Like Haney, I naively assumed that once I was married with kids, my dating days were over. Married for nearly 10 years, my husband and I are happily settled with our two young daughters. But, we still scan the playground looking for potential love matches.

No, we’re not swingers. We’re simply looking to “hook up” with a fun, easygoing family who has similar interests and parenting styles. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it sounds. If I click with the wife, it’s almost inevitable that the husband will be a sports-obsessed drip. If we get along with the parents, you can bet their kids enjoy finger-painting — on our walls.

I still cringe when I recall the first—and only—time we got together with a new friend and her family at their place. Our husbands talked politics over dinner and voted the same colour, which was a plus. The kids played quietly in the other room—until my younger daughter ran in wailing, “He hit me!” Apparently, my friend’s son had started pummeling my daughter for sport. The parents were blasé, simply saying their son was “going through a rough stage.” We skipped out before dessert.

With no pick-up bars where we can meet like-minded parents, I often wish I could just post a personal ad: Over-educated, creative types seeking same for fun romps in the park and occasional trips. Two daughters (around 4½ and 8 ) a plus. Like to travel. Must be able to tolerate our dark sense of humour and enjoy lively discussions about politics and film. Not too much TV or junk food. Parental discipline a must.

When it works, “family dating” is ideal. You get to hang out with your friends while the kids entertain each other. In best-case scenarios, you go steady with a family and maybe even take the plunge and take a vacation together. But, as in romance, chemistry can be elusive. It’s tricky enough for two people to get along. Inject more personalities—not to mention complicated playdate schedules and squabbles over Barbie dolls and trucks—and things can get thorny.

Tamsen Fadal, co-author with her husband Matt Titus of Why Hasn’t He Called? and Why Hasn’t He Proposed?, said that families looking to date should proceed with caution. “Just like in dating, you’ve got to have things in common and want the same level of commitment. At least there’s no sex involved and so that doesn’t complicate things.”

Still, there are awkward moments of uncertainty and self-doubt.

Lauren, 31, and her husband had just moved to rural Georgia with their 2-year-old daughter last autumn and were anxious to make friends when they “picked up” another family at a wedding. They invited them over for an “afternoon of babies, beer and horse-shoes in the backyard” a couple of weeks later. But soon the initial spark had faded.

“They were good on paper: similar age and similar background with similar interests, but we did not click at all. The wife was really intense and the husband was really odd,” said Lauren. “The little conversation I had with the husband was stilted and he seemed perpetually stoned. I found myself doing the whole ‘we should do it again sometime’ thing even though I had no intentions of calling them.”

In Lauren’s case, the feelings were apparently mutual — the other family never asked for a second date either. But what happens when you think you hit it off with a family but they don’t reciprocate? When, maybe, they’re just not that into you?

After my friend’s son hit my daughter, I gave her the “sorry, but we’re busy” line the next time she invited us over. I know how she must have felt — when I asked a friend at school pick-up for the millionth time if her family was free to join us for brunch, she avoided eye contact and gave me the same lame excuse. She never followed up, leaving me to wonder if it was something I said or if my girls’ grubby table manners were to blame.

Share your family dating disaster/triumph. Not long after, I spotted her and her daughter out at brunch at a restaurant with another family. Like a jilted lover seeing an ex out on the town with someone new, I couldn’t help but wonder: “What toys do they have that we don’t?”

Different parenting styles can also put a crimp in burgeoning relationships.

Kathy, 43, a mum of two, said she and her husband happily “dated” one couple for years—until they visited their friends on holidays for a few days last summer. Their friends’ daughter “refused to play with my older son. She consciously excluded him, saying ‘we’re not going to play with Jamie today.’ I pointed it out gently to my friend, but she ignored it. I was their guest and it was awkward.”

Though nothing official was stated, in essence, they broke up.

“How do you tell your friend her daughter is being a complete shit?” asked Kathy. “We ended up cutting the visit a day short. Now we avoid them,” said Kathy, who still feels burned by the experience.

Maggie, 40, another mum to two, said she and her husband bonded over politics, wine and good food with a couple they met in the neighbourhood. Initially, the kids all got along. But soon enough, they couldn’t be in the same room without torturing each other.

“Our kids would throw huge fits when we would tell them we were getting together with this family,” said Maggie. “One time I saw my friend’s little girl put a whole handful of snow down my son’s shirt. He pushed her away and she fell into the snow screaming that he had pushed her.”

Rather than break-up, the couples talked things through and miraculously, their relationship survived, despite the fact that their kids are mortal enemies. “We finally acknowledged the truth and decided that if we wanted to continue being friends, we had to have plans without the kids,” explained Maggie. “Now, we just get babysitters when we want to get together.”

There is hope that a compatible family may be out there waiting for you.

“When we went over to their house for our ‘blind date,’ we totally hit it off,” said Lauren. “Since then we have gotten together several times and I’ve introduced them to my other friends.  Love match!  I feel like we should be on an RSVP commercial!”

Meanwhile, my husband and I recently got lucky on mid-winter break. We hooked up with a nice family at a ski resort. While we chatted breezily about books and music with the parents in the lodge, our kids played Monopoly and put on an impromptu dance show. After a few fun days of sledding together, we exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers with plans to meet up back home.

I’m hoping they’ll call, but I’m not waiting by the phone.

Our generation didn’t behave this way, we reminisce proudly. We did as we were told, respected ourselves and others, worked hard and went to bed at a reasonable hour. We didn’t stay out clubbing ’til five in the morning, trash the streets with litter and graffiti, drink until we couldn’t stand up, harass people at train stations and dress like porn stars.

