Here’s what I would like to know: is baby sign just a ‘cool trend’ that emerged after Robert De Niro taught his grandson baby sign in Meet The Fockers, or is it actually a useful communication tool? A couple of mums I know rave about the brilliance of baby sign and yet for some reason I can’t picture myself getting into the whole baby sign thing. I recently read an article, published in The Guardian, by Alex Horne, father of 16-month-old Tom, who discusses whether baby sign is the new baby talk – and I found it really enlightening.

Baby sign is based on the premise that babies can communicate before they can talk, which was investigated thoroughly by the scientist Joseph Garcia, among others, in the late 1980s. While working at Alaska Pacific University, Garcia suggested that even at six months, hearing babies of hearing parents can begin learning basic sign language for ideas such as eat, drink, milk, more, no and hot. Deaf communities have always known that infants can sign before they can talk, but hearing parents hadn’t thought to follow suit. Baby sign has taken off in the UK only in the last couple of years. Today, though, there are countless baby sign groups offering hundreds of classes in the UK alone.

One of the most frustrating things when it comes to parenting a baby or toddler is the ‘guessing game’ we play when it comes to our children’s feelings. The more we get to know them, the better we become at reading their gestures, vocalisations and facial expressions but there are those whingey days when we sort through the list of potential irritants: hungry, tired, teething, hot, cold or just a generally grumpy human being? Perhaps if there was a sign or gesture to articulate one of the above our lives as parents would be far easier.

In his article Alex Horne relates his experience of attending a baby sign class, which he describes as follows: “At first glance [the class] was much like many of the other parent-and-baby classes we’ve attended, where we’re encouraged to sing songs, clap hands, listen to stories and gossip… The signing aspect of the class was underplayed and far from overwhelming. [The teacher] signed throughout the songs and stories, we tried to join in, and the babies watched each other. But by the end of the hour I found I had learnt at least half a dozen signs, more than enough to get me going with Tom back at home. I left impressed. I’ve always been suspicious of baby education, of teaching them the front crawl at six weeks or Mozart in the womb, but this was different, mainly because it was really aimed at the parents.”

Alex says that “The idea is that I will now use the signs I’ve learnt every time they’re relevant to Tom. Every time I put him down for a nap I’ll do the sign for sleep, while also slowly and deliberately saying the word. Eventually, in theory, Tom will connect the ideas and not only recognise the sign but make it himself if he feels sleepy. And because I will have deliberately used the word “sleep” each time, he will, in time, start copying that, too…As children grow more competent and confident with speech, the signs and symbols are gradually phased out, in just the same way that baby signing slowly gives way to baby talking.”

Sounds good right? I guess that one of my reservations about baby sign is that it would slow down speaking. If babies communicate with sign language surely words become redundant? Dare I say it? – Baby sign makes children lazy? Well, promoters of baby sign argue that encouraging sign language empowers babies to focus the topic and context of conversation and ultimately makes them more interested in words. There’s even research indicating that simply pointing at things aids the process of object naming and language development. Further reports indicate huge benefits for everyone involved in baby sign, including larger expressive and receptive spoken language vocabularies, more advanced mental development, a reduction in problematic behaviour and improved parent-child relationships.

And another thing – baby sign is embarrassing. Come on! I have the following scene from Meet The Fockers ingrained in my mind

(Little Jack uses baby sign and Greg fails to understand)
Jack Byrnes: That’s not the sign for poop, that’s the sign for milk! This is the sign for poop! [Does "poop" gesture]

Greg: Well, what’s the sign for sour milk, because this, uh, tastes a little funky.

Jack Byrnes: That’s because that’s from Debbie’s left breast, Greg.
(Greg spits it out. Little Jack giggles.)

Teaching my daughter a sign for poo just seems like something… like something too weird. Not because I am prudish – far from it in fact. It’s just weird. Alex Horne says that if you can’t overcome your inhibitions, there are plenty of other more private baby sign options, including a TinyTalk Let’s Sign! DVD – one of several interactive introductions to the language currently available – as well as numerous signing demonstrations on YouTube. Aaah YouTube – faithful friend and educator.

Baby sign certainly seems a logical, useful and competent manner of communicating with babies and toddlers. But I am not convinced that this is the right mode of communication for me and my daughter. Not because I am a hater but because I do know myself and I know that a) there is no way that I am going to a baby sign class with a bunch of over eager parents (an unfair generalisation I realise) b) there is no way that my concentration will comply with baby sign instructional DVDs or YouTube clips and c) it’s just too… weird. I really have no intention of putting any parent off baby sign. It does work – in my humble, non-expert opinion – and anything that reduces the ‘guessing game’ to a non-factor is worth a try!

Today my monthly fix was calling me. So I chucked my baby girl in the sling and blitzed off to the shop to purchase the Metal Hammer magazine. On our little fix-acquiring adventure, Amelia wooed all and sundry. My little lovely batted her baby blues at the little old man queuing in front of us, and he was mesmerised. She then grabbed the fluffy woollen jersey belonging to a little old lady sitting next to us at the bus stop, and little old lady was enchanted. To up the tally of ‘old people smiles’, Amelia waved at an old lady on the bus, who then beamed hypnotically for the rest of the journey. My daughter is a little ray of sunshine who can make even the sternest of faces buckle under the formation of a smile.

