Mumsnet Discussions - The Motherhood Delusion

All I can think today is why oh WHY did I have 3 kids in 3 years and 2 months? WHY?!! I mean, that was a very silly thing to do indeed! I've got no extended family support, DH works all hours God sends and I'm stuck in suburbia like some 1950's housewife.

To top it all I have to have major surgery soon -an abdominoplasty of all things. Before I hear cries of ' vanity vanity'- I am getting this on the NHS, due to my abdominal muscles having separated and a large hernia. Lovely! I look 8 months pregnant now have to go under the knife again.

I've already had 2 C Sections FFS! God I could scream about it, I really could. Other women have large babies one after the other but me? No- my stomach fall apart! Fucking hell.

I hate so many aspects of motherhood- not being a mother in itself as I adore my kids but 'the maternal role'- including:

a) the childish playground politics: the yummy mummy sets who drive me utterly mad. I've no time for them AT ALL, especially the mums that have to be the organisers, gossips and centre of attention. There is one particular woman at school who is such a stereotype of this sort of person, it would be worth turning her into a comedy character.
Spare me!

b) Cleaning- was I born to clean?

c) Picking up after my DH. I didn't realise that at the alter I actually said 'I will' to being his skivvy as well my children's. Perhaps my wedding ring has a spell on it to make me cook, wash, tidy, organise and clean up after him? Why is it that men think that women are better at housework? Are we super able or super good stupid for picking up after them as if they are an extra child?

d)Being on call all day every day to all of them- physically, mentally and emotionally.
Someone hide me in a cupboard please for a day so I can sleep and be at peace.

e) loosing my career ( teacher) has really pissed me off because we can't afford childcare for 3, even on what was a good wage, it is still not enough.

Icould go on and probably will another time!

I love and cherish my kids with all my being. But I hate motherhood. (smile)

First was unplanned but very much loved.(was born at 25 weeks and weighed just over a pound) Second was planned. They are wonderful and if i could i would have many more!
the eternal guilt is hard and never having time to yourself or money for that matter. Id do it again in a heartbeat tho.

Cant be arsed to do many things that many would look down on but i dont care!

Why did I have children?

I didnt want kids, I hated kids, I still do, well other peoples! I was unlucky and naive. One night stand - pregnant - 9 months later DS was born! Yay me!

I love him to death but my golly, he's annoying. I hate it when he gets his mega blocks out, scatters them across the floor and leaves them there - doesnt play with them until I want to put them away. Toys in general being scattered across the room and not playing with them until I put them away. I hate washing up 3 times a day, I hate all the washing I have to do, I hate constantly sweeping and mopping the floors, I hate the fact I cant have a bath in peace without DS throwing his toys at me, I hate meal times when food is on the floor or down his bib rather than in his tummy! I hate how he turns the telly off every time I'm watching something half decent on the telly. I hate that I cant get on certain public transport because no buggy aisle or buggy aisle is full. I hate that every last penny I get goes towards him, and if I buy anything for myself, I feel very guilty and think that it could have gone towards nappies etc.

I hate how having him is just a constant worry. I feel like I'm suffering from anxiety.

Cbeebies - Im fed up of that channel, and it repeats so bad! I'm a full time, single mum! Sometimes I need a break, I need ME time and when he doesnt go to bed AND go to sleep!! Grrrr

but other than all of this, he is my son, my flesh and blood and I would die ten times over if I could, for him!

Feels good to let it all out and not be judged!

The only way I kept myself sane when I was on maternity leave and looking after my LO all day long was to arrange for my MIL to come down regularly to give me time off. Whole days I would go into central London and enjoy myself - often or not with my DH too - whole days including dinners out.

She did this from my DD's second week onwards so my DD was completely used to being looked after by her Gran.

I still spent most of my time with DD, but those days when MIL took over - well, it saved my sanity.

"It is not actually lots more fun to be going out to work anyway."

Agree,agree, agree.

I honestly can say I feel much more fulfilled after a day at home with DS than a day at work. I didn't feel this way when I first went back to work but now I do; DS has become a real little friend.

Oh yes but make sure you're not at home full time because it is really healthy to appreciate your time with your child because you have had time apart IMO

It took me ages to realise that
1) Motherhood is a respectable full-time job
2) It is much more rewarding to dedicate myself full time to the task of enjoying my child and making him enjoy life
3) It is not actually lots more fun to be going out to work anyway
4)It is virtually impossible to avoid feeling guilty about something

Have NO time for tidying the house and don't give a sh*t what ppl think about me being a pig, having spent months whipping my breasts out in public which takes some getting used to and toddlers don't care about mum being a prude... so I don't care about ppl frowning at my messy house, don't care about DS turning into a toddler tantrumer.

Spent first 6 months in a state of amazement over new baby/bored by being at home/bewilderment about what I was actually meant to do with said baby

Spent next 6 months working part-time and being a mum part time so wasn't able to do either satisfactorily

Spent next 6 months trying to study and so feeling guilty about shouting at DS for ripping my notes/ turning my laptop off when working on essays

Am actually enjoying this 6 months as am focussing on DS and am embracing the local parks/swimming pools as my favourite hang outs! Although did anyone else find you get a mum-friend and before you know it they think you're going to spend EVERY DAMN DAY with them and their child!?!?! O.o

Aww muddle, congrats, but don't worry, this is just one end of a very long spectrum of feelings and types of mothers. This [thread] is the place to vent, but there are a whole bunch of other threads we could write about how much we love our children and the inconsequential things they do

muddle - I will give you one piece of (unsolicited) advice smile

When your DC is born do not work full-time and do not be a full-time SAHM. Work part-time even if all your salary goes into childcare. You will enjoy your DC so much more if you have that outlet but it's very sad to leave babies in full-time daycare IMHO.

I agree with everything on this thread!
I feel better hearing or reading other people feeling the same.

I am not a natural mother, i hate "playing" i hate the lack of control and the mess. I can't stand other peoples kids, even my own nieces and nephwes (except the older ones)

I am happy that come September they will both be gone all morning and i can be lazy if i wish.

I love them will all my heart and soul though.

I think the most difficult thing about being a mum is that I feel like a fraud most of the time. Everyone comments that I am a great mum but but I feel like I am making everything up as I go along.

When you do paid employment you know you are good at your job or you would be fired. I have no idea if my mothering techniques are any good and won't find out for about 20 odd years.

wow! im pregnant and just thought id have a look at the parenting forum to get an idea of what id let myself in for lol! got Much more than i bargained on shock

. i have actually read the whole thread! which i guess many of you won't have had the time to do? wink

As i was reading i had many issues i wanted to raise/question but decided to finish the tread before commenting so here are those i still remember....

i think this thread has been good for me (even if --totally terrifying-- a bit scarey), and possibly will save me from the 'rose colored spectacle syndrome' i feel i was inclined towards.

regarding the suggestion that it is ungrateful etc to complain about motherhood, i can say that my first son was stillborn and i am totally against the thinking that because others have bad expereiences/ infertility ect mothers should 'put up and shut up' as it were. it is childish thinking that i feel society encourages. eg. 'there are starving people in the world...so eat all your dinner' mentallity, teaches children not to listen to/ respect thier bodies requirements for food and poss? leads to overeating and obesity?

re feminism. one point that wasnt mentioned is that of finances in a post feminism world. surely the issue should be that women should have the choice about whether or not to work and raise a family? not be forced to do it all out of shear necessity. i think that generally (adverage mans income) the mans wage/salary is no longer enough to keep a family as it is assumed that a household has two income providers whereas in the past men earned relatively more because this was not the societal assumption? consequetally women working is less of a choice now than before?

lastly, i am absolutely decided, having read this smile

not to have babies one after the other! i was thinking perhaps 4 years gap would be clever as when one goes to school the other arrives and so it wont be too hectic?????????? what do others think about best age gap? or urm perhaps this is wishful thinking and i will stop gladly at one grin

Why?? with DS1 didnt know any better
with DS2 too busy to remember to take minipill on time & felt sorry for "neglected" DH

Its worth it when you over hear complete strangers saying lovley things about DC to their friend behind your back - (even better when up until that point they have been a total little **it, amazing how you forget it all & suddenly love them again!

best day of my life was day came home with DS1 (&2) even though no one told me I would be walking like John Wayne and livng on painkillers

I like a good book & have good HV

BUT

Why did it take 2 kids for me to realise that i really didnt need to bother as i already had one at home - DH

We went into this 50/50 but why is it more like 90/10

and im another one who shouts swear words at the top of my voice - in my head

most shocking confession - sometimes when DS1 is climbing or up to no good i actually want him to fall & hurt himself just so I can say told you so - you should listen to mummy!

An

As horrible as it is to focus on the negatives, it's great that we can be so open about how motherhood isn't always a barrel of laughs.

I had a pregnant friend over for lunch a while ago and I let it slip that it's quite a difficult time, and take help when it's offered etc after the baby comes along..
then I realised I should have kept my mouth shut as she really just needs to find out for herself..or does she? was I not being helpful in telling her it can be shit sometimes being a mum? especially in the early days when you are so exhausted from sleep deprivation. I could go on about other aspects, but some have already been covered by other posters here..

more should be publicised about how crap motherhood can be. yes, it's lovely at times, but there are many dark days along the way. Why can't we just be honest about it more often??

I knew that I had posted on this thread before, I searched on my name and I had, about 10 months ago and my posts make me sad, that I just haven't enjoyed it as much as I thought.

I constantly feel like a failure, I said to my friend today, 'I'm going to be better at this next time' and she told me off blush

. My daughter is actually delightful, but just exhausting and wearing like any 2 year old. Everyone comments on how lovely and bright and happy she is. I just tell them it is by accident rather than design and down to benign neglect. My friend said I really need to start accepting credit for it.

I will be better next time.

Blimey, same here ! 18 months-4, DS1 was very hard, very tantrummy. He will always, I think, worry me more than DS2 (Although he is a beautiful complicated clever boy).

Partly because he is like me in ways I don't like ! But, I suppose if I can accept him how he is, then I can learn to accept myself.

<deep> grin

you know screaming, i am the same. i often lurk on the demanding toddler type threads, even though - thank god - mine are now beyond that stage, simply bcs i feel so much for people still fighting that particular set of battles - i've been so marked by that stage of parenthood and did not have MN or much else in the way of support then either. my older child is exceedingly volatile and demanding, as well as bright, inquisitive, curious...but from 3-6, say, life was, shall, we say, CHALLENGING. to use that handy little euphemism beloved of us mothers!

the buddhism for mothers book is difficult to obtain at the moment, is the only problem - might be worth trying second hand bookseller sites if it's not readily available on amazon and the like. i can't speak highly enough of it. it's all about the sort of stuff you mention - how having children FORCES you to grow into yourself and face up to what you really are inside - whether you like what you find or not hmm

. meditating daily gives me the strength and inner peace i need to get through the battles, and helps me cultivate that oh-so-key quality, patience.

Christ, my punctuation !

"I do find it so interesting, though. I am so glad I have done it (am doing it)"

When I come on MN, I find I am drawn to the Beh/Dev threads about toddlers. I so wish I could have had some more advice at that time. It was bloody infuriating !

katie Thanks. I shall have a look at that. I have flirted with the idea of finding out more about buddhism, anyway.

What strikes me is how scarily Mature you need to be to be a good parent - to really have the ability to understand yourself, and how your feelings and experiences impact on your parenting. It is such a steep learning curve.

I do find it so interesting, though I am so glad I have done it (am doing it).

ps screaming abdad, i could have written your post - the whole thing, including the bit about 5 and 8 being the head above water stage - and the bit about being spoken to like you're something on the sole of a certain small person's shoe!

has anyone picked up a copy of 'buddhism for mothers' by sarah napthali? i cannot recommend it highly enough for those of us who have struggled with motherhood (as i certainly have - this thread brings up so many familiar themes for me! though mine are now 5 and 8 and life is a walk in the park, studded with confrontation as it still frequently is, compared to the pre-school years, AAAARGH)and who struggle with identity loss, post-babies. it is brilliant. it has turned my life around - it doesn't set out to convert anyone to buddhism (though it's certainly got me thinking wink

but is a book for mothers, for caring for OURSELVES and to help us manage our emotions around dealing with motherhood, rather than YET ANOTHER childcare manual. just a thought. hugs to you all xxx

Sorry, I cannot be arsed to read the whole thread grin

, but I agree with much of what has been said about repetition, hard slog and tiredness (oh, and swearing at them under your breath - a lot),

BUT. Once mine turned 5 and 8 respectively, I started to feel like my head was above water again. I actually enjoy being with them most of the them, am no longer desperate to get away from the, am SO proud of them.

I still find it hard to cope being spoken to as if i were something on the bottom of someone's shoe. though

I think that looking after dd is better than my former career as I hated my former career anyway! I genuinely do love being mum most of the time as I get to spend tiome with my favourite person. It's just a grind at times and it was a massive shock. I am a very adventurous, spontanious person and I feel like that has taken a back seat for now.
I think that it is important to stay positive and mabe a housework fairy would help too!

i don't think thatmost women take it in their stride better - just hide it better.

re the things you need to be to be a mum - it's such a mixture, but an ability to adapt and be happy with what you've got/look on the positive side does help. My ability to do that comes and goes = I have no excuse - I have two beautiful healthy children, a lovely dp, a nice (if rather ramshackle!) house, a reasonable job etc etc, but sometimes it's just the sheer exhaustion means you can't see what you've got. Sometimes I have no idea what I'm miserable about (or I'm way too miserable about the laundry pile to be wholly rational iyswim). Other mums I meet seem to be able to take it all in their stride more.

So many of us will have spent the first 30 years of our lives beating ourselves to do the very best we can at school, uni, job, that when we start on the mother role, it's hard that we don't get a promotion, or an A or whatever. But then the little hugs and kisses should make up for that. I think it's basically the exhaustion = when things are anything less than perfect at home, it all starts to come apart and I feel responsible.

One of the main problems I think is that until the feminist ''revolution'', the women were expected to stay at home and look after the kids. Now, thankfully we have had a taste of freedom, work, travel and independance but having kids takes us back to square one. Does anyone feel like their men expect them to stay at home and give up their careers now they are a mum? Do you sense relief from the men in your life that now you are doing your ''proper'' role?
I am confused by my dad. When I was young he urged me to have a career and now dd is here he wants me to give it all up and has been banging on about the days when women stayed at home all day. Wanker.
I was sooo broody and I didn't mind giving up my career but I do feel like just a mum. I sometimes think that mabe society does value mums as a lot of my nieghbours have started talking to me now I have dd so there is some value attached to the role. However, it will be hard to convince those of us with previously high-flying jobs and seemingly limitless opportunities.
Lets face it a life of washing clothes, phoovering and groundhog -like routine is galling isn't it. And oh- the lack of spontenaity kills me.
Part of me dosn't want more kids but then another part of me thinks - well it's too late, I'm a mum now I might as well keep going. (If I ever find mr. right anyway!)

I wish that I could like my elder son more. It makes me feel so incredibly guilty that I don't like him very much at the moment.

He's always been so much hard work- picky eater, didn't sleep through the night till he was six (yes, that's six YEARS old), whiny, clingy. A totally different character from ds2.

I know that a lot of it is due to the fact that I dislike his father and can see a lot of the traits that he had in ds1, but it's also that I don't understand ds1's character as it's so different from mine.

I feel bad that I look forward to the weekends when he's with his dad, just so there are no arguments/tantrums in the house (especially with DH, whom ds1 seems to love winding up. He has admitted this to me, too.)

He is a sensitive child, sometimes, and adores his little brother. And sometimes we get on well. Just not much of the time, atm.

I love my girls but there are times when i feel my life has turned to absolute shit

there are some nice moments, funny moments, happy moments but they seem to be interspersed with lots of boredom, loneliness, depression, stress and annoyance

dd2 is a gorgeous baby but I find myself wishing the time away so that life would get easier and I could do stuff again

"And holidays. They're different aren't they? You can't stay in a hotel unless you like nights and nights cooped up in a hotel bedroom making sure they don't choke or something."

Why can't you stay in a hotel? A negative view, IMO. We've just done exactly that for two weeks abroad with a two-year-old. We weren't "cooped up" at all. In fact the most we did in the room was get ready and sleep. At night, DS played with the other kids after dinner and then after that we put him to bed and DH and I had some time to ourselves on the balcony. It was so lovely to be able to relax and have fun together as a family without all the usual mundane constraints of life, eg cooking, housework, work etc etc etc.... A proper holiday.

"Motherhood destroys your value as a woman in your own right "

honeydew - that is horribly right I am afraid. You have to fight like crazy to keep some semblance of independence. I have always had a job whilst I have my children, and for years I resented that so much. I almost hated my DH for making me leave my DC (I was and still am the main earner). And it was bloody hard. Most of the housework and childcare to deal with still, and a full-time job. But it meant that when I emerged from the fug of exhaustion and stress of pre-school motherhood, I was still in the thick of it job wise. And in some ways I am glad I had to tough it out. During that time I was pretty miserable, resentful and worn out. I don't think that working with young DC is any better than being at home with them unless you can afford wrap around childcare and help in the home.

But ....and this is the main thing, it will pass. Light will dawn and you will wake up one day and hear the birds singing and look at the children you have made and love them, be proud of them, and still go out have a life of your own again.

My only regret is that I didn't enjoy those early years wholeheartedly. Because I couldn't. It was a slog. And made worse by the fact that I loved my DC to distraction and felt guilty that I didn't like being with them all the time.

I hated my wedding and wish I had put my foot down and told dh to do it the way I wanted it or not at all. He got round me by degrees so that once I'd said OK to one thing it was like a rolling stone and in the end he had the wedding he wanted which was nothing like the one I wanted.

I never wanted children and there are many many times when I wish I hadn't as it has cost me so much.

(I read Communion's comment about the Mummy Myth and it reminded me of MIL telling me how fulfilled I must be as a woman now I'd had dd. I just looked at her aghast!)

Must just say lifesavers for me have been
1) MN (of course)
2) having my own blog
3) finally making some mummy friends I feel a real affinity with at the older ones pre-school. People who actually get it.
4) MOST importantly going back to work part-time (3 days) after DC2.
Am very lucky that it does cover decent childcare and a little bit more but despite the worry re the children's welfare and emotional well-being, the hassle of recruiting a decent nanny, the checks, coping with someone else in your house etc etc I LOVE WORKING now and I did not feel so enthusiastic about it this when working full-time after my DC1. This despite the fact DH is really not around during the week and works til 10 pm regularly and sort of wanders around cluelessly at weekends or hides in the paper unless directed.
After 3 days at work I am dying to spend time with them. After 4 days at home you won't see me for dust as I bolt at 6.45 am...

