I took four small children to a Christmas concert yesterday, hosted by the State Orchestra. We have been going for years – ever since the eldest was a baby. Each year I see proud mums drag their little darlings along bedecked in tinsel in hair and handmade Christmas outfits. I watch just about every other child stand and dance in rhythm to the music,clap and sing along to well known tunes and generally interact with the show.
I watched my four charges carefully yesterday. The 13 month old was the only one totally engaged – wriggling and clapping to the music. The other three sat in a row – staring directly forward with little expression on their faces. I stopped myself begging them to enjoy them selves, or asking them to stand up and join in.
The program was designed for small people – full of interesting information about the Orchestral instruments in a story format, interlaced with well known Christmas tunes and interaction with the crowd by a well known children’s presenter.
I desperately wanted my kids to look like they were enjoying themselves or taking in the rich music presented. As I looked about the room full of twirling Christmas fairies, a cold knife stabbed deeply into the mother guilt heart. Perhaps if I had played classical music to the more as babies or whilst in the womb they would be enjoying the excerpts from the nutcracker. Perhaps if I had enrolled them in toddler dance classes they would feel more confident to stand and twirl with the rest of them. Perhaps if I made the time to sew frocks bedecking them with ribbon and appliqué, then I too would look like a mother who cared about the development of her children. Instead as I looked down at my food encrusted shirt I was certain was clean when I got in the car to come, I look like a skanky harassed hag. At least I wasn’t nagging them to stand up – but if telepathy existed their brains would have been fried with my inner shouts and pleas.
I then thought of the autistic kids I used to teach and sent a blessing to those parents – thinking about what they must go through – the unconditional love they must hold for their kids. Feedback is such an important aspect of a relationship - and I was gaining little to no feedback from the three stooges as they stared into space within the concert hall.
The concert ended and I had ensured that I had sung Christmas Carols loudly and had clapped and cheered at he end even if the plebs I took did not. AS I buckled the kids into the car, I hesitatingly asked if they had enjoyed the morning; whilst calculating what other things I might have done instead of wasting money on these tickets.
Oh Mummy I liked the songs
No – the drums were best
I liked the horn player
That man was silly with his reindeer horned hat wasn’t he?
SO – You did like the concert then?
Oh yes – the resounding replies were. Can we go next year?
I reflected as we drove off on whose enjoyment I was expecting. My kids are very introspective in any case – but I might have expected at least one of them Miss Show Off to have joined in the fairly ring which had spontaneously erupted in front of us during one of the tinkling songs.
You just never know do you? Who am I to place what I believe is enjoyment onto their beliefs? I was just trying to placate the mother guilt beast and to show off myself – to all the other show off mums; all of us desperately trying to convince the other that we are good parents.
Showing posts with label motherguilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherguilt. Show all posts
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The inequity of parenting
How is it that two perfectly normal, sensitive and apparently spiritually progressive people can tumble into the stone ages when the role of parenting breeches the walls of their love?
I had thought I had escaped the Victorian codes of conduct I grew up with when I met and married my dearheart. He had lived on his own for many years and was independent ( big tick) Yes when we live together the chores are equally divided, yes you cook and I’ll clean and then the next night we will swap, yes – lets go shopping for food together, yes you can choose to keep your maiden name when we marry, yes you can choose a natural birth, yes you can choose to work or stay at home when you become a mother, yes we will breastfeed on demand, yes our sex life will stay the same during pregnancy and afterwards forever.... and then baby arrives. You stumble through the days, aware of day or night, bleary eyed and constantly weeping. And everything starts to change.
It happens gradually, but it happens. Dishes pile up, washing stays on the line for a week or in the basket moldering. The house hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks and you can’t remember when the sheets were changed last. You are a stay at home mum, looking after children and apparently having a wonderful time because you don’t work and lets not forget the big one – you no longer earn any money. All that freedom and liberation you thought you had earn when you worked slips from your fingers like sand and just as impossible to regain as attempting to catch quicksilver.
Great lists of things to do, jobs and errands to run being piling up and you wonder when you had the time to work before you had children. Plates don’t get lifted from the table and washing piles in corners. (I have always refused to iron so at least that’s not an issue) I swing between scrupulously cleaning and tidying till the house shins like a new pin and giving up because I am the only one who seemingly cares or does anything about it. It wouldn’t be so bad except I get constantly snipped about the state of the house if I am the “I don’t care mode.”
And yes – I have tried a number of strategies – starting way back when my first was only a very new baby and hubbys job was to bathe him. I let it go for three days – baby had not been washed – despite me putting out all the gear and readying everything. Its still an issue – when I go out to my classes I need to ensure the kids have been bathed and dinner is in front of them – otherwise I come home and they are still racing round at 9 pm on a school night as dirty as pigs and eating biscuits. I keep thinking that its just me – and my high standards; so I do it all..
