Mum-Rage

Wrath is the 5th sin in my ‘run-up-to-Hallowe’en’ Seven Deadly Sins of Parenting series, but ‘Wrath’ is a strange and somewhat old-fashioned word, so I’m updating this and calling it ‘Mum-Rage’.

I define ‘Mum-Rage’ as ‘an over-whelming desire to scream in the most hysterical manner imaginable whilst preferably throwing something, slamming something or swearing like a fish-wife’.

So, what exactly is it that makes my blood boil so?

1. Shoes.
Namely, a complete refusal to co-operate in putting them on. After calmly attempting, five times, to put them on backwards (as the child refuses to sit on his bottom), and starting from scratch when they are finally on, only to be dutifully removed by said child, mum-rage will hit when you finally manage to force the unwilling feet into the shoes again, only to realise that they are on the wrong feet.

2. Car seats.
It’s hard enough getting a sleeping or compliant child into a car seat, let alone a rigid, screaming, arm-flailing one. Mum-rage will occur at the precise point when you have the flailing child’s arms through the straps, but you cannot find the buckle piece as they are sat on it.

3. Food.
After tempting, coercing, playing, and using all manner of encouragement known to man, mum-rage will take it’s full effect when, half-an-hour after the dinner was put on the table, there has still been only one pea and half a carrot consumed. Bored beyond belief, the other child will have wandered off to wreak havoc in the downstairs loo and emerges like an Andrex Puppy with loo roll wound all around him. The uneaten dinner will then be thrown angrily into the sink, bin or occasionally onto the floor, accompanied by a dessert of expletives.

4. Bedtime.
After a long and utterly exhausting day, an arduous battle to brush toddler teeth, several repetitions of the four-year-old’s current favourite story, a chat about snakes, a chat about toes and three additional cups of water, mum-rage will commence when you are sitting down to attempt to eat your dinner for the fifth time, and you hear the dreaded ‘Muuuumeeeeeee’ from the top of the stairs.

OK, perhaps I have anger-management issues. I’m not called Hot Cross Mum for nothing you know.

Mum-Rage