Bored? Wha-?

I think this particular author (Helen something?) is right. I think she must have especially boring children. And I think that is a genetic trait, inherited from her, because her Daily Mirror piece is not just silly but also dull.

Hasn't everyone always known that motherhood involves a lot of boring grunt work along with whatever pleasures you find there? Has that secret really been so well kept? Was it just my mom who made sure I knew?

Is it because celebrities are everywhere having babies and "baby bumps" that every periodical in the US and abroad must run articles explaining "The Truth About Mothering" to the rest of us?

And while I know exaggerating to make a point is a fair rhetorical tactic, what's with the totally specious logic? Either you are a pathetic at-home who can't see past the diapers or you are a real, intelligent woman who is bored stiff by parenting. Why, oh why, are straw men/women de rigeur in every debate from the Mommy Wars to the war in Iraq? Does nobody know better?

As for this woman -- of course she finds her children boring. She's never bothered to get to know them. And I don't say that because she's a working mom, but because according to her description she flees from them at every opportunity and has since their infancy.

And of course every comment she recieves to that effect will fall on totally deaf ears, because there are enough people out there to say, Oh, you're just hearing this because you're telling an unpopular truth. Yuck!!!!!

www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

My message has been sequestered! Sorry you all will be denied my insightful commentary.

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

I had a great response all typed up. I was just about to finish when BAM! Gone! I hate it when that happens. I haven't the energy to write it again. So many yummy morsels-GONE. Maybe I'll rewrite later when I get over the initial agony.

as in, "what's her's?"

It is so sad that someone can be so disconnected from joy and simple pleasures that they are "bored" by their own children. And it's very upsetting to think about those boys being raised in a home where they know their needs rank below shoes, texting friends, and hair highlights.

And they know it, too. They're growing up knowing that they aren't important enough to their mother to warrant her attention.

I think her defensiveness leads her way off base, too. Her article is all about the extremes. She's extremely disconnected from her children because she basically doesn't like to engage with them. But she points out how much better this is for them than the child-centric culture in which parents annihilate their own needs for the sake of their children. This child-centric culture, does it even exist? Are enough parents hyper involved with their children and expect everyone else to be that it can be called a culture?

Granted she's in the UK, but here in Oregon and where I lived in Missouri, I've never met any of these people she's talking about. All the at-home moms I know try very hard to balance their needs with those of their children. We have hobbies, interests, and things in our lives that do not revolve around the children, but I firmly believe that in order to raise children you have to become more self-less and pay attention to them, meet their needs, and spend time with them.

I shudder to think what those boys lives would be like if she couldn't afford the nanny.

That article is truly appalling.

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
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