This is the best thread ever!! So liberating- always felt i was in the minority to think bad mother thoughts. so agree with Crackfox regarding the words you say in your head to a screaming toddler while the words that you say outloud are sympathetic.
Also Communion- completely agree - thought i would be the best ever mum, am now struggling to do anything other than guarantee their survival!!(even then touch and go when one dc is beating up another while i've had the temerity to go for a wee)

I don't want to be a mum.... when my mother says, 'ahh but you wouldn't be without him' theres a bit of me that whispers 'yes I would'. I am rubbish it at it and just feel its another thing to add to my sense of inadequacy. Have thought (and said) that he would be better off with dp. Some of us are just not cut out for this.....

I don't like being sensible all the time. And I'm very sensible by nature, but it's the having to be sensible thing that's just such a drag.

And holidays. They're different aren't they? You can't stay in a hotel unless you like nights and nights cooped up in a hotel bedroom making sure they don't choke or something. So you rent houses or villas and it's the same old washing/cooking/cleaning schtick that you get at home.

Art galleries. I used to love art galleries. Unfortunately the DC's don't <hideous memories of the brats in the Uffizi>

I think the most important quality is self-belief. Closely followed by a good sense of humour, sense of perspective and and ability to let it go.

Honeydew, I really wanted to respond to your post. My first thought is that your kids must be small.

You will write your book.
Everything you do now will come back to you tenfold.
Put Radio 4 or really loud music on when doing the dreaded housework and only ever do the bare minimum.
Don't underestimate the impact of being in constant pain - it's really hard, if not impossible to be positive in any situation, let alone dealing with 3 children. Can I also just say fuck the yummy mummies fuck them. Don't compare your inside with their outsides. I really feel for you and feel like you do sometimes. It's so relentless - but NOTHING is more important.

Oh Honeydew...you have been through the wars haven't you. You made some very wise comments in your post.

Passionfruity - I would say patience. I would normally describe myself as a patient person and I have had to delve deeper into that personal resource well since having my DD more than I ever thought possible.

After reading this thread I am having serious doubts about whether to have children shock

.

I had thought that if it was really that bad ('it' meaning giving birth and raising a child), people would only have one child but from what some of you have said it seems it doesn't get too bad until you have a couple of children.

Sorry if this seems a strange question but what do you think are the most important qualities needed to be a good mum e.g. patience, high tolerance for monotony, being loving and supportive? Trying to work out if I'm cut out for it or not. hmm

this is the only thread where I can be really truthful about my feelings. I could spend all day saying what I really think but it would get far too boring!

I had 3 DC's in three years. Horrible pregnacies,one natural assisted birth, on emergency Section and one elective.

The whole experience has been a fucking nightmare and although I love my kids dearly, the work load the three of them generate is beyond belief.

I have no parental help, only a few close friends who all have young children and no money for a cleaner or mother's help.

I gave up my job as a Head of Department in a secondary school once my second child as born.

Becoming a mother for me has been such a transformation of everything that I used to be that I barely know who I am now. I am just a robot -a skivvy to my whole family.

My husband does take the kids off my hands here and there but does no housework.

I have had huge pregnancy complications. I now have a condition called Diastasis Recti. My abdomen has separated after the birth of my third child and I have an umbilical hernia. I have to have major surgery next month and abdominoplasty to put me back together again otherwise I am disfigured for life as I look about 7 months pregnant on a size 10 frame. Not only that I am always in pain.

Had I known the true life I was going to face as a dull housewife and mother with the never ending repetitive, unpaid, unrewarding monotony of housework, I would run to the hills!

My DH and I never get a moment's peace spend time out together or have an time for intimacy as a couple. Having children has placed a huge strain on our relationship and our lives are a;most like housemates, rather than a couple.

I am a well educated woman, who had a full career and an independent life. I am now for various and legitimate finacial reasons, dependent on my husband for money and my home. No different to being a kid really!

I fee I've lost everything of my former self and am left now as a generic term-' mum'

My mother never prepared me for motherhood in the slightest, I was an only child and my mother always worked. I never held a baby until I had my own and new nothing of what mother hood really involved, apart from that babies keep you awake.

As I said, i do really love my brood and in themselves they are wonderful children who light up my life. But the maternal role is just sheer drudgery and I know realise how I was very very foolish I was to have 3 so quickly and without a proper support network, just a few close friends and my church.

It's the housework and the lack of money that gets me the most. Every day I'm cooking, cleaning, washing, tidying and ironing like a prisoner, trapped in my little cell - the house. I do hope to write a book which I have been working on for a few years now but I'm always too tired to fucking concentrate!

I so often think what was the point of getting a master degree and teaching for 10 years ( so I spent 5 years at uni altogether just to give it up to be a cleaner and cook and wash all day? I've never had postnatal depression - I've experienced a kind of schism of identity I feel so lost in the motherhood role.

Do I regret having kids? Hmm... I've paid such a huge price- lost my career because we can't afford childcare for 3, got no money for anything apart form the basics because we have to cope on one salary and my guts had come apart and fallen out- so most of the time I feel totally overwhelmed and exhausted.

I don't regret the children but I believe women espeically should be better informed at school on the implications of motherhood for their jobs, careers and lifestyles. Men in general do NOT pay the same penalties for having children what women do; there seems such a lack of awareness by young girls about how having children will change you life.

I just wish good quality affordable childcare was available so that I could work part -time for the good of my family. I would be able to keep working, have a break from the kids ( and them me) and feel more worthwhile. Motherhood is such a thankless role most of the time, yet if you do it badly, you are considered an outcast.

I hate hate hate the school run and the yummy mummies at my DD's primary school are the most staid, dull and self obsessed group of people. All they talk about is their kids.

I also dislike the fact that I'm now judged by people not on my academic performance, my skills as a teacher, my looks or my personality but now that I am first and foremost now- 'a mum' of three.

Many mothers I think suffer a chronic lack of support both from partners, their local community and society. Motherhood destroys your value as a woman in your own right and unles you are rich enough to afford help or have parents who are very supportive, then you may as well be living in the fifties.

I could just go on and on so I'll stop there. Thank you for listening to my negative rant.

I also find it difficult not to be insanely jealous of people who have gps, siblings etc nearby for babysitting! We have been out once together in the evening since my 5yo dd was born. I adore my dds and I do look forward so much to seeing them when I get home from work, but I do worry that dp and I don't spend enough time together. Not in an -oh no we're going to split up imminently- way, but just that we're not doing all we should for the Relationship.

Acinonyx - our dd1 sounds a bit like yours... it is getting easier as she gets older and can do more stuff on her own. It's also been nice to be shown I wasn't making it up, cos dd2 is a great little play-all-by herselfer - it's not about you, it's just their personalities!

stickylittle fingers - this is something I am finding increasingly difficult. Dh and I have been out alone at night together 3 times since dd was born (she's about to turn 4). We have one couple for occaisional babysitting now - but I would so like to be able to go out together. Even just a walk on a summer evening and a drink at the pub. I don't like being stuck at home every evening - I've always like to go out a lot.

Sometimes I feel terrible that I don't enjoy playing with dd more. She is rather high maintenance and does not like to be alone or play alone. Oh please let me just read a book in peace! If I were a SAHM, I'd go stark raving bonkers.

I don't regret having dd - but for her sake, I do really wonder if I'm not really cut out for motherhood.

I'm definitley less judgemental though.

Anyone seen the Times article yesterday quoting research that demonstrates that whilst marriage (or partnership) makes you happier, having children reduces happiness and levels of former happiness are not restored again until the youngest child leaves home!

Must say, I have idly noticed, whilst out and about, those late middle life couples (in 50's) who seem quite loved up and companiable doing their own thing...and I have surprised myself with the stirrings of envy I felt!

Funnily it's made me less judgemental. Because I've realised just how many compromises have to be made.

Totally ot - was it you who said you knew me from rl posh? I can't remember.

Hi Orm,

I agree that trying to be perfect will result in resentment. I was feeling quite resentful recently as I wasn't having any fun. Slowly getting better.

I didn't think that motherhood would be easy- I just didn't think it would be so hard. Even going to the loo is a mission!

I resent the mummy mafia that vet each other's parenting. I think that other women largely drive this iamge of perfection. I think that motherhood has unfortunately made me more judgemental and thus more likely to be judged.
On the positive side- other women can be a great source of support- hence my obsession with mn.

Yes it is. Mine are a lot older now and I do remember it was harder when they were small. But there is nothing to stop you going out and leaving DP at home and vice versa. Can you swap babysitting duties with other parents you know? GPs around?

But isn't it quite hard to do these things, especially when they're very little, but even now? I've looked at that sitters website, but still can't get over the fact that I don't really know the people. It's either DP or me - we do do things on our own very occasionally, but we never do things as a couple any more. I think I'm supposed not to mind...

And I do drink wine, I do go out, I take time to myself. It's better that way. If you allow your parenthood to stop you doing all these things resentment will eat away at you.

One thing I have learned is that you don't have to be perfect. It doesn't matter if your routine gets screwed up sometimes, your child won't die from the occassional MaccyD, he/she won't suffer irreversible brain damage from a late night once a week, ice-cream isn't poisonous, and the phrase 'Yes, OK then' doesn't instantly turn your child into a delinquent. In other words it's OK to make this really hard job easier on yourself, and on your DC. Sometimes going with the flow, letting things happen, is the essence of being a good parent. It does make it all a bit easier.

But anyone who went into parenthood beleiving it was going to be a piss of piss was really asking for disappointment.

I have had mates with children telling me how it is so amazing and they can't wait to have more. Yes it is amazing in many ways but the same mates also say that they don't mind the lack of sleep, crying, lack of social life, whining, bodily fluids eyc because it is cute.
Oh come on- I want to say. Lets talk about anything apart from bloody poo and puke for a while. And no- the sound of my baby crying isn't cute.
By far the hardest part of motherhood for me is the constant worry. I can see a potential danger in everything from telephone wires (strangulation hazards) to gravel on the path (choking hazards). I used to be so adventurous and was a member of the University exploration society. Now I am wary of crossing the road. I feel like my world has shrunk.

I think that mums are frightened of saying anything negative as they think it will mean they don't love their kids. i love dd more than anything on this earth- that's why it's so tough. If we didn't care we wouldn't be wracked with guilt and worry all the time. Also mums are frightened of being incompetant or bad mothers.

wish I'd found this thread ages ago! what a great way to offload all the stresses and strains of motherhood (and there are loads!).
I get so annoyed at how motherhood is portrayed as some wonderful thing, where you are made to feel guilty when you have negative feelings about your new role. For me, the lack of sleep is something I'll never get over since having DS. I still have a massive sleep debt (he's 2 now) but hoping to make it up eventually by going to bed early as often as I can. No one tells you how hard that is, to suffer from sleep deprivation, it's a basic need (to sleep), the need for sleep, to rest, to have five minutes even during the day to gather your thoughts, to give yourself the strength to just carry on and appreciate how lucky you really are to have had this child.
Argh, and the mother and toddler groups, I gave up on that after a few sessions, got fed up discussing trivial stuff like bottle feeding or buggies, who has the best one etc. Don't care, would just like to talk about anything else other than babies...it's not a lot to ask.

The boredom - no-one wants to talk anything except babies (well you have to seek the rare gems out who do and hold onto these friends) and the bloody wiping - wiping nose, wiping tables, wiping bums. I'm so pleased Im not alone.

Also- I am insanely jealous of my mate who finds the whole new mum business sublime. She is wafting around in a cloud of maternal bliss without a bad word to say about it. Why didn't I feel like this- why? And am I the only new mum who wants to talk about politics, art, books and film aswell as just baby stuff? Because it's bloody hard work trying to change the subject onto something that isn't baby related!

Being a mum can be wonderful but it can be bloody awful too.

The constant cleaning.
The having to be a sensible bloody role model.
The other bloody competetive bloody mothers.
The lack of social life.

On the plus side- my liver has been saved by having dd and dd is so bloody georgeous she gets away with murder!

Not sure if I can be arsed to have another though. I miss my me time a lot.

I'm almost to scared to admit how I feel - there is such a stigma. I'm early days at this and still on maternity leave and have found it unbelievably hard. I even considered asking my boss if I could go back to work early, and the only reason I haven't is to not give the MiL the satisfaction of knowing I am struggling. Everyone said motherhood is great and that I'd be a great mum, but 99% of the time, I feel like I am walking in treacle.

DS is only 6 months. I play with him but nothing seems to hold his attention so it gets boring for both of us quite quickly. We go for walks, but can only walk so far. He naps only 30 mins at a time and that's after lots of whinging. I am secretly giving him a dummy for nap times which I have to hide when the MiL comes round because I can't deal with her judging me. I have tried baby groups, but after an initial burst of enthusiasm, I always get bored with the dull chit chat about baby stuff. I have yet to click with any other mothers that I meet. I want to have a laugh and giggle with other mums but I've yet to meet one on the same wavelength.

Add into the mix, a MiL and SiL that have made me feel like a spare part in my own life and utterly inadequate as a mother and it's no wonder that some days I feel like screaming. I feel so lonely and isolated that every morning I want to beg DH not to go to work. I love DS so much and he by and large a happy baby, but I feel a bit cheated. When DH gets home and DS kicks his legs in delight, I feel jealous and miffed that I've spent all day with him running around like a nut and he squeals in delight at someone he hasn't seen since the night before. I used to be confident career minded woman. I now feel pathetic, like my worth is based on what this little person thinks of me, and what other people think of me as a mother.

Every day, I miss being able to get out of bed at a time of my choosing, eat breakfast when I like, take my time in the bathroom and have the freedom and spare cash to do what I want when I want.

I still live in vain hope that holidays mean a break from the day-to-day routine. I keep buying lots of books that I plan to read even though deep down I know I'll probably have to wait until my DS is at secondary school (he's 15 months old) before I have to chance to read a book from cover to cover.

I was really pleased to find this thread. My daughter is almost 2 and I have found motherhood to be a rollercoaster ride from moments of sublime bliss to dark nights of the soul and back again. With lots of monotony in between. And I love her so much it hurts. And I would trade my right arm for 48 hours to myself.

My big issue with the "motherhood delusion" are the societal representations/expectations of motherhood portrayed in books, movies, tv, media, etc. In diaper commercials, the women are dewy and serene as they kiss the toes of their smiling, cooing baby. In a quiet, clean house. With perfectly styled hair and groomed eyebrows and full makeup. I realize it's just a commercial but I think that these images perpetuate a damaging message to women and set us up for failure as parents (or at least make us feel that way). To me the message is, if you've made the choice to have a child you are not able to do it all (have multiple children, successful marriages, work, and run an efficient household, keep yourself manicured and LOVE EVERY MINUTE)then you're doing something wrong.

I remember seeing an interview with Mel C. of the Spice Girls who was pregnant at the time. The interviewer asked her which one of her fellow Spice Girls she would most trust to child mind for her. She said, "Any one of their Nannies!". She is now my favourite Spice Girl.

MIAonline - I'm confused (assuming your post was replying to mine). I have been entirely supportive of the posters on here and their honesty. My point is that I find it very helpful.

Did anyone see the article in the Sunday Times about all this? Just wondered if this is way the lazy journo author had ripped it from.

But, this is a thread for parents to off load. You are not going to get everybody talking about the absolute joys of being a parent on it.

I have seen countless threads also, where parents talk about all the amazing things about being a parent.

I think people are honest in RL, everybody moans to their friends at some point, but it is also mixed in with lots of positives. That is what will enable people to make an informed decision.

Agree with that - so why is it such a taboo? I can understand that you wouldn't want to upset someone who was already pregnant, but more honesty would allow non-parents to make a more informed decision and would also make it easier for parents like the posters on this thread to share their feelings IRL.

Gosh reading this thread makes you wonder why people are so conditioned to thinking having children is the norm and to be expected. Clearly for lots of people having children is not something they have enjoyed and perhaps shouldn't have done, maybe we need as a society to be more truthful about what parenting is really like and people can make a more informed decision.

Favourthebrave, your posts are wonderful. I can't think of anything you've said that I disagree with.

'What Mothers Do' is a wonderful book and I think expresses very well the weird 'condition of early motherhood' which seems to actually last until your children are a lot older than one might suspect. I reckon it probably lasts until after they're at school and have some tiny measure of independence and ability to manage their own lives. I don't know yet. DD is nearly three so I'm still in the thick of her mixing the Play-Doh colours together and not being able to understand why you have to put the Brio away before you get the farm out (because there isn't enough space on the floor for both, as many of you may live in larger houses than mine!)

I do really like my daughter and I like being a mother but it is the truth that it's a grind and it's hard and it's quite dull a lot of the time, even when you love them beyond reason. I was a teenager when my smallest brother was born and it put me off having a baby for nearly twenty years. I saw at first hand the horrible drudgery of being at someone else's beck and call 24 hours a day 7 days a week without let up, and worse - being at the beck and call of someone with no sense, no off button and no ability to reason. My mum used to say 'You only really love them properly when they're asleep' and at the time I thought she was being absolutely horrible but I do see what she means now. Of course you love them when they're awake but you also feel immensely irritated a fair percentage of the time. When they're asleep, you look at their perfect tiny faces and long for them to wake up because you've forgotten that they're going to bore the arse off you.

Interestingly, when I had my daughter, my mum saw it from the other side and was slightly shocked to realise how hard and boring it looks from the outside.

Dads often think "how the fuck did I get here?" too. More often than we are allowed to admit!

Change it to "The Parenthood Delusion" and this could be the title of a book!

(Not read whole 20-page thread so apologies if someone has already said that...)

have not read all of thread sorry!

But yes, I find motherhood unspeakably dull a lot of the time, so fed up with bloody parks and swings, farms etc. Sometimes think I'm too selfish to be a Mum I just want to read my paper in peace!!

The boredom does get to me though and the constant feeling of irritability forever having to sort things out, smile politely and talk about dcs with other parents when I really want to talk about something else.

I Do miss my hedonistic pre dd party lifestyle esp now I'm pg with number 2. My savour since dd has been a few glasses of wine a few evening a week and the odd night out with dh. But I'm having another despite all of this, something compelled me to do it, due in Sept and tbh perfectly honest when i think of what's ahead I do get a bit scared. But I love dd so much I wouldn't ever go back to that old lifestyle.

Just want a formula to make playing with toddlers less dull!!!

