It's Hard! (But totally worth it!)
I love being a mom. Really. I do. It's the only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up. But let me tell you, this Mom thing is HARD! Being a mom is a lot of things. It's wonderful, and amazing, and hard, and exciting (not always in a good way, but hey, it's still excitement!), and rewarding, and hard. Someone once told me motherhood was the best hard thing they'd ever done. I didn't know what they meant then, but I do now. Someone asked me the other day what was so hard about it. I couldn't tell if they were genuinely curious, or if they were thinking , "It can't be that hard, how hard can it be?" I didn't really know how to answer them that day, but it got me thinking. What is it that makes being a mom so hard?
It's messy. Constantly. Everywhere. And we're not talking just the run of the mill, someone left their shoes out, or a jacket lying on the floor, kind of messes. We're talking tornado aftermath, how in the world did that get there, what even is that, kind of messes (I don't even want to know what it was I was scraping off my kitchen floor this afternoon...). And along with the mess comes the realization that, by and large, if you don't clean it up, no one else will. Then there are the diapers, and whether you use cloth or disposables, they're constant. And the laundry. Again, endless.
You're tired. All. The. Time. Not the kind of tired you get when you stay up too late last night, or had to get up extra early this morning. This is a whole new level of tired. Trust me, until you're a mother, you have no idea what tired is.
It's lonely. There are so many things no one else understands. You can go all day without a single meaningful, intelligent conversation, or even speaking to another adult from the time your husband leaves for work until he walks in the front door at night. If you're lucky, you have some great mom friends you can get together with for play dates, but even that can't be every day, because, well, you're all moms, you're all busy, and as desperate as you are for some adult conversation, some days it just feels like too much work to get out of the house.
You're never alone. Given the above reason, this may sound like a good thing, but trust me, it can still be incredibly lonely in a room full of people. And when I say never alone, I really mean never. At least it can feel that way. Sure, there are moments here and there in the day when you manage to sneak off without notice, or during nap time, if you're lucky, but gone are the days of being able to make a quick trip to the store, or grocery shopping without little feet slowing you down and a constant stream of excited chatter, or whining, or tears, or all too often, a full blown melt down in Isle 7. Personally, I consider it a red letter day if I so much as get to use the restroom unaccompanied, (Even the dog follows me!) much more so if I actually get to take a shower.
Someone is always needing something. Whether it is a little one needing a comforting snuggle, a diaper change, or yet another nursing session (honestly, it's hard sometimes not to feel like a milk machine), or an older one needing a snack, help with homework, or new shoes, again. It never ends.
There's never enough time. Inevitably, at the end of the day, something has always been left undone, because, lets face it, the days are both too long and far too short. In the two minutes it take between when my head hits the pillow and I fall asleep in exhaustion mid sentence, the thought is always there. "I wish I had had more time for....." Fill in the blank. There is always something, or someone, that could have used more time. Sometimes it's just me, wishing I had more time while they're still young, still teachable, still mine, before the world starts pulling at them to go here, do this, get that, and they become so preoccupied with their own little world I begin to feel invisible and unimportant.(Until something goes wrong, or they've run out of this thing or that. Then I'm reminded that, even if it's only now and then, I'm still needed.)
With all that hard, one might wonder why anyone would ever want to be called Mother. In all honesty, there are moments when I wonder what in the world I was thinking when I signed up for all this. But that's all they are, fleeting moments. For all the hard, for all the lonely yet never aloneness, for all the tear-filled sleepless nights, it really is the best hard thing I've ever done, and I wouldn't trade it for all the gold in the world. Because for each hard thing, there are countless wonderful and amazing things. From the first time you hear that little heartbeat to your last breath on earth, the wonderful amazing far outweighs the hard. Even at three in the morning, it totally feels worth being awake, again, after a long hard day, when two little hands pat your face in the dark and you hear a whispered, "Love you, Mama," and a warm little body snuggles close and slowly drifts back to sleep.
It's messy. Constantly. Everywhere. And we're not talking just the run of the mill, someone left their shoes out, or a jacket lying on the floor, kind of messes. We're talking tornado aftermath, how in the world did that get there, what even is that, kind of messes (I don't even want to know what it was I was scraping off my kitchen floor this afternoon...). And along with the mess comes the realization that, by and large, if you don't clean it up, no one else will. Then there are the diapers, and whether you use cloth or disposables, they're constant. And the laundry. Again, endless.
You're tired. All. The. Time. Not the kind of tired you get when you stay up too late last night, or had to get up extra early this morning. This is a whole new level of tired. Trust me, until you're a mother, you have no idea what tired is.
It's lonely. There are so many things no one else understands. You can go all day without a single meaningful, intelligent conversation, or even speaking to another adult from the time your husband leaves for work until he walks in the front door at night. If you're lucky, you have some great mom friends you can get together with for play dates, but even that can't be every day, because, well, you're all moms, you're all busy, and as desperate as you are for some adult conversation, some days it just feels like too much work to get out of the house.
You're never alone. Given the above reason, this may sound like a good thing, but trust me, it can still be incredibly lonely in a room full of people. And when I say never alone, I really mean never. At least it can feel that way. Sure, there are moments here and there in the day when you manage to sneak off without notice, or during nap time, if you're lucky, but gone are the days of being able to make a quick trip to the store, or grocery shopping without little feet slowing you down and a constant stream of excited chatter, or whining, or tears, or all too often, a full blown melt down in Isle 7. Personally, I consider it a red letter day if I so much as get to use the restroom unaccompanied, (Even the dog follows me!) much more so if I actually get to take a shower.
Someone is always needing something. Whether it is a little one needing a comforting snuggle, a diaper change, or yet another nursing session (honestly, it's hard sometimes not to feel like a milk machine), or an older one needing a snack, help with homework, or new shoes, again. It never ends.
There's never enough time. Inevitably, at the end of the day, something has always been left undone, because, lets face it, the days are both too long and far too short. In the two minutes it take between when my head hits the pillow and I fall asleep in exhaustion mid sentence, the thought is always there. "I wish I had had more time for....." Fill in the blank. There is always something, or someone, that could have used more time. Sometimes it's just me, wishing I had more time while they're still young, still teachable, still mine, before the world starts pulling at them to go here, do this, get that, and they become so preoccupied with their own little world I begin to feel invisible and unimportant.(Until something goes wrong, or they've run out of this thing or that. Then I'm reminded that, even if it's only now and then, I'm still needed.)
With all that hard, one might wonder why anyone would ever want to be called Mother. In all honesty, there are moments when I wonder what in the world I was thinking when I signed up for all this. But that's all they are, fleeting moments. For all the hard, for all the lonely yet never aloneness, for all the tear-filled sleepless nights, it really is the best hard thing I've ever done, and I wouldn't trade it for all the gold in the world. Because for each hard thing, there are countless wonderful and amazing things. From the first time you hear that little heartbeat to your last breath on earth, the wonderful amazing far outweighs the hard. Even at three in the morning, it totally feels worth being awake, again, after a long hard day, when two little hands pat your face in the dark and you hear a whispered, "Love you, Mama," and a warm little body snuggles close and slowly drifts back to sleep.
So real. Every bit of it, spot on. So hard. So worth it .
ReplyDelete