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Terrible Mum!

4 replies

Cloudspotter12 · 22/02/2011 20:39

Day 2 of half term and secretly admitting to being pleased to be working tomorrow.

DDs aged 8 and 6 are really great and have had a fun day but as the day goes on, fun becomes screaming and I'm not very tolerant of this. It just wears me out. So by their bedtime I was properly sulking and eventually collapsed in tears saying I was a rubbish mum. And then they felt the need to console me which was even worse.

Honestly - who's the child and who's the adult?! I feel awful as a result. Am a lone parent and clearly some of this is about not being able to share the "problem" and when I get tired I get really tired. But most of mumsnet seems to be about difficulties with children eating, sleeping etc. It's not the children that are my problem - it appears to be me! Would love to hear from any other terrible Mums out there.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Tortington · 22/02/2011 20:41

i have been a god awful mother at times, i think all of us are at some point

otherwise we would all only have nice things to say about our own parents

flybynight · 22/02/2011 20:46

I'm a SAHM of 4, with a partner to share the burden with, and I regularly feel the way that you have just outlined! The relentlessness of single parenting cannot be easy and I am sure that you are doing a brilliant job. You have to forgive yourself a bit. Are you doing the best job you can? I am sure that the answer is yes, so don't pick yourself apart with guilt, just carry on.

At half term, try to organise as many activities with friends who have children during the day. And have dinner in the slow cooker so it is ready when you get back, no rushing around.

Sorry to get all and head girlish on you!

MonkeyandParrot · 22/02/2011 21:32

I'm a stay at home single mum so I can go days without talking to an adult and I often behave like you described :-) This evening I tried to get my 2 year old to go to bed by stating she had been a horrible monster all day and I needed adult time away from small children and couldn't she respect that and just go to sleep? Surprisingly she just looked at me blankly Grin Needless to say I then felt so guilty she ended up staying up and watching a film.
I find it helps sometimes to write down how i'm feeling in a journal as i just need to express myself! That or talking to the saucepans

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MonkeyandParrot · 22/02/2011 21:35

Oh and with the screaming I have the same issue with DD1 and DSD who are both 2.5 - I have just got very very firm about screaming. The most effective thing I found was to channel this in to competivness ie quitness contests (the 'prize' being who gets which seat in the identical twin pram). Or to build days around quiet times to bring them back down - so an 1 hour running around, 10 mins sitting with a snack and story, 1 hr running around, 10 mins loo break, 1 hr running around, lunch etc

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