Wanna be in my gang?

Forgive me if I've trodden this well worn path before - but motherhood is boring. There I said it. Waiting for the lightening to strike me down. Nope - I'm still here. It is the thing apparently all Mothers know but none say. You see, according to this book that I intend to buy 'The Mommy Myth' - the media have created this ideal of motherhood - how it should look, feel and be - and us women all desperately try to live up to it - which no matter how hard we try, we can't and so we are forever cast into the pit of guilt and frustration. Welcome to life chez Crummymummy...

We give ourselves amazing expectations and blame ourselves when we don't build our Mother Rome in a day. Here's the other great thing we do - we don't talk about it. No, we're all too busy showing each other how well we cope, how perfect our lives are, how easy it all is (according to this book...).

Husband has told me that I'm a good Mother, if not a natural one. See thing is - I don't enjoy happy clappy groups. I fear most other Mothers. I feel like a 17 year old in Converse pretending to be a grown up. Whilst I like painting and playing outside and water splashy games and reading books and bath time and going to the movies together, eating sushi and letting Sproglet scooter around where we live, I find myself standing at the park counting down the minutes until I feel my 'good Mother' cup has been filled and I can dash home and let Sproglet delve into his toy mountain and I can delve into ten mins with Grazia.

I've friends who have changed completely post child - their lives now revolve around the children, verging on the point of obsession. Somewhere I feel I partly lost them. Maybe it's because I'm just not like that. Sure, Sproglet's routine comes first - I never went out before bedding him during his first 2 years - but I tried to fit him into my own life, not the other way around. I needed to retain me to be a 'good Mother' to him. I went out 10 days after I had him - leaving him with my Mother to see a movie, ironically about a Paedophile (Hard Candy - worth a watch) - and every chance I could to get to the movies, I grabbed it with both hands. I still do.

I'm not the Mother who bakes homemade birthday cakes. I don't plan daily activities and join every swim club/child activity group in my area. I work full time, I try to have a life, a clean house, a clean (if unironed) wardrobe for Sproglet. I try to cover all bases. Right now, as I type, Sproglet, dummie in mouth is relishing 'Tigger and Pooh' on the Disney Channel. Maybe I should be making cut out potato paintings or rustling up some fairy cakes with him in the kitchen - but in truth I cannot be arsed. I am shattered after work. I need to wind down before we do bath and bed and read 'Aliens love Underpants' for the 60 millionth time. Fresh as if it were the first...

My therapist told me the other day that she wishes she had £1 for every Mother who came in and unleashed her guilty secret - that she found Motherhood boring and repetitive - but she couldn't tell anyone - or else what would they think of her? She'd be cast out of the Alpha Mummy tea group - and then were would her social outcast baby be? Therapist said it happened particularly in my posho area.

I'm thinking of trying to start my own Crummymummy group in the area. Baby talk is banned. We have to drink alcohol at all times. Swearing is obligatory. We must confess to all evils including lusting after 21 year old tv characters like Chuck Bass. We must eat only cake. We must admit to missing our old singleton lives whilst still loving our kids. At the end we must group hug and tell each other that we are normal.

Wanna join?