So if you’re reading this and you have been on the receiving end of Mrs Judgey Knickers’s pearls of wisdom, I urge you to take no notice. You don’t need to justify your every parenting move, and, more to the point, doing so to prevent being judged by other mums is a fruitless exercise – there will always be a small handful who think they know best. Disregard the risk of being judged and hold your head up high.
Because, actually, I think not justifying your every move comes across quite well. An ‘I do this because it suits me and my family’ attitude commands respect. It indicates a confidence in one’s own ability to decide what is right. Not right in the preachy-preachy, holier-than-thou, total authority in the history of everything that was ever right right, but right for you. For your kids. For your family.
‘No, I don’t breastfeed.’
‘Yes, she’s three and still in nappies.’
‘I’m not going back to work at all actually.’
Enough said.
You really don’t have to justify yourself to anyone. Explain your decisions only if you want to. One-size parenting can never fit all; we’re all different and, heaven knows, our kids are all different – you’ll never please all of the people all of the time.
For me, perhaps the sharpest observation of the day-today dealings we have with the differing beliefs of other parents came when a dad who had been reading all the comments on my blog messaged me simply to say: ‘Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody has one.’
If that doesn’t make you smile the next time you meet a Mrs Judgey Knickers, I don’t know what will.
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‘When we were on holiday, the kids were tired and cranky all day and there was nowhere to put the eight-month-old who couldn’t yet crawl but would happily face-plant off the sofa. I ended up telling the family we had got our dates mixed up regarding coming home, when really we were coming home a day early because, quite frankly, it was a bit shit.’
Kasie, The Wirral
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fn1 Please don’t think I’m confusing helpful recommendations with unwelcome opinions. Sometimes, the safety or wellbeing of a child is at the heart of advice given and, if somebody wants to question how my car seat is fitted or point out a choking hazard, I’m all ears. Sometimes, other parents will see you struggling and think, I’ve been there and I can help. It’s only the preachy ‘You really should do it this way’ brigade who I am giving the middle finger to. Most mums are absolute gems. Solidarity to the parent pack.
It’s Okay to Lose Your Shit
It is well documented that I lose my shitfn1 on a regular basis.
So much so that I now get daily messages via my blog page from fellow shit-losers – whose solidarity is much appreciated, particularly when I find myself once again sitting in the downstairs loo talking myself down from collapsing in the living room and banging my head on the floor repeatedly (this often seems tempting).
Shit-losing triggers I have documented on my blog have included:
A screaming Henry tantrum about his shoelaces (they weren’t the right shoelaces, even though they were the shoelaces that came with the shoes).
The fourth sleepsuit change in as many hours due to Jude’s faeces tornado.
General narkiness from the pair of them over a prolonged period followed by kicking and smacking (by them, not me).
An assortment of other testing life-at-home moments, like when the washing machine blew up just after Henry wet the bed.
Most days, my feelings of despair can be fixed with a bit of a moan and a nice cup of tea. I once saw a sign that read, ‘A cup of tea solves everything,’ and I concur that there aren’t many things in life that can’t be made at least a touch better by a cup of tea or the promise of something stronger when the kids are in bed.
‘Roll on bedtime and the G&T with my name on it!’ I’ve chuckled, because it’s all rather rib-tickling.
But some days it’s not funny at all.
Some days, I don’t feel the urge to poke my eyes out, or shout, or drink G&T from a tin (though I am partial to G&T in a tin and, every so often, it’s three for two in our local shop).
Some days, I don’t feel the urge to take myself for a time out in the downstairs loo.
Some days, I don’t feel the urge to do any of these things because, some days, I actually feel quite desperate. Days when my children have pushed me to my absolute limit and I truly don’t know what to do.
I know I plod through most weeks just fine, and that, pretty much, I’m just jesting when I assert that I’m ‘not cut out for motherhood’. But there are days when I genuinely worry that this is true: when I carry around a really big knot in my tummy, a knot which, on the odd occasion, has put me off my food and left me feeling sad, a knot that cannot be fixed with a cup of tea.
Sometimes, even if only momentarily, I can’t shake off the feeling that I am a big, fat failure of motherhood.
When I’m losing my temper at the whingeing in the car, or lying to Henry that the slide is still wet because I can’t face another tedious trip to the park, or wishing the week away because three more days of only me and them seems like a lifetime . . . I panic that there’s something wrong with me.
Why don’t I enjoy being at home?
Why do I find it so damn hard?
Do other mums feel like this?
Do other mums struggle?
Do other mums find the simultaneous baby-and-toddler crying so draining that they get in the shower and join in? So everyone is crying in the bathroom at the same time? (God knows what my neighbours must think.)
