Local Mother Charges Family 10p For Use of The Word 'Bored'; Same Mother Now Owes £5
A local mother of two, Rebecca Smyth, from the Greater Belfast Area, has reportedly been charging her family 10p every time they use the words ‘bored’ or ‘boring’.
It is the long-anticipated Easter school holidays here in Northern Ireland and many families are breathing a sigh of relief after limping to the finish line, with day-five uniforms and school-backpacks overflowing with rotten fruit, dragging at their coat-tails. Vibrating chocolate-egg-filled children skipped into bank holiday weekend knowing they have a grand total of fourteen days off while the rest of you adult suckers have, maybe, two. Dreams of unhurried, coffee-filled mornings on the sofa permeated the air as over-tired and over-stimulated mothers raided the shops for bunny-rabbit-shaped plastic paraphernalia. The iPhone weather app combusted from excessive hits as heartened parents everywhere planned a mass exodus to Portrush, Bangor, or Helen’s Bay for a seaside day trip. Glorious images of frozen children and babies rolling in sand, like breaded chicken fillets, flooded our family whatsapp groups and social media feeds.
But for one young family, it seems the school break didn’t get off on the fun footing they had planned. Rebecca Smyth, 27, a self-proclaimed realist, said she knew it wouldn’t be 24/7 picture-perfect memories, but she’d hoped they would at least make it to Day Two before she “wanted to lock someone in a cupboard”.
Unfortunately, instead, she was driven to the extreme measures of placing a ‘ban on boredom’.
“My eight-year-old, in particular, was acting like we live in a prison compound. I told him boredom was a good sign and an opportunity to be creative. To find a solution. But he just kept wailing, and I couldn’t take it any longer. That’s when I got the jar.”
Smyth, a former Women’s Worker at her church, told her family they had to put 10p in the jar every time they uttered the banished word. Sources close to the family have confirmed how much Lego goes into the home, and therefore understand why claims of boredom may have lead to such extreme measures.
When asked to comment, the aforementioned eight-year-old rolled his eyes, performed a skateboarding trick, and then told our reporter, “I thought it was a stupid idea. We’ve done some good stuff today, I guess, but all my toys are old and I’m still bored.” He smiled with mischievous eyes “Oops. Don’t tell her I said that.”
However, things took an unexpected turn when Mrs Smyth herself was overheard using the ‘B’ word. An ear-witness, a neighbor who shares a garden hedge with the family, told us she overheard Mrs Smyth muttering the banished words to herself as she hung the family’s laundry out to dry.
And an eye-witness, who wished to remain anonymous, but may or may not be married to the woman in question, said he watched her repeat the offense, several times in fact, as she put everyone’s clothes away and again while she vacuumed the dining room floor for the third time that day. Apparently she was heard again while she bleached the toilet after someone ‘missed’ and scrubbed potatoes or/and porridge oats out from between the baby’s toes. “She muttered under her breath. But I definitely heard it. She must owe the jar about £5 by now.” The witness claimed he heard these words: “THIS is boring. I could be watching This Is Us right now. But instead, I am bored out of my freaking SKULL.”
Members of the community were divided by the revelation and some took to their Neighborhood Facebook Group to deem the behavior ‘hypocritical’. Others showed their support for the young mother by adding a ‘jar’ frame to their online profile pictures and captioning them with the hashtag #motherhoodisboring.
“It was accidental,” Smyth said in defense, “I didn’t think I was saying it out loud. That happens to me sometimes.” She continued, “Please hear me when I say I love the bones of my children and I love being at home with them, being available to them. But the other jobs can do one. They’re so repetitive and thankless. In that fleeting moment I suppose the holidays just didn’t feel like a holiday for ME. The mundaneness of it all—it’s really BORING, okay!? And sometimes it feels so darn freeing to say it out loud.”
The young mum has since apologised to her loved ones and paid her debt to The Jar. It is unknown whether the ban will be lifted or not. The family plans to use the funds from said-jar for a day-trip to the sea-side.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Breaking News".
