To think that a lot of what mums are expected to do is skilled and difficult?

[wol1968]

I don't just mean the emotional, social, negotiating, dealing-with-people sort of stuff that everyone gets wrong at some point, especially the ones who think they're doing it right. I mean the technically tricky, proper difficult things that you actually have to be shown how to do at some point. For instance, I was reading the headlice thread the other day and was at how judgey a few posters were and how dismissive they were of the very real difficulties of wet-combing nits out of Afro hair belonging to wriggly DCs who are probably yelling in pain. I hate hair. I'm no good at it and always manage to pull and tug, and every style I do falls out in 10 seconds flat. I have done my DD's ballet bun in the past, but she prefers to do her hair herself now.

Similarly with cooking. I'm an OK cook but know a fair few people who are a danger around knives and heat and will never really master a meal. And yet it's sort of expected that we should be able to do this with no real training. And what about spotting possible health issues, dealing with illness in others, knowing when to call in the professionals? Timetabling and admin? It's not all ' not very common at all actually sense' stuff. Where do you learn it?

Not to mention the crafting skills which repeatedly lead to shitty looking "masterpieces" which bear no resemblance to the nice picture on the internet.

I took woodworking rather than Home Economics. In retrospect, both should have been compulsory, plus a course on how to clean things!

I think it depends on your personality and what skills you have tbh, this will surely determine if you find it difficult or not.

An example littleems hardest, really doesn't phase me at all, but my housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired.
My dh and dc think I'm the only person they know to spend hours tidying and ending up in a worse mess than when I started. I am dyslexic and dyspraxic and organisation doesn't come easy to me at all.

I was lucky. My job pre-DS involved escorting coaches full of American teenagers and their accompanying adults around Europe;- keeping them interested and entertained, answering the same question 1,000 times, lecturing them on safety and punctuality (without making it seem like a lecture), double-and triple-checking travel, food and hotel arrangements, managing the tour budget of £1000s, managing to seem happy, organised and enthusiastic on 3 hours sleep when all I wanted to do was strangle the coach driver......all in all, it was basically parenting training writ large. One 4 year old seems like an absolute piece of piss after that.

LOL stubbornstains I can imagine

Frequently in Paris,too, I should say, Bonsoir

"But Stuuuuuborn, that nasty shopkeeper was rude to me!"

"Well, did you remember your "mercis" and "s'il vous plaits" that I taught you?"

(Ten times a trip. Every trip....(sigh))

I know many things about dinosaurs now. Sadly this is not a skill with a high level of transferability.

Hmm, I guess it depends on your existing skill set. I could cook and do housework before having kids, had worked extensively with children and young people before becoming a parent and was used to coordinating people, schedules and events that were far more challenging than anything my household has ever demanded of me. Consequently, I don't really feel that I've had to learn new skills as a parent - with the exception of doing ballet buns and French plaits, but they were easily mastered thanks to YouTube! I suppose if you didn't have such skills to start out with, it might feel like there is a lot to learn.

Op says not the social, emotional, negotiating, dealing with people stuff but the properly technically tricky skills.

I still say most general parenting does not require technically tricky skills - definition of skills being something non innate that has to be learned via tuition and considerable practice. No more than everyday life anyway.

Yes, technical skills: conjugation and probability skills were in strong demand in this household yesterday.

It's not the skills in isolation that are so difficult - it's the multi-tasking.

It's not the skills in isolation that are so difficult - it's the multi-tasking.

Well, yes, especially if you WOH as we'll, but again, many people will have already acquired these skills through paid employment previously.

Multi-tasking at work is nothing like multi-tasking at home - there just isn't the range of high and low level skills and unrelated topics simultaneously.

Depends on the job, bonsoir. Admittedly, I have to juggle far more complex and varied things at work than I do at home, but the basic skill set is the same.

Leaving aside SEN and medical conditions, I don't think it's that tricky to be honest. Whole different ball game if SEN and or medical conditions are involved though, hats off to parents who are coping with any of those.

At work I had people to sort out the IT, do the accounts, sort out my travel arrangements. And presentation writing was not interrupted by conjugation tests, UCAS application discussions, request for URGENT RIGHT NOW booking of theatre tickets and making a healthy dinner. Very different IMO.

I've never found being a mum skilled, although at times it is difficult - especially when they were wee, but that was because it was, at times, a physically demanding repetitive drudge (although very rewarding too, of course).

I love it now they are older and less dependent. Still don't see it as skilled - it is just being a person, interacting with other people as all human beings do. It is not astrophysics or molecular chemistry or transplant surgery or any of the many other ultra impressive skills people can have.

Whole different ball game if SEN and or medical conditions are involved though, hats off to parents who are coping with any of those.

Yes indeed, that can be very difficult and may well require a particular set of knowledge and skills that most people would have to learn from scratch.

I find looking after babies and toddlers is very similar to being pursued by tiny belligerent drunks (antisocial hours, incoherence, incontinence, emotional lability etc etc), so having worked in A&E provided the ideal skill set.

