prompted by another thread, sign hear if you love your kids but DON'T enjoy motherhood

[cheeryface]

feel guilty now

Ah, you see, Aloha, I do look at them and envy them. Even though I wasn't always very happy when I didn't have children, and I wanted children, and I was quite miserable about the prospect of not having children.

never happy you mi

But lots of life is boring and stressful. Though I admit there are aspects of being a mother that is pure exquisite torture. Bickering is what makes my head explode.

You'd be utterly miserable without your children MI, and don't pretend otherwise!

I think, seriously, that what makes a lot of us find parenthood extremely stressful is that we carry so much of it alone (see the babysitting thread that's going on at the moment).

I am like MI, I too envy childless friends their unlimited lie-ins at the weekend, trips to the cinema any night they like and seemingly care-free ives.
But i remind myself that when I was childless and single all I wanted to have was a family.
I am also with Enid on the whole time to myself thing. I work a morning a week at the moment and make it longer by going to lunch afterwards (Either with friends or on my own). I used to get a whole day free off but I found myself at 4pm clock watching until it was time to pick the kids up.
Mad isn't it?!!

I seem to have rather a lot of close friends who, despite trying, cannot have children. That makes me thankful for what I have (tbh I don't envy either but I understand I am probably on the wrong thread )

So who's looking after 'em now? Dh is up to his ears in bathwater (well, not literally) and fluffy towels upstairs...I am 'working'.

Yes MI its hard for you you have no family or close friends nearby is that right?

I am 'just tinkering with the organic delivery order'

(sorry, feel like I interrupted a private conversation with my rantings!)

It's just life... bits are bad, bits are good. If you enjoyed things all the time that would be the norm and therefore you would have to do more extreme things to get more intense emotions... like celebrities going off the rails! The boredom and tedium and all those things make it possible to love and enjoy the day your child walks in with his hand behind his back and then goes "TADA, a flower for you!" As he presents you with a squashed dandelion.

Of course one could argue that getting a squashed dandelion is hardly fulfilling and only seems so because motherhood can be so mind numbing and draining at time...

I've got plenty of close friends, but no relatives.

Last saturday I sat and had lunch with two childless/free couples. One lot seemed to me to live a sort of retired peoples life and seemed much older than dh and I though we are the same age (forties), and the other had been through multiple IVFs and nearly died.

Love my kids to the end of the earth, but really dont like motherhood from about 6mnths til talking.

Just starting to come out the other end with DD1 who is 3 next month.

lol compo

so do your close friends babysit?

I am feeling much more myself now dd is nearly two and a half, tbh.

I've just decided this weekend to go back to work fulltime, because although I do adore ds, I get far too bored and frustrated alone at home with him all day. And my energy goes into being a harridan over things instead.

Yes, but as they don't have kids they also have a life. And it's not, obviously, just babysitting. There is a sense in which a lot of us are effectively going it alone in our nuclear units, all of us side by side.

It is something I have found school helps with immeasurably - that sense of community, and other parents in similar circumstances.

god but arent childless friends a bit of a godsend though

they make fabby babysitters and you never have to reciprocate

I have days when I envy childless people because I would like the ability to be spontaneous and go to bed with dh in the middle of the afternoon or bugger off to the cinema at the drop of a hat but on the whole I do enjoy motherhood, I really do. I found the shock of my first child very hard and I hated it for the first couple of years but I think now (after nearly 10 years of being a parent) I've grown into it and I enjoy it much more often than not. I especially love my Fridays at home with dd (who is 3.6), we have a fab time.

But I think dh and I do a good job of making sure we each get our necessary bits of solitude, for example I spent an hour in the bath this morning calling friends and then we went for a pub lunch with dd today (ds was away with his dad) and dd and I both slept for an hour afterwards. When dh woke her up he left me to sleep too. (she was up at 5.30am and it was my turn to get up so I needed it)

The thing is, in some ways the worst bit is how much you love them. It is like fish hooks in the brain. You cannot disengage. So that even when they are driving you insane, and every rational bit of your body and mind just wants to walk out of the door and keep walking, you can't because that instinctive love thing is keeping you there.

I found the baby years almost unbearable. I suppose it was made worse by having no family around whatsoever and a husband who was travelling for work.

I don't think anyone enjoys every single bit, all the time. I don't think I'm naturally suited to being a mother but I muddle on .

I enjoy my children 1 at a time. I find all 3 at once incredibly difficult (as they are). We can't go out, we're reliant on help, 2 of them need constant attention. It gives me a headache.