What kind of world am I raising my daughter in?

The news story dominating the headlines today is the tragic event in Tenerife, in which it appears that a British national was picked at random in a supermarket and stabbed and beheaded in front of shocked tourists.


Not a nice subject for my blog quite frankly but I can't seem to get it out of my head.  It really has made me wonder what kind of world Mads is going to grow up in.


When I look back to my childhood, it was idyllic.  I am not saying that bad things didn't happen and serious crimes weren't committed, of course they were.  But it was safer than it was now, or at least maybe we weren't so aware of everything.  I would go out for hours on my bike, build dens with my friends and roam around in the woods near my house.  I didn't have a mobile phone so couldn't contact my Mum every few minutes to let her know that I was alright, but she assumed as long as I came back every couple of hours to check in, that I was safe and well.  Obviously this was when I was old enough to know the dangers of talking to strangers etc, but I was streetwise and remember my childhood as generally being a very safe and carefree time.


Fast forward to today and I feel it is a very different story.  Perhaps serious crimes aren't being committed more but we all have to be a lot more aware of what is going on.  As a mother to a baby girl, I am worried for her when she becomes a teenager.  Girls seem to be a lot more sexualised and the Internet has become a frightening place, I feel, for our children.  My sister is ten years younger than me, and I remember when she was a few years younger, we had to stop her from placing innocent photos of herself in a bikini on her then 'bebo' account.  Nowadays Facebook accounts have better privacy laws to stop people getting onto your profile but still they could fall into the hands of the wrong person.


We have the fear of terrorist attacks, and we have teenagers killing each other just for being in the wrong postcode.  I know that these are still rare events but I can't help but think that you can't turn on the television without reading a distressing story.  I have been to Tenerife a few times and I can't believe that such a macabre act would happen in a quiet resort like that.  To me the world just seems to be getting a more violent and frightening place, or is just that I am more aware of it now I am a mother?


I have already mentioned in a previous post about posting photos of Mads online, I find it so upsetting that I worry about showing off photos of my daughter, for fear of them getting into the wrong hands.  At the end of the day I am not stupid enough to show her without clothes, they are innocent shots, but the fact that we even have to think about these things, I think is a real shame.


I, like any other parent, would do absolutely anything to protect my daughter.  But does that mean that I will have to wrap her up in cotton wool?  I want her to grow into a well rounded, streetwise individual, not a scared, clingy one.  Will she be able to have an innocent childhood like I did, camping out overnight in a tent in a park about twenty foot from our house, where my Mum could see us from the window?  Unfortunately I don't think that this will be the case as we are more aware of what potentially could go wrong.


I know this isn't a particularly cheery post first thing on a Saturday, but I really have woken up this morning, wondering what kind of world we are now living in, and what kind of world it will be when Mads is older.  As I looked at her in her moses basket smiling up at me, it really made a tear come to my eye.  I want her to stay innocent forever, and not have to realise the dangers of the world around us.  At the moment she is my baby, and will do a beaming smile at anyone, it will be such a shame when I have to tell her otherwise.

My first major Mummy wobble.

Last night I had my first real feeling of  'I am not very good at this' and I didn't like it one bit.


Mads was fine during the day and then around 6pm she started getting a little grouchy.  I went off for a bath and Mr E was downstairs with her, he was cooking dinner while she was sitting in her bouncy chair.  I could hear her getting more and more grumpy so I went downstairs to look after her.


She suddenly started screaming and screaming and there was nothing we could do to stop her.  It was a cry unlike I have ever heard before.  It was a high pitch shriek, followed by a brief pause, followed by more shrieks.  I could tell she was in pain but I didn't know where or why.


I tried rocking her and this didn't work.  I tried cuddling her, stroking her, singing to her, putting her on the floor and rubbing her tummy, I took her nappy off and moved her legs, I tried feeding her, both from a bottle and then from me.  Nothing.  She just was screaming more and more and nothing I could do would stop her.


This carried on for about half an hour, but it felt like an eternity.  She was getting more and more worked up and her little face was streaming with tears.  She was looking at me, her eyes looked so unhappy and I felt dreadful that there was nothing I could do.  Eventually she stopped for all of ten minutes before starting again, this time more ferociously than the first.  In desperation I rang the emergency doctors but was left on hold for ten minutes- by this time she had stopped again.  We managed to feed her and get her to sleep in the end because I think she was so exhausted.


After she went to bed I just got so upset and Mr E didn't understand why.


What kind of Mum can't stop her daughter from crying?  Was it something I had done?  Had she got tummy ache from something I had eaten?


I then got panicked that she was going to be poorly in the night and I wouldn't know.  What if she got a temperature and a rash and I wasn't aware because I was asleep?


I have had situations with her where I have been worried before but it was the first time that I felt like there was nothing that I could do and it was horrible that I couldn't help her.  I felt like I couldn't comfort my own baby.


There are going to be a lot more occasions where I am going to question my parenting skills and I do know this.


The realisation dawned on me that myself and Mr E are going to mould our daughter into the child/teenager/adult she is going to become.  Her destiny in a way is in our hands.  We need to provide for her, give her a good home, a happy home life, and the emotional and physical support she will need in order to thrive.


We will need to pick her up and give her a hug when she falls off her bike, let her snuggle in our bed when she has had a bad dream, kiss away her tears when she has had a fight with her friends at school, try and make her smile when she has her heart broken by her first boyfriend.  We will have to discipline her if she doesn't do well at school, or have stern words if she upsets someone, I will go shopping with her to buy her first prom dress and have tears of joy running down my face when she walks up the aisle.


When I look into her tiny little eyes I don't look to the future, I just look to the here and now and how remarkable and amazing she is. It's only when I stop to think about it, I realise what exciting, tough and downright scary times I have ahead of me.


No one said being a parent is easy, but at the same time it's the most incredibly rewarding job in the world.


And although I will have my wobbles, all I know is that I am going to love my daughter unconditionally for the rest of my life.