So the kids are starting school, what are you going to do with yourself all day?

What a STUPID question!  Umm, how about go to the bathroom in peace, watch an M rated TV show, finally clean the oven, catch up on your hobby you haven’t had the energy for and generally GET BACK SOME SANITY!!

But really there are positives and negatives about the kids starting school.  When they are all little and not in school you do get to wake up at a more leisurely pace.  You may not get to actually sleep in but you can bum around in your PJs for a while before getting dressed or even have a pyjama day if it is a really bad day.  You don’ t have to worry too much about what clothes are cleaned and ironed.  In summer you can let the little ones run around in a nappy and singlet!

On school mornings you have to get up and get yourself and everyone else ready for school on time, make sure you have a decent lunch packed for them, they have clean uniforms ready to go, you have asked them 50 times to hurry up and about 100 times whether they have got everything, get to school, fight the traffic to get a car park, end up with a child crying because they forgot their library book, go home and get the library book and then go back to school and drop the library book off and then finally get home and CRAP it’s nearly 10 o’clock and you sit down and have a coffee and something horrendously bad for you for morning tea because in all the rush you forgot to give yourself breakfast!  And that is what it feels like sometimes – one big long sentence running out of breath.  I try to be organised as much as I can be and most mornings are not that bad but it still happens sometimes.

It’s taken me a while to streamline the process.  I usually bake morning teas ahead of time and freeze ready cut up so I just have to pull it out of the freezer and stick it in the lunch box.  I bought a hanging days of the week closet insert for each child to have their school uniforms for the week in.  I bought little whiteboards and stuck them on the outside of the closets which lists the days of the weeks and what they need for that day eg. library, sports, music.  I try to get show-and-tell organised on the weekend.  Now they are getting older I generally will not go back home and get things the kids have forgotten (unless it is really important or partly my fault) as I figure they need to learn responsibility.  My older girls now get themselves their own breakfasts (either cereal or toast) which makes it a bit easier.  Having a mix of school and non-school kids gets even trickier but I’m lucky my youngest wakes up happy and loves going up to the school.

The part that really drives me mental are the afternoons.  I live very close, about 4 houses away, to the school and I have just started this year letting the girls walk home from school together without me.  OMFG!  Sometimes I can hear them arguing all the way down the street!  Usually my eldest is tired and cranky and being a moody little troll to her younger sister and the younger one is whinging because she can’t win the tiggy game.  Then they slam into the front door and bang wildly away waking up the sleeping 2 year old.  Then they walk in dump their bags and shoes on the floor, start yakking at me at the same time and I can’t understand either of them, want junk food for afternoon tea, stuff around instead of doing homework and music practice, whinge at me when I say it is time to tidy up, whinge at me when I say it is time to have a bath, whinge at me when I say it’s time to get out of the bath (go figure!), take forever to eat dinner and then finally whinge at me when I say it is bed time.

Forget those stupid TV ads with the smiling kids walking in the front door to be greeted by mum waiting with milk and cookies.  By the time they’ve got in the house I want to scoff the bikkies and add Kahlua to the milk!  I’m still working on this.  It’s a difficult balance.  I understand they have behaved themselves all day and need to blow off a little steam.  They also have homework and music practice to do.  By the way it is their choice to do the music, I don’t really mind either way.  They also have to clean their room and get to bed at a reasonable hour.  It’s hard to fit in.  I’ve decided to limit afternoon tea time because otherwise they will sit there for 2 hours chatting and nibbling and then not have time for other things.  I’ve also had to try to teach them how to prioritise.  For example they are supposed to practice violin for 20 minutes every day but they will get sidetracked by doing extra things on their homework sheets and run out of time.  So we do the things that MUST be done every day first.

The afternoons in particular are hard a lot of the time.  But I’m not alone.  It is funny because a few of the mums from school have become friends on Facebook this year and we all post comments along the line of “AARGH I’m going to sell my kids!” at about the same time of the afternoon.  I think it gets easier to admit as your kids get older that it’s not all peachy keen.  Maybe we notice other mums suffering, maybe we’re so sick of pretending everything is perfect we no longer try to hide it.  I don’t know.  I think the best thing about the kids starting school is making great friends.  Sure you will probably meet a lot of mums that you don’t quite become best buddies with but odds are you’ll find a few good friends.  Despite how exhausted I currently am from volunteering (I took on a lot!) it is very satisfying to be involved in your kids school.  I will talk about this in another post.

