Motherhood, Madness & Make Up

Motherhood & Madness.

I hate to start on a whinge but one of my pet peeves is being told by strangers that my life and choice to be a stay at home mother is unfulfilled and I am somehow under-achieving.  

The Tory-Liberal coalition have been giving single-mums some highly and unfairly unflattering attention recently, but they have now turned their attention to people like me.  Women who have chosen, mostly for the good of our children but partly for financial reasons (because these choices seldom have a single factor), to stay at home, sacrificing careers in some cases, to look after the children we have brought into the world ourselves rather than paying a nanny to do it for us because those women either have to or want to work.

The simple fact is my family cannot afford for me to go out to work in a 'paid' job.  I can understand why they help low income families with childcare costs.  That is the right and noble thing to do. My family, however, are a middle income family.  We get NO help. For anything. I'm not saying we should but for me to go back to work now (if there were jobs to go back to) I would be starting at the base rate of a new-starter and therefore everything I earned would go straight on child minders, my children would miss out on the benefit of my attention and we would not feel the benefit.  Why should I be compelled to work to employ childminders?  Mr Clegg has discounted a huge portion of this country and basically told us that we and what we do doesn't matter.

I have thoroughly had enough of being told that my choices are wrong by people who don't live my life, but to now be told 'from on high' (Moana knows my views on Nick Clegg) that by choosing to stay at home to look after them rather than dash out to pursue my own career and interests, I am NOW somehow setting my children a bad example is beyond insulting.  Tsk, tsk, I'm such a bad mother.  The fact is he has NO idea what women who stay at home do all day, because his wife has never done it.  They both have highly paid careers and didn't want to sacrifice them for their children.  That was their choice.  What they don't have leave to do is tell us, the invisible workforce, that our lives are unfulfilled because we don't get paid for what we do.  I disagree.  I do get paid.  I get to see my beautiful children grow up in front of me and really have a hand in their formative years.  The smiles on their faces when I get them up in the mornings is worth more to me than any monthly payslip, and nothing is going to change that or take it away from me.  I'm taking nothing from him or anyone with our decision (my husband and I decided together) for me to cease work for a few years, so he has NO right to tell me I'm lacking.  I'm mad as hell, can you tell!?

I'm not wasting my time.  I'm filling the years between now and my boys starting 'big-school' as my eldest calls it, with getting myself trained to be a teacher.  I'm starting by getting the history degree I should have got 10 years ago.  I was at school the last time the Tories (Conservative Party, for my US friends and readers) were slicing up the services and assets of this country and selling them off in chunks for short-term gains (they're at it, again the bastards). I got the odd dud teacher (Doesn't everyone?), but a few inspired me and I told the careers advisor my ambition but because I counted as a 'Special needs' student (long story, different post), the Tory government appointed 'counsellor' (I use the term loosely, she was really a cast iron bitch) discouraged me and in my madness and shock, because I was a shy 14 year old, I let her.  THAT is a life left 'unfulfilled', Mr Clegg, so I'm making up for lost time partly for me and partly to stick two finger's up to the establishment and say 'BOLLOCKS' to lot of them.

I get to enjoy my children growing up in front of me.  My eldest child is 3 on Sunday and that three years has gone by so fast , it's unreal and it's making me feel rather old.  By doing this myself I am teaching them that they are worth making sacrifices or and that it is possible to be more than a the stereotypical 'mum at home' the media likes to portray as idly sitting in front of the TV all day.  I have never met a mother like that as far as I know, but how would I?  The papers say they're in front of the telly.  The 'Jeremy Kyle' culture does not feature in this house and the TV rarely goes on but I cannot logically assume that I am some bizarre exception to a rule.  Sod you, Clegg.  I'm living MY life MY way and I won't have you or anyone else telling me how I should feel about my life, or what I should be doing with it.

Make-up.
Right, whinge over, chin up, shoulders back, best foot forward and all that malarky.  

Looking sexy while sleep deprived, looking after two nippers and late night study sessions...?  Half of looking sexy is feeling sexy and I don't care what people say,  you can't feel sexy if you aren't happy with how you look.   I'll admit, I don't have the figure I had 3 years ago but having two children will do that to you.  Going to the gym, going easy on the chocolate, and magic knickers will work wonders for that.  I'm talking day to day make up on this post.

Time is the essence.  I don't have time to sit down to apply full slap and hair-do in the mornings but five minute make-up on bare skin is feasible provided you aren't trying to do it with a toddler under foot. There are two essentials and I have two words for you: stick concealer and highlighting powder.  Okay, it's three words but it's two thoughts.  All joking aside, at 7 am in the winter with skin so deprived of sun it's like tracing paper, bugger the diamonds, concealer is a girl's best friend.  The dark rings under the eyes show up especially dark on fair skin like mine, but that doesn't mean we have to take it lying down, ladies, now do we? 

The highlighting powder (try Avon Colour and Contour Blush Duo) I use under the brow and blended out to the side of the face like shadow.  I find its more controlled than the pearls and the blusher is a very subtle shade with a slight sheen. I team it with Avon SuperShock Mascara in Black because its a lovely fine applicator which combs and separates the lashes, and it's not so runny that it drenches the applicator, leaving you looking like Yang Yang the panda.  And that ladies is how I look at least half awake even when I want to pass out and stack up the zeds until the middle of next week.
 

Long hair is easier.  It needs cutting less often than short styles and when you have a tight budget and a busy schedule, having both the time and the money for a haircut are two factors which rarely coincide.  Never EVER try to cut your own fringe (<--Speaking from experience).  Hairdressing scissors are not expensive and are handy to have about for the kid's hair (there WILL be a time you'll be glad for them) but your own fringe is definitely something to admit defeat and get somebody else to do for you...make sure they know what they're doing and they are definitely not pissed off with you over something first.