a career woman or just anything. It’s about time we celebrate our multi-dimensional wholes. It’s about time we write about being a mum who also has a passion in others things and against all odds, and even with limited time was able to achieve great things that impact others too. I can’t wait to read those blogs. And when I come across those I will call them the women blogs.

5 Things I learnt after my Maternity Leave

A couple of weeks ago I was on the train on my way to work when this gorgeous woman walked in the carriage and disrupted my usual train-face (where I look pensive and bored at the same time). Seriously, this woman demanded to be stared at, so I gawked at her.

She had this big, beautiful black hair, framing her perfect face with big, luscious lips. She pretty much had big everything in all the right places! But that’s not what made her gorgeous and stunningly worthy of stares. It was her attitude. She had that perfect mixture of arrogance and coyness – her face was so transparent yet closed. Her eyes, soft but had that dark don’t-fuck-with-me look, too.

I so wanted to take a photo of her, but I was fascinatingly scared of her presence that I wrote about her instead.

I’ve been thinking about this lady on and off since I’ve seen her. I mostly think about her during those times when I think I should have had that “don’t-fuck-with-me” attitude. However much I tried emulating that attitude I seemed to just get asked why I looked pained. Obviously I don’t have “it”.

I needed the attitude when the following things happened to me three months since being back from my maternity leave:

1. When I got told that I’m too friendly to lead a team
2. When I was described as someone who is ok to just cruise along (as opposed to being career driven) because my priorities have changed now – I had a baby. Again.
3. When I was told that I won’t be able to carry off a strategy that I developed and designed because I’m not “senior” enough, i.e. I don’t have a manager title under my name.

Any person I shared these incidents with would know that I was pretty upset when it happened. I actually used the words “insulted”, “disappointed”, and “with all due respect” a lot to the people who said these things to me. And to anyone who know me well enough, would know that the reason why I was upset is not because they were questioning my ability to lead, execute a strategy or be career-driven; I was upset because what they said are unfair assumptions about me because I am a woman.

Yes, I am a feminist. And I like to explore why I am so. I’ve written about it here and here and here.

But let’s get back to me returning from maternity leave, being a woman and a woman who would like a career. Of course these conversations happened because I put myself in that position. I initiated it because I would like to continue my career where I left off. Unfortunately, here is what I found out after being away for maternity leave:

1. You will be marginalised. No matter which position you are in the hierarchy
2. You will be treated like all your competencies and skills have been drained out of you
3. You will be asked a thousand times how hard it is to “get back into it”
4. All your hard work before going on maternity leave is thrown out the window
5. A woman is seen as “weak” if she is also seen as a mother in the workplace

Since, I returned to work I’ve spoken with a few mothers who went back to work after having their babies, too. And it’s always the same story. And it pains me more when they say that: it’s not unusual. They are even surprised that I’m surprised. I guess I should not have been seeing as when I had my first daughter and came back to the work-force as a single mother I had to quit my job at the time. I found out that they were paying a peer (a man) more than me because I’m a mother and I couldn’t work 60-80 hours a week like I used to. (I was working 50 hours instead, but only because I became more efficient. Motherhood makes us better time managers after all.)

Yes, the struggle is real. There is inequality in the work place. There is still a lot more leaning in for us. (And yes, I did read the Lean In book by Sheryl Sandberg. I actually related to it. Sue me.) So much more leaning in that it might be called a bow.

What can be done about it? I would like to think that if I had the “don’t-fuck-with-me” attitude of that beautiful woman then these things would never have happened to me. But I know that it still would have happened – in a different matter and coated with a different condescending line. Should I speak up more? Do I call HR? Would it make a difference? All I can think of doing now is moving on, start anew.

Well one of the biggest feminist I know, my husband, also took a 5-month leave to look after our baby. He started his leave when I went back to work. I wonder if he would be told that he’s too friendly to perform his role when he’s back or he’s now gone all “fatherly” therefore cannot perform as he used to. Would he be told to just cruise along? We’ll find out soon when he’s back at work in May. Stay tuned.

The daily good

I subscribe to this newsletter called Daily Good. I make a point of reading one article from it in the morning most days, but on really bad days I end up reading up to 10 articles. I know when it’s a bad day when I actually trawl through Positive News as well.

I use these online forums and news as part of my avoidance mechanism – avoiding my anxiety attacks. Bad days are usually preceded by bad nights when I didn’t sleep because I thought of a million ways how the world would end and a thousand ways that my family could get hurt.

