My Children Bore Me
Does that make me a terrible mother?
Looking after my children for most of the week was a practical choice, but it was one I felt I was forced to make. The cost of sending them both to a private nursery for the week, even partially funded through the Government’s 30 free hours scheme, far exceeded my salary. I knew it was coming as early as deciding to have a second child, and I was excited, actually. I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend all the time with my children whilst they are young. It’s a privilege not many parents have. It would be like an extended maternity leave, I had thought, something I sadly missed out on with my first child, who is a pandemic baby.
I love hanging out with my children, I really do. They are fun, cheeky and it is a real honour to be able to see them grow up in real time. Amongst the lego and the toy cars, every development is under scrutiny because I spend so much time with them and not in a bad way. An example of this is with my older son who is very chatty. He’s at that age where he has all the questions and I have none of the answers. I have noticed that each week he has a new phrase that he sets about learning and he uses it in many ways, tweaking the context slightly, until he cracks it. It seems once he has it figured out, he banks it and moves on to the next phrase. I tell my partner it’s his phrase of the week,1 and we find it quite amusing. It’s lovely that I notice these tiny nuances in usage for the same phrase, repeated many times, where he makes mistakes and tries again, it’s very interesting.
Unfortunately this is one of the few things I actually find interesting as mostly my children are incredibly boring. It’s not their fault, they are children. They play, eat, fill potties and nappies and ask to watch vehicles on YouTube - they are just being children. It is me that’s the problem, I don’t find them stimulating. I worry that having made the decision to look after them for the majority of the week, that I should. The least I could do is be present, right?
It is being present that I find really challenging. Part of the reason I started writing this newsletter in the first place is that I wanted to be somewhere else. Children like routine, and things to be the same, so we easily fall into patterns each week where we do the same things in the same room at the same time, day in day out. Some weeks, especially if the weather is bad, are painfully monotonous. If it weren’t for nursery or the bin man, I would honestly have no idea what day it is most of the time.
I know I am not the only mum out there clock-watching, but I feel it sometimes. I would blame Instagram for that, all the mums and the holidays and the endless activities but it’s a solid belief that no one else could be this bored and have stayed at home with their kids voluntarily. I think that they deserve better than someone looking after them who doesn’t really want to play right now, or would rather read something on their phone than sing The Wheels on the Bus again, thank you.
It’s not as if I don’t do those things. We have some great days, but the days are so long, I can’t perform for the entirety. When I signed up to have children I didn’t have in mind that I would be a children’s entertainer for hours on end, barely stopping for toilet breaks and sneaky trips to the fridge for a quick hit of sugar. I imagined more like my own mother, sitting in the lounge knitting, sipping tea whilst watching EastEnders reruns, the children running feral around the house.
I think my expectation of parenting and the reality are very different, marking a huge shift in how we parent in just one generation. My parents were very hands-off. There were four of us; we entertained each other, or at least this is how I remember it, I don’t remember as far back as the age my children are now.
We are helicopter parents, apparently. We hover whilst they play, hey we are even encouraged to be active participants in games, or even lead them. All this whilst continually watching for fighting, biting or other dangers. It’s a fair amount of stress to deal with, constantly being on guard and in stage mode, it’s no wonder I find myself sinking in to the sofa with my phone for just a few minutes to look at something else - to think something else. It’s like I am looking for normality in there. Clawing back with each scroll some part of my identity that has been lost to motherhood.
In contrast to the slow days of parenting, on the days where I work I feel like they pass too quickly. I am always chasing the clock, trying to outrun it with my growing list of things to do. When I work I slip into a flow state, where my mind almost switches off as I complete various tasks on Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop - the repetitive motions of pressing the keys File > Save, Ctrl+Z second nature, and comforting almost. When I write it is similar, I am transported into another world. Whatever I am working on I can be glued to the computer for hours and not notice the time slipping by. It is the days where they fly that feel like the better days, the more enjoyable ones and I always wondered why this is.
In
’s recent piece about how giving up alcohol supercharged her creativity, she talks about it being uncomfortable to confront life.It’s hard to look life square in the eye, on good or bad days. It’s uncomfortable being present, being awake, being aware. It’s so uncomfortable being a human, blinking your eyes, looking at the world, realising you are so mortal and so vulnerable. The whole thing can feel weird. A lovely glass of wine can help, it really can — until it doesn’t anymore.
Emma Gannon, The Hyphen
I may not be reaching for a glass of wine, but I am reaching for my phone, my portal to another world where my children aren’t a pressing issue, and I am not still sat in the same living room. It’s not doing me any favours though, and like giving up alcohol I am certain not scrolling would bring immediate health benefits.
