Here’s another woman whose advice I wont be paying much attention to. Her name is Samantha Ettus and I only know she exists because I read an article about her yesterday which probably gave her all the exposure she wanted. She clearly writes to alienate, in fact she quite smugly suggested she’s already getting hate mail and the book she’s written isn’t even out. Goals.
Motherhood guilt is a sickness
August 24, 2016 by 2 Comments
It’s a long time since I’ve been consumed with guilt by my own parenting. In fact many a month has passed since I have been tied up in knots of self-reproach and it’s been quite liberating. Admittedly it’s much easier to escape guilt when your child is a teenager and you aren’t invested in the squabbles and competitiveness of playgroups and online parenting forums, but still.
The thing is I was blissfully unaware of how guilt-free I was until this latest bout hit.
So many accidents involving kids. Who is to blame?
June 2, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Of all the things my son has ruined, my ability to sleep for a whole night is the one I miss the most. And I don’t even think that was an accident on his behalf – it’s just one of those things that babies do. Then they grow up and have real accidents.
Kids climb into zoo enclosures when they shouldn’t, they steal Chupa Chups from the supermarket checkout when we aren’t looking, they put toast in the DVD player (in the good old days when we had such things), they break toys (sometimes willfully), they cut their siblings hair and make them look like they need special attention and they eat the dog food. They are kids, they do stuff like that. And more. If you have a kid you know that they’ve done some spectacular shit that you try to laugh about after some simmering down time has passed. [Read more…]
Why teenagers are better than toddlers: the baking edition
May 27, 2016 by 1 Comment
I always thought I would be the mother in the Disney movie remake of real life. Not the evil witch mother but the caring, nurturing, play on the floor and bake cookies kind of mother. I loved children long before I had my own and after enduring a childhood fairy tales most definitely aren’t based on, I had it firmly in my mind that I would make my child’s life magical and wonderful. Wistful and dreamy even.
But, as every mother of young children knows, that’s not always how life goes. My attempts at doing craft quickly became sessions that will no doubt be relived in his therapy sessions when he’s older. I would not be surprised if the sight of craft paper or a glue stick instils fear in him even now. Let’s just say patience is not one of my virtues, in fact I embarrassingly remember screaming at him once for ruining my vision of his year K project. (Why on earth do they give Year K students projects?).
Come home or I’ll sue you
April 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The fundamental problem with getting children to appreciate their parents is that by the time kids fully understand everything their mother and father have done for them they are parents themselves. And by that time they are often too busy/exhausted/forgetful to do anything about it.
When we are children we take the loving care of our parents for granted, when we are teens we’re so self involved we just can’t see past ourselves (it’s a developmental thing not just a horrible teenage trait) and when we move out of home the feeling of freedom is so enormous, looking back in a meaningful way to assess all you’ve been given often isn’t even possible.
The one parenting “duty” you’ll never regret
November 18, 2015 by 3 Comments
Snuggle together as long as possible
These six words recently won the “Sweetest” section in the the New York Times, Motherlode competition calling for The Best Parenting Advice in 6 Words.
It’s awesome parenting advice but I don’t think it’s given enough. Though you will read countless parenting books and listen to exhaustive expert talks, you will ask questions from the nurse when you hand over your blue book and you will discuss the topic of child rearing with every unknown on the internet, it’s easy to miss the the bits that telll you to just snuggle.
And as your children get older, though you will read fewer and fewer parenting books as you realise that you are really good at what you are doing, you will notice that in those books and those internet pieces you do come across, they often neglect to mention snuggling at all.
They forget to remind you to snuggle, and more importantly they forget the importance of snugggling for as long as possible. They miss the very most important bit, so I’m going to give you some advice of my own
- Snuggle your children when they fall asleep – whatever anyone tells you to the contrary they will still learn to sleep by themselves. There is nothing like having someone who loves you there with you when you drift into sleep.
- Snuggle them when they make mistakes so that they learn that it’s human to err. And nothing lasts forever.
- Snuggle them when they come home from school, especially if they’ve had a bad or good day.
- Snuggle them when you watch TV together.
- Snuggle your kids when they fall and hurt themselves, show them that love and care will get them through even the painful bits.
- Snuggle them while you are waiting in a queue, it beats boredom.
- Snuggle when they are sad and they need a body to crawl into. Show them that sometimes human love and tenderness can heal non-physical wounds.
- Snuggle them after they win or lose at sport.
- Snuggle them for no good reason at all.
- Keep on snuggling them when they grow up.
- Snuggle them when they come home from a party and need to eat all the bread in the house.
- Snuggle them when they have a bad day.
- Try (carefully) snuggle them when they are hormonal and angry for no reason at all. Show them that you are trying to understand.
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It’s often only when the snuggle is less forthcoming that you realise how important it’s been. When you seem to need it more than they do.
