When motherhood gets the best of you and you feel like giving up

by Suhaifa Naidoo November 08, 2017 0 Comments

This weekend motherhood got the better of me, what was supposed to be a fun filled weekend with adventure and memories, turned into a miserable few days with me eating chocolate in my bathroom because where else can you go to be alone right? I thought I was doing everything right; I made all her favorite foods, of which she refused to eat none. We then took out all her favorite toys to play with but she wasn’t having any of it, the more toys came out the more screams she let out.

My arms were tired, my mind defeated. My head hurt from the endless shushing and running around in the end were to no avail. The imbalance of give and take in the parent-child relationship was too great. In that moment, when I thought that I was doing everything right, I felt done, done with motherhood.

So, I waited for her to fall asleep, took out my chocolate and started reminiscing about life before my daughter and the freedom that accompanied it. Whilst I opened my second Cadbury Dairy Milk for the day, I reminisced about what it was like to finish a hot cup of coffee or make it through an entire movie without the sound of anyone crying. I remembered those afternoons where I lounged around reading the latest home decor blogs and these days the only pins I save on Pinterest are parenting techniques and baby food recipes.

It does sound like I am complaining a lot, and yes you’re right, I am complaining. But does that make me a bad mum? I sure hope not. But you know what it makes? It makes me honest, because every single parent has gone through the weekend that I have had. It’s inevitable. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on earth and we need to stop pretending that it isn’t. The more we pretend that everything is going amazing, the more our friends pretend that is everything is great on their side too. All this does is create one big illusion that parenting is supposed to be perfect and complaint fee. Do you know what that creates? It creates so much pressure on new mums to have everything in order, it creates this immense weight of failure when we have one bad day when we feel like giving up. And we all need to know that those feelings are normal and extremely common. We need to know it’s okay to feel grateful for your family but also complain at the same time.

Look, I don’t feel this way every day. In fact, these moments are few and far between. I feel exceptionally blessed to have a happy and healthy daughter and husband. Becoming a parent is a choice I consciously made, I will never ever regret it. But that doesn’t mean that parenting isn’t exhausting and that some days are better than the rest. I have realised that we are all just figuring it out as we go along, constantly learning and growing to be better humans and raise better humans. Because, make no mistake, being a “mother’ doesn’t just happen, it takes a lifetime of giving moments.

So, to all the mama’s out there - I see you. Give yourself a break.

Share:

---

---

Also in This is mirasa.