I doubt that its my own dearheart that is the only male guilty of this slippage back into the 1950s set of gender roles.
I read in forums and on the internet how parents share the roles, but in my circle of friends in my own experience, this is not happening. I wonder if these people are telling the truth for fear of being abnormal – or if I really am the only one? Breastfeeding was not a joy at 3 am in the middle of winter – creeping about not trying to wake hubby because he had to work the next day. I fear I have set the feminist movement back 50 years and am at a loss of how it happened or how to make it stop. I am sure many men underestimate the importance of and necessity for a strongly-involved male parenting role and the self-satisfaction one derives from it. Don’t get me wrong – I love being a mum – and really wouldn’t swap it for quids.
With some digging, I found that this was not always the case. Until the early 1800s, most child-rearing manuals were directed at men, who had the majority of the say about child-rearing. With the advance of industrialization, the father was more and more removed from the home. This resulted in females making more of the house and child rearing decisions. Ultimately this meant that men lost an integral part of the whole human experience with the shift in these decision making processes.
Many movies and television programs are now often showing the joys and pleasures of male parenting, and schools are now providing much-needed parenting training. I wonder however if this is enough – as there are just as many anti male role models ( The Simpsons, Californication, Marriage with Kids to name a few) although men are now becoming more emotionally available to their children than their fathers were, we have a long way to go.
I had thought I had escaped the Victorian codes of conduct I grew up with when I met and married my dearheart. He had lived on his own for many years and was independent ( big tick) Yes when we live together the chores are equally divided, yes you cook and I’ll clean and then the next night we will swap, yes – lets go shopping for food together, yes you can choose to keep your maiden name when we marry, yes you can choose a natural birth, yes you can choose to work or stay at home when you become a mother, yes we will breastfeed on demand, yes our sex life will stay the same during pregnancy and afterwards forever.... and then baby arrives. You stumble through the days, aware of day or night, bleary eyed and constantly weeping. And everything starts to change.
It happens gradually, but it happens. Dishes pile up, washing stays on the line for a week or in the basket moldering. The house hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks and you can’t remember when the sheets were changed last. You are a stay at home mum, looking after children and apparently having a wonderful time because you don’t work and lets not forget the big one – you no longer earn any money. All that freedom and liberation you thought you had earn when you worked slips from your fingers like sand and just as impossible to regain as attempting to catch quicksilver.
Great lists of things to do, jobs and errands to run being piling up and you wonder when you had the time to work before you had children. Plates don’t get lifted from the table and washing piles in corners. (I have always refused to iron so at least that’s not an issue) I swing between scrupulously cleaning and tidying till the house shins like a new pin and giving up because I am the only one who seemingly cares or does anything about it. It wouldn’t be so bad except I get constantly snipped about the state of the house if I am the “I don’t care mode.”
And yes – I have tried a number of strategies – starting way back when my first was only a very new baby and hubbys job was to bathe him. I let it go for three days – baby had not been washed – despite me putting out all the gear and readying everything. Its still an issue – when I go out to my classes I need to ensure the kids have been bathed and dinner is in front of them – otherwise I come home and they are still racing round at 9 pm on a school night as dirty as pigs and eating biscuits. I keep thinking that its just me – and my high standards; so I do it all..
I doubt that its my own dearheart that is the only male guilty of this slippage back into the 1950s set of gender roles.
I read in forums and on the internet how parents share the roles, but in my circle of friends in my own experience, this is not happening. I wonder if these people are telling the truth for fear of being abnormal – or if I really am the only one? Breastfeeding was not a joy at 3 am in the middle of winter – creeping about not trying to wake hubby because he had to work the next day. I fear I have set the feminist movement back 50 years and am at a loss of how it happened or how to make it stop. I am sure many men underestimate the importance of and necessity for a strongly-involved male parenting role and the self-satisfaction one derives from it. Don’t get me wrong – I love being a mum – and really wouldn’t swap it for quids.
With some digging, I found that this was not always the case. Until the early 1800s, most child-rearing manuals were directed at men, who had the majority of the say about child-rearing. With the advance of industrialization, the father was more and more removed from the home. This resulted in females making more of the house and child rearing decisions. Ultimately this meant that men lost an integral part of the whole human experience with the shift in these decision making processes.
Many movies and television programs are now often showing the joys and pleasures of male parenting, and schools are now providing much-needed parenting training. I wonder however if this is enough – as there are just as many anti male role models ( The Simpsons, Californication, Marriage with Kids to name a few) although men are now becoming more emotionally available to their children than their fathers were, we have a long way to go.
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