The Unmumsy Mum

by The Unmumsy Mum

  He regularly asks me if I can read him the KFC. He means the BFG, but, shamefully, KFC must be at the forefront of his mind, thanks to all the nights I’ve given up on cooking and sent James out for a Bargain Bucket. When Big Hero 6 came out at the cinema he remarked that he would quite like a ‘Big Hero sex toy’. Sniggers all round.

  Sometimes, we put some music on and watch both our boys parading naked around the kitchen, with zero inhibitions and dance moves so hysterical they have me in tears. Our house is filled with laughter every day and, in spite of their pre-bedtime arsiness, my boys can light up a room with their giggles. Laughter has saved me on many a tough day.

  * * *

  ‘My three-year-old calls fishfingers “shitmingers” (it took us ages to stop laughing at that one – actually, no . . . we still crack up) and flapjack is “crapjack”. We don’t eat out.’

  Heidi, Norwich

  * * *

  Christmas

  I always loved Christmas as a child but, as I got older, I think it lost some of its sparkle. It became more about the work Christmas party and having a few days off to gorge on turkey and Quality Streets than it did about the family traditions of Christmas Day.

  That sparkle is reignited when you have children. The very thought of decorating the tree, wrapping presents and the boys discovering that Father Christmas has been is enough to give me goosebumps. Christmas serves as a reminder that all the turbulence of the preceding year has been worth it. Another thing is that we are very relaxed about what the kids eat on Christmas Day, so we don’t fall out, even at the dinner table (which is just as well, as Henry shouted, ‘Yuk! Take it away!’ at the Christmas-dinner offering of 2013.)

  Holidays

  I’ll be honest, holidays probably straddle the best and worst bits of having kids, because a trip anywhere with small children, in the UK or abroad, is not the relaxing all-inclusive beach vacation of yesteryear. My very wise best friend once described taking kids on holiday as ‘the same shit, different location’. In many ways, that’s a fair assessment.

  However, there is something quite remarkable about being on holiday. Maybe it’s escaping the same four walls, or the fact that you find yourself removed from the mountains of things to do at home – whatever it is, I always feel more relaxed and better able to enjoy the boys on holiday, tantrums and all. Watching Jude toddle around on Crantock beach in Cornwall last summer, absolutely delighted at having the freedom to explore, while James and Henry made sandcastles and I closed my eyes for just the briefest of moments to drink in the sunshine, was such a happy moment. It was one of those moments I wish I could have bottled: another moment when it all came good.

  The future

  Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? On the darkest of sleep-deprived days, when I can’t sigh without one of the boys interrupting, when I throw out the skinniest of skinny jeans because they are no longer realistic, when I wonder if we will ever be able to afford a holiday again, I think ahead to five years’ time, ten years’ time, twenty years even, when my babies will be causing havoc at school, or bringing girls home as teenagers, or having babies of their own. All the times to come when I will be so very thankful that two became four and we created the most important recipe for happiness: a family. We are a family.

  That’s the best bit of all.

  ‘Wobbles don’t make you a bad parent.’

  An Open Letter to the Mum with the Red Coat

  Dear Mum with the red coat,

  You probably won’t remember me.

  I saw you at the park on a rainy afternoon last week. I felt inclined to keep looking over and smiling at you because I sensed you were having a shit day. Actually, I more than sensed it . . . you looked bloody miserable. Your kids were kicking off and you had a ‘when did this become my life?’ face on. I recognised the face because I wear it interchangeably with my ‘somebody make it stop’ face.

  It was for this reason that I made a passing ‘Nightmare, aren’t they?’ comment, to which you responded with a very small smile.

  You were probably distracted by your toddler (who had taken off both shoes, lobbed them from the climbing frame and was refusing to come down) and also by your baby, who – for the love of God! – you couldn’t get to stop crying. Of course, you might just have chosen not to engage in conversation with me because you heard my son declare, ‘Farty pants knickers bum-bum head’ in close proximity to all the other children (he does that a lot).

