Good Enough Read online

  About Good Enough

  Dear Dilvin, you suck at this. Sincerely, Dilvin.

  In the frightening world of tiger mums, little emperors and helicopter parenting, can any mother ever be good enough?

  Dilvin Yasa thinks probably not. In fact, she’s pretty sure mothers have been sold a dodgy lot of unrealistic standards, with a good dollop of guilt to serve.

  Dilvin draws extensively and often hilariously on her own experiences as a new mother, but also consults the experts. Each chapter, be it on competitive parenting, postnatal depression or returning to work, contains relevant advice from a professional in the field.

  Refreshingly candid, Dilvin sheds light on the unexpected challenges of parenting, and never shies from a tough question: Is it okay to take time out from your family? (yes); Should you give your child a ‘unique’ name? (dubious); and, Is it okay to tell your child that cat heaven is on the moon? (maybe not).

  Good Enough shares a journey that is both universal and deeply personal. With warmth, wit and wicked humour, Dilvin Yasa details the embarrassing failings, unexpected triumphs and dizzying and delightful in-betweens of modern-day motherhood.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Good Enough

  Dedication

  I am consumed with parental guilt 24/7

  I have an elective caesarean (and I love it)

  I get really bloody depressed

  Co-sleeping, moi?

  I fall into the ‘bodies after babies’ trap

  I go all Ku Klux Klan when naming my children

  I love breastfeeding (but it’s not for everyone)

  When I think about the cost of having kids, I vomit a little bit in my mouth

  I employ a pink ban

  I blow a small fortune on children’s clothes

  Motherhood brings out my ugly side

  I hate maternity leave

  Childcare is the best invention, EVER

  I let my kid play in mud (and occasionally eat it)

  I’m hopeless at playtime

  I smacked my kid

  Immunisations are the best thing ever (and no one can convince me otherwise)

  I’m a helicopter parent

  I constantly lie to my child to make life easier

  Two of my babies die back-to-back

  I take regular time out from my family

  I buy loads of useless crap to compensate for my many failures

  Children’s parties make me lose my mind

  I decide to send my daughter to a public school (sort of)

  Here we go again

  Notes

  Further resources

  With thanks

  About Dilvin Yasa

  Also by Dilvin Yasa

  Copyright page

  To Lee, for everything

  I am consumed with parental guilt 24/7

  Another day, another epic parental fail.

  Standing in the sweltering courtyard outside my daughter Cella’s ballet class, I am painfully aware that I have once again stuffed up in my role as mummy. Around me, the other mums move gracefully through their choreographed dance of dropping their Lexus keys into their Chanel bags before kneeling on the grass to offer their tutu-clad princesses perfectly cut fruit (in matching Tupperware containers, natch). Me? I just stand there with a half-eaten Babybel cheese in my hand and silently curse myself for my inability to get my shit together. Because today of all days, in 30-plus-degree heat, I have somehow not only forgotten a sun hat and sunscreen, but I’m also sans water bottle for my own little princess. A slight problem considering we always play in the courtyard outside after class finishes.

  Not unlike a truffle pig determined to root out the essence of what’s making me feel like crap, Cella chooses this very moment to race screaming out of the dance hall, panting like she’s just trekked across the Mojave Desert. ‘Mummy, I need water! I’m toooo thirsty to dance!’ She looks at me imploringly as her little pigtails shake (with dehydration no doubt). My smile freezes on my face as I notice the other mums looking in our general direction, so instead of giving it to her straight (‘You know how you didn’t tidy your room yesterday? Well, you don’t get any water today’), I make a big show of rummaging through my (non-Chanel) handbag even though I know perfectly well there’s nothing in there.

  It’s at that moment I clock a pram in the corner with a bottle of water sticking out of the cup holder. The mother has taken her baby boy with her to the toilet and my primal mothering instincts kick in as I plan my next move. Throwing my bag to the floor, I clutch Cella’s wrist and half-drag her over to the pram with haste, where I quickly open the lid and force her to scull some water. ‘Hurry up!’ I hiss as she downs the liquid in large gulps, her eyes wide with shock. Bottle half empty, I quickly place it back in the cup holder and step the hell away from it. Great. I have just stolen drinking water from a breastfeeding mother.