The kids starting school does make it easier.  You get some more time to yourself.  You just have to be more organised and have to keep going even on those days you feel crap.  I think it is important to not let your free time disappear.  I try to make sure I leave myself a couple of hours (usually when my 2 year old is napping) to just chill out and do what I want.  It is much easier to relax then than after the girls are home from school.  I leave some of the housework to do when I’m keeping the girls in check.  I sure can’t watch TV or listen to music when they are playing violin so that is when I clean the kitchen.  I can do the folding whilst they are at the table doing homework or in the bath.  I just hope no-one drops in for a visit in the middle of the day because I probably look extremely lazy sitting around when the kitchen is a mess and clothes are everywhere!

bit of a blip

Hi,
I am really sorry I haven’t posted for a while. I have been frantically helping organise our school fete and we have also been looking at whether we can afford to move and where we would move to. A very stressful time. The school fete is this Saturday and after that I will be back and I will set my blog up properly. Wish me luck for Saturday!

The decision to have another.

Oops I was going to post this yesterday!  Life keeps getting in the way.

A few years ago my second oldest daughter was about to start her first full time year of education.  I started to think about what I was going to do.  I had never planned to go back to full-time work – I wanted to be a SAHM for my kids.  I started to think about how I was entering a new phase, letting go of the baby stage.  I didn’t want to and started to toy with the idea of having another baby.  It’s terrible when you are clucky because every second woman you see seems to have a baby or be pregnant!

When I mentioned my thoughts to my husband at first he just laughed, thinking I was joking.  Then he realised I was serious and we talked and he said the decision was mine because it was primarily my life that would be affected.  It would mean that I wouldn’t have the free time during the day that was about to become my reality, that we would have to move forward our plans to buy a bigger house, back to the nappies etc.

The biggest part about this decision though, and the hardest part for my mum to understand, is that I had not particularly enjoyed my first two babies when they were young.  The first three months of my first baby were terrible.  She was not a settled baby at all.  I couldn’t get the hang of breastfeeding but I tried for as long as I could.  My husband didn’t know how to help.  It was a bad time for us.  I had post-partum depression and I did see my doctor.  Luckily(?) for me I had experienced depression in my life before which, although it increased my odds of getting PPD, at least allowed me to recognise the symptoms and be comfortable accepting help.  I decided to stop breastfeeding which was a decision full of guilt but helped and things slowly got more manageable but I certainly was not in the happiest part of my life.  She was a baby that wanted to be entertained all the time, rarely happy to amuse herself.  But at least she slept well.

At around 13 months of age my first daughter became a happier child, more content to play and not requiring constant attention.  We had always said we would prefer to have our children fairly close together and although the first baby was rough we did not want to have an only child.  So we decided to start trying for our second.  So I was pregnant about 3 weeks later!!!!!   How I never feel pregnant as a teenager with such apparent fertility is beyond me!  I was ill with chickenpox at the time of giving birth to my second daughter and could not breastfeed after the birth and honestly I wasn’t that keen after the first time.   It is hard for me to recall my second daughter being a baby.  I think I was so tired, I really can’t recall a lot of it.  I did suffer some PPD again but not as bad as the first time.  But I definitely suffered over the next few years of bouts of mild depression.

So why go there again?  I wondered if I was just setting myself up for more heartache, more kicking myself for making stupid decisions.  It was really hard and I was the only one who could make the decision.  What I really wanted was to have a baby and enjoy it.  To not be scared and miserable like the first time around, to not be too tired and worn out like the second time.  But what if I had a difficult baby?  It was a really tough decision.

It took me longer to fall pregnant this time, being older I guess, 2 months.  It was a more tiring pregnancy this time but I was a bit older and I still had to run around doing school duties with my older 2 kids.  I was ready to take out the next person who asked me if the pregnancy was planned.  How rude!  Did they want me to say no so they could have gossip or a superior attitude?  The birth was a LOT more traumatic.  I had pretty easy births the first two times but this one was NOT.  Maybe I’ll talk about this in a later post, maybe not.  I don’t think too much emphasis should be put on childbirth in relation to the experience of being a mother because although it is all encompassing when it is happening it really is a small part of it.

