“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
- Ella Fitzgerald.

I’ve always been good at giving up.  First came ballet and horseriding, then meat, and church and God.  At times I’ve given up trying, given up my self respect.  I never thought I’d give up something I’d worked so hard for.  Infact, I was adamant that I wouldn’t give up teaching with The Other-Half asked me to.  But, things change.

Many teachers manage to be wonderful mothers and wives, while still being wonderful at their job.  But I’ve waited so long to be a mother, that I want to give it everything I have.  We’re lucky enough to be able to afford for me to be a stay at home mum, and I believe being at home with my kids will be better for them than putting them in day care.  And so, after lots of discussion with the Other-Half, I’ve decided to give up teaching.  You see, there’s a proposal looming, followed by a swift wedding and plans to start a family straight away.  I don’t want to waste time studying for teaching qualifications, only to give up the job almost as soon as I’ve started.

And so, I’ve decided to continue with the next best thing, for the time being.  I’ve had various roles in various schools, but have recently been working as a teaching assistant in a school nursery, and the job I’ve just taken for September, when I would have been starting my teaching course, is doing the same role, but in a very different school.

‘Quitting’ my course has raised a few eyebrows.  I worked hard to get a place on the course, I was over the moon when I got one, and talked constantly about being fully qualified, having my own classroom, setting my own lessons.  The truth is, I know I’d have made a wonderful teacher.  But I don’t believe I’d have been the best mother I could be.  I have a lot of respect for working mothers, and I understand that to some women – their career is an important part of their life.  I’m not saying that women who work are bad mothers – some have to work, some want to.   But for me personally, I see no benefit in paying to put a child into daycare when you’re willing and able to afford to stay at home and care for them yourself.

The children I’ll be working with in September are in the 2% of children in the UK who are classed as the most deprived.  In other words, 98% of children in the UK are better off socially, emotionally and economically than the children I’ll be working with.  I visited the school before I took the job, and fell in love with the pre-schoolers that I’d be working with.  These kids have nothing, and are a world apart from the children I’m working with at the moment in a typically white-middle-class nursery school.  The role of staff in a nursery school is to firstly educate and secondly care for.  But in schools like the one I’ll be working in, the children are mentally younger, and require more care than education.  That is, these kids need cuddles and reassurance, not counting rhymes and art equipment.  The benefit of being the teaching assistant rather than the teacher, is that you’re able to spend more time getting to know the children and less time worrying about teaching and assessing them.  My mental stability has been questioned by friends for taking a job that will undoubtedly take it’s toll on me emotionally.  But if you’d met these kids, you’d understand.

Do I regret withdrawing from my course to be a mother, before I am one?

No, because I’d give up the world to be a mum.  And before I am one, I’ll do everything I can to be fill the gaps in the lives of  the kids I’ve met who either have no mother, or would be better off without the one they have.

I am a quarter of a century old today.
(And coincidentally, this is also my blog’s 100th post)

I have done nothing I had planned to do before I hit this milestone.
And I am nowhere near.

I have done little I am proud of, and little that I regret.
My mistakes make me who I am, and my achievements are few and far between.

I am not a mother.
I am a substitute – a teacher.
Someone who borrows your children until 3.15pm, just to feel a little bit of their joy.

I am not a wife.
I am a dirty little secret.
Someone who is not quite good enough to risk a family for.

I am not myself.
I am treading water.
Someone who only knows the path home.

I am 25.  I have a whole lifetime ahead of me.
And it doesn’t feel like enough time.

I am s l o w l y losing a grip on reality.

I walked out of my job after I saw one too many kids being left with fifteen year old students, with no CRBs, no qualifications, and absolutely no common sense. I saw staff being reduced to tears by a manager who was nothing less than a bully, I saw higher management turn a blind eye.. And so, I told the MD that I was frankly too good for her sham of a company, and walked right out of the door – fairly confident that I’d find another job easily.

