I’m not being overly dramatic, or overly sensitive, although I will admit to regularly being both of those things. But I really do think I might be the worst mother in the world.
Ok, maybe not the worst. I’ve never hit my children. They’re both fed and clean and clothed. They have nice stuff, they get taken nice places. And they are, both, deeply loved. I hope they know that. I worry that they don’t. That’s what’s at the heart of this, I guess - I feel that I’m failing at the things that matter.
I feel like I’m not making my children happy.
Everyone tells you it’s normal - the tantrums, the meltdowns, the shouts of “You don’t love me! I hate you!” The fact that one - or all - of you will be crying before 8am most mornings. “It’s a tough stage,” my friends tell me, “you’re doing great.” Is it a tough stage, though? My children are just-about-to-be-three and five. There’s no doubt that kids of this age are full on, but when I speak to friends who have teenagers and I tell them I can’t wait to get to that stage (mostly because it seems to involve a lot of sitting in their rooms and leaving their parents alone), they tell me “oh, it’s just as hard for different reasons.” Cool. What stage is not a tough stage then?
Even writing that I want my child to stay in their room and leave me alone makes me feel like a terrible mother. Why did I have these children if all I want is time away from them? But the truth is, I feel like I’m drowning. I’m supposed to hold their big feelings, but I’m barely managing the weight of my own. I’m tired. Physically and emotionally. I haven’t slept properly in six years, and the constant demands on my body and my attention are taking their toll. My nerves are frayed from constant screaming, arguing, complaining. My heart aches from being told that I’m not loved, or that my love for them isn’t good enough. I’m bored with the repetitive games, the rapid-fire switches of focus, and with my new status as some kind of indentured servant. I am fed up with always, always bringing them the wrong colour water cup.
I love my children. You have to say that, don’t you? You have to qualify it, as a mother. You’re not supposed to say you find motherhood tough, you’re supposed to find it beautiful and fulfilling and joyous. So if you’re going to commit the sin of suggesting it’s less than perfect, you have to say “but I love my children, I wouldn’t change it, it’s hard but it’s so rewarding.” Except I think, given the chance, I would definitely change some of it, and I don’t feel particularly rewarded. I do love my children though. I adore them. I would die for them. They are beautiful and incredible and magical. That’s what makes it so awful - if I was just failing myself, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But I’m failing them. These wonderful little humans, so full of light and potential. I am not good enough for them. I have let them down.
Let’s start at the beginning
I didn’t enjoy being pregnant. I was tired all the time. I felt horribly sick - the first time this was mostly confined to the first trimester, but in my second pregnancy it lasted until around 27 weeks. I was constantly retching. I was an emotional mess. I was also experiencing some difficult situations at work, and I ended up leaving the corporate world to go freelance when my first child was just three months old. My second child was born in lockdown when the midwives, who wouldn’t believe that I was in labour, chucked my husband out of the hospital, while telling me off for “making such a fuss” as to cry about it, and sent me to a bed to deal with my contractions by myself. (Eventually another midwife realised I was actually having a baby, and my husband made it back in time to see his son born - I made a complaint to the hospital and was told it was actually my fault, because if I hadn’t made them examine me - because of the contractions I’d been having for days - then I wouldn’t have gone into labour. Sure, ok.) I never gave myself time to process any of this - I simply set about trying to be a mother (and set up a new business, and do everything else I had been doing before) while I was still stuck in survival mode.
So I started off motherhood by beating myself up. Other women were glowing and in touch with their femininity while they were pregnant - I was just counting down the days until it could all be over. I realise, now, that I barely remember being pregnant. I have little snapshots in my mind, but only of a few isolated moments. There are memories I have of events or trips where I know I must have been pregnant, but the memory holds no trace of the pregnancy. There are also almost no photos of me pregnant. I didn’t think to document the pregnancy, and my husband isn’t really one for taking pictures. It’s almost like it never happened.
But it did. They’re here. They definitely came out of me. I do remember the births, both of which (early labour number two incidents aside) went fairly smoothly. The actual transition into motherhood itself wasn’t traumatic, and neither of my children were “difficult” babies. I felt like I had a reasonable handle on the first couple of years, although the change in my identity and the new life that I had to reconstruct did take it out of me. I started a new career, I moved to a different place, I started living a completely different lifestyle - I didn’t really know who I was for a few years. But I did feel like I was doing ok at mothering. Maybe I wasn’t the best mother, but I wasn’t the worst.
Happy children
As they’ve got older, though, they’ve needed more from me. I could do it when the challenge was simply to figure out whether they wanted milk or a fresh nappy, a sleep or a toy - all I had to do was supply the right thing. Now their needs are so much more complex. So emotional. All I ever wanted was for my children to be happy. And they just aren’t. They are mostly crying and yelling. At me, at each other, at the world in general.
