What I learned….. I Hate Motherhood

Now what you’re about to read may well trigger some kind of reaction in you. 

You may find yourself judging my words and condemning me, you may find peace in it as an unexpected recognition of your own thoughts that you’d dare not say out loud for fear of judgment, or you may feel angry at what you may be read as my being ungrateful and undeserving, but, I vowed to always be honest with myself (and others) in a bid to honor my reality, knowing that it is as valid as yours. 

We learn through sharing our stories and we grow in strength by owning them. 

I hate motherhood. 

There, I’ve said it, do what you will with my admission. 

For so many, around 20 years as a mother I lived in conflict. 

I carried burden and guilt and I chastised myself for being an utter bastard for even having the thoughts that I was having around motherhood. 

My thoughts were (often) ‘I hate my life so much’, ‘I feel trapped’, ‘I wish I’d never had kids’, I want/need it all to just stop’, pretty intense and damming thoughts for a mother to have.

The conflict was because although I used to mentally plot to fake my own death in a bid to escape (literally telling myself nobody would notice if I just never came back, that they’d soon get over it if they did) and loving these small humans so much I feared my heart would literally burst and I’d die anyway. 

But in the last fear year or so, after all those years of conflict, I realised that the hatred I have for the role ‘mother’ bore no relevance to how I felt about my kids. 

The two were not intertwined. 

One was a 24/7 ‘job’ that has no wage, no sick days, no holidays, not even a lunch hour. A job where we are on a constant state of high alert, a job where we are responsible for live/s (ours and theirs).  

The other is innocent and beautiful humans who were born to create change in the world, who will bring with them their own learnings and perspective, who evoke feelings in us that we didn’t even know existed, who can make us weep though an excess of loving and weep through exhaustion.  Humans who we’ll learn from, grow with, forever connected. 

Two such extremeness, no wonder I struggled with the conflict. 

But, as I’ve learned to disconnect the two, the guilt has all but diminished, I feel lighter, freer. Motherhood has shifted, I feel one step removed from the drudgery. 

And so I give you permission to do the same. 

If you’re hating on the ‘role’ and beating yourself because you should be feeling #blessed, then know that what you feel about motherhood is of no correlation to how you feel about your kids nor is it a reflection of you are as a mother. 

It’s OK to hate the role but love your kids.