Sorry, but my children bore me to death!
by HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOR, Daily Mail 17:50pm 26th July 2006

I can't say which activity I dreaded more: playing Pass The Parcel at parties with a child who permanently crawled away from the action towards the priceless knick-knacks, or listening to the other mothers go on about such excitements as teething and potty-training. Mind-numbing!

While I agree somewhat, that some party activities can be quite melancholy, I think that discussing your child’s milestones is cause for excitement. These milestones are all indicators that your child is progressing in the world and is moving closer and closer towards that goal of being a productive member of society. If this woman is so “bored” with it all, I’d think she would be happy that her child is growing up- and eventually out of her nest.

While all my girlfriends were dropping important careers and occupying their afternoons with cake baking, I was begging the nanny to stay on, at least until she had read my two a bedtime story. What kind of mother hates reading bedtime stories? A bad mother, that's who, and a mother who is bored rigid by her children.

FYI- a lot of stay-at-home moms do a whole hell of a lot more with their afternoons than “cake baking”. Even if it is a “lazy afternoon” in this household, it’s cram packed with chores and activities. How does one decide what is more important, the “important career” or being there for diaper changes, illnesses, activities, cooking, cleaning, refereeing, holding, potty training, etc? As far as the bedtime ritual goes, it doesn’t matter whether you enjoy or are bored with reading your child a bedtime story, studies have proven that reading to your child helps them immensely, something to think about the next time your sitting watching CSI while the nanny is doing your job.

I know this is one of the last taboos of modern society. To admit that you, a mother of the new millennium, don't find your offspring thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable at all times is a state of affairs very few women are prepared to admit. We feel ashamed, and unfit to be mothers.

Now this is where I call the bullshit flag. “Mother of the New Millennium”? ALL the mothers that I know will freely admit that they don’t find their child/ren “thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable at all times”. Heck no! Kids are often difficult and I don’t know of any parent, on certain occasions, just wanted to tell their kid/s to leave them alone. I do NOT feel ashamed, nor unfit to be a mother. Nobody is asking that you play/coddle your children 24/7, child-centered parenting has proven narcissism, it’s a balancing act, just like the rest of your life. Sorry if having children didn’t meet your expectations.

When I brought it up at lunch yesterday, my friend June, a stay-at-home mother of three young children, admitted that 'children are mind-numbingly boring' and the act of being with them all day and night is responsible for many mental breakdowns. 'Looking after children makes women depressed,' she concluded.

No one is asking you to be completely engrossed by your children at all times, thatÂ’s impossible. Just take the time out to realize what a joy you have in your life, something some people donÂ’t have the chance to see. As far as being depressed? DonÂ’t be all fuckin 'Tom Cruise' about it, and go see someone if you think itÂ’s that bad. Asshat.

Research tells us that mothers drink the most when they have young children. Is that because talking to anyone under the age of ten requires some sort of lobotomy?

Ah, so THATÂ’S how you came up with this article! Drank yourself into delirium and now we all have to be bored and unenthusiastic about you? Fabulous. HereÂ’s a fruit-roll up to go with your sangria, hun.

Her solution was to avoid subjugating her own life to that of her children's. I'm certainly not traipsing around museums or sitting on the floor doing Lego if that's what you mean by being at home,' she explains. 'I'm loving it, but my children fit into my life and not the other way around.

Something just seems wrong with this statement. I have traipsed around museums with my three young children, I have sat on the floor and assembled legos with my children, does that mean that I am not qualified in the art of separating my life from theirs? IÂ’m sorry, ladies, but it ceased to be all about you the day you brought another life into this world.

Many of my friends — forty-something, university-educated professionals who swore that they would be normal parents — make it a policy now that 'our kids go where we go'. They drag their three-year-olds to dinner parties where the youngsters end up in front of a video all night. (I have seen children having tantrums in front of guests, and rather than send the children to their rooms, the parents send their guests home.)

Why is there a need to throw in “university-educated professionals” into the statement? Is it to inundate us with the thought that their child-rearing skills must be better than our own because they went to a university? Think again! A lot of Liberals have graduate and post-graduate educations, and I still wouldn’t want them to raise my children.

So it is drummed into mothers that if we find our children stressful or dull, it's because there's something wrong with us (but not dads, of course, who have a ready-made excuse for being out of the house all day because they 'have to go to work').

Please note: the reference to the dad being gone because he ‘has to go to work’, completely and utterly contradicts the moronic ‘new millennium mom’ comment, m’kay? Guess the stay-at-home-dad philosophy is a whole new article

And yet many women have spent years studying and then working so that we would not have to do a job as menial as full-time motherhood. I consider spending up to 30 hours a week sitting behind the wheel of a 4x4, dropping children off at play centres or school, to be a less-than-satisfactory reward for all those years of sweat.

Hectic, dull, sometimes monotonous are all words that I would use to describe my current job, NOT “menial”. Where is this ridiculous figure of “up to 30 hours” driving coming from? I’d like to know the answer to that one, because somehow I doubt that. As far as being “a less-than-satisfactory reward”, there is no reward for being a parent. Your reward is having a responsible, empathetic and productive adult on your hands in a few years. Someone that you can be proud to call “my child” and someone you’d be willing to call “my friend”. Capice?

Besides, in my view, making a child your career is a dangerous move because your marriage and sense of self can be sacrificed in the process.

Do you have the mental capacity of a fuckin’ sock puppet, or what? Millions of people over the entire world wear different hats; mom/dad, lover, friend, themselves, get a grip and quit with the ‘enslavement’ attitude.

They stopped asking me to take them to the park (how tedious) years ago. But now when I try to entertain them and say: 'Why don't we get out the Monopoly board?' they simply look at me woefully and sigh: 'Don't bother, Mum, you'll just get bored.'
How right they are.

“How tedious”, now that’s just fucked. Do you have any clue whatsoever, as to how many women are going through pain-staking fertility treatments at the moment and will NEVER get a child? They would do anything- including go through miscarriages, shots, extractions, pelvic exams- to take their child to the park. I pray that not a single woman dealing with infertility, reads this article. I also pray that one of your children never read this, either. You don’t want to play Monopoly with them? Fuck you. Fuck you with all your self-centered, self-righteous, bitter, “I’m speaking for all the moms”, please validate me, martyrdom bullshit. There is no need to end your life as soon as you create a new one. This article just oozes with the insinuation that it’s one or the other. Newsflash: you can have children and a career at the same time. Remember, you’re a “Mom of the New Millennium”..

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