I wrote this piece three years ago and stumbled upon it this morning. It felt like a good time to share. Im sharing for all the mothers who do or have felt this too, and for the mothers who may suppress these feeling’s because they think it may make them be a “bad mother”.
I know I’m an amazing mother, but sometimes I hate it.
Hate may feel like a strong word for many but I’ve always been one to feel all the feels deeply, and the current mantra I’m living by is this.
Theres room for this too.
Theres room for all of it. The suffering, the beauty, the heart breaking joy. There is room within me for all of it, and when theres room within me for all of it, theres room within me to accept all of it from others. And to accept ALL OF my children exactly as they are I believe is the greatest gift I can give them.
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There are some days where I hate being a mother. I curse myself for being such a romantic idealist, for being that mother to-be that never once contemplated the hardship that was to come. Standing in that place of hardship, it hits me across the face like the news of a cheating lover. I feel betrayed. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
Months of toilet training resulting in the scent of urine singed to my nostril hair, sleepless nights – for years, tape worms – more than once, the putting on of shoes, the taking off of shoes, the cooking of meals no one eats, the explosive tantrums, the unshaved legs and the endless washing. The disappearance of desire, the lack of wanting touch from my husband. I feel swallowed up by my existence, barely able to take air before black waters again take me.
It’s in these moments and at these times that I dream of my life before children, I have sexual fantasy’s of a quiet and empty bed. I crave to escape in a book, escape into my writing, escape up a mountain. Escape. Anywhere.
I’ve been unwell, really unwell and I’m still unwell as I write this. Im aware that sickness makes everything feel worse, but right now my life seems like a dark absyss of endless whinging and chores.
There is light, because of course without the light I would not know it was dark. My father has taken my eldest so I can rest, and my husband has come home early from work to be with baby number two.
I’m propped up on pillows on the top bunk bed of my son’s room, so I can breathe and so I can hide. This bunk is a place in my home that I never dwell in. So I’ve escaped, here, where no ones knows to look for me, and for some time it feels like I’m in a far away place.
I hear my father’s car pulling up returning our three year old; my husband walks to the front door opening it with our seven month old in his arms.
My eldest runs to the door ecstatic to be home and yells out in that sweet, sweet voice that only three olds have “daddy, see mummy?!”
My heart melts, it cracks open that little bit more, as it does every time I sink into these places and I find myself close to weeping because Im so desperately grateful. So grateful to be a mother, so grateful that all the hard things are tempered with the refined magic of what it means to be human. Love.
They tell you before you become a parent be prepared to “learn a love like you’ve never known.”
What no one told me was, that I also needed to be prepared, to ‘be’ loved like I’ve never known. No one warned me that my children would love me just as much, and sometimes even more, and this is what has made the experience of sometimes hating my life and motherhood such a pleasure.
I walk downstairs, with a soft smile on my face, preparing to be ambushed with cuddles.
This is fabulous Amanda!❤️❤️