Grown-upness sucks. Like a Dyson.

by

You know when you were a kid and your parents said, “stop whingeing, these are the best days of your life”?  Well, they knew what they were talking about and we all should’ve listened up, and immediately played hard and funned the sh*t out of life.

They imparted this pearl (constantly) because they had – unbeknownst to us – reached the peak of adultness, and while teetering on that dizzying tip, realised that the view from up there was actually a rather dull sea of gin, bills, responsibilities, keeping things alive (animals, the wine stocks, plants, children, themselves) and…….. more gin.  It wasn’t in fact really, all that.  Not at all.

ME this morning. Total. Fraud. Anne Pank frauding it. LARGE.

It struck me this morning, as I stood in front of the mirror at stupid o’clock, just before I left for work that I looked like a very reluctant teenager.  All ill-fitting suit, book laden satchel (vintage), and bimbling around like Bambi on ice in my heels. I looked like a little girl playing at being a grown-up, and for a split second, I felt like a complete fraud.

I’m not going to lie to you, I’m a little bit bored of being a grown up at the moment:  I’m currently looking to move again, after this neighbourhood successfully put the fear of jebeebus up me very recently, a tiring and tedious process.  I need to grow my little business which has stalled for a year or so, I have bills to pay, I have work to do, and a forty-something sense of responsibility to go to work to make the money to pay the bills.  And I have to admit, I have an even bigger urge to run in completely the opposite direction from all of that (that opposite direction being a romantic notion of Paris at this particular moment).

It’s inevitable that we all get to this point I know, and we all sadly have to just suck it up.  But sucking it up sucks big time, HARD, like a cyclone vacuum.

No amount of praying to the gods of lottery is going to help here.  I’ve just got to get on with it. But I’m tired.  I’m periodically up and at ’em, firing on all cylinders, and then I’m so tired I don’t want to get out of bed.  I’m totally incapable of maintaining any life except my own – just about – (I’m like the Aileen Wuornos of the plant world), I can’t hold down anything vaguely resembling a normal relationship, and leaving the house without thinking that I’ve forgotten my keys/knickers/phone/to turn off the oven, is virtually impossible.  It amazes me from day to day that I have a roof over my head and food in the cupboards.  It’s safe to say, I’ve been successfully pretending to adult since I left home at nineteen, but to my mind others are adulting much better than I am.  Everyone is much adultier than I’ll ever be.

I think my fairy godmother has had it easy the last few years, so I think it’d be a good time for her to make an appearance and wave that magic wand.  No?  With Halloween fast approaching, it seems a pretty appropriate time to make the request…..

And while I’m waiting for that to happen, you’ll find me in my lounge fort, dressed up like a princess, having tea with my imaginary friend.

The Layers Of Inequality

by

Andie's avatarNo Empty Words

I’ve been staring at an empty page for the last 5 minutes because I have no idea where to start. I am known for writing long, rambling blog posts, but this one seems an impossible task. There is so much to say, that I can’t possibly say it all without boring the reader to tears or my fingers dropping off. To call this post the tip of the iceberg would be an understatement of titanic proportions.

Inequality exists in all walks of life, I know that. I can only talk about my experiences. My ethnicity is Indian and I live in a predominantly white country, but luckily, and I realise how lucky I am to live in London specifically, I’ve rarely experienced direct racism. It’s not something I think about most days or have to consider in my day to day life. I know this isn’t the case for all…

View original post 1,858 more words

Feeling strange

by

I am in the grips of the first stages of the menopause. I have felt it very prominently over the last three months. Most notably because it’s created a huge creative block (actually not just creative, but everyday life administration too). My mind is so constantly consumed by anxiety; I can’t think of anything else except getting to my home safely, as quickly as possible after work and locking myself inside to worry endlessly and lose sleep over the unsavoury sorts on my doorstep, on the street below. And whether or not I’ve upset anybody, if I’m bad at my job and if I should be more responsible and grown up.

