Roughly five minutes into playing pretend with my preschooler, a little voice pipes up, “I’M SSSOOO BORED!” Nope, it’s not coming from my daughter. It’s coming from inside my head.
Truth time: I get really bored playing with my daughter. Often. It’s boring.
There I said it – and if you feel the same way, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You’re not alone.
Here is where I’m supposed to insert the caveat for the sanctimommies who will hear this and think I’m a terrible mother. The one that states how much I love my daughter. How much she means to me. How I’d jump in front of a bus to save her life one million times over.
All true. None of that changes how boring it is play “You pretend you’re the audience and I’m the pop star, but don’t clap until I tell you to and here, wear this tiara,” or “You be the voice of this stuffed animal [and read my mind about exactly what you’re supposed to say]” with my four-year-old.
Love and boredom can coexist.
Each stage of motherhood is a learning experience, and in my personal experience, I’ve discovered I’m a fantastic mother to infants. I’m pretty great with toddlers. I LOVE reading and dancing and running around outside with my kid. But, it turns out, I’m not a great “pretender” with preschoolers.
My kid knows it, too. For one, I am pretty honest. “Hey, this isn’t so fun for me. Can we read books or go on a walk instead?” is something she hears a few times a week.
And compared to me, her dad is FANTASTIC at make-believe. He’s all in. Loves it. So much joy. And this dynamic is something I value a ton. Neither of us can do it all, and it’s great to have a partner with complementary interests and parenting talents. But to be honest, sometimes it makes me feel like a bad mom.
I mean, how hard is it to play pretend for 30 minutes? Shouldn’t I just suck it up? Bleh. Maybe.
Or maybe I can remind myself there are things I do for my daughter that my partner doesn’t like doing as much.
Things I enjoy. Things I’m good at. Things we do together that bring us both joy.
Things like:
- Reading books until my throat hurts
- Spending hours at the park
- Collecting rocks
- “Wondering” about things (“I wonder why the sky is blue. What’s your hypothesis?”)
- Coloring/painting/chalking
- All things glue and scissors (but not cute crafts, I have not been blessed with those talents. More like early-stage Dadaism during which artists dropped scraps of paper and garbage onto the ground and voila! art!)
- Scheduling + attending playdates
- Eating brownie batter. I mean, “Baking”
- Climbing in muddy creeks
- Playing with our pets
- Teaching the kid to read
- Waking up early and walking to the coffee shop
- Playing in the sprinkler
- Etc.
All that is to say, mamas, if there’s something you feel like you should enjoy with your kid(s) but you don’t, it’s OK. There are probably 10 things you’re good at/like to do for every 1 you dislike. And that’s a pretty powerful ratio if you ask me.
P.S. Having a second child to entertain our first is a hard pass over here.
