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Mami To Five

Life: The good, the bad and the ugly bits!

My Childish, Ranty Post

Just to pre-warn you (if the title didn’t) that this post is not me at my most dignified, this is basically my version of a toddler tantrum, stamping feet and all!

*****Message to my daughters: Girls I know you read my blog so please pay attention and take note!!!!!*****

I refer you first to my post a few months ago, about all the things I have found in my bed. Then there was the one about children pinching anything and everything that belongs to you. They were quite jovial posts, a bit of a lark. But sometimes, mostly when I’m tired (I have had about 12 hours sleep total since last week!) I can get really annoyed at the little things but especially the fact that my bed is always full of crap and bits, my quilt is strewn all over the floor half out of the cover and my headphones are nowhere to be seen.

I NEED MY HEADPHONES!

Yes, I know, being in a paddy about headphones is totally a bit childish.

But they are MY HEADPHONES!!!

READ MORE »

6 Comments CATEGORIES // humor, parenting TAGGED: kids, lack of sleep, ranty post, tantrums, teenagers, toddler

Multiple Madness Linky #3

Hello all and welcome to Multiple Madness!!!

This is *the* place to be if you have any blog posts that feature twins, triplets or higher order multiples (for simplicity’s sake I will just say twins/multiples from now on!)

Having multiples is a completely different experience to having singletons. It is a uniquely hard, chaotic and yet wonderful experience, shared by only a few and their families. This is why I created this linky, so parents, family or twins themselves, can share with others who will get them and understand their special kind of joys and heartaches.

READ MORE »

2 Comments CATEGORIES // Life with twins, Multiple Madness Linky, parenting

Guest Post from a working mother who is feeling defeated.

Having children is hard, being ill when you have children is even worse, you still have to carry on regardless of how sick you feel. I currently don’t work, I haven’t worked more than a few hours a week since I was pregnant with the twins over 13 years ago. I cannot imagine how much harder it must be to be a working mother and to be poorly. I’m sure many of my readers will feel this blogger’s pain and understand exactly where she is coming from.

This guest post was written by a blogger who would like to remain anonymous.

READ MORE »

5 Comments CATEGORIES // Guest Posts, parenting

Can you really stop your son from being gay?

The internet, and specifically blogging, is a wonderful place for sharing opinions and ideas.  You may not agree with what others have to say but as soon as you click off their page its gone, no harm done. You don’t have to think about it anymore.

A few months ago I read some blog posts that I just can’t shake off.  The words in these posts and the comments were so damaging that I have to speak out. If I’d have tried to write this post then, I would have thrown the laptop out of the window. Just to give you an idea, one of the posts were titled ‘How to stop your son from being gay.’

I won’t go into too much detail about the blogs themselves but the basic premise was that there are certain things you should never do, or always do, to stop your son turning gay.  One of the bloggers in particular was telling her readers, among other things, to never allow their sons to wear dresses, girls fancy dress costumes or even play with girls toys. She had gotten this advice herself from a ‘family specialist’ at her church* and was doing it herself after her son had been trying on his sisters shoes.

She wanted to pass on this invaluable information that this ‘specialist’ had given her, mainly that by allowing her son to do these things she was not only encouraging him to become a homosexual but that when he becomes an adult he won’t be accepted by gay or straight communities if he chooses to wear women’s clothing. That she was damaging his future by encouraging efemininity.

 

He was six.

 

He was trying on shoes.

 

Some of the advice that these blogs were dishing out were so damaging that I feel I need to address some of these matters. Yes maybe by giving you my opinions I am doing exactly the same thing as these other mothers, but my advice is far less harmful. If I’m wrong and after heeding my advice your child comes out to you in the future. Then I’m sorry, but that was how life was meant to be.

Hold them tight, tell them you love them, support them, then get on with your lives happy in the knowledge that your child feels accepted and loved.

Here are my answers to some of their solutions (Not one of these blogs mentioned girls but I added some extra advice for that):

Wearing a dress, or girls shoes, or girls fancy dress, even makeup will not TURN your son gay.  They may or may not continue this habit into adulthood and if they do develop a penchant for wearing girl’s clothing you don’t need to encourage or discourage the habit. Accept it as you would any other choice. Just make you child feel loved and safe. Let them find their own way in life knowing that you are by their side.

Same goes for girls wearing boys clothes. (I was the biggest tomboy around as a child)

A father hugging and kissing their son past toddlerhood will not TURN him gay. Same goes for discouraging affection between same sex siblings. He may become isolated, depressed and unloved but not gay!

Your son doesn’t need to be encouraged to do ‘manly’ activities. Making them do physical activities like chopping wood and playing rough sports will not ‘sweat out the gay’. Some boys just prefer more sedate activities, get over it and enjoy the fact they’re not constantly going through the knees of their trousers!

Your daughter won’t TURN gay because she wants to play football or go camping. Some girls just enjoy running around, climbing trees and getting muddy, some like tinkering with cars. Keeping your daughter at home sewing, cleaning and cooking will not change her sexual preferences.

