Has my experience of motherhood made me a completely insensitive?

[Satontheseeat]

My partner left me mid pregnancy. I have loving parents but they are also dysfunctional in many ways. They weren’t really there for me in any proper practical sense other than financially when it all went wrong with ex. I am of course grateful for the financial support! And it did help.

However, my dd is now 3 and whilst ex is in her life since age 1, he wasn’t around at all for the first year and has literally never had her overnight. His choice.

I work in an international business and have extreme pressure. I have not had a full night of sleep for years. I didn’t have anyone to nip out and get things for dd when I had forgotten extra nappies or something. I had nobody to look after us when I was unwell. I had to crawl to change her nappy one as I was in some much pain with an illness.

I’ve done every wake up, every appointment, every nursery run, every meal time. The list goes on.

So the issue…. Whilst I haven’t been great with romantic relationships (clearly!), I have always been lucky to have a wide range of friends and a few I am very close to. Since they have also had children, I have found it really frustrating that they don’t just get on with things. The same with colleagues complaining about childcare issues. I just want to say for god’s sake get organised and stop moaning!

I realise this is likely a product of what I’ve been through. I do most things on autopilot and a weekend alone doesn’t phase me as I just make plans and I sort things out. Friends and siblings seem to flounder around and go from one chaotic moment to another and want sympathy among the way.

One close friend has a partner who does absolutely nothing and she is in essence a single parent. She is the most together, organised and calm person. Is this because she has to? I don’t know.

I used to be so empathetic. Extremely caring. But now I just despair of people who don’t crack on and get on with the day. I know I’m being unfair because everyone’s circumstances are different but I just can’t help it. I presume this is a result of what I’ve experienced but how can I try and regain more sensitivity?

Yes, it is this exactly. Thank you 💐

Same with the op. If I knowingly moaned about parenting to a busy loan parent, whose ex left her in the lurch, I would tell myself, in no uncertain terms, to STFU.

I think some thought reframing (and long term maybe even some counselling to help you process what you have been through with your lack of support network) would help you a lot here.

You have been through an awful lot. You have obviously done amazingly so it seems sad to me to say you hate yourself for feeling this way because you feel your words are empty.

This is where the reframing comes in - when you see those messages from your friends and those feelings of frustration come up (which leads to negative feelingd) maybe you could acknowledge that but reframe it as, "I had to go through all this myself, this is something I should be really proud of, and now I have come so far I am in a position to give support to other people."

Then you can take a step back, not worry that you're being negative toward yourself, and also that might help remove the feeling of emptiness in your words you are describing. Because you've already addressed your feelings toward the differences in experiences between you and your friends, and your frustrations.

I don't think you sound insensitive by the way. It sounds like you care a lot but like all of us, you carry your own experiences with you and it sounds like those years were a lot.

I’m a pretty resilient person, I won’t bore you with the details of the shit I’ve had to overcome but I promise you it’s more than many.

I also find parenting pretty hard at times, despite having just one child, enough money and a supportive husband. That’s fine, I’m allowed to find hard things hard, and it doesn’t make me a wet wipe or a victim or whatever other word people are enjoying throwing around on here to make themselves feel better.

I also find it quite tedious when the old ‘I had 3 kids under 5 and my husband worked away and I had no family or friends and I just got on with it’ posts get thrown out. A lot of those things are choices to be honest - some of us chose to have fewer children, to stay nearer to support networks, to wait until we were in the position where we could choose to go part time or whatever if it was what worked best, to choose a partner who would be around. It doesn’t necessarily make us weaker or undeserving of empathy when despite those advantages we still find bits of parenting hard.

Of course nobody can plan for exes being abusive or just callous twats who leave you in the lurch, or illness or bereavement and I’m in absolute awe of the women who are able to carry on and do a great job raising children despite such difficult circumstances (I was raised by one and know many others), I wouldn’t personally choose to vent to someone I knew had more challenges than me at present, but I really hate the common trope on mumsnet that to struggle, feel overwhelmed or expect/ need any support with parenting at all makes you weak and pathetic.

