The study into motherhood that revealed nothing we didn’t know before

Questions and Answers signpostIn what can hardly be described as news, a study by online retailer  Littlewoods reveals that mothers are asked around 288 questions by their children in a typical day at home.

That’s shocking right? I mean my son must  clearly be above average.  He asks questions before he even opens his eyes in the morning.  But this survey focused on 1,000 mothers with children aged between two and ten and my child is twelve.

The Daily Mail reports

“It is during meal times when most questions are asked, with young children rattling off 11. This is closely followed by a routine trip to the shops, prompting ten.

Some 82 per cent of infants apparently go to their mother first rather than their father if they have a query. A quarter of children, 24 per cent, said they do this because their father will just say ‘ask your mum’.

In all, a mother’s knowledge is in such demand the study by online retailer Littlewoods.com found they are asked around 105,120 questions a year by their children.

The research found the number of questions asked by children differs with age and gender, with four-year-old girls being the most inquisitive. At the other end of the spectrum, nine-year-old boys are more content with their knowledge, asking a mere 144 questions per day.

Although the number of questions children ask falls with age, they increase in difficulty – so much so that 82 per cent of mothers admit they can’t answer them.”

Okay I am well within the 82% with my child asking me, amongst others, some of these doozies just recently

  • How does digital radio work?
  • How high up is space?
  • How do the weather people predict the weather and why does daddy say they can’t do their job?
  • If drugs are illegal because they make you act crazy and you can get addicted to them why isn’t alcohol illegal?
  • What is 29 cubed?
  • Why can’t I put this (glass with batteries in the base) in the bath, it isn’t electricity so how do the batteries actually work?

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I almost  look back at the days of endless questions from a toddler with wistful romanticism.  I remember the persistent questioning, the relentless search for knowledge that felt like he just wanted a small piece of my sanity but I remember that I could answer nearly all the questions. (It helped that so many of the questions were the same just repeated a billion times).

But there’s one thing about motherhood that you can be certain of – as soon as you think some stage has passed forever  you get something like THIS every single night

“Can I stay up later?”

“Can I read a few more pages?”

“Why do I get thirstier in the night than I do in the day?”

“What are we doing tomorrow morning?”

“What time do I have to get up?”

“What if I don’t get up in time?”

“What is the weather going to be like tomorrow?”

“Can I wear sport uniform to school tomorrow even though it’s a uniform day?”

“Why is the sport jumper so much softer than the uniform jumper?”

“Did we buy this jumper or did Zach give it to us when he grew out of it?”

“Do you remember that TV show we watched when I was 3 and there was this guy in it that wore cool green pants?”

You have to love an inquisitive mind.

Do your kids ask a billion questions?

This is what I have to say to the stranger at the park

We were at the park. Just me, my dog and my very gorgeous 12-year-old son when a stranger came up to us. There was something in the way that he approached us that made me feel a little uneasy, perhaps it was just because he was so determined to get to us.  He didn’t look menacing as such, just resolute. He really needed to tell us something!

We had been happily playing with a ball minding our own business (although admittedly Little Pencil was way happier than me – he is much fonder of a ball game than I am) when this man approached.

“Is this your child?” he asked me

“Y..e…sss” I said with part of my heart diving over to protect my son

“He’s very thin!” he pointed out rather unnecessarily. If there’s anyone that knows what my son looks like from behind, in front, from above and below – it’s me.  And yes he’s very thin.

“You should feed him more” he continued.

“Fuck off” I said in my head.  Outwardly I said “thank-you” and I walked away grabbing Little Pencil with me.

As I walked away my mind was being battered by a thousand thoughts

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Am I doing something wrong? I am trying my hardest. Maybe I should be giving him more supplements?

Is he always going to get picked on by useless strangers because he’s skinny?

I wanted to yell at the interfering him and tell him that my son was perfect and healthy and happy and that he was born early and had gastro-intestinal issues and difficulty eating and putting on weight even at age 12. That we had been to nutritionists and doctors and dieticians and pediatricians and they were okay with him.

And I questioned why I wanted to explain my son’s medical history with some random rude man at the park and I realised I just wanted him to know how happy my son was. But I also wanted to rid myself of any guilt.

God knows how much guilt I feel about my son’s medical past.

But all I did in that instant was tell my son that he was perfect. And that I loved him. And that he looked awesome and strong and beautiful.  And that the man in the park was a fuckwit.

Little Pencil at the park - notice how perfect he is

Little Pencil at the park – notice how perfect he is

10 things I learned from my son’s homework

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My son has had a major assignment to complete for school. It was handed our in late February and is due on Tuesday. It feels a bit like we have never known life without “the project”.

It’s not that I did his homework for him (because quite frankly it’s too hard and I couldn’t) but I did supervise him throughout the very arduous process. And I guess that’s a good thing because there was a lot that I learned over this time

  1. I am too old for homework.
  2. Homework for year 6’s is very hard in 2013 – we’re talking questions that test skills like “provocative questioning” and “tolerance for ambiguity”.  When I was in year 6 they were testing my ability to answer questions in full sentences.
  3. I know nothing about Australian history and next to nothing about World War 1  (okay not next to nothing – properly nothing)
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  5. The school that my son attends does not know what they want in a bibliography. They do have a booklet in which they offer two completely conflicting ways to do the bibliography. They then refer you to their online student portal to check that you have done it correctly. Problem is that there is no bibliography on the online portal. It is clear that they don’t know what they want. Hopefully they like the way I did it in Year 6 back in the 80’s because that’s the way I taught Little Pencil to do it. Pity there were no such thing as a website when I was in Year 6. There was also no such things as online portals
  6. I have no patience
  7. If you ask your child to go the extra mile and put in a little more effort you will regret it when he insists on making a board game to show what he has learned in a “engaged, relevant and exciting way”
  8. Playing said board game will make you want to change his entire project and hand it in under the name “Bored Game”
  9. Boys are very different from girls when it comes to completing projects. You cannot entice a boy (well at least not my boy) with pretty paraphernalia and as hard as it is to resign yourself to the fact that it his project and must look the way he wants it to look, you have to. When he starts choosing fonts on his own all your ideas of a classy looking project will be thrown out the door
  10. If you buy your child plastic toy soldiers as pieces for his board game you will realise that no matter that he is 12 and has not so much as looked at a toy for about a year, he will play for hours setting up the “guys” and imitating both the wars that he has read about and the seriously scary wars that he has in his imagination.
  11. I am thrilled I am no longer at school. Thrilled.

But in honesty I am really proud of his project – especially the very boring amazing game he made – I can’t wait till he takes it to school so that I don’t have to play it again.