Category Archives: Uncategorized

I Am Santa Claus The Movie Mum

Posted in Being Me, Uncategorized by

FUNDRAISER ALERT! #RUSHETORAISE

It’s that time of year again!

And to celebrate the official start of the Mammy and Daddy’s favourite time of year, we are running our #RushetoRaise fundraiser for another year.

This year, we are delighted to announce that the 2018 #RushetoRaise will be

“SANTA CLAUS, THE MOVIE”.

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All proceeds will go to The Jack & Jill Foundation and to The Victoria Thompson Scholarship, both of which are orchestral in providing much needed pediatric palliative care and support, all over Ireland.

Last year, we had a wonderful afternoon at our screening of The Polar Express and were delighted to be able to donate over €2000 to two very special charities.

 Rushe Fitness is once again sponsoring the event and we are being kindly supported by Century Complex, Letterkenny.

 

Very limited tickets are still available and can be ordered by messaging me on my Facebook Page.  Tickets will be held for payment and collection on Sunday (11th Nov) between 12pm and 1.30pm at our Gym in Letterkenny.  Any tickets not collected, will be sold to those on the waiting list.

Let’s ring in the festive season with this beautiful classic.

 

I am So What Age is Best Mum?

Posted in Being Mammy, Uncategorized by

The recent pregnancy announcement of one of the pretty Princess People in London has caused quite a stir, not only because everyone loves a royal Baby as much as a royal wedding.  This one has caused a stir because Princess-wifey-of-the-other-one will be deemed to be having a “geriatric pregnancy” because she is over 35.

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Geriatric?  The woman looks about 21.  And yet, this is a medical term, much used and much accepted across the medical world.

So, what age is the best age to have kids?

Well now that is really the same as asking how long a piece of string is, or how much wine is too much wine? Erm…

My own parents have done it all!  I was born when they were 20 and 21, the baby being born as they both turned 40.  They tell me that each of us (and we are 6!) brought our own challenges.  I don’t think they’d say which is best, because they wouldn’t change a thing. (I think!)

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I remember when my Dad turned 30. At the wise old age of nine, I thought he was ANCIENT!  And as I now hit hard on 40 myself, I often consider how wonderful it is that so many of my generation were born to such young parents. (and I am grateful to have them both still young and thankfully well.)

In the 80’s, it was the absolute norm for Mums to be 19 or 20.  It was perfectly acceptable to be married at 18 or 19. I remember hearing my Aunty proclaim, on her 21st birthday, that if she wasn’t married by the time she turned 25, to sign her up to a certain religious institution… And yet now, most don’t even consider settling down until late 20s/early 30s and most of us are having our kids in our mid to late 30s.

Having babies young has its benefits as well as its cons.  And waiting until later brings different struggles and joys.

As a Mammy who had Baby one at 30 and Baby two at 35, (Yup! Geriatric Mammy right here!), I can honestly say that the energy levels I had for number two differed desperately.  As did my physical recovery.

But again, everyone is different.  30 was the right age for me.  I was settled in my own skin, in my career and in my relationship.  And yet my friend who had her three kids before the age of 23 will tell you that she loved having them when she was younger and had more time and energy.

When you have your babies, really has no baring on the life of anyone else does it?  You are not ‘better’ if you have kids at whatever the national average is.  You are not ‘better’ if you have your kids young than the woman who is 41 when she gives birth.

Every one is different and as with all things parenty, there is no right or wrong.

Remember to follow me on Bookface and Instagranny!

 

 

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I am Stuck in our Phones Mum

Posted in Being Me, Lifestyle, Uncategorized by

As a writer and blogger, I am often guilty of depending on my phone a little too much. But I am very, very aware of how much time I can spend flicking through social media and I am well able to leave the phone down.

Like everyone, I sometimes find myself constantly checking it; needing to know if people had responded or reacted or replied to me, especially as my summer holidays set in and I was able to be more active on my social media platforms. Unlike during my working day, I had access to my phone all day, every day. But then I realised that it was taking up more minutes of the day than I cared to admit. And those are minutes that I really have more important things to be doing.

