Today I got my second check up (I’m preggo). As I approached the doctor’s office I noticed a large blue object floating my way. Once inside the office I realized the very stylish, very pregnant woman in blue was also there for a check up. I’m a little too chatty so I asked how far along she was. She gave me a sort of standard, “I’m wayyy too pregnant” answer that a lot of far along moms give (I’ve been there & understand), to let her know I was more then just a typical Nosey Nelly I let her know that I was expecting - since I’m still in the just looking fat, not necessarily pregnant phase.

We chatted a bit, I asked her if it was her first child, though something told me it wasn’t. I offered up that I had an almost 3yr old daughter at home. She told me that she had twin girls that were 20 months old at boarding schooling and she was currently expecting a boy. Does this even exist?! Is there boarding school for babies?! She didn’t miss a beat telling me about how the new baby was an accident, conceived while having too much wine on July 4th. Is that supposed to sound cool I wondered -? It reminded me of the kind of lame-cool you observe while watching teenagers smoke cigarettes. Like they think they’re breaking all the rules and it’s rebellion but really it just looks like people with too much time on their hands making bad choices. The whole time there was this attitude this mom exuded like, ‘Oh god, kids suck’.

It reminded me very much of an article I had come across a couple of years ago entitled, Sorry, but my children bore me to death, by Helen Kirwan-Taylor - a journalist and mother of two. She wrote this article for the Daily Mail, a British rag that apparently employs this woman, thankfully, for otherwise it seems she would go insane with the task of avoiding raising her children.

At the time I read the article I was a new mom, my daughter was one year old, I was in love with everything about her (still am) and even (cover your eyes feminists) in love with my new job of being a stay at home mom. It entails far less sitting on the couch and eating bon bons then one might think. Although if you read Helen’s article and talk to like-minded moms that think children are a bore, you might get the idea that eating bon bons on the couch would be a vast improvement over the actual reality of raising their children. Which for me is exciting, entertaining and enjoyable but for them appears to be on the same level as root-canal surgery.

Helen writes about employing nannies, baby sitters, any one necessary to watch and play with your children so you can do more important things like shoe shop. This is totally difficult for me to understand and is basically disgusting to me. Shoe shopping on the other hand, while not without the occasional, momentary rush is basically boring. Now don’t get me wrong we all get burnt out. We all feel tired at times and yearn for some mindless away time to stare at objects on shelves (shopping) and not worry about if everyone’s clean and fed. However the attitude that overall kids are boring is just incorrect.

When you have a brand new little human looking up at you with eyes that are ready to be shown everything, you get the hugely important task of filling up that mind with everything you find fascinating. How can that be boring?! There are no rules really to parenting, you don’t have to listen to Mozart if you want to rock out, you don’t have to watch Sesame Street if you’d rather watch the waves at the beach - your child is on board for these things! I really think boring is a choice people make. I don’t believe Helen’s children are boring, I believe they have different interests then her and maybe that’s because she never attempted to raise them.
So lastly I say to the Helens of the world if you think being a parent is boring - you’re not doing it right.