Life!!

[Toasty]

Does anyone else ever just get plain fed up of this motherhood thing - god I love my ds but my life has now become so predictable that you could set your watch by it. Get up get ds ready for nursery, work, nursery, dinner tv bed and it doesnt change much at the weekends Saturdays are shopping and some form of entertainment for ds and Sunday are park, do mother's hair entertain ds and cook dp's dinner - dont get me wrong there are times when I love being a mother but today I am so bored of the whole thing - Monday morning blues I suspect but sometimes the whole thing just really gets me down

Yes, definitely. Yesterday especially as ds was sick for the umpteenth time and I put yet another load of washing on. My entire house smells of sick. We could only sit on the sofa or the floor as the two armchairs were still drying off. How can a child eat a bowl of cereal, pause halfway to throw up and then resume eating the rest of the cereal? I didn't even get a lie in yesterday as ds came into our room at 6.30 am and promptly threw up all over our duvet.

But last week I had an unexpected day off and me and ds tidied up the house, made rockets out of cardboard, coloured paper and curling ribbon, went to the park and then came home and made a collage out of all the things we had collected and it sort of makes you realise that things don't have to be predictable all the time.

Just to add my bit - don't think it's just the motherhood bit but just life itself and then I (almost) feel guilty for not seeing how lucky I am which doesn't help me feel any better!!!!! Glad to see I am not alone and surprised that there haven't been a flood of responses but then maybe I am alone... well not quite as you two got in first! Must fly my 5 mins is up!

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I know what you all mean! Dd has just been ill for a week (virus, extremely high temperature, vomiting etc), then as soon as she began to recover ds reacted to all the attention his sister had been getting and turned into a monster (in the course of one afternoon my usually gorgeous little boy kicked me, hit me, bit me and threw stones at me - just what I needed in my state of mental and physical exhaustion). Then on our way home from nursery on Friday I saw a couple about my age drive past in a sporty little two-seater convertible, and I thought "I bet they're going home to a lovely tidy house full of beautiful things, and they'll sit down and have a glass of wine while they relax after a hard days work ..." you get my drift!

Of course I was then put to shame the next day by meeting someone of my age whose third cycle of IVF has just been unsuccessful, which made me resolve to try and count my blessings a bit more often!

Being a parent does get monotonous but it's like we aren't supposed to say it. I don't find it hard but it's not actually all that exciting sometimes.

Toasty - I SO agree with you. I used to have a life. Now I have .... another sort of life. It's beyond boredom. It's so strange isn't it, how you can love them so much and yet, yearn for something just a little less repetitive and mind numbingly boring as well? My mum reckons I'm a total ogre and should be utterly fulfilled now, but I'm not.

I met a good girlfriend I used to work with up in Soho yesterday. It took me 3 weeks to organise the babysitting correctly, cos we were meeting earlier than usual. In the end my mum had to stay here until my dp got home. I was so stressed getting everyone's supper ready and leaving instructions that I fell asleep on the train and the evening ended much too quickly.

I got home by 11pm totally exhausted. What's it all about, eh?

I dont know!! Sometimes I feel so happy and content and very glad to be a mum as I did lose two before I had ds and think myself lucky to have him but life changes so totally for us as women - my dp's life has hardly changed at all he still goes out when he feels like it plays footie on a Sunday morning and conveniently plays dead when ds has a disturbed night - its a man's world as the old saying/song goes!!!

I so agree with you Toasty on it being a man's world!. I'm not sure I want to have a baby girl as I can't bear to think of her growing up, wanting to have a career AND marriage and children given how difficult it all seems to be... My mother had a more demanding job than my father and decades later, I sometimes think that depressingly little has changed in terms of who in our household assumes responsibility for family / childcare related issues. Sigh...

Toasty how awful that your partner's life hasn't changed yet yours has. You should think seriously about some "retraining" required and fast. Re domestic chores you go on strike, no ironing, no dinners on the table etc etc. Need some education into what effort goes into running a home, and that some of it is very tedious, otherwise are we their mums too - as well as our offspring's??
Sometimes though we have to be careful that we don't just let them get away with it - these are some classic excuses I hear mums come up with to let them "get away with it"
"I don't mind doing it because its quicker" (ie you are more experienced)
"we shouldn't have to tell them what to do, they should know" (since when did a man ever jump up to change a nappy) (so remind them)
"they work so hard in the week they need a break at the weekends" (er hello isn't child care hard work, low pay, no lunch breaks, etc etc)
Sorry if I seem a bit harsh but we ARE letting them get away with it!!! Just by complaining to each other rather than actually confronting them. Also we are setting a bad example for next generation by repeating history !! When dd says "daddy has to stay in and do the cooking and cleaning, we can have a girls day out" then I know we are on the right road to equality. Better still would be "today daddy cooks and tomorrow mummy cooks".

