The Jam in the Middle

Life with children has mellowed. I've finally reached the middle mum moment.

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

I’m organising my youngest son’s fourth birthday party and celebrating a good stint of deep sleeps and dry nights. The house is nappy, buggy, cot, monitor and stair gate free. My eldest son can make a sandwich, dress himself and find the football highlights on the telly. Both children are in school every day and while I’m on the hook to drop them in the mornings, I’ve finally invested in some afternoon childcare two evenings a week. Work is busy, but I have time to do it.

I am here. The promised land was not a mirage nor an old wives’ tale. Parents ahead of me had told me this day would come, but I barely believed it. There were times I wanted someone to mark the date on my calendar, so I had something to pitch for. At other times, knowing how far in the distance it was, I preferred to pretend it was never. It certainly felt like it was never.

But friends, I am here to tell you that the fabled middle mum destination isn’t reserved for Narnia, the Emerald City or Neverland. It exists right here, on planet Earth.

The middle mum isn’t a mother of babies or toddlers, and she isn’t a mum of teenagers. She is experienced enough as a parent not to sweat the small stuff. Having kept children alive for the best part of a decade, she’ll roll her eyes at unsolicited advice or unwelcome judgement. She can discriminate a sick bug from a skiving attempt and is adept at the Calpol/Ibuprofen dosage schedule. Her offspring is/are between the ages of 4-12 and no matter how many of them there might be, they all qualify for kid’s club. While not every family will experience the moment in the same way and children with additional needs will continue to require more support (the additional bandwidth is a privilege and should certainly be acknowledged as such), for a broad swathe of parents, the shift will feel unmistakable.