Identity crisis: How long does it take to get used to being a 'parent'?

[dragonbutter]

Yesterday on Radio 4 they were talking about the causes of post-natal depression. Along with hormonal changes, predisposition to depression and other psychosocial causes they discussed the effect of identity crisis, and it got me thinking.
Five years ago I was single, living alone, had a good job with plenty enough salary for one, a social life, a gym membership and hobbies. I've travelled and been fairly adventurous and lived abroad for a while.
Now i'm married with 2 LO's aged 3.5 and 9 months. We have a house, I've chosen to be a SAHM so money's tight so not much social life outside of the usual mother and toddler meet ups and holiday's are scarce. Our marriage is happy although the kids seem to take up all our time, money and energy and while I'm happy and grateful to have everything we have and don't regret my decisions I've found it hard to figure out who I am anymore.
I wondered if anybody else has found the transition difficult and want to know the best way to deal with this.
Should I just buy a sportscar and get a boob job?

Acinonyx, I know what you mean about your DD not knowing the adventurous you. DS1, who is 3, think's i'm joking if I say I might go on my bike...he thinks that's just for daddies. But pre-children DH and I used to spend entire weekends out mountain biking.
My climbing gear is in the loft somewhere. I can't bring myself to sell it. Apart from being too heavy to pull myself up a wall right now I think I will have lost my nerve for any risk taking. I've heard this is common thing and that climbers and adventure sports people lose that edge after having children.
It's so sad.

I have been feeling exactly the same things for a good while now. I think it is much more common than we think - this thread is proof - so we're not all mentalist oddballs who cannot cope. We are normal....well, kind of .

I was a SAHM until my ds was 18mo, the went back to uni pt (1 1/2 days p/wk) to retrain as I had come to hate my old job. I'm still not sure whether I have done the right thing.

I'm still as knackered, skint and stressed as I was before, but now I have the guilt of leaving ds for my uni days vs. the worry of not studying enough when I try to snatch some quality time with dh to compound the negative feelings. Uni is not exactly carefree me time, but it does help me to feel more of a real person, and gives me the impetus to make myself a bit more presentable.

Just get a kind of groundhog day feeling on the other days, made worse at the mo by ds deciding that 05.30 is the optimum time to get up . I am really not a M&T person - I have tried, but found it really difficult. Just hope ds grows up with his dad's gregarious & outgoing personality.

Keep telling myself that I am so lucky to have my life and my family and that all of this will pass, but am seriously considering going to the gp and begging for the old happy pills, just so that I can feel like the old me for a little while.

I should be studying now, but feeling so crap I thought I'd lurk on here for a while & found this thread. Thanks for helping me realise that I am not alone in feeling like this.

dragon - this is my mother's revenge on me. If dd livs my former life I will have heart failure.

wine - I feel so guilty that dd is at nursery when i'm not even earning. And isn't it funny that our satorial elegance has dipped so far that going to uni in passable student gear feels like 'dressing up'.

Acinonyx - I suppose I am a better dressed student this time around - only just though!

I too miss the ritual of getting my payslip and just the idea and practicality of having my own money. Dh thinks that I'm a nutter when I ask if I can take some money out of what I consider to be his account.

I keep thinking about getting a part time job too (need some work experience in this new field), but I feel as though I'm already finding life so hard.

"Fluorescent Adolescent" by the Arctic Monkeys has just come on the radio - it could be the theme tune for us lot on this thread (not meaning to be flippant)

Back to the assignment for another hour, then I'm having some real wine - I have earned it today!

I found a jobshare partner and luckily it is worth my while financially to work...and despite fact that I thought I would hate going to work I love the fact that for 2/3 days a week I can drink my coffee alone and that I don't constantly have a 2 stone child permanently wanting a "cuggle" and that really makes me remember who I was previously....BUT I love my days at home (sometimes) and enjoy that time other than last week when it felt a bit like groundhog day every day - ds and dh ill and I also a bit knackered and ill.

