“I’m bored.”
Two little words spoken in our house with quite some frequency. It is heard on car trips, at meals, in the stroller, and basically anywhere and everywhere we go with our children. And you know what I say every single time the girls utter those two words.
“Good!”
That is right, it makes me happy that our children are bored. I am a firm believer that children need to be bored from time to time to learn how to cope when there is no direct stimulus or entertainment. It is my job as a mom to make sure that the girls have the opportunity to be bored.
The latest chorus of “I’m bored” (because they never say it once) came last Friday when I had the audacity to let our youngest child choose a restaurant instead of following the opinionated dictatorship of the four-year-old. Our three-year-old had politely requested a cheese quesadilla and black beans. So off we went for some yummy cheesy carb goodness, while big sis sat in the booth, sulking, refusing to eat anything, and glaring at us all, proclaiming how bored she was.
Later that afternoon, I shared this fun mother-daughter outing with my husband and told him how glad I am that our children experience boredom. I was standing in the kitchen, ready to hear his positive words of affirmation for my fabulous parenting skills. However, no glowing words of “You are the best mom ever,” did I hear, and all I got was, “Why, you are never bored. You hate being bored, and so do the girls.”
I wanted to argue back. I always want to argue back, but I bit my tongue because the truth was, he was right. I am never really truly bored.
When we are in the car and my husband is driving, I am usually on my phone. Our children have no screens in the car, which is way more of a financial restriction than a parenting philosophy. So while the kiddos sit in their car seats and stare out the window, I am happily checking Instagram.
In all honesty, I am not sure I even know how to be bored anymore. I need to step off my high horse and take a dose of my medicine and embrace some boredom. Maybe I will ask the girls how to be bored.