You may notice a common thread in the above description; ‘old people’. Old people love my baby. But I don’t think that it’s just my baby. Old people, or to be politically correct, ‘the elderly’ seem to love all babies. There is something poignantly beautiful about an elderly person, who is graced with the wisdom gained from decades of life experience, reaching out in an attempt to recapture the miracle of a baby’s youth. As I travelled home on the bus, baby and Metal Hammer in hand, and contemplated the complexity of existence, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages Of Man’ speech from As You Like It.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I have had the privilege of witnessing these very words enacted at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. And as I listened to Jaques’ melancholic monologue, whilst standing under the magnificent wooden beams of the theatre, my mind was immersed in Shakespeare’s poignant representation of the circle of life. We are born to this world as “mewling and puking” babes and it is natural for us to leave this world in much the same manner – in a “second childishness” – completely stripped of dignity; “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Yet true to Shakespeare’s love of satire, the philosophy of this very speech is rendered with a subtle irony and undermined by the timely arrival of Orlando’s aged servant, Adam, who enters bearing with him his loyalty, his incomparable service, and his undiminished integrity. To be old is not to be equated with degradation. The lines on an elderly face tell a life story, and those lines have been earned and should be worn with pride.

Perhaps my romantic musings may detract from the physical hardships suffered by an aged person whose body and mind are failing. And I think that it is for this very reason that I love and appreciate the smiles my little girl brings to so many. The elderly are drawn to Amelia’s life and vitality; a look, a gurgle, a smile and even a little wave serve to establish a human connection between a life drawing to a close and life ready to begin. It’s bitter sweet. It’s Life.

My paternal grandmother died a week after my baby girl was born. As a new existence replaced an old one, the circle of life was never more vivid to me as it was then. I was not close to my grandmother and I wish that I had been. I called her granny but have never really appreciated the sentiment that is attached to the title. Retrospect can be a wonderful and yet decidedly pointless exercise but on this occasion I’ll allow my thoughts to run their course. I feel like I have been cheated out of a treasure. A treasure called wisdom: a sacred wisdom that belongs to a grandmother and is relinquished in death as a new matriarch, a grandmother’s successor, assumes the role. My grandmother’s wisdom has been lost in the sands of time due to my own apathy as a granddaughter. I’ve ignored the source and missed the scoop. And my head droops further in shame as I admit that I don’t feel sad about the loss of my grandmother, the person, but rather my grandmother, the wise one.

This yearning I have; the urge to consume the wisdom of the wise, seems somewhat parasitic or even cannibalistic. However, if a family fulfils its purpose by functioning as a unit, the fundamental yearning for wisdom will be satiated in the most natural of ways. What I know about womanhood, wifehood and motherhood is what I have learnt from my mom (and she in turn learnt from her mom) and what I cherish most are the things that my mom has taught me without even realising it – the implicit lessons; a love for books; an exuberance for life; the benefits of healthy eating; an appreciation for history and art; the importance of education… and I could ramble on. These are the lessons that are learnt only by spending time with someone. Time: something my grandmother and I missed out on largely due to familial circumstances. As a child of divorce it would be easy to blame my parents but I have been responsible for my own actions for a long time and my parents are not to blame. In the modern world of today, the notion of generational wisdom seems to have depreciated, and I bought into that for a long time. I think motherhood has changed that for me… perhaps a little too late.

Older societies placed great value in the wisdom to be attained from their elders. This is best described in the folk tales of old, and in particular the earliest recorded oral version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. In Paul Delarue’s translation of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, recorded by Jack Zipes in The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, a werewolf kills the girl’s grandmother, placing her “meat in the cupboard and a bottle of her blood on the shelf”. Upon arriving at grandmother’s house, the girl consumes the meat and the blood. The act is symbolic. The tale is describing the natural act of succession; the fact that the girl consumes the grandmother and thus, symbolically, her wisdom. The idea is developed when the girl, upon the instruction of the werewolf, unclothes herself and proceeds to throw her clothing and apron into the fire as she “won’t be needing them anymore.” The symbolism is poignant. The girl replaces the clothed innocence of her girlhood with the worldly nakedness of a woman, symbolising her step into adulthood. The grandmother dies to make way for her granddaughter. Unlike the more familiar versions of the tale from the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, the girl, upon realising that she is lying next to a werewolf, is able to outsmart her enemy and escape. The implication is that it is with the newly acquired wisdom of her grandmother that the girl is able to save herself. According to Robert Darnton, a historian of early modern France, the Little Red Riding Hood folktale can be traced to France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The girls to whom the tale was told would have been conscious of the empowering nature of the grandmother’s wisdom, which enables the transition from girlhood to womanhood. As modern audiences ponder this tale of maturation and evolution, the principles and values of the society it reflects seem sadly foreign in this day and age.

I am the first to acknowledge that unwarranted advice is a royal pain in the posterior. But when I speak of wisdom, I am not referring to the impartation of knowledge. Wisdom is more than knowing. It is a way of life that permeates the mind without the speaking of words. It is the kind of understanding that is gained through experiencing, observing and listening. Wisdom is ethereal in nature. It assumes the form of tacit teachings that are taken for granted until later – until one draws on those teachings, usually without intention. The more those teachings are applied the more conscious they become – they will inevitably be realised, and then consecrated as wisdom. Reflection then occurs, and the value of wisdom comprehended in a moment of illumination. It sounds almost like a religious experience. For some it can be but I like to think of it as a natural process; a natural process that has been disrupted by modern living. Although people are, intrinsically, social beings, ironically social media has assisted in the devaluing of person-to-person relationship in favour of cyber relationship. Through the internet, the world has become smaller and yet strangely detached. It’s as if we have forgotten how to be friends, mothers, fathers, lovers, husbands, wives brothers and sisters. Instead of that that special family recipe being taught in the kitchen or that hilarious tale told around a camp fire, cyberspace has extracted the personality from those family gems; “no thanks gran, I’m too busy. How ‘bout you shoot me an email.” Gag. It’s embarrassing. It’s not even the recipe or the story that we are missing out on, it’s what gran will talk about while she is baking; it’s what grandpa will reveal as he explains the context of the campfire tale.

