The Marriage Proposal Formula

Francesca Beauman

I was leafing through a book called "The Woman's Book: everything but the kitchen sink" by Francesca Beauman. It's been in my library for ages, and I occasionally flick through it.

It's one of these books that is, essentially, filled with completely random facts.

The random fact I came across was "The Marriage Formula".

Apparently, and I quote; "a simple mathematical formula exists to help one ascertain whether or not to accept a proposal of marriage."

Why is it OK for little girls to love dinosaurs, but not OK for little boys to love Barbie?

Over the weekend I read an interesting article in the Times magazine by Lori Duron, author of Raising My Rainbow: adventures in raising my fabulous, gender creative son.

I'll be honest, I was confused. The article talked about how concerned Lori and her husband were when their son started expressing a love for all toys usually favoured by girls at a young age. From the moment he saw his mom's old barbie doll he was hooked. When he started dressing up in girls clothes they were concerned.

The article, and presumably the book it stems from, talks about how Lori eventually discovered online (where else?) that there was a label she could give her son: gender creative, or gender non-conforming. Somehow having this label made it easier for them. Her worries about whether or not he was homosexual were eased by the discovery of this label.

Her son is 7.

Confused?

Well I am.

You see, regular readers will know that my younger daughter, Little Miss George, loves dinosaurs, plays with cars, is obsessed with Spider-man, Batman, the Teenage Mutant Ninya Turtles, knights and battles and swords. She actively steers away from 'girls' toys, and only occasionally, when she sweetly feels that she'd like to wear an outfit in her wardrobe that she knows we like (she's incredibly thoughtful) she will wear a flowery dress. Otherwise it's leggings or jeans and Marvel comic or dinosaur t-shirts. She even has a shirt for parties.

Her best friends are all boys.

Am I worried that she's a lesbian?

New Year's Eve party? Don't be daft; I'm a parent.

This year we didn't even pretend to go through the motions of staying up to see in the new year. We didn't watch any New Year's Eve specific TV. We didn't countdown. The girls, now 7 and 5, went to bed at 7.30pm. We wandered up to bed at around 11.30, only late because we had been independently pottering around on the Internet doing various jobs, reading up on news, shopping for hotel rooms and 2014 mini breaks.

When I was just dropping off to sleep, I heard the start of the fireworks and my only thought was, "so it's midnight then".

When I was in my teens and early twenties, New Year's Eve was a big deal. A HUGE deal. It was a special night when you got to dress up in your absolute best gear, dance the night away, drink slightly too much, and still end up in a beautifully romantic pose, at midnight, kissing the man of your dreams.

Of course that view was entirely the product of watching Sleepless in Seattle and similar films and has never ever, in my experience, translated to real life.

Truth be told, I can count the number of New Years Eve 'parties' that I have been invited to in my entire life on one hand. Not one of them was in a posh hotel in New York. Not one of them was in a posh hotel...

Do adverts drive you crazy too?

If you are tempted into using them on the basis of their ridiculous statistics then you are SO moneysupermarket.com.

They claim 40% of customers saved up to £316.20? So by definition 60% of customers didn't save anything. That's customers, moving to them and then getting a worse deal.

And of the 40% that did make a saving the MOST they saved was £316.20. So that is supposed to convince me to bother with the company is it? Way to go!

And what about supposedly 'healthy' snacks? Barney cereals try and make their product sound better than your standard cake or biscuit by specifically stating on the advert that they have, and I quote; "healthy ingredients like flour, chocolate and eggs..." Really? The main ingredients of all chocolate cakes, biscuits and many chocolate bars? So desperate that you are quoting the staple ingredients of flour and eggs and selling them as the healthy option. Healthy? Relative to what exactly? Compared to the sugar also in there?

Online versus real life?

On 8 out of 10 cats the question "Would you rather communicate with your friends online?" was asked. Good grief, is that really where we are at?

In the space of 30 years we have gone from being completely amazed at the magic that is Bungle on Rainbow walking backwards through a door because we could record it on VHS for the first time and there was a magic button on the VHS machine called Rewind.

