When am I too old to……?

I’m wondering at what age does it become unacceptable to sleep on your friend’s floor? This is a genuine concern for me as I do it lot, visiting people, nights out, going to gigs and other things. I always stay on someone’s floor, but I, er, get the impression that you proper adults/grown ups don’t do that. Soooo I kind of want I want to know at what age is it, you know, ‘improper’ for me to sleep on my friends floors?

Seriously, I mean my parents don’t slumber in sleeping bags on a mate’s carpet; so at what age do I have to start… I don’t know shelling out for hotel rooms or making other arrangements? (I have no idea what these other arrangements are.) Or is that they don’t stop snoozing on mates floors but rather that they have fewer reasons to? Do ‘adults’ stop going to gigs, stop going on nights out and getting too inebriated to drive home and stop visiting friends ? Is that why they no longer catch Zzzzzzz on floorboards?  I suppose that adults stay with other adults and adults have spare rooms, is that it?

This is just one of the many, many questions I have about being an ‘adult’; for example my friend who I went ‘white dress’ shopping with at the weekend, still goes out for coffee, orders a coke and slurps it. She getting married in 4 months and still doesn’t drink coffee and still slurps her drinks. How is she grown up enough to be married? I went to a gig on Monday; now am I allowed to go to a gig on a week night if I have work the next day or am I meant to be responsible and not go? This gig was for a band I have loved since I was 14 and my friends and I went along with every intention of re living our youth in a big way. Does that mean we are adults now because we can relive bits of our youth?  Am I too old to like cartoons, Disney Parks and teddies? If so I am definitely not adult enough to have the child that would provide the ‘permission’ for me to be seen enjoying these again.

I never used to care about these things or what other people thought about these things. Is that a sign that I’m more adult or grown up or whatever? Sod it, I really just want to know when I’ll stop getting back ache from the all that contorting as a result of sleeping on those hard floors!

If I could make a speech to the world at 17.

Question 778

When I was about 17 this was the speech I wanted to make to the world, well Western society at least. I doubt it would be the one I would make today but when I read the question it got me thinking about this speech and how much it meant to me. I still believe a lot of the points I made and the anger and feeling behind it are valid.

Childhood has never been straight forward and in resent years there is a growing consensus that it is in a peculiarly parlous state. What is this so-called parlous state? Academics and children’s experts say that a deadly cocktail of junk food and electronic entertainment, combined with the sinister effects of over-competitive schooling and marketing are poisoning our childhoods. I would like to put it to you that this consensus is fuelled by adults who have all too quickly forgotten childhood and its true form. These adults look back on their childhood through rose-tinted glasses to see an adult imagined world of what they believe it was like.

Is electronic entertainment driving children in doors such a bad thing? Adults would have you believe that children spend hours in darkened rooms in front of a box that sends out images of violence. The fact that there has always been violence in the play ground, in cartoons and in fairy tales doesn’t come in to the argument. Research carried out by the BBC state that children are more likely to be disturbed by violence seen on the news than in fictional media. Adults complain that children no longer go out to see their friends instead they turn on a computer and chat with them without having to make the laborious effort of having to see them face to face. I personally believe that not enough is time given to research that suggest that computer games can assist children’s social and educational development. Young people are using technology to make music, learn and connect with friends across the globe.

Adults insist that children’s childhoods are becoming shorter and that we are growing up far to fast. This could be because never before has there been such a relentless barrage of marketing aimed at children. That there are more and more images of adults present as an aspiration for children, with the perfect make-up and hair, dressed from head to toe in height of fashion. Yet this marketing is a mirror image of that aimed at adults. Children are merely following in their parents foot steps.

Are children really growing up faster? Children may smoke and have mobile phones but this does not mean they have the ability to leave home or get a job. Economic independence is harder to reach by children today unlike forty years ago when it was not unusual for children to be working by the age of sixteen. This illustrates how difficult it is for children to reach the traditional milestones of adulthood: owning your own home, having a job and getting married with children is being push further back in life.

These however I believe to a cover of a greater embarrassment to adults not children and that is with all our advance in technology and understanding; and all their knowledge teachers and parents are still facing the same problems they did a millennium ago when it comes to children. There has always been great pressure on children, yet adults are still no closer to understanding how to deal with them. We all know what childhood is, but what defines a good childhood and when does it end. The last of course is that all gown ups know what it is like to be a child but there greatest fear is that they will not understand their own children.

If you could make a speech to the world what would it be??

14 steps to surviving babysitting.

I babysit, I’ll be honest sometimes it terrifies me. I love children but for those few hours I am responsible for them. Nothing awful has even happened to me, (unless a 2 year who wouldn’t stop screaming for an hour counts) most of the time the most horrific thing I have had to deal with has been an asthma attack and bad dreams.

