Pressure.

I’ve been feeling mightily cheesed off of late. It seems however hard I work, however much I cook, clean and bleach I am fighting against a tide of too many children with too many possessions. I am the mother screaming in the garden as small children rampage through my newly planted shrubs, I am she who cried last Sunday on entering the toy room to find every single board game and every single jigsaw puzzle in one big pot mess on the carpet. It was a daunting task to have to get on the floor and laboriously pick through each and every piece and return to its rightful box. It took hours.
My son and his great gazumping teenage friends, arsing about on the trampoline, have made a hole in it – directly in the centre rendering it null and void. Subsequently that just about finished off the weekend as it was Hubby who found the hole and went ballistic. Said son is apparently grounded. All very well for Hubby to dole out these punishments when he doesn’t have to work as the jailer, “You’re i/c of grounding Alice”. Now, as I have a son who never even leaves his room, being made to stay there with his guitar and MSN buddies is hardly punitive, so instead, he has been made to come downstairs of an evening and make charming conversation with his mother and sister.
The sister in question, who likes nothing better than to see her brother in the cack, has taken a great delight in making him watch That’s So Raven, Friends and various other American girl TV shows. But believe me there is only so much American TV mingled with sibling provocation that I can cope with.
Consequently, I have sat night after night tearing my hair out, knackered and stressed, fed up with the incessant round of domestic toil that saps me of my joy and ability to laugh when yet another cup of juice in spilt onto Hubby’s newly sanded floors or more felt tip is scribbled with Picasso-esque creativity on walls and doors. How in fact did the Red-Head get hold of the after sun gel that has dyed her bedroom carpet blue? How did three DVD’s get posted under the cupboard in the sitting room? A fixed, immovable cupboard at that. They are now there for ever. Happy Feet, The Little Mermaid and Shrek 2: waiting to be excavated and puzzled over by a future Tony Robinson.
Clutching a glass of wine as the terrible two jumped on their beds upstairs and the detritus of dinner glistened on the table cloth, chairs and floor I pondered the meaning of (family) life.
I thought of my new friend who is 76. When I took her Cardiff recently she gave me her life story. It would be impossible to not live to be 76 without a story to tell but hers is quite exceptional. I could only listen in awe as she described how life had been for her as a young navy wife.
For starters, her husband was away for years not months or, as in my case, Monday to Friday and, each time he came home he very generously gave her another baby. For a woman who has only known safe family planning and free contraception, it is hard to imagine that every time one got amorous with one’s husband yet another pregnancy was a real probability. Consequently my friend ended up with eight.
I struggle with four children with, at my disposal: a microwave oven, a gas self-cleaning cooker, a Dyson, anti-bacterial sprays in every hue and scent, a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a powerful steam iron, every electrical kitchen gadget ever invented, a dishwasher, a TV/DVD and Sky, a computer, electric lighting, central heating, free prescriptions and palatable, safe, over the counter drugs for my children, a CD player in almost every room, phone and mobile phone and a seven seater car. Not only did my friend have none of those things, neither did she have modern fabrics and textiles that are easy to wash, dry and iron. Even more significantly, and something that I take for granted, her schedule never left her a moment of freedom. Socialising with a friend was unthinkable, not only was it deemed morally reprehensible but when was there time in the day? When her husband was at home, so did she have to be. Dinner on the table and all that jazz, with a family of ten to cook a roast for on a Sunday, even church was off limits.
It got me thinking, not, how did she cope, but why is it that we modern women find it so difficult to? Many of my friends and acquaintances are regularly taking anti-depressants. But the pressure for perfection is intolerable. Made so by women, to women. From the moment of conception other women tell their ‘sisters’ what is expected of us. No drinking, smoking; breast feed, give up work, don’t give up work. Sleep with your child, put child in pram at bottom of garden. Not out of nappies yet? Not talking yet? It goes on and on and on until we are confused and confidence in our most natural instincts has deserted us. Men don’t give this advice. Angst and guilt is a woman’s domain.
Men have often made me feel boring, glazing over when they know ‘I’m just a mother’, but only other women have judged and condemned me. Only this week I met a woman with one child who asked if I had any children.
“Four”, I said.
“Wow! That’s not even hobby children”. Most definitely not, but when I did have only one I don’t remember it being a walk in the park. Are those who only have one or two meant find it all so easy? With such unreal expectations no wonder Prozac is a wonder drug.