Tween-age kicks in too soon

Parenting:GRAINNE GRUNDY was only 23 when she gave birth to her first child in August 2000 but she still sees big differences between when she was growing up and the life of her eldest daughter.

“I just feel that there is a loss of innocence of childhood,” says Grainne (32), a midwife, who lives in Leixlip, Co Kildare with her husband David Kinsella (32), whom she met when they were both studying for the Leaving Cert. “While Caoimhe would be quite naive on lots of levels, she is acting quite grown up.”

Grainne remembers the great freedom she and her peers had when she was a child in nearby Celbridge. “But then again there was nothing on the TV. We didn’t have computer games, we entertained ourselves. Whereas [now] it is all about the DSs and the iPods and the music.

“Everything is very Americanised; the fashion, even for children, is off the wall. Trying to dress your children without making them look like tarts is the biggest challenge I find.”

Caoimhe is at the “tweeny” stage. “She is nine and she’s like a pre-teen. She wants to know everything, trying to push you all the time. It’s a confusing time for her I’m sure. One minute you’re ruining her life and the next minute you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

It is difficult for them as parents. “David can be quite frustrated at her. I can see it in his eyes: ‘That’s my little girl’ – and he would be quite a relaxed guy.” But he is very protective, she says, of Caoimhe and her two younger sisters, four-year-old Aoibh and two-year-old Iseult.

“Poor Caoimhe is testing the water for the other two,” says Grainne. “They’ll get on fine; these are Caoimhe’s battles and she is doing them on behalf of her sisters!”

One contest of wills is over her wanting a mobile phone. “I don’t think it’s right that a nine year old should have a mobile phone but girls in her class have one,” says Grainne, who describes herself and David as “very strict”.

They’ve told Caoimhe she can have a phone when she starts walking home from school next year. “But we have done the research and it will definitely be one of those Firefly ones.”

Outside school, Caoimhe is big into drama and attends Theatre Works. She is an excellent swimmer, plays Gaelic football and does yoga. “She is a very dramatic, neurotic first child – that is purely a reflection of how we were as parents,” says Grainne. “As a midwife I only see that now – that most first children are neurotics.”

She had only just finished her general nursing training when she became pregnant with Caoimhe. So the Millennium year was hectic for them, trying to buy a house before the baby arrived. To add to the stress, David, who was working with AIB, had decided to study to be a chartered accountant.

Caoimhe was born on August 18th at Holles Street in Dublin, two weeks overdue, which meant five of Grainne’s 14 weeks’ maternity leave had already gone and she had to return to part-time work at St James’s Hospital when Caoimhe was only nine weeks old. “I was still breastfeeding and I was doing night duty.”

She and David married in 2003; Caoimhe was a flower girl and now gets great delight in telling her four-year-old sister, “I was at Mum’s wedding.”

Grainne was torn between having more children and doing her midwifery training – in the end she did both. “It was hard at times but I struggled through and I got there.”

She now offers antenatal classes through her own company, Mamma Me, continues to do agency work in The Coombe where she trained and from next February will be providing antenatal education on HelpMe2Parent courses.

As a family they are “hugely better off” within one decade, mainly due to her husband’s hard work, she says, to get to his present position as an auditor with Deloitte. She remembers how difficult it was when he was studying.

She was out in Kildare town with a baby and no family or friends around. “David was gone two nights a week, not home until 11 or 12, and then he was gone all day on Saturday. We only had one car and I felt completely isolated.

“Now we live in a bigger house in a better area. I remember him saying to me ‘this is for you, I am doing it for us, to make our life better’ and it did. Life is much better and easier; I don’t have to work but I choose to. I need sanity. Also I love being a midwife.”

Last word from Caoimhe: She is toying with the idea of being a primary school teacher and the best day of her life so far was "going to the Helix to do drama and dance on stage".