I hate my toddler and being a mother.. does that make me a vile human?!

[Ammi2one]

No, im not depressed. I dont have a hormonal imbalance nor do i need to “speak to someone”” or take tablets. As true as the sky is blue, i detest being a mother and genuinely resent my toddler. Which sends me down a self loating and hating spiral of guilt and shame daily. Am i the only one?

dont get me wrong there are pockets of joy, but these are no where near the idealic life it appears every parent around me is living. And i cant help but compare and wonder why i dont have those same warm fuzzy feelings. I gave up a career, social
life, family life, financial security and just a general feeling of accomplishment in life to now constantly be worried about debt, lack of career, a husband who doesnt understand anything im experiencing, a relationship that is more of a friendship now than a marriage really, minimal contact with family and friends… and all for what? A screaming 2 year old who tests me to my limit daily. Maybe i just was not built for this. But how do women cope in this situation? Like do you just crack on and hope that you will some how raise a well adjusted individual and get over it?! Like im seriously at rock bottom and am now turning to some sort of validation online from strangers , while people who know me just keep saying “o you don’t mean that” “o its just a phase” “o its fine you will be fine” …. Like seriously am i the i the only one in the world feeling like this?!?

I felt exactly as you did OP. It is completely normal for some mothers to hate feeling like a husk of our former selves 

Go back to work - you'll find yourself again almost straight away.

You need to snap out of it because you are your toddler's world right now and they need you.

And i cant help but compare and wonder why i dont have those same warm fuzzy feelings. I gave up a career, social
life, family life, financial security and just a general feeling of accomplishment in life to now constantly be worried about debt, lack of career, a husband who doesnt understand anything im experiencing, a relationship that is more of a friendship now than a marriage really, minimal contact with family and friends… and all for what?

Why would you give up all that just because you had a baby? That's totally weird. You don't actually have to give up any of that just because you had a child. My daughter slotted into my existing life - I never felt I had to give up my whole life 🤷‍♀️

Telling someone they need to speak to someone then lambasting them really doesn’t make them inclined to want to open their hearts and souls: funny that.

I am sure some posters above have posted supportively sometimes; I’ve never seen them though. Again, funny that.

My life bears little resemblance to pre children, and my life before children wasn’t any great shakes but I had freedom, which I don’t currently have. It will come back, it isn’t forever, but the sort of ability just to go to Asda alone has gone.

I don’t think for a moment the OP hates her child, she hates being a parent. Being a parent isn’t something fixed. Parenting even a three year old is vastly different to parenting a two year old and she may well find joy in the future.

@Ammi2one no, you're not the only one to feel like this.

But it isn't spoken about much, which adds to the issue.

Motherhood came as a massive shock to me.

I still can't believe people go into so blind. It really is a baptism of fire, and part of that is that people don't talk about how hard it is.

Addd to that, motherhood / having kids seems to be fetishized by certain groups now. Competitive, instagramming mothers, showing how great and wholesome their lives are, what great mums they are, how many kids they pop out and how many crafts they do with them etc.

(So, as with so much these days, social media is causing issues - setting unrealistic expectations / setting people up to fail).

I also think kids are very spoiled these days (and I include mine in that). They are so overindulged, that often the do just seem to moan at you all day.....I just didn't do that as a child. It wasn't an option.

By and large my friends all have similar experience with husbands - expectations are just so much higher for the mums, everything is left to her and the dad just seems to "help out". Even mums who work full time are still left carrying the burden of sorting childcare and running the home and doing pick ups etc etc.

It is relentless and it's expensive and it's lonely and it's just exhausting.

However, I adore my kids.

I'm not going to insist you're depressed because it's patronising and you've already said you aren't. But I wonder if it's worth reconsidering.

Although I do suspect you do love your kid. It's just hard to see it because you're so overwhelmed with everything.

Is there any way you could get a break?

(And, for what it's worth, it does get easier / better. 2 year olds are a nightmare).

Missing freedom and going to Asda alone..so true. For a while, my biggest dream was to be able to simply get out of my car and walk into the house. Without having to unstrap people, carry people, strap people back into other things, go back to the car for bags, nappy bags, mop up puke/spills etc. I can now. And soon if my son passes his test he can do that for me instead!!

Get some legal advice. Go your local Citizens Advice Centre or online and start from there. You might also need help from Social Services if you are ill particularly as you have a child under 18. Perhaps your doctor can steer you in the right direction. I'm sorry you are in this situation and I hope it gets better for you.

moclia raising very young DC is not good. Working is great.

@Greg3110 you need to start your own thread.

OP - I get you. People are invalidating your feelings by saying "you must be ill" or "you're not normal".

Why must someone be ill to feel something which is objectively pretty rational? Giving up your life, freedom, money and identity for someone who screams at you all day - why not be unhappy with that? If the person screaming was your partner or husband it would be an abusive relationship. If it's your child, you're supposed to love the experience.

Op I don't think you're ill.

But I do think you aren't organising your life sensibly.

You have minimal contact with family and friends - this is a big mistake. Take your 2yo to visit people. He will (gradually) behave better if he interacts with more people and experiences calm households. You will get a brief break from entertaining him.

You've sacrificed your career and your sense of accomplishment - don't. Unsacrifice it. Get your old job back.

It's perfectly normal to hate the drudgery, monotony, and feeling like a slave to a tiny despot. But it's not normal to hate your child. Hate the circumstances, lack of support, cluelessness of spouse but not the tiny child.

It's illogical to feel so strongly, to even say you have too little time with family and friends, but to also insist you don't to talk to someone. You do need top talk to someone. PND can last this long and longer, untreated. And it can be circumstantial, not just hormonal.

In answer to your question - no of course it doesn't make you a vile human. You have lost the life you loved, in which you flourished. You have every right to mourn it. You're not getting pleasure out of hating your child - that would be vile.

