The Pool Parenting Honestly with Lacoste – soul baring, oversharing or designer-tee-shirt wearing?

It has become customary in recent years for big name parents to tell the rest of us how to do it. Fom Jools Oliver to Holly Willoughby to whatserface off The Only Way is Essex –  it feels as if being somewhat well-known, even as someone’s other half, is enough to nab yourself a book deal; to start telling us plebs about your parenting ‘journey’ – which tends to advocate a particular type of sepia-filtered ‘honesty’ – about struggles to conceive, nightmare births, difficulty bonding and the sort of stuff the rest of us deal with with nerry a gripe, or an Instagram post neither.

The confessional – a trope concieved by the likes of Sylvia Plath and transformigated into a questionable, gobby art form by Tracey Emin feels, these days, like a particularly female malady – a desire to bare all, but only in so much as we control exactly how, when and who with.

I’m as guilty of this soul baring as anyone – indeed, I studied both ‘writing the self’ and  Plath at uni, drawn to this most literary striptease like a millennial moth to the zeitgeistal flame. And yet, it can feel good to share – offload one’s experiences and learn from others’ – that is until it becomes a little competitive – who had the least amount of sleep, the most traumatic labour, the most difficult offspring. I don’t doubt I’ve revelled in all these comparisons – while at the same time judging myself and others for making them.

And so, it was with a degree of cynicism (and not a little faff – it was one the wrong side of town) that I went along to the Pool’s Parenting Honestly soiree, which took place at the Lacoste flagship store in Knightsbridge, only semi-drawn by the promise of fizz (it turned out to be Nicolas Feuillette) for the impact it might have on my school-night sleep.

As it turns out, I am a little tired this morning. The evening turned out, by and large, to be a pleasant surprise. There was no hard sell of the clothing – though a 20% discount was on offer all evening, as well as a £500 shopping spree scooped by the lady who filled out more cards than everyone else. I didn’t really mind – lovely though Lacoste tee-shirts are, I’m probably not preppy or label-obsessed enough to wear the brand  (and frankly, where my kids and polo shirts are concerned Primarni will do).

Canapés were served by Lacoste-wearing (and rather attractive) hosts while the assembled mums (it was mostly women, along with a few PRs) mingled awkwardly – the bubbles were yet in full flow –  and for all of us, it was still only Tuesday.

The format was a panel discussion, with journalist and token dad David Barnett, fashion blogger Kat Farmer, and ‘Grandmother Pukka’, mater of fellow parenting blogger Motherpukka, who’s sadly confined to bed for the duration of her second pregnancy, meaning her mum had to step in – so best wishes to her for a safe delivery. The event was chaired by the warm and bubbly Robyn Wilder, one of The Pool’s parenting honestly columnists who clearly still makes the mistake of reading the comments – I’d chatted with her previously on Facebook,  which rather took her aback when I mentioned it.

I quite like The Pool – it drops into my inbox daily; was started by DJ, journo and all round cool chick Lauren Lavern, and is a refreshing change from the usual patriarchy-reinforcing flim flam we get fed by the usual coterie of women’s magazines. I occasionally take issue with it’s particular brand of over-privileged feminism, available only to the already liberated, as well as its unwittingly ironic exhortations to shop (and though we all need stuff, it often only promotes rather upscale, out of reach to all but the elite brands) and the fact that it has failed to respond to any of my submissions-  although my friend (bridesmaid at my wedding in fact) and fellow City journo grad Amy Abrahams is a regular contributor. But gripes aside, it usually a pretty good read, even if the parenting column quite often covers the sort of content that Mumsnet Bloggers Network purloins from the likes of me for free.

In any case, I had slightly the same issues with the panel discussion –  which was themed around whether there’s such a thing as a perfect parent – which of course launched with the quip, “well show me the perfect child,” to knowing looks all round.

The panellists discussed a variety of issues such as the impact of social media on both parental and child wellbeing; how judged they felt as parents, flexible working and mental health. Amid these well-worn refrains were a few notes that struck a particular chord – that, unlike mums, dads don’t get competitive (unless it’s on the sports field)- calling to mind the issue I have with the feminarchy (women being more inclined to judge, both themselves and others).  And, with the wisdom (and not a little rosy tintedness) that comes with growing older, from Grandmother Pukka, who’s clearly enjoying her time in the spotlight off the back of her daughter’s burgeoning brand –  that parents today feel too much pressure to over-parent, and we need to leave kids just get on with it more – but then I’ve been banging that drum for a while.

Some of the discussion felt a little hackneyed – yes we know that flexible working is helpful but not all bosses are understanding. Some of us have rather more family support (Mother Pukka seems to be doing rather well with her hands-on mum, for example) than others, and modern life doesn’t always help. That we all need to chill out about the small stuff, and try and be more understanding of others, blah blah. Farmer, who writes the blog, ‘Does my bum look forty in this? ’ complained of feeling judged when her autistic son was misbehaving by an old man who put his hands over his ears at the noise – to which I quipped, a little too loud, ‘perhaps he’s autistic too?’. So perhaps the moral of the story is we all need to be more accepting if we want to stop feeling judged. Especially me.

But all this moralising ends a little at odds with  the purpose of the evening, which after all, was to align The Pool with an expensive clothing brand. The final question of the night was asked by an insightful PR. It was, ‘how do you think should brands be portrayed to children?’ which perhaps rather undermined the whole ‘parenting honestly’ theme, given that marketing and the status anxiety it creates is, according to my recent re-read, Affluenza, is one of the main causes of both child and maternal unhappiness and anxiety.

The conclusion then, that these days, people want to see the truth, ergo ‘real people’ off the internet ‘living the brand’ (I notice no brands are asking me?) surely only makes matters worse, when all of us get sucked into the hideous vortex of living our lives vicariously online, with filters on.

Rant over. I had a lovely evening, leaving just a little tipsy following interesting chats with Kat Farmer, who grabbed me to say that’s she’s never seen the situation with her son that way before; and the likes of the industrious duo from  @Theparentpause, who are setting up lifestyle events for mums in Warwickshire and  @aimiecaitlin, who works for Mumsnet and volunteers for Britmums.

It’s always nice to have the opportunity to chat to other mums – and women in the blogging and publishing industries – there’s so many intelligent, funny and hard working women out there, many of whom experience similar challenges in forging careers while having children, and who become much more sisterly in outlook for it.

But ultimately, it’s the networking that makes these events worth going to – these days, we’re all representing our own personal brand, which rather takes some of the honesty out of all our interactions. But then, while we might all want to know that no one else is perfect either, no one really wants the brutal unfiltered reality either – which is perhaps why I haven’t been approached by a brand to flog their clothes on the sly, after all. But afterwards, chatting on Twitter, Aimee from mumsnet/ britmums (I couldn’t decide if she was some kind of mum blog double agent) asked me if I might like to talk to Britmums about parenting under 30 (which, ahem, will be very much with the benefit of hindsight), so I guess we’re all of us just looking for an opportunity to share our experiences with others (and expand our brand on the side) after all.