We've gone from sitting on our bottom stair for hours talking to our mates on the phone, because the landline was in the hall, and the only place to sit was on the stairs.

We've moved on from vinyl LPs, a dodgy stylus and the magic that was the record button on your tape deck to enable you to record the top 40 every Sunday.

And to where have we got?

Teaching children the value of money

Our children are spoilt. There is no getting away from it. It doesn't matter how many times we try and remind them how lucky they are, they are still spoilt.

I worry about the value, or lack of value, they place on things.

I also worry about how it's possible to teach them the value of money and the relative size of different numbers, when actual physical real money hardly exists any more.

Virtual money vs actual money

My daughters have a shop set up in the playroom. (It's huge, and I blame my mother.) They also have a till. On numerous occasions we have started playing shops only to get to the payment point when, after happily asking me to enter my plastic play credit card into the machine, and happily asking me to put my code in, they confusingly try and give me, the customer, some cash. I think they get confused having witnessed the phenomena that is "cash back".

So how do you explain that usually it's up to the customer to pay the shop? And even more confusingly, how do you explain that the card machine actually mysteriously transfers mummy's money to the shop?

Best place to put a hook and eye? Under the armpit. Really?

Is it just me or do we need to fund some researchers somewhere to come up with a sensible, non-arm-breaking solution to the underarm zip and hook and eye?

Every dress I buy at the moment appears to have this set up. OK so the dresses are fitted, and fitted nicely. But little ol' me wonders if its possible to move that darn zip and do away with the hook and eye altogether.

A zip straight up the back is, in many cases easier. You can reach around from underneath and pull up a certain distance. Then use one arm to lift the dress up at the shoulders, and grab the zip, from above, with the other arm to continue pulling it up. Even then, if the dress is to fitted, its nigh on impossible to do the zip yourself without damage to arm and shoulder muscles and ligaments.

Superman: and what a man of steel he is..

The new Superman film is out this weekend.

It is seemingly a franchise that will never end.  The first film, back in 1978, was the start of film after film celebrating the flying comic book hero. 

Being a girl, I preferred the spin off SuperGirl film, starring Helen Slator, and the fact that I didn't need to look up her name will tell you she was recognisable to me in my favourite 1980s film, The Secret of my Success. (I am showing my age there, aren't I.)

What I find fascinating about the Superman film, and the Batman films and all other accompanying superhero films;  be it Captain America, IronMan, etc; is the perpetual prominence of male super heroes in these tales.

Clothes sizing: Why can the fashion industry not get this right?

Unintentional clones

If you were to wake up randomly in a park or playground, having lost your power of hearing, in my opinion you could still pretty quickly work out if you had landed in the UK despite not being able to hear the language being spoken.

How?  Just a quick glance at the fashions being sported by the mums.

As with any culture built by humans with an innate need to fit in, we have developed different uniforms for different roles in society.  In England the uniform is fairly clear for a trip to the park with the kids.  If you are less than a UK size 12 and therefore can get away with skinny skins, or Jeggings,  these will be your uniform of choice.  Combined with a fairly snug Tee, or a fitted smock top (the sort that look like a mini dress but are worn with leggings.)

However, you might, like me, be unable to find a pair of skinny jeans or Jeggings that actually fit your hips.  You may, after all, have hips, and an hourglass figure, that the manufacturers of fashion often forget exist.  For you, the trip will, despite your better intentions, probably result in the Sweats uniform.  You'll have plenty of pairs of sporty tracksuit bottoms from all the good intentions of joining and subsequently not attending the gym.  Add a bland v-necked T-shirt and you can kid yourself that everyone will assume you have come straight from Yoga class to the park.  

Streetdance: can you do it when you are approaching 40?

Last week I announced on Facebook and Twitter that I had signed up to attend a Streetdance class. There wasn't so much as a ripple in the Internet surf.

