We’ve all done it: been behind someone in the line at school pick-up, sat next to someone in a coffee shop, come across someone at the doctor’s surgery. You observe them from your vantage point and think
“Holy Cow! I am such a bad mother. She’s doing a much better job than me.”
It’s easy to compare yourself to someone in a brief snapshot of time and think that they are amazing, have the patience you lack, the authority you wish you had, the love that you sometimes just don’t feel.
I’ve been that person more times than I can count. Which is why I burst into a fit of giggles recently when someone implied that I was the mother they wish they could be. Because really, I’m as far from a good parent as you can get.
Here are 7 reasons why you are a better mum than me.
1. You eat meals together. I never eat with my children during the week. They eat their breakfast in the car on the way to school at 7.30am. They want to eat their tea when they get home at 4pm, and DH doesn’t get in until 8pm, and I try to eat with him. At weekends we eat together but weekdays? Not a chance.
2. You are a working mother. That sends a great message to your children: that women are a valued part of the workforce, that you can work and have children, that you can- and should- use the qualifications you spent years acquiring.I stay at home. My children think all I do all day is do laundry and meet my friends for coffee.
3. Your child does lots of after-school activities, both at school and at weekends, making them well rounded, capable and good sports. Mine do as little as I can get away with. And they certainly don’t do anything that requires going home, getting changed, and going back out for. They are small and I rather assume that they tire easily, so I keep all activities and playdates to a minimum. I am conscious that their Secondary School C Vs may be a touch spartan when it comes to “outside activities.”
4. You do things with your children at weekends: museums and theatre trips, seeing family and going to the cinema. My children get to help us with DIY, animal husbandry, and cleaning the car. They don’t get to go off on adventures and build their learning. They never visited the poppies at the Tower of London or watched The Gruffalo when it was on TV at Christmas. I’m fairly sure that the only reason they saw Frozen in the days after it’s release was good luck rather than careful planning.
5. You get your children to bed at a sensible hour. I have one who is exhausted after her first term at school, but the other takes a long time to settle. She can be in and out of her room until almost 9pm sometimes when she has a lot on her mind. I am very conscious that this may affect her performance the following day, but have singularly failed to find the thing that will help her get to sleep by the 7.30pm watershed her friends have.
6. You meal plan. You save money and serve organic food, cooked from scratch. DH’s schedule is all over the place so even if I devoted time and effort, half the meals I make every week would end up in the dog or the freezer. So meals tend to run on a day-to-day and sometimes hour-to-hour strategy, so I hit the food shops at least three times a week. Which impacts the wallet more than if I planned meticulously.
7. You don’t shout at your children. I try. I really do. But after twenty minutes of asking them to get dressed, whilst I get breakfast ready, feed the dog, empty the dishwasher and drink coffee, then ten minutes of telling them to get dressed whilst I fill school bags with snacks, get out coats and shoes and try to cajoule hair into the style-du-jour, I end up screaming like a mother at a hockey match for the girls to get-you-clothes-on-we-are-going-to-be-late-what-is-taking-so-long. Then they cry, I have to help whilst mopping up tears, forcing feet into shoes, redoing hair and swearing that tomorrow I will do a better job.
So when things don’t go to plan, when you leave the house in odd shoes, or you forget the PE kit or collection money or Nativity costume, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.
I was a terrible mum when they were little! The shortest fuse in the world, chaos, lazy parenting, just hopeless! But they turned out pretty well – so maybe it’s a good thing – gives them something to aim away from in their adult life, so actually it’s the best way to be. At least that’s what I tell myself!
You have given me hope that my children will turn out well Mary- because yours are awesome!
This was such a refreshing and encouraging read. I know exactly how you feel. I turn up at school and see all these in control perfect mothers and sometimes feel close to tears that i just can’t seem to be the mum I always wanted to be. With all the will in the world I try, but by the time I asked my children nicely to get dressed 10 times and still they ignore me, my smiles quickly fade and the ‘happy’ mum I long to be, yet again becomes the yelling fish wife. I think we all do our best and thats what being a mum is, doing our best, being a parent first, before a friend. Life is busy nowadays and there’s a lot pressure to work, keep house, have bundles of energy, help at school and so on. Thank you for this post and I’m sure you are a fabulous mum :O)
Thank you Making It As A Mum. Life is very busy. But you are doing a much better job than you think. We all are.
Goodness! I do 2 and a half of your statements namely we do stuff at the weekend, well one day, or try to, as OH works every Sunday. They are in bed at a decent time. I plan meals but that goes a bit skewy when I’m at work and husband gets in at 8. So, I don’t think you are alone in anyway. Interesting view on SAHM and the message it gives chn. I work and want to be home to be there for the kids but am also trying to show to my children that my daughter shouldn’t expect to wait on her partner and my son needs to not have that expectation of his partner – if that makes sense! Mothers can never win on the SAHM issue!
It’s true, they can’t @76Sunflowers. Mother’s Guilt. It’ll be the ruin of us all!
Are you f-ing kidding me? I yell at my kids on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s the only thing that works, and sometimes they NEED it (and some kids need it more than others). Give yourself a break! Be thankful that you aren’t a working mother that parked her kids in daycare for strangers to raise! I seldom meal plan or get them to bed on time, either. Cut yourself some slack, please!
Happy to on your authority @maisie1 and thank you!
THANK YOU for this extremely brave blog post. I regularly feel that I’m a disaster zone, two steps from intervention (!), but like everyone else, I don’t ever consider what I am getting right. (I really really won’t shout at my children tomorrow…)
Happy to help Sara. It’s important to know you are not alone. And you are not!
I meal plan. It saves money that is very much needed. All it takes if you have a husband with a variable schedule is to plan meals that can easily be reheated or made in a slow cooker so can stay on warm if he’s later than planned. That, or it can be done in 5 mins, like an omelette. PS tho I tend to cook from kind of scratch, a) a lot of it is defnitely NOT organic and b) there are a lot of leftovers too!
I was like you with after school activities but now they are bigger, they’ve chosen their own. School has plenty of free ones so they just stay on after school. If only I could get them to choose the same ones. One dances, the other does school football. Both play cricket in the summer but that doesn’t start until well after tea. And they both have swimming lessons on a Weds. They would be out every night given the chance. I moderate it. And I make them go to the gym on Tuesdays so I can go to a class and they just play in the kids club for an hour.
I do shout tho. 😉
See, you really are a better mum than me @kateab. Thanks for the advice though: I should dust off the slow cooker….