I'm prepared to get flamed for this, but I've had enough. I can't contain this desperation and rage a moment longer.
I love my little boy to the ends of the earth. I would never do anything to hurt him and will protect him until my last breath. I am a conscientious parent. Some would say an overly anxious one. BUT!
He boils my blood. He is a tiny, irrational narcissistic dictator who does his absolute best to find new ways to rattle me at every opportunity. Of course he is. He's 2.
So surely it's within the bounds of normal to find this mind-bendingly irritating, right? To be so tired and wound up at the end of a working day that it takes all the energy in my knackered old body to not scream "JUST BRUSH YOUR FUCKING TEETH!" after 10 minutes of firm but gentle persuasion. To want to shout "For the love of all that is holy KEEP STILL!" when I watch him restlessly twitching every part of his body in a bid to keep himself awake at the end of a fun and tiring day. To look at him occasionally and think "I wish you weren't here right now" so I could have a massive gin, an hour long bath and go to bed knowing I won't be woken up by the sound of his voice at 5.30am.
Of course, I don't act on any of these feelings. Instead I cuddle him, remind myself how much I love him and how brilliant he is, and when all else fails I walk away and count to ten. Eventually I feel the tension in my body subside, I look forward to spending more time with him and I feel immense guilt at having felt any of those feelings at all.
And here's where my bugbear starts. Why do I feel so crushingly guilty about these feelings? Why have I, until now, never spoken of them honestly to anyone else? Why does it feel like a dirty little secret?
I'm convinced there is a conspiracy around motherhood. A veil of silence that it's dangerous to perforate. Because I have a uterus and the (frankly weird, though remarkable) ability to grow another human inside me and then get them out without either of us dying (mostly, often with hideous consequences that also go unspoken - that's another post) I am expected to have an innate tolerance of all of these massively time consuming, irritating, often boring interactions. One look at mum related websites, blogs, news article and adverts confirms this with the added threat of "Now shut up and be grateful".
Where did this come from? Who was the first female human to raise a child and think "this is a breeze and I am blessed"? If we relied on men to raise our children; to do the majority of endless night wakings and constant changing of sicky clothes and entertaining and unending negotiations and plain old boring drudgery of it all, would we expect them to do it effortlessly? Where is the male Madonna? Clad in regal blue. Glowing, ethereal, smiling and beautiful? Where are the politicians and journalists calling for men to be more responsible, compassionate or 'paternal'? Where are the men writing columns or presenting TV programmes about their struggle with their ambivalence towards having children, or the guilt they feel for not being the father society thinks they should be (there have actually been a very small number of these in recent years, for which I am grateful. If I had the energy to find the articles and cite them I would).
My husband tells me that men and women divulge their parental low points to him quite freely. I envy him. I can't help but think this would not happen were he a woman. It certainly doesn't happen to me.
Maybe I'm a frosty fucker. Work colleagues seem to think 'approachable' is one of my greater strengths, so maybe there's something else at play here. Maybe the myth of motherhood is a useful narrative for some people. I doubt those people are women.
I'm sure there are mothers out there who would never think such dark or unwholesome thoughts about their children. Let's call them, for the sake of argument, the Natural Mothers; as whatever is 'natural' about motherhood (genes? gestation? nurture?) is so ambiguous it's an arbitrary title. I imagine a few of them will be along here soon to tell me I need help. I take my hat off to them. Clearly they have skills that I lack.
But let us be pragmatic for a second: Statistically, what percentage of all women who give birth will fall into this Natural Mother category? I suspect (as, given to bias, I suppose I would) that they are in the minority.
This being the case, who does the Natural Mother trope serve? I, for grace of god, biology, or down and dirty luck, conceived, gestated and gave birth to my son naturally. Whatever that means. And it sure as hell doesn't serve me.