One day you will look back and you will see they learned to sleep and eat, and all their teeth came through and they learned to read and write and all those worries and that time we invested in worrying about swaddling and dummies and after school sport and the right lunch box choices means very little compared to the fact that they learned to love and to show love in return.
You’ll never regret a snuggle. But you’ll regret the times you didn’t have one.
The one thing about parenting you’ll never miss
July 15, 2015 by 1 Comment
When you have a new baby and you haven’t slept more than three hours in a night for days on end, you are forgiven for thinking it will never end. It seems impossible to believe that months (okay maybe years) later you will find yourself creeping into your child’s room at night to watch them sleeping peacefully. But you will.
When your toddler wont go to sleep without being patted, rocked or without you lying next to his side so you can’t breathe or perform any other “insignificant” acts, it’s hard to believe that a time will come when you desperately want to feel the warmth of your child’s body next to yours.
When you are in the midst of nappies and multiple outfit changes you’ll get to the day you swear you never want to be in charge of another outfit change again. Then, one day when your child appears in shorts that show her bum cheeks and a top that is actually just a bra with sleeves, you will wish it was you who got to choose their clothes in the morning.
When you are forced to play another game of hide-and-seek or even worse, made to sit through a game of monopoly you’ll probably want to claw out your own eyeballs, but one day when your teenager is refusing to talk to you because he’s too busy with his own friends and not interested in “lame” games, you will wish that just once more, he would ask you to play a game with him.
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It’s the truism we all grudgingly acknowledge, the days are long but the years are short. The passage of time will taint the memories and apply a rose coloured tint. One day everything will seem so much more bearable and you will miss the day to day of kids. Trust me. It will happen
Except for homework. There is no tint that can be applied to the hideous reality of overseeing or even signing off homework. There will never be a time when you sit down and idly wish you could go through the last minute panic of an assignment not ready by the day of completion, or be asked to source green cardboard of a certain thickness no later than ten minutes ago. There is no time in your future life that you will ever think “I wish I could nag my child to do homework just one more time.”
Homework is the scourge of childhood and I am never ever going to miss it.
When does motherhood end?
November 16, 2014 by 27 Comments
Yesterday a friend sent me a copy of Jane Caro’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald, an edited extract from Between Us: Women of Letters, edited by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. I can only assume that this extract was chosen because it’s a little controversial and it would get people talking. Well at least I hope so, in fact I hope it’s controversial at all and not just to me (although I doubt it because my friend emailed me with just one sentencing saying “I’m glad she’s not my mum”)
Caro says in an article aptly entitled, Jane Caro on why she is irritated by the young
No doubt my jaundiced view reflects my recent escape from the gilded prison that is mothering. I love my daughters. I find them endlessly fascinating. (I suspect, however, that to those who did not bear them, they hold less interest. I still often have to feign attention when others talk about their children. I do so, of course, so I can then talk about mine while they pretend to be interested.) But I have been a mother for 26 years. Mothering is something I am proud to have done, but I am over it. My daughters are decent, independent, contributing members of society but, whatever happens, I claim neither credit nor accept any blame. It’s their life now. If they need me, I will help them, but I quietly hope they won’t need me very often.
Before I go on let me make it clear, I am not judging Jane Caro’s brand of motherhood I am just commenting on how diametrically opposed my own idea of motherhood is to hers. In fact in lots of ways I have heard Jane speak on parenting you could say that we don’t agree on much but that doesn’t make her a better or worse mother than me (although I am quite sure she would not want herself being defined by her parenting skills in any way shape or form).
To me motherhood doesn’t end. Of course it changes as the needs of your child change but it doesn’t just go away. You don’t stop being a mother because your children hit a certain age.
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I am perplexed by the idea of motherhood being something you have to get through or some part of your journey that has a limited shelf life and you can just neatly pack away when your children turn 18. For most of us motherhood is a choice and one which we should make with our eyes open – yes, being a mother does mean a lot is going to change in your life – work is going to be harder, your social life is going to look different and even your body is going to change. It’s part of becoming a parent – you sort of mould with the arrival of your child and you continue to evolve and change shape as your children grow up and their needs change – because they are dependent on you for a while. It’s a given – you should possibly know that before you have children.
To say that our children are just one part of our lives is true and correct but they are a major part. A huge part, an intensely important part that we can’t just choose to ignore or not pay attention to because they are kids. And when they grow up they are still our children, albeit older. I would no more dismiss my own sisters or parents as having outgrown their “usefulness” than lose interest in being part of my child’s life because he is an adult. We are family. We stick together.
I consider being a mother to be a blessing rather than a chore but some days it is hideously hard. Some days it’s suffocating and it’s claustrophobic and minutes seem like hours and hours seem like years. But I chose it, I am the one who fought to conceive and carry a pregnancy through, I am the one who gets the joy and the love, the happiness and the pride and sometimes I get the drudgery and the tedium. But I wouldn’t have it any other way and I can’t see this love I feel expiring at a certain date in the future.
What do you think? Do you still need your mum? Can you imagine not being around for your own children?