  But I had a sneaky suspicion you were in actual fact more troubled by the behaviour of your own children. Your face was red, and you looked kind of sheepish.

  I just wanted to say something.

  I wanted to let you know that you really didn’t need to feel embarrassed that day. Granted, your children were being total shits. I mean, they were. But that isn’t a reflection on your parenting and it isn’t a reflection on you. By all means, rage at them, swear under your breath, cry, get the emergency Bear YoYo fruit snacks out as bribery – hell, do whatever you need to. But please don’t check over your shoulder as if you are anticipating a judgemental glare.

  We are in this together.

  I get it. I do. When my eldest develops tactical jelly legs and I resort to dragging his dead weight out of the play area and across half a football pitch, it is difficult not to clock the stares. And when your son shouted, ‘I’m not coming down! I hate you!’ it was really quite loud – so, naturally, people had a gander.

  But you then also felt the need to whisper (at a volume much louder than a true whisper), ‘It’s not time for your milkies yet, sweetheart, you’ve just been fed,’ which, though directed at your screaming baby, appeared very much to be for our benefit (me and the other parent bystanders, I mean). As if you were worried we would think, She really should feed her baby.

  We didn’t think that.

  I’m sure you had already fed her, winded her and tried to soothe her, like anyone would, singing softly about the little fishies on the little dishies and the fucking boats coming in. She just wasn’t having any of it.

  We have all been there.

  Jeez Louise, I’m no parenting expert, but I’m pretty confident in my assertion that sometimes kids are simply shitty. All day.

  It’s true that I never read this exact piece of advice in any of the Gina Ford or Jo Frost parenting manuals, but I imagine it’s in there as a footnote somewhere, or at least it should be. (‘If you can’t get the child to do any of this shit, it’s probably because today is his total-knobhead day’, or similar.)

  You are doing your best in an impossible job, and that afternoon was particularly impossible for you. Get angry about it, laugh about it (I’m sorry, but his dramatic shout of ‘I want a new mum!’ across the roundabout was hilarious), and then draw a line under it.

  Trip to the park – failed. So what?

  File it in the Absolute Bloody Disaster drawer and start again. There’s a Tesco Express within sight of that roundabout where you can grab a bottle of grown-up grape juice (and further Bear YoYo fruit-snack bribes) on the way home.

  Stick your fingers up and say, ‘Screw you, rainy Wednesday!’ Tomorrow is a new day. Of course, the kids might be shitty again tomorrow. But they might not.

  Because here’s the thing. Somebody’s children have to be the worst behaved in the park. They just do. The law of averages suggests that, sometimes, those kids will belong to you.

  So the next time another mum pipes up with an ‘Urgh, kids are a bloody nightmare, aren’t they?’ comment, please know that she is not slagging you off, or your children. She is just offering you the space to have a moan. She gets it. Because she, too, owns a teething baby and a toddler who likes to ‘play dead’ on the pavement.

  Lovely coat, by the way.

  Best wishes,

  The Unmumsy Mum

  Forever living in hope that other mums will return the understanding Nod of Sympathy.

  I wrote this in March 2015 and have no idea whether Redcoat Mum ever read
it. I like to think she did. Mainly, I’m just pleased to have heard from so many parents who have subsequently messaged to say, ‘I’ve had a red-coat day today.’ We all have those days. I wear mine so often I could moonlight at Butlins.

  Just One of Those Days

  Before I became a parent I rarely considered the ‘type’ of parent I would be, but I was certain of one thing: I would not be a shouty one. I was quite sure that my future self would never be found screeching at my children in the street.

  I turned my nose up at the mum I saw yelling in the supermarket. How very undignified. How common. I tutted at the mother on the bus who snapped at her offspring for their unruly behaviour. I think a smack was involved and the whispered threat of a ‘thick ear’. It was all a bit unseemly. I used to feel sad when I heard uninspiring and abrupt answers to questions from curious children whose parents were clearly too lazy to offer any explanation over and above ‘Because I said so.’ Shame on them.