This is a very interesting thread for someone who is childfree (not trolling - I joinied MN as part of my decision-making process about children).

The feelings that many of you have expressed very eloquently are exactly the feelings that I fear I would have as a mother. I like children - I have much younger siblings and have worked as a nanny. The only way I can describe my POV is that I would like to have children; I just don't want to be a mother.

My question is: if so many mothers feel this way, why do those of us who are CF get such a hard time from mothers? I literally get treated as if there is something wrong with me. It is bizarre - on the one hand mothers say "parenting is an incredibly hard job", but when I reply "I believe you and I don't think it's for me", I get treated like a pariah. Most of the time I just let people assume I'm infertile, so I don't get the grief.

So, I'd like to thank all the posters on this thread for being so honest - I wish there were more people out there like you.

BTW, I just loved "^kids ruin your life, there is no doubt in my mind. accept it. you'll feel better for it.
they also make you happy, for brief periods. although in my darker moments i wonder if that's just stockholm syndrome. ^"

there was a link to this on another thread...
.................................................................................................. ..................................................................................
this has GOT to be resurrected!

i find playing with my children very boring. and i truly hate craft activities. paint is just not worth the mess.

funny thing is, when my girls were toddling, i used to DREAM of them being 5 and 7 and able to do stuff for themselves.

now they ARE 5 and 7 and i'm bloody broody again. Someone give me a slap to snap me out of it!

And I hate that every time a thought like that enters my head I am frightened that something bad will happen to my boy as a punishment to my selfish ways.

Great thread!

I love my boy but I hate the trapped feeling I have in my life now.

I want to go to the theatre.

I want to go out with friends and drink wine and eat pizza.

I want to not feel guilty every day because I don't feel I am doing enough for my son.

I want to sleeeeeeep!

I want people to not act like I am a diseased rat when I tell them that I am a sahm.

I have never felt less valued as a person than as a mother. No one told me you handed over your identity when you gave birth and became a nappy changing, clothes washing, dinner making, hoovering zombie.

ROFL at specialmagiclady thinking about sexgod Paul every night before she sleeps and only just realising she used to be sexy before she had the kids!!

The worst thing that no -ones tells you is the humiliation. I never take mine to the supermarket if i can avoid it and airports have been a total hell. It a 'pride swallowing siege'

Fennel - we would need to have the right kind of families to make that work. I lived overseas for some years in countries where the extended family was very strong. It was clearly very dependent on the kind of family you were blessed with. It did often seem to me that many people's lives were dominated by the influence and approval of their families in a way most of us would find unbearable (and indeed I think many of them found it so). But when it worked, it was a tremendous support network.

I think I'd like to split my time between being alone with my beloved pc and sitting around the village well gossiping (just not with my family TYVM).

There is that, MI. I don't particularly aspire to be sitting round the village well doing the household laundry while chatting to the other village wives either. I would rather be uncommunally alone at my computer.

and as for living with or near my parents or Dp's parents and sharing any aspects of our lives. aaasarrrggghhhhh.

Except I don't want madly to be doing domestic tasks, not ones that men aren't doing, anyway.

weegiemum, your post had made me cry. You have said it all for me. Especially the bit about taking away all the bad stuff but the price for that being giving up one of my babies....absolutely no way, never, ever. I am so glad i read your post, i really have been feeling so down lately, not in the least bit happy with my lot, and i think i need to think about it all or some of it being taken away for me to appreciate what i have.

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but couldn't help it, i had to respond to weegie.

There is a saying isn't there - that it takes a village to raise a child. And that is probably the kind of community that would work for most of us. Not all in the same house or commune - but living within easy walking distance with an informal system of coming in and out of each others' homes and sharing childcare and domestic chores - kids playing together. Maybe some common green space or common gardens, as well as some private garden. Having work in the same area would be very helpful.

I spent a week in one of these set-ups when DS1 was a baby and it was HORRENDOUS!!

The bickering over every domestic detail and whose turn it was to do what;

The extremists drawn to such set-ups who thought health inspectors worried about the safety of the water supply were just making a fuss;

Attributing ill-feeling among people camping in the field around the central house to 'ley lines' (sp?)

The terrible judgmentalism among the parents about how they were raising their children and whether or not they agreed with home education

Nothing on earth would persuade me that communal living is where it's at!!

"What I'd really like to know is, what kind of living situation would take away much or all of this massive downside of having kids? I have this lovely fantasy of co-housing or community living being the answer, where like in tribal cultures the women are together doing their domestic tasks, there are always other adults around to call on for help or just to be sociable with, and your productive and useful work could take place within the community where you live, instead of having to go away somewhere."

Oh fuck, TOTALLY!! Probably thee most important point on this entire thread - and there are many!!

Weegiemum, I think you're right that often the childless feminists (I know and work with a lot of these, mostly deliberately childless) do tend to see SAHMs as letting the side down. That is one of the things I'd say is a failure of feminism, the lack of valuing of childcaring.

We did live commune-style for a while, when we first had children, with my sister and her partner. It did work well in terms of sharing childcare but by the time we had a 4th child in 4 years betweeen us it was seeming crowded. So my sister and partner moved to a house down the road and we still share a lot of childcare (they both work part time). But the main downside was having to live with other people's parenting styles. I am very close to my sister and like her dp a lot, before we had children we all lived together pretty happily. But it's hard living with someone else's toddler, quite honestly, if you have different expectations of what's acceptable behaviour.

It wasn't insurmountable, we'd probably have stayed living together if we hadn't physically grown out of that house too, but I was surprised how hard it is to share childcare and parenting even with people you have a great deal in common with. We all 4 of us have pretty similar views on the world in general but not really about childcare.

weegiemum, big hugs to you. I think I may know a little of what you've gone through. I was OK during pregnancy but then DS arrived very quickly and unexpectedly 6 weeks early. I had no pain releif and hadn't relaly been at all prepared for it. The midwfie actually described it as a fast and 'vicous' labour.
looking back I know I suffered PTSD, although the GP kept insisting it was PND. My sexuality took a huge hit and I coudlnt' bear to have anyone touching my genitals or boobs for ages.

I didn't want to BF and got forced into it by HV, DS didn't latch on and lost loads fo weight and I bled everywhere until DH put his foot down and said that his wife was crying and fainting, his baby was screaming and getting smaller and smaller, and surely it couldn't be good for DS to be drinking blood (he honestly was cos I was bleeding into his mouth).

DS (3) was VERY ill for his first 2-3 yrs until we managed to get a diagnosis of lactose intolerance. He has a speech delay which is only now catching up due to beign so ill for so long and other developmental issues (probable hyperactive)

I got diagnosed last year with a liflong neurological condition, which affects my ability to work and means I can't drive.

I had ot give up my job as caring for DS was a f/t job in itself.

My relationship with DH nearly broke down earlier this year and we were on the verge of seperation.

I wouldn't give DS back now - because he is a real person and I love him to bits. But if I could go back in time I wouldn't get pregnant - I just can't imagine why peopel say I am an awful person for wanting to wipe out the past 3 yrs.

Hell now i'm crying, motherhood is so sodding hard and I had no idea what it woudl be like. It just seems so bloody unfair - you take on this job with very limited information. Then it turns out to be far far worse than you could have ever imagined, and yet people keep telling you you should be grateful for it and enjoy the hell your life has become?!?!?

I actually get really pissed off sometimes with smug women who did get that lovely bonding experience and had easy (easier) babies. I mean they DID (according to them) get lovely warm glow from BFing in the mdidle of the night, and they enjoyed having a baby. I got no hormone 'reward' like that and my baby was too ill to say mama, learn to talk or walk so I got very few other 'rewards/good moment' but I STILL gave up my job, put my life on hold, got up at 1am, 3am and 5am for 3 years.

god - enough blather.

I do think having kids is generally a good thing though, I see people who dont' have kids and often their lives seem to get stuck in a comfort zone. I think kids help challange you and move you forward.

What a brilliant, brilliant thread (apart from the flakey cakey moment or several).

Prior to kids I was a secondary teacher. I went back after dd1 was born, though it was hard as I had quite nasty PND. I was then very ill during my pregnancy with ds, and decided not to go back to work - not just because of the illness, but also because of the fact I wanted to be at home for a while with my kids.

Having been a fair bit of a feminist (still am), the people who understood this least were my childless or unmarried feminist friends - as if staying at home was letting the feminist side down somewhat. Or a big lot!

I then unexpectedly got pg with dd2, and this time I was very, very ill, in hospital 17 times during the pregnancy and following few months, airlifted out to larger hospital because of risk to her from my illness, severe PND and ongoing health issues that still plague me today. Severe strain on my mariage (but amazing dh, so all is well) and on other kids.

If you had said to me 2 years ago was it all worth it, I am not sure I wold have said yes. Now - I would. I would not wish the pain, physical and emotional and mental distress our whole family has suffered, on anyone. I wish someone had been good enough to tell me what having kids was like - though I would never have listened, I know that now.

I wouldn't wish my problems on my worst enemy. I would never choose to go through it again, and we are not having any more children (though a bit of me is sad about this, I know I can't, it would kill me, literally, or at least cost me a kidney).

But if someone could wave a magic wand and take away all the pain, the hospital admissions, the social workers, the arguments, the grumpy unhelpful doctors, the sleepless nights, the depression, the suicide attempts that I have suffered over the last 6 years (though mostly now all the is gone, esp the *** SW!), but the price of that was that they took away even one of my babies, then I would choose to bear the pain.

Motherhood scars you in ways you can never see from the outside. I bear my stretchmarks with pride - I grew three babies in there, and thats the cost (and the three little ones who never made it past 12 weeks). But the mental and emotional scars are far deeper and more lasting. Yet they too are worth it, proudly displayed if you like.

Next week, little dd2 will go off to school for the first time. I never thought I would live to see it in my darkest moments. Sometimes, I didn't plan to see it sad

. But here it has happened, and here I am, loud and proud and a Mummy.

I have given up a teaching career and hope to go into adult education of one kind or another and have been studying again. I would never have done that if I hadn't had kids. They have changed me: I am a much better person for it all.

Now, what was the point of all that again? Looks like I just bared my soul. I'm crying, but in a good way.

Although I hate the thought of polygamy, other women around the house is always fun. When my sister comes to stay, the things my Dc's do (that would usually really annoy me) just make me laugh when she is here. It's as if you lose your sense of humour and perspective when you're on your own with them.

I remember being a SAHM to my 6 DC's. I wanted to take a lipstick and write 'HELP ME' all over the walls, just so DH would know how I felt. He thought I had it so easy, being at home all day long.

I never did it, but I was close to madness when they were small. It gets better as they become less dependent on you.

Took my 3 to my parents' for a couple of days. It poured, they bickered. I cannot describe the joy of finding a very large warehouse containing an indoor playcentre, some food and some copies of crap celeb magazines. It's a place I would not have set foot in, let alone rejoiced at discovering in my pre-child years, yet it seemed like some sort of nirvana yesterday.

And next week we are going to a caravan in Poole! And there will be entertainment for the children! And a beach!

Having children makes you really really really appreciate the moments when you DON'T have them around, in a way that you could not comprehend were you to have remained childless. So that's good, isn't it? hmm

Bless/snickers - agree wholeheartedly! I think when the children are little lonliness is the main issue, along with not having a second opinion/someone to remember what time you gave the calpol!

Frasersmummy - Well TBH I think I DO cope better with motherhood than I would have done otherwise - I was quite ambivalent beforehand but afterwards realised for sure that having children was what I wanted. But I know what you mean - it's almost like them saying you've got no right to complain and they expect you to be a saint! And I certainly am not!!

Blessthismess - so sorry about your son. For what it's worth, I do think the communal living model would make a big difference to this aspect of parenting. We've just got back from a week away with a group of friends (who we knew pre-children) and all of their children. 7 under-5s, and a couple of teenagers. It was chaos, but much much more bearable than usual. There is something very supportive about having other adults around routinely - to let you go to the loo in peace, cook a meal, share the organising. I'm not sure I could bear it on a permanent basis (the lack of privacy would wear me down) but I do think it would do a lot to mitigate the loneliness of being a mother. Which I think is probably at the heart of the problem, or my problem at least. I never thought it would be possible to feel lonely with children around but in many respects it's more isolating than being properly alone...

When DD1 was about 2-3 I used to get together with a couple of other mums, once or twice a week, and we'd cook the evening meal communally (all contributing some ingredients) and then take our pot full of food home later on. That was helpful.

Also when I returned to work after having DD1 I took a job-share with a friend, and we used to swap kids while the other went to work. That worked quite well too. But things move on, her kids have gone to school, I home-educate, she's changed her job etc.

My brother was going to stay with us for 5 weeks this summer while he studied a TEFL course. It didn't work out in the end, and I was quite disappointed. I thought having that extra adult around part of the time would make things significantly easier.

bless this mess.. I am sorry for your loss..

I lost my first little boy too. Do you find people expect you to be able to cope better with mother hood cos "you have faced so much worse and come through it "

I just wanted to punch people who thought/still think this

I sometimes think that - but then there is the flipside. Like when you want to slob about in Pjs and eat chocolate and drink beer (not that I'm doing that now?!?) - you wouldn't be able to if there was some fit swedish 18yr old painting her toe-nails by the fire.

Yes. We had my DH's god-daughter (18) here for a week and the extra pair of hands/eyes/arms was SO amazing.

I need an aupair.

It's silly things - like popping to the shop or even having a shower. If there's more adults it's easier.

Blessthismess - I also wonder what set-up would make it all bearable.

DH and I daydream about a commune-like existence and then remember that we even need space from each other, let alone a whole load of other people.

But doing the day to day stuff is so much less wearing when you have adult company, for ex. when people come to stay.

hmm - depends what kind of job you have.

I teach and I can assure you that being dynamic and funny and motivating after a year of no sleep is harder than staying at home in my pjs (weekends)

roseability - my DS still wakes in the night quite frequently and I can assure you that it is much much easier to go to work after a night from hell than have to spend the whole of the next day looking after him like I did on maternity leave, because in the office I have:

a) limitless coffee and no toddler clinging to my legs while I make it
b) adult company
c) an hour's lunch break

and at home there would just be ... more toddler. Exhausting.

BlessThisMess - that's a really good point. I was thinking about this kind of thing the other day (whilst stressing about ds1's future, he has autism). I was thinking it because I knew I would struggle for part of the hols and I know a couple of others in the same situation but we don't live quite close enough or know each others kids well enough to really help each other. It seems a shame that we are all feeling the same and yet can't help each other.

lovely post bless, and spot-on

earlier on this thread I mentioned how hard it was to concieve my children (infertility issues and 2 miscarriages)

and I still find parenthood bloody awful at times

I have found this thread really interesting, especially from the point of view of someone whose first baby died aged 8 weeks. You would think that if anyone would, I would be telling you all to count your blessings and be thankful for your living healthy children. Yet, having had 2 DDs since (now aged 7 and 3) I find myself pretty much agreeing with all of you! It is really hard, particularly the relentlessness of it, and the never getting a break. I was sure, when I had DD1, that having lost my son I would treasure every moment with her, never complain, and be grateful for every breath she took. Yet I haven't had a proper night's sleep in 7 years, have never had a night away from them (DD1 has some particular issues which mean she would never cope being left with a babysitter) and find the inability to even complete a single thought in my own head without being interrupted an absolute torture. I would give almost anything (except my DDs' mental health) for some regular time off, to be in my house on my own to potter around, to think and dream, to go to the loo on my own. Wednesdays, when I go to work for the day and they stay at home with DH, are my absolute sanity day and I don't know how I'd cope without it.

What I'd really like to know is, what kind of living situation would take away much or all of this massive downside of having kids? I have this lovely fantasy of co-housing or community living being the answer, where like in tribal cultures the women are together doing their domestic tasks, there are always other adults around to call on for help or just to be sociable with, and your productive and useful work could take place within the community where you live, instead of having to go away somewhere. I've long said that having children is a strange mixture of utter heaven and complete hell. Surely somehow there is a way to reduce the 'hell' aspect and increase the amount of 'heaven'!!

Seuss

- oh I don't know, it kind of adds an extra frisson (and not quite in the same league as doing a Michael Hutchence).

I'm sure he's lovely! He may not be perfect but he came home early to help, didn't he?

Dang! Sorry, what I meant was: he came home early because of course he should do. He is an equal parent and keeper of the house, after all, and should pull equal weight.

smile

(I meant it puts him in an unusually favourable light. I spend most of my time moaning about him.)

WRT to flexible working rights - the employer is under obligation to consider such a request but not to implement it. So not a 'right' exactly.

I'm sure you landed (is he a fish?) Mr Inferior by design, not luck!!

I know that the flexible working rights for parents exist but many men, and women, will still be afraid that they will be inadvertently penalised/held back in their career for taking advantage of them.

I do take your point. Although I'm not sure I'd call landing my dear Mr Inferior luck grin

I take my hat off to single mums, I really don't know how they do it

Ah yes. Predd we sometimes used to 'nest' by the fire with a duvet and a bottle of wine. I once had 2 students of mine call at the house on a Saturday afternoon while we were thus engaged. I had to answer the door as I knew my neighbour might need me. I was wearing just a robe and necklace. I couldn't invite them in at all as dh was still in the front room starkers and no way out except past the front door. I can't recall what amazing excuse I concocted.

Now let's calculate the odds of that ever happening again........

That's interesting Roseability and Fennel. I'm sure women had it worse years ago. I am not very well read but I've always thought it was interesting during the last century that Victorian women with PND were deemed to be 'hysterical'/mad and put into institutions and given ECT (although it may have helped some of them). Plus the unmarried mothers who were treated in the same way.

I think you are lucky in your partner and lucky in both your jobs, MI. There are enlightened men and there are enlightened organisations. They are often organisations who are looking for the best people and are willing to offer good working practices and flexibility in order to attract them. It is interesting also what Fennel has said about Sweden. Even with government encouragement, men's behaviour is difficult to change. I can't see any government, particularly not ours and not in this economic climate, enforcing flexible working rights for men.

Things are getting better, slowly, but for people who don't have access to the type of job/organisation which supports parenthood, the only foolproof method that exists currently for women to maintain a career, and an identity other than motherhood, is to go back asap after the birth, continue with your full-time career, act as if you don't have children, secure (and be able to afford) full-time child-care and domestic help, or a house-husband, such that you are not totally exhausted by trying to do everything at the same time. You miss out on spending a lot of time with your children but you keep your career, your financial independence, your identity. You are effectively a weekend parent (if that) but you do have a family to enjoy on high-days and holidays and someone else does the drudge work. We will call this the Xenia option.

