Thursday 17 April 2014

Tricky days


Picture the scene...the baby has sickness and diahorrea, so at any given moment, she is likely to either projectile vomit, covering everything in a 3 metre radius (think killer whale shows at Sea World - the first 14 rows are going to get soaked!), or let out a squeal, as an ominous wetness starts seeping through the back and legs of her clothing. Either way, it means stripping her off and hosing her down in the shower, again.

Meanwhile, Middle Child, who has the energy of a Duracell Bunny, and the attention span of a bumblebee, is following me around, literally never more than a couple of feet away from me, asking constant, incessant questions..."What are you doing? Are you done yet? Why is Amelie crying? Can I have something to eat? Are we going anywhere today? Are you nearly finished? Amelie has been sick! Are you going to clean it up? I'm bored. Look at me, play with me, talk to me! Look at this! Mum, look! Look, mum! Mum. Mum. Muuuuuum!"

Eldest child, who would happily spend 24 hours a day in his bedroom, having his brain fried by Minecraft and Youtube, curtains closed against the blazing sunshine, building up a vast collection of cereal bowls (complete with congealed milk), empty juice cans, crisp packets, plates and dirty clothes, comes into the living room. He's still in his pyjamas, despite the fact that it's nearly lunchtime, and instead of just speaking to me, decides to get my attention by knocking on the living room door.
The dog immediately goes apeshit, thinking someone is trying to break in and eat her family, so starts running around frantically, barking her head off.

In the midst of being elbow deep in baby vomit, with aforementioned baby screaming inconsolably and Middle Child bouncing up and down inches from my face, chattering constantly, and the dog barking the house down, Eldest Child is loudly asking for a can of Dr Pepper. No, I say, he's already had one, and they have ridiculous amounts of sugar, and what kind of mother would I be if I let him overdose on sugar.
He starts loudly negotiating with me, over the sound of the dog, the baby, the Middle Child, and holy crap, why the hell is the TV so bloody loud? Make it stop, just make it effing stop.
"OKAY!" I shout, have the Dr Pepper if it makes you happy, on the condition that he tidies his room. He trots off, triumphant. Instant guilt. My child is going to end up with Type 2 Diabetes and no teeth by the age of 16, and it'll all be my fault. Why am I such a crap mum?
I turn my attention back to cleaning up vomit off the sofa, while "Shhhh Shhh Shhh-ing" the screaming baby, and turning the TV down, and saying "Uh huh", and "mmm hmm" at appropriate moments in Middle Child's incessant dialogue.

I go through to the kitchen, which I'd cleaned just a few minutes before the chaos broke out, only to discover that it's been wrecked again. Every surface is covered in dirty plates, bowls and juice cans from Eldest Child's room. I sigh, and set about clearing it all up.
Back through to the living room, which has now been covered completely in Middle Child's toys. I decide to ignore this and take Baby upstair s to attempt a nap.
It's a struggle,  but she finally goes down. I sit on the bed, listening to her quietly snoring, and think how tempting it would be to lie down as well.
No such luck, the bathroom is covered in wet towels, dirty clothes, puddles from the shower, toothbrushes with little toothpaste puddles underneath, Baby's ruined clothes...plus, there's dinner to prepare, laundry to put away, rooms to tidy, and tidy again, and tidy again.

Sometimes, the relentless nature of parenting is just too much. Don't get me wrong, the good far, far outweighs the bad. It just takes a little giggle, or cuddle, or "Love you" to make it all worthwhile, but let's be honest, some days are just really really hard.

I read a pretty shocking story yesterday about Britain's youngest parents, who had a baby last week when they were only 12 and 13 years old. Now, I'm not about to get into the ins and outs about how I feel about this, it's not my place to judge, but some of the comments on the story were awful. People saying they should all be taken into care, assuming that the grandparents were "Benefit scum", you name it. Judgement aplenty.
Now, these kids are going to struggle, no doubt about it. They're only kids themselves, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the parenting of the baby will be down to the grandparents, but what these kids need is support, education and help, not judgement.

This parenting gig is HARD. I'm 34, on my fourth pregnancy, and think of myself as a confident, calm, pretty good mum most of the time, but I have days, quite a lot of them, where I find myself, like I did last night, crying at the kitchen sink because I'm so bloody tired and can't face another dirty pot or crying child.
What I need when I feel like that is a cuddle, for my husband to stroke my hair and kiss my cheek and tell me that I'm doing great, that I need to sit down and he'll finish up for me.

What will these kids get when they inevitably struggle, flail and fall on their faces? They won't have anyone saying "I know, it's hard, isn't it? You're doing great, keep going"
They'll be bombarded with tuts, eye rolls and "Told you so's". They'll think, as we all do, that they're terrible parents, and instead of being reassured that we all feel like that, they'll be told that they were too young, that they don't now anything about life, and that of course they're rubbish parents, they're still kids.

I don't approve of the situation, but I do feel for them. I hope society , at least in some small part, will support this young family instead of kicking them when they're down.

Gotta go, I hear a baby crying and I'm pretty sure my kitchen is wrecked.....again.


1 comment:

  1. It's all crazy!!! I'm 32 and my first and only child turn 6 months today! I like to think I' a good mum..or at leafs the best I can but most of the time i think to myself ( and once in a while out loud ) I'm not cut for this, I'm a horrible mum and those thoughts chain into a awful wife and home care taker.......But if we go back to those kids becoming parents at 12 and 13, I probably would've judge first but you are right the needed education and NOW support and lots of love and after all, many of us are lucky not to have become parent at a younger age when we were not ready yet......are we ever "really" ready????

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