God and Boobies

Since the recent vomiting episode escalated into a full-blown horror, I haven't had much to write about because other than a lot more chundering not much has happened.
One thing happened in real life, one thing happened on the internet and one thing happened in the news.
In real life, Angry Bird has decided to give Baby Woo the odd bottle of formula. Please put your shocked face away. On the internet I got into some debates about a BBC article on breastfeeding rates that I found deeply offensive in its use of language. In the news, the General Synod of the Church of England voted against having female bishops. Put your shocked face back on if you like.

God and Boobies

 Much as the internet is awash with commentary on the subject, I feel like I should probably make some mention of the Church of England sort of voting against women bishops. But the whole thing is so obviously absurd that there doesn't seem much to say about it. The Bible doesn't say that the Church shouldn't involve women - well it does if you read it that way I suppose but then if you want to play that game you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. The basic principles of Christianity are the equality of all in the eyes of God, we can't judge other people because that's God's job and we should just be nice to everyone (but especially nice to God). So it seems pretty un-Christian to deny women any rights quite frankly. But there is no need to even say that because most people agree. It's just unfortunate that there are enough of a minority who don't agree for it to be upheld as a rule. Go men, I'm sure Jesus'll love your attitude.

Now that's said I can talk babies and God! Two of my favourite topics because it's the two things I know most about. Well, two of the things I think most regularly about...

 God was invented by Aristotle. Yes he was. You can't deny it to be honest, there were gods about before but it was all rather tragically disorganised before Aristotle cleared it all up for everyone. Cunningly he managed to do this without living in a world where monotheism was all that much of an option or where Christianity was even a twinkle in the Virgin's eye. Aristotle invented most things, although the Dutch will claim it was them. Aristotle deffo wasn't Dutch. He may have invented the Dutch.

A very brief (this will totally get to babies soon) bit about a little bit of his Philosophy goes thus:

Everything is what it is because of its four causes. If you want to understand what something is, find out what its causes are and then you'll know. That's science. Aristotle also invented science.

Cause 1: The Material Cause. (what is it made of? Let's do science by finding out!)

Cause 2: The Formal Cause (what form does it take? You can think of it as being what shape it takes if you like)

Cause 3: The Efficient Cause (what made the material take that form? That involves tools and workmanship)

Cause 4: The Final Cause (why is it? What is it for? Partly you can think of this as its function, but more specifically it is to do with purpose. This is the clincher. Everything has a purpose. A pencil is for writing, that's what it's for, great! But it all gets a bit more complicated when you look at more complicated things like people, obviously. Don't think about this for too long, you might hurt yourself or else lose your mind. It's ok, mostly we've let it go now outside of organised religion)

When Aristotle did science he said we should be trying to find the meaning of why things were what they were and what they were for.

Let's think about breasts,
you see where this is going?

More to the point, Aristotle (although he wasn't talking about breasts at the time) said that for something to be good it should be good at being what it is.

Breasts are good if they are good at doing what it is that breasts are good at.
You see where this is going?

This eventually becomes a moral condition when Thomas Aquinas squishes all of this Aristotle into his analysis of the Bible and claims Aristotle for Christianity.

For something in nature to be morally good it should do what it is that it naturally does. 

Breasts.

A consequence of this view in the Church was that natural was considered best. For a long time afterwards it was thought that pain relief in childbirth was a morally bad thing because it was not natural. This attitude is from an ancient thinker, interpreted by a medieval thinker, slammed into the modern world without much further critique.

There is STILL an overarching view among people, including government people, that natural childbirth is morally better than unnatural childbirth (ie having a Caesarian), that having no pain relief is morally better than having pain relief (why have an epidural when you can have a water birth?) and that breastfeeding is morally better than formula feeding.

I will completely completely acknowledge that real, proper, non-medieval science has shown the benefits of breastfeeding. It's all very lovely of course.

But the issue is not a moral one.

Be very wary oh readers of mine of those who claim that 'breast is best'. This is not a moral issue and mothers who don't breastfeed, who choose not to for whatever reason are allowed to make that choice and it is purely a practical one and never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever a moral one. Ever. Except maybe when...no. Never.