I write all of this within the most ironic of contexts: I am an expat living in England and most of my family members are continents away. Nonetheless, as the mother of my daughter, I am determined to ensure that family is something that she treasures. It is important that she place value in her role as daughter, granddaughter and niece – not in a self-sacrificing, sentimental way but in a way that will empower her as a woman and teach her confidence and independence. The women in my daughter’s life have so much to teach her and one day, when she assumes responsibility for her own life, she will draw on the wisdom of others; sift through it; accept what she likes and reject what she doesn’t and then she will adapt it to suit her. In order to do this, she will require a wealth of wisdom on which to draw. And that is my job: to make sure that she has that.

You get grunge and then you get grunge. And then you get Camden grunge. I am the mom of a totally adorable (if I may say so myself) 9-month-old baby girl. Everyone loves her… including the hobos, the dustbin-diggers, the unbathed, the toothless, the druggies, the drunkards and the mentally challenged – all of whom inhabit the wonderful town of Camden, where I live. Before I proceed, I need to say that: I love North London, I love Camden and I am of the firm belief that babies are for sharing (not in a gross paedophile way but in an ‘aah sweet, look at the lovely baby’ kind of way). The privilege of being a parent does not form everyone’s lot in life and I am well aware that motherhood is, indeed, a privilege. The aforementioned life-philosophies that share space in my brain with the ‘I will never live in South London’ philosophy, have placed me in a predicament. Babies bring delight to so many and what kind of person denies the odd head-stroke or hand-touch? Except when the Camden grunge are concerned. Camden grunge has nothing to do with torn stockings, Dr Martins and over-sized dresses, but rather, old food, dirt and oil. Let me explain.

One day I was sitting happily on the bus, my daughter Amelia was sitting on my lap casually surveying the 134 commuters going about their daily… commuting. A very tall, old man, who was struggling to walk, climbed onto the bus and sat down opposite me and Amelia. Amelia batted her gorgeous big blue eyes and Mr Old Man was besotted. As Amelia proceeded to gnaw on her finger, a favourite past time, Mr Oldy proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that Amelia was teething and that as Chamomile is known for its ability to soothe, I should rub some on her gums. I stored this reasonable piece of advice in my memory bank for further investigation. As I was contemplating the drool that had escaped Amelia’s mouth and was making its way down towards my arm, I saw Mr Oldy’s hand reaching out… what was I to do? Some random old guy touching my baby is just not cool, and even as that protective mommy instinct kicked in I second guessed myself: Mr Oldy is just a sweet old man reliving his youth by squeezing the hand of an infant, perhaps hoping for some supernatural beam of light to whisk him back to his childhood. My uncertainty (and imagination) won and Mr Oldy goochie-gooed as he clasped my baby’s hand. My well-mannered upbringing told me to resist the urge to haul out a wipe and rub the germs well off. The moment passed, I exited the bus, wiped Amelia’s drool/germ infested hand hoping that she has not put it in her mouth although I am sure that I am too late, and headed on my way. As the days passed, the incident took a back seat in my mind until… until one day, whilst making my way down the high street, I saw Mr Oldy with his hand in a dustbin. Perhaps he was just making extra sure that his rubbish made it into the bin? But no. Oldy is a digger. A dustbin digger. Oldy the Dustbin Digger touched my daughter’s hand, she put her hand in her mouth. I am gagging just about now. The guilt set in. Should I have asked Oldy not to touch my child? Would the request be disrespectful if I was polite? Then again, who cares about respect when Amelia’s well-being is at stake. Who knows what was on Oldy’s hand. Right about now, I make my way to Pleasantville, where dustbin-digging old men don’t touch babies’ hands.

I would like to say that my experience of Camden grunge ends there but it does not. There was the lady with the nails; yellow, chipped, broken and harbouring last night’s dinner, who reached out to touch Amelia but I think even Amelia was unsure of Mrs Nails and she quickly whipped her chubby little fingers out of reach. There was Mrs Crazy who, at the decibel range of a large aircraft, called me an unfit mother and bellowed profanities at me for half a mile as I walked slowly… and then speedily away from her. Madame Oil, had in all likelihood, not washed her hair in a decade and I thank heaven above that all she did was send a few syllables Amelia’s way. There was no touching. There was also Plaster Lady. Plaster Lady is named after the giant piece of gauze taped to her head – that should have been a clue. She was overwhelmingly, enthusiastically, exuberantly (plus the rest of the applicable adjectives in the dictionary) excited about Amelia. It all went down in the lift at Tufnell Park tube station. Amelia just had to go and bat her baby blues and Plaster Lady squealed (literally) with delight and proceeded to have a conversation with my baby in a high-pitched tone that would surely have broken any glass had we not been in a lift. I noticed the people around us shift uncomfortably… and then I saw it; a hand, reaching out. Not again! Seriously. What should I do? As with Oldy, that protective mom instinct kicked in. But poor Plaster Lady. Surely a little hand squeeze is harmless. Amelia brings me so much joy, surely I should allow her to deliver the same happiness to others. Maybe plaster Lady is not able to have children of her own. Yet again, uncertainty won. I have yet to see Plaster Lady digging in any bins.