Or, you want to look after your children yourself, or you think you do, or you think you should, or you fall for an idea of motherhood based solely on tv advertisements for nappies showing perfect mothers cuddling perfect babies, or you can't afford childcare, etc.....this leads you to variations on the other option, compromising your professional career in order to look after your children yourself, working fewer hours or changing jobs to work part-time (usually less well-paid), but this option may involve a lot of the risks we have been talking about in this thread.

Relatively few women are in a position to achieve the illusive balance between the two options. i.e. a well-paid, interesting, high-status, part-time, flexible job that still allows them to spend time with their children and have the best of both worlds.

For women who are single parents, there is often even less choice and employers assume they will be unreliable, due to childcare, and are reluctant to take them on at all.

We do all have a choice, but it sometimes doesn’t seem like much of a one.

My husband told me the other day that it is harder to go to work with no sleep than look after kids with no sleep. I think he was hinting that I should be the one to get up with my DS in the night (which most of the time I do) shock

Now don't get me wrong my hubby is a very caring and supportive man. He cooks (although he most definately dosen't clean!) and spends time with DS so that I get a break etc etc BUT really angry

It's interesting - I was just thinking the other day about how my life would have been in Victorian times (or before). Even Queen Victoria herself hated the constant relentless pregnancies, but could do nothing about them (I suppose that "nice" women like her didn't know/weren't allowed to use condoms). I really don't do well in pregnancy (I'm in the third trimester of my second right now) and the thought that I would have been doing this since I was 20ish and would be until menopause is so grim that I can bearly think about it.

I do count myself very lucky that I have been able to enter motherhood through choice and with my eyes open. Even though I do find the whole endlessness of it tough. DH works hard in work, but it's the constant vigilence (sp?) thing that really wears me down sometimes. And I'm lucky enough to have a DH who isn't above doing housework and supportive parents who babysit DD to let us have some time together.

Is any kitchen erotic motherinferior?

I've always had a fantasy of being shagged by Gordon Ramsay over my kitchen table blush

time to reread AK from a mother's POV! hell of a good book.

Tolstoy actually describes motherhood in a more realistic way, than any other author I have read. Anna Karenina chooses her lover over her child and her husband, but she pays for it mentally. There is a great passage where she is allowed to see her son for the first time in years, I just wept when I read it. I can recommend the film with Sean Bean and Sophie Marceau as well.

I remember my MIL (she has had 4) telling me that children 'twist' you. One minute you are overwhelmed with love for them, the next you want to trow them out of the window.

BTW my kitchen is profoundly unerotic.

Thing is, would you want to renounce privilege and an easy life if you didn't have to?

It does seem to be very hard to change men's behaviour on a large scale level. Swedish policies have been trying to do this for years but actually it's not all totally rosy there. Swedish feminists are quick to point out that actually the majority of men don't take all their permitted month of paternity leave, even though it's fully paid. And especially with second or subsequent children. So having policies which even pay men to be at home can only change things slowly.

Abd there is more

'I had but one girl, but God freed me, I buried her during Lent'

'And aren't you very sorry about her?' Darya Alexandrovna had asked.

'Why be sorry? The old man has lots of grandchildren. Nothing but trouble. No work, no nothing. Just bondage.'

This answer seemed repulsive to Darya........cynical as they were, there was some truth in them.

However Darya does go onto realise (after spending time with a seemingly better off friend) that 'memories of her home and children arose in her imagination with some new radiance, some special loveliness she had not known before. That world of hers now seemed so precious and dear to her that she did not want to spend an extra day outside it for anything'

I cling onto that, I really do! Oh and i'm not suggestin we should bury our children at Lent either!

Well, we have achieved a fair bit, I think. It's acceptable for women to stay in the workplace, and to work hours that are vaguely compatible with other commitments. It's acceptable for men to work part time - if they actually follow through their stated commitments to do so - and for quite a lot of men to work flexible hours for childcare commitments (my partner has left work at 4pm three days a week for over a year now, after starting at around 8am). Quite a lot of men do share household tasks (although I am always horrified to read on MN how many don't).

That's very interesting, Roseability. I would have said the pain of breastfeeding was one of the few things which I really hadn't been made aware of before having children. But I'd read that book, I must have ignored the cracked nipples comment.

All of Flaubert's women had miserable motherhood experiences too, IIRC, but then I did assume that was just Flaubert being miserable as usual.

Portrayal of mothehood in the media and literature is interesting

A passage from Anna Karenina (I really need to get a life!)

Darya Alexandrovna shuddered at the mere recollection of the pain from cracked nipples that she had endured with almost every child

'And all that for what? What will come of it all? That I, having not a moment's peace, now pregnant, now nursing, eternally angry, grumpy, tormented myself and tormenting others, repulsive to my husband, will live my life out and bring up unfortunate, poorly educated and destitute children. At best they simply won't turn out to be scoundrels. that's all I can wish for. And for that so much torment, so much work....a whole life ruined'.

Even in the bloody 19th century women felt like this. You can't tell me Tolstoy thought this up himself, that he hadn't heard it from a mother?

Sixpot - can't imagine ever having sex in our kitchen, with all the washing-up teetering on the worktop it would be too dangerous!

Not really Gateau, I have a sneaking suspicion your diaries would be a little vitriolic for my reading tastes.

I agree we should leave it there, this isn't a very constructive debate.

No probs sixspot; I'll happily leave you all to your whingeing

getting time away from your child is NOT the same as harping on about your old life and not enjoying motherhood. How you can equate them, I do not know.
I suggest you leave it there, nicey. Or do you want some of my old diaries to delve into as well?

Do you have any response to my comments Gateau?

Maybe it has gone of track, but as a health care professional and someone who has suffered mental health problems I wanted to correct Gateau, that trying to make someone see what they have will just snap them out of gloom and doom is misguided at best and insensitive at worst.

I think I have read the post properly.

Niceychops mentioned PND to Gateau (rightly) and then came the comment regarding making someone feel better by pointing out how lucky they are.

Only someone who hasn't had PND could make such a comment. It took counselling and nine months of ADs to make it better but I never regreted having my DS. I was lonely as I had just moved to a new area and there really is no community support with childrearing like there is in other cultures. I am absolutely not surprised women feel like this

I am not even that bothered about my career (I really respect women who want/pursue careers, I am just too lazy/lack the confidence) I just want to be valued as a mother and be happy in this role

Well, bully for you Gateau.

Now can you leave the rest of us whingers to enjoy the thread in peace?

because just the 3 of us said you were a stirrer in your other threads as well. i probably do need to do something with my life, but with a four month old that's a bit tricky.

I'm sorry if that was a low blow and perhaps it was, but you say you feel guilty about wanting to get time away from your child and when others say essentially the same thing you say they should stop being ungrateful and stop moaning?

SO nicey, you take the time (sad) to trawl though all my posts in a vain attempt to thrw some dirt at me? Is that the best you can do? You seriously need something to do with your life.
Don't know why I'm bothering to elaborate to YOU, but I am. What has enjoying my work and getting a break got to do with being annoyed with people maoning about motherhood and wanting their old lives back?
I, personally, can enjoy work and getting a break and LOVE motherhood all at the same time.

Oh for heaven's sake this thread was great and has now gone completely off track...

I can't for the life of me see what is wrong with saying that there is a bit of you that yearns for the freedoms you had pre-children. I adore my DSs and I do really regret that I have had to work for so much of their childhoods, and I do regard myself as incredibly lucky, but that's not to say that there aren't evenings when I just wish that DH and I could on the spur of the moment go and see a film, or afternoons when it would be quite fun to have sex in the kitchen blush

and just having a teensy bit of regret that we won't ever be able to do such things again, or at least, not until we're so old that they won't be fun any more!

Oh and may I add that I did have treatment and although I still have bad days, I love my DS to bits

Gateau - I had PND and anxiety

Some days I was crippled by a feeling of absolute pointlessness in life and anxiety attacks. The reason I suffered it for a year before seeking help was because I felt I shouldn't moan and be grateful.

I had always wanted kids and was delighted when I fell pregnant with my DS, a very much planned and wanted baby

I WOULD NOT HAVE FELT BETTER BY PEOPLE TELLING ME NOT TO MOAN AND BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT I HAVE

Very insensitive. This isn't just moaning it is a very valid discussion about modern motherhood and feminism

Gateau on a thread you started about feeling bad that you enjoy putting your kid in childcare you say

'Thank thank you, all of you lovely people.
Like I said, I have been torturing myself about this for quite a while and was too ashamed to post this on here. I finally worked up the courage.
No dount I will continue to torture myself - that's me. '

Are you for real? Why are you now being so judgemental of people who are in the same boat as you?

'criminal' remark made me think of the Catholic dogma that 'despair is a sin'.

lol at the classroom comment from 'read my posts properly' Gateau.
Everyone has the right to moan, or wish they had more sleep, or a cleaner, or whatever.
Plus I do think everybody on this thread is aware of how lucky they are to have children, nobody is wishing them away per se.
Just perhaps wishing they could have a bit of their old life back. Or, in my case, a proper relaxing beach holiday (if I say it enough it just might happen).
Sorry Gateau, not meaning to make this too personal, but you did sound very angry, or at least very bossy, telling people they were criminal for daring to air some honest thoughts.

I personally feel that if you regret having your child/children then you should be seeking help of some sort ..

and no I dont mean phsyciatric (sp) though it might come to this ..

I mean getting someone to help with cooking, cleaning, etc so you can inject some fun into your time with little one

If this doesnt do it then perhaps you need some help with babysitting.. allowing you some time to go get a haircut, see a movie etc

kids shouldnt be a regret.. it can be the mot demanding, most demeaning, most exhausting, least paid job in the world

but they shouldnt be a regret

Ok, fair enough - everyone is entitled to their opinion I suppose. But what I am saying is that not everyone is the same, not everyone is in the place where they can count their blessings. And that depends on the person, their circumstances and whatever.

From what I have seen on other threads as well, do you just like to stir things up a bit? I

I agree MI but how do you change this? We've been trying for decades (centuries?) and we just seem to have achieved a slightly different set of problems. Any ideas?

Realistically, there probably are people who, for a variety of reasons really do regret having children. If so, I don't think it's my place to say anything about that - I haven't walked in their shoes. It must be a terrible burdeen to feel that and never admit it for fear of condemnation. I read a lot of situations on here that I really doubt I could cope with.

I don't regret dd for a picosecond. Few people here will have gone through what we went through to have dd. I used to post on a couple of IVF/infertility bbs and of course I would never moan about parenthood there. But aren't we all in this together?

Irl my friends and I often have a moan - it's completely understood that we adore our dcs and wouldn't be without them. I can voice my adoration where it really counts - to dd (and dh). The moaning, I save for other mums who understand.

Justthe3ofus, I can comment on WHATEVER I like, whether I like the thread or not.

But if 'th problem is that they are/would be affected by the same problems that women are when they step back from their careers and work part time or stop working altogether for a while'...how do they think women manage it? Is it somehow OK for women to accept knackered careers, but not for mn?

And sorry, the machismo/alpha male argument doesn't cut it.

My friend has been trying for a long time to conceive. She came round when my daughter was 3 weeks old and was shell-shocked at how full-on and demanding it looked. I think we can acknowledge we are lucky to have kids but still say it can be enormously frustrating and exhausting. As Frasersmummy says, a mixed blessing!

Re. men and working part-time, I think there are men who want/would like to do this. The problem is that they are/would be affected by the same problems that women are when they step back from their careers and work part time or stop working altogether for a while.

That is that very few career jobs allow you to work part-time. If you take time off and then try to go back, your career is likely to have passed you by. If you take a step down and take a more humble, less skilled part-time job for a while, it is unlikely you will ever be able to go back to your full-time career in the same way, etc., etc..

Add to that, it is not seen as macho to work part-time. Even the most enlightened, emancipated, new-agey man is likely to suffer some loss of self-esteem or confidence that he is no longer seen as an 'Alpha Male'. If we consider how much women suffer in terms of feelings of loss of identity when they give up their career to look after their children (witness this thread), then I suspect it must be even worse for men, for the reasons above and also because it is still more unusual so they will be in a tiny minority and probably feel very isolated.

Most families do require at least one parent to work full-time for financial reasons. It is not surprising that this is still usually the man.

How is this ever going to change? We can only keep lobbying for more flexible working practives, job-shares, etc.. Our value in terms of what we do is usually measured by how skilled our work is and by how much we are paid. Motherhood is not valued because it is not seen as 'skilled', it is certainly not rare and you don't get paid for it. It is only when the population starts falling, that some countries introduce incentives for having larger families.

Anyway, waffle, waffle....

I am just jealous of women whose husbands willingly do their share of the housework and who don't come home and say: 'this place is a tip, what have you been doing all day?' A little appreciation goes a long way towards soothing the pain of drudgery and loss of identity.

Gateau, your post about stopping bloddy moaning and counting blessings doesn't specify a target - those of us with no financial worries? Those of us who have had a whole nights sleep in the past two years? Those of us without any kids with special needs? Those of us with dh's that help around the house and then babysit while we go out and have a bit of fun? Those of us who can get through the day without feeling - even for a nanosecond - like you want to go and hide somewhere.

I bet that 99% of people on here will identify with the negative of at least one of these, therefore you are basically talking about everyone. I also bet that 99% of people on here love their kids to the end of the earth, but this forum is just for letting off steam.

If you don't like the title of this thread, don't read it, or comment on it.

If that 'classroom' jibe was directed at me, I have to point out you're the one saying 'read my posts properly'...

gateau I think most people on here would agree that kids are a mixed blessing.. thy bring sooo much happiness one minute and the nxt you want to weep

I agree many people might read this and think well lucky them I wish I had a child to moan about and may even think if I had a child I wouldnt be moaning

but thats true of anything.. there was a thread last week saying that people with big mortgages were suffering the most with the credit crunch.. I have lots of friends who would love to have a mortgage to moan about it

I will qualify my whinging by saying I wouldnt give up my little girl for a whole warehouse full of Westlife CDs.

But there are aspects of my old life I miss. I am enormously grateful for the chance to be a parent. I just wish it were easier to marry it with the odd night out/ sleeping in past 6:45 am on a Sunday/not looking old and haggard all the time!!!

<<<<thinks very very hard>>>>>

Nope. Can't actually remember my old life. So can't tell you if it was better or not. But I am sure I can't always have been quite this tired all my life.

Sorry; forgot I was in the classroom..

In that case perhaps you should write your posts more clearly, frankly.

In any case wtf is wrong with harping back to your old life? I feel, frankly, as if parts of me had been swallowed whole, by the python of parenthood. I thought this only yesterday. I don't want a bloody romantic evening in, I want a bloody good evening out at the theatre seeing something devoid of puppets; more to the point, I want the energy and will to arrange said evening. My life used to involve that sort of thing. The python has eaten it.

But the post AFTER that clarified who I was referring to; not the people who're just having a whinge.
ANd yep; you;re wise. Agree to disagree. It's really not with arguing over a mere different set of opinions with complete strangers.

Gateau your post says 'Sit down and count your blessings and stop bloody moaning'.

You have to admit it does sound kind of angry. But perhaps it's best we agree to disagree.

Read my posts properly, read my posts properly....

I'm not telling EVERYONE to count their blessings, meandmy.
Read my posts properly before making your own presumptions.
And who said I was angry? Does merely disagreeing with the other posters make me angry now? Mmmmm...

Why's it ungrateful to want to change some of the conditions of your life?

Gateau why are you so angry? This is actually a light-hearted thread where everyone is acknowledging that they do love their children but perhaps would like a bit of time to themselves. So what! Is moaning taboo now?
I feel very lucky to have my daughter, I adore her and wouldn't change her for the world. But I found the newborn baby stage just as tedious as it gets. And I want to lie on a beach ON MY OWN sometimes.
Plus, for the record, you have no idea what anyone has been on this thread has been through with miscarriages etc so I think it's mighty presumptious of you to tell everyone to count their blessings.
Ok, as you were...

Very well, your chastisement is acknowledged. Now on with the whinging!

I was up all bloody night last night with my 4 month old.

I don;t need to look to see what I'll get back. It's all very predictable so I neither have the time or inclination to look. that's my opinion and I'm entitled to it.

Well, let's see how helpful others in the thread have found your remarks.

Who said "Don't ever moan??"
Look at my further posts and you'll see what I meant.

It might not make them feel worse; it might make them think a bit about what they've got.

And I really object to the 'some people can't have children therefore you aren't ever allowed to moan' line. I'm not personally responsible for infertility!

I'm not musical, doesn't mean I expect anyone who can sing or play an instrument to apologise to me.

Nothing ungrateful about saying there are parts of being a mother that are not fun. And some pretty dire consequences in terms of career, that equals status in our society, that equals control over one's life.

I posted on the other thread to say I love being ds's mother but of course there are shitty things that come with it, too. Quite apart from nappies.

But if that's how they feel, that's how they feel! Should they bottle it up instead?

I think it's unfair to say 'well you should just be grateful to have a healthy child', I do see your point but why make people feel worse? Some of the women on this thread may have PND for all you know and don't need their noses rubbed in it.

Yep, of course I do.
Yes, motherhood is hard at times, but I'm referring to the people who are harping on about their old lives when they are blessed with beautiful children. I think it's criminal.

I am rather.

But seriously, everyone vents every now and again. I love motherhood, but wouldnt be human if I didnt miss my old life a bit.

Do you never complain about anything?

What words of wisdom. You sound like a charming lady

I'm so sick of hearing mums whingeing about motherhood. It's so ungrateful and disgraceful, when you consider some people would give their eye teeth to be a mum.
We are very lucky to be blessed with children in the first place, and if they are healthy, well, why can't you just consider that to be utterly fantastic?
Sit down and count your blessings and stop bloody moaning.

I'm sadly not sure it is becoming all that common for men to cut their hours and work part-time. Wish it was. Men don't, I think, tend to want the Mummy Track - ignoring the fact that quite a lot of women aren't hog-whimpering wild about it either.

"It's getting more common, I think."

I really hope you're right. Needless to say I totally agree with everything you say there.

I do get tired of hearing why men can't cut back their hours. Men are always making excuses why their career can't be done part time. Women have just had to work out ways of making it happen. Whether or not it's detrimental to their career or not. We don't all relish the lack of careeer progression and salary either. I loathe the effects on my career of working this way, even though I keep doing it so that I can see a lot of my children while they're small.

