Mrs Helicopter Writes

A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a shock in the school playground. I was chatting to another mum about our son’s teacher. She was saying she had a hard time communicating with her and I was saying I’d found the opposite to be true. I was then stung with this: “Yes, but its ok for you. You’re an older Mother, she respects you!” AN OLDER MOTHER. I was thrown! The girl I was talking to is 26, so not super young. I’m 38. I am an OLDER MOTHER. People see me as an OLDER MOTHER! I laughed it off but I was suddenly very aware (as I hadn’t been previously) of my age. I am an older mother…apparently. When I had my first kid at 33 (a week shy of 34) I was aware that I was oldish and actually older than I had hoped to be having my first child. But I didn’t massively dwell on it, I’d not settled down earlier in life because I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to settle down with. Most of my friends around my age, give or take a few years, were having babies at the same time. It didn’t feel that alien...

Are holidays with small children REALLY holidays? I mean, isn’t a holiday supposed to be a time to relax, enjoy yourself and enjoy new surroundings for a few days (or if you’re crazy, a week plus!)? Isn’t it just going to another place to do the same thing but with added mega stress? This was my cynical thought process after a particularly harrowing few days away in Portsmouth a couple of months ago. In fact, pretty much every “holiday” we’ve been on since having kids (which has involved between a few days and a week somewhere in the UK) has been stress city with, on very rare occasions, a few pockets of genuine fun at best. Our first holiday was in a lovely cottage in Cardigan, which is where we took Gus swimming for the first time. He was 4 months old. There were some genuinely lovely times but mainly we were on high alert the whole time, not in the slightest bit relaxed (despite the copious evening consumption of Pimms or wine or both). The surroundings couldn’t have been love...