I just wanted to clarify that, in light of a couple of comments in reply to my last post.  Referring to a previous post I wrote, I think that children of mothers like the author of this article are probably better off with a nanny than with their own mother who would spend all day obviously resenting them for taking her away from her life. 

Life is what we make it.  I find a lot of mothering tasks boring, but that is because of the way our culture encourages women to either be ‘child-centred’ or not.  If you are child-centred, you are often labelled an ‘earth mother’ and you stay at home and pretend that mothering is all sweetness and light.  If you are not child-centred, you go back to work asap and get your children/babies in child-care of some description or other.  Of course, going back to work doesn’t necessarily make you much more money than staying at home because you want the best childcare for your baby and therefore pay as much as your salary allows!  But that’s by-the-by.  The fact is that neither option is very good for children.  Childhood is a very false concept invented by the Victorians.  In an ideal world, children grow up living along-side adults as they go about their adult-work.  They don’t have an adult/adults devoting their time to amusing them.  What they do have is an adult/adults who have committed themselves to being responsible for them while they go about their child-work, which involves watching adults, copying them, and then going and making up fantasy games with other children based on what they’ve learnt from what the adults are doing.  This is why I don’t think that mothers who find incessant playing/reading/etc. boring are bad - they’re normal!  Mothers aren’t meant to spend their days playing/reading/etc.  But they are meant to be there for their children, if they possibly can, as much as they possibly can (bearing in mind that some mothers have no choice in the matter - we can only do the best we can with the resources and knowledge we have at the time), because children grow up best in the company of a few select adults that are emotionally important to them, and who they feel secure and happy with.  I agree with commentors that it is not very easy in our culture to provide this ideal sort of growing-up environment for children, but it is by no means impossible, and this is why HE, and more specifically, autonomous education, is so wonderful, particularly in this day and age where there are so many more families choosing this route.

For an HE family, it is possible (if I am to believe my HE friends!) to be among the company of other families pretty much every day of the week.  The children grow up playing with children of all different ages; the adults get to chat about whatever they fancy.  If one family is spending the day at another family’s home, it is possible for the host parent to get on with housework along-side the guest family’s parent/s.  Most of the HE families I know are keen to hang around until ‘close-of-play’ and to have guests to their home do the same.  None of the traditional etiquette of only staying for a couple of hours, forcing mums to trudge home for the end-of-afternoon boring, ratty, irritable time, where food has to be cooked and, if you’re a traditional house-wife, houses have to be tidied and slippers found and warmed ready for Pa when he returns from work!  I’m not saying that my life is perfect - far from it!  I groan when Flopsy drags me onto the floor to play yet another game of something-or-other; I grimace when Mopsy brings me yet another book to read; I count the hours down until DH returns from work; I feel annoyed when I realise that, although I’m not hungry, I really ought to think about getting the girls something to eat.  But I don’t think the answer is handing them over to someone who is not emotionally important to them so that I can go and live the life I’d rather be living.  I think the answer is finding a solution that is not harmful, and hopefully beneficial to everyone involved.  In order to keep my brain ticking over, I’ve been very involved with our local NCT branch and am working towards a diploma in Breastfeeding Counselling - by it’s nature, the NCT is very family-friendly and you are only expected to do what you can do within the restrictions of your family life.  Going along to HE meets and getting to know other HE families with young children provides the ideal environment I’ve described above.  Still, I end up spending quite a few days finding myself bored and lonely, particularly while Mopsy is going through her pinching stage, but I find those days more boring and lonely when I focus on how bored and lonely I am feeling!  If I can make myself enjoy them, I usually do enjoy them.  It’s not easy, but telling myself how much I love reading ‘Brown Bear’ for the millionth time really does start to turn my mind around from ‘Oh no, not again’ to ‘oh look, this is actually fun!’.

Mothering in our culture is boring and lonely, but don’t moan about it - do something about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!