I have a responsibility, as a mom, to protect my child – as far as possible. But I am also polite and do not want to hurt the feelings of others unnecessarily. My daughter is no worse for wear after being handled by some of Camden’s grunge. And maybe calling an old homeless man grunge is not politically correct but sometimes, as a parent, we can’t afford to be politically correct. I am going to have to teach my child ‘stranger danger’ at some point yet at the same time I do not want her to go through life void of trust. Not all people are out to get her. London is a city that commands its citizens to be street-wise. And while the beautiful people of Camden Town will teach my daughter acceptance and tolerance, I need to instil in her a sense of compassion touched with a pinch (maybe a handful) of savvy. I’ll keep you updated.

The ‘what to eat during pregnancy’ debate was recently brought to the fore when a Sainsbury’s worker refused to serve a pregnant woman unpasteurised cheddar cheese. In a letter of complaint, Janet Lehain (31 years of age and mother of two) described the confrontation as “the most patronising encounter I have had the misfortune of experiencing in a long time”. She said that she only succeeded in persuading the member of staff at the Fairfield Park store to sell her the cheese by promising not to eat any of it herself. Since the incident, Sainsbury’s has admitted that “unpasteurised Cheddar does not pose a risk to health during pregnancy” – a recommendation made by the Food Standards Agency.

It seems that when a woman falls pregnant, society claims the right to educate and advise on a variety of subjects, whether opinions are informed or not. This is a topic that Guardian.co.uk blog writer Catherine Phipps has addressed, in response to Lehain’s experience. Phipps speaks of the unwarranted advice she received during pregnancy regarding what foods she should and shouldn’t be eating, including: peanuts, raspberries, honey, taramasalata, liquorice, lettuce, coffee, chamomile tea, macaroons, seafood, all oily fish, sausages, chillies, sweetbreads, kidneys, health drinks (eg Purdeys), live yoghurt, cream cheese, pork … and this is merely a summation of a long list. Phipps has, on many occasions, had to explain and justify her consumption of the aforementioned foods to prescriptive members of the public – both friends and other. On one occasion she was recounting to a friend a discussion she’d had with her partner about taramasalata and her friend’s immediate reaction was that she wouldn’t eat it “because it just doesn’t seem like the type of food one should eat during pregnancy.” Clearly logic is an overrated concept for some people. Another of Phipps’ experiences involved a friend who advised her not to eat raspberries because she’d once read that raspberry leaf tea was used to induce labour – so naturally eating the fruit is likely to cause the baby to be born prematurely: more logical than the first assumption but incorrect nonetheless. Phipps had a friend, who had a baby three years previously, attempt to save her from inflicting a deadly peanut allergy on her unborn child by bellowing “Catherine! Stop! You can’t eat that!” across the table in a Thai restaurant as she was about to dip a cracker into some satay sauce. For the record: the old ‘eating peanuts increases the risk of a peanut allergy’ theory has been thrown out by new research proving it was all a bunch of BS in the first place. The conflicting advice expectant mothers receive from a variety of well-meaning sources – friends, randoms, food labels and professionals – does nothing more than lead to an unhealthy sense of paranoia.

My favourite comment in response to Phipps’ editorial is by Toadjuggler, who says “My wife and I have six children, all hale and hearty and sans allergies of any kind. I do all the cooking and provisioning, so I can state with certitude that the only change in Mrs Juggler’s diet during any of her [pregnancies] was that the portions got bigger. Real [mayonnaise], very rare meat, unpasteurised [mould-ripened] cheese (so ripe that it was walking), runny boiled eggs, satay, odd fermented fish from Laos, nothing went off the menu. Yes, it’s possible that she was lucky that none of these foods caused any problems, but she was also lucky she didn’t get hit by a bus, which is about as likely.”

As a pregnant woman, I have consumed rare meat, a cheeky glass of red, peanuts, spicy food, tuna, kidney (by mistake – I don’t actually like the stuff), brie, runny eggs, real mayo, lots of jelly bellies, probably too much caffeine and I am sure plenty of things on ‘the no-no list’. And I haven’t taken a single pregnancy vitamin (at 37 weeks) after being advised that it was unnecessary if I eat a balanced diet – and the routine blood tests forming part of antenatal care have not suggested otherwise. Phipps says that she has found that “those who love food and who have a good general knowledge of it are much more relaxed. Attitudes also vary from generation to generation, and nationality to nationality.” She says that “Women of my mother’s generation become impatient when I regale them with yet another story about what I’ve been told not to eat – they tell me to use common sense, act on what my body is telling me it needs and otherwise, apart from the obvious (the foodstuffs which all information sources seem to agree on), eat everything in moderation.” Good advice I think. It’s about being sensible without being nonsensically ridiculous. It takes time to learn how to deal with patronising well-meaners and hypochondriacs. What I remind myself is that nobody could love my baby more than me and my husband, and I trust myself to make the right decisions with regards to what I eat and drink. I have been fortunate enough to avoid the barrage of advice regarding pregnancy habits but I am waiting for my luck to come back and bite me in the ass when it comes to baby-care and child-raising.

Sources:

Guardian.co.uk: So what can you eat when you’re pregnant?
News.bbc.co.uk: Store apology over cheese refusal

If you’ve been pregnant and have been given advice, did you find it welcome or not? Do you act upon it, or check for yourself? Do you carefully follow official guidelines or are you prepared to take risks? And for everyone else, what is your attitude towards pregnant women of your acquaintance?

