I haven't blogged for a while. Sorry. My excuse is that I have recently started a new job and have been getting settled in. Whilst women can absolutely multi-task I was trying not to put extra pressure on myself. The job is great, since you asked.
I'm back to commuting so instead of sitting in my car listening to Eddie Mair's dulcet tones on the way home I'm back to the good old Evening Standard to keep me informed. (Incidentally, it wasn't free last time I commuted which is a marvellous change.)
This week I read an interesting article on an American theory that so-called 'good parenting' is based on 15 minutes undivided attention being given to the child every day. Given that I have spent the best part of three weeks since starting my new job seeing my daughter for less than an hour day (none of which could be said to get anywhere close to undivided) shall we say the piece resonated with me, and if it was good enough for Sophie Raworth...
This weekend I thought I give this 15 minutes undivided attention lark a go. My husband is away on a stag weekend so it's 'Mummy/Daughter' time in our house - good timing. How hard could it be to give 15 minutes completely to my daughter?
It turns out, very.
I thought breakfast time would be a good bet as we would sit down and eat together. I would help pick bits of egg-shell from her plate as she dunked her soldiers into the primrose, gloopy yumminess of her boiled egg.
Three or four minutes at a time were fine. After that I found myself disappearing into the kitchen to put on more toast or replenish the juice. Then there was the need to fetch something damp and cloth-like to wipe egg yolk from the table (you know how bad it is to get off once it dries...).
I felt really rather sad at my '15 minutes of shame' and the rest of the day didn't get much better. My daughter did get a trip to the cinema today but that's not great really, is it? I don't know if the 15 minutes really would be the difference between a well behaved and adjusted child or not. But either way it feels like we must be able to achieve that miniscule amount of time devoted to them, surely?!
She's sat next to me now as I type this. She probably doesn't know any different but hopefully that will change. And besides, we wouldn't want the Americans to be right now, would we?! ;0P
Jec
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