So there I am asking my lot if they had any ideas of what to write about for today’s topic, as I think my brain has gone on strike!
Of course, I got the usual response – carrying on with what they were doing. Derek glued to his iPad, and Jane hers. Kevin was somewhere remote in his head, as he certainly wasn’t in the living room with us.
So, I said again ‘has anyone got any ideas what I can write about for today’s topic’. The silence was deafening and I could feel my patience running out of steam.
I finally realised that I was on my own as they were too busy with what they were doing. I did get an ‘I don’t know’ from Jane so I gave up in despair.
iPad Addiction
I don’t know about anyone else but my hubby is so addicted to his iPad. For his 70th birthday I bought him a big one, the Pro version. Thinking he might not use it, I held my breath when he opened his parcel. How wrong can you be. He’s been surgically attached to it ever since and that’s no lie.
Every minute he’s not doing something, he can be found staring at the screen and he would take it to bed if I let him! The trouble is that he forgets we exist and gets so absorbed that he switches everything off.
I wish I could sometimes! Think how handy it would be to get so engrossed that you forget to cook, wash and iron or clean. All the things that are taken for granted. I wonder if it would count if I sat with my iPad on my knee and just gazed at it in a complete world of my own!
Think how much work it would save me from doing and somebody else doing it instead of me. Now that would be good. Somehow, I don’t think that would work for me. They’d soon say ‘where’s my meal’. ‘What have you done with this, that and the other’, and all the things we housewives do automatically!
While we’re on Today’s Topic…
It really got my goat when Jane was young and people said ‘well you don’t work do you’. I always felt that demon that rises up in us when we are particularly annoyed and want to say something to counter the accusation.
I used to stifle my annoyance rather than say what I wanted to, although I always said that I probably worked a lot harder than a lot of people who just sat in an office all day, earning a lot of money. People I knew who had jobs always said that it was a heck of a lot easier to go out to work, instead of the hard work of looking after children. In those days, childcare more often than not fell to grandparents, whether they liked it or not. I know of many who were annoyed about the situation they found themselves in.
Lost Retirement
I had an aunt and uncle who had two daughters and when they started work it was made plain that they were going to be responsible for their children. My aunt and uncle often said to us that they felt cheated out of their retirement. They had the children straight from school until their parents turned up.
Each day they had to fetch and take them back and when the parents went out, they automatically assumed that they would baby sit. They loved their grandchildren dearly. But to have to do everything from them being babies to being old enough to look after themselves, their lives were dominated by grandchildren.
I vowed that when I had Jane that I was bringing her up just as I wanted to, not how my parents wanted. Children are such an empty vessel waiting to be filled up and I wanted to do the filling. Nor did I want to miss all the milestones in her young life. I brought her into the world because she was wanted so much, so why not bring children up yourselves? They become what you want, not what someone else thinks they should be.
Hard Work
It is really hard work too, but most mums in those days wanted to stay at home and bring their children up. It’s a shame there’s so much pressure on people to go to work now, while leaving their children with child minders or grandparents.
It was a choice we made and I’ve never regretted it, as for me she’s out to be well balanced, and just a lovely person. But I would think that wouldn’t I, as I’m her mum and rather biased!
Everyone pleases themselves and I don’t really care what choices others make, I’m just showing how it was in the dark ages when I was young.
Then and Now
My daughter was so timid and quiet when she was growing up that we can’t stop being amazed at how she can talk a glass eye to sleep! She certainly doesn’t take after me or her dad, as we are fairly quiet people. So when we see her doing her YouTube videos and merrily chirping away to herself it’s quite funny to compare her then to now.
When you think about it, it’s fascinating to watch a child develop and grow up and go from being an empty vessel to what they finally become as adults. I look at her and think like so many other mums, ‘that’s a job well done’.
While you’re here…
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