Alexander

No Judgement

 

Alexander

No judgement…

Chatting to some other Mummy friends today, we recalled how judgemental we were before babies. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We’ve all done and bought the judgemental t-shirt. It’s easy to judge because it’s hard to truly understand life with kids when you don’t have them.

I know I didn’t fully appreciate this often baffling journey of parenthood before my cervix got in gear and part of that blissful ignorance is probably the saviour of mankind as we know it. We need to not know the bad stuff to get doing the good stuff and keep procreating.

My knowledge of kids came from a million gorgeous Greek cousins I loved playing with and mothering since I was a child. I was always a maternal, caring kind of girl but in my late 20’s, as I flicked through endless magazines of Celebs carrying their sailor suited babies in tottering Loubs I like many mothers- to- be questioned naively, “how hard can that be?”

Judgement exists. We judge ourselves, others, a lot, too much; what people wear, do, say, don’t do, want to do, it’s often a futile circle of judgement. Judgement is, of course, important when it comes to the safety of a child but I’m referring to the trivial shizzle, the stuff that in hindsight (that wonderful thing) which now makes me want to punch myself in the face.

Judgements like this:

1. How can that lady let her toddler scream the supermarket down? Couldn’t she intervene/take the toddler outside/ stop ignoring him/her?

2. Why won’t that child say please and thank you? Manners cost nothing surely?

3. Why won’t their child sleep?

And the list goes on…and on and then all the visible evidence of how hard having kids can be, is forgotten or dispelled with these ever repeated bull****  words:

“But our kids won’t be like that“.

Phew. And to bed…

Fast forward  to a 3 year old and 6-month old later and I can safely say some other not -yet- mothers are no doubt judging me right now because:

1. My toddler (and pretty much all toddlers) become Neanderthals around the terrible 2 mark. Screaming in supermarkets is a vital formative right of passage. A bit like getting your first period but MUCH more embarrassing. Sometimes ignoring the craziness is the ONLY way. You know when they’ve lost the plot and no amount of talking/distracting/bribing/trying to get them off the floor and outside will work. I like to call it ‘The Point of No Return’.

Once the episode is over, normality can resume. If normality means millions of eyes glaring at you, judging, a scrambling of items in bags and a quick escape.  Disclaimer: you might have lost your appetite by the time you get the supermarket food home.

2. My child is polite MOST of the time but I hate it when he refuses to apologise . I won’t let him get away with it but I now have a new appreciation of what having a stubborn child can mean. I turn off the TV/ stop the games and have been known to remove toys in to another room/the bin until he says sorry. It’s not fun and I can see why in public, some mothers just let it lie.

3. Oh, sweet sleep. I miss thee. What do 8 hours of undisturbed sleep actually feel like? I can only imagine it to be like a yoga retreat in Thailand with Adrian Grenier on massage duty; blissfully rejuvenating and (hopefully post-coitally) sleepy. O has never slept fantastically well. Colic and co-sleeping whilst breastfeeding along with 2 moves to big cities before the age of 1 along with acute ear infections seriously interfered with his sleep routine. Every time he got into a good routine and slept through, the ugly glue ear returned.

Every time he got into a good routine and slept through, the ugly glue ear returned.

Every time he got into a good routine and slept through, the ugly glue ear returned.

Currently, at 3, he wakes in the night with nightmares/ wanting to play and to make things even better because there’s nothing like being up all night (not raving) my usually tranquil baby is teething so wails a few hours for good measure. My Mum told me I slept in my parent’s bed until I was 4.

There it is, history repeating itself and it’s really time to accept real sleep is a thing of the past.

A bit like being obsessed with Zack from Saved By the Bell. Fun to lust over but never going to be a reality. So this calls for one thing and one thing only: we have to buy a bigger bed and pronto! Truly makes ‘And to bed’ take on a whole new meaning.

Any judgements you’re now regretting?

Photograph ©Vicki Psarias-Broadbent.

 

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