Parenting: The Ultimate Competition
23
April
Alright, after reading Oz’s comments on how he does everything and we do nothing, I thought maybe I could use this imposed feeling of guilt to write a post to get something off my chest. I have never written anything of importance before and this shall be no different I am sure. I know nothing about the workings of Mac’s (though I do have one) and very little on Star Wars merchandise :) I suppose I could talk to my husband but ever since our little 14 month old baby girl has started repeating words and playing games with him, I am rarely able to pull his gaze away from Little Miss, let alone get him to listen to me. Ah the joys of being smitten.
So anyway, now that our little one is a bit older and is enjoying the company of other littlies, it is apparently not good enough to play at home with Mum, we must get out of the house. So I had to search Melbourne for things to do with her. It’s not as easy as it sounds as I had to be sure it was at a time when she may not be sleeping, eating or screaming. We started going to the local library for Rhyme Time and Story Time and the kids get to do a bit of arts and craft afterwards. Now, Little Miss is way too young to really get stuck in to the activities and she likes to jab other people with scissors so they are now off limits, but she can scribble very nicely (though sometimes she does manage to deface other kids works by losing control of her lightning fast crayon) I obviously have to help her to finish off.
Well, my gripe is this. There is one Dad that comes every week and honestly does the whole project for her little girl…perfectly, not a scribble out of place, while his poor babe looks on and begs to help. Dad lets her do the mundane things and at the end he proudly shows up his work and hands it over to his daughter. You can see other parents fixing up their kids work and trying to make sure it is as good as possible. I feel a little inadequate as I was actually helping Little Miss a fair bit and her work looks like crap (though totally gorgeous and cute because she helped of course).
You can just imagine what this dude will be like when she is older. Competition between parents is so rife already at this young age that I am not looking forward to the politics involved when I have to show up to PTA meetings and help out in the canteen. I am certainly not the kind of person who will be trying to get into the good books with her teachers by sending in expensive presents for Christmas and birthdays and please, who can really be bothered with working bees at schools, picking up rubbish and mowing lawns voluntarily when they already have some lazy bastard that the schools are paying to do it during the week?!
I have a friend who is on the committee already, just for kindergarten! I thought things would get easier as kids grow up, you know, they can start to speak and tell you what is wrong instead of whining and you playing some sort of angry charades with an even angrier little person, but I have just realised that I have to protect her from all sorts of scenarios. God forbid that she should be bullied in high school as I am originally from the bush. I swear I will dig out some mockies and hunt down the bully and get bogan on it’s ass! But for now I shall sit back and watch and enjoy Little Miss’ naivety on all things weird in her parents world.
