Dutch Women Do Get Depressed

All the studies and blog posts you read say otherwise, but I can assure you that Dutch women do get depressed.

Go on, Google it, type in "Dutch Women Don't Get Depressed". I'll wait. You see, if you believe what Google comes back with you would think that Dutch women float around the Netherlands with huge grins on their faces whilst their extremely happy children skip along next to them holding their hand.

Oh sure, Dutch women have a lot to be delighted about. The majority works part-time so has time for leisure activities - like sitting on cafe terraces sunning themselves in the summer months, sports and volunteer jobs. They don't stress about careers - how they see themselves is not tied to the role they place in the workplace. Dutch women are not prepared to give up time with their families to climb a workplace hierarchy they have no interest in. The Dutch economy is a developed, relatively rich one and wealth is spread around more evenly than in many other countries. Dutch women are on the whole well-educated.  They have personal freedom and much choice as to how they live their lives. So, yes, Dutch women have a lot to be happy about - and that is reflected in the surveys and studies that hit the headlines every so often.

However, there's another side to all that delusional happiness that the press would have you believe rages in the Netherlands amongst the female population. Dutch women are actually people too. They have issues. They have problems. Gasp! I know. Shocking huh?

Yes, Dutch women can balance five children and a bunch of flowers on their bikes, but many have to expertly balance many other aspects of their lives too - just like women in other countries throughout the world.

Some Dutch women have marital problems and go through divorce.

Times, They're a Changing: More Writer, Less Mother?

This week my youngest son turned four. Four. That means he gets to go out into the big, wide world on his own. Well, it means he starts primary school. It's a bittersweet moment. It means my role will change. It will be the first time in nearly nine years that I will have been at home during the week without any children around me. My sons will continue to come home at lunchtime from school and for a little while at least my youngest will be home in the afternoons whilst he builds up his school hours to full-time.

But it's a big change for me. As a mother. As a writer. Hours suddenly open up to me to work more. The projects I have been planning and scheming for the past few years may actually come to fruition. More time to get out and about. More time to work in locations other than my home. 

And as if by magic I received an email from Scaramanga* asking if I would like to take a peek at one of their bags. After squealing a little with delight (shoes I can take or leave, but bags....whole different story!) I realised that the request was perfect timing. I was on the look out for a 'work' bag, one to carry my laptop, countless pages of incoherent notes that come to me as ideas for blog posts, articles and book chapter ideas and all the other things I lug around simply because I have three children.

The large messenger bag I picked out turned to be the perfect choice. Last weekend all five of us headed to the beach to blow the cobwebs away. Through September one son after another has fallen ill with one virus or another, and then head colds hit me and my husband. We needed to get out and get some good sea air in our lungs so we headed to Wassesnaarseslag. 

I loaded up my beautiful bag with my folders and notes, a notepad, my copy of The Whole-Brain Child book I'm currently reading (which I thoroughly recommend!), pens and the bits and pieces that always sit in my bag. There's plenty of space for everything I could possibly want to take out with me. I planned a bit of writing and reading whilst the boys dug up the beach, as they are prone to do when they get anywhere near the sand.

We had a great few hours. We left home wearing coats, jumpers and even a scarf or two as the weather was cloudy and a bit chilly. By the time we headed home the boys were stripped down to their t-shirts. And their jumpers and scarves? Yep, tucked away safely in my bag........... 

The hours I have to write may be on the rise, but there's no changing the fact that I'm first a mother, second a writer. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

*I received a free bag of my choice from Scaramanga in exchange for a review on this blog. All views are my own.

5 Expat Life Lessons From 'Global Mom'

Melissa Dalton-Bradford has lived in more countries than most of us would even dare to think about moving to - eight to be precise, and has had twice as many addresses. Her memoir, Global Mom, published by Familius, starts in Paris with a beautiful pine Norwegian table that proves to be a family anchor during twenty years on the move, two decades during which her family grows, as does Melissa, as am individual, a wife and as a mother.

From a typical Norwegian barnepark (a word and a concept I will never forget) to desperate poverty on Tonle Sap Lake in Singapore, Dalton-Bradford takes us on an unforgettable journey.

Global Mom is the story of one family physically moving from one country to another, about Dalton-Bradford's journey as a mother, about how a family grows and moulds together. It's a book about community and about home. It's about thriving with no roots. It's about loss and living and surviving in the frightening, dark land of grief. And it's about everything in-between.

(Amazon UK link)

Here are five life lessons I took away from reading Global Mom:

1. Expats Need to Adapt to Thrive 

What resonated with me more than anything else was the fact that living overseas is a story of adaptation. Dalton-Bradford illustrates beautifully that thriving abroad is about resilience, about going with the host country flow. It's about accepting an alternative culture, learning the local language, and fitting in as best you can - embracing the local way of life rather than shunning it and trying to live like you would in your base country.

This is no better highlighted than when Melissa's family move from Norway to France. From a Norwegian barnepark where a child's independence is a priority, where people co-exist with the dominating force of Mother Nature and where no-nonsense and practical goes above appearance, the Bradford family suddenly finds themselves immersed in a school system where restrictions, bureaucracy, rules, regulations and traditions are everything, where the imperfect loops a child makes when learning to write is cause for more teacher concern than it should be.

A fiery Norwegian winter dawn - where Mother Nature rules
Photo Credit: Grethe Boe

Melissa's experiences of child birth in the two countries also serve as a mirror for the contrast between the Norwegian lifestyle and the French way of doing things. Describing her natural birth in Norway with the assistance of her earth mother to her French friends made them "slap their foreheads and drag their hands over their eyes in disbelief" she recounts.

"Those poor Nordic women are too naive to know they have modern options. Right?" said one French friend.