It wasn’t like this all the time. I was once a carefree, intrepid, almost stupidly invincible person. I was so “brave” that I travelled to countries by myself. Drove up and down the east coast of Australia by myself (I only really appreciated how silly or brave this was when I saw Wolf Creek). I was able to take risks without over-thinking everything. I thought that the future was great and bright.

Then children happened. I remember the exact moment my anxiety attacks started. I just put my then 3-year-old daughter to bed for the night. Sat myself on the couch with my laptop, ready for my nightly ritual of reading Facebook and news while also having the TV on ABC24. In a single sitting I was bombarded with disasters all over the world – hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and a rare tornado thrown in.

I curled up in bed that night; while I watched my daughter asleep and really believed – for the first time ever – that the world would end. This realisation would have been ok if not for the beautiful thing I was looking at. I was so scared for her and cried thinking that I’d be helpless saving her if ever a disaster struck. Debra Ginsberg described this feeling best:

“The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”

It wasn’t even gradual when the attacks started. The insomnia and uncontrollable crying followed immediately after. I Googled phrases like: “What do parents do when they are really scared for their children and they do not want to get out of the house ever?” or “Support groups for parents who think the world is ending now”. It became paralysing that I saw a psychologist and she said something about “flight or fight” mode. I stopped seeing her after two sessions because she insisted that the world wasn’t going to end – soon.

That was 4 years ago. After 5 books on anxiety and fears, countless meditation techniques, sleeping aides, a Masters degree (if you can’t sleep then study), and a few swimming lessons (for when flooding might happen) later I can now say that I’m not as scared as I was that night. I still have bad days, which might be triggered by some news or an image of a child being hurt, but it is more manageable now.

Recently, I was driving on a sunny day and thought that I haven’t had them in a while! It’s like having a toothache for a few days then one day feel that it has stopped. But why? What made them (almost) stop? It took me a couple of weeks to come up with an answer.

I believe that the answer is this: I started helping and focusing on others besides myself. I started connecting and sharing. I’ve tried my best to be present. The being and doing and connecting. It has done wonders for my fight or flight mode!

I know I’m not the only parent who worries and becomes debilitated by fear for their children. I know this is not a new thing. But I do hope that more parents out there support each other and offer their survival or avoidance mechanisms to get through the tough heart wrenching times of protecting our children. It would be good to see real Google search results to “Support groups for parents who think the world is ending now”.

5 Things I learnt during my Maternity Leave

Now that I’ve been back at work for more than 6 weeks and my staring-at-computer-screens-related-headaches have started I am looking back at my maternity leave days with longing. To celebrate my luck at having 11 months of break from professional work here are the 5 things I learnt while being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom).

1 Being flexible with your day is the ultimate freedom

I like planning. As my husband said, I look to the past and the future, but never the present. So when I said to him “I love you” he jokingly said, “No you don’t. You only loved me or will love me.” He’s a clever one, my husband.

Anyway, being a mom left alone with a baby during the day I had to face the present and just learn (slowly) to let go of my need to control of what’s going to happen next.

It was a revelation when I finally let go of my imaginary commitments to time. We have a mother’s group catch up at 1PM, but baby decides to nap or refuse to get in the car… No problem. You want to play at 3AM? No problem. I never really understood those who adviced to “follow the baby’s schedule” until I consciously gave up all other schedules! Accepting that the baby is the only one who can dictate the schedule freed me from being the time dictator. How liberating!

2 Parent forums are gold

I’m a second-time mom. You’d think that I would be an expert by now having brought up a baby 8 years ago. But the parent playing field has changed in that span of time! When I had my first child Facebook only had a handful of users and status updates were still written in the third person.

I had no source of advice but from the mothers and nurses I see in person. This means I brought my first child up making a lot of mistakes, and using unnatural, non-sustainable, chemically-tarnished products! But now, I am on 3 different parent forums on Facebook and have thousands of moms and dads to discuss every single baby product you can think of.

My husband comes home from work and I’m armed with a hundred different arguments why Moogoo is the best bath products for our baby; why baby-led weaning is good, but messy and wow! I just noticed that many families in Australia do go to Bali a lot.

It goes without saying that I am addicted to these forums. Not only was it my only connection to the outside world, it also was a connection with thousands of other mothers experiencing the same things as me at the same time. Plus we don’t have to change out of our PJs to communicate. We can type and share even while breastfeeding!

How did I raise a child without these forums?

