Kids Bore Me
I mean, not all the time, but after hours or days or the same activity repeatedly, yeah, I get bored. I feel the need to do something that captures my own interest–like find a bar somewhere and talk to my fellow stoolmates.
I’m not one of those people who can hang out with kids for hours, inventing new games, or new rules to old games, and keeping little ones entertained endlessly. I’m not the aunt that walks in the door and all the kids happily scream and jump on. (Tanya, you’re kind of that aunt, and I admire it about you.) I can play with my nieces or nephew for awhile–coloring, reading, playing chase or hide and seek, running around outside–and they seem to like me quite a bit (Nolie, perhaps, being a temporary exception who screamed for the first year of her life every time she saw me). But I don’t have that kid stamina, where I gotta keep doing the thing for hours until the kid poops out from happy exhaustion.
And you know what? I don’t think I ever honestly was that person, even as a kid. My cousins Steve and Eric and my brother Bill and I had a lot of stuff we liked to do, like play Star Trek in this huge tree in their backyard. But I was pretty much over it after about 90 minutes. (Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I always had to play Ohuru, the only woman on the ship.) Still, whether it was Micronauts or dolls, Monopoly or tetherball, I’d eventually get bored. Except when it came to swimming pools or making forts in the living room; that stuff I could do endlessly, after everyone else went in to watch cartoons.
This should give you an idea of the kind of kid I was: in fifth grade I used to get up in the morning and go jogging. It felt good. Eventually, though, that turned into picking up a couple of my friends and going to a third’s to throw rocks at her window and try to wake her up.
Mom, you may remember that one of the family’s nicknames for me was “Big Ears.” Why? Because when I got bored with the kid stuff, I’d find a place at or near the adults and just listen to whatever they were talking about. I was a totally relational kid; that was part of my survival strategy in our fractured family. But, frankly, I think that’s just how my analytical brain works: it interested me to pay attention to people, what motivated them, what they said, who they were.
So I had an awesome time sledding with Reilly and the gang today. I went down with him 6-7 times, but I wasn’t up for 20-30, so I went off and strolled the shops downtown by myself.
Am I a freak?
No you’re not a freak. I feel the same way. In fact, as a mother, my goal was to somehow arrange for the two of you to be play “independent” of me. The motivation was both selfish AND a belief that it was better for you. Somehow it worked…mostly because you and Billy enjoyed playing together. Even now, I love having Reilly nearby, where he is totally absorbed in something of “his” liking and interest. Then, he and I and Jimmie can enter each other’s activities without the tyranny of feeling that we’re responsible for his activity and entertainment. Also, my kids were/are the most interesting…always.
Nope. I’m the same way, and I have two kids. Eric and I had to have a talk tonight about how I find it difficult to just sit on the playroom floor with the fam, always finding something choresy to do instead. And I’m better than I was. But the boredom is for sure a reality.
The good news for people like us, I think, is that we become better parents as our kids get older and, you know, develop the ability to ask interesting questions and have conversations. But until that point, it’s boredom-ville. I’m pretty sure my intolerance for boredom is why I have to be a working mom.
There was a tv special about this a few months back. Lots of moms feel this way–that babies and toddlers and preschoolers are pretty boring. So we’re not alone :).
Okay, I should stop rambling, but one more thing: I do think there is some growth potential in the whole boredome thing, though. Like having to sit still with my kids for extended periods of time has “encouraged” me to deal with some anxiety issues around boredom that emerge during those times. For what it’s worth.
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