I don't see that it's so different for men. It's a case of making that shift and accepting that if you cut back your hours, or your work commitment, then you will quite likely lose out in career prospects, money and promotion, but gain in involvement with your children.

My DP has done this, he works part time and for a lot less money and status than he used to have. My BIL does it too. Both were successful men in well earning careers. DP, like me, is jeopardising career progression and salary by doing so. It's getting more common, I think.

p/t is fine for the dad if he's on a good wage, dh earns less than £300 per week, p/t would bankrupt us, don't think 2 p/t wages are feasible unless you are both proffessionals

I have had exasperating conversations with younger postgrads who think our situation can easily be sorted by insisting the dp works PT/SAHDs etc. Maybe you can plan for that if you are younger - but the reality for us is that dh's career, now well-advanced, is totally incompatible with being PT, and my earning potential is will be around 25-30% of his and I'll start with at least short-term contracts of 1-3 years.

It seems that for a lot of us, financial security requires one parent to work FT. I think both parents working PT would be great - but I don't actually see that many dad's clamouring to do this. Dh used to talk about being a SAHD - but he now realises that much as he adores dd that would not suit at all. I don't think he'd thank you for PT either. Nor would most of my friends' dh's. What can we do if the drive isn't there? Some dad's want it - but it needs to be more - probably most of them - to really make it happen.

I'm sure I used to be attractive to the opposite sex! Whilst I am lucky to have a happy marriage it would be nice if just occasionally a bloke eyed me up. I know it is incredibly vain but I agree that once you are pushing a buggy no one notices you. I spent a lot of my twenties looking slim and sexy in gorgeous clothes and blokes would notice me (this is with hindsight, at the time I thought I was fat and ugly!)and now I am just fat, frumpy and quite frankly boring.

I have a first class honours degree from Edinburgh Uni but I haven't been able to do anything with it because I only work part time. The only way I have kept myself sane is by reading good literature. I have vowed to read all the classics e.g. War & Peace. I know, I know how do I have the time? When my DS napped I refused to do any h/work etc and just read. Now he dosen't nap it is proving a bit more difficult!

Is it worth it? God I hope so!

you clever birds have lost me!

Damn you post-feminist discourse AND the horse you rode in on!

was the lie that you could have the job, child, marriage and figure or was the lie you could have the job, child, and an equal marriage ie. your dh would share the chores equally?

does it come down to the fact the majority of the housework and child rearing and forward planning is left to the women whether she works full time or not?

So in fact people should be saying that "the post-feminist discourse sold them a lie". I'd go along with that.

When reflecting on the post-feminist age when the tags Supermum/Superwoman were widely used because of the increasing number of women who were working full-time at senior levels in blue chip companies, having children and running households, someone said that women don't actually have it all, they have to do it all.

Therein lies the cause of widespread dissatisfaction. As someone said, until fathers start to shoulder a greater burden of the childcare/housework, many women will continue to be overwhelmed and overburdened with raising their children as well as running their household and fitting in work.

IMO, the actual lie that women were sold is that you can actually have it all (children, husband, wonderful career, fabulous house, envious lifestyle) and still look like a size 10, fresh faced, smiling corporate high achiever. hmm

were saying, not where saying. Coffee! need more coffee!

yup me and my sister where saying on the odd occasion you pop out sans baby, a guy might look you up and down and you are so unused to male attention you think 'what's his problem?'

Firstly am nominating this for quote of the week from BGP...

"And it really doesn't help when people are quite insistant that "You wouldn't swap them for the world" and you smile and nod and agree and think that some days you'd swap them for a Westlife CD, even though they're rubbish."

Brilliant!

Also, ages and ages ago on mumsnet there was a discussion about looking good/being attractive the opposite sex and someone brought up the 'buggy of invisibility' in that once you are pushing a buggy no-one notices you. IT'S TRUE! You're not a person you're a 'mum'. Mine are past the buggy stage now but still when I'm walking round the shops shepherding them (I'm going to get one of those welsh collies, a whistle and start shouting 'cumbaie' or whatever they say) all I seem to be doing is herding.

I'm just rambling but remember how much the buggy of invis struck a chord with me at the time and thought I'd share...

But have to go and hoover and wash the bedding with a 2 year old in tow...

God I just mant to sit and watch the olympics with a big pot of coffee and some chocolate cake!

PMSL at your manager following you to the toilet to continue a discussion!!!

Such a fab thread.

Like everyone on here I love my kids to bits, but bringing them up, running a house, making sure everyone is wearing clothes that are reasonably clean/vaguely match is a hard job at times.

And that, for me, is the key. Like any job you want a bit of time off now and then. When I'm at work my manager doesn't follow me into the loo to discuss what needs doing next, so that's why I sometimes get a bit upset when the kids follow me in an do just that.

Just a bit of time to myself, occasionally. Is that too much to ask?

I wish my dh would have enthused a bit more about seeing his dds for the first time and got excited at the prospect of being a dad - anything that was on a level pegging for his increasing excitement for the approaching football season hmm

.

I'd like it too if dh took holiday to spend time with his family rather than booking time out to go fishing/golf.

I'm resentful that my life changed and that his didn't but I don't resent my children.

I hate that dd1 has taken to ruining things in the house. In the last month I've had sudocreme on the carpet, biro on the cot, bed, children and table, an ornament broken (which I thought was out of reach). I don't want to have to move everything in my whole house and I'm not prepared to consider that nothing is sacred in my house.

I would love to have an evening out with dh without the need for military organisation.

pah.

Apart from that, everything else is ticketyboo. grin

This is the best thread ever!!!
i wish i could go toilet/have a bath/have a coffee without one of my 3DC finding me,then talikng over the toilet,joining me in the bath and nicking the last choc bikkie i hid for myself, wouldn't change them for the world just want some ME time every now and then! six week hols havent helped hooray for Sept .

arabicabean = a troll, surely? nobody's that insensitive!

aricabean

Its great that you have such a zest for life and I am really pleased that you are enjoying motherhood.

I appreciate this is a public forum and you are entitled to post where you like but dont you think posting about how wonderful your life is on a thread where there are some seiously struggling mums is just a tad unsupportive and even insensitive

i feel a bit nauseous

I saw this thread and thought I would add to it. I suppose that I am approaching motherhood from a slightly different perspective.

I pursued my academic interests and obtained my Ph.D in my early twenties. I then went on to have a successful career in investment banking. I did the working abroad, the wonderful holidays and weekends away on the spur of a whim. Eventually I was tired of the rat race and gave up work. The one rite of passage I had not experienced so far was motherhood.

Previously I had absolutely no interest in children and I was never at a point in my career when I could take a break without it affecting my prospects ( I was very ambitious). So it was project baby in my early forties. I was very lucky that IVF worked and I now have a 6 month old baby.

Motherhood has been the most amazing experience of my life and I am simply loving every minute of it. I also feel incredibly fortunate that I had the career I wanted and when I eventually wanted a baby, I achieved this as well.

I spent the first 10 months of dd's life thinking 'this is shit! I gave up my young life.....for this?' I'm a 21 year old, single mum to a 14 month old dd, and it still hasn't all worked out yet, although it's getting there, slowly.

I've had to work so hard to gain more patience, understanding and reason, I've also had to learn not to be selfish, so much so that I feel like less than half the person I used to be. I'm also a young mum in an area of older mums, fun! My friday nights consist of checking my facebook acocunt and I still have 3 2.5 stone of baby weight to loose.

I hate the fact that I have to be the one that gets up with dd every morning. I hate the fact that I'm the one that's left to do everything on my own as numpty exp doesn't want to know!

And should I ever get pregnant again, should anybody approach me gushing about how much of a gift children are, I will punch them, hunt them down months later and let them change the nappies, get food thrown at them , clean the crayon off the wall, convince the dog everything is ok and dd wont try and pull his tail off again, have their earings ripped out, clean up the kitchen having all the cubords emptied etc!

And yes, her 7pm bedtime is the best bit to everyday! Having said all that, I'm now in a good place and, exhausting as she is, God I love her lol! grin

I don't want all the time in the world with dd (heaven forbid!) but personally I don't want to work FT (especially not the kind of academic FT that is FT and a half at least). That will probably cost me any kind of academic career at all and I will be very sorry about that - but I knew that. I don't like it, but I made an informed choice.

I think very few have it all. I don't know any but I can imagine they might exist somewhere - with high incomes and masses of domestic support. But I didn't expect to be one of them. But I will try very hard to have as much of my cake as possible.

after having a good job (well to me!) as I posted earlier, I'm now working as a waitress for minimum wage. THIS shift from the sublime to the ridiculous is hard to take and knocks my confidence into the ground, but its my choice, like we all made a choice. No one has it all (stupid suggestion), we all have what we settle for. I have all the time in the world with my 2 kids, which is what I want. I have to settle for a crappy, badly paid job to enable me to have all this time with them.

I really don't believe women think they can have a fab career and spend all the time they want with their kids, its just not compatible/possible. Is that what having it all meant?

Interesting Chelsey - i'm older too (had dd at 43) and don't feel I was sold a lie either. In fact, I don't feel any of this came as a surprise (and would have another if I could). I knew I would full-time motherhood challenging so I planned for that (contnuing PhD - sometimes the work/other balance is very tough but hallelujah I'm on the home stretch and I'd go bonkers without it). I knew I would crave adult company so I worked at keeping a good network like-minded of mums (and we often complain to each other!). Dh helps as much as he can given a very demanding job and travel. I'm in the best position I could be with a very gentle-natured child - and STILL I like to complain wink

I don't think I was sold a lie as my siblings all had children before me and were so doom and gloom that it actually feels like parenthood has been really easy! (Baby is 11 months). I suppose then it depends on your expectations/how your expectations have been influenced. I remember when I was pregnant - so many people said 'you'll know what its like very soon' and other similar negative statements, I feel like I've kept my 'normal' life going - with obvious changes! rather than a complete change/ it being negative. I know I am lucky though as I have a very flexible job and no money worries. But I think I thought parenthood was going to be so bad from the things that have been said to me over the years that now that its turned out well it has made me feel like its pretty damn good! I find it surprising that so many people have not been 'warned' ominously like I have but maybe thats the nature of my siblings!

I can remember, and honest to G*d, even the memory traumatizes me to this day, of wearing a pair of Marigolds in the loo, trying to scrape the poo off my toddler, new born baby strapped in the baby sling around me and feeling so tired that I thought I was going to fall backwards.

We had been posted when I was pregnant to a new country where I knew noone and couldn't speak the language. My DP had to go to the Far East for a month a couple of weeks after the baby was born and I can really remember thinking that whatever life was going to throw at me, this would probably be up there as one of the crappiest experiences of my life.

It's as if I've almost completely blanked off those early years which is a shame in many ways because I don't really remember what any of my dcs were like as tiny ones.

I do miss the time just doing nothing all Sunday.

And sometimes I think where did I GO? what happened to that flighty 22 year old who used to dance all night? where is she? How can I be a 30-something mother?

Christonabike, I would love to achieve work good enough to be remembered when I died. I bloody would.

I think feminism's 'problem', insofar as it has one, is that we - feminists - haven't got what we want and need yet. YET. We don't live in a post-feminist world. We still live in a world where 'real work' is 24/7 and the work - fulfilling work, in my case and in many other cases - that doesn't fit this pattern is, dammit, too much of a 'mummy track' because men don't opt for it.

Also men are not doing enough housework. I realise I am a bit obsessive on this point, but men aren't. Mothers have too much damn hoovering to do. It clogs the mind.

"When I die, nobody is going to remember the work I did but my children will remember me for being their mother who worked, who played with them,read to them and made great banana cake and roast dinners! That makes the whole thing worthwhile. "

I dont' cook, and I'd hate DS to remember my attempts at it! the work I used to do would/will be remembered and was/is (hoping to get back to it) rewarding and fulfilling.

I agree about the hosuework thing too- we hardly had any HW before DS now its just this never ending cycle.

spokette - I agree with you about the work thing - I had actually left my job before becoming pg as I just couldn't bear being on that treadmill any more. And I don't wish to go back on it, but I would like to do something interesting part time. You are very lucky you can do that with your career. I think it would really help me to get some perspective on the children and have a little bit of something for me. I am actively looking but not finding anything just yet.

As for the housework... before the DTs there was hardly any! A cleaner once a week, shirts and suits to the dry cleaners, dinner out a couple of times a week..... Just the odd load of washing really. I am amazed how much mess there is having two tinies in the house!!

Fantastic post - so good to realise i'm not alone. I'm 39, have one dd nearly 3 and have just found out i'm pregnant (bit of an accident as had been unable to decide if i wanted another or not). I feel i should be happy but i'm not. I love dd to bits of course but I have just gone back to a new and stressful job (3 days) and feel a bit of my identity returning (which i think i well and truly lost). Consumed by the fear of being totally lost for the next 5 years in a constant juggling act of trying to work, look after 2 young kids (ok over 5 i think but the baby thing just does nothing for me), keep the house vaguely liveable in,etc etc etc. I feel a shadow of my former self and that can only get more so with a 2nd child. But of course i shouldnt feel like this - noone else does (or so i thought til i read this)...

Penona "think the 'lie' is that there is a middle ground - ie that interesting, rewarding, part-time work exists which pays sufficient to make it worthwhile. I am sure it does in some careers, but not in most."

I'm fortunate in that I have that (run a team of 20 male scientists and engineers) and so feel fulfilled on both the domestic and work front. The other key point for me is that I had my twins when I was 39yo so I had done a lot of living, travelling etc before then.

I think that the dissatisfaction comes from the fact some women feel want to do more with their lives whereas if you have accomplished a great deal before having children (and it is all relative anyway), then you don't feel as dissatisfied?

I wanted children because I wanted a meaningful existence and working in a high power job and spending endless hours on trains, airports, hotels etc did not fulfill that. That in itself became a grinding, empty treadmill.

When I die, nobody is going to remember the work I did but my children will remember me for being their mother who worked, who played with them,read to them and made great banana cake and roast dinners! That makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Great thread...may I add a Welsh saying:

'Pwy faga blant, a thedi bers mor rhad?'

'Who would have (lit. nurse, bring up) children, with teddy bears being so cheap?'

I have no regrets about having my DTS and even when I am feeling low, I don't blame them, I blame my selfishness and negative attitude.

I went back to work part-time when they were 6 months and that has helped me to maintain balance in my life.

As for the cooking, washing, cleaning treadmill, wouldn't you have that anyway without children?

One thing that I have learnt about myself since having children is that I am very, very patient and extremely adept at tuning out wink

I like the discussion about being sold a lie. I think this lie was that having children, beyond just popping them out, and having a successful career are compatible. For me, and I am guessing for lots of others of you, they are simply not. I am 'lucky' enough that I earned a very good salary, so could have gone back to work with a full domestic staff (that phrase makes me snigger, it sounds so posh!), and therefore been a mother and have a career. But I would never have seen my children from one weekend to the next, which wasn't really what I had in mind (although some weeks sounds like a very appealling prospect).

I think the 'lie' is that there is a middle ground - ie that interesting, rewarding, part-time work exists which pays sufficient to make it worthwhile. I am sure it does in some careers, but not in most.

When I read The Myth of Motherhood (I think it was that one); I remember the author writing "expectation and experience along with anticipation and actuality are vastly different". For someone whose has a terrible memory and that I am able to remember that quote is quite telling. DD (an only) is, of course terrific BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT.....

Even if you have a cleaner (I do for 3 hrs a week), there's still all the day to day stuff to do - every time you cook, every meal to be cleared away, laundry, ironing, bag-packing, admin...

Now a housekeeper...

Nope not worth it1 and I completly agree about the crap 'you don't mind because you love them'

I do mind, I resent it and hate it most of the time!

Its expensive, health destroying and relationship shaking. Hasn't got 'better' yet alhtough thank god he's no longer a baby and ill all the time.

One of the things I hate the most is ALWAYS having to be the 'mum' so if we all go out its me that packs wipes etc, and I am sooo very very tired of having my career put on hold because I earn less than DH.

Today I'm struggling through work because for the past 3 nights DS (3) has been up at 12pm, 3am 6am(saturday), 4am, whinged for an hour and got up to start the day at 5am (monday) and 11pm, 1am, 2am and 6.30am (tuesday).
I'm bloody knackered, the house is a tip and I have a full shift this afternoon.

Kids I can do, they don't mean to do daft stuff, they're kids.

They are challenging, incredibly expensive (I joke with my eldest that they're my very expensive hobby wink

) and at times annoying, but can be a lot of fun too.

I don't like the baby stage (boring, tiring repetitive, loud), love toddlers and above and am starting to experience teenagers...

It's the OH that I find challenging - totally agree about the thinking for them bit, DH asked me where his wallet was this morning, though how the heck I should know is beyond me...also I tend to do more clearing up after him than anyone else in the house, including the baby!

Totally agree about baby groups (yawn) and how nobody tells you the whole truth about motherhood, but what I really don't get is the competative parenting.

SIL recently lied about how much/well her son slept at night (*he's slept through since he was 6 months old...(smug smile on face), then when we were on holiday together lied about how many times he'd been up in the night! WTFs that all about - did she think we were deaf/asleep through the endless hours of crying? He's a baby ffs, we've all had them and often they don't sleep, why all the mystery?

I think we should all spend our Child Benefit on cleaning ladies.

agree nobody tells you how hard it'll be but even if they did, would any of us really believe them? I used to work with girls who had young children and worked part time (oh, part time, lucky them, they only work sometimes!), if they complained I hadn't a clue what they were on about (I worked full time, had a lot of pressure, they only came in, did their work and left, why were they always moaning???)

I really and truly hadn't a clue! And if they'd have tried to tell me I wouldn't have believed them

Motherhood is something you only find out about yourself when you do it and how you deal with it all depends on your mental frame and your circumstances. It's probably always been like this, we just think its only us dealing with these problems.

I got fed up with family outings meaning mummy packs a bag for ds so..

the night before a family day out I waited till dh was in bed. I packed ds's bag and put it in the boot of the car under some junk that was in there

I never mentioned it.. we left for the day.. with dh never noticingI didnt have change of clothes/ wipes/ juice etc

we got to our destination and little one says I am hungry.. do you have an apple and I have a runny nose .. dh looks at me and says oh no his bag.. what are we gonna do .. he has paniced look

smug mother produces bag and says.. just as well one of us thinks a few steps ahead

I have to say .. dh has remembered to pack bag ever since

I don't think I was sold a lie - but nobody, absolutely nobody warns you how hard it is going to be. I think most of us would have still have had kids despite these warnings but we would have been a bit more prepared. The closest I ever came was when my sister said the first three months were going to be sh*t. Just the first three months?

