Frankly, I’ve never been drawn to the perfect Instagram families or fabby Facebook mums. My experience as a parent has never felt like that.
I’ve always craved real stories about the mundane and everyday. Stories about the struggles. I want to hear that people are finding it as hard as me! Obviously we’re all striving, every single day, to find those snippets of joy and cherish them. But I crave more than just your highlight reel.
Society made me feel like I was “wrong” at parenting very early on. My son didn’t eat solid food until he was two. Seriously! If it wasn’t a bottle or a yoghurt (perhaps the odd banana, but only via the medium of a pair of Handy Manny pliers) he point blank wouldn’t have it. And when you’re out the door at 7:30am and not home until 6pm, there is simply no way I’m having an argument about broccoli!
He never enjoyed sleep. Even with those blackout blinds… My baby could smell a sunrise!
One of the most memrable times I felt an acute, gut-punching failure, was our Saturday morning swimming lesson. All the other mums we’re (I now know) lying! Lying to each other’s faces! In a furious bid to win bronze, silver or gold in the best-mum-Olympics. Against complete strangers, whilst semi or indeed FULLY naked. Like, where do you guys get the energy?!
“Little Tommy sleeps 14 hours a night and doesn’t wake up once” and 9 month old Archie “eats a full roast dinner with a knife a fork”. I came out sad. Sad and recipient of a parking ticket, for not being able to dry and dress myself and my baby at ninja speed, in facilities ergonomically designed to make the task as difficult as possible.
Yo, has anyone even thought about taking an objective peek at a swimming baths changing room since 1960? Just to check if maybe, anything in there could be improved?
We’ve got TV size screens in our cars, yet no one has come up with the idea of a comfortable changing room? I’m talking about a room bigger than a coffin. In my imagination it has a shower, hairdryer and locker INSIDE and also (and very importantly) includes somewhere you can safely put your child, while you wrestle with a moist bra... just how far into the future do we need to get?!
Think about it, nothing else in this world has remained as consistent throughout the generations, as the impracticality of a swimming baths changing room. Even in fancy gym’s and leisure centres... the exact same design has carried through! It’s preposterous!
Now that I’m in power I demand better changing rooms for us all!
Anyway, we never once got star of the week. I am not bitter! I just noticed. Ok! And I’ve never had a single one of those “amazing” Facebook parents evenings where I’m told he’s “smashing it” hearing all about how he “spends his day teaching the other kids because he’s so far ahead of the curriculum”.
But perhaps some kids aren’t striving for primary school age superiority. Most kids in fact, just want to be normal. Whilst lots and lots of children struggle academically and find the school experience really difficult. Where are those stories?
Shout out to the kids in set 5, who buzz off getting 4 right out of 8 and get up every single day and go back for more. You’re all my star of the week!
As a society we have complete disregard for the plain fact that all children develop at their own pace and to become completely different people.
Parents of twins see each child develop at their own pace, which forces them to realise early on that they have two individuals on their hands and therefore stop pushing the child and most importantly, punishing themselves. The things I’ve beaten myself up over the most, have always stemmed from comparing myself with other mums. Society already has postpartum women racing their organs and bones back into “shape”, surely we’re all too tired to be racing the baby milestones like its already sports day?
Of course everyone’s proud of their child’s achievements and milestones, so we should be! But by also sharing stories of our more difficult times and the day’s when things didn’t go to plan, we can all be afforded a little grace and feel more “normal”.
So I ask us all to pledge that we’ll give more depth to our highlight reel. Show me your highlight rainbow.
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