HSC Mothers Anonymous
Posted: February 21, 2014 Filed under: Parenting, Single Motherhood | Tags: 2014 HSC exams, a prayer for HSC parental suffering, A teenage beast ate my darling child, Advice for single mothers, chardonnay therapy support group, feeding teenage beasts, first world problems, government schools, grateful, help for mothers, HSC mothers support group, HSC stress, It will be over soon, local high school, love, lucky but still a whinger, mothers doing children's homework badly, not the be-all and end-all it's made out to be, NSW Australian exams, please, public school problems, raising teens, single mama dramas, single mother high alert, single mother sanity, single mother struggles, so lucky my girls are getting a good education, teenage trauma, The Lion King - Hakuna Matata, too much study, Where did my cute little girl go? 2 CommentsMy senior school kid has been back at her girls’ prison camp for a few weeks and I’m already suffering. One day I had a beautiful child, the next the HSC devil dragged her away and left a lovely ‘personality’ in her place. Part way through Term 1 the pressure of big exams is already driving me crackers, so I’m starting a therapy group for mothers of HSC students.
Hello I’m Lou and I’m going through HSC stress. Symptoms include cranky cat’s bum face, lethargic dinner making, chocolate eating, bitching and moaning during over long phone calls with other mothers, slovenly housekeeping, delusions and fantasies about holidays.
My week looked like this:
Monday
Revolting moody child, homework piled up.
Tuesday
Revolting moody mother, work emails 30% finished
Wednesday
Coffee drinking, insomniac mother reading celebrity crap on internet until small hours
Thursday
Under eating daughter
Friday
Over eating mother
Saturday
Beautiful sunny child woman (weekends only). Highlight of week: 85% for essay mother helped with despite the tears. Mother calm.
Sunday nights at 5.30pm
Tearful tantrum throwing mother, only 61 pages of homework to finish.
I’ve had to call the chardonnay support group hotline three or four times this week.
When I tell my mother about my worries, she laughs and lets me know that the karma fairy has caught up with me. In the past fortnight I’ve finished a legal studies essay, written a piece on Warhol’s contribution to the art world and discussed the origins of World War 1 all while indulging her taste for exotic foods like feta cheese and olives. I’m up late every night doing all the study I should have done for my HSC back in the dark days of the 1980s. I hope I get a good mark this time.
“Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown. In my heart it don’t mean a thing.” Toni Morrison
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Karma
Posted: December 9, 2013 Filed under: Self improvement, Theme Songs | Tags: action, breathe, Buddhist teachings, Daisaku Ikeda, dirty deeds, driving the karma bus, forgiveness, I ask myself, Karma, Karma Police, like a detuned radio, love, mindfulness, mirrors, peace, Radiohead, reaction, sanskrit, single mother sanity, this is what you get, time is more powerful than you, universal laws, yoga Leave a commentAccording to recent traffic reports the karma bus is coming with it’s engine revved and I’m not in the driver’s seat.
“It is impossible to build one’s own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.”