Two worlds - set apart by culture, yet the Bradford family adapt to both, Paris in fact transforming into a haven for the family, a place they could later picture themselves permanently living.

2. Living Globally is Not Easy

To be able to travel around the world and set up home in several countries, to live globally, is an honour. However, it is no bed of roses when a family has to pack up and relocate time after time. Melissa sums it up wonderfully (P168),

"Every time I built something - established myself and our family in Norway, penetrated Versailles with my children in local activities, or renovated our first home ever and buttressed and held up my children - in the very instant I'd gotten to that spot, this international job track levelled what I'd built."

Saying goodbye to friends that have accumulated over the years, feeling rootless, the stress of organising a move and re-establishing a life. Melissa dealt with stress-induced depression on more than one occasion. A global life is about falling and then picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and trying all over again.

3. Retaining Your Personal Identity Needs Work

A life on the move means putting a tremendous amount of energy into setting up the day to day every few years - and then building on those foundations. As a mother of three, Melissa was busy setting up a home, helping her children establish themselves, emotionally and physically, getting the practical things organised in each new country they moved to. She orchestrated re-building a life from the ground up with every new address; she was the driving force behind reshaping their lives to adapt to their new surroundings.

That takes a lot out of a person, but Melissa, once the basics were in place, learnt to look after herself too. Eventually. She reached out to those around her, busied herself with the local church community, continued with her singing where she could (having left a stage career behind in the US when the family first moved overseas). She embraced her musical talents wherever she lived, and used them to build up a community around her. Melissa put herself out there, even when she didn't have the heart or energy to do so. And by doing so it felt whilst reading that she retained her identity - albeit reshaped and adapted. 'Be true to yourself' I hear her whisper from the pages of her memoir.

4. We Make a Home Wherever We Go

A home is more than bricks and mortar
Photo Credit: vannmarie

Melissa reminds me, in a poetic way, that the extraordinary lies in the ordinary. She reminds us how important it is to appreciate the beauty of where we are at this point in our lives. The memorable moments of life lie in our struggles to get through the day to day, particularly when you are doing it in in an unknown culture, in a foreign tongue, in a country you don't know well.

And every time we leave a place we take a little of that place with us, and we leave our mark on the place we left. 'Global Mom' reminds us that home is a place we create in the most unexpected of circumstances. It is so much more than the bricks and mortar that give us a place to shelter. Home is about family, about people, about cultures and history, about traditions - about coming together to grow and learn. Home is the place we are surrounded by those we love, no matter where on the globe that physical address may be.

5. Tragedy Takes You to a New Land

When a family tragedy strikes it takes you to a new unchartered land, to the land of grief. Once entered, life is never the same again. This book is not a light read, it is heartbreaking. You will cry, but it is an integral part of the journey that this beautifully written memoir takes the reader on. It is a brave and courageous account of a mother's loss, of a family torn apart.

Melissa tells us how grieving whilst on the move means travelling on a lonely road - surrounded by new faces that do not know or understand what you have been through, who did not live through your life stopping tragedy with you. The grieving process knows even more complications because of a life lived in different countries. The memories are based elsewhere, the connections to your loss in another country.

"The nomadic lifestyle, with all its pluses has one glaring lacuna: community. You are again and again ripped up, ripped out, and replanted amid strangers. There is little if any continuous community. Now, as never before in our life. our family needed people who had more than a vague inkling of our story....." (P236 Global Mom)

To end, for me,  'Global Mom' is how you write a memoir. It is set apart by the weight it carries, by the emotions it instills in the reader - from smirks and giggles to floods of tears.

There is a sense of history, culture, and a feeling of the sights and sounds of every country the Bradford family lives in. There is the reality check that a nomadic lifestyle is a double edged sword, and a life lived well overseas takes work, emotional resilience and a lot of adapting. There is friendship, community, family and most of all, love.

This book is a great read for expats, wannabe expats, global nomads, parents and those with a curiosity for the power of the human spirit.

You can get a copy of Global Mom from the following outlets:

My Sunday Photo: Feeling Foreign at a Party

My eldest son turned eight a week ago and this week we had, amongst other celebrations, his kids' party. Standing in a room with ten Dutch children, nine of which speak better Dutch than I do, left me feeling very non-Dutch. A bit more foreign than normal. I was trying to explain one of the games they were about to play and I just couldn't find the right words to do it properly. It was weird. And feeling suddenly so foreign was a foreign feeling. Not uncomfortable. Just strange. Expat life in a nutshell I guess.

In case you are wondering, the part theme was secret agents and one of the games was a relay race where the children had to dress one of their team members in a 'disguise'. They then decided my husband needed a disguise. So, I introduce to you my Dutchie.

5 Ways to Encourage a Child to Write in a Second Language

My three boys are bilingual, speaking Dutch as their mother tongue and English as their second language. It struck me recently that even though we talk and read in English at home every day my eldest hardly gets any writing practice in his second language. So I'm making an all out concerted effort to change that and I have been thinking of ways that he'll find interesting to encourage him to pick up a pen to write in English.

6 Reasons I'm Happy I'm Raising Children in the Netherlands

I live in a country where children generally fare well in happiness surveys and Dutch children always rate much higher in the happiness stakes than British children ever do.

It's no coincidence that the Dutch shine through in reports such as the UN's World Happiness Report. From what I see around me, the Dutch work consciously to raise happy, healthy, independent children* and I consider myself lucky to be raising three children here.

So, for the record, here are my six reasons why I'm happy I'm raising my children in the Netherlands.

1. School Allows Children to be Children

Dutch children are allowed to concentrate on what they do best: they are given plenty of time for the important job of play. Even though the majority of Dutch children start school at the age of 4 (though not mandatory until age 5) the theme running through their days remains 'play'. They learn through play (spelenderwijs leren) and only when they start in group 3 (when they are 6 or 7) is there any pressure on them to formally start reading and writing. The foundation is laid in the earlier school years whilst there are no expectations of them. By the time they reach group 3 most children have learnt the basics of reading and writing in a playful, 'no pressure' manner.