Despite Paris being wonderful, my initial feeling before departing was, “I just want to stay home and lock myself in”. I’m glad I made the effort to engage and caught up with some lovely friends, who momentarily helped distract me.

image

Yes, yes it does

At first it was a funny joke, the street-beer sellers until the wee small hours, the gitano musicians fighting after a couple of jars at the end of the day, the muffled voices and dull thuds and pained yelps of strangers in the shadows at 6am. Yeah, so dark, so Gothic, so bohemian; so not funny anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I arrived home after the wedding party, and decided to argue with the beer sellers to move on somewhere else. Not a smart move, I know, and very uncharacteristic of me. I had reached exasperation point.

There was a strange young man, loitering silently on the corner, who I’ve seen loitering silently a lot around the small group of Asian owned shops on my corner, quietly observing at all hours of the night and day.

Two weeks later, he approached me in the laundrette, and jokingly asked me if I was calmer now. I shrugged it off as a bit of silliness after a couple of wines too many and hoped that would suffice.

He makes me nervous. Since I’ve noticed him and before beer-gate, he’s made me nervous. And with my heightened anxiety at the moment, he terrifies me. There is a very dark, menacing vibe about him, that sent my witchy senses spinning. And engaging with me has made this worse.

After the brief exchange, he rang my doorbell persistently until I hung over the balcony to ask what he wanted. He apologised like it was an error, but it most definitely wasn’t. And he followed me and stared as I popped to the shop and internet cafe to print, later.

I want to move, and have decided most definitely to do this at the end of my contract in January.

I just hope I can both shake this crippling anxiety, and his attention until then. I know the former is making the latter seem probably one hundred times worse, but better to engage my logical, intelligent brain for a change, and do the right thing.

And the sooner this rabid, hormonal period of my life has passed, the better.

Reasons why I don’t have kids #43

by
image

Piglet had become very nervous indeed

Because there is inevitably going to come a day when you are going to have to explain to your children, who have returned from school with a thousand questions about #piggate #hameron; why the *Prime Minister of the country you live in/or herald from, may or may not have inserted his penis into the mouth of a dead pig.

And they are going to say, “but whyyyyyy?” accompanied by puzzled faces, a thousand times until you dissolve into a sobbing heap, hold your head in your hands and reply, “I DON’T KNOW, ALRIGHT!!! It’s something even the magic of mummy, can’t explain.” While all the while, fighting the urge to confuse their young heads with myriad conspiracy theories about news burying.

*This is right up there in the top five ‘Things you never thought you’d hear yourself say’.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids #43’

(It is worth noting that ALL of my students had seen the story by 8am, and found it both hilarious, and David Cameron laughable.) HOW can he ever be taken seriously again.

He is a national embarrassment.

Women without children must stop apologising

by

You may or may not have seen in various press today, reports about comments that Kim Cattrall made on Women’s Hour.  She has recently spoken out about her feelings towards the term, ‘childless’, saying she feels that it suggests that women who don’t have children are somehow missing something.  I am inclined to agree with her on this point.

-less
Word origin
1.  an adjective suffix meaning ‘without’ (childless; peerless), and in adjectives derived from verbs, indicating failure or inability to perform or be performed (resistless; tireless)

It’s true, -less as a suffix is indeed used to indicate a lack of something, say for example, sleepless; lacking sleep and legless; lacking legs (i.e. so drunk out of your mind you can’t walk).  But you wouldn’t ever feel it necessary to introduce me by saying, “This is my friend Anne, she’s Ferrariless, savingsless, abilityToContourInMannerOfKimKardashianless, threecCaratDiamondless, pensionless, dogless,Uggless and ownHomeless.”

Yet I am without all of those things – and truly, much, much more, SO much more; but only really sad about the dog.  So why childless?  Anne will suffice, enough with the labels, any labels.  Humans need to start fighting their natural urge to pigeonhole.  If the square peg doesn’t fit in to any of our other-shaped holes, we can’t handle it.  Give it a shiny sticker, clearly stating what it is and we’re happy.  Gay, straight, pansexual, married, single, divorced; what does it matter?

I mean look at her...... she's great. With or without kids.

I mean look at her…… she’s great. With or without kids.