For some reason I expected more of a shocked response. My followers will be aware that I am fast approaching 40 years old. Admittedly I started dancing at 5 years old.  Disco, ballroom, ballet, tap, modern and Acro - this was the 70s in the Midlands, UK, and the dance was very Pop based.

But despite the fact that I love dancing and Streetdance is great fun. Despite the fact that I am feeling 20 years younger whilst doing this new class. Will I actually look stupid doing Streetdance? At what age does a Street dancer have to stop dancing else they look daft? Is there an age?  

Blog Awards: why I haven't nominated myself (yet)

It's parenting blog award season again. The nominations are open for the annual Britmums Brilliance in Blogging (bibs) awards and I am going through the same emotional journey I went on last year when the award season kicked off.

The journey goes something like this:

1) Oh brilliant; look, they have announced this year's mummy blog awards. I should check my blog over and nominate myself – it could be my year to win! I am really optimistic this time as I have been thinking carefully about the posts I write and trying to ensure they are useful and relevant. I can just picture the glitzy award ceremonies full of fashionable yummy mummys providing me will loads of the external validation for my work.

I had the strangest dream: is it worth using dream analysis?

Have you ever wondered about dream analysis? Are you a dream interpreter? Do you know what my dream means?

Dream analysis: is it useful?

I have to admit, My view of dream analysis is that it's a bit pointless. But there's a whole industry build around the analysis and interpretation of dreams. Books, DVDs, apps... Type "Dream analysis" into Google and you can be kept busy for years.

But is it actually any good? Can dreams give us clues or hints about how to better live our lives? Will analysing my dream make me a better wife, mother, blogger or accountant?

Nightmares: Why do they suddenly start in young children?

Recently my youngest daughter, Little Miss George (4), had great fun hosting her elder sister, Princess Peppa (6), for a run of sleep-overs in her bedroom. We had a mattress set up on the floor of Little Miss George's bedroom, cuddly toys and all, for Princess Peppa to sleep in. She slept in there for roughly a month.

Why? Because we had a leak in the ceiling off Princess Peppa's bedroom stemming from last years winter of double thick level snow covering our roof. Without getting into too much detail (you can always tweet me if you're interested), previous owners of our house had taken out the chimney breast in Princess Peppa's room and left the chimney above. It wasn't well supported, and VERY tall, so we had that taken off too and capped. Then the snow came down last year and sat on the capped roof for weeks, slowly getting in behind the render as it hadn't been capped by the workmen correctly (with overlapping edges) so the water ran down into the loft space and ultimately into her ceiling.

Panic! No school places for 2013 baby boomers!

Are we, in England, so incredibly inept, that we feel the need to panic when a statistician tells us that there won't be enough school places for children starting school in 2 years time?

2 years? That's a long time, right? That's long enough to go out and recruit a few extra reception teachers, or to canvas the supply teachers already on the books, isn't it?

The BBC news website indicates that "a quarter of a million extra school places will be needed in England by autumn next year, with one in five schools already full or near capacity". They talk about the rising birth rate which was higher than expected over the last few years. Really? In a recession there's a high birth rate? Oh you do surprise me. Sarcastic? Moi? Never!

Panoramic, beautiful views on your commute

How's this for a view on the way to work?

I travel across the countryside to work and the views are so amazing that I have to force myself to ignore them most days lest I accidentally miss a corner and end up rolling into a pile of cow muck in a farmers field. Unfortunately, the best views are at points on my car journey where the road is freakishly narrow and where there is no opportunity to park unless I risk pulling onto a farmers drive and blocking the trackers.

Strange really, as I am sure that there are panoramic parking spots every two minutes when you drive up hills in Europe. I certainly had plenty of brilliant photo opportunities when we holidayed in Majorca. But here, in the Midlands, on the edge of the Peak District, car parking spaces aren't deemed a necessity, gorgeous view or not. So the best, and only, parking spot I found gave me this picture on my route in today. Snow still peppering the ground, bright blue sky above. It was around 2 degrees Celsius. It was beautiful.

