The Motherhood Delusion

[SantaLucia]

A thread to safely house all the thoughts that you are ashamed to admit. Example:

Why did we have children?

When does it all become worth it?

The day my child was born was NOT the best day of my life (it was my wedding) and I absolutely remember the pain and the boredom of being in hospital.

I can't be bothered reading about child development.

The health visitor is not worth a trip in the rain with a sleeping baby.

Thank goodness I'm over that "newborn" stage. Roll on year 5!

How many women do you think look back at the their life and say 'What I really regret, the GREAT mistake of my life was - having children.'

I don't think it's that many, not really. Though I reckon about 94% of women with children under four DO think it at the time.

Favourthebrave, I love your posts on this.

It is a bit of a leveller parenthood - you find yourself having to be friendly with all sorts of folk you wouldn't normally just because you know they are going to be doing the same school run for the next trillion years. On the other hand though I have made some good friends that I probably wouldn't have approached if it weren't for committees etc. (I'm really not a complete mummy-geek honest!)

Thank you Winky. I started off thinking it was a bit of a delusion and a con-trick, but then started thinking that it wasn't really because by the end we won't think it was a waste of time, we'll think 'well they were a bloody hard ten years or so, thank fuck I don't have to do that again' but now it's okay, because here they are and here I am, and it's all been very enjoyable and interesting and I'm pleased I risked it and gave it a go, because despite the loneliness and the boringness it was worth it after all.

Also, it's given me access to tedious people who talk about their sheets drying on the line, and I'm pleased I dropped her just as soon as I could.

kids ruin your life, there is no doubt in my mind. accept it. you'll feel better for it.
they also make you happy, for brief periods. although in my darker moments i wonder if that's just stockholm syndrome.

I love my children, they constantly amaze and amuse me BUT I can relate to so many things on this thread.
My confession has to be...
I don't play with my children. I just don't. I have two of them, they play together brilliantly (and of course argue like crazy too) , I've encouraged them (by being a lazy arse) to amuse themselves. DH plays with them loads when he's about but I'm not the mother you'll find lying on the floor playing with the doll's house. I love doing crafty things myself but find it torturous doing it with the children - too messy, they keep doing it wrong ffs.
Motherhood is so much more than and not at all what I expected. Whoever quoted Dickens 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times' hit the nail on the head.

I wouldn't be without my children but blimey sometimes I think I may just self-combust and all that would be left behind would be a teeny tape which plays 'empty the dishwasher, put on washing, hang out washing, feed children, feed self, feed husband, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget.......(of course it would be interspersed with 'muuuuummmy' because we all know you can't have any sort of conversation without interuption...)'

Obviously, having two beautiful sons is vastly more important, and satisfying, and stimulating than lying in bed smoking fags, but I still really miss it!

My biggest worry is that their childhood will pass before I've learnt to be a good mother. Every day I promise myself, "Tomorrow I'll get the hang of this," but I don't. I'm going to run out of tomorrows soon, and meet the two miserable men that I messed-up.

No, that's not my biggest worry, thinking about it: my biggest worry is that my trendy new neighbours will see my massive, saggy maternity pants on my washing line.

Wearing maternity pants when your youngest child is six months old = Letting Yourself Go.

I've recovered from the shopping trip which prompted my last post on this subject.

I agree with EVERYTHING Favourthebrave has said.

Tiredness is the key. If you are tired, everything is hard. If you arent tired, it is all good.

yes I'm a jeckyll and hyde character when I'm tired

I don't think that life without children is necessarily bleak at all. I have several friends who've chosen not to have kids. They have bloody marvellous, fulfilled, interesting lives. Lucky sods

Yeah, you're right, it isn't necessarily that their lives are bleak. But the outlook - for a life - strikes me as a bit bleak, not sure why. It's just a bit small somehow, a bit neat. All that fulfilling of their desires when they want to, the lack of diversion and surprise. You chose your husband and your friends, but you can't chose your children. That's quite rich as an experience I think.

Depends how much you think about regret too. Regretting the things you don't do. I'm sure the childless have marvellous, rich and fulfilled lives, but they'll never know whether they are fulfilled or not because they don't know what they haven't done. You might regret that at the end of the day. Maybe.

i am not sure i will feel like favour the brave , when my brats have grown up and are off living exciting fulfilling lives i htink i will look round and not wonder "were did all the lego go" but more "were the hell did i go". and actually i have a fulfilling job, i have nice friends , i get out of the house a plenty and all the things which should make me a satisfied happy mother but in fact all these things are in such stark contrast to the time i spend mothering it only makes those bits seem worse IYKWIM

Not sure why you'll say 'where did I go?' You are in charge of your life, of knowing where you are going. children are an assault on your identity, you have to change, things have to be different and that bit is difficult. It sounds like you have the balance really well, but also sounds like you want it all to be marvellous and fulfilling and I don't see how life is ever like that is it?

btw, my dcs still at home. Not left yet. Am just working out what else might be true, other than the idea that motherhood is just grim hardwork with no redeeming features.