If somebody tells me about the “Mozart Effect” one more time I am going to start breaking faces. I realise that my metal music alliances may be enough to freak out the most liberal of thinkers but it would be most appreciated if people did their research.

The Mozart Effect is a theory that is based on a set of research results, which indicate that listening to Mozart’s music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as ‘spatial-temporal reasoning‘. Popularised versions of the theory credit the playing of classical music to babies with boosting IQ, improving health, strengthening family ties and even producing the occasional child prodigy. This idea was entrenched in the 1997 book by Don Campbell, The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit. Although there have been numerous studies conducted in support of the Mozart Effect, the theory remains controversial and there are many academics and studies that debunk the extent and consistency of the proposed effects of classical music on babies. There are researchers who argue that the Mozart Effect represents only the short-term effects of classical music on mood and arousal. There are also studies concluding that although classical music may have a calming effect babies, it does not in fact improve IQ. This is why researchers continue to test whether the Mozart Effect is real and if any other styles and pieces of music have the same effect.

A small-scale study conducted by Dr Alexandra Lamont, Lecturer in the Psychology of Music at Keele University, on the effect of music on an unborn child, shows that babies can remember and prefer music that they heard before they were born over 12 months later. The discovery expands on the theory that babies can only remember things for a month or two by suggesting that memory could last a great deal longer than that. Lamont states that “It used to be assumed that it was really noisy in the womb but actually it’s quite quiet. So the baby should be able to hear your stereo at a reasonable volume. You don’t need to apply headphones to your bump!” According to Lamont, any kind of music will be heard although bass frequencies will travel through fluid better and be more audible to your unborn baby. This research provides important new evidence for the influence of nurture in early child development.

Lamont’s “The Child Of Our Time” study involved a small group of mothers playing a single piece of music to their babies for the last three months before birth. Dr Lamont said the music was chosen by the mother so all babies heard different pieces of music while still in the womb. These included classical (opera, Mozart and Vivaldi), world (Spirits of Nature), reggae (UB40, Ken Boothe) and pop (Five). Over 12 months later, eleven of the babies were tested and showed a significant preference for the pieces of music they had heard in utero compared with very similar pieces of music they had not heard before. After the babies were a year old, they heard the pre-natal music and other music that was matched for style, key, pace and loudness and it was concluded that the style of the music is not important – the babies recognise UB40 just as much as they do Mozart – but the pace of the music seems to be influential. The babies with faster music like Five’s If Ya Gettin’ Down or the start of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons showed stronger preferences than the babies with slower music like Mozart’s Adagio for Wind. This relates to other findings by Dr Lamont that babies have developed clear preferences for faster and more exciting music by the age of 12 months. Dr Lamont’s study suggests that although deliberate and extended pre-natal exposure to music sets up a very long-term memory trace for a particular piece of music, and that this is recognised and preferred over 12 months later, babies’ outstanding musical memories are not at all related to their intelligence. Dr Lamont emphasized that there is no evidence here that playing classical music to babies helps make their brains develop – the babies perform just as well with pop or reggae music, and the same high levels of musical memory are found in babies from families where IQ levels differ enormously.

The small scale of Lamont’s study may not be enough to convince parents that the Mozart Effect is untrue – and it isn’t meant to. But it does represent a body of evidence that renders the Mozart Effect sufficiently inconsistent to hopefully make individuals think before they start sprouting this “classical music inspires a higher IQ bullshit”. The initial music brain study, conducted by Drs. Shaw and Rauscher suggested that students exposed to 10 minutes of music by Mozart, specifically Allegro conspirito from Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K448 caused an enhancement in reasoning (ordering objects in space and time) lasting from some 10-15 minutes. Rauscher acknowledges that there is popular misconception that her work showed a relationship between listening to Mozart and general intelligence. Her original result, which is, she claims, upheld by other studies, reported only an improvement in tasks involving ordering objects in space and time. Dr. Norman Weinberger, Executive Director of the International Foundation for Music Research, stated, “Many studies have failed to replicate the Shaw/Rauscher original Mozart effect of passive listening” and Fran Rauscher wrote an article stating “I would be extremely cautious about arguing that passive listening to music briefly produces an ‘increase in IQ’ (even transiently). The major transfer effects of music are likely to come from active playing of music and in continual music education experiences.” In other words, active music making, not passive listening is the key to enhanced spatial-temporal reasoning.

I guess the whole ‘music and babies’ thing has become a personal issue for me because of the extreme kind of music that I listen to. And I have thought long and hard about the type of music I want to expose my baby/toddler/child to. I have no doubt about the significant effects of music on a child – both negative and positive. My baby has already been exposed to some pretty extreme bands and if Lamont’s music proves consistent, my baby girl will like In Flames and Caliban and will show a ‘strong preference’ in a year’s time. It annoys me that my poor child is being set up for failure by some – any personality trait or behavioural manifestation that she may display will merely be chalked down to “well, you shouldn’t have played that music or seen that concert” or “it’s because you didn’t play her classical music”. It reminds me of the outdated perception that inclines many people to attribute the behaviour of children of divorced families to ‘the divorce’ when in fact life is far more complex and contextual and the psychology of ‘blame the divorce’ is just too reductive. It’s annoying and I get rather aggressive about these things. I am still getting used to the idea that when you have children, everyone’s ten cents worth will be delivered; well intentioned or not, asked for or not. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has a ‘right’ way of doing things. It’s great to discuss ideas, to debate and share experiences and opinions. But judgment and ‘thou shalts’ are just annoying, especially when based on hearsay or ignorance. Finally, the ironic crux of the whole ‘music and babies’ debate, which confronts me on a personal level and warrants a whole other rant, is the assumption that: because I like metal, naturally, I don’t like or appreciate classical music. Point made.

