On Boredom 🥱

In this essay: Janet Lansbury, WebMD, second children, and the several strains of boredom I have isolated.

I follow the child-rearing educator Janet Lansbury on Instagram—maybe you do too. Her philosophy is called “respectful parenting” and I find so much of what she says instinctively true. Even if Rosalind can’t understand all of the ways I am trying to respect her now (“do you want to get picked up?”) it’s probably good practice for me, later, when she or I might be feeling less… respectful.

The other day she posted—maybe storied, because I can’t find it now—a quote that went something like: “babies don’t get bored; parents do.” 

One of her posts goes into greater detail: “Babies...can become accustomed to expect entertainment rather than doing what comes naturally—occupying themselves with their surroundings. Constant stimulation leads to an exhausted parent and an easily bored, over-stimulated child.”

Reading parenting advice can feel similar to Googling one's symptoms on WebMD. Wait. I am an exhausted parent. Is my child easily bored and over-stimulated? DO I HAVE MENINGITIS? 

During the early days of Rosalind’s life, I worried constantly that I was not “doing enough” for her. Were my boobs making enough milk? Was she getting enough sleep? Tummy time? Fresh air? Sunshine? Time staring at a piece of cardboard with an artist's whimsical rendering of a woodpecker on it? 

I comforted myself with the hypothetical situation of a second child. I don’t mean a second child for us—but an imaginary, pre-existing child that would, naturally, take attention away from Rosalind. Other people had more than one child. There was no way all those younger children were getting as much attention as their older ones did. Toddlers beelined towards open flames and glass objects; they dumped entire bags of potato chips onto the living room rug. Second children sat placidly in their Boppy loungers, taking it all in. These babies would grow up to be decent, responsible human beings. Plenty of good people have older siblings.

This idea brought me great relief. I was doing at least as much for Rosalind as someone chasing a toddler could do. I was only distracted by Piper’s maniacal barks at passing neighborhood dogs—and my own anxiety.

So what was it? Too much or not enough? Was it possible that now Rosalind was getting too much attention and not enough natural occupation with her surroundings? Then I remembered that there was something much larger than a toddler taking away my attention: the pandemic.

Rosalind has no opportunity to be bored. She has my attention all day, except when I am teaching, on Zoom, and then she has Jimmy’s. She has a basket of odds and ends and toys to dig through, spatulas to bite, books to read, Piper to chase, couches to (try to) climb, radios to play, songs to sing, carpets to pick little pieces of dust off of, my finger to hold as she practices walking around the house.

There are so few opportunities for good, old-fashioned boredom these days. I do not take her to the co-op. I do not go for a drive. I do not even take her for a walk, this week anyway, because it is too fucking cold. I do not sit her on the ground while I drink a glass of wine with a friend. No; I play her a video of a friend’s baby climbing on his wooden triangle. Rosalind points and nods and shrieks. I am giving her screentime, overstimulation, and a short attention span for life. AND THIS HEADACHE IS DEFINITELY MENINGITIS-COVID.

I am very lucky that I am someone who loves their job. Teaching on Zoom is crazy and exhausting and idiotic and partially useless, but still, I am engaged and enriched by the work that I do. This week, waiting to hear if my contract would be renewed as the college works through a pandemic-related hiring freeze, I thought of other jobs I’d had in the past, and what work I’d be able to stomach again, if I had to find another way to make money. 

Obviously teaching is out, since there are no college teaching jobs (anymore/now). The last job I had before that was waiting tables—the hum of the dinner rush, the choreography of the plate-carrying, the gentle flirtation of selling the last case of Gruner Veltliner, glass by glass. It felt good to work hard. My legs ached. I walked home with a thick packet of cash in my bra. If it was boring it was at least boring in a respectful way, meaning, when I Windexed the tables each morning, I got to listen to my music and think my thoughts.

That is completely different than demoralizing boredom, which I wrote about here before (“On Work”). Having so little to do your position is essentially ornamental is demoralizing.

Then there is physical boredom: this comes from manual labor that goes nowhere. Painting walls, for example, is physically boring and tiring but yields a satisfaction in its complete result; copy-pasting phone numbers from one spreadsheet to another is just plain exhausting.

Exhaustion: freshman year of college I fell asleep while rehearsing Handel’s Messiah with the chamber orchestra. To be fair, the string sections are used to getting the melody, and the Messiah is all about the singers. It was a lot of the same note, over and over. I remember waking up to watch as my bow moved across the strings, my sleeping arm still moving it.

I love, love, love the Messiah. This was not boredom. It was a lot of things: homesickness and anxiety and an undiagnosed gluten intolerance—it was the feeling of me not belonging in that particular place and time. It was knowing I should change my major but not knowing where to start. It was lack of support.

This is what parents are feeling right now. Not boredom.

It is not boring to have a child, or I don’t think so anyway. I am fascinated by my daughter. She is different every single day. Any example I think of to write, however, about how fascinating she is, sounds… incredibly boring. She shoveled an unexpected amount of quinoa into her mouth (how much??) She noticed my floral mask hanging up today and pointed at it (can you believe?!) She crossed her little feet at the ankles again while eating in her high chair (SO CUTE).

I wish I could share this banality with the world. I wish I could take her to the co-op. What a pleasurable boredom it would be to push her around in the cart. Look, oranges. Tofu’s on sale. Hi, neighbor.

Pleasant boredom, is, I think, what we think of as freedom.

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What type of boredom ails you? Like this if you liked it & comment below. Tell a friend if you want ♥️