I’ve found that one of the most difficult and overwhelming parts of motherhood is the intensity of emotions you experience, and the rate at which you swing from one spectrum of emotion to another.
It’s exhausting.
On any given day you’ll feel joy, frustration, pride, resentment, love, jealousy, excitement and sadness so deep it hurts.
Even more complex is how you can experience contrasting thoughts or feelings at the same time.
Today I felt joy as I made food for friends, and love knowing my boys would grow up with these small gestures as their norm.
Yet while cooking those very meals, the kids turned in each other and I yelled a way I haven’t in a while. I felt so frustrated and disrespected.
There were moments where I saw them laugh or play together, the way their smiles lit up their face. I wished that life could just pause and we could stay here forever.
In that same hour I felt so full of anger and overwhelm that I wished I could walk out the front door on my own and not worry about coming back for more ‘house slave’ work.
I saw a newborn and my heart and my body ached for another baby to welcome to our arms. In the very same afternoon I knew I was so. Fucking. Done with kids.
I don’t think it’s fair to put it down to ‘Instagram vs reality’. Because to be fair, those happy moments were my reality too. They deserve to be acknowledged just as the shitty moments do.
The Perfect Mother Myth has us believing that if we share those unideal moments that we aren’t a good Mum, and that society will also believe that.
So there we are left, feeling so many conflicting things and thoughts at the same time every day in silence - because no body wants to admit they’re a ‘bad mum’.
Honestly, fuck that myth. There is no perfect mum. Speak your truth and share your thoughts and feelings so we can ride this roller coaster together 💜