  That evening, as I tell my husband Lee about my latest escapade, he is incredulous. ‘You did WHAT?’ I don’t dare look at him, only continuing to chop carrots for dinner with a flair generally unseen outside an early morning infomercial (see, I can be efficient!). ‘Yes, I know how it sounds,’ I begin, ‘but you know what? This was about survivalism and that woman is just lucky I didn’t stab her in the neck with a biro and wrench the bottle from her lifeless hand because that was Plan B and CELLA NEEDED WATER.’ I have become defensive, and consequently, shrill. Lee looks at me with a mix of horror and fascination. ‘I seeeee . . .’ he says slowly. ‘And so, at no point did it occur to you to perhaps ask one of these mums for a swig of their water? That was never a frontrunner for a Plan A or B?’ ‘NO! I didn’t want them to judge me!’ I shriek, waving a knife around at the room like a swashbuckling musketeer. Or a demented mother sorely in need of a break. ‘Right, well, maybe you need your head read.’ And with that kind and loving piece of character assassination, he glides out of the room and leaves me to my thoughts, that constant inner dialogue that says, ‘Dear Dilvin, you suck at this. Sincerely, Dilvin.’ Christ, when will this maternal guilt go away?

  If you’re a mum (and let’s be honest, if you’re reading this book, you probably are and PS: you freakin’ rock!), you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say once you have a baby, it’s as though they insert some kind of guilt chip inside you. Believe me, you can’t have missed this installation – it’s that voice of doom playing in your head telling you you’re doing everything wrong, and possibly, just possibly, that decision you make today to not give them that 90 per cent juice concentrate popper may very well lead them up the thorny garden path to a lifetime of playing bitch to somebody else’s top dog in prison. If you’re feeling the pressure to be ‘the perfect mum’ and suffering huge amounts of anxiety because you’re not, you’re not alone. The truth is, modern motherhood appears to have become a tyrannical state in which women have become slaves to l’enfant roi. This means it’s no longer acceptable to be a good mother anymore: you need to be the best mother around and certainly far better than anyone else in your immediate environment.

  To take you back, you’ll probably first become aware of this chip the minute two lines appear on your pregnancy test. Your mum back in her day might have had a quick squeal followed by a victory B&H and shandy then carried on with her regular day-to-day life, but you? You can look forward to running the next nine months like a hardcore boot camp that would make even the toughest of SAS men cry like a little girl. With a stack of parenting tomes by the side of your bed, you will soon realise being a good parent isn’t just about providing love, warmth, food and shelter anymore, but about following each mandate from positive parenting advocates with religious fervour. For the record, you will no longer: eat any food that is likely to give you joy; drink coffee or tea; s
leep on your back or right-hand side; enter any body of water warmer than 37.5 degrees; touch a cat, dog or unwashed person; or cry too much or laugh too loud lest the baby gets anxious or confused. You might have a moment when you realise you’ve accidentally eaten a rogue delicatessen olive but after two phone calls to your obstetrician and the poisons information line, they will dispel any fears that you’ve harmed your baby. Oh sure, occasionally you might wonder why it is that French women continue to eat brie, Turkish women continue to eat fetta (and chain-smoke a carton a day) and the Japanese continue to dine on sushi throughout their pregnancies but you just can’t risk it because what happens if your unborn baby contracts listeriosis and dies? That would be entirely your fault. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

  Of course, once the baby is actually born, that’s when the fun really begins. You must give birth vaginally and drug-free just so you can tell everyone how awesome you are and how it didn’t even hurt at all. You will buy only environmentally friendly nappies made from recycled elephant dung and breastfeed exclusively until your child comes home from high school one day and insists he is done with it all. If you’re of weak character and choose to introduce solids early, you will only purée and feed organic, fully sustainable products you’ve purchased from a ritzy shop where everything comes in big brown carrier bags and they have a concierge at the door. You will not let your baby self-soothe, but you also won’t be too ‘attachment’. You will not work too much, or too little, and your house shall be impeccable yet not so clean that your little ones can’t build up their immune systems. You will drop the baby weight immediately after birth but you must not attend a gym or class during your child’s waking hours or you’re not being attentive. Any arguments you might have had about personal choice? You’re a mum now, remember? You’ve joined the club so that shit doesn’t fly anymore. Check your brain at the door.