From the moment she was born she was an angel.  She slept 6 hours a night from the first night.  Breastfeeding was a breeze.  She rarely cried.  In fact if she had not been hearing tested and reacted to loud noises I might have thought she had hearing issues.  She has always been the most contented baby I have ever known.  I still worried about her having a problem, like maybe autism, but it is obvious now that isn’t an issue.  I spend a lot of time at school helping out and she is very social.  She is a comfort junky.  She loves her blanky, cuddles, sleep, food, visiting people.  She will just cuddle in your lap for hours.  She is content to play by herself when I need her too.  She has never woken up screaming for food.  She is clever.  I drag her to meetings and she sits there with a notebook, pen and calculator and amuses herself.  She really is amazing.  This was meant to be the baby for me to ‘enjoy’ and build good mummy memories with and it couldn’t have worked better.  My husband is besotted with her too.

I know you are not supposed to have favourites but when she is pretty much pure joy to be around and you are nagging the other two constantly to do their homework or clean their rooms it is hard.  I am glad there is a gap of 6 years because it means there is less comparison.  The two older girls have never shown any jealousy, in fact they are just as besotted with her.  The only problem is we don’t want her to get older because then maybe we will have to start nagging her to do her homework and clean her room!

How many is enough?

Hi,

I was inspired today by a comment a friend of mine made.  It was a comment about another mum from the school being pregnant with her 4th child and the fact that she must be crazy!  It amuses me that we are so judgmental about what is right for other people, especially in an area so emotionally charged as motherhood.

We are so adamant about newly married couples and how they should be thinking of starting a family and then, when the first child is about 2 years old, we start asking after the second.  If they have a boy and a girl we say they don’t need anymore.  If they have two of the same sex, we want them to try again.  But if they start having more than 3 then it is just a bit too much.  Obviously not everyone feels like that but it seems to be the general consensus.

It’s all part of that polite conversation that people in social situations have that irritates me.  The questions that we automatically ask and that we automatically answer that keep perpetuating all of the social ‘norms’ that really aren’t normal for most people.  I mentioned in a previous post about the “you must be so happy” comment that people make to new mums.  Well, no sometimes we are just miserable and the assumption you just made has made me feel bad for feeling bad.  What about honest, open questions like “Are you enjoying motherhood or is it a bit of a struggle still?”.  What about asking the newly weds what their plans are next in life instead of just assuming they have to start popping out children?

Maybe that mum who is obviously pregnant with her 4th or 5th child really likes being a mum.  Maybe she is really good at it.  Why shouldn’t she have more children if she is a good mum?  I would never advocate that a terrible mother who only has children for the government benefits or because she can’t seem to control her own fertility just have the right to keep bringing children into the world that she doesn’t want.  But I know a few families at my children’s school that have above average sized families and they have the most amazing kids and I marvel at their patience and ability to put so much love in each child.  I think it would be much better if we were given a realistic option of choosing not to have children or having the number of children we want.  Isn’t that what true choice is about?  And we shouldn’t be made to feel abnormal if we either decide to not have children or decide to fill a mini-bus.

I have 3 girls and they are 10, 8 and nearly 2.  It is often assumed about me that either the third child is an accident or that we tried again because we really wanted a boy.  Well, neither of those assumptions are true and tomorrow I will explain why we decided to have a third child.

Food glorious food!

So, here I was, trundling down the aisle at the supermarket today, shoving cinnamon donuts at my (nearly) 2 year old to keep her happy, trying to think about what I was actually buying.  Usually I am fairly organised in my shopping and I do a vague meal plan up for the week and shop according to that.  I just find it less stressful not having to think about what to make every night for dinner depending on what is in the cupboard.  Also there are a couple of nights a week where I need to either have something really quick to prepare or something in the slow cooker because I’m out at ballet or piano lessons.  I also try to shop on the weekend because I can leave all the short people at home with dad and go at whatever speed I want.  Lingering and slow with a coffee if I need time to myself or as fast as I can if I want to go home and do something.

