Is It Just Me? (13 page)

Have you heard the term “mummy bloggers”? It's a phrase used to describe the clever gang of women who have a little spot on the internet where they write beautifully about the world they live in. Kind of like Virginia Woolf's “room of one's own”, but it's a “domain of one's own”. In their lovely, intimate space, they create a magnificently rich place where truths are told and lives are exposed in the rawest, most personal ways.

The term “mummy blogger” annoys me. Why? Well …­ firstly, why do we have to specify that they're mothers? And secondly, why do we have to do so with the twee word “mummy”? I read many of these blogs – every week, when I get the chance. And these intelligent and creative women write mesmerisingly well about everything from losing partners to suicide and terminal illness to dealing with disability and injustice. Yet the condescending title of “mummy blogger” conversely gives the impression that these online articles deal exclusively with nappies and seven secret ways to use bicarb soda.

The internet has opened up a portal for women who would otherwise not have an outlet to express themselves. Before the advent of the internet, how many women had rich stories to tell – and the ability to tell them with beauty and clarity – but never had the chance? Why do we have to dismiss this important group of writers as “mummy bloggers”? Surely if you write, and people want to read what you write, and seek you out specifically and voluntarily to read what you've written, then you are purely and simply a writer?

Tacking a “mummy” on the front of the term “blogger” somehow diminishes the relevance of those written pieces. Same goes for the excruciating term “mumpreneur”. Excuse me – now we have to make up a new, cheesy term for women who have a great idea and make it happen? It's like a little pat on the head, and I want to smack the hand away.

Think of the funky Boost Juice store staffed by gorgeous kids in your local shopping centre. The Boost Juice chain has been a massive success for its founder, Janine Allis. A great idea, brilliantly executed. You've also probably seen a Grill'd outlet as well. Delicious burgers and heavenly fries … and another example of a wonderful Australian success story for its founder Simon Crowe.

Both of these smarty-pants saw a gap in the market: Allis wanted a good juice so she built a company, and Crowe wanted a good burger so he built a company. Both had to navigate the tricky worlds of finance, marketing, regulations, tax and advertising, among no doubt thousands of others of factors, to steer their companies to ultimate and enviable success. So why is Allis a “mumpreneur” and Crowe a straight-up “entrepreneur”?

If we're to be fair, shouldn't we have “dadpreneurs”, too? When was the last time you read about a “dadpreneur”? Or a “manpreneur”? You didn't, because as a society we don't feel the need to categorise the achievements or interests of men in the same way we do for women. By using terms like “mumpreneur'” and “mummy blogger”, we downplay the relevance of anything a woman chooses to turn her hand to with any level of success. It has to stop.

And don't get me started on “mummy porn”. What on earth is that anyway? From what I can gather – and I'm not a huge consumer of it – “mummy porn” looks a whole lot like the straight-up normal stuff that's been around forever. But when the raunchy book
Fifty Shades of Grey
became a runaway success, it was immediately labelled “mummy porn” simply because the vast majority of people buying it had a set of boozies.

Women love these books. We're mad for them. It made people nervous. It was like someone in a corner office somewhere saw the book's popularity with women and said, “I know! It's written by a woman and mainly women are buying it, so let's whack a ‘mummy' on the front of it and make a whole new condescending genre of literature!”

Last year, I was thrilled to be invited to Kirribilli House to hang out with other women for afternoon tea. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was going to be there too and my dad said, “This is a big deal. You're going.” So off I went. Afterwards, it was reported in the media as a meeting between “mummy bloggers” and the PM. Funny thing was, sure, I have children, but I'm not a blogger. At least two other women there had blogs, but didn't have kids. Sure, there were several there who did have blogs and kids, but what difference does that make? It seems now that if you're a woman with a media presence, you're a “mummy blogger” … such is our desperation to label and categorise.

In protest, I'm going to add the following terms to my everyday lexicon.

Dadoctor: a man who has children and a medical practice.

Hequine vet: a horse specialist who happens to be male.

Manimal handler: an animal handler who is also a man.

Feel free to add your own. And let's see how quickly it catches on.

 

10th February 2013

This month marks the momentous anniversary of meeting my fella, The Chippie. It was six years ago. I have counted this out on my fingers many times because I can't quite believe how much business we've taken care of in such a short amount of time, as Elvis would say. Three houses, three kids (well, almost) and one trip to “the Worlds” on the Goldie. It's been a very busy time.

