NagMummy

I came across an interesting article, What Women Want Now in the October 26 edition TIME magazine. It caught my interest and I downloaded a paper titled The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness cited in the article.

Here’s the abstract the paper, authored by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania:

“By many objective measures, the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging–one with higher subjective well-being for men.”

As a female, it hit me that it may be true that as we got more education, freedom and money, our lives have become more complicated. It also reminds of the Marslow’s hierarchy of needs which we learnt in school. As we get our lower-level needs (Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem) satisfied, we move up to the highest level of self-actualisation needs which are undoubtedly harder to attain.

Take my mum as an example, she received only primary school education and is financially dependent (first on the man who brought her up then the man she married). For most of her life, her goal was to bring up her four kids. She did some casual work after her kids were more independent and any income earned was her pocket money. As a grandmother of four now, she is the primary caregiver of one. Is she happier than me?

I’m not sure, really. She is happy, no doubt. But she may have some regrets too. As we prepare M for half-day childcare next month, I’ve been thinking about what lies ahead for me. I believe I will not find as much meaning staying home going forward as M starts to spend more time away from home. Well, unless we have another child.

Interestingly, the results of the study above suggested that level of subjective happiness was no different between women who were young or old, educated or not educated, married or divorced, kids or no kids, working mums or stay-at-home mums… Mind boggling indeed….

Perhaps we have all gotten out of sync with reality? Expecting to stay happily married, have wonderful kids, excel in our careers, be a fashionista etc… all at the same time. Sure, there’re a few superwomen out there who are constantly featured in the media. But don’t they just make the rest of us less happy?

Sometimes, societal pressures, government propaganda and clever consumer marketing can mislead us into thinking what makes us happy. I recall the many times people around me have commented “What a waste!” when they find out I’m a stay-at-home mum. This led to a rather heated argument once. And ever since then, I’ve learnt to just acknowledge and pass it off.

But what I really want to say is “Doing what you enjoy cannot be a waste!”

Well yes, I’m definitely guilty. Quoting author Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer, a ‘put-down’ is

“an unnecessarily negative statement which has the effect of making the recipient feel less good about themselves, of damaging their self-respect and belief in themselves and their competence.”

I try to mind my language around M but still can’t help directing some ‘put downs’ at her on occasions. My most common ones are “Don’t run. You’ll fall” “Don’t embarrass me” “Why are you so lazy?”

Hopefully, they’ve not done any major damage to M’s self-esteem. According to the book, too much of these ‘put downs’ can “cause resentment and create distance and resistance”, which can have negative long-term effects on a child’s self-image and his/her future relationships.

Funny though… because this supposedly damaging way of parenting is how I grew up. Asian parents often put down their kids and seldom praise their kids for fear that they’ll get complacent. Not too long ago, I heard a relative shouting at her primary one kid “You stupid ah?” Most people around us turned out fine, but who knows, some may have gone further with a bit more praise.

Anyway, this book is really like a child psychology textbook, defining and conceptualising self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-discipline and how one leads to the next. And so even though it’s been a rather boring book to read, I’m glad it got me to appreciate how our everyday words and actions can make a difference to our children’s lives.

But at the end of the day, I think it’s about us being happy parents, spouses, workers… How else can we expect happy children?

Recently, my sis shared with me a close friend’s very sad story. Even though I do not know this friend personally, I’ve met her many times over the years and would occasionally hear her updates.

Last month, this friend suffered one of the most cruel things that can happen to any expecting mother. Her baby was stillborn close to full term. I know stillbirths happen but it really bothered me this time that I’m a mum and I know the person.

My sis visited her a few days ago and shared with me their account. Apparently, this friend felt very strong kicks while driving home but did not suspect anything was wrong. Later that night before bedtime, she noticed baby did not kick as she usually does but went to bed anyway. She finally felt something was amiss the next morning and went to the doctor’s. Unfortunately, it was too late as the baby’s heart had stopped beating due to a constriction of the umbilical cord around one foot.

No matter, she delivered the baby through induced natural birth. I cannot imagine the amount of grief she went through, consciously pushing her lifeless baby out, knowing she will not be hearing her cry. After the child was stillborn, the couple took a picture and a footprint of her and bade farewell to their baby forever.

I am fighting back tears as I write this, just imagining the pain they had gone through. To lose a loved one before meeting her. To be filled with sorrow upon the delivery of their first child (which did not come easy). Such is the cruelty of life. The couple is still coming to terms with the loss and seeking counselling.

Hearing stories like this just makes me want to give M an extra big hug. To be thankful for having her in our lives. To cherish every moment together.

Last week, we brought M out for her first overseas holiday. After our previous 2 hotel stays in Singapore, we felt we were ready to venture further. Still, we wanted to take things easy. We finally decided on Langkawi, Malaysia because it was one of the nearest beach holiday destination. Matt and I have been there 10 years ago when we were dating.

