Worrying times for mums
Are mum’s today worrying themselves silly? That is the question being posed by Hallmark Cards this Mother’s Day as a new survey reveals that more than ever mums are worrying about how they deal with motherhood.
The survey, which questioned 1,000 UK mums for Hallmark’s Cards for a Cure campaign, revealed that almost half (48 per cent) of first time mums worried whether they were doing things right, with all mums citing ‘worrying about bringing them up right’ as one of the hardest things about being a mum (33 per cent).
Just over a quarter (28 per cent) of the mums questioned admitted that they just didn’t want their children to grow up, with a further quarter (26 per cent) worried that flying the nest meant that they couldn’t keep an eye on their kids all of the time. What is more, adulthood and teenage years are voted the most unpopular period of motherhood suggesting that mums are finding it harder to let go as their kids grow up.
Interestingly, it is the quality time as a family that the majority (44 per cent ) of mums in the UK vote as the best bit about motherhood, with only seven per cent actually craving more time for themselves.
When it comes to the transition from motherhood to being a grandma, a third of mums claimed that they would help their children more than their mums helped them. A further 40 per cent would spoil their grandchildren, despite being against doing this to their own children.
Mum of two, Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen is supporting Hallmark’s Cards for a Cure campaign this year. Speaking about her own experiences of being a mum she said: “I've enjoyed the process of being a mother more and more as the girls have grown up. They're so much more interesting now! I found the early years very stressful and strangely lonely. There's a huge pride in watching them mature and become their own people making their own path through life and it's a journey I wish I could be with them every step of the way.
“I think parenthood is all about giving your children the ammunition to be independent human beings which they can't be without the certainty of being deeply loved and secure.”
The research was conducted as part of Hallmark Cards’ annual Cards for a Cure campaign which contributes £1/4 million to Breast Cancer Campaign and Action Breast Cancer, a programme of the Irish Cancer Society. Now in the fourth year of the initiative, by March 2010, Hallmark will have donated a massive £1 million to breast cancer charities to fund vital research into the disease. The money is contributed independent of card and gift sales and is used to fund vital breast cancer research at centres across the UK and Ireland.