I have some personal preferences, so  despite being told to that I am I’m allowed the beer and wine knocking around the house I don’t touch it, my worst nightmare is that I’ll have a drink and then some sort of disaster will happen and the parents can’t get home and  I have to drive the children somewhere. I also don’t invite people to join me, friends or boyfriends, the less people I have to look after, the better as far as I’m concerned. Babysitting is my job, I get paid to do it, I want to do it well.

So here are my little golden rules that allow me to sit back and have a semi relaxing night.

1. Always be at your best , fit and well rested, because if you’re ready for a rough night and all you have to do is sit around and read a book it’s bloody lovely. And it’s sods law that if you are tired or feeling unwell everything that can go wrong , will..
2. Be acquainted with the children, go around and met them before you babysit. No child wants to wake up and find a stranger where their parents should be and trust me you do not want to handle a 3 year old who is hysterical, won’t sleep and there is nothing you can do because you’re just not mummy.
3. Distraction is your best friend, always be prepared to perform, entertain, to be diverting. I think of it as good practice for working in an office and I have cocked something up.
4.  Be nice but never ever show weakness or fear because no matter how surprised you are about it, you are the person in charge. Once again practice for other better paid less demanding jobs.
5. Wear snuggly clothes, it could be long night and you need to be comfortable especially when you have a distressed little person curled up on your lap. Plus you don’t actually have to look good, I mean who is going to see you??
6. Never wear earphones and play music or watch TV. It’s a simple thing but your need to be listening constantly, you need to know who is moving, awake, going to loo, crying or jumping on the bed. Also cuts down on noise that could create the dreaded situation of wake ups.
7. Bring something special. If you are starting early evening and the children aren’t in bed. I like to bring a muffin or cookie mix jar so the kids can make something nice for their parents. They are easy to make, just find a really big jar and fill with pre-measure the ingredients that need eggs added when you get to the house. Special bubble bath is also good. New games and stories are good for crying kids too. You are the best thing in the world when you produce something new to play with.
8. Have a babysitting bag or as I call it the goody bag. Filled with stories, soft toys; a first aid kit for those who wake up. Comics, board games and dvds are also a must for during the day to entertain.
9. Tidy up and then relax, do everything that might make noise as soon as possible after bedtime, trust me noise earlier is better than later. Better still no noise at all.
10.  Make friends with any and all pets and older children. Pets basically so they don’t attack you and older children because you are not really there to babysit them just to stop them burning the house down or having a party.
11. Learn all the routines and what makes the kids tick fast, nothing ever makes up for this knowledge. Know everything, where everything is, all the information to. Know about the bears in the wardrobe and the clowns under the bed. Be what you thought your mum was when you were younger, an all knowing omnipotent creature.
12. Respect all rules and guidelines the parents set down no matter what.
13. Don’t forget your own entertainment.
14. And finally the most important one …….If in doubt call the parents.

LIE: Mums don’t get ill.

   I have decided one thing, just one. I have decided that if I am ever foolish enough to bring life into this world I want to be able to sit in a giant bed with them it my child and drink Lemsip because my child and I are ill. This is what I have been doing with my own mum for the last few days. I have been ill for about a week, it is that horrific I feel like hell and don’t want to move, yet sadly I am still well enough to move so will, kind of ill. My mum has contracted whatever this virus masquerading as a cold is (it’s worse than a cold it makes you ache and nauseous) I had, but have yet to get over fully. Mum has it worse and it is Fanny Adams heres, fault.

    My mum is doing a rather good impression of a dying swan and I’m sure I’d be more sympathetic if I didn’t feel like doing the same impression myself. I’m still struggling in to work which is a mistake because two of my co workers are at war and despite claiming to be Switzerland they are both desperately still trying to get me onside and increasing my head ache. Dad who debatable might be a help is in Berlin, at one point I knew why, but now it has been lost in the foggy mist of my mucus filled head. My brother would help me look after mum but he is ….well a man and if he catches it…. I’m not dealing with man flu, no way, no how. And if that wasn’t bad enough our boiler decided to conk out this morning and cold showers do not help with moaning and aching bodies.

I want my mum back so she can take care of me and so I can moan, it’s no fun being ill if no one is going to look after you. I thought mums were meant to be invincible, superhero s even, surely that’s the gig right? They are not meant to snivelling, whining children themselves. And can I ask at what point do you get the special mummy handbook that tells you how to make people feel better? Is it possible to get it without actually having to have children? I give up, I’m going to take an unhealthy amount of shop bought drugs and snuggle down with my mum and sleep for about 4 hours before my drug induced slumber wears off.