I'm a terrible mother

[CinnabarRed]

Just that, really.

I work full time, as does DH. We have a nanny from 8 until 6 looking after our boys. 3DSs aged 6, 4 and 2.

I mostly work because I prefer it to being at home.

DH is away all weekend and it's been awful. The boys have behaved badly and I have spent all day cajoling, punishing and shouting.

The lowest point was bath time. DS3 had a meltdown. I forced his clothes off him, forced him into the bath, forced him to wash and then dragged him out. It was awful. Abusive. All 3 were crying as I ranted at them that they were naughty, and needed to understand that they made me sad with their behaviour.

I have to leave, don't I?

They deserve better than this.

Enjoy the film

Cinnabarred, I have often seen your name on various threads and have been struck by how thoughtful, empathetic and supportive you can be.

I wonder if you could read your posts as though someone else had written them? What would you say? I bet you wouldn't call them a terrible mother. You would pr

You might guess that they were exhausted, having a bad weekend, but were probably a pretty good person having a pretty tough time.

I have no real advice, but like others have said, you are not alone in feeling like this once in a while. Three children age six and under and a demanding job? Of course you're feeling frazzled.

What advice would you give to the OP if it wasn't you?

I read something really useful on MN recently: when you were at school/college, getting an 'A' grade in an essay or piece of coursework meant getting 70%...so if you get 70% of stuff right in a day then you are a A grade parent.

60% and you're still a 'B'....that's a fair amount of fuck ups and still a reasonable grade :-)
Why do we feel this need to get everything g absolutely right all the time?? I don't get every little thing perfect at work, or when I am driving...so why expect to get it all right when parenting?

It sounds like you are doing a brilliant job in trying circumstances. I only have one DC (an 18mo handful of a DS!) so i think you are superwoman!

One more thing: I had PND and a major part of my symptoms was feeling anger/rage and not being able to control my temper towards my DS. Some CBT really helped me with this and have me some practical techniques to help me deal with it when the red mist was descending. Might be worth talkin to your GP?
One technique I found really useful was taking a deep breath in and out whilst saying the word ohhhhh-kaaaay - a more useful version of 'counting to 10'...just gives me a few seconds of headspace to think how to react before yelling at him when he is driving me bonkers.

So. DH got home at lunchtime yesterday. I'm not sure how I feel about it all

I'm going to give it a month, and if I still feel this way I'll go back to the GP.

I've signed up to a parenting class which starts at the end of September.

Glad you survived. Does signing up for the class feel positive?

Hello,

How much relaxation/me time/hobbies/keeping fit - do you get? is it just work/travel to work/try and stay on top of everything? because if it is then that's what you need address - a work life balance.

atb

That's a good plan, positive steps.

You mention nanny works 8-6.

Are you always first home from work, not your DH?

Ask DH to be the first one home once a week, and to do bedtime alone, while you go to yoga, or something you like doing. One child free day. He can have one too.

And pay nany to stay until 8pm once a week, so you have an extra pair of hands for bedtime.

I think that would help me, in your shoes. It's fucking hard.

Yes, I'm last to leave in the morning and first home every evening.

DH doesn't get that every single second of my life is scheduled to wring the maximum productivity out of it. He drives me insane stopping me in the middle of a chore to ask for a kiss or a cuddle. Surely they're not worth having, if you have to ask for them? And I wish he'd stop telling me that chores can wait and to do them later - when exactly am I supposed to make more time, as the jobs stack up?

That is a shit deal. To be permanantly at work or with the kids is bollox. Tell him things need to change.

He needs to do one morning, and one night. One day a week you don't see the sprogs til you get in from work, another you won't see them until the next morning once you've left at 8a.m.

And Nanny can stay two extra hours once a week to help you with a bedtime.

He's taking the piss.

On the other hand - let the jobs stack up sometimes, I'll give him that. But not to kiss him because he wants it, only if you want it too.

My mantra when it comes to arguing with kids/ house work/ life:

"It Is Better to be Happy, than to be Right."

Focus on happiness. If the grubby dirty kids go to bed in messy bedrooms, and the dishes are by the sink, so be it.

Have you tried to explain to him or does he not get it despite being told?

There's a really good book called Wifework which talks about all the invisible tasks and jobs which generally get assigned to women - do you think he might read that? It might give him some understanding.

