Evolution vs Feminism

If someone was to ask me about the things that worry me most about the way I'm bringing up my baby at the moment I would say the following:

• I worry that I shouldn't let him fall asleep on my knee on an afternoon. I should battle to get him to stay in his cot because everyone says that's where babies should sleep during the day.

• I worry that I'm the only person that can settle Henry when he's upset or over tired and there will be times that I can't be there with him.

• I worry that he'll never sleep through the night.

• I worry that I shouldn't put him in our bed with us because he'll never sleep on his own again and I'll never get a good night's rest.

• I worry that he won't take a bottle, how will I ever stop breastfeeding?

• I worry that we don't do enough activities and we aren't making the most of my time off work.

Work

All of the above worries stem from having to go back to work. 

The thought of sitting down to watch tv every afternoon while my baby/toddler has a nap on my knee sounds appealing. It's only a worry because I know that it will have to stop in a few months time and I don't know if he'll be able to adapt to that. 

I wouldn't have to worry about being the only person to settle Henry if I wasn't going back to work. I would be the person settling him every day anyway. 

I wouldn't be putting all of us through the trauma of getting Henry to accept a bottle if I wasn't going back to work. Why would I? I'm perfectly happy to breastfeed until he's one when he'll be able to have cow's milk from a sippy cup. 

I wouldn't worry about the lack of sleep as much because a PJ day with plenty of trashy TV and endless cups of tea is great after an awful night's sleep. Teaching a class of 30 children all day and keeping them safe on 3 hours sleep sounds horrendous and I dread the day that I have to do it. 

I wouldn't worry about trying to fill every day with classes and activities, I'd enjoy doing nothing but cuddling and playing hidey boo, over and over again. After all, if I didn't have to work I'd have almost 5 whole years to fill before I wave my precious baby off on his first day of school.

My husband earns a good wage but it wouldn't support our lifestyle. Yes I could probably give up work if we sold our house and moved into a 2 bed flat in a rougher area, sold both new cars and bought an old banger, gave up our holidays, nice clothes, farm shop groceries and eating out habit. I'm not sure that would make me happy. I don't think I'd be happy not being able to choose where we lived so that I could also choose Henry's school. I can picture our first family holiday and look forward to walks on the beach with my little boy in his tiny Real Madrid kit that is hanging in his wardrobe ready for his first trip to Spain. His daddy can't wait to play bat and ball with him in the sea (thank the Lord that I won't have to play that anymore and might get 5 minutes to read my book in peace). I like that we have 2 big, reliable cars and we can afford to buy our cheeky monkey a high chair this weekend when we go to Mothercare without worrying about the cost. All of these things mean that I will have to go back to work in a few months and I will have to leave my precious boy with his Marmar. Luckily he absolutely adores her, she is one of his very favourite people and I know that she will care for him like no other. She will give him her undivided attention and fill his days with love, cuddles, farm trips, picnics in the garden and baking. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I had to put him in nursery full time. I think we'd have to go down the selling the house and cars option.

This dilemma is a new one for women and i think that a woman's role has changed WAY faster than evolution has. Ultimately, women are made and genetically programmed to have children. No matter how you look at it, the human body is designed so that women carry, give birth, feed and bond with their own babies like no other (If a woman chooses not to do this, that is absolutely fine, but you can't deny that having babies is what her body is designed to do). It means we worry about our baby like no other and we want the very best for them...I know that the best thing for my baby is ME bringing him up, all day, every day and it's so hard accepting that that isn't going to happen.

If we look back 40 years to the early 1970s, just 14% of mothers worked. That figure is now 68%. That is a massive shift in such a short space of time. You may think that 40 years is a long time, but when you compare it to the millions of years that humankind have been around and the 200,000 years that modern man has been on this planet, it is a tiny tiny amount. For the hundreds of thousands of years before today, mothers have brought up their children. End of story. Evolution doesn't work in 40 years. We have the same protective, maternal feelings that we did for all of those years when we almost certainly would have been at home with our babies. Yet we are expected to go back to work and leave our babies, very often with total strangers. We are expected to be able to 'perform' at work and adapt to our new life as a working mummy....it's what people do nowadays after all. This is what I am struggling with. I could be just a mummy no problem at all and I know that I could be just a teacher perfectly well too. I'm really really unsure of how I'll ever do both to the best of my abilities....

So, if there's anyone reading this with a spare 20 grand in their bank that they would like to give me so that I can be 'just a mummy' to Henry until he goes to school, I'll send you my bank details....if not, you're just going to have to put up with my moaning blog posts as I struggle to balance my crazy life as a working mummy.

(I really hope this doesn't come across as an anti-feminist blog post. It certainly isn't my intention. I strongly believe in a woman's right to choose what she does with her life and I think women, and their bodies, are absolutely amazing. I simply feel that the feminist movement has changed a woman's role in society hugely over a short space of time, but evolution hasn't been able to keep up with changing our bodies and emotions to fit...)