Kim Cattrall spoke out about people who stigmatise women without children, while guest editing a radio show, which is very much to be applauded.  But, speaking on Radio4’s Women’s Hour, the actress also said she considers herself ‘to be a mother despite not having her own children – while discussing the offence she feels at being described as “childless” or “child-free”’.  Why?  Why did Kim Cattrall, and thinking back not so long ago, Jennifer Aniston too, feel that it was necessary to explain themselves? Proffering examples of when they ‘mothered’ others. Because, if as a woman without children we don’t quickly follow up the declaration, (or confession under pressure), with protestations of other examples of motherliness, we must be inhuman, cold and heartless (lacking a heart). I know personally, that I feel very ‘squirmy’ in those conversations, almost guilty that I don’t have children.

Although I am inclined to agree with her views on the word ‘childless’, I am less inclined to justify my existence (as she seems to have done) as a woman, by quoting other ‘mothery type’ traits I have displayed in other aspects of my life; as if merely being a woman (an aunty/a sister/a friend), alive on the planet is not enough.  Because if I were to do that, I could say, choose to mention the following, “Well, I’ve mopped up the vomit of others, picked up poo and done five loads of washing one after the other” (all true), but does that make me maternal?  It seems that we MUST at all times reference children in some way, shape or form, when talking about our lives, otherwise all else is rendered irrelevant.  But, but, you’ve got baby-making equipment…..  Yes, so have the menfolk (Ok granted, not the incubator), but you’d never hear anyone say, “this is my mate Dave, even though he’s packed full of healthy sperm, he’s childless! Can you even believe it?”, received by audible gasps and the clunk of jaws dropping all over the place.  Probably more to do with the sperm comment than anything else to be honest, but you get my point.

Now, I don’t dislike children, in fact I find them quite delightful, (see, I’m doing it right now), and I love my nieces and nephews to pieces, I’ve said it on more than one occasion, that I think they are some of the coolest human beings I know; but I love them like their aunty.  I wouldn’t want to undermine their own mothers’ parenting skills by saying otherwise.  However, Kim does go on to justify her existence as a woman without children, by saying “I have young actors and actresses that I mentor, I have nieces and nephews that I am very close to so I think the thing that I find questionable about being childless or childfree is – are you really?”  Yes, yes we are.  And…….. drumroll please, LADIES, IT’S COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OKAY.  

Why can’t she just say, “I don’t have children”?  Honestly, it’s nobody’s business why Kim or Jennifer or me or any of my friends without kids, don’t have kids.  We shouldn’t have to provide an explanation as to why not.  It’s deeply personal.

“Why didn’t you go to university?”, “Oh you did? But why didn’t you go to Oxford?”, “Why do you live in Colwyn Bay/Manchester/Aylsbury?”, Why don’t you drive a Smartcar instead of a Beetle?”.  All questions of a similar ilk, and all of those things are personal choices with reasons that don’t concern you.  But you’re more likely to ask me about the lack of children, than the car choice. And you have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes, in the life of that woman without children.

The Sex and the City star went on to say that while she may not be a “biological” parent, “I am a parent”.  I genuinely hope that she actually feels like that, in which case, all power to your elbow Kim.  But I have a feeling that there’s an innate instinct most of us have to jump to our own defense, in the face of a possible “BURN THE WITCH!”, situation.

I love Kim Cattrall.  She rocks my world.  In that way you feel when you’ve discovered a high-profile, ‘one-of-your-own’, I’d like to take her out for cocktails in Barcelona and chat about life, she seems cool.  I might even invite Jennifer along.

I would like to think (hope) that I’m kind and caring, thoughtful, and full of wisdom – OK, maybe not that last one – but I don’t feel the need to package them up as maternal feelings.  Because this also suggests that mums are the only people who are capable of these positive character traits, and that in itself does an enormous disservice to a huge percentage of the world’s population.  Despite everything we see in the news, I’d like to believe that love and kindness exist in most humans.

(Except David Cameron, I KNOW it doesn’t exist in him).

So, from now on, I’m Anne.  And, if you absolutely must know about my motherlyness or not; I don’t have kids, and I’m happy. That’s it, end of conversation.

Now, be so kind as to pass me another glass of fizz and let’s talk about something else.

Grey Hair DRaamaaAA!! OR…….. it’s not such a big deal

by

After reading Alyson Walsh’s piece in the Guardian today, I took a long, hard look at myself in the mirror and decided I disagree with pretty much ALL of it.

