Some thoughts on motherhood in the media age. Gun-toting children. And changeable weather.

While I sat in Scona cafe in Greenfield yesterday with my daughter, Granddaughter Number Two and the little fella, a young woman arrived with her baby. Later she was joined by another young mother. Eventually there were half a dozen of them. This led inevitably to a lot of cooing and gooing at our table. Small creatures are always appealing and these were all rather nice-looking babies. Granddaughter Number Two expressed her wish to be a mother eventually but declared she wasn’t too keen on the idea of pregnancy and birth. Maybe having seen her mother go through two pregnancies, Granddaughter Number Two has been rather put off the idea. She would quite like to foster or even adopt though.

We didn’t want to disturb the young mums’ lunch date but we did have a brief conversation with one of them when our little fella went walkabout and bumped onto her. They had all met during pregnancy she told us, sort of confirming my daughter’s and my suspicion that this was a National Childbirth trust group or similar. (In my day we used to meet in each other’s houses.) The babies ranged from two weeks to two and half months. The young mum confided that it’s very hard, much harder than she expected. It’s the lack of sleep that does it! Well, yes. But it’s surely  not that bad. Maybe my daughter didn’t help by telling her that the little fella, three and a half, is still not a reliable sleeper. But after all, they had managed to organise themselves for a lunch date with their offspring. 

And I find myself again wondering if young mothers today find it extra hard because social media tells them it’s really hard. And many of them have already been reasonably successful career-women and suddenly find there is something they have to work at in a different way altogether. Just to confirm it, here’s Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on motherhood and how artists balance creativity with maternity. 

On the subject of children, here’s an article about a six year old who shot his teacher. It’s in the USA of course, and it seems the child did it quite intentionally!! How does a six year old get his hands on a gun? I ask myself. Even if you accept a gun-toting society, surely parents should keep them safely out of reach of their offspring! The mind boggles.

It’s been a funny sort of day here today. I ran in the rain first thing. Well, rather later than first thing. It’s not so much running in the rain that is hard, it’s deciding to get out of bed when you can hear the rain on the roof. But I wanted to pick up a couple of items at the coop. So off I went. 

Later the sun came out and we had blue sky. I persuaded Phil to get organised to walk up the hill in the sunshine. By the time he had answered a phone call and we eventually set off, cloud was moving back in and the blue sky seemed to be headed for deepest Yorkshire. There was a fine winter sky towards Dobcross. We were caught in the drizzle on our  way back. And the sun came out briefly, but only briefly, after we returned home. So it goes! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!