Wednesday 1 September 2010

Parenting - can I see the job description?

Have just had a very inspiring meeting with an entrepreneur mummy. As we all know, mums juggle a huge amount - work, family commitments, relationships and of course all the priorities that life with children brings. In my experience, being a mum means developing your creativity, upping your energy levels (and finding them zapped just as quickly), marveling at the wonders of distraction, juggling everything, all at once - all tinged with a mild concern about whether we're doing, giving, sharing, teaching and developing our kids enough.


This article in The Guardian caught my interest. Apparently 30% of parents find playing with their kids 'boring'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/26/parents-children-playtime


Kind of sad but interesting. My children are young so I'm not quite at the stage of computer games but for me that would seem to be the most boring way to interact with a child. However, I do understand that due to time pressures, household chores and other 'jobs' parents might struggle to find time to fully engage with little people. In fact, I think it's often the dads who're the 'fun ones' and the mums who take it upon themselves to do all the other bits, while missing out on some of the silliness. Pretty sure that's the case in my house but willing to admit it's probably my fault for assuming that role. Might have to have a meeting about roles and responsibilities in our household with Mr FM... I'll bet he can hardly wait.


Have enjoyed reading this Dad's blog http://goodbyepertbreasts.com/ recently - entertaining account of fatherhood and pregnancy from a man's point of view.




Last and final point on the carving up of roles between mums and dads. We had an unwelcome visitor in our kitchen last night. Despite my constant claims to have no fear of spiders, I was spooked and gave up the feminist rants to call in the help of Mr FM. He was very manly (for someone who is actually scared of arachnids!) and escorted it out of the back door at arm's length. Delighted however that he didn't choose this particular extermination route... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7973024/Man-blows-himself-up-trying-to-kill-a-spider.html

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for mentioning my blog, and for introducing me to yours!

    We've had loads of spiders this year as well! I'm very impressed with you taking them outside - all the ones I've found have seen a close-up of the underside of my shoe!!

    B x

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  2. Hello! Welcome to blogging :) Your cake looks great - can't beat chocolate icing! Interesting to read about play, as it's what I blog about and am passionate about. It saddens me to think that parents don't value their children's play.

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  3. I'm extremely impressed with your management of spiders - I'm petrified of the blasted things and always get my hubby-to-be to get them outside/killed.

    Lovely blog - hope to read some more soon :)

    Han x

    http://www.metalmummy.co.uk

    http://morticalzombie.blogspot.com

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  4. Kids can be boring, but only if you don't find the right thing to do with them. I find it agonising to sit in the house and do puzzles with them, but I love going to catch frogs, play on beaches, go to parks, singing groups etc.

    But ask me to do a board game and I want to impale my brain onto a rusty spike!
    Eek about the spider!

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  5. Hahaha totally agree about board games! I feel permanently guilty as someone gave us a great kids monopoly which my son loves but I'm not even v good at getting through the instructions never mind the actual game!! ... more reasons to feel guilty!

    Thanks so much for the comments all - was wondering last night if I'd have enough 'food for thought' to keep going with this but your feedback has really inspired me so onwards and upwards! Next post coming soon, will follow all too, Cx

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