I love my DS so much that sometimes it hurts, but it's been unbelievably difficult trying to maintain a sense of self, some kind of sanity and my composure. Sometimes too difficult, and I retreat to the bathroom where I sit on the toilet lid and fantasize about a tropical island, a book and a large vodka grin

Further to the points about having to become the Queen of Remembering Everything.

My Dad was widowed when I was a baby. He had a lot of help from my aunts but never engaged with the minutiae (sp?) of child rearing/running a home.

I'm always reminded of this when posters advise that if you just leave things the husband will pick it up/clean it etc. You would be surprised (and possibly appalled) at just how long that could be!

my dh is great round the house, he easily does as much as me (and if he didn't I'd tell him to get his finger out)

but when we go out its me who always carries the money, he's like the queen, never has a penny on him!

TBH some of this thread I don't get and I think it might be because I'm a bit older at 41? or maybe the fact I worked in childcare before having the kids (as well as other jobs). I can't understand the posters who say they were sold a lie when they were told they could have it all. I grew up, left school, got qualifications, travelled, ended up in a good job, where I earned decent money, was treated with respect, really enjoyed......BUT when I had a baby I knew someone had to look after him and as I didn't want him going into full time care (we have no family support at all), I gave up work and looked after him. And its really hard, I totally agree, but why would I think I caould have a great job and still spend all the time in the world with my baby, I knew something had to go and for me it was the job. What I'm trying to say is I'm a bit older, was the girls brought up after me told you can have it all and they believed this? Is this what so many posters on here mean? I genuinely don't get it, was having it all a media invention? I don't remember anyone saying to me you can have it all, it was just expected you had what you had at the time and that was that.

I don't know how many thank yous to write here, maybe a million. I had been feeling so guilty that for a week or so now, every day I have wanted to just walk out and keep walking, and up until now I have felt so alone.
My DS is 19 months old and a happy and confident wee boy. He doesn't sleep well though, never has and I feel in some way that sleep deprivation has contributed to how I feel. My DH is lovely, great daddy, but he comes from a culture where women don't talk about their feelings with men, and so gets surprised when I moan and complain a lot, especially as his mum had six children in 8 years obviously with a smile plastered across her face the entire time.

I am now back to work and that feels better, as a stay at home mum I was lonely and quite depressed. But there are still days when I long for a sleep in, or even sleep where I know I am not going get woken up every three hours. And a break from the housework! And my pre-pregnancy body! Those lovely black trousers I used to wear sit in my wardrobe, reminding me that my butt never used to be Mt Everest.

And I have only one DS too. I don't know how some of you have 3, even 4. I am honestly considering just having one. In a small way because of everything I have written, but in a big way because I really think that for me personally, one is enough. I have absolutely no desire for another child - my DH wants at least one more, but the thought fills me with horror. Maybe in a couple of years I will change my mind, but maybe not.

So thank you once again MNers, you have made me feel better, and if I dare say it a bit more positive about things.

In the last couple of years I have forced encouraged my DH to take the kids camping while I am at work (I work one weekend out of four).

I have made it clear I will do NOTHING to help in the preparation for these jaunts. I leave nothing out for him to find, I remind about nothing and I do not pack ANYTHING for ANYBODY.I stick to it.

I sit on the sofa with a glass of wine while this is occurring. If anything major is forgotten, I will not remind/bail out.

I then happily go to work but come home in the evening to my cosy home, safe in the knowledge that somewhere in a field they are shivering(forgot coats), dirty (forgot changes of clothes), cold (forgot sleeping bags) etc etc etc.

This is my revennnnge mwah-ha-ha-ha.

grin

But your cleaning up after your husband is not a motherly duty!
Sit down and have a frank discussion instead of 'nagging'

It's having to TELL them ALL the time to do things that gets me...he can't ever notice it himself.
My friend's DH is even worse it has to be said as he puts on odd socks and forgets his keys all the time.

I just can't cope with buying clothes and leaving them in the bag for 5 weeks, I mean, why did he buy them in the first place????

I notice however that if he buys a new set of wargame figures he's whipped them out of the bag and out of the packaging the minute he gets home...and leaves the packaging on the table until I say "throw that rubbish in the bin"
!!!!!
The choice seems to be: do it myself, or constantly be telling someone to do things, then I feel like a fishwife, then I think "but he should be able to do this, he is a grown man" and then I think "would it be easier to say nothing and just do it myself?"...a bit like tidying up the toys really, I have the same circular argument there too.
Oh yes, and then I get guilt that I am annoyed, because therefore I am failing in my motherly duties...!!!

It's not about fault!
Doesn't your DH ever take them out on his own?
If so, he surely packs a bag first?
Therefore, through experience, either of you should be capable of doing it

Ok - his clothes his problem.

But what about a day out with OUR kids?

If you don't bring the stuff you come across as point-scoring and petty and the day is ruined by lack of essential stuff.

If you do bring it, it's YOUR fault DH hasn't because you are letting him not do it.

Is there any way out of this?

Penona - I am in SE London.

This has got to the frankest and most interesting thread i have read for some time. i love dd and ds and count my blessings that we conceived easily, i sailed through pregnancy and am unscathed by childbirth (apart from the stretch marks). DD is 2.5 and delightful (most of the time) and DS is 4 months and giving me the cutest gummy smile ever.But I can't help but feel cheated. I spent 4 years training for my job. I have been educated to degree level and just assumed i would have it all. The truth is as soon as I announced I was pregnant it changed. I began to be side lined at work and no longer sent on courses, etc. I returned PT after DD and continued to be side lined.Whenever DD was off sick it was me who took the day off. I did all the running around to and from nursery. the majority of getting up in the night and 99% of the housework. I am now on mat leave with DS. If I go back I will effectively be earing £70 per month for nearly 2 years due to travel and childcare costs. At the beginning of mat leave i was sure i wouldnt go back but I just dont know how much longer i can take going to playgroups, chatting endlessly about schools and following the never ending circle of wash, wipe and clean.If I go back i will feel frustrated by the way i am treated and the pitiful amount of money i would earn. DH works long hours nearly 2 hours from home and we have no family help.

It's great being a woman and a mother, but you have to change as your life changes.
You need to grow and meet the needs of your dependants unflinchingly
Your husbands are not dependants
You need to make it clear that you expect certain standards from him
Many women do the mothering' oh, don't worry, I'll do it' and then complain when husband and children grow up taking her for granted
Miggsie- sounds to me like you are making these problems your own.
His clothes that he bought, for example, it's up to him if he leaves them in a bag

Fennel, I don't BLAME feminism - I am a proud feminist (weirdly, so many women I know today say they aren’t which always shocks me). But, the whole ‘women can do anything men can’ and are equal to men is what made me think I could conquer anything in the world and at work. But since becoming a mother, I have found out that I’m not equal actually. And in my experience, having a child has made that clear to me. As a mother, I find myself in a role similar to those held by women in society pre-feminism. And it is a role that (having grown up in a world post-feminism) that I am ill prepared for. Therein lies the problem for me.

Perhaps we need some kind of new feminist movement, 'post-post-modern-neo-feminism' wink

which takes into account where we are today and addresses the issues faced by women who have grown up in a culture imbibed with the feminist successes of the 60's and 70's? We have advantages, privileges and experiences that women for thousands of years could only have dreamed of, but we now have a new set of problems that need to be addressed.

Anyway, hijack over. Motherhood is hard!

I put stuff on the bottom of the stairs in the hope someone OTHER that me will take it up...
Nope, still there after 6 weeks...!
The cat will have destroyed it before anyone other than me takes it upstairs.

I did a blast off last week that DH buys clothes, then comes in, leaves them in the plastic bag in the hall and never actually takes them out of the bag or takes them upstairs let alone hang them in the wardrobe?

Why oh why does this tedium devolve to me?
High IQ, lots of qualifications and responsible job, nope, sorry, you're a woman...do the tedious crap day in day out!
ARG!

I love DH and DD but they drive me mad sometimes, at least DD has the excuse she is 4, what is my husband's excuse...?!

Whoops, must remember to get milk and toilet rolls...family life really is so mundane most of the time isn't it?

It also annoys me that women's mags seem to have only 2 approaches to anything which are: "solve your frustration by knitting and cooking" OR "feel inadequate while reading about someone who has enough money to delgate the tedious shit to someone else".

I would be interested to know if ANYONE's DH is responsible for this kind of thing.

I am accepting at the moment that while we are both off work (school holidays) and DH is doing DIY/building work outside every day I inevitably cook, clean look after the kids etc.

But why does this "thinking of things" HAVE to be me?

It's not so much division of labour, DH is never idle, but as you say, always being the one "responsible" for the kids and everything to do with them.

This is where I feel feminism has lied to me personally.

I truly believe there is no reason for it to be ME, yet why is it?

Do people with sah partners (men) NOT have to think about the minutae of the children's lives?

I really want to know this.

olympicsnotfederer - so true. You move things around to make sure everything is in order. But of course noone notices until it isn't done. And it drives me MAD that I have to remember everything as well. The other day we all went out in the car and down the road I remembered that I had forgotten DS's water and snacks. I just lost it that DH hadn't thought of it (everything else was in the car) and he said - well you didn't tell me!! But that's the point - you have to remember it to tell them to do it...

WinkyWinkola "Motherhood is totally undermined in the UK, I think"

So true. Was back with my family last week. I am EXHAUSTED - DS 20mths, DD 3mths. Up all night feeding etc etc.

My BIL (who has no kids BTW) was laughing at me about going upstairs for a nap when the kids were asleep. He simply didn't understand how it could be difficult "sitting at home watching the Olympics"......mmm

Ohh miggsie. Are you me?

I also HAAATE being the one who has to remember everything!! This is a bugbear of mine and when I lose it occasionally and try to explain to DH how I feel about it he looks at me blankly.

He just doesn't get it. Sometimes I feel I have no brain synapses left with having to remember everything about home, school (primary and secondary) and hold down a very responsible job too!

And its not just the big things. Its the little things like clean PE kits, not running out of toilet roll, taking coats on a day out. I have to leave EVERYTHING in full sight or it gets left behind.

Some weeks I feel like all I do is just move STUFF from one place to another. STUFF that no-one else notices until it isn't there!

Don't get me wrong, DH is very willing to pitch in BUT only when he is given specific instructions (that I have to remember to give him!!) ARRGGGHHHHHHHH.

I find the "being the one who thinks of everything" role the hardest.
I'm currently packing to go on holiday and I just realsied that every time the family leaves home I am the one who has to remember: wipes, tissues, food, drink, sun hats, sun cream, umbrellas, change of clothes etc etc.
If anything ever happens when we are out DH turns to me and says "where are the tissues/wipes etc?" like it HAS to be me.
Can't partenrs remeber this stuff too? My mum, thinking about it, did exactly the same. So if you forget anything, it's a failure, but the other half not ever doing anything somehow isn't.
Last week I packed God knows what for a day out, got there and realised I had forgotten my walking stick...not much of a day out for me that.

Only since being a mum have I realised what a bloody thankless and good job my mum did all those years and how my DH (and actually all the DHs I know and my dad and brother) never concern themselves with domestic stuff much.

I thought we had an equal relationship till DD came along, now I realise I do 90% of the housework and tidying and all the planning and organising. The other 10% is my cleaner.
DH will do things if barked at.

Running a home and family is so hard and no one gives you awards, they just point out when you forget things, and running the domestic lives of several people is hard and time consuming and thankless...I do wish someone had prepared us for this at some point!

I don't know Fennel, I grew up in the eighties and there were all these posters saying 'Girls Can do Anything!' and it was expected that we would be at the top in our careers and also have children. Now I have realised that I can't do 'anything' and I don't want to try!

For me that means cutting back my work hours (I am lucky that this is an option for me) and hopefully! getting a cleaner when I return to work.

I don't know if it is right to blame 'feminism', but I sure feel like someone sold me a lie!!!

Yes some days the endless, mindless, grinding, thankless repetition actually takes my breath away; I stop and think 'I really can't do all this again now, and then again later, still be up doing stuff at 9.30 at night (granted whilst slurping wine - just carry bottle and glass with me to whichever room needs the most work!!!) and then again tomorrow ad nauseum.....just for that split second I feel as though my head will explode if i don't just walk away and get some peace for myself....and then I take a deep breath...swallow and carry on.

Like many, it's the peace I miss. Much as I love my dh, he is disabled (and needs quite a bit of looking after) and is around pretty much 24/7 (along with a constant stream of his mates who come to keep him company....you should see my food bills...hairy bikers have huge appetites!), but on the occasional nights he goes to see a friend and ds is in bed I sometimes just wander around the house listening to the quiet; I crave it; want to gulp it down and hold it inside myself for the next time i feel as though if I don't cram Wallace and bloody Grommit up Bob the feckin' Builders fundament I will have to start slowly and deliberately banging my head repeatedly against the nearest hard surface!

Man...thanks for the rant! That feels better. grin

While I totally agree with many of the posts here and could have written a good number of them myself, I don't think it's fair to blame "feminism".

For a start there are many different feminists who take opposing positions on work-family debates. Many feminists have banged on incessantly for at least 50 years about the inequalities in the system, and the way in which our social structures and expectations mean that women often have more trouble than men with combining parenthood and their other concerns (including paid work and careers). From Betty Friedan onwards there's been a long stream of feminist thought on these issues. Very few feminists have said you can be supermum and supercareerwoman, along with being sex goddess and popular chilled out socialite. That's a media concept, not a feminist one. Many contemporary feminists working in this field are far more likely to harp on about the importance of men revising their ideas on parenting and work, or on employers or policymakers changing working conditions to improve the chances of gender equity. For example Swedish feminists have a long campaign going on pushing a 6 hour working day as the norm. Rather than insisting that women should work long hours and also be mothers.

Oh and I was also unprepared for how mind-numbingly DULL housework is. Just so boring. Washing cleaning tidying is not interesting at all.

And how little respect there is for mums, whether you work or stay at home. I am so unimportant now it makes me want to weep. Thank heavens for the cats, to whom I am still number one!!!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I love this thread. Its the sort of thing I hope to find when I come on MN.

I also thought I'd be a wealthy funky child free lady, totally in control of her life. Then found out we couldn't have kids and wanted them SOOOO badly. After years of expensive tiresome treatments I now have 14mth DTs.

It is not at all what I expected. Lovely in parts and madly frustrating in others. I think the worst parts are: tiredness, lack of control, inability to walk away EVER, tedium of repetitive tasks. I am not quite sure what the best parts are yet but their delighted grin when mummy comes crawling into the playroom are pretty good!

Thanks for sharing everyone. Where are you people in RL?!

Very moved by Honeydew's & Greenandpleasant's posts and certainly puts any whinges I might have in perspective.

In the car, whilst stuck in traffic on the way to work.

georgimama, you have time to put make-up on in the first place?!

This thread has been great for my mental health too! I was trying to explain to DH the other day that I feel like I don't know who I am any more. I thought I was finding it especially tough because when pregnant with no. 1 I moved from funky city to middle of country, moved in with DP and gave up (self-employed) work to become SAHM - so absolutely everything changed. It wasn't like my life just changed, it was like my old life was gone and I had a completely new one.

I used to have friends, not just playdate mums; I used to be able to go out for the day and not have to plan everything around when LO needs to eat or sleep; I used to go to sleep at night and not wake up until the next morning (seems like a distant memory now); I used to have a quite interesting, sometimes even stimulating job; I used to earn my own money and not have to argue with anyone else about it; I used to have stomach muscles; I used to travel, climb mountains, go diving.

BUT I also used to look wistfully at mothers and children in the playground and ache with longing to have my own. I used to feel that my life was a bit self-centred and lonely.

I too hate the domestic drudgery with a vengeance, and I'm not really a baby person. I'm better once they're little people with personalities, but now I have baby no. 2 I'm tired and snappy with no. 1 and every night resolve that tomorrow I won't lose my temper with him. I know that distraction and making things a game works better than getting impatient but sometimes I want to say 'just f-ing-well do it!'.

And it's true, DH just doesn't get it about having to constantly be planning ahead. He'll do things if I ask him to, but he never gets up at the weekend and has to ask me if I'll look after the kids while he has a shower.

I read a quote (I think it was in 'What Mothers Do', which is a great book btw, not a parenting manual) that went something like, 'looking after children is boring, tiring and lonely'. It shocked me to read it, but it's true. I love my children fiercely, but I so crave being something other than mummy for a while.

I realised the other day that I've been either breastfeeding or pregnant or both for the last almost four years! It was just when DS was about 18 months and I was feeling about ready to go back into the adult world of work again that I got pregnant (surprisingly quickly second time around), so that was that.

I'm really jealous of women who seem to have the perfect balance of part-time work and help from DH and childcare. But it was my choice to be a full-time mum... I wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be to leave my child, despite how tough mothering is.

But I sometimes think that it's not being a parent that's hard, it's doing it with just one or two of you. Maybe this is an idealised vision of 'traditional' communities, but in some cultures it isn't just the mother that brings up the child, they have help from their mother, aunties, sisters, neighbours, cousins, friends in the same village. And because they've been around other mothers and children all their lives they aren't shocked by suddenly finding themselves alone with a newborn and the telly. In our weird disjointed culture you can get to 30 without ever having held a baby, so of course you have no idea how to look after one.

OK, end of political bit now.

It's so true that tiredness makes everything 10 times harder - actually 100 times. On that note, I should go to bed now! Thanks to anyone who's read this far. And thanks to OP for helping us all feel normal.

I was looking over at my teenage dd only yesterday while she was doing her very best to score a gold medal in Sulking for Britain, and wondering if the stretch marks had really been worth it....

cookie, I actually go to bed without taking off my makeup some days because it's too much bloody effort. DH bought me a beauty treatment as a treat recently and I ended up having an almost row with the therapist because she refused to believe I didn't have ten minutes at night to cleanse, tone and moisturise. I bloody don't!!!

Honeydew, ((()))! Been there, well, maybe still there: my DC are 5, 4 and 20 weeks and I work 30 hrs in professional job, in fact due return in 2 weeks after mat leave sad

.

Much as this thread makes me feel better for so many reasons (I am clearly not alone out there in the mothering jungle; and it makes me laugh grin

), is it not amazing/sad/interesting/an indictment of society today wink

how many of us there are and how popular the thread is?!

Just did bedtime for all 3 DSs as lone parent which I only have to do when DH away at work, so I know I am lucky. Now have glass of wine and trashy novel waiting for me, bliss (if they stay quiet...).

