A Note To Parents Who Don’t Like Parenting
From an exhausted mother of two who feels the same way.
It was the 1st of June, International Children’s Day, and I was in Starbucks with my toddler, discussing the gift he wanted, when I read the Facebook post that changed everything.
“Today, on the 1st of June, we lost our baby,” a friend had written. “Please, don’t call us. Someday, we will smile again. Now, we need silence.”
My heart dropped. This happens when you’re a parent: you read something like this, and it freezes your blood. Had I seen it before having children, I’d say to myself, “poor thing,” and move on. Now, I was gutted.
I was gutted because I couldn’t even imagine how this would feel, and because she didn’t deserve it.
But also, I was gutted because of what her post showed me about myself.
I’m happy for a minute every day.
“Age can also factor in to how much we bristle. More and more women are delaying motherhood — I, for one, was 34 with my first child and almost 38 when my second arrived — and this may lead to an increased feeling of lost autonomy, according to Melissa Milkie, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto. “They may have had very interesting educational, work, leisure…