In those moments of doubt, a dark cloud descends, pushes down on my shoulders and I panic: I’m so crap at being a parent. I can’t do it. I torture myself further by measuring my maternal prowess against mums in parenting magazines and mums on Instagram who #livelaughlove. I always fail when I compare myself with those mums and their perma-smiles and their Fun Mum activities and their impressively fashionable outfits. Why aren’t they wearing yesterday’s hoody? And then, just as quickly as the cloud descended, it starts to lift (the break in the cloud often coinciding with James’s return from work and/or the CBeebies bedtime song) and I snap myself out of it. And I think, What a bloody stupid measuring stick, you bloody stupid woman. Because, deep down, I know that the crying in the bathroom and the white lies about the weather and the wanting to kill someone in the car . . . well, I know those things are not ideal, but I also know that they are not a true indication of my Mum Score.
The one and only measurement I need is my boys. How they’re doing. How they’re feeling. Because, above all else, and more important to me than anything else, I want them always to know that they are loved.
One night, after a particularly tough day just a few months after Jude was born, I genuinely hit a wall of despair. I stopped joking about ‘not being cut out for this shit’ and told James I was failing. Hands down, without the need for any independent adjudication, I was the shittest mother in the history of shit mothers.
I had spent the day wishing I was somewhere else.
I didn’t deserve them.
They deserved better than me.
And then bedtime arrived and Jude fell asleep mid-feed and I sat with him for ten minutes in the semi-dark, stroking his little ears. And he smiled. It might have been wind because, ten minutes later, he was sick in my bra but, regardless of whether it was a windy smile or a proper smile, he looked as contented as any baby on a Gina Ford book cover. And then I popped in to say goodnight to Henry and, instead of tucking him in, I got under the covers and read him two stories. And marvelled at how much he understood, at how smart and funny and happy he is.
‘Love you to the moon and back, nighty nighty pyjama pyjama,’ I told him, chuckling to myself on the way out as he replied, ‘Nighty nighty pyjama pyjama knickers on your head’ (he was very much in an underwear-on-head stage), and I sank on to the sofa to watch I’m a Celebrity with this happy, instinctive feeling that I was doing all right. We were
all right.
Maybe it’s okay to have days when you’re not fine.
When you’re not coping.
When you want to divorce your children because they have self-activated ‘arsehole’ mode again.
Wobbly days.
Admittedly, some of my wobbles are a darn sight wobblier than I’d like and, if I could eliminate all wobbliness, I would. But I can’t. And, looking at my boys, I don’t think I need to.
So if, like me, you have been torturing yourself for having shit-losing wobbles, I just want to say something.
Wobbles don’t make you a bad parent.
They make you a real person.
Wobble away, my friends.
You are doing just fine.
We all have testing days, when everything gets a bit much – that’s just par for the motherhood course, I think. However, if you are feeling like you can’t cope (and it’s more than just a shitty day), please don’t think you have to struggle alone. Speak to your GP or Health Visitor and, for further resources, see here.
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‘I have often sat and cried because, in that moment, I did not even like my own child, and what kind of mum doesn’t like their own child?’
Gina, Bristol
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fn1 I recognise that ‘losing my shit’ is an urban expression and I’m really not very urban, but I overheard and imitated it a few years ago and it has stuck. As has ‘shit just got real.’
Shit gets real a lot.
Spinning Plates
I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have an enormous ‘Things to Do’ list on the go. Mostly, this list exists in my head and remains in a constant state of flux because I only have room in my confuzzled brain for a certain number of items. I’ve calculated this number to be around ten, which means ‘Must get photos of Jude printed because it looks like we only have one son’ always drops off the list to make room for ‘Phone HMRC’ and ‘Buy Grandad’s birthday card.’ When something becomes particularly urgent, it is transferred to the sophisticated diary I purchased from Paperchase back when I still held out hope of becoming an organised mother. The reminders within usually start as prompts scribbled in ballpoint pen (‘Book Henry’s injections’; ‘Email outstanding invoices’), but when I still have not honoured them two weeks later, they are underlined, highlighted and eventually circled angrily with the highlighter until the overkeen, urgent highlighting bleeds through to next week’s page. The once-classy diary is now a mess of highlighted incompetence.
The ongoing ‘Things to Do’ list in my head would be even messier if you could see it; it’s a chaotic amalgamation of stuff I actually need to do and things I should be doing (and am therefore worrying about not doing):
Buy a bathmat, sort out visits to prospective primary schools (other parents have done this already!) take bags of clothes to charity shop (check the loft, more clothes to go?), finish writing next batch of chapters, bleach and bicarb the shower sealant to remove mould spots, buy bin bags, send thank-you cards for presents (too late? Send text apologising for usual crap tardiness), plan more meals with vegetables before the kids get scurvy, reply to whatshername about the thingamajig, read to Jude or at very least sign him up for a class because he has not been to any classes, get Henry some new trousers, write magazine column, order replacement sink, do some proper exercise and/or weights for bingo wings, see doctor about CONTRACEPTION (this cannot happen again), redesign shambles of a blog page, get quote for fixing dodgy windows downstairs, check upcoming birthday-party dates (have I double-booked again?), investigate cracked phone screen repair, start using hand cream on crinkly hands, organise the night out I’ve cancelled three times already, living room is a dump: sort out toy storage (IKEA?), phone my sister.