<whispers: however we are considering No4... do I need therapy??>

Such a brilliant thread. Keep wanting to forward it to people I try and have these conversations with (normally people wiht no kids) and say 'see, see, this is what it's like'..

I love my children to death and thought I was prepared but I wasn't. As everyone says, it's relentless, dull and messy. I hate the fact that Fridays are now the worse day of my week because I'm so knackered after working and the DC are knackered after nursery and when everyone in the office (none of whom have kids) are full of that friday feeling, I'm crossing london at breakneck speed to pick up DC before nursery closes (yes they are the last to be collected).. And it's the constant guilt. Guilt about that I'm not always there for the DC, guilt that I'm not always there for work.. My DH says I have no time for him and the truth is that I don't..At the end of the day I just don't have it left. With work and the DC, it's sucked out of me! I'm worried that I haven't had my roots done for ages and my grey hairs are coming through thick and fast and previously this would have been a state of dire emergency but I'm just not as bothered as I should be. Likewise the state of my eyebrows. I bought a tooth whitening kit 6 months ago that I still haven't used because i'm too knackered to contemplate any beautifying at 9.30pm which is the only bit of free time I have in the day.

"Feminism sold me a lie"

I have never read truer words on MN. I totally agree. I work full time, have 18 month old DS, do everything at home (DH does work his bollocks off but still) and I am knackered ALL THE TIME.

I don't know what the answer is. Would I rather not have DS and DH? Of course not. Would I rather not have my career? Hell no. I just have to accept that this is the life I was programmed to live, and make the best of it.

What a cracker of a thread!

Recently I've come to the cold conclusion that being a working mum is possibly the hardest work allowed in a civilised society. I adore my son, he's a joy, but the accoutrements of parenthood are often exhausting/boring/irritating/soul-destroying. I was mildly depressed for a while after his birth and can vividly remember the sense of grief for my lost existence. It's still there but it doesn't depress me anymore. However, I do sometimes long to jump in the car, drive somewhere lovely and just walk, like I used to without a second thought. That's what I really really miss. Now I have to plan ahead to have a pee.

How true is this thread. I agree with almost every word of it. Its so nice to know I am normal after all.

I love my children dearly and cant believe that I managed to create two beautiful, wonderful children its just everything that goes with children I am tired off. The endless cooking,eating,cleaning, washing cycle. Spending my evenings cajoleing everyone to bed when all I want to be doing is watching TV, not being able to watch what I want or read a book without seperating the fights or demands of cebebees/dvd's and the one thing that I really miss is the silence, how nice it would be to be in the house on my own in silence or even do things in silence without having someone natting away in my ear hole constantly.

I thought I would be a homely fun mum who loved playing with her children or doing cooking and craft but instead ive changed into the mum who would rather do housework than have to spend time playing made up games or craft stuff.

And I bet there are plenty plenty of mothers from previous generations who do moan a lot. And so they bloody well should. It's hard work and often a thankless task. Motherhood is totally undermined in the UK, I think. It's makes me quite cross.

greenandpleasant, you sound like a very positive person.

I think we're bombarded with images of blissful motherhood, how we're supposed to be, feel etc. And it all sets us up for disappointment, a sense of failure, inadequacy etc.

My mum never played with me. She was far too busy. She certainly wasn't a bad mum. She had a lot on her plate, like all parents do.

I think it's a shame that mums can't vent some spleen without being regarded as attacking motherhood in its entirety and requiring the need of 'a defence of motherhood' thread.

It's frustrating that everything has to be so black and white - you don't have to be someone who loves mothering or not. You can be a mix and, do you know what, that's just fine.

Everyone is on the scale of loving it some days, hating it others, finding it ok other days and better than ok on other days. It's the same in life in general, with or without children.

When we were little mum had two of us under 4 and dad was away, she lived up 8 flights of stairs and no lift, and a long way from her mum. I was often ill and had greeted my younger sister's arrival with an initial horror that soon progressed to a grim faced attempt to remove her from our lives and a concurrent display of behaviour so bad it still prompts a respectful pause from older relatives prompted to remember it. Now I have 2 small girls of my own and apart from an omniabsent husband none of the other troubles. I often say to her 'why do you never moan about those time? If I were you I would just never stop harping on about it, it must have been awful'. She says' it wasnt great' but then just shrugs and moves on. What I am saying ladies is by the time you are 65 you will have reconciled yourself to it.... Actually more seriously I do wonder if our expectations are higher now and that makes the undoubted shock of motherhood and loss of freedoms harder??

Another thank you for this thread. I think so often that this is not what I signed up for. I was sadly, tragically, suddenly and devastatingly widowed whilst pregnant with first child. So now I do this motherhood thing alone and struggle on through grief and some days are really great and others are TERRIBLE, and I have no idea whether it's about grief or just about being knackered and bored with the whole toddler thing. I'm not posting this to be competitive about who has it worst, because other people's misfortune should have no bearing on how you feel about your own life. I am very lucky in many ways, have friends, family, a good job, have found great childcare ... it's just ^not what it was supposed to be^. And I'll never know how it would have been had things been different. And I think that this is the problem for anyone who is wondering where their sane, independent and non-tired selves went. If you hadn't had children but wanted them you would probably be sadly looking in on other "perfect" family groups and wishing it was you. I have single friends who can have it all and they are lonely and sad and want kids and a relationship!

I suspect that a lot of what I have problems with is just that toddlers aren't massively interesting ... ds can't talk or walk yet and though he is as cute as hell and I love him to the point that I can't breathe when I look at him, I hope so much that he will start doing MORE soon. At which point I will look back on the good old days and sigh with longing.

Sorry this was a ramble. It is just lovely to read that other people find it dull too. Whilst loving their children too of course. wink

This is the best thread I have read on MN. It is amazing to see how many of us feel the same way and frankly a releif to know I am not the only one. Honeydews post summed everything up for me. I am currently wrestling with the idea of whether or not to return to my PT job next year (on mat leave with no 2). I will earn enough to cover childcare and travel until the eldest starts school and then will be earning more. At first I thought I wouldn return as it would effectively mean earning nothing for 1.5 years. Just not sure I could do this for another 2 years!

All of this puts me in two minds and I don't want to turn this thread into a one about ADs. But you are right favourthebrave, is it a condition or PND. My GP says I have PND, apparently I've had it on and off since ds1 was born but then I think I have two gorgeous kids, a good (but v. busy) job, a nice (but untidy and permanently in a state of DIY hiatus) house, a supportive family and a fab dh so why do I want to cry all the time and scream at my kids ? I blame the lack of decent sleep (thinking about the physiological/lack of dopamine side of it), but then is that the aforementioned 'condition of motherhood' - it comes with the territory.

Georgie Girl I am so with you on para 4, are you me ?

I've just discovered Mumsnet, my husband says it is knackering our sex life because I'm on here all night now! I suppose that doesn't help me with the lack of sleep either grin

<recognises every word being typed on this thread, well, almost every one>

<pops another antidepressant>

<apologises for seeming flippant about mental health ishoos, even if they are my own smile

For me it's knowing that this phase will pass (currectly it's 20 month old ds hitting and throwing things in temper)...only to be replaced by an equally sould-destroying one sad

.

And we're trying for another child hmm

Thank you thank you thank you for starting this thread. It's soooooo good to hear that other mother's struggle on a daily basis - just like me. It's so blardy tough these days to be a mum. Even before the baby is born you're bombarded with 'information' on what you can and can't eat, what you can do, what you can't do, what you can wear, what you can't wear. Oh and how you're supposed to look....super skinny but with cutest little baby bump.

Then you give birth and it's supposed to be amazing. And of course you breast feed for a year. Pop back into your size 6 jeans in 2 weeks. Look perfectly groomed. All on 2.5 hours sleep. Oh yeah. I forgot. You're also supposed to run own company or write novel or smug mother book whilst baking all your own bread and eating 100% organic food. And if you don't do all of this you're a FAILURE and your kids will grow up to be homicidal axe weilding maniacs.

There are some days when I just want to crumple under the pressure of trying to be all things to all people. I HATE the sodding guilt that I feel all the time. That I'm somehow letting my kids down if i haven't arranged after school activities, play dates, days out. Heaven forbid they should just play in their rooms with their toys. It's my damn fault for swallowing all this guff in the first place.

I hate that I lose my temper and shout at my kids. It upsets me hugely that DD1 (7 years) and I seem to be permanently clashing heads over everything. I hate that she's so bloody blase about losing things and expecting them to be replaced instantly. I hate that she ignores me,. I hate that she whines and crys like a 2 year old. I HATE that she calls me 'mama' in a whingy voice. I feel as if some days that I could quite happily Ebay her. And wonder where the hell I went wrong because I swore I'd never have a brat.

DD2 (2.5 years) just stroppy mare. Expects me to play with her for hours. I'm bored to friggin tears with Play Doh, lego, colouring. But of course I play wither her because I'd be bad mother if I didn't. Then it's the endless cycles of bargaining with her to do things. sometimes I just want to scream at her to 'just do it'.

Some days I'm so bored with this whole motherhood malarky that I want to walk out of the door. Some days I just can't stand to be happy and chirpy. I WANT to be in a bad mood.

It's the endless cycle of cooking/cleaning/washing/ironing etc etc etc that makes me so brain dead. I went to university for god's sake. I had a good job. I used to be able to read a paper cover to cover. Not just skim articles because my concentration levels are zero now.

But when all is said and done. I wouldn't be without them. I love them dearly. And constantly look at them adn wonder how on earth I managed to prduce two such lovely creatures. It's down to me to change what I don't like. All I can do is try and equip them with the morals and skills to get them thru life with the least amount of trouble.

Phew. Blimey. That felt GOOD to let that all out.

reckon the line between the 'condition of early motherhood' and pnd can often be a bit blurred. it took me a long time to accept i might have the latter, but i tell you what, just a few months so far on meds has lifted me out of a hole i didnt even know i was in. (i say didnt know; i was suicidal and beside myself on the brink of proper madness trying to work out which was which)

have only just found this thread... and what a releif to do so! unsayable things... are a helluva burden imo/e. and the burden is on everyone, not just us mothers, so its to the benefit of our dc and aps that we can say them!

i am learning(or trying to learn) not to be disgusted wiuth myself for NOT being overthemoon happy to hang out all day every day and night with 3 under 3's (theyre under 6's now). thing is, my feeling guilty about feeling that way does nothing to help them or me, so why do it?

thank fuck for the antidepressants i say. took me 2 yrs to get my gp to give them to me but im glad i have them now! im sure i'll not need them forever...

favourthebrave - sorry if I misinterpreted your comments. I think you have a valid point regarding 'the condition of early motherhood'. Does every woman experience this to some degree? I wonder how women felt a couple of hundred years ago?

thanks for the supportive comments. This is a great thread and it really helps to know I'm not alone smile

I often find myself wondering whether I need to go on ADs or whether I am just tired and struggling to juggle the usual 2 kids/ work/house/wife/me thing.

Haven't found the answer tbh....

Am mighty relieved that it's not just me struggling with it all, and assuming that everyone else is coasting along with quality family time whilst I seem to be engaged in petty battles with my toddler and wishing I could get to grips with Unconditional Bloody Parenting (which in itself is a godawful phrase...)

sigh.

Favour - 'the condition of early motherhood' - that should be in medical journals!

god i SWEAR i thought i was the only one not sailing through motherhood!

especially when my friends (all childless) tell me how lucky i am and how they are all going to have four children. i feel like a hopeless person.

i know i'm lucky, i adore my dd. but god it is hard and relentless, especially when they are babies. i absolutely found the baby stage incredibly boring, i just sat on my arse all day in a dull flat while she fed and fed and fed.

flabby tummy, black eyes, bleeding nipples etc. i mean really, i felt disgusting. and you cant even enjoy a shower to make yourself feel better!

i do actually find it easier a lot of the time now that my relationship with her dad is over. a lot of this is because all i craved when we were together (despite loving him) was SPACE AND PEACE AND QUIET!

even though i get sleep now (dd is 4) i am still so overwhelmed with practicalities, juggling study, career prospects, work. my whole life reaches it's climax of joy with my 9pm wine. it's just that feeling that i cant head out the door willy nilly for a walk or a coffee or even loo roll. loss of freedom. however all of you with babies, once they reach four it gets a lot easier.

and i blardy HATE the park. with a passion.

I'm not saying PND doesn't exist I don't think, I just don't really know what it is. Like VickyPea's very honest and good post below - does she need Prozac or is it like she says just that she's a mother to two demanding children and all the rest on top. I mean is the condition of early motherhood one that makes you feel bad or is PND something quite different. It's a sincere question.

Motherinferior. I think it's just that happiness is more difficult to write about. Anne Enright managed it with her book, but they are rare.

Well ladies,
once again you have managed to put a smile on my face!
I'm lol reading this very truthful thread...keep em coming.....

Oops, missed the H out of whingeing and the agreed on the Prozac line ! Silly fingers typing too fast.

Thank you Santalucia, for this thread. Yesterday my dc were fighting (aged 6 and 2) and as I pulled them apart I really wanted to let go and hurt one of them for being such a total PITA. But I didn't. Then all day long I felt crap for being so bad tempered, for snapping at the constant "can i have, can I have" and the wingeing that I get when he (the 6 year old) doesn't get his own way. Eventually, losing my temper with the 2 year old for not wanting to eat his peas and sweetcorn, I ran upstairs and flung myself on the bed, started sobbing and for the first time ever, scratching my arms and pulling my hair until I felt so much better. Later that night I told my dh how I feel and both of us its time to up the Prozac again but I still felt the the world's most crap and bad tempered mum. But reading this, I know I am not, I'm just someone with two young kids, a full time job and a house full of dishes,ironing and the aforementioned Lego everywhere. God I love them but its bloody hard work !

honeydew, that sounds very tough

this thread is good for me, as I spent all day yesterday weeping about not being a SAHM

haven't you seen the adverts?

got PND?
take two asprin

you will be right - its like a mild headache.

grin

Favourthebrave

Are you suggesting that PND is just mothers struggling to deal with the selflessness of motherhood?

I'm sure it is a medical and recognisable illness but maybe I am wrong

There may be a 'huge amount of stuff putting down motherhood all the time' but underlying it you're always supposed to grin sheepishly and say 'of course, I wouldn't be without them for the world'. And to feel secretly and smugly sorry for people who have Forgone This Opportunity.

My best days over the past 11 years have all been days when someone else was looking after my dds. blush

Gee I love computers!

Dear Honeydew, Oh lord those are all the things I have felt too. Similar position re income etc. Know where you are coming from and hope it feels better to get it off your chest. Can only say that time does pass and inevitably things will change. This year I have finally booked myself into a night class and am hoping to get an evening/weekend job for money and company. These little things somehow didnt seem possible last year or the 8 years before.

lol pippi tis the other way around in my house. dh hates my smoking and refuse to quit because the only time i get to myself is the time i spend locked in the yard on my deckchair with my coffee and my cigarette. id go insane without those snatched minutes. and even then i have dd1 trying to unlock the backdoor and yelling that i have forgotten to turn over the tv/get her drink/unpeel her banana/give dd2 her bottle

barbie is now safely hid god knows where with her head looking slightly chewed but safely back on her neck!! dd1 is more than likely causing mayhem at the cinema but im not there so i dont care and dd2 is napping! its times like this i love motherhood ahhh...listen to that silence. grin

I had 3 children very close together ( 3 in 3 years and 2 months).

It has been so very hard and I freely admit that I may have decided against having children if I'd known what was involved. My parents encouraged me to have an education and become a professional,independent woman. They didn't teach me about motherhood or how to run a home. As an eighties girl, it was emancipation and career all the way which I pursued. I always thought I would have children though and being an only child, I wanted to have more than one if I could, as my experience was a lonely one. But as no-one prepared me for the practicalities of childrearing it hit me like car crash. I don't think I've ever come to terms with being a sucessful teacher one minute to being at home alone with a baby the next.Maybe part of me never will.

I'm extremely lucky in that my children are all healthy and very loving. But I cannot afford to go back to work due to very high childcare costs and the fact that my husband earns three times my wage in IT in the city compared to my middle management teacher's wage.

So we are having to manage on one salary in London as my DH can't get a similar wage elsewhere and I'm trapped as a housewife now. I have never been so exhausted and fed up in all my life if I'm honest. Of course, I adore my kids but I wish I could work even if just part-time and that my DH would support me more in the household chores.
I really feel married to my house and totally chained to the kitchen sink. Going out with 3 kids under 4 on my own is a total nightmare but if I stay in they make mess faster than I can tidy up! During the week, it's an endless round of pre-schools, boring play groups, the park or the playground.

The endless stream of cooking, washing, continuous tidying, dealing with poo, dressing/undressing them, etc etc... I find utterly overwhelming. shock

The emotional drain they place me is never ending and somedays I'm at my wits end.

I didn't have postnatal despression- more a kind of shift in my entire personality trying to cope with all their needs. ( DD4, DS3 and DD 16 months).I have gone from being a professional, smartly dressed, confident, attractive size 8 31 year old to an exhausted, badly dressed frumpy, baggy eyed, saggy boobed, size 14 36 year old trout. ( I know a size 14 is average but it looks big on my frame) I had two sections ( one emergency- the other planned due to complications) and my body is a wreck. sad

I just 6 years I have been transformed into Mrs Mop.

To top it all, I have a severely torn abdomen and an umbilical hernia which needs surgery. I get a free tummy tuck thrown in but next year I face a major operation that I really don't want. I can't even look in the mirror at my body- the bulging which makes me look 5 months pregnant and flabby bingo arms. Who is this woman?!!! I feel so ugly it's untrue.I'm still wearing maternity clothes because of this condition and my youngest is now 16 months!

I'm just a 1950\s housewife now {without the style smile

. My DH hardly helps me at all with the housework. He works long hours and wasn't brought up to keep house. I have no time to pursue my hobby or ambitions. I have MA in creative writing and would love to write but finding the time is out of the question.I scream at my kids like a hussy and have the patience of a knat. My marriage never gets any attention, my DH and I have never been away even for a weekend on our own for 5 years. We have very little family support and although I have lots of friends- they all have young children! So they bring them round to my house to create even more mess!

I've not had one night's sleep in 5 years either.

Motherhood is just about being a servant to your children and partner. If I had the money to employ a cleaner/nanny, a supportive family network and could work -part time , I'm sure it would be far easier to cope.

It was my choice to have children and I have taken full responsibility for that as a SAHM.I try to be the best that I can to them and love them dearly but the price I've paid is just too much. I've sacrificed my career, my financial independence, my freedom, my hobbies and become a drudge.

