Q I am sick to death of having to spend so much of the little free time I have dealing with the ridiculous amount of email correspondence from our daughter's school. I feel bombarded by information and literature, often utterly useless I might add, which takes ages to read and often leaves me feeling guilty for not donating my tea-set for the fair, or not baking cakes, or manning a stall, or attending some early morning meeting about something I frankly don't care about. Who has time for all this? It feels like a part-time voluntary job and everyone makes me feel terrible for not pulling my weight.
How do I deal with all this wretched admin and how do I stop feeling so cross about it? Shirley
A Everyone makes me feel terrible eh? The only person who can make you feel terrible, my dear, is you.
Here’s how I deal with the ludicrous number of emails I get from our boys’ nursery: I don’t read them. In fact, I delete 80 per cent of them immediately.
How on earth do I keep abreast of what’s going on and what’s required of me as their parent? I make a point of using those five minutes at the nursery gates at both pick-up and drop-off times to pick the brains of the more school-savvy mums who make it their business to know everything that is going on: from the minutiae in that critical email about health and safety around a newly built climbing frame, to why the school officer is permanently in a bad mood.
I love these women. And I’d be lost without them as they are my lifeline to what’s what at nursery, who’s coming and going, which school trips are worth signing up for, who to pay and how much.
This slashes my school admin time by about 1,000 per cent.
Squander energy
I refuse to waste any time feeling guilty about the fact that I am not that kind of mum myself or squander the little energy I’ve got trying to mould myself in their likeness. I couldn’t give two hoots about why the school officer is in a bad mood – with me or anybody else. Her moods are her business.
I am forever grateful that the nursery gates are graced with all sorts of parents, who all have something to offer in one way or another. And that includes you Shirley.
At the moment you are spending far too much energy feeling cross and put upon, dwelling on what you perceive to be your own shortcomings, rather than using all that energy to identify your strengths.
I certainly shan’t be getting my knickers in a twist about not offering to bake a billion cupcakes and man the stall at our next school fair. Because there are other women who genuinely relish this role and who are extremely good at it and I don’t want to be the one to steal their thunder.
I will be taking many a mum running round the woods the week after – to help burn off those leftover cakes they failed to sell.
The key to feeling okay about all of this is to make friends with the type of parent you are, and stop trying to pretend otherwise. That’s the first step: acceptance, which will instantly make you feel better about yourself.
Here are some mum-types you may recognise:
1. The know-it-all;
2. The blatant skiver;
3. The shy-away-er;
4. The impossibly hot;
5. The kindly;
6. The Great British Bake Off wannabe – who spends a disproportionate amount of time making exceedingly complicated colourful superhero birthday cakes and posting photographs of them on Facebook;
7. Earth mother-to-five – who has a pink ticket pass on doing anything extra curricular, yet still manages to bake cakes for the fair. And makes sure everyone else knows about it;
8. The career mum – making a career out of motherhood, lawyer-style. Brilliant on sifting through email admin and getting the kids into hard-to-get-into schools.
So, my advice: identify the know-it-all or the career mum and make friends with her. Yes, the very mum probably making you feel terrible and who you fear the most.
Instead of avoiding her wrath, get right up in her face and play into her hands. She wants to be in charge and feel important, so feed that. Flatter her with praise and thanks, and ask her what’s going on. Every day. Twice. “Ooooh you are clever, you are AH-MA-ZING. Did you get that email? I don’t know how you do it. What would we do without you?”
This bolsters her self-esteem. A kindness from you, which will also free you of all that email admin. With that extra window of time, and now unburdened of all that misplaced guilt, you will feel less cross with everyone and more motivated to start thinking about what you can contribute in return.
The Grit Doctor says: Don't be afraid to be the parent you are. Play to your strengths and let the other mums enjoy playing to theirs.
Ruth Field is the author of Run, Fat Bitch, Run, Get Your Sh!t Together and Cut the Crap.
