My First Time

When I left school I went to Rhodes University in Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.  It is a small university town and I had 3 of the best (and worst) years of my life there.  It was an emotional roller coaster, falling in and out of love, meeting people from all walks of life, trying new things and discovering how huge and, at the same time, how small the world really was.  It was liberating!  My home life was shown to be so narrow, so insular - my world was now peopled with amazing women and men who were passionate about changing the world, about making it a better place. 

And I loved it.

The wonders of Facebook  has meant that I am able to still be in touch with some of those amazing men and women in a way that wasn't even in existence when we left university.  One of those women is Larissa.  I was awed by Larissa when I first met her on that first day in Prince Alfred House residence, she had so many principles, such an ardent conviction in the importance of fighting for the stuff that you believe deeply in.  Oh the common room conversations we used to have!! It is true to say that Larissa made a profound impression on me, she made me think about stuff that had never crossed my (widely read, but not very broad) mind. 

Charlene and Larissa at the mouth of the Tyne

Me, Larissa and Sam copying the Angel of the North

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And she still does today.  I was thrilled to have Larissa and her peachy partner Charlene staying with me for a couple of days in early January, as part of a big tour of Europe they were doing.  First of all it was just stunning to see her and catch up, and second of all she had the effect on me that she always had, of making me think about things in a new way, things I had packed away in a little box never to see the light of day.

She gave me a little book, a collection of short stories called My First Time edited by Jen Thorpe.  The front cover proclaims "stories of sex and sexuality from women like you" and it has tales of a range of different life experiences; first time having sex, first period, first trip to a gynaecologist... some good, some not so good.  But the more I read, the more overwhelmingly sad I became.  So many of the stories were tinged with disillusion, disappointment, betrayal, abuse and fear. Yes there was also strength, dignity and transcendence but it  was the need for these that caused my disquiet.

There are a lot of women who I would describe as friends, but within that group the amount that I would describe as close friends shrinks dramatically.  When I looked at that small group I was appalled to discover that half of us had been the victim of some form of sexual abuse or sexual assault. 

Half of us!!!

It's beyond horrific. 

And I know it is anecdotal and not statistically accurate, but that doesn't do anything to halt my disgust at how many girls and women are still violated, despite this enlightened world that we supposedly live in.  Honestly, is the best that we can do?

While Laris was here we had a disagreement about the importance of talking about things, about the value of psychologists and counsellors.  I had not long finished studying my level 3 in counselling when Dad died.  My GP referred me to a counsellor to help me deal with the ravages of my grief and after that experience I realised I no longer believed in counselling, in the need to talk about our emotions.  I didn't want to talk, to anybody, and especially not a counsellor.  I wanted to hold my grief close to me, and even now, 5 years later, I still hug my grief tight to me.  And I have become much more closed and recalcitrant. 

Talking about things that have happened to me on such a deep, personal level is not what I want, or need to do.

But what I have realised over the past few weeks as I have been thinking about this little book, is that I don't have to talk about me or my own experiences, but that I can talk about all the women who will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. 

That I can shout out for them. 

That, damn it, I should have been shouting out all this time.

You said what?

After I had finished reading to Sam the other night, I put the book away and tried to drag him away from his elaborate lego construction without too much protest.  I really can't bear it when one of my boys and I fall out at bedtime, it seems such a long time until morning, for them to simmer and fester and feel hard done by.  I imagine what their subconscious is doing with their unsettled emotions, what dreams are concocted out of their anger and hurt feelings.  I want bedtime to feel like they are enveloped in a soft, gently cloud of my love and deep approval!!  Sadly it is not always possible, but that doesn't stop me trying, every night to achieve that end.  Hence me deploying the old distraction technique as I removed the lego bricks from his hands

"Hey Sam, what happened at school today?"

"How do you know?"

"Umm, I don't know what exactly, I just feel like you have something that you might want to tell me about" (lets keep that all-knowing-mother myth going for a while longer shall we!!)

"Oh, well, it wasn't really anything"

"Go on, tell me! I'm interested in what happens in your life"

"OK, I 'spose, well, it's just that I had an argument with Lily today"

"gosh, you and Lily are you usually on the same page about most things, what did you argue about?"

"We were arguing about whether the world is here because of the big bang theory, or whether God created it"

(Intrigued mother, that wasn't what I was expecting, Minecraft differences - yes, creationism vs evolution - no!)

"Wow, that's a big debate that one - which side did you take?"

"I said it was definitely because of the big bang theory"

"Huh. Why did you take that standpoint?"

"I don't know mum, but it just seems so obvious, evolution and everything"

"Did you and Lily fall out over it?"

"We did a bit, but we made friends again"

"Good.  Friends are more important than scoring points over who is right, and anyway in this particular argument, the debate rages on.  Just make sure that you know what you are talking about, research your facts, and remember that everybody has a right to their opinion" (and as addendum to myself "even when they are wrong!")