Sources:
BBC.co.uk: Womb Music
BBC.co.uk: Does classical music make babies smarter?
Childrensmusicworkshop.com
Wikipedia.com
Edu-cyberpg.com: Babies remember music heard in the womb

My favourite Barbie was the one with the blue party dress and the poofy eighties fringe. My second favourite was my Party Pink Barbie which came adorned in pink, jewels and glitz – the showstopper being a furry pink shawl sprinkled with sparkly silver stuff. I had some other pretend ‘Barbies’ that I managed to destroy: I used hand soap to wash one doll’s beautiful red hair and it remains, to this very day, stuck together in one giant dreadlock; and I had a mermaid Cindy (or something) which apparently was not supposed to be used in water despite the fact that she came with a beautiful mermaid tail – her crimped hair changed from ‘Darryl Hannah in Splash‘ to ‘Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich‘. Poor dollies. Taiwanese plastic is pretty sturdy but does allow for creativity that encompasses body modification, hair design and facial piercings. If my mom had taken a look at my Barbies perhaps she wouldn’t have been so surprised when I got my first tattoo, purple-black hair and piercing. I spent many a happy hour ‘playing Barbies’ with neighbours, friends, cousins and even brothers – although their version of the game was called ‘army bases’ and involved G.I. Joes, lego, micro-machines, farmyard animals and plants from the garden. Barbie worked, slept, had sex with Ken (because that’s what she had to do to have a baby), went to parties, had fights with her friends, looked after her pets … and … and … and. The one rule with Barbie was that she could only talk in an American accent – usually a bad one; dependent on how many hours her owner spent in front of the TV. When I was a kid I was mostly restricted to the likes of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music so my poor Barbies sounded like a Julie Andrews wannabe but I quickly learnt from my friends and after a few episodes of Barbie and the Rockers my dolls spoke like a regular Jem.

My Barbies are currently all packed away in a box, until the glorious day that I will be able to relive my childhood Barbie-playing days with my own daughter (or son I guess). And Lo and behold; this very day draws nigh, as my little girl readies to make her entrance into the world in three week’s time. While I can’t wait to whip my Barbies out of their hidey-hole, I am a tad weary. My worst fear about having a daughter is the high potential for low self esteem and poor body image stemming from media intrusion and perhaps my own body insecurities that have come largely from being raised in Western culture. That being said, I don’t suffer from poor body image. I complain about my big ass and flabby thighs on the occasion but I am happy with the way I am, and I credit my body confidence to a mom who raised me telling me I am beautiful and straining media intrusion as much as was humanly possible. She fed me healthy food from a young age and never fussed about how much I ate or my weight. Her lack of emphasis on the physical allowed me to be myself, and she loved me for it. She has been a great example of what it means to be a woman and I have a great platform from which to teach my own daughter. The point: I played with Barbies and I certainly do not have what is commonly referred to as “Barbie syndrome“. In fact, I am probably the antithesis of Barbie. Naturally I understand that my daughter is not me and may be influenced differently by the external stimuli around her yet it is my job to instil values within her and the rest of the world cannot be blamed if I do a poor job of it. So Barbie gets a bad rap as far as I am concerned.

My Barbie experience sounds like a feminist nightmare and the Barbie debate was once again brought to the fore when Barbie celebrated her 50th birthday earlier this year. In an article entitled Dumb blonde – or diehard feminist, Moira Redmond (pro Barbie) and Julie Bindel (against Barbie) thrashed out their opinions in a war of words:

Redmond argues the fact that Barbie stimulates imagination because she can be anything. She allows girls to live out their fantasies within a safe context: deciding what she wears, giving her a new hairdo, voicing thoughts that are repressed throughout a day, flinging her across the room or hiding her in a cupboard when you don’t feel like being outshone. Barbie is also described by Redmond as a brilliant career role model because she has been a doctor, a vet, a palaeontologist, an astronaut, a fire fighter, a pop singer, a teacher and a film star. She has even been a presidential candidate. Barbie does care about her appearance but also cares about animals, food, a career and the world around her. Barbie is what her owner makes of her. She is anything and everything and inspires independent-mindedness in girls.

Bindel opposes Redmond’s ideas in her claims that Barbie merely aids in the stereotyping of children’s ideas relating to the gender roles that have been prescribed by society. The fact that Barbie is modelled on a German “porn doll” called Lillie, who was in turn based on a comic strip character marketed to lecherous men, promotes the idea of Barbie as a gold digging prostitute. Bindel states that if Barbie was life-size, she’d measure 36-18-33, stand 5ft 9in and weigh 7st 12lb – 35lbs underweight for a woman that height. And the most interesting part of Bindel’s argument is her reference to a study completed by academic Agnes Nairn about how brands are perceived by seven- to 11-year-old schoolchildren. Nairn found that many of the girls see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity and think nothing of pulling off her limbs and putting her in the microwave. No other toy provoked such a negative response. Nairn concludes that “Barbies are obviously viewed as disposable. That is why they are destroyed and thrown away.”

