Parenting Makes Me Late For Everything

117144598__1383145219_142.196.156.251The only thing I hate more than waiting for people who are late is being the late person who everyone is waiting for. My entire adult life I have prided myself on always being on time. Parenting has ruined this for me.

I started thinking about this because of a blog I read in the Huffington Post this week, How Did It Get To Be Okay For People To Be Late For Everything?

And I don’t care if I sound old-fashioned, because actually it’s nothing to do with ‘fashion’ or ‘generation’. It’s got everything to do with basic good manners and respect for other people.

So here goes… How did it get to be “OK” for people to be late for everything?

Because as far as I am concerned, it’s not OK.

Yeah! It’s not okay!

And it is not that we lead ‘busy lives’. That’s a given, we all do, and it’s a cop out to use that as an excuse. It’s simply that some people no longer even pretend that they think your time is as important as theirs. And technology makes it worse. It seems texting or emailing that you are late somehow means you are no longer late.

Rubbish.

You are rude. And inconsiderate.

Yeah! You’re rude! Wait. I’m all of a sudden chronically late for everything I do. It’s not by 20 or 30 minutes, like this guy complains – but it’s five to 10 minutes – for everything. So you may just say, why don’t you just start getting ready 10 minutes earlier – problem solved. Except, I’ve tried that – and it still doesn’t work.

I’ve put a lot of thought into this, because it disturbs me so much – and I think I have finally figured out what the hell is going on with me. I spent so long only being responsible for getting myself someplace, it’s really hard to factor in a whole other human. I just got to the point where I was perfecting my time management with the first child – and the second one came along. I don’t think I ever truly grasped how hard it is to get out the door when you have two kids under two.

You may think I’m blaming the children – and I am. Just kidding. I’m blaming myself for not truly grasping what it takes to meet a time commitment. So if my sister calls me at six and says, we’ll be having dinner at seven, okay? Instead of just saying, sure!, which is what I am just hard-wired to do, I should really think about the fact that I have to breastfeed one child, get the other one bathed, get them both into pajamas so I can just put them into bed when we get back because it will already be past their bedtimes, gather up whatever toys I need to bring and also brush my hair. Can I accomplish that in an hour? Maybe I should start saying, is 7:15 okay?

I care about other people’s time. Which is why I am really going to start trying to schedule things a little more realistically so I stop driving myself crazy when I’m 10 minutes late.

(photo: Getty Images)

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