By Christina Dean

  Once upon a time it was a day of rest. But now Sunday is about stress-management in practise. Before our kids we lay in (past 6.45am), we ate our breakfast slowly (even in bed), devoured the newspapers (and each other) getting past the headlines and even reaching the fashion section. Foreplay formed part of our average sexual repertoire, not something to do only on a rare weekend away as part of a relationship-booster-jab. And whilst Saturdays were once my favourite day of the week (“ahh… it’s Saturday, the whole weekend in front of me”), it is now Monday (“ahh… my amah’s back”).

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Recently I scoffed at a friend who’s recruited an extra pair of ‘Sunday-hands’ for their two energetic Princesses. But I’m beginning to see their logic. Despite regular grunts from my husband that he is doing “just as much” as me (where exactly did he find one hour to exercise, a sneaky nap and how come he’s getting through that fat Winston Churchill history book and I haven’t even brushed my teeth?), Sunday’s are now my only taste of reality since moving to Hong Kong. The ‘all-inclusive, work-yourself-down-to-the-ground, mothering-boot camp’ is…thankfully…for one day only. Don’t confuse it with bikini boot camp – these offer more of the same hard grafting to rid the signs of motherhood, not the symptoms.

It’s no surprise that my gym is always packed on Monday mornings (all eyes are on the fully-occupied cross-trainers waiting for one of the sweaty moms to give up and get off) as mothers work off both the stresses and the strains (my fat gut for example) of motherhood.

Being a modern-day mom with all the help is a double-edged sword. Whilst the help gives me the luxury of time (in theory, but where is it?) it has also softened my nerves (most other moms around the world cope fine – including my sister who has a litter of kids and no help yet she still manages to have more sex than me). It’s also put my helper, Betty, into silent control of the helm. Maybe the hand that rocks the cradle ruins the roost….


Parenting Pitfalls

Consider Repulse Bay to be the Wall Street of parenting. Here it’s a serious business. There are pre-school waiting lists to get on (I thought pre-school was an extended babysitting service, not the ‘make it or break it’ institution it is in Hong Kong), two play-dates to make every afternoon (where moms chat with coffee before 5pm, wine afterwards about who’s fallen pregnant or stopped breastfeeding, who’s sex-life was amputated when the umbilical chord was cut, where the best cashmere/lingerie/shoe/fill in the blank shops are) to endless (literally, I think) after-school, extra-curricular activities to ferry the kids to and from (music, music with drums, creative music, musical theatres, music and singing, music with brass bloody bells on).

So it was with some unexpected anxiety (help, I’ve joined the rat race without noticing it) that I called around our local pre-schools to get my precious son, Jaspar, a place on the educational conveyor belt which will deposit him into the landscaped gardens of Eton and then Cambridge – just like his proud daddy (who managers to run his own international company effortlessly but who still can’t make me a cup of tea just the way I like it and who has never, ever picked up his own socks since being packaged off to boarding school at the age of seven).

Not to be gazumped at the school gates, I (and every other self-respecting parent) have put Jaspar onto every conceivable waiting list (which has space for more ‘waiters’) hoping that the law of averages is true and that Jaspar will be lucky enough to start an education in Hong Kong - despite us not having a multi-million dollar debenture.

Believe the school hype? It’s a sign of the times when we become so focussed on pre-school application forms that we forget that Jaspar’s only just out of nappies. And that we no longer discuss Milan or Hollywood’s ideal skirt length is a sign that most no longer seem to care.

But Jaspar’s hopes aren’t dashed (there’s always home tutoring) and Cambridge still beckons albeit it from a distance of 20 years away. At least if he doesn’t make the grade for Cambridge, we can do the (apparently usual) Hong Kong trick of paying through the nose for our kid’s education and we will send him to one of the US Ivy League Universities.

The Real cost of Reproduction

For ladies who’ve pushed anything larger than a small melon through their nether-regions, you will probability sympathise with me on the issue of pregnancy scars. Be they everywhere (like a pregnancy-induced layer of fat insulation) or confined to your gut (I have seven of them) or just your breasts (mine look like an old man’s scrotum) or all of the above injuries (sorry for you), it’s usually the woman’s body and the man’s wallet that takes the brunt of evolution’s foreword progression.

For me, lounging around on the beach highlights pregnancy’s aftermath and serves to double my body complexe(s), both because of the bright light (otherwise banned from our boudoir) and because of the skimpy attire I’m forced to wear. But even though my ‘skimpy attire’ is a low cut all-in-one affair, the type Bridget Jones would have worn, it still shows up all the lumpy flesh that’s stuck unevenly to my (previously gorgeous in comparison) legs, making me look overall like a more-than-one piece.

So it came as no surprise that my plastic surgeon told me that he’s much busier during springtime - cutting, slicing and sucking - making us feel ‘normal’ again. I was discussing with him my wounds sustained in the line of breastfeeding duty - two hungry (and healthy, so clearly worthwhile) babies later and all that is left of my previously pert breasts is a saggier and smaller shadow of their previous self.

So whilst in the past I would never have considered cosmetic surgery, today I feel like I deserve it (‘because you’re worth it’ plays in the back of my mind). After all, my body was mauled for the continuation of humankind. And although Darwin’s not around to comment, surely the cost of modern-day reproduction is the plastic surgeon’s bill?

Tarts and Travel

Many decent women dislike few less-than decent women. And many women dislike it when their husbands travel abroad. And I hate both.

Take Susan (not her real name, of course). At a recent lavish cocktail party, Susan hit a switch than changes me into a loathsome, vicious and rather spiteful version of my otherwise charming-self. Hers is the coquettish style, the flirtatious eyelid flicker at your husband whilst you are being introduced to her as his ‘wife’. She then only talks to him, oblivious that you are standing next to him, she laughs at his jokes (even when he hasn’t made one – trust me, I know them all off-by-heart) and generally act like she’s being paid to be there.

It’s not that I am insecure, or that I question my husband’s feelings towards me (believe me, he tries to prove them to me every night) it’s just astonishing that another woman has the nerve (and undeserving inner self-conviction) to think she can tease my husband away from me – right under my nose.

And although I try to stay calm about my husband’s business trips away, part of me fears the separation – which could give way to freedom. On my own recent business trip to a significant city on the mainland, I was horrified to see condoms, lubricant and a Chinese herbal version of Viagra (bet it doesn’t work) laid out next to the hotel information brochure by the telephone, in what was otherwise a perfectly respectable-looking hotel. So is it because of the toil of travel and unscrupulous women that the likes of me have to stand guard?

Anyway, the night out with Susan became more amusing the more she drank. Her flirtatious smiles turned to sickened grimaces and her flickering eyelashes gained momentum into full eyeball rolls. It was with great merriment that as she stumbled out of the party, we all noticed the remnants of drink-induced splodge of vomit on her jacket sleeve. Not sexy Susan.