As you know, these days I am hot on the case of Mummy Guilt. I am the masked crusader in the cape (the freshly laundered cape), battling that particular evil vilain. And in that spirit, I thought I'd just tell you what a fabulous mother I've been this morning, before rushing away to my secret hideaway, changing out of my superhero identity, and emerging into my real life as a humble toy store sales assistant. Ha! If only they knew...
The best 'fabulous mother' bit of the morning was the 15-minute car journey from the State Chess Tournament (10-yo participating) to the soccer pitch (13-yo participating). So for that to happen, you already have to imagine the whole mullarkey of getting two children to two places at the same time, each wearing different kit, needing different equipment, bla bla bla, which involved calling in favours from friends. Overnight favours on this occasion. So let's take that whole bit as read.
Then I need to tell you that I was on check-in duty at the Chess Tournament. This is a front-line job. It's not a front line you want to be in. I don't want to say too much, because I've never organised a big competition and I imagine it's not easy, but I think it is true to say that those who are good at chess (strategic thinking skills), are not necessarily those who are good at designing and supervising check-in systems for large numbers of children (organisation skills, people skills). Suffice to say, that one element of my job was to comfort a child in tears who'd been shouted at by one of the other organisers.
So anyway, after an hour of front-line duty and disorganisation, I then drove to the soccer match.
In the course of the journey, I answered the following questions:
what happens if you break a law?
how do the police find out?
how much is a fine?
what's a trial?
how do pet shops get birds to sell?
what does 'breed' mean?
can you unbreed animals?
what's the biggest pet you can have?
you can't really have a horse if you live in a town, can you?
do we live in a town?
what kind of party did you have for your 7th birthday?
when you play soccer, how do you not be the goalie, if you don't want to be the goalie?
would you like to be an ant?
really? did you know that they only live two days and they have people trying to squish them all the time?
would you really really really like to be a bird and be able to fly?
You have to admit, that for someone who has been up since 6.15, doesn't drink caffeine, has been dealing for an hour and a half with the potent cocktail of chess officials under pressure and members of the public, is mentally preparing a strategy to winkle out small shreds of information about her oldest son's first formal dance (yes, age 13) the previous evening while also enthusing about the goals he has scored... to be able to find the brain space to explain the judicial system in language a 6 year old can understand, recall childhood memories, ponder the metaphysical questions of creaturely existence, AND keep a car on the road in a straight line... I think it's pretty darn impressive. And let's admit it, this is standard fare for most mothers. You've all done this stuff too. You do it all the time. We are marvellous things, and should stop feeling guilty and inadequate.
Oh, and did I mention that Husband is away at the moment for nearly two weeks? Did I hear someone offering me a gold star to sport on my cape? Ooh, yes please (so long as it's an iron-on one).
.
Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Mummy guilt
I have been thinking recently about guilt (she says darkly and mysteriously). One of the main ways I come across guilt is that syndrome known to all us mummy bloggers: Mummy Guilt. Here is what I think we should all do about Mummy Guilt (and I include myself as a prime culprit): stop it!
Mummy Guilt is actually a misnomer, if you think about it. It’s not really proper guilt, is it? It’s not guilt as in “I’ve done something that is ethically and/or morally wrong, and I feel remorse” is it? It’s an indistinct sense of inadequacy. It’s the feeling of being not good enough. And… (drum roll at this point, as you all wait for Iota’s pearl of wisdom to drop from your computer screen and roll across the table onto your lap)… of course we’re not good enough, because that is part of the human condition. In fact, here is a paradox (ooh, I love paradoxes). If you were the perfect parent, you wouldn’t be a good parent, because you wouldn’t be preparing your child for a world where people are imperfect. Ta-da! Mummy Guilt solved.
I think we English speakers need a few more words to cover the guilt spectrum. I’m told that in other languages, there is a bigger vocabulary for the thing that we gather under one guilt umbrella (though of course we are good at gathering things under umbrellas, what with our climate being the way it is). Guilt, inadequacy, shame… we tend to put it all in the same basket. The basket that’s keeping dry under the umbrella. So Misnamed Mummy Inadequacy gets in with proper “I’ve committed a heinous crime: guilty as charged, M’Lud, life sentence coming my way” guilt. That’s a bit of a pity, if you ask me. Just makes us mummies feel even worse, labouring under such a weighty term. So, if you’re a passing linguist, perhaps you’d like to toss in your ha’penny worth. In the murky recesses of my memory, I catch a glimmer of a recollection that someone once told me that Russian is good in the guilt arena. Any passing Russian-speaking bloggers?
This is what I notice about Mummy Guilt. We confess to it for random irrelevant things. Things like not taking home-made mince pies to the school Christmas party, or helping your child do her homework ten minutes before you have to leave for school because you forgot about it the night before. Everyone knows that shop-bought mince pies taste nicer, and that you are doing your child a big favour if you are developing in her the ability to produce a piece of work quickly at the last minute and make it look like you spent hours over it. That is an indispensable life skill, if I ever saw one.