I'm sure I do more than my fair share, but at the end of the day, I feel lucky to be able to stay at home with my kiddies - my mum was left in the lurch with me & sis at a very young age & just had to get on with it. My husband pays for everything & HAS to get up & go to work & has to work late when necessary (very often) & has agreed to take the financial responsibility of the family on his shoulders.

Saying that, he hasn't packed a case (for holiday or business) for years. But he'll change a nappy without request or drama (most of the time).
But I do envy him his carefree life. I actually went into town on my own last Saturday afternoon & I was so excited I went on about it for ages until hubbie politey interrupted me & said that actually it wasn't that wierd or unusal for him as he did it (ie went into town on his own) every day of the week!

I have to say also that this morning I was woken up by baby crying & before fully conscious thought - "baby crying - is there milk already made - oh Gad - hubby away for 3 days on businass - it;s only Wednesday etc etcv)

I agree with your sentiments Batters. I just find it extremely depressing how slowly society is moving on in terms of its desire and ability to accomodate the desire of women to have a career AND children. Working in a largely hostile male environment, my situation is undoubtedly extreme which I guess sours my outlook on the subject somewhat. I would certainly never encourage a daughter of mine to try and carve out a career in a field like this....

Like always I am glad to hear that I not the only one who has these moments/weeks/months but Madmaz when I said my partner's life hasnt changed its not that he doesnt clean/cook/shop etc he does (and we both work full time) its just that he can pick up his coat and walk out the door without a backward glance but I cant that is what I mean by his life hasnt changed - its the freedom I miss - but I suppose life is all about change and it is also all about your general state of mind - when I'm feeling good like today I cant think of any other way I would want to live apart from the usual win lottery travel round the world scenario but when I posted my original message on Monday morning life was just dreadful and I wanted to run away literally.

Hubby has been away for the last 3 days. Last night I was so tired and felt ill that I went to bed at 8 pm. Bloody good job I did, because ds was sick at 4.30 and then wanted to get up and have breakfast at 5.30.

I know hubby has been working hard on his course, but he's had a full breakfast every morning, been in the swimming pool and jacuzzi every day and had a three course meal every evening. I've got up at 6.15 am every day to be out of the house by 7.30 and in work at 8am and have still had time to do loads of washing, cook half decent dinners, take our child to the library, deal with puke, tantrums, leaking radiators and a big spider.

To top it all his mother has rung a couple of times to see how hubby has been getting on, check how our son is and finally asking how I am. Under the circumstances, bloody well I think!!

Hubby is home tonight and you know what, he'd better bring me flowers!!!!

Oh it's so reassuring to read all these messages. Sometimes I feel that I just can't cope any longer. My life is chaos, I'm SOOO exhausted, our sex life is dead (too tired), we don't have any money (what with nursery fees and organic food bills to pay), I rush from home to work to nursery to home. And that's all with a partner who splits everything 50/50 down the line! We had a 2 week holiday this summer, but baby decided to wake up at 5am every morning. We had a fantastic time, but needed a holiday to get over the holiday!

And of course baby's brilliant and of course we adore him and wouldn't change a thing really, but my goodness it's hard and sometimes it's really depressing. We regularly have tears and tantrums in our house - and that's just from me!

What we really need in our lives is a wife! In the old-fashioned sense of the word - someone to cook and clean for us, dress and bath the children and ferry them from place to place. Someone to stay home and look after all of us! Now that would be nice...

Why is it I can read so many responses that could have been mine and yet none of my friends with children of the same age ever say these things leaving me feeling that I am good for very little when I see there immactulate homes??! Why can't I do even a little housework quickly while my children play happily on their own etc etc etc

Linus, I understand your comment absolutely!! However, I had the foolishness to utter the I wish I had a wife sentiment to my MIL who told me that what I had yet to understand was that I AM the wife and that the domestic chores are my responsibility (and basically the sooner I got used to it and did it the better)!!! You may gather that she doesn't approve of working mothers...

PS She's only 51 so it can't be a generational thing

Just when I was being determinedly cheerful, disaster struck again. In this stupid country it is practically impossible to employ an au-pair legally but as I am a single working mum of 4 kids, I really have no choice. Now the Belgian "social affairs" controllers have struck again, and caught me yet again with an au-pair. Big fine or prison pending. And why? Because I'm doing the best that I can for my kids. Why don't they just go and catch the real criminals instead of picking on single working mums?. If i leave my kids on their own after school, that is also illegal so basically I'm stuck and the s know it. All because I don't speak Flemish as my mother tongue. I am so fed up. It never rains but it pours. Life is difficult enough as a single mum, without making it impossible. Why can't the ***s just leave me alone? I've had enough.