WE were great! And besides, today’s kids have everything. They should be so grateful to us that they wouldn’t even think of stepping out of line!

They have all the things we could never dream of having as kids; mobile phones, iPods, X-boxes, DVDs, Internet, pay TV, Twitter, Facebook, air conditioners, alco-pop, shopping malls, credit cards, ‘Schoolies’ at the Gold Coast and fast food galore.

Our homes have every domestic device known to humankind. The kids don’t share bedrooms, nor wash and dry dishes, nor chop kindling for the fire, nor mend their clothes. No shoes to polish, no leaves to rake, no rain to walk to school in (they don’t walk to school anyway), few dinners cooked from scratch, no boring old sandwiches in the lunchbox, no hand-me-down clothes and few siblings to share with.

If they have extra-curricular activities (and even toddlers do these days) they are driven there — no matter what age. Big, strapping lads lurch out of their mums’ 4WDs for a gruelling session at footy training (only to be picked up again by mum at the end of it all). They do have bikes, of course, but these are not for transport — they’re simply for recreation.

Unlike our parents before us, we actually talk to our kids. We relate to them. We like them to think we’re cool. We don’t have harsh rules. We want our kids to like us so we ask for their opinions and we do as they say. Why, we’ve even written bogus ‘sick notes’ to their teachers and bailed them out of mobile phone debt! We’ve let them host parties (so we could be ‘responsible’ and keep an eye on their drinking – oh, and we’ve bought the grog too). And we’ve defended them when the neighbours accused them of vomiting in their front yards. We’ve been the best parents ever! What more could they possibly need?

But if we’ve done such a great job, why do they thumb their noses at our rules, treat our homes like giant rubbish bins (or drop-in centres), eat so much junk their arteries must be popping, ignore our advice and generally cause us so much worry and angst?

Well, do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news is that you should get an award for being so patient, hardworking and benevolent. The bad news is that said award is unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon (not unless the kids can borrow a few bucks from you to buy it).

And the second bit of bad news is that you have made this rod for your own back. Yes, you! And well, yes, me too, I have to admit.

I know you don’t want to believe that all your effort and sacrifice might be the very reason for the kids behaving badly in the first place. None of us wants to think we have done a lousy job at the most important role of all — being a parent. We all love our kids and want the best for them. We’ve even mistakenly thought that giving them everything they want is the way to do that — but we are very wrong about that.

And here’s why.

Our kids don’t need ‘stuff’; they need love and guidance much, much more than any toy, gizmo or outfit.

They don’t need us to be ‘cool’; they need us to be grown-ups. (Besides, trying to be cool can be very uncool!)

They don’t need us to defend them when they muck up; they need us to help them understand where they went wrong and how to make amends.

They don’t need us to do everything for them; they need us to teach them how to be independent and resourceful. In any case, their bodies are younger and fitter than ours!

They don’t need us to agree with everything they say and do; they need us to show them how to stick to your own rules and values — even if it makes you about as popular as Britney Spears at a Metallica concert.

They don’t need us to let them watch whatever they want on TV; they need us to show them what is appropriate for their age and stage of maturity.

They don’t need us to feed them junk food; (they already know their way to KFC anyway!); they need us to promote healthy eating and share with them the skill of cooking.

They don’t need us to drive them everywhere; walking is good exercise and a great way to socialise, learn independence and check out the boys!

They don’t need us to sanction underage drinking; they need us to encourage them to socialise in healthier ways — even if that means not socialising too much with alcohol ourselves! Ouch!

They don’t need us to encourage negative views of school (“You have waaaay too much homework, Jimmy! I’m going down there to give them a piece of my mind!”); they need us to reinforce respect for the system that supports them to learn and achieve.

They don’t need us to turn a blind eye when they walk out of the house in a skimpy, gravity-defying dress and the kind of eye-makeup we haven’t seen since the KISS years; they need us to let them know that the way we dress (whether we like it or not) does send messages to others — and sometimes not the ones we bargained for!

They don’t need us to buy them contraceptives when they hit puberty; they need us to help them develop self respect and a discerning attitude towards (eventually) sharing sexual intimacy.

They don’t need us to ignore a lazy or disinterested attitude; they need us to encourage them to contribute to their world and, ultimately, their own happiness and well being.

They don’t need us to let them do whatever they want; they need us to set sensible boundaries and to be consistent in our approach to discipline.

They don’t need us to be their ‘best friends’; they do need us to always be there for them, but they also need to form their own healthy friendships with peers.

And so, as we read all this, are we starting to feel a bit guilty yet? I know I am! And I’m sure lots of you can confess to at least one or two of these ‘sins’.

But, don’t despair. By even just considering this stuff, you are already well placed to make changes for the better. And if you are a new parent just starting out, lucky you! You have the benefit of all our mistakes to help you avoid the pitfalls.

Just remember there is no such thing as a perfect parent. (Thank goodness or I’m sure the rest of us would’ve slashed our wrists by now!) We do the best we can, with the help and advice that’s available at the time.

But for too long the advice has focused on the raising of clean, safe, well-fed, well-heeled kids with high self esteem; which is great and necessary — but is also really only half of the story. The other half is about the attitudes we are showing them.

It’s time for parents to become good role-models for their kids before it’s too late. We can’t rely on our education, government, police, medical, community or justice systems to pick up the pieces when we have failed our kids. It’s up to us to prevent it from happening in the first place.

The buck, I’m afraid, stops here!

Catherine Warnock is the author of “Hot Tips for Cool Parents: the key to raising awesome kids”(Connorcourt 2009) and writes a weekly newspaper column entitled “The Kitchen Philosopher”.