My experience is that the focus in groups 1 and 2 of our little Dutch school is to help children work self sufficiently, to raise their social awareness, learn how to co-operate in a group, to look after and out for each other. These are the years that my children learn that there are rules and boundaries outside of their home too, in a classroom. But they learn this in a safe, respectful, playful way. 

My four year old has day and week tasks that consist of things like finger painting an autumn tree and building a hut with blocks. He proudly tells me how hard he has worked, how he has completed his week tasks and yet, in reality, he has spent the week creating and playing. Oh, and learning. 

Their future is not mapped out by the age of four.

My children will only start getting homework when they move to group 6. Yes, my eldest is asked to practice his times tables at home, and in group 1 and 2 he took bear home and (mama) had to write about what bear had done over the weekend, but hours of maths and language homework after school? No, not until he is nine or ten, and even then it is given in moderation. 

This gives my children time to do what they do best; they come home from school and play. Which brings me nicely to my second reason. 

2. An Outdoor Culture

The Dutch are outdoor people. And so are their children. If they are not cycling they are on steps, skateboards or roller skates. In winter they are on sledges or ice skates.

Children are encouraged to play on the streets in residential areas (where traffic signs indicate children are at play and the speed limit is severely reduced).

My children love being outdoors, love being active in all sorts of weather. It reminds me of my own childhood in Britain in the 1980s, when we entertained ourselves out on the street with nothing but our imaginations, or perhaps a ball and our bikes.

3. Child Friendly Society

We don't have to walk far in our neighborhood to stumble over yet another children's playground or park. They are all small scale but varied and numerous. If we really wanted to, we could visit a different playground on foot each day of the week. Neighbourhoods are designed with children in mind.

Similarly, many restaurants are child friendly and the amount of amusement parks, animal parks and children's attractions across the Netherlands is just staggering for such a small country. There's more than enough to entertain children of all ages.

4. A Sense of Community

Like many playgrounds, Dutch primary schools are also small scale, but numerous, and children usually attend a school close to home. School catchment areas are generally quite small (but not fixed - if you want to send your child to a school further away you may).

This means that school runs are generally done on foot or by bike, and when primary school children are older it gives them a sense of independence that children don't feel being ferried to school in big cars, the type you see clogging up the roads around the schools in England.

I like that the Dutch tend to keep things local. My children go to school with children they live near. After school children play together in the local playgrounds with their classmates. It gives a sense of community. Work together, play together.

5. Dutch State

The importance of family filters down from the politicians. There are various state benefits for families with children: subsidies for child care as well as child benefit payments. State education is free. The Dutch youth care system is wide and varying - and in most cases the services are free.

It starts from birth with help from kraamzorg and continues with visits to the consultatiebureau, which, love it or hate it, is undeniably a unique service for parents. The system may not be perfect, but whenever I have needed a helping hand as a parent I've had welcome support. Even though I am an expat with a small family support network, I feel like I have people to lean on if I need it, because of the Dutch youth system.

This could easily be the motto of the Dutch when it comes to raising children

6. Work Life Balance

Last but absolutely not least, the focus on striking a balance between working and family life is extensive. Putting the emphasis on family life is ingrained in Dutch society.

More than a fair share of the working population works part-time, predominantly women, all with the aim of being around for their children and working around school hours. Again, love it or loathe it it is how it is. I happen to love it.

Parents, whatever their situation, need to find a work and family balance that works for them and the Dutch attitude and family culture means that parents have options.

Children have parents that, in general, have the opportunities and time to be present and involved.

It's Not Hagelslag, It's Attitude

So, my belief is that the happiness of Dutch children has nothing to do with hagelslag (sprinkles) on bread for breakfast as others have lightheartedly suggested, rather it stems from an attitude, a deep ingrained culture that focuses on children and allows them to make the most of childhood.

Dutch parents around me don't put pressure on their children to grow up fast. Instead, they give them permission to be children for as long as possible and not worry about their future at a young age. I recently read a few articles about American parents pressuring their children to excel in many fields from a young age, both in and out of school, children that have an after school activity schedule that would make most Dutch children's eyes water.

It's true that the Dutch have a reputation for being liberal, a bit too liberal on some matters in some culture's eyes, but what I see is an openness and a manner of carefully considered parenting that seems to work, which seems to foster independent children that feel listened to, that feel valued. Ones that are keen to tell researchers who care to ask that they are happy with their lot.

So, I for one intend to keep watching the parenting examples around me, and dish out good doses of Dutch parenting to my three sons. Hopefully, one day, when a UN researcher asks them questions for her World Happiness Report they'll be as positive in their answers as the children that have gone before them.

What do you think makes Dutch children fare so well in happiness studies?Does the parenting culture in your host country differ widely to that in your birth country? Is the local parenting culture where you live something you aspire to?

*It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that Dutch society has it's share of problems, and that includes the lives of some children too. Some Dutch children live in poverty, some Dutch children live with absent parents, some Dutch children are deeply unhappy. I am in no way suggesting with this post that all Dutch children are ecstatically happy. However, there is a general culture related to parenting that I see every day around me. And that is the essence of this post.*

Dear Teacher, Sometimes You Need to Believe Without Seeing

“What if I come and have lunch with you at home one day? Then I can see the meltdown for myself,” suggested my son’s teacher at the height of the school troubles.

The thing is she just didn’t get it. I couldn’t make her understand. My highly sensitive child won’t perform for just anyone. He needs to feel safe. He only lets his emotions go in a trusted environment, with people who love him unconditionally. His lunchtime meltdowns are reserved for me. Not for his teacher, not in her classroom, nor in our home.

