Where is the line?

Eight years ago my husband and I went on our first holiday together. We played it fairly safe and went to Cyprus. It was hot, straightforward and had the same plug sockets and traffic lights as the UK. Marvellous. We had a great time, visiting the beach or the hotel pool more or less on alternate days and embarrassing ourselves wildly in the evenings with some pretty average karaoke.

Almost every day we were at the hotel pool we would see a gorgeous little girl who we established was called Libby. I had liked this name anyway and because she was so delightful I think I pretty much made up my mind that Libby was at the top of my list of girl's names from that point. I asked where she lived and she said 'In a house' which was sensible enough I suppose. Further interrogation revealed the house being somewhere in 'Staffs' meaning she had a sweet little accent – 'Get your usbund in the poo-al' she would say and eventually we would relent. She wanted to play games involving throwing a ball – fine. She wanted to chat – fine. But when she started requesting to be picked up – not fine.

I am a pretty obedient person. I often do what I am told and I have a sharp internal barometer when it comes to things that just aren't done. I pride myself that I can gauge situations and enjoy a pretty high emotional intelligence so every mental and emotional alarm bell went off when this darling, innocent, friendly, charming girl wanted to simply be picked up high enough to catch the ball in 'piggy-in-the-middle'. She was in a swimming costume and so were we. Her parents as far as we assumed were sitting nearby on sun-loungers. What would they think if we put our hands on her? Would my husband in particular be risking a kicking if he obliged?

I dropped my daughter off at nursery as usual this morning and, as usual, I gave her a kiss goodbye. She wanted another one, so I kissed her again. Then one of her friends appeared and demanded a kiss too. I suddenly remembered Cyprus and the Libby in the pool. Should I kiss her or not? If so, just the cheek or are lips appropriate? Why do I have so many questions?? I then mentally asked myself how I would feel if one of the other mum's kissed my Libby. If I'm honest there would probably some sort of pang of discomfort. My 'inner Lioness' wanting to protect her cub. But from what? Affection? Should we be tactile and physically affectionate with other people's children or do we risk bringing up generations of emotionally stunted, paranoid individuals who struggle to form relationships if we don't?

I'm not sure I know where the line is but I always smile when, on having to sign those wretched accident forms every time my daughter has a bump at nursery, I read that her 'treatment' involved a cold compress and cuddles!

 

Jec

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The Woman You Never Knew

Been thinking about writing a book for while. Highly cathartic and self-indulgent but interested in what people think so far. Worth carrying on??


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The Woman You Never Knew
By Jessica Ellis

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For my mother and my daughter who never got to meet.


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If there could be a good point in life to lose your mum then I think it happened to me. At twenty-one years old I had just graduated from university and not yet started my first full-time job. I was at a junction in my life. Mum dying at this point meant I had had her around all the time I was growing up but it also meant I would spend my whole adult life without her.

This is perhaps what we would have talked about over the last fourteen years if she had been here. I only wish I could have heard her side of the conversation.
 

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Chapter 1

So you’ve gone. Dad said he didn’t quite make it in time to see you. Hope you don’t mind that Nick and I chose not to go with him it’s just we didn’t want to remember you like that. Are you cross? Please don’t be cross.

You’re ok now though aren’t you? No more pain.

I think you knew I was there last night. Everyone had gone home and I gave you a kiss on your cheek. Your head moved just the tiniest bit and I think you were trying to let me know that you knew I was there. I think you might even have been saying goodbye. Were you? Difficult to tell.

When I eventually dragged myself away I asked the nurse if they would call us if there was any change in the night. She asked me why I wanted to know and if it meant that I thought it would happen that night. I suppose I did. Maybe we both did, eh?

Dad called to tell us you’d died. Hearing that phone ring was the weirdest thing. How can you be expecting something and yet still be so shocked when it happens?

I think he said just that; you’d ‘gone’. I thought I’d remember his exact words but I don’t. I think he’s angry that we don’t want to come up and see you but we just don’t feel that we need to. It doesn’t mean we don’t care, you know that, don’t you? I can’t imagine you’d want us to see you anyway. You couldn’t bear us seeing you at all lately from what we could work out but it hasn’t always been easy understanding you. The other day you seemed to want to get out of bed but didn’t really know what you wanted to do once you’d got up. We tried to help but didn’t know how. God, I hope we didn’t upset you. How you must have hated us seeing you like that. Sorry.

I called work and they were very sweet. Don’t think they really knew what to say. They’ve been so good letting me stay on since I graduated. I know it’s only a temping thing but at least it’s kept me going through University. You remember me graduating don’t you? It was so hot and you did so well just making it through the day. Thanks for coming even though it must have been really hard for you. I didn’t realise at the time it was the last major milestone in my life that you’d see. Strange too that the last photo I have of you is from that day.

