YOU can transfix couples in their mid-thirties just by saying “Gina”. People suddenly withhold eye contact until they are sure that you are on the same side.
This week it emerged that Gina Ford, the maternity nurse who rose to fame by selling parents strict routines for babies, is trying to discipline a mothers’ website, Mumsnet, because of unpleasant comments made about her in its chat rooms. One of the few made public before the lawyers had them erased was that Ms Ford “straps babies to rockets and fires them into south Lebanon”. Not nice. But such an outré remark that you would surely have to be in Lebanon to acquire the sense-of-humour failure required to take it seriously.
How to care for your baby, whether to feed on demand or set a routine, whether to rock it to sleep in your bed or swaddle it in a cot, have become polarising issues in polite society.
Yet so many of us new mothers go out of our way to seek advice from people we’ve never met, be they self- appointed gurus or shyer types using pseudonyms in internet chat rooms. We crave information. When I was first pregnant I sidled into the baby section of a bookshop, dreading being seen. I didn’t want anyone to think I needed help. But I was desperate to get briefed on the subject — as I did with most other challenges in my life. I knew absolutely nothing about babies. I felt very alone. Hence the rise of the childcare gurus – and of Mumsnet.
When I first read Gina’s book it seemed utterly alien, like a battle plan. “7am: baby should be awake, do not feed after 7.45 . . . 8am: you should have cereal, toast and a drink . . . 8.50am: check his nappy and draw sheet.”
Draw sheet? What the hell was a draw sheet? I still have no idea whether “draw” is a noun or a verb. But make no mistake: when our first child arrived and anarchy descended, Gina’s battle plan was a relief. We took it in moderation, we didn’t time our toast, but we were hugely grateful that someone was willing to make clear assertions about how much sleep and feeding babies need as they grow.
Every other book was so vague and cosy. “All children are different.” Yeah, they are. “Birth is a transforming experience for many women.” Uh, not for me. “Babies don’t come with an owner’s manual.” So, what do I DO? Gina Ford has been successful because her Contented Little Baby Book is clear, unambiguous, and explicitly on the mother’s side. Almost alone in the field, she is not judgmental about breast v bottle: she simply tells you what to do on both routes. Her pedantic timetable is designed to help mothers to get enough sleep and to avoid postnatal depression.
She is controversial partly because so many mothers have taken her so incredibly literally. One Ford fundamentalist rang Gina to ask what routine she should use when taking her babies on a flight to Australia. We have invited others to lunch who have left halfway through, so as not to disrupt The Routine. Still others never travel without blackout blinds. But we know many more who stayed sane because of her.
Mumsnet is in exactly the same business, of trying to help mothers. The difference is that it is a big tent catering for all views. Its success – it claims more than 60,000 members – stems from precisely the same wish for advice and support.
The site is one big hug, with all the upsides and downsides of a coffee morning. You can share experiences with lovely, humorous mothers who are generous with their advice and even lend each other things. You can see how other mothers ranked brands of pushchairs and nappies. You can also get a little irritated by conflicting opinions, and wonder how much value to ascribe to people writing under names such as “pelvicfloornomore”. But it lifts the sense of isolation. I have certainly found myself going back for more. Just as you go back to the coffee morning even though not all those there are your cup of tea.
I wonder how much of Ms Ford’s sense-of-humour failure has to do with the potential threat that free community advice sites such as Mumsnet offer to commercial publishing. If 60,000 mothers can tap each other’s thoughts free of charge, there is a real risk that they will not shell out for the gurus.
While the publicity storm can’t have done Ms Ford any harm, it must have wildly boosted awareness of Mumsnet. Her lawyers seem to have been astonishingly heavy-handed, demanding the deletion not just of critical postings but of whole threads of discussion containing hundreds of voices. She comes across as a control freak, and the internet isn’t for control freaks.
Despite the furore, The Contented Little Baby Book still ranks in the top three titles recommended on Mumsnet. Gina has as many supporters there as detractors. The real surprise is that these issues can pit mother so violently against mother, even on a mutual support site.
We are basically watching a battle between the 1930s and the 1960s. The 1930s brigade seem to believe that no child can do without routine, and that laissez faire is unforgivably sloppy. The 1960s brigade think that anyone who wants a good night’s sleep is denying their maternal instincts, and that letting a baby cry is utterly wicked. Why have we all become so proscriptive? What happened to live and let live? If I was about to have my first child today, I would definitely sign up to Mumsnet. I’d also sign up for Gina — and take neither too literally. But when I next bump into a Ford fundamentalist or a 1960s brigade, I think I’ll keep mum.
