Can We Talk For A Second About How Hard Parenting Has Become?

From the day your child is born the judgement begins.

Once everyone is safe in the knowledge that the child is healthy, the questions begin, is the baby sleeping? If the answer is yes than it irritates most, if the answer is no then you will be bombarded with questions about colic, winding, feeding…etc, are you breastfeeding or not? Get ready to be judged! Initially with your first child you will panic.

It’s like being thrown into the hardest exam of your life without any warning and without any revision done.

Soon, when you venture outside with your baby, the level of judgement will increase. Are you working or not? Depending on who is asking you the questions you will soon realise if you are winning or losing in the competition of life, depending on the decisions they have made and their interpretation of what in fact makes you a good or a shit parent.

When my first born was three months old, I stood in front of patterned wallpaper for 10 minutes because I read online that if you stood in front of patterned wall paper with a baby it stimulated their brain and made them more intelligent.

I actually did that.

I wish someone had told me to just chill.

I also read him at least ten books every day when he was a baby, before he could even sit up on his own. What a waste of time. He didn’t even know where his own nose was, or what a nose was and I’m sat there reading the Hungry Caterpillar.

There are a million ‘tips’ and ‘hints’ online telling us how to make our kids become super human beings and how to be the best possible parent, and as we scan each one the pressure on us mounts.

As your child gets older you will realise it only gets worse, how much TV they watch, what they eat, is it organic, is every morsel that goes into their lunch box sugar free? Are you playing enough imaginary games with them to ensure they have a vivid imagination, are you reading them stories every night….IT NEVER ENDS.

The only saving grace is the more children you have the less you care. I have three children and Amy, 2, is my youngest. She has been the most neglected of the three and she has been by far the easiest of the three because I simply did not have the time to stare at her all day and pander to her every need. The fact that I didn’t stress about every little thing meant she has been left to her own devices which means she is pretty damn happy in her own company and is as they say in New Zealand a ‘cruisey’ kid.

Maybe it’s because she was the only one born over here in the land of the long white cloud where people are so laid back they sleep through tsunami warnings and refuse to work past 4pm because hey, all the fun stuff in life happens after work and life is about having fun and enjoying yourself right?

I had the first two in Ireland, the land of the long grey cloud and persistent heavy rain. Now in Ireland, people work their asses off, sometimes in a job that they hate for many, many years, and unless they have worked a crazy amount of hours to the point of physical and mental exhaustion, they don’t feel like they deserve to have any fun.

But whether you are in Ireland or close to Antarctica, the one thing every culture has in common is trying to navigate the world of parenting without feeling like we are failing at every hurdle. Whether it’s the amount of time we spend playing with our kids, baking with our kids, talking to our kids, teaching our kids, protecting our kids, giving them the best life we possibly can, which if you look on social media seems an impossible task.

As parents, on a bad day we can forget that Facebook is sharing the 5% absolute best moments in a persons parenting life and we somehow convince ourselves that this is the only standard accepted in society now; the amazing homemade birthday cakes and themed parties, happy holidays where no one is vomiting in the car or having tantrums.

I am a mom and I do my best but there were times when I almost buckled under the pressure.

Then I started to think about my own childhood and my parents and how I was raised. I am one of four, the middle child (yes, totally neglected). My mom was at home while my dad worked his ass off providing for his family.

Yet their lives seemed so simple and straightforward. All they had to do was keep us alive, keep us safe, keep us fed — that’s what unconditional love is, right? Not once did I ever ask my parents to play with me, do arts and crafts with me, or teach me how to make a lemon meringue pie.

Because if I had, I guarantee you, I would have probably been told to go back outside to play and stop talking nonsense. And fair enough too, my mom ran a crazy household with four young kids, that’s a lot of mouths to feed. The only thing my dad had to do was go to work every day and come home. Once he realized we were all still alive and ok, that was a good day.

The pressure on parents nowadays is ridiculous. Not only are we expected to be the most amazing parents on earth, we are also expected to create amazing human beings raised on the healthiest food, educated not only at school but at home too, constantly stimulated, never bored, with everything they will ever need.

When are we going to go back to basics, don’t we all want to raise decent human beings who are thoughtful, kind and who care about others? I want my kids to notice the kid at school who doesn’t have anyone to sit with or play with at lunchtime. I want my kid to be the one to sit with them and talk to them. I would like to think I am a decent human being and all I needed was two parents who I knew loved me even if they never said it. A stable loving household is all any kid needs. As moms we are our own worst enemies. Lets stop judging, lets put an end to the competition. Life is hard, parenting makes it extra hard so lets celebrate the small stuff. If we can tuck our kids into bed tonight, and they are happy and healthy, surely that’s all that matters.