I used to think I would like to be one of those women who lived an exciting, money-rich, interesting, child-free lives.

Then I was told I was infertile.

And having children became the most important thing in the world.

I managed it eventually.

And its still bloody hard work and having had to go through such traumas to get them, my children still irritate the HELL out of me.

Okay guys, here are just a few quotes from this week's hello! magazine (I normally don't buy such magazines but I am actually researching this topic with the view of writing about it - when I have time!):

• Is described as ' such a Martha Stewart type.......a perfect mum'

About Brad and Angelina 'their every smile and gesture underpinned by a deep and enduring love'

The twins are 'nestled together under a blanket peacefully napping'

Motherhood certainly suits her. Wearing make up and with her long dark hair unstyled * has never looked more naturally beautiful or content - despite her obvious lack of sleep

The supermum

Blooming beautiful * is the picture of healthy, contented pregnancy in these stunning photos. Despite her glowing good looks etc etc

I really believe that like the diet industry, the motherhood industry fuels our inadequacy as mothers by feeding us these unrealistic portrayals of motherhood. I feel so strongly about it that I want to write about it. I had PND and still have days where I feel like you guys but I still want another. I am just going through my second miscarriage. I ask myself why I really want another one. I think it may boil down to a simple animal instinct to reproduce. It is not easy and actually it is pretty s**t sometimes but we feel a need to do it. We are more animal than we think.

It is society's expectations i.e. 'the perfect mother' syndrome and a conspiracy of silence about how hard it is that make us feel we have been conned somehow. We really need to stand up to the pressure to be perfect.

Let us have wobbly tummies post birth and scream at our kids when we have had no sleep. Let us plonk them in front of the TV now and then because we are desperate for a break or give them sweets bacause we just can't face another tantrum at the end of a s*y day. All of us also have plenty of good mum moments as well but we should not be dictated to by men/books/newspapers/women who have not had kids (GA F*D) about how it should be.

Oh and after a long labour and forceps delivery, haemorrhage, anaemia and breastfeeding hell it was not the best day of my life! My wedding day far surpassed that!

But I do love my DS and he carries my genes forward etc etc

Well said, Roseability, about the myth of perfect motherhood peddled in the women's mags etc

I hate all the celebrity mother stuff. The staff that they all have are never mentioned.

Even if they don't have a nanny they will have a cleaner and/or a PA. But it is all just glossed over.

The secondary tasks of laundry/cleaning/cooking/shopping/organising around naps and feeds are what will bring me to my knees, not the actual childcare.

And working full time as well of course.

I do feel diminished by it all. Not fulfilled. Not at all.

But I don't think that my child-free friends necessarily have neat lives, either. In fact their lives are far more open to the unpredictable than mine. They can go and travel. Change jobs and downsize, without the tedium of having to pay for childcare and children, and indeed to spare enough parts of their brain to deal with the tedium/trivia of schools, swimming lessons, playscheme, yada yada yada...they can concentrate. And they don't have to factor in co-parenting and its attendant issues when they're fed up with their partners - they can make genuine choices based on affection.

My 3 year old drives me demented
I always love her, but I don't always like her. I am just holding out for her to get better (WHEN) and crossing my fingers that DS will not be the same

I think these years are gruesome TBH.

But you know, I wouldn't be without them. Just sometimes I would like them switched off for a bit

I like this thread. sometimes I do feel it's only me that's finding life with a 3 year old unrelentingly dull and tiresome

It's the 20 year intense commitment of time, money and energy which gets me about parenting. I did choose to have 3 children, I might even choose it if I started again now, but it would be so very nice if you could do parenting for a couple of years, then have a few years off, then perhaps have another go.

oh have just read what you said Motherinferior

I would LOVE a 3rd child, I can't stop thinking that I must have one. madness, as it would drive me over the edge I reckon - I am NOT patient enough for preschoolers, really not

I quite possibly have 5 good minutes per week with my children. On a saturday morning, when they sleep a little longer than usual, and come to my bed for a cuddle. The rest is tedious and tearwrenching crap. I am SICK of the constant whining, arguing, bickering (I have a 6 and a 3 year old, boys), wrestling with my every decision. Do I sometimes regret having kids? Oh yes, every day. But I plod along, and do my best, and meanwhile, I am growing old and fat, and dont get to do all the things I want in my life, and by the time they are old enough for me to have a few days to myself, I will be too old and unfit to enjoy any of it. Here is to a wasted life: Mine.