I am making this post as I am thinking that surely someone else feels the same way. Perhaps a younger mother who has just had a new baby and feels like a failure, or even someone with older children like me who still makes mistakes, yet still feels ashamed and defective sometimes.
Originally, I thought I'd make less mistakes as my children got older. Instead, they are growing, changing and adapting, becoming little adults and I seem to messing up more and more.
My circle of friends are very 'well to do' and quite frankly bullshit everything. I'm the oddity of the group in the fact that I am not middle class, etc... and without stereotyping, these group of friends are different from other friends I have had.
They don't share if they are struggling, or if their baby kept them up all night. Or if their teenager is being moody, grumpy and disobedient. Instead they gloss over everything, saying all is perfect and well within their family homes.
And for some of them it may well be, but I am of the thought that at least one of them must be like me, messing up sometimes and just not admitting it.
I think I am a good mother, or at least I try to be, but sometimes I lose it. Today I arrived home from work to find piles of washing up from my 16 year old daughter who has no lessons or work on Wednesday's. After doing an 11 hour shift I was shattered, the sight of the washing up got my hackles up. Then when I opened the door going into the lounge, my daughter had decided to leave the very full bin up against the door instead of emptying it, meaning rubbish fell all over the floor. My daughter was lounging around on the sofa, watched me pick up the rubbish and boom, I lost it. Shouted "are you just going to sit there and watch me pick up this fucking rubbish?!"
I apologised after. We spoke. She said sorry for not doing the washing up and leaving the bin near the door.
So yes, I fucked up and I'm not proud. But I refuse to believe I am the only mother who has lost it, screamed or shouted at her children. Day to day I definitely don't, but God there have been moments where I'm so overwhelmed I do just lose it.
I know I'm an adult and should know better, but even I have my breaking points.
Then there were the things that happened with my kids when they were babies.
One time my daughter's father put her on the changing table and she rolled off. Another time it was the sofa. I fell asleep once in the lounge with my toddler and woke up to the toddler in the kitchen playing with the rubbish from the bin. Another time my daughter got hold of a washing up capsule, which I then had to prise from her mouth before she tried to chomp it down. And of course I've lost my children before, one time a shop having to go into lockdown because my two year old daughter was hiding in a shop cabinet because I took my eyes off for her two seconds.
Over the years, I have made so many mistakes. Yet my two children are now 16 and 13, well rounded and happy and I am proud of them.
So AIBU to think that the mistakes I've made, whilst not something to be proud of, are fairly mainstream? And that most parents have lost it during their years of parenting at least once?
I always try to be a better mother, but I feel like I surely can't be the only one who has fucked up multiple times.
I suppose I feel like there's a large pressure to be a perfect mother, whereas no one is and this pressure can be damaging. Especially to new, vulnerable young mums who are unsure and won't realise it's normal not to be perfect.