Three hours at a time with thirty other children has its toll on my highly sensitive son. Let’s be honest, for many people some kind of minor breakdown would be on the cards after a day with thirty children. For a child with heightened senses a busy classroom is a minefield.

We use the metaphor of a bucket; every direct interaction my son has, every indirect interaction he witnesses, goes into his bucket. Every sight, sound, smell and action gets thrown in there unfiltered. With a classroom teeming with small children his bucket fills quickly. In no time it overflows.

Photo Credit: KD Kelly

But my son doesn’t want to be the centre of attention. Anything but. He lets that bucket flow over without a word, a sensory overload seeping over the sides of his bucket, forming puddles around his feet. He walks around silently in emotionally sodden shoes until he leaves the classroom, until his teacher leads him out onto the playground, until his eyes meet mine over a sea of children and parents. I can read in those eyes, in a split second, that his bucket is too heavy for him to carry. In the split second it takes to meet my eyes he knows it is safe to let go and his face contorts with anger and confusion, his eyes darken and a thundercloud appears over his head. But his teacher’s attention is long gone as he runs to me.

I put my arms around him and I feel the energy raging within his little body, stress with nowhere to go. Words stumble over each other to get out of his mouth, trying to sum up the whirlwind that has been his morning, trying to empty his overladen bucket.

We walk home. Either there are tears as we walk, or the beginnings of a meltdown. Or silence. But no matter how the short walk home has been I know that when I open the front door to our home, once he crosses that threshold to safety, he will fling the bucket he has spent the morning filling across our hallway.

He will scream, cry, lash out, fight my every move; nothing will be right. His jacket refuses to hang on his hook. He can’t get his shoelaces undone. His sandwich filling is wrong. The bread is cut wrong. His brother is making too much noise. His plate is the wrong colour.

For eighteen long, emotional, stressful months we search for solutions. We talk to his teachers. I share that he is highly sensitive. I share that he needs time out, he needs quiet time, a place to reset, to empty his bucket out before it fills to the top. But I face a brick wall.

His teachers say he doesn’t want quiet moments, doesn’t need time alone. They tell me he’s a good learner, that he’s their idea of a perfect child in the classroom: he listens; he follows instructions; he doesn’t make a fuss. They tell me he’s enjoying himself. They tell me he’s never had a tantrum in school, never kicked a chair in his classroom, never shouted at them or a classmate. They tell me they see no problem in school, it has nothing to do with them; it’s a problem our family needs to solve at home. We need to leave the scientifically unproven idea of highly sensitive children at home, and let him get on with it at school, where he’s the perfect student.

They refuse to scratch beyond the surface, to see beyond the façade. They don’t see me dragging a screaming, crying little boy over the threshold of safety back into the world every day after lunch. They don’t see me coaxing a five-year-old boy out of the house for an afternoon at school. They don’t see the bruises on my shins from the kicks I get as I try to get shoes back on my distraught child to leave the house. They don’t see my tears, the conflict raging inside me. I want to keep him home but I can’t, not every day. They refuse to see the conflict raging inside my son.

By the time the battle is over and he’s back in school both our tears have faded, his anger has subsided.

I tell his teacher it has been a struggle to get him back there. I can see her rolling her eyes. Not literally of course, but I know she’d like to. And I walk back home, knowing I’ll do it all again in two hours because his bucket will fill unhindered during the afternoon.

He will come home overwhelmed because the new girl has been crying on her first day, because his friend fell over and hurt his arm, because the last piece of the puzzle he was doing did an impromptu vanishing trick, because the noise levels in class reached a new high, because he couldn’t get the teacher’s attention for help, because he hated the drawing he made.

He’ll come home overwhelmed because he’s highly sensitive and he doesn’t yet have the tools to filter out the things he doesn’t need to keep in his bucket. He needs help with it all. He needs support. He needs a reminder to seek out a quiet space. But for some reason I can’t get that for him in his classroom, where he spends most of his day.

Instead I get the offer of a lunch date at our house. Failing that maybe I could videotape one of his meltdowns for them. Because seeing is believing, right? Perhaps it would be better to accept the word of a mother, a mother at her wit’s end trying to help her son, a mother whose heart breaks every time she picks her son up from school because she sees his soul being destroyed little by little in a classroom that is a long way from being suitable for a highly sensitive child.

He’s in a different school now, one that understands that all children are individuals. That the boy at home and the boy in school is part of the same whole. His teacher understands that he needs time, space and quiet to empty his bucket. She believes without seeing. She supports him, without needing to see him at his worst. Sometimes seeing is believing, but other times it needs to be a matter of trust.

Photo Credit: Karolina Michalak

*Please note that as of 1 November 2014 I have launched a new blog called Happy Sensitive Kids,  for parents of highly sensitive children, or for those parenting children as highly sensitive people. Please visit Happy Sensitive Kids for more information sources and the blog - http://happysensitivekids.wordpress.com. You can also keep up to date on the accompanying Facebook page of the same name.*

5 Things to Do Before You Become a Parent

 I have three children aged nine, six and four. I know what I am talking about when I say there are things you should do before you become parents. Five things to be exact.

1. SLEEP

Seriously, I wish someone had told me how much sleep you lose during the first decade of a child's life and particularly during that first year after becoming a mother. Mind you, had I known then what I know now I might have slept through my entire 20s and missed that decade.

They sleep, but not for long.

Sleep when you can, lie in on a weekend, spend lazy Sunday mornings (to hell with it, and afternoons) eating breakfast in bed and, reading great books and watching fabulous movies. By the time your days are filled with nappies, milk feeds and rocking a baby sleep is a distant memory.

