A matter of opinon

Unless you're my doctor, family, or a friend, keep your opinion to yourself!

As I am sure many pregnant women will attest, getting every second person’s opinion on your unborn can be highly frustrating. And by this I mean every second stranger's opinion.

In my current state, mine, my husband’s and my obstetrician’s opinion are the only ones that count at the moment. And after that, once the baby arrives, we’ll take opinions and try things out, but at the end of the day it will be our decision on how to raise it, what things to try etc.

Yesterday, some bogan Barbie who worked at a newsagent decided to tell me in no uncertain terms that I was going to have a huge baby and that I would need all the luck I could get. This is pretty much how the conversation went:

Me: Hi, just the two cards thanks.

Bogan Barbie: Sure (scanning and entering stuff in computer). So when are you due?
Me: In six weeks.
Bogan Barbie: (Cue dramatic eye roll) Oh wow, is it your first? You’re quite big; your baby is going to be huge. Don’t they like, grow heaps in the last four weeks?
Me: Yes it’s our first and the baby is healthy, which is all that matters.
Bogan Barbie: Well, good luck, you’re going to need it.
Me: Thanks.

Gee, thanks for that bit of helpful input, are you a doctor that just moonlights as a rude chick that works at an Ashmore newsagency? You don't even know me!

I didn’t tell her that I thought she should go and see a dermatologist for her awful patchy skin and smoker’s lines all over her face. Nor did I tell her that she was in dire need of a trip to the hairdresser. I just walked away.

I’ve also been told by people who obviously just like the sound of their own voices, what sex my baby will be and how tired I look. Well, considering I AM PREGNANT and due in six weeks, I am not surprised I look tired, because I am! You would think that people should be trying to be overly nice to pregnant women and tell them they look fantastic even if you don’t feel or look it.

I had a business meeting this week at the workplace of a good friend of mine and as I walked in the office she said “Hi Ash, how are you? You look great!” – it was just the boost I needed.

I think hitting the awkward phase of the pregnancy has affected me more than I thought it would. It is hard to sleep, sit, get comfortable in any position and don’t even talk about my inability to dry myself properly, shave my legs or do up shoes… and on top of all that I have to endure the comments of imbeciles who think nothing of sharing their thoughts about me or how it is delivered.

The blessing is that I know in a few small weeks, it will all be over and we will finally get to meet Baby V.  

So for now, unless you’re a friend or family member, keep your opinions to yourself (if they aren’t of a constructive nature) because this pregnant woman may just unleash her inner crazy at you – and that, I can assure, will not be pretty.

National Bandanna Day - Oct 26

Today is National Bandanna Day which helps raise important funds for young people with cancer. Please help Canteen raise funds and awareness through the purchase and wearing of a bandanna!

Wearing a bandanna sends the message to young people with cancer that they are not fighting it alone.

If you would like to buy a bandanna please visit Woolworths, Woolworths Petrol, Wendys, Super Cheap Auto, BCF, Goldcross Cycles, Amart, Ray’s Outdoors, Rebel Sport, Newslink, and GNC Live Well or street stalls nationally today.

Your support means that CanTeen can continue to run vital counselling and support programs as well as work to establish special youth cancer centres and services to help young people rebel against cancer.

Can't touch this

Maybe I should consider getting a t-shirt like this one printed...

I recently had an experience, which up until now, I thought would be horrendously invasive and an assault on my personal space.

A stranger touched my pregnant belly without my permission.

Let me paint a picture for you.

On my hunt for something to eat for lunch, I went to a little local kebab shop where I knew the owner made amazing felafel kebabs. She is Indian-Australian and is about four foot tall with a broken accent and she is very sweet.

“Hi, I’d like to get a felafel kebab please,” I asked her. “With lettuce, tomato, a little bit of onion and barbecue sauce thanks.”

When the lady was finished taking my order, she looked up at me and then down at my belly. Quick as a flash she was then softly stroking my abdomen while saying “You’re pregnant – how far along are you?” to which I stuttered “About 24 weeks – we’re not finding out the sex.” She simply smiled and said “Good girl. Now go and sit down and I will bring your lunch out to you.”

Now I always thought that when I got pregnant, that I wouldn’t allow complete strangers to come up and touch me – I am funny about people I don’t know being in my personal space. 

But this lady had such a kind demeanour that even thought her actions took me by surprise, I didn’t react in the negative way I thought I would. I guess it depends on the person and the situation.

My belly has been growing, but it has become such a part of me now that I don’t really notice that I am getting bigger. I find myself going out to check the mail or do the grocery shopping and catch people looking me up and down or staring at me. My first thought is to go “What the hell are you looking at?” before I remember that I am pregnant and they are probably looking at my little protruding belly.