The 1.5 hr flight was pretty ok, with the distraction of food, soft toys and games we had prepared. She wasn’t too happy to be strapped in by the seat belt though. We were hoping she would take a nap on the plane but that did not happen. Instead, she fell asleep as we were disembarking and woke up when we reached the hotel room.

We were surprised we managed to do a fair bit of sight-seeing. On our second day, we did a half-day tour which included a mangrove tour, watching eagle feeding and visiting a bats’ cave; and finally lunch at a floating restaurant (aka kelong). M actually fell asleep on the bumpy boat ride to the kelong!

The third day we took a scenic cable car ride to the top of a mountain and visited a waterfall. M even said "”Wow… amazing” when she saw the waterfall. It was only that afternoon that we managed to bring her for a dip in the pool and also went to the beach to watch sunset. In fact, M was so contended with the bathtub that we almost had to drag her to the pool!

I would say the trip turned out better than expected. We liked the spacious hotel room at the Meritus Pelangi Beach Resort and the place being less commercialised than Phuket, Thailand and Bali, Indonesia. I thought we would have spent more time in the pool or at the beach though. My mum came along so it was nice having someone else to help out.

The only lowlight of the trip would probably the junk food and improper meals for M. We often had to use biscuits (her favourite) to get her to move along or sit still in car rides. And M did not seem to like the food there. She did not eat well for most meals even though we tried to order chinese style food. But since she finished all her milk feeds, we decided to ‘close one eye’.

So all in all, a good trip and we’re glad to be home safe and sound

I finally went for my review early this week. I wanted Matt to come along so I had to wait for a day he could make it. Incidentally, it was a day before our holiday and I was initially afraid I might heard some things which will affect my mood but dismissed it because I did not want to delay it any further. And my fear turned out to be unfounded.

Well, in short, there was no miracle. The fibroid (1 of 2) which I mentioned in my earlier post continued to grow. It is now 7cm and can be felt from pressing on my lower abdomen. From the ultrasound, gynae could see that it’s pressing on my bladder even more now and told me to expect ‘pressure symptoms’ like more frequent trips to the toilet.

The other fibroid appears to remain small and not growing. Gynae had difficulty ‘looking’ for it because it was ‘dwarfed’ by the bigger one. She was glad the chinese herbs were helping to control my heavy period but does not expect it to help stem the growth of the fibroid. The only good thing it does is that I do not need to take as much of the medication from gynae.

So the verdict of the review was: a surgery (myomectomy) is recommended to remove the fibroids to relieve my symptoms and prevent complications for future pregnancies but it is of low urgency for the moment. Since M is scheduled to start childcare in December and the festive season is round the corner; the next review is set for March 2010 when we expect to put a date down for the surgery (which gynae described as a ‘mini c-section’).

I just can’t bear spending my favourite festival (Chinese New Year) in pain!

I would describe my home as minimalist. We try to live with as little as possible. In fact, I even thought it was possible to live without a store-room! I never liked the idea of a room full of unwanted, forgotten, past-their-prime things, which is probably how I would describe the store-room at my mum’s place.

Well, as it turns out, life with a kid can hardly be described as minimalist; with their ‘specialised’ stuff filling up corners of our home slowly but surely. Since we kinda did away with a store-room, we really did not have much space to keep things which M no longer needs or wants.

Our strategy has so far been to pass them on so they continue to stay useful. We had our fair share of hand-me-downs and it’s environmentally friendly too! Well, we hope to have another kid (more complicated now) but we knew we did not want kids very close in age. Also, I have this weird preference for something that’s aged through use versus something seemingly new that’s turned ‘old’ from being kept away for years. Needless to say, I’m no fan of antiques.

Anyway, I feel happy seeing these hand-me-downs being ‘revived’ in homes of our friends and relatives. I bet ‘they’ prefer to be out there in action than idle in the store-room!

p/s: our converted study has somehow turned into a de-facto store-room

Today is the M’s last day at GUG (Growing Up Gifted) United Square. We have been attending this once-a-week 2–hour playgroup class (for children from 18 to 30 months) since the start of the year. One of the main reason we chose this programme then was that it was parent-accompanied.

At GUG – a kindergarten with programmes for children from 8 months old to 6 years old (K2), children above 2.5 years old can progress to the next stage of independent classes. But since we’ve decided to start M on half-day childcare soon, she won’t be moving on to that next stage, at least for now.

Nonetheless, we are happy to say that we’ve enjoyed ourselves over the past 9 months. It certainly provided me bits of ‘social life’. Being in the class meant we can discuss events that happen during class after that, like “remember what we did for project yesterday?”. And one of the things I really like is I can sing all the songs she learns in class. They always come in handy when we’re in the car, because M can be quite a ‘monkey’.

