Today I don't like being a mother. I know we're not supposed to disclose that. Mothers aren't. It's some dark thought that shouldn't be shared with the world....but it's true. I am not enjoying it at all today. And it's not the big boys. It's the baby. Which makes me feel even more like a shitty mother.
We're in Charlottesville in a pleasant hotel, with fantastic weather, visiting one of my favorite people (Uncle Eric), and Kyler is spazing out on a regular basis which in turn is making me completely and utterly nuts. His latest thing when he has finished eating is to start knocking everything in his reach off of the table. Food, drink, plates, silverware...if Kyler can reach it then it's gone. All the while he shakes his head from side to side and screams. I can just about deal with this at home....but in a resturant 3 times a day for a week? Holy shit. I love my children but recently in the hotel, l find myself staring at adults without children and I wonder what it would be like to have no one but yourself to worry about? I mean I remember what it was like and Obviously I don't want to go back. And when I am by myself again (I guess when they all leave for college) I'll be completely beside myself with loneliness? Empty-nest syndrome? Older women (complete strangers at times) tell me, when they see me with my boys that these are the best times of my life, and that when all you want is 5 minutes to yourself now, when you do get 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days without the very beings that you felt you had to escape from for the afore mentioned 5 minutes, then you don't want it!!!! Well what does this say about the rest of my life? That's it's all downhill from now? Crap.
It's all so confusing. I love motherhood but I don't. I want time on my own, but then I feel guilty when I am on my own. Moreover, I will apparently want these crazy times back when they are gone. I guess the lesson is to live in the moment. Enjoy the now. And breath deeply and count to 10 when your baby chucks food everywhere.
I just wrote a long comment but lost it because I pressed the wrong button... Ah well, it was probably too long...
ReplyDeleteMy main point was just that EVERY mother feels like this at times (quite often!) I think. When Aurora was a baby I had a lot of happy hormones and really felt like a supermum for a good while. When I got back to normal I found myself shocked at those moments where I didn't want to be a mother at all - I mean, there are times where you don't even like your children, which feels rather horrible. For me I was "freed" from a lot of this particular guilt when I read a book called Mother Nature by a sociobiologist called Sarah Hrdy (yes, her surname has no vowels). The book starts by talking about our cultural assumption that mothers are naturally self-sacrificing and that the maternal instinct overrules anything else. And that that doesn't really quite fit today's world. Then she shows that maybe it NEVER was true - and then she goes through lots of different species showing the many many ways in which mothers are NOT primarily "good mothers". For instance, monkey mothers will kill their babies if they're still nursing and a new alpha male shows up - they'd rather have a go at a new guy than continue to nurture their baby!! And because male mice kill baby mice if the male hasn't ejaculated within 45 days (the period of gestation for mice), mother mice reabsorb their foetuses - performing a self-induced abortion - if they smell a male mouse around whom they haven't had sex with. And you know how Discovery channel talks about how alpha male monkeys spread their genes around many females? Well, when they DNA tested the babies, they found that in fact, many had fathers outside of the monkey group altogether - so they started watching at night and found that the females snuck out and visited other groups of monkeys.
There were lots more examples, but the main point for me was that this idea that mothers are naturally loving, self-sacrificing and put their husband and kids above themselves ALL THE TIME is not founded in nature, anyway. So if I sometimes didn't feel that way, it didn't mean I was an abomination to nature! Hooray!
And mothering in a restaurant? Ugh. Sometimes it's great, but often, it really really sucks...
(Oh, and as a post script - this is one reason why I love working. A few hours a day of being an adult more than a mother is fantastic. Occasionally going to a conference on my own for a couple of days is another brilliant antidote! Maybe you should try and set up a weekend AWAY ON YOUR OWN!!! (Shocking thought, isn't it!)
Jill I love you!!! thanks for the wonderful comments. I HAVE to read that book. What motherfucker made us feel like we are going against nature when we feel like packing it all in?! (I have my suspicions, men - obviously - but also, I think the church has something to do with it. Got to research this one!) I do think that staying at home 100% is an insane idea. I just have to get back to my masters I think. Thank you again. And, now we are home, I figured out that really the thing that most stressed me out about travelling with the 3 boys, was Kyler in restaurants 3 times a day! Otherwise we had a great time. And this too shall pass because he won't be 18 months forever!
ReplyDeleteWell, religion certainly sets up woman as whore or madonna, not much in between... Though I suppose Mary Magdalene is forgiven. And becomes unbelievably good.
ReplyDeleteOh, another interesting thing I read about mothers (can't remember where!) is that it's a VERY new thing, historically, that a mother is so alone in caring for children. A few generations back it would have been a village raising the children, not individual mothers.
Complicated, all of it.