Firstly, that ain’t no grand embracing of nothing Ms Walsh; the change is barely visible, so don’t be patting yourself on your oh-so-brave back, just yet.  If that delightfully subtle difference (and it is a lovely colour), required you to take a deep breath and steel yourself, then maybe you should question your own views of female ageing, rather than that of society’s.  I for sure, don’t subscribe to the “you will be viewed differently” idea, one single bit.

I decided to embrace my grey last Autumn. I’d been on the turn since the day I got married, in 1997. Coincidence?  I think not. Genuinely, I don’t think a single person has demonstrated a different attitude towards me as a result of the colour change. Why oh why, are we still mesmerised by the notion that changing your hair from brunette/blonde/red and every shade in between to grey, will result in you somehow appearing 20 years older overnight?  I lost count of the number of people who said it to me when I mentioned I was going the whole hog grey.  It’s only a psychological connection with your granny, nothing more. Unless the dye you were using contained formaldehyde, and through your hair cuticles was seeping into your blood stream and pickling you from the inside out; your face (maybe surprisingly), remains the same.  If you are possessing of grey wiry hair now, then before you made the change, you had dyed wiry hair.  Allowing your grey to show also doesn’t change the texture instantaneously.

OK yes, accepting that you are getting older is a complete steaming heap of sh*t, I don’t deny that for one minute, but that’s got nothing to do with my hair colour. It’s got everything to do with the fact that hangovers last for three months, two days and thirty-two minutes and my body doesn’t work as well as it did when I was in my twenties – read; less bendy. And it’s true, that is a little bitch (but don’t let’s forget my hair was greying then).…. But more than that, it’s the realisation that there are fewer years ahead than there were before, to enjoy life.  I’VE STILL GOT SO MUCH TO DO AND SO MUCH TO SEE.  *breathes rapidly into paper bag.

I’m increasingly intrigued to know why the sentence, “growing old gracefully”, seems to come with the notion of building a ceremonial pyre in whatever available space you have, constructed of every item of make-up/beauty product/nailcare/bubblyfragrancedpurepleasure you have ever owned, setting it ablaze and dancing around it naked, as if sending your old, narcissistic self off to Valhalla (or Hades, of course).  Why “choose wrinkles over Botox and fillers, style over fashion…”? Why, Alyson, why?

Embracing grey doesn’t mean throwing your arms in the air and proclaiming, ‘fuck YOU Zara, I’m off to The Edinburgh Woollen Mill‘, and giving the hell up on bloody everything.  Unless of course you find popping a bit of eyeliner on, or running a brush through your hair a massive effort of inconvenience, then; I apologise and please, go for your life.  I’ll be in Sephora, followed by a little spree in the high street.

My hero - Carmen Dell' Orefice Carmen Dell’ Orefice

Wrinkles over Botox and fillers.  Not necessarily.  If you want to look the best version of yourself at whatever age, why not? Look at the glorious Carmen Dell‘Orefice (born in 1931), who once said, “If your ceiling was falling down, wouldn’t you fix it? I apply the same principle to myself.”  Damn that woman could teach us all a thing or two about embracing the ageing process – in whatever way you want to. And whatever is ‘style over fashion’?  Are you saying fashion is not stylish?  I think Mr Dolce/Gabbana or Ms Westwood or Iris Apfel might have something to say about that.

And to the claim that “grey hair will alter my entire palette and I may need to review my makeup and predominantly black and navy wardrobe”, I say a hearty B*LL*CKS! Not least of all because I can’t afford to completely refurbish my entire wardrobe because I ditched the dye, everything I own still looks remarkably……… well, OK.  

But seriously, what doesn’t grey go with?

No-one has recoiled in horror or fallen about laughing, so I’m going to guess no-one really gives a shit.  And if they did, I wouldn’t care that they cared.  Now that really is one of the great beauties of getting older. And again, nothing else has changed – skin tone, eye colour, weight, height. Just. Your. Hair. Colour. Keep taking care of your hair as you always have, and styling it and having regular cuts and conditioning treatments and nothing earth-shattering needs to transpire.

