I love my children but hate being a mother – does anyone feel the same – I need help!

[deemee]

I love my kids dearly but the daily endless drudgery of motherhood is eating me up. I feel trapped in a life I hate- like a prisoner or a slave. I had a good job but going back is logistically impossible, and we cannot afford help with the kids.
I keep very busy ? friends and activities but I find it mindless and boring. I find the constant demands, moaning, screaming tantrums of my 2 toddlers unbearable.i struggle through each day and by the end am so tired I can hardly move ? but my brain is wide awake- as I haven?t used it all day!
Every morning gets more difficult to get up ? I get panicy and scared of the awful day ahead.
I am derpressed but I think the cause is practical rather than hormonal/emotional and I want practical help rather than ?see a doctor? or ?take antidepressents? as I don?t think that will fix underlying cause.

You're really not the only one. How long until your children turn 3 and can have funding for a pre-school?

I think it is harder when the weather is terrible so it's harder to go places, hopefully soon the weather will cheer up.

You could talk to your health visitor to see if she (or he) can put you in contact with homestart (or you could contact them directly) or recommend any groups to go to.

I know that it is a cliché but this will pass, it does get easier when they get older, mine are 12 and 9 now and we can have real conversations and do things together properly but I do remember the drudgery and loneliness of the early years.

Do you have any friends you can really talk to about this? Being a full time mum is so difficult, it must be more so if it hasn't been your choice. I have a couple of friends who ended up needing anti depressants and they did help a lot, though I can understand your not wanting to go down that road.

Is there any way for you to get time to yourself? I find even an hour at the gym is now something I like rather than just endure.

I felt like that when my oldest was small. She's 6 now and things are so much easier, she's good company, tantrums are few and far between, and we can do much more together. I still have a 2 year old, and do wonder how anyone manages with more than 1 toddler.

I understand what you are saying. have two children very close together and i feel i am mentally challenged everyday but not mentally stimuating. that routine of shopping, cooking etc etc is very draining. i am starting a language course in august and need to get my brain moving. i can only suggest exercise, doing a course either for pleasure or to help when you do go back to work. also a schedule every day which i am getting round to doing, breaking the day up into small chunks. my 4 yr old is now very interested in writing and letters so that is something practical i can do with her.

you are not alone.

I feel the same, in fact i woke this morning riven with guilt at being so frustrated. I love my son, but just find the constant grind depressing.

I worry incase he picks up on it - hes 2 now and gets all the cuggles he needs but i do get snarly when he repeatedly spills things or has whingeing fits over nothing at all. and i dont think i `play with him enough - hes watching bob the builder as i write.

I had four children in six years. Age gap between the first two was 14 months, second two 16 months. I remember feeling much the same as you but my older two are now in school, the third in nursery. In other words, the toddler stage is hard but it doesn't last forever! I am now working again and enjoy the children and my life a lot more! I know that doesn't help you I. The interim but there is light at the end of the tunnel!

sound like a great mum, dont I. Jeez.

In your situation I would find a job of some kind. Not the same as you had before if the travelling or hours are too difficult (logistics?) Your husband/partner will have to do more to assist as well. Even if it means your total household outgoings increase, it is better to have a little less money, peace of mind and spend time with other adults, than feel trapped in your house with your children when you don't want to be there.

thanks guys. im just in such a rut i have lost all self worth and feel like a slave to my kids!
but good adive- i suppose as they get older i will see some fruits of my labour and perhaps it will get easier?
i have started some courses but by evening i am so tired!!
good to know i am not the only one!! i just feel like i wasnt made to be a mother - everyone else always seems so happy!

yes, i know! everyody else feels so competent and satisfied, wheras sometimes I think if i hadnt got pregnant accidentally, I still might never have done it.

I could have written your post. I have ups and downs but when it's constantly raining like this and the house is a big mess and I feel guilty for letting the kids watch too much TV it's definitely a down patch. I also find socialising very hard when feeling like this but you have to with little kids, don't you?

I am taking antidepressants and find they help me to leave the house in the mornings. And leaving the house is key to feeling ok, I think.

"good to know i am not the only one!! "

A big driver behind the Women's Liberation movement was the fact that a large number of (largely middle-class) intelligent, capable women were simply not content to be told they had to stay home, give up their jobs, become financially dependent on men and so forth. Working class women never really had a choice except to keep working. So no, you're not alone in feeling bored and frustrated. Many women past and present feel exactly the same way.

I too can sympathise, having had 3 under 5 at one stage. I would echo what others have said- that it does get easier as they get older, so so much easier!!
My eldest is 8 now, youngest is 4, and I am slowly creeping out of teh forest that was the mummy-years for me- back at work, youngest starts school after summer. I've even just traded my big "mummy-mobile" in for a little, economical car!