One checkout chick even offered to lift my bags of groceries into my trolley. I stupidly thought “Why?” and then realised that she was smiling at me saying I shouldn’t lift anything heavy in my state. Duh she can see you’re pregnant Ashleigh!  

So I guess I just have to get over people reacting to my pregnancy. Whether I like it or not, people are going to comment and want to touch me, which kind of creeps me out but I do understand that they are just being sweet. But I’d appreciate a little bit of notice before you try and put your hands on me because it's still my body, not yours. 

  

TV gives us a good dose of reality

I am not ashamed to admit that I like to watch reality television. Having pay TV is great, because most of the shows on it are reality TV shows or ‘docu-dramas’ or whatever you want to call them.

I like to watch other shows as well, like the news, cooking, home renovating and music channels, but there is something about reality TV that gets me hooked.

Guilty pleasure viewing... Jersey Shore.

I think I like it so much because I can’t believe that half of what is aired is actually aired. Like the kids on Jersey Shore who go out night after night and drink, sleep around and fight like it's going out of fashion. It’s the shock and awe factor.

Let's be honest, we usually don't watch these shows because the characters have something to offer us on an intellectual level - we watch because we want to indulge in their crazy antics.

Last night I watched ‘Being Lara Bingle’ one of the newest shows to be added to my must-watch list. It joins Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Guiliana and Bill, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of Beverley Hills, Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex and the list goes on… then there is the reality competition-style shows like Masterchef, The Voice etc.

The Kardashians have come under fire for how much of their lives they expose for TV ratings.

I have gotta say – these people who appear on these shows have really got balls (yes, even the girls) for putting everything out there. I know that many say that these shows aren’t really ‘reality’ and that they are more scripted than we know, but regardless, it still makes for compelling viewing.

For instance, last night while I was watching Lara Bingle go about her thing, I saw a young woman who really has made a pretty successful modelling career for herself, who has some great friends who have stuck by her and a family who have been through some immense struggles. She hasn’t hurt anyone by being famous or for once being engaged to a sports star… she's just another Sydney chick trying to make her mark on the world (for the record I couldn't imagine being on the front page of a magazine with a story about my obvious cellulite and weight gain like Lara did).

For some reason, people love to hate Lara Bingle. I don't.

I guess with any of this TV, if you don’t like it, you do have the option of changing the channel. There are so many armchair critics in Australia (many of them employed by the television networks to bag the opposition) and they all love to rip shreds off each other.

I am sick of hearing about The Shire – I watched the first episode of it and it wasn’t for me, so I haven’t tuned in again. Simple as that. I am not out there kicking and screaming about how it ‘dumbs down’ Australians and makes us look like a bunch of vain, Botox-obsessed airheads like many commentators have.

Sophie and Vernessa from The Shire, Channel Ten's latest reality TV offering.

I think that reality TV is there to give a snapshot into the lives of people to show how very different we all are. Whether we would like to admit it or not, we are a voyeuristic society – the popularity of Facebook and Instagram proves that we are a bunch of sticky-beaks who love to know other people’s business.

I think that reality TV shows just give us an open outlet to indulge in this and compare our own reality to the lives of those we see on our flat screens (by compare I don’t mean literally, because lets face it, most of us won’t have an extravagant $1 million plus wedding like Kim Kardashian and then get divorced after just 72 days).

And yes, for the record, I will be tuning in to Channel Nine's revamped Big Brother - it's filmed in my home town and I am genuinely amazed at the careers some of the contestants from this show have been able to carve out for themselves.

Whether we want to admit it or not, a majority of what we are watching on television these days is deemed 'reality' TV and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Why labels have been 'attached' to parenting

Image thanks to 60 Minutes Australia

This really isn’t a topic that I want to get too heavily involved in… but I have an opinion and want to share it!

Last night 60 Minutes aired a story called On Demand , which was all about ‘attachment parenting’. Put simply, attachment parenting is basically where the parents respond immediately to the natural needs and demands of their child/children.

This includes feeding (breastfeeding more specifically) until the child is ready to be weaned off the boob and other things including co-sleeping (where the child sleeps in its parent’s bed at night so that they are in close physical contact at all times) and emotional contact (if they child cries it is immediately soothed so that they aren’t stressed or scared).

60 Minutes interviewed several mothers who practiced fulltime attachment parenting including several who were still breastfeeding their children at the age of four.

Now I have absolutely no issue with breastfeeding – that’s not my issue. I plan on breastfeeding and I am all for the nutritional and emotional benefits it gives the child. But I can’t help but feel that these parents, although doctors say they will probably raise more emotionally tuned-in kids, will also raise highly needy and dependent kids because they are choosing to give in to the wants of their children who are nearly at the age of starting school.