So a few months ago, I made the simple, but absolutely life-changing decision, to switch off notifications on my phone. Such a basic, quick solution to an ugly problem. Rather than constantly feeling obliged to click on the little red number beside the Facebook or Insta icon, I am more in control of when I do (and more importantly, when I don’t) pick it up.

Is it working? I think so. It’s certainly made me think twice about my own relationship with my phone and I’m enjoying the mental freedom of no longer being a puppet to the beeping puppeteer. But let me tell you. I only THOUGHT I had a problem.

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In the past few months, I’ve been in two massive cities; firstly London, then New York. (I’m not usually that jetsetting and exciting, but it’s been a busy one!) And one thing that I noticed in each, was how ridiculously stuck to screens people are.

Now I’m not just talking about people ignoring each other in bars and restaurants for virtual conversations on their screen. I’m not just talking about the woman who is so busy flicking through videos about drawing eyebrows, and fake smiles and backsides on Instagram, that she doesn’t see the person who might be interested in hers across the table.

I’m not just talking about the man who says “in a minute” eleven times before actually looking up to answer his friend, or partner, or child. Because while all of these things are sadly a daily occurrence in most cities, what I couldn’t get my head around was the fact that in the larger cities, people now are taking their phone to a new level.

Because now, it is unsafe to walk on a street.

There is a new generation, or species perhaps, who genuinely do not realise that when they are walking, they must LOOK AHEAD. Or at least look at the ground in front of them.

They possibly think they are living inside the virtual reality of whatever computer game they like to play, and that if people walk into them, they will simply dissipate and dissolve and disappear like the avatars in their games do.

They don’t GET that if you don’t look ahead of you, you can not see where you are going and therefore, you will bump into people.

Perhaps these are a new-age type who have actually evolved to deal with the banal act of walking in the real world. Perhaps I am mistaken and they are ACTUALLY looking at a clever app on their device which is warning them to step left, or manoeuvre right or to stop at the road.

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Maybe it is I who is so sad and deluded. Or maybe, just maybe, I am simply old and these young’uns have actually evolved to such heights that they can now see from the top of their heads and therefore don’t HAVE to look up, like we oldies. Never mind our mothers who had eyes in the back of their heads, these guys have them on the top.

Am I being sarcastic. (God yes. And if you are genuinely unsure, perhaps YOU need some more human interaction!) But in all seriousness, the number of times I got shouldered or bumped into or actually pummelled while trying to walk through the already crazy gauntlet of the modern city streets, was unbelievable.

And I’m not referring exclusively to young people here, although the majority were possibly of the snowflake generation, possibly genuinely believing that other people quite simply must MOVE out of their way. Heaven forbid that they would be distracted from the importance of their screen.

Many of these crowners (for they looked like what a midwife sees at a birth, approaching hair or bald head first), were older. And yet, age or gender aside, they were not one bit concerned about the other, real people, who they were ploughing through.

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I remember sitting in London with my brother a few years ago, aghast at the way people were dependent on their phones; uber, food orders, directions everything… And then our own wee country caught up. And that is both fine and terrifying, because judging by the bigger cities right now, we have a zombie society emerging. And what starts in these cities, eventually reaches us. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with dummies driving while looking at their phones. (Seriously dude, no one looks at their crotch and smiles…)

But judging by what I saw this summer, we shall soon be walking through throngs of headbutters, hunched over like question marks.

We all need our phones. We all use them more than we even realise. They are part of our culture. But when they are simply extensions of our hands, into which we place more importance than human interaction and actual physical awareness, then we have a problem. And when the only communication and words that we pay attention to are being fed by a wire into our ears, we run the risk of becoming deaf to reality.

Imagine if we all looked up? Imagine what things we would see…

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I am Strap your Kids in the Car Mum

Posted in Being Mammy, Uncategorized by

Most days we all see something silly or shocking on our roads.

