I’m so tired.
Like all the time, my body, my mind, my soul. Mostly my joints and brain though to be fair.
I’m a single parent and it is much. Soooo very much.
A little background in case you missed my earlier posts on ‘Ten Things They Don’t tell You About Being a Parent’ and ‘What I’ve learned so far… Mumming’
I have a son, who is currently 10 years of age and has taken about the same amount of years off my life through the sheer worry, stress and repetition fatigue that comes with either listening to the same story, question, the word ‘mum’ or indeed my own vice issuing the same requests(commands) and warnings
. Now its time for my ‘Parent Disclaimer’
/ˈpɛːr(ə)nt/ /dɪsˈkleɪmə/
“The act of, in a simple phrase, conveying your unconditional love for your child(ren) and how you couldn’t live without them, before proceeding to bitch about them relentlessly, so no one can say shit about it.“
MASTRESS
There it is you’ve had, you can’t say you haven’t I’ve covered my perfectly formed arse, so lets get to the meat of this post.
I’M TIRED YOU GUYS – I don’t know if I mentioned that earlier, I could go back and check but I’m not gonna. Guess as for why? That’s right cos I’m tired.
Other than the muchness of being a parent single or no, I’m tired of the expectation of perfection. Of doing everything perfectly and I swear to almighty Zeus if I see one more fucking Pinterest post on ‘healthy packed lunches’ that take longer to create than my pregnancy I may go postal. Seriously, Linda I don’t know where you get the time to make rainbow sandwiches, fun n’ cute bento boxes and roses shaped radishes for a packed lunch for your kid, but I don’t wanna see little Timmy waving his deconstructed sandwich on a stick around. And for transparency sake, even if I did have the time, I wouldn’t because there are so many more things I would rather be doing at 7 am than carving a fucking radish.
The rise in expectation is insane. Organic everything, no plastic toys, you didn’t breast feed until they were twelve? Oh you don’t hand make your own fish finger from freshly line caught sustainable rainbow trout and wholemeal crumbed soar dough is making me loose the will to live. Granted I have many mental health issues and that leads to constant suicidal ideation (I’m not gonna do it, i just find myself daydreaming on it a lot) so it doesn’t take a lot for me to loose the will to live but i feel that is entirely beside the point.
Firstly, the fucking privilege of assuming we can all afford or have access to these types of food and the judging those who don’t makes me livid. Then assuming that all parents are cable of accomplishing all of those tasks on top of everything else that being a parent involves is just stunning.
So I got to thinking. I’m done with trying to be the perfect mum, not that I was ever even considering entertaining the notion of making modern art out of lychees and honeydew. I do enough.
Now before you start piping up Linda I am not saying that I’m going to neglect my child but I am going to say there does seem to be a rash of people so adamant that their kid won’t have the same mistakes inflicted upon them that they did that they are fucking up in a different way. Everyone fucks up their kids, so maybe don’t put so much pressure on your self. Sure, don’t wake up with the aim of doing it but understand that the things your kids will have stored in their memory you probably won’t even remember when it comes time to be sharing ‘good ol day stories’ the amount of stuff I remember clearly that my mum doesn’t is , numbered in the many.
TRY AS YOU MIGHT TO AVOID IT
YOU ARE GONNA FUCK YOUR KIDS UP SOMEHOW
Modernity is tough, its busy and its loud and we are supposed to grind and hustle, then be the perfect partner and parent and have special interest hobbies while feeding the passions of your kids and volunteering for the PTA and of course being their for friends and family if we are lucky enough to have them. It leaves little time for you and no time – AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, NO TIME AT ALL FOR MOULDNING FUCKING CUMQUATS INTO EDABLE ARRANGEMENTS.
You know what kids need? Love. Attention. Food. Water. Education. A clean(ish) home and a safe place to lay their head. Laughter. Realistic expectations of their place in the world (which again doesn’t come from fucking molding a ham hock into a flamingo) I reckon if you can tick most or all of them off most days. You should cut yourself some slack. Off course you are a parent, of course you signed up for it but you know what else you are HUMAN. You are you. and You deserves to be human.
So please aim for good enough and take the pressure off. You never know, you might even find yourself exceptional when you put the comparison gremlin down, step away from the pairing knife and cuddle your kid.
If you need permission to be human, I grant you it.
Until next time, remember good enough is good enough.
Mastress of None 