“I reckon I’ve been alone for maybe 10 minutes this entire week” I huffed to a girlfriend recently. I heard a sharp intake of breath before she went very quiet. “And that includes bathroom time!”
Welcome to life with small children where even going to the toilet or having a shower is something you do with an entourage. If I close my eyes I can pretend I’m Mariah Carey. Or not…..
The friend listening to me vent is trying to get pregnant and she’s not happy with the direction of our conversation. “You know, you’re really not selling this motherhood thing very well….” she sighs, deeply disturbed by the thought of an audience in her bathroom.
Perhaps she’s right. Shower-as-spectator-sport is not one of motherhood’s more appealing features. It’s definitely not in the brochure. But gosh balls I wish one of my 700 pregnancy books had mentioned that children hoover up your solitude. Everyone rants about not sleeping but nobody explains that you’ll never be alone. And that’s a huge adjustment. Babies in particular are unfamiliar with the concept of personal space. They’re more like: ‘Mummy’s space is my space. Hell, Mummy’s body is mine too.’ This is a beautiful thing most of the time but on several occasions, I’ve found myself announcing, “Mummy just needs five minutes when NOBODY IS TOUCHING HER. And that includes Daddy, OKAY?”
But hey, you don’t need to be a parent to suffer from a severe deficit of alone-time. There’s a far bigger solitude-sucker than kids and it’s called ‘technology’. You may have heard of it.
Along with social media, technology has pretty much obliterated solitude from our lives. It’s difficult to be by yourself in 2009, have you noticed?
Top Comments
Not a dumb question Emma. I guess it just depends on what you like to do. Showering while they sleep works with one little one, but as soon as you have more than one it gets a little tricky unless you're happy just showering at night. Plus you often want to shower while there is someone else in the house to watch them, so that has to be early in the morning when a partner is home. And it's not just toddlers - older kids have no qualms about pounding on the bathroom door and asking "MUUU-U-UUUUM where are my soccer booooots?"
I try to have one day a week on my own from 9-3 (school hours) - and that day I try to make time to just shut down/read a book/watch TV etc. Doesn't always happen, but I enjoy it when it does.
I rarely use the laptop anymore, I turn off the home phone as I hate it when it rings and wakes the baby up. So that's really very liberating.
But and here's the BIG but...I just got my iPhone. I rest my case!