  And it’s with this long introduction that I say to you: Welcome to motherhood! Are we having any fun yet?

  Right, so how do we stop feeling so damned guilty all the time?

  Ever wanted to grab a psychologist by the throat and scream, ‘What the hell is wrong with me?!!’ Happily, there’s no need for violence on anyone’s part, as Jodie Benveniste, psychologist and director of parental advice website Parent Wellbeing (parentwellbeing.com) was only too happy to impart her wisdom on this eternal guilt we call motherhood. ‘Parents can feel guilty about anything and everything!’ she confirms. ‘Not getting to the school play, buying cupcakes from the shop instead of making them at home, pursuing a career, having a lunch with the girls instead of spending more time with the kids, or not really enjoying time at the playground or endless hours of block building – these are just a few examples.’ Sounds familiar, but why do we feel like this ALL THE TIME, and why the hell aren’t our male counterparts buckling under the same weight? According to Jodie, we often feel guilty as parents because we really want to do the best by our children. We want to give them the best opportunities and for them to grow up happy and healthy. Dads, apart from the odd hero we all want to marry, appear to be more pragmatic – ‘In general, they don’t worry about what they haven’t done for their kids, or how they haven’t done enough, they just get on with doing and being with their kids.’ THOSE BASTARDS! Still, they might be onto something because all this crazy mum guilt is helping no one. As Jodie says, ‘Feeling guilt all the time can mean we don’t enjoy and appreciate parenting as much as we’d like, and we don’t acknowledge what we do well with our kids,’ she says. ‘This can affect them in a negative way, if guilt leads to overcompensating. We can be too indulgent with our kids, buying them lots of stuff to make ourselves feel better, or we can be too permissive and fail to set strong enough boundaries.’ Just as I’m about to go outside and slash my wrists (one more thing to be guilty about), Jodie adds, ‘But on the upside, guilt can help you to stop and reflect and decide whether you are being the parent you’d like to be.’

  Jodie’s (perfectly legal) top tips on how to keep those guilty feelings at bay

  * Acknowledge the guilt, then let the feeling go. You don’t have to buy into it.

  * If you find yourself feeling guilty about not getting something done, ask yourself: ‘What good things have I achieved today?’

  * If you find yourself feeling guilty about doing something ‘wrong’, ask yourself: ‘What have I done right today?’

  * Remember that you don’t have to be a perfect parent. You just need to love and nurture your kids.

  I have an elective caesarean (and I love it)

  I am five years old the day I unintentionally make my first birth plan announcement. It’s a scorching hot day, and my gaggle of girlfriends and I are lying on our backs on the steaming-hot asphalt making pictures of the clouds. The girls have finished arguing over whether Cheer Bear or Love-a-Lot bear is the superior Care Bear (Love-a-Lot, hands down) and have moved on to the more sombre topic of having babies. ‘I’m going to have babies with Troy Cuttleridge when I’m eighteen,’ giggles Brooke, who no doubt thinks having babies is something that happens after you hold hands for an extended period of time. ‘Yuk!’ exclaims Julie. ‘I’m going to have lots of babies by myself and I’m going to have lots of money so I can wear nice perfume!’ (Tragically, little Julie has since realised her dream.) Listening to them talk about having babies, I can’t help but shudder. I’m still far too young to know what a birth plan is. I have no idea hordes of Western women write detailed documents complete with subheads and bullet points explaining how, when and where their babies will be born. But one thing I’m already certain of: there is no way on God’s green Earth that a fully formed human being is ever going to exit my body via my vagina like my mum said they do. I sit up and wipe the gravel from the back of my legs. ‘I’m not going to have babies until I’m thirty-two,’ I declare, ‘and the baby is not going to come out of my vagina, either; the doctor is going to cut my tummy to pull the baby out while I’m sleeping.’ I don’t know it’s called a C-section but I have a general understanding of how it works, so enthralled am I by my mother’s crazy vertical 70s-style scar and accompanying story of my own birth. The girls look at me, shocked, probably quite unaware until that very moment that babies actually come out of vaginas. Brooke looks like she’s about to cry. ‘But Mum said we hatch from very small eggs.’ Ah, but wouldn’t that be lovely?

