Parenting is often described as an emotional tidal wave. But how real is that?
Maybe if we haven’t harped that in centuries “Having children is just joy” and other simplistic ready-made sentences and naive, I wasn’t there.
Maybe if the parents I’ve met in my life told me the truth and that they didn’t want to believe me in myth of the perfect mothersometimes despite this, I feel less guilty when I’m not screwed on the dose of a bottle in one hand while running a machine in the other.
The myth of the perfect mother is very painful
Ever since I became a mother (of two children), I have realized that there are gyuy things that I didn’t prepare for. I may have been working on my topic during my pregnancy while eating a lot of books, I may have asked for advice (and received it without asking for anything either), I didn’t know what to expect from me before the first 3.7kg roast in your arms.
Can I blame anyone? Yes and no. If I can blame those who continue to spread this ridiculous myth of the ideal mother, I can also blame this kind of involuntary amnesia, which pushes everyone who gives birth to forget the worst moments of their motherhood, or to choose selected passages. Is this a way to continue the species ? Maybe, but hey, it’s not like if there’s not enough of us on Earth, there doesn’t have to be a copy medal either.
So yes, I know I get very little sleep, I know I can’t sleep anymore, I know it costs, etcetera.
But there are some things I should have known before be the LIFETIME guardian of the children. Concrete things, but not only, and maybe knowledge has helped me tell myself ok, I just feel normalthese are the only things that are clearly not said.
It is very difficult to love
It doesn’t matter if your baby’s love comes right away in his womb, when he comes out, a week, 3 months, 6 months or even sometimes years later, he is there. This love is so tired it is compelling, tiring and there is no possibility of rest.
It can consume, it can drive you crazy, it can hurt, but it can also bring completely indescribable and unpleasant joy, ranging from the pride of seeing your child eat a mashed carrot to the fear that something will happen to the fruit. of its contents, and that is the chicken of love abruptly stopped.
Loving your child is not just loving someone else’s partner. It is visceral, intrinsic and brutal. It’s as pure of love as it returns to you, and it is unconditional.
Even if I give birth to my children, feed me, even if they are bored, sick, angry, even if I want anywhere outside of their companyeven though I say to myself, sometimes under the influence of anger, that I hate them, I love them so much that it is almost painful.
It’s so hard to worry, all the time
With love comes fear. The fear that they will disappear, the fear that they will be caught, the fear that they will get sick, the fear that they will die. I don’t think you know, until you have children, how scared you are to die someone other than yourself. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe the childless know what feeling I’m talking about.
It’s not a fear that is reasoned and controlled, it is as extreme fear that sometimes he can behave in unreasonable ways.
it constant hypervigilance is exhausting, and it seems endless. For example, if my daughter is sick, severe pain, it’s like I’m sick of her. I can’t eat, sleep, think. I always thought about his condition, I looked at him like burning milk, I interpreted each of his reactions, celebrated the slightest positive evolution of his illness as if he had just won a Pulitzer.
Makakapoy na. I could pay dearly, very dearly, to be sick in his place, so that he could no longer pass this test, and that he could no longer know to suffer. Even if I knew he had to go through it like everyone else, sometimes I would find myself request to be savedthat they would leave him in good health, and that they would attack someone other than him, or above all, that I was the one they attacked instead.
It’s hard not to be the first choice in your own life
In your life, you can meet people, be with them, love them, and say to yourself “we can give everything for them”. True, it does happen. Or not eh, everyone does what they want in their relationships with others.
The problem is, if you have children, that’s true, up to the power of 1,000. Even if you are fighting against maternal injunctionseven if we want to reject forever the heavy and unrealistic myth of the sacrificial mother, we know that if something serious happens and I have to make a choice to keep my children or me alive, I always put myself in front of them so they can be saved.
I can be a feminist, confident, I can try to make mothers I know or for whom I write feel guilty, as much as I can, I know my life is a second choice . If one day there is a war and the food runs out, they will be the first, obviously.
And it’s hard. It’s hard to I had the impression that I hadn’t been perfect since I became a mother, and I divided myself into two more people: my children. I, alone, never again. I, without mom, wouldn’t have happened.
So yes, I can have “moments” without children in everyday life, holidays, weekends, days, hours, where only I can count, where I exist only for myself. But these moments are only short breaks.
Sometimes I regret that I have children. When I was tired, when they jumped on me when I opened the door of the house and they beat me without even giving me time to breathe, I was tired. If they scream, if they demand, if they forget I’m human too, I want to drop everything.
However, I love them so much that it sometimes hurts. Is this the ambivalence of motherhood? Was I not briefed before I dropped it?
Of course, not everyone has to feel all of this. This reflection is personal, but it can speak to others. Me, I would have liked to tell everyone that, before having children. Not sure if it can make any difference, but at least I can’t say I don’t know.
Also read:
5 reasons not to have children, from one to having (2 times)
Photo credit photo of one: fizkes