2. TRAVEL

You don't travel light with a baby or toddler in tow. In fact, if you've got any sanity left you just won't bother travelling at all.

Entertaining a hungry, cranky, bored toddler waiting for an overdue flight in a busy holiday shouldn't be on any sane person's wish list. And long haul flights? Baahahhaaa. It's why the local motorways are blocked up in the summer holidays with cars filled with car seats and little people, and every possible item you could never imagine you needed before you became parents packed in every other spare centimetre of car space.

So, before you have a baby go see the world, spread your wings and enjoy what the world has to offer - it will be a decade or more before that idea becomes fun again.

Trust your instinct and ditch the parenting books

3. DITCH THE PARENTING BOOKS
Once you know you'll imminently become a parent there is an urge to run out and buy, borrow or read every parenting book you can get your hands on. Don't.

One thing the books can't teach you is this: trust your instinct. A mother's instinct is the most powerful tool at your disposal. Once you are a parent, you can better understand your own parenting style and then seek out reading material as an aide, or other people with the same parenting philosophy. Reading every book or article with the word parent in the title before that time will only confuse, upset and mystify you. There is conflicting advice everywhere you look so let your instinct guide you in the right direction.

4. READ

I know, I just said ditch the parenting books but I'm talking about other reading material, the reading that you have always wanted to do. Now is the time to grab those classics on your reading bucket list. Now is the time to make the most of your favourite magazine subscription. Sign up at your local library and make your library card work for you.

Enjoy the peace, quiet and time that you have before a baby arrives. Trust me, you won't pick up another non-parenting book until long after your baby has turned one.

5. PREPARE FOR A LIFETIME OF CHANGE

Life will never be the same again.

That is easy for me to say of course, I have three children. I know the before children and the after kids life very well indeed but before you actually have a baby it's hard to imagine all the ways life will change but, let me assure you,  nothing in your life post kids will ever be the same again.

Your living room turns into one giant play room. There are potties and toilet training seats filling bathrooms and the downstairs loo. Your dining room floor always looks as if a food fight has just taken place (and usually it has, just not in the same way as during those fun student days). Your garden is filled with plastic houses, slides and balls and the beautiful flowers you plant last one hour after they have bloomed before they are plucked by chubby little hands.

But the biggest change of all is not inside your house. It's inside you. From the moment you become a parent your heart is filled with unconditional love. You will have no idea where this love comes from but it is all consuming. You are no longer responsible for just one person on this planet, and that feeling is overwhelming. Welcome to parenthood. Life will never be the same again.

Life will be better. So much better. Even without sleeping and travelling and reading, without peace and quiet and even though your home no longer feels like a sanctuary, life will be better. Because you have a little hand to hold, a little person to lead through life. Because you are somebody's mama.

What would you add to the list? What should you do before you become parents? 


 If you want to read more about parenting abroad head over to support Knocked Up Abroad on Kickstarter and buy a pre-release copy of the book!

That's Not Branston Pickle: The Dangers of Sandwich Making and Motherhood

The dangers of motherhood and sandwich making
Photo Credit: Pedro Simao

As a result of my blog post about all the things I never dreamed I would say before I became a parent I was reminded of a Branston pickle incident many years ago that I think I'm finally ready to share.

Picture the scene. My kitchen, just over seven years ago. My eldest son was just a few months old. He was a mere baby. Our little family comprised then only of the three of us. I was a new parent and I was sleep deprived. Bewildered. Operating on auto pilot. And I was making sandwiches for a long road trip we were about to make.

To be more precise, I was making cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches whilst my baby son lay in the play pen. Screaming. Screaming like he was being savagely attacked by rabid dogs. So I picked him up, gave him a cuddle and he stopped crying. I continued to make sandwiches with my one free hand, baby nestled in my other arm.

Drawing to the end of the 'tricky with one hand' sandwich packing process my husband took our son from me and I noticed I had pickle on my non-sandwich making arm. Strange, how on earth did that get there I wondered. So I licked it off my arm. It didn't taste much like pickle. I wrapped the last sandwich in cling film and cleared away.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh!" cried out my husband suddenly. "Nappy explosion!"

"Gadverdamme," I uttered. "That wasn't Branson pickle on my arm."

I know I'm not alone - go ahead, feel free to share your gross poop stories with us........

Setting the Counter to Zero: A Real Summer Break

Six weeks came and went and the children are now back in school. The summer holidays flew by but we wrung every drop of fun we could out of them before a new school year takes us in its grip.

We spent nearly four weeks in England, most of that in Cornwall. We saw planes, trains and stock cars. We spent time on sandy beaches, time in the countryside and time in stately houses. We witnessed jousting knights, scaled castle walls, collected glimmering shells, played in the rock pools and built dams on the beach. We ate fish and chips, bacons sandwiches, crumpets and enjoyed many an ice cream. The boys added countless words to their English vocabulary list and played with lots of British children. We had a fabulous summer holiday.

Then we had two weeks at home which we kept quiet and low key, particularly after a bad bout of man-flu hit the man of the house and put him in bed for the best part of a week. And today a new school year begins. And we are ready for it. We are refreshed. Ready for the routine. Ready to work again.

I have taken a break from the blog over the summer. In fact, I took a break from all things writing, except for journal entries and one article about school uniforms, or rather the lack of them in my life. Hopefully, none of you noticed as I worked my butt off in July to schedule weekly posts and keep new posts popping up. But it does mean I have a head full of ideas, blog posts and general musings. But all in good time.

One thing that hit me over the head hard this summer was that time is moving at an alarming pace. My eldest has started in group 4 today and with a new teacher and a new classroom my little HSC was a little stressed. In a month or so my youngest will turn three. One more year at home with me before he also starts school. My middle son continues finding his feet in group 1, but this school year in a smaller group than that of the last term of the last school year and hopefully with a little more continuity. In one way or another, they need my support to get through these first few weeks back at school.

