Thursday 29 March 2012

Sound familar??


“The one thing children wear out faster than shoes, is parents” John J Plomp

Does this sound familiar?

Get up at the crack of dawn, and you’re out of the starting blocks on the sprint to get out of the front door on time. Quick shower, throw clothes on, run straighteners through hair, put on a bit of slap, go downstairs, get lunchboxes sorted, get breakfast things out, go and try to encourage child to get out of bed (might give em a little tickle… hope over experience). Time is ticking on at a rapid rate. You have to be out of the house for 8.30 at the latest otherwise the traffic has built up on the way to school, and you are going to end up being late . Try to encourage child to get out of bed. (might resort to gentle tug on their feet now), get their school clothes ready in an effort to keep the stress levels from rising. Try to entice them out by over-enthusing on how exciting their day is going to be, (might resort to a stern voice and a harder tug now)…RIGHT GET OUT OF BED NOWW!!! OK a little more than stern. Eventually they deign to exit their little pit and come down. Please don’t let them be awkward about breakfast there just isn’t time for awkward. Somehow, you manage to feed them, tidy away the breakfast things, wash and dress the little darlings, brush their teeth and hair, go through their spellings, get their bags together, coats and shoes on and out you go. Phew a huge sigh of relief once that front door closes. Stress starts to ebb away. There’s nothing that work can throw at you to rival this for pressure and stress!
You drop them off at school, sprint back to the car, and set off to work. You do a full day’s work then come home. The marathon continues, as you prepare a meal, ask distracted kids about their day, run to the fridge to service their demand for drinks and snacks, prepare tomorrows sandwiches, go through homework, run the hoover round, maybe flash the mop over, clean the toilets...spend two or three hours trying to persuade the little darlings that their day is over and it is time for bed, read story, tidy kitchen before you eventaully collapse on the sofa and watch something mind numbing that you’ve SkyPlussed, barely able to keep your eyes open, never mind indulge in meaningful conversation with your partner. You crawl up to bed only to wake a few short hours later for it all to start again. Ahh, the life of the busy Mum, or is it just me?
However organised you are, being a Mum is a very difficult, time consuming, stress inducing, full-on 24 hour a day, 365 day a year absolute pleasure. Children give you things you didn’t know you were lacking, they enliven you and reinvigorate you, they make you re-evaluate everything, they make you question almost every action you take, and they make you deeply, deeply happy. Modern life though, does sometimes make you feel as though you are constantly in some kind of pressure cooker, on a long distance sprint, with no time to come up for air and live a little, leaving very little space to spend time with your kids, not necessarily doing stuff, just spending time in each others company. Some parents fill their littlies lives with so many activities that the kids have very little time to just be and use their imaginations, playing like children should. It’s as if we impose the characteristics of our lives onto theirs, as if their lives have to be filled every single minute otherwise they are missing out. Of course, everything in my little description of an average day need to be done; children will always be challenging; most people have to do some kind of work, not many of us have the luxury of staff to carry out the mundane stuff for us. Wouldn’t that be great? I often daydream about winning the lottery, first thing I‘d get? A housekeeper of course! Someone to do all the cleaning, ironing, even the daily cooking, make the sandwiches for lunch, and battle round Tescos to do the shopping…..a no brainer for me....the freedom that would bring would be so liberating.... Michael Caine once said that money doesn’t buy happiness but it does bring you freedom. Here, here to freedom. It’s unattainable of course, so we mere mortals have to make the most of what we have got and try to minimise the stress, reduce the time spent doing the chores, and somehow make time for leisure and pleasure with no guilt and no reduction in standards! It’s hard and you have to be very self-disciplined. Years ago, when Women’s Lib was all the go, it was bandied about that women could have it all. The successful career, several children, fabulous marriage, social life a-go-go, exotic holidays, pristine home, you name it and we were damn-well going to have it. I think nowadays we have been disavowed of this fantasy due to the fact that you actually can’t have it all, it was all utterly rubbish, to have it all you need an awful lot of help or something has to give. The average woman - and I’m not talking here of the successful London-based career woman earning a humungous salary for she is not very representative of the millions of women in this country - no, the average woman has to work in very often mind-numbing jobs that fit in with the children (think call centres, care homes, supermarket checkouts), has to do all the household chores, has to do the shopping, has to organise the kids, sort out the holidays, make sure there are clean clothes (ironing according to preference - I’m lumbered with being an ironer sadly) and it is a full on, full time job. Some may have parents who willingly help out looking after the children, others are not so fortunate - either parents are not able because of age or other reasons, or they may not live nearby. Some of us will also have to fit in looking after elderly parents. It is difficult therefore to find time for yourself and a) not feel guilty, or b) not let your standards slip. And I don’t know about you but if you put off cleaning the bathroom, it will still be there, looking at you accusingly the next day, when you then have to add it to that day’s chores.
Weekend arrives, and wouldn’t it be lovely to swan off to the Lakes for the weekend, lovely walk, snuggle up in a country pub in front of the log fire, dine in a Michelin starred restaurant…just the two of you!!…..but not for you, oh no, life continues at the same break neck speed. One child has to go to football, the other is going swimming, hubby is off playing golf, leaving you with the role of General Dogsbody ferrying everyone around and being treated as though you barely exist, and glared at if the correct attire hasn’t been laundered.
Sunday and you are now expected to become the hostess with the mostess as mother in law is coming for dinner and expecting a Sunday roast with perfect gravy. On top of this you need to get the cleaning done, make meals for the following week and shove in the freezer, do the shopping, visit your mother, get uniforms ready and make sure homework is done. Who said this is a rest day? Then husband asks why we STILL haven’t got a blind on the bathroom window, why we STILL haven’t got the holiday booked, why he never has any clean underpants in his drawer, and sarcastically asks if there’s any possibility we could spend a little bit of time together as a family this weekend. You feel murderous tendencies and start to fantasise about how great life in prison would be - but then your little one runs up to you, wraps their arms around you, gives you a massive hug and tells you they love you and you just know that nothing, absolutely nothing in the entire world, is better than this, and you feel that you might actually have it all afterall!

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