Moms- and dads-to-be prepare as best they can to become parents, but there will always be surprises and a host of things that they'll discover on their own while on this new journey.
Mother Constance Hall immediately felt the pressures of parenthood when she gave birth, and asked her father how her grandmother did it with 11 children under her care. Her father answered that his mother didn't have half the amount of pressures and expectations she has.
Her dad's response made Constance think long and hard about modern parenting and about what's really important as a mother or a father. She penned a post exploring these expectations, finally coming to the conclusion that the most important job is to have fun with one's kids and to enjoy their presence and company.
Now, her post, which you can find on her Facebook page, has gone viral, with many parents sharing their own stories and responding positively to Constance's resolution to forget the goal of being a "super mum"!
She wrote:
What happens when we put too much pressure on mothers?
Once after having 1 child I asked my dad how on earth my nanna did it with 11?
My dad responded that she wasn’t given half the pressures I was.
She didn’t have to go to the bank, the supermarket everyday, she wasn’t expected to look a million bucks straight after birth and she never put pressure on her kids to have reached all of their miles stones by the age of 3 weeks, have the house clean and own a thermomix..
She just hung out with her kids and enjoyed them.
So how do we do it, with all of the pressure we are put under?
Well a lot of us don’t actually enjoy our kids, we are only half present for them all of the time due to the constant pressure to have everything perfect.
To go to the gym, answer that email, pay that bill, cook that organic kale, blend it, get it into a patty so no one knows it’s kale, get to the doctors…. The washing! Petrol in the car…. colour your g****m greys! Make the kids lunches cos if you order them again you will be JUDGED!
Meanwhile we are losing the time to be present the with our children, half listening to them, preoccupied, nodding along while our brains are thinking “f**k now Video Easy is taking legal action on that $12 fine”
Yesterday in a seminar we did an experiment, we partnered up and told a story, half way through the story our partners were ordered to stop listening. They looked away, yawned, preoccupied their minds, replied to an email while we were telling them something we believed interesting.
And guess how it made me feel? Boring, embarrassed for not being able to interest anyone, unworthy and insignificant.
Is that what this busy life is making my kids feel?
Today I woke up with a desire to take a deep breath and let it all go, I don’t really care about the new blinds I had ordered or making the house decent so that my mates don’t think I’ve lost the plot.
But I really care about my time with my kids and how they feel about themselves.
And I’m not going to let outside pressures and “Super mum” ideals take that away from me.
Please SHARE if you think parenting should not have as many expectations as it does today, and if you think moms and dads should just focus on enjoying time with their kids!
