1. I often respond to my son’s whining with an exasperated, “What?!!”
2. A common lunchtime for my child involves microwaved fish-sticks or chicken nuggets drowned in ketchup, some macaroni and cheese, and maybe a pile of blueberries or some other fruit to counter the nutritional value of the rest of it. Frozen peas if he’s up for it. And to think in the beginning I made all his food from scratch and it mostly consisted of pureed organic vegetables. . . I hardly have the motivation to continue with long preparations of foods that will mostly likely end up on the floor and in the bellies of the dogs rather than actually making it into my son’s mouth. Plus, he’s so skinny. I’m tempted to give him a pat of butter on the side with every meal.
3. The only reason I continue to shave my armpits and legs is because my husband has made it clear that it is a requirement for the continuation of our marriage.
4. I often come up with an excuse as to why we can’t go play outside right now . . . it’s too hot, too cold, too windy, you can smell the dairy cows, or just plain, “I don’t want to.”
5. I often break down into tears for a few seconds here or there when I think no-one is looking.
6. I have come to feel so bogged down by the monotony of being home all day with a toddler that I often find myself approaching my days with lethargy tinged with irritation at being asked to read Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham for the 5th time that day.
7. I had to stop pretending that I couldn’t hear my son when he woke up from his nap in order to get another 15 minutes or so to myself when he feel out onto his head in an attempt to get out on his own. He will still wait a few minutes for me to show up and get him out now.
8. I am heading back to work part-time and am looking forward to taking my son to daycare far more than I feel like I should be. Sometimes I fantasize about going back to work full-time and putting him into daycare for 8 or 9 hours a day and then only being responsible for dinner and a little play-time before putting him to bed. Then I think about how guilty that would make me feel, and I then feel guilty for even thinking about doing it in the first place.
9. At my son’s current stage of toddler-hood, I find myself thinking more and more often that I may only have one child.
10. During my days at home I avoid doing any unnecessary housework because I feel that taking responsibility for doing all the laundry and vacuuming and bathroom cleaning on a more regular basis might be the thing that just drives me over the edge into insanity. I make my husband do his own laundry, and we clean together on the weekends, despite the fact that I have ample time to do it during the week while he is at work.
somehow this entry is heartbreaking.
Hmmm…is it heartbreaking because it is pitiful or because you sense the commonality? I think most of the confessions on this blog are sad in one form or another, which is why they are called confessions. Confessions are things about ourselves that we aren’t otherwise allowed to voice because of some social taboo or other. There are a lot of good things in my life, too. My son brings me joy beyond belief, and I have a good marriage with my husband. I find time occasionally to paint or write or garden, and all of those things bring me joy, too. It’s just that those are the things I always talk about. As mothers, there is a lot of pressure to share all the good parts of your life – what funny thing your child did that day, how much you LOVE being home with your kids, etc. – and a reciprocal amount of pressure to NOT share the bad things. I think this is because we all want to look like we have it together, that we are great moms, so we lie by ommission and share only the good things with others. What happens then is that we sink into guilt when we don’t FEEL like we have it together. We don’t FEEL like we are great moms. We have not lived up to our own expectations. Exacerbating it is that we can’t share those feelings. How can we share our own shortcomings and challenges and failures without the other moms in the neighborhood thinking we’ve stepped off the edge. If a woman can so freely admit to the little failings, what other bigger failings might she be hiding? How serious is it? Should they call social services? Rather than face the questions or the stares, we instead choose to smile and recount little Billy’s latest achievement, tell cute stories about our husbands, and pretend that we sit on the floor and play with our children all day, enriching their lives while feeling completely fulfilled ourselves (I know there ARE moms like that, but I think they are probably few and far between).
So, yes, it is heartbreaking to see the “confessions,” the mothering difficulties that we don’t normally share all laid out together. And I had to limit it to 10! But it is also therapeutic – not only for the confessee, but also for the confessors – the women who read these confessions and find that they are not alone, that it is okay to feel the things they feel and do the things they do because we are all just doing our best, muddling through our own experiences of motherhood, trying to retain a feeling of self and hoping that our children somehow thrive despite all of it.
We all entered motherhood with such grandiose visions of how it would be – how much we would love our children and how much they would love us back; how we would be the best mothers ever, and everyone would tell us that we were so great at being mothers because our children were so polite and centered and well-rounded. Can you image the difference it would make if women shared the truth of their own difficulties more often so that young women thinking of embarking on the journey of motherhood would enter into it knowing what to expect and already building the strength to cope with it instead of scrambling at the last minute, sometime shortly after the child’s birth, when they realize everything they thought about motherhood was an illusion based on the lies mothers tell about themselves? These public confessions are one step in that direction, heartbreaking though they may be. These are only a drop in the pond of motherhood (though a rarely acknowledged drop).
Props to Heather and “get born” for encouraging the conversation.
I had post-partum depression after the birth of my first child. Not “day dream about throwing her off the roof” depression, but “what the fuck were we thinking” depression. My daughter had SEVERE acid reflux and is lactose intolerant. She would scream, not cry, but SCREAM for 9-12 hours a day. She would nurse incessantly (I think because she wanted comfort because she felt so terrible). We would take her in to the pediatrician and would get the “honey, is this your first baby?” patronizing treatment. All of my girlfriends were having babies and most decided to stay at home. They all smiled and laughed and talked about how they loved every single second of their lives as moms. I read all the magazines which made me feel inadequate. Went to mommy and me crap with all the other moms and talked about breast feeding and the brand of diapers I buy…
I 100% agree with you, Stephanie. People do NOT talk about the truth when it comes to parenting. One day, the light bulb truly went off, and I realized that most moms are full of shit and are trying to make everyone (including themselves) believe that they are a good mom. For some reason, we feel that if we say “yeah, this is hard” we think it equates to “yeah, Stephanie is a terrible mother and I bet her kids will grow up to be serail killers.” We think that if we enjoy having a job outside of the home, we should feel guilty and shameful (I would feel more guilty having wasted $50 grand and 6 years of school). Why is this? I don’t know. Is it because we are women and that is what we do? I don’t know.
I have since had a second baby and although it is exhausting and I still don’t have any idea what I am doing, I think I am kind-of enjoying it this time around. I think it is because I could give a shit of anyone’s opinion and often giggle to myself when I see the other moms at the park.