Posted on 07/26/2006 7:17:10 AM PDT by carlo3b
Sorry, but my children bore me to death!
by HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOLR, Daily Mail 08:00am 26th July 2006It's the start of the summer holidays, when millions of mothers despair at how to entertain their children for the next six weeks. What none of them dare say is that they would rather their children were still at school or, frankly, anywhere else. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, a 42-year-old writer, lives in Notting Hill, West London, with her businessman husband Charles and their sons Constantin, 12, and Ivan, ten. Here, she argues provocatively that modern women must not be enslaved by their children.
The lies started when my eldest son was less than ten months old.
Invitations to attend a child's birthday party or, worse, a singalong session were met with the same refrain: 'I would love to but I just can't spare the time.'
The nanny was dispatched in my place, and almost always returned complaining that my son had been singled out for pitiful stares by the other mothers.
(snip) Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?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.
(snip) Am I a lazy, superficial person because I don't enjoy packing up their sports kit, or making their lunch, or sitting through coffee mornings with other mothers discussing how Mr Science (I can't remember most of the teachers' names) said such and such to Little Johnny and should we all complain to the headmaster.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
FREERIDER Ping!
I bet she's the type of is a hellion if she doesn't get a Mother's Day card but misses all the events in her kids life.
You know I wasn't talking about you. ;-) You wouldn't believe how many times I will go out with my husband, hear a baby cry, then want to go home and see my baby. This usually after only a couple of hours.
Because if she didn't have children, she would hear how selfish she was for not having children, how childless couples aren't real adults, how having children will instantly change her heart, etc. Instead, she had done her adult "duty", and her two sons will grow up scarred for life.
Some people are not cut out to be parents, period. When they are pressured to become parents, this is what happens.
Because you're selfish and only care about you maybe???
I was thinking more along the lines of the Little Golden Books or the serialized Pony Club books and Nancy Drew type stuff. There are some kid lit books that I do enjoy; Stuart Little, Marguerite Henry and others.
My point was that if a person expects themselves to be entertained as an adult by activities which are meant for kids, they are focusing on the wrong things. As a parent we give up much of we would choose to do if we didn't have our children around, for the sake of being with the children and moulding their characters. It is not the activities we focus on, but the end result of the activities of the years.
"Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun..."
Where on earth did she get that idea? Parenting requires work, sacrifice, dedication, patients, and unselfishness. I wonder how her mom felt about raising her.
I simply can't imagine a parent not taking an interest in most of their kids' activities and interests. How can this kind of parent expect their kids to listen to them or take any interest in their ideas or values? This mom will one day certainly end up in a lonely old folks' home.
They're grown and now leading their own independent lives. I cannot tell you how often I think back on all the days we spent together.
How much I miss them. How there's a big hole in my life that was filled with their laughter, their delight in learning something new, their spats......my daughter insisting her brother started it all when he hit her back.
Those memories are sustaining to this day.
I wonder how many mothers think what she put down on paper. I wonder how many regret their decisions after having the kids and find they don't like kids as much as they thought. It sounds to me that she should have never had them in the first place and maybe she had them because all her friends were having them.
I'll bet this lady's kids never got one 'I love you' written on a piece of paper in their lunch sack. My kids are grown now but they remember me writing them little notes, wishing them luck on tests and such. We may not have been perfect parents, but it wasn't from lack of trying. Geeeshhh...
There are actually a few commercials on the same theme. There was a Famous Footwear radio spot a few years back that went on about how wonderful it would be when the kids go back to school. I hated it when that commercial came on.
Trophy children for parents who can afford to have the nanny be the real parent. How sad for the children. I have nothing but disdain for the incubators.
Her sons definitely should not marry a girl like dear old mom...if they marry a girl at all. When she's a shriveled old crone in a government home, they may treat her with the same self-centered neglect that she taught them when they were young.
Self-serving plug here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076152424X/qid=1084813031/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-0939260-3759831?n=507846&s=books&v=glance
And whining about how ungrateful her children are...
with only her bedsores to hear.
Some are pressured. But I disagree that most are. I think that most have no clue what parenting is. What children are. They have children the way most of us buy cars. It's more a matter of thoughtless egocentrism.
These words have a strain of defensiveness that tells me you're speaking from experience. I agree, although I'll add the caveat that there are *SOME* people who have kids as a kind of fashion accessory, not because of some external pressure. Then they get bored wiht them like they do their Gucci bags.
Also, there are two type of pressure:
1) Parents and in-laws wanting grandchildren. This is perfectly legitimate, and if the adult child can't handle this legitimate rite of passage, they have other issues.
2)Strangers who, for some reason, are insecure about their own choice to have children. These people are aghast that someone could choose a different path from them and still not be *selfish* . These people need to be told to buzz off.
How sad for these boys. It reminds me of a poem I've had on my bedroom mirror for years:
My hands were busy through the day.
I didn’t have much time to play.
The little games you asked to do,
I didn’t have much time for you.
I’d wash your clothes. I’d sew and cook.
You’d ask and I’d read from your book.
I’d tuck you in all safe at night,
And hear your prayers; turn out the light.
Then tiptoe softly by your door,
I wish I’d stayed a minute more.
For life was short, the years rushed past,
A little boy grows up so fast.
No longer is he at my side,
His precious secrets to confide.
The picture books are put away.
There are no longer games to play.
No Teddy Bears or misplaced toys
No sleepovers with lots of boys.
No goodnight kiss, no prayers to hear.
That all belongs to yesteryear.
My hands, once busy, now are still.
The days are long and hard to fill.
I wish I could go back and do
The little things you asked me to do.
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