competitiveness and discipline

I am soooo not a competitive person, and have relished all these years out of school and university. I never did enjoy all that "lowest common denominator" stuff, it's just so tedious. But here I am, mother of a small, fast-growing son, and all around me is "when did he do that?" and "how much does he weigh?", and "are you back into your pre-pregnancy clothes?". When did this all turn into a competition? I'm just grateful that he's healthy, has all his faculties, everything is where is should be.

I took a break from writing this to go to the loo, where I picked up Waitrose's new mag - Source - and the first article I read tackles exactly this... Fiona Gibson writes ..."Let's be realistic : I'm 41 with a body that's been through two pregnancies, including six-pound twins. It would be unreasonable, surely, to expect my stomach to resemble a slab of MDF. My small cluster of sensible brain cells says,' No, you're not one of the endless bevy of footballers' wives who go skinny-malinky approximately nine seconds after giving birth, and why would you be?..."

Well put sister!

The glaringly omission is how few mothers ask the more important questions, like "How well behaved is your child ?", and "How are you getting on with discipline ?". It does amaze me that in an era of "Super Nanny" and more discipline resources than you can poke a stick at, so few parents tackle this extremely important issue. Yeah, yeah, we're all going to do it differently, but let's face it, if we don't discipline our children, they turn into unholy terrors - unpleasant to be around, they'll get avoided on the birthday party circuit, teacher's will raise their eye-brows when your little angel's name gets mentioned, and (WAKEY WAKEY) your mates are going to be pushed to spend too much time with you, other than at your house where YOUR kids can trash YOUR place. There's a huge knock on here.


I am so grateful to Tim & Jacqui for the delightful Quinton Blake book they gave us before Zack was born : the Zagazoo. Oh, I do hope he turns out to be the delightful young man in 20 years time.