  My own mother told no such tales of course; she was honest from the get-go. ‘Oh Dilvin, it was horrendous! I was in labour with your brother for twenty-six AGONISING hours before they took pity on my broken body and performed an emergency caesarean on me,’ she would tell me between sips of her black Turkish tea. ‘The experience was so awful, it was like I was dying or being ripped in two by a pack of hungry wolves.’ Yes, yes that does sound bloody awful, I would think, leaning in, fascinated yet crossing my legs and wincing all the same. I noticed that as soon as she moved on to the story of my far less dramatic birth, however, I would instantly relax. ‘With you, it was different – I didn’t feel a thing! They put me to sleep, and when I woke up, you were handed to me all clean and ready to be fed.’ Well, it doesn’t take a genius to work out how I formed my opinions on childbirth. Wow! I thought, imagining being handed a ‘here’s one you prepared earlier’ baby in cute clothes as you tap-dance your way out of hospital. That’s the way to do birth! Of course, what I didn’t know then was that Mum graciously left out the part where she almost died from complications after the fact, so I was convinced this no-pain, civilised birth option was the one for me. Without knowing it, I had created my birth plan, one I would carry in my back pocket well into adulthood.

  Twenty-five years later, Lee and I are driving to the hospital in a state of utter tranquillity. ‘This doesn’t feel quite right,’ I say to Lee as I watch our daughter’s feet kick at my incredibly large tummy. ‘I feel like you should be driving erratically at high speeds while I yell at you through gritted teeth or something – isn’t that how it normally works?’ Lee looks over at me somewhat mortifie
d by the idea. ‘Fuck that!’ he says. ‘This is much better. At least we know what’s going to happen next and no one’s freaking out.’ And we’re not. We giggle like excited teenagers all the way to the hospital, repeating, ‘I can’t believe we’re going to finally meet our baby!’ So far, so good, I think.

  We arrive at the hospital at 5.30am, and by 6.30am, I’m being calmly wheeled down the corridor towards theatre to deliver our first baby. The operating theatre, I note, is filled with enough people to make up a small music festival. Four men in blue scrubs come over and lift me by the corners of the sheet I’m lying on and shift me over to the operating bed like I’m some kind of beached whale and I groan with horror before breaking into a fit of laughter. Just then I hear the unmistakable first twangs of Duran Duran’s ‘Planet Earth’, and I know everything’s going to be okay (Duran Duran’s greatest hits album Decade was part of my birth plan – because really, how can you not feel happy when ‘Save a Prayer’ is blasting and you’re conjuring the imagery (mental or otherwise) of a team of strapping lads in salmon-hued suits happily cavorting on a sandy beach overloaded with elephants and small Sri Lankan children?) My obstetrician’s head pops up over the sheet they’ve placed across my chest so I can’t see what’s going on at the business end of my body. ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ he says with a smile. ‘We’re going to have your baby here in five minutes.’ He pops back down and I wonder if he’s working extra quickly to get the hell away from my choice of music. I look at the clock and it’s 7.25am. ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is finally happening,’ I say tearfully to Lee as he sits beside me, clutching my hand. ‘When will you be starting?’ I call down to my obstetrician. I’m numb from the waist down and shivering from the anaesthetic but other than that, I feel great and want to know what the hold-up is. ‘We’ve already started, Dilvin!’ comes back the somewhat muffled voice and I am stunned. Aside from the slightest bit of pushing and pulling, I literally cannot feel a thing. I do see a few bloody instruments about so I can only assume they’re rummaging around my uterus like they’re digging for change in a purse. Lee and I talk softly for a little bit longer and a few minutes later my obstetrician sings out, ‘Here she is!’ He holds up our little baby, perfectly formed and beautiful, but silent and slightly floppy, and quickly whisks her off to get some oxygen. Just as I begin panicking, a large cry breaks through the silence and a beaming Lee pops back over with a super-healthy Cella in his arms. Everything’s perfect and we’re finally a family. I got the birth I wanted. The problem was I didn’t have the birth everyone else wanted me to have . . .