{"id":3834,"date":"2016-08-25T00:01:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T06:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2016-08-25T00:01:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T06:01:38","slug":"mommy-doesnt-want-to-play-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/mommy-doesnt-want-to-play-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Mommy Doesn\u2019t Want to Play Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please don’t invite me to your tea party …<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMommy, are you going to come to the birthday party?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUmm \u2026 I have a lot of stuff I have to do right now. Maybe later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever feel like you just don\u2019t want to play with your kid? Is there anyone who doesn\u2019t ever feel that way? So, it\u2019s just normal, right? But still \u2026 ever feel guilty about it?<\/p>\n

I used to think I was a bad mom for not feeling like Mary Poppins all the time. Or ever. (Although, have you watched\u00a0Mary<\/em>\u00a0Poppins<\/em>\u00a0lately? Because she’s not exactly always Mary Poppins either.\u00a0Maybe I\u2019m thinking of\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Sound<\/em>\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0Music<\/em>?)<\/p>\n

Then, one day, someone told me that it’s ok not to be a playing-on-the-floor kind of parent. That revelation brought me fireworks and champagne level liberation. It felt like a get-out-of-jail free card. You don\u2019t have to\u00a0what?!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all kinds of moms,\u201d she said, \u201cand we\u2019re all good at different things.\u201d Motherhood is a many-skilled endeavor and none of us excel at all of it. Unless you\u2019re seriously neglecting your kids, they\u2019re getting something out of their interactions with you, even if it\u2019s just watching what grown-ups do.<\/p>\n

The pass that mom wrote for me that day excused a nagging feeling that I had been doing wrong. It let loose so much pent up guilt and continues to free me\u2014from early mommy days of not enough tummy time or brain-stimulating educational wooden toys, all the way up to today, when I just don\u2019t want to play the game.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to sit at a pretend birthday party between my daughter\u2019s Cat and my son\u2019s Coco bunny, eating fake cake with other assorted dolls, and ugh, whatever else is involved. I hardly ever want to and I hardly ever do. As Nancy Reagan suggested, I \u201cJust Say No.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a long time, I let this free me from playing with my kids. And like a good French mother from\u00a0Bringing<\/em>\u00a0Up<\/em>\u00a0Bebe<\/em>, now that my kids can be mostly independent, I let myself do grown-up things that need to be done. Or occasionally even things I want to do.<\/p>\n

Some days it\u2019s cleaning the kitchen, other days it\u2019s being lost in Facebook, but it\u2019s usually that there are chores and they don\u2019t do themselves. Chores that don\u2019t do themselves mean that a kid-focused day yields dishes at midnight. Now that\u2019s not fun.<\/p>\n

But lately, I\u2019ve been wondering \u2026 Am I not playing with my kids because I don\u2019t want to, or because of those other things that I have to do? How much do I really need to do those things? Am I giving myself permission to be a grown-up and not center every moment around my kids?<\/p>\n

Have I liberated myself? Or am I missing out on something?<\/p>\n

… but I’m happy to visit you in your gnome home.<\/p>\n

Since reading\u00a0Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time<\/em>\u00a0by Brigid Schulte, I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the idea that women don\u2019t play. Schulte writes about how, even if women manage to succeed in balancing work and family, they are often left with the sense that something is still missing \u2026 not just time for fun, but the mental space for fun. She gets into how early this pattern starts.<\/p>\n

If women, especially mothers, have trouble giving themselves permission to play, it\u2019s actually in girlhood that the trouble begins.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Girls learn early that work is valued more than play, and that more is expected of them than the boys. I was shocked to read recently\u2014I wish I could remember where\u2014that boys who grow up with sisters are less likely to help out with chores later in life.\u00a0Less<\/em>\u00a0likely<\/em>. Because, I assume, they weren\u2019t asked, the girls were.<\/p>\n

I had a dad who didn\u2019t think twice about pitching in to get the endless women\u2019s work done and brothers who were expected to do chores, too. But I remember, as a young girl, being praised for helping out in the kitchen, for helping mommy fold the laundry. And it made me happy, to be praised like that.<\/p>\n

I also have clear memories of the fade-away of that easy-to-play mind. I remember when playing Barbies became just a fashion show because dialogue no longer easily spilled out of my growing-up brain.\u00a0So, as a parent, of course I find it hard to get back to a place where I have something to say at a tea party beyond, \u201cMmm, delicious dirt cake\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But playing doesn\u2019t have to mean playing games we don\u2019t like. We\u2019re the parents, after all. We get to be at least a little in charge. And even if you say no to some games you\u2019re asked to play, it feels good to find other things you genuinely enjoy with your kids. I don\u2019t necessarily find fun in the same things my kids do, but that doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t like to play.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0All<\/em>\u00a0Joy<\/em>\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0No<\/em>\u00a0Fun<\/em>, Jennifer Senior calls it a \u201cwormhole,\u201d that space that kids open for us to a more carefree and less self-conscious time. A more fun time. And it doesn\u2019t have to be the kind of imaginary play that my kids often ask of me\u2014maybe some kinds of play are best left to them alone.\u00a0I know I\u2019m not joining in every game, even if I could.<\/p>\n

Sitting on the ground with kids during my kids\u2019 time at a parent-cooperative preschool, I learned playing is not as stressful as it seems from on-high where it feels like kids are constantly demanding that you eat a sand cupcake or say this or come to an imaginary party.<\/p>\n

Of the many things I learned about play at the co-op preschool, these were the most important\u2014<\/p>\n