When I met The Chippie, I was fresh back from living in regional Queensland for nearly four years. It was summer. I was living with my mum, not working, and had so much free time I was ripe for the pickin'. I'd had a date or two with a man whose name I can't remember and, keen to fill my ample free time, was contemplating pursuing something with him because he was interested and I was bored.

There'd been no kissing. In fact, there'd only been one dinner date where he'd scoffed his dinner, and mine, and then suggested a walk along the beach. In hindsight I can't have been too into him, because I carried my shoes so he couldn't hold my hand and walked at full clip as close to the beach lights as possible so he didn't touch me. Such a goer, me.

Later on, I found out this guy had six toes. I am not a judgmental person, but even I was surprised that an extra phalanx was a deal-breaker. Goodbye, nameless two-dinner eater.

Later that week my friend had a birthday party at a pub, prophetically called The Union, and that was where I first laid eyes on the man who would become my forever sweetheart. Technically he wasn't invited and didn't even know my friend, but a mutual mate had dragged him along for an airing. I love fate. I'm not a mover and a shaker in terms of romance. I've never “picked up” at a pub. But I made sure he had my number, which was a big step for me, and left it up to him.

He was a man, with tools and a ute and a beard, and I got the feeling he'd like to be in charge if anything was to happen. So I waited. Blushing and with heaving bosom, like someone from
Downton Abbey
. And he called. Eventually. And we went out for dinner. It was actually the first time in my life a man had called and asked me out and picked me up for a date. I was so nervous I was moaning to my mum, “I can't go! I'm so boring! I'll bore him to death! He will wish he'd never called!”

But I went and he was adorable. Walking back from dinner, we saw an inconsolable child at an outdoor table of a famous vegetarian restaurant. We both locked eyes on him and Chips muttered, “I think he wanted the steak.” That was when I knew.

A few months later we took our first trip away, a week in New Zealand. Perusing a gift shop at Waitomo, he sidled up to me with a pot of Manuka honey hand moisturiser. “Can you buy this? It'll look weird if I do, being a man and all.” So I obliged. I went to the checkout alone and that was when he came up and said loudly, “More beauty products? We're going to need another suitcase for all that stuff you've bought. How much skin do you need to moisturise?” Funny bugger. That was another time I “just knew”.

We have never actually had a fight. There have been some very stressful times in our lives over the last six years, including baby-induced sleeplessness, huge decisions with regard to career, selling and moving house and a surprise tax bill that almost sank us. And not once have we turned on each other.

But yesterday St Chippie woke up cranky.

It happens. And I am generally intolerant of crankiness. I think when someone is cranky and I'm in the general vicinity it must be my fault. I take it personally. Also, he may have been checking his iPhone a bit much, which also annoys me – mainly because it highlights my own addiction to Twitter/Facebook/email/random Google searches.

He was sitting outside while I was cleaning the kitchen, a combo that tests me. Okay, sure, he was supervising the kids, ostensibly making sure that our one-year-old's daily fibre intake didn't consist entirely of sand, but still … to me it looked like I was doing something tedious and he was not. Not fair! And he was on his phone. Again. Characteristically keen to not mind my own business, I shouted from the sink, “What on earth are you looking at on that damned phone?”

And that was when Dr Hook's “When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman” started blaring from our speakers. Knowing that he's a lover of gadgets and music, I'd bought him a whiz-bang thing for Christmas – a speaker that remotely accesses every song you have on iTunes via mobile phone and plays it from your phone – no cords. It's a miracle I have yet to fully comprehend because my handle on how technology works expired in 1993 with the mystery of the fax machine.

How can you stay mad when someone is playing your song? You can't. Now smiling, I waited for more of his “make Chrissie happy” playlist and out they trotted – “Knowing Me, Knowing You” by ABBA, “Guilty” by Barbra Streisand, “River” by Joni Mitchell – each made even sweeter because I know he'd rather pass a kidney stone than listen to them. As I happily sprayed and wiped, singing along to “Crazy in Love”, I realised that even six years down the track I could have another “I just knew” moment. So here's to fate and bearded Chippies and “Rio” by Duran Duran.

 

17th February 2013

It's hard not to talk about your kids incessantly. In fact, when you have just one, it's damned near impossible.