So patiently we waited, choosing a potty and leaving it casually sitting in the bathroom hoping our son would take an interest. He didn’t.

That was when he’d just turned two. Caught up with a new baby and a house move, we thought we’d not press the issue  until we were settled in to the new house. Every week, a new friend would arrive at play group or daycare in undies. “Do you want to wear undies?” We’d ask hopefully. “Don’t you want to be a big boy?” Undies were purchased and worn briefly, but still no interest in the potty.

Family were starting to ask every visit if we’d started to train him yet. “Oh, they say to do it later now,” I’d mumble in reply, ‘You were trained at one,” said my mother.

So we persisted, putting our now 2-years-and-9-months, walking, talking toddler in underpants on the weekend and smiling through gritted teeth as we cleaned yet more pee off the floor. “Don’t worry, it’s just an accident!” No potty.

Daycare began to enquire as to how we were progressing, offering to help out if we needed it. Feeling the pressure, we decided we needed to get serious. I downloaded a PDF which promised to have my son toilet trained in three days. The chief advice seemed to be to stock up on undies and barricade ourselves in the house for a weekend.

We caved after two very long days and no wee in the potty. We switched to pull-ups, which far from encouraging potty use, we found to be just a convenient and expensive marketing ploy. “Keep these dry?” said my son. “It’s a nappy.” Err, yes.

A few weekends later, we tried bribery. Not for raisins or choc drops, but proper toys. Surely this would work. And it did. Reluctantly he weed in the potty (and all over the floor) until receiving his promised fire truck. And the next day, a potty poo scored him a fire station. “It’s working!” we thought. He even started using the potty at daycare with enthusiasm. “Aren’t you a big boy!” We exclaimed, calling the grandparents to brag about our incredible toilet trainee.

But as the afterglow of the presents wore off, as did enthusiasm for toilet training. He began to relapse and refused to use the potty again. We tried negotiating.

“Sit on the potty.”

“No.”

“If you sit on the potty you can have a Tiny Teddy”

“OK”

“If you do a wee on the potty you can have two Tiny Teddies! “Nothing.

The weekends were becoming a Mexican stand-off. Hoping the dam would burst eventually, we stayed at home, not wanting to give in and put on nappies for outings. We read books on the potty, sang stupid songs. We discovered he could hold on for more than five hours. I felt humiliated and defeated at the utter ridiculousness of the situation. It seemed that every other child was happy to graduate from nappies except ours. Would he be in nappies in primary school?, we wondered.

Daycare were understanding, saying he’d get there in his own time, but wouldn’t be able to graduate to the pre-school room. A friend helpfully commented that we’d “missed the window” for toilet training and would probably have to wait until he was four. I cried. How come our bright little boy had met all his other milestones early, could count to twenty and identify five species of birds but not pee in to a bucket?

So we took another break. I read widely and interrogated every mother I knew for suggestions. We experimented a little, encouraging him to pee outside on the grass, or placing a nappy in the potty to catch the poo (that worked, once.)

Finally, we tried the good old fashioned star chart, with a column for each day of the week and rows for tiny achievements. Sitting on the potty. Washing hands. Keeping undies dry. These small little actions (along with the release of bodily fluids) earned a star. A present would be given when ten stars were achieved. Pinning the chart up to the fridge was accompanied with a pep talk about being The Boss of One’s Wee and Poo. “It is your job,” I explained, “to get the wee and poo out of your body on time and in to the potty.”"It is mummy and daddy’s job to empty the potty.”

Interestingly, putting him in charge of the process in a positive way seemed to work. The star chart was a big hit and ten starts were racked up within 24 hours. We moved the goalposts to 30 stars for the next treat, but that didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. He was taking his job very seriously, trotting off to the potty of his own accord.

I gave up on being scared about taking him out in public without nappies and simply brought along a change of pants. We tackled several public toilets that first weekend with aplomb.

Within four days, he’d mastered his own job and took over mine. One morning he went to the bathroom, slammed the door, did his business in the potty and flushed it down the loo himself. Never underestimate the keenness children have to do the gross jobs.

We’re now cruising along with few accidents a couple of weeks later and I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ve reached a point of no return with day nappies. Nights are a different matter, but we’re leaving that one alone for a while longer.

In the end it did happen in a weekend, if you ignore the six months previous trial-and-error. Of course, in the haze of parenting we usually forget how we got there, we just know that it wasn’t forever.

As you researched the book, how did your pre-conceived notions about children and medication break down?

My idea for this book was born of observations in my community in Washington, D.C. seeing pre-school age children with various conditions going to all kinds of therapies. I’d also heard of older kids taking medication for various problems. It all seemed crazy to me. With the competitive nature of our community and parents trying to perfect their kids, it seemed to me that the two were related. I thought the whole thing was a sign of social pathology.

But when I started working on the book, I found that the experts didn’t necessarily think what I thought. You would find these quotes in the media about, say, ADHD [attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder] being a flavour-of-the-month diagnosis. I realise now there is only a very small minority of doctors who believe this — but they get a lot of press. Overall, most experts say the real problem is under-diagnosis. Also, medication truly helps many children: Twenty years of scientific research have shown, for example, that antidepressant medication, when coupled with cognitive-behavioral therapy, works for 60 to 80 percent of children suffering from depression and anxiety disorders. So I kept shifting my idea for the book; I kept trying to make my original idea hold water.

You’re thinking really changed, though, when you started talking to parents.

Right. I went to a meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland — it was for a group I’d found called “Should I Worry?” It was billed as a meeting for parents who were anxious about their children’s progress and wondering whether they had issues. As it turned out, though, these were parents with children with very serious mental health problems in the public school system; they were desperate to find a life raft. They were using medication for their children because otherwise their children would be locked away. I just started crying in the car on the way home. I felt I had absorbed so much misery of a kind I had never experienced before.