At work I had people to sort out the IT, do the accounts, sort out my travel arrangements. And presentation writing was not interrupted by conjugation tests, UCAS application discussions, request for URGENT RIGHT NOW booking of theatre tickets and making a healthy dinner. Very different IMO.

OK, so your work was obviously fairly limited in scope, but I guess that's my point really. If you're used to a fairly straightforward role, I guess the multitasking is something that you have to learn, but if you're used to coordinating lots of people and juggling multiple tasks in a demanding managerial role, the kind of multitasking that you do as a mum probably doesn't seem like a big deal. :)

I agree, being a senior strategy consultant is very limited in scope

parallax

I can see where the OP's coming from, and anyone else who didn't have good role models to be fair. I came from an immaculate home even though my mother didn't clean personally so I came away knowing that homes should be clean and tidy and that sheets should be changed every week and socks and pants and shirts changed daily. My family was interested in food and a bit continental so I was used to different things and different views and brought up between country and London by people who were practical and down to earth even though they were a bit posh.

DH on the other hand had a mother who hadn't been set a good example and who wasn't interested in learning about practical things. I think she sort of thinks that very clever people shouldn't sully themselves with cooking and cleanliness and it's a very peculiar type of snobbery.

But OP you can do all the things you mention. You just have to read up about them and practice them and be confident and accept you might do it wrong a few times as part of the learning curve.

I was taught to cook by a famous lady but learnt more after the course by reading, actually reading Delia's three part Cookery Course, I read the leaflets about nits and after DS had to have a number 2 cut after I cleared up the vilest infestation known to childkind. Make it an adventure about creepy crawlies, count them and use tons and tons of conditioner in the bubbliest baths with more plastic toys than you can imagine. After that, when dd was about 8 months and had no hair I nit combed her after every bath - to get her into good habits and you know it prevents them too. You might comb out the odd fat gestator but if you do it two/three times a week they aren't around long enough to lay too many eggs.

First Aid and health care - read the baby book, feel if they have a temperature and if they do and it doesn't go and won't settle get their ears checked.

Brush their teeth, take them to the dentist and optician, immunise them, keep calm around them, praise them and love them. You'll be fine.

Dororthy Nolte summed it up for me

“If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn . . .
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight . . .
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive . . .
If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself . . .
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy . . .
If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel envy . . .
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty ...

BUT

If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient . . .
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident . . .
If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative . . .
If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love . .
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves..
If a child lives with honesty, he learns what truth is . . .
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice . . .
If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself and those about him . . .
If a child lives with friendliness, he learns the world is a nice place in which to live . . .”

Well, it would appear so, if a UCAS form, dinner and a few heater tickets are a challenge! :)

FWIW, in one of my former roles, I used to work with teenagers from diverse cultural backgrounds overseas, and was responsible for helping with an awful lot of UCAS forms & American college applications each year! Not to mention going to parents' evenings for 50+ kids, planning trips and extra-curricular activities, coordinating public performances, sorting out problems and conflicts, helping them through an astonishing variety of past and present traumas and dealing with almost constant interruptions. On top of the usual strategy meetings, budget planning, line management, report writing, presentations, travel and liaison with overseas partners etc. So forgive me if I think that it's relatively easy to deal with my own little family. :)

I'm in a very different and much more senior role now, and still multitask more at work than I do at home, but the skills I learnt in that role years ago have stood me in good stead both at work and at home!

Heater tickets? *theatre tickets.

And sorry, my last post was addressed to bonsoir

I don't think the physical stuff is too bad, I mean, it's pretty much trial and error. You figure out what works and what doesn't by doing it. For example I pretty much found out how often it's important to bath them by not doing it and finding out how dirty they get.

A common conversation in our house.

DS: Mummy, this is all burnt.
Me: No, it's supposed to be like that! It's crispy! :)
DS: I don't like it.

I'm sure he'll overtake me in cooking just like he's overtaken me in cleaning and is almost rivalling me in remembering important things now

Tricky and skilled I think is negotiating the emotional things. Trying to find the often very very fine and confusing line between discipline which is too hard and discipline which is too soft. Also remembering to use this all of the time and try not to slip into either default; banshee mode or pushover. It's skilled to help them understand some of the really tough things in life which take a long time to figure out and to try to equip them with the skills to deal with situations that they come into contact with. It's skilled to give them just enough information to keep them curious but encourage them to ask questions and learn about things. It's really hard to teach them to do things that you yourself find easy. Unless there's some kind of prescribed method it's often difficult to pitch things at kid level, and to be constantly aware of your child's own level of understanding, emotional maturity and resilience in order to temper not only explanations and/or teaching methods but the way that you relate to them in general.

On a related note I also think it really really helps to have knowledge of different developmental phases and stages and to know what to expect at each stage, which we don't tend to automatically know - I don't know if we ever did, perhaps if there was ever a mythical time of having children inamongst a big supportive community of others who have done the same before you (modern day equivalent mumsnet?!)