This is a ranty post. If you’re not in the mood for a ranty post, then scroll on by. I fully appreciate I’m a middle-class mum with many a privilege others are lacking, especially in the light of the present global cluster-f**k on an ailing planet we are forced to share. But I’m exhausted and crabbed and want a moan.
Happy to stay? Then read on…
Yesterday the plan was to drive The Small Child and others to a Gaelic blitz in the arsehole of nowhere, or as I will now refer to it, ‘AON’. But I woke in the night with a pain in my gut and a trapped nerve in my neck and I whimpered to LSB, ‘please, will you do the run tomorrow?’ and obliging fellow that he is, he acquiesced and uttered soothing words while I feel back to sleep, after considerable tossing, turning and trips to the loo. Marriage is a delight, he tells me.
Morning came and the pains had abated, slightly. Off he went with his small charges and left me with the just the demanding pets (all my idea, God help me) and The Older Child. ‘I’m just going to potter today,’ I texted a friend, who had asked how I was. Potter: a verb I take to mean ‘amble about, maybe checking on the progress of one’s courgettes in the garden, then slathering cream on a scone.’
I don’t think what I did yesterday in anyway matched this definition.
Instead, we began by walking the dog first and took a circuitous route so she could conduct her ‘sniffari’ in her local environs. ‘That was long,’ said The Older Child when we got in, plopping herself down with a sigh.
Next, I cleaned the pet bowls and put on a wash, tidied away the breakfast dishes, and general debris of the kitchen. The child helped a bit, with more deep, audible sighs. ‘Perhaps I’ll do the Guardian crossword,’ I said, but instead I emptied the tumble drier, paired socks and ironed a few bits before sorting the recycling.
After hoovering the bedroom and hanging up clothes, it was time to buy the groceries. Parking at Forestside on the weekend is up there with getting an Oasis ticket, so we walked. ‘We don’t have much to get,’ I told the child. ‘Hmmm’, she said. I met lots of people, which was gas craic, except I hadn’t put any make-up on so it looked like Halloween had come a month early. Sainsburys had a wine offer, so in an act of piss-poor parenting I bought six bottles. ‘Your dad will pick us up,’ I told the child. Alas, LSB was still in the aforementioned AON when we rang him for a lift. ‘He’ll be at least half an hour,’ she reported. ‘Crap,’ I replied.
‘Shall we grab a coffee here and wait?’ I suggested, but my firstborn was livid: she just wanted to go home and I couldn’t blame her. In any case, all the cafes were queued out the door.
So instead, looking like a pair of homeless people, we traipsed up the hill, stopping regularly to put down the bags and boxes and rest our arms, before reaching our friend’s house where I ran to get the car and then returned for the child and shopping. ‘I never want to go back there. EVER,’ said the child when we finally made it home. I made lunch and we hung out the wash, then cleared up. The clock struck four as finally, I took the crossword up to bed with me, filled in about three clues and promptly fell asleep.
Pottering, eh? This reminds me of a post which often pops up on my Insta. It says, ‘A shower is not self-care, it’s cleaning yourself. Laundry is not unwinding, nor is cooking or cleaning. It’s home maintenance.’ I thought of these words when I came round from my snooze yesterday, still feeling less than replenished. None of the above things are ‘optional’ if you wish to live in a functional home, but the question is, if you’re a working parent, when are you supposed to get anything done?
When I’m back at work, I feel a constant fluttering at my chest, an inescapable feeling that I must be ,ultimately-tasking, ticking boxes, burrowing , fast, to the bottom of a self-imposed to-do list. It’s all too much: it can’t be done, and so the feeling is of a constant sense of failure and playing an impossibly unachievable game of catch-up.
I’m just putting this out there, lest any other beleaguered parents feel the same as September draws to a close and the tightness in your solar plexus already threatens to overwhelm. I’ve read plenty on the subject but aside from the mythical invention of an eight day of the week for which the Almighty has commanded nothing only the deepest of slumbers for 24 hours flat, I’m still floundering for answers. Feel free to contact me with suggestions, or at least sympathy. You’ll find me under a pile of unironed school shirts.