Mum's the Word: I have become my nine-year-old daughter's 'servant'

I know I have spoken before in this column about encouraging independence in our kids and choosing age-appropriate chores but I feel I have personally let all of this go during lockdown.

It appears my 9 year old daughter Joan now, after spending 99% of her time with me, views me as a servant and not her loving mother.

From the sofa she will ask “Can I have some ketchup?” She will leave dirty clothes lying on her floor, a tap running, ask me to pick up a pencil if it falls - basically she is short of asking me to scratch her arse for her.

How did this happen? We have worked hard over the past number of years to get her to respect her belongings and ours. To keep what tiny space we have clutter free and tidy. To be good with her own hygiene and to do chores across the week.

But since lockdown we seemed to have regressed considerably. I have to point out here my husband it much better at encouraging Joan’s independence and call her on moments where she is being lazy.

I wonder if it because we are together all the time and I have without really knowing it adapted the “its easier if I just do it” attitude.

This I fully know is a total disservice to her and to myself. I am increasingly getting frustrated at her growing laziness but on the flip side am coming to the realisation that I have in many ways facilitated our current situation.

By the end of the day of juggling working, her homework, zoom calls for both of us, making three meals plus several snacks I am just fecked and it is much easier for me to just “do everything” than to have a dozen arguments to get her to do the things that need getting done. But it has backfired completely.

I also think it might be because I am home all the time I just spot all the bits that need to be done and want it done yesterday. I want to keep all our spaces tidy and usable.

For example one table in our house has now been turned into a desk for two adults, a classroom and a dining table and it can’t be cluttered or we won’t function as people who need to work and eat!

However it hit me just the other day when I could feel frustrating building in me and I was just about to bend over to pick up Joans clothes off the floor and I thought wait a second what the hell am I doing. I stopped and had a snap back to reality moment and called her up to me.

We had a chat starting with the clothes on the floor. She apologised and put them in the dirty laundry basket. Then I pointed out that I am constantly turning off lights in rooms she has been in or how she walks by things on the stairs that are meant to go up.

And how I feel I am now spending most of the day picking up all the things she leaves behind her, in albeit creative, but destructive path of markers, glue, lego, bits of paper and lol dolls all around the house.

I have since started again getting her to tidying up as she goes along again as at one stage she was pretty good at it. That day I also got her to fold some laundry and put it away. I have also given her the daily chore of watering seeds we have planted together, helping clear the table after dinner and vacuuming a few times a week.

The two of us have a part to play in resolving this. Instead of her handing me an empty plate or bowl I have to stop myself and remember to tell her to take it to the sink herself.

Instead of her asking me to get her something we stop and remind ourselves she should be getting it herself.

I want to get back to being her loving mother who spends time with her doing school work, art, baking etc, and not someone who mindlessly cleans up after her or nags her to do it.

We need our partnership back and she needs her independence back and I am determined to get us there.

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