PInterest Stress Syndrome (PISS)

Looking back to when my kids were little, things were very different to how they are for mums today. Bear with me…this isn’t a, ‘back in the day’ reminisce – I’m not that old! It’s an observation of how much the internet has changed the way parents parent.

When my kids were born we had Gina Ford and her, ‘Little Contented Baby Book’, which was easily hidden under a pile of muslin squares and nappies and most importantly, lost. Without it, we only had our instinct to rely on and other mums’ experiences at the local toddler group, as well as well-meaning relations (who, to be honest, were pretty easy to ignore). Most of it was very real and solid advice and we all managed to muddle though. The kids of this generation are now doing GCSE’s, A Levels and degrees and are going great guns. Then came: Google and the already fragile and exhausted brains of parents were suddenly overloaded with a tsunami of information at the tap of a few buttons. I’m bad enough at using Google for a photo of a rash or a description of an illness, that deep down I already know is only a virus. If I’d had Google at my fingertips for advice on giving birth, breastfeeding and weaning, my brain would have been unable to cope; I would have felt like the worst mother on the planet and would have ended up in some kind of mental institution. The internet is undermining everything that we already know as parents – it’s undermining that most precious gift of all: instinct.

Fast forward to when the little bundle is able to sit up and play with toys – a joyous milestone! Finally, you are able to go and get things done while your cherub sits on the floor surrounded by the mountain of toys you have scattered around her, in the hope of getting some peace. Catch the moment before she can crawl! It was win win – you got five minutes to stop the house looking like a war zone and sprog learnt about independent play. Happy days… but not any more. Nowadays, parents are made to feel guilty for not spending every bloody second on the floor interacting with their little darling, because some twat in Ohio on the parenting forum has mentioned that recent studies show bla bla bollocks…

Next you get to the verbals and that precious time when they start to chat and to express what they want to do. If you listen really carefully, you will hear them telling you that a couple of lumps of playdough or a Mr Potato Head will do them just fine. But no, some uptight mama in Putney, who used to be a Hedge Fund Manager, details a daily craft option on Pinterest. If Pinterest had been around when my girls were small, I would have stuck a post-it with the word ‘failure’ on my forehead, before anyone else had a chance to say it. I am crap at crafts. My idea of doing a craft activity with my kids was making a paper doily and I thought I was a legend! I am of the Blue Peter and stickyback plastic generation and we really know how to use a loo roll. Then along comes Pinterest and it ups the ante with sequins and cotton and special glue that I’ve never even heard of before and suddenly, guess what…parents everywhere find their wine consumption rising disproportionately to Government guidelines, but it’s the only thing that will keep them from drowning in PInterest Stress Syndrome: PISS.

Finally, there’s the children’s party. Now mummies today, I know that you will think I am lying when I say that not 10 years ago, parents everywhere were sticking 20 kids in their sitting room with a creepy, ‘what’s a CRB check?’ clown and handing out a container of bubbles at the end to the sugar-pumped darlings. Nowadays, you cannot get away without inviting the entire class – even the kids your kid hates, finding a theme in July that hasn’t been done by all the little sods whose birthdays are before Christmas and showering them with more gifts as they leave, than they arrived with. One party for a 6 year old I heard of recently, said on the invite that it will end: when the last child is asleep?? You what?!!! Ok, I’ll see you at midnight, cheers! Mums now are putting more thought into their child’s 5th birthday cake, than they gave to their wedding cake. It’s going to get spat over by 36 sugar-junked up rugrats – IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! Just buy a couple of cupcakes from Waitrose, take a close up and stick it on Instagram saying: look what I made for Tinkerbell’s birthday…NO-ONE WILL KNOW!!

As long as a kid has water, a watering can, sand, paint (when you’re feeling brave) and paper, they are happy as pigs in shit and you can sit and feel smug that nobody’s life is perfect, but this is pretty goddamn close, because sane parents=happy kids. My advice for staying sane and not drowning in internet madness: look a little, cheat a little, follow your gut, because it knows best.