Unfortunately, I picked the wrong time of year to walk out of childcare. The new school year is starting, and all the jobs have been taken. So, I’m relying on agency work – the kind where they phone you at 6am and ask you to go teach a class of 25 preschoolers at 8am, the same day. It’s not working out so well..

And so, in the realm of unemployment, I’m slowly going mad. My house is absolutely spotless (I even dusted the lampshades yesterday, for fucks sake), I’m actually cooking (real, proper food, that wasn’t bought from a supermarket), and I’ve applied for more jobs than I have ever done in my life. At least, that’s how it started. Now, I’ve become a regular slob – sitting around doing very little at all. My daily routine consists of getting up, showered, dressed, caffeinated. Then applying for permanent jobs, explaining to interviewed on the phone that while I’m not a mum, I’m great at my job. Then slobbing around feeling sorry for my motherless/jobless self.

The problem seems to be, that any jobs that are available, are aimed at mothers’. Part time jobs, that fit around taking the kids to school and picking them up again. Unfortunately, I’m not a mother. Even more unfortunately, it seems to mean that no one really wants to look at me twice.

Because naturally, you’ve got to have dropped a kid or two before you could possibly understand how to control a whole class of them.

I’m not a mother. I haven’t really got any close relations with kids. I can, however, transform a box full of pompoms and a couple of plastic bags into a fun and educational activity. I can make up stories on the spot, and I’m fan-fucking-tastic at hopscotch. And yet, no one seems to want to know what I can do. Everyone wants to know the answer to the dreaded question,

“So, do you have any kids of your own?”

No. I don’t. There’s no chance of me having to miss work because my kids are sick, and there’s no chance of me being late because my brat covered me in orange juice at breakfast time.

Being an un-mum, and wanting to work with kids, seems, apparently, bizarre to the majority of childcare employers that I’ve come across.

And so, I’m stuck convincing employers that I can do my job perfectly well, without having raised kids of my own. I’ve seen plenty of royally crap parents, and quite frankly – I’ve had more of a positive impact on some of the children I’ve taught, even for a short time, than their parents will ever have.

It’s unfair.. In fact, it’s worse than that – it’s discrimination. But how do you fight something like that? Unless someone says you’re not going to get the job they’re offering, because you’re childless – then you haven’t got a leg to stand on. And naturally, no one’s going to come right out and say it. Instead, it’s insinuated, it’s implied, it’s obvious.  It’s ridiculous.

Sperm donors – apply here! :-)

…Sarah Palin, and her seventeen year old daughter who’s got a proverbial bun in the oven.

Let me just make it clear – I am not interested in politics, I couldn’t really give a toss who wins the election, nor could I care less about one scandal or another.

But I do think that so what if Bristol (poor girl, what an awful name..) got pregnant before she got married?

So freaking what?

It’s 2008. People get pregnant. Sometimes, people even do it before they’re married! Infact, some people never get married at all! Oh my gosh!

Get over it, America. You discovered that your politicians lie, cheat, and have skeletons in their closet. Shouldn’t you be giving some serious thought to which muppet you’d like to rule America, rather than concerning yourself with the way in which the Palin family conducts family planning (or lack thereof)?

I agree with Obama – leave people’s families out of it. It’s not the kids fault that their parents are running for president – and if parenting skills made for a wonderful president (or not), there’d be a hell of a lot of mothers better qualified than any politician I’ve seen run for power in any country.

This site contains a (strangely, horizontal..) list of polaroid pictures of real people, each with a caption that states what that person would like to do before they die.

Here are some of my favourites polaroids from the site..

What do you want to do before you die?

My answer is below. :-)

Some people never cease to amaze you..

I bumped into a girl I went to school with, in the pet shop this morning. I was keen to get the polite greetings over with, and just get on with buying cat litter. She, however, wanted to have a full-on recount of the past God-know-how-many years in which we hadn’t seen each other.