Before the summer break I had started putting more time into this blog, taking on more monthly writing commitments and I took pleasure in watching the blog grow. But I plan to take my foot of the accelerator a little. Just a little. I'm a mama first. And I have enjoyed that feeling over the summer holiday. The calmness of no conflicts with my time - beating myself up about whether to spend time with my boys or to slip off and write a blog post. I'm not sure whether you will notice a difference here. Only time will tell. In any case, the summer holiday did us all a power of good. It provided the break we all needed. The counter was set to zero again.

I hope you have all had a great summer break too!

24 Things I Spend my Days Saying as the Mother of Three Boys

Nobody warned me before I became a mother about the sentences that would come out of my mouth once I had children. Nobody told me about the words I would utter being a parent to boys. Nobody thought to enlighten me about the bizarre topics of conversation that would become commonplace in a house with three boys aged seven, four and two. Nobody. So let me be the one to forewarn you – this is what mothers of young boys really spend their days saying:

1. “Have you done a poo? No? Really? Why do you smell like that then?”

2. “Which one of you has eaten the toilet roll this time? I just put a new roll in there. Like half an hour ago.”

3. “Stop running from the garden through the living room in your muddy shoes.” And then three minutes later, “For the love of God, stop running from the garden through the living….” Repeat all summer long.

4. “Put your brother down, he’s not a doll.” Then screamed loudly, “Noooo, don’t put him down like that!”

5. “Why is the garden dug up?”

6. “What are you going to do with that slug?”

7. “Take that rope from around your brother’s neck. Right now.”

8. “Dirty underwear goes in the laundry basket, not under your bed.”

9. “Seriously no. Just no. You cannot have a snack, it’s been twenty minutes since you ate breakfast*/lunch*/dinner/a snack*.”

10. “Stop calling everyone a poophole.”

11. “Put your pants back on.”

12. “What do you say when you burp*/fart*/cough*/sneeze*/spit* in your brother’s face?”

13. “Did you flush the toilet? Did you wash your hands? Really, the toilet and tap working silently now are they? Let me feel your hands. Go back and wash your hands. With soap.”

14. “Green food is not poisonous.”

15. “What’s that in your hair? Weetabix? Great, it’s turned to cement.”

16. Don’t throw snails over the neighbour’s fence. And definitely not whilst they are sitting in their garden.”

17. “Slugs don’t go over the fence either.”

18. “Get a tissue. No, not your sleeve, a tissue. Don’t you dare put that in your mouth. So gross. It’s a bit late now for a tissue isn’t it?”

19. “Get your hands out of your trousers.”

20. “Of course you can’t find your gym shoes*/wallet*/swimming stuff*/bed*, your room looks like a bombsite.”

21. “No, strawberry flavoured sweets do not count as fruit.”

22. “Get the Fat Controller out of your mouth.”

23. “Put your bum on your chair before you fall and break your neck.”

24. “Do you want to end up in hospital?” (As clarification, this is not a threat, merely a hint that what they are doing threatens their life or at least a limb.)

*delete/use interchangeably as appropriate

What have I missed? What odd things do you spend your days saying as a parent?

Raising Happy Sensitive Kids

*My Happy Sensitive Kids blog is the place to find all new highly sensitive related posts* 
Regular visitors this this blog will know there are three main themes running through my posts: all things Dutch, all things British and the amazing topic of Highly Sensitive Children.

A year ago my family was wading through some dark, dark days trying to deal with a school that failed to acknowledge that some children are highly sensitive and that the constant noise and busyness around them in a classroom have real implications for how they feel - and once they are in the comfort of their own home - how they behave. Life was a daily battle. And one we were losing.

We had amazing support from various Dutch youth services (a blog post for another day now I think about it) and we found our way through in the end but it was hard. It was incredibly stressful and it put a lot of strain on my family and particularly my children.

My husband and I felt alone because it is often hard for friends and family to understand what being a highly sensitive child means for a child and their parents in day to day life. Some days we really felt like we were making it all up. I questioned whether highly sensitive really existed - that is how our son's former school made us feel. They made us feel, some days, like complete nut jobs - saying one thing to us, but acting another way entirely as soon as my son was in the classroom with them. They humoured us but never helped. We went through just about every emotion you could name. Until enough was enough and we switched schools. If only we had done it sooner. The Dutch have a saying "zit lekker in je vel" - to literally be comfortable in your own skin. And that is what we saw happen when our son started at a new school. He was suddenly comfortable in his own skin.

But, as with everything there is always a positive angle - every cloud has a silver lining and all that. Through our experience, I learned a lot. I will never go down the same road again.

How we felt a year ago is the reason why I set up a Facebook group for parents of highly sensitive children. It's the reason I started writing about the topic here on this blog. So that no other parent of a HSC feels alone when they face problems at school, or feels unsure when their child refuses to go to a friend's birthday party, or cries every morning at nursery drop off, or is pulling their hair out when their daughter refuses to wear new clothes that she says are scratchy, or refuses to eat anything but peanut butter and cheese. Because they all may seem like little things to the outside world, but day in day out, dealing with the sensitivities of a confused, overwhelmed child puts even the most patient of parents to the test. And when the world around you shows a complete lack of understanding for your child's needs parenting feels lonely.

The truth is, if you are parenting a HSC you are absolutely not the only one. You are not alone. And it is a topic that is gaining more and more ground (read this if you don't believe me: Why Some People are Genetically More Sensitive or Empathetic Than Others) and more and more parents are getting more of an understanding of their HSC. The latest generation of highly sensitive children have more chance of having parents that really get them, that understand them and what they need to grow into beautiful adults who not afraid of their sensitivity. That's the good news. And as parents the world wide web gives us the tools to support each other so that we can raise Happy Sensitive Kids.

