Mimi

Even with my chaotic, abusive, neglectful and isolated childhood with a mother who was a career woman who quite frankly was more interested in her career than I, I have still grown to be a zestful, inquisitive and intelligent woman! I love life, and whatever gaps I have in my ’self esteem’ i work on, because I am an adult and I can. What I mean is: the old chestnut about children being ‘resilient’ is true. Basically it takes more than a bored mother to destroy a person….and while I do think the mother in the Mail article really went to town about just how she expresses her boredom, she IS brave to admit these feelings.

It is much easier to go around proclaiming that motherhood is bliss and that we are perfect and always acting with regard to our children than to state the more ‘negative’ aspects of mothering in this day and age. I am, personally not interested in a lot of what my kids are interested in..I am not interested in conversations about: lego, neopets, who-did-what arguments between siblings and cartoons the kids see at grandmas. It bores to me to tears to talk about these things to the point of wanting to claw my face. Yes, my kids look downcast when they start to relate the plot of a cartoon to me and I stop them and say: “You should know that I have no interest in talking about cartoon films…but tell me, did you do anything else at grandma’s?” But when you spend 24/7 with someone it is okay for them to know who you are, there is no point pretending to be interested if yo ain’t. Likewise they tell me: “Mum, we don’t want to hear about the Glaciers..it is not interesting to us.” Being boring is not something most of us can do anything about, but between family members it should be okay to figure out a system where we are not inflicting ourselves upon eachother. I feign interest sometimes..but that is faking and misleads a child. Every mother I know well, from all walks of life admits to this boredom.

The mother in this article was rich and could afford a nanny…so I guess she may be missing out, maybe if she was forced to spend more time with her kids she would become more interested..but I doubt it. Perhaps all these kids will have to appreciate their mother for is the fact that she gave birth to them (and so allowing them the opportunity of life) and little more. Otherwise her kids will grow up mutants bewailing the fact that their mummy was bored a lot.

Well, a least she can talk about it. That takes gutz.

I didn’t follow through to the article. But, I’ve worked with woman (and sometimes men) who put the kids in daycare, etc. because taking X years off would ‘ruin’ their professional career. As though picking up with something later was impossible. Who’s to say that after 15-20 years one wouldn’t be inclined to a different profession.

She claims to love her children? She doesn’t know what love is.

Did anyone notice that, though the boys are 12 and 10 years old, the photo shown was taken when they were preschoolers? Does she spend so little time with them that there are no more recent ones? Or did the boys refuse to sit with their “mother” for an update?

You need a license to hunt, you need a license to drive, but any idiot can have a kid.

(I just tried to post a comment but I think it got eaten in the spamulator so I’m trying again. Sorry if this ends up getting posted twice!)

Against my better judgement (after all, it is the Daily Hell we’re talking about) I clicked through and read the article. To my surprise, I found myself if not actually agreeing with her perspective then at least respecting what she had to say. Her experience is, if extreme in the way she expresses herself, not uncommon and not surprising.

Full-time, stay-at-home motherhood in the modern world is lonely and boring for many women, especially those who are used to independence and a career. Children are not, especially when very young, much company when you are on your own with them all day, and they are exhausting. In days gone by, women had decent networks of support and their social circles did not exclude children. Now, for many women, those networks have gone in favour of the nuclear family ideal, and none of their friends want anything to do with them now that they have kids in tow. Mother and baby/toddler groups and the like are all very well, but you can’t go to them every day and stay sane if you were hoping to have a conversation that isn’t 95%+ child centred. And groups/social events that aren’t child centred don’t usually welcome or even cater for children.

If a child-centred life appeals to you, and if you are lucky enough to have the right networks and support around you, and the opportunity for a social life that you find fulfilling whilst also getting the most out of being with your children, that’s great. But it isn’t right for everyone, and for some people it isn’t even possible because the support etc. just isn’t there.

I don’t think it’s altogether fair to suggest (if anyone is) that if you find the nitty-gritty of full-time mothering dull and unfulfilling, that you are a bad / selfish mother and should never have had children in the first place. People can enjoy their children, and have an intensely satisfying relationship with their children, and bring up their children well, even if they do find baths and teeth-cleaning and clearing-up-after-the-kids and playing-peekaboo-for-hours somewhat mind numbing. After all, isn’t that precisely the attitude that 99% of fathers have taken since just about the beginning of time?

Just my 2p, from the perspective of someone who would definitely struggle to cope (and did struggle, while I was doing it) with the loneliness and frustration and boredom of being a full-time mother - but I nevertheless do not see myself as selfish and nor do I think that either I or Baby M are appreciably worse off as a result.

M xx