The scientific enlightenment bore us many geniuses, revolutions in thought, insights and freedoms that pre-enlightenment science never could have done. Its main tenet was the abandonment of the search for the Final Cause of things.
To look for what God has deemed the moral purpose of something is now unconditionally considered to be unscientific and so claims made on this matter are faith-claims and never knowledge claims.

All this 'purpose' language in science (yes Brian Cox, I'm talking to you, you big massive....rude swear word) must be abolished. That is a rant for another time, but I stand by the periphery point that I make to you now; to feed your child at all is certainly a moral issue, but how you choose to do that is not a moral question.

The difference is the same as that between kicking a puppy and kicking a pencil. Don't kick any puppies, that was just an illustration.


Ps. If it was you that I was debating about the BBC article don't be offended, I was really just struggling for a topic other than vomit. This isn't me going way overboard about making my point.

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or tweet or facebook or whatever. Also please comment below. It's nice to read comments. It fills the void of my otherwise void-filled life. It will also save the children the bother of filling those voids with vomit.

What? I love biscuits...at least I'm honest about it.

"the present findings suggest that an effective attentional control system, as reflected in preschoolers’ ability to direct attention away from tempting aspects of the rewards in a delay-of-gratification task, may share a common mechanism with, or serve as a precursor for, long-term ability to inhibit attentional and behavioral responses, as reflected years later in performance on the go/no-go task. Moreover, because inefficient performance in the go/no-go task has been well documented as being associated with immature development of fronto-striatal and related circuitry, the findings suggest that temptation focus in the delay-of-gratification task at age 4 may already be a marker of the subsequent development of individual differences in this system in adolescence and adulthood." 

(Wikipedia) (maybe not the professional researcher's tool of choice but it sure is easy)

There is a much repeated psychological test performed on children; faced with a favourite snack of their choice they are told "now you're not to eat the biscuit until I return, then you can have two!" 

Woohoo!!

Some kids wait. Some kids eat the snack.
What would you have done? What would you want your children to do?

Personally I'd have finished the biscuit before the researcher had finished saying the word "now". According to the study this means that I was always likely to become a "less competent" teenager...check. And as an adult, have fewer friends...check. Meh.

I'm more than happy with this, if I was going to choose whether I was a waiter or a taker I'd have picked to be a taker because at least it's honest. As an adult the one thing I'm really no good at is lying. This gets me into trouble sometimes but I keep my integrity.

If you put a snack in front of a kid and tell them not to eat it you aren't you basically checking if they can lie to themselves? They DO want to eat it, it's not a bad thing to eat a snack, some people might argue it's bad to disobey an authority figure but where would we be if we all thought that? At church probably, with our slaves tied up outside. Nice.

I don't think being an incompetent teenager is any bad thing either, I was ruddy useless at most things. But when I was asked (true story) "now, do you want to do the washing up or do you want some chocolate?" I may have been too stupid, unlike the other child in this picture, to spot the clever psychological trick being played on me (yeah, genius, well done you) but I was honest. I'd like the chocolate, obviously (my sarcasm ain't new)
The other kid said she would rather do the washing up - guess who got the chocolate. Adults are sometimes ruddy horrible.
Thinking about it, what does that even prove except that she was cleverer than me and saw through the stupid game and I was naive, but honest? Again, I know which I'd pick to be now. (in case she's reading this, the other kid isn't horrible by the way, the grown-up in the story is horrible but she understood his ways better than me and is cleverer than me) (wow, Psara, cleverer than you? Surely not! You make a good point, but she is exceptionally clever so it's ok. Don't panic.)

Yes I don't have a LOT of friends now, but I have maybe 10 best friends, all over the world. It doesn't matter that I don't have a crowd of a million people to go to the pub with who all have some basic knowledge about my life when I have a few amazing friends who know me inside out. Not literally. Not all of them anyway.

Enough about me, what's this all got to do with the babies eh?
Well, as parents we feel a responsibility to bring up our children into the sorts of people we want them to be. On some level this is balls because we can't help who we are entirely as parents and that's bound to rub off a bit. I also don't think I want to bring up Mr Gubbles and Fusty to be like me.

The parental role of the children in the study is merely a footnote. Children who were subject to a broken promise before the test were more likely to take the biscuit, children who were subject to a kept promise were more likely to wait. That speaks volumes doesn't it?

Regardless of the psychological repercussions at stake, I'm pretty much going to try not to break promises to my children, and if that means that they end up having loads of friends then so be it.