No, I’m not married.
Yes, she tied the knot two years ago.
No, I don’t have any children.
Yes, she has three.
No, I’m not an IT genius, I work with kids.
No, she doesn’t work, she’s currently sapping state benefits while she sits on her ass and does fuck-all else.

And isn’t it a terrible shame that I’m not married yet. And isn’t it awful for me that I haven’t had any children.. Of course, my children would be ‘half cast‘ and it would surely be really hard for me accept that my kids would be ‘coffee and cream babies’.

Excuse me?

It’s actually not a terrible shame, nor is it awful that I’m not married and don’t have kids. It’s not exactly what I’d say was my choice, but it’s hardly the end of the world. And the fact that if the other-half and I spawn some kids, they will be mixed race, really doesn’t concern me in the slightest, nor should it concern any other human being. Half Cast is a derogatory word, which yes – was used years ago to describe someone of mixed race, but is now incredibly un-PC, and is quite frankly just unac-fucking-ceptable.

I can categorically state that my children will benefit from knowing about two different cultures, two different worlds, and that will not in any way hinder them in being perfectly rounded individuals. In this day and age, how can any grown adult view a child of mixed race as any different to a child who’s parents are from the same race and/or religion?

She really pissed me off. And I made it perfectly clear that she was incredibly lucky that I hadn’t knocked her ignorant, stupid little head right off her shoulders. Coffee and cream babies.. For fuck’s sake.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can still be so ignorant, how they can still be so judgemental and narrow minded.

Sure, I worry that my children might be picked on at school, or that some people may look at them a different way because they don’t fit into some neat little category of race. But I’m 150% sure that not only will I be able to handle that in a positive way, but that I’ll be able to educate and reassure my children that anyone who treats them in a negative way does so simply because they are undereducated, ignorant, racist and small minded.

I first read the poem below when I was fifteen, and instantly fell in love with it. I chose it for my oral work and read the entire poem in dialect, much to the amusement of my idiot classmates..

To me, it perfectly explains how someone can use a word, whether innocently or not, and end up creating all sorts of insinuations about another person. It’s a piece of literary art that I’m sure I’ll read to my kids one day, so that they too can understand that every person is a whole person, no matter who they are, who their parents, or even the parents of their parents are.

John Agard is a legend. And it’s probably worth me pointing out, that the poem isn’t ’spelt wrong’ – it’s written in dialect. Just incase there are any ignorant readers out there that were about to let me know I hadn’t turned my spell check on. :-)

Half-Caste by John Agard.

Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste

Explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas/
explain yuself
wha u mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather/
well in dat case
england weather
nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass
ah rass/
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony/

Explain yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at u wid de keen
half of mih eye
and when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
and de whole of yu mind

an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story

It’s Father’s Day here in the UK, and I’ve spent most of the day with my Dad.

Father’s Day is always a difficult time of year for The Other Half and I. His Dad died when he was younger, and the Grandfather that pretty much brought me up, died just as I hit early teens. Although I’ve still got my Dad, I still feel that on Father’s day, there is someone missing. And so, each year, I make an extra card anyway, to say thank you for being a Dad when my own Dad couldn’t.

My Dad worked alot when my sister and I were growing up. Not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t really have a choice. We needed the money. Don’t get me wrong, we never struggled, and my sister and I were pretty spoilt to be honest. We always had nice things – nice house, nice cars, nice clothes.. But nice things cost money, and someone has to go out and earn that money. So, my mother worked part time, and my Dad worked as much as he could – taking any overtime that was offered.

We did see him, usually just on odd weekends, or the odd evening during the week – but he was either working, or sleeping most of the time. He worked hard, and he loved his job. I begrudged him spending time away from our family – missing Christmas dinner to go to work, missing birthday parties and school plays. But as I’ve got older, I’ve come to understood that in his own strange way, my Dad was showing us how much he loved us, by working so hard to provide for us. He’s never been one for showing his emotions, and maybe he felt that buying us things would make us feel loved.