3 Finishing just one house chore per day is more than enough

I would like to say that I was “ambitious” thinking I would re-organise the entire house, re-file papers, regularly clean the bathroom while the baby slept during the day. But really I was just naive. I was blessed with a great sleeper the first time around, but this second baby? Well, as I said she’s the dictator of my schedule. She slept irregularly and she also liked to be carried – all.the.time.

So, if I actually put the dishes in the dishwasher that day I’m winning.

4 There’s no point wondering how other parents find the time to exercise/blog/try out every single baby bath product

This is in direct relation to 3 above. Some parents have babies who are great sleepers, and are “easy”, some parents don’t. Parents who don’t (me) read forums and wonder when all the other moms find the time. But then read later on that the same time-rich mom has a different problem balances the universe and makes me think that really I shouldn’t compare.

5 Don’t even try to be a super mom and volunteer for older child’s school activities while second child is less than a year old

#mumfail alert here. The main aim of spending more time with older child was not met, but also the main aim of helping the school won’t be en par with someone who actually has the time and sleep.

This also goes with planning to be a super entrepreneur, super children’s book writer, super crafter and super charity volunteer.

Looking back now it was such a great time to be a new mom which is exactly what the maternity leave is for. Yep, not for anything else but just being a mom.

List of things

I am a list-er. I didn’t realise how much I loved lists until I came home from the hospital with my new baby early this year. Two minutes after we got in the house I was bawling my eyes out in the middle of the kitchen. My husband hugged me and assured me that it was normal to be like that. We heard the nurses say it a lot – this whole post-natal depression thing. But no it was not PND. I was trying to articulate that I wasn’t depressed in between sobs, but I couldn’t.

I said something like this: “I feel like…like I’m free-floating on air like a balloon that’s been let go, you know?”. Hubby looked confused so I then continued with: “I feel like I lost my anchor. I don’t know where to hang onto!”, well that didn’t really help him understand either.

Thankfully, a few days later I was able to explain it to him. It was the lists. I haven’t made a list since giving birth and I can’t start my day without them. I thought I wouldn’t need lists and just go with the flow during my maternity leave. I thought my lists were mostly for my work and study life. Obviously I didn’t know myself well enough because once I wrote my first maternity leave list I felt grounded again.

This was my list:

I still smile when I remember how good I felt once I sat down and made a list of things I wanted to do.

Making the list is only half of the fun, though. Ticking it off. Now that’s a feeling I will never be able to explain to anyone – ever. Why did I think that I could do without lists when I have amassed more than 10 Moleskine diaries full of lists over 10 years?

I don’t even know why I keep these diaries. Maybe someday I would like my children to discover something in them? I did have some recipes written there somewhere. But mostly these diaries are just lists of things for me to do every day – chores mostly and what I ate that day.

Another thing that each diary have is a list of goals at the back for me to re-visit every last day of the year. My 2014 goals have red ticks next to them. Red, very distinct, heavy-written ticks. If you stare closely you will see in each stroke the satisfaction, relief and pride of accomplishing those goals…

2014 was the year that I made lists, learnt a lot and worked hard, while 2015 was the year I made lists, and enjoyed some accomplishments. This year was the year I made the following lists:

1. List for making my first daughter feel important as a big sister
2. List of things for our family to do together
3. List of things to organise for the Naming Day (Surprise Wedding)
4. List of books to read about parenting
5. List of places to visit for our honeymoon

I also had a list of “projects” to do while on maternity leave (see image above). Out of the 8 I only really completed or semi-completed 3. I was feeling a little disappointed in myself the other day because, you know, lists. They are supposed to be ticked off. But a friend who I haven’t seen for years pulled me up from the wallowing by saying this during our catch up lunch: “I can see that you’ve been winning – having a baby, getting married, doing well in your Masters…”

She reminded me that sometimes the items I write on my lists are bigger than the lists themselves. That I really should be grateful that I even ticked that first item in my Goals 2014 list! That in itself, and the fact that I gave birth to a healthy baby and she is a happy, thriving, cheeky 10-month old now should topple all lists put together.

Yes, I love lists, but this year I learnt that if I ever feel like I’m free-floating and that I’ve lost my anchor again, I should write lists. BUT also I should just look up from writing the lists and appreciate my children and my husband and the goals we have been achieving together as a family.

Ok, but of course I have to write my 2016 goals right? So here it is…

May 2016 be a year full of red ticks and happy, housed families.