So do you take the time to look around and view the landscape? Share your photos here in the linky, or send them me via Twitter @ymummyreally or via the Facebook page, or even, goodness how many social options have we got, share them on Google+ ( discovered that yet?) on the Yummy Mummy? Really? page.


I'd love to see them.

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Self confidence: how to avoid losing yours

Ae you feeling a little low? Are you feeling like you are just not doing a good enough job, be it as a parent, in your career or in your relationship? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by it all, and wish that the train that is carrying you, chugging through life at pace, would just stop off for a lunch break and let you have some time to just take a breath, collect yourself, catch up?


I am struggling with those feelings at the moment. I don't feel like I am being the best mum, or the best yummiest wife, or doing the best job I could at work. But on reflection I realise that I am ignoring the positives: for example, my daughter gave me a beautiful piece of work she had completed in school today. She is now 6 years old, and in year 2 at infant school. Surely this is the positive feedback I need to pat myself on the back and give myself a gold star for "mummying"? Take a look below. What do you think?

Out of the mouths of babes: March 2013

It's been a while since we indulged in a spot of giggling at the amazing things our young children say on this blog. It's not that mine haven't been saying all manner of amusing, inappropriate, embarrassing things. It's just that I haven't been organised enough to jot them down.


I feel an extra need to indulge in a spot of giggling at the moment as we are going through some personal family life challenges at the moment that are making life that little bit more emotional, raw and painful. But we are a family bursting with love, and it's for that reason that I know we can get through the challenges together. When it's less raw, and less likely to set me off crying again, I may well share; but until then I undertake the usual human trait of short-term avoidance tactics and instead indulge in the distraction of my daughters' naivety.

Tights! Love them or hate them?

Who invented tights?

I could google the question and find out, but I really don't think that's a good idea, because whoever it is will be the subject of a fair amount of frustration emanating from me, and it's probably safer to direct that frustration generally out into the world so that it can quickly dissipate in all directions, rather than it having a specific target.

I have spent the last week constantly pulling up my tights. Yesterday, on the way out of the school gates after school drop off, I found myself intermittently taking extra large steps to try and keep the crotch of the tights from sliding further down my legs.

I have had to use damp hands, carefully slid up my tights, to pull them up properly after every attempt at actually pulling them up the usual way - you know, hands carefully pulling up from the bottom whilst trying not to snag them on a rough nail.  The damp hands trick is a good trick and works for a while, but if you are caught sliding your hands up your legs in the ladies bathroom it can look a little strange.  And then, inevitably, minutes later, I can feel the lycra slowly fighting back and pulling the tights back down again.

I've had to pull up my tights as soon as I've got in the car after the school run in order to stay comfortable (what views any passers by must of got had they looked into my car at the point when I was hitching them up around my thighs I dread to think).  Even, as I write this, I can feel them slowly, but surely, venturing south.

A last ditch attempt to keep them where they belong involves tucking my camisole and blouse into them and hoping that my skirt doesn't drop down at the waist enough to show off this strange clothing arrangement.

OK, OK, I know what you are thinking, I clearly haven't got the right size.  But when I do go up a size they end up so loose and baggy that they slide down my legs and create Nora Batty waves around my ankles (If you know who that is you are closer to 40 than you'd care to admit).

I hate tights.

The only trouble is, I love tights.  They make my legs look normal (I am ghostly pale skinned), and they keep me warm (I am a wimp). 

There's only one thing for it; the solution that I used to adopt as a skinny 12 year old girl; I shall wear a pair of pants over the top of the tights as well as underneath them. 

Sexy eh?

Blogging about beauty but over 30? Is it allowed?

I have been thinking a lot about the beauty element of this blog recently.  I have had occasion to nosy around on the web for other beauty blogs as part of my role as Britmumsbeauty round-up editor and I have noticed that Google search appears to have a liking for beauty blogs written by youngsters.  

