I wish I was a dad sometimes

I don’t want to offend anybody by writing this blog post. I can appreciate that being a parent whether you’re a mum or a dad is at times difficult but it just seems to me that society seems to be more accepting of dads, they give more praise to dads for a whole lot less, are more judgemental to mums and expect so much more from us mums but at the same time are so ready to pick us apart and let us know what we’re doing wrong.

Here is a perfect example of this:

On Monday I woke up feeling as though I had the flu. I was freezing and couldn’t get warm no matter what I tried, my body was aching all over, my head was pounding and I just felt nauseous. And so did Rory. We both felt awful but despite this, Kora still needed me to feed her bottles, to change her and to get her dressed for the day and Kory still needed me to make him breakfast, to get him dressed and of course he wanted to get out his toys and for me to play with him. So why Rory took the day off from work and got to go back to bed. I did what I needed to.

Now there is nothing wrong with Rory spending the day in bed recovering but had that been me who went back to bed, I’m sure I would have heard the following:

“That was good of him to take care of the kids for you.” Or “Did he not mind looking after them why you went back to bed?”

Um, I should think not – they’re his kids too!

Except when Rory went back to bed, no one said any of those things about me to Rory and that’s because as a mum, it’s just expected of me to do all the above and more.

Later on that day, my Nan rang and asked how we all were, I told her how I was feeling and she asked if Kory wanted to go to her house for a bit. I was so grateful. I knew he’d have a better time there than with me, the lurgy monster who felt as though I didn’t even have the energy to string a sentence together, never mind play superheroes and have him volleying off my head so after asking him if he wanted to go, I got him ready. Once Kory had gone, I phoned my Nan to see if he was okay, after letting me know that he was, she said that I should go and put my feet up for a bit now, which sounded perfect and was just what I needed but after putting the phone down, instead of making the most of this time I had by putting my feet up, I realised the house looked like a bomb had gone off so I made a start on that instead.

I did a whole load of washing, washed, dried it and put it away. Washed the pots, sprayed and wiped round everywhere, made the beds and hoovered all whilst feeling like a bag of shite. I suppose all that could have waited but if I didn’t do it then the truth is that it wasn’t going to get done that day and I would have only ended up trying to do it again later but when Kory was home.

By the time I’d finished doing everything I needed to do, Kory came back home but luckily, as much as I’d missed him he was so tired after having such a good day with his nan and grandad that he went straight to bed which did mean that I could have an early night myself which was definitely needed so it wasn’t all bad. I did eventually get to go to bed myself but only after I’d done everything that needed to be done and that’s my point to this post.

I wish I could just sack everything off and be like ‘Right, that’s me off back to bed then!’ But when you’re a mum and you’ve got kids to look after you can’t just do that, they never stop needing you. No matter how rubbish you feel. But for some reason it seems to be that it’s more acceptable for a dad to be able do that than it would if it was me, a mum. It’s expected of me to just be able to carry on as normal.

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am knocking dads at all because I’m not. What i’m trying to say is that we seem to live in a society that puts a lot more pressure on mums to hold the fort. Kory and Kora have an amazing dad. He works really hard in order to provide for them and helping raise them and as much as I appreciate everything that he does, I can’t help but feel that he should do those things anyway. He is equally as responsible for our children as I am. We both made those babies, we both have a responsibility to take care of them. I know dads work hard to provide for their families, they might be exhausted at the end of the day and deserve a break but guess what? So do mums! I know dads work hard but so do I but without the breaks, without the pay and without sick days and so does every other mum whether they go to work or stay home with their kids.

So if you’re a dad that thinks you can clock off the minute you walk through the door because you’ve ‘been at work all day,’ then don’t! No one expects you to walk through the door and wash the pots, make tea, put 3 loads of washing in or scrub the floors but just run the kids a bath, get out their pyjamas ready for bed, offer to do the bedtime story tonight because as a mum, I can tell you that it makes all the difference. You’ll still get to put your feet up or play that game you’ve wanted to play, it’s just that by helping that little bit, us mums will be able to put our feet up at the end of the day too.

I know that there are good men out there that know how to contribute, I know this because I have one. Sometimes it’s not dads that are the problem. It’s society and their old fashioned views on parenting roles. It ain’t the 1950’s no more!

I wish I was a dad sometimes because it seems like it would be a hell of a lot easier than being a mum sometimes.