  Silently, I was forming opinions about their parenting; judging them from afar. I couldn’t foresee a time when I would ever lose my rag in that way. Hardly a good example to set the kids, is it? Scoff scoff.

  It will come as no great surprise, therefore, that karma came and kicked me in the arse. After three years of small-child wrestling, my rag gets lost a lot. I have become that mother the pre-mum me would have tutted at. Not all of the time; I like to think there are times when I keep my cool. But I have been at the heart of yelling-in-the-street behaviour that would see me fit right in on Jezza Kyle’s show, having a chat with Graham about anger management (and no doubt taking a lie-detector test that would have James storming on to the stage and throwing a chair at Security – seriously, why do people on Jezza take a lie-detector test when they know they have lied? How stupid do you have to be? I digress).

  Anyway, it has since dawned on me that my judgement of angry parents stemmed from my complete ignorance about the context of what had come before. I had witnessed the boiling point but not observed the hours of simmering that preceded it. My on-the-spot appraisals of the situation were deeply unfair.

  So I’m sincerely really sorry, Supermarket Mum. When I saw you totally lose it with your little girl in the Co-op I dismissed you as another awful parent and felt sad for your child. It never occurred to me to consider the events that had unfolded before you reached the Co-op. I’ll never know exactly what went down that morning but, with the benefit of hindsight (and having bred two supermarket-aisle escapees of my own), I can now hazard a pretty good guess.

  It’s likely your little girl had refused to put her shoes on, still fuming from the earlier cereal drama (where you had given her Cheerios because she had asked for Cheerios, but when you presented her with a bowl of Cheerios she suddenly remembered she hated Cheerios).

  It’s likely your little girl had screamed so loudly you had missed the postman knocking at the door with a parcel, the parcel you had waited in for the entire day before. The parcel that no doubt contained toys or clothes for your Cheerio-refusing child and absolutely nothing new for yourself, because the only interesting catalogue deliveries you sign for are for next door.

  It’s likely she had arched her back as you attempted to strap her into the car and, mid-restraint, had kicked you in the face.

  It’s likely she definitely didn’t need a wee as she left the house but definitely did need one two minutes later, when you were stuck at the traffic lights.

  It’s likely she had been demanding snack bribes to make her sit nicely in the supermarket trolley and, after exhausting the last of the raisin boxes, you allowed her to get down on the proviso she stayed close to you at all times – an instruction she immediately ignored as she bolted for the checkouts …

  So, while making a break for freedom from the tinned-foods aisle really wasn’t the biggest deal in itself, I now understand why it might have been the final straw. You weren’t overreacting; you had simply hit your limit. I’m sure you know as well as I do that yelling, ‘I’ve had enough of you today! Come back here! Your birthday is cancelled!’ never really helps the situation but, sometimes, it’s involuntary. It just comes out.

  I’m sorry, Bus Mum. Because, all things considered, there wasn’t a lot you could do on that bus. Your kids were, quite frankly, a humiliation, and shouting and/or restraining them was just about the only way you could show the other passengers (me included) that you didn’t think their antisocial behaviour was okay either. I really don’t know what I would have done differently. I’ve always harped on about my love for boundaries and discipline but, at times, I have zero control over my children. It really pains me to admit that, but it’s true.

  I’m sorry to all the ‘Because I said so’ parents I have scorned. The day you said, ‘Hmmm,’ and ‘Yes, dear,’ and ‘Be quiet’ in response to intelligent questions from your children, I had not witnessed the million and one other questions that had come before, like:

  ‘Why is it Wednesday?’

  ‘Can I have a treat later? What time is later? When can I have a treat? Is it later yet?’

  ‘What is cereal? What is cereal? But what is it? Can I have some cereal? Nooooo, not Cheerios!’

  I get it now. Because I’ve been there.