ANYWAY, due to the chaos that descended around here on the weekend and me being out on Saturday, I didn’t shop on the weekend.  Also I am quite involved at the school at the moment and am helping to organise the school fete.   It’s only a few weeks away and things are getting hectic!  So with no pre-planning and feeling drained I went off to grocery shop because there was no pet food and very limited people food in the house.

Because I’m behind and busy I bought a lot more convenience meals this week.  Dinner in a jar!  Pataks simmer sauces, Chicken Tonight, Maggi Slow-cooker meal sachets and lots of rice for the rice cooker and frozen vegies to soothe my conscience.  Usually I make a cake, muffins or biscuits for morning tea, either from scratch or from a packet mix, because it is cheaper and I feel like I am giving the short people less artificial stuff in their diets.  Not this week!  Multi-packs of biscuits were on special so I grabbed those!

It’s funny though because when I don’t feel that my grocery trolley looks like an ad for a healthy heart campaign I feel so guilty!  Normally I avoid the teenage boys on the cash registers because they pack every bag so full you have to pretend you are Mr. T to get them in the car, but when my trolley is unhealthy I go for the teenage boys because they obviously don’t look at your groceries (or else the eggs wouldn’t be in with the cat food tins).   So, yep despite the fact I have about 50 reusable shopping bags all my shopping was jammed into 6 bags but at least I didn’t feel bad!  I may have strained a muscle but I didn’t have to avoid the gaze of a check-out lady who may feed her kids super-balanced meals.

I know it’s all in my head.  My kids eat well.  They don’t have weight or health issues.  I don’t tend to worry about what other people think about me in other aspects of my life but I seem to be concerned about being perceived as a bad parent if they have packaged biscuits for morning tea or I yell at them or they have messy hair.

Now I know why my mum still tells me how to do my hair or what I should be wearing!  Writing this stuff down makes connections for me I never saw before.  Okay mum, I’ll stop wearing my hair in a ponytail all the time.

It’s a good day for some.

Today I feel quite positive.  Maybe it was the day out?  I also relaxed yesterday because I was so tired from the day before!   I have mountains of catching up to do but oh well.   I’m not sure why I’m feeling so positive because we have a fairly serious issue to deal with in our family at the moment.  That is why I didn’t post yesterday as I was asked to be a neutral 3rd party for some communications.

Alcoholism is rearing it’s ugly head again.  It’s not in our home but a close male relative (lets call him Fred for convenience) has been struggling with this issue for a long time and things have become even more serious lately.  This is not an issue new to the family.  Both my and my husband’s family have struggled with this problem.  I do believe it is a problem that is hereditary, either because of genetics or because a child learns what they see.  I think some people become stronger for having watched a parent fall prey to alcoholism and subsequently never have the problem themselves and I believe that some people almost feel compelled or doomed to follow in their parent’s footsteps and don’t break the cycle.

It was the mother of Fred that was the parent with severe alcohol problem who died at a young age due to her illness.  It has been saddening to watch the old feelings being brought up by current issues.  There seems to be sympathy for Fred because he is suffering from an addiction that is hereditary and not his fault.  However there is much anger and bitterness aimed at Fred’s mother because she didn’t care enough about her family and leaving kids behind to stop drinking.  Isn’t this a little unfair?  She had an addiction too and inherited it from her family.  Fred has a family and children too who have watched him slowly destroy himself.

Fred’s mother has been described to me as a kind, friendly person.  She never abused her kids.  She was at worst a little neglectful of her children.  Yet Fred has over the more recent past begun to be verbally abusive to his wife and now even his children.  He has been, in fact, removed from the family home now due to his verbally abusive behaviour and even threats.

The whole situation is not pleasant and I feel sorry for everyone.  I feel sorry for Fred’s father who watched his wife and now his son suffer.  I feel sorry for Fred’s immediate family that they have done everything they can to help (lots of rehab and counselling have been tried) and have reached the point that for their own safety and sanity have had to remove him from their family home.  I feel sorry for Fred’s siblings that they have to watch their brother go through this and don’t know what to do.  I feel sorry for Fred that he feels so low he doesn’t even think there is any point in trying to get better.  I can’t imagine how this can end well.

