Sorry, but my children bore me to death.

I’m not going to get on my high horse although I haven’t been a-galloping for a long time in fact I haven’t been on a CANTER recently but I do think that something needs to be said here.

I know this is one of the last taboos of modern society. To admit that you, a mother of the new millennium, don’t find your offspring thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable at all times is a state of affairs very few women are prepared to admit. We feel ashamed, and unfit to be mothers.

Nobody finds ANYBODY thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating at all times, do they? I do think mothers are honest enough to say that there are times when the children really GET ON OUR NERVES. My trips to the toilet are case in point.

“Ummy’s just going to the toilet now.”

“Let me help you, Ummy!”

“No really, it’s quite ok, Ummy can manage this on her own.”

“I will stay and help.”

“No, you play with your cars and I will be out in a minute.” I just need a MINUTE!

“I’ll bring my cars and we can play cars in the toilet! Then I will wipe your bum. YAY!”

*Sigh* We can keep this going all day and you know how good your bladder control is or we can give in now. “Ok! Let’s play cars while Ummy is in the toilet. We won’t say anything about the wiping thing. YAY!”

Welcome to my world, people. Welcome to my world.

Where was I? Well, look it doesn’t make us unfit mothers to acknowledge sometimes things our children do are not really that lovable. There seems to be an “all-or-nothing” mentality playing here. We don’t always love doing things for our children and doubtless there are times when we wish we were doing something for ourselves instead.

So how have we reached this point where so many intelligent women are subverting their own needs and desires to that of their children?

Much of our current obsession with parenting has to do with the cult of child sychology. ‘Parents in the Fifties were led to believe that if they weren’t with their children, the children would be disadvantaged,’ says psychologist Eva Lloyd. ‘It started this ridiculous “kids first” culture. We live in an age when parenting is all about martyrdom.’

The thing about parenthood is that it’s a SACRIFICE. It doesn’t mean we have to forget about ourselves and our own interests, it just means that for the most part (in my experience anyway) someone else’s interests and needs will come before mine. I don’t mind doing this. I’m not being a martyr. I hate the inference that somehow it’s now made mothers less intelligent for choosing to parent this way or at least we’ve made such a stupid decision. Also because it can’t be said enough parenthood doesn’t mean that I have to GIVE UP my hobbies or my career or anything else.

I know what she’s trying to say, really I do – it just seems there is no room for any sort of compromise in her world. Either you love even the most tedious thing to do with mothering or you hate absolutely everything about it and have to get someone else to do it for you.

Then she quotes someone whose name starts with DR to prove how right she is:

‘Parents think they can design their children by feeding them a diet of Mozart — well they can’t,’ says Dr Rosenfeld.

Sometimes, apparently, the best thing parents can do for their children is to let them be bored.

But heaven forbid the parents BE BORED by their own children.

Oh the irony.

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