  One time when I was shopping in Lidl, Henry kicked off so badly I shouted at him and we both stood crying in the Random Aisle. (If you’ve never ventured to Lidl, the Random Aisle houses surprising goods like snorkels and knickers and men’s walking boots and is usually smack bang in the middle of the shop, which is in itself both peculiar and intriguing. I once bought a tent-peg mallet, and we don’t even have a tent.)

  Another time, we had nothing in the house for lunch so I ‘nipped’ (yeah, right) to the supermarket to get some food and, after persistent screaming (and staring), I abandoned the basket and headed straight home again without having bought anything. I cooked us rice and peas with a side helping of cheese cubes because the thought of another public outing was too much.

  The ever-curious Henry once grilled me for an hour about Floyd, the family cat, who had just been put down. I spent a full hour explaining that Floyd had not been well, that he would go to ‘the Rainbow’ – not ideal, but I was put on the spot and was avoiding the introduction of heaven (see also For You, Mum, here.) I explained gently that Floyd was not coming back because he had gone to sleep for ever. That nobody lives for ever but we can still remember the loved ones we’ve lost every day. We had even taken Henry to the vet’s with us to have the deed done and, after snotty tears of despair from me (I was pregnant with Jude at the time, and I swear the cat thought I was putting him down to make room for the baby), I really thought I’d done a good job at explaining the circle of life …

  And then Henry piped up with, ‘When is Floyd coming back, Mummy?’

  For fuck’s sake – we’d left the vet’s without the cat and had spent an hour talking about death. It didn’t get much more final.

  ‘He isn’t,’ I told him with a sigh.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he isn’t,’ was all I had left in my locker.

  These days, I live in hope of earning redemption for my pre-parent judginess by dishing out Nods of Sympathy whenever I witness these situations. I no longer take part in the strangers’ ‘control your child’ tutting chorus of shame. I smile and nod quite pointedly in the hope it sends the message ‘We’ve all been there. He’s being unreasonable. I have your back.’

  RIP Floyd the Cat (2003–2014)

  * * *

  ‘A recent shoe-shop experience with my two-year-old culminated in her screaming, “My mummy’s hurting me!!” over and over again to the horrified shoppers (I had put a sock on her foot). I then had to buy some flashing shoes that cost more than my own shoes (which don’t even flash FFS) just to get the hell out of there before someone called Social Services.’

  Lydia, Twickenham

  * * *

  F**k You, Supermum

  In the months after Jude was born I found myself feeli
ng frazzled and short-tempered. In fact, I spent at least two thirds of autumn/winter 2014 sitting in my dressing-gown watching Paw Patrol and eating Bourbons. I’d lost my mojo.

  I’ve really never been one for New Year’s resolutions, apart from the time when I vowed to stop sucking my thumb. Despite a warning from Mum and Dad that I’d end up with Bugs Bunny teeth, it has remained a failed resolution of mine for twenty-nine years. (True story – I’m almost thirty, and I still suck my thumb.) Anyway, quite uncharacteristically, I woke up on New Year’s Day 2015 feeling full of promise.

  Perhaps I was feeling virtuous due to my complete lack of hangover (this was less out of choice and more out of an obligation not to contaminate the breast milk with Prosecco). Perhaps because the New Year marks a new start, it just felt like 2015 marked our new start as a completed family of four. I was leaving pregnancy, childbirth and stubborn placentas behind me and cracking on with life as a mum of two. This was it!

  Whatever it was, when spring came on to the horizon and the end of maternity leave (and my return to work) loomed in sight, I vowed that I would make some all-important changes to my parenting behaviour. I would do so much more with the kids. I would make the most of it – 2015 would not be a repeat of the Bourbon-eating Nickelodeon marathons.

  My parenting resolutions (as mentally committed to on 1 January 2015) were as follows:

  The children would watch less TV.

  I would spend less than 75 per cent of the day on my iPhone.

  Biscuits would not be used as bribes. In fact, biscuits wouldn’t really be needed at all, because I’d make lunchtimes healthy and fun by creating animal faces with quinoa and blueberries.

  There would be an abundance of long walks in wellies.

  There would be cake baking.