I could justify not enjoying pregnancy, but I don’t know how to justify not enjoying the day-to-day of parenting. I don’t know how to justify not enjoying playing with toys with my kids, or being asked for snacks 18 times an hour (sometimes while they’re still eating the last snack they asked for). I don’t know how to justify wanting more time and space to myself, or wanting to lie in bed reading a book until 8am. I’m not saying there aren’t times with my children that I do enjoy, and some that I cherish, but for most of the day I feel like I’m just getting through. And that makes me feel like the worst mother in the world.
Maybe we’re unrealistic in our expectations. We envisage childhood as this magical, joyful time when fresh-faced cherubs frolic in parks and woods, laughing and shrieking in delight. It’s inevitable that reality is never going to measure up. No one is happy all the time. Very few people actually frolic. Young children, who are still learning to understand and process their own feelings are often going to be overwhelmed by the complexity of emotion they experience. I know all that. But still, I feel like my children should be happy. What’s more, I should be making them happy. I am responsible for their happiness. If they’re sad, or angry, or anxious, or frustrated, that’s on me, right?
We also assume that everyone else’s children are blissfully happy all the time. Or at least most of the time. When friends tell us about a spectacular tantrum their kids had, we assume this is a fun anecdote because of how rare it is. We don’t like to admit just how often our own kids are having meltdowns like this. Does that mean no one else is admitting it either? Or are everyone else’s children really just much happier than mine?
Then there’s the added complication of raising children who don’t fit the mould society has constructed for them. As someone with ADHD and lifelong depression, I know a little something about being a square peg that the world is trying to hammer into a round hole. It’s not fun. I don’t want that for my kids. The older they get, the more I wonder if they take after me. Then I feel guilty for “giving them” the neurodivergence bug. Why couldn’t they take after their dad who, as far as we’re all aware, is one of the “normals”? What did they want to go and be like me for?!
I should know coping mechanisms for being like me that I can teach them - I’ve been like me for 40 years. But I don’t know any. It turns out, I’m not especially good at being me, either. No wonder I’m not much good at parenting people like me. (Or at least one person like me - my daughter is essentially a scaled down version of me. The jury’s still out on my son, no one knows who he takes after - if I didn’t know better I’d swear he’d hatched from an alien egg.) I don’t want to try to squeeze them into holes that don’t fit them, but I don’t know how we all live within the structures of society without fitting those holes. I don’t know how I get my daughter to school on time without losing my mind when she won’t put on her clothes in the morning. Do I get any prizes for never once having been late to school? No, but I do hate myself every single morning because not being late involves her crying and screaming, me yelling, and then us all power-walking down the street. I don’t know how to give them the time and energy they need, but still manage to pay the bills and the mortgage. Instead, I’m just doing everything badly and feeling horrible about it.
So here we are, three of us with big feelings that we don’t know how to carry, all dissolving into emotional goo. How to put this all back together?
I want to have a positive note to end this on. My work centres on helping people with their wellbeing, I should have the answers, shouldn’t I? How can anyone trust me as a professional if I can’t sort my own shit out? They say you teach what you most need to learn, and maybe that’s where I am. I understand wellbeing and healing, because I understand pain and unravelling. In my practice, I don’t lead from a pedestal, as someone with it all figured out who tells people what to do. I work alongside people, helping them to figure out what works for them, and exploring it with them. I make space for people to share their struggles, and that space is open and welcoming and free of judgement because all of us (me included) have struggles of our own.
Perhaps that’s the way to approach motherhood. I don’t have it all figured out, but I am willing to walk through it with my children. I can’t always carry all their big feelings, but I can be there with them. I still don’t know if I’m all that good at any of it - I don’t really believe that I am - but I am trying. I just hope they know how much they’re loved. If I can give them nothing else, I want to give them the knowledge that they are fiercely, passionately, deeply, unconditionally and justifiably loved. I don’t know what else to do except tell them that, again and again, and hope they hear me.
I don’t have a positive conclusion, I’m sorry. I’m too much in the middle of it. I’m too raw from the screams of “you don’t want me anymore!” this morning, and the little hands clinging onto me, begging me not to leave them, at school and nursery drop-offs. I’m too exhausted from trying to run a business all day but not having the mental capacity to actually achieve anything. I’m too much of an empty shell after everything I had to give has been sucked out of me. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, except that I believe in the power of writing to heal. I feel better having let it all out, having allowed myself to say everything I’ve been holding in, everything I’m not supposed to say, “out loud”. And, mostly, if you’re feeling like a terrible mother right now, I want you to know that you’re not alone.
Bullshit it doesn't get easier. Mine are between 6 and 11 now and it is unequivocally easier than when they were all under 5. Maybe teenagers get tricky, I'm not there yet, but there are some golden years ahead for sure. Little kids take and take until you are an empty, broken shell. Sure, we all have our moments now, but I am so much more 'me' than I used to be. Keep going, keep caring, keep reflecting, keep loving.
SO refreshing. Thank you for sharing so honestly as this is exactly where I am at and it’s nice to not feel alone in it