Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On

My two children were born in the water. In my son’s case, he was born in hospital but in a purposefully-designed pool. Three years after, my daughter was also born in a pool in the comfort of our council flat up on the fifteenth floor of a high rise.

Why am I telling you all this? Because until my son was born and to a certain extent until my daughter came into this world, I had no idea how incendiary an issue parenting could be.

When my wife was pregnant with our son and she suggested that we check with our local antenatal clinic and our midwife about water births, I had only been in London a few weeks. However, I trusted my other half completely and the idea of a baby floating in the water minutes after it had come out of mummy’s belly was a soothing one. Maybe because of the hospital environment in which we were going to be the issue of the water birth did not raise many questions.

However, when we decided that our daughter’s birth would take place in our flat, there were a few question marks about it. Not from family or friends, they trusted us, but from other parents. It was then I realised that there were certain subjects in life that triggered off unexpected reactions in other people. Even people without children. Education is one, for those of us who work in the field, either as teaching or support staff (I’m the latter). Parenting is the other one. In this case parenting includes pre-natal, post-natal, early years and everything else that comes after.

I wrote “parenting”, but I should have really written “mothering”, for it is women, sadly, who bear the brunt of people’s demented reactions. I confess that just as my wife entered the final third of her pregnancy, I had long talks with her about a Plan B, should the water birth go wrong. Of course, we had a Plan B. We had two very experienced midwives (one of whom I still remember fondly, a no-nonsense Irish woman) and a supportive circle of family and friends. But I remember having troubling thoughts up until the day.

I guess I, too, was influenced by the scaremongering that goes on about pregnancy and childbirth. It is almost sometimes as if people are afraid of women making “the wrong choice”, let alone making a choice to begin with.

Conception happens between two people (we’re still light-years away from human parthenogenesis) but for some reason it is the woman who ends up shouldering most of the responsibility. I do understand why some people might see it as a woman’s issue. Pregnancy takes place in a woman’s body and it is this body that feeds the foetus and keeps it healthy. Nevertheless, the language used in debates about childbirth is often too emotionally charged. The result is less a conversation and more a finger-pointing exercise.

Childbirth: how to go about it is still a woman's choice

One of the reasons for this is that human birth, to me at least, still holds us in thrall. Just a few days ago I was discussing this very subject with some parents in my school. We have had a few births recently and yours truly never ceases to be amazed at the wonder of nature in producing new human beings. However, I would be loath to elevate motherhood to some kind of Mother Teresa category with a halo around it. It is what happens on a daily basis around the world. You get pregnant, the baby grows inside, you pop it out and you raise it together with whomever you want. Or on your own; it is your choice after all. The irony here is that parenthood has become more accessible nowadays with methods like IVF featuring more prominently. But own up to having had a c-section performed to save the baby and you will still be dragged to the altar of Mother Teresa and questions will be asked. No wonder that many parents, mothers above all, become depressed following the birth of their children.

Looking back at that conversation I mentioned before with those parents (mums all of them, by the way. Funny that, I very rarely discuss pregnancy with men at work) I realised that not one of them was being judgemental when they gave their opinions. Which in a way made me think that hopefully we are moving towards a world that will be more accepting of pregnant women’s choices. A world in which the use of pain relief during labour or filling up a pool on the fifteenth floor of a high rise for a water birth will raise no eyebrows. At the end of the day what really matters is the human being we are bringing into this world and the people behind such wonderful miracle.



© 2015


Next Post: “Urban Dictionary”, to be published on Wednesday 10^th June at 6pm (GMT)

Food for Thought on a Summer Sunday Morning (and Music, too!)

For several weeks now Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine has explored one of those issues that we all take for granted and to which we rarely pay any attention: what makes us human? Parallel to the Radio 2 series, the New Statesman has been asking leading writers, comedians and artists the same question. Author P D James's recent contribution to the magazine is one I hope you will enjoy. The article is reproduced here without any permission. My blog-vacation has come to an end and I will be returning to my cyber-lair next week to share with you all a good, old cup of steaming coffee, my reflections on the world in which we live and music of the same high quality as the clip today.

Who are you calling animal?

What makes us human is the brain which enables us to ask just this question. We are aware how much we share with the animal kingdom and how close our DNA is to that of the higher mammals. We increasingly hear how much we all have in common with animals. Animals often show at least an equal concern with looking after their young. We know that elephants can grieve, that chimpanzees and other apes learn to use tools and even to share them, so there is the beginning of what we think of as unselfish sharing for mutual benefit. But animals, even those whose DNA is closest to ours, cannot make or control fire.

One wonders how this powerful tool was first discovered, perhaps by primitive man constantly rubbing two dry sticks together in a moment of boredom and producing a spark that lighted a pile of dry leaves. With this apparent miracle a significant step in the long rise to humanity was taken. Fire could be used to frighten away predators, provided the warmth which enabled early man to survive extreme cold and gave him the ability to cook meat and render it more digestible and life-sustaining. The making of fire was one of the most important discoveries which set human beings on the path to domination.

But most people, when faced with the question of what makes us human, give thought to a wider dimension than the difference between Homo sapiens and the animal kingdom, a dimension which includes ethics and morality and the recognition of responsibility for other than the immediate family or species. An animal has no concept of reality outside its own life and that of its young, and its place in the herd. Because we have the capacity to imagine and sympathise with the emotions including the pain of others, surely that implies a responsibility to alleviate suffering and promote well-being among all sentient creatures, including the animals of which we make use for our sustenance, convenience and pleasure.

To describe a person as acting like an animal is an insult, while the expression, “crime against humanity”, implies that there is some behaviour regarded as so appalling that the perpetrator is offending against a recognised code of what is acceptable from human beings. If the offence is committed by a single individual he is commonly labelled a psychopath, a diagnosis which it is seldom possible to follow with effective treatment. If the outrage is committed by a country, as with genocide, international opprobrium and a system of reparation, where this is possible, usually follow. We have the ability, both internationally and at home, to militate against behaviour we view as unacceptable and to make it illegal and punishable by law. We set up complicated legal and social contrivances designed to enable us to live together in peace and safety and which, in all civilised societies, are accepted and incorporated in words. The extent and richness of a country’s language is among the most important measures of its civilisation, and it is primarily language which makes us human.

When we think about what it means to be human, often we are considering what personal preoccupations, ambitions and conduct to others make us unique creatures on the planet. Unlike animals, human beings occupy their minds with concerns outside the compulsions of sex, food, shelter and the herd: the creation of our universe, the possibilities that other planets might sustain life and that eventually we shall make contact with other intelligent beings and communicate with them. We create gods ranging from tribal images in wood and stone to complicated theological arguments, and set up organisations to accommodate these deities and define the obligations of belief and worship.

But in the end the simple difference remains. Over millions of years the Darwinian process of evolution which has given us a Newton, a Shakespeare and a Mozart, has resulted in the human capacity to think, to wonder, to create and to invent. The capacity which enables us to use science to destroy each other in wars is also used to conquer disease, with the risk that we reproduce in numbers which inevitably outstrip the natural resources on which we depend. Unlike animals, we have the means to destroy Planet Earth by our greed, or to make it a safer place in which all living creatures can live.

How should we relate to each other? How do we deal with those aggressive impulses which seem to be in our nature? How do we tolerate people who are different, especially when they come to live among us? How should we educate our young? Is the nuclear family the only right pattern for marriage and parenthood? How can we save the planet which we alone among living creatures have the power to destroy? This is the ultimate question which faces us as humans and it is one of which the animal kingdom is oblivious. It is our responsibility, and it is this responsibility that makes us human.



Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 15th September at 10am (GMT)