I can’t help but think about the fact that mothers have a higher standard expected of them though.  There is definitely a stronger reaction about a mother with an alcohol problem than a father.  “How could she do that to her children?” people say.  We’re just as human as everyone else.  Is our love and duty towards our children so much stronger than a fathers that it should be enough for us to deal with all of lives issues in the most responsible, selfless manner?  I know most fathers would not agree that the mothers love is necessarily greater.  It is almost a cliche for a father to go to the pub after work and drink with mates and come home late.  Could you imagine if the roles were reversed and the mother went out drinking in the afternoons and left the kids at home with dad?  I could just imagine the disgust most people would have for a mother like that.

The responsibility and judgment is one of the things I hate about motherhood.

Evil me.

I have a day out!

Today I have a day out so I thought I would write about how that changes when you are a mother.

I will be out all day today with some friends.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I won’t have any kids with me and I’m even getting a lift so I will be responsibility free!  However I have learnt from past experiences that there is a price to pay.  If I do nothing and just go out for the day, disaster will await me upon my return.

As I have briefly mentioned elsewhere I do have a good relationship with my husband and he tries to be as supportive of me as possible.  He encourages me to have days to myself sometimes as he knows I go a bit stir crazy at home.  But why, oh why, is it so hard for him to run the house for a day?

If I do nothing and just go out for the day then the following will happen.  Hubby is a deep sleeper and is a night owl.  The 2 older children will get out of bed when they wake up, go get their Nintendo DS’s and crawl back into bed.  There everyone will stay until the youngest child starts whinging from her cot and either eventually wakes Dad up or the two older siblings go in and amuse her.  Eventually somewhere around 10.30am breakfast will be served.  None of the kids will get dressed, brush their teeth or comb their hair.  They will go back to the DS or TV.  Eventually at about 2pm they will complain about being hungry.  Dad will make an unhealthy lunch of chips or instant noodles and they will eat about 3pm.  Baths won’t happen.  Hunger kicks in again at about 7pm,  dinner about 8pm and they will not get to bed until after 9pm.   The next day I will have tired kids, a trashed kitchen, none of their chores, music practice or homework done and a hubby feeling proud because he gave me a day off!

The other option is to become the nagging machine I never wanted to be.  I will leave notes for everyone.  I will make the girls set their alarm to have breakfast before it reaches double digits.  I will leave them a list of what they need to do before they are allowed to go off and play.  I will leave Dad a list of the chores that need to get done for that day, a reminder that he is supposed to take one of the girls to ballet and that they need to have lunch before that, a reminder to make sure the kids are doing what they are supposed to do and suggestions for dinner.  I know that not everything will get done but at least some will get done.  For some reason it is hard for hubby to clean the kitchen when he is watching the kids despite the fact that I do it every day.  For some reason he thinks he has cleaned the kitchen if he fills the dishwasher and stacks the items that need to be handwashed on the bench.  For some reason he thinks that as soon as I walk back in the door he deserves a break even though I don’t do that to him.  For some reason he thinks it is okay for the kids to watch tv for 8 hours straight.

What frustrates me is that as the mother you seem to be the only person who cares if things get done properly.  I know this is not the case for all husbands but it seems to be the case for the majority.  They think about the next five minutes only and if the child isn’t screaming from hunger or cutting the curtains with scissors then the world is okay and there is nothing to worry about.  It seems to be my responsibility to remember and deal with the fact that if the washing isn’t done there will be no school uniforms clean on Monday morning, that if the child doesn’t get their show and tell ready there will be tears one morning or a request for me to print 10 photos in 30 seconds one school morning.  It seems to be the cranky mother to be the one that insists the child eat at least one piece of food a day that doesn’t come out of a cardboard packet.  It has to be the cranky mother who is the one to say turn the tv off and go outside and play.

I get so sick of having to be the nagging, cranky person keeping everyone in line.   Does nobody else care?  I often wonder how they would live if I left.  Would they realise after a month they need to smarten up their acts or would they just live in a dump and deal with each catastrophe as it arose and be happy to be nag free?  It sounds like I’m fussy but I’m not.  I’ve set my standards as low as I’m willing to go.  My floor is not spotless and every meal isn’t perfectly balanced.  I really don’t feel like I’m expecting too much.  I feel like every time I walk out the door everyone sighs a sigh of relief and says “Woohoo mum’s gone!  Let’s just chill!”.  That’s not fair.  I just want our home and family to function and be nice and I know they do too but they won’t put the effort in unless I nag.  I hate nagging and how can you nag and not feel cranky?  I hate the sound of myself sometimes.

