Sorry, My Kids Bore Me

Who's Sorry Now?

Is this mom in London spilling the beans on the dirty little secret about motherhood? She says her kids bore her. Is she right? Is this why the mothers of the 50's spawned the upheaval of the 60's? Remember, during WWII, American women were working on the "war effort".

Here:
"The trouble for a mother like me is that not being completely and utterly enthralled with, dedicated to and obsessed with one's children is a secret guarded, if not until death, then until someone else confesses first. When I mentioned this article to my friend Catherine Fairweather, travel editor of Harpers & Queen, the relief on her face was instant.

For years she's listened to her friends proselytising on the sublime act of mothering. 'But no one ever told me how boring it is,' she moaned.

When I brought it up at lunch yesterday, my friend June, a stay-at-home mother of three young children, admitted that 'children are mind-numbingly boring' and the act of being with them all day and night is responsible for many mental breakdowns. 'Looking after children makes women depressed,' she concluded.
All those glossy magazine spreads showing celebrity mothers looking serene at home with their children serve only to make women feel inadequate. What the pictures don't show is the monotony, loneliness and relentless domesticity that goes with child-rearing.

They don't show the tantrums, the food spills and the ten aborted attempts at putting on shoes. They don't show the husband legging it to the pub so he doesn't have to change a nappy, either.

Research tells us that mothers drink the most when they have young children. Is that because talking to anyone under the age of ten requires some sort of lobotomy?"