it’s okay to be bored #10yearsaparent

I never dumped a bucket of ice over my head. And I’ve never hopped on to a social media campaign that involves holding up a handwritten sign (until now, see picture). It doesn’t mean that I don’t think the issues at hand are important. It just hasn’t been my thing.

But when a fellow blogger sparked a conversation about sharing real experiences about mothering and creating a network of support for mothers that might be struggling or feeling alone, something inside me connected. And so here we are.

Before I had children, my husband and I bought a house and moved to a city knowing only one other couple that lived there. We did not live close to our family or to the kind of old friends that know you inside and out. Then I became a mother, having two sons eighteen months apart, and just like that I was a stay-at-home mom trying to build a network of other moms. I did not have my own mom or my mother-in-law or a sibling or even a best friend nearby to lean on. It was my husband and me making it work the best we could.

And we made it work. I met some truly wonderful women, many are still my friends. I’ve lost touch with some over time, but they hold a special place in my heart from those early parenting years.

Yet most of the time, I felt incredibly alone. I felt like as mothers, we talked a lot about our kids, but we didn’t talk much about our own experiences.

We might share the tale of a sleepless night or the date of an upcoming story time at the library, but we didn’t talk much about our own transformations, emotions, and reactions to becoming a mother. That was unchartered waters. Not something we were willing to touch. Still too raw, open, and dangerous.

When Stephanie at Mommy for Real asked the question, “What do you wish someone told you?” I thought immediately about how mind numbingly boring much of parenting has felt to me. And I wish someone would have told me that it’s okay.

When I looked around and saw mothers earnestly playing trucks or pushing the swing with more gusto than I could ever imagine having for a swing, I felt like I was missing something. Because I found these things boring, I wasn’t enough. I could do these things for 15 or 20 minutes before my eyes would start to glaze over, and my brain would check out and I would simply be going through the motions. I felt more like a mommy robot than what I thought a “real” mom should feel like.

Now with a little more experience under my belt, I understand that being a mother doesn’t mean being engaged and interested in your kids all of the time. My job is to guide them through this world keeping them safe and putting boundaries in place that help them evolve into members of society. My job is to be there for them as the space between us grows wider. To love and listen unconditionally. To feed and shelter them, heart and body.

I am not looking for my new best friend in my child.

Yes, I love my children. And most days, I like them a lot. They seriously crack me up. The love that they have brought into my life is like nothing I have ever experienced before.

But caring for them and interacting with them is sometimes boring. Beyond belief. And that’s okay.

The repetition of taking care of an infant, boring. Conversations with toddlers, boring. Pretend play with preschoolers, boring. First grade homework, boring. Clash of Clans, boring.

I can’t pretend these things are interesting to me or fascinating anymore than I can spout statistics from the NBA. (Just so we’re clear, I can’t.)

My children are the center of my world. Their interests are not.

That’s what I wish. That someone would have told me.

It’s okay to be bored.

What do you wish someone would have told you about being a parent? Or is there something that you were glad you were warned about? Go ahead. Let it all out. Join the campaign on social media #sogladtheytoldme or check out the conversation at Mommy for Real.

#tenyearsaparent is a weekly blog series about what I’ve learned in my first ten years as a parent. Whether you’re a parent nodding in agreement or shaking your head with disgust or a non-parent using these posts as birth control (the surgeon general wants me to tell you that reading blog posts about parenting is not an effective form of birth control), I’ll be spilling the beans on what parenting is really all about.