I had to set myself a routine in the early years. Ticking things mentally off a list made me feel as though I was at least achieving something! At night I would frenziedly be doing logic puzzles, just to give my brain something to gnaw on. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets about the time I spent at home with my children when they were younger, but I'm glad it wasn't forever!

I feel the same way. Sorry - no advice just empathy....I worked four days a week after DS but now he's at school and I've got DD (aged 2) it's just a logistical / financial impossibility. I found being a working mum stressful as well though so wonder if I'm just not cut out for any of it! I often feel overwhelmed by the smallest thing - like running late for school / DS not getting his shoes on / DD whining. I need to calm down and chill out and be grateful but I feel brain dead and really lonely. I'm expecting DC3 - and wondering what I've done!

But if I've got something in the diary for every day it really helps. Pre school soon...! I was thinking of an MA but think my years of reading Grazia mean I can't absorb a "proper" book.

It does get better when they get older and a bit more interesting. DS is 7 now and I enjoy his company in a way that just wasn't possible when he was a toddler :)

If you have some local friends in a similar situation, suggest you swap some child care, my neighbour and I did this so one wednesday afternoon I had the kids, the next she did. It made a real difference.
You could also look at doing some volunteering, either in person or remotly, orgnisations need people to help with all sorts of things and your unused brain power could help others. Lots of stuff can be done at home so you don't need childcare, websites, accounts, publicty etc

Have you got any nurseries or creches in your area? Surestart? Some gyms have a creche to give you time for a work out. Colleges and Uni's sometimes have a creche so you can study. A part time nanny?

Or just try and look at it as temporary - another year and one could be starting pre-school. this stage goes so quickly! Mine are 12 and 6 now and I miss their toddler years it zoomed by! I found taking them out was better than being at home. At the park there were other children to pay with so I could read a book or chat to other parents.

Try not to get too down and depressed - it will all be over soon :)

Oh yes cmt I did that too - If other children come to play then tend to play with each other rather than me having to play with them!

Poor you. Absolutely know where you are coming from but this is not at all unusual. It's just the myth of motherhood.

"everyone else always seems so happy!" - they are lying!

I work ft and that saves my life every single day. There is no reason why you should love drudgery and boredom. Women have sacrificed themselves on the altar of the motherhood for years and the only thing that helps is to know that you don't have to love it. And that you are not alone. This is a great article entitled "Why Parents Hate Parenting" so not just about motherhood but it really lays bare the truths about being at home with small children.

nymag.com/news/features/67024/

All I can say is, it does get easier. And is there anyway to think again about the work situation? Can you afford for your own sanity not to work? I didn't make much money out of working for a few years but for me that wasn't the point. For me it made my life bearable. If it's literally impossible then that's another story but be fair to yourself - if you are really having to put up with this situation then that is pretty hardcore and you are right to feel down about it. The upside is, these years do pass and presumably you will get more opportunity when they get to school age.

I hear you. Am potty training through terrible twos. With a one year old. I sometimes want to snap and run screaming from house.

Margo thanks for the link - great article.

It's a hard slog and I can empathise with you, honestly. I feel like that a lot. No real advice, sorry, but did want to post so you know you are not the only one!Misery loves company :)

cogito I agree with your take as well. Whenever I listen to the Rolling Stones "Mothers' Little Helper" I think of all those 60s housewives, quietly losing the will to live. Many women through history have struggled with this but it's only now that a) they have experience of a life outside the home that they can really appreciate what they are missing and b) that they are beginning to feel able to say they don't want to be a drudge and nothing but.

I don't think I ever had cause to use the word drudgery before I became a mother. Now it's a very important piece of my vocabulary because it describes what I do every day.

It is hard work and some people I think just seem to enjoy it more than others. I couldn't be a SAHM. I tried and it nearly drove me nuts. I am happier working and enjoy my children far more when I don't see them all the time. Mind you I still get working mother guilt, but can now accept that I will never be an earth mother type, no matter how much I think I ought to be!

I could be wrong... I grew up the daughter of a (working class) mother that happily went back to work the minute we were old enough to go to school. (There were no creches or childminders in the late sixties and my grannies weren't around). Everyone else's mother that I knew did exactly the same thing unless they happened to be married to some Victorian martinet of a husband that took the 'no wife of mine is going out to work!!!!' attitude. Everyone needed the cash. It didn't occur to me for a minute that women would stay home voluntarily.

I could be wrong but these days there seems to be a groundswell of people demanding to be chained back to the kitchen sink with babies on their hips as if it's some kind of female birthright..... then wondering why they are bored out of their minds. Just seems like things are going backwards rather than forwards.