I am thrilled to have been approached by two wonderful bloggers in the past few weeks to write a post on the very topic of highly sensitive children. It's a wonderful acknowledgement of what I have been trying to do over what turns out to be almost exactly a year.

Firstly, I wrote a post for Leila for her wonderful Sensitive and Extraordinary Kids blog on the topic of being a HS mother and how I struggled entering motherhood. I thought I wasn't cut out to be a mother. Turns out I just needed to empty my bucket every now and then.

And then I wrote a guest post for Annabelle for The Piri Piri Lexicon blog distinguishing between introverts and HSC. It's a fine line, and often a child is both.

If you are raising a highly sensitive child join our Facebook Group, leave a comment here or just check back once in a while - just know you're not alone.

Parenting Around the Planet: Parenting Dutch Style

I was delighted to be asked by Bod for Tea to write about what it is like to raise children as a Brit in the Netherlands.

It is only by putting pen to paper that I realised just how lucky I am to be able to parent here amongst the Dutch and I am constantly learning from those around me - just as I would be if I were raising my children in Britain. However, my examples here are different to those I would have in England - that is for sure.

To see what I mean head over to Bod for Tea and read my take on parenting Dutch style. I would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts!

Kirstie Allsopp and When to Have a Baby: Mission Completed

Kirstie Allsopp (a British TV presenter) has whipped up quite the storm in a tea cup with her comments urging women to get themselves settled in the family way before opting for a higher education. She states that many women end up with fertility issues because they are going to university and getting their career on track before thinking about babies. By the time they opt for motherhood their biological clock is no longer on their side.

Doing things the other way around, in her opinion, would be a better tactic. First a family and then university in your 40s or beyond. She's not saying don't get educated, just that there are other ways of doing it without sacrificing a family life and facing problems in your 30s getting pregnant.

She's had her fair share of negative press over her comments (headlines for the sake of headlines in many cases), as well as those who say she absolutely has a point. Whatever you think when you read her interview she has achieved something incredibly positive - a debate. She has people talking about fertility issues and age, discussing the right time to have a family.

And I think she has a valid opinion. There is no arguing against the medical facts; maternal health risks increase as a woman ages, not just for a mother to be, but for her baby too. Getting pregnant gets harder too.

I was 33 when I became pregnant the first time. The nuchal scan done at that time showed a minimal risk of having a baby with a chromosomal condition such as Down Syndrome. By the time those same tests were done during my third pregnancy when I was 38 the results produced a shockingly much higher risk ratio. In the space of those five years there was a huge, dramatic change.

And once I had a newborn at home for the third time it was also obvious that those five years made all the difference. In fact, the eighteen months that had passed since my second son was born already made a marked difference. I was much more tired; sleep deprivation had a huge effect on my own health. Being a new mother just got tougher as I got older. That's nature. That's a fact.

However, my personal circumstances were never such that I considered having a baby in my 20s. I met my now-husband when I was 27, not far from 28. I'd known him all of nine months when I moved to the Netherlands. That just wasn't the time to start a family. I found a job. We found a small house, one foot on the property ladder. We talked about children but we wanted to be more settled. We wanted a bigger house first, space for a family. We wanted our finances to be more secure. We didn't want to be worried about every euro and cent providing for our family.

In 2005 my partner and I went on a road trip across part of the western side of the United States. That was the result of a conscious decision to make a trip that we wouldn't necessarily do with children. At least not young children. That was a last blast, go with the flow holiday before consciously trying for a family. By May the following year we were expecting our first son.

And that is our story. And every single couple on this planet has their own story. We were ready in 2005 to commit to having a family. Once we felt we were in a good position financially, emotionally and physically to start a family. Others make less conscious decisions. Some couples become parents when they least expect it. Some couples have struggles to become parents that they could have never have imagined. It is always a personal journey into parenthood.

Do I wish we had started a family whilst we were a little younger? Sometimes yes. But at the end of the day I have three healthy little boys and I feel that I have more to offer them now as a mother than I would have done in my 20s when I was hardly more than a kid myself.

My parents were more than a decade younger than us when they became parents. My mum said once that she felt that she hadn't had a real youth - she was raising two children instead of going out and doing the things that a 20 year old does. Their reasons for having children young were very different and less conscious than our decision to wait until we were in our 30s. Their story is very different to ours. But our two different stories beg the question: is there ever a perfect time to enter parenthood? There are sacrifices whatever the age. There are pros and cons, whatever the age.

And that is just the point. Every story is different. Every couple is different. At the end of the day, whether you are a teenager, or in your 20s, 30s or 40s when you make that decision to have a baby, in whatever circumstances that may happen, you work with what you have. You take each step at a time and you grow as a person, and hopefully as a parent. But. There is a but. That but is that fertility decreases as we get older.

What Kirstie Allsopp has achieved is discussion, some of it less respectful than it could be, but she is right that the issues that women face when they decide to have a baby in their 30s or beyond should be talked about. Reality should be a topic of conversation. Women want it all and sometimes Mother Nature calls us out on that - the biological clock is a real thing and it is not something that a student in her early 20s even contemplates whilst enjoying cheap pints in the student union bar (I speak from experience). Perhaps now, thanks to Kirstie, she will.

Home Births: Let Pregnant Women Decide

 One of the things I loved about being pregnant in the Netherlands was the fact that I was not treated like I had a medical condition. I went to the hospital during my first pregnancy only for scans (and in subsequent pregnancies even these were done in the midwife practice) a blood test in the first trimester and a rush visit in the last trimester when my baby's heartbeat was deemed to be too fast by my midwife.