I remember when I had just one, my first, Leo, in 2008; I talked of nothing else. I was working in breakfast radio, so I had the kind of outlet every first-time mother craves: a microphone, listeners who can't tell you to shut up and a quote I'd read somewhere that said “babies are good for ratings”. A heady combo.

When Leo was about six months old, I stumbled across a forum on the radio website. (Okay. I didn't really stumble across it. I logged on and searched for entries with “Chrissie Swan” in the title. I believe they call it a “vanity search” these days. I also believe it was the last time I ever googled myself.)

If I'd received a dollar for every time the sentiment of “would she just STOP banging on about her bloody baby” was expressed I'd be writing this column from a yacht moored off the Bahamas, drinking diamonds out of a platinum straw. It was then that I realised that incessant chatter about your child is interesting to a very narrow demographic of, well, you. And maybe your mum. That's it.

Something eventually happens to most people to stem the flow of first-baby banter – usually the far less life-changing birth of a second child – but until then, first-time parents have no idea how boring they can be. Bless 'em.

I was at a bon voyage shindig last week for a friend who's moving interstate. There was a producer here, a gay man there, a young bearded stand-up comedian mixing mojitos and the inner-city neighbour with, you guessed it, one toddler sleeping next door under the watchful gaze of Grandma.

Admittedly, with such a diverse group of strangers it's hard to find a topic common to all. But let me go out on a limb here and suggest that the winning subject is probably not mothers' group. I've been so embarrassed by my own self-absorbed baby talk that as soon as I get a sniff of it I panic and try to steer the conversation somewhere else – anywhere else. I end up treating the whole conversation as if I'm one of those dodgem car supervisors: the baby talker is on the track, going the wrong way, ruining the fun for everyone, and I'm perched on the back of the car, leaning over the errant driver and taking control of the wheel. More often than not, the driver lasts a few minutes on their own in the right direction and then, boom, wrong way and I'm on the dodgem again.

At the aforementioned party, this poor woman kept on about the trials and tribulations of mothers' group to a woman who hadn't been in one for thirty-five years, a woman who'd once been in one for a week (me), one man who'd never had kids and another who was a gorgeous 21-year-old and was no doubt living in a prophylactic seven days a week.

She may as well have been floating the concept of bonobos and their penchant for flash cards. No one could play along. And no one really cared. I'm pleased to say I was able to steer the conversation, dodgem-style, to the groundbreaking TV show
Embarrassing Bodies
and everyone could squirm together and attempt to answer such questions as, “If you've been so embarrassed by the skin tag on your bottom for twenty-five years, why do you suddenly break your silence, complete with telescopic camera footage, on a show seen by, I don't know, the entire world?”

Having a child was completely life-changing for me. It has been the best thing I've ever done. I know it sounds corny, but I felt it gave me a purpose that I didn't even know I'd been lacking. I love it. That's why I'm doing it again. And might even contemplate doing it a fourth time. I'm crazy like that.

But that's my story and there's a limit to the discussions you can have about all that stuff, and especially the audience you can have them with. An anecdote is fine. Go for it. I feel no guilt when sharing in mixed company that my four-year-old asks hilarious and dumbfounding questions such as “Why do we need a forehead?” and “Why does Spider-Man do whatever a spider can?” But a guessing game at a barbecue centred around “What percentile do you think little Jimmy's head circumference is in?” is just bad manners. Same goes for statements like, “I really thought Jemima would be twelve kilos at her maternal health check-up, but she's 13.3!”

I know it sounds harsh, but who cares?

It is a tough day when you realise that the vast majority of people you meet don't really care about your stories of breast pumps, which mattress is best, rapid out-growing of Wondersuits and how much stain remover you have to use on the shoulders of your clothing to remove those foamy spit stains. You might even be angry at me for suggesting it, as I absolutely was at User6789 on that radio forum page who wrote, and I quote, “If I hear the words ‘my baby Leo' one more time from Chrissie Swan I swear I will voluntarily fill my ear canals with molten lava.”

I'm not saying don't talk about it. I'm just saying it's probably best to write it down instead, for the exclusive pleasure of the one person who will really dig it, starting with the words “Dear Diary”. You'll thank me. Eventually. I think. (*retreats sheepishly*)

 

24th February 2013