And I did feel loved. But I missed my Dad. When he was home, he played with us and had fun, leaving my Mum to do all the actual parenting. When my Mum was at work, my sister and I went to my Mother’s parents. I quickly established my Granddad as my favourite person in the whole wide world. He was old, with wiry eyebrows and grey, thinning hair. He was wise, funny, and an avid church-goer. And to me, he was perfect. He let me climb his apple trees and eat the apples while I sat up in the branches. I was allowed to take off my pretty dresses in exchange for dungarees, and go rolling down hills with him, getting covered in grass stains (which my Mother would later scold him for). He took me to business meetings, where I learnt (from a very young age) that people only expected little girls to speak when they were spoken to, but that Granddad didn’t care when I spoke – as long as I had something I thought was important to say. Best of all, he let me sit on his shoulders so I could pick conkers out of the trees in the park. We would poke holes through them and tie shoelaces through the centres. Once I had been taught how to play conkers properly, there was no stopping me, and no boy in my entire school ever beat me at that game.

He died two days before my thirteenth birthday. His third heart attack was too much for him to beat, and my Grandma found him laying in the hall when she got up to get a glass of water. I heard my Mother leave the house just after midnight, and the next morning when I asked my Dad where she was – he answered, “She’s just gone to see Grandma”. And I knew then. Granddad had always had a bad heart – he wasn’t allowed to eat fried foods, he had a strict exercise regime – and he did stick to it.. Most of the time. He snuck a bacon butty every friday morning on his way to work, and on a Saturday afternoon he would take me to buy a milkshake while he drank coffee with full fat milk in it. It was hardly a crime, and I admired him for breaking the rules every now and again. I knew that he had died before anyone had told me. I can’t explain how, or why, but I knew.

I didn’t cry when my Dad’s Mother broke the news to my sister and I. Infact, I didn’t cry until I was tucked safely in bed on the night of my thirteenth birthday. I rubbed the tiny head of the solid wood Buddha that Granddad had wrapped up for my birthday. I wasn’t wishing for luck – like you’re supposed to when you rub a Buddha’s head, I was wishing for someone to bring my Granddad back.

There was no one to take me to church in the days between my Granddad’s death and the day of his funeral, and I didn’t want to go alone. I had said my prayers every night, and asked God to reconsider his decision, to at least let me say goodbye first. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral – I was “too young”, members of our family said. I pleaded with my Mum, and she said she agreed – I was too young, and no good would come of it. We were sent to a neighbours for the day, where I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out until my Dad came back for me.

No one came back. At least, not until after the funeral. I looked at my parents and my Grandma, all dressed in black, with puffy red eyes. I remember being stunned at how beautiful my Grandma was, even when she’d been crying – and I wondered how she would carry on living without the love of her life. She asked if I would like to go to church with her in the morning, and I told her no. When she asked why, I remember clear as day, shouting out that I would not say prayers to a God who would let a man like that die in pain. My Grandma slapped my face, and left the room. She apologised later, but I knew deep down that I deserved that slap – and that she and I would remember those words, and that slap, for the rest of our lives.

When my parents finally allowed me to visit Granddad’s grave, I felt so terrified I thought I might be sick. His gravestone, along with his name and his years of birth and death, described him as, “A loving Husband, Brother, Father and Grandfather.” I felt tears burning my cheeks and I reminded my Mum that we had never called him Grandfather, as it made him feel old. The flowers on his grave were all wrong – red roses, instead of yellow (his favourite), lillies instead of carnations.. Even at just thirteen, I knew that although his remains were underneath that stone – it would mean as little to him as it did to me. I only visited the grave when it was expected of me, and I said my own goodbyes in private, underneath his apple trees where I believed he would hear me the clearest. I haven’t been back for years. There is no reason to, in my eyes. There is no body under the stone anymore, there are no words I want to read, no flowers I want to rearrange. Maybe it’s more that, it’s too hard to visit a place that doesn’t suit him – that he doesn’t belong in. Some sombre graveyard, with few flowers and no trees.. So I don’t visit. Instead, on his birthday, at Christmas, Father’s Day and the wedding anniversary of him and my Grandma – I buy a yellow rose, and keep it until it’s petals are crisp. This year, I planted a Christmas rose, tulips, forgetmenots and snowdrops in my garden. And each time they bloom, I will remember that the lifetime and memories of a person can not be held in a grave or a headstone – it can only be held in the hearts of the people who loved them dearly.

