My husband has a pet peeve – apart from the term “pet peeve”natch – that is the relatively new trend of opinions being spun as “news”. For example: a presenter interviewing a presenter and this being passed off as news, when it is in fact just opinion and “filler”. Or worse still, tweets being read out on broadcast shows as if they provide legitimacy / credibility. It is the rice cake of the broadcast world if you ask me so I think he has a very valid point… And yet…. The blogosphere is broadly based on this concept that “my opinion, may not be formally recognised but no matter, it probably has an audience somewhere that might be interested in it”. It was principally for this reason that I hummed and hawed about writing a blog. For years. My first blog I set up in 2008 and did two posts, felt like a fraud and then stopped. Now I just write for fun and because I am opinionated and full of vim (read: bile). I restarted blogging also because I realised that many people pass themselves off as authorities on subjects in which they have no formal qualifications a number of “Doctors” spring to mind, (you know who you are!) and that in the end, it doesn’t really matter as long as you have an interesting perspective/ style. I have to confess that I LOVE derived info masquerading as fact, even if I do feel a bit shallow after reading it. Take Mumsnet. Or a particularly guilty pleasure of mine: reading the Comments section of online articles. It is like Rod Liddle in the Spectator who said that his favourite weekend pastime is to buy the Guardian and read all the indignant diatribes of the public in the Letters section.
Print media performs as my aggregator for what’s going on in the world culturally and socially and I see nothing wrong with making decisions on what I want to read, where I might go to eat or what I buy based on the opinions of what I see as being “like-minded” individuals, the defining factor is zeroing in on the people to provide that info. It is a bit like art I suppose, ie. the individual’s interpretation of the universal. After all, how else will I ever make a dent in processing all the information passing through our lives? Yesterday I decided that I shall not be buying either for myself or for any pregnant friend Andy Puddicombe’s new book The Headspace Guide to a Mindful Pregnancy. I read Esther Walker’s interview with Puddicombe, the Headspace guy in the Times yesterday and it was hugely entertaining and thought-provoking and allowed me to feel as IF I had actually read his book, even if I hadn’t. Like a cribsheet drafted by a loyal friend I get to have an opinion, at least a provisional one, until I happen upon the book and have time to revise this post. I ought to preface this blogpost with a warning that I am a bit biased as I have a bit of a girl-crush on Esther Walker with all her dry, slightly exasperated opinion-pieces, practical advice and self-deprecation and her amusing, no-frills culinary blog Recipe Rifle (which she is soon to draw to a close after 5 brilliant years) .
Crucially Esther’s piece made me seethe in commiseration, and Puddicombe, in a nutshell seems beyond irritating. Apart from helping me dispense with any inclination to buy his book, I appreciated Esther’s piece because it got me thinking (when you are essentially a full-time parent in charge of 3 small lives, you need these pseudo-intellectual brain-boosts so as not to feel pyschologically empty and crazy). My 5-minute read allowed me to feel all indignant and alive, in the comfort and privacy of my own home! I then enjoyed a trip down memory lane – with the benefit of distance I might add – then moved on to marvel at how saturated the parenting and pregnancy/birth literature market is and how few offerings there are that are inclusive and emotionally helpful. It’s like a coffee morning with my friends but all on my own!
If you aren’t bored stiff by opinions on parenting and enjoy a good rant with lots of superfluous personal info, please keep reading, as that is what Andy Puddicombe appears to have put out there, and what I intend to fight back with, only that I am a mum, and have been pregnant so I think someone somewhere might chuckle at my views and find comfort in them.
I have 3 kids and did two drug-free, natural births and one c-section in between. As arrogant humans, we think we can control everything and this is especially true of the Type A of those among us. In reality the more kids you have the more you realise that you – and the kids – are different every time, and that you are doing an imperfect job… just getting by. I love it when some first time parents pat themselves on the back, thinking they know it all, proffering advice on napping and sleeping when in fact there is as much talent to their parenting as there is in winning the lottery. Some babies have that easy newborn personality. I have had one. I have also had the crazy screamer that won’t sleep for 18 months on the trot. Forgive my Schadenfreude but I always observe their subsequent baby arrivals with keen interest. I particularly savour the silent struggle to manage the load as each new one arrives, and the inevitable adjustment that occurs to these chronic life-planners, as their elder ones move past the baby staeg and their houses embrace more clutter and toys. Inevitably they all regret being so bloody smug as having kids will do nothing if not make you adapt. Circumstances can make you smug. I should know: had a textbook first birth, thought “what is all the fuss about”, then had a very tricky experience with my second, so by my third I was much more realistic and open-minded, much to my ego’s benefit I like to think. I have a lot more to say from my soapbox on the matter:
As I slowly regain my old physical self for the third time around, I see people regain deference towards me – and by that I mean regular, everyday manners. It is baffling that one’s outer self is so life-altering. My priority is not my ego and my appearance. I let my body divert all its good things to my foetuses and try and ignore how unattractive and ill I feel, knowing that it too shall pass. This is why Esther’s article struck a chord with me: Puddicombe doesn’t appear to be doing a good job of selling his Mindfulness schtick because not only is his experience of pregnancy and birth, for obvious reasons not personal, but it is lived vicariously through his own wife who apparently didn’t find it challenging in the first place. Rather than being unassuming and inclusive he sounds aloof and out of touch. I’m sure it is not meant as such but the tone is moralising and lacks empathy. By waxing lyrical about how easy it is for his wife through her easy pregnancy, the lack of obstacles I don’t tend to think “A-ha! yes! She had it easy because she was “mindful”, I think “it was much easier to be mindful because she was not facing any tough challenges.” What I’m getting at is the age-old parenting challenge: I can kid myself I can be a perfect parent – when my kids are well-rested, polite, well-fed and amused and in a GOOD MOOD, or simply at school! The real challenge is actually when they are behaving like MONSTERS. See what I’m getting at? Lucinda Puddicombe clearly had no real problem with water weight and pregnancy comes easily to her. I just hope she – and any other women who perhaps aren’t married to an ex-Buddhist monk – didn’t feel under pressure to be “super-woman” by their own environment or their husbands. As much as blogs are anecdotal, the key difference between Puddicombe’s approach and that of my favourite bloggers is the lack of any self-deprecation and more crucially, personal vulnerability. Just like the new mother I once was with my textbook first birth and sense of triumph and expertise, Puddicombe has fallen foul of the presumption “it was easy for us, therefore everyone else should be able to have the same experience”.
Puddicombe appears to be measuring pregnancy in terms of success of the process in and of itself, rather than the process of gestating a LIVING THING. Who is he to judge what makes an “optimum” pregnancy? How does that help me when pregnant if I feel judged and ashamed? When knocked up, my needs are at once simple and huge: I am in need of emotional and physical support, and a forgiving, understanding spouse practising lack of judgement. Only then can I focus on the real task which is not looking good but in fact bringing a healthy human in to the world. Women beat themselves up enough as it is without having to measure up to Lucinda Puddicombe’s final trimester sprint alongside Mo Farah.
FYI my obstetrician told me that my running during pregnancy contributed to my varicose veins so the third time around I took it more easy. Mindfulness would not stop me feeling just a little bit shite Mr Puddicombe. Mo Farah indeed.
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