Daycare, and other Bridie updates

[pezzae]

I want to write a long reflective post about how I feel on returning to work and leaving my child in someone else's care, but bedtime is in 20 minutes, so. Short version: conflicted, getting used to it

Comments

[de_chel]

I still have vague memories of my mother expressing when my youngest brother was a baby, because she was the main breadwinner and dad was the main carer and looked after us while mum was away at work. In fact, I think not long after he was born (unless it was after my other brother was born) but had started needing less milk she actually expressed milk for one of her friends who was having trouble breastfeeding due to her son's cleft palate. o.o

[nessbrain]

We found Aidan didn't have as much trouble as some other kids did due to starting daycare at about 6 months, sample size of one though... The expressing was bloody horrid, I was expressing twice a day at work until he was about 14 months then once a day until 18 months or a bit more. Not fun.

The way we did the baby-led solids thing was to boil up vegie chunks and give the chunks to him to play with/eat then not try a different vegie for a few days and see what happened. Fruit is a bit easier due to being softer mostly so again, chunky bits that might have partially gone in :)

You have my sympathy for the daycare colds, they generally seem to last about the first 6 months or so, occurring about every 2-3 weeks....

[originaluddite]

Are you using the terms "white" and "Anglo" interchangebly or differently? Is exposure to Gaelic good because it is something other than Anglo but then would exposure to Hindi be ever better because it is both non-Anglo _and_ non-white?

[pezzae]

Mostly interchangeably, except for reference to the blog 'Stuff White People Like' (meaning, stuff privileged middle/upper class white lefties like, so that they can pretend they're cool and not elite).
Exposure to languages other than English is good, exposure to less-related languages is better than more-related languages for linguistic learning. Likewise, exposure to less-related cultures is better, for general mind-broadening purposes - knowing that there is more than one way to eat/celebrate/generally live, and that it's Okay for people to not all live the same way.

[originaluddite]

These terms are way too subjective for subject matter that is already fraught with sensitivity. That Stuff White People Like concept of 'white' excludes me on the grounds of my working class parentage - I suppose I am more a 'pinko' than a 'whitey'... (-8]

I agree that exposure to different ways of living and even thinking is worthwhile in part because over time each person has to decide for themselves their own personal 'culture'. It can be difficult however.

For instance - the criteria many of us have for defining 'good' music are hopelessly Eurocentric but how far will we go in challenging those notions?