The author of the piece in the Guardian is a mere seven years older than me, but her piece is like listening to my mum. All power to your elbow Alyson, you’ve a book on the subject, Style Forever: the grown-up guide to looking fabulous, and a hugely successful blog but I feel very strongly that what you’re saying is more suited to someone of seventy-one not fifty-one and for that reason, I’m out.

Reasons why I don’t have kids #42

by

Bugaboo, Bugaboo, Bugaboo, what are we going to do with you!?

A photograph from a Vogue Netherlands shoot was posted to the Facebook page of the baby buggy brand, showing a woman running in her knickers.  Pushing her toddler in said buggy.  Through the park.  Like you do. The woman is in incredible shape.

image

But what’s not incredible, is the enormous pressure these images of celebrities and models put on mums to not just keep this new bundle of poo and tears (I mean joy) alive, but to be worried about what they, the mums, look like while doing it.

I had an anxiety dream last night that the three plants I have on my balcony died in the storms at 3am and I know that shit’s going to fuck me up for weeks.  Can you imagine how I’d be with a child?  Ain’t nobody got time for worrying about their waistline at this critical time.  When I’m normal human tired, I reach for the snacks to keep my eyes open. When you’re superhuman, new mum tired, I imagine you use your spare hand to continuously shovel elephant sized burgers in your face.

And it seems that it’s no longer enough just to look, at the very least, vaguely human during the exhausting time after the stork drops off your gurgling gift of life.  You have to have regained your pre-pregnancy weight, and maybe even surpassed it, while all the while looking cool as a cucumber, swishing your glossy mane, tossing your head back and modestly proclaiming, “the weight just fell off. Breastfeeding is the best!”  B*llocks!  Every single mum I know in the real world were absolutely knackered.  For about………. well, for forever.  But especially in the first six months.

What are you supposed to do?  Get back to the gym the next day balance out the weight of the baby dangling from your right boob, with a dumbbell of equal weight in your left hand, and start squatting?  It’s all about, pinging, springing and snapping back into shape.  Well, I say, BACK OFF – give new mums a break.

This woman is a twenty-three year old model, who loves the gym, whose job it is to love the gym, who was pissed off she had to wait six weeks to return to the gym, had her baby at twenty-one and is married to an equally sickeningly gorgeous and healthy exhibit of the human species.  Their Instagram accounts are enough to make you want to rip your disgustingly average eyeballs out of your desperately normal face.  They should put some kind of advisory notice on them.  Enter at own risk (of throwing yourself into the depths of pre-baby/no-baby body depression).  So for sure, mums beware.

I’m in averagely good shape, without incubating and then pushing something the size of a watermelon out of my vagina and this photo makes me feel bad about my body.  Don’t pile that extra pressure on real-life mums.  They’ve got enough on theirs and their babies’ plates; and probably up the walls, all over the furniture, down themselves and in their hair, to worry about core strength.

I don’t enjoy the pressure of having to make a decision about what to have for my tea.  So for sure I don’t want to feel pressured to lose the 376 kilos I gained during pregnancy, while I sleep off the effects of the epidural and gas and air to wake with abs of steel.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #42

A glimmer of hope for the future

by

Well, maybe I should have kids, after all!

*PSYCH!

After some months of rude, crude and downright dirty online dating experiences, (did I mention the **Italian journalist who wanted me to call him ‘slave’, lick my stilettos and sent a late-night, drunken message about pee? Nope? Another time maybe); I have seen a tiny chink of light in an otherwise dismally dark relationship future for da kidz.

Over the last few weeks, I have met a few lovely young men, who have all backed up the utter gorgeousness of the wonderful Toulouse boy and caused my heart to swell. Cautiously.

Morten, of Copenhagen, not Aha fame, and his band of merry Danish men – mostly outrageously hungover/still drunk/sleeping/almost dead – showed me how a group of young men in their early to mid-twenties can go on an almighty yahoolie, and I mean ALMIGHTY; without causing offence to anyone. And still have a delightfully charming chat with a woman in her forties, having a drink and minding her own business. For an hour or so, with their varying degrees of lucidity, we chatted (mostly Morten and I) about life, their yearly get together, tattoos, life in Barcelona and why his six foot ten mate was slumped into his cocktail, before they swayed off to their next destination. They smiled, chatted, weren’t rude or loud and were perfectly charming.