Maybe it’s a close call.  Maybe it’s a near miss.  Maybe it’s someone speeding…

And usually, we tut, or we hold our breath, or we swear or gesture some form of WTF at the offending driver…

But there is ONE thing that is becoming more and more prevalent on our roads, and Mammy can not for the life of me get my head around it…

Driving with kids who are NOT STRAPPED IN.

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In the past fortnight, I have seen THREE cases of this.

One car swung around a busy roundabout in my town with two toddlers standing at the windows in the back seat.

One pulled in to a carpark beside me and the child, no more than 5 years old, jumped out of the front seat, having been already standing when the car came to a stop.

One had a three year old standing between between the front seats as she swung into a parking space this morning. And yes, I know the child is three, because I know the woman who was driving.

Can I say anything?

God no.

Because how do you say it? Why is it my business?  How do I have ANY idea what that parent has been through this morning? How can you possibly comment without turning into the one thing that I personally despise…a sanctimammy.

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Others will say “Oh there were no seatbelts when we were children”.  I know.  I am one of that generation.  But hey, guess what? There was a lot less traffic and the roads were very differnt. Also, in the 80’s we thought it was safe to smoke while pregnant and that it was OK for teachers to hit our children…

So, HOW is it possible that this is happening?

My kids have grown up thinking that my car won’t start until they have their seatbelts on.  Of course I have rows with them where one of them will refuse to get into the seat, or where one has planked so impressively that I can’t get their belly to buckle so I can buckle them in.  And we have been late many many times because of these stand-offs.

But guess what?

This is ONE battle of wills which this Mammy will ALWAYS WIN.

Because I don’t give a continental shite how late I am, or how much she is crying, or how much I want to scream and tear my hair out, there is NOTHING in this world which will make me put my children into the car without them being strapped in.

NOTHING.

(And trust me, I have put my back out trying!)

Because as difficult as kids can be and as much as we are “only going around the corner”, none of us know what or who is also coming around that corner and even strapped in, none of us are 100% safe on the roads.

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I hate to sound preachy.  I really do.  It goes against every fibre of my blogging-being.  But seriously, the one and only true thing of any value that we have, is our children.

And while none of us can guarantee their safety when we’re on the roads, we CAN guarantee it within our cars and thereby give them the best possible chance in the event of the unthinkable happening.

I’d rather put up with tantrums and fights than live with my self if anything happened my child while I am driving.  Because if you don’t strap them in, then it’s as much your fault as the other driver’s if they get hurt.

Stop it.

Strap them in and wise up.

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I am Saving Myself Thanks Mum

Posted in Being Mammy, Lifestyle, parenting, Uncategorized by

Kiera Knightly recently broke the interweb with her announcement that she has banned her three year old daughter from watching The Little Mermaid and Cinderella.  She feels that they teach her daughter wrong and even misogynistic lessons; that you need to wait for a man to save you and that you must give up your voice for the man you want…

Kristen Bell has issues with Snow White because of how consent is conveyed in it.

Fair enough.

Who are we to judge? If these Mamas don’t want to let their kids watch these movies, that is absolutely 100% THEIR DECISION!

In fact, the portrayal of women in Disney is something I have discussed with my students many, many, many times, and while I agree that many of the traditional “princesses” are frustratingly meek and mild and oh so obedient to their hearts and menfolk, I also am aware that the stories are not the cause of inequality and misogyny in our modern society.  They are only stories; fairytales, make believe… it is HOW we read them that is important.

Yes you can say that Prince Whatshisface kissing Snow White while she was sleeping is wrong.  Of course it is, but why do we hone in on that rather than the previous 60 minutes where she was a servant and cleaner and feck knows what else,  for seven little men?  (And does that not insult men, suggesting that seven of them together couldn’t function without a teenage girl to look after them?)

Yes, Cinderella needed magic and spells and fab shoes to get her prince.  And ‘tut’ to her that she needed a man to save her, but such was the world, the IMAGINARY world, in which she lived.

