For the last month or so I have been feeling quite bored with parenting. The affection still comes naturally and easily to me, fortunately. But I’m bored with the playing, the organising, the planning, the reading, the sorting, the cajoling, the talking, the problem-solving, the reminding, the patience, the forced enthusiasm, and also with the dreadful slowness of it and then with all the rushing, too. And it’s not just the work I feel bored with, even the fun bits are boring me a little at the moment. I admit I have been feeling guilty about it, but I have consoled myself with a couple of thoughts.
Firstly, most of the men in my office have openly expressed nothing but boredom with parenting the entire time I have known them and they’re not worrying a jot about it. My guilt is likely, in part, a product of gender stereotypes about parenting. Secondly, I’m quite good at faking interest for a while. Thirdly, seven years at a task is a long time for anybody to be enthralled with a job and I am probably due for some boredom. Finally, as my friend reminded me and I am always reminding my children, boredom leads to creativity. This will end up being a good thing for me as a parent. I hope.
So really, its a good thing!
Delurking (I read your blog all the time and follow on twitter) to say- this must have been a hard post to write an publish; not because its a bad thing to be bored, I expect it happens to all parents! But because the expectations around female parents particularly tend to be about mums sacrificing everything for their kids (and I expect there could be some backlash, although I hope not!!). It’s nice to hear a more realistic view of parenting, and to look forward to all the good stuff while being aware of the less positive. Hope the boredom helps to trigger some new strategies and fun π
Parenting is really boring. Not all the time of course, but a lot of it. But as it happens, I actually expected to be *more* bored than I am. I’ve never been keen on babies. So it was a pleasant surprise to me to find that babies can be really interesting (even if the work of looking after them isn’t). My husband, too, is in complete agreement about the boredom β and therefore is very appreciative of the work I do as the at-home parent. That helps.
Never having expected anything but boredom, I really don’t feel guilty about it. I do sometimes feel guilty about being lazy about overcoming that, though (being the at-home mom should surely mean devoting my days to creative and educational play, and top-notch housekeeping, no? Um, yeah. I don’t do that). Still, this is definitely the right way round, I reckon: expect the worst, then enjoy the good bits as a lovely and unexpected bonus.
(If anyone is wondering why I’d even become a parent with this attitude: the baby stage is a very small part of a life. Just as loving babies is a lousy reason to have any, not loving babies is no reason not to.)
Do you still have a baby? You remind me of me a bit: I expected to find the baby stage tiring and boring and was thrilled when I was actually into it.
Unfortunately, I expected to find the toddler stage absorbing and fun, and have found it extremely challenging and often dull. This is not to say “you’ll see!” because I have no idea, your experience may be different. It’s more to mourn what I expected a little. I am either a bad toddler parent or a bad-for-this-toddler parent, and I didn’t expect that.
I am not so much bored as very frustrated though: if we’re going to do something that YOU (child) find fun and asked for, why are we now running all over the house while you hide your clothes and your shoes and my clothes and my shoes until just the time of day when it is too hot to do thing-you-find-fun? And I really don’t enjoy you testing all of the boundaries I have about my body, one after the other.
Unfortunately for me the creativity bonus is scattershot: I might get some creativity out of it, but my child may not benefit, it’s just as likely my work will. Maybe there is some other age coming that I will realise afterwards “hey, child was really unexpectedly fun to have a relationship with at N age!”
Good luck blue milk, I hope in the end it is a fruitful challenge to you.
Parenting often holds unpleasant surprises, I’ve found. Yet I still love it – on the whole, that is. @Mary, I suspect you’re not “bad” at parenting; rather, parenting toddlers is extremely challenging! I hope you will go easy on yourself.
My sons are 12 and 16. We love and enjoy them as much as ever, Nd most of hands-on parenting is certainly easier! And the hard work of the early years pays off. They are loving, sweet, kind, funny, fun, and joyful. They are also crabby, bickering, sloppy, lazy, and moody. But WOW, am I glad we had them. They are so … just … well, you know.
I’m right there with you, woolly thinker – I expected boredom during the short period of babyhood, and was surprised at how little of it there was…but there’s still plenty….and there are ways to be creative as a mum that I get into, but not as much as I know I could….
So you said literally everything I planned to say. I guess that makes me a woolly thinker too π
Louise Curtis
Laurin!! Did you find this blog through me? π
Hi! π nope, I found her through Hoyden About Town π
I’d say that if it took you 7 years to get bored, you’re doing better than most! I frequently get bored with aspects of parenting. Also frustrated, and just fed up feeling. I’ve been feeling that way rather a lot lately, and a phrase from a song keeps popping into my head: “dig down deep” (from a Mark Cohen song, I think- but I don’t think the song itself is actually relevant). The phrase reminds me that I need to dig down deep into my reserves and just do what needs doing right now.