I fairly skipped home. Lovely.

And then I found God. At the beach. (Well, they say she is omnipresent).

When I say God, I actually mean a delicious hottie from Sicily, called Pietro. With jet black hair, golden eyes and a beautiful smile. OK granted, he works at the chiringuito so it’s his job to be nice, but that (trust me), does not always follow. Again, just simply a pleasant time spent chit-chatting, with no crudities (but some crudites and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc) or smarm, no agenda and all kinds of human niceness, that sadly we are increasingly surprised by.

image

These boys, all in their twenties are delightful human beings. They probably adore their mums, spend time with their nanas and read poetry to their girlfriends. Veritable Prince Charmings. Swoon.

Which leads me to have some hope for the future of the kids of my friends, growing up all too fast. Maybe the abject piggery I have encountered, is the reserve of my generation only. And the new kids on the block, having grown up all their lives with the technology, (that appears to afford the men of my age, some kind of protective invisibility cloak from under which they can bluntly ask women if they like it up the bum, and worse); have done an about turn to return to good old fashioned, face-to-face, real-time, real-life polite loveliness. They seem to understand more about how important manners are, and they all, as perfect gentlemen, could quite easily teach the men of their dads’ age, a thing or two about how to win you over.

So, I feel a little buouyed by the events of the last month or so, and don’t feel so strongly that the future for my nieces and nephews is such a desperate, dark place full of cold-hearted, brutal, disposable encounters and hearts.

And I will be going back to the chiringuito to chat with God, in the name of research only you understand, to check that his dazzling demeanour was not a one-off.

And not at all to stare at him and his rippling, bronzed arms. Nope, not that, not at all. Not me, nope.

*I promise I will never say ‘psych’ again. Not big, not clever and should be left somewhere in the mid-nineties.

**Italian has been relegated to the mystical dating land of blockblockdelete.

It’s a risky business – this English language teaching

by

I’ve been in the middle of a weird work situation.  That being that I am freelance, and that one of the partners of the agency that hires me for the main part of my week, doesn’t want to accept the professional relationship as such.

As a freelance, you are your own boss.  Or so I thought.  I have no contract, therefore no health cover, sickpay, holiday pay and other such delightful perks of being employed.  But what I do have (a bit like Mel Gibson, in his guise as William Wallace), is my freedom.  And I love it. My worklife is exactly where I want it in this moment. I manage my time and my week the best way for me and my life and situation. And as such, in response to the question, “What extra are you available to work next year?” I responded, “two or three more classes, at the site where I work at the moment”.

Probing and prying ensued, and quite honestly, not the kind of probing I enjoy. At all.  ‘What did I do with my time? What did I do on Fridays, what about Monday morning?‘ and so on and so forth relentless questioning. Whooaa there feller, none of your damn business……. If I want to run a sex dungeon in my spare room for the rest of my week; as long as I show up on time at my main job and do my work well in a professional manner, it’s nothing at all to do with you. (Unless you’d like to book in for an appointment, of course).

Before starting the conversation, there was of course some attempt at buttering up, “would I like an increase in my rate?” For the LOVE OF GOD MAN, of course!  Who would be stupid enough to say no to that?  Aaahh wait, here comes the catch – travel two and a half hours out of my way, for a couple of hours more work. No thanks. And anyway, there’s no clear gap in my agenda to accommodate that. So……. no thanks.

Also, now might be a good time to mention, that the place in question has the charming nickname, ‘Guantanamo’. Yeeeesss.

Throwing everything at it, that might attract me to the outer perimeter of the solar system to work, (like a heightened opportunity to wear my fabulous corporate wardrobe/heels), I stuck resolutely to my ‘NO’. I believe they ask you to check-in your killer heels and slinky skirt, for a regulation boilersuit at the desk, and I am just not good in orange.

And so, when someone isn’t prepared to bend time, to fit classes on the International Space Station into their week, what does one do? Employ an ever-so-slightly mafioso approach. That’s what. I should also remind you that we are English teachers.

“Let’s just saaaayyy……. Your. Flexibility. Would. Be. Appreciated” (strokes cat) and, “nothing is certain Anne, nothing. ” (Offers pinky ring for kissage).

image

Noooooo, not the horse head!