Post Script:
I have added some gadgets to the blog page, so now you can share it on your facebook or twitter or google+ account by pressing the 'share' button below! Also you can follow my blog by clicking that button on the side there. Simple. 

Hate and Love

Things I hate: bin juice, vomit, dog poo, paedophiles and leeks.

Come with me if you will, into your imagination...
It's a scorching hot day, you are staying on a secluded tropical island and basking in the midday sun. To cool yourself down you find a beautiful waterfall and bathe beneath its waters. The refreshing and cleansing flow from this natural spring cascades over your skin and you think to yourself this, precisely this, is the best I have ever felt. Perfect, just perfect.

The exact opposite of this is what happened to me last night.

We were staying away at the in-laws for the weekend, my poor husband was on the verge of a meltdown trying to complete his coursework with his already crippling dyslexia being exacerbated by a slowly dying laptop. It had been a long day of cables, inverters, phone calls and stress. I went to bed at 9pm; the house is pretty cold in the evenings so I thought I would snuggle up with a book and go to sleep. And that I did.

At midnight I heard a grumble from Mr Gubbles's room. He rarely wakes up but he has recently been playing "no I don't like it" at dinner time, so he has been known to wake up asking for milk or snacks recently. Since hubbo wasn't in bed yet I assumed he would go and have the inevitable tired snacks row. 5 minutes of grumbling later and no sign of hubbo I sighed and got up. It's very cold, remember how this is opposite? At this point I made two fatal mistakes: 1. I did not put my glasses on and 2. I did not tie back my hair.

Bad. Moves.


Poor Mr Gubbles was sat on his bed crying. I sat on the floor, "what's wrong baby?" ..."mummy a cuddle" came the reply. I do love him when he asks for cuddles. Sneaky little sh.......

As I put my arms around his pudgy neck, my back suddenly feels warmer than it was. It took a few seconds before I identified the sorrowful sob as the telltale 'huukbleurgh' of a full-on gurge. Delightful. Why didn't I tie my ruddy hair back??

So I stood him back on his feet, "oh no, I'll get Daddy". I don't know what the response was going to be, because when he opened his mouth to speak all that came out was "huukbleurgh". TV child-rearing experts have told me to always speak to children at their level. In this situation, and not wearing my glasses, that is NOT good advice. Remember the waterfall? The cool refreshing water cascading over your face? Now imagine that's vomit. Remember how I HATE vomit? Yeah, so now I have vomit not only seeping into my arse-crack but also covering my face and hair, front and back. I say nothing. I am in shock. It is dribbling off the end of my nose like a summer rain in Hell, it's stinging my eyes like tears of fire, it's invading all the places I least want vomit to invade. He adds a final top up to my legs as I sit on the floor. At least he's thorough, though I do now look like some macabre Dr. Who Puke-Monster.

Hubbo finally came to the door.

Now, the first time Mr Gubbles projectile vomited, hubbo was a bit slow on the uptake. Where I had expected him to leap into action in a manly way and either take the kid off me or run to find a muslin he instead had stood, somewhere between dumbstruck and impressed and simply said "he's never done that before". Yes, well done. So this time I was less surprised by his silence but twice as bothered.
Because instead of him rushing to my aid I was forced to say "help me".
Under the waterfall in the land of dreams, opening your mouth is positively encourageable. When you have a face covered in vomit, coupled with a big hatey phobia of vomit, opening your mouth is probably the absolute worst thing you can do.

You know when you're sick and you get some left in your mouth and nose and it's really really gross? That feeling is worse when the vomit is not yours.

So my early night of warm snuggliness turned into a midnight shower in a house of ice where I have no clean pyjamas (hubbo kindly donated me his) (this does correctly imply that I have married a man who still wears jammies, but I've dealt with that). I finally got back to bed at 1 and dreamed of bathing in vomit until morning.

But when Mr Gubbles rudely woke me back up at a frankly stupid hour for what should be an ill child (turns out he's actually fine) all I thought about was whether he was ok. I was happy to rush in to him and get him up and dressed, sing five little ducks while I brushed his teeth and go downstairs to watch the only episode of Thomas I managed to record on the in-laws' telly over and over and over and over and over and over... Because he's my boy and I love him, right down to his insides apparently.