Apod Shape Production.
Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad Mom? Podcast? It's a question we continuously ask, am I a bad mum?
Am I a bad mom? Dad? Parent? You know? The list goes on. There's so many cars out there. We're in this together. We are in this together, in this together. It's teamwork. Teamwork makes a dream work. Speaking of teamwork, I've solo parented all weekend this weekend, though I did feel like Katie I just filled the weekend with way too much. I felt a little bit like I've been not available for the last few weeks, and so I was like, Yep, yes we can, Yes, we'll go to
the movies, Yes we'll do My God, I'm exhausted. And I actually have to take that back. I wasn't sober all weekend, I was gonna say, And she was sober for the whole weekend. Nah shit. Sunday afternoon, I had a cider, just one, just one.
Wow.
Saturday night, though, I have to confess to this because it is what our parenting topic always tends to talk about. Was we were sitting at the movies. It was a six o'clock movie. We'd had a bite to eat before going in, and I was like saving some room for popcorn because I love popcorn. And I saw a lady walk into. We're just in Vmax, So I don't ever think about alcohol. Yeah, I think it's just gold class.
For some reason, I don't know why. She was right in front of us, like rose in front of us, and she comes in with one glass of champagne and she sits down. I was like, I forgot about that, and then I went, no, Rachel, you sitting with your kids eating popcorn. You don't even need it. It's ridiculous. She went for three rounds.
I had to see that three times, and did you still sit there just with popcorn?
I still sat there with popcorn, just to beat myself up a little bit more. But I did look at it each time ago. That must taste nice.
Why do we this is the thing. Why do we give ourselves such a hard time?
Like?
Why was that even a thing? That at you up? Going, No, Rachel, just to eat popcorn? You with your kids? Why not? Why not with my kids? We live once and bloody get it.
I think by the third time, Katty, I was like, my mouth is like salmating. As I watched her sit down happily. Mind you, I don't know how she got home.
I feel sad about that. I feel so sad about that. I feel like I want to pull you one now. Am I a bad mum for clam down on sleep?
Sleep?
Yeah? So my kids are constantly pushing back, I think as everyone's in general, ah about why don't we have to get to bed so early? Then we're fifteen now, I'm like, no, you're still children. You have to have a bedtime. You still have to get up for school, you have to have a bedtime, like everyone has to
sleep so important, it's so important. We were away on the weekend, and so it was one of those situations, and I know I've spoken about it before, but it's a difficult one because they are fifteen, so they can do stuff for themselves. However, they're still a bit too young to stay overnight on their own and they don't want to stay over.
Say they don't want to either.
You know, it's a difficult one because you can't have babysitters. Like a babysitter isn't the right option. It's more so someone to hang out and just sleep in the house to make sure you know everyone's.
Safe, safe Yeah.
We were away for three nights. I had three different people, which is gonna be so much anxiety, you know when like because I was away with my husband, and you know when with husbands or I don't know if this is a male thing or not, but it's like we're going away. They book the trip away possibly or even just agree to you know those great dates yep, and then they go, Yeah, they don't think about all the
shit that needs to be done before you leave. So sorting out where the kids are gonna go, sorting out what the kids are gonna eat, making sure there's food in the fridge, after school activities they've gone on, making sure they're gonna get there okay, and how that's gonna work out, even like making sure that the spare bedding is clean for the person that is going to sleep overnight, the pets have got the food that they need. Like I feel like all of that it is yours, it's mine, Yeah,
because it is, because it is. That's all my job. So I'd organized three different people because they could only do one day at a time. I had a girl stay over on on the first night, which was great. I had a lady stay over on the second night, and then the third night they were going to a friend's house for a sleepover, so that was all organized.
The first night, Billie Eilish's album was dropping at midnight, and they are massive Billie Eilish fans, and they said to me, Mum, can we please please stay up to midnight? They were so excited they were literally counting down to when this album was going to drop. I don't know why she has to do it at midnight.
Yeah, I don't understand why her audience is young.
I'm dropping in at midnight.
I was like, it's not going to change anything from midnight also to six am, when you can wake up and then download it at the hend, I was like, thanks Billy for.
Nothing, I said, Because they had school the next day. My first thought is, no, you can't stay up till Midnight's the school night. Blah blah blah. My second thought was, you're not even going to be there, so do you care?