I’m expecting to wake up next to a horse’s head in my bed, any day now. Next to a pile of bloodied text books.

No amount of billing and cooing, or veiled threats will sway me, I absolutely will not be coerced or bullied into anything I don’t want to do. This is as true in my professional life, as in any other situation I may find myself in. Say a bit like a request for an*l sex, for example. No thanks, I don’t have the space or the inclination.

So, I am waiting for confirmation of the hours I had booked in already, am bracing myself for the worst case scenario; and having a meeting next week with the CFO of one of the biggest companies in Catalunya.

Never, but never push the PANK.

(I may write a post next week, sobbing into my keyboard, lamenting the loss of my current job.)

Reasons why I don’t have kids #41

by

The birds and the bees conversation.

Dear Lord alive!!  It wouldn’t just be the birds and the bees these days, would it? No siree; it’d be the birds, the bees, the bee’s two friends in a roast situation, and the bird’s ex-mate wearing a gimp mask, shouting, ‘Do you take it up the b…………!?’ And somewhere, a critter recording it all on a mobile phone.

We do WHAT!?

                   We do WHAT!?

Who on earth wants to have that conversation with their children approaching puberty/starting secondary school/asking questions? Not me, that’s for damn sure. It’s a bloody minefield that even I can’t negotiate, let alone putting it in simple terms for the youngsters. How do you explain why there are some people out there who like wee and poo games?  And that they will tell you about it during your first conversation, before you’ve even held hands behind the bike sheds (or in my case met for a vermut)!  When all you want to say, is that “ladies and men lie down together and have a cuddle, and then a baby appears from nowhere”.  Last week, was my weirdest conversation EVER, with someone from Tinder.  I’m always surprised, when I am surprised by something that I should no longer be surprised by. But that’s another post for another day.

So, imagine, you sit your kids down to have ‘the chat’, (right about here I’d be three quarters gin, for Dutch courage), you invest some time going through the whys and wherefores of the basics in the simplest terms, and they come back with, “Oh Muuuuum!!!! Johnny already did that two years ago, and Samantha has been into waterworks since she saw it on youpron.com, last Tuesday. You’re such a basic b*tch.”

Mortifying.

As a parent, it must be so very difficult to accept that your children are exposed to really, all kinds of stuff that you had no idea existed until you read Fifty Shades of Grey, (or in my case, started using dating apps).

It seems too that it’s not just the birds and the bees, and the wasps and the butterflies, (and all their broad-minded friends); but respecting the butterfly when she says ‘no’, and not interpreting it as a very fuzzy ‘yes’. And that you don’t have to send the bird a picture of your fou fou, if you don’t want too.  Especially if you’ve never even met the bird yet.  And that if you refuse to send the picture of your fou fou to the bird and the bird starts getting abusive with you, that you should not let it affect your confidence.  Or that you can even report the bird to the police now, if you are seriously worried, because it’s threatening behaviour even though it’s a little bird.  But with no boundaries. On Snapchat.

And that there is nothing at all wrong with refusing to be coerced by the butterfly, into doing something you don’t want to do, just because the butterfly said they did that exact same thing with the wasp last week, and the wasp didn’t complain, says go on, go on, go OOONNN a thousand times and tells you, ‘you’ll love it’.

Whatever happened to first base, second base, etc??  I remember the electricity of holding a boy’s hand for the first  time.  That same thrill now is probably provided by electrodes.  Attached to unmentionables.

Online porn, accelerated ‘relationships’, advanced sexual practices that should be waaaayyyy down the line once trust and confidence have been well and truly built within a loving relationship (or provided by an expert/found in a special club when you ARE AN ADULT), should not be standard chat for anyone of school age.  The sauciest thing I saw at that age was a copy of Cider With Rosie.  The waiting list at the school library was three months long.

That seems so very innocent now, not at all like the minefield modern children have to pick their way through.  I would want to preserve my children’s liberty and innocence forever, and lock them away from what’s all-too-readily available.

And quite honestly, to also spare my own blushes when my twelve-year old arrives home one day, and decides to ask me about *teabagging!

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #41.

*I had to Google teabagging for the purposes of this blog.