Mrs Helicopter Writes

Got small kids? It gets easier. When I had my first baby, I noticed that whenever he appeared to be peaceful, certain people couldn’t WAIT to tell me what awful things I had to come. Not sleeping through? WAIT til the terrible TWOS! Terrible twos? Wait til he’s a threeanger! You think you have problems now, wait til they’re an ACTUAL TEENAGER! BE GRATEFUL. Actually, this is not very helpful thing to a new mum. Or in fact, ANY mum. You may be greeted with a wan smile if you say this to someone but inside that person will be swearing at you. Because NO one wants to hear that things get worse. Stop it! I often think about whether or not I actually would have wanted to know how hard I found EVERYTHING from pregnancy onwards. I’ve had many a conversation since with fellow parents starting “no one ever tells you …. *insert awful realisation about parenthood here*…” But would I have REALLY wanted to know?     Would I have wanted to know that: a) Pregnancy is s...

Let’s tackle some ridiculous myths about not labelling kids toys and clothes with specific genders OK? Because flipping HECK, I’ve heard some bloody stupid stuff making the rounds. From people who really aren’t stupid and should definitely know better. It’s over a year since John Lewis took down their signs for “boy’s clothes” and “girl’s clothes” in store but it seems there are still a lot of people out there who haven’t grasped the concept. I’m gonna break it down for you: Gender Neutral Clothing / Toy sections aren’t full of beige clothes / toys or not trucks or dolls. This is the silliest thing I’ve heard so far. That all kids clothes will become grey and beige…. akin to when you hedging your bets buying baby clothes pre birth. No. It means that we stop deciding for kids what colours they are limited to wearing / toys they are limited to playing with. If anything, the best thing any clothing or toy shop could do, right now, is add MORE colours to their palate. I’v...

Motherland is a relatively new comedy series on the BBC that follows a modern, middle class white working woman and her struggles with balancing childcare, cliquey playground mums, an unhelpful grandparent and an absent/selfish father. Whilst I do think it’s very funny, and in some ways quite perceptive, I am also depressed as shit about a few key details. And I actually don’t think it’s helpful to have another TV series which represents childcare as solely a woman’s responsibility, however hilarious and possibly true to life it is. I do get that art reflects life so in this instance the popularity of this show is down to the fact that mothers see their lives reflected back at them. That IS the experience of many women in the UK right now. They work and they struggle and they sort out the childcare. But if we keep portraying that as the norm on screen, it’s not going to change anything is it? At some point, instead of saying this is your experience...isn’t it shit? How about ch...

My husband and I have recently made a fascinating discovery about screen time. The result of which has been, quite frankly, life changing for us. Since it’s become the norm to own a phone or tablet and more importantly, be glued to that device playing games or scrolling social media endlessly, there has been a lot of media attention focused on whether or not screen time is healthy for us. The blue light emitted from most hand held devices such as phones and tablets can inhibit sleep, for example. So there is plenty of readily available advice about the downside of not having to stare awkwardly into space, avoiding eye contact on public transport! But. Did we, the Helicopters, as a family, HEED this advice? DID we? Did we heck . Emlyn and I are as guilty as anyone of coming in from work, feeding and watering the kids, plonking them in front of the TV and then ignoring each other whilst we autonomously check our own newsfeeds in case something amazing has happening in the half ...

Festival Season is well and truly upon us. And I’m seeing loads of pics on social media from friends who’ve come back from Green Man and Camp Bestival and all sorts of other outdoorsy musical events and I must say, I’m a little bit envious. That’ will NEVER be me and my kids.   Big Day Out, Melbourne 2006 As a teenager, I absolutely LOVED a festival. I can honestly say that bunking off school at 17 and going to Glastonbury in the back of a battered old van with the local crusties was one of the definitive moments of my life. I didn’t think I could be any happier than when I was at that festival, surrounded by fellow drunken / high “alternative types”. Of course, in 1993 it was actually still hot and sunny during summer so this was long before the bog-fest of later years. It was all incense, tie dye, tassels, sun-scorched grass, stone circles, crazy dancing, jamming on guitars with strangers, delicious smelling food stalls and warm beer in plastic beakers. I’d see hi...

Here are the seven ways I fail at gender-neutral parenting:  1) I painted my daughter’s new bedroom peach and bright yellow and my 6 yr old boy’s bedroom grey and black. 2) I bought some “boy” and “girl” toys for the party bags for my son’s birthday. Including prett y stickers & hair clips vs robot stickers & cars. 3) My son loves football and my daughter loves dancing. I actively encourage both. 4) Gus had Thomas the Tank crockery when he was little. I bought Joni Peppa Pig stuff when she came along. 5) Gus’s wardrobe was lots of reds, yellows, greens as well as blue when he was little but now his wardrobe is made up of black, brown and grey. Joni has those colours too but also ALL the colours and a big dollop of yellow, pink and purple. 6) Gus had fairly neutral toys until about one but then he was drawn towards cars, trains and balls. So that’s what we bought. Joni was obsessed with dolls by the age of one. Admittedly introduced by the c...

Term time mornings:l 5am: Cats wake up, have mental 10 mins, run up and down the stairs, fight each other, jump on parents heads. Parents shout at cats. Go back to sleep. 6am: 6 yr old bursts into bedroom and/or makes loud “playing” noises outside bedroom door to alert parents of presence. 6.05am: Parents shout at child to keep noise down. 6.06am: Child maintains levels of noise. 6.10am: One parent gets up scares child downstairs with sleep-riddled anger and promises unfettered use of iPad for half an hour more sleep. 6.45am: Alarm goes off in parents room. 6.50am: Snooze goes off. 6.55am: Snooze goes off. 7.00am: Snooze goes off, Mummy belts Daddy with pillow to turn it off and get up. 7.05am: Daddy wakes 2 yr old. 7.06am: Daddy & children have breakfast. 7.20am: Daddy drags Mummy from bed and alerts her to her need to parent. 7.25am: Daddy goes to work, Mummy looks at social media on phone through blurry...

I’m not being funny, but I seriously think I am too lazy to be a mum. I don’t think I ever expected it to be so….  relentless . Like, it is literally non-stop, high alert from the minute your eyes ping open til the minute they are allowed to droop back down into blissful rest. Why didn’t someone WARN me? I didn’t sign up for this! I signed up for a few early mornings, sure! I knew the first few MONTHS might be a bit tiring….what with all that feeding through the night rubbish but then they sleep through and it’s totally fine, right? Oh yeah there might be a few nights when they’re ill….but like, how ill can a kid be? And if they’re ill….that means they sleep MORE right? But actually it’s a bit harder than that. It’s LOADS harder. SO firstly they don’t sleep. Well, not in the way you THINK they should. Looking back at my first child, sleeping and feeding in 3 hour cycles…. I used to think I was unlucky because he wasn’t sleeping through at 6 weeks! But he kept th...