M has also learnt the sounds of all 26 letters of the alphabet. GUG adopts the Zoo-phonics system of teaching phonics where each letter of the alphabet is associated with an animal and an action. For example, if she see the letter ‘i’, she would sometimes point to it and say “inny inchworm, e e e” while bending her index finger. Although she still gets some of the actions or sounds mixed up sometimes, it’s a big achievement already in my opinion.

Besides a segment on phonics, each 2-hour class includes music and movement, a 20-min Chinese segment, art and craft or science project and of course a break for snack. Even though all kids are accompanied, there are 2 teachers (and 3 during the chinese segment) taking turns to conduct the class (max 12 kids) and control the kids. A good ratio, I think.

But of course with kids in this age group, the class can get noisy and even chaotic at times. And I must say the teachers have shown their professionalism in dealing with these challenging times. I also find that most of the teachers have a good command of English (or Chinese) and are able to manage the kids well. They also seem to be young (in their 20s and 30s) and genuine. I believe this has led me to have a preference for younger teachers as mentioned in an another post about choosing a childcare centre for M.

So thanks Teacher Az, Teacher Aida, Teacher Siva and Lao Shi! We had fun

p/s: The photo above was taken during the Children’s Day celebration last week.

I started suffering from heel pain around the last trimester of my pregnancy. It was also then that crack lines started to show around my heels. Little did I expect that the pain would only get worse after giving birth. Somehow, even after losing all the weight I gained during pregnancy, the pain persisted. It is usually worst in the morning when I get off bed. As I start walking, the pain subsides for a while but returns if I continue to be on my feet.

I finally decided to seek help when a friend recommended her TCM practitioner. The doctor immediately diagnosed it as a heel spur (although only an x-ray can prove it), and used an infrared lamp on my heels for around 10 minutes. I felt excruciating pain during that 10 minutes. It felt like my heels were on fire!

The doctor then explained that heel spurs are caused by a high level of ‘acidity’ in the body and said I should avoid cold, sweet food. I did not really understand the relation but I know I will have great difficulty adhering to it because I love cold and sweet stuff! Besides this, he recommended that I wear bedroom slippers at home and high-heel shoes when I’m out. The bedroom slippers was supposed to keep the heels soft and warm because cold hard floor will only make the pain worse. But I was really surprised about the high heels – something I’ve avoided since I was pregnant. Anyway, it is supposed to bring forward my centre of gravity and relive pressure on the heels. Finally, he said a daily foot bath will improve blood circulation around the heel area which will help ease the pain.

The bedroom slippers was the easiest and most effective thing I did. Wearing high-heels when I’m out is a big challenge as I’m usually with M and I still need to carry her a fair bit so I do not want to risk losing my balance. The foot bath was nice and relieves pain but I found it quite a hassle.

So I was really excited when I came across the Philips Infrared Lamp ($50+) when we were shopping at Best Denki some time back. It worked just like the lamp at the doctor’s and sure saved me a lot of trouble and money (around $30 per consultation). And the best part is I can use it for relieving my back ache too!

Definitely a good buy

On my first visit to my gynaecologist when I was pregnant with M, I was informed that I had 2 fibroids. Even though the size of the fibroids were rather small then (1.1 cm and 2.1 cm), we were forewarned that fibroids can complicate pregnancies if they continue to grow, taking away essential nutrients from the foetus. However, gynae informed us that nothing can be done to the fibroids during pregnancy so we could only monitor and hope for the best.

And we were very fortunate that my fibroids hardly grew during the next 34 weeks (pregnancies can accelerate their growth). The check-ups after childbirth showed they remained ‘subdued’ in the sense that no medical intervention was required. However, gynae did remind me that I should go for a review if I start experiencing heavy periods.

Before I continue, some background information about fibroids. Uterine fibroids are benign tumours (muscle growth) which rarely turn cancerous. Their size can range from as small as a pea to as big as a melon. Most common symptoms are heavy bleeding, abdominal pressure or discomfort and changes to bladder & bowel movements. The female hormones – oestrogen and progesterone have been related to the growth of fibroids but the real cause is unknown. Treatment options vary with different sizes and locations of the fibroids.

So early this year, I noticed my period was gradually getting heavier and the last time I saw gynae was probably late 2007 (when my period had just returned since I breastfed for 6 months). It took me a while to finally find time to visit gynae, sometime in May.

And then came the not so good news – one of the fibroids (originally 2.1 cm) had now doubled in size to nearly 5 cm. Gynae recommended that I have them removed in a surgery (myomectomy) before my next pregnancy to avoid complications. I was really frightened by the thought of a surgery (I’ve never had one!). But gynae said situation was not critical and a review was planned 6 months later. Meanwhile, she prescribed some medicine for me to deal with the heavy period.