Mum you didn’t tell me there would be days like this, can you babysit for 18 years?

Today I tackle the topic of the influence other mothers have on our impressions of motherhood.  Just imagine this scenario.  You’re at a family BBQ or out shopping and someone tells you what a beautiful child you have and that you must be so proud and happy.  What do you say?  Of course you say “Why thank you.”  What you really want to say is “Actually she’s a little pain in the ass and it took 2 changes of clothes and yelling about suitable shoes before we could get out the front door and I’m just so glad she is behaving herself but I wonder why she can’t do the same thing at home?”  You can’t be honest unless it is someone you know really well who will know that you aren’t about to go postal because you went off your meds.  If you don’t agree with them you will just sound like some cranky old cow.  So we perpetuate the myth that having kids is like those family holiday ads with everyone smiling and laughing and sharing a meal.

What about mothers of babies?  You ask how they are going and they smile and say “Well I’m a bit tired but he/she is so gorgeous I could just sit and watch them sleep for hours.”  What SOME of them really want to say is “I’m so exhausted, I just want to have a shower without worrying about the baby, I have to sit in the chair holding him for hours because that is the only way he will sleep AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING.  HELP!!!”  Of course, sometimes this is post-partum depression (PPD) – a subject I will talk about at a later date – but sometimes this is a feeling which just hangs around in some way or another as the child gets older.   Now, even if the new mum says they are okay, I always try to make an effort to make their life easier.  Go visit and hold the baby so they can have a shower or clean their kitchen.  Take them disposable nappies even if they use cloth nappies just so they can have a day off from washing if it all gets too much.

I’m getting a bit off track but the point I am trying to make is that mothers who aren’t coping aren’t generally honest about how they feel because they are worried about what other people will think of them.  We all know there are some mothers out there that don’t cope as well as others but it is often put down to PPD and something we assume is over by the time the kids aren’t babies anymore.  If you hear a mother with older kids talking about what a pain it is to have kids then people will assume she is just selfish and wants to go back to her partying youthful self.  So we keep our thoughts to ourselves and perpetuate the myth that motherhood is mostly bliss with a few challenging days that you will look back on and laugh about with your children when they grow up.

But where do most of us learn about motherhood from?  Our mothers of course!  Some mums will be really bad about being honest and just start nagging you for grandkids as soon as you are married and start urging marriage as soon as you reach 21!  Most are a bit more honest, telling you that kids are hard work and challenging and perhaps even that you shouldn’t expect too much help from your husband.  But imagine if your mother didn’t like motherhood much?  What is she supposed to do?  This is something I struggle with as I have 3 daughters.

I want to be honest with them and let them make their own decision.  I know that motherhood is the highlight of their life for some women.  I know that it does not feel like that for me most days.  But how do you tell your child that you don’t really like motherhood much without it feeling like a judgment against them?  Personally, I think I will wait until they are about 17 or 18 years old and then talk to them more openly about this issue.  I think they are too young now and they will be too volatile as early teenagers.  But I would be curious to see how many women just decided that there was something wrong with them because they didn’t love motherhood and decide not to ‘burden’ their kids with that knowledge.

What would they do with this knowledge?  At least they could make a more informed decision about their life and if they do decided to become a mother at least they won’t feel abnormal if they have problems.  I feel that somehow motherhood is treated as the ‘soft option’ in life.  That if you have a career and don’t have children you will be stressed out, lack balance in your life and be missing out on something vital to every woman and when you reach 50 you will realise you are alone and nothing really means anything anyway.  Well sometimes as a mother you will be stressed out, lack balance in your life, be missing out on things that may be important to you, will feel lonely sometimes as a mother and could still end up alone.  It’s a choice that every woman should be able to make based on the full facts but we are given a skewed view of the facts in my opinion.

Would I turn back time to change my decision to be a mother?  No because my children are amazing people.  Would I have made a different decision if I had known that I could feel this way about motherhood?  Possibly.  Who knows?  But at least I wouldn’t have spent the last 10 years feeling like such a horrible person because I felt like the only mother on the planet who didn’t love my life.