I want to be a good role model and work but I know I can't until my youngest is in school in 4 years time. If I had my time again, I'd have had just one child and gone back to work full-time. I feel very let down by feminism and society. The lack of affordable, quality childcare is a real issue for me.

I look back with sadness that all my daydreams and hopes for my own development have gone. Sound selfish but I feel my life has been entirely subsumed by the needs of others.

I totally resent the way everything revolves around the mother and not a father's role as well. The fact that my husband can have a career and children drives me insane.

I've had 5 yeas of groundhog day ( cooking, cleaning ,tidying etc) and have at least another 5 to look forward to before I can even begin claw some of life back.

It's not being a mother in itself I don't like because I adore my kids. It's the responsibility on a daily basis with no one to help, the sheer physical hard grind slaving for no pay, lack of personal time and total exhaustion. I feel it's just too much for one person and I find it really hard to cope alone with the isolation and entrapment within the home that this' job' brings.

People say to me that I'm giving them such a good start and how lovely my kids are and that is some comfort to me. Having a larger family does have rewards but sometimes it's hard to see. My neighbour has one child and they go out, can easily get baby-sitters, they get 'me time', she works from home and they have soooo much more disposable income. envy

Having 3 kids is often fun when they are all playing happily together and they'll grow up as a group which is great for them. I hope I change my view of motherhood as they get older as right now I'm stuck in a rut. I feel that feminism sold me lie about having both a career and children. Doing both for me has not been possible and I had to make a very difficult choice. Sorry for he long message- getting my feelings off my chest. smile

Who needs Diagnosis Murder or Murder She Wrote when we have the daily show. Episode 11356-Barbie Decapitation. Hey you can be someone from CSI, size 8, tight low rise slacks, perfect makeup etc. Take Barbie parts into low lit kitchen for forensic testing....Other thing sounds more of a Masterchef show and the judge-DD2, is coolly appraising the subtle blend of flavours with a roll around the tongue and the floor..... I think I may be away on one.

It is the best thing I have ever done and the worst thing I have ever done.

Yes a day off would be good - even a lie in but any time one is planned then both the kids have a sixth sense and do nothing but fight so I can't sleep anyway!

The bits I really hate are the unequal spread of the bloody boring chores - but think that's a whole other thread.

Don't get me started on the time he wastes smoking - not to mention the time he get's to himself because he smokes! Clearly I am jealous and I should take up smoking too......

Or is it 'Mothers' Day'? Doh.

There's always 'Mother's Day', I suppose. grin

It would be nice to be (to have the work) appreciated more, both by your children and family and by society. But that's a whole other (post-post-post...-feminism) discussion thread.

oh that sort of boredom? yes i get that i thought they meant the 'but they dont do anhything' boredom!

though i dont usually have to solve barbies murder everyday, there usually is some sort of drama centered around dd1 going on. or if dh is in its centered around dd2's eating and her lack of manners <she is 14 months old is it even possible for a 14 month old to have good table manners?>

but the wash/iron/tidy/dress/cook/washup/entertain/tell off/punish/praise pattern is boring but hetic at the same time.

I see what fatbag is saying.

There's a huge amount of stuff putting down mothering all the time. People think they're being rebellious by saying 'God, it's so boring' 'God, I don't care whether you put your blasted shoes on either' but they aren't. Everyone says this all the time, books are full of chaotic stressed unhappy mother's being a bit snide about the school gate. You can hardly move for columnists with dried baby porridge in their hair. They sort of celebrate how crap they are, how unpushy, how bored - as a way of marking out their individuality, and it does go on a bit. I have sat in parent and toddler sessions for YEARS talking like this. It seems commonplace to me, but that's no bad thing.

I don't even know what PND is really. Everyone seems to have it. Is it just that parenting is more bloody hard work than you've ever had to do before, and you have to think about someone other than yourself all the time, and we're all woefully unprepared for it. I felt like that. I felt like I'd been removed and replaced by a zombie. But I don't know if that is PND or just becoming a mom?

It feels like it hit our generation like a steam train. But it probably didn't, women have probably all been saying it for ages if we'd bothered to listen.

It is a conspiracy pushchair

One of the first celebrities to come out and admit PND was Brooke Shields and look at the flack she got for it

She still managed to pose for a magazine a few weeks after birth though with no doubt hundreds of mums wistfully lookingat said picture thinking 'if only'

She sells; isnt the boredom in doing that in some way every day, day after day. After day, after day.

Just found this thread and so glad other mums feel the way I do sometimes:
I hate the way everything precious of mine gets destroyed.
At bathtime I sit on the loo lid and listen to the archers.
I count the years until my youngest starts school [3 long years].
At dinertime I lock myself behind the stairgate in the kitchen, drink wine, surf the net and listen to the radio.
I get very frustrated that anything I do for ME gets interupted.
Its shocking to discover that the yummy mummies I thought were so in control, who said "hi!, yes great, yes we're all fine" are actually crying everyday into there wine like me.
This is where the shame and guilt come into it. Hardly anyone will come out and admit its horrible quite a lot of the time. Its a conspiracy.

motherhood is boring? those of you who said that please please tell me how you subdue your lo's long enough to become bored?

this morning alone i have solved the murder of barbie who was found decapitated this morning dd2 has been found guilty and was sentanced to an hour in a cage <her playpen> though barbies head was found in the dogs kenell hmm

i have also had the 'cinema' talk and put a stop to the attempted torture of dd2 and the dog <connected to the barbie murder> and stopped several escape attempts of dd2 from highchair/playpen/bouncer toy. and finally admitted defeat and called my mum to come and relieve me of dd1 who is a particulalry foul mood today due to being tired.

ah i get it you have babies? enjoy the boredom while its lasts <evil cackle>

raggety you make so much sense and I feel better now. We sometimes focus on the bad bits and forget the good bits as well I suppose.

Everyone remember that it is the fact that we are good mums and love our LOs that we keep going through the drudge and don't swap them for westlife CDs (that made me laugh, so thanks whoever said that can't remember!) grin

I remember once sobbing to DH that I was a terrible mother as all I wanted was for someone to come and take DD (about 5 months) away for the day.

He was so calm and brilliant and said "That doesn't make you a terrible mother. You just want a day off."

Didn't get it though!

Yes, there is no such thing as a holiday from this job!

The occassional day off would be nice...or even 20 days a year as is statutory requirement in most jobs.

I knew enough in advance to know it would be hard work and difficult. Even from my own childhood, I can remember my parents running round in a daze looking exhausted! I had a fairly realistic attitude towards it but it is still another thing actually living it.

I think it is like lots of 'grown-up' things in life. It is about deferred satisfaction rather than instant gratification. It is about long-term happiness and contentment, rather than immediate freedom and pleasure. It's not for everyone, nor should it be. where would we be without those people who don't have children but rather put everything they have into their career (and no, I am not talking about men!)

I see parenthood as like the equivalent of a very long education, including a 4-year PhD or whatever. It will be great to get the qualification at the end (happy son or daughter with stable relationships in a rewarding career?) but that is not enough of a motivation. You have to do it out of love of the process because, part-way through, it is a very daunting task and can seem interminable.

With parenthood, there is a lot of drudgery but, luckily, there are also lots of little smiles and giggles and proud moments and hugs and cuddles, lots of frustration and worry and guilt (and expenditure!!) but also lots of humour. The affection and the humour help during those times when you feel like you have no life any more.

Certainly, as a woman, it is more the norm to want to be a mother and you can justify your whole existence just by 'popping out a sprog' if you want to. But being a parent is no better or worse than not being one. It's just a different life and probably the biggest choice you will ever make. It shouldn't be a matter of peer pressure but rather a commitment you choose.

Ormiran, that struck a chord.

I keep looking at videos of me pregnant, out for a cream tea with my mum and friends, decorating the nursery, DH 'test driving' our pram around the local park, we took a doll in it, we though it was hilarious. and it was all so so rose tinted.

Now I am en route to divorce (nothing to do with having the DC mind), have all but lost my career and there is probably not even a metre of wall in my house that isn't covered in crayon/ felt tip.

All that said I love my DC more , sometimes, than I can bear.

OrmIrian I love that 'wasp on speed' grin

I have had a bad day so far. My DS is going through a phase of screeching at the top of his voice whenever I contradict him in any way. He also does not love his mummy at the moment, I am sure of it. So at lunch time when he sat at the table screeching at me because I wasn't making his lunch quick enough I just lost it. Screeched back at him (very mature) and chucked him out of the kitchen. We made up with some stories and cuddles but I find it so tough that he loves his daddy/granny/grandpa more as they never lose it like this with him.

Oh and I am gatting fatter and older and not achieving all the things I thought I would. Maybe it is a bit selfish to feel this way but when you have days like this you ask yourself if it is worth it. And of course you have plenty of days where you feel like it is but I thought my child would love me more and that would make it worth it. He is going to grow up despite me I think

As I said on another thread recently - I think being a parent is harder these days because children don't play outside unsupervised as much as they did when I was a child. Parents are now expected to entertain and interact with their children a lot more because of this and feel guilty if, like me, they are bored stiff after 5 minutes...

Before I became a sahm I had visions of spending my days at home baking and doing crafts with my kids. Needless to say they are far more likely to be found in front of the tv!

These are the last few weeks before my youngest starts school and tbh, i can hardly wait!

The worst of it is that I can still see the last fleeing remnants of the daydreams I used to have when they were tiny, about what it would be like to have children, what I'd be like as a mother. And it still seems so perfect and pastel-coloured. I have some footage taken with an ancient camcorder before DS#2 was born (DD was 2ish and DS~1 5 perhaps) when we all went for a walk and took some boats to float down a stream. I was so calm and my voice sounded so gentle. Now I look 20yrs older, I am about as calm and a wasp on speed, and my voice has a fish-wife tendency hmm

they should make this thread compulsory for all teenagers - before they shag around and end up pg at 15.

I think a lot of people feel they can write stuff on MN that they don't like to say to friends and family. Rather than bottle all these feelings up it is reassuring to read that you are not alone. I've found motherhood to be lonely despite having a lot of support and friends nearby and threads like this make me feel a bit better. and some of the posts have made me laugh too. so thanks all.

And it really doesn't help when people are quite insistant that "You wouldn't swap them for the world" and you smile and nod and agree and think that some days you'd swap them for a Westlife CD, even though they're rubbish.

Oh God I've felt that, I've looked at my oldest son sometimes and the way he is kind and sharing and generous and forgiving and jolly, and thought "How did you get to be so nice, I don't think I'm even that nice to you!"

And it hurts, it hurts me to think I'm not as nice to him as he considers it necessary to be nice to others.

essiew - I think that things have changed in the last few decades. Partly being more child-centred. Also 'parenting' is seen as a job - something to be done as near as dammit perfectly, rather than just what follows on after having a baby. But also, and I hate to say this, perhaps we are all allowed to be a little more self-centred. We are all consumers and can demand what we want! The reality of having to accomodate small demanding people that don't compromise clashes with that. It isn't possible to have the perfect lifestyle with children. They mess things up.

fatbag - if you dont like the thread or the views/ feelings/ expereinces expressed here....just walk away

there are thousands of threads on mumsnet - you dont have to like every one

"truly beleive that they are what they are inspite of me not because of me"

God, I've felt this.

I think you have a point Fatbag but I really thought the shame was in admitting you find it tough at times and that motherhood dosen't always live up to expectations. I never felt I could admit that. yet on the good days I will happily say how much I love my son and how wonderful he is.

For those of us who have suffered PND your comment about us just gleefully slagging off our children was a little insensitive

"Its the relish and triteness with which people voice their hatred and boredom, haven't seen much genuine shame, expressed, just a huge amount of gleeful slagging off"

Yes fatbag. I can see that too. I've posted on this thread and I can see how some of the posts might make you feel that. But I think many people are exaggerating for effect perhaps.

I love my children very very much. And I like them. I look at them growing up and I am amazed to see such likeable interesting human beings. And never for a moment do I regret having them. But I love being with them a lot more in retrospect, and in principle, than I do in reality. Unfortunately. I also look at them and truly beleive that they are what they are inspite of me not because of me. And that feels terrible.

There are several days a week where I dread the bedtime routine - even though I also often love that time of the day with DS as well. It's something about the routine of DS sitting in bath - squeezing the toys, pouring water and then the battle to get him dressed.

I do also often get feelings that there could be loads of other things I could be doing - or that I'm not able to do things I used ot love doing before. Like someone else earlier on this thread, I wish I had known more about the reality of all this - I would still have chosen to have a child but the gap between expectation and reality wouldn't have been so huge

But I still love parenthood - I was bored with my life before DS - definitely bored with drinking too much, having a lie-in. I love the quote earlier that the world is more colourful.

I keep trying to remind myself that the key thing is balance. And I also wonder if there's a lot here about society becoming more child-centred and that it is a negative step in some ways. We all feel we have to live up to the ideal of motherhood and that anything else (ie reality) is something to beat ourselves up about.

I love this thread.
I also love my DD, but I am not having any more children (out of choice)... HOORAY!

I mostly just want to go on holiday and lie on a beach for 2 weeks reading trashy magazines. Is that so bad?

I don't think fatbag IS trying to say its so great all the time.

I actually think she is trying to say the same things as many people on this thread, but from the opposite viewpoint. Yes?

Sorry - fatbag - although I hate typing that - is it all so great if you have chosen a name like that????

Surely not Fatbay (ashamed to admit how much you love them?).

I feel we are constantly bombarded by people telling us these are the best times, how lucky we are, how great it is, how we should have loads of children, how sad I should be to be back at work.

TBGP - that's not actually my opinion. And i understand that the genuine shame of feeling that sometimes (all the time?)you don't actually like your own children or want to be around them. But frankly I feel more shame and embarrassment at expressing any pleasure, pride or joy in my two - its just not done - much better socially to say how ghastly they are, how boring it all is. I think Snickersnack has the balance right.

Also don't expect people to post what they are not ashamed about, but I do feel really sheepish about saying to anyone, ever that I love my girls and I think they are fab,though. Off to wipe, wash, scrub and clean (I am ashamed of that being a Big cook Little cook reference).

Yes TBGP that's EXACTLY it!

Ladies, I think you should all put your heads together and write a book.

Send it to all the schools in the country (hopefully for compulsory reading) and by all means I think this might be the solution to problems with teenage pregnancy in the country!!

Right, I'm off to clean the floor (which is covered in my delicous homemade lunch) and try to convince DS1 to have a wee in the toilet. (Goodness, I promise I have had more exciting times).

Nobody is every ashamed that they don't like nappies and housework. People are ashamed when they don't like playing with their children, doting over sacred bathtime or having 'family time'. People are ashamed when they hide in the kitchen with a packet of biscuits and a copy of Heat rather than sit and chat to their children about what happened today. People get ashamed when they sell Peppa Pig as a fabulous treat when really it means the kids will glaze over in front of the idiot box and stop hitting each other.

I see this thread as having some serious bits and some tongue in cheek bits. Arent we all allowed to wallow occasionally?

Most comments are countered with "but I love my DCs"...

I understand the original point of the thread flack, but if you read what people have said it just seems to be the same old same old - nobody is genuinely ashamed that they don't really like changing nappies or endless house work are they? Its the relish and triteness with which people voice their hatred and boredom, haven't seen much genuine shame, expressed, just a huge amount of gleeful slagging off.

yeah, you see Fatbag, in your opinion children are the joy of the universe and stars of the heavens, and looking after them is a privilige and an elevation, but for many people it's not the housework tht's the problem, as you have assumed. IT'S THE BLOODY CHILDREN.

Some people DON'T find their children more rewarding than everything except sex. Some people are shocked to find that they don't find their children rewarding AT ALL.

And may I say, your post is exactly the sort of thing I used to say when I have one docile 15 month old baby, and I look back on myself and my smuggery and the scales have dropped from my eyes.

"Motherhood is so much more than and not at all what I expected." That's the point, exactly, I think - thank you DanceswithLordPottingtonSmythe! I said exactly the same thing to dh in floods of tears on Saturday when he said he didn't think I actually enjoyed being a parent very much. I do, I love it. But my god it's hard work and if I'd known all the hard stuff beforehand I'd certainly have thought carefully before embarking on it. I'd probably still have gone for it, but I wouldn't continually suffer the disappointment at the gulf between reality and my expectations.

Fatbag - I don't feel joyless. My children fill me with joy. For me the wonderful thing about this thread is that so many people feel exactly the same way I do. I don't think many people are saying they regret having children, just that there are aspects of it that they don't enjoy. And it's hard to talk to people about these. I agree with 95% of what's been written here, but have never once articulated it to anyone, even my closest friends.

Fatbag people are finding it cathartic to vent a little.

If it offends you so much perhaps this is not the thread for you.

fatbag, I think you are missing the point slightly

the general feeling I get from this thread is yes, its hard, yes its boring but we would not change it (not much anyway wink

)

Fatbag, the point of the thread is thoughtst that people are ashamed to admit -- no one is hardly going to say they're ashamed about how sweet, beautiful and funny their DC is, are they? hmm

DC are fighting and I'm ashamed to admit I'd quite like to lock them in their rooms for rest of the day, truth.

Urgfh. The endless feeling of being on a treadmill. It's relentless.

I hate this thread - its not really unspeakable is it? This kind of thing is always in the media. Its so disingenuous to say that this stuff is never voiced - everyone seems to say this kind of thing all the time and think its okay, not many threads about how amazing and beautiful children are, are there? Kid stuff is dull sometimes - but is/was everything you do fascinating and scintillating all the time?

And the vitriol - I can't bear it, perhaps venting like this helps, but it just seems to make things worse as everyone is confirming the awfulness of it all. And why so horrible to mid-wives and mother and toddler coffee mornings and the NCT and teachers? If you don't like them - avoid them, but everyone seems to be bloody glad when the teachers take over 5 days a week, for most of the year.

Its not that I'm not going through all these things and don't feel as bored, cross,crowded, tired, sore as the rest of you, I do (my fantasy is to just walk out the door and keep walking), but it doesn't need saying over and over. Of course housework is dull and repetitive, but so is admin and going to work and other people and partying and traveling and shopping and sex and any number of activities if you have to do it all the time - that's just life and god, children are more rewarding than any of those (apart possibly from sex).

I am going to get slammed for this, and I am really sorry if you are genuinely feeling grim and having a hard time (I guess some of this stems from the never ending summer holiday), but the joylessness and meanness here, makes me sad.

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The Motherhood Delusion