The key here is not whether medication is good or bad but: What did the parents go through? What did the children go through? I realised I had to talk to more parents. Once I did, the emotional reality emerged. They had all gone through a long emotionally-wrenching journey with their children. Let’s say ADHD is the most benign of the mental health disorders children can have — it still can have really serious ramifications. I write about one ten-year-old girl who’d been formally diagnosed with ADHD — she sobbed for weeks over the distress she felt in doing her homework and begged her parents to run her over with their car. Her parents remain conflicted about whether to give her medication — they haven’t yet. The situation has completely drained the family.

More often, however, I would hear that medication made families’ lives a lot better. The key here is not whether medication is good or bad but: What did the parents go through? What did the children go through? What was the thought process leading up to their decision to have their children take medication?

What people tend to assume is that kids who are just distracted or jumpy are given medication.

Exactly. When we talk eye-rollingly about badly behaved, fidgety kids, we’re completely missing the reality of what is going on for these families. One woman spoke to me about her nine-year-old boy who was eventually diagnosed with Asperger’s. She didn’t want to believe that anything was wrong with him — she assumed that others were putting out-of-whack expectations on him. But she had to confront the problem when her son’s teacher told her that he’d been banging his head on the ground and repeating back what people were saying, reversing pronouns and repeating lines from movies and TV — all typical ways autistic children speak. The main thing that doesn’t come through in the media coverage of children’s mental health issues is the fact that people are really suffering.

Why do you think the media is invested in promoting an image of parents giving medication to their children when they don’t measure up to their expectations in some way?

For one, I think the media is made up of people like me who share the same prejudices of society at large so, for the most part, they’re just people who haven’t necessarily had the exposure to these issues to know what is going on. Also, the behavior of the pharmaceutical companies has been so bad. It has made for a long string of valid stories about their bad behavior in the press, as in the case of Harvard psychiatry professor Joseph Biederman who, after pioneering aggressively medicating kids, was found to be in the pocket of the drug companies. But this kind of press has also made it easier to conflate what the drug companies are doing, which is basically pushing medication at all costs, with what psychiatrists are doing. Too often, we let the drug companies dictate how we see mental health issues today.

In your opinion, are any children being overmedicated?

There are populations where over-medication is going on. Children on [medical benefits], for example, are being given anti-psychotics at a much higher rate than upper-middle-class children. But the press is mainly about upper-middle-class families. I’ve found if you say what everybody already thinks, people will rally to what you’re saying and celebrate it as truth.

The experience of having a child with real mental health issues — as opposed to regular everyday anxieties or depressions — is a very foreign experience; it’s hard to have compassion and empathy for something completely foreign to you. And it’s scary. We really want to believe that if children have problems, then their parents did something to cause their problems. The idea is that your parents screw you up — it’s hard-wired into us — so that when you hear about children with problems, your first thought is, “The mother must work too many hours” or “The parents are too competitive” or “They’re cold.” Of course, parents do have the ability to make their children happy or unhappy, but there is also a biological predisposition and temperament. The interplay between environment and what is inborn is a very important relationship. As I say in the book, the main paradigm for understanding the interplay of genes and environment now is “biology loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger.” But we want the narrative that explains it all away. We like to believe we can protect against this.

But we don’t know the long-term effects of these medications on brain development, right?

We do know that with all these drugs — SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] included — there are side effects for the adults and children who take them. But you’re right in the long term, we don’t know. So this is part of the torture that parents go through in deciding to put their kids on medication.

What advice would you give parents who are trying to get appropriate care for their mentally ill children?

There are a lot of online communities for parents of children with various issues, and advocacy organizations like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill where parents can get the help they’re entitled to. In public schools, for example, it’s a question of knowing how to work the system and what your rights are, who to talk to, how to stand up for your child, what forms to request, etc.

Paediatricians can also make recommendations for mental health specialists and can track the child over time. It’s important to have somebody else keeping an eye out, watching what works and doesn’t. But how many pediatricians, especially ones who accept health insurance, take that kind of time? The average pediatrician visit is 11 minutes. There has to be a way for longer visits to exist and be reimbursed.

There are also terrific books out there. For example, Making the System Work for Your Child with ADHD by Peter Jensen really lays out for parents what to do to get help.

So you would argue that children in fact are not being over-medicated?

Ninety five percent of American children are not being medicated at all. You might say, “Well 5% is still 1 in 20,” but that doesn’t make an argument for gross over-medication.

Look, nobody wants to stuff their kids full of chemicals. Nobody wants to interfere in ways that nobody understands with the growth of their kids’ brains. But for doctors who work with these kids and see how they suffer — and how limited their lives are — and then see how medication and therapy can bring these kids more of a full childhood, a “normal” life, one the child deserves to have — if we have that choice, why would we deprive children of those experiences?

From now on, you can attend and participate in the only international online meetings of The Pissed-Off Parents Club right here.

The what-off club? The Pissed-Off Parents Club, that’s what! Where men and women, mums and dads, males and females of all genders and ages can meet and bleat.

Oh yes! Finally – FINALLY -someone’s had the good sense to give us parents a forum (the comments boxes below) to have a rant and a rave and a good old bitch about the sometimes really shitty (quite literally) business of being a parent. Thankyou www.babble.com.au, thankyou!

But it’s not all beer and spittle being a pissed-off parent. Oh no. Being a Pissed-Off Parent costs – and right here’s where you start paying. In whinges. And moans. And whines. Yep – right here’s where you can get all those things off your chest that really get on your tits as a parent.