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Shakespeare wrote some of the most incredibly females in history. Lady Macbeth calls upon evil spirits to “unsex me here” because obviously she couldn’t be evil as she was a woman. (Any men getting offended here?)  And then he also wrote Ophelia, who is worse and more weak and frustrating that ANY Disney Princess in the world. Don’t start me on Ophelia…

Why did Shakespeare write her?  Because he was a woman hater? NO.  Because that was the society and cultural norm in the time in which he lived.  And actually, he had his Portia save the day when a crowd of men made a mess of everything, and then she married her Prince Charming, after saving his ass.

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Lady Macbeth…the legend!

But we don’t ban our teenagers from reading Shakespeare do we?. In fact, we encourage it because we know that they can recognise the injustices and gender issues for themselves. Because we’ve given them those skills.

As for the Disney classics, remember that Cinderella and Snow White and The Little Mermaid were written in the early 1800s… of course their messages and social concepts are different to ours.

We however, get to choose how we read them.

And while there are valid arguments about the negative messages some of the classics send out, there are also plenty positives…and a few weird things, to pay attention to.

Cinderella was good and kind and she felt good in new, sparkly shoes. She also spoke to mice and birds.   Snow White was happy that Prince Whatshisface kissed her. He saved her. She wasn’t dragged off kicking and screaming to the castle to live happily ever after, was she?  The Little Mermaid was a defiant strong-willed rascal, who followed her heart.  Her best friends were also a crab and a fish… so let’s differentiate reality from fairytale.

Our daughters are no fairytale princesses.  They will not NEED a man to save them.  They will be able to look after themselves. They will be self-sufficient and well able to provide for themselves, to follow their dreams, to be “anything they want to be”… but can we stop already with telling them that they DON’T need to be girly?

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This teeshirt made me mad when I saw it a few weeks ago.  Yes, by all means encourage our daughters to believe that they can achieve anything they dream of and work for, but why do we need to tell them that being girly or wearing pink or dreaming of being a movie star are signs of weakness?  What the feck is wrong with wanting to be a movie star?  Are Megan Markle or KatyBaby failures because they found their Princes?

My daughters love dresses.  They love sparkles. They love makeup and dressing up and singing and being all round princesses.  They also love superheros, dress up as Hulk,  football and Pokemon and they play ninjas and wrestle.

There is no “That is for girls” or “That is for boys” in our house.

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Because that is not how to teach our children equality.

I like football. I like MMA. I swear more than a lady should. I train along with the menfolk in Jim and I prefer Marvel movies to Chickflicks.  In my work and projects, I take no prisoners and do not see any man as better than me.  And yet, I love to do all things “girly” too. and I love to dress up and I like sparkly shoes.

Does that make me less? Does the fact that I like pink and glitter and girly stuff make me weak? Because it seems to me that we’ve gone beyond telling girls they can be anything, we’ve gotten to the point that being girly is snubbed and scoffed at and actually looked down upon.

Well not on my watch.

I dress up and get my girly on, for me. Not for my Him or for anyone else.  For me. Because I am comfortable with who I am. And let me tell you, there is NO ONE who has watched as many Disney movies in their childhood (and still), as Me!

And my daughters will do what they want, how they want, Prince Charming or no Prince Charming, but they certainly will not be banned from watching Disney Movies, because all they see is a mermaid who sings songs and fights evil octopus monsters.

It’s a movie.

If you want your daughters to grow up strong and independent, teach them to be strong and independent…point out how old fashioned some of those Princesses are. (not all of them, for the newer ones are WICKED!  Merida, Mulan, Ana?)

And teach them that to be feminist does not mean hater of men.  It means equality for all. It means being able to stand up for themselves and to be a strong and independent woman, who can change the world and kick ass…whether in trousers and flats or in a skirt and glittery heels.

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Otherwise, they’ll end up offended by every man in the world and will need a big box of Man-sized…sorry, “extra large” Kleenex to wipe their offended eyes. I wonder when Manchester is being renamed? Peoplechester has a ring to it, don’t ya think?

Wear the pink, wear the glitter, wear the lipstick. Or don’t if you don’t want to … But be yourself and be strong and don’t let others tell you that you’re wrong. And then you might just live happily ever after.

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