Ha ha.  I may not be able to change my own intolerant ways, but I do hope that I can bring my children up to be more tolerant of others beliefs and opinions, and to respect their right to hold them. 

And to know that saying sorry sometimes isn't as hard as it seems.

New Year - New You?

It is so easy to fall into the habit of not blogging.  Too tired, too much to do, whatever the reason, pretty soon it starts to feel like just another job to be got through.  And the longer it takes to get back to it, the more of a mountain it feels like to climb.  Apologies.  And in order to find the energy to start back up again I have allowed myself to limit the retrospective, so the past few months are going to be whizzed through.

Christmas was wonderful.  Full of family (although sadly none of the Malan family… wouldn’t that be an amazing occasion!), lots of food, generous gift giving, laughter and games.  I wonder where next Christmas will find us?
 

New Year ’s Eve was a cocktail party hosted by the parents of a friend of Sam’s, who live only a short stumble away.  It was a great evening; the kids stayed up till past 2am and were amazingly well behaved, garnering admiration and approval wherever they went.  Good times!!  Tom’s orange vomit at 5am was Fanta tinted and the start of a period of not wellness that he is only just getting over 16 days later.  Happy New Year!!!!

My 40^th birthday last year prompted the beginning of some deep “what do the next 40 years hold for me” thoughts. 

What do I want to do with my life?

How do I want to do it?

Should I work it out; will I even be able to do it?

Will I ever feel like a grown up?

I knew that I didn’t want to be a stay at home mum for always.  As grateful as I am for having had the amazing privilege of being able to stay at home with my boys during those strange and wonderful early years, I now need more than that to feel fulfilled.  Their need for me now is no less, it is merely changed.  They were once dependant on me for all their physical and emotional needs.  Now they are capable of sorting out most of their own physical needs to a greater or lesser extent, and they have a slew of friends, teachers and others to feed the many layers of their need for emotional and societal acceptance.

 Which is not to say they don’t need me.  They need my help and guidance to steer their path through all that emotional and social stuff and come out the other end the sort of men that I will be proud to call son.  When they feel the whole world has broadsided them, they need me just to love them and to provide a safe harbour.  But these needs are not the needs that require this mother to stay at home and dedicate herself to only them.  These are needs she can tend to while at the same time, she tends to her own needs.  So having come to this (fairly massive) realisation, I then began to go over all the possibilities.

Without sounding like a bleeding heart, I wanted to do something to help.  Mostly to help all those children out there who for one reason or another do not have a safe home filled with love and relaible adults.  Children who have been neglected, abused or ignored.  The damaged children.  Having my own children has made me very aware of how many children do not have even their most basic needs met and I thought maybe I could help in some small way. 

This led me on to thinking about becoming a foster carer, which is something I have thought about on and off since I was pregnant with Sam.  I did some research, and spoke to Steve to see if he could get behind the idea.  He could and my research suggested that we would be a suitable foster family.  To my excitement I also discovered that my local authority have a type of fostering called Mothers and babies – where you take in young mothers with their new babies and teach them and mentor them to give them the skills they need to become good mothers.  Right up my street!  And being able to get in on the ground floor, and help to provide those babies with a solid foundation, to provide their mums with the knowledge and skills so that their babies don’t end as one of those damaged children. As just another statistic.

I met with a social worker and after she left I felt like a deflated balloon.   We weren’t, after all, a suitable foster family.  I can’t even begin to explain how disappointed I was - my new start, my grand plans trampled underfoot before they had even begun.  It threw me into the doldrums to be honest and I couldn’t see what else I could do.  For a couple of weeks I was so despondent that I couldn’t get my head clear to find another plan.  I thought about going back to studies, maybe doing a social work degree so that I would be qualified to work in the field I wanted to be in.  But then I discovered that my previous studies left me unable to get a student loan, and there was no way we could afford the cost of me going back to university.  So, hope and dreams squashed again.  I was even more discouraged now and on Christmas day was having a bit of a moan and whinge to my sister in law Julie, when she offered me a simple and amazing idea – get in touch with Unisa, the distance university where I had got my BA degree, from after failing to pass one of my majors at Rhodes University.

The rest, as they say, is history!  I met the admission requirements to do my honours in psychology, and they had an option called Community and Health, which would qualify me to work within organisations who work in the community.  I could study it from the UK and write my exams in London, it was cheaper than studying through The Open University and my mom was happy to lend me the money to pay for it, and I could pay her back over time… all the pieces fell into place.  So I have registered for 3 modules this year and it will take me three years to do all 8 modules that I need.  I still have to wait for my registration to be processed, but, in theory, there is not a lot that can go wrong.

So, watch this space…