It’s a conspiracy!

It’s an odd sort of conspiracy though because it is unintentional.  No-one knows what motherhood is really like except a mother.  The view of motherhood that little girls grow up with is primarily influenced by mothers they know, especially their own, and the media.  Lets have a look at these two influences.

Media

Of course we can trust the media to portray things in a realistic way.  Yeah, right!  Lets have a look at a few TV shows.

• Desperate Housewives – What is so desperate about them?  They have pretty much spotless houses, gorgeous wardrobes, no dark roots in their blonde hair, a slim figure, huge houses despite husbands that are usually home before dark,  and the ability to slip back into a career when required.  The only one who comes anywhere near reality is Lynette and she ends up with an addiction to her kids ADD medication to keep going.
• The Simpsons – Oh great.  A woman who does everything for her family and realises that if she ever REALLY thinks about her life she will go insane.  At least they have acknowledged this in the character but the overall feeling at the end of the day is that she loves her family so much she is happy to be this way.  The quote on her bio page is
  

  “It doesn’t matter how you feel inside, you know.  It’s what shows up on the surface that counts.”

• So many sitcoms are made that are at least partly based on turning the fact that a mother goes virtually insane dealing with her family into a joke.  One that particularly drives me crazy is Everybody Loves Raymond.  Well I don’t love Raymond.  To me he is a lazy shit who expects his wife to do virtually everything while he loafs about the house doing his amazingly cushy job.  Why is it funny that, as the mother, there is the assumption that you will do everything required to keep all things good?

I do enjoy some of these shows but at the same time they make me squirm.  The Simpsons deals with the issue in a more satirical way that I am okay with watching but I still wonder if young girls get the impression that as a wife and mother you should be content to be treated like a doormat.

These shows seem to be perpetuating the myth that fathers can’t do anything properly or without being nagged and that children should be excused for their larrikin behaviour because they are only kids and it is sort of funny when you think about it.  Lets all just have a good laugh and then Mum can fix it.  These are men with often demanding careers and complicated hobbies that require practice, training and learning yet they cannot figure out or remember how to work the washing machine or that a balanced meal requires vegetables?  Ha ha, yes let’s all laugh because we have heard these jokes before.  It’s not a joke.  If a mother behaved that way they would be frowned upon, treated as a hopeless failure and suffer constant guilt.

Let’s all laugh and roll our eyes because the child gives you 2 hours notice that they need to build a volcano for tomorrow’s show and tell.  Isn’t this the same child that remembers the class pet’s home visit schedule for the next 2 months?  The child who can tell you what each Pokemon evolves into, where it’s habitat is and what it’s weaknesses are?  Or what about the fact they can’t remember to take their shoes off when they come in the door even though everyone else does and they have been told to take their shoes for the past 8 years of their life?  But they are just children you say.  That is my point.  Dealing with children makes motherhood a misery.

Well, I have gone on for longer than I wanted to about the media and so I will tackle the issue of the impression your mother gives you of motherhood tomorrow.

And I’m working on a theme for this blog….

Evil Me

Guilt, guilt, guilt!!

I have never felt so guilty in my life as I have since being a mother.  I feel guilty about writing this blog.  I feel guilty that a cuddle from my kids isn’t enough for me to let go of the fact that they spent the whole afternoon driving me crazy.  I feel guilty that I had the last biscuit in the packet.  I feel guilty that I bought myself a new book and didn’t buy one for each kid.  I feel guilty that there are frozen vegies on their dinner plate for the third night in a row.  I feel guilty if they are late for music lessons even though it is because they didn’t get ready when I asked them to.  I feel guilty that I have thoughts of running away.  I feel guilty that I sometimes count the years before I can be free of their schedules and routines.  I feel guilty that they think the Gwen Stefani song has the lyrics “this ship is bananas” instead of “this shit is bananas”.  Actually that last one is a bit funny too.  I feel guilty when I spend time during the day relaxing even though my work hours are apparently 6.30am to 8.30pm.

Mostly I feel guilty that despite having a loving husband, 3 gorgeous, intelligent healthy children, enough money to meet our needs and the option to work or stay home, I feel dissatisfied and cranky most of the time.