 

 

All about my mother

I reckon there’s some kind of a Brothers-Grimm-fever happening right now with some movie and TV script writers. My daughter and I love watching movies and saw about 4 during this summer school holidays. And for all these movies I had to sit next to her while she gets entertained by characters who either have bad mothers, absent mothers, unexplained absent mothers, dead mothers and all-round evil women surrounding them.

The more I watched these movies, the more I dug my memory of all the other movies and books that my daughter has been exposed to. You know, figure out if the subliminal negative mother complex has been ingrained in her. The Little Mermaid a movie she’s watched, well, quite a few times now – no mother. Finding Nemo – dead mother. Faraway Tree books – absent or barely mentioned mother. The Famous Five books – same thing. I have had to really dig deep and come up with 2 shows/movies where mothers have a prominent place in the protagonist’s life.

Once Upon a Time is pretty much a TV series where Snow White can hold herself and fight evil while putting her baby to sleep. She’s also the main character and her mother-daughter relationship is played out well with the other lady protagonist. Then in 2004, The Incredibles was released and that would be the last “children’s” movie I can actually remember where the mother is present in the story from beginning to end, where she actually looks after her children and shows them how to be strong people.

So what is up with the imbalanced portrayal of mothers in children’s TV shows/movies/books these days? At least the Brothers Grimm had an excuse. Their father died and as a result they have idealised his role in their stories and made their mother the villain. She must have been a tough and strict German mother or maybe Jung was right – there is such a thing as a negative mother complex. Does that mean that the modern life we lead now are full of men and women with the negative mother complex and their written stories with the dead/absent/background/evil mother are propagated to the children of our future who will then have a distorted view of what a mother is? And then before we know it mothers are extinct and/or put in the same ranks as politicians – ridiculed, but feared and also seen as redundant?

Of course, my slight obsession about this is probably exacerbated by the fact that I am 8 months pregnant and have been watching too many birth documentaries over YouTube. In the midst of watching said motherless movies with my daughter I have been “calmly” watching the beauty of a mother giving birth to a baby – repeatedly. Whenever I watch these videos I, of course wonder how these people who write off mothers in their stories not see the crucial part these women play in their lives? And then I let my “martyr” ego take over and I fantasise about a story where a positive mother and daughter movie makes millions and becomes a cult classic. High school students all over the world have to evaluate it as part of their education instead of reading Brothers Grimm stories or any modern story morphed from Brothers Grimm.

It’s a great fantasy, but as someone who’s also enjoyed the fairytales from Brothers Grimm I also wondered what is causing me to be so affected by the motherless movies? And it all comes down to this: I don’t want my 7 year old daughter to stop loving me. When she’s a tweenie I don’t want her dismissing me like the characters in the movies she’s seen. When she’s 16 I don’t want her shouting at me and telling me I’m a bad mother. When she’s 18 I would like for us to still be close and confiding in me about her life.

And then I laughed. Haha. I’m such an idiot. How can I think that movies will let her do those things. She can watch all the motherless movies and read all the motherless books – she will only treat me the way I don’t want her to treat me if I’m not a good mother to her.

But as always I want to be extra sure about these things. So I actually interviewed my 7 year old daughter. I explained to her that I want to write something about how movies rarely have mothers in them. I started with Boxtrolls. I asked her what she thinks about the main boy not having a mother. And this is what she said:

I think maybe, having a mother might change the story…I think it’s because a child always has a strong relationship with the mother and the story is just showing how if you lose your mother you have to be stronger and stronger for the other parent. 

And here I was getting worried that she might be getting brainwashed by all these movies. I really am such an idiot.

Someday when she’s of the right age (eventhough I think she’ll be able to understand the concept and themes of this movie already) I would like for us to watch Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) by Pedro Almodovar. This movie really moved me when I first saw it. I wasn’t a mother at the time I saw it, but I empathised with the mother characters and their never-ending love for their children. I hope someday we can watch it and my daughter can see great movies with mothers, too.

The elves ran out of paint

A screen grab of the PNP personalised video

Do you believe in Santa? Because as a 37-year-old I can honestly say I don’t believe that there is an actual old, anglo-saxon bearded man who travels around the world in one night delivering presents to mostly Western children. No, I don’t believe it. But do I believe in the effect of Santa on children? Yes, I do. Only because I’ve seen it in my daughter.

I never thought that there will come a day when I will pay money for some Canadian media company to super-impose my daughter’s name, photos and information in their generic video. It is a digital version of Santa answering your letter and letting you know you’re on the good list. It is actually a great idea. I am just annoyed I didn’t come up with it. For $10 you have Santa saying: “Hello <daughter’s name>”. And you sit there next to your daughter child and watch as her face lit up when they get to the part of the video when Santa says they are in the good list.