I saw more of my Dad after my Granddad died. We never spoke about it, but I was, and am, sure that he knew I needed someone to ride my bike with, someone to take me fishing and show me how to repot plants. Unfortunately, just as my Dad made time to spend with me, I discovered boys, drinking and black hair dye. Admittedly, I did go off the rails a little. But I had stopped caring – if there was no God, then who exactly was going to punish me? I spent most of my teenage years blocking out any memories that hurt too much to remember. I either misbehaved, or I didn’t behave at all – I sat in my room and did nothing productive. No one knew what to say to me, and while even at that age – I knew I was just going through typical teenage times, I felt as though I would feel lonely for the rest of my life.

I spend more time now with my Dad than I ever have done. Because I not only recognise why he worked to hard and so late, but I remember that had he not done, I would have missed out on the precious years I spent growing up with a man who taught me more about myself than I realised. My Dad is a wonderful man, and a wonderful father. But although I would never admit it, Father’s Day brings back too many happy and painful memories of a man who was perhaps more of a Dad to me, growing up, than my own Dad was for one reason or another.

The poem below, by an unknown author, my Granddad helped me to write in a Father’s Day card for my Dad when I was six years old. I made a card for my Dad this year, with this poem inside. Not one to show his emotions, my Dad laughed and said thank you, but his eyes told me that he remembered, and I hoped he understood. No one can replace my Granddad, but no one can replace my Dad either. I had an idol growing up – someone I aspired, and still aspire, to be like. Growing older with my Dad has taught me many things, but most importantly it’s taught me that not everyone shows love in the same way. I’m proud of my Daddy, of the ways he has changed his outlook over the years and come to realise that money is worthless compared to time. My Dad and I both missed out on each others company when I was growing up, but he gave me a blessing in giving me that time with my Granddad. And now, I spend more time with my Dad than I ever have done – because I know how precious that time may come to be. I still have a tiny wooden Buddha and a yellow rose on my bedside table tonight, but I have a Dad to remind me how important it is to live for tomorrow, not for yesterday.

Happy Father’s Day, to both my Dads’. Thank you for the time we had, and have, together. You have taught me how to be who I am today, and I can only hope that I will continue to grow without losing the pieces of you that are in me.

You’ve got to be kidding, right?

An entire site dedicated to spying on Nannies, and ‘outing’ their ‘bad’ behaviour.

I Saw Your Nanny – Report Bad Nannies

If you feel you can’t completely trust the person who you place to care for your child, then maybe you should be doing it yourself. If you can afford a nanny, you can afford to take a couple of days off work and do some of the Goddamn out-of-playgroup-hours childcare yourself.

I’m not saying the world is full of wonderful Nannies who care wholeheartedly about the kids in their care. In reality, a good proportion are probably just doing it for the money (is it so hard to believe that they’re not working for you because they adore your spoilt little brats?). But spying, setting up cameras and recording devices? Is it me, or does that seem absolutely, incredibly insane?

Save yourself a few bucks, sack the Nanny, sack all the Big Brother shit you’ve installed to make sure she doesn’t feed little Genovieve anything that contains carbs after 4pm, and start being a frigging mother. If you didn’t want to care for your own kids, you should have avoided the inconvenience they’ve pressed upon you, and used contra-fucking-ception.

