Eccentric Seal

This is how my profile on the Mumsnet bloggers network reads: “A working class, socialist mum living in Glasgow writes about her life and draws wider political conclusions where she can.” It is not true and I should change it. I am from a working class background, true. But I have not actually been working class for, oh, two whole jobs now. My moving into the (lower) middle class is pretty much a consequence of moving to Glasgow. Nick persuaded me to do this back when we were in our one room flat in London. We could no more afford a two room flat than we could figure out where to keep a baby in one room. So we came up here, as I like to euphemistically to put it- “for the house prices” Once here, however, some other things happened: Whereas jobs for welfare rights workers were being cut left right and centre in England, the Scottish government is actually funding more of them. This allows the SNP to demonstrate their commitment to alleviating the Westminste...

Maternity leave is over. Five mornings out of seven, I get up at six, feed Jimmy his milk and banana, wash and dress while he’s still eating and leave, shutting the door behind me; by 7.30 at the latest. I don’t think about him at work. I even try not to think about work when I’m with him. I just concentrate on doing one thing at a time, to the best of my ability.  It’s easy because I enjoy almost everything I do. I live a good life. A man’s life really. I shut the door behind me and go off to argue with tribunal judges, write training materials on the bedroom tax, talk to other adults and eat lunch while reading the paper.   I enjoy the security and pleasure of a family life without any cost to my career or my sense of self. I reckon if I was a stay at home mum, I’d want a husband like me. One, who helps in the mornings, gets home for the bedtime routine and still does a hand’s turn around the kitchen. Nick  doesn't  always agree. There are certain thin...

23 rd to 27 th of June was apparently breastfeeding awareness week. This is the kind of information you become party to in the Mumsnet Bloggers Network. Some bloggers have used this as an opportunity to post about their own breastfeeding experiences- so I thought I’d have a go. A little late, but still…. Jimmy was born by cesarean section: a little scrap of life, just 4lb 2oz, whisked away from me before I could hold him. I was bouncing off the walls from morphine, and shaky from some really dramatic blood loss when I was asked for permission for the nurses to “just give him his first feed” of formula. This I happily did, taking the “just” at face value. It wasn't like that of course and Jimmy ended up spending a full 10 days on SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit). He wasn’t even drinking formula in the end.  He was so little that any kind of sustenance made his blood sugar jump about like a metronome in an earthquake. They fed him glucose through a dri...

There's a description in Carol Craig’s excellent book: The Tears that made the Clyde   of women and children hanging around the gates of factories and shipyards, or outside pubs. It was pay day and they were hoping to run into their men folk and shame them into giving them something from their pay to run the household, before everything was drunk away.   At the time, it was common, accepted practice, for the man take all the money and spend it on his own pleasures. So much so, that trade unionists, recognising alcoholism as a problem, had a campaign to persuade landlords to refuse service once half of a man’s pay had been drunk. In other words, the most progressive, left wing men around at that time thought that it was reasonable for one member of a household, to spend half of the entire money for a family, for one week, on himself, in a single night. I read this, with a short lived sense of relief at how far we had come. Short lived until I noticed the number...

When I was pregnant I went along to NCT classes and got to know a small group of very nervous, very middle class people with whom I had nothing in common, except the fact that we were all having babies at about the same time. There was an effort to all stay in touch afterwards, for mutual support I suppose. So once the babies were born and the menfolk were back at work, we women began to meet up once a week. Typically we would attend some god awful baby themed event, (which the babies were indifferent towards at best) followed by a few hours of fascinating baby comparison and analysis in someone’s extremely tasteful living room. I didn’t last long. There were a few reasons for this First, they all seemed to live places completely inaccessible by public transport.  Second, I find babies on mass are slightly unnerving and sinister (the dozens of baby eyes peering out of the dark at baby cinema will live with me for a long time!) Third: Even in the short time it too...

People who know me may remember the times when I used to bring my baby to meetings with me. The seal pup has been to anarchist bookfairs, conferences on Scottish independence, planning meetings, public meetings, meetings to wind up failing leftist sects, meetings to decide the content of workshops, meetings to deliver the content of workshops. I’ve even taken him to day long meetings in which I have discussed social reproduction, in the abstract and at length, while demonstrating the reality of said social reproduction even as I spoke, positioning him on a breast or jigging him about on a hip. And through all these meeting, baby has smiled and amused himself quietly with linky toys and slept peacefully in my arms and everyone has said “What a good baby” and I have been smug and complacent and thought how easy it is to combine motherhood with activism. Well, that's all gone now.  Baby still loves meetings. He’s always happy to be taken to a meeting. It’s just t...