Harrysmum, she is clearly just a hag. This afflicts some mothers-in-law of all ages and backgrounds.
Why not tell her nicely that until her useless son earns enough to support a whole household on his own, and meet all your collective outgoings, you are stuck with working. It must be something in his upbringing that has made him turn out so improvident and feckless.
You could also suggest that she moves into a residential home and makes her property over to you now so that you can use the proceeds to create a home fit for a wage-earning hero, instead of watching her fritter away the family inheritance on Saga holidays and Parker-Knoll recliners.
That's the only "language" mother-in-laws like this understand. I've never said this to mine of course, but oh boy have I thought it.

Can I echo all of this and more. Why is that we feel so guiltridden about the state of our homes, whether we are spending enough time with our kids etc? We continually beat ourselves up about these things! But I think sometimes, in the midst of it all, we need to take a step back and look at the beautiful, happy, contented kids we have brought into this world and give ourselves a big pat on the back at our achievements!

Marina - Oh please come and talk to my mil as well! She too clearly regards my wage-earning husband as hero and me, while Doing the Right Thing in staying home with kids, as very second rate (which is odd, because it under-values what she herself did too). She ignores the fact that I also work part-time and therefore that any spare second of day is spent (OK, on here!) trying to work as well as running the house and the kids. My dh would do his share, but he's not home enough and as a result, I'm the one who knows the what/when/how of childcare and have my own routines. Hard for him to join in sometimes.
As a Life, my only technique is consciously to notice the good moments, the ones that make it all worthwhile. Every once in a while, when I'm out in the park with a laughing happy pair of kids in the sunshine, picking up leaves, holding hands and generally looking like an advert for something or other, I try and remember to stop and say, yes, this is what I did it for. (Gave up career, got poor and downtrodden etc.) This does not help at 6pm with two screaming hysterical children demanding supper, sticker books and babbling about Letterland, when I'm bored out of my mind and would gladly leave for any office on the planet, but there we are ... I hope one day I'll look back and think this was a good time overall. I think I will. I've been at it five years and still do so far, anyway.
Is there a discussion about mil's anywhere?!

KjlKate, A trawl through past discussions will soon unearth a rich seam of inlaw/grandmother/grandfather angst - trust me! (It's what got me hooked to this website many moons ago)

Marina - your well chosen words on this subject so dear to your heart makes great reading. Art coming from pain...

Hedgehog, hope you know someone who can help you talk to the Belgian authorities - it sounds like a horrible, but on your part, unavoidable mess, and you have my extreme sympathy. Wish I could be more helpful.

Now can I add my outpouring. I have some really good friends - old ones who have seen me through thick and thin, others, still single and carefree, whom I knew when I was younger and met in trendy bars after work. As it happened about 75% of my old close friends, both male and female,left London years ago. We don't meet very often now - children, time, work and geography get in the way. We keep our friendships alive by phone for now. One day when the children grow up a little I hope to have more 'friend time' back.

For now the phone is really important for me. It's the main way we all keep in touch. Yet I see my phone time diminished to a grabbed 10 minutes between 9 to 9.30 in the evening. I don't expect work to be sympathetic to my needs here. I can't make long personal calls at my desk - too open plan. I don't want to anyway, now I know that legally employers can listen in on your calls. I have a mobile and a one-hour lunch, so OK, I can make the odd one or two, sitting in my car. But most of my friends, like me, are too busy catching up with house, children and work things then to have much time for a long chat. That leaves the evening, but with two children, the bedtime routine is full on from the minute I walk through the door till the minute the last of them is in bed. And that can be 9.00. Now I believe that 9.30 is about the latest I can pick up the phone to chat to other similarly busy friends. But I also have to think about supper - even though dh does cook a lot he tends to do this when I am doing something useful, like the laundry, or the washing up, or if I am especailly tired. Phoning a friend is not seen by dh as something useful and I often have great silent pressure put on me in the form of hand signals etc to quickly end a conversation. Even my 7 year old son has started doing this if I am chatting and he is awake.

It is so unfair. It drives me mad and I will not give in - but is the cause of many a lively exchange of words in our house.

I can't cope with this any more. I'm going to ask the authorities to place my children in homes temporarily. It is all too much.

Hedgehod - was very disturbed and upset to read your post. Surely there is somebody who can help you?. Please son't take this decision hastily. How I wish I could do something for you.