What Type Of Mum Are You?
Being a parent has got to be the toughest job in the world. Actually being responsible for a helpless little human is so overwhelming at first and it doesn’t matter how many books you read or people you chat to, you’ll never be fully prepared for the journey that is parenthood.
You buy stuff you don’t need and worry about far too many minor details that really don’t matter at all. When my son was born, my life changed forever. Not only would I kiss goodbye to a good night’s sleep but I’d also have this huge responsibility that impacted on virtually every aspect of my life.
It might be the toughest job in the world but it’s also the best. I love being a mother. My two are now 8 and 5 and they are at such an enjoyable age. Whilst I loved them being babies I have to admit I was not sorry to leave behind the sleepless nights and the car boot full of buggies and changing bags. It’s so easy to go out and about with the kids now. They are both brilliant walkers, are very patient if we ever have to wait in a queue somewhere and love trying new things.
We recently took the kids to our local David Lloyd Club to try their hand at tennis. They’d been begging us to go so we booked a tennis court and off we went. So how did it go? Well, to summarise, neither of them could hit the ball. You’d think the tennis rackets had a hole in them!
The title of this post is ‘What type of Mum are you?‘ Click the link, take the quiz and let me know your result. If I were to ask myself the same question when we started playing tennis that day, I would have to answer “a terrible one!” If you ever have the pleasure of watching kids TV programmes (Topsy & Tim springs to mind) the parents are always really over the top, never say a cross word and always know the right thing to say to make the kids feel better. In reality, what happened that day was that we laughed. The more they missed the ball, the more we laughed! We weren’t laughing at the kids, or at least it wasn’t intentional. We were laughing at the situation. We’d built up to this day to go and play tennis. The kids were so excited about it and the reality was that this wasn’t going to be like a bout at Wimbledon. Then both kids got really upset because they felt like we were laughing at them. Oh man! How bad did we feel?
It would have been quite easy to tell the kids they were just being silly and not to get upset. It would have been quite easy to get frustrated and annoyed at them for not being able to hit a ball. A ball that was being thrown at them at a snail’s pace! But we didn’t. This was our chance to demonstrate the type of parents we are. We pulled ourselves together and stopped laughing because clearly it was making the kids feel terrible. We sat and explained that not everything is easy and some things take a lot of practise before you can do them. We plumped up their confidence and as frustrating as it was, we tried again. Hopefully the video below demonstrates the emotions, failures and ultimately, triumphs of the day.
Going back to kids TV programmes. Life isn’t always hearts and flowers. The important thing is how you choose as a parent to deal with each situation and the enormous responsibility of knowing you are growing a little person into a big person. Everything we do as parents now, leaves an impression on our children. It’s important we make them positive ones and that’s the toughest part of the job.
What type of Mum are you? Is there a type or do we just make it up as we go along?
*Disclosure: This was a collaborative post with SunLife. All words and opinions are my own.
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You have such a beautiful family. Thank you for this great post.