Anyway, to answer your question, I try to make sure that I see some of my friends who don't have children when I can get childcare and dh and I go out for dinner with them and I vicariously live my life through them for an evening. I also get dh to sometimes look after ds for a while at the weekend and go and see my single friends like I used to pre-dc - have lunch, catch up. I see them with ds sometimes but it's never as easy to catch up when you have one eye on ds and one ear on a conversation. I see my mummy friends during the day and that really helps. I found the constant round of music groups, library reading, tumble tots, playgroups a bit much when I am only part time and hate the politics so I have found myself a nice group of good friends who I can rely on and that's also helped - likeminded people who also remember life pre-dc's. I do find some of these "holier than thou" mothers I come across with kids just too much to bear... so that's just been my choice

I also think I've "accepted" my position - I can remember what life was pre-ds but I wouldn't ever now want to be without him - I didn't have him til I was 36 and have worked hard at my career travelled and then was really lucky to have been able to have a child...sounds a bit schmultzy but that's it really. I have bad days but they pass !

It took me 2 years to adapt to one DC, so I'd say you ain't doing too badly.

I ended up seeing a counsellor at work as I was struggling to cope with my pt job, my perceived loss of status at work and the increasing amount of pressure I was putting myself under to be wonder mum and wonder employee still.

Now dd is at school and I've jacked in work, chucked out my wonder woman knickers and I stick with my grey saggy baggies instead. I think I'm much more chilled about things and I've definitely adapted to motherhood now. Only took me 7 years!!!!

Maybe I should start thinking about the boob job and the sports car too???!!! But I haven't got the money, so I'll make do with loo roll and the old ford fiesta sat on my front drive.

Happy Mother's Day!! I didn't mean that to sound sarcastic!!

Thanks to MulberryBag for your message - I'm in first year with second child and am going to have a third (it's easy - take away the contraception and then pretend it was an accident - that's what we did with the other two). It's nice to hear that 3 is easier than 2.

I'm going to get philosophical here. I think that part of the problem is the fact that women have so much more in the way of opportunities and choice that we are in danger of becoming too aspirational. That is compounded by the fact that we no longer live in close-knit family groups where we're involved in bringing up children.

I totally bought into the glossy image of glamourous, upwardly mobile career woman living in the city (even did a stint at OK! Magazine before realising the vacuous inanity that it really was). Then, two years after leaving uni I thought 'fuck it. I don't want this at all'. Problem was, I swung wildly to the other extreme of wanting a self-sufficient small-holding on a wild Cornish cliff-top, where we live in a shambolic farm cottage complete with pet goat and semi-feral children... Okay, I'm getting a bit carried away here, but the point is that I have always dreamt in cliches, and reality is quite different. And because I haven't involved in young families before having my own, I had no idea what to expect.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have choice, I'm just lamenting the fact that TV shows, magazines, novels, films present far-fetched and often unobtainable aspirations, and few of us get to see real life. So this groundhog day life, complete with mismatched clothes and mental hair is a bit hard to come to terms with.

God, just realised how that sounded - I didn't trick my dh into getting me up the duff! We were both in on it, and both feigned shock...

Wow I totally had both those dreams about myself Phlossie (the glam city girl and the country hippy). So depressing to not manage either. It's SOO hard to take! Don't want to admit that i'm just all messy. I have thought alot lately about the fact that we (women) have so much more we can aspire to now which actually seems to just make us unhappy as its so tough to actaully pull it off once kids arrive, or impossible I'd say. But how sad that it would actaully be better for us if we grew up knowing that we could only hope for drudgery!!! We would prob be happier with our lot then if we hadn't expected so much more! God i'm rambling. And I have thought that if everyone was living near their families then things would go a whole lot smoother. But I guess we can't turn back the hands of time, so maybe we're in an interim stage for womanhood and it'll sort itself over the next few generations, though frankly I think we'll prob always be in a catch 22 situation.

Who says thread could be used by family planning clinics as part of their contraceptive advice.....?

rather who says 'this' thread...

