‘Can I show you a tik tok?’
No. Fucking no. I. Do. Not. Care. About. Tic toc. It’s utterly, mindless, endless, vacuous drivel. If I’m interested in infinite kitten/puppy videos or zodiac role play, I have my own smart phone, thank you. I’d cheerfully go back to Paw Patrol and nappies.
I had no idea how much energy it took to pretend to GAF about shit in which I am not remotely interested. And how much it affected my personal productivity and wellbeing to be interrupted SO often. Or how exhausting it is to manage people’s bodily needs long after they could easily meet them themselves if they were motivated to, but DGAF about any sort of efficientcy or my time, so I still have to be the motivation and manager of bodily needs if I want to get things done on normal timescales, not teen time, which wouldn’t matter if they didn’t push back so much. (yes, DD12, you really do need to wee before we go out, or we will have to stop and find a toilet , which will take a lot longer than if you just go now, so in the interests of not having to stop on at motorway services, can you just take two minutes to fucking go now? Please? Stomp, Stomp, STOMP. SLAM. You don’t care about me etc etc etc)
My nemesis, though, the thing that really makes my eyeballs recoil in horror, my ears bleed and my brain shrivel in panic is the endless ‘what can I have to eat?’ I have given up on nutritional value. I just don’t want to have to be involved in deciding what other people put in their mouths any more. I have bought All. The. Packaged. Snacks and decreed one a day. I have given up on that, bought a week’s worth and said I don’t care when they are eaten, but I will buy no more until next week. I have patiently taught them to cook. I have provided multiple freezers full of pre-cooked meals and quick fixes. I have even provided an emergency debit card. In utter desperation, I have made a list of all the acceptable-to-both parties food choices there for every meal (it’s a pretty short list) and posted it on the fridge. I have even deliberately absented myself from the house. There is literally no reason for any food decision to have to go through my head. And yet every single one requires my involvement. She will even phone me up to ask me what she wants to eat. How the fuck should I know?! I direct her to the list and she reads it out to me. Why? Why must you read me the list of options I wrote for you to consult instead of asking me what you should eat? What can it possibly add to your decision making process? Why on earth do I need to be involved at all? It has sucked all the joy out of food for me. I used to love to cook, but constantly having to debate the dubious and severely limited merits of them same few foodstuffs, let alone cook them on repeat, for years and years on end has ruined food forever for me. I just don’t ever want to think about food ever again.
I love her to pieces and I pretend I care, of course. Even with the tic toc drivel. Because it’s her life and I want to be involved. But secretly I want to run away and hide in a hole somewhere and never come out every time she mentions it.