Pregnant with Twins ? Put your Feet up !

If you are pregnant with twins - or more ! then I say stop try and stop working as early as possible - I think 29 weeks is when you can start maternity leave, and take lots of rest.  Or if you are still feeling physically comfortable at work and are not being overworked then maybe you will be OK. But please read on and consider what happened to me.

I had twins quite a number of years ago now. (I finally have time to take a rest and write a blog post !!)  I stopped at 29 weeks, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was working on a temporary project so I didn't really have a job to go back to, so there was not much point in working right up to the date I was due etc.  It was also becoming increasingly uncomfortable to do the 30 mile car journey every day. And it was high summer so the heat was also getting hard to take.

So I stopped work. And another thing that happened towards the end of my pregnancy was that I got a very painful trapped nerve or sciatica type thing in my leg. And the only way to relieve it was to rest or lie on the couch for a large part of the day. I could usually manage to stand up for an hour or so to go out for lunch or shopping or whatever but I had to rest for the bulk of the day.

The other thing was that I worked in a hospital and had ready access to books about "having twins" from the medical library. I discovered that in America, the mums were very much recommended to take a lot of rest. But I didn't hear this at all from the doctors I saw here in the UK.

And I don't know if the extra rest helped, but of the six mums in my town who were all (by sheer chance) expecting twins in the same week, I was the only one who made it to "term", which for twins is 38 weeks.  I had to be induced at that point as the babies were no longer growing etc and the placenta was no longer helping them.

Some of the other families ended up in hospital for a month etc in the special care baby unit.  I ended up there for a week, but really we were very lucky that they weren't early, with all the health problems etc that that can involve.  I did find out that as I had one who was lying breach, the new recommendations are that I should have had a caesarian and I sort of think that might have been good as you always wonder if the second twin out maybe loses out on oxygen etc...

However I am being sidetracked !

• This blog post is firstly a plea to mums and dads and everyone connected with pregnant mums to make sure the pregnant mum takes it easy and can get some rest. Especially if expecting twins or more.

• And secondly, we really do need to have longer maternity leave and pay for twin/triplet mums as its harder work beforehand when you are pregnant and then it gets even harder as you have to care for two tiny tots and make sure they are fed etc. 

Computer Games Design - Suggestions to Reduce Disruption to Family Life

Suggestion 1 - MUST BE ABLE TO EXIT AT ANY POINT

Need each game to be possible to leave at any point - especially those that are not online.
As how often do you hear "But I'll lose all my progress ! I've been on this mission for an hour" ... well you are not always feeling a heartless enough parent to pull the plug at that point ...but you can see the kids point ...but also the dinner is ready or you need them to set the table ... so WHY cant the programme just save their progress ? I mean at any one point the game is just a variety of variables which presumably have numbers attached - all those could be saved - EASY !
the question is - why hasnt this been integrated into games ?  Are they trying to fuel realism (and Addiction) by creating hour long or longer scenarios/missions in games ?

Suggestion 2 - Clear Age Rating Display
An age rating could be displayed in a small box at top of screen at all times.
You could have a 18+ logo or under 18 content in eg GTA.
Could be clearly displayed the logo at all times.
Again - Simple
For example in GTA if there are areas of the programme you dont want under 18s to visit then why not just close those off for the under 18 game. Simple. Again each section is just a load of variables and functions. It does mean that age ratings have to be integral to the programming, but I suggest they should be.  And then if scenarios or missions are displayed the programme just has to check what the age rating is set to.

So I hope Computer Game Developers are listening - as well as government etc who could insist the developers do these things - although better still, the industry could take a responsible adult approach to this !  Before family life is ruined !  And really overall it would be better for the gaming industry overall too as they might even generate more sales if they got the adults on board !

The Other Woman !

A very brief explanation as this concept seems to be difficult for people to understand.

Babies and Toddlers do not look after themselves.
They need to be fed and watered and cleaned (the mundane tasks) and at a higher level they need to be interacted with and shown new things in the world, and for their enjoyment of life and building of a firm psychological foundation its great if they can actually have some fun thrown in as well.  And then there are the more technical things such as learning to swim, learning to climb, ride a bike, how to hold a pencil, how to listen to others, build sand castles, paint etc etc. All of these need a little bit of adult help along the way, even if its just to sweep up the sand and to rescue various nearby objects from a toddler with a paintbrush !

So what my post is about is prompted by the supposedly exciting news that a youngish woman in quite a public role has finally reached 38 weeks pregnant and has managed to stagger in to work in the fairly high public role she occupies. (the fact that people have been doing this in all sorts of occupations for many years seems to be overlooked) This seems to be news nowadays !!
And apparently by her taking maternity leave this somehow means that the Glass Ceiling has just been smashed.............

Now my first thought is that there have been numerous women in prominent roles for many years. Certainly in the area of medical physics that I worked and in medicine etc and University sphere there were many distinguished women and many women who just got on with their jobs. They seem to me to have been a different breed from this current type of women who seem to be in the news and who seem to occupy in particular politics and perhaps the media too.

So this working woman is being met with great acclaim and she is going to take maybe a year off to look after her baby and an older child too.  Now once she goes back to work, to great praise and acclaim as this is the new equal opportunities modern world, Ha Ha, the thing that gets forgotten about is ........................................................ THE OTHER WOMAN !!!!

Or should I say the other man / woman / gender neutral person who will be looking after the baby and toddler. Because as I explained earlier, they do actually have to be looked after !!

And funnily enough some women, myself included, actually chose or have chosen to look after their own child.