There’s a child in my class who very clearly has behavioural problems. He bites, kicks and pushes the other children, and sticks his tongue out at adults when they speak to him. His mother seems to think this is all perfectly normal behaviour, replying with “Oh, haha, boys will be boys!” whenever anyone mentions her son’s behaviour.

He spat at another child today, who came running to me in tears. I called the child who spat over to me, and he immediately screamed and started smacking me as hard as he could. I removed him from the group, and calmly explained that this was not acceptable behaviour, and that he should apologise for spitting at the other child, and for smacking me. Cue long explanation of why we do not spit, and why it is important to say we are sorry when we have done something wrong.. Yada yada yada.

The kid then turns to me, and at full volume screams

“I will spit if I want!”

I said, no, we do not spit, it is dirty and not how good children behave. And then it came.. Full pelt,

“I WILL SPIT IF I WANT, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!!”

Then, he LAUGHED, right in my face!

Firstly, what the fuck? Did I fall out of England straight into USA? Who says ASS?
Secondly, that kid’s mother needs to learn how to parent her little shit of a son. This isn’t a little boy being a boistrous little boy. This is a child with behavioural issues that will severe unless his retarded bitch of a mother takes some responsibility for showing him right from wrong.

The child is a nightmare. There’s absolutely no reasoning with him. But every now and again, you can see a perfectly happy and calm child in him (deep, deep inside.. Somewhere.. Maybe..).

He spent the remainder of the afternoon throwing a full scale tantrum (which was ignored) because he’d been told off for spitting at a child, for using ‘rude words’ and for shouting at a grown up.

And when I told his ‘mother’ (and I use that term loosely.. Just because she gave birth, it doesn’t make her a mother figure..), she smiled and said, “Oh, he’ll have got that from The Simpsons.”

Then, she handed him some sweeties and took him home, as though his behaviour was perfectly acceptable – leaving me open mouthed..

I’d love to kick her ass, irresponsible bitch.

It amuses me really, that the government have forbidden any body of education (schools, nurseries, etc) to (supposedly) ‘label’ children. We can’t use words like, “naughty” or phrases like, “I am cross with you” or “That is bad behaviour”. Instead, we have to say “I am very sad with you”, and “That behaviour is not good”.

There’s too much concern over how to ‘coax’ children into good behaviour through positive sentences and removing priviledges rather than giving punishments. Parents can’t even lightly smack their children, they are frowned upon for raising their voices and using non-positive verbal messages (for example, “You are being naughty” should apparently be phrased as “Please can you show me good behaviour”). And what do we end up with? A bunch of kids who are not afraid to misbehave, who do not even have an incentive to behave well. And a bunch of parents who are afraid to parent their children properly.

When I was preschool age, I wouldn’t have dared to misbehave like that. Why? Because I’d have been given a good old fashioned smacking, told I was a very naughty girl, and then been sent straight to bed.

In my opinion, what this child needs (and what most children need), is some clear discipline. Going to bed without pudding, having his toys taken away, and a very cross voice to tell him that he is being very naughty indeed. He needs an incentive to be good, and something to deter him from behaving badly. Oh, and a mother who isn’t a total dipshit would be preferable too.

Muhammad Ali said that children make you want to start life over. That quote sums up exactly how I feel about my new job.. It was a chance to start over, and I certainly feel as though I have and I do, every single day.

I get up at 6am every morning to be greeted with cuddles and kisses, instead of deadlines and meeting schedules. For the first time in over eight years, I eat breakfast, I smoke less, and I haven’t had a drink in over a month.

I’ve made more than a few sacrifices to get here. But there is nothing I miss. Nothing I regret about making this decision.

- There are twenty two reasons why, that greet me every morning with smiling faces, and the question,

What are we going to do today?

I think the most beautiful thing about children is the innocence that allows them to greet each new day with excitement and hope. The answer to their question?

We can do, make, be, absolutely anything we want to.

Every child in that classroom believes in that statement, and in me.
And so do I.