I don’t know if you ever read AskMoxie- she writes a parenting advice blog that got me through the early months of motherhood when my baby didn’t act like the books said she would/should. Anyway, she had an awesome post about Jessica Valenti’s parenthood book awhile back, expanding on the idea that motherhood is a relationship, and not a job. In fact, it is a relationship that comes with lots of jobs, and it is possible to have a good relationship even if you hate some of the jobs. Here is the post:
http://www.askmoxie.org/2012/09/free-but-not-cheap.html
And now I have to run off and do one of the jobs that leaves me feeling fed up sometimes- namely, getting the kids ready for a bigish outing. Thanks for this post!
Thank you so much for that link.
I’ve gotten very weary with parenting this year. It has been hard to just carry on and do all the things that need to be done. I think I need a couple of weeks entirely away, just to rest. NB: this would be due to my paid employment as well as the on-going demands of parenting. So not so much bored, for me, as tired. But when my children were younger I recall being thoroughly bored from time to time. Possibly when their development was plateauing? And then one of other of them would take off again, starting to do the most interesting things, and I would find it all fascinating and interesting again.
It took me a decade to realise that it was both possible and desirable to separate my feelings for my kids from my feelings about parenting them. Realising that it’s not my kids but the associated jobs that I need a break from is tremendously guild-reducing.
This. Excellent. Also, not taking my kids personally has helped. They do what they do because of who they are, not because of who I am.
The more my children’s independence has increased the happier I am with parenting. I’m not enjoying the questioning.every.little.thing. parts (I managed not to swear there, do I get a cookie?) but we are getting there. I get unexpected joy from little things like my 9yr old still liking a cuddle (not in public of course). The holidays are always hard.
And YES, I completely relate to how mind-numbingly, stultifyingly BORING parenting can be. Especially the very early years, when so often it’s just you and her/him/them. The loss of sweet, self-centered, uninterrupted time is what got me the most. Still does, because I’m always having to stop doing something because NOW, I have to do something else – FOR someone else. My husband and I both find that most frustrating. GAAAAAHHHH! Leave me alone! I fed you yesterday, dammit.
This may be the best thread ever. Love the idea of separating the boredom of the tasks from the feelings about the child. I wish I had come across that idea years ago. On the other hand, most children can be crashing bores from time to time as well.
I am LOVING this thread, thank you.
I have always been astonished at your capacity to engage with (and craft with!) your little children. I am at the end of my tether with my youngest, because she hasn’t gone to school yet, and I am SO OVER preschoolers. I have always sucked at doing stuff little kids like to do. But now the older ones are playing Munchkin, and handball and other cool stuff, I am much happier to play with them. You might just need to wait until they’re doing new and interesting stuff? I know I needed to wait 8 or 9 years for that! π
For the other jobs, I wait until the mood strikes. If that means their rooms are in utter chaos for 6 months until I feel inspired to do a rearrange and chuck out, then so be it. Fighting myself AND them to do that stuff is just too hard.
I adored the preschool stuff and hate Munchkin and Pokemon and Lego Star Wars. Thank God for his father and his nerdliness.
The tedium of parenting is mind-numbing. That is the thing I crave most as an almost single parent, time off from having sole responsibility for “the playing, the organising, the planning, the reading, the sorting, the cajoling, the talking, the problem-solving, the reminding, the patience, the forced enthusiasm…”. And with an only child WE ARE ONE ON ONE. My son gets just as bored as I do and is visibly lifted by the changing of the parenting baton. And then I watch the whole dynamic work itself to the same inevitable conclusion with my husband. Regular time out (where you have no responsibility for any of it) can bring back the joy of parenting, which at its best, feels like you are discovering the world together and that they are teaching you as much as you are teaching them. I’ve found those amazing days usually happen when I have almost lost the will to live. Thank god.
So I’ve sat here for a while, mulling over thoughts around what you learn from your kids. The little moments of joy are the easy ones – the moments of ‘sure, let’s forget our plans for the day and just lie on the path and watch this snail’. But the big things I’ve learnt from my kids have inevitably been difficult, uncomfortable lessons in my own shortcomings – they’re the things I’ve learnt about patience and not always needing to be the lovable, easygoing parent and relinquishing expectations. Which, let’s face it: uncomfortable and diffcult is what it can be like to learn anything worthwhile. And then, unoriginally, I come back to the thought that parenting is like going to work. Except you rarely get to do it in eight hour shifts. And everyone knows that working ridiculously long hours basically diminishes your functional capacity to less than that of a drunk driver (possibly paraphrasing a bit of research there ;)). Therefore more parenting = worse parenting!