You can be pregnant for the first time – or the eighth, a mum of two who’s at her wits end, a stay-at-home father of four whose wife just doesn’t understand him…whoever you are and wherever you’re writing from, we know you’ll have some stories from the more frustrating side of life to tell about your experience as a parent in the 21st century – so go on! Let rip!

Just think of it as your turn to chuck a tantie – in cyberspace, where your screaming won’t wake the baby.

Oh, and by the way, the hilarious and refreshing book that tells it like it is and inspired this post, is called, um, The Pissed-Off Parents Club by Mink Elliott and is published by Sphere. It’s available in all good bookshops – as well as some of the dodgier ones – now, for just $22.99.

Evidence That Kids Reduce Happiness

Take this article from last year’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, for example. The researchers followed couples for eight years and reported a general downward trend of happiness in the marriage after kids. The worst time for the couples’ relationship was after the birth of their first child, when ninety percent of the participants reported that the quality of their marriage had plunged. Another study used data from 13,000 households and found lower levels of emotional wellbeing and higher rates of depression among parents.

But how can this be? Most of us chose to have a kid (and then maybe chose to have more) and wouldn’t think of doing things differently. Many happiness researchers, however, say that we think kids make us happy because one toothy grin or warm nuzzle from our babies can suddenly erase eight hours of nappies and meal preps. It’s true that those moments have an intense hold on us, even at a chemical level. Love-inducing neurotransmitters like oxytocin are released in those cuddly times. Do they have an amnesic power?

Evidence That They Don’t

A recent study from the University of Glasgow, however, had more positive news for parents. The Glasgow researchers tracked people in 10,000 U.K. households and found that kids do increase life satisfaction. Nor should you stop at one; they found that the biggest boost to life enjoyment came with two or three kids.

Knowing that their findings buck the prevailing wisdom (and most other recent studies), the Glasgow team explains that their data paints a rosier picture of parenthood because they isolated certain variables, like age, sex, and marital status. Married people with middle-class incomes were the ones who reaped the most kid benefits, while unmarried couples or those under extreme financial hardship fared less well. The authors of the study say they think kids improve quality of life when it’s the “right time” for the couple.

But What Is Happiness?

In reconciling all these studies, however, let’s remember that happiness is a slippery term. Yes, if you’re asking about day-to-day fun — eating out, travelling, etc. — then life pre-children is probably going to win. But kids add a level of meaning and purpose to our lives, and generally people tend to feel better when they are emotionally connected to something important. People without kids find meaning in romantic partners, friends, other family members, work, and hobbies. But when kids are in the picture, watching them grow — and feeling our relationships with them grow too — can be hugely satisfying.

Another study released late last year — not about families, but about hard work — speaks to this point. The Journal of Happiness Studies reported that people feel happy when they work hard at something, but they don’t necessarily feel happy in the moment. While they’re struggling with a difficult task or new skill, enjoyment goes down and stress goes up. But those same activities made them feel happy and satisfied when they looked back on their day as a whole. So yes, if you asked a mum while she’s prepping dinner, with one baby on her hip and another one climbing on the dining room table, if she’s feeling over the moon, the answer might be no. But, at the end of the day, ask her what the most important thing in her life is and she’s bound to say her kids.

“Oh my goodness,” I cooed, “look how sweet he is.”

Jessie looked up at me with a peaceful smile. “You can hold him if you want,” she offered.

I hesitated.

“Don’t let her do it, Nick,” one of the grandfathers warned my boyfriend. “As soon as she holds that baby, she’s going to want one of her own.”

With that, my boyfriend practically picked me up and threw me across the room in the direction of the baby. Like it or not, his look said, you’re going to hold that cuddly, sleepy, little bundle of joy!

Later, on the drive home, he smiled at me and took my hand. “You looked so cute holding Liam,” he said. “You’re going to be a really great mom someday.”

“Thanks,” I replied, “but I hope you?re not counting on any day soon.”

“That didn’t make you want to have a baby, even a little, tiny bit?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

He shook his head and sighed.

My lack of maternal desire is usually a joke between us. When I say things like, “I think I might want to have just one little girl.” He’ll reply with, “Don’t worry, by the time you’re ready to have kids, I’m sure that science will have mastered gender selection.” But lately, as all of our friends make giant leaps into adulthood, the joke seems to be wearing thin. After almost four years of dating, we’re both nearing the end of our twenties and he is beginning to wonder if I’m going to be ready to have kids at least sometime in the next decade. The best that I can offer as an answer is a non-committal: maybe.

In an effort to understand Nick’s perspective, I asked him the other day, “Why are you so ready to have kids?”

He looked at me blankly, as though I had asked him: What’s so great about this breathing thing anyway? “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, why is it so appealing to you? How do you know that you’re ready?”

“I don’t know. I’m almost thirty. I love you. I have a stable career. I really want to be a dad and I don’t want to wait until I’m an old man.”

Great, I think. My boyfriend’s biological clock is ticking a lá Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny and mine doesn’t even seem to be keeping time.

But he’s not finished. “I think it’s a pretty normal thing for people our age to at least be thinking about. I mean, why aren’t you ready?”

It’s a fair question and one that I’ve asked myself plenty of times this past year while attending an endless succession of weddings, baby showers, christenings, and other traditional, “Guess what? You’re getting old,” events. I have come up with lots of great reasons to explain my lack of reproductive enthusiasm to myself and anyone else who might be interested. For example, I’d really like to have a house when I have a baby, but I live in New York City. This means that for me, the idea of owning property is a dream akin to that of human flight. To make matters worse, I recently left my rock-stable teaching job for the shifting sands of freelance writing. I’m also preparing to head back to post-grad study, quite possibly across the country from all of my family and friends. It is financially, emotionally, geographically, completely impractical for me to have a baby at this juncture in my life. And yet, I know that these practical arguments are just a cover-up for my deeper fears.

