The Mediocre Mum

There are some mums who will diligently read all the parenting books and strive to do their best for their child. They usually ask themselves daily, “am I doing the best for my child’s development?” These are the Marvellous Mums. 

Then there are other mothers who will diligently scroll through every Kardashian Insta post and strive to do their best to not accidentally kill their child. They usually ask themselves daily, “what the f*** am I doing with my life?” These are the Mediocre Mums (my tribe).

My old boss was a Marvellous Mum. Once I walked into a conversation where she was explaining authoritatively that children had to be intellectually two academic years ahead in order to have any chance at getting into a good grammar school, thereby crushing any hopes I had for Mishty. She would spend an hour minimum with her two daughters each evening helping with their homework and piano practice. She booked theatre and shows in January for Christmas to get the best deals. She would bake 60 cupcakes for Valentine’s Day for all the kids in each daughter’s class. Her kids did five extra-curricular activities each, like rock climbing and paddleboarding. They even ate vegetables without needing them to be smothered in cheese/butter. And she would make them a HOT packed lunch each day after going to the gym at 6am.  

Those kids definitely struck the parenting jackpot there. The Marvellous Mums make Mediocre Mums like me feel exhausted just listening to their life and squirm with inadequacy. I mean I probably could do just as much as they do, I just can’t be arsed. In the evening, once the kids are asleep, I could tackle the life admin but I’d rather watch Sort Your Life Out on BBC iPlayer and feel better about the state of my house by seeing other people live in houses way more messed up than mine. 

It sometimes inspires me to declutter. Lebu loves junk modelling and will come home from nursery with a new piece every day and individually, it looks creative, but collectively, they truly look shit. These find their way into recycling along with anything else I consider pointless. Then a week later Mishty will ask me where the form is to draw a Christmas card that’ll get printed and Lebu is asking me where his toilet roll jet pack is and why the plastic bottle from his rocket is in the recycling. There’s only one answer for this. Daddy did it.   

I don’t feel bad about blaming things on Hubby. He isn’t on the class WhatsApp group and therefore blissfully goes to bed without having to think about The List for tomorrow.  He is winning at life, so he can take the hit.  

The List, for those blissfully unaware, is the one you make when you lie in bed and think about what you have to do tomorrow and it will nearly always involves laundry, having to buy a present, paying a random bill that isn’t a direct debit, having to fix something, buying household crap like mould remover or electric toothbrush heads, making something because you offered to out of politeness and now you can’t get out of it, and returning online shopping. Juggling work, housework, schoolwork is just plain hard work and it sucks because it is relentless and if not tackled, the list and the mess all pile up and then you end up on TV crying tears of joy because Stacey Solomon just upcycled your IKEA chest of drawers and separated all your pasta shapes into jars. 

You have to be on it when your kids start school. Otherwise, your kid will miss out, and then you’ll get demoted from Mediocre Mum to Messed Up Mum. For example, once I didn’t send the reply slip for Grandparents Day in time because we had no printer, so after getting both grandparents and child excited about the event, no one could go. The result was that I’d let Mishty down, I’d let my parents down, and most importantly, we bought a printer.  

Meanwhile the effort required with keeping on top of the barrage of messages from school, nursery and class WhatsApp groups makes my mediocrity more obvious. It feels like I’ve had more communication from them in the last two days than Hubby and I have done in the last 2 months. And I still can’t get the day for PE right. On a typical day my phone will have blown up with messages like: 

• PLEASE volunteer to accompany the kids on their swimming trip because they won’t be able to go if there aren’t enough and it’ll be such a shame because they are sooooo looking forward to it, please, please, please..! [is this a swimming trip or a guilt trip?]
• PLEASE buy tickets to see the circus and raise money for the school because it’ll be totes amazeballs and it’s all for a good cause! [will they ever stop asking me for money?]
• PLEASE buy tickets to a concert to raise money for a music youth team because the Tories have fucked everyone over and they need help to survive [skip, if it’s not 90s hip hop legends I’m not interested]
• Don’t forget the doughnut sale after school to raise money for charity [VERY IMPORTANT! Must remember this or Mishty will turn into a complete arse if he misses out on sugar]
• Does anyone want a pair of size 2 shoes? [I wonder if this makes a passable birthday present?]
• Reminder there’ll be a first aid course organized for parents in the evening [I can watch Grey’s Anatomy, it’ll be the same thing, right?]
• Sam has lost his fleece [I wonder if Mishty has taken it…? But then where is Mishty’s? Keep shtum…]
• Reminder to submit art work for a competition [feel smug, have done this already as Mishty bugged me every day for the last two weeks!]
• Reminder there’s forest school this week [OK, but when is PE?]
• Reminder there’s no guitar lesson this week [why am I still paying for these useless lessons?!]
• Olivia wants to know if anyone is going to any holiday clubs next week [Avoid those dates as Mishty doesn’t like her kid] 
• Is it PE tomorrow? [10 messages later and I still don’t know]

It feels like a lot. Adulting requires energy and time, and kids drain you of both. The reality of juggling everything means that your Marvellous Mum mates will skank you in order to clean the toilet or to ferry their kids to the next activity. Mediocre Mums on the other hand have already lowered their standards and would rather close the bathroom door and skank the guitar lesson to make the lunch date (we keep it real and don’t hold out any hope that they’re gonna be the next Ed Sheeran). While Marvellous Mums strive for maximum efficiency and plan ahead, Mediocre Mums will fly by the seat of their elasticated control pants, with tools like Amazon Prime and recycling unopened gifts to combat World Book Days and last minute socials. But whether your ethos is to do your best or do the bare minimum, we mums all pretty much want the same thing- for our efforts to be enough to ensure that our kids end up happy, able to spell and not a total dickhead. Here’s hoping!