When I say youngsters here I specifically mean anyone under 25 years old and that don’t have children.  The blogs that come up at the top of search engines including the words beauty and blog are all by women who appear to be industry experts, buying new beauty products on a daily basis, testing them all out, and dare I say it, enjoying the fact that they don’t actually need any make up (they are all under 25 years old with youth on their side after all), so if it goes wrong, or doesn’t suit their skin, it really doesn’t matter as they haven’t spent that much on it anyway, and their youth appears to provide them with a free pass to experiment with make-up styles happily without people pointing and staring in the street.

I, on the other hand, am fast approaching 40 years old and only started using make-up AT ALL 6 years ago when I returned to work after having my first daughter.

At fast-approaching-40, and an accountant, society seems to dictate that I am not allowed to make any make-up mistakes.  If I decide to try bright cerise lipstick, I probably shouldn’t do it the day I have an important meeting with my boss as I’ll get some really weird looks and, sorry but this is true, will have folk thinking a little less of my professionalism if I can’t even get basic make-up right.

So where does this leave those of us who desperately want to work out what suits us, at a time in our life where we are really starting to need the help, but missed the teenage-girls testing stage?

Are we even allowed to have an opinion on beauty products, having had so little testing time?  

Can we afford to switch products once we find something that works just to ‘try’ something else? Or will our fast-approaching-40 skin be too quick to punish us if we veer away from the few products we have discovered?

So what do you think? If we are ‘outside’ the beauty industry AND fast-approaching-40, can we talk about beauty products and express our opinions on them? And if we can, in the form of a blog, then where are all the fast-approaching-40 beauty bloggers hiding? 

Come on Google – find them for me! Or if you have one, or have a view on the subject, tell me in the comments below.

Juggling all the balls, multi-tasking and time management!

I was rummaging through some old draft posts this morning and came across this..

"Today has been a tricky day.  Not in any grand sense; it's not like we've been fighting dragons or juggling eggs, we'll save those fun activities for some other time; no, it's just been a little tricky.

I went back to work today, after being ill last week, and got myself all caught up.  But my job means that, at this time of year, it is busy and pressured, and a missed day sets me back just too far.  So instead of being off on leave tomorrow, like I'd planned, I decided that I'll need to go into work.  And since neither set of Grandparents happen to be available for babysitting duties tomorrow, then our younger girl, still 3 years old, will be going to Nursery for an extra day.

I had to arrange that, last minute, at 4pm today.  Luckily they have space for her.

Regular readers will already have guessed that I am feeling guilty that I won't be spending the day with her like I'd planned.  But, although I feel guilty, I remind myself that my part-time, annualised hours, flexible working contract means that I will be off work for pretty much the whole of July and August. A contract like that is only possible when you ensure you meet the deadlines you are supposed to when you are there.

At the moment work is busy, meaning I get less time with the children.  But I know I will make it up to them.  And every day, when I pick them up from school and nursery at 3.15pm, I try and ensure to spend time with them then.  To enjoy the evening with stories and lullabies and to balance the day.

It was a tricky day, because it felt like a tricky decision.  But it wasn't really.  It was a decision I'd actually made 2 years ago when I returned to work.

Working mums face this kind of decision every day.  How do you get the right balance?  How flexible are your employees?"

It was interesting to read back to this post, drafted over 6 months ago and never published, because this week I started back at work, in a new job, full time.  Yes.  Let me repeat that - FULL TIME!

The youngest isn't at school yet - that excitement will have to wait until September - but a brilliant opportunity came up and I went for it.

Interestingly I haven't felt particularly guilty this week.  The eldest is absolutely thrilled at being able to stay at After School Club with her mates for an hour after school.  On Thursdays I can now pick them up earlier, weirdly, as I'm not trying to shove work hours into fewer days, and the hubby has seen more of the girls and been able to attend his first parents evening.

All in all, going back full time seems to have forced us to create a better balance of childcare and be more organised on the logistics front (I already know at least 6 different routes to work, and have properly started meal planning, which is incredibly useful as it resulted in a slow-cookered meal being ready for us after work!)

And, I feel more like myself again.  The intellectual challenge will mean that I sleep well!

So how do you manage working and parenting?  Any tips?  Feel free to share them below.