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So yeah, here I am. I’m eating the chocolate and I hope they find me just in time to watch me gobble the last morsel. I also really hope they don’t find me because once they realise that (a) there was chocolate in the pantry that they didn’t know about and (b) I had just eaten said chocolate, I’ll have to drive them to the shops to buy more. Do not even get me started on the absolute shit fight it is to make a ‘quick trip’ to the shops with two kids. We’ll need a lot more Kit Kats and a case of wine for that story (I know, I know Jrunk Talk is all about sharing without the alcohol…boooooooring).
I should probably clarify that my name obviously isn’t “Mum”. To be honest I just don’t know what it is anymore. I think I lost it when I pushed the last kid out of my vagina. It disappeared into the atmosphere along with my identity and the ability to take a shit without my son asking me to ‘watch this’ as he spins around in circles on the spot like an idiot. “That’s great son. Mum is kind of in the middle of wiping her ass. Maybe we could do this another time. You know, like, never?”.
Back in 1986 my parents gave me a beautiful name and they probably hoped I’d keep it forever. To be honest, so did I. Now I just answer to “Muuuuuuuuuuuuuum”, “Mama”, “Mummy” or “Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum!”. I’ll even answer to “numb” or “dumb” because to be quite frank, that’s simply how I feel sometimes. Numb because I haven’t slept properly in 6 years and dumb because I literally love these little monsters more than life itself despite the fact that they are draining every ounce of it from me.
The truth about parenting is that a lot of the time, it really does suck. It’s hard and it’s tiresome and it requires more patience than I’ve been able to cultivate so far. I have never screamed or drank as much as I do now. Sometimes I’m screaming while I’m drinking. Mostly because I’m naturally talented but also because it’s the best (and only) way to get through the dinner that I lovingly prepared. And by prepared I mean I drove to KFC and asked a pimple-faced 15 year old kid to fry up some nuggets and throw them into a box that tells my kids “Mum can’t be fucked tonight”. Does it happen all the time? No. Would it be anybody’s business if it DID happen all the time? Also no. The flipside is that my kids use organic body wash free of SLS, parabens, eye of newt, monkeys blood and whatever else they put in shower gel these days. They have also eaten punnets of tomato’s and whole cucumbers as snacks since they could muster the strength to pull open the fridge door with their grimy little fingers. My son eats bowls of raw spinach and my kids favourite vegetable to have with dinner is kale. So if you’re reading this Karen, I’d seriously appreciate it if you jumped off my dick for a hot minute. Literally nobody is interested in your opinion. Not even Karen from next door who looks at me with her “I’m calling the police” eyes when I laugh at my kid stacking it on his scooter likes you. THAT’S how much of a Karen you are. If you weren’t so judgemental I’d invite you to my backyard parties where we drink alcoholic ginger beer and watch our kids fight it out to the death on the swing. Not only is it funny but it also builds resilience, which is something I think our sheltered, helicopter style ‘perfect parenting’ model is missing.
My kids are so resilient in fact that my son ate his own shit and survived. At least, I think he ate it. Whether or not he got it IN his mouth is to this day a contested theory but I’m fairly certain that with some guidance from his sister the airplane hit its target. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve sat in the Emergency Department of a hospital wondering how you became the Mum who gave birth to the “I eat my own shit” kid. In his defence I’m certain it was all his sisters doing. She had been an only child for a few years which made the arrival of her brother difficult in the initial stages. This led me to hypothesise that her jealous little fingers served as his personal pooper scooper which if you’re reading this as a parent, makes total sense to you. Suffice to say that for the next 7 days after the incident any announcement that she was hungry was met with a silent “eat shit little girl” as I begrudgingly handed her some strawberries.
The thing about your kid eating their own faeces at such a young age is that even though they survive, you kind of wonder whether they came out of it fully unscathed y’know? As he’s gotten older my son has discovered his “doodle” and his “dinosaur balls” as he calls them. So when he pulls his willy out and runs around the house rubbing it on unsuspecting family members (his sister) and unsuspecting guests (the Electrician) I find myself thinking “Are these his father’s genes or is this a faecal matter side effect?”. Luckily for me much of that angst disappears once I see him and his Dad pulling a Ralph Wiggam and eating glue together in the backyard. I guess his paternal genetics really do leave a lot to be desired. It suits me fine, at least I know that any additional Ralph-like tendencies our son displays in future can be blamed on his father. That plus the weekly hazard reports I have to fill in at day care when Ralph gets himself stuck in a tree by the waistband of his shorts. Now that I think about it, maybe he’s more of a Bart Simpson? Although according to his teachers he can be heard saying to groups of little girls at lunch time, “You may call me Michael, ladies”. So it’s abundantly clear that my son has multiple personalities. It’s pretty cool to witness him do whatever the hell he wants and give zero fucks. We’re giving him the freedom he needs to be a curious kid. He’s 3, he wipes his balls on strangers and he would like to be known as Michael Jackson. I can live with that. Thank God my daughter got the very deep end of her mother’s gene pool though, we’re counting on her to finish high school.
Whether you’re reading this with your first bun in the oven, a baby on your hip, toddlers screaming the house down, teens, young adults or a 35 year old who still lives at home I think we can all agree that the outcome is worth it. Sure it’s annoying that my son pulls his dick out every chance he gets, but when he’s older we’ll laugh about it. Sure it’s annoying that my daughter chucks temper tantrums in the middle of a shopping centre, but when she’s older we’ll laugh about it. Sure it’s annoying that my other son leaves skid marks all over the toilet…oh wait, that’s my baby daddy. See what I mean? Idiot lol. I should clarify that he doesn’t actually sit in the backyard and eat glue though. My son does that all by himself. KIDDING! No one in my family is eating glue. At least, I don’t think they are.
Sarcasm aside, there is an endless stream of mess and chaos and dysfunction that follows me everywhere I go. But with it comes a poignant reminder of the joy and wonder of childhood. Of the times when we looked up instead of down. When things weren’t so serious. When it was ok to tell a joke. My children remind me of life at it’s best. At it’s simplest. At it’s most funny. I come from the generation that built forts in their bedrooms using a few chairs and an old sheet. We rode our bikes in the streets and mooned people on the main road. We were the same generation that played Mario Kart and had the first flip phones. We understand the old and are well versed in the new. We are the in-betweeners raising a generation of Netflix loving, iPad watching homebodies who are getting used to receiving 16th place ribbons at cross country. I’m not sure that’s the idea of joy and wonder I want my kids to get used to. So yeah, parenting is hard. Being a mum is hard. Society doesn’t help and neither does social media. Your kid can't accidentally roll off the bed and you can't forget to pack lunch without someone riding your ass over it. But thankfully this whole Mum thing is the greatest gig I’ve ever had. So I fully commit to raising these amazing, shit eating, tantrum throwing humans who fall off swing sets and play in the dirt (and then run inside to watch Netflix on their iPads) the best way I know how despite the judgement from the people around me...and I sincerely hope you do too. What our frenemy Karen fails to understand about my approach is that when my child stacks it on his scooter and I don’t immediately run to his side, I’m teaching him how to get back up on his own. And he does. Every. Single. Time.
At the close of each day I just want my kids to know that life is far from a modern day sports carnival, you don’t get a prize simply for turning up. We mothers might represent the beginning but not all of us will make it to the end. How can we expect our children to write their own stories if we're too scared to give them the pen?
With love, always
J (on behalf of the coolest Mum I know)
