What makes motherhood so hard? The dark days. Dark days? What am I even talking about?
Where is motherhood’s unicorn-like, full-of-rainbows (un)reality? Well, right there. In unreality.
I am tired.
I am enervate.
I am sad.
I am irritated.
I rage.
I scream.
I swear.
I am empty.
But as a mother, I can’t do this. I don’t do it as a mother however. I do it as a human. As a human, I have the right to do this, as a mother, not so much. As a mother you have to be strong, brave, kind and smiling…24/7. Always. Non-stop. According to others.
Well, now I stopped, I became your usual person again, I got rid of every super trait of mine and I became human.
If I didn’t have kids, I would hide under my blanket for 3 days, I would only do things that cause joy, that help me recharge my dead batteries. But motherhood requires a whole person, 5 kids require more than a whole. For many years now, I only have minutes and seconds to myself, instead of days and hours.
(I am not saying the truth here since I have an hour every day when I run, and this is all about me. However, my thoughts are with me at this time as well, I can’t just put them down. I should learn how to completely switch off, but as a mother, this is just not an option. I know that others would do anything to have problems like this. But just because I have kids, sometimes it is okay for me to feel like I want to quit, right? Just like sometimes you want to quit your job, say goodbye to your boss and the everyday routine.)
I haven’t been able to force a smile on my face for the past few days. My kids are at a stage of life now that their age is not compatible with each other nor my nerves. Not now.
They just can’t be in the same room without picking on each other, sometimes an arm, sometimes a leg gets to someone, somewhere, and in the blink of an eye, a huge fight develops. Everyone is pointing fingers at the other ones, and the truth is over at the neighbor, who thinks only the Child Welfare Agency could help here. They aren’t always like this, but this particular age structure (almost 4, 7, almost 9, 11 and 14) is somehow the worst from any that I have experienced so far.
I don’t have more kids, I don’t have more tasks, and yet I still can’t do it. Somehow I touched the rock bottom of my motherhood, and what should I say, there is a big darkness down here. They say mothers never get tired and have special powers. If someone gets tired however, they say she is not doing it right, she is not a good mother. But yes. It’s just that she is also human and she has had enough, but she is afraid to say it, and this makes her not only tired but frustrated as well.
Well, I am saying it now, maybe it helps.
I am saying that I have had enough of the 4 daily servings of laundry, which grows bigger and bigger every hour, with clothes that haven’t been worn in forever. I have had enough of the 2-3 daily servings of dirty dishes, the food that’s never enough, or if it is enough, then I-don’t-like-it. I have had enough of having to pack for no reason – sandwiches made late at night, telling the dryer to hurry – to have the hiking pack properly and exactly packed according to the kindergarten’s directions, the sports equipments…it is all for nothing if Husband leaves it at home for some reason (meanwhile, he is outraged about 3 backpacks laying in front of the door, and he either kicks them away or steps over them, just like they weren’t even there, because he has to hurry to get to work), or if he takes them, he forgets to drop it off at the kindergarten and takes it with him to work, so the kid has to train in borrowed pants and has to eat others’ food, and then I have to listen to my kids and the officials telling me how much of a careless mother I am, that I even fail to do this.
If I am being honest, it’s not motherhood’s physical part that freaks me out, it is the mental. Being constantly mentally prepared, always remembering everything, seeing the future, thinking about the future, having to deal with consequences, having a plan A and a plan B, moreover, at a family this big, a plan C and D as well.
Until 9:30 PM I don’t have one second where I could think that I successfully managed something, because I am getting a call, that the running competition is at a new location, but BigGirl can’t go there alone, but in the meantime I have to take Fourth to the doctor, and I am already seeing the text that LittleOne has a fever and has to be taken home from the kindergarten, and I know that Husband is unaccessible, I can’t count on him. And I can’t let BigBoy handle his ill brother, especially because we should also make a stop at the doctor, and I also realize that since he is in high school he has lessons until 3:30 PM so he doesn’t even come home…and then, right at the border of insanity, I see MiddleOne’s keys on the radiator.
No comment.
And this is how it goes every single day. And in that moment, I don’t have time to think properly about who to call or ask, or how to have all of my kids under the eye of someone – so the outside world can’t say that I am a bad mother -, I have to act immediately, see through the possibilities and think about the consequences, it all has to be in the blink of an eye.
What makes motherhood so hard?
That dealing with this constant mental stress can’t be helped by my kids cleaning the table or setting it, taking out the things from the washing machine or the dryer, and them even pairing the socks. No, because the soul is what gets tired here, and this is very hard to spot from the outside, speaking about is even harder, understanding it and making the outsiders accept it is the hardest. And my soul is very tired after 14 years.
I couldn’t tell this to anyone, so I told it to everyone.