The rest of the time I saw only a group of midwives in their practice. Hospitals, as great as they are when you actually need them, are not places I need to spend a lot of time in.

What I also loved was the fact that I could make a considered judgement about where I wanted to give birth. I had the option of a home or a hospital birth. If I had been pregnant in England I am 99% sure a home birth would not have even been a topic of conversation.

In the UK only 2.4% of births happen at home compared to nearly 20% in the Netherlands. The cost of a hospital birth in the Netherlands is only fully covered by medical insurance if there is a medical reason for it. Plus the Dutch first line care (midwives) advocate natural births. At least in 2006, they certainly did.

I'm an expat, and the first thing that crossed my mind was how culturally different a birth in the UK was (or in the US for that matter), where all my friends seemed to be talking about epidurals and gas and air. However, I decided that if I could, I would opt for a home birth. What could be more comfortable than not having to pack up a case and head off to an unknown, sterile environment surrounded by strange faces to give birth?

But when it came down to it I had to go to hospital. There was meconium in the embryonic fluid and I had no choice. The midwife was with me at home, and made it clear that we had to transfer as quickly as we could to the hospital. No panic, no stress, just matter of factly, "Let's move it".

I was devastated. I hadn't prepared myself for Plan B. Everything was ready for a home birth, not a hospital birth (it turned out that I seemed to have absentmindedly forgotten to complete the packing of my hospital case).

A typical delivery suite at a Dutch hospital
(ball not included!)

The details of the birth I will save for a rainy day (or a book) but suffice to say that because the maternity ward was working at maximum capacity and there was not enough staff to attend to all the women in labour as it was needed I had a difficult, stressful delivery. No woman should have to go through a traumatic labour and birth because of staff shortages. My husband and I were left alone for large chunks of time in the delivery room - feeling helpless, clueless and upset. My baby also became distressed.

So no one will ever convince me that a hospital room is always the best place for a woman to give birth, because it is safer, because of 'just in case', that it should be the first choice of every woman, regardless of situation.

A doula and a whole lot of personal experience made the difference for me the second and third births around - also in a hospital.

And so to last week. Dutch News.nl translated an article that appeared in De Volkskrant on 29 April (if you can read Dutch be sure to read the original article, and particularly the comments it evoked - including from gynaecologists themselves) called "Home Births: Let the Gynaecologists Decide".  In the article the two authors (Kenneth Watson and Rob Kottenhagen) are advocating that gynaecologists should decide whether women can safely give birth at home or not. It's an opinion piece. And this in turn is my opinion piece about the article.

The first line already riled me; translated from the original article, the piece starts like this.

"It is irresponsible to keep home births as the cornerstone of midwifery care."

And it riles me because just over 80% of women in the Netherlands give birth in the hospital. The cornerstone of midwifery care is not home birth.

It goes on to state,

"The German poet Heinrich Heine once said that if the end of the world came he would go to the Netherlands because there everything happened fifty years later. This comment seems a fitting one for another anachronistic Dutch phenomenon: the home birth. Everywhere in the affluent West the safety of mother and child is paramount and hospital births are the norm." Dutch News 2 May 2014

It goes on to talk about midwives playing Russian Roulette with the lives of mothers and babies, that midwives make woefully inadequate risk assessments.

By the time I got to the end of the piece my blood was boiling. And I don't even think it was because of the message in the article, more the tone. I can well imagine how any midwife felt reading the article. The authors imply that the priority of the midwife is not the mother, nor the baby. And how insulting must that be to such a profession?

I miss the part in the article where it states around the time that the worrying baby death figures were published that part of the discussion was that gynaecologists, doctors and anaesthetists weren't always around at night in hospitals. That their absence put women in danger.

I miss the part that admits that many women who were successfully able to have a home birth had a wonderful experience. I gave birth three times in a hospital, and not one time could I say it was a pleasant experience. It got the job done - I took three healthy baby boys home with me, but pleasant? No. Absolutely not. I am envious of the many positive home birth stories I have heard.

I miss the acknowledgement of the research that indicates that hospital births increase the chances of intervention being necessary (caesarian sections, vacuum pump and so on). That labour is lasting longer and longer as women lie around in hospital beds.

I welcome any proper discussion on the topic of child birth, whether that be about the Netherlands or elsewhere. Childbirth should be safe, no matter where you give birth. Women should have a choice. Women should make the decisions, based on facts and risks with the help of the professionals (I'm not alone thinking this see: http://www.knov.nl/actueel-overzicht/nieuws-overzicht/detail/keuze-vrouw-centraal-in-reacties-opiniestuk/1386).

I believe all women should have the right to a safe environment and professional care for labour and birth. But the truth is that sometimes things go wrong; they go wrong in a maternity ward in a hospital, they go wrong at home. Midwives are human. Gynaecologists are human. Labour is unpredictable. Births do not follow a script.

I feel strongly that demonising midwives is just wrong. That's my opinion. Instead of the eternal battle that rages on in the Netherlands between midwifes and gynaecologists about who is best to lead pregnancies, labour and births, it would be nice to see more collaboration. Instead of one camp against another I would rather see more unity, seamless co-operation, specialists working together in the interest of mothers-to-be and their unborn children. Less emphasis on who gets the money for delivery, more emphasis on safety, but also comfort! The comfort of the mother, a relaxed mother, a contented mother, which is proven to aid the labour process, seems to have been forgotten along the way.

The only positive thing I can say about this article is that, despite its dismissive, condescending tone, it has of course sparked discussion. I am, after all, writing about it. Many are talking about it. Many have commented on it. It's a topic that will always spark controversy, that will evoke the most primal of emotions. I believe women should have a choice where they give birth.

But lastly, when all is said and done, I believe child birth is a topic that should be treated respectfully, which I missed in this article.