But I see no logic in you continuing to refuse to seek help to change the situation. You're miserable, all your adult relationships have suffered and this can't be a secure, stable, loving environment for your child. Talk to someone who specialises in PND. And change your circumstances right now.

In your position I'd look for a full time job and while looking I'd act really super loving with my child - focus on them, make them giggle, have fun with them, play games etc, so that there's a secure attachment established before you hand them over to the care of a childminder or nursery or nanny.

Then just allow yourself to be a working mother. Make sure your partner pays equal shares of all childcare and cleaning costs so you are not run ragged. Focus on your career, see friends and family a couple of times a week, have a date night with your husband. If you are present for far fewer hours each week in your child's life, but over the course of the years you are happy, stable, fulfilled, successful and loving, then long term, this is a perfectly suitable environment for your child to grow up in. There's no reason you should be chained to the home for years.

you’re blaming your toddler? Your relationship has become more of a friendship? Put some effort into your relationship then? Go out with a friend? take an hour for yourself to do something you enjoy? You clearly need some help - even if it’s just how to organise your life which clearly you have no clue - go get some help and speak to a therapist. Not even for your sake but for your child’s sake — it won’t be long till they releaize how much you resent them.

Do you work? Something has to change…

Both mine were very difficult at two years old but I didn't dwell on it. I had a "This too shall pass" attitude and just got on with things. Of course it becomes much easier as the years go by. I found the primary school years to be really easy. A kind of golden age of parenting.

I was a lot like you. I went back to work FT when mine was 3 which helped.

Still found it very hard during the pre school years though as kids are so irrational and hard to manage - mine was pretty wild!

Things were up and down for a few years until he got to about 7 when suddenly everything seemed way easier and more manageable.

Now at 9, he's just awesome, still has his moments, but I thoroughly enjoy spending time with him.

It's a slog I'm afraid, but you are in the worst bit right now. Most of the wild ones turn a corner by the time they're 4/5. I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not!?

Put dc in childcare and go back to work.

toddlers are dictators! It’s ok to not be enjoying motherhood especially if you’re doing it 24/7 with a toddler.

doing it in manageable chunks until they get to a better communicating age might make it more enjoyable or at least manageable.

don’t beat yourself up, don’t ask for permission. Do what works and get your sanity back so you can be the best parent.

Thank you for the insights- some more supportive in nature than others but i appreciate you taking time non the less!

i say im not depressed, need help etc etc because i have done what the common sense thing would have been and tried all of the Gp, talking therapies and diagnosis route to be left non the wiser. I recognise an issue in me, i dont feel “normal” and am not afraid to ask for help. Hence i turned to this post. As some posts insinuate- i do not enjoy feeling the way i do even one bit. Not for a second. And ofcourse i am not a physical danger to my child despite the way i feel (!) and suggeating i would be better giving up my child- just no.

i dont agree entirely that im failing at organising my life as others suggest, circumstances from a complicated birth and resulting trauma left me needing to take time off work to heal and its taken its toll. Its been a long road. It also showed me who my real friends and family were in terms of supportting me as stupidly i assumed when the tables were turned , i would have recieved the support i had offered them. This is not to provide an excuse its just a fact of my unrealistic expectation that i should not have had.

However i am due to return to work part time next month and i really appreciate peoples insight about work being so beneficial to them. to those judgeing- please dont assume every person becomes a SAHM out of choice.

Having time off also allowed me to try give my toddler a quality of life thay didnt mean full time nursery straight away ( whilst he does attend part time now) he has been involved in swimming, baby/toddle sensory, dance classes, etc etc and we do regular activities out the house. But this is expensive and exhausting. And mums at baby groups are not the most supportive as it just seems these places are a competition to show off how well you do as a mother!!

For the comments that related, were non judgemental or condesending and made me feel some semblenece of “normal” i really appreciate each of you. Your right on relflecting deep down, i dont think its my toddler i hate its the parenting bit that i feel like im failing miserably at. I wouldnt care this much about fixing myself if i genuinly hated something. This isnt my toddlers fault one bit. He deserves a parent who is fully present but for me its u realistic to think i can provide this 100% text book parent- whatever that is. I really hope you arw right and that this phase in time will pass and a few of you are absolutely right- i need to stop comparing or looking back to pre-parenthood life. 10 yrs of trying to finally having a child- to it being nothing of the experience i expected hit me hard and i really look forward to the day these “feelings” go away and better days come.

I think its harder for women these days. We may have had good rewarding careers, a really fun social life, travelled etc. Same as men. And then suddenly we are back in the 1950s responsible for a child, with a different body and different hormones and there's not much to be done about it for a while. Apparently your body doesn't go back to normal until your last child is 7 (or at all in my case..). And yet its hard to accept the new life when you remember your old life and what you are missing out on. And I totally get the mums groups competitiveness. It's hideous, the first child, going to these groups and desperately making conversation when you haven't done anything interesting and neither has anyone else. You want to feel like you again. Can you try and find one or two parents like you that make you laugh even just for the time being? Even a stay at home dad (which must be a bit harder for them on the social front). I used to sit and whinge with a couple of like minded people watching our toddlers disgrace themselves and share in the agony. Quite therapeutic. Hope things get better OP

Oh and there's no such thing as a 100% textbook parent. Everyone's just doing their best and everyone has disasters..daily in my case. Maybe see if you can chill out and don't put so much pressure on yourself and then life might be easier.

I think part of it taking a village to raise a child is that some sort of village is necessary for mums mental health. While there are a lot more misanthrope types on Mumsnet who'd claim to be fine nothing will convince me that the one mum constantly keeping the toddler happy set up is a healthy one for most people.

I'm sorry that parenthood has left you feeling so isolated.