We are at a challenging time in parenting with our children because the youngest is going through a biting and hitting phase and the eldest is going through a testing boundaries phase, which invariably means they end up hitting each other and injuring each other. It is a hard one to navigate because you can’t really blame the youngest, but at the same time the eldest doesn’t understand why they don’t understand. It’s a tricky age and I guess with it being a tricky age, I am not entirely sure I am doing the right thing. I never am when I do anything for the first time, I worry that I am raising two absolute terrors - kicking, biting and shouting - the lot and their behaviour is down to me. It is meant to be a compliment when they show challenging behaviour in your presence because it is where they feel safe that they will test boundaries and show their true emotions, but at the moment it feels relentless. I hope it passes soon. (At nursery they are both angels, I am told.)
When they show challenging behaviour it is a direct confrontation of myself and my parenting skills. I know I need to be kinder to myself, it doesn’t help to attribute blame, but they spend the most time with me so it is undeniable really. So how am I dealing with this? I think by pulling my phone out, hopping on social media, I am trying to run away from it.
But does this make me a bad mother?
My mind is craving to be somewhere else while my body is physically tired and I have to remind myself I am only human. I am not a children’s entertainer. This is not my vocation. I have to cut myself some slack because this is a choice I made, for the greater good - it may not have been a wholly good choice, but it was the better one. (The other choice being driving ourselves into debt so I could work.)
And let’s face it, there are many mums who have hard grafting jobs on top of doing the majority of childcare. Working nights in care homes, or on the front line of the NHS - physically exhausting jobs. I know I am very lucky.
I think part of it is that I feel I should be contributing more. I should be working more and that the kids are getting in the way of that. But the reality is until my eldest goes to school, I am going to struggle to break even with nursery costs. I need to remind myself this is the right path to be on, and it won’t be forever.
This is a reflection too, that I am not valuing my own unpaid contribution to the household. An admission that no feminist wants to make. Society doesn’t value it, and even if I may tell myself that those beliefs aren’t ingrained in me, they evidently are, and that needs to change. I wouldn’t dare think it of other mums, I’d be the first to call out that a stay at home parent is just as hard working as a working parent, so why do I see my own role as less valuable?
Then there is that voice in my head, that one all mothers of young children hear;
You’ll miss it, when they are back at school.
They grow so fast.
And yes as much as I hate those phrases and find them incredibly annoying right now, I know they are true. When I look back on these years I won’t dwell on the moments of tantrums and fights like I am now, I’ll see my two boys growing up in front of my very eyes, and I will see what a real privilege it has been to see so much of it. I know I will, because even if my mind turns to mulch from watching inane YouTube videos all day, we were together and they were loved.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your story in the comments.
This week’s phrase is “not just yet.”
The idea that when we are home with our children, the time passes so slowly, and when we are at work, we are constantly racing against the clock, really & truly resonated. It's so interesting how we perceive time differently when we're stimulated vs when we're not. It's a phenomenon I have noticed but never voiced. This is a great piece and..my kids bore me too!! Solidarity.
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this. I have never been able to formulate, let alone articulate, my thoughts about staying at home with my children. When my daughter was born I was a student midwife in my second year of training. I returned to work when she was 10 months old - night shifts, weekends and 13 hour days. She walked and cut her teeth and started speaking all while I was pacing hospital corridors. I qualified and finally was “contributing” in the traditional sense, but still missing my daughter’s babyhood. The pandemic hit, our wedding was cancelled (lockdown came two weeks before the big day) and we decided we would try for our second. I was twenty weeks pregnant when the second wave of Covid peaked and I suddenly felt crushed by the weight of everything I had seen and experienced during almost a year of working in the trenches of an understaffed & underfunded maternity unit where *everyone* was scared. From twenty eight weeks I was able to be at home, and ever since then I suppose I have been quietly quitting the job I worked so hard to get. Last year we decided as a family that the best thing to do would be for me to mostly be at home, financially and, I guess, emotionally. I cut down to one day a week and for a year I have been there for all the school drop offs, pick ups, assemblies, open afternoons and swimming lessons. My son (now two) has never know anything apart from mostly being at home with me.
But it was role I romanticised. I envisioned morning time with poetry and crafts. Weekly trips to the library and baking together. Nature walks and adventures. And we’ve done all of those things. But they haven’t felt rose-tinted and dreamy. They’ve felt boring. I’ve been reluctant to voice it because I know what a privileged position I have been in. But now, twelve months into this mostly-stay-at-home-mum-life, I’m at a crossroads again. What do I want? What’s best for them? I don’t know the answers, or really what this long ramble is about (sorry!) but you’ve made me feel less alone in this season of life.