A friend/my old midwife  for a laugh posted this on her FB page yesterday. I do laugh at these things myself. However I can honestly say that I have probably subconsciously stored a few bits of this meme to drive me crazy at any given time in the future and convince me I’m doing a terrible job as a mother. I can put my hand up right now and say “Hello I am Expat Mammy and I feel that working full-time at my children’s school since last September had a detrimental effect on my son academically” Why? because I was always to tired to put the time in for his homework, his reading, his spelling. Ok not entirely my fault, if he put as much time in energy in to his school work that he does to fighting Pokémon he’d be a flipping genius.

My point is, how many of us actually take all this in and worry that we don’t do it? I know I do, every time I shout I’m worried I’ll be spending our retirement fund on therapy. It’s us we are doing this to ourselves. I think as a society we share too much (she say’s bearing her soul on a SM platform) we are always out to impress someone, we brag about our lifestyles (Dubai is the worse for this) we talk about things that some Mammies were blissfully unaware of and now they are getting their knickers in a twist because are doing or not doing the right thing. And why? Why are we trying to impress, mostly people who really don’t care, they’re just friends with you on social media to be nosey?

So confession time!

I’m not actually sure that I’m taking care of my children’s academic, psychological, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, nutritional and social needs on a daily basis. I know I tell them I love them on a daily basis, I cook for them…..Sometimes pasta with sauce from a  jar as they have swimming lessons…BOOM, Physical needs right there Expatmammy 1 Society 0. I do homework, read with them. Multilingual house? EPD speaks Irish to them when I nag him and I guess Bristolian is a language in itself so I’ve got that covered. I don’t want to helicopter as half the time if we’re in the park I just want them to leave me alone for 5 minutes, just me? We live in a villa, in a badly lit street where cars drive really fast, I can’t let them out to play in the compound because the swimming pool scares me…. First world problems. I take them to the Dr for anti B’s when they are sick, I definiately understimulate when I’m hungover!  Oh and I hate coconut oil, it makes everything taste like rabbit hutch.

LPV: I hate you, we didn’t live in a cul-de-sac and that ruined my life Mammy!! Miss C: Hmmmm, what bad stuff can I get away with and blame it on my parents?