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Saturday 10 January 2015

So Tired Of Parenting

Years ago I remember reading an article which featured the difficult early months of the first English test tube baby, Louise Brown.    Her mother, whose name is now lost in the mists of time, was quoted as saying nervously, `When she wakes me up at two am, then three am, then again at four, I begin to wonder why I on earth I ever wanted her in the first place - and then of course the guilt kicks in because I wanted her so very much.....yet there are times when I can understand those who beat up their babies.....`
Undoubtedly there were sharp intakes of breath  and disapproving tut tuts from all those who had never been woken by a newborn half a dozen times nightly week after week.   I know that's true because I was one of them.   My firstborn had only woken the night shift with his demands for attention because as a small premature infant he'd been in hospital for the first few months.   
More recently one of my neighbours when relating a tale about her now middle aged children, currently engaged in battle over `what is best for Mum' said rather helplessly that they had been so lovely when they were little and yet now she wonders why she was ever foolish enough to think positively about them at any stage.   `I'm so very tired of being a mother,' she admitted in a low voice.
I was caused to reflect that a few short years ago I would have been quite unable to understand the fractured emotions behind that particular confidence.   
No longer, however because over the past year the husband and I have at last joined the ranks of those who have been forced to see those oh so sweet offspring in a slightly different, and definitely more jaded light than we could ever have imagined.  There are certainly times when we find ourselves viewing the attitudes of one of our progeny as bordering upon shameful when we would so much rather feel pride.   We are quite decidedly `over' parenting.   I guess many of us are!




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