After getting over the initial shock of an impending surgery, I did some online research. It seems surgery to remove the fibroids (myomectomy) is usually recommended for women who still want to have children. For those who have no need for childbearing, a surgery to remove the uterus (hysterectomy) is sometimes recommended since it will remove the possibility of new fibroid growth which is the drawback of a myomectomy. A keyhole surgery (laparoscopic myomectomy) is possible in some cases but I recalled gynae saying she won’t be able to detect any other small fibroids which may not have been picked up by ultra-sound.

I also read about how some people were able to totally dissolve their fibroids by adopting some special diet or lifestyle. But they obviously wanted money for revealing their ‘secrets’, which I’m still not convinced. Anyway, I decided to visit the TCM practitioner that I’ve seen when I was pregnant to see if he could do anything the ‘natural’ way.

He painted a similar gloomy outlook of fibroids, saying that they will cause ‘damage’ to a foetus and that fibroids bigger than 3.5 cm are difficult to dissolve. Hearing this, I really regretted not seeing him earlier! Nonetheless, he prescribed some chinese herbs to be brewed.

After two doses of that yucky horrible-smelling black concoction, I noticed a lighter period the following month. Encouraged, I’ve gone back to see him 2 more times since he prescribes herbs for a month per visit. In the last visit, he mentioned it would be good that I go for an ultra-sound scan to check on the fibroids’ situation. Since it’s pretty near the review date, I’ll be making that trip soon.

Well, all these have just made me rethink if we should have another kid, since the objective of the surgery at this stage would mainly be for that purpose. My current symptoms are still rather mild and I could probably live with them for a while before any serious medical intervention.

Hmm… still pondering on it. Let’s see what comes out of my visit to gynae…

p/s: this video provides a good overview of fibroids (with gory pictures of fibroids)…. so not for the faint-hearted!

Well, that’s how Dr Harvey Karp describes toddlers in his ‘The Happiest Toddler on the Block’ DVD. An extract from his website:

“Cavemen were stubborn, opinionated, and not too verbal. They bit and spat when angry, were sloppy eaters, hated to wait in line, and were negative, tenacious, distractible, and impatient…”

All parents with terrible twos understand the frustration we go through when our kids act out. Although M has been pretty much a ‘textbook’ baby, she definitely has her fair share of tantrums (during bath and meal times especially). Recently, she even started hitting, biting and scratching her cousin! Although I can’t help defending M that she had been provoked into doing so sometimes…

Of course that does not make the behaviour any more acceptable, so Matt and I have been showing our disapproval every time she does that, so much so that she’s now afraid of getting into grandma’s house. She would want me to carry her even before the door is opened, because cousin S usually runs to us and insists on taking off M’s shoes despite M saying “No No…”. And cavemen M has responded several times with scratching or hitting S.

Anyway, we watched this DVD a few weeks ago and thought we should share it. Dr Karp presents an age-old advice of acknowledging our toddlers in a new and interesting way. He calls it the “Fast Food Rule”, which is how we should always repeat our toddler’s wants after him/her, letting him/her know we’ve understood him/her. Another interesting concept is “Toddler-ese”, which is speaking in your toddler’s primitive language in order to connect with a kid going through a tantrum.

So, I tried to put to practice this method when we came home late one night and did not want M to watch another 30 minutes of TV before bedtime (she was obviously tired but  wanted to go through her usual routine of TV, milk, bed). After getting dressed, she headed for her bedroom door but I refused to let her out, saying “No Hi-5, it’s late”. She then started to whine, then wailed “I want to watch Hi-5!” repeatedly.

So I echoed “You want to watch Hi-5?” a few times, she nodded and stopped crying. I continued with “But it’s late now, you’re tired, you need to drink your milk and go to bed, you can watch it tomorrow, alright?” She started wailing again, banging on her bedroom door. But once I say “ You want to watch Hi-5?” she stops and I’ll say “You can watch it tomorrow, alright? Mummy promise.”

We went through many rounds of this before she finally calmed herself down and said “It’s late, cannot watch Hi-5.” Wow… amazing I thought, I almost wanted to give up and let her out! I must say I found it quite comical acting like her and trying to match her level of emotion as suggested by the “Toddler-ese” concept. I actually had to control my laughter many times!

In recent weeks, it’s been easier getting her to accept not watching TV before bedtime, especially when it’s late. Usually, I suggest reading her a book and she’s fine. There’re other concepts which Dr Karp explains in his ‘The Happiest Toddler on the Block’ DVD, book and website which go a long way towards helping parents deal with the daily struggles with their toddlers.

I’ll try this method whenever M acts out these days. Not always successful but definitely worth a try!