The pride of being a great parent only lasts for a moment though, when daughter says: “I asked Santa for blue shoes with white laces, not pink!” My $10 gone down the drain because my capitalist, but gender-equality-aware daughter is very conscious about not asking for anything pink. She in her 7 years of living knows that liking pink encourages the very “bad” divide  between boys and girls. She also knows the word feminist.

I was too excited typing in my credit card details to the Canadians I forgot to read the finer details of my daughter’s letter to Santa. And since it’s so easy to multi-task online while I was paying for the “personalised Santa video” I was also on eBay buying the shoes she asked for at bargain price. I used the photo on the eBay seller’s site and copied that in the Santa video. Again, congratulating myself on a fine coordination of video and gift purchase within a few clicks of the mouse. The colour of shoes was never a variable in the equation.

Anyway, I should have stopped there. Accepted that I was getting too carried away with this whole charade (and secretly enjoying it). Decided that she will get those pink shoes and she will like it because we’ll instil in her the sense of gratitude that she is even getting a present from Santa. But I wasn’t going to stop there, was I?

Today, I bought $13 worth of gift wrapper because it had the closest looking prints from the Santa video. I wanted the video to be so authentic you see that I thought I’d wrap the shoes in wrappers that were in the video. The $10 video must be justified by continuing with the theme. Crazy? Yes. Please don’t tell my partner I spent that much on a gift wrapper though.

After that, I went further and asked a work mate to pretend to be Santa at least on paper, on a very Santa-like Christmas card ($6 for the card). I was worried that daughter will recognise my hand writing or my partner’s. So clever of me to think of this detail, but not the shoe colour! Santa’s message went something like this:

“Dear <daughter’s name>,

Congratulations for being on the good list. I am sorry that you didn’t get the blue shoes you asked for. The elves have ran out of paint. I hope you still enjoy the present though.

See you next year.

Love, Santa XO”

The elves ran out of paint. My daughter believes that Santa exists, but I wonder how much she’s into this whole fantasy mess to believe that elves exist too? And that they actually make the presents themselves? Only two more days to find this out.

After going through all this trouble, I started wondering if I ever believed in Santa? I don’t remember a time in my childhood when one morning I just realised that Santa does not exist. I’m sure most of the adults will not remember that exact time, right? I also cannot remember times when I did believe in Santa. I kept wracking my brain for memories of Santa letters written, or happy Santa present memories. Nothing eventuates. It doesn’t matter because other memories came tumbling in instead. Memories of my father singing to Christmas songs, of Christmas trees with beautifully wrapped presents and my mum’s distinctive hand-writing on each card, the smell of pineapple-glazed ham cooking, midnight masses, kris kringle with relatives and lots more. Not a single memory was about Santa, but mostly just of my family, food and of a warm feeling that everything is going to be fine.

I wonder what my daughter will remember of her childhood Christmases? Will she care that Santa didn’t get her blue shoes? Will she remember she believed in Santa? Or will she reminisce on these Christmases 30 years from now, smile and think of how silly her mum was? I hope she remembers how silly her mum was.

You are cordially invited as guests to my graduation

You have had to endure countless late nights editing my papers. Last minute requests to read 10,000-word essays. Feeding me, leaving a glass of water near me while I madly type my last minute assignment. Then put up with my grumpiness the next morning because I haven’t had any sleep.

You sat there quietly waiting until my promised play-at-the-park gets less and less likely. For years you have had to compete with Facebook for attention. You were happy just to be eating dinner next to me.

Yes, you who have given so much time already are now invited to sit for another 3 hours of your life – just to see my name on the screen for 30 seconds. 10 seconds for each year we’ve slogged together. You are cordially invited to my graduation so you can see that I waddle to the stage to receive a diploma which bears my name. Not yours. No, just mine. You will sit there patiently until you’ve seen 6,500 graduands and only then can we celebrate. Because you know, you haven’t done enough already.

But see, if you look closely at the fancy piece of paper you’ll see your name written a thousand times because the diploma deserves to bear your name. It will bear your name and we will all frame it together. It’s OUR graduation. It’s our Masters. And someday when I am studying another degree or doing my PhD I promise that’ll be ours too. Promise…

That’s all.

P.S. I’m writing this now because I’ve thought of it now. It’ll be lost if I wait until December to write it.