笨mummy has her fair share of
dealing with unreasonable people especially coming from a 2 years stint as a
customer service operator. Dealing with difficult colleagues, customers,
friends and even suppliers are never much a problem as we can always end the relationship
if thing get bad (i.e. we can quit our job, stop buying stuffs from that
particular supplier). The most difficult
is dealing with family members. Family members are linked by blood ties and it
is never by choice, unlike a friend that we choose to befriend.
笨mummy has a first-hand
encounter with difficult and unreasonable family members. This is also the
cause of her decision to be a SAHM and not enlist the help of her mother
anymore to take care of her Child 1 and Child 2 and move back to her own place.
Family member A and B are both not in full time employment and they experience
great deal of unhappiness with笨mummy
continuing to stay with them in the same household for reason, yet again
unknown to笨mummy. Maybe笨mummy has annoyed them in ways that she is not aware of.
Profile of these
difficult and unreasonable family members
Family member A is like a phantom living in the household. 笨mummy never really got to see him during her stay at the
household. He was out early in the morning between 5-6am for his regular
morning walk before笨mummy wakes up (which is
normally around 6am to feed Child 2 and eat her breakfast and prepare for
work). 笨mummy is left the household around 7.15am for work and in most
days, Family member A has not yet return from his morning walk when she left
the household. In those days when Family member A is back before笨mummy left the house, there is little chance of interaction at
all, as he went straight to the toilet for “big business” (i.e. pooing) and
this normally take a while for him. By the time笨mummy came back from work, Family member A is gone and he would
only be back to the household after 10pm, and at that time, 笨mummy is already in her room sleeping.
Family member B operates like he is living in the Europe
time zone, i.e. he wakes up at 3-4pm in the afternoon and went to bed at 5-6 am
in the morning. His meal times also have uncanny similarity to a person living
and breathing in the Europe time zone. Breakfast for him start at 3-4pm (i.e.
UK time 8-9am), he would then have lunch around 7pm (that UK time 12noon),
dinner at 2-3am and on some days, supper at 5am. Family member B stay at home
most of the time, with short intervals during the days where he would be out of
the household to have a smoking break and buy lottery (toto,4D) or at middle of
the night to get food.
What are their
grievances?
Grievance number 1 -笨mummy does not help out in the household or
selfish by taking day off to do her own stuff and not helping out with
household chores.
The common complaint that笨mummy
heard from them is that she does not help out in the household or taking day
off to do her own stuff. Hmm that is in a way true when she is hardly around or
she is busy with stuff on her leave day. Let her details how a typical weekday
is like –
6-6.30am
|
Wake up, clean up, enjoy her breakfast – her own me-time
of the day.
|
6.30 -7am
|
Feed Child 2
|
7-7.15am
|
Get dress for work. If time permits, she does some basic
chores –tidying up her bed, clean up the mess created by Child 1, if any, the
night before
|
7.15am-6.30pm
|
Commuting to and from work and working in office
|
6.30-8.30pm
|
Bath Child 2, has her dinner, bathe, feed Child 2, wash
and sterilize Child 2’s bottles, coax Child 2 to sleep. Entertain Child 1
when required depending on his mood.
|
8.30-9.30pm
|
If笨mummy is
not the choose one to play with Child 1, she would have a bit of time to
catch a breather.
|
10pm to 1am
|
By 10pm, 笨mummy
prepared for hit the bed with 3-5 occasional disturbance from Child 2 who
co-sleep where she needs to rock or carry Child 2 to settle her back to
sleep.
|
1am to 1.30am
|
Child 2’s midnight feed at 1am. This vary depending on
Child 2. Sometime she can be up as early as 11pm or even as late as 3.30am
for the feed
|
While her typical weekend schedule is
Sat
|
笨mummy
returns to her own house with Child 1 and 2. This includes feeding, diaper
changing, playing, bathing, entertaining both Child 1 and 2. If time permits,
she could have a breather to have a coffee break at 3pm.
|
Sun morning
|
Laundry is scheduled on Sunday
|
Sun 4pm
|
笨mummy
returns to the household around 4pm in the afternoon with Child 2. Child 1 is
temporary out-sourced to the other set of grandparents till dinner time.
