Having a Baby...Again!

By Denise Lai, BA, BSocSc (Hons), MEd

So it should be common knowledge by now… a decade after welcoming our first child into a lovely British hospital in Hong Kong, Nicholas and I are… sigh… expecting again.

The last I wrote about pregnancy, I was youthful and completely idealistic. (Until of course, the worst of infant health and care issues struck, and the feeding, sleeping, pooping and nanny nightmares began.) I remember writing to the New Mothers’ Support Group in Singapore in the mid-1990’s telling them all about the wonderful mid-wives who had assisted me at the Matilda, about the constant cups of tea that had been plied into my labouring tummy, and about the lovely, scenic view of The Peak from the hospital-window, in spite of the regular but (at that time) tolerable birth-pangs.

This time, I could just about spend the next 20 pages of this article detailing the worst of the symptoms that have plaqued me since week 3 of this pregnancy. But then, I doubt if you want, or need, to hear more about morning sickness, heartburn, backache (sciatica, mind you), weight-gain, water-retention, and sheer exhaustion….

Never mind too my gripes about the way prices have sky-rocketed for everything from nursing bras to breast-pumps to even the simplest baby stroller. I feel about as fashionable as the clothes I discovered still sitting in a drawer in my wardrobe: mouldy, grumpy and worn-out maybe, but hey, still usable with a good wash, make-over and nice fragrance.

"They are hipsters," the girl at the shop says.

"You are kidding," I stare back aghast.

"Some tube-tops would look great on you too," she rejoins.

(You mean, I am supposed to show off my bum AND my tum? Who knows? The next fashionista will say stark topless-ness during breastfeeding is in.)

"These clothes are not going to work for me… sorry… you see, I am a teacher, and I cannot be adjusting my clothes the whole day. I mean, really, a little kid could pull the tube-top down by accident."

"Oh…"

But at least I get to leave the shop triumphant with clothes that manufacturers still make for older mums.

Older mums… ah… therein lies the crux to the generational shock perhaps. Not that I want to be considered dated at all. I mean, it has become a bit of a bread and butter necessity to be able to rattle off a whole list of details in response to the simplest question; from the pros and cons of manual versus electric, cotton versus polyester, Combi versus McLaren, early toilet-training or not, to very importantly, the whole slew of visible names in child psychology from Piaget (back then) to Thompson, Biddulph, Chard and Katz (now) and the luminaries who took their share of the spotlight in between (Montessori, Doman and Emilia). On days when I can reflect on my lot, I think a large neon sign should twinkle in multi-hues as a slogan below the Wee Care logo out front: we breathe, eat and sleep… children.

No, the benefits of being an older mum must surely outweigh the shock.

Take this whole idea of fads and fashion (of even intellectual ideas) up again, for example. It takes a balanced mother to be able to discriminate an assertion from a reasonable fact:

"I want my child to learn to use his right brain."

"I am sure he already does. The brain functions as a whole, not in disregard of each of its separate parts."

"But do you not teach using flashcards?"

"Well, only in certain academic segments, and most certainly not as a tool to develop a photographic memory. You know, the ability to communicate and to relate with people successfully is just as, if not more, important than that."

"She cannot understand what you are saying during the playgroup programme." (a euphemism, I have learnt, for (i) "you and your teachers talk too much" and/or (ii) "your methods and ideas are much too alien for my liking")

"Well, she is here to learn, not here to achieve."

"She is not?! She cannot appreciate what you have here."

(She cannot appreciate Play???)

"And anyway, I want her to learn three or four languages, plus her multiplication-tables, now. You know, when she was in my tummy, I used this prenatal education system that taught her brain how to respond to my heartbeat, and hence develop a strong mental architecture for life. Can Wee Care follow up with that?"

Well… we try not to disappoint. But the same voices that claim Life Success with Method A also imply Life Failure without the same, and it takes being just that little bit older and wiser to know that this may well not be true.

Take another example in point for instance. As a young mother, I pined for my infant daughter when I had to leave her at home to go to work. I worried incessantly (especially after having read a chapter from a Psychology text about "attachment theory") about my lack of responsiveness to her in my absence, and what effects she would suffer for not having the "best" of me. I became so troubled about the matter that eventually and with great relief, I made the decision to stay home full-time. Who would have suspected, me the least of the souls, that the arrangement would only last for about 3 months? By the end of that quarter, I was driving myself and everyone around me crazy; my family and I all know better now than to wish me home for extended periods of time. And interestingly enough, the voices of theoretical assertion from the past are now giving way to a calmer, more reflective point-of-view. As quoted most recently of Susie Orbach, a London-based psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster, in the Financial Times of the 25th of March 06,

"Those weird ways of talking about attachment theory now are really perverse – they are so absolutist. A child attached to a very depressed mother: is that great? Would it not be better if that child could please have a sense of well- (sic) being elsewhere, and that it was not causing the mother’s depression? … It is very hard to raise children…. We do not need authoritarian voices giving us very crude, uncritical takes on attachment theory… People like (D.W.) Winnicott (the British paediatrician and psychoanalyst) who really understood mothers, were not authoritarian. He talked after all, about the ‘ordinary devoted mum’. Which is probably the best most of us can hope to be."

And again, from Sir Richard Bowlby, the son of John Bowlby, the British physician and psychoanalyst in post-war Britain who first developed the dichotomous terms, "the securely attached child," "the avoidantly attached child" and "the ambivalently attached child,"

"What we want to do is as good a job as we can."

Ah, now that, to me, is saying a lot. For

an "ordinary devoted mum"… "doing as good a job as (she) can"

functions without the harsh and often condemning expectations imposed by self, others and society on her identity, self-worth and yes, image also.

So here’s to another cinnamon-bun, I guess… to be shared with my brood.

And while I’m munching, have you heard by the way about the positive effects of Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils on prenatal linguistic development? Or that more and more mothers are inducing labour for a whole host of different reasons, not just auspicious ones? Like making it in time to watch the next football match?

If you have found the information in this article useful, please pass it on to your friends.

For more information on the Bright Starts Programme for ages 2-4yo, please visit our website at www.weecare.com.sg.