Apogae Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad Mum? Podcast? That's the question we constantly ask, am I A Bad Mum?
We ask it in hope. I guess, don't we that other people are feeling the same way we are when it comes to day to day parenting, the inns and outs.
I had a conversation the other day because I've got my dad coming over for Christmas from the UK with his wife, and I said, like, you haven't seen the girls for a while. Yeah, you're going to have days where you go, oh, they're really lovely, and you're going to have days where you go, they are complete assholes.
Yeah. I think that happens to most of us. So I felt like I felt like that was possibly how I rolled this morning driving to school, just like that moment of going, sorry, why do I do this again?
Do you want to tell people what you actually said to go see this morning? Because you just sort of skimmed over that without saying what you actually said. So she had been doing your head in in the car and you were dropping her off at her like introduction to high school.
Yeah, transition day they call it. You know where it came from. Katie was another mom messaged me and goes, oh my gosh, I'm a mess. She was just doing drop off, same school, same thing, and she was like, I'm a mess. And I replied to her. I was like, I'm actually fine, so fine, it's gonna be a great day.
Yeah, a good one because she was doing your headed.
She just was such a bitch to me all the way in that when I dropped her off, I was like, see ya, I hope you get eaten alive in there. See ya having a day. It's like, you're not getting out of the car. I was like, no, no, you do that. You know, I have moments where I feel bad for saying what I just said, But at the same time, I was like, you know, in my own little self pity. Now with driving in, I've got two
girls in the car, Gracie and a little friend. They say to me, Hey, when we get there, can you take a photo of us walking in? And I was like, oh, yeah, sure, Why well, because when you know, in six years time, when we're finishing, we're going to get another photo of us walking out together. And I was like, oh that's a bit cute. Yeah. Sure. Skip forward to where I'm like dropping them off, and I'm thinking, I hope you getting alive in there. It's you know, first day of
high school. Good luck. And then I get out of the car to take the photo. They were like what are you doing? And I was like, you asked me to take a photo. Yeah, well you know, we don't need to take a photo. I was like, you just you just asked me to take the photo. So I'm out of the car to take the photo. And now you're telling me what are you doing? Why are you taking a photo? What the You're just gaslighting me massively. I said, stand there and take a photo. So you
got the photo of them. I'm so confused where I just went wrong with that.
And then that's the thing. You're always in the wrong. You're always the one in the wrong. And they will argue. My girls will argue that red is fucking blue. When I'm like, no, you're not understanding. They will argue with it's something in I don't know what it is, something in them that's like I'm just gonna keep arguing even though like I will not allow you to be right no, And you.
Sit there second guessing yourself, going why are we even having this conversation, right, why, yeah, why are you fighting this? Because you can clearly see the answer and you're just still fighting it. I don't even understand why we're doing this.
The most recent example of this, well, this is not even the most recent. It's just one that's popped into my head. There'll be others was the day when Holly said, I've got so much school work to do. I've got so much school work to do this weekend. I come home from a walk on Friday afternoon and starting TikTok for an hour. That was my fault. It was my fault. You don't understand it's my Friday. I'm like, mate, you had a perfectly good hour there that you were scrolling on TikTok.
Yeah, and then fast forward Saturday. Didn't get it done because you don't understand it was her Saturday.
She deserves a sleeping god.
Sunday. You don't understand. I have a friend over it. It's really important. Monday. Don't hand in assignment. You clearly don't understand.
No, it's all what I fault.
You're a that person that just got no idea, never been there, never done that, no assholes. Am I a bad mom for taking it personally.
Oh, no, everything I do this at the moment, I really think that as kids get older, it's really bad face self esteem.
Yeah, but I was also thinking about that exact point of like when I was driving to drop Gracie off, this is still a continuation of the same thing, and I was sort of like battling with myself, battling internally with myself over the whole idea of just going like, no, I don't understand, like, maybe I'm not seeing the point, Like you start to second guess yourself, Katie, maybe I'm
not seeing it the way that they're seeing it. Maybe I'm not listening properly, because she's like, maybe i'm And then you just start thinking, fuck, am I the parent or am I the child? Like I took everything that she said this morning personally as like a personal dig at me. Her friend said something about a school, and
then Gracie went, oh, I'd love to go there. This is as we're driving to a transition day for her high school that she chose, but I allowed her to choose that I allowed her to audition, or she got in off her own merit. And then now she's sitting in the car on the day that we're driving there, saying, oh, yeah, I love that school. I'd love to go to that school. Bro, I'm taken that personally. That's number one.