Making big decisions has always been difficult for me. I’ve always been afraid of choosing the wrong thing, like when I set foot on the campus my first year of University and got the horrible, sinking in my stomach that said I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I’m terrified that I will wake up one morning and feel this way about being a mum. So, I’m not taking any chances. I want to wait to have kids until I’m absolutely sure that I am ready.

Waiting means that I am going to be an older mum and I have come to terms with what that entails. It means that I will have one or two children, instead of the brood of four I once imagined. It means sometimes dealing with sidelong glances from relatives who wonder when I’m going to settle down and comments from meddling old ladies at Starbucks who warn me not to “wait too long,” with a ominous raise of their pencilled-on eyebrows. It means watching friends who have always been on the same page as me move off down paths I’m not ready to take. I can deal with all of this. I expected all of this. What I didn’t expect was a twenty-something-year-old boyfriend with a serious case of baby fever. Just because I’ve come to terms with late parenthood doesn’t mean that he has.

Sometimes I watch him, when he is taking pictures of our cats sweetly napping or letting my nieces and nephews wrestle him to the ground. I think about what a good dad he will be, the Baby Bjorn-wearing, nappy bag-toting, shared-parenting kind and just for a moment, I’ll want to push all of my fears aside and say, “Ok, let’s do it.” I mean people have certainly brought children into the world in far less favourable circumstances.

“Wait,” Nick interrupts me, reading over my shoulder as I write, “does this mean??”

“No,” I reply, “I’m still not ready.”

“Ok,” he says, “but when do you think you will be?”

“I don’t know. Five years,” I say and then, after a moment’s thought, “Maybe.”

For the most part, I like having a kid who’s Lego-obsessed. I’m always pleased at the rapturous approval I get from other parents when I tell them about Zachary’s passion. Lego is seen as creative, educational, great for developing fine motor skills, and there’s a whiff of nostalgia about it all.

But I’ve been following the current debate over the evolution (some argue devolution) of Lego. And I’ve begun to wonder. Is there a dark side to the “wunder” toy? Do creativity and imaginative play still rest at the heart of the Lego experience? Or have marketing ploys and bossy instructions squeezed the joy right out?

Give a Lego box even a cursory glance, and you’ll see things aren’t what they used to be. Pieces now come in colors like chartreuse, and shapes such as skeletons, monsters and space missiles. There are bombs, evil villains, and every sort of teeny, tiny weapon. According to Time magazine, change came by necessity. In 1998, the Lego Group posted its first ever losses and then sales dwindled for years. In 2004, the company reported a $374 million loss but also enacted a drastic turnaround plan. This involved more Lego sets with lucrative tie-ins including more of the Star Wars line first introduced in 1999, Batman in 2006, Indiana Jones in 2008 and a series of videogames. On the business end, the company drastically cut its work force and outsourced packaging and production to Eastern Europe and Mexico. The plan worked: In 2006, the Lego Group boasted $281 million in profit and sales have been robust ever since.

The current backlash against Lego was stoked by Michael Chabon’s recent book, Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. Re-connecting with Lego while playing with his four children, Chabon found himself chafing at “the authoritarian nature of the new Lego” and its “provided solution.” What Chabon and other parents I know object to is the corporate branding and rigid instructions provided in the sets, which, they argue, stanch imagination and discourage the construction of random, teetering creations.

This might be true but it hasn’t hurt sales; parents are buying more Lego than ever. “Even as other toymakers struggle, this Danish maker of toy bricks is enjoying double-digit sales gains and swelling earnings,” said a September article in the New York Times. Amidst the clash of messages, adult fans of Lego (or AFOLs as they call themselves) have attempted to bring some clarity. Roy T. Cook, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota and one of 14 officially sanctioned Lego ambassadors in the U.S., posted a response to Chabon on an AFOL blog. Cook calls Chabon’s essay a “significant contribution to the debates about the nature and role of LEGO as a medium.” However, the real question, insists Cook, is whether the changes to Lego “constitute an improvement, in that it gives creators more resources with which to carry out their creative projects, or is it regressive, eliminating many of the challenges which creators need to overcome or circumvent — challenges which, when overcome, result in superior creations?”

I think the whingeing about corporate influence and lost creativity is overblown. (Even Chabon told the LA Times, “… I recognise the possibility that I might be overstating my objections.”) I don’t know what’s so bad about by-the-book construction. My son is five years old. If he wants to sit for three hours and painstakingly put together a new Mars Mission ETX Alien Infiltrator, I’m in — that kind of focus on anything is admirable. I also don’t think Zachary’s commitment to building using the instructions signals a surrender to corporate designs. He’s simply learning to build. As Chabon points out in his essay, inevitably, all Lego construction ends up a fantastic, crumbled “stew” anyway. The pieces get mashed together and something new rises up every day: the Lego camper morphs into a rock monster-mobile. Indiana Jones dresses up like a pirate.

I can appreciate the critiques. And, with our overflowing bins, and a stream of new releases, I wonder how much more of the stuff we need. Yet, it became clear to me recently which camp we’ve joined. Just before Christmas, Zachary and I were in a small toy store pondering Lego sets. Beside us a woman dismissed the towering wall of options and huffed at a clerk: “I want a set with bricks. Just bricks! Do you have any of those?” My son stared at her, incredulous at her lack of enthusiasm. For him, Lego is hands-down the most captivating toy medium yet. Since Christmas, he and his friends have shared hours of fun, revelling in their new Lego sets. And there have been amazing quiet times too, Zachary absorbed in play. The other day, he was building his new Lego Coast Guard ship. With pieces scattered across the living room floor, he looked up and said: “Mummy, I’m in Lego heaven.” After a quick smile, he got right back to it.

