things I think about when I have time to think

I read Thomas' blog today and I loved it, I really did, especially the first point, the "think caveman" advice . Us mums can sometimes make things way more complicated for our sons than they actually are. And like Thomas says, it is so often more about our own emotional complexitie s than theirs. I have 3 girls and 2 boys, and although I am a hands-on mum to all 5 of them, I am learning that I have to relinquish a lot of the 'control' that us females crave over aspects of my sons' development to their Dad . I have realised,... and then seen in-action that the ways he touches their lives are ways that I cannot .  It is sometimes just a casual boy nudge-me-as-i-walk-past-and-nudge-me-back in the corridor, ...or it is wrestling on the loungeroom floor, ..or it is those few words of wisdom that are passed between manly grunts as they carry heavy objects in the garden.... But they are all things that are not part o

I read a post today, a beautifully written blog by Jack , a father of 2. He wrestles with the guilt of not being able to give his second child, his much adored daughter, the same quality of life and material possessions, that he has given his first-born son, who spent many years as an only child.  Two children dilute the household budget , and often the forerunner, the firstborn, still gets the first and largest cut . And I do understand Jack's dilemma. it is one that we have encountered in our family too.  We have 5 kids ... and I know that our firstborn definitely received far more materially than the 2nd...and the 3rd... ...And it has been a downward curve ever since.  Now as a family with 5 children,  there is no glamourous air-travel, less guests invited to birthday parties, less pretty dresses, no spunky boy-accessories, more hand-me-downs , less brand-new-never-been-played-with-before toys, and less one-on-one time . Everything is shared. And we have ha

mother-love ... my first-born and I... I was 10 when a man first tried to kiss me . He wasn't a boy, he was in his 70s , and married to my grandmother. It was school holidays, we were staying with them in their apartment, and every time he caught me alone , he would try again. I was a young 10 year old , I hadn't yet started to physically develop, I was naive, I still played with dolls , I didn't know what he was really trying to do, but I knew that I didn't want him to do it , and I always tried to get away. 3 days later, once I was sure that I wasn't imagining it, I told my mother . I told her that he was trying to force his tongue into my mouth. And she believed me . But we continued to stay there.  My mother did tell my grandmother and I awoke the next morning to an awful tension in the small 2 bedroom apartment. No one was talking to anyone , and although both my grandmother and my mother did believe me, I felt as though I had done something awful

A friend texts me to say she is sick, and apologises. She had visited us the day before, and is now worried that she may have passed on the germs . I reassure her. I am the mother of 5 . And I am a doctor . Germs are a big part of my life. I've given up trying to avoid them . I remember the year I met James and we started dating. I was an intern in a big hospital in South Africa, working long long hours and over-exposed to far-too-many nasty infectious diseases . My immune system was a little more primed than James', I had been working clinically for several years as a medical student. But poor James . He confided that he had never been so sick in all his life . 3 months of dating and 4 courses of antibiotics. He even had a nightmare of being chased by a giant green snot-monster . But he decided it was worth it . 13 years on and he is now used to the germs too. We still get sick, but it's par for the course, an inevitable consequence . Parenting and doctoring

Recently I doctored a 60 year old woman in ED . She was disheveled and disorientated, and brought in by ambulance.  Passers-by had found her sitting on the side of the road, not knowing who she was or why she was there .  I introduce myself as her doctor, she looks up and flickers a small smile, then turns away again to focus on her fidgeting hands laying in her lap. She is wearing stained clothing, is dazed and unkempt , and she is carrying no form of identification besides a crumpled note with two telephone numbers in her pocket.  The only thing to do is to call the telephone numbers. I try the first one, explain that I am ringing on behalf of my patient and that she is in hospital. I ask the man who answers if he knows her, he swears, tells me never to ring again and hangs up.  The second number belongs to her son. They are estranged . He does come in though, and fills in some of the gaps. His mother had been living with a long-term partner for twenty-plus years. Two we