Boys playing with girls won’t TURN gay, neither will girls who play with boys. Let’s be honest here, if you think about it. Really think about it, isn’t that a bit arse backwards anyway? 

Boys who play with dolls or ‘girl’s toys’ will not TURN gay. There’s nothing sweeter than seeing a child playing gently with a baby doll, or making you that first ‘cup of tea’ with the pretend kitchen. They are learning valuable life lessons through play, why not encourage all children not just the girls?

And finally: No, even if you REALLY believe it, you cannot ‘pray away the gay’!

 

It has taken me four attempts to write this as just thinking about it makes me so angry. I can’t believe that in this day and age, people still believe things like this. If a person is gay, more often than not they knew themselves from a very young age. If they didn’t ‘know’ they would often have felt different or confused, until they did realise.  There is nothing anyone could have done to TURN them.

I have photo’s of my husband in a very pretty dress when he was a child, he is not gay.

My seven year old was always playing with his sisters dressing up clothes, playing with their dolls and getting his hair done ‘all pretty’. He now loves grubbing about and getting mucky, even if he wears a bow tie and fedora whilst doing it!

One thing that angered me the most was that most of the commenters were grateful for this information. Glad that they had some advice on how to treat their children. Glad to put a halt to their concerns over their sons being gay. These commenters didn’t just read and disregard this harmful information, they accepted it as fact. They were willing to risk psychologically damaging their children on the say so of a random person on the internet.

But it’s okay because some of the advice came from a ‘family specialist’.

*The fact that these women all happened to religious made no bearing on my anger toward this subject. I have heard similar things said from fathers especially, who are not religious at all, these women just happened to be the catalyst.

Just to calm me down a little here is a sweet picture of my son with his baby doll, that he adores:

boy with doll

Awww!

So can you really stop your son from being gay? I know what my opinion is, what’s yours?

 

11 Comments CATEGORIES // General life, parenting, Raising boys TAGGED: give your son a doll, homosexuality, sharing opinions online, turn my son gay, wearing girls clothes

Christmas Traditions

So tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Baby O is completely oblivious to it all of course but the other four are so excited. They have written their lists, made their gingerbread houses and are now eagerly awaiting tomorrow so we can put up the tree!

Yes that is right, in a world where people are packing away the Halloween decorations and dragging out the Christmas ones at the same time my poor children have to wait until Christmas Eve to get theirs. Aren’t I an evil!

Actually if I’m honest, this is a Christmas tradition that we just happened upon, very unpleasantly, about nine years ago and it stuck. I even offer them every year to put it up earlier and they refuse, saying that this is the way they like it.

So how did it all start? Well….
I had the bright idea, in about November, that I wanted to rip all the wallpaper off in our living room and then redecorate. Of course we didn’t take into account that Christmas was fast approaching, things didn’t go quite as smoothly as they should have and with 3 little girls under 3 it wasn’t going to happen as fast as it necessarily should. So, it was literally Christmas eve when we were finally putting on the finishing touches.

Now for the unpleasant part. At around 5pm (after ALL the shops were closed) I went up to the attic to fetch the tree. Knowing it was right next to the hatch I only popped my head up and stuck my hand out to grab the box, luckily I grabbed the tree first as when I moved a piece of cloth about 3 dead rats went toppling out, it still sends shivers down my spine even thinking about it.

Let me tell you I nearly fell down that ladder with a screech! I slammed the hatch down and refused to go back for the decorations and so did hubby. It looked like a rat massacre with blood and bodies everywhere. Yuck. Now we do live in a 150 year old house in a valley surrounded by mountains and our back garden is the same level as our upstairs so rats and mice are always in people’s attics, unless they have been renovated. But never in my life had I seen anything like this. Even the rentokil guy was astounded at the sight!

Any who, onto the nice christmas tradition. We now had a tree, but no lights, no decorations and three little ones expecting Santa, so where was he going to put the gifts? After much ringing around I managed to beg and borrow some lights, tinsel and a few baubles. The girls woke on Christmas morning thinking the Elves had put up the tree, while Santa delivered the gifts. It was lovely. E&Ff had made their minds up that’s what had happened and who were we to spoil their fun?

It took quite a few years for me to tell them it wasn’t the elves but it had to be done, it was getting so hard and time consuming on Christmas eve waiting for them to go to sleep before I could start. But they were fine with it, they loved playing elves helping me decorate the tree. So now that is how we spend Christmas eve afternoon. But now I always check IN THE MORNING if everything is there and the lights work. Just in case!

Our other tradition is new pj’s. They love unwrapping them on Christmas Eve so we can all snuggle up with hot chocolate and a Christmas film.

Do you have any Christmas traditions? How did they start? I’d love to hear about them.

4 Comments CATEGORIES // Christmas, parenting TAGGED: baby, children, Christmas, christmas decorations, Christmas tree, decorate the tree, family, kids, Santa, traditions

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