Strong female role model wanted
So I'm at the doctor's with Anna yesterday morning and it has led me to pondering the nature of female behaviour and strong female role models and what impression I want to give Anna as she is growing up. (Don't ask me why I was at the doctor's – it is related to another bad incident that happened not too long ago and I am too ashamed to admit it happened again so I am denying everything).
My GP is great and he has restored nearly all my faith in male doctors (my having got annoyed with them in my early twenties and insisting on female GP's ever since). This one – I am reluctant to mention his name because I am not au fait with blog etiquette yet and don't know if I am supposed to – is an obstetrician as well as a GP and I got him by default as there were no female obstetricians around when I needed one. Anyway… despite his being all round lovely and caring and a genuine Nice Guy, every time I am around him I go all pathetic and girly and whiny and helpless. AND I HATE IT. I hear the stuff coming out of my mouth – "I hope I'm doing all right but it's really hard and I don't know if I should be doing this on my own and I think I'm doing OK but I guess I'll know when she's 15 and crawling out bedroom windows hee hee and please Leon (ooops) please send a dashing knight on a white horse to gallop up and save me because I'm just a poor wee damsel and I need saving." I hear it coming out of my mouth and I'm thinking, where is this crap coming from? Because I know it is not true – I know I'm doing a good job at mothering and I don't think I did the wrong thing being on my own and if a dashing knight did ride up on a horse I'd invite him in for coffee, but if he tried to pull any saving crap I'd send him on his way quick smart (I'd keep the horse).
It's horrifying and pathetic. It's also bad enough that I am doing it at all but even worse when I consider that Anna is RIGHT THERE listening and OK, she's only 8 months now so who cares what she hears as she doesn't understand it anyway, but if I don't sort out my shit now she'll be understanding it soon enough and I don't want her having a pathetic female role model. I want her to be strong and independent and self assured and not have to rely on giggling to get what she thinks she needs.
OK, I'll tell you why I was at the surgery in the first place – Anna fell out of her pram and grazed her little head. She cried for a bit and then went all tired and floppy and naturally, I freaked out, so I took her to Accident and Emergency where they pronounced her fine and dandy. But because Dr Leon (it's out now, no point hiding it) is her GP they faxed him about it and he got one of his frightening medical receptionist underlings to ring me to go see him so he could check her out. (See, he's nice like that – caring. Some people would find this an imposition and an invasion of privacy, I guess, but I think it shows that he gives a shit which in my experience is a rarity with overworked and underpaid publicly funded doctors).
This Pram Incident was more frightening for me than the Change Table Incident because with the pram, I was aware of the dangers and thought I'd got them covered. So it's not that I was being just a tad negligent, (bad enough), it's that I had a downright bad judgement call (worse). I think it's because my brain is still not the full quid at the moment, whether due to chronic tiredness or breast feeding or too much spider solitaire, I don't know. I do know it's a fact and I realised this because of the Penguin Incident this morning:
Anna, Bud and I were on the home stretch of our daily walk and coming up my street, only about 6 houses away from our house, I saw this black and white thing in a vaguely familiar position sitting on the pavement and my poor tired old brain says, perfectly seriously without a hint of a joke, Oh look, it's a penguin.
A penguin.
Now, it's true that our suburb is chocka block full of native flora and fauna but thus far, sadly, no penguins live around here. (This is damn shame in my opinion; I think the world could do with a few more penguins hanging about street corners and under letterboxes and bushes). Merest seconds after my brain gave me the penguin hypothesis, the rest of my brain – the bit that works – said don't be an idiot, it's not a penguin, it's just a normal boring cat*. And yet another bit – the bit that has actually already jumped ship, it just checks back every now and then to reassure itself that it made the right decision – this bit thought, what a bloody shambles.
*This bit was correct.
My GP is great and he has restored nearly all my faith in male doctors (my having got annoyed with them in my early twenties and insisting on female GP's ever since). This one – I am reluctant to mention his name because I am not au fait with blog etiquette yet and don't know if I am supposed to – is an obstetrician as well as a GP and I got him by default as there were no female obstetricians around when I needed one. Anyway… despite his being all round lovely and caring and a genuine Nice Guy, every time I am around him I go all pathetic and girly and whiny and helpless. AND I HATE IT. I hear the stuff coming out of my mouth – "I hope I'm doing all right but it's really hard and I don't know if I should be doing this on my own and I think I'm doing OK but I guess I'll know when she's 15 and crawling out bedroom windows hee hee and please Leon (ooops) please send a dashing knight on a white horse to gallop up and save me because I'm just a poor wee damsel and I need saving." I hear it coming out of my mouth and I'm thinking, where is this crap coming from? Because I know it is not true – I know I'm doing a good job at mothering and I don't think I did the wrong thing being on my own and if a dashing knight did ride up on a horse I'd invite him in for coffee, but if he tried to pull any saving crap I'd send him on his way quick smart (I'd keep the horse).
It's horrifying and pathetic. It's also bad enough that I am doing it at all but even worse when I consider that Anna is RIGHT THERE listening and OK, she's only 8 months now so who cares what she hears as she doesn't understand it anyway, but if I don't sort out my shit now she'll be understanding it soon enough and I don't want her having a pathetic female role model. I want her to be strong and independent and self assured and not have to rely on giggling to get what she thinks she needs.
OK, I'll tell you why I was at the surgery in the first place – Anna fell out of her pram and grazed her little head. She cried for a bit and then went all tired and floppy and naturally, I freaked out, so I took her to Accident and Emergency where they pronounced her fine and dandy. But because Dr Leon (it's out now, no point hiding it) is her GP they faxed him about it and he got one of his frightening medical receptionist underlings to ring me to go see him so he could check her out. (See, he's nice like that – caring. Some people would find this an imposition and an invasion of privacy, I guess, but I think it shows that he gives a shit which in my experience is a rarity with overworked and underpaid publicly funded doctors).
This Pram Incident was more frightening for me than the Change Table Incident because with the pram, I was aware of the dangers and thought I'd got them covered. So it's not that I was being just a tad negligent, (bad enough), it's that I had a downright bad judgement call (worse). I think it's because my brain is still not the full quid at the moment, whether due to chronic tiredness or breast feeding or too much spider solitaire, I don't know. I do know it's a fact and I realised this because of the Penguin Incident this morning:
Anna, Bud and I were on the home stretch of our daily walk and coming up my street, only about 6 houses away from our house, I saw this black and white thing in a vaguely familiar position sitting on the pavement and my poor tired old brain says, perfectly seriously without a hint of a joke, Oh look, it's a penguin.
A penguin.
Now, it's true that our suburb is chocka block full of native flora and fauna but thus far, sadly, no penguins live around here. (This is damn shame in my opinion; I think the world could do with a few more penguins hanging about street corners and under letterboxes and bushes). Merest seconds after my brain gave me the penguin hypothesis, the rest of my brain – the bit that works – said don't be an idiot, it's not a penguin, it's just a normal boring cat*. And yet another bit – the bit that has actually already jumped ship, it just checks back every now and then to reassure itself that it made the right decision – this bit thought, what a bloody shambles.
*This bit was correct.
posted by Helen at 12:33 pm
2 Comments:
LOL....you have one of the funniest blogs I've read in a long time, and I sure am glad I clicked on it...lol...good luck w/ the raising of your baby...lol...its soo much fun...as I am the mom to a 16 almost 17 yr old girl, 14 yr old son and 10 yr. old girl...its a ride...anyways...i will be checking in on a regular basis now, as I love your blog...have a great weekend, and watch out for those penguins..
:)just me
Love you both to bits!
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