Mother in law: Decision fatigue

I took Deceptively Angelic Child (DALC) 1 and 2 for their Covid jabs at the weekend. This isn’t relevant to my point but blimey do I hate inflicting pain on them. Heaven forbid they ever need an operation, or want me to watch them give birth. I think it would break me worse than giving birth to them broke me. Anyway, after the jabs, we had to stay for 15 minutes in case of a reaction and a whiteboard and pens had been put out for the kids so that they could entertain themselves. DALC 2 drew Voldemort with a speech bubble in which he was dishing out the killing curse, of course, while the two girls next to us with their dad drew, you know, unicorns and sh*t.

Quite quickly, one of the girls (we could, perhaps, call her ALC 1) told her dad she couldn’t draw because her arm was beginning to hurt from the injection. 'Oh, are you left handed?' her dad asked, realising the injection should have been on the other arm.

Is she left handed?? IS SHE LEFT HANDED?? Clearly this dad did not spend the first 18 months of his angelic looking child’s life studying her every move like she was a science experiment, absorbing knowledge about her very soul as it became apparent like a sponge, worrying about milestones, and co-ordination, and how to get a toddler to SHARE.

And do you know what I think? Firstly that he is missing out on a whole lot of love but also that there is someone else at home doing and worrying about these things. Someone who has read countless articles on Pinterest about encouraging the tripod grip. Someone who has booked them dental appointments. Someone who has always passed them a spoon or a pen straight into their left hand because they are present, and involved.

Someone who has a plan for the summer holidays and started that plan around January.

We are there, guys. Did you remember they finish midweek and there would be some days to cover before the first real week of the holidays? That is my usual mistake but I remembered this time. And what are you doing for the remaining six or so weeks, bearing in mind you probably have about four weeks annual leave for the whole year?

'It would be nice to have some time off together,' my husband announced last week. Yeah, mate. Would be great. But unless you have been thinking about making this happen since January, I can’t see it happening now.

I’ve booked in two and a bit weeks off, which on my hours means I will be working 11 of the next 36 working days. In that time I have got two mediations, so those days are written off really, in terms of keeping all the balls in the air. My brain feels about ready to explode with all the things my clients require of me between now and September.

Then there is the holiday club. It costs about eleventy thousand pounds per child per day, and extra if you want them there from 4.30pm til 5pm. You know, because most offices close way before 5pm. We went for a cheap one last year and it did not go well. DALC 1 got put with DALC 2 and the other younger children because of Covid (don’t ask) and was 'treated like a baby' and 'laughed at' and 'made to do stupid crafts all day'. I keep telling them this one will be better (it had better be, what with the second mortgage and all) but I am dreading dropping them off.

I have arranged what time my husband should take off, what days we can have a reciprocal arrangement with other families at the school, what days extended family can help. And that’s not to say I haven’t thought about September. I’ve bought uniform in the M&S deal. I’ve worried about DALC 2 (who will no longer get free school meals) choking on cherry tomatoes in her packed lunch and resolved to buy big tomatoes that she will have to bite into. But I’m fatigued. I’m fatigued by the decision making.

Decision fatigue is an actual thing. The more decisions you have to make, the more difficult it is to make decisions. And when I’m not deciding whether DALC 1 can have her ears pierced or whether we really should have pasta for a third time this week, I’m deciding whether to advise my clients to accept life changing sums of money, whether to issue proceedings, whether to send a letter that will inevitably cause the permanent breakdown of their family relations.

So my message is this. If you don’t know which hand your child writes with, if you don’t know exactly who is looking after them, what vehicle they are using to get where they need to be and who is going to be driving it, and whether they need a packed lunch or not for every single day of the holidays, consider who does know this and what the weight of all this responsibility is doing to them.

*Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article