Here’s another thing I’ve spotted. Mothers feel bad about not always putting their children first, and sometimes putting themselves first. They know, however, that they must bring up their children to be sensitive to other people’s needs and wants, and not to be selfish. Another paradox. Yum! Why does pursuing the first half make us feel guilty (ie putting ourselves first), and not the second half?
I have plenty more to say on the subject of guilt (dark, mysterious) but I’m going to stop now, because it is 10.30pm on a Sunday night, and I’ve had at least one glass of red wine and am ready for bed, or at the very least a hot bath, and still haven’t come to a satisfactory conclusion on whether 13-yo can do soccer AND tennis in the last quarter of the school year, or whether one sport is enough, and whether we are going to be able to be fair to the younger two children and treat them all the same as they grow up if we set the bar as ridiculously high as to allow for TWO sports as well as TWO musical instruments, and talking of setting the bar high, would perhaps track (that’s 'athletics' or 'field events' to you British readers, at least I think so, I can't really remember any longer - it's not something I ever talked about very much when I lived in the UK) be a better option than tennis anyway since the school has recommended it as a help in transitioning from the middle school to the upper school because the two teams train together? and thinking that whatever we decide, this one issue will seriously scar them all, the three of them, for life, and therefore I am a TERRIBLY BAD MOTHER.
Mummy Guilt is actually a misnomer, if you think about it. It’s not really proper guilt, is it? It’s not guilt as in “I’ve done something that is ethically and/or morally wrong, and I feel remorse” is it? It’s an indistinct sense of inadequacy. It’s the feeling of being not good enough. And… (drum roll at this point, as you all wait for Iota’s pearl of wisdom to drop from your computer screen and roll across the table onto your lap)… of course we’re not good enough, because that is part of the human condition. In fact, here is a paradox (ooh, I love paradoxes). If you were the perfect parent, you wouldn’t be a good parent, because you wouldn’t be preparing your child for a world where people are imperfect. Ta-da! Mummy Guilt solved.
I think we English speakers need a few more words to cover the guilt spectrum. I’m told that in other languages, there is a bigger vocabulary for the thing that we gather under one guilt umbrella (though of course we are good at gathering things under umbrellas, what with our climate being the way it is). Guilt, inadequacy, shame… we tend to put it all in the same basket. The basket that’s keeping dry under the umbrella. So Misnamed Mummy Inadequacy gets in with proper “I’ve committed a heinous crime: guilty as charged, M’Lud, life sentence coming my way” guilt. That’s a bit of a pity, if you ask me. Just makes us mummies feel even worse, labouring under such a weighty term. So, if you’re a passing linguist, perhaps you’d like to toss in your ha’penny worth. In the murky recesses of my memory, I catch a glimmer of a recollection that someone once told me that Russian is good in the guilt arena. Any passing Russian-speaking bloggers?
This is what I notice about Mummy Guilt. We confess to it for random irrelevant things. Things like not taking home-made mince pies to the school Christmas party, or helping your child do her homework ten minutes before you have to leave for school because you forgot about it the night before. Everyone knows that shop-bought mince pies taste nicer, and that you are doing your child a big favour if you are developing in her the ability to produce a piece of work quickly at the last minute and make it look like you spent hours over it. That is an indispensable life skill, if I ever saw one.
Here’s another thing I’ve spotted. Mothers feel bad about not always putting their children first, and sometimes putting themselves first. They know, however, that they must bring up their children to be sensitive to other people’s needs and wants, and not to be selfish. Another paradox. Yum! Why does pursuing the first half make us feel guilty (ie putting ourselves first), and not the second half?
I have plenty more to say on the subject of guilt (dark, mysterious) but I’m going to stop now, because it is 10.30pm on a Sunday night, and I’ve had at least one glass of red wine and am ready for bed, or at the very least a hot bath, and still haven’t come to a satisfactory conclusion on whether 13-yo can do soccer AND tennis in the last quarter of the school year, or whether one sport is enough, and whether we are going to be able to be fair to the younger two children and treat them all the same as they grow up if we set the bar as ridiculously high as to allow for TWO sports as well as TWO musical instruments, and talking of setting the bar high, would perhaps track (that’s 'athletics' or 'field events' to you British readers, at least I think so, I can't really remember any longer - it's not something I ever talked about very much when I lived in the UK) be a better option than tennis anyway since the school has recommended it as a help in transitioning from the middle school to the upper school because the two teams train together? and thinking that whatever we decide, this one issue will seriously scar them all, the three of them, for life, and therefore I am a TERRIBLY BAD MOTHER.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)