I’m forever plate spinning: darting around underneath massive plates on flimsy sticks, trying my best to keep the Motherhood plate spinning smoothly with my left hand while leaning over to spin the precariously balancing Career plate with my right. I simply cannot afford to let either of them fall but, sometimes, my arms are just so tired. With all my efforts invested in the double Motherhood and Career spin, I have no choice but to let the Household plate (on which sit the insurance renewals, the boiler service, the housework and all the crap that comes with being an adult) come tumbling off its stick. Praise be to James, who calmly catches the most urgent of this plate’s contents as it falls by paying off the required credit-card amount and reading the meters. I don’t even know where the meters are (true story).
I’ve always been really house-proud (‘a place for everything and everything in its place’) but – and it really pains me to say this – my standards have slipped. These days, it’s more ‘a place for nothing and nothing in its place’. Our once-organised cupboards are now filled to bursting with crap (literally, bursting; most days, I have to kick the contents to get the doors to shut). There is dust absolutely everywhere you can’t see and in most of the places you can see. The once smear-free glass TV stand (glass was a bad move, I know that now) is constantly smudged with tiny fingerprints. Every now and again, when I’m attempting to unwind in front of Location, Location, Location, I find my eyes drawn to a mouth-shaped smear on the television screen which unmistakably tells me that Jude has (again) been trying to kiss those weird Waybuloo creatures straight after eating his porridge.
The Household plate has not been the only casualty. Once, there was also a Me-time Plate, piled generously high with things like having my highlights done, reading those trashy magazines about celeb mums who are a size zero three hours after giving birth, swimming half a mile and seeing friends for long-overdue catch-ups. This plate is no longer spinning at all, but its loss of momentum was gradual, so it fell without smashing and now sits sadly on the floor, waiting for the one time of year when my roots get so bad that I simply have to act, or the biannual occurrence of me actually going for a beauty treatment. I did, in fact, have the first treatment in a course of HD Brow sessions (so I would look like Cara Delevingne, obviously), but I never got around to booking any more sessions and bought an eyebrow pencil for a fiver instead.
The truth is, if I ever do find the time to finish painting the kitchen units (the ones I started painting eighteen months ago), vacuum behind the TV stand (not blitzed since the Great Pregnancy Nesting of 2014) or fake-tan more than half of my body, I will no doubt feel guilty about not investing that time in the competing and equally overflowing plates of Motherhood and Career.
I always pictured myself as a career mum. I pictured skirt suits, boardrooms and rushing from the delivery of an epic presentation to my girls’ (yep) nativity plays, leaving fellow nativity-goers impressed with my desire and ability to do it all. When I went off on maternity leave the first time, I fully expected to return to my job in finance full-time (or, at the very least, four days a week), slotting straight back into the career I had worked so very hard to establish. I held this belief for a few months of that first maternity stint before I became consumed with a deep-rooted wobble that I would never match up to my pre-mum working self. I wanted to return to that job – really I did – but I was so frightened about no longer being able to give it everything. When I looked at Henry’s little face and felt the way he clung to me whenever I left the room, I began to feel a churn in my tummy about leaving him for the best part of each week and missing bathtime and storytime every day. I’m well aware that it wouldn’t have been impossible – many women (including mums I know) have returned to similar positions, and I have nothing but respect for them (and maybe just a smidgeon of jealousy).
Yet I felt – and I suspect I am not alone – that something had to give. I had become accustomed to working late and logging on at weekends because I was so desperate to impress. The pre-parent Work Me was twenty-four years old with a company car, nice blouses and kitten heels. She thrived on the drama of trying to get a finance proposal completed before returning home to a bottle of wine and further checking of her BlackBerry. The pre-parent me was a bit of
a martyr, if I’m honest (‘I’ll reply to this work email at 10 p.m. because I’m so busy and it’ll show everyone how dedicated I am’), but it suited me at the time because, other than rearranging our already tidy cupboards and going out for power walks while listening to my iPod (both hobbies of mine at the time), I didn’t really have anything else to do during the week. Even when I was ill I found myself working from home in bed. I was 100 per cent committed to my job.
The Working-mum Me, whose waist-to-breast ratio now looks decidedly disappointing in those same blouses, who can’t escape the house on time without vomit crust on her tights, who has a 5 p.m. teatime routine to get back for and often has to cancel meetings at the last minute due to childcare issues, is not capable of being 100 per cent committed to any job.
I cried when I handed in my notice in favour of a part-time position with fewer targets at the local university. I felt like I was giving up on my career but, to this day, I know that I would have been frustrated if I’d carried on with my earlier career. I would have given it my best shot, but it would have been the best shot possible as a mum, the best shot possible between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday to Thursday, and not the best shot I had proved myself to be capable of. I simply couldn’t bear working alongside the ghost of the ambitious me with the perkier breasts.
The Unmumsy Mum Page 17