What the arguments of both these women serve to show is that everyone has a different experience of Barbie and perspective is fundamental. Redmond views Barbie-violence as therapeutic and Bindel views it as psychotic. Either way, each situation will be contextual and it would be difficult to make a blanket statement about the nature of an action – a child’s interaction with a Barbie doll is influenced by many things including temperament and situational context, and most importantly a parent’s teaching. Barbie is just a doll and although her connotations have become largely negative, the mere thought that an inanimate object can dictate and dominate the psyche and childhood experience of an individual sounds a tad too much like passing the buck.

I was absolutely dreading my antenatal class on Saturday. The thought of birth videos, synchronised breathing and mom-bonding completely freaked me out. This whole having to push a baby out thing is just becoming far too real. My fear is comprised of many elements but a large part of it is the uncertainty and the lack of control (I won’t even mention the pain … oh the pain) that envelops the act of birth. Much to my relief, antenatal class went a long way to quelling some of the fear relating to the whole ‘WTF am I supposed to do’ part – without birthing videos and the accompanying crap that I had assumed would formulate the class.

Naturally there were cringe-worthy moments that included information relating to the choice between third- and fourth-degree tears or an episiotomy; the release of meconium (common if the baby is overdue) that will make your breaking waters a lovely green colour; and an informal demonstration done with an epidural needle – a very long epidural needle. The uncomfortable but necessary discussion of the aforementioned was well compensated by the class instructor’s raggedy baby doll and its scrappy umbilical cord, which was repeatedly passed through a demonstration pelvis to show the class what happens during labour – it was like a weird black comedy/horror in which a demon baby attempts to dismantle the bone structure of its mother. I loved it! I also managed to find out what happens to the faecal matter (poo to the layman) that will undoubtedly be let loose in the birthing pool during a water-birth – something that has been plaguing my mind for weeks as I consider my options. Well, a sieve is used to remove it – the hospital does provide sieves or you can bring your own. Good to know. Note to self: do not consume prunes during labour – mushy poo will require more than one sieve and more manpower, which may prove inconvenient. I learnt some breathing techniques to help me relax, which is sure to accompany large quantities of gas and air in my case. And boy do I love the British: the ‘panting‘ breathing technique was discussed in a conservative manner that suited me just fine – there was none of this American-movie-lamaze-class rubbish with women weezing and “he…he…he-ing” all over the place; otherwise Mr Exit and I would have made very good friends.

Ultimately, antenatal class reminded me there is in fact a limit to the preparation one can do for an event that remains largely incomprehensible until after the fact. And although head-burying serves its purpose, knowledge is helpful. So here’s my theory: file the knowledge whilst I bury my head – then I’ll call on that knowledge when it is needed (hoping that it isn’t too dusty) and let instinct guide it. Give me 4 weeks and I’ll let you know how this works for me.

You gotta love metalheads! Last night I, along with my 34 week pregnant belly, went to a Paradise Lost gig at Islington Academy in London – as fan and music journalist. So whilst the husband and his photo pass were hanging out with the important peeps up front, I made my way upstairs – wisely thinking that my baby girl, although a fan of Paradise Lost, would not appreciate being crunched against a hoard of sweaty metallers for two hours. Luckily there was a nice comfy couch with my name written all over it, so I sat my ass down to wait for the metal masters of doom and gloom to inflict their brilliance on the night.

After doodling in my notebook for about half an hour, with opener Katatonia blasting away in the background, the dude next to me (aka Mr Metal) offered me a drink – I politely declined. He then asked me what magazine I write for: my little black notebook being a dead giveaway. Side note: pregnancy has forced me to upgrade my typical note-taking and setlist scribbling style that usually involves scrawling on scraps of paper and old movie stubs, dug out of my bag in a frenzy whilst gyrating around with the masses, to a more subdued form of comprehendible sentence construction formulated in my little black book – clearly method two makes me seem more important. Anyway, I told him about ClinkMusicMagazine (the online mag I do some freelancing for) and the ensuing conversation progressed from a discussion about Paradise Lost to metal to gigs to babies.

Mr Metal is married with three boys: his wife is into Cliff Richard and Boyzone and his sons are mini-metalheads who spend their time moshing to System of a Down in their bedrooms. After conversing for fifteen minutes, I established that we have completely different metal repertoires and that it would probably be a bad idea to get into an argument about Rammstein with Paradise Lost due to play in ten minutes. When Mr Metal asked me if I am going to watch Slayer at the end of November, I pushed out my pregnant belly as I told him that Slayer is not really my thing and that my baby may not appreciate being born at a Slayer concert even though it would make a great story (which may well happen at the Killswitch Engage/In Flames gig I am going to on December 2). And that’s when the baby advice started. Mr Metal gave me the whole ‘mediocrity is a bunch of BS’ speech and informed me that it is totally okay to be extreme with babies: take them to watch rugby matches, dress them in black if you like, play them metal straight after birth – instil in them a sense of extremism that defies the fearful mediocre stance adopted by most of society. I thought that I was speaking to a dude version of me: it was kind of a weird moment but it reminded me of why I love metal so much.

