Skip to main content

Being A Mom Sucks

Mothering Wild Blog has another great post about this!
No one ever tells you this before you are a mom. Or maybe they do and we don't hear it. I honestly cannot remember. What I do remember is being pregnant with my first and being so excited. And then as my due date got closer, I was terrified about absolutely everything - giving birth, sleeping, living, functioning. Add in the absolutely horrifying feelings I had about taking care of another human and the list was infinitesimal. Of course I figured things out but life with a newborn was so hard! And the worst part was it seemed like every other mom but me had it figured out. The picture-perfect vision of moms with their newborns not crying was all I had in my head and that was not my reality. My highlight real was my baby crying, me frazzled, poopy diapers, spit up, my hair pulled back, ten extra pounds, nothing glamorous.

So when my eldest was a few months old, I went to visit my family in WI and got one of the greatest baby gifts ever. My cousin and I were talking, and she had a son who was three and another on the way. Her three year old was irritated and throwing a fit about something and my baby was crying. She looked at me and said, "This just sucks. This is not fun - it's just not." And I smiled with tears welling up in my eyes and slowly streaming down my face, so relieved that someone else voiced out loud what I was feeling. I literally thought that I was the only mom who thought motherhood was hard, that I was the only mom who could not handle the motherhood thing, that as much as I always knew I wanted children, that maybe, just maybe, I was not cut out to be a mom and was going to ruin my child's life.

So armed with this new knowledge that I was not alone, I embraced the suck. And truthfully this made being a mom much easier and fun. There are so many days when being a mom is beyond hard. Toddlers who all want the only red cup that exists because that literally is a life and death situation. Preschoolers who will fling themselves on the floor screaming when you have to leave the house to arrive on time to the one appointment you have that week. School-aged children who are perfect at school and you wait for them at the bus stop and they come home and throw fits for hours because they are exhausted. Tweens who retreat to their rooms and don't reemerge for years. And we all go through it because embracing the suck is so worth the cuddles, the love, the hugs, the laugh, the giggles, the sticky finger mommy kisses.

So find your tribe, share your pain, your challenges, your wins and your struggles. Know that you are not alone, it's not just you. And ultimately, this, too, shall pass.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do You Believe In You?

Do you believe in you? This is a tough question. As moms, we continuously encourage our kids to do and be their best and believe that they can do whatever they want. But we are not great at modeling this. Think about it. Would you speak to your best friend the way you speak to yourself? What would you say to someone who spoke to your children using those words? Ever since I was young, my parents lifted me up - each and every day. They told me that I could do and be whatever I wanted, and I believed them. After years of being a mom while working in corporate America, I was starting to lose that belief in myself. Was it possible to do it all, have it all? For me this meant flexibility to be the mom I wanted to be in an intellectually-stimulating environment with continuous growth potential in a supportive environment. Was this possible? I didn't want to give up hope because if I was looking for this, I was guessing that other moms were, too. There had to be something out there for me...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hey, Mom! Has Anyone Told You You're Doing A Great Job?

I was recently traveling alone with my three kids, and since they're tween/teens, this does not seem like such a Herculean effort as it did a few years ago. As we were exiting the shuttle from the rental car place to the airport, a guy looked at me and said "Hey, Mom! Has anyone told you lately you're doing a great job?" My face lit up, I felt a huge glow inside and thanked him profusely. He may as well have told me I had won the lottery.😁 This got me to thinking, why was this such a big deal? Probably for the one truth that most moms I know live. We think we suck at this parenting thing every single day. We beat ourselves up for every little thing. We read social media and play the compare game. We are not enough insert whatever crapola thing comes to our mind or is hot in the media at any given moment. And here's what the truth looks like. Most of us are doing a pretty amazing job. Our kids are loved, fed, clothed and housed. They feel secure enough to ha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Want To Be A Present Mom But Your Job Is Getting In The Way?

Imagine this - you have two small children, a full-time job you love, but it's intense. There are a lot of early mornings, late nights, and missed moments with your kids. Then you're lucky enough to have your boss let you go part time. You may make less money, but it's relatively flexible, you have more time to be the present mom and wife you want to be, and things are going pretty well. Then one day all of that changes. Your company is no longer going to offer part-time, flexible positions. You have the option to either work full time or say good bye to the career you have built for the past 23 years. That's exactly what happened to Christy Kelly and what happens to many women once they have children. She had worked full time in the dental field and had recently moved to part time, which apart from the lower pay had been wonderful for her and her family. Luckily for Christy, she had her eyes open to other opportunities and had started a Plan B that soon became her P...
Post a Comment
Read more