Cooking, mowing and sometimes shopping is nothing. That's maybe 3% of the workload. Less if he doesn't have to think about what to cook or what to buy. It sounds like he's trying to be supportive but somewhere in his head he feels like most of the stuff is done by magic fairies, not the real, actual you. I don't think you're a bad parent or not cut out for this, I just think that you are coping with a LOT - working full time, 97% of the household stuff, childcare of three boys who are at challenging ages (and whatever the reason for it boys are often more physical and/or exhausting)

When is your downtime? When do you get a chance to sit back and enjoy it and feel that it's fun? If you're not getting time to do that then it's never going to feel fun or easy because it isn't. It's not you! You aren't getting enough support! Your husband needs to step out of his dream world where everything is great and nice and fun and easy, because parenting three boys between 2 and 6 ISN'T easy and the fact that he thinks it is whereas you're literally considering leaving should be a huge massive wake up call for him.

Some people... I just don't get how some (men, usually) can be so clueless when their other half is so stressed out and worn out from literally doing every thing and they aren't noticing.

I said on another thread recently that it helped me a lot to shift my thinking, rather than seeing parenthood as a task, to see it as a relationship.

But, again, that only works if you have the time to relax about it and let it be a relationship. You can't get away from the fact that there are a lot of tasks and responsibilities in childcare/parenting. Yes changing the focus helps, but you can't ignore the tasks altogether. And if you only have time for the task part, you can't focus on the relationship, which in turn makes the tasks harder, because kids especially of that age will resist you, push at you, test the relationship constantly especially if it's strained because you don't have time to spend on it.

You need downtime for you, and you need downtime with the kids where you don't have to worry about baths or behaviour incentives or feeding them or anything.

I'm not sure how you get from argument with a 2 yo to 'I need to leave'. You have 3 dc, surely you can remember what horrors the other two were at that age. Also you must have loved having dc to get to 3. You must be depressed.

Rather than thinking about leaving your dc, which would be unfair on them, perhaps change your working hours so you aren't trying to cram all of your parenting into a few short hours a day.

I get what your saying about bad behaviour and can honestly say that my over-exuberant nearly 4yo is much easier to deal with if I give him more attention and don't try and cram too much into the day.

I've also man handled him in and out of the bath whilst shouting when he was 2. Awful times when everything is a battle .

Its good you are trying to find ways to improve your parenting but please stop thinking of yourself as a bad parent.

Perhaps a holiday to get a bit of joy back into your lives. Or a night off on your own, or with dh or a friend. Be kind to yourself.

I agree that that some men really don't understand EVERYTHING mothers do. (It could be reversed in some relationships as well, of course.)

My DH thought for awhile that because he went out to work every day he was "doing more" than me until I asked him what our childrens' pediatrician's name was. And when was the last time he bought either of them an article of clothing. And what size shoe they wear. And who does the Christmas shopping, and plans the birthday parties, and cuts nails, and schedules haircuts and dentist appointments, and knows the classmates and their parents, and volunteers at the school...

He apologized. Profusely. :)

Cinnarbar Could I just ask you when was the last time you had time to yourself, ideally time away on your own?

And how frequently do you get time to yourself generally? If someone asked you how you recharge your batteries (ie what you would do to achieve this) what would your answer be?

Because it sounds like you are very much running on empty. And that's a pretty grim way to exist for any length of time. I'm not surprised you feel that you've nothing left to give to your children.

I don't think it's you, it's not something about you as a person that means you can't be a good mother. I think it's your life at the mo, and your over-responsibility, that's not letting you.

My DH thought for awhile that because he went out to work every day he was "doing more" than me until I asked him what our childrens' pediatrician's name was. And when was the last time he bought either of them an article of clothing. And what size shoe they wear. And who does the Christmas shopping, and plans the birthday parties, and cuts nails, and schedules haircuts and dentist appointments, and knows the classmates and their parents, and volunteers at the school...

My DH would say none of that stuff is important.

He's a classic Disney day at weekends. Wants to spend the whole time playing but ignores the washing, or the washing up, or the hoovering. Because all of that can get done later, right?

He also really resents it if I arrange for our family to spend time at the weekend with friends and their families. He thinks it should be just us.

I get a bath to myself each Saturday and Sunday evening while DH puts the boys to bed - so roughly 6 until 8.

Oh Cinnabar. It sounds like an utter grind. I've spoken to you before on here and you are very organised and together. This is a blip. It's bloody hard work parenting. And I only had one. And I didn't work. And I had help. Its a grind.

Your boys are at a hard stage. They probably wind each other up. They are full of energy. And you are an organised do-er. And its hard with three.

Do you do anything for DH? Ie sort his laundry, dry cleaning etc? Because I would be temptd to stop for now. After all - it doesn't matter does it? In his words.

I had help with DS two afternoons a week but I resisted help at weekends as I felt it should be just us. DH would have liked a babysitter/nanny for a few hours each weekend - daytime - we didn't have an issue with nighttime.

I didn't work. Had help and still found it a slog at times.

So. I am not sure how you are fanancially but if you can afford a cleaner once a week I would do that. Remove as much of the negatives of running the house as you can afford to.