In the series The Slap on ABC, Melissa George’s character Rosie is an earth mother and attachment parent to her four-year-old son, Hugo. I will never forget the scene where the child runs up to his mother, wailing (because he did the wrong thing and was reprimanded by another adult) and basically pulls down her top and starts sucking because he is upset. No permission is asked, it is just assumed and his mother is happy to oblige much to the disgust of the other adults.

Now I am not debating that the role of a mother is to nurture her family - we were put on this planet to reproduce and it's a gift that I am happy to have been given.

But I think that when you’re a parent, it’s important that your child knows that you love them no matter what and that you go through certain means of showing and telling them this. Your child will grow up knowing how much they are loved because of how you show your affection for them – not because of how much time they have spent attached to your nipple.

I don’t think that mothers should be made to feel bad for not being able to be a full-time attachment parent and breastfeed on demand because they have to go back to work after six months to help support the family. Yes, some mothers have to put their kids into day care – shock horror!

I suppose that I should mention that I am not against attachment parenting at all - I am against the women who choose to put other mothers down because of their superior attitudes and 'I'm better than you' mentality that some mothers have adopted.  

Unfortunately you can’t have it all (be a fulltime attachment parent and be with your child 24/7 and also go back to a fulltime job) so now we have this division that has been created between attachment and non-attachment parents. Why can’t we just be called parents – mothers and fathers? Why has this war between mothers been created when we should really just be supporting each other for doing the best that we can?  

I love the fact that some mothers are able to stay at home with their children and immediately be there for them when they need to be fed or consoled – I would love to give up work forever and just focus on raising a family, but that’s not a reality for me and it’s not for a majority of other women out there as well.

The attachment parenting debate also focuses in on co-sleeping. The 60 Minutes story highlighted pros and cons for this – some parents are just lazy and can’t be bothered getting up to their child in the middle of the night. Other parents are so in-tuned with their baby that if the mother wakes, checks on her child and goes back to sleep, that the baby will often wake, realise they are in close contact with their mother and father, and immediately fall back to sleep without a whimper.

There are some mothers who also swear by self-soothing, where the child cries itself to sleep and gets itself over any issue it had. These mothers have been branded harsh and careless. I have a massive issue with this. The child isn’t loved any less just because it is teaching itself to calm down – it is just the parent’s choice to put their child into this particular routine and the child eventually adapts to it.

Above all, I feel like my husband summed it up best last night by stating that it has become more about the mother and her choices as a parent, and less about the actual baby. Why is the media focusing on driving a wedge between parents when they should be focusing on the good things mothers and fathers are achieving together?

This debate is not for everyone and I don’t have much more to say than this: I am sure each parent strives to be the best mother or father to their children that they can be, and in my book, that’s good enough.

A case of moving on for Corby

Schapelle Corby has spent many years in Kerobokan jail since being sentenced in May 2005

After hearing news yesterday that convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby had been granted clemency by the Indonesian president, slashing her 20 year prison sentence by five years, I wasn’t sure what to think.

I remember being on uni holidays, chilling out at a girlfriend’s house when we turned on the TV to watch her being sentenced. It was pretty gut-wrenching because whether guilty or not, I felt so bad for her as she wept and begged for her pardon.

Being told you’re going to be locked up in a foreign jail for 20 years isn’t something anyone would like to hear.

Now all I can think of is what’s next? Her family is now saying she could be home as early as August if she is granted parole – but what is she going home to? Haters? Supporters? The media has played a huge role in how the nation has formed its opinion of this young woman and I am assuming that they will continue to.

No doubt there will be endless magazine stories, television and talk-back radio segments with all of the outlets scrambling to pay her top dollar for the elusive ‘exclusive’ tell-all interview. There will most probably be a book deal in there somewhere…

So in answering my own question, Schapelle will probably find herself very busy. Her mother was quoted today saying that she hoped her daughter would spend a lot of time once she was home just relaxing on the beach close to her Gold Coast home and go through a ‘cleansing’ period.

I always thought she was guilty by association and part of me feels bad for her – she has gone through a lot. When we went to Bali on our honeymoon in 2010 the airport had ‘wrapping’ services so that you could wrap your bag up in plastic to avoid anyone smuggling goods into your luggage. I couldn’t help but think of her case when I saw this.

She may have made some mistakes in life, but I hope she can heal and move forward. Despite Bob Carr denying he did a deal with the Indonesian Government to secure her early release, I think that this is good news for Schapelle and her family and hopefully will put an end to this saga and I wish her all the best.