I want to tell G too but t's not the sort of thing to do over the phone. He’s got an exam re-sit this morning anyway and I don’t want to put him off. I’ll tell him later. No point upsetting him. He’s not that good with stuff like this anyway. I’ll tell him later. I’m sure his mum will help. I’m not sure what you really thought of her but she’s been great Mum, really she has. I know Dad’s not keen. He still blames her for trying to make me jack in Sussex for Kingston but she was only trying to help, honestly. She was never, ever going to replace you.

I went round to his house around lunch time. They opened the door together and I think I just said you’d died and then the tears really came. Big, fat, sobbing tears. No-one had to say anything. I got some hugs and something to drink. Poor Nick. He hasn’t got this to fall back on.

Competent incompetence

Following ten years service I will be leaving my current employer in February next year. It’s been a while coming so I’m actually glad to be going now but this means I have been looking for another job and with this comes the inevitability of the competency based interview.

I remember the interview that got me my original job at said current employer. It was the oddest and yet most enjoyable interview I have ever had, before or since. It probably showed the square-route of bugger all about my technical abilities but likely gave a fair insight into me as a person. There were such questions as ‘If you had £1500 to decorate a room in your house, which would you choose and why?” I chose my kitchen and waxed lyrical about how I would put everything where is was accessible and make sure I was never working in my own light. I remember agonising for days about what I had given away about myself. The kitchen was at least a productive and potentially creative room in the house, I supposed. Would they therefore assume I was both those things? If I’d have chosen my bedroom would that have implied I was lazy and self-indulgent? When I eventually got the job I asked my boss what all the psychometrics were about and he said that they simply wanted to see if a) I had an opinion and b) was able to express it convincingly. No problem there then.

What was great about that interview was just how hard it would have been to prepare for and ultimately blag. It wouldn’t have been possible to do what most people do in interviews and pretend that everything that has been achieved by the more talented people around them was actually their own work. These days interviewers spend about five minutes talking through your CV and 55 asking you to ‘describe a time when... (enter improbable situation here)’. Call me a spoil sport but I find it hard to recall times when ideas ‘haven’t gained approval’ and therefore struggle to waffle about ‘what I did to overcome the problem’ blah, blag, blah! What I do say is often a montage of right answers rather than any genuine insight and therefore only likely to inform of my ability to say the right thing – perhaps something that large corporations are actually looking for, who knows.

There is a lot of talk about what women bring to the work place. Some speak of compassion, people and listening skills. Likewise, that older people bring more experience and perspective to the table. You will not hear me argue that diversity is bad, quite the opposite. But it occurred to me during some interview preparation recently that parenthood itself develops many of the so called competencies required in the work place. At our place these are grouped together under elaborate titles such as ‘Achieving Excellence’ and ‘Collaborating for Success’. I genuinely do not believe that my ability to ‘Persuade and Influence’ has grown more at any other time than when my daughter learnt to walk and speak. Being able to go where she wanted and say what she wanted (or rather not go if she didn’t want to) presented a whole new set of challenges to me as a parent. It became crucial to identify the ‘win-win’ situation for anything to happen.

Me: “Hurry up and get dressed, we need to get to nursery”

Her: “I’m watching Peppa Pig”

Me: “If we get to nursery quickly we can show everyone your new doll.”

Her: “Ok, mummy. But he’s not my doll he’s my brother.”

Similarly, when we discovered how competitive my daughter is (well, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree) this was put to great use by having ‘who can get dressed the fastest’ competitions in the morning. This was actually my husband’s idea proving that this isn’t a mum thing, it’s a parent thing. Problem solved.

The sad fact is that despite leaps forward in legislation, women who have children or are likely to have children are discriminated against in the job market. I actively avoid talking about my family situation in interviews as I fear mentioning my one daughter will prompt the mental calculation in my interviewer’s head – 1 female in her mid-thirties plus 1, three-year-old child equals pregnancy waiting to happen. I do get it of course, it is a nightmare to recruit good people, not to mention expensive, and I have no doubt that smaller companies must be crippled when even one member of staff goes off for a year. But good, experienced, clever, talented people should be having children so there’s half a chance of some good, experienced, clever, talented people in the world in 20 odd year’s time.

Raising children is hard, rewarding work. Working for money is the same. Done well they can both inform and improve each other. In our two-parent family my daughter already knows that dividing and conquering can be extremely effective in getting her own way. Parenting golden rule number one almost has to be to present a united front at all times and if that’s not ‘Collaborating for Success’ I don’t know what is!

Jec
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