It's great to share ideas. We have some great recipe ideas from friends and other mums.
It's great to share advice. "Yes, your child will stop teething one day, I promise!"
It's even great just to know that you're not in it alone. "Oh wow I thought I was the only one, yes, my daughter is making weird laughing growls too. It's so embarrassing when we are out and she starts laughing like Darth Vader with a sore throat at the granny in the supermarket." Or even "no my child doesn't nap or sleep well either. Consistent nap time, what's that?"
These are all great conversations I've had, and appreciated, recently. However, I digress. The point I want to make is it's not ALL we have to talk about.
This week I was searching amongst the dust and mothballs under my bed and was excited to uncover an old diary that I had written, aged 19 and whilst backpacking around Europe with my two best friends. Wow, what a read! It reminded me of who I was. I had forgotten. I was fun. I was carefree. My favourite extract read "when I'm old (maybe 26) and have a family and job (yeah right, haha) and life is monotonous I will look back on this time as one of the best of my life." I was also wise.
Fast forward to yesterday when we went for coffee with some other mums after a local toddler class. "Yes! Adult conversation" I thought. We sat, bouncing children on knees and drinks in hand. We questioned one anther about who they were and what they did. One of us was a paediatrician. I lived with Doctors at uni and know how are they like to play. Another was from California with a semi famous husband. The other had lived in London and held some pretty exciting jobs. I have had some great travelling experiences and a pretty interesting career.
There were a lot of interesting topics we coud have discussed.
We didn't.
The conversations above are snippets of what we talked about. Our children are great and it's nice to discuss them and 'share the load' but we are interesting people that used to be able to hold a non-baby related conversation. Does baby brain also include the loss of this ability?
So, I'm declaring war. Let's remember what fantastic and interesting people we all are! Let's talk about us. Let's remind ourselves. Let's be ourselves. I think our children will respect us more for it.
Failing that, there's always the weather.
Photo credit: http://screenpicks.com/2012/05/cartoon-moms-deserve-real-love-on-mothers-day/
So true. I went for a coffee with a new mum friend the other day to get to know her a bit better, and was amazed when she started talking about govt policies and the UK education system. I just wasn't expecting it, I'm not as well informed about all these things as I could be, but, it was nice to talk to someone who was, and also rather nice to talk about something different.
ReplyDeleteI know, sometimes feel a bit out of my depth. I need to watch the news more!
DeleteI think children is all I ever talk about when I am with my other mum friends - when I have a different conversation - one not about my little girl - I can sometimes feel myself a little out of touch these days especially if the conversation is about current affairs!
ReplyDeleteI challenge you to a non child conversation :)
DeleteSometimes we all need reminding that there are other subjects of conversation than our little darlings! And I totally agree with you that our children will respect us more for retaining a sense of self beyond parenthood. For me, having a sport(climbing) that I'm really into helps enormously and also means I spend time with friends who aren't necessarily parents. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I agree that it's really important to have some time doing something else that you enjoy. Climbing is a fun hobby. I used to climb but it's been a few years now...
DeleteI hear ya! we started going to groups about 6 months ago and can rarely talk about something other than the little ones. As lots of mums are now preparing to go back to work the topic will come up every now and then but will quickly turn to childcare and how will we cope being away from them. There is a particular mum that we go out with at least a coupe of times a week and it is getting to a point that I get rather bored as I miss having actual conversations about films, arts, traveling you name it. At this point I would happily discuss religion AND politics lol.
ReplyDeleteHaha, anything will do, hey?! I think it also depends on how well you know each other. When i'm talking to other mums at playgroups we'll usually use our children as conversation starters. The trick is to veer onto something else asap ;)
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