I’m really enjoying parenting teenagers. Well, except when I’m not! π I wasn’t much of a fan of baby/toddler/preschool, not to say I didn’t find joy in all those stages but I was so. very. glad. when it was all over. Older kids are much more my thing.
This is the kind of post and thread that I love about this blog, thank you! I’m barely qualified to comment since I have only been a parent for three months – but I wonder if it something I have already noticed too just at a micro scale – which is that there is such constant change that constant reinvention is needed to keep a balance between what your child needs and what you can do for them without experiencing ill effects yourself? Maybe there is some small change you can now make that will give you just that little bit more space to do something different and interesting for yourself and tip the balance away from boredom? And at the same time it could either recognize your child’s already increased capability for independence, or challenge them to discover a new skill in helping you or themselves? Good luck!
Great post. Thanks. How can anyone be that interested by how often children get hungry? Today we are cleaning up for visitors – my messy children with their messiness genes which are inherited at least in part from messy me. The process will be messy and not at all uplifting. But they are so wonderful when they are asleep. Oh I love my children when they are asleep.
An honest and insightful blog post with echoes of Adrienne Rich.
I can already see these phases in my future and I’m a primary school teacher with a 4 month old! Mind you I didn’t take on teaching because ‘I just love kids!’ but because I’m passionate about education. We’re two days into a grizzle fest about we-don’t-know-what and as much as I love my daughter, I think she’s marvellous and may be the best baby ever (of course!), already I could get over a good percentage of parenting. When I don’t like it I try to think “This bit’s only for a while”.
Great post and discussion
There is a lot of boredom in parenting for sure. I have a 3 yr old and a baby, and I find reading children’s books repeatedly and playing with the preschooler to be really tedious. The baby’s not so bad right now π
I have been reading your blog for 4 years, but have not commented before.
I wanted to thank you for your honesty, for the way you were prepared to go into difficult territory.
A very heartening thing to read on the first day of a new year.
+1 to Mary about the toddler thing. I found age 8-9 or so to be magic, and like Laurin I’m also really enjoying teenagers, unexpectedly. My teenager frustrates me daily, but he also makes me crack up constantly.
Love this post.
I think the solution is clearly for you to have another one : )
I’ve been feeling bored just in the past week, my baby is 7 and a half months old. I’m glad I’m finishing maternity leave at the end of the month. Going back part time instead of full time, but it’s a start!
I’ll join the chorus to say that I am very bored with parenting my two kids right now. It’s been that way for about six months. The hard part to admit is that it comes from a place of selfishness; what I’ve felt acutely over the past half year is that I just want time for me and to do the things I want. Now, I’m not one to think that selfishness is always a bad thing so mostly I’m just searching for a balance between being a good parent and meeting my own needs.
Oooo, do you do any sort of thing where you take questions from readers and then open it up to the wider audience for their feedback? Because I would love to get the feedback of other like-minded women on a life decision that needs to be made that’s cropped up in the past few months that I think ties into my general malaise with parenting.
[…] the record, I confessed to the same thing recently and was treated rather kindly. There are about five million feminist issues in this topic and as […]
Oh how I love this blog! Thank you.
My oldest is 7 too and I have been having the same feelings (not that I had articulated it as boredom until I read this). Is this the 7 year itch of parenting?
On the upside of this state for me, I have started being more honest with myself and my friends about it, and once I open up, so do they. A problem shared and all that…
I have this dreadful fear of projecting the negativity back onto my children though (and so the comments above about separating the boredom of the task from the feelings about the child are very helpful). My mother was always telling us, and still does tell us sometimes, how awful her life as a mother and housewife was. As a child I felt so guilty about this, and don’t want to repeat the experience with my own kids.
And I totally agree about the gender stereotyping around this. My partner has no hesitation about expressing his feelings about boredom. He would always nearly fall asleep when he got down on the floor with the kids when they were younger.
And yes, may this state lead to creativity! In the holidays I had to work from home (babysitter cancelled), and my 5 year old made a batch of biscuits pretty much by herself, something that never would have happened had I been actively supervising her.
[…] Blue Milk writing about being bored with parenting. Something I totally get. There are a lot of jobs associated with parenting that bore me to sleep… yes, I have nodded off in the middle of an exciting story from my 4 year old that goes on and on and on… I’ve had to get a cup of tea to stay awake. There are countless examples. I haven’t ever felt guilty about the boredome though, reading from the comments on Blue Milk’s post, it would seem that some parents do. I figure, my kids get the best parenting I can give, and that’s pretty much all I can do, I am person after all, and parenthood doesn’t mean loosing your personhood. […]