Dragonbutter, your situation sounds SO similar to mine. I try to remember, being an older mother who didn't meet her partner till late on, that for all the seemingly wonderful lifestyle I had while single, I had started to yearn to have a long-term partner and be a mother _ I honestly began to despair where my life was going and what was to become of me - I really empathised with Bridget Jones and her being found with the alsatian scenario! So the grass is always greener isn't it?
Mine are 5.5 and 3.5 now and we're JUST starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But my circle of regular friends has changed totally - all child-centred now. I need to join a tennis club or something to do sport again, with other adults! I guess as they get older ...

And it hadn't even OCCURRED to me that my kids don't know my adventurous side, they just know reliable, put-upon, stressed-out, tired out mummy. Having said that we've just been skiing for the first time since having children - took military effort to achieve it, and apres ski tended to be pizzas and bedtime stories, but hey!

Thought you were going to say 'projecting all our hopes and aspirations for happiness on... our children'!!! But that's a whole different thread. (Please don't let me one of those mums.)

I'm loving that this thread is full of mini-essays from all those identity-less mumsnetters out there pouring there hearts out. We do have a lot to say for ourselves don't we?
I told DH about this thread and he too found it very helpful to know that there are loads of other people out there feeling the same. Of course it's not just us mums that have a change of identity.

I am very new to all this ( one dd- 5 months old) compared to some of you but share all the same feelings. I had an incredibly intellectually stimulating fantastic job before this and spent my twenties living all over the world and having a fantastic time.

I absolutely know what people mean about the difficulty meeting people. My NCT group are all very nice but none had a career that is important to them and none want to go back to work. All we talk about together is babies. My old London friends are still leading exciting lives and I find that I have nothing to talk to them about.

I feel that I have turned into this exhausted flabby boring housewife. It is so nice to see others out there feeling the same (though slightly concerning how much worse the feelings obviously get with two dc's!)

Dragonbutter - don't sell your climbing stuff. I have a picture of me climbing on the wall, the DCS are fascinated by it.

Now that DS (4.5) has been climbing with DH I'm really tempted to go again too (I just worry that DS will be better than me!)

Hi Liv01, I don't think it gets worse with 2DC's. Somebody pointed out that it's really the first year of each child that is hardest. I think that's true and actually this time round it is definitely easier to deal with. First time round for me was a real shock to the system. Second time, I knew what was coming so was more prepared and had also learned the important lessons of setting goals, getting out, making time for yourself and time to be a couple etc. I've definitely coped much better this time around and can identify when things are getting me down much quicker than before.
I think having more than 1 child doesn't make it worse....just drags it out a bit longer.
Scatty, I think i will hang on the climbing gear, but the SPD cycling shoes have to go, I never got on with them really always unclipped the wrong foot and ended up head first in rivers. And anyway, my feet grew after pregnancy?!?!

Hi Draginbutter- hope you haven't resorted to any facial tattoes yet to spice things up.

can I join in too please? I am what is euphmeistically termed an 'older mother' of 2 much wanted adn gorgeous children. I have stayed at home now for 4 years and am slowly going mad. I have lot of acquaintances but few real friends - no one with kids the same age as mine.
I feel I have nothing to contribute to conversations any more as my life revolves around the children and thier doings. I can feel that I am gradually becoming more & more intorverted beccasue I don't really have a life. No one will admit to watching trashy tv so thank goodness for mumsnet!

No tattoos YET. And I'm not sure I can afford a sports car and a boob job while I have absolutely no money.
I went along to a M&T group this morning and it was good. Haven't been to it for months and had forgotten how many people I knew there. Got myself invited to an ann summers party and a hen night! Not bad eh?
Unfortunately they both turned out to be on the same night - obviously - just when it looked like a social life was on the horizon I now get to offend at least one group of friends. Brilliant.
Flirty - if you want to talk trashy TV then talk to me. I love all sorts of crap. What are your secret favourites that you wouldn't tell anyone in real life?