As defined by society, metal is an extreme genre that bows to an ethos of defiance and thus tends to attract extremists oozing passion, obsession and opinion. Sometimes it’s annoying and arguments about the musical credibility of bands and artists can go on for hours but that’s what metal is about. A sense of arrogant intellectualism often characterises members of the metal fraternity who believe themselves to be a part of an extreme movement that defies social norms. Unfortunately, the ironic notion of being part of a collective – as a member of society and as a member of the metal brotherhood – undermines the notion of metal existing as a defiant culture, and this ambiguity often remains lost to metalheads. But this is a topic for another day. What struck me on this night was how the equivocal essence of metal is physically manifested at gigs, which are physical enactments of how the sense of intellectual superiority, created through the supposed exclusivity of the metal genre, is rendered ironic through the barbarism that accompanies this attitude. As Paradise Lost accosted the stage, the evening’s conversation was lost to an impassioned madness, as Mr Metal proceeded to air guitar, sing out of tune and inform me of the name of every song the band played – I let him have his moment and love metal all the more for it.

To say that I am afraid is the understatement of a lifetime. Petrified, terrified and horrified are better adjectives but even they don’t come close to describing the fear that is slowly but surely permeating Pleasantville. In approximately ten week’s time (actually nine week’s and 3 day’s time – if all goes as planned), a baby with long arms and a big belly, judging by the measurements taken at today’s scan, will be squeezing its way down my birth canal. Oh woe! woe! woe! is me. My lamentation cannot be reckoned with. I have spent the last twenty-seven years avoiding doctors and it seems that at least two decade’s worth of irrational fear is going to culminate in one moment consisting of many hours (literal or figurative, or both) of pain and humiliation. Did I say “Woe is me” already?

I have been to a Doctor twice in my life: at the age of seven I was taken to the Doctor to receive an inoculation against hepatitis – I hid under the Doctor’s table and my dad had to drag me out and hold me down so that I could be injected; and the second time was when, at sixteen, I burnt my leg on the exhaust of a motorcycle – the plasters I used to try and hide the wound from my mom proved redundant when Roxanne Gibb tattle-tailed and I ended up at a stupid Doctor anyway, who told me that I would probably need a skin graft. Ha ha, funny joke. So let’s just say that pregnancy has forced me out of my comfort zone and as the final test looms before me, my inclination is to run … very far but not very fast, thanks to my steadily growing baby-bump.

When it comes to ‘comfort zones’, I do adopt a philosophical attitude; I ardently believe that most of life’s best experiences are lived when rejecting the familiar in favour of that which is initially uncomfortable. So I am well aware that birth is an unpleasant means to a rewarding end. But my intellect and my emotions are constantly waging war against one another. I know that ‘women have been doing this for years’ … blah blah blah, but in my current frame of mind, it makes not an iota of difference to me. I still have to go through it and I am feeling very sorry for myself. Fuck feminism, and female strength and fortitude. I am fear personified right now. Admittedly, it was probably not the best idea to have invested the last month in Tudor history; reading about the fifty-million failed child-bearing experiences of Henry viii’s six wives. In the familiar head versus heart battle that characterizes my existence , the fact that sixteenth century hygiene was worse than appalling only registers as a microcosm in my thought process when I contemplate the tragic death of poor Jane Seymour.

At 32 weeks I am still feeling physically fabulous, in spite of some blossoming water retention in my legs, but I cannot say the same for my mental stability as enemas, episiotomies, placentas, blood, gore and guts permeate my thoughts. Most who know me will, however, be aware that a great deal of the time my mind tends to hang out in some pretty strange places with some pretty weird peeps, so my claim to slight insanity will be of no surprise. Whilst waiting for my scan appointment this afternoon, a man wearing some ominous looking black cyborg-ish gear emerged from one of the Doctor’s rooms and proceeded to follow a host of people down the corridor. I leaned over to my husband and asked with interest if he thought that there was a bomb in the hospital as the man with the gear looked like a bomb-detector. My husband looked at me as if I had fallen out the nearest tree and amidst his laughter told me that the device strapped to the man was in fact a camera. Naturally, it never occurred to me that there is no way that I would be sitting in a waiting room with ten other people had the hospital received a bomb threat. I think my baby is cannibalising my brain cells. I have also been having a recurring dream in which I birth kittens. This probably relates to the fact that my ‘mothering instinct’ is more inclined toward the feline species than an actual human child. The kittens I birth in my dreams are always black, although on one occasion I did birth a black and white kitten – probably linked to the fact that I had to abandon my poor black and white cat when I moved to London. I also had a black cat that was mauled by the dog next door – perhaps I subconsciously think that my baby is the reincarnation of my long deceased kitty. As I get all Freudian on myself why not throw breast-feeding into the mix – I intend to try it, and I intend to try and express milk as well, which means … breast pump. The thought of milking myself like a cow is positively less than appealing so I at least intend to do it with an electric pump as opposed to a manual pump. And then one has to start thinking about breast pads, nipple cream and nipple caps – alien devices that cause me to cringe upon mention. All this paraphernalia and advice about what gadgets I do need and don’t actually need causes a real pain in the brain. I am just going to do things my own way: mistakes will be character building for both baby and mother … and that’s what I’m sticking to.

I have given myself permission to ‘keep it real’ and I intend to wallow in self-pity for as long as I choose. Having another being inhabit one’s body is a very strange thing, and pregnancy elicits a host of uncomfortable and unwarranted invasions – physically, emotionally and intellectually. In some moments, the excitement of meeting my baby girl and being a mom is overwhelming, and in other moments, the fear of childbirth engulfs me. These conflicting emotions are what I like to call ‘being human’ although the intensity thereof is probably magnified by womanhood, never mind pregnancy. So, my frank thoughts, whilst they may worry and upset others, do not upset me; being honest with myself is paramount and the denial thereof is detrimental.