I haven’t had a challenging experience like you (I’m married and my parents are practically though not financially helpful) however feel exactly the same. I feel like screaming ‘just fucking get on with it’ as people make a meal of life. It’s hard for all of us at times, but continual ineffectual whinging won’t help will it.

YABU. It’s all relative. There will be another level of hardship above yours and I’m sure you would want other people to empathise with you for something you may struggle with, rather than think of you with disdain.

I don’t think YANBU at all but everyone’s perspectives are completely different. Everyone has different thresholds for what they can tolerate.

I don’t think you have lost your empathy; I’m sure when genuinely bad things happen to your friends you are kind and thoughtful.

But getting into thought cycles of ‘I can deal with it, why can’t they’ will drive you mad. Just let it wash over you like a wave. Be thankful that your friends’ biggest problems seem trivial to you. I know you wouldn’t wish that they had the same hurt you have.

It’s a hard one op, I get while you feel like that, but then we could all ignore people’s woes comparing them to things that happened to us, that doesn’t mean that person isn’t having a tough time too.

I think it depends on what you are used to.
When I had one child I didn't know how people with 2 managed.
At least when baby was awake during the night, she might sleep later in the morning and so would I so that used to help me relax.
I used to think , imagine if I had to be up with a toddler in an hour.
We do what we have to do.
I have 3 kids now.
Im always surprised how people have time to spend an hour putting kids to bed, but they do.
There's a 5 year gap between my oldest and youngest spending an hour with one and leaving the others downstairs for an hour was not an option.

Well your child is only little still- there are different challenges when they get older and start school for example. Children can also vary widely. I raised elder DS without his dad in the picture at all but he slept through the night for 12 hrs solid from 6 months old. Younger DD has a great dad who shares parenting equally but she didn’t sleep properly until she was 4 & I felt far more drained with younger DD as I didn’t sleep properly for years. Children may be ND, have physical issues or just be more hard work than other kids. People might be in abusive relationships, have useless partners, be in poverty, live in a poor area etc. There are so many variables.

Both my parents died when I was in my early 30s. I have no siblings. I have no living children as I could never carry a pregnancy to term and I’m too old to have children now. I have however been told I’m SOOOOOO lucky not to have children to worry about or elderly parents to care for. I’m SOOO lucky to have so much disposable income (no one knows about the 50k of IVF debt I ended up with) and also all those lie ins I can have at weekends! So amazing apparently! I have learned not to complain about any aspect of my life to friends. But also accept that they will moan to me. If my friends couldn’t complain to me about their parents or children they’d have nothing to talk about and I’d have zero friends. The art of nodding and smiling has been lost these days. I’m a pro.

I understand completely OP. I've been through a lot of very serious stuff. I feel the same way. It's not that I don't care, I do. My life still demands a lot. It bothers me but I've come to the conclusion that the reason I feel that way is that I don't have the emotional energy to spare anymore.

There's an analogy someone gave me. We are like cups. We can only give from the overflow of a full cup. If our cup is empty, there is no overflow. Mine is empty. I can give to my family fully but there is next to nothing left for outside that. Emotional exhaustion.

Op, I think actually that what you are feeling is only partially the result of all the things you have had to overcome. Someone said to me when my dc were small that when you have children, some of your friendships suffer because you realise your parenting styles/approaches are so different. And I think this is partially what you are experiencing, exacerbated by your naturally capable, "get on with it" approach being super charged by your situation.

I think i am a middle ground parent in terms of i definitely just get on with things and get frustrated when people are totally useless, but i do get overwhelmed sometimes and can drop balls. The super super in control parents scare me and the clueless ones drive me mad! 🤣🤣🤣.

Also, inknow 2 women with sort of similar hurdles as you and they are both great parents on a day to say basis but absolutely useless at all the admin and logistics and yes, their children miss out as a result in recent weeks these kiss have missed school performances, a leavers party, a birthday party. And those are just the ones i know about.