50 Reasons why Playing with my Kids is Shit
There are two kinds of adults in this world – those that genuinely love playing with children and those that don’t. Take my daughters’ Grandpa, for instance. There he is, at any given opportunity, excitedly playing hide and seek and shouting ‘I don’t know where they could possibly be!’ while laughing silently and pointing at my four year old’s little arse sticking out from behind the curtains. He will sit and let my girls cover him from head to toe in paint, because they are being creative. He will sit all day and play tea parties and he will then take them to the park five times in a row in the space of three hours and not complain once about the monotony of pushing an effing swing in the effing cold. And me? I don’t. I do a lot of halfhearted joining in and ‘just this once’ playing while sighing and eye rolling and telling them that I will stop playing if they can’t behave.
Yep, I’m a mean bitch. Maybe I don’t deserve to be a mother to these wonderful children? Maybe I am damaging their fragile psyche and scaring them for life? Or maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to fucking play with kids! I don’t like it, it’s not fun. I will happily sit and make stuff with them, do their homework, dress them, feed them, teach them, ferry them about, buy stuff and bring them up in the endlessly infinite myriad ways a mother will raise her young- but I won’t sit and dress a slutty Barbie up for no reason except to keep changing her dress over and over and over…
Kids – here are another 50 reason why I don’t want to play!
1. I’m 37 years old.
2. You will only tell me I’m doing it wrong. Whatever it is I’m attempting to do.
3. The Brat doll is not dressed appropriately. Deal with it and stop crying about the blanket I’m wrapping around her.
4. Lego hurts when you step on it…
5. And I want to build more than a wall…
6. And there is no structure nor rhyme or reason for the haphazard array of colours you are using.
7. I have only just finished celebrating the fact you kids no longer wear nappies, so why do I want to change the nappy of a doll?
8. Teddies never sit up when you want them to. Bastards. Doesn’t it annoy you?
9. I don’t want to drink the putrid water that has been in that ceramic toy teapot since last summer…
10. And I don’t want to clean it up off the floor either.
11. You are both fighting over who gets to be Mum in your make believe game. I AM Mum, it’s crap, being Dad is much more relaxing.
12. Hide and Seek should be called, Hide In the Same Place 45 Times In a Row While I Check My Facebook And Pretend To Seek.
13. I haven’t run since I was 15 years old at school, you can’t make me start now.
14. Your fancy dress doesn’t fit me.
15. I get pins and needles if I sit cross legged for that long.
16. I kicked the ball, it went past you twenty times. I can’t do this any more.
17. Catch is just as painful to watch, it is more like Fetch.
18. You are loud. Why is playing anything so loud?
19. Ask Daddy. Why do you never ask Daddy? He would luuuurve to play dollies.
20. Just roll the fucking dice already, Ludo should NOT take three hours to play.
21. And talking of board games, there are rules. For the love of God FOLLOW THE RULES!
22. Yes you can go out on your scooter as long as I don’t have to carry the bloody thing for the rest of the day when you get bored after five minutes!
23. Snap! Snap! Snap! This is too easy, you aren’t even… Snap!
24. I tried to explain Chess, you started galloping the horsey over the squares and it was too much for my nerves.
25. That dress will never fit on the doll. Stop crying, I can’t perform miracles.
26. Okay, I will sit through this play of yours, wake me up when you actually have a STORY LINE!
27. I can’t take orders from a six year old, at least let me be who I want to be in this make believe world of nonsense.
28. There are only so many times I can pretend to eat a piece of plastic fruit and go ‘hmmm nom nom nom’…
29. Or answer a plastic telephone.
30. Lining up cars or cuddly toys in a straight line does not constitute a game.
31. I’m happy to watch you go down the slide 27 times, but by the 28th you are on your own.
32. Yep, I’ll join you on the trampoline but don’t get upset when I can do the drop sit move and you can’t. Mummy has a muffin top she needs to lose.
33. What do you do with Barbie’s shoes? Seriously? Why are there only odd ones?
34. Who the fuck bought you that microphone?
35. No, I don’t want to build a sandcastle… I’m meant to be on a relaxing holiday (and no one wants sand up their bum).
36. No, I don’t want to build a snowman either! For fuck’s sake, have you seen how cold it is out there?!
37. Running around for ten minutes screaming ‘suuuuupeeeermaaaaan!’ is not even a game.
38. I don’t want to play Teachers or Mummies. Seriously, can’t we play Cocktail Bars or anything that doesn’t involve any more pretend children?
39. Look, my mother never played with me and it never did ME any harm. I’m as inclusive and kind and empathetic as they get.
40. Jigsaw puzzles always have at least three pieces missing. Every. Damn. Time. The OCD in me can’t bear it.
41. What do you mean that doesn’t have an off switch or volume control? Remind me to ‘fix it’ tonight when you are in bed.
42. You got 2,645 other presents for Christmas. Why are you still playing with this old thing?
43. What have you got in your mouth? Lego? A marble? Dice? Barbie’s shoe! For crying out loud, that was the only matching pair!
44. We can go roller skating if you hold my hand. Okay, fine, fall over. See! Now you are crying. Having fun, are you?
45. No, we can’t play tennis. How the hell are you going to hit the ball when you can’t even catch it? All you will hit is your sister’s head and I can’t handle that right now.
46. Okay, let’s do a deal, replace the rancid water in the toy teapot with vodka and I may just hang about a bit longer.
47. You’re hiding? Great! I’m coming to find you (in about 2o minutes after The Vampire Diaries has finished)
48. We made a den, the blanket roof fell in. I tried again, it fell again. Seriously… go play under the table or something.
49. It’s been 18 minutes of playing. Can I go…
50. Oh look, there’s Grandpa, he’ll play with you!