She may as well have said, you book me into the wrong school.
YEP, might as well. That's exactly how I took it, because in my head I was like, this is not my school of choice, but I allowed you anyway, just moving forward. I took that one personally. Then she made a comment of like, oh, they've even got boarding school there. I'd love to go to boarding school. And then her little friend goes, oh, I wouldn't. She goes, I'd really miss my parents a lot, like I'd miss my mom especially,
like so much that I couldn't do boarding school. Gracie proceeds to go, oh, no, I think I would be actually fine. I think it would actually be really good for me. But I think I would do really well in a boarding school situation.
Yeah, and so let me just guess what you heard. I hate my mom. Yeah, I want to go to boarding school because I hate my p parents. This is like recently Holly said to me one of her really close friends. She said, oh, her and her mom are like best friends. They're like, like best friends, like we don't have that. And I was like, okay, well I don't want to be a best friend, but now I do because now I feel bad.
How do we just not take it? In my head? I was like listening to this conversation going round and around and round in my head exactly like that situation. But then the boarding school, I really took it personally because I thought, fuck you. Your friend has just sat there and said how much she would miss her mom and she would not like boarding school at all. You've sat there with your dickhead mom driving you to school, and you're saying how much better off you would be in
boarding school. So I was like, fuck you, and they're.
Off to boarding school. You go because I would quite like that too.
You said that, Katie. I was like, if you want to go, absolutely I'll do that. I'll absolutely take you and you can go there, and I'm not picking up for holidays. You can stay.
You're only twenty minutes away from home.
Don't care, you're going to stay there. But the other thing is the little friend's out there and goes. One of my brother's friends here boards and he always says, no, you definitely don't want to board because the older kids pick on you and this, this and that and made up all these things and graces to Oh yeah, I think i'd be great.
There because that's how much I hate my mum. Yeah, I we just don't suck it up.
Look at her. She just drives me because she wants to. She's got nothing better to do. She just wants to sit in the traffic for an hour just to drive me to school. And oh here I am.
It's almost like taking the bully from school, sitting her in your passenger seat and just driving her around everywhere she wants to go and paying for everything.
Honestly, Katie, I was like, even if the therapist was listening to us right now, I genuinely was in that headspace of like battling going, don't listen to it, don't take it on board, not mine, that's yours. Then like she just keeps on going, she keeps rolling with the punches, and I'm like, I even turned up the music so
I could try and drown her out. I'll put on music that I know she doesn't like, because I was like, and then the last thing, Katie was the conversation around a phone and now you and I know exactly with this how it rolls in our house. And now Gracie is eleven, yes, and she keeps on pushing the boundary with the phone. I need a phone. I want to
phone either. Then her friend says in the back of the car after the boarding school conversation, so I'm already on edge, and she goes, oh, Gracie, are you getting a phone? And Gracie goes, oh, I don't know, Like maybe when I'm like thirteen or probably thirty two. I was like, well, at this stage, it's going to be fucking thirty two when you're still finishing boarding school and paying for it yourself, like you say, yourself, And then afterwards you're like, Rachel, they was.
So childish, but they drive you to it. It was her fault.
Do you want to know something really deep down and personal about me, about the way that my brain works. I see other people driving their high school kids to high school and they're sitting in the same car, but the kid has a big set of fucking headphones on or like AirPods in, and I look at that and go, I don't ever want to be like that.
Mm yeah, until you do want to be like that.
Now I look at that and go, they're really disconnected. I don't want to be like that. It's something that obviously for me, like maybe deep down there's something in it for me. But I look at that and guy, I don't want to be that disconnected. I don't want to not be able to talk in the car. I don't want to be like anyway. This morning I drove off and I was like, I understand why they do it. Yeah, why would you want to talk to somebody that just wants to bring you down?
Yes, this is my life. This is my life at the moment. And so when those headphones go in, I go, I'm really enjoying how disconnected we are.
Dead set, no judgment, but I didn't understand it. Today I understood, yep.
So watch the game for Christmas. Headphones nothing, get the headphones. Headphones are the winds.