The website contains a report on every primary and secondary school in the country (public and private) and shows results from national literacy and numeracy tests among other information.

While education groups believe it amounts to a little more than a damaging league table, others have praised the launch of the website as the start of a new period of accountability for the nation’s schools.

Here at Babble, we’ve had a look at both sides of the argument to present you with the most common arguments for and against this controversial new website. - Amber Robinson

PROS

Transparency
Fans of the website hope that, just like in the commercial world, the quality in education will be improved by transparency, accountability and competition. The data has been available directly from schools for some time. Why should only the education department be able to review and compare school information? Parents should be informed to make better choices about the education options available to them.

Pester power
Parents may now be empowered to demand action from school principals and teachers at under-performing schools. They may have thought their child’s school was a dud before – now they have the data to prove it.

Improvements in literacy and numeracy
Critics claim that the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests only focus on a narrow range of subjects. Is that a bad thing? Literacy and numeracy are the foundation for success in many other subjects, so perhaps focussing on these areas will lead to improvements all round.

‘Poor’ schools aren’t necessarily disadvantaged
Each school has been assigned a rating on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA), an index developed to account for differences in student backgrounds, such as parental income and education. to more fairly allow schools to be compared. This index is used to form groups of statistically similar schools across the country. Parents can browse through schools deemed similar to their own to gauge comparative success.

It’s a launch pad for greater information
While some say that the current site offering is limited, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that if Labor was re-elected, the website would be expanded to provide information beyond student performance in reading, writing and numeracy. He has suggested including information on bullying and classroom innovation.

CONS

It only paints part of the picture
Academic marks are only part of a child’s school experience. What is the culture of the school like? What extra-curricular activities does it offer? How many students go on to higher education? So far, only QLD schools show the intended destination of matriculating students.

Schools aren’t being compared fairly
Despite the ICSEA index, critics of MySchool have found anomalies amongst school groupings. For instance, public schools in western Sydney have been compared with schools of the air, in outback areas or those on remote islands.

You can’t track teacher performance or individual achievement
As the website only gives aggregated NAPLAN results by grade, it is impossible to know which classes at the school performed best, or how children improved over time. Given that some experts believe that it is individual teachers who make the difference to successful learning, rather than a school, the NAPLAN results may not be a very useful measure of achievement. The scores may also be more or less statistically reliable depending on the number of school enrollments.

Schools will become stigmatised
There have already been cases of parents attempting to withdraw their children from under-performing schools even if the child is progressing well. This could lead to a “brain drain” from schools and cause the school results to sink even lower. Children may also be bullied or teased for attendin a low-scoring school.

Teachers will ‘teach to the test’
Critics of the website fear that parent pressure will force teachers to “teach to the test” to maintain and improve school ranking, rather than teaching a well-rounded curriculum.

THE BABBLE TAKE
We’re all for parents making informed choices. As it stands, the MySchool website should only be an initial tool to utilise when choosing a school for a child. It is just as important as ever to visit schools in person, meet the prinicpal and talk to other parents before you make your decision.

I shove a magazine into her hands to distract her and stare fixedly ahead, making eye contact with no one.

As any parent knows, kids specialise in moments of parental mortification. Not that they mean to. Explains Betsy Brown Braun, a child development and behavior specialist and author of Just Tell Me What To Say: Sensible Tips and Scripts for Perplexed Parents, “Young children have little impulse control and are only starting to cultivate empathy and a sense of other people’s feelings.” So how’s a mortified parent supposed to handle her child and save face? Take this advice from top experts for 8 very common sticky situations. — Ellen Seidman

1. Your child announces, “Mummy! Look! That lady has such a big tummy!” and the woman is not pregnant.

For starters, get down on the child?s eye level and quietly say, “You are right, and I will tell you about it after we leave,” says Brown Braun. If said big-bellied woman is glaring at you, you could try tossing off a remark like, “Kids really do say the darndest things!” then move away, fast. Later, you can explain to your child that bellies come in all shapes and sizes, and since she didn?t know how that lady at the store feels about her belly —maybe she likes it, maybe she doesn’t — it?s better to not say anything about it. Then pray she never notices how jiggly your thighs are.

2. Your child hits another kid at the playground.

Young kids are highly territorial, and those under three also sometimes struggle to express feelings with words, and may resort to using their hands. You want to get down on your child’s eye level and say, in a firm voice (don’t yell), “We do not hit.” Ask the other child if he is okay, then tell the mum, “We’re sorry, we’re just learning about using our words, not our hands.” It doesn’t pay to force your child to say sorry, says Brown Braun, because young kids are not sorry and they’ll only get distracted from the point of learning to not hit.

Then take your child away to a bench, wait for him to calm down and acknowledge what happened: “You wanted to use the boy’s bucket and he didn’t let you. Next time, please use your words and say ‘I want a turn.’” Give your child another chance to play nicely, letting him know that if it happens again you will take him home. Then reinforce any good behavior: “Look at how well you’re playing! You’re sharing and using your words!”

