Bored

”I’m bored!” ”I have nothing fun to do!”

“Can I rent a movie or play on my IPhone?”

“Can I go buy an ice-cream?”

“What’s for breakfast, lunch, dinner?”

“You’re not bored – you’re boring!”

There are few things that trigger me as much as when my kids are whining about being bored. To be honest, they read my blog and will get mad if I’m not, they very seldom do nowadays. But I used to get super annoyed with them for complaining about not having anything fun to do or for bothering each other with stupid arguments because they had nothing better to do. They also used to nag me about getting something to eat when they were bored – it drove me nuts.

Someone once told me that if I was a person easily bored then I wasn’t really bored – I was being boring. It really hit me, hard. I didn’t want to be boring, I want to be a fun loving person that people like spending time with. Off course I didn’t want my kids to be boring either. Not for their own sakes and also because I’d feel like I’d failed them as a mother.

What used to bother me, wasn’t their expectation that I should somehow entertain them, it was the fact that they confronted me with my own feelings of being a bad mother.

I’m still triggered by my kids, even if it’s not by the exact same events, and I’ve been moving towards this summer vacation with mixed emotions. On the one hand I really love all the available time to spend with them. On the other, all that time leaves me no escape from being confronted by things that I still feel bad about. There’s nowhere to run, no work to hide in, no school and homework to use as an excuse to just keep doing. No way to avoid standing still to look at life just the way it is.

Most divorces are filed right after summer

Statistics show that September is the month when most divorces are filed. I bet part of the reason is that we set such high expectations on those precious few weeks/days that we chose to spend off from work. If we aren’t deliberately reasonable those days might be expected to solve all of the wants and needs we’ve been putting off during the entire year.

Redecorating the bedroom, losing ten pounds, starting a new online business, teaching the kids to speak a foreign language or two, buying new lingerie and seducing your husband, learning to cook healthy food, inspiring the family to ever higher ambitions and goals.

We seldom accuse our kids for our disappointments, we somehow instinctively know they aren’t to blame. The most appropriate direction to point that blame finger usually hurts the ego so bad that it’s unthinkable. So the only place left is on the other adult in the company.

After a few days of vacation, with parents lost under all that pressure, maybe our kids feel like divorcing us?

What if being bored is necessary

It’s crazy to, even for a second, consider avoiding my daughters, because, when I just stop and think about it I know that spending time with my kids is one of the most amazing and rewarding parts of my life. When we get enough time together, and I manage to be present, I’m always blown away as to how much wisdom they have. They are so full of life, wonder and love and they always make me laugh.

I know that when I lower my ambitions I become a much more loving person to be around. When I let go of guilt and blaming myself I feel lighter and I treat people around me ever so much better. I’ve been scared that letting go of the “shoulds” and “wants” for even a short while would make us lazy and in the end miserable. Afraid that feeling bored was the first sign of complete and utter decay. So boredom has had a really bad connotation.

But what if being bored isn’t equal to being boring people? What if being bored is the first necessary step towards a moment of connection over sharing something new? Maybe being bored is a sign that we finally have let go of all the musts and that we’ve freed some time to finally feel and breathe?

The last time my daughter said she was bored I asked her what she would like to do. She proposed a board game. We found one we’d never played before and spent an evening together laughing.