― Daisaku Ikeda
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10 Single Mother Truths
Posted: October 26, 2013 Filed under: Single Motherhood | Tags: budget parenting, cheapskate parenting, it's all for love, love, making ends meet, penny pinching, S-S-S-Single Bed Noosha Fox Film Clip Countdown Australia, single mother partying, single mother sanity, single mother truths, Single mothers, stretching parenting to fit the number of children you have, tips for single mothers, tired doesn't begin to describe it Leave a comment1. You hear the words ‘insufficient funds’ on a daily basis and it doesn’t freak you out; and the words ‘transaction approved’ make you jump for joy
2. The word you use most when talking to your girlfriends is ‘overwhelmed’
3. Parenting is all about selling options to your child. Single parenting is begging for the sale for your sanity
4. After wondering why your shopping seems a bit cheaper than usual, your day is made when you get home and discover the checkout person hasn’t swiped five of your most expensive grocery items
5. You lie awake at 3am wondering if you should go back to the shop so you don’t get charged with shoplifting. The thought that your children only have one parent weighs heavily on your mind
6. If your children go to their father’s every second weekend, your house is clean 26 times per year
7. Your children develop a sudden fondness for whichever fruit costs $28 per kilo (because it has to be airlifted from Belize) and be invited to four different children’s dress up parties around the time that your hours at work get cut back
8. Disneyland Dad suddenly has money for fancy restaurants with his new girlfriend while you struggle to find ‘imaginative’ recipes in the ‘700 Ways With Baked Beans cook book for dinner every night
9. The words tax refund cause you the same excitement as the words ‘Saturday night and it’s time to partay, get your disco boots on’ did a few short years ago
10. You have to be physically restrained from strangling your 20 something male stoner neighbour when he tells you he’s exhausted because he woke up early to get a surf in before he took his girlfriend out for a late brunch
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Single mother club
Posted: September 4, 2011 Filed under: LOVE, Parenting, Self improvement, Single, Single Motherhood | Tags: Advice for single mothers, blog, Crazy, Gnarls Barkley, happy single mothering, Homage to single mothers, Me, Men, mental health of single mothers, single mother dreaming, single mother sanity, single mother sanity savers, single mother struggles, single mother tips, single mother truths, Single mothers, single mummies, single mums with attitude, yummy mummies 1 CommentI am a member of an association I didn’t want to join. A card carrying crazy haired mummy in tracksuit pants, wearing bare feet, I am doing single motherhood the feral way. According to studies, single motherhood is not a pathway to physical nor mental wellness, more like emotional chaos.
My family was way ahead of the trend when it comes to single mothering. My paternal grandmother and my maternal great grandmother were both single mothers way before it became fashionable. When I am exhausted I think of my dad’s mother raising two children on her own in the 1930s and 40s, a time when single parenting was not chic. She couldn’t open a bank account nor get a loan because she had no husband.
My mission is to share the joys of single parenting. I don’t mind being single, it’s the single parenting I struggle with. My friends tell me I should be looking for the next man I’m going to break up with, but right now I think it is
Better to be alone than in bad company
I don’t want to be a single mum cougar, ogling young men on a Saturday night. Young men who are emotionally living on another planet. And their taste in music is appalling. I don’t want a grandpa either, I’m not that desperate.
But I’m sure I’m not the only single smother who behaves like a debauched old tart when the children stay at their father’s girlfiend’s place.
I don’t like to bash men on my blog, just tenderise them…
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Happy Mother’s Day – A prayer for all the mothers
Posted: May 8, 2011 Filed under: Parenting | Tags: champion mothers, Child Support Agency, child support agency failings, dead beat dads, FREUD, happy single mothering, Homage to single mothers, maintenance payments, mental health of single mothers, MOTHER'S DAY, mothering when exhausted, PRAYER, real men pay child support, SANITY, single mother sanity, single mothering, single mothers with attitude, solo mothers Leave a commentAccording to Freud it’s the role of the mother to mess with the child’s psyche and I’ve been doing my share. So today I have a prayer that mothers can keep our sanity and sense of humour while parenting.
Today I got homemade craft for Mother’s Day and cards that read I love yu, you’re the bestest moummy in the hole world. Mother’s Day is well timed. Usually by May most mothers I know have had enough of child rearing thus Mother’s Day is planned so we don’t give up mothering and take the little blighters back to the pet shop.
May your day be filled with kisses.
May you go to the toilet in peace
May your day be a tantrum-free zone
And may Santa, The Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy take away the whinge-gene your children inherited from their father.
A PRAYER FOR SINGLE MOTHERS
May the dead beat dad finally give you some cash.
May your ex’s white trash girlfriend treat your kids well.
And may the Child Support Agency catch up with those who are avoiding their maintenance payments.
AMEN
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Raising Amazonia
Posted: April 19, 2011 Filed under: Parenting, Raising Hell, Single Motherhood | Tags: Absolutely Fabulous, Amazonia, Amazons, Edina, happy single mothering, parenting, Saffy, single mother bliss, single mother sanity, single mothering, single mothers with attitude, solo mothering Leave a commentThe Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical antiquity and Greek mythology. Even though I have no formal training, I am raising three amazons:
Miss Maturity 14 – my shrink said there’s a touch of the Saffy and Edina (Absolutely Fabulous) relationship about us.
Miss Marshmallow 9 – she is sweet, soft and squishy.
And Miss Mental 5 – she is zany and hilarious, she has my crazy personality trapped in her father’s body.
loupollard 