3. Your child said a bad swear word in front of another adult.

A friend of mine has the mother of all stories: Her daughter’s kindergarten class has a letter of the day, and on “F” day (you can guess where this is headed), the teacher stopped by her child’s chair and asked what word she had written out. “Fuck!” little Lucy replied. Taken aback, the teacher asked what picture Lucy had drawn. “That’s my Mummy,” said Lucy. “She says that word all the time.” When the teacher called home, my friend wisely blamed her potty-mouthed husband, apologised profusely, and asked the teacher for advice. Watch your mouths, said the teacher (in the most polite of ways), and reinforce the “no-nasty-word rule” if they heard Lucy say the word again.

“It’s best not to harp on a curse word unless a child repeats it regularly” says Susan Newman, Ph.D., a social psychologist and author of The Book of No: 250 Ways To Say It — And Mean It. Kids often use foul language because they’re giving it a test run — to see how a word sounds and gauge the reaction they’ll get. If you make a big deal about it, they may delight in repeating it to get your attention.

If your little love-y drops the f-bomb in front of another parent, you can say, “I can’t imagine where she heard that!” (go on, play dumb). Then tell your child, “You know, those are words we don’t use in our family.” And try not to recount this story to your friends within kids’ earshot — if they know you think it’s amusing, they’ll keep at it.

3. Your kid has just pooed/vomited/spewed snot/deposited some other bodily fluid on someone else’s couch or rug.

Comedian-actress Amy Wilson, author of the upcoming book on motherhood When Did I Get Like This, once had to deal with a major throw-up fiasco. “One Sunday afternoon, we went to visit friends who had recently moved,” she recalls. “As I held my 13-month-old and admired their new hallway Oriental rug, the baby suddenly projectile vomited all over it. We stood there, horrified, until my husband said, ‘Tell you one thing, that was one hell of a housewarming gift!’ That broke up the tension, and everyone laughed, helped clean the rug and went on to have a great afternoon.”

At times like this, the best you can do is make sure your child is okay and show remorse to the other person (“OH MY GOD, I’M SO SORRY!”). If you can, says Newman, call up your sense of humour. Then pitch in with the mess, enlisting your child if possible and offering dry-cleaning money. Try to take it in stride; vomit/poop/icky stuff happens.

4. Your kid has a meltdown in the supermarket and everyone is staring.

“You might want the floor to open up and swallow you whole, so if it’ll make you feel better, remark to people nearby, ‘Do you remember what it’s like to have a three-year-old?’” says Brown Braun. Adds Newman, “Keep in mind that you will never see any of these people again!” As for your inconsolable child, inform her, “We do not have tantrums like this,” pick her up and walk out of the store (inconvenient, but necessary). Acknowledge what the issue may be — “I know you are tired/hungry/wanted that toy.” Then lay out what will happen next: “When you calm down we’re going to go back in, buy milk, cottage cheese, and burgers, and will you help find the buns? I need a helper. Then we’ll go home.”

In general, try to hit stores only when kids are well-fed and rested up so they’re less likely to explode. Distraction can also do the trick. Says Brown Braun, who brought up triplets, “When I’d take them to the supermarket as kids, I’d weigh three giant apples and give them to them — reminding them, of course, we’d have to pay for them. They kept them busy the whole time. You can also do it with a roll.”

5. Your child opens up a birthday present, looks at the giver and remarks, “I already have that!” or “I don’t like it!”

Until that day comes when your kid learns there are some thoughts you keep on the inside, you will need to do damage control. If it’s a duplicate toy, tell your child, “Yes, you have that, and now you’ll have two! Uncle Harry looked all over for that present, so let’s thank him for finding something so great.” Next tell Uncle Harry, “You knew just what he would like!” Then mention that when a friend comes over, he’ll have one to share or that it’s great to have a copy to keep at grandma’s house. Later on, remind your child that Uncle Harry wasn’t trying to give him a bad present, he tried his best, so it’s important to just say thank you.

If your little one has, however, slammed whatever present Uncle Harry gave him, lighten up the situation by saying, “You know, Uncle Harry, this is not my child. My child would never say something so rude. Give me a minute while I go find my child.” Then trot your kid out of the room and say, “I get that you don’t like puzzles, but Uncle Harry didn’t know that. He tried hard to get you something you would like and telling him you didn’t hurt Uncle Harry’s feelings. Next time, just say ‘Thank you’ and then later you can tell me or Daddy in private that you do not like it.”

To avoid gift awkwardness in the future, Newman suggests that you “have a little refresher course before birthdays or holidays about what to say in these situations.” Of course, you could just wait till everyone goes home to open the pressies — the safest bet of all.

6. You’re breastfeeding in public and accidentally flash a room full of people.

Most nursing women have exposed themselves at some point or another – it’s inevitable when you’re dealing with a squirming baby. If someone makes a snippy comment such as, “Cover yourself up, will you?” Newman’s advice is to simply say, “I apologise if I’ve made you uncomfortable” even as you think “He/she needs to get a life!” You’re doing something wonderful for your child, what’s a little flashed nip?

7. Out of the blue your child proudly announces to someone, “I have a vagina!” or “I have a penis!”

“This happens frequently when kids are two and three,” notes Brown Braun. “Often, they’ll say ‘I have peanuts!’ or ‘I have a bagina!’” So if your child has actually used the right word, try to be proud even as you turn a lovely shade of red. Meanwhile, all you have to tell your “I’ve got a vagina!” child is “Yes, you do!” You don’t want to put the kibosh on her willingness to talk about her anatomy by asking her not to discuss it.

As for how to handle adults who may or may not be amused, toss off a remark like, “Wow, my child is really learning her anatomy!” And remember, says Newman, that this situation and other mortifying ones are excellent fodder for the future: “Think about what fun you will have at your child’s wedding rehearsal recounting them!”

What are your cringe-worthy kid moments? Tell us in the comments!