Normally, 笨mummy
will go out for a short trip to the mall (from 4pm to 5.30pm) leaving Child 2
with her mum since 4-5pm is the napping time of Child 2.
She will try to be back by 5.30 pm to start the evening
cycle started again (see above 6.30 to 10pm of the weekday schedule
above).
|
Let’s talk about days where she is on leave. The morning
cycle and evening cycle are identical to a weekday, except the time in office
is replaced with the following:
7-8am
|
Entertain Child 1 and bring Child 1 to school
|
8-9am
|
Commuting to her house. Yes, it will take about an hour or
so to reach
|
9-11.30am
|
Sweeping & mopping, washing of bedsheets, etc
(Depending on the scheduled tasks of the month)
|
11.30am to 2pm
|
Lunch and grocery shopping (i.e. veg, fish and meat for
cooking Child 1 lunch and dinner on weekend and stock up any items that need
to be replenished) – including commuting time
|
2-2.30pm
|
Back home. Unpack the grocery purchases
|
2.30-3.30pm
|
Commuting back to household. Sometimes if 笨mummy settled her chores earlier, she
would be back to the household at 2pm.
|
3.30-5.30pm
|
Once she is back to the household, she would be busy with
Child 2 – i.e. feeding, diaper changing and playing.
|
After 5.30pm
|
The evening cycle begins.
|
Looking at the schedules, 笨mummy
wonders where are the empty slots that she could find time to help out with the
household chores. 笨mummy did offer a number of
ways to lighten the household chores of her mum – ordering of tingkat (so no
need for cooking of dinner), her family members’ clothing can be wash
once/twice a week using the washing machine since office wear are not that dirty (so no need
to handwash everyday)
Grievance number 2 –
Complain too much or nag too much on the way Child 1 and Child 2 are managed.
Another common grievance that 笨mummy heard is that she complain /nag too much. 笨mummy wonders which mummy does not complain/nag on the way their
own children are being care for, whether they care for by grandparents, maid or
childcare. She knows a number of mummies that set restrictions for their
child’s caregiver, i.e. no TV/iPad, no sleeping in摇篮, no use of walker, daily morning stroll to get the morning sun
(they said this helps babies to vitamin D which is good for calcium absorption
and bone development). And childcare
centers also enforced rules in toddles to help them in their social
development and keep communication with parents on the child's progress in childcare.
One of the highlight that created most grievance in B is her complaint
of the use of iPad during bedtime or close to bedtime given by B to Child 1. 笨mummy does not set any rule for her mum caring for her Child 1,
although she has a no iPad rule at her own place, she understand that iPad
could, in some way occupied a child for a while and freeing up some time. Child
1 started using iPad after moving to the household (he only moved there after
18 months). 笨mummy witnessed constant temper
tantrum from Child 1 due to the use of iPad at the household. Sleep time is
affected, with Child 1 not wanting to sleep and hope to continue with the iPad.
Screaming, yelling, hitting of adult are all common sight. 笨mummy has told her mum to stop the usage of iPad at night so
that such episodes of temper tantrum can be reduced and iPad usage is still
okay anytime before bedtime. Nowadays, 笨mummy
is no longer see temper tantrum at bedtime though Child 1 still not wanting to
sleep at bedtime and find excuse to delay bedtime, but there is no screaming,
telling or hitting of adults in his attempt to delay bedtime.
Other causes of complaints from 笨mummy is the differing view between the old wives tales and the
scientific facts. 笨mummy is a more of a supporter
of the scientific facts and disagree with some old traditional that has no
basis– like newborn babies should drink some water cause formula milk is heaty
and cause constipation, introducing solid early would help babies sleep through
the night, shaving newborn’s hair will make it grow better, etc. Sometimes
these comments come from Family member A who has no experience caring for a
baby or child at all. Imaging a person who does not drive, sitting next to the
driver in a car, giving instruction to the driver on how to drive.
If they do not like to hear 笨mummy complaining or nagging, that is going to be hard. She, as
a parent, is naturally concerned with her children’s well-being, and there is no
way she would keep silent when it impacts the well-being of her children. They
do not get it cause they have never been a parent before.