Oh? Not only that you could set the rules, but are they going to you know exactly? You say absolutely not. Yeah, no, you're not staying up until midnight. You're not there. No, they're not going to be ringing you to go.
Hey, just let you know we're still up because we have a r all in our house where devices need to come down at a certain time in the evening, and then they go on charge downstairs because I want of them sat upstairs like on screens. My kids are still at the stage where they would literally never go to bed, like they would just stay up. They're not at the stage where they put themselves to bed because they're tired. They're never tired. My kids are still never tired in their minds.
Yeah, in their minds until they have the milk down.
Yeah. So they stayed up on the first night and I said to them, what time did you stay up to?
And they said three am. I was like.
Okay, because not only did they stay up till midnight for the album drop, they then listened to the album four times before they went to sleep.
Wonderful Yeah, three am.
And I was like, okay, whatever, I'm not there to see you bad mood tomorrow. I'm not also not there to try and get you up for school in the morning after four hours four hours sleep. So I was like whatever. Next night, they were so tired. They were so tired, and I had called to check in on them and Emelia was crying and I said, what's the matter, and she was like, Mary, who's the person that was
coming over to look after them? Mary called and she said she's going to beat the horn at eight pm outside and she's gonna take us for an ice cream. And all I want to do is going to bend. I was like, that's really sweet. You can tell her, tell her that you really don't know. I don't want to make her feel bad. So she's doing the nice thing. She's thinking, I'm going to go, you know, stay overnight. I'm going to get there at eight pm. That will be really nice. I'll take them for an ice cream.
They were so tired, she was dying inside, going I don't think I'm going to make ice cream.
So they stay up late again that night, and then that next night they going for a sleepover, so there's no sleep pad. So by the time Sunday night came around, we're home. Everything's great, And I say at seven forty five, I was like, I think you should brush your teeth and think about going to bed. Holly looks at me. The backlash that I got from her, We're not babies. Why do we have to have a bedtime? It's only
seven forty five. I was like, it's seven forty five. Now, by the time you fucked around and brush your teeth, it's gonna be one pm. Yeah, But the amount of backlash I got over the bedtime I ended up saying to her, I thought I could go one of two ways here. I could either do the whole month thing of explaining, you know, it's healthy, you need your sleep, you've had late nights, you have to have a bedtime, you're still a child, blah blah, blah blah blah. And
then I was like, that's not gonna work. Like she's gonna hear that. It's gonna go in one ear out the other. Eg she's not gonna understand it. She's not gonna give a shit. I thought to myself, the only way that she is really going to take this on board is if I play on the fact that she's still acting like a child and she's not acting older than she is. And I said, when you're older, it's
kite patronizing or anything about it. When you're older and you're more mature, you'll understand that if you have late night, late night, late night, lack of sleep, Yeah, you need to catch up on that, so you'll get it when you're older, You're understand when you're a bit more mature, you'll understand the need for it. I said, look at me on a Monday night. I'm in bed at eight o'clock. Why am I in bed at eight o'clock on a Monday night? Usually because I've had a big weekend and
I've stayed up late. Yeah, and I need to catch up on my sleep, and that's what happens.
I think that sometimes you have to do that, like reverse it, because if one way that you've been doing isn't working, yeah, you clearly need to shake shit up. I totally agree with the sleep pattern because imagine if you just let them, the repercussions of that is also then on you because you've got to pick the pieces up. So you've got one. So Amelia she goes into tears,
Holly's backlash and outburst towards you. It's just tiredness. And then old Loves over there just crying because she can't cope because that's the way that she manages when she's tired. I had the same thing with el so it was more around the whole slowly moving into winter, put a jumper on and something on your feet because you've slightly got a bit of a sniffle. And at the end of the day, darling, if you want to continue pushing the envelope on your body in the cold, you're going
to get a cold. I'm not dealing with that because as a parent, we get the repercussions of them being run down yep, getting a cold, you know, being too fatigued that they can't do their schoolwork. Whatever the list is of symptoms that might come off the back of very late nights, no backing up of the body. And then I'm baddling the cold.
And why is that such a battle? But why does that have to be such a battle?
Put a juster on because you know cold? Because you know nothing, Katie. You know nothing. You have been doing this shit for forty years. You know fucking nothing. That is why I'm nine and I know everything.