mother — Blog — Jo Furniss

Today started at 5.50am when Curly Girlie decided she wanted to crawl into bed with Mummy and Daddy and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, her definition of ‘sleep’ is not ‘lie down, close eyes and drift off into silent unconsciousness’. Rather, it is ‘thrash around, hit Mummy on head, make pretend snoring noises until younger brother wakes up and joins in’.

The worse thing about starting the day at 5.50am is not that kids’ TV doesn’t start until 7am (Central Nussberg Time), or that I am as cross as a wet cat when tired, but that the kids themselves are shattered. Over-tired kids are accident-prone, irrational and inclined to random acts of violence. Spending the morning with them is very much like being the designated driver at a drunken party: you have to segue between illogical conversations, hysterical laughter, bouts of weeping, fisticuffs and declarations of love, all the while stopping them slipping off the side of the chair onto the floor.

But worst of all, being up so early, before the ‘electronic babysitter’ is on duty, made me regret my decision of last week to let the house go to hell. I did tidy up a bit over the weekend – and of course The Husband helped out by hiding some things in an inexplicable location so that we can rediscover them one day when we move out – but not enough.

The general chaos simply cranked up the tension: there were tears over colouring pens that had dried up after the tops were left off; there was swearing after standing on a razor-edged building block; and there was a decision on the part of Alpha Blondie that most of his toys had vanished into the ether, and that he’d better carry around every single one of them at all times for fear of losing them too, hence his pathetic wails of “Roggyyyyyyyy!” (his frog), “Wee-wooooo!” (his wolf), “Owwwwww!” (his cat) and another sound that cannot be reproduced phonetically that appears to correspond to his Bull.

I decided enough was enough. The house is still far from the ‘housewife clean’ standard expected of Swiss wives (I’m not being ironic – ‘housewife clean’ is a perfectly acceptable standard of hygiene in Switzerland and is afforded the utmost respect by estate agents) but at least it doesn’t unsettle the kids any more. But I apologise to all those who left messages of support for my slovenly hiatus – sorry for tidying up and letting the side down.

If anyone asks, I’m FINE. That’s Fed-Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. I’m joking, of course. On the contrary, since I had my kids I’ve BLOOMED – that is, I count myself Bloody Lucky that I’m only Occasionally Out of My Depth. Turns out I’m not the only one. The BBC ran a story today about a survey on the UK website Netmums that found that two-thirds of mothers tell lies about how well they’re coping with parenthood. Not to their kids, husbands or psychiatrists – oh no – but to each other. Mothers lie to other mothers at the school gate because they feel under pressure to be perfect.

I’m not surprised. A friend once warned me that playgroups may well be the most competitive environment a woman will ever encounter – but at least it’s good preparation for the sheer merciless mum-on-mum brutality of school.

Indeed, I’ve found that other mothers (*) can be judgemental, catty and supercilious. Did I say judgemental? Yes? Well, I’m going to say it again - other mothers can be so judgemental! No wonder we lie to each other all the time, it’s better than being ostracised from the playgroup because you let your toddler eat Haribo or your car doesn’t have ISOFIX or your bra isn’t certified BPA-free.

So, anyway. Netmums reckons we should all be more open and honest about how mediocre we are at parenting, in order to redress the balance and take the pressure off ourselves. To that end, I’m outing my own lies. Here they are:

1. I never swear in front of my kids. No - and one of the first complete phrases to exit the unsullied rosebud lips of my Curly Girlie was NOT ‘Oh, for Fuck’s Sake’. That didn’t happen. 2. Similarly, I never lose my rag and shout. Occasionally, I briefly mislay the rag and become somewhat shrill in a way that might be misconstrued as shouting. But it’s ok, because all my parenting books tell me that toddlers are only testing the boundaries. That’s why, when I briefly mislay my rag, I say shrill-ly “SO HERE YOU ARE! HERE’S MY BLOODY BOUNDARY! GO ON, GIVE IT ANOTHER POKE, IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH!” 3. My kids don’t watch much TV. Just because it’s lovely, middle-class, vocabulary-building, manners-promoting, multi-culti Peppa Pig - it’s still TV. 4. I don’t play the kids off against each other. ‘What’s that? Don’t want to eat your dinner? Shall I give it to your little brother then? Oh, oh, careful, don’t stuff it all in at once, you’ll choke...’ 5. I don’t own a Gina Ford book. No, I threw the Satanic book out after someone told me it promoted methods used in Romanian orphanages (you see – judgemental)... Oh alright, I threw it out after it fell apart from being endlessly thumbed and caressed.

I could go on. I won’t – not because I’m averse to boring you, but because I have that sinking feeling that I’m the only one who will expose myself and everyone else will continue being ‘perfect’ while I’m ridiculed and pointed at in the street and my children are taken into care. Use the comments section, if you dare.

(* For the sake of balance, many mothers are nice, but that’s missing the point.)