A Note To Parents Who Don’t Like Parenting
From an exhausted mother of two who feels the same way.
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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 and travel experiences that they tend to reduce to make room for parenting their children,” she says. Of course, one could argue that younger moms, whose peers may still be out at bars, footloose and fancy-free, while they are at home breastfeeding and covered in spit-up, can also find themselves vaguely miserable. In that way, it becomes clear that the idea of being “ready” for parenting or in a “sweet spot” may be elusive. And then there’s the gender factor, notes Milkie. “By comparison, men’s lives don’t change as much as women’s do,” she says. That fact only adds to the resentment that can simmer beneath it all.” — Today’s Parent
I blame my mother-in-law because I feel the need to blame someone. All the time I was struggling to get pregnant, she told me that kids are the best thing in the world and worth the wait.
How come she never mentioned how ridiculously difficult raising children is? What is wrong with all those people saying…