Boys can be boisterous. Can you sign them up for football or something similar eat weekends. My DS did football from age 4. It filled Saturday mornings if DH was away. And gave him and DS something to do if he was around.

I'm having issues with my 'parenting' skills and DH at the moment. And DS is almost 13. We parent differently. I'm a shouter. He is.... Well I'm not sure really but he seems to plead a lot! Drives me bonkers.

So. You are not a terrible mother. You have three boys which is bloody hard work. And we are not all born Mary Poppins types!

Keep posting. Lots of help and support on here.

Sorry if thus is disjointed but have had some wine!

This is a blip.

More likely burnout.

It would be appalling management for the lynchpin to burn out.

OP, you have my complete sympathy - you are working flat out and, at this point, not getting any pleasure or satisfaction from your efforts. It is no wonder you are miserable and exhausted. The fault is not in you at all - you are obviously trying very hard. The problem lies in the circumstances of your life at the moment - full-time job, three very young, lively children who require a great deal of attention, and very little support or help.

The trouble is that as soon as one shift ends (your full-time job), another starts in the form of looking after your three boys. You have not specifically stated it but I gather that they are noisy, demanding and competitive a lot of the time, which is completely natural at their age and given the fact that there are three of them. Little boys often act "as a pack" when together and can egg each other on to be silly and can be very hard to control, let alone enjoy. If you are being left with them most of the time, you must feel you never get a moment of relaxation or "me time". It's no wonder you sometimes feel like walking out on the whole chaotic situation!

I think, to save your sanity, you have to drastically rethink, and restructure, your weekends as, unlike when you are at your full-time job, this is time which is (technically!) under your control. The reason a lot of parents - both stay-at-home and working - find weekends stressful is that they are unstructured and therefore have the potential to become both boring and chaotic. Children of this age unfortunately need organization or they rapidly make their own entertainment in the form of fighting or unruliness!

The first step is to get your husband on board and persuade him that charity begins at home! The boys and running of the household are fifty per cent his responsibility. Either he takes the boys out while you sort out the household chores in a quiet house or you both take them out for a change of scene and look after them together. I think it is vital to put quality time with your children before anything else at the weekend - as well as this being good for them (and what childhood is all about), it makes things easier for you as hopefully you will have tired but happier children to deal with in the evening. For three boys, I would take them all out for most of the day to a National Trust property or similar where is plenty to do for several hours - gardens to run in and play hide and seek, a play park with swings etc. Take a picnic, let the boys help to choose the food (and treats) and make eating lunch part of the fun. Or, take them all to the tearoom and have a snack there. Vary the place you go from week go week but try to have a day, or most of a day out each weekend. The boys will love it (despite the fights!) and you will have a change of scene and some fresh air. Nearer to home, on the other weekend day, get your husband to take the boys out to play football in the park, to the cinema, or bowling.

Plan the weekend, make it enjoyable (and energetic for the boys!) and you may find things improve a lot. You are in the middle of the most demanding and tiring part of your boys' childhood - things will get better, OP! Don't lose faith in yourself - you are doing a great job even though you don't realise it.

It definitely sounds like your DH needs to do more. It's easier to cook dinner and take them out to fun stuff than it is to do bathtime, bedtime and daily discipline. Why does he only do bathtime at weekends?

Since you both work FT he should be doing 50% of everything. My DH is the only one WOH at the moment but he still does bathtime and bedtime at weekends, cooks a lot etc. And we only have 1 DS! With 3 it really needs to be all hands on deck, all the time.

It sounds to me like your DH does the fun stuff but not the boring grind of parenting - school admin, lunch and uniform prep, enforcing discipline and daily clean up. Anyone can do the fun stuff but daily battles and discipline and clean up is exhausting. That's the work of parenting. The fun stuff is easy!

Hi Cinnabar. If a bath on Sat and Sun is your only time to yourself then that's not enough. As a wise PP said above, at the mo you are merely going from one shift (work) to the next (home).

I think right now, because you've hit rock bottom, you need to take emergency measures and get some time away to yourself. Could you do an overnighter or two in a hotel? (Or whatever activity you can identify which would recharge your batteries).

Then once you have a bit more to give, you need to think how to change things at home. With dividing things with your husband, with working as a team, with maybe getting a cleaner if at all possible.

Believe me I have been where you are now (hitting rock bottom, being a pretty poor parent and very aware of it, thinking I was going to stop breathing because of the crushing feeling of responsibility and the never ending things I had to think about and remember).

For me some time away to myself was essential, I needed to recharge my batteries before I could actually take any steps to improve my situation.

Take care of yourself in these difficult circumstances. You're doing better than you know.