I am sitting in the community centre on my estate, attending a meeting on the Bedroom Tax.  25 people have turned out. Not too bad for a weekday evening, but then these are worried people.   A lot of them are looking at a 14% increase in on their rent. That’s £11, maybe £15 depending on the property. (1) The bedroom only affects people on benefits. So everyone here is on the breadline anyway. There is no way anyone here has a spare £11 per week. This is food from their children’s mouths.  Or from the electricity, which everyone pays by key meter and is off half the time already.   I’m here as a benefits advisor, in case any legal questions come up.  The idea is that maybe I can answer them. And I can, but only to crush any residual hope that might be remaining. There are very few loopholes in this one.  From now on Housing Benefit will only cover one room for each couple, an extra room for any single adult and one room between every two ki...

Its Monday, and I decide to go sort out this social services thing once and for all. They were supposed to visit on the ward and I’m so glad they didn’t. Not back on Friday, when I was all hospital gown and disorientation; Far too vulnerable. I will go and see them, instead. I still have the outfit I came in wearing, 4 days ago. I put on the trousers and boots, along with my “going home” top and the cardigan with the brooch on. They are just ordinary trousers, in a size 14. It seems incredible that I wore them the day I gave birth. How could I not have noticed something was wrong? Social Services have their office one floor down in the outpatient clinic and I breeze in, in this painstakingly put together outfit and the hospital tags still on my wrists. Susan MacDonald is a kindly looking woman in a very “public sector” jumper. In other circumstances she could have been a colleague or a friend.  She says “You’re looking very good so soon after a cesarean  ...

Finally its morning. I haven’t slept or eaten in 24 hours. I haven’t got pajamas or soap or any charge left in my mobile to ring someone and ask for these things. I have a handbag with a folder of documents, a note book and a final demand for council tax. I have a lovingly packed hospital bag sitting in my spare room, 6 miles away. Thank god for the bedside telly. If I keep it tuned to Saturday Kitchen, I can anchor my thoughts to something harmless so they don't bother me so much as they drift about. I still have to deal with the raggedy strung-out -ness of (I assume) low blood sugar though, and I’ve just been told there’s no chance of anything to eat until breakfast time. Breakfast turns out to be a small bowl of cornflakes and a bread roll which does nothing much for my hunger but a great deal for my mental health. I wait to be unhooked from my catheter and walk, shaky as a new foal, to the shower cubical to wash with borrowed soap and dry with ...

I call my Mum to let her know she has a grandchild. “When are you going to have the next one then” she jokes and I laugh. “If it’s going to be as easy as that: I’ll have another one tomorrow!” I am hopped up on Morphine and feel fantastic. Even vomiting into a cardboard cup while simultaneously hemorrhaging all over the sheets, feels good. I look down at the red stain, spreading like poppy petals over the bed and wonder how it got there. I look at my husband’s pale face and can’t think what he looks so worried about. Jimmy is upstairs getting checked out and having his first feed. This is to turn into a 10 day stay in Special Care but I don’t realise this yet. When they say they “Just need to check him over” I take it at face value. Just like I took it at face value when they “Just wanted to consult a doctor about this scan. I expect to have to start caring for him any second and even begin to wonder how it looks:  Me lying here on drugs, strangers ...

It’s Thursday morning and we are both dressed in our “visiting the social worker outfits.” For me this means coral trousers, smart boots, newish jersey top and cardigan. It’s similar to what I would normally wear at work, except slightly smarter because I have dressed up the cardigan with a brooch. For my husband this means a polo shirt with his company name written on it. To be clear: my husband does not have work today.  He is wearing the polo shirt, purely and simply in order to look like he has a job.  Not only does he look like he has a job in fact, he also looks like he’s willing to take a few hours off of his job, to support his wife at a hospital appointment.  Perfect. I have collected up all my medical documents, removed them from the plastic bag where they are normally kept and placed them inside an NCT folder. This is so that when I bring out the documents, the social worker will see that I’ve been to NCT classes.   We have both done this...