In either case - there is ONE CHILD CARER  and ONE WORKER !!

But in fact in the first situation we have one person who demands Mega-Respect (Respect with a capital R) and one person (THE OTHER WOMAN) who receives minor respect (small r).  They both get paid for their job so this ensures the respect.

In the second situation, there is one person working (Respect) and one non worker who is looking after their own children (= Hard Work) (=Fun) (= can be good for the child's psychological wellbeing) but this person does not get respect from society. Strange that !!

The first situation pulls in masses of subsidies - two personal allowances within the family and a third for the child carer. The mother in second case does not receive a personal allowance.  There are childcare subsidies in the first case and various councils and organisations promote the business of the childcarer)

But we need to sort out this situation to create a more level playing field because currently in our society in the UK it is becoming very difficult for the second situation to be a possibility, and dare I say it, but the more I see and observe of families who try to care for their youngsters at weekends having been working all week, I have to say I think they could do with a good healthy dose of actually learning how to look after their own children.  And I have to say that there are so many tips etc passed around mothers (and fathers) at things like toddler groups that in fact that is really where you learn to bring up your children. You learn tips such as the fact that young children should only be given grapes sliced, and also you can watch your child interacting with other children and you can direct them to be a more caring, sharing individual or help to smooth over situations before they get out of control etc. You are teaching children how to get on with each other and getting them ready to flourish once they hit the big wide world of school nursery and school itself.  And, you are also very much part of a community with the other families and children.

So please remember children do not look after themselves !
(I wonder if it could be a male agenda that has allowed this downgrading of the recognition that this role exists at all ............ hmm !)

And....on another aspect, surely it would be better for women to think of taking a few years out to take care of their children and then return to work raring to go once the children are older. I certainly know quite a few mothers in my acquaintance who are returning to full time work once their children are more like secondary school age or dare I say it even older. But these people are so much more ready to devote themselves to the workplace rather than being drawn in two directions and doing neither job particularly well.  In addition just as a little extra, so many lucky families I know have grandparents who are fit and healthy and very much involved with the family and the childcare. But if you dont have that for whatever reason then really your family needs some extra help. But the way society is pushing it, again its the lucky ones who are angling for subsidies, the ones who already get help.

Anyway as you may have noticed, if you have even read this far, I have diversified and come way off topic as per usual.

But my main point is that its all very well having your politically correct statements about family friendly policies etc etc but the fact is children do not look after themselves.

Child Benefit

A mother (or father) at home is not a burden on the state – far from it – he/she is actually bringing up his/her own children. In fact you could cast her as an entrepreneur or even running a small business !

Whereas a mother and/or etc father who both work are actually more of a burden as they are expecting other people to bring up their children. And even though they are earning two incomes they expect to be subsidised and are very often subsidised via child tax credits, child benefit (which is more available to these couples) and childcare voucher tax breaks/nanny tax. Even when their earnings are in the £100,000s they can claim tax breaks on the money they pay towards childcare. The nurseries and the nursery nurses etc are subsidised often by local councils and very often local councils provide free advertising of their services.

Meanwhile the mother who is looking after her own children – whether by desire or by circumstances, has given up her own salary to look after her children.

However in both cases, children do not look after themselves. We need to get our heads around this. Someone has to care for them. And in both cases there should be money going towards that, if we value those children for our society.
We do need children – demographically the population of the UK is aging and we need workers etc to provide income to support the retired and older members of that society. More to the point, we need educated, well behaved children who can contribute to that society. Families and
society can judge how this can best be achieved. Most families, even when the mother “stays at home”, will take children to become involved in toddler groups, playgroups and at the age of 3 they are entitled to a part time nursery place. This can be good for children and often these places can provide the activities like painting, arts and crafts, outdoor play etc that would be difficult to provide at home every day ! I would suggest as a minimum for society we should ensure that all children are brought to such activities so that mothers are integrated into society and families are not allowed to languish “at home”.

But my current complaint is the lack of subsidies or funding via the benefit system for “stay at home” parents .
And added to that the fact that benefits and tax breaks are actually being given to very well off parents is just madness when finances in society are so tight.

The Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government need to quickly rethink this as we are now talking about a discrepancy of £5,000 a year between a family with one earner on £60,000 as opposed to a family with two earners on £30,000 when you take into account two personal tax allowances for the second family, the first family pays 40% rate of tax and only the first family loses child benefit. That is the difference of a new car every year in tax paid !!!!!!

But even more ridiculous is a family with both on £50,000 can keep child benefit, get two personal allowances and can probably claim back some tax in childcare voucher scheme.
And even richer families I believe can use the childcare voucher scheme.

I can give you an example of a stay at home mother who “stayed at home” for the years her children were young, but is now self employed and working numerous hours a week to earn £5,000 to £10,000 but what is annoying is that her earnings are basically just going straight into what other families get to keep as tax – its very annoying to say the least ! Yet another family with two earners on £30,000 and £40,000 get to keep the tax.

Also you might think I am talking about rich families here, but a family with one earner on £60,000 actually end up with after tax the same as a family with two earners on the minimum wage. So we are not talking about very well off families here, much as the government would like to make it seem like it !!

And here is a graphic of the discrepancies when the total income is £70,000, there is a difference of up to £7,500 in net income after tax etc depending on whether there is one or two earners and how much each earn – this is plainly unfair. Particularly as among my friends the people who have a husband (or wife) on a large salary like £70,000, then its often due to them having to work away or